The rest of the evening continued its normal flow, with Mari whistling as she cooked Danny dinner and spoon-feeding him a sample as he walked into the kitchen. Her more boisterous demeanor set what tension remained at ease, though Liam seemed to recognize this and motioned to retreat into the bedroom. “Wait,” Danny said, turning away from Mari with his mouth still full of food. Liam paused, waiting for Danny to chew the bite and swallow it first. “Would you like to watch a movie with us?”

Liam furrowed his brow. As Mari shrugged, Danny looked at her, tempted to smile at the conspiratorial way she eyed her maker. “You might like it,” she said. “I plan on feeding him popcorn the whole time.”

“Yes, I’ve heard what you do with him while I’m away,” Liam said. He smirked, turning to continue walking away, though as he rounded the corner, he called out, “I have a call to make. Maybe you can get started without me.”

“If that means you’re joining us, mi amor.”

“I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Mari nodded, holding fast to her composure until the bedroom door shut Liam inside. Once it clicked into place, she looked at Danny with a panicked expression. “What did you tell him?” she whispered.

Danny shook his head and held up a hand. “Not that,” he said. “Nothing about blood.”

“Dios mío.” Mari placed the hand holding the stirring spoon over her heart. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know.” Her jovial attitude sprang to life again, like somebody had snapped their fingers and released her from the throes of fear. Continuing to whistle, she dished out a portion of food for Danny and kissed his cheek while handing the bowl over to him. Danny chuckled, enthusiastically eating a few mouthfuls before taking the bowl with him over to the living room couch.

Mari followed and curled up beside him, letting him continue to eat without interruption for a few moments before she broke the silence again. “So, what happened?” she asked, lowering her voice, but not bothering to whisper.

“Nothing,” Danny said with a shrug, though the oversimplification gave him a moment’s pause. He sighed. “Well, not nothing but it’s not like there were any fireworks or anything. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried to take something slow.”

“He’s stubborn. He’ll relent. I have an idea.”

Danny raised an eyebrow, but Mari waved her hand dismissively, reaching for the television remote and turning to one of the local channels. Another classic movie played on the screen, and even though Danny continued wondering what Mari had up her sleeve, she ignored him in favor of cuddling with him and chiding him to eat, not satisfied until he finished his food and got cozy with her in return. A half hour later, Liam emerged from the bedroom, and as he sat in one of the empty chairs, the way Mari shifted indicated her awareness of his presence.

“I want to take you both out,” she said. “Tomorrow night, if the Marquis doesn’t need you for anything.”

When she looked at Liam, he straightened his posture and crossed one leg over the other. “I’m sure I could take a day or two to myself. Did you have someplace in mind?”

“You know where. And I won’t take no for an answer.” She smirked when Danny looked at her but kept her focus on Liam. “We should show him our world, considering it’s his world now, too. He might enjoy something that’s a little more familiar.”

Liam sighed. When he opened his mouth to speak, Mari lifted a finger to stop him and tutted. “Not. Taking. No. For. An. Answer,” she repeated. “So, say yes and we can go back to our movie.” Her smile faded, a look of deadly seriousness taking over her expression and as Liam frowned at her, she only kept up her end of the quiet staring match.

“Fine,” Liam said. “Because you both are incorrigible.” Without qualifying or explaining his comment to Danny, he directed his attention back to the movie and Mari settled in once more, looking satisfied. Danny struggled to interpret what had happened, resigning himself to ignorance when neither vampire said anything further and eventually losing himself to the movie. When it ended, both said goodnight and excused themselves into the bedroom. Danny sighed when finally left alone.

“What the fuck kind of game are you playing?” he asked himself, lighting a cigarette and wandering into his room. Once he’d shut himself inside, Danny fell onto the bed, taking a puff from the cigarette as he stared at the ceiling. ‘If you had even half of a sense of self-preservation,’ he thought, ‘You’d be more concerned about gaining their trust and making a break for it the moment you got a chance. You could run to the airport. Buy a one-way ticket to wherever your bank account would let you. You don’t have to stay here, you know.’

Still, the voice of his sister chimed in, convicting him with his next breath. “You want to be free from all that,” she said. “Admit it. You’d rather die in the truth than live in a lie.”

“I wish you would have lived long enough to know just how right you are,” he said, sitting upright again. He smoked in meditative silence, then extinguished it and set himself upon the task of unpacking his suitcase. Half his shirts wound up hanging in the closet, and after he crammed the remainder of his clothing in the drawers of an empty dresser, he considered the job finished and settled in for sleep.

The hours rushed by, dreamless, yet restful, and the next afternoon nudged him awake a few hours shy of sunset. When he passed by the locked sanctuary the vampires occupied, the dueling banjos of adventure and self-preservation chimed inside his head, continuing the debate from the night before while he ate, showered, and changed into a fresh set of clothing. ‘You could always break in and stake them still,’ he thought, but not only did it seem like a poor plan doomed to failure, his heart kept issuing its objections. As if proving a point, he felt heat blossom in his chest when their bedroom unlocked, minutes after sunset, if that.

“Chiquito, come here,” Mari called. “Let me look at you.”

Danny slid from the stool he occupied and padded into the bedroom. Mari stood in front of him, unapologetic in her nakedness, and Liam remained lying in bed, talking into a wireless phone receiver. “Oh, no, no, no,” Mari said, drawing Danny’s focus back to her. “You don’t have to wear anything formal, but I need you more dressed up than that.”

She padded to the closet with her hips swinging, hands already poised to grab something from Liam’s selections. “I’m assuming you didn’t bring anything nice from your apartment?” she asked.

“I don’t own too much that’s nice,” Danny said. “I go to Goth clubs and bartend.”

Mari hummed and stopped in front of the collection of suits. “He already doesn’t like that I gave you his favorite suit,” she said. “I told him he has the money to replace it.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Liam called from the bedroom. “And I bought that suit in London.”

“So, take me to the Riviera and we can swing by London on our way.” Mari winked at Danny and reached for a charcoal- gray colored suit, passing it over to Danny and waiting for him to take it before shifting to Liam’s shirts. “He never wears the maroon one I bought him,” she said, grabbing it from its hangar. “But something tells me you’d appreciate it.”

Mari handed him the shirt as well and pushed him out of the closet to get dressed. Liam watched Danny leave, holding the phone to his ear with a cryptic smile that Danny imagined fixed in place even after he left. Sighing, Danny stripped to his underwear and buttoned the shirt in place, tucking it into Liam’s pants and reflecting for the second time that week that Liam’s waist was slightly larger than his. His arm length complemented Danny’s though, and even if the pant length could have been an inch shorter, Danny looked at himself in the mirror after getting dressed and realized he did look good in a suit.

Mari dressed in a tight, black dress. But when Liam emerged from the bedroom, Danny felt his head get dizzy, his gaze fixed in admiration with every part of him responding to the sight of the male vampire. Liam had dressed in a brown, three-piece suit, but left off his tie. His shoulder-length hair hung down to his shoulders, and when he noticed Danny’s eyes on him, a much smaller, timid smile curled the corners of his mouth. “Not bad?” he asked.

“No,” Danny blurted. He glanced at Mari, who waggled her eyebrows at him, and as she danced past them both, she left them to awkwardly admire each other. Danny’s pulse raced, and he felt his cheeks flush, all thoughts from earlier melting away into the desperate feeling of attraction Liam seemed to inspire. “This almost feels familiar, somehow.”

“I might have been wearing this the other night.”

“That must be it.” Danny swallowed back something that had more bite than lust; more damnation than simple desire. His eyes shifted away from Liam before staring at him stripped him away into nothing, leaving him exposed. “So, where are we headed?”

“You’ll see,” Liam said, leaving the matter at that. As he strode in the direction where Mari had disappeared, he left Danny standing like he’d walked back into his dream, tumbling down the tunnels into Wonderland again without anything to catch his fall. He mused, while following behind the duo, that he hadn’t needed to be fed from to be lured into subservience. It seemed to have happened naturally.

Walking with them to the car, he settled into the backseat and this time, sat there alone as Mari accompanied Liam up front. Liam stared the car and glanced back at him.

“Welcome to our world,” Liam said. “I hope you enjoy your visit.”

* * *

Danny hadn’t expected ‘our world’ to be a night club, and didn’t realize, while walking with them to the front, that any place could be the doorway into an elusive vampire community. Though he’d stumbled into one, the presence of the feeding den hadn’t prepared him for the fact that other alcoves might exist, yet as they walked up to the bouncer keeping watch over the front doors, Danny saw Liam flash his fangs and realized they had shown the man some form of credentials. The bouncer – tall, stocky, and, from all appearances, a fellow human – eyed him, but Liam said, “He’s with us,” and that seemed to suffice.

The bouncer nodded and opened the door.

Danny walked inside, bracing himself for what he might find on the other side. While the beat of the music had been audible from the street, it exploded into life when they strode inside, synthesizers accompanied by an array of lights. It wasn’t the more solemn mood that Nocturne carried, but still boasted a Gothic motif, as if the vampires of Philadelphia knew what humans thought of them and had made the culture their own. Neon adorned the back of the bar. Men and women seated at the bar drank down an assortment of beverages, the vampires evident by the contents of their glasses.

“You’re serious?” Danny asked out loud. “They serve blood here?”

“Well, what else are we supposed to drink?” Mari asked. Danny raised an eyebrow at her and she laughed, looping arms with him and pulling him further into the club. The dance floor became visible on the other side of the bar, and as Danny spied the people dancing, he fought the urge to pause, both in shock and admiration.

The amount of flesh bare before his eyes defied anything he’d ever seen. Most of the men had kept themselves covered from the waist down, but they’d exposed their chests; the humans glistening with sweat. Women showed all but the tips of their breasts, some in skirts that left little to the imagination. Mari hummed, allowing them to pause shy of the bar, and startled Danny when she leaned in for a kiss.

“I’m going to have fun,” she said. When Danny looked her in the eyes, a playful smirk danced across her lips. “Take him. Have a good time.”

Danny nodded, feeling her arm slip away before watching her kiss Liam’s cheek and leave. Both men stood within a few feet of each other, watching Mari saunter for the dance floor and blend into it with little effort. Still the fact that she and her male escorts wore more than most of the patrons finally provoked Danny to chuckle. “I think we overdressed,” he said. “I might have been better off with what I had on at home.”

Liam failed to answer at first, though something about what he had said made the vampire admire him with quiet curiosity. His lips finally quirked, however, and as he glanced in Mari’s direction, Danny watched him shake his head while he studied his immortal child. “She’s whimsical sometimes,” he said. “I think she has the notion that leaving us alone in near a dance floor will create some spark between us.”

“I’m getting that impression.” Danny reached to scratch the back of his neck, feeling his confidence retreat and awkwardness take its place. “I almost feel like saying we owe it to her to give it a shot.”

A laugh flew past the vampire’s lips, and though its involuntary nature made Danny smile, he still felt self-conscious about the obvious occurring between them. Liam glanced in the direction of the bar. “Would you like a drink?”

“God, yes. Thank you.”

Liam nodded, walking forward first, then pausing and glancing at Danny. Danny studied Liam with obvious curiosity, wondering at what seemed like a host of thoughts cycling through the vampire’s head. His eyes remained set on Danny before he extended a hand, reaching for the human man.

Danny blinked, but took hold of the hand, letting Liam guide him toward the bar. Their focus remained on the people in front of them, but Danny wondered to himself how much it would take for both to lose their inhibitions together. ‘At least a glass of whiskey for me,’ Danny thought, approaching an empty stool with Liam, and though the vampire let go of his hand, Danny felt him linger close again. The action felt protective in nature, a shiver racing up Danny’s spine at the thought of it being possessive, too.

‘What would Heather say if she could see me now?’ he thought, imagining the quirky woman who had led him to the feeding den.

Danny ordered the whiskey and sighed with relief when the stool beside him opened and Liam sat. “Are you ordering anything?” Danny asked.

Liam shook his head. “Considering I’ve had regular feedings, anything more would be gluttony,” he said. While he delivered the comment deadpan, Danny wondered if the obvious allusion had been intentional or not. “I remember you having an impressive constitution.”

Danny couldn’t help but to laugh, but the implication in Liam’s comment led him to furrow his brow. “I thought all we did was dance and screw,” he said. “When did you have the chance to see my constitution in action?”

“I might have left out a few details. Such as a drink or two.”

“You got me drunk?”

“No, you insisted.”

Downing his whiskey in one fell swoop, he recoiled against its burn, then steadied himself. “Am I ever going to get that full story from you?” he asked, toying with the glass and allowing the few remaining drops to slide down his throat.

Liam hesitated. He bowed his head and fought against a smile which still managed to curl one corner of his mouth. “You led me to the bar,” he said. “After we danced. I remember you drinking two of those before you insisted we dance again.”

“Was that when we disappeared together?”

“Shortly thereafter, yes.” Liam paused, and in the space that followed, Danny heard bittersweet regret. “I didn’t tell you that because it seemed for the best. You thinking it had been a casual fling was safer.”

“For who? You or me?”

Danny lifted his glass, motioning for the bartender to fetch him another. When his gaze returned to Liam, he watched as Liam frowned and picked at something on the counter. “That is a fair question,” Liam said. Released the remainder of his breath without claiming another, Liam struggled with the urge to say something else, possibly more damning than what he’d already relayed. “I…” he began after his chest rose to take in breath. “I spoke to you while you drank. Much like this, though with a different topic. Last night wasn’t the first night I told you to live your life without reservation.”

“You coached me to come out of the closet?” Danny asked, accepting the drink brought to him, but setting it down on the bar in front of him.

Liam looked up at him and nodded. His gaze fell again, though as Danny stared at him, he relented toward looking him in the eye once more. “Our first dance had been casual. Our second, however, became intimate very quickly. At a point, you asked if I would consider leading you out of the closet.” His lips quirked. “Your words.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said that night, there was no closet. Only you and me.”

Danny felt the same reaction impact that must have been present when Liam had first spoken the words. The lights shining on them, with the beat of the music in the background, provided its own context, and as he considered the drink in his hand, he mused on the litany of emotions that had made up the past week. “This is why I needed to find you,” he said, still staring into his glass. “Why being around you stirs something in my chest. With or without the memory, I look at you and I feel the same way that you made me feel that night.”

“Is that possible?” Liam asked. “Danny, we might be deluding ourselves into thinking –”

“Shh.” Danny drank down his whiskey and set the glass down on the lacquered wood. Turning in his stool to face Liam, he reached for one of the vampire’s hands, intertwining their fingers when Liam reached back. Attempting to entreat Liam with both his actions and his words, Danny made sure he had his rapt attention.

“Forget everything,” Danny said. “What was it you said? Man lives only for a time and dies nearly as swiftly as he arrived?” He nodded toward the dance floor. “Show me a good time, then, before that happens.”