Sean Robin Hughes

This follows An Old Memory in the Met and An Old Memory in the Met, Part II

---

Milos stood at the suite entrance. The 1600 on the door stared at him insultingly, daring him to knock.

Of course the witch knew. One moment, he was hating himself for lacking the courage to knock, and the next he standing on a coffee table, surrounded by the very people he had asked to meet and talk about this whole lark.

Everyone lightly clapped from the couches at his appearance. Liz announced with the flair of a ring leader, “On display, I have a study in Neurotic Vampirism, titled “Greek Sucker”. Artist unknown, date circa 600 B.C.”

“It has been revised to BCE, Before Common Era, Liz.” Al grinned, although his bushy beard hid most of it.

“Really? Modernity… What a ruse.” Liz scoffed. “Welcome to the party, Milos. Now can you get the fuck off the table?”

Milos remained in place. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. The agoraphobia was so severe, he could nearly taste it. Like a metallic tang, a zing of sucking on a house key… and if he could sweat, there would be buckets of it streaming down his body. The pressure to count all the right angles in the room assailed him like hurricane force winds.

“Liz?” Shirin prompted. “You know he can’t.”

“Oh fine. Ruin all my fun,” Liz stood from the couch and put out a hand, her voice shifting from a pout to sarcasm. “Milos, you are cordially invited to GET THE FUCK OF THE TABLE… and enter my residence.”

Relief washed over Milos and as if had not been on the verge of imploding from the trauma, he lightly stepped to the carpeted floor with a grim smile. “That. was. mean.”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am a big meanie. It was only a simple translocation from the hallway. Payback, remember?”

Shirin stood from her position on the couch, and Milos finally realized he was seeing the real Ifrit, and not a host being worn like a new outfit. She grinned, “Come give me a hug, love.”

“It has been a long time since I have seen you be you, Shirin.” Milos smiled in return, his eye teeth glinting lightly behind his upper lip.

“Liz was gracious enough to provide a domain for me.”

Milos glanced around the room, looking for something obvious. Ifrit were plane-bound demons, so they required a focal point for their binding. They had many names in many cultural traditions, such as Ifrit, Imp, Oni, Dybbuk, or Jinn. And like the proverbial genie from the stories, the binding object, aka the Lamp, was a cruel punishment. Their kind were forbidden to touch their own binding object, their domain, and if they attempted to, they would be unbound entirely. So the Ifrit needed their domain to survive, but could not move it or change the location without intervention from someone else. Being unbound was a heavy cost for trying to move your own home… a human would call it death, but it was worse than death. There is no soul to move onwards from an Ifrit, as they are entirely composed of soul. Being unbound is releasing the energies that make them back to the cosmos, shattering them into a billions stray strings, a confetti of myriad energies never to recoalesce into their former selves. Human souls had that choice, out of many, at the Gates. Ifrit and other demons had no choice beyond either survival or oblivion.

“Must be a good one,” Milos said. “Hopefully it came without any fine print.”

Shirin shrugged, one of her fiery eyes winking admittedly. “Let’s me be myself and the cost was minor. Liz did me a favor.”

“Yay me,” Liz clapped once with impatience. “The Met.”

“The Met,” Milos agreed.

“It’s under the Accords,” Al grumbled. “Fucking Accords.”

“I know. I have that covered.” Milos said.

“Its neutral ground and it is consecrated, Milos,” Al continued unphased. “Honestly, I am shocked your feet don’t burn when you tread the halls.”

“I… assure you, I have it covered.” Milos said emphatically.

“Come on Milos. You have to give us something, or we are not going to be in on this, no matter what we stand to get out of it.” Shirin smiled kindly. “I don’t want to speak for Al, but we have to hear the details. Completely. Before we agree to any madness. Going against the Accords…”

“Since I had my realization, I have performed the… ah… due diligence before reaching out to each of you.” Milos said.

“When did you have ‘your’ realization?” Al asked, his hands mimicking air quotes on either side of his head. Notably, his overly long fingers were much more pronounced when producing said air quotes.

“Eighteen months ago… the day that I knew I was going to take what was mine. And it was eighteen months ago when I immediately realized I was going to need help. And until yesterday, I knew that was going to be the hardest part,” Milos waved at the room.

“Thanks. I had NO idea apologizing was that hard for you, Milos,” Liz sardonically raised one of her thinly shaped eyebrows. “Shocking, I tell you.”

“The Met was founded in 1870, but it was moved in 1880 to its current location,” Milos lead in, ignoring Liz. “Where it was erected, and most of the original structure has been covered, hidden, or replaced with expansions since. But the very original building was designed by two architects, one named Jacob Mould and another named Calvert Vaux.”

“So two privileged white blokes designed the building. Big deal.” Liz waved it away. “All the buildings in New York were designed by the same.”

“Calvert Vaux carried debts, and he happened to be the gentleman that designed orphanages, missions, and… Central Park.” Milos let the statement hang in the air for a moment.

Al was the first to make the connection. “He was the one that had been indebted to the Fair Folk, wasn’t hs? I remember that story… it is the reason Central Park even exists… the eldest daughter of Queen Méabh, what was her name?”

Liz lifted two fingers and blew a raspberry. “Fucking Cainnear Dearg. Sacrificed on a spear, but the cunt lived and I believe is living it up on Martha’s fucking Vineyard. How she managed to name it after her own fucking mother without anyone realizing… absolute bollix on that one.”

Milos continued, “This Vaux thought he was clever, wily enough to trick the ones that invented trickery itself. Vaux had a hand in the drafting of the Accords and ultimately paid the last of his owed debts through his drowning at Gravesend. But before that he gave them the green places, the hallowed places of power. Then he gave them children. Then he gave them the lost and the forgotten. And while he was drafting the Accords on their behalf…”

“He blocked them from human sacred spaces, all because of Hallowed Ground,” Al finished, eyes wide. “Wow.”

“Exactly. He takes that and he designs the Met to be be wholly Consecrated. And I am fairly certain that final stubborn act is the reason that he and his descendants paid as they did. The Fair Folk knew Vaux had tricked them. The Sidhe, indeed. Withdrawn from the world, not through their choice, but by men like Vaux. And that my friends, that is why the drowned him. Insults”

Liz rolled her eyes and scoffed loudly. “My god, you fucks. I am still human! Let’s avoid playing the monsters-were-the-humans-all-along card. Its trite and plainly reductive, if not outright offensive. This world has always been about survival of the fucking fittest, and it will always be about that. The great God above, the fucking petty tyrant, made it that way from the start. That is why folks like me are here. Folks like Shirin are here. Folks like Alkiwenzii are here. And if I must remind you, Nightwalker, that is why you are here. Red in tooth and claw.”

“Fine, I won’t pick at it, but the Met is not only consecrated ground due to the Accords, it is sacred ground because it was designed to be.” Milos frowned. “He put the protections in to create a building that could hoard the very thing that the Fair Folk desired. Right in plain sight. Right there.”

“Oh fuck. That’s why you need me, finally, you get to the point.” Liz laughed. “You want me to break the sigils.”

“Not break… flex them gently.”

“Come again?” Liz stopped dead.

“You break the sigils, and every single troublesome thing will descend on Fifth Avenue, and we will have bigger problems on our hands. Including the enforcers of the signatories on the Accords. The Met is tied up in the leylines like a Gordian Knot. It is connected. Deep and wide. Vaux really stuck it to his debtors.”

Al smirked maniacally. “Worth it. New York would turn into a battlefield and I would eat like a king.”

Shirin frowned, “And the Accords would have to be maintained. That means an Act. Millions, Al, that means millions of dead.”

“Alright, so I would eat better than a king.”

“Including you,” Shirin added. “You know that.”

Al lifted his lip and snorted. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Flexing the Sigils… I could inflect, no, subversion,” Liz whispered, talking to herself more than anyone in the room. “I could create a bind. And double the existing ones up? Could temporarily invert them…”

Shirin hugged herself, leaning back against the cushions deep in her own thoughts. Liz finally looked up and admitted, “I need to study this more.”

“I know. But you are the best.” Milos said.

“Don’t butter me up, I am in. This is… new.” Liz smiled so wide her cheeks nearly touched her ears. “Something fucking new! Alright. Milos. Fucking hell. Got me all revved up, you Greek cunt, this is better than sex.”

Al flexed his fingers, his fingernails looking more like talons than they usually did. “So we assume that Liz figures that out. Where does Shirin and I fit in?”

“The Met has multiple protections, Al. Liz would handle the Sigils, but we need to handle the more, ah, human protections. They have multiple layers of security systems, with a staff that monitors and manages the cameras, key fobs, and the sensors. Some of the team is onsite… and some is handled by a third party security company. Shirin obviously can handle the systems and body hop as needed. I bet she can shift through the staff in a matter of minutes without causing any harm. But-“

“But we need an accident to take out the connections to the outside,” Al finished.

“Exactly. Getting in is nearly trivial? But the outside connections are handled by, um, others.” Milos frowned.

Liz’s eyes brightened. “Oh. Oh! My god, this is like Christmas. The third party security company… it’s ran by the Family.”

Al did a doubletake between Liz and Milos. His eyes going wider by the millisecond. “No.”

Milos remained silent. He splayed his hands in demure admission.

Liz laughed raucously. “Ond o’s ffycin ots!? I mean I am already fucking with Sigils, why not go against your ffycin Family! As our chances of success plummet to near zero, we say fuck yeah and stick two fingers in the Vampire Family’s eyes.”

“Your brethren, Milos. If they find out its you, they will rebuke you. Milos. Ferals don’t survive long in this world, months at best,” Shirin said, uncertainty flooding her voice. “Are you sure?”

“And this is why we have Al,” Milos waved grandiosely. “What are Wendigos great at?”

“Eating.” Shirin and Liz replied in unison.

“Besides that.” Milos shook his head lightly.

Al leaned back, his brow furrowed in thought. “We are skinwalkers. And when we doppel, nothing can perceive the change. In our shifted state, my kind are absences to the senses, doubly so for folks that can see more or sense more. Since Vampires can observe more than most…”

“You can go among them and they would never know.” Shirin took the turn to finish. “I can hop, but the Vampires would see me. You can intervene and they wouldn’t understand… because they can’t. You would be invisible.”

“Among the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” Milos finished.

“Fucking brilliant,” Liz grinned. “This is a lot of ifs, Milos. If I find a way around the Sigils, if Shear can find everything she needs, if Al can walk amongst the Family and turn off the Met, and if… if… well, shit, what are you doing during all of this?”

Milos put his hands on his head and sighed with a smile on his face. “What else would I be doing? I will be robbing the ever living fuck out of the Met.”

This follows An Old Memory in the Met.

---

Milos was having a panic attack. He knew why, but having the knowledge didn’t make the experience any better.

Every permutation of a “monster” has its own unique vulnerabilities. Most people know them… or tangentially, a kernel of the truth that may or may not be a mere component of the actual weakness. Take for example silver bullets and werewolves. Do silver bullets kill werewolves? Not any better or worse than lead-based bullets. Killing a living thing is trivial with most guns. Aim for the center of mass, pull the trigger, and usually, the thing that is shot will die. Werewolves are no different. The problem is in hitting the center of mass, which on most werewolves moving at speed, is immensely difficult. Make your bullets out of gold or uranium or tungsten, it doesn’t matter. With a werewolf moving at full clip, you could have a machine gun that laid out a continuous stream of hot molten death made from the condensed rage of the old gods and you would still lose.

Probably.

Some of have gotten lucky shots. Some of those lucky shots have been with silver bullets. And that is how a legend starts. Although a werewolf typically reverts back to the human form with the last gasps of life, and then you just have an unusual murder scene that involved a silver bullet. But still…

Vampires are no different.

Holy water? Only by drowning in it, as vampires need to breathe eventually, like whales surfacing in the ocean. Crosses? Maybe if the method of death is actually crucifixion, because, you guessed it, vampires still need to breathe. Besides… vampires predate Christianity, so any of those religion-based tropes in pop culture are absolute bullshit.

Garlic? That one applies, but for different reasons. Garlic and other Alliums, such as onions, shallots, leeks, and chives are all repellant to vampires because of the underlying sulfuric compounds that are responsible for the sharp flavors humans love to have in their cooking. Alliums for vampires is akin to rotting flesh for humans. One could say the smells are vile, repugnant, and just plain… gross.

A real vulnerability for vampires, and the cause Milos’s panic attack was the need for an invitation. It is absolutely true that invitations are required for a vampire to enter a building, but again, for different reasons than one might expect.

All vampires suffer from a very specific set of obsessive-compulsive behaviors. The very condition that infiltrates their bodies giving them speed, strength, immortality, and the physiological need to consume blood, also changes their body chemistry in strange ways. Through the viral propagation in their blood, the virus heavily affects their brain structures over time. It causes specific and repeatable symptoms in every vampire, and the primary one is OCD-driven arithmetic. Obsessive counting in the form of arithmomania, a compulsion forcing a vampire having to count, well… everything and anything. Most vampires develop coping mechanisms for this, including using advanced math and forecasting skills to bypass the worst of the mania.

Surprise! Some of the world’s best math nerds are actually vampires.

The problem is that the arithmomania can be triggered by the secondary symptom all vampires suffer, Agoraphobia. If a vampire tries to enter a space, and they do not have a host to invite them in to make them feel safe, the arithmomania is triggered, and then they are on their knees counting every thread in the carpet until the sun comes up and they die. Old vampires are old because they learned early on that the social anxiety is worse than death.

Now you probably understand why coffins are a common place for vampires to take refuge. It is the ultimate safe space, as other people can’t usually fit.

Milos did not have a coffin. He had a New York loft, which was close enough to a coffin to be comfortable. Four hundred square feet of luxurious self appointed isolated comfort that he was currently pacing frenetically, wall, floor, other wall, ceiling, back to the first wall, on towards the floor once again. As he paced the three dimensions of his space, he pulled out his phone, stared at it for a half a second, huffing as he returned it to his pocket. He performed the ritual seven times.  Pull, stare, huff, pocket. Pull, stare, huff, pocket.

Finally, he stopped pacing, dead still on the ceiling, as immobile as a statue in a graveyard, and called the only person that he could think of that would be willing to help rob the Met.

“Hello?” A very husky sounding man answered the call.

Milos held his breath. Which he could do for days. And that was probably not conducive to having a telephone conversation.

“Hey Shirin.”

“Ah, Milos. My favorite neckbiter.” A smile on the other end.

“Who are you in right now?” Milos asked.

“Some overweight beast of a truck driver. Sounds like he smoked a carton a day, huh?”

“You can pick them, Shirin.”

“This one is NOT my fault. He happened to be in… uh, the area.”

“What happened to your last host? You trip them down a ravine?” Milos teased.

“You try to do what I do, bloodsucker, and let me know how it goes.”

“I rather just be me.”

“A neurotic, insecure, and lonely immortal?” Shirin laughed. In the husky voice, it sounded like an engine revving. “I rather do it my way, thank you very much. Now. You called me, Milos.”

“I did. I mean, I am. Yes. I need your help.” Milos rushed. “I want to setup a robbery.”

“You are a goddamn vampire, Milos. Just rip the windows off and take what you want.”

“I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, someone is always in there.”

“Ah, the invitation. Clever little monster you are. You still living in the same place?”

“Yes. Please find someone attractive before you come over. I prefer blondes.”

“Milos, dear, I prefer anything that is not a walking hamsteak. See you in a few hours?”

“Please.”

Shirin did not hang up. Neither did Milos. This is why he called her first.

“Who else are you going to call, love? I can hear it in your voice,” The truck driver’s voice softened to nearly a female undertone, as if Shirin’s real voice was peeking through. “You are worked up. I can practically smell the anxiety from here.”

“Al. Maybe Liz.”

“Al makes sense. I think Liz may still want to kill you, so maybe you shouldn’t call her. How do you even have her number?”

“Al, I think. Is she still angry with me? It was over a hundred years ago! I thought she would be over it.”

“Roll the dice, I suppose. Some folks can carry grudges better than others. See you soon.” Shirin hung up.

Milos reviewed his contact list. He grumbled under his breath, “There is no way around it. I need a fourth.”

He located the number for Elizabeth. His finger hovered over the call button, and he quickly swiped to the right and selected text instead.

Milos texted, ‘136y4m12d?’ Hit send, and sighed again.

His phone dinged nearly immediately. ‘milos you cunt’

‘still mad?’ Milos texted back.

‘no, 136y4mTHIRTEEN days. 28y of that in a pit and that makes you the cunt’

‘need help, open to it?’

‘unless you are in wales, i cant (cunt)’

‘in new york (not a cunt)’ Miles replied.

‘curious. what help? (yes you are a cunt)’

‘rob the met (a bit of a cunt)’

There was no immediate response. No little three dots showing typing on the other end. The message itself had been read, and it sat there taunting him like he admitted guilt to already committing the act. Milos stood there (hanging from the ceiling) for an hour, and the indicators on the thread did not update. He fretted. He ruminated. He spiraled.

Milos thought through the events in London nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. There was that doctor that fancied himself a monster hunter, and that strange fellow with the limp… what his name? Jenkins? Janken? Something Finnish or Swedish… and that sanctimonious double faced priest that liked to cut up prostitutes. His name was easy to remember because the papers had labeled him Jack the Ripper. His real name was William, and the entire lark was an easy bit of karmic retribution for Milos. Serial killers tasted the same as anyone else, so not like there was an extra benefit, but occasionally the strongest in the herd needed to be culled as much as the weakest.

And after all that convoluted mess, Elizabeth had been locked up in the darkest parts of Newgate prison. Her captors knew what they caught, but the law didn’t, so she was released. Eventually. No worse for wear beyond the few dimly lit decades in the pit. England had stopped burning witches a long time prior, thank goodness.

To be fair, it had been a good plan with a bad outcome. Liz had been caught, daylight was coming, and Milos had to get to ground. The only choice was to run. There shouldn’t be much ill will. If any. Milos was basically innocent in the entire debacle. I mean, she was the one to get caught… she had a hundred ways to avoid it, and she had failed. It was on her.

Wasn’t it?

Milos wrote a hundred variations of the same text apologizing more grandly and deleted each one in frustration. He sighed heavily and called Al instead. Al answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” A grizzled and weary voice on the other end.

“How much for a silver bullet?” Milos asked in a silly voice.

“Shoot one at me and I will let you know after I cash it in,” the voice lightened considerably. “Hey Milos.”

“Where are you hiding these days, old man?”

“Still in Chelsea. Still working at the 24th Art Collective.”

“Do they let shapeshifters into art collectives?”

“Do they let vampires into blood banks?” Al shot back with a snort.

“Getting into one is easy. Getting out is little more problematic,” Milos laughed.

“I haven’t had the hunger for a while. They think I am a recovering addict.”

“Well, that makes sense. You are.”

“Like you are addicted to blood or a human is addicted to food. Its not addiction, its survival.”

“Well thankfully blood is easy to come by these days. I wish I had the internet two hundred years ago.”

“And I wish I had decent wifi, we all have our things. What brings your fine voice to my old ears?”

“I am putting together a… well… I found Areti again.”

“Areti?!”

Milos had a flashback to seeing her art on the wall, the shocking realization that his memory of the sun wasn’t his own, but the memory of her. Areti had been his sun. The light. The sparkling caught in the cresting wave. “I was shocked to discover today that they have her works hanging in the Met.”

“No shit. Wow. Small world, huh?”

“And I am going to steal them.”

“Ah,” Al sniffed like he was a dog, a staccato rhythm. “You want some help, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“I still owe you, so… whatever you need, Milos.”

“Text you the details later? Shirin and I need to talk it through.”

“Shirin? Wow. Getting the gang back together, huh? You didn’t call Liz, did you? She wants to kill you.”

“Thankfully her rage did not come through the texts,” Milos replied haughtily.

“You didn’t…” Al’s voice trailed off.

Milos felt the prior realization flood his voice. “I know this will take a fourth. I need an in with Shirin, I need a watcher like you… and I need a cleaner. Just because we are what we are doesn’t mean we can just do whatever we want. We have to follow the fucking rules, Al.”

“I know, I know. Last thing you want is someone like Samson on your shit, because some fucking treaty was violated.” Al whistled through his teeth. “I heard she took down an Angel out in Los Angeles last year. Someone like that would make us look like chumps.”

“See? You get it. Liz has talents to avoid people like Samson, just like we avoided Helsing when the unfortunate thing with Liz happened.”

“Liz. My god, Milos. You can find someone else! What about Florence? She is still kicking around the eastern seaboard.”

“Florence is half the witch that Liz is, and you know it, Al. Liz outclasses even Samson. If we do what I have in mind, we need her.”

“You can’t be going after just the paintings from your dear Areti, then…” the sound of realization in Al’s voice told Milos all he needed to hear.

“An artist collective? Really?” Milos laughed heartily as he shifted the subject.

“Yeah, I know. Where else could someone like me hang out with no one noticing, huh? Alright, text me the details. Talk soon?”

“Thanks, Al.”

The line dropped and Milos again was staring at his last text to Liz. It stared at him, like a promise of something he didn’t understand. He wanted to type out ‘sorry, i mean it’ and hit send, but he just couldn’t do it.

It hadn’t been his fault, and it still wasn’t. But he needed Liz. So, that meant it could be his fault? He could admit that the plan had gone sideways. It had been his plan, after all.

He had an Ifrit. He had a Wendigo. He needed a Witch. Liz was the best choice. Milos knew the Collections at the Met like the back of his hand, and he knew something unprecedented had happened, as if the universe had aligned just for this… they each had something of immense personal value in that museum.

Milos needed Areti’s paintings. Remembering her hair, her smile, her skin, he felt a crush in his chest. A desperate longing from lifetimes ago.

Shirin desired her vase, an enchanted gift from King Solomon. Not the first of her domains, but one of her favorites. And so many of her domains had already been lost throughout history.

Then there was Al, who wanted the haircomb from his first nation, the silver inlaid whale bone was said to carry the touch of the Old Ones.

And finally, Liz, who coveted the necklace of her sister, Lady Eleanor, the one and only true love of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the Last Leader of Wales.

“Fuck.” Milos sighed as he typed out what needed to be said with a heavy frown.

‘yes. i am a cunt. i fucked up & i apologize.’

He mashed the little Send button denoted with the little paper airplane as if it was an affront to God himself.

His phone dinged.

Liz had responded. ‘Apology accepted.’

His doorbell rang. Milos opened the door to find Liz, her eyes bright and her bare skin smoking as if she had freshly stepped from a steam room. She walked past Milos, taking in his apartment in a slow spin to face him again. Her aura was nearly visible from the magic resonating around her incredibly lithe, muscular form.

Milos still had his hand on the door knob, his jaw agape. “Wales!?”

Liz smirked and ignored his surprise. “A part of me had come to peace knowing that you would never apologize. Hmph. And a part of me couldn’t come to peace with it.”

“Liz?” Milos tried.

“Milos?” She shrugged as if it was obvious. “This must be good. The Met? Spill.”

“Oh good. You knew I had arrived!” Shirin stepped into the apartment in the body of young red-headed woman dressed in tight faux leather and a tacky fur coat. Her eyes locked on the steaming witch standing stark naked in the middle of the apartment. “Liz?”

“Shirin? Still body hopping? Come give me a hug, you Persian twat.”

“Its the way of the world. Uh, speaking of, do you need clothes, Liz?” Shirin asked, leaning into the hug with both arms.

“Whatever for?” Liz smiled. “Milos, you idiot, shut the door.”

Milos finally was able to regain the function of his jaw and pulled his mouth shut, closing the door in kind.

Shirin looked around. “Spartan living, Milos. And you still pace the whole room, hmmmm? Your landlord will probably not appreciate those footprints on the ceiling.”

Milos looked up. There were no footprints on the ceiling.

“Foolish Greeks. You know, people think that the Athenians were so smart and rational, but thankfully we have Milos here to prove it otherwise,” Shirin said sidelong to Liz.

“Shirin, good to see you.” Milos nodded finally. He squinted a bit and focused, and his Sight peeled off the layers of glamour and magic that swirled around the young woman. As if a curtain was pulled back, a mottled red and orange woman took shape, her skin speckled like a jaguar’s, large lower incisors curving upwards from the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were glowing red, laced with fire.

“When you stare at me like that, I can see why your kind scares the sheep,” Shirin grinned.

“I like to see you. The real you.” Milos frowned.

“Don’t sound offended, dear. I love that about you.”

Liz raised her arms above her head and stretched. When she lowered them, she was wearing a simple draped gown of blue. Milos was only slightly disappointed not to be able to admire her exceptionally toned form. It was like art itself. Honestly, if Liz was a statue standing in the Met, anyone, nay everyone, would stare for hours. “Milos, my little cunt of an abandoning fuck, now can you explain why are we here?”

“I thought you accepted my apology.” Milos’s eyebrow went up, nearly reaching his curly hair at his brow.

“He apologized?” Shirin said, amazed.

“He did. And it was accepted. But I am fully entitled to give him absolute mountains of shit for hundred or so years, I think. It is only fair. Newgate was not exactly easy for me.”

Milos blinked slowly. He probably was a cunt in hindsight. He got to the point. “I want to do the Ocean’s Eleven thing.”

“You want to rob a casino with overly complicated theatrics to exact revenge on your past lover’s partner? All the while, rekindling your love with said past lover?” Shirin was a movie buff, as most Ifrit were, of course. “Odd.”

Milos shook his head with a slow smile creeping across his face. “Well yes. Except instead of a casino, its the Met. And in a way I am reconnecting with an old lover. To borrow your word, it is… Odd. But its also true.”

“The Met?” Shirin’s face fell. “They have one of my domains. One of the first.”

“I know.” Milos grinned.

“And my sister’s ffycin necklace.” The Welsh version of the f word sounded even more emphatic.

“I also know.” Milos’s grin spread further, his eye teeth glinting in the light.

Liz giggled. “And Al’s tacky comb.”

“It carries the touch of the Old Ones, Liz. Wendigos can use that to stop the hunger.” Shirin admonished. “He needs it.”

“Yeah, yeah, and then he turns into a real boy.” Liz rolled her eyes and waved at Shirin’s hand. “Ah, your fingers are blue, Shear.”

Shirin appraised her host’s blue fingertips, tapping them against her thumbs on either hand. “I got at least until sunrise before it gets dangerous. This one will be fine. First thing to go is the blood flow, and this girl seems to have a touch of Raynaud’s. She probably turns all sorts of colors in the winter.”

Liz sighed. “So where am I sleeping?”

“The Ritz?” Milos offered.

“No, I think here.”

“Absolutely not,” Milos sniffed. “You know how I am.”

“Yes.” Liz replied deadpan. “I do.”

Shirin snickered behind her hand.

“Don’t encourage her!” Milos exclaimed. “You know too!”

“You sleep in that loft thing? I will take the couch. Maybe portal in some good food since you eat, what? Delivery drivers? Stray cats? Lost children?” Liz said.

Milos frowned heavily as he started iterating through primes. “No, I have the Family.”

Liz winked and waved her hands in a series of odd flourishes, and a phone appeared in her right palm. A few swipes later, she nodded. “Alright I have a standing suite at the Plaza. We can meet there tomorrow night. Suite 1600. Say, 8pm?”

“Sure.” Milos sighed inwardly with relief. He thought she had been serious.

“Come along, Shear. Let’s get you a nice hot New York boy that I can play with. Remember to text Al, Milos.” Liz opened the door and winked again. Under her breath she said, “Got you good, cunt.”

“Yeah, you did.” Milos admitted.

“At least twenty eight years of this. Don’t worry, I won’t be gentle.” Liz laughed as she walked down the hallway.

Shirin shrugged and slugged Milos in the shoulder as she followed the witch. “See you tomorrow, love.”

Milos slowly shut the door, grabbed a thermos from the fridge, sipping at its contents slowly as he looked out over the city from his wall of windows.

One step closer to Areti. Memory was fickle, as Milos well understood. Now, he was one step closer to a memory he never realized was nearly lost to time. A painting, a memory itself, replacing a memory that he never had.

The sun. He couldn’t remember the sun. Areti knew that and she had loved him enough to paint the things he would never see again.

That was love.

Milos considered the possibilities.

It could be a fake. It could be a reproduction. It could be an imitation by another artist. Hell, it could be the outcome of a shared spark of inspiration that lead to a similar painting. Or, the scariest possibility was that he was misremembering. That could happen. He knew his memory was not infallible, and with an exceptionally long life behind him, memories were not only malleable, they could be suspect.

But he discarded all of the thoughts tumbling about in his confusion. He knew with certainty that the painting was hers. It was like seeing the curve of her body in the dark and knowing that it was her that laid beside him. His mind was flooded with the sensations of her memory, her smell reminiscent of lavender and cloves, the way her smile crooked up more on the left than the right, but somehow that made her all the more beautiful… the way her hair cascaded in the thick black curls when she bent over to kiss him. But above all those things, she knew.

Areti knew what he was from the start. And had loved him regardless.

How does one reconcile such a thing? He had begged her to join him time and time again, but she had refused each time. Instead, she painted. Areti always painted, from the moment she awoke in the early afternoon until she would fall asleep in his arms in the early morning. She worked with a madness that few could have understood. She would laugh at his disappointment in her refusal, and point to her latest canvas… ‘See this? It is temporary. I am the art, my love. I too am only temporary. If I am not, my art will not matter. And I know that I do. I matter.’

Milos would always agree, because she mattered greatly to him. Every time he would consider for a moment to disregard her feelings and bring her along against her will, but his love for her was greater than his fear to be without her. He watched her, smiled his smile, the one he only used for her, and she would laugh.

Oh gods, her laugh. Bright as the summer sky, brilliant as a sun flecked ocean wave. Milos grinned, again noting how well he remembered the sun. That would never go away. He watched her, year after year, grow old and somehow all the more beautiful. When she died, he had grieved furiously, but he was thankful for the many decades they had together. He had been lost for a long time after her death, but he came back to himself eventually-

“Sir?” A voice pulled at his reverie.

“Ah, yes?” Milos blinked and turned his head to find an elderly museum volunteer smiling graciously. Her name tag declared that her name was Martha and that she loved Van Gogh. “My apologies… Hello Martha.”

“It is closing time, dearie. You must have missed the overhead announcement.” She waved at the painting. “It is beautiful though, isn’t it? The legends about her work aside, she had a natural talent for capturing light, didn’t she?”

“Indeed. Those waves are nearly real, the energy of them as if they are about to crash on the shore.”

Martha nodded as if she understood and moved on to the next patron, directing the visitors towards the museum’s exit through the gift shop.

The painting hung on the museum wall had unraveled him. How long had he stood there, just blankly staring at her work, connecting them again across the centuries? How long had it taken him to realize that his memories of the sun, the waves, the summer sky were not his own, but his memory of her paintings? The grief he felt on the day she died manifested out of nothing, wrenching his heart in its grasp, the long span of time giving no comfort or lessening the passion of it.

Tears tracked down his face as he walked to the exit. The first tears he had cried since the late fifties… when Gertrude and Max had decided to take the flame. Their kind was going extinct, and not for any of the reasons that made sense. Maybe they were dying out because the world no longer needed them, their kind, the proverbial monsters in the dark.

Gertrude had said that humanity was beautiful and terrible and horrific. All the things they themselves had been labeled since time had begun. The world did not need monsters in the dark when the prey were nearly monsters themselves. The distance had shortened between them, and that was terrifying for the ones whom still remembered their own humanity. It was an unraveling of self, a threat of self-reflection that was too much to bear. Humanity had always been animals, red in tooth and claw, surviving and striving against whatever they perceived as a threat. Identifying the prey was not a simple calculation any longer.

Maybe it was the A-bomb. Maybe it was the war after war after war and all the atrocities that man wrought had on their perceived enemies. Maybe it was witnessing the modern world spring up so fast, contrary to all of human history where progress was slow and methodical and… adaptable. Gertrude and Max probably would have laughed watching Milos continuously learn to adapt to the latter decades of the twentieth century, and the advent of computers, cameras, the internet, and all the things that accelerated humanity ever faster into the twenty first century.

Maybe Gertrude and Max had seen it coming. They saw the ‘Modern World’ and had refused it outright. Better to choose oblivion than what was coming. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps not. Seeing Areti’s work on the wall had shifted something in Milos. A change that was building within him, energy coalescing and amplifying itself with ferocity.

Milos came to the decision before he knew he had even made one. As he walked out of the museum’s expansive exit, via the similarly expansive gift shop, and turned down the Fifth avenue, he found himself saying it aloud, giving the thought tangibility and making it real.

“I am going to rob the Met.”

Milos smiled his special smile, the wide one he saved for rare moments, and his overly long eye teeth glimmered in the bright lights of Fifth Avenue. He had taken five full steps before he realized that he was going to need help, and the thought shifted the hunter’s confident countenance to one of furrowed contemplation.

“Shit,” he muttered. “I am going to need help.”