Sid managed to get the bodies onto a loading dock and into the back of an idling van by burying them in a laundry cart beneath a layer of soiled guest sheets. Despite the chance of getting pulled over, he pressed his foot down on the gas just a little harder, pushing the hour-long drive to his usual spot down to 45 minutes. The longer he spent away from his newfound Goddess, the more certain he was that she would simply vanish, fading away into the humid night like foam on the ocean waves.

He drove south and then west into the everglades, flipping off his headlights as he came to the familiar spot in the road. Help me, he prayed as he pulled slowly into the underbrush. The tires slipped and spun in the mud, and he clutched the silver pentagram charm that hung around his neck. Give me strength. His heart leapt as they found purchase once again, and he tucked the necklace back into his shirt.

Once he had gone far enough that the tall sawgrass and leafy mangroves would obscure the van from the road, he cut the ignition and listened in the dark for the sounds of the ancient monsters that lay in wait. With the windows down, he could hear them, hissing and croaking as they slithered out of the water and onto the muddy bank.

Their eyes reflected yellow in the moonlight, and the largest of them let out a long, low growl as Sid unloaded the first body. Stay back, he thought, holding up his palm and locking eyes with the enormous gator. It snapped its ruthless mouth of knife-like teeth and croaked in protest, but it remained where it was.

“Ok,” he said after he unloaded the second corpse. She spilled out from the sheet she was wrapped in and onto the muddy ground, her white, naked limbs intertwining with the first body in an awkward embrace. “Bon Appetit.”

He stepped back, and the gators approached, jostling for position as they drew closer to their promised meal. Soon, they would return to their watery home, dragging the corpses with them to ripen and bloat at the bottom of the black swamp. If the bodies ever surfaced again, it would be in sodden and decayed pieces, unrecognizable from their once human forms.

Sid would stay until he was certain the gators had finished, but he turned away as they worked, preferring instead to gaze at the auspiciously waxing moon. He had long since given up on the Goddess he had once seen there, and his prayers, once offered with such fervency, had become perfunctory and automatic. But tonight, as he looked up at the familiar white crescent casting the only light in a starless sky, a still, small voice whispered a hopeful prayer to the Maiden Moon for the season that lay ahead.

He sped back to civilization, his mind racing as he tore through the city’s outskirts. He had felt for so long as though he were wandering through this afterlife like a pariah in the desert, slowly dying with each passing day as he became more desperate, more reckless.

Intellectually, he had known that there were others like him. The memory of the night he’d been turned still haunted him like a vivid nightmare. He had woken just before dawn in an empty alleyway, bleeding and in terrible pain, knowing somehow that he had returned from death, but not knowing how or why he had been spared. His last memories were of a handsome face buying him a drink, then teeth, pain, and a suffocating darkness that swallowed him whole. Though it had taken all of his strength and determination, he followed a nascent instinct and crawled inside of dumpster just as the scorching sun peaked over the horizon. It was there, half-buried in the shit-smelling leavings of a callous and ugly world, that he had lost his belief in the wondrous, in the pure.

But Lacrima was something different. Hers was a kind of energy he had always wanted to believe in but had never encountered before. The mere act of being in her presence awakened something in him he had only dreamed of feeling. Magik like he’d never known flowed through her like a lightning rod, and she had chosen him to be her disciple. What have I done? He asked, looking to the moon hanging over the highway. What have I done to deserve this?

At the hotel, Sid could scarcely contain himself, opting to take the five flights of stairs at a run instead of waiting for the elevator. He reached the room where he had left her and stood outside for a moment, attempting to catch his breath and calm his heart. Then, with a shaking hand, he inserted the key into the lock, and slowly, he opened the door.

The room on the other side was dark and smelled of sweet jasmine, but Sid felt a sharp change in the aura inside. Hours before, the air had felt charged and potent with impossible energy. Now, that charge had been extinguished, and he knew without seeing that Lacrima was gone. Still, he called out for her, first using the new language they shared, and then, as his desperation mounted, slipping into his coarse, human tongue.

“No. No, please, this can’t be happening,” he begged as he fell to his knees beside the bed where she had slept. The pillow was still indented where her head had rested, and the sheets smelled of her intoxicating perfume, but all of the magik he had sensed here had since dissipated. Sid wept bitterly, clutching at the sheets and wrapping them around himself as he called out, cursing Lacrima for leaving, himself for believing, and the moon, who had watched from above with cold indifference as his Goddess, his real Goddess, had abandoned him to the bitter and colorless world.

Sometime later, when the embers of sorrow and anger had flared and faded, Sid picked himself up from the cold, tiled floor and carried himself to the bathroom. One foot, then the next… It gets easier, he told himself. It was the same promise he had been repeating for five years now, and in that time, he had taught himself to hunt, to feed, to survive. He had gone from crawling to walking to almost sprinting alone through the darkness. But no. It had never gotten easier.

The reflection of a handsome man with high, sharp cheekbones and steel gray eyes greeted him in the mirror; the same face, untouched by the world, for five years now. It wasn’t entirely a myth that vampires lacked a reflection, he thought. That face was not his own.

It took him all of five minutes to pack everything he owned: a change of clothes, a neon green lava lamp, and a pentagram shaped tray, scorched from the incense he sometimes burned when he was feeling nostalgic, all fit neatly into a black duffel bag. He left the room without bothering to look back, wanting nothing more than to forget everything that had happened here. He wondered, as he trudged down the stairs, if he lived long enough, would ever see another creature like Lacrima again?

He crossed the lobby, keeping his head down despite the lackadaisical attitude of the nightly desk clerk. The portly woman rarely seemed to lift her eyes from the paperback romance novel she’d been reading, but he had failed to collect any funds last night, and he would just as soon not address this shortcoming with her. He had made it to the exit, the tips of his finger brushing against the iron door handle, when he heard her voice calling across the lobby to him.

“Room 634?” she said gruffly.

He stopped, momentarily considering bolting out into the night. He could certainly outrun her, but he had seen the burley guard who patrolled the front entrance. He wouldn’t make it far before being tackled, restrained, and roughed up just to start with. “Yeah?” he said, turning slowly to face the expectant woman behind the front desk. “I’m just stepping out for a smoke,” he said. “Was going to pay you when I get back.”

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The woman frowned and shook her head. “Room’s been paid,” she said. “Supposed to tell you something.” She scratched her head, releasing a shower of dandruff flakes from her greasy, straw-colored hair.

“Paid?” Sid repeated as a tiny ember of hope began to burn just a little brighter. “Who paid it?”

The woman shook her head and scratched harder, her fingers raking into her scalp and tearing out thin strands of hair. “Who... It… paid…” she repeated, her face turning purple as she forced out the words.

“What are you supposed to tell me?” said Sid. Spit it out.

At his command, the woman’s eyes went cloudy and her face fell slack as though she had fallen into a deep trance. “Get in the car, baby-bat,” she said with a sly smile that was not her own. “I have so many things to show you.”

Sid almost dropped his duffel bag as he scrambled out to the carport, and a black Rolls Royce pulled up to the curb. An elegantly uniformed driver stepped out to open the passenger door for him, and without looking, he leapt inside the cabin where the heavenly scent of jasmine enveloped him like a warm blanket.

“Hey baby-bat,” said a familiar voice with a sweet, musical tone. “I’ve been giving it some thought, and if this is going to work, we’re going to need to make some changes.”

Sid searched the dark cabin, his eyes welling with tears of joy. Lacrima’s shining green eyes greeted him, and she handed him a tumbler of smoky-smelling scotch.

“You’re here!” he said, barely managing to contain his emotions in her presence. “I did what you asked me,” he blurted. “And I’d do it again. I will do it again. Whatever you want.”

“Ok,” said Lacrima, raising a dismissive hand. “Ok, ok, ok. Drink your scotch and calm down. First thing’s first, baby. We need to get you some new duds.”

“Some new…” Sid started, hardly comprehending the very words she was speaking.

“Clothes, yeah,” said Lacrima. “You look like yesterday’s news. And you smell like yesterday’s… well. Better take things slow, I guess.”

“Whatever you say, Goddess,” said Sid, clutching his drink like a holy relic between his white knuckled hands.

“Please, Sid, It’s Lacrima,” she said, and she took a delicate sip of her own drink. “We’re going to have an eternity together, so you should probably cut this shit out now.”

Eternity. Sid repeated the word in his mind. That was indeed what they could have if they wanted it. Funny how the prospect of immortality had been so daunting only moments before, but now it seemed almost like a dream. An eternity to travel, learn, and hone his craft with this endless creature he had found. What more could he have asked of the universe?

“So,” said Lacrima, tipping her glass towards him. “Cheers to us. We’re going to have so much fun, baby-bat. I promise.”

“Cheers,” said Sid. Their glasses clinked together, and Sid downed the scotch in one bracing swallow. Yes, he thought as a warm feeling spread through his chest. Cheers to eternity.

Lacrima took him to a mansion along the waterfront and dismissed the driver with a single word muttered under her breath.

“Home sweet home,” she said as she pushed open a pair of tall wooden doors. “Come see where you’ll be staying.”

The décor inside was tastefully modern with touches of class added by the dark wood accents of the furnishing and bookshelves full of obscure volumes and strange nautical trinkets lining the high-ceilinged parlor.

“Where did you get all this stuff?” Sid asked, examining a tentacled creature preserved in a dark liquid.

“Hmm? Oh, I travel,” Lacrima said without bothering to look back. She motioned for him to follow as she made her way towards a sweeping set of stairs, and Sid tailed behind her, peering into a dark hallway off of the living room before ascending. The faint smell of rotting food and the sound of flies buzzing caught his attention, and he noticed a dark stain on the carpeting faintly visible in the shadows.

“Come on,” she called back to him. “I have a really good room for you. I think you’ll like it a lot.”

Lacrima opened three doors as she led him down the long hallway, cracking the first two to peer inside and then slamming them shut with apparent dissatisfaction. “No,” she muttered after each. “Not this one.” Finally, they came to the third, and she showed him to a room overlooking a swimming pool with clear, azure waters lit by underwater flood lights.

“I keep meaning to call the pool boy back,” she said as Sid tossed his duffel bag onto the king bed, wrinkling the glossy duvet and knocking one of the zebra skin pillows to the creamy shag carpeting below. “I think I scared him away when I first moved in.”

“Oh?” said Sid, looking down at the pool once more. The deck was strewn with upset tables and reclining chairs knocked about as though by the winds of a hurricane, and in the center, a glittering mosaic of an orange lizard was stained with a dark fluid splattered across its scales.

“I suppose I was delinquent on his payment,” Lacrima explained. “Life these days is just too complicated.” She tossed her hand in a flippant gesture at the glowing pool waters and the dock beyond, where Sid could make out the shadow of a small passenger boat bobbing in the channel. “Everyone needs paid, but on different days, and some want checks, but others only take cash… And they all have names! It’s exhausting. Remember when the help just lived on your land and they were grateful just for the chance to till it?”

“You’re asking if I remember surfs?” Sid said as he unzipped his duffel bag. It had taken him mere minutes to toss his belongings into it, and now, as he pulled out his neon green lava lamp to set it on a night stand made of shining onyx wood, he wondered if he should have even bothered. Everything in this room cost more than he could earn in a month, even when he was human. “No. I don’t remember serfdom. And that’s kind of how things go now.”

“That’s what the pool boy said too,” Lacrima admitted. “And then…” Her eyes flicked upwards to the crown molding over the purple walls. “That’s right. I killed him. Shit. That’s why he didn’t come back.”

“Maybe you should keep track of that stuff,” offered Sid. “You know. In case you need to find another pool boy.”

“Ugh, no,” she said with a dismissive toss of her long, black hair. “What’s the point.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sid started, trailing behind her as she breezed out of his bedroom and down the wide, sweeping staircase to the sunken living room. “The point is that you won’t need a new pool boy every week. You could stay in the same place for more than, say, a week at a time. You don’t have to live like… Well, like me.”

“Why?” said Lacrima. “Why should I want to stay in one place? Have you seen the size of the cities they build? The sheer numbers of them born every day?” She poured herself a glass of red wine from a corked bottle on a mirrored bar and collapsed onto a circular sectional. “It would take me an eternity to taste all of this city’s offerings. Longer still for them to become accustomed to my face,” she said, her eyes shining as she stared into the dark red liquid in her glass. “Why the hell should we be cautious when they’re so desperately begging to be culled like the blighted herd they are.

“You think you can go unnoticed?” said Sid. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” He took a seat on the sectional across from her. “All it takes is one love-struck wack-job. Maybe he gets to following you around, tails you back to your ground, and stumbles across your collection of dead pool-boys in the guest house… Secret’s out and even a stunner like you is on the run.”

“On the run…” she repeated, measuring the words as though she didn’t quite understand them. “Yes. I suppose that would be disadvantageous… I know!” she said brightly. “You should help me.”

“Help you what? Tame the surfs?” said Sid. “Not sure I’m exactly pedigreed enough for that kind of work, Princess.”

“Nonsense,” said Lacrima, seeming to miss his sarcasm. “You don’t need a title to run a household. Particularly when the bulk of your responsibilities will involve dismembering pool-boys.” She stood up then and poured him a glass of wine. “Besides,” she continued, extending to him a glass so full it almost spilled out onto the cream carpet. “No one will ever dare question you. Not when you’re with me.”

“No,” he said as he accepted the glass. “I suppose they wouldn’t.”

Lacrima grinned, her full, dark lips framing pearly white teeth. As stunning as she was with her sultry stare, her smile was all the more captivating. “Fabulous,” she said. “Then it’s settled. You’ll manage the details while I take care of… the big picture.” She waved a hand, encompassing the entirety of the house and the expansive property outside in her gesture.

“So… I’m like what? You’re personal assistant?” Sid asked, and he took a sip of his red wine. It tasted earthy and complex with a smooth finish.

“Whatever,” Lacrima shrugged. “Sounds good to me.