Lucian's Point of View
They say immortality dulls a man. That eternity is a slow unraveling, not of the body, but of the soul. I used to laugh at that. Now I just watch the world bleed out its colors one century at a time.
Tonight, the city smells like rain and iron. The streets are slick with reflected light, gold from the lamps, red from the signs, silver from the moon. I walk unnoticed, though not unseen. People never really see monsters. We wear familiar skins.
I pass a woman leaning into her lover's coat, whispering laughter into his collarbone. She doesn't feel the eyes on her. Doesn't feel the weight of time staring back. She is beautiful in the way mayflies are, fragile and fleeting and completely unaware of the storm.
I remember when love made me warm like that. A long time ago. Before the cold set in. Before the thirst became more than a hunger, before it became a habit.
They call me August. Not because I was born in that month, I wasn't, but because it sounds human enough. And people like names that make them feel like they know you. Like you're safe.
I am not safe.
Beneath my skin, old blood murmurs. It doesn't scream like it used to. It whispers. That's more dangerous. Screams are loud and desperate. Whispers are patient. They bide their time.
The thirst is quiet tonight. That should worry me.
I cross into the older quarter of the city. Here, stone still remembers war. There are scars in the architecture, soot in the bones of the walls. I like it here. It reminds me that I'm not the only thing left that doesn't forget.
A bell rings above the door as I enter the bookstore. No one looks up. The air is thick with paper and dust and human warmth, like someone bottled sunlight and left it to steep. I breathe it in. It doesn't satisfy. It never does.
She's here again.
The first time I saw her, it was raining. Not softly, but the kind of rain that punishes the pavement, fast, slanting, angry. I was leaving a blood den I hadn't wanted to enter when she rounded the corner, umbrella already broken and clutched uselessly in one hand. She didn't see me, no one does, not when I don't want them to, but something about her stopped me in my tracks.
She moved like the world hadn't yet worn her down, like she didn't know it should have. She laughed at the thunder. That struck me. And there was something else, an ache. A recognition I couldn't place. Not like déjà vu. No. Something deeper. Like a memory borrowed from someone else's life.
I followed her for blocks, never closer than a shadow. She didn't look back. Eventually, she slipped into a small bookstore tucked between a shuttered café and a pawn shop that still displayed VHS tapes in the window. She bought a stack of paperbacks and stayed for hours. I stayed longer. Watching.
I told myself it was curiosity. That it would pass.
It didn't.
Every few nights, I'd find myself near the shop, never meaning to go in. Just watching. Just wondering. And each time, I swore it would be the last. But she was always there, a constant in a city that devours constants. She'd sit in the same corner, with a cup of something floral, and disappear into the pages.
A human woman with ink-stained hands and thunder in her laugh.
Something about her pulled at a thread I hadn't known was still attached.
Back in the present, Same seat. Same scarf. Same smell, something soft and clean, like lavender and fresh ink. Her fingers are stained with pen. Her hair is a dark tangle of defiance. And she reads like she's trying to escape through the page.
I do not know her name. I haven't asked.
Knowing her name would mean wanting to say it.
And wanting to say it means something altogether more dangerous.
It's been weeks since I noticed her, maybe longer. Time stretches strangely when you're dead but pretending not to be. At first, she was just another shape among the others, breathing, thinking, mortal. But she keeps coming back, like a thread tugging loose in my mind.
Something in her quietness speaks to mine.
I watch her for a moment longer than I should. Her lips move slightly with the words. She bites the edge of her thumb when she's thinking. She underlines in red. Bold. Most people don't mark books they didn't write.
Her pulse flutters at her throat. A temptation, yes. But more than that, a reminder. Of what I am. Of what I used to be. Of what I promised myself I'd never do again.
Not to someone like her.
I turn away and slide a book from the shelf, one I don't need, but the shopkeeper expects me to pretend. The ritual is part of the disguise. August, the regular. August, the quiet man with strange eyes who never buys anything but always reads.
If they knew what those eyes had seen...
The bell chimes again.
Cold moves in with the air. Not winter's kind. Something older. Feral. I stiffen. I smell it before I see him.
One of them.
He's young, at least, made young. That reckless age between knowing nothing and thinking you know everything. His hunger rides too close to the surface, obvious and wet. He grins at the girl as he passes her table.
I move without meaning to.
"Don't."
One word. Low. Controlled. My voice has weight. It always has. He pauses.
The girl looks up. Our eyes meet for the first time.
Everything slows.
There's a moment when her gaze touches mine, and the noise of the city fades. Her eyes are not startled. They are curious. Like she's seen something she isn't sure she should believe.
My chest tightens in a way I haven't felt in a hundred years.
She blinks, and the spell breaks.
The boy gives a sharp little laugh, like a dog yapping at a wolf. He backs off. Good choice. He has no idea how close he came to vanishing from the world without a sound.
I nod once. He disappears into the aisles.
I should leave. This is already too much. But I can't, not yet.
"Thank you," she says softly.
I look at her again. Closer now. Her mouth is shaped for poetry, not prayers. Her voice is warm, like something remembered.
"You're welcome," I say, and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.
She smiles. It's small, but it stays. "You don't strike me as the chivalrous type."
"I'm not," I answer.
She tilts her head. "Then what are you?"
I almost tell her. Not the truth, of course, not all of it. Just enough to keep her away. Enough to protect her.
But her eyes hold mine like they've done it before, in another life, under another moon.
And I lie.
"Just someone who doesn't like interruptions."
She turns her gaze back to her book, but something has shifted. Her fingers are still on the page, but she's not reading now. Not really. I can feel her attention flickering like a candle near an open window, some of it on the words, some of it on me.
I should leave.
Instead, I find myself pretending to read the spine of a book I've already memorized. A Treatise on the Decline of the Arcane West. Academic drivel. They got the dates wrong. Magic didn't fade; it hid. And it didn't go west. It went underground.
Like me.
I feel her glance again. Small, deliberate. She's trying to puzzle me out, and I don't blame her. No heartbeat skips when you stand between a predator and his prey. No fear. Just… interest.
That's dangerous. For both of us.
The shopkeeper clears his throat behind the counter, pretending not to watch. He knows something happened. He just doesn't understand it. That's good. I don't need the city stirring with stories again. Not yet.
Not when things are already moving beneath the surface.
I slide the book back into place and head for the door, pretending I don't feel her gaze press between my shoulders like a question left unanswered.
The bell chimes again as I leave.
The street outside is quiet. But the sky has changed. The clouds have gathered like bruises, thick and low.
Across the street, perched atop the broken roof of a chapel gutted by fire years ago, something watches me. I see it only for a breath, a flicker of eyes too pale, teeth too long. Then it vanishes, swallowed by shadow.
I go still.
They're waking.
And not just the young ones.
Something old is stirring.
Something that remembers my name.