Blade's apartment, New York City, Winter 1994 AD.

Louis was a dark Goldilocks lying in Blade's bed. He shifted in his sleep and as Blade approached her bed he startled her by sitting up quickly and baring his fangs. "Lou," she called and only then did he wake.

"Sorry," the boy-Vampyre murmured. "I was waiting for you. He blinked his eyes a couple times then glanced to Robert who was just closing the bedroom door. "I told Julien I didn't want to deal with being around the next morning with you both home, I came back in through the window."

Blade crawled into the bed, her nose wrinkling. "Gawd, you reek of sex."

"It all he wants anymore...besides his substances." He looked disgusted.

"Really, Louis, it isn't as if you haven't gone through the same thing," Robert said.

"It wasn't the same."

Robert shook his head as he sat on the bed. "It was. I had to go out looking for you nearly every morning. I spent hours trying to talk you out of stupors and bad trips on the phone."

"Well I quit." He rolled his eyes, "Mostly."

"Julien's not a Vampyre, Dear," Blade said, "the stuff could actually kill him. And he's obviously abusive with the stuff, just trying to escape." She pulled off her various garments as Louis stared. He used to never look twice at her, but since the time of the wedding there had been new looks, Louis adored teasing her. Robert caught Louis' eyes.

Robert undressed himself as he listened to Louis whine. "I feel so horrible. I can't stand this much longer. No one can convince him that he's really and truly loved, so he thinks the whole world miserable. It's pretty disgusting actually, like being tied to a chair and forced to listen to Morrissey on repeat."

"But he's had you," Blade said.

"It's not like we haven't tried with him! Steven got him a therapist, a good one, and Steven would do family-like things, dinner and such, and tell him how it gets better, things will get better. But, then he'd be out at a party or event and Dave would start with his activist shit about how The Man won't hire you or let you marry who you want. John told him off, of course, but after a while, we just had to steer him away from certain social circles, which, yeah, probably seemed like something he'd been hearing at home about 'those people' being a bad influence."

"If it's to the point where it bothers you to watch, then you probably aren't the best company for him, now, either," Robert said, "Maybe you need the company of your own kind," Robert said, catching Louis' eyes again.

"Oh, don't even say that," Blade said.

Louis snaked his arms about her and touched his cheek to her breast. "I want him so much now. You don't know how it is, Blade, you haven't had a Human lover yet. You know, don't you, Pa?"

"Yes," Robert said then licked at the nape of Blade's neck.

"Everything's gone wrong," Blade said. "I wanted him to live a normal life..."

"This is normal," Robert said as he curled against Blade's back, "it's, unfortunately common what Julien feels, thousands of others just like him haunt the suburbs, cities too. Humans are far from perfect, you know."

"But surely he'd make a bad Vampyre because of it?" Blade said uneasily.

"I don't know," Robert said. He thought if they could get Julien to believe he might make a nice addition to the family. But that alone seemed impossible.

b b b

Julien was in a panic. Louis was avoiding him. Julien actually got up and went to school on his own for two days. But it was only because he thought he had a chance of seeing Louis there. He'd call his machine for messages by remote five times a day, checked the computer too.

By the middle of the week, Julien was skipping school. He sat on the couch in clean but wrinkled clothes: one of his many pairs of Calvin's and a Depeche Mode concert shirt with a rose on it. He drank wine from the bottle and would watch nothing but cartoons and music videos. Robert thought it looked like really good fun, but Blade slapped him for the thought.

She would try to draw Julien into conversation. They would argue without yelling.

And after a while it was apparent, even to Robert, that Julien really was fare gone. It wasn't just old wounds either, he'd apparently grown dependant on The Relationship for his will to live.

It looked like maybe Julien knew it, knew that he had gotten lost somewhere. Instead of finding himself, or his future, he'd found something he could be to another person. He'd fought his father, but Louis he had no will to fight, and so in a very real way, everything that Julien might have been was slipping away.

Strange this creature that goes on living without a soul, the nightmare men would try to name Robert and all his family.

Blade had to escape the house. It was almost like being in a room with her father. She left Robert watching over her brother. And when they were alone Julien showed interest in doing something. He asked Robert to drive him somewhere. And Robert agreed because Julien could hardly walk, he'd kill someone if he tried to drive.

Blade's Lotus now seemed entirely Julien's car, littered with fashion magazines and Madonna CDs and smelling of Eternity. Julien directed Robert to the loft Louis had for years kept as a studio. Only when Robert walked Julien inside did he realize that Louis and Julien had been living there together. Robert knew Louis and Psyche used to stay there quite a bit, and bring Humans home to that loft. There was no trace of Psyche there anymore.

Louis wasn't there either, if he had been he ran as soon as he sensed Julien was near. Julien was slower to believe and went into the studio looking for Louis. And there they came across a large triptych.

Julien had seen the first painting before apparently, the same flower shapes and figure of Louis, but now it was completely finished. So disturbing, the sky too violet and sprinkled with stars, the flowers unreally large and lush, and the strangest thing: Louis reclining against a twisted slimy tree trunk holding a white rose to his lips. There were no white roses growing on the bushes above, only red, yet the bright green grass was littered with white ones.

Julien staggered backward as he turned to look at the central painting. It was almost finished, and after focusing his tired eyes even Julien could tell these figures twisted about each other like ancient gods metamorphosing into a single tree were Louis and himself. The naked limbs and gauzily draped hips were already quite stunningly finished, but the faces were more sketchy. Julien shook his head, reached out and touched wet paint.

At once Julien and Robert looked to the last painting, equal in dimension to the first, also having a reclining figure at the bottom, but it was only loosely painted in. Julien asked if it could be him.

Robert looked up and studied the painting, he saw a splash of red across the pale figure, the length of its arms, and then a pattern of shadow and highlight in the pale violet sky above that suggested nothing else but the moon. Robert knew then exactly what this was; it was Julien's death. And then looking back at the central painting he thought he saw the hint of a fang flashing in the painterly face that was Louis'.

"I don't know," Robert said.

Julien went to the bed. He took a plastic bag from a drawer of the lingerie chest and took from it a couple of joints. He lay stretched across the bed smoking one of these then.

Lost, this boy was lost.

Something made Julien get up on Friday. Something made him rush about the house dressing and made him promise to return home after class and fit a dress to Blade. Cocaine maybe, a dream he'd had, his own premonition...

The last sputtering of a flame before it goes out...

Julien never came home after school. Blade and Robert didn't worry at first; they hadn't believed Julien entirely, thought surely he'd be on a low again by afternoon. And they had been asleep, entwined on the sofa during the time Julien was to return.

They didn't wake till the sun was setting, and they didn't really worry till Louis came to the door and said, "He isn't here, is he?"

b b b

Steven was the first person they called, they called John, and they even called Faye. And, when no one knew where he was, they called Irene, and then Julia, then Kara, Minerva and on down the list of names and numbers in Julien's Filofax.

Louis, all dressed up with no where to go, looked devastated. "What if he's dead?" He'd seen Julien at lunch, promised to take him out, and Julien had seemed happy enough. Louis went down and got in his Miata, drove from the building to look for Julien.

Steven came in, said Julien had left e-mail, but it had said he was coming home.

They were all afraid then.

Robert did as he usually did when in trouble, called someone to help him. He called his sister.

She came to him, as she always did, wearing something vaguely Chinese looking and indigo in color. For a while she smiled without speaking. But her brother gave her the evil eye. "It's Psyche," she said quickly.

"Why would she want to hurt Julien?" Robert asked.

"She want's to hurt Athen," Niki said.

Robert cursed under his breath, gave Blade a stare. They rushed out of the house. Niki looked at Steven and smiled.

b b b

Louis found them first. Once he heard his father's silent message he knew to look for Psyche. Psyche couldn't hide from him; he was too familiar with her madness. They were driving downtown in a long white limo. Louis saw a flash of light come from its back window, a beam pass along the glass.

He knew what Psyche was up to then. Louis sped the Miata and cut off the limo. It stopped several inches from the side of his car, the driver got out, ready to scream at him, but then Splendor and Louis looked each other in the eyes and Splendor backed down. "My mother told me..." it said.

Louis pulled open the back door of the limo; Psyche was backing out the opposite door, blue butterfly wings fluttering behind her. Her eyes glowed nearly white. And Julien sat on the velvet seat a flashlight aimed into Louis' face, a dagger in his other hand.

"You gonna kill me because a pretty woman told you to?" Louis asked, "You always get in cars with strange women, Julien?"

The flashlight fell to the floor; the blade sank into Julien's chest.

It was Psyche who screamed, she disappeared then. Julien only moaned as the blood welled up from his chest. Louis froze. Julien had really done it.

b b b

Robert and Blade showed up just after Julien had used the knife. Splendor still stood in the street dressed in a chauffeurs' uniform and tearing at its hair frantically as cars drove right through its body. Louis stood, motionless at the curb, blood-tears streaming.

It had suddenly begun raining.

Blade looked into the limo, tried to shake Louis into action. When Louis wouldn't move Blade paced the sidewalk tearing at her hair as Splendor did. People on the streets walked by not-seeing.

"Who are these shades we wait for and believe will come some evening in limousines from Heaven," Robert recited quietly. Louis turned to look at him for just on instant.

Robert led Blade away from the scene.

b b b

Steven was alone in their penthouse when Blade and Robert arrived there. "Something's happened?" He asked.

"Dead," said Robert.

"It wasn't-?"

"No, he did it, but Psyche literally put the knife in his hand."

Blade wrested her arms from Robert's grip and ran into her bedroom. Steven didn't look well himself. He shivered, then backed down into a chair. "Julien, dead, really?"

"I'm sorry," Robert said.

The grief forced tears from the corners of Steven's eyes. "When I was in the hospital he sat there the whole time...I didn't tell him how much it meant, that when I used to visit my mother in the hospice...."

"Blade told me. How you met Joey. Daniel and Mandy. John."

"I don't like hospitals. Julien stayed with me the whole time."

"Steven, he wasn't well." Robert moved across the room and knelt at Steven's feet. "Talented, beautiful, but unable to really see it. I know you did everything you could to show him. But, maybe, it true, 'the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long'."

"YOU AREN'T DEAD!"

Robert shook his head, in shock. Should he be happy Steven loved him, or ignore that and console Steven on the loss of a boy he obviously had loved like a son? "It's a different sort of escape, this," Robert said. "You would think that like the ancient ones it would be so easy for me to manipulate people, to gain power, but it's not, most of them don't even see me. The only real satisfaction I have is knowing that I wasn't wrong when I though there was something more to the world."

"That's a lot...Robert." Steven swatted tears from his eyes, wished for a drink. "Will Julien go to Hell?"

"I don't know."

"He always said that he would, I think he really believed in all that."

"I wish-"

The intercom buzzed. Robert got up and walked slowly to the kitchen. "Yes?"

"Delivery for Ms. Dangerous."

"Can you just sign for it, she really can't come down."

"It's to be hand delivered, so I am told."

"OK, Maury, let them come up here."

Robert looked back into the room. Steven had his face in his hands. In her bedroom Blade was screaming into a pillow, but the sobs were still quite audible. Robert felt grief, but they seemed to feel guilt as well, to think they might have stopped Julien's death from happening, and that was worse than the grief.

"Be glad you're still alive, Steven. I thought you wanted to be immortal...can't be immortal and stay sane if every death does this to you. It's beyond your power to help him."

"Why'd she do this to me and not him?" Steven asked.

"Julien wouldn't have even seen her," Robert said.

There was a knock at the door then.

"It's Joy," Robert said to himself.

"Joy, what are you talking about, how could there be any joy in all this?" Steven asked.

Robert felt himself laugh. He shrugged. "Her name is Joy," he said and went to the door to let her in.

"Hey, Robert," she said. She looked at Steven. "Hey, Mr. Jewel, what's wrong?"

Steven looked up. He smiled. "Hi." He did not seem entirely used to strangers recognizing him.

"Someone just died," Robert said.

"I'm sorry, you didn't-"

"No. Blade's brother."

Joy walked into the house and set the jacket she carried on the kitchen counter. She looked toward the bedroom just as Blade came out sniffling. Joy's hand went to her heart. "Your tears are really red," she whispered.

"Yeah," said Blade.

"You are Vampyres!"

"Yeah," said Blade again.

"Julien died?" Joy asked, "I wanted to meet him, a lot of people I know have met him, they say he used to hang out at the clubs more. Opium showed me some famous photograph of him; he was really beautiful."

Blade's hand was fastened to Robert's arm, "Julien!" She hissed. Her eyes rolled toward the door slowly.

Louis was there. "Don't-" he said.

"Jesus!" said Steven.

Julien was standing behind Louis, dull-eyed, covered in blood.

"Athené!" Blade screamed.

Louis said nothing.

Julien said nothing but wandered into the house.

"Julien," said Blade. She embraced him, but he was unmoved.

"Tried that," sang Louis and rolled his eyes.

"Ya gotta snap him out of it, he doesn't know what to believe, you have to explain it to him," Joy said.

Louis stared at Joy. "It's you!"

"No, what do you mean?"

"I know you."

"I don't remember you," Joy said.

Faye and Min came into the house, they'd never been before, and they brought Troy in. Julien turned to look at them. Faye walked right up to him and touched his face. "Hello, Little Brother," she said.

Julien didn't speak. He looked at Steven, then Joy. And then he walked into his room.

"Louis, what's wrong with him?" Blade asked.

"I don't know, it never happened to me before. He hasn't spoken the whole time." Louis threw up his hands, "It's not even very original!" He looked toward the bedroom. "Hear me, Jules, it's really tired you not speaking, it's not even slightly original, Hon! Are you mental?"

"He's pulling his clothes off," Faye said.

Joy looked up at her. "You heard him do that?"

Faye just lifted her head. She was trying to look haughty but Joy was just as tall and had a very similar figure, and Faye didn't look very regal in her recently stolen babydoll dress. "She does look vaguely familiar."

"C'mon, Faye, this is our friend, Joy. Be nice."

"Nice fangs, Joy," Faye said bitterly.

"Thanks," Joy said back at her.

"Oh God, what are we supposed to do with him?" Blade asked.

Niki brought Splendor into the house, it still looked sorry. Splendor looked curiously at Joy. "I've seen her before," it whispered.

Robert laughed.

Joy rolled her eyes and rolled back her shoulders. She took a deep breath and walked to Julien's room.

"You don't have to-" Blade said quickly.

"It's got to be her," Robert said.

b b b

Julien was sitting in the corner of his room near the window where two walls of opposite shade met each other. The window was covered with aluminum foil on are inside and let in no light. He didn't look up when Joy came into the room. She dug a lighter from her pocket and lit the candles Julien kept on the long dresser. And then the wrinkled foil reflected Joy in so many distorted pieces.

"Hi," she said softly, "Sorry you died, well, actually I get the idea you wanted to die...so I'm sorry that didn't work out. My name's Joy."

Julien said nothing of course. He was wearing only some gray boxer-briefs, Calvin Klein of course and his chest and throat were stained with blood. The death wound was still healing.

Joy crept into his bathroom and wet a cloth. Julien didn't move when she approached, neither shied away nor lashed out at her. Joy reached down past his arms and wiped his chest clean. "You're paling," she said. "Did he tell you that you were paling? Did he say you were a Vampyre, or some word that means the same thing? You are one."

She wiped his neck.

"It's OK, look, mine are fake," Joy said and then she took out the set of false upper teeth that fit over her own. Her real teeth were only slightly less perfect looking. She licked at her lips and saw Julien do the same thing. "Get on your back?" She asked.

Julien scooted away from the wall and Joy slunk behind to wipe the blood from his skin. She brushed his hair back from his forehead with her fingers; he shivered. "Did I rake ya with a nail?" She asked, "Didn't mean to."

Joy walked around Julien and looked down at him. "You're clean," she said. She rolled her eyes when he wouldn't speak. "C'mon, talk, please."

He didn't talk.

Joy tossed the wet cloth onto the dresser and knelt down. She held her arm forward, the palest side up, "You're paler than I am now," she said, "it's like when you dye your hair, It takes some getting used to, your reflection, I mean."

Julien's brow wrinkled. His eyes moved down to Joy's arm.

"Sorry," Joy whispered as she drew her arm away, "Didn't mean to flaunt my veins in front of you. You felt it though? You thought maybe you might like tearing the skin till you drew blood and then sucking it up? Suppose it does sound pretty gross..."

Julien looked down as he touched the wound on his chest. The wound was closed but the skin was still pink and tender. He looked down at his left wrist there was an old scar there, it wouldn't heal.

"Listen, Julien, I don't know why you're acting like this, but if I were you I'd be happy right now. Really, immortal, fabulous looking, and what's his name-Louis? That his real name, the black-haired boy with green eyes? I bet he hates Rice novels. But he is gorgeous and you have him in love with you."

Joy sighed. "Um...I've been talking to some people, at the Bank, places like that. I don't believe that we've never met, usually people say to me that we've met, but we went to the same places and met the same people and never met. That girl Seraph says she met you while going to Parsons, and all those net.goth people know who you are. Paul said he knows you too, when I met your sister...he was really sad when Seraph told us all you would die. But don't worry, we wouldn't tell anyone about it, long as you don't kill anyone we really really like.

"Geez, Julien, what do I have to do here? Listen, you're not any sort of monster. I hope you don't believe all those cheesy movies...you're like this dark Angel."

"I'm not an Angel," Julien said.

Joy grinned. "You have got a voice to die for, Julien...didn't mean that literally. But you sure look pretty angelicate to me."

Julien got up and went to lie on his bed. "There's nothing wonderful and magic about it, they're all sick...now I've got it. As long as they keep getting new blood they'll live, but if they don't they'll die."

"Goddamn, you probably believe they found a UFO in Roswell, that the CIA killed Kennedy, probably even that AIDS was genetically engineered in some secret lab and introduced into the population to kill undesirables."

Julien shrugged, "People used to blame the Communists for everything, but it was the good old USofA all along, the New Reich...we'll all die from eating NutraSweet like the Romans died of lead poisoning."

"You ever watch the X-Files?"

"Yeah, Twin Peaks too."

Joy smiled. "Figures."

Julien shrugged.

"It's not a disease."

"Oh, they introduce something into your system and it destroys your blood and replaces it with another type then rearranges all your genes...I'd call that a pretty fierce virus. It is a disease, they know it is. Probably passed down from all those Angels who pilot the UFOs."

"You've been reading too many computer bulletin boards, Julien," Joy laughed.

"Whatever."

Joy touched the locket lying in the pit of his throat. "It's very pretty, from Louis?"

"I always thought he was Human, I never even thought-"

"But you know now, it's OK. You can go out there, pretend things are just like they were before."

"Things were never good before, and when I thought they were it was because I was fooled."

Joy shook her head. "I wouldn't know. But if that is true, then think of something you really want, something you haven't done before, and live for that. You're supposed to be some kind of fashion designer, doesn't that want to make you live, art?"

"No," Julien whispered.

"Look, there's no reason you should die, not now. You're so beautiful, and you know how things are now. I'd die to have what you have, Julien. Don't worry about how they'll feel, things will work out with them, I'm sure they wouldn't hurt their own unless they really had to. Just think about what you have to live for."

Not even a hint or flash of movement, Joy was just on the floor suddenly and Julien had his teeth pressed to her neck. Joy shivered, her arms tensed under her own weight as she leaned back on them. "Yeah, I can hear you, I think they're long enough now," she said.

The most beautiful man she had ever seen was half-naked and sitting in her lap, better, he was a vampire. She was like Julien, a lot like him. Both full of romantic notions. She clenched her teeth together as the new fangs slipped under her skin. Her mouth opened and the words came in a scream, "Draw them out!" She gasped for a breath, "draw them out and suck up the blood...like, with your lips."

Joy felt her eyes wanting to roll back in her head. "Julien do not kill me," she said. She sang these five words over and over like a charm. She stopped once, winced, yelled at Julien, "Don't let the wound close before you've finished, your blood makes it heal, don't lick so much unless you want to close it...do you know how much it hurts to have fangs stab your half healed skin?"

"I don't want to die," Joy said at a whisper.

Julien stopped sucking the blood from her, he pressed his tongue to the wound and licked slowly. It felt good, Joy thought, way too good, like she might like Julien lapping at other parts of her body. He drew away from her just as soon as she thought that.

"Sorry," she said. Joy felt her arms giving. She felt her elbows bend, and then before she hit the floor Julien caught her. He lifted her and lay her on his bed.

"I don't like you that way," he said.

"I understand," Joy said, "Believe it or not this has happened before."

"You know other vampires?" Julien asked.

"No, I just always fall for guys who turn out to be gay," Joy said.

Julien laughed. Louis walked into the room as he did. "Are you all right?" Louis asked.

"We're fine," Julien said in a giggle. He bent to Joy's ear. "I think I have heard of you too. Paul says sometimes the guys turn out to be bisexual, like him." He laughed.

"I know, it's a sickness, I can't help it," Joy laughed.

Julien touched the bruised place on her neck, "It's a sickness, I can't help it."