In many ways, autumn was vampire spring. The air started chilling, making the herds of Adam slow and clumsy. Night overtook day with each turn of the Earth. The world began to anticipate snow. Tabitha said human kids couldn’t appreciate it like they could. They had to bundle up till they could hardly move. The snowflakes melted on their skin.

As October drained away, Nick’s life weaved into the Lennox household. In their little corner of the Old Colony.

Every other day or so, Nicholas would make his way to the Sutherland house, crossing the ten miles with as little thought or care as a human child crossing the street. Danny’s wifi made the barbarian splendour a lot more tolerable. Sometimes the two of them made attempts to continue Nick’s vampire tests, or took turns teasing Danny’s future meals over the internet. Mostly, though, they played video games Danny had hacked and pumped up for vampiric reflexes; when they weren’t basking in their superiority over the human race in online multiplayer.

Nick hung upside down over the couch, Danny’s legs draped over his chest as they tried not to break their controllers. People all over the world were slandering them as overclockers and auto-aimers. Nick supposed they were overclocked, in a way.

“You shot me!” Danny yelled into his headset. “You team killing fucktard!”

Nick smiled. “Fucktard” sounded way ruder in Enochian. He wondered if humans could understand it over the internet.

“I’ll eat your children!”

It sounded better than when Danny threatened to eat their nuts, Nick had to say.

In digital as in analogue, the boys slaughtered the humans, screaming profanities in the language of angels. Danny dropped his controller in his lap once they were back in the lobby. “So,” he asked, “Liking the new moms?”

Nick growled low in his throat.

Danny growled back, bearing his teeth. “...Sorry,” he said after. “Didn’t mean to—”

Nick shook himself. “It’s alright. Aggie and Winona are great just… don’t call them that.”

“Okay.”

As they waited for the server to line them up more prey, Nick twitched his foot thoughtfully.

“...I think we might be best friends?” Nick quirked his shoulder. “Kinda hard to tell. Might be Ivan. But he’s like, thirty.”

“Huh,” Danny said, turning his attention to the screen as the match started. “Would be neat. Never had one of those before.”

“I thought it might be Tabby,” Nick said. He grinned proudly. “But she’s my girlfriend.”

“Oh. I’ve had those before.”

Damn, Nick thought admiringly. “Yeah. You’re my best friend. Just for that.”

Nick started showing Agatha the results of his experiments. The lady vampire thumbed carefully through the school workbook in her study as Nick craned forward in his seat, trying to gauge the woman’s expression.

“...I thought about writing it in code,” the boy blurted. “But I figured if a human found it they’d just think I was making a role playing game or something.”

“That’s fair thought,” Agatha said. She looked up at Nick. “You really cut off a finger?”

Nick smiled bashfully. “Just up to the knuckle.” He reached over and tapped a line in the book. “Only took a couple of hours to heal up. Ears are way faster. Cartilage, I think.”

“Lilith smiles on your inquisitiveness.”

Nick beamed.

Agatha and Winona also continued Nick’s religious education. He held their hands as they walked barefoot through the woods.

“What is the first lesson of Lilith?” Agatha asked.

There were five lessons of Lilith. They weren’t commandments, moral or otherwise. The Dark Mother didn’t share her Father’s insecurity. She didn’t fret over what was in her children’s heart. But like any good mother, she had some advice for them:

“Don't let the humans know about us, because we would scare them, and a happy cow is a tasty cow,” Nick recited confidently. The phrasing was his own. Scripture and learning by rote was for the Old Father’s slaves.

“It’s doubly relevant for vampires,” said Winona. “Our father was a shepherd. He raised animals to feed his family, for all they appreciated it.” She smiled. “Now me and Aggie herd his killer’s descendants.”

“I’d hardly call running some nightclubs ‘herding’ them, sister,” Agatha said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Free-range farming, dear,” replied Winona with a grin. “Like our Nicholas said, a happy cow is a tasty cow.”

Nick giggled.

“Indeed,” said Agatha. “Now Nick, there’s plenty of disagreement about the first lesson. The one downside of not having a ‘holy book’ I suppose.”

Winona continued, “Some lilim reckon it means we should have nothing to do with humans. No interacting or socializing with them, with obvious exceptions, no passing as them, and shunning all human works.”

“So running around naked in the forest,” Nick said.

“Exactly,” said Winona. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good time, but why limit yourself?”

“I’m guessing we’re talking about Simeon and his mom?” Nick asked.

Simeon came over to play a lot. Nick and Gren had made a game of putting on extra clothes when they caught his scent on the wind. Boy was like the anti-Danny. Although, Nick noticed, he did make a habit of milling in the doorway whenever someone was watching TV.

“My daughter and grandson are entitled to their way, just as we are to ours,” said Agatha. “Second lesson.”

“Humans fight all the time because they’re stupid,” Nick said. “We fight so we don’t get sloppy. Like when Gren and Zeke ambushed me and Tabby on the road.” Nick added, “Aside from them being massive tools sometimes, I mean.”

Agatha nodded. “Apt.”

Nick grinned up at her. “Is that why you and the Grey King are always fighting?”

Agatha reached around and flicked Nick hard behind the ear.

“Ow!”

“Third lesson.”

Agatha had read out this lesson to Nick and the others from A Lilithian Child’s Primer one dawn bedtime:

“As God commanded his slaves to be fruitful, so must the fruit be cleaned from the forest floor. Make sure there are enough of our kind to feast, and should a fruit show itself worthy of being a bird, give it its wings and free it from the Old Father’s yoke.”

Nick’s version was much less florid:

“Make loads of babies so we can keep the humans in their place, and if any of them turn out badass like moi, sign ‘em up.”

Winona frowned. “I wouldn’t say ‘loads’ of babies.”

“Quite right,” said Agatha. “We are not locusts. We create enough of our kind to stay above the flood of our cursed cousins, but not to exhaust them.”

“Basically,” said Winona, “babies are great, but it’d be awful if they didn’t get to enjoy the odd bit of long pork.”

Nick nodded. “I getcha.”

“Fourth lesson,” Agatha prompted.

“Don’t let anyone boss you around, so commandeth Lilith.”

Both women chuckled. Nick felt rather proud.

“Fifth lesson.”

“All rules are bullshit. Even these ones, probably,” Nick said. “I mean, that last lesson could just be part of the fourth one, for starters.”

“I think there’s a pretty big difference between taking orders and taking advice,” Winona mused. “But fair point.”

“I think you’ve been listening well, Nicholas,” said Agatha. “You shouldn’t have any problem with the Reclaiming.”

“Thanks.”

Nick burst out from between the sisters, wrapping his arms around Agatha’s neck and headbutting her in the face.

Agatha threw the boy hard to the ground. She tasted her own blood as pain radiated from her broken nose. She arched an eyebrow. “What was that for?”

Nick sing-songed, “Flicking my ear.”

Agatha’s lips were a thin line.

“You were right, sis,” said Winona. “He has been listening.”

⚸

For the third time in ten minutes, the Waxweilers’ doorbell sang “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here” in its shrill, metallic voice.

“I’ll field this one,” Mrs Waxweiler told her husband cheerfully, as though anyone else would be answering the door tonight.

Mr. Waxweiler grunted indifferently.

Mrs. Waxweiler opened the door to a mummy, a witch, a dimly familiar sci-fi warrior completely clad in dirty green armour, and a boy in an oversized leather jacket and silver half-skull mask. The quartet chorused:

“Trick or treat!”

Mrs Waxweiler beamed at the children. “Oh my!” She looked at the boy with the skull mask. “I didn’t know the Phantom of the Opera would be paying me a visit tonight!”

The boy frowned “The Terminator…”

“Pardon?”

“I’m the Terminator.”

Mrs Waxweiler threw her hands up in mock fear. “I’m sorry Terminator! Please don’t laser-gun me!”

“The Terminator doesn't have… yeah, laser-guns.”

“Got any candy, ma’am?” asked the mummy, voice muffled by the bandages covering his face.

“Sure do.”

Mrs Waxweiler dumped a handful of candy (and a little surprise) into each child's plastic pumpkin pail. “God bless you all.”

Mrs Waxweiler swore she saw the children flinch at the words.

“Yeah,” said the Terminator. “Thanks.”

Mrs Waxweiler watched the children walk down her footpath. She dipped her head. “Please Lord, if I can just reach one boy or girl…”

Once they were out of the old lady’s field of vision, the Lennox children began to inspect their latest acquisitions.

“Chocolates, gummy snakes… eep!” Gren pulled her hand out of her pail. Her veins were as black as her costume. “Bible-tract! Who has the pliers?”

“I do!” said Zeke, pulling a set from his own pail. He deftly extracted four small lotto-book shaped comics from each of the buckets. Their covers were mostly orange, with a demon in silhouette standing ominously behind two trick or treaters. The title read “Devil’s Night.”

Zeke flung the tracks into some bushes. Bible-tracts were the vampire version of needles in candy-bars, except real.

“So,” said Gren, “Treat”—she flashed a true witch’s grin—“or trick?”

Boba Fett tilted her head. Tabby’s voice was only slightly muffled when she said, “...That sounds really weird that way around,”

“Wouldn’t work in the right order,” countered Gren.

“Wasn’t that funny anyway.”

Gren wrinkled her nose. “It was meant to be threatening!”

Zeke shrugged his bandaged shoulders. “I say treat. She gave us candy, too.”

Tabby glared at him from behind her helmet visor. “She poisoned us!”

“Yeah,” said Nick, “But it’s all relative, isn’t it? My stepdad did the same thing without candy.” He grumbled, “Then he made me clean up the eggs and toilet paper…”

“Also, she didn’t give us toothbrushes,” added Zeke.

The children shared a nod at that. And thus, the Waxweiler household was spared. The four monsters strolled through a protean crowd of pretenders, weaving up and down strange new driveways in search of sweets. Werewolves, witches, and of course, vampires roamed the streets. The idea of dressing as a vampire made Nick giggle now. Well, actual monsters only made up about half the children scouring the Tremontaine suburbs. The rest were superheroes, Disney princesses, and Power Rangers from seasons so new, Nick dared not admit he recognised them. A few, unfortunately, were even dressed as vloggers. Nick had more respect for the Power Rangers, honestly.

The crisp autumn air was warmed with human heat and scents. Sweat mixed with latex. The overlapping voices of kids negotiating candy-swaps. Chaperones chatting. Small stomachs gurgling in anticipation. “The Monster Mash” echoing from a house-party. Hearts beating.

Tabby squeezed Nick’s hand. “You doing okay?”

The question didn’t surprise Nick. It was his first time around a lot of humans since his night out with Agatha, and she wasn’t here to root the universe in sternness.

“Yeah,” he replied, speaking honestly. One thing that had come as a surprise to Nick was how easy being around humans was. On TV, vampires acted like meth-heads in a drug lab around humans. They sweated and licked their lips and pulses pounded like drums in their ears. But it wasn’t like that for Nick. Humans smelled like food, yeah, but he wasn’t hungry right now.

As Halloween had approached and the family prepared their costumes, Nick had expected the moms to explain the secret meaning the holiday held for them. Some Lilithian heresy that ran alongside the human festival.

“There isn’t one,” Agatha had told him. “We had no part in the making of this day.”

Winona had been putting the final touches on her “Glinda the Good Witch” dress. “It’s just fun to eat sweets and dress up.” She rolled her eyes fondly. “Not everything has to be a ‘vampire thing’ sweetie. Besides, the clubs get big crowds this time of year.”

“Indeed,” Agatha had concurred, dabbing arsenic green makeup under her eyes.

Nick had tried to invite Danny along, but the Sutherlands were heading down to Lemuria to spend the holiday with Shadow and his… whatever the Grey King was to him. Simeon had balked at the idea:

“You mean National ‘Let’s Wear Clothes Day’?” He’d shuddered. “It’s a farming holiday, Nick.”

“Be careful,” Gren told Nick after. “He’ll be mooching for candy the day after, bet your life.”

It was stranger to be trick or treating at all than to be doing it as a vampire. The Minister had never allowed it. The year before, when he’d first started working for Ivan, Nick had brought a bag of Halloween candy and gorged himself just to spite him. It hadn’t been satisfying. Nick was pretty sure he was too old for it now, but Tabby had insisted:

“Come on! We can only get away with it like, ten more Halloweens, tops!”

The kids reached an intersection between two suburbs.

“Which way should we go?” asked Zeke.

The others all looked at Nick. He guessed it was because he’d been human the most recently.

“Hmm.” Nick glanced down each street. One had a lot of vaguely sinister lawn-signs. A couple of doors with Bible verses taped to them stung Nick’s eyes. “...That left one doesn’t look like they like brown people much.”

“Humans are weird,” Zeke opined.

“Yep,” said Nick. “Me and Gren are like, optimized white kids, so we’ll take that one. And the pliers.” He looked at Tabby. “You and Zeke alright to take the right one?”

They both nodded. The children split into duos, Nick and Gren taking their gleaming white skin down Racist Boulevard. It was the first time the two had been alone together for any length of time. They’d always been on opposite sides in games and play fights.

Gren made an instinctive grab for Nick’s hand. He, equally instinctively, slipped free a moment later. She didn’t seem to notice.

Things were awkward. They recited the trick-or-treat song and dance at each house, but otherwise, they were quiet.

Gren eventually broke the silence. “...Soooo, what’s being a drug dealer like?”

“Mostly boring,” Nick answered, “but sometimes really scary? Sometimes at the same time? Most of the time I was just leaving bags of powder for skinny dudes in sweaters with really thick beards.”

“You mean you weren’t in charge?” Gren asked, her shoulders slumping. “Tabby said you like, ran the thing. I thought you’d be making deals and stuff.”

Nick blushed. Tabby was bragging about him? “That was Ivan’s job. I tried to give him advice, but he barely listened. Once he traded some weed for old Dreamcast games.”

“...What’s a Dreamcast?” asked Gren.

“I don’t know. I think it’s like a shitty Xbox.”

“Oh,” Gren said. “Well, that’s dumb.”

“That’s Ivan,” Nick admitted. “I like him.”

“Dumb grown-ups can be fun. Especially when they don’t think they’re in charge…”

“Yeah,” Nick replied. “The ones who think they’re in charge suck most of the time. Like. My step-dad was—” He struggled for a second, then shrugged. “Well, he sucked. A lot.” Nick dearly wanted to change the subject. He went with the first thing that came to mind. “You were born human, right?”

“Yup,” Gren grinned. Then, putting even more emphasis on the drawl than normal, “Tar Heel State, born’n bred.”

“Oof. Bible country.”

“Yeah. Makes it hard to see my folks sometimes. Ma and Pa are atheist, though. Or… were atheist, I guess. Whatever you are when you know your first daughter is allergic to Bibles.”

“Sucks,” said Nick. “How old were you? How’d you get an invite?”

“I was six,” she shrugged. “‘Bout ten years ago.”

Nick felt a pang of jealousy. She got on the vampire train way before him.

“Holed up in a hospital up in Rayleigh. Lung cancer. Lung cancer! Parents didn’t smoke or nothin’! Zeke was on a vegan kick. Looking for food.”

“Vegan kick?”

“Yeah,” she snickered. “He’s like that. Gets picky about who he eats sometimes. Decides he’s gonna just drink folks who wanna die. Reckons it’s nicer that way. Seems kinda drama queen to me. Like, just take half if you care, they’re already in a hospital, they’ll be fine. We got talking. He asked me if I’d like to die.”

Nick doubted he should ask, but curiosity got the better of him, “What did you say?”

“... Dude. What?”

“Come on, we eat people and fuck corpses, is this really the rudest question I could’ve asked?”

“Okay. First up. The corpse part is gross. Second… I mean… I told him I wanted to be strong.”

“...Why do you think they picked us?” Nick asked. “I mean, Tabby and Zeke.”

Gren shrugged.

“Cuz they were bored,” she cast an eye sideways at him. “Look, trust me. They might be older than you, but they’re still kids, just like us. They don’t do this crap because they’ve got big plans for us. They do it cuz they’re bored and we sound fun. Well, that’s probably Tabby at least. Zeke’s a massive softie. Don’t waste time looking for a reason. All that matters is we’re just as big’n strong as them now. Everything’s our choice now. And there’s nothing they can do to pull that back.”

“I mean, you might be right,” said Nick. He grinned and puffed out his chest. “But like, we’re also both cute. That has to be a factor.”

Gren snorted and high-fived him. “Darn right we are!”

The return leg was much more cheerful, even if one house committed the ultimate sin:

The human walrus gravely dropped an apple and a tiny sparkly toothbrush each in Gren and Nick’s pales. His handlebar mustache bristled. “Be sure to brush and floss tonight, kids.” As an afterthought, he added, “Nice costumes.”

He shut the door in their faces. Gren and Nick shared a look. As one, they said:

“Trick.”

Gren screwed her eyes shut. Awareness pulsed out from under her feet. She felt the worms and bugs crawling and digging through the judgemental dentist’s front lawn. She found a beehive hidden in the rafters of his porch—thousands of tiny creatures sleeping suspended in negative space. Gren roused them…

A cloud of angry, groggy bees surged out, rising like an angry ghost into the air and down through the building’s chimney. Nick and Gren cackled together at the screams.

Gren was cool, Nick decided. He also medically needed to figure out a magic trick for himself.

They soon made their way back to where the two suburbs met. They’d beaten Tabby and Zeke. Gren didn’t seem too surprised:

“They’re distractible. Bet they get it from their dad.”

“Why’dya say that?” asked Nick.

“I mean, he lost, didn’t he?”

“True. Hey, been meaning to ask—who’s whose kid?”

Gren laughed. “What? You think they’ve told me?”

They waited for ten minutes.

“Okay,” said Nick, long since bored of cracking the pavement with his foot, “now we’re losing valuable candy time.”

“Agreed,” said Gren.

The two picked up the smell of the twins without issue, then followed their noses down the street. As they walked, distress filtered into their friends’ scents. The trail took them off the sidewalk into a nature strip. They heard low sniffling. Nick parted a bush with his hands. Tabby lay crying softly in the dirt. Her Boba Fett helmet was gone, revealing bright purple bruises around her eyes and a broken, bleeding nose. A familiar, battered kitten lay curled on her cracked plastic chestplate, a few scraps of mummy bandage clinging to his sooty fur.

“Tabby!” Nick pulled his friend up into his arms, sending Zeke tumbling to the ground where he was quickly scooped up by Gren. Nick’s blood burned inside his veins. His fang-roots ached. He wanted to find who did this and bring Tabby his head. “Who did this? Vampire hunters?”

“No,” said Tabby, sucking in a sob. “Teenagers.” She growled. “They ruined our costumes! And took our candy!”

Nick almost smiled. Of course Tabby wasn’t crying about pain.

“Anyone we know?” Gren asked, rocking Zeke like a baby.

“Yeah,” said Tabby. “Bartholomew Cairncross.”

“...Really?” said Nick. “That’s his name?”

A challenge had been set: hurt Bartholomew Cairncross more than his parents had.

⚸

Bart Cairncross watched the trick or treaters parade past the cracked window. He was frowning so hard, the spirit-gum struggled to keep the fake goatee adhered to his skin. His beret and khaki green fatigues were stained with drying blood.

“What’s eating you?” asked the adolescent werewolf sprawling on a beanbag. Like most of the Old Colony’s lycanthropes, Caleb was intensely blond and Scandinavian, though compared to a vampire, his skin was veritably bronzed. He was naked, with the exception of a ghost mask. He didn’t want to be a Halloween humbug, after all.

Bart jabbed a thumb at the window. “Look at those poor kids! Bunch of walking billboards for corporate IPs! It gets worse every year! Remember when kids dressed up as things that weren’t someone’s property?”

Caleb squinted, thinking back to when he and Bart had been small. “...I remember a lot of Ghostbusters? Also Freddy and Jason?” He cocked his head. “Were they even allowed to watch those?”

Bart shrugged balefully. “Capital doesn’t care if it warps a few kids. Just look at McDonalds.”

Caleb rolled his eyes and threw some of Ezekiel Lennox’s candy into his mouth, washing it down with a guava cruiser. The humans’ spoiled grain juice didn’t do much to intoxicate the children of Lilith, but sometimes it tasted fruity.

Bart had thrown himself completely into his rant, “You ever wonder why human kids hit puberty so soon? It’s all the hormones they shove in everything!”

A young vampiress dressed as Batwoman strolled into the mouldering sitting room, her dyed red hair making her look like a ghost set aflame. “Citation needed.”

Caleb, Bart, and Sally had been friends since they were single digits. The derelict house they were squatting in had been a crack den for some years, then a buffet for a few minutes, and currently was the staging ground for a series of daring robberies: depriving kids of their sweets and teens of their booze. So far, the trio reckoned they were doing pretty well. No human fatalities; not even any broken wrists or sudden, violent anemia. Back when they were much smaller, their first attempt at such larceny had led to a Satanism scare in the state. Halloween had nearly been cancelled the next year. The Lennox Sisters had thrashed them silly in front of half the Colony.

Oh well. They’d knocked their brats down a peg tonight.

There was a knock on the side door. The three teens sniffed the air and craned their ears. There were subtle movements, but no breath.

“Vampire,” said Sally.

Caleb rose. “I’ll answer.”

He opened the door to find a little witch with dark red curls glaring up at him. Caleb flashed her a crooked smirk. “Howdy, Gwen.”

The girl grit her teeth. “It’s Gren.”

“Is it?”

Gren was the Lennox Sisters’ fosterling. Not nearly as tough as their son or daughter, but still something of a queen bee among the smaller local lilim. Fond of letting animals do her work for her.

“You beat up my sister,” Gren said, “and my Zeke.”

Caleb quirked his shoulder. “Can’t deny it, can I?”

“I wanna fight your boss,” she said. “One on one.”

Caleb frowned. “Bart ain’t our boss.”

Gren smiled acidly. “Hey, I didn’t say Bart was your boss.”

Caleb called back over his shoulder, “Bart! The adopted princess wants to duel ya!”

Sally and Bart appeared behind Caleb.

“If I win,” Gren said. “We take all the candy.”

Who does this pipsqueak think she is? Bart thought. Dictating them terms. Entitled little shit. The Lennoxes were a one-family bourgeoisie.

“Why should I?” Bart asked. “You going to whine to your mothers?”

Gren arched an eyebrow. “What? You can’t take a little girl?”

Caleb and Sally both “oohed.”

Caleb slapped Bart on the shoulder. “She’s got a point, buddy.”

“Come on,” jeered Sally. “It’ll be fun!”

Bart raised a hand. “Fine.” His eyes flitted down at Gren. “Backyard. Now.”

Gren nodded, eyes closed. “Fine by me.”

The teens led the child through the sitting room and ruined, stained kitchen, out into the redneck splendor of the backyard. Weeds grew patiently up through cracks in the back porch. The chassis of an old truck lay stripped and rusting in the long, dead grass like an elephant’s skeleton. It dimly reminded Gren of her hometown. She and Bart stood five paces apart from each other, the latter with his back to Caleb and Sally on the porch, the former in front of the rotting back fence. Gren stripped out of her costume and boots. She wasn’t winding up like Boba Fett and the Mummy. “You going to take all that off?” she asked Bart.

The teen smirked. “Don’t have to,” her said, planting his feet in the grass. In a bad Spanish accent, he shouted, “I will be like Che!”

“Wait a sec,” said Sally. She put an ancient boombox on the battered patio table and stuck a tape in. “So the humans don’t hear.”

A few seconds of static, and then Bobby Picket sung out:

“I was working in the lab, late one night,

When my eyes beheld, an eerie sight…”

“Okay,” said Sally. “Now kick her ass.”

Gren grinned savagely. “Bring it!”

Despite her invitation, it was Gren who made the first move, running and screaming at Bart. She fell into a skid, trying to get under his legs. Bart grabbed a handful of her hair and swung the girl around him like a hammer-thrower. He let go, sending her sailing towards the small shed in the corner of the yard. It collapsed around her like a deflating bouncy castle. As the dust and metal settled, Gren threw a sheet of corrugated iron off herself and got back to her feet. “That the best you got, asshole?”

Sally and Caleb pumped their fists in the air, shouting as one. “Fight! Fight!”

Bart snorted, flame spouting from his nostrils. He lunged for the girl.

Beneath the fighters’ feet, a small kitten sat atop two very frustrated rabbits, listening intently to the sounds and vibrations filtering down into the warren.

“From my laboratory in the castle east,

To the master bedroom where the vampires feast,

The ghouls all came from their humble abodes

To get a jolt from my electrodes,”

The cat silently mused that actual monsters could be shockingly lame.

Bartholomew Cairncross had an army boot planted on Gren’s chest. She had a lot of new bruises, but there was still fire in her eyes.

“You ready to surrender, gusano?”

In answer, Gren thumped the ground beside her twice with her fist.

The ground exploded behind Bart, sending grass and soil flying. Two small arms wrapped around his knees and yanked him thigh deep into the warren below. Now he was of a height to Gren. And his legs were stuck.

“Fuck.”

Gren started hitting Bart in the face with both hands, knocking his head from side to side. Two pale hands bloomed like flowers of skin and bone from the earth beside him. A vampire boy he didn’t recognize clawed and dug his way out of the soil like a cicada. He glared at Bart.

“This is what you get for messing with my girlfriend!”

Bart spat fire at the boy.

Nick screamed and clutched his hand over the left half of his face. He felt the skin fuse to his palm. A large, brown-furred wolf clamped its jaws around Gren’s right arm, almost ripping it out of its socket. Sally grabbed the other with a huge grin. She laughed. “You fucking cheater!”

Fuck, Nick thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck—

Bobby Picket’s voice slurred and slowed into a sustained, buzzing note in Nick’s ears, before everything went utterly silent. Gren, Caleb, Sally and Bart were all frozen in place. It looked like a surreal yet hyper realistic painting: a naked child being presented before a half buried communist. It looked faintly fascist. Nick cocked his head and wrenched himself fully out of the dirt, stepping between Bart and the others to examine the scene.

The sound came rushing back. Everyone started moving again.

“Out from the coffin', Drac's voice did ring,

Seems he was troubled by just one thing,

He opened the lid and shook his fist and said,

‘Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?’”

Sally startled. “What the fuck?” The intruder had just blinked from one spot to the other. Her grip faltered enough for Gren to slip her arm free, sacrificing some skin off the other to escape Caleb’s jaws.

Gren joined Nick’s side. “Nice, man,” she said. “Did ya teleport or somethin’?”

“I—I don’t know!”

Caleb lunged for Nick, jaws snapping. He crossed the distance too fast for Nick to block, but he still instinctively raised his arms—

The sound fell away again. The wolf hung suspended in front of Nick, jewels of spittle fixed in the air, his mouth a pink, wet cave of sharp teeth. Nick blinked and poked one of the spit-globs. It went sailing in the opposite direction before coming to a stop again. Nick grinned.

Caleb found himself slamming against the side-fence. He reverted to human shape as he hit the ground. “Jesus Christ! This kid’s faster than the Shadow!”

Sally growled. “Still a pipsqueak.”

Caleb and Sally advanced on the two children, one on each side. Nick screwed his eyes shut gleefully. Silence. When he opened them again, Sally had Gren by the neck—

Sally screamed as cold blood spurted from the stump of her hand. Caleb’s leg had bent and snapped under him

Gren threw her hands in the air. “Heck yeah!”

Behind the two, Bart Cairncross was digging himself out of the ground. His body was bulging and morphed, mass flowing into him from the same cataract of matter that had fueled creation. His face elongated, new, sharper teeth erupting from his gums and lips. The Che Guevara costume ripped apart, revealing bright red scales. A dragon. Bart had become a dragon—the size of a large pickup truck. He reared back and spread leather sail wings, blasting a mouthful of fire into the air.

Nick looked at Gren. “You didn’t say he was a frickin’ dragon!”

“You didn’t ask! Did you tell your friends in advance if someone was black or whatever?”

That was a dumb question. Nick hadn’t had any friends. He stammered and flailed his arms at Bart. “Dragon!”

Bart let out a bellowing, reptilian howl, well and truly drowning out Bobby Picket’s outro. He charged at Nick on all fours. The boy tried squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to hold the world still: nothing. Something inside him felt empty.

Crap.

Bart beat his wings, his hindlegs grabbing Nick by the shoulders as he climbed into the air. Nick yelped as the claws dug into his flesh. The pair rose higher and higher into the night, Nick kicking and twisting all the while. The streets below became bright sodium rivers. Nick’s eyes could make out people pointing up at them. He thumped his hand against Bart’s scaly leg:

“Statute of Secrecy, assehole!”

The dragon let out a low, almost metallic rumble. It sounded like laughter—

Bart let go of Nick. He plummeted, wind battering his skin and hair, yelling at the top of his breath. It wasn’t quite screaming. He wasn’t afraid. It was more like going down a water-slide in a foul mood. Like if some asshole had pushed him down…

A clay tiled roof rushed up to meet Nick. It quickly became clear he wasn’t going to land in the house’s pool. Winona wouldn’t be catching Nick this time. He put his arms over his face. Please be empty. Please be empty—

Nick crashed down through tile and insulation. He heard screams and gasps as he smacked face first into something somehow both soft and very hard. He heard a half-decent Boris Karloff impression:

“Now everything's cool, Drac's a part of the band,

And my Monster Mash is the hit of the land…”

Nick groaned as he stood up, less at the pain as much as the song and what he knew he’d fallen into. A disco-ball lay shattered in the carpet at his feet. He was surrounded by dozens of costumed teens and marginal grown-ups. A bunch of them had phones out. Nick could almost feel their cameras going off. A kind, confused soul dressed as some sort of blacksploitation Frankenstein asked, “Jesus, kid. You alright?”

“Uh…”

The music stopped. The party became a photograph of itself.

Great. Now it works.

Nick had just crashed through the ceiling and gotten right up. He was naked. Covered in plaster dust. Half his face was burnt off. There were definitely photos of him. The Moms would be pissed. What to do, what to do? Nick’s first idea was to kill everyone in the room and smash their phones. Nah. That’d probably be more of a scene. And Blackenstein had asked if he was okay. Besides, someone had probably already posted a photo somewhere. Then Nick remembered Ivan telling him stories about a video game company paying idiots to name their kids after their games, or pay off their tickets if they were caught speeding to the store to buy them. He also remembered what he’d come dressed as…

Nick let the world start again. He put on his best Austrian accent:

“If you want to live”—out of order, but whatever—“come see Terminator…” Nick’s mind raced for a subtitle. “...Absolution, in cinemas soon!”

It was better than nothing. Nick ran through the party-goers, shoving them aside like they were hollow statues. He knocked down the house’s front door and fled down the street. Kids and adults alike pointed and shouted as he streaked past. Nick found himself grinning. “Whoo!”

Tabby and Zeke sat in the back of the black corvette their mothers had sent them in. The candy they’d liberated from Bart and his goons’ hideout while they were busy with Gren and Nick lay in piles at their feet and on the seats. They’d left some of the candy corn. Just to rub it in. Zeke was counting the pieces:

“Two thousand, one hundred and ninety-six, two thousand, one hundred and ninety-seven…”

The siblings’ heard Nick’s voice, rapidly approaching, “Pull down the window!”

Tabby pressed the button. The window slid down just in time for Nick to leap in sideways with Dukes of Hazzard grace, landing sprawled across Zeke and Tabby laps. He smiled up at the girl. “Hi.”

Tabby waved. “Hi.”

Not a minute later, a white kitten scrambled inside the car. It shifted into Gren at the other children’s feet.

“Drive Clives! Drive!”

Clives sighed in the driver’s seat. “Yes, Miss Gibbs.” He was glad the sisters were paying him triple tonight.

As Clive drove—stringently obeying every possible traffic law—the kids oriented themselves into roughly one seat each.

“Nick has a blood gift!” Gren declared. “Don’t know what it is, but it’s awesome!”

Nick grinned proudly. “I stop time.” A dozen and a half questions suddenly occurred to him. “Wait, if I stop time, how can I see anything?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” asked Zeke.

“Because light isn’t hitting my eyes! And how can I move anything? Am I moving faster than light? If I’m just moving really fast, where am I getting the energy from? How can I touch things without them blowing up? Why isn’t the light all red and blue? How is anything anything?” Nick grabbed the sides of his heads and groaned. Being a vampire was confusing.

Tabby chuckled. Nick looked up at her. “What’s so funny.”

“Nick of time…”

Nick glowered, shaking his head in disgust. “Puns?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, sure. I can freeze time itself, commanding more energy than exists in the entire universe, but that’s a good pun, Tabby!”

“Glad you agree.”

⚸

Winona and Agatha Lennox stepped inside their front door, their good and wicked witch costumes slightly ruffled after a night at Winona’s club. Agatha’s makeup was smudged and half a shade darker than when she had first applied it.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” asked Winona, throwing her purse on the small couch by the door that nobody ever sat in.

“It was… alright,” Agatha said.

Winona smiled. “I’ll take it.”

For her part, Winona had very much enjoyed herself. Her phone was loaded with new numbers. A year’s worth of potential food. Or company, or both.

The sisters heard the corvette pulling in. “I see the children have returned,” said Agatha.

Nick ran into the vestibule, colliding with Winona and wrapping his arms around the most conveniently huggable part of her.

“IcanstoptimeandadragonbeatupTabbysowestoleallhiscandy…” Nick tried to keep speaking, but nothing came out. He’d literally run out of breath.

“Breathe, Nicholas, breathe.”

Nick sucked in some air. “I can stop time!” he repeated. “Watch!”

Nick vanished. When Agatha blinked, he was standing halfway out the door.

“...That was supposed to be cooler. I was going to be in front of you again and have like, arms full of candy and—nevermind. ”

Winona clapped. “It’s still impressive.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Which is why Bart still beat me.”

Agatha nodded. “It is still impressive. And it seems to me that you got what you wanted. That’s worth a few bruises”—she sniffed—“and burns. But promise me you’ll practice this, Nicholas. ‘Impressive’ moulders fast if you rest on your laurels.”

Nick snorted. “Sure, Mom—” The word caught in Nick’s mouth. For a moment, he just stood there. Agatha braced herself for what she knew was coming.

Nick’s shoulders jerked with the first, barely contained sob. His lip wobbled.

“Oh, Nick, honey…” said Winona.

Agatha stepped forward and hugged the boy, patting him on the back.

“Mommy…”

“Let it all out, Nick.”

Tabby and Gren reached the door, each burdened with candy pails. They saw Nick bawling against Agatha.

“What’s he crying about?” Tabby asked.

Gren didn’t need to ask.