New York City, after the stay in Europe, Winter1994 AD.

They had been happy in Europe, Robert and Blade.  They were two people who had seemed depressed and troubled to those close to them for a long time.  They really were happy together, very much in love.  It even seemed the madness had left Blade, or at least the instability.  She killed people she judged to be petty horrors, but she could deal with that.  And though Robert would not give up the dark colors or floral configuration of hair he was playful as maybe only Troy and Absidus remembered him.

They called Steven every once in a while.  There were occasions when Blade called John or Mandy.  And when they were in cities they picked up American papers for news.  They never spoke to Julien; that was how Blade wanted it.  They had news of him though and each time someone said he was well or that his classes were going smoothly for him Blade was assured that she had done the right thing in leaving him to his own devices.

But it was a year and a half they were away.

While in London or Paris they would get a New York paper and read disturbing things in the society or art section.  They might meet someone at a party in Chelsea that had recently visited New York City and had seen Julien at a party.  First there was the young painter that became enamored of Julien and did many paintings of him.  Cary, as he was known, was charmed away from furthering his education in school and set up in a Studio by Mandy.  And after the obsessive, temperamental painter was out of the picture it was Mandy who turned his charms on Julien. 

Steven and John would never speak of it.  They would only say things like, "We drove him home before anything happened," and implied that Julien was often drunk at parties.   Steven would say, "I made sure he ate today," leaving Blade to imagine all the horrible reasons Julien might not be making sure of this himself. 

After a while there was no getting news from John, all he would talk about was his series of fights with Dave.  Mandy who had previously denied having anything to do with Julien would start hinting that he was oh so distraught at loosing the gorgeous boy to someone else.  And Steven, he would hold back, it was obvious. 

Steven would speak of Louis often.  Louis was at his house.  Louis was decorating for him.  Louis had feng shued the place. Louis had struck a deal with Valentine to sell a few paintings and Val and Mandy were at war with their two young painters, Cary and Louis being shown in the same gallery.  Steven had never seen so many pictures of Julien... and Mandy's photos upstairs...

Blade seemed distraught, but she didn't seem to catch all the clues, self-proclaimed crime-fighter though she was.  She missed the fact that Steven had all but said Louis was using Julien as a model.  There would have been no escaping their knowing each other figuring that both would have been attending Parsons, and that they seemed to attend the same parties recently...Robert wondered how well they knew each other.

He could never steal the information, even over the phone.  But it was growing to be something so inevitable in his head.  There was Louis in need of affection after growing away from his father and from Psyche with his history of attaching strong feelings to people who, like his mother, were blonde, pale and blue-eyed.  And there was Julien, with that classic sort of beauty one saw in ancient Grecian statues, so close, thinking vampires in movies and novels romantic. 

It was hard to hide these fears from Blade.  Sometimes she would sense there was something unsaid, try to steal the information.  She would start yelling; they would fight. 

Fights never lasted.  Robert did still have his own charm.  Blade had been pretty much the leader of the pair while in Europe, but all Robert had to do was smile a certain way and she would forgive everything and curl up in bed with him.  He would hold Blade close and say he had been wanting a long time to have a lover who was like him.  Blade would melt and purr, wrap her legs about him.  And then it was like New York was billions of miles away on a cold and distant planet.

And then it was that they returned to Paris after a trip south to find several phone messages from Mandy.  The first two asked only that they call right away, but it must have really been urgent because the next messages said, "It's Steven, he's been hurt, you must return to New York right away."

Blade was snatching up clothing in an instant, on the phone to the airport as she packed before Robert could make himself move. 

As they were about to leave Louis called them, Blade let the machine pick up.  "It's Lou, you really have to get back here, come see me...I'll explain...everything."

b                  b                  b

They arrived at the Necropolis knowing they would find Louis there.  As they came through the final door Robert was taken aback by the changes, the mosaic-lined pool with mermaid motif, the beginnings of a wooden bridge across it, the token booth cabana, the beige sofa that had once sat in Steven's penthouse in the place of the absent green sofa, and the old-fashioned cage elevator fitted into the rear wall of Louis' bedroom. 

Blade noted none of this it seemed, but rushed to the elevator, nearly leaving Robert behind.  As they descended Blade screamed and then Robert saw the large room below as she moved from his view, the many new paintings, so many half-clothed Juliens. 

Louis said nothing but stood before a painting they could not yet see, paintbrush behind ear, rubbing his hands as if they might ache.  Blade must have been shooting curses into his head.  Louis looked up slowly.  "Well, he doesn't believe you're a vampire, does he?" He said quietly.

Blade crossed her arms about her chest and closed her eyes.

Robert walked through the room, took in a breath and the scent of oil paint.  He kissed his son on the lips then turned to the painting.  It was a nude of Min, sex hidden by red drapery, Troy at her feet, and from the shine of the paint and the color on the brush Robert could tell Louis had just been painting in the pitcher of water on a table behind and the reflection of a window with full moon outside.  He gasped, felt Louis' hand on his back.

Ah, let art students try to fathom the meanings within this picture.

"It's—"

"I know," Louis said softly then pressed his lips to Robert's jaw.

Robert turned his head, kissed his son's face.  "Steven, how is he?"

"He's fine now," Louis said, stepping back and glancing at Blade.  He began cleaning his tools.  "I'll take you to him."

"Louis," Blade called, voice wavering.

"I love him."

"You don't."

"I've fuckin' gone through Hell for that boy while you were gone, don't tell me how I feel!"

Blade seemed to soften then. 

Louis looked desperate, like he had asking for the blood so long ago.  Like his mother struggling to know if her husband was lying to her or not.  He let the blocks go and the story was easy enough to take from him then.  He really did love Julien, had stood along with Steven and John watching Julien slowly destroy himself.  Blade gasped, obviously seeing the same things; there seemed nothing Julien had not done to himself.

He'd shown signs of Bulimia and Depression, Steven had arranged for doctors, but now there was substance abuse.  He was dying.  And nothing Louis or the others could do would mend his old wounds. 

Blade covered her face and sobbed uncontrollably.  It was Louis who went to her.  "We have to go see Steven first, it's important," he said as he brought her into his arms.  "Then maybe you'll be able to help Julien, I haven't been able to."

Louis said he had to cut his hair first, Julien couldn't see him with his hair grown out.  So they waited on him.  He was good at it, standing in the bright bathroom the clippers buzzing about his head.  He looked cute with the hair shorn at the sides and back, the small pointed sideburns.  He pulled on a pair of black jeans, a green silk shirt, a black jacket decorated with painted design of generic Grecian statue fragments.  He didn't look quite himself, but Robert imagined he looked like something Julien would adore.

b                  b                  b

They went up to Steven's apartment, careful not to make noise in the hallway; Louis said Julien was home and would come looking if he thought he heard Louis there.  Steven was sitting in his living room bandage around head, but it all looked so different.  Walls were painted in multiple colors, meeting at jagged painted borders, there was antique furniture, bright Oriental carpets, candles arranged on shelves and tabletops, a beautiful new staircase. 

He was awkward trying to impress upon them that Steven didn't fear Louis and that Steven really did like the strange new decor.  He and Louis finished each other's sentences as they explained what they had days ago concluded: Steven was unable to die.  Louis might force his head into a gas oven and Steven would emerge sickened by not dead, and he would soon recover.  Louis became excited explaining the fact that Steven had brain cells that regenerated. 

Steven explained other weird things that had happened.  In Blade's absence John had been the one to seek vengeance on Steven's behalf.  He and his secret group including Monday, Cary, and Mandy thought they were close to finding out who had attacked Steven.  He said John had been told by Daniel in a dream that Steven needed help, and then the very image of his dead friend Joey had brought Julien into the house and told John to go to the hospital.  "The work of Angels," Steven said and it was clear Louis didn't put so much faith in this theory.  And then Steven said matter-of-factly, "Do you remember Daniel, Blade?  John and Mandy tell me you were around then, before he left New York."

Blade said nothing at first, looked stricken rather.   And then she said, "And Mr Ripley, too...that was a long time ago." 

Steven just went on, it was obvious he was close friends with John now and Mandy also.   Mandy must have finally stopped hitting on Steven in exchange for getting to hang about him as a friend so much of the time.  It was rather the same sort of choice Robert had made.  And, with Blade gone, Steven might somehow take her place as the one whose love held their large and surrogate family together.

 "John said that the last time he saw Daniel in a dream like that was the day Julien called and asked if he could move in with you, Blade, both times Daniel was winged with drink in hand and sat in a black arm chair in a room with red curtains and a black and white zig zagged floor...like the room from Twin Peaks."

Steven said then that the person who looked like Joey had known to tell him not to look into Death's eyes, Steven had actually heard Joey and Louis telling him this just as he saw the Angel coming for him. 

Besides that, Louis, and even Julien had known something had happened to Steven the moment he was shot.  And it must have been something of significance if even Julien who was not supposed to have much of a sixth sense had felt something.

Of course, nothing compared to the fact Steven recovered in days from a shot to his head, that his brain cells regenerated, and his skull knitted right back together. 

"So, you were shot?  And they felt something might have happened?  And when Julien and Lou found you outside there was this person who looked like Joey?  And then later John told you he'd had a premonition?"

"No, no," Steven said shaking his head.  "The first part is right, they came down and Joey was there.  But you see John was here, he was still asleep in the loft, you see he actually works as my bodyguard now and I had been followed the night before, so John was staying close.   I should have woken him.  Louis had come along in the ambulance, Julien says it was this Joey person who led him upstairs and spoke to John.  And John says he was having this dream of Daniel when they woke him.  He says he thinks Daniel must still be alive as he gets Christmas cards, but the dreams mean Julien reminds him of how Daniel once was."

"John was always rather protective of Daniel," Blade said quietly, "especially around the time Joey got sick, because Daniel was getting so self-destructive and Mandy was really of no use, walking about in a veil before Joey was even dead telling everyone he was a vampire, that he'd killed Joey—"  Her voice was growing loud, "It was so tasteless and everyone hated it.  He drove Daniel away with that talk, made everyone miserable."

Robert coughed, interrupted Blade before she could rant anymore.  "You will not die unless you really want to," Robert asked.

"Yes!" Steven said. 

The Angel of Death had said the same thing to him.

"You won't die?" Robert asked.

"No," said Steven.  They smiled realizing this was true.

Steven said then that one other strange thing had happened. His doctor, Gail, had come to him as he was leaving the hospital and told Steven that she had a strange dream the night before.  An Angel had said something to her, she couldn't remember what exactly, but she woke feeling that she should have trusted more in Steven and the boy, Julien. She had decided that she would destroy the samples of his tissues she had.  And if Steven wanted she would become his personal doctor and make sure he never fell unconscious into any other doctor's hands.  She would never tell anyone who didn't already know how remarkable his recovery had been. 

"I got a good feeling from her," Steven said, "We'll be friends."

"Are we turning into a witch, Steven?" Robert asked.

"No, we're just growing old enough to know people."

Blade seemed irked by their use of the plural.

"There's just Julien left then," Louis said.  "Keep in mind that we haven't done anything to remind him of how unusual Steven's recovery was, but that's really the least of our problems."

Blade glared at him.  "You tell me, Louis, will you watch him die?"

"I'd rather kill him than watch him kill himself."  He was quite obviously disgusted with Julien, as much as he loved him.

"Why?" Blade asked, but they all knew she wasn't questioning Louis. 

Steven was questioning Louis silently.  It did seem that Louis was practiced at picking up his thoughts and then sending replies right into his mind.  They had grown so close; Robert wanted what Louis had with Steven.  He looked away from them.

But in answer to whatever Steven had been saying Louis came between Robert and Blade and put an arm around each.  "None of us know, but I think he was struggling very much when he moved here, and I don't know, he's gotten a whole lot worse recently, there have been drugs, and cutting.  I try to stay with him as much as possible.  This thing with Steven has really shaken him, somehow he kept off all the stuff while Steven was in the hospital; he wouldn't go home or go to school..  I had it out with Mandy for giving him stuff, but if Keri isn't falling over herself to please him, and she always is, he'll get it from people at school."

"I could kill her," Blade said, close to tears, "I had to go through this with her enough..." 

It almost seemed to Robert that Blade loved Keri.

b                  b                  b

Robert and Blade went across the hall to see Julien.  Blade let herself in with her old key and from the look on Julien's face and his stance it was obvious he was surprised anyone else had the key.  "Blade," he said in a sort of half-hearted attempt at being happy. 

She crossed the room to embrace him.  Julien seemed unwilling to touch her and stepped away quickly.  "You lost weight," Blade said sadly.

"I don't know," Julien said quickly.  He looked quite nervous.  "I invited someone over."

"Oh," smiled Blade, "Guess who we just met over at Steven's."

Julien's jaw went slack.  "You met Lou?"

"Yes, he's just adorable.  He's bringing you a painting."

Julien knew this was false happiness and glared at his sister.  "You know then?"

"What?" Asked Blade, voice dropping. 

"We're married," Julien said, the same false politeness.

"No, he didn't mention it."

Julien lifted his head then did a turn and strutted to the couch.  "Last Halloween, but we were serious like since Valentine's Day, he gave me this locket."  Julien did another beautiful turn, as if mocking his sister by looking a catwalk model. 

Julien was busy describing it.  Saying that it had some flowers and a J. on one side, a tree, a unicorn and a chalice on the other, inside a tiny Louis and a tiny mirror.  He was saying something about Laura Palmer and then he said, "You know I met Anne Rice last year, it was around Halloween."

"Book signing?" Robert asked.

"She's lovely in person," Julien said.

The knock came then.  "It's open," Julien called and then Louis came in with his painting wrapped in brown paper. 

"I got you a present," he smiled.

"Oooh, I love presents!" Julien said and skipped to the door.  "Blade says you already met."

"I recognized her immediately," Louis sang.

Julien kissed Louis quickly on the cheek and snatched his painting.  "You didn't tell them we were married!"

Louis laughed.  He looked at Blade apologetically.  "It wasn't a legal wedding."

"Of course not," Julien said.  His voice dropped then and he did sound pretty sexy, "But it was so Romantic, and I am such a sucker for romantic things."

"Be better if I were a vampire though," Louis said, flash of fangs to Robert.  He was joking.

"Fuck yeah," Julien said as he tore at the brown wrapping paper, "Pluck out the pain, all that."

"Coffins," Louis whispered at his lover's ear, the others would not have heard if they had not actually been Vampyres."

Julien was moaning.  Robert couldn't tell if it was the painting or Louis' whisper.  It was a wonderful painting though.  "It looks just like you," Blade said seeing the strangely cropped winged figure.  Of course Julien looked nothing like the Angel, he was too thin and tired looking.  That was Julien there on the canvas, his soul.  The thing that walked around the house in Calvin Klein was just an empty shell. 

"Let's go hang it," Julien said.  He pulled Louis after him into his room.  The door closed and locked.

Blade groaned.  "Oh!"

"What, Baby?"

"Oh!  Like you don't know what they're doing in there?"

Robert shrugged. 

"Louis and Julien?  My brother and," her voice dropped to a whisper, "Your son, my brother-in-blood, in there crawling over each other, peeling off clothes..."  She looked at the door to Julien's bedroom.  There was music playing, Madonna, Robert thought.  "How can Julien not know that Louis is a vampire, you've heard him, he reads all the stupid books, he's seen horror movies, he's actually looking for vampires, and he has no idea!"

"That's just it, it's just a fantasy to him, he doesn't believe in it.  It's likely Louis could bite him and Julien would think the fangs false but love it all the while."

"I can't stand it," Blade whispered, "both of them feel like they are my brother....I have to get out of here."

b                  b                  b

They went out.  Blade led Robert into an alley between two glittering buildings.  A waif lay in a nest of shredded computer paper.  Blade lifted her slight body up into her arms and lowered the zipper of the thin jacket. 

The girl looked up, her feverish eyes thinking Blade an Angel. 

"Kiss her for me," whispered Blade as she bowed to the unwashed neck. 

Blade fed.

And as they left the alley neither looked back.  But the shredded paper started burning.  "I love you," Robert said.

Blade leaned against his side as they walked; she had killed a child that wanted death.  "I know."

They wandered down, into the Village.  They passed a small store where a vendor sold wigs.  Blade took a black one and left with only a smile as payment.  She fitted it on as they walked through shadows, a shining black bob.  She pulled an eyeliner pencil from her purse and in a dark storefront window lined both eyes in black before drawing a spiral under the left eye. 

Before they had wandered as far as the club Blade has wiped the makeup from the rest of her deathly pallor and darkened her lips to burgundy. 

They went inside paying only with smiles.

Robert said that he had not been to a club like this in a long time.  They were not quite the children he had left in London, but there were Gothics in New York, or Goths, they were the new Goths. They wore a little more vinyl and bondage accessories than in the old days, but immediately Robert loved them just as much.

They stood at the edge of the dance floor listening to the music.  Robert felt himself watched and turned.  A slight girl with red hair and blonde roots stared at him, the eyes looked so familiar, a strange shade of blue, like the sea in the midst of a storm.  She had a deck of Tarot cards before her, a Celtic Cross laid out on a purple cloth.  Robert walked through the thin crowd to the small table where she read.  She didn't look afraid of him; she looked knowing.  "Someone in your life is going to die," she said, "The Empress, perhaps someone both feminine and domineering...perhaps not die, but I see the Magus having something to do with this...the Nine of Swords coming from another...that's cruelty."

"But Death doesn't always mean a death..." Robert said.

"No, it means a transformation," she said as she looked up to his face for a split second. 

"Thanks for the reading," Robert said.  He slipped a fifty-dollar bill onto the table.

The girl made a small bow, "You look a little like Akhenaten," she said, "but prettier...and you have much more interesting hair."

"Monday said the same thing to me when I first met him." Robert said.

"You must be Blade's husband.  Everyone calls me Seraph; Monday's my cousin."  Seraph looked up at Blade as if the disguise didn't fool her.  "I'd watch Julien if I were you."

"We are," Robert said.  Blade seemed to have missed the girl saying someone would die.

Blade was more interested by another of the young women in the room.  Robert noticed the image that caught Blade's gaze. A girl whose back was turned and on her leather jacket was painted Death.  "She and her friend keep looking over here," Blade whispered, "the Asian looking girl was watching you when you were at that table.  I think they know."

Robert shrugged.

"Think she'd really like to meet Death?"

"Don't they all?" Robert asked in answer.

They made their way over to this girl.  There were truly three of them together, the girl in the jacket having dyed black hair and distinctly auburn roots, her strangely beautiful friend who was a small woman with black hair and black eyes though her skin was moon-pale, and the third girl who had cafe au lait skin and bleached white hair. 

The girl in the jacket turned on her heels and looked up at them.  She had a pair of artfully sculpted false fangs in her mouth; they didn't glow the way natural teeth did when she turned into the blacklight.  "Hello, Joy," Blade said.

The girl raised her eyebrows at the trick. 

"Like your jacket," Blade said.

"I painted it," said Joy.

Robert found himself staring at Joy and the black-haired girl.  They looked so familiar.  "Have we ever met?" He asked.

Joy looked shyly downward.  "I don't think so...a lot of people ask me that."

The other girl smiled at Robert.  He couldn't read her mind.  And looking at her face Robert realized he had seen glimpses of this face before, long ago, and always when passing reflective surfaces.  She couldn't be Human, though all her friends seemed to believe she was, including Joy.  The harder Robert looked the more obvious it was, he'd never seen a Human with such snow-white skin that had naturally black hair and eyes, certainly not with that particular face shape. 

Joy was offering to paint a jacket for Blade.  "The cost of the jacket, you can give me one, or I'll go buy one, plus say thirty dollars for the painting...I could do another Death jacket, or something else, I've done Dream, Lucifer and Mazikeen, Batman, and copies of a bunch of album covers...stuff like that."

"You know that's illegal, taking money for trademarked characters?"

Joy shrugged, "Hey, I'm starving here, you gonna tell me you never buy bootleg albums, or tore a tag off a mattress, murdered anyone?"

"Of course not, that would be illegal," Blade said.  "Go buy a jacket and paint Death on it, you can tell me how much you paid for the jacket, OK?"

"Yeah, uh huh, and you'll believe me right?"

"Yeah."

They moved away from her, Blade was hungry.  They sat on a bench in the shadows and Blade called a boy to her, and when he was beginning to weaken she told him to go outside. 

"Boy, was he wasted," she giggled.

Robert looked up at the stage and he realized that the three girls were a music group.  Joy was playing base, the Halfangel played guitar while singing, and the other girl played synth.  When the first song was over the singer announced that the group was named Robert's Pill and that her name was Opium, the others being Joy and Elle.   

The next song was called My Endless Death, yet when Robert listened he swore this described Zerachiel, especially the phrase, "wings like Isis."  Robert had seen many depictions of Isis in which two very geometric wings came from behind each arm; these pictures were always taken to represent the motherly protectiveness that Isis gave. 

Whatever the case, the children crowded in front of the stage loved the song, and the children in the Gothic love knot of limbs and black fabric in the darkest corner as well.  The doomy guitars and synthesized waves of sound...I've left my sheltering dreams - I've left my illusions - I've left the nightmare of reality - all is sweeter now...

Of course the bit about velvet white arms did sound like it was stolen from a Cure song.   

As the club was closing Blade and Robert stood outside enjoying the cold air that caused the children to shiver.  Joy came from the door to the left of the main entrance carrying a large purse and a guitar case. She smiled up at them.  A slender dark-haired boy came up beside her and offered to carry the guitar.  She said, "Thanks Paul."

And then she hefted her purse over a shoulder and approached Blade.  "You're that model," she said, "Right?"

The boy, Paul, stepped close to Blade and spoke up in a loud drunken voice, "Hey, Julien's sister, right?"

Blade only nodded.  Imagine anyone referring to her as Julien's sister, she was supposed to be the famous one.

"I haven't seen him and Lou around in a while!"

Joy elbowed the boy gently.  "Do you mind, we're talking here?"  Paul backed off and then Joy looked up at Blade again.  "If you give my your address or something I'll do a jacket for you and deliver it as soon as it's done."

Blade smiled as Joy dug an old receipt and a felt tip marker from her purse. 

Blade wrote both her number and address on the scrap of paper and handed it back to Joy.  "I like the fangs too," she said.

"Cost me a fortune," Joy said, "I know all about vampires, read all the books, comics, watch the movies, I got scads of movies dubbed if you ever need any."

"We got most of the good ones on Laser Disc," Blade said.

Joy shrugged, "Oh well, sure...if I had money I'd have laser discs too."

"I liked the music," Robert said, "I used to play with some groups when I lived in England."

"Yeah? Opi used to live in London.  I've never been out of New York, except we went to Great Adventure, and the Meadowlands a couple times for concerts.  See...I didn't recognize you, but Opi says you're both celebrities and all...I just think, if I was famous, I'd hate people coming up to me when I'm trying to do my shopping or something just to ask if I'm really who they think I am."

"Very sympathetic of you, Joy.  Are you sure you aren't a real vampire, maybe you went mad and forgot who you were...you look really familiar."

Joy shook her head. "August 5, 1972, wasn't born before then...everyone thinks they know me, I'm just so normal looking it makes me sick."

"You're very lovely," Robert said.

Joy laughed, "Stop, you're just flirting with me so I'll get in bed with your wife."  She looked at Blade as she laughed, mouthed the words: "Just kidding."

Paul was behind her, whispering at her ear. 

"I gotta go," Joy said. 

Another boy stood at Paul's side, he kissed Paul quickly on the cheek and gave Joy a suspicious look before walking down the street.  Joy left in the opposite direction dragging Paul after her as he walked backward watching the other boy go.  Joy turned back just as Paul turned forward.  "Be seein ya!" She called back.

"Where am I?" Robert called.

Joy doubled with laughter.  "In the fuckin Village!"