Jared opened his eyes and stared up at the torn ceiling.

It was quiet.

This was a very bad sign.

He extricated himself from the sweaty blanket and stumbled to the sill to check the time.

Shit.

As he rubbed his puffy eyelids, the hopeless extent of his tardiness just beginning to sink in, he became aware of the bed beckoning behind him.

C'mon, you idiot. You gotta go.

He struggled through the abbreviated version of his morning routine, doubling up on deodorant in lieu of a shower and tripping over the pan in front of the door on the way out. Passing the payphone in the lobby, he considered calling the office.

No. He'll just get two chances to take my head off.

He had never, he thought, been more tempted in his life to call in sick, but this was the day before publishing day, and Lou wasn't exactly an understanding guy. As important as holding down this job was, and with his already spotty record, it wasn't worth the risk.

As long as I'm up...

Still, he needed a solution to his sleeping problem, and fast. There was no telling when, or even if, the vampire would return to his apartment. But he couldn't sleep there. He could get coffee to make it through today and tonight, and...also tomorrow? And tomorrow night? And sleep through Saturday morning, and then cancel on Rose to go to the power station...? He pressed his palms into his eyes.

This isn't gonna work at all.

He made it to a seat on a stifling subway car, its rattling jarring him in and out of sleep. At the office, he braced for Lou's onslaught—but it didn't come. Lou didn't even acknowledge him, though his door was open and he looked up as Jared came down the hall. With a sense of having slipped into an alternate reality, Jared set about his business for the day, lining up the last of Suzanne's articles for review. When Lou delivered a third piece on a sighting by ghost hunters at an old hospital, his tongue started to move on its own:

"This ghost thing again? Didn't we lay this to rest already? It was just a pair o' normal incidents."

No response.

"Hey, you seem in good spirits today. Not gonna throw any shade?" Lou was starting to look irritated, and Jared couldn't stop. "Ooh. Spook too soon?"

But Lou only grunted and swaggered off, leaving Jared staring at his retreating back.

Maybe he's sick.

With a shake of his head, Jared turned back to his desk and his editing tasks. Whatever was wrong with Lou could wait. But he found it impossible to concentrate, reading and rereading Sue's copy, his neurons quailing at non sequiturs and nonpareils of nonsense.

"Many more people reported it than he did." Did he report it, then more people...reported more... Never mind. Keep it moving. Next sentence. "After putting in the crops in the area, multiple sources conquer lambs were being delivered by the area farmers with two heads." Oy...

He skipped ahead.

"If they modify the tomatos, at the end of the day they will modify the sheep. And if they let that happen, the next thing you know their will be modifying humans too. And after that, who knows??"

His tired mind continually slid off the sides of these slippery slopes into the gulf of uncertainty around his short-term survival. It was all very well to put off the longer-term questions, but with the day wearing on, he needed a plan for somewhere to sleep, and fast.

Ask Judy to stay at her place?

Given his apartment had just been broken into, a request to sleep over wasn't unreasonable. As long as he wasn't followed he wouldn't endanger her, and he'd spent the night on Judy's couch before. He loathed to have to ask, but with no better options, by the end of the workday he'd resolved to see his aunt.

He had slept through a late lunch break and on the subway over and felt much clearer by his arrival on her block, going over what he was going to say in his mind.

What if she says no? She won't say no. But what if I'm imposing? And what if she doesn't say no, what do I do after that?

He reached the door and pushed the buzzer next to her apartment number, then stood back and waited.

So, what, I say my apartment got broken into, I just need a place to stay until the door gets fixed—ah, I shoulda brought her back her books. Stupid...

He pushed the buzzer again.

Oh. Stupid.

It was Thursday. Aunt Judy volunteered at a soup kitchen on Thursdays. She wouldn't be back until late. He checked his watch.

No harm in waiting...

He'd be safer here than at home.

Feeling awkward loitering on the stoop, he headed into the lobby to find a place to sit. There wasn't anywhere, so he sat on a step and leaned against the wall, soon dropping into snatches of dream. Called by a name that was not his own, someone crying for help, the curly-haired Terran running, Nik smiling at him, the warmth of the hearth. He was being embraced, when a squeak of a door caused his head to slip from the wallpaper and wake him, erasing his visions. Aunt Judy was coming into the lobby. His smile died when he saw the look on her face.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Oh, Yared? What are you doing here?"

"I just—I came by to—are you okay?"

She started over to him. "I'm fine, I was just thinking about"—she shook her head—"I've just come from the kitchen, you know, and things are...tense there. There've been a lot of—there are some missing faces lately, and I know, I know that people move around, or—or that things do happen, but it was Mordechai's friend, and before that—"

He hugged her, and she took a few deep breaths and pulled back to smile at him.

"I'm sorry. What am I troubling you with this story for? There was something you wanted to talk about...?"

"Uh, yeah."

She brushed a gentle thumb against his bruised cheek. "You look tired, dear. Come up with me."

Jared readily obeyed, his head reeling with refreshed visions of bodies and blood.

She let him in and showed him to an armchair, then went off to get them drinks. He sat, breathing in the warm scent of the room, his thoughts roaming between darkened alleyways and the last time he'd ended up having to sleep here. He'd have gone anywhere, to get out of that house. He'd have slept on the street if he'd had to, but Judy had convinced him to stay here.

Settling herself opposite him, Judy adjusted her spectacles and peered into his face. "Now. What seems to be the trouble?"

"It, uh..." He suddenly found himself yearning to tell her, something—anything—of the fresh madness into which he had found himself plunged—hunting and hunted by a literal monster, bruised and battered, now unable even to lay down his head at night for fear it would be taken off. "I...my apartment got broken into," he mumbled.

"Oh, Yared!"

"It—it's okay it—I just—" He turned from her gaze to stare blankly at a lamp. "I don't really wanna, I mean, just until the door is—"

"Would you like to stay here tonight?"

"Oh. Thanks." He rubbed the back of his neck, still avoiding her eyes. "I mean, not for...long-term, just until the door is..."

"As long as you need," she said firmly. "I'll fix up the couch for you."

Meeting her eyes, he thanked her again, then grimaced. "I'm sorry. I feel like I'm always coming to you with problems."

"What is family for?" His expression tightened, and she continued, more softly, "I'm always here for you, Yared. It's no trouble. I want to see you happy."

He was looking at the lamp again.

"Are you alright? Was anything taken?"

"Yeah, no, everything's fine now."

"Is there something else troubling you?"

He shook his head, and Judy frowned, probing his silence.

"Would you"—she hesitated—"would you consider a mezuzah?"

Jared looked up. "A mezuzah?"

"If it would help make your home feel safe again."

A mezuzah. The words of the Divine, affixed to his doorpost. A doorpost a monster could currently pass. He sat up straighter.

"Y'know I—I think it would."

"Let me find the one your grandmother left." Judy went off to her chest of drawers, returning to pass him a thin metal case with holes at the top and bottom for fasteners.

He moved his thumb over it meditatively, wondering.

They say vampires can't cross thresholds.

He listened attentively while Judy explained how to attach it and what to say. As he sat staring at the mezuzah, she rose to prepare the couch.

"Hang on."

"Yes?"

"I—I think I'll take a rain check on tonight, if that's okay."

"What? Are you sure?"

He looked back at the case in his hands, a premonition growing inside him. "Yeah."

His oversleeping and nodding off, he thought, had given him enough of a recharge to make it through another vigil. If necessary, he could always ask Judy if he could stay tomorrow night. And so Jared headed home.

✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇✶🕇

Darkness had fallen by the time he made it back to his apartment. Pulling the Seal of Solomon from his pocket, he led with it through the deserted lobby and up the stairs, checking the ceilings, straining his senses as he emerged in the hallway leading to his door. The door looked as he had left it, askew in its frame. Pausing before it, he took a deep breath, then shouldered it open. He shielded behind it, Seal raised, his eyes scouring the ceiling, the walls, the corners. Then reaching an arm into the room to flick on the lights, he dropped his ear to the floorboards to peer under the bed and the cabinet.

The room was empty.

Rising, he thrust the door fully open to block the kitchen recess, then peered around it, inching his head in until he could see the window—all clear there, too. He lowered the scroll with a sigh of relief.

Something caught his eye to his left.

Slowly, he turned.

The bathroom, fully visible through its open door, he had dismissed as clear, but—had he left the shower curtain half-closed? He couldn't remember.

With sweat beading down his back he slunk to the far wall, folding himself against the doorframe and craning his neck around it. He couldn't quite make out the tub. Were those black shoes in the bottom, of a form lurking behind the curtain? He took a few quick breaths, and with a cry he lunged into the bathroom, thrusting the Seal at the shower curtain and ripping it back—the showerhead glared down at him with two dozen empty eyes, and his own black footprints stood in the tub. He dropped heavily onto the rim and collected himself.

When his heart rate had slowed, he rose and went back into the hallway. Using the screws from the broken bolt, he fixed the mezuzah to the doorframe, working the metal through the soft molding with his fingers and speaking the words Judy had sent him off with.

It wasn't exactly a tidy job. He'd have to get a screwdriver later. But it was comforting, somehow, to look at. He touched a finger to it and re-entered the apartment.

Jared proceeded much as he had done the previous night—making tea, pacing, eating, scratching at the cut in his side, checking the street, checking the door, sitting at the desk and trying to read. Movement in the corner of his eye jolted his focus upward—it was only his own unkempt reflection in the mirror that had, ever since Judy had given it to him, been propped precariously between the desk and the wall. He let out a breath and angled the mirror so he didn't have to look at himself, reflecting the windows instead, then went back to his book—

Jared opened his eyes. He was sitting at the desk, his neck contorted like a stork's to wedge his chin into his chest. He pried it up. It was well after midnight by the alarm beside him.

A sound turned his head. A quiet sound, like an intake of breath. From the hallway. He clutched for the Seal, eyes on the door. Had the knob moved? In the intensity of his focus upon it, the whole scene seemed to shimmer slightly. Was he imagining things?

Silence from the hall. He checked the windows again. All quiet. He stood up, realized he didn't have a plan, and sat down again, eyes glued on the door. Should he open it? Breathless seconds ticked by on the clock beside him, lengthening into minutes.

There was a knock on the window.

A knock on the window, on the fourth floor.

Shot through with a prickling chill, Jared turned. His gaze passed over the mirror reflecting the murky sills to rest on the actual scene, identical, save for one thing only.

There was a figure squatting on the fire escape.