Azrael flopped onto the leather couch with a grunt of unspoken annoyance. After a moment, he frowned down at the sofa, realizing it was about as comfortable as a rock. A rock with several hard lumps along its surface. The buttons on the couch, which were probably meant to serve a decorative purpose, were the most uncomfortable thing he’d ever laid on. Which was saying something, since he’d once woken up in a pile of trash after a particularly eventful weekend.

He turned his frown on Seamus. “This is the most ungodly uncomfortable thing I have ever come across. What the hell is the point of a couch you can’t lay on?”

“You’re supposed to appreciate it, not flop on it like a sack of weights,” Seamus told him.

Azrael sat up. “That’s the stupidest reason to own a couch I’ve ever heard, in life and in unlife. Who buys a couch just so people can look at it? That’s like buying a nice car and just keeping it on display instead of driving it. Rich people are fucking stupid.”

Seamus rolled his eyes. “You do realize you’re one of those rich people now, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m a really bad rich person. I can’t even imagine what you spent on a couch no one is going to sit on. Probably more than I ever paid in a year’s rent before Alexandre grabbed me off the streets,” Azrael said, as he stood in the hope of finding a more comfortable surface to spread out on.

“Our little street rat,” Seamus said with a smirk.

It was a common nickname for Azrael in their Camarilla, but Seamus was the only one who used it affectionately. For the rest of their little ‘family’, it was something that was said under their breath and with a fairly obvious sneer. Most of Alexandre’s children and chosen additions to the family were about as opposite from Azrael as they could be. All but a couple of them had come from well-to-do families, with all the proper upper-class training and knowledge that goes with it. The rest had come from working or middle-class backgrounds and dedicated their time to putting on the same airs as the blue-blooded Camarilla members.

Seamus and Azrael’s differences were a prime example of just what an oddity Azrael was in the normally well-bred Camarilla. Seamus had come from old money as a human, and while his living family had forgotten all about him after a generation had passed, they were still the same. He’d been raised with a decorum that had been missing from Azrael’s life. Seamus wore etiquette and dignity just as much as he did the expensive clothing he dressed himself in on a nightly basis. Azrael’s life had begun and ended on the streets. Manners were what you used to not get gunned down by an angry gangbanger, and your clothing was usually just enough to keep you decent.

Yet, from the very beginning, Seamus had taken a liking to Azrael. He would’ve expected the opposite and couldn’t think of an explanation for it. Seamus had taken Azrael under his wing as a mentor, like Alexandre, while also being a friend. Azrael had never had any siblings, but he imagined his relationship with Seamus could easily resemble that of two brothers.

“We can’t all be born and die with a silver spoon in our mouth,” Azrael said, as he settled onto a plush looking chair.

“Yes, well, there’s a reason you’re the one out on the streets doing the dirty work while I play diplomat and playboy with our various, esteemed guests,” Seamus said with a faint smile.

“We tried the whole ‘me being a civilized member of vampiric society’ thing once before. Has that one asshole even returned any of Alexandre’s messages, by the way?” Azrael asked.

“That ‘asshole’ is a highly respected leader of Los Angeles’ premier Camarilla. And no, he has yet to return any of our carefully phrased apologies and attempts to mend the situation. I suppose he’s still taking offense to you inferring he was—what was it again?” Seamus asked.

Azrael snickered. “I told him if he was any more uptight, all the blood in him would freeze and dislodge the stick in his ass.”

Seamus shook his head. “Yes, and that’s why you’re no longer allowed to speak to visiting dignitaries. We seem to be able to dress you up just fine, but we still can’t take you anywhere. It’ll probably be a couple of decades before Alexandre hears from Willam once more.”

“I like what I do, so I don’t really care if you guys leave me out of your fancy get together,” Azrael shrugged.

“Speaking of, I have it on good authority that you’ve been tasked with dealing with stopping a leak,” Seamus said.

“He’s got me hunting down a werewolf that’s supposedly in the city spying so he can tell his buddies all about us,” Azrael said, hoping he sounded casual.

“And did you find him?” Seamus asked.

Azrael shrugged. “It wasn’t hard, since Alexandre already had the address for me. Problem was, I wanted to get my hands on the information before I tried going after him. Turns out I wasn’t as good at hiding my tracks as I thought I was. After I left and went looking for the guy, he came back, found out someone had been poking through his shit and fled the coop.”

Seamus raised a brow. “You didn’t cover your tracks? That’s sloppy for you.”

“I’m not perfect, Seamus, and I didn’t think I was dealing with someone who actually knew what they were doing. No one ever told me werewolves would know how technology works, or how to deal with the city. I thought I was dealing with a hillbilly who’d seen a few TV shows and thought he could be sneaky,” Azrael said with a shrug.

“But you weren’t. So now you’ve screwed up, and your target has gone to ground,” Seamus said.

That wasn’t the complete truth but Azrael nodded in quiet agreement. After having realized Jacob was not only a werewolf, but the werewolf Azrael was supposed to hunt down and kill, Azrael had beat a hasty retreat from the bar. He’d made sure to get Jacob’s number before leaving and memorized it rather than programming it into his phone. After that, Azrael headed straight for Jacob’s apartment. It hadn’t taken long for him to make it more than obvious that someone other than Jacob had been in the rooms. He hadn’t quite trashed the place, but he’d shifted furniture, left doors open, left all the lights on, anything he could think of.

By the next night, he discovered that his bit of vandalism had done the trick. The apartment Jacob had been staying in was empty and was almost immediately put back on the market. Azrael had checked the basement door and found the storage unit for Jacob’s apartment had been left open, the inside completely bare. The door bore its simple, easy to break lock, with only a few marks to show that there had once been others.

Jacob had gone to ground, covering his tracks expertly. Azrael tried to find where his friend might be but had yet to find anything. He knew it would be as easy as making a phone call. He was sure Jacob would be more than happy to invite his old friend over to his new hiding place. If the new one was anything like the previous one, the main living space would be completely innocent looking. Evidence of the real work Jacob was in the city for would most likely be hidden nearby, well out of sight.

“Everyone leaves a trail, Seamus, the guy isn’t going to be able to hide forever,” Azrael told him.

Seamus crossed his legs as he eyed Azrael. “And what exactly is your plan? Are you simply going to kill the mutt, then sort through his things?”

Azrael shrugged. “Depends on where he’s keeping all his information. If the new place has the information nearby, I can just break in after he’s dead. If he’s moved all his info far away from his living space, then I’ll have to watch him until I find it. Could be tricky though, this guy seems to be a lot better than I thought he would be.”

Seamus snorted. “You sound as if you respect him.”

Azrael nodded, admitting to it. “I took him for some ignorant asshat who wouldn’t know a laptop from a smartphone. But he had a decent security setup on his hideout, and other than being boring as hell, his living space was totally benign looking. I don’t know how the hell I alerted him that someone dangerous was snooping around, but he apparently had a system in place I wasn’t ready for. Add in the fact that he was able to abandon both places with everything intact, and yeah, maybe I do respect him a little bit. Guy’s a lot better and smarter than I thought he would be.”

“Werewolves aren’t exactly known for their cleverness,” Seamus said with a faint sneer.

“Yeah, well, all you guys tell me are little, nasty comments like that and not a whole lot else. So I’m just going off what I can find out on my own,” Azrael retorted.

“What’s there to know? They look like humans, but they can transform into either a full wolf, or that media hyped, half-wolf, half-man form. They live in groups out in the middle of nowhere like dirty little savages. They hate us with a passion that makes no sense, since we rarely have anything to do with them. Best I can tell, they seem to believe we’re a blight upon ‘Gaia’ and that we deserve to die for it, well, die again,” Seamus told him, with a dismissive, arrogant gesture.

“Gaia? Isn’t that just an old word for the earth?” Azrael asked, interested now that he was finally getting some information.

Seamus managed to look dignified at the same time as looking annoyed. “Apparently it’s their personal Goddess, while also being the word for the planet. Or something like that, I don’t know. I gave up on the whole deity nonsense ages ago. All I know is they’re backward savages who occasionally like to come into the cities to deal with our kind. When the filthy mutts aren’t dealt with, they have a tendency to band together and kill us in droves. They might be ignorant to the modern world overall, but they’re far more deadly in a fight than we are.”

Azrael snorted. “It wouldn’t be hard to be more deadly than a lot of the vampires I’ve met. Even the old ones look like they haven’t touched a weapon in a few centuries.”

“Our strength lies in our ability to blend into the human world and to twist it to our liking. It’s a far more elegant and effective method than to simply smack it around,” Seamus said.

“Yeah, but sometimes you need to smack something around,” Azrael shot back.

Seamus nodded. “Sometimes you do in fact, need a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. But that’s why we have people like you around. You are, I suspect, Alexandre’s answer to that little conundrum.”

“I love how everything in the vampire world is coached in how or why something or someone is useful. It really makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, like I’m really wanted here,” Azrael said dryly.

Seamus smiled. “We all serve a purpose here. Each and every one of us, from his children to those he accepted into the fold from outside his bloodline, owe Alexandre a debt of gratitude. Were it not for him, we would all be, for one reason or another, a body in the ground. Because of him, we can continue on into the ages, and because of his protection, we’re guarded against any of our own kind who might do us harm.”

Azrael had already heard that little speech, and he felt his mind slipping out of the conversation as Seamus continued to extol the virtues of their master. He knew he probably should’ve been thankful for Alexandre scooping him off the dirty alley pavement and sparing him an ugly death. For the most part, Azrael enjoyed his new existence. Other than the thankfully rare death of a mortal at the hands of his undying thirst, he wasn’t bothered by his new state of existence. He was stronger, faster, and had better senses than he could have ever dreamed. So long as he was never thrown to the flames or out in the sun, he would continue to exist for eternity. It wasn’t a terrible deal, even if it meant missing out on some of the pleasures of human life, such as food and drink. He couldn’t say he missed the sun all that much, but he thought he might want to see it again one day.

The thing that irked him since coming into the blood was that he’d never had much of a choice in the matter. Alexandre swore Azrael had given permission before the deed had been done and Azrael had no real reason to believe he was lying. The pleading of a dying man didn’t exactly hold a lot of weight in Azrael’s mind though. Most people would accept just about anything when they were faced with the brutal reality of their own mortality.

Seamus’ voice interrupted his thoughts. “You’re not even listening to me, are you?”

Azrael shook himself, not at all ashamed at having zoned out. “Sorry Seamus, but I can only listen to you ramble on about the same topic for so long. After about the twentieth speech on how thankful I should be, I start thinking about other things.”

“And I’m sure they’re dreadfully fascinating subjects too,” Seamus said, tone dry.

“Existential realizations and wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of my unlife. Well, that and pondering different approaches for my newest, fascinating job,” Azrael answered.

“Were you given a time by which you had to be finished with the matter?” Seamus asked, accepting the subject change with grace.

Azrael shook his head. “No, not really. I imagine he’d like it done before too much information is leaked. He didn’t give me an exact date, but a ‘soon’ was insinuated.”

“Have you ever battled a werewolf?” Seamus asked curiously.

“Naw, but while I don’t know much about the things, I do know that a silver blade is a sure way to deal with them. Alexandre was nice enough to provide me with one of those before he sent me off to do the deed,” Azrael said with a gesture toward his bag, which lay on a nearby table.

“Just don’t play with your food for too long. Oh, and don’t drink his blood, you’ll have to stab him,” Seamus added.

Azrael frowned. “I hadn’t been planning on it, but uh, now I’m curious. Why exactly shouldn’t I drink his blood?”

“Because their blood is poison to us,” Seamus said simply.

Azrael hadn’t known that. “Interesting, at least I know that’s a terrible fall back plan if the blade doesn’t work.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage. For all your…social flaws, you’re quite adept at the jobs that Alexandre gives you. If he believes you capable of this job, then you are. It will just be a matter of when you decide to strike,” Seamus said with a small shrug.

Azrael appreciated the vote of confidence but it did nothing to assuage his worried thoughts. There was no way in his mind that he could kill Jacob, no matter what he was or who he was aligned with. Yet there was no way for him to see that he could get Jacob to safety without compromising himself. He wanted to believe Jacob would never harm him, no matter what he was, but people changed with time. The two of them had been away from one another for so long. The boy he knew could very well have become a man he no longer recognized. Telling Jacob the whole truth and trying to convince him to leave carried too much risk in his opinion.

Despite the air of nonchalance he showed Seamus, Azrael was feeling pressured. He could certainly extend the time to complete the job, but only for so long. With a bit of thought and some creative talking, he could conceivably keep everyone at bay for a month at the most. Anything more than that and suspicion would come down on him. Worse, if they thought he was incapable of getting the job done, they would send someone just as skilled as he was, but far more willing to follow through. The best he could come up with was to stall for as much time as possible, to give him the chance to come up with a plan that would spare his friend’s life.

Azrael shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll find a way. I always do.”