Muddled voices gained volume as consciousness slowly ebbed toward Danny. Something about his entire being felt exhausted. As if the hangover from two days ago had been merely a precursor to the hell that waited on the other side. Rather than greeting him with throbbing temples, however, being awake felt like wading through quicksand, with each step threatening to pull him back under again.

“You can wake,” a male voice said. “It looks as though you’re trying to.”

The statement impacted with Danny, snapping his eyelids open. His mind spun with how persuasive one simple comment could be, reeling as the hand which had yanked him from the quicksand also slapped him across the face. Blinking several times to clear his sight, Danny focused on not one, but two figures who hovered over him, watching over where he lay.

Danny shot into a seated position, shaking his head as if to slough off the remainder of his sluggishness. “What happened?” he asked, but as his vision focused, he realized he’d fallen asleep in an unfamiliar room. At first, the red glow it possessed made him think it had been decorated in reddish hues, but as he concentrated on centering himself, he realized the shade from an adjacent lamp had given it that appearance. A dark blanket fell from his body as he turned to look at the others. When he made eye contact with the person who had spoken, Danny startled awake even further.

The long-haired, pale-skinned man sat on the bed beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder and demanding Danny’s undivided attention with his gaze. “I know you’re tempted to panic,” he said. “But you’re going to remain calm and civil. I’m asking this of you without using any persuasion. I can resort to that if I have to.”

“You’re… You’re Liam,” Danny said.

“Yes, though you’ll have to forgive me. I didn’t intend to see you again, so I forgot your name.”

“Danny.” Danny looked from Liam to the other person, colored a healthier shade of olive with deep brown eyes that searched him over. Her facial features bore a hardness to them, and though her short, black hair had been swept up in a side part, her clothes and makeup were the true giveaway to her gender. “I don’t remember you, though.”

While she raised an eyebrow at him, Liam summoned his attention again. “That is Amarande, but I call her Mari,” he said. As he shifted to face Danny, Danny did likewise, not ready to relax, but not sensing any imminent danger yet. “You’ve presented me with a problem, Danny. As tempted as I am to ask you what you remember, I have a feeling it’ll come back to you if you recall anything about our time together.”

“Bits and pieces.” Danny took a deep breath, swallowing hard. “I think I remember what I saw, but there’s no way…”

“… that you actually watched vampires feeding?” Liam’s lips quirked. “No, that would be ridiculous. Wouldn’t it Mari?”

Mari snorted. “Would, yes,” she said, and though her deeper voice confirmed Danny’s suspicions, he found himself more captivated by the way her lips parted, opening wide enough to show two teeth sharper than ice picks where her incisors should have been. They remained retracted, but the ends of them were enough to make Danny jump. The only thing keeping him from running off was the sudden placement of Liam’s hand on his shoulder again.

The strength Liam administered made Danny’s shoulder hurt, though as he shot a startled glance at him, Danny didn’t sense any strain on Liam’s part. Instead, he eyed Danny calmly, parting his lips as well and revealing a complementary set of teeth. “I’m afraid you don’t have the luxury of forgetting about me any longer,” Liam said.

“But…” Danny stammered. “Couldn’t you just…?” He struggled to move again, tears welling in his eyes when Liam’s hold kept him in place. “I don’t remember everything about the other night, I…”

“You remember enough. We’ll get to that in a minute. Sadly, though, you made enough of a scene in front of too many other people for me to say I erased your memories and let you go again.” Though he remained placid, Danny saw something dark in Liam’s eyes, presenting a challenge. “You’ve created a dilemma for me and the next couple of days are going to tell me what’s being done with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You chased the White Rabbit, Alice. But Wonderland doesn’t have a way out. It can’t.” He glanced at Mari, then looked back at Danny. “Mari’s going to help you get comfortable here. You’ve lost a bit of blood and you’re going to need to rest. So, while I recommend that you find whatever happy place you need to wander to, just know that trying to escape is going to ensure that I make up my mind. And you’re not going to like my decision.”

“Please, don’t,” Danny said, but Liam ignored him, standing and adjusting the suit jacket he wore before exchanging a look with Mari. Mari nodded and though Danny couldn’t understand what she said to Liam, he at least recognized it was Spanish.

Liam answered in kind, then left the room.

It took the lock clicking shut for Danny to tense again. As he peered up at Mari, he watched her sigh and pace over to one of the chairs, lowering herself into it and crossing one leg over the other. She rested an elbow on the arm of the chair and Danny eyed her, mute. “He didn’t ask because he didn’t want to know yet,” she said, “but I’ll bite. How did you find us?”

Danny felt his heart race, but struggled to remain calm. “I, uh…” He paused to collect himself and continued. “My Sunday was strange. I woke up and felt like I was following a script. Had the scratch on my neck and blood on my shirt, and when I went to Nocturne, I saw a girl with a similar cut on her neck.”

“Christ.” Mari rolled her eyes, then peered heavenward. Whatever prayer she uttered in her native tongue, she ended it quick and looked back down at Danny afterward. “I’ve told him to avoid that place. It doesn’t help that Max poaches his pets from there. He gets Liam to itch for a live hunt and it’s always boys like you that catch his eye.”

“Boys like me?”

“Cute. Queer. I should know.” She left the statement hang as final confirmation, but didn’t bother to pick it back up again. “You’re not the first time he’s gotten himself into trouble. The last time, though, they didn’t come knocking at the front door. You’ve left him in a pickle.”

“I don’t understand.”

“And I’m not able to explain, chiquito. Not until Liam says it’s safe.” Mari nodded at the bedside table. “You had cigarettes in your pocket. It goes without saying that smoking doesn’t bother me.”

“Does it?” Danny glanced at the cigarettes and ashtray, nearly breathing an audible sigh of relief at the sight. Reaching for the pack, he tapped one out and lit it. “You say that like I know anything about real… you know.”

“Vampires.” Mari’s lips quirked in amusement. “That’s it. Nothing fancy. Myth is based at least a little on truth, though I’m sure we weren’t always called that.” She shrugged. “I’m too young to know otherwise. But considering breathing isn’t what keeps us alive, you polluting your lungs doesn’t concern me.”

“You don’t breathe?”

“Only to talk. If you watch Master long enough, you’ll see him sit there for hours without taking a breath.” Mari wrinkled her nose. “It’s still a little creepy for me.”

Danny nodded. Adjusting his legs so that he sat with them crossed underneath him, he drew from the cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke. “So, does it go like the books say?” he asked. “You get seduced to the dark side and end up making some sort of pact with the devil? You get immortal life and he gets your soul?”

Mari barked out a laugh. “Oh my God,” she said, “I’m going to repeat that to him verbatim and watch him snicker over being called the devil. No, no, no.” She stood and paced over to where Danny sat. “I didn’t actually have any say in the matter. I met Liam when I lived in New York. He had a soft spot for me and before I knew it, I woke up like this.” Gesturing first at herself, she then sat near Danny.

“He didn’t need permission,” she continued. “There wasn’t any contract with the devil. Just one good bite and a blood exchange.” Mari shifted until both she and Danny faced each other, seated in the same position. She admired him silently and he tensed again when her expression turned unreadable.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You were curious. I’d dare say you wanted this to be the real thing.”

Danny snorted, looking away and pausing to smoke his cigarette before shrugging. “I don’t know about that. I wanted something to be real, but I didn’t imagine it would be this.” Mari’s scrutiny made him feel uneasy, and even though the ash on the end of his cigarette threatened to spill onto the bed, he didn’t dare move. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“I don’t know.”

“He said that I won’t be getting out of Wonderland.”

Mari hummed and nodded. “Yes, he did say that.” As she stared at him, Danny took a deep breath and finally reached to flick his cigarette into the tray. When he looked back up he blinked in surprise, seeing Mari no longer seated beside him. Instead of standing anywhere in his vicinity, she had positioned herself beside the door, and though he swore he should have seen it, Danny hadn’t even felt her stand.

“We had to take a lot of your blood,” she said, lifting a hand to place it on the door. “So soon after him feeding from you a couple of days ago. I’m going to get you something to drink.”

Danny opened his mouth to answer, but the door opened and as quickly as Mari had stood, she also made her exit from the room. The latch clicked shut and the sound of the lock turning made him frown. “No escape from Wonderland,” he repeated, somberly to himself.

He didn’t know what was more depressing; the fact that he’d gotten in over his head, or that nobody would really miss him if he disappeared altogether.

“Kim would have,” he mused aloud, taking another drag from the cigarette before reaching to extinguish it. Plopping down on the bed, Danny stared at the ceiling, counting the cracks and trying not to think of his late sister. ‘Your damn curiosity was always going to be the end of you,’ his memory of her voice said, and though she still looked like a sixteen-year-old girl in his head, she spoke like she’d had the same life experience he’d only recently acquired.

“Shut up,” he said. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, his eyes shutting as he thought of her. It took until that moment for him to realize it, but Mari had been right; he had lost a lot of blood and the fatigue that Liam had chased away reasserted itself. His mind slipped away into daydreams, unaware when they tugged him into full sleep. The insane world he’d discovered became blissfully lost to him.

Danny didn’t even notice when Mari and Liam returned to the room.