City of Fallen Angels

Days, he thought. That was the amount of time he had. Before he ran out of blood, before his mother started to wonder where he was and called the school looking for him. Before she started to remember. He was a vampire now. He was supposed to have eternity. But what he had was days.

He had been so careful. Tried so hard for what he thought of as a normal life—school, friends, his own house, his own bedroom. It had been strained, but that was what life was. Other options seemed so bleak and lonely that they didn’t bear thinking about. And yet Camille’s voice rang in his head. What about in ten years, when you are supposed to be twenty-six? In twenty years? Thirty? Do you think no one will notice that as they age and change, you do not?

The situation he had created for himself, had carved so carefully in the shape of his old life, had never been permanent, he thought now, with a sinking in his chest. It never could have been. He’d been clinging to shadows and memories. He thought again of Camille, of her offer. It sounded better now than it had before. An offer of a community, even if it wasn’t the community he wanted. He had only about three more days before she’d come looking for his answer. And what would he tell her when she did? He’d thought he knew, but now he wasn’t so sure.

A grinding noise interrupted his reverie. The garage door was ratcheting upward, bright light spearing into the dark interior of the space. Simon sat up, his whole body suddenly on the alert.

“Eric?”

“Nah. It’s me. Kyle.”

“Kyle?” Simon said blankly, before he remembered—the guy they’d agreed to take on as a lead singer. Simon almost flopped back down onto the ground again. “Oh. Right. None of the other guys are here right now, so if you were hoping to practice…”

“It’s cool. That’s not why I came.” Kyle stepped into the garage, blinking in the darkness, his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “You’re whatshisname, the bassist, right?”

Simon got to his feet, brushing garage floor dust off his clothes. “I’m Simon.”

Kyle glanced around, a perplexed furrow between his brows. “I left my keys here yesterday, I think. Been looking for them everywhere. Hey, there they are.” He ducked behind the drum set and emerged a second later, rattling a set of keys triumphantly in his hand. He looked much the same as he had the day before. He had a blue T-shirt on today under a leather jacket, and a gold saint’s medal sparkled around his neck. His dark hair was messier than ever. “So,” Kyle said, leaning against one of the speakers. “Were you, like, sleeping here? On the floor?”

Simon nodded. “Got thrown out of my house.” It wasn’t precisely true, but it was all he felt like saying.

Kyle nodded sympathetically. “Mom found your weed stash, huh? That sucks.”

“No. No … weed stash.” Simon shrugged. “We had a difference of opinion about my lifestyle.”

“So, she found out about your two girlfriends?” Kyle grinned. He was good-looking, Simon had to admit, but unlike Jace, who seemed to know exactly how good-looking he was, Kyle looked like someone who probably hadn’t brushed his hair in weeks. There was an open, friendly puppyishness about him that was appealing, though. “Yeah, Kirk told me about it. Good for you, man.”

Simon shook his head. “It wasn’t that.”

There was a short silence between them. Then:

“I … don’t live at home either,” Kyle said. “I left a couple of years ago.” He hugged his arms around himself, hanging his head down. His voice was low. “I haven’t talked to my parents since then. I mean, I’m doing all right on my own but … I get it.”

“Your tattoos,” Simon said, touching his own arms lightly. “What do they mean?”

Kyle stretched his arms out. “Shaantih shaantih shaantih,” he said. “They’re mantras from the Upanishads. Sanskrit. Prayers for peace.”

Normally Simon would have thought that getting yourself tattooed in Sanskrit was kind of pretentious. But right now, he didn’t. “Shalom,” he said.

Kyle blinked at him. “What?”

“Means peace,” said Simon. “In Hebrew. I was just thinking the words sounded sort of alike.”

Kyle gave him a long look. He seemed to be deliberating. Finally he said, “This is going to sound sort of crazy—”

“Oh, I don’t know. My definition of crazy has become pretty flexible in the past few months.”

“—but I have an apartment. In Alphabet City. And my roommate just moved out. It’s a two-bedroom, so you could crash in his space. There’s a bed in there and everything.”

Simon hesitated. On the one hand he didn’t know Kyle at all, and moving into the apartment of a total stranger seemed like a stupid move of epic proportions. Kyle could turn out to be a serial killer, despite his peace tattoos. On the other hand he didn’t know Kyle at all, which meant no one would come looking for him there. And what did it matter if Kyle did turn out to be a serial killer? he thought bitterly. It would turn out worse for Kyle than it would for him, just like it had for that mugger last night.

“You know,” he said, “I think I’ll take you up on that, if it’s okay.”