Many years later, as they faced the bleakly bland blackness of oblivion,

  together,

  always together,

  and together forevermore,

  Dante and Opal realized that, although they had been having a splendid time just chatting, they could no longer endure the weight of their shared guilt eating away at them and thenceforth plotted an expedition.

  Through farthest reaching planes of nothingness and oceans of black so nonexistent that, upon discovery, got so self-conscious they decided to be something, somewhere, pretty fuckin' quick, Dante and Opal traversed them all before eventually finding the gods just as they entered their Intermission. They nodded at a few familiar faces and shook a couple hands before strolling up to that most boisterous of gods, and though they interrupted his jolly, did so with courtesy, and informed him that though they were very much looking forward to welcoming visitors again, All of Creation was actually still busy taking that last commandment quite seriously, and though our Dante and Opal were the last people who'd wanna vouch for Gumfrey, this was starting to get a tad bit ridiculous.

  And although All of Creation hammered out that first commandment with ease, they weren’t sure what exactly to do with Leo's latter portion. But rest assured, after having dealt with its own fair share of holy wars, it was disassembled, reassembled, broken down, boxed up, and marked good for shipping, clear to accompany the former with a smile, name tag, and can-do attitude.

  Leo, still ever boisterous, was humble in his mistake, and chastised himself for having become so enraptured in his tale. Wanting to make things right, he stabbed two lesser gods with the bullshit job of ascertaining the exact amount of time that Ol’ Gumfrey spent in this predicament, and upon its discovery, his break would immediately begin, and last four times as long.

  Though the search still goes on, in the meanwhile, Gumfrey refills the buckets, and cleans the togas, silent and somehow quite stoic as he, and he alone, knows that the only answer that would EVER matter to him he discovered mid-thrust 33 minutes and 19 seconds into the final hour of that four billionth year which was the second quarter of that first half of what some doctors are now calling the hidden fourth trimester at the tail end of that first neat little fraction of infinity, and this most gracious answer was that he was starting to really like where things were going.

  And so Varin, unaware of just how warmly the gods took delight in his plight, begrudgingly let the band of his holster snap over his gun, muzzling it entirely, as he let the grim hatred he had for Gumfrey engulf his mind and extinguish itself in a wild spray of cortisol, and asked Opal if she was ABSOLUTELY SURE.

  Opal, having yet to take a break from this, this most wondrous thing that had bestowed itself upon her lips, shot her eyes up in fury. Her fangs, now parted from Dante’s neck, her eyes ablaze, her wrath, demanding just one more sip, her head, drunk in its bliss, her tongue, interrogating every tastebud for a drop of blood missed, as that gloried candied apple danced its tango 'cross her lips, our dear Opal bid a not so long farewell to that most purest crimson, and she gazed into Dante's awestruck—jesus those—all engulfing eyes, and mumbled those first, spellbinding words,

  “Yes—this one. This one's mine.”

  "Are you SURE that you're ABSOLUTELY—"

  "Forevermore."

  Varin, with hands raised in quiet protest as he had not yet learned, at least when it came to Opal’s Dante, to never, EVER question her judgment again, slowly muttered a quiet goodbye to the sweet, slimy allure of those extremely illegal, ever slothslugful memories of a glory now gone, unaware that the heavens themselves would sooner reunite with the ground than not see him reunited with his cherished slothslug.

  Opal, having suddenly been ripped from what she still considers to be her favorite pastime, Dante’s protests be damned, remembered that Varin was busy ensuring she’d have to get her degree elsewhere and commanded him to stop. In fact, I wish I could say that the adrenaline coursing through her cold, half-undying heart began to die down, but it started to ramp back up as she started to tear directly into Varin’s ass.

  “What in the actual FUCK are you doing?”

  Varin, having been awoken from his slumber relatively recently, was unaware of the traditional garb of the day, and wouldn’t have been able to tell a would-be-assassin from a pissed off university professor. Eventually, Opal’s heart lightened to her most favored enforcer, watching the stone-like stoic gaze he held break every now and again as he looked around the room and saw new and exciting wonders in each corner. He offered Opal his sincerest apologies, and told her that their circumstances had changed dramatically.

  By that, what he had meant to say was The Vatos, their strongest rivals, had done away with paying any semblance of respect to tradition, and were happily mowing down what little remained of Opal’s little, extremely illegal, family business in the streets of Jaxon City wherever they might find them. Upon the foul realization, Varin was tasked with chasing after and locating Opal, where a very unfortunate Dr. Lichter was found enforcing his no cheating policy to very great effect. Usually, due to Varin’s inexperience with the modern world, he was kept on guard duty at the estate, but their numbers had been worn thin as of the past forty-eight hours, and many of the remaining members found themselves fulfilling the roles of others now gone.

  Opal nodded, her arms still wrapped around Dante and began tuning out the chaos that had erupted around them. Her mind ablaze with possibilities. Countermeasures, appeals to The Council, and cold-blooded revenge, ranked atop a million others. The one thing that all these roads shared in common was the next destination through which to pick a path and follow it through to its bloody end. Not the British kind either. Varin, already seeing where Opal’s thoughts were headed, pitched in his two cents.

  “The Estate is no longer safe. Your family has been moved elsewhere, don’t ask where. Not here. We must gather, relocate, and find a place to settle for a while, while we get our bearings.”

  Opal, the pain already rising in her voice, knew that the time for pleasantries and ceremony was certainly not now, tried to sharpen her voice. It had been quite some time since she had a dredge, which Dante only was by technicality, but given the current circumstances, it was a technicality that she had no choice but to make the utmost use of.

  So, when Opal demanded that Dante take them to a place that he considered safe, he felt extremely strange. He could feel the power in her words, and the want that he should have had in obeying them, but he also saw that he was perfectly capable of turning tail and simply running in the other direction. He had considered the idea four times before realizing that to delay his answer any further would key Opal into the same information that he had only just become aware of.

  Opal still had no idea who he was, and since it was common knowledge that the bite of a vampire had no power over werewolves, it was quite evident that she was quite ignorant to that fact as well. He decided that his best bet was to keep up the charade for the time being, and hoped that he could get within close enough proximity to Shallow to telepathically communicate that he should really think about cleaning the place up a bit more, and to also make himself scarce, seeing that they would very soon have visitors.

  It took about eight seconds for Dante to piece together the puzzle before him and realize that the car Opal and Varin were rushing him into was the very same vehicle that had almost run him down earlier that morning. It took him another four seconds to come to his senses and realize that then was not the time to make any bitches, gripes, or complaints about it, and hopped in. It was a nice car. Modern. Sleek. The seats were leather, with warmers, and before long he thought he could see himself mowing down pedestrians behind the wheel Varin maneuvered with a voracious grip.

  His eyes transfixed on the road, and his hands almost tearing the fabric of the steering wheel with each turn of the car, he let his lips remain unmoved, mostly out of a curiosity for what words Opal and Dante might share between them.

  His heart had welled and emptied itself before filling again with a pain he thought he wouldn’t experience for a few more years to come as he realized that, however poorly thought out Opal’s infatuation was, the young lady was beginning to grow up. Though he was suspicious of Dante, for Opal’s sake, he didn’t want to start things off with a more negative first impression than having already almost murdered him and fought the urge to eyeball him through the rear-view mirror.

  He looked kind enough, though a bit sweaty, and Varin wondered how well he would play within the family dynamics, especially as a mere human, if The Family was to continue to exist at all. Vampire/human marriages weren’t completely unheard of nowadays, but they were rare. Something to cock an eyebrow at for sure. Her father definitely wouldn’t have gone for it, Satan warm his soul. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he wasn’t all that sure he was too fond of the idea either, but he knew better than to voice any objections. At least not now.

  Once he could get the two separated he could have a serious talk with Opal about her decision making, though he couldn’t think of what he’d want to say.

  Honestly, he hated the thought of having to have any kind of serious talk with Opal at all. Unfortunately for our Varin, it would be the first of many that they would have over the years, and without knowing it, his anticipation flourished into sheer anxiety as he struggled to come up with what would be his opening words for such a talk. In fact, the only reason that he was thinking about it so hard right now was that the car was so oddly quiet. Too quiet for a newlywed couple for sure, and Varin then began to get angry at the lovebirds, if they would just speak to each other, he could focus on listening to their nonsense rather than coming up with his own. Opal wanted to share some words with her betrothed, but she was too busy trying to think of what their next moves oughta be, and Dante was too busy screaming inside his head, hoping for Shallow to hear in between tossing out directions to Varin.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Varin, sick of the silence, and of fighting the tears that welled in his eyes as he saw just how far his cherished Opal was about to actually take this whole marriage thing, lined up a perfectly immaculate, textbook 40,273,613 target shot. His aim, steady and true, laid fixed upon the silent miasma that filled the cabin with that deafening silence, and he let the blur of his tears form an invisible cloak around the too cute to ignore inaugural victim. And as Varin pulled back the hammer on his death granting, hole in the ground guaranteeing, blank headstone in a field with more on the way, 48 years before it all got paved over anyway, to create the bleakly gray, quickly built and cheaply paid, local government flagship foundation building, life taker he prepared a cerebral cassette, deathly afraid to lose a word, as he took aim and recorded the tale he would tell himself and retell himself again and to himself only, EVER, the story of his greatest shot.

  To this day, he still doesn't wanna know, but between the two of us, I really wouldn’t wanna miss this. Beneath that teary shroud, that very first target was the warm fuzzy memory of a young Opal, Varin had discovered and was scolding for once again reading in the dark. Varin, still pretty fresh out of his centuries long slumber, was quite honestly just amazed and excited to see a young lady of His Dutiful's reading at all, but out of undying service to the latest Head of The Family, told His Dutiful’s daughter to close the book and go to sleep.

  And of course, she had her protests prepared, and Varin had his lies of dream time sweets ready in turn, each knowing full well they were engaged in a pre-recorded dance and enjoying their steps along the way and would eventually end their merengue and hence it be dealt the killing blow. And though Opal, in her naivety would claim what she believed was her sweet victory, Varin would sit, his back against the foot of her bed, and listen to her completely ‘tism out about the latest escapades of a boy who lived. He tried and failed to remember any other details of the story, aside it having a healthy dose of magic, but always remembered that line. He was never sure why.

  Whatever was happening in the story, Opal always had a damn good time talking about it, and Varin had a damn good time listening to it, and before he’d know it her lips would begin to trail and her thoughts would begin to slow, and slumber would finally lay its head upon the latest in a long line of His Dutiful’s brats who was the very first Varin hadn’t actually thought to call a brat. And with his soul claimer in hand, he stared with a death dark anger in his eyes at that silence that was currently swallowing Opal and Dante and sending his mind spinning and opened the barrel of his mouth to take a shot through that first, most definitely inconsequential target.

  “You two...known each other long?”

  Opal, too shocked to answer Varin, and Dante, in the middle of sending off his latest plea for help, answered, “No,” without paying the question any more thought than that, and Leo, distracted from his yelling at Gumfrey about the latest emptiness of his bucket, missed the beginning of one of his favorite parts in the story. With a small portion of his power, he infused Varin with the gall to repeat, and leaned into screen, watching with utmost glee.

  Opal, thankful she never had to worry about blushing, decided to kill that elephant in the car and answered, “Even if we were to count this as date number one, he would have to do a pretty good job with two and three.”

  Varin chuckled, hiding the horror of his revelation, and asked Dante how long he’d be on the current road. Dante, ever distracted, didn’t answer. Opal, knowing not being answered is one of Varin’s worst pet peeves, grabbed hold of Dante’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Just her touch brought Dante back to reality. Well, whatever you want to call the nonsense that’s currently unfolding in his head, and they locked eyes again. Living in each other’s gaze for so long that they each had all of time and a half more to imagine just how much and how well they’d love each other, that even Opal had forgotten that Varin had spoke.

  Varin cleared his throat again, getting ever more flustered with these assholes, “Excuse me…wait what’s your name again?”

  Opal, not wanting to admit that she didn’t even know the guy’s name either, squeezed his hand again, “Hey, everything okay?”

  Dante, the spell having been broken, averted his eyes, and looked towards the front of the car, “Sorry, what was that?”

  “Your name.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I’m Dante.”

  Varin nodded his head and gave his in turn, trying his best not to notice how Opal’s reaction gave him the slightest impression that this was her first time hearing his name as well. He turned his eyes back to the road.

  “How much longer am I gonna be on this road?”

  “About six minutes.”

  And in that moment the trio let the silence wash over them, thinking about the answer in varying degrees of severity. We’ll go lowest to highest.

  Varin, appreciative and gorgeously simple, liked things to be precise. If Dante had given him the seconds too, he would’ve pulled the car over, had them bullshit their way through some vows, and wed them right there in the snow shaded by the Kakatu mountains.

  Opal, slightly suspicious that Dante knew the exact minute from this particular spot in the road, chalked it up to it being a road well-traveled. Her suspicion and dispelling so quick, she might not have registered it as a thought at all.

  Dante, the sweat now seeping into the wispy pores of his half of the soul, silently congratulated himself for successfully avoiding a Stage Half of Ten Emergency, and took notes on the exact words he said and the tone with which he said them that appeased this most grim pair of kidnappers enough to not ask why he didn’t just say 3+2 minutes.

  Quite the accomplishment indeed, and after he’d given a rather uproarious acceptance speech to an audience of his higher cognitive faculties and helped the wait staff with the tables once the festivities had ended, he took his trophy home and found the perfect place for that well deserved return to awkward car silence. His favorite.

  Opal, not wanting to waste the opportunity Varin had opened, thought about something to say, but she struggled with finding it, and with the sport of keeping things not bad for business, she made sure that whatever she did think of would not pertain to sweat or moisture in any way. He was a nervous one, but she took care to remember the absolutely batshit insane circumstances. Whatever she was gonna say, it had to be something…relaxing. Just a step above small talk, to help put him at ease.

  She looked out the tinted windows of the All Black Escapade and over those plains caked in the yellow bunchgrass, and past a couple buildings more you could spy a little crevice through the mountains. If it was darker, she would’ve been able to just make out the glow. Around this time of year she can usually see it by 6. It was so alluring, she could see why people flock to it.

  And with that she turned to Dante, “Do you ever get up to Jaxon City?”

  Dante looked out the same window and saw a phantom of the glow between the mountains that he always shut his curtains against, fearing its very shimmer would tempt him.

  “Not really.”

  Opal tried to hide her disappointment, “Oh, it’s a pretty cool place. It’s got shit you’d never see anywhere else.”

  Dante, painfully approaching the idea that he might be getting a much more well-informed opinion of Jaxon City very soon, noticed that Opal still had her hand in his, and he watched her now, as she continued gazing into that forbidden crevice, and gave her hand a squeeze back.

  He fought the urge to sigh and asked, “Got any favorite spots?”

  “None you’d know about.” Opal answered, still under the impression that she had taken a mere human into her arms. Dante, all too cautious, made sure to keep tabs on the more mythic aspects of Jaxon City. Monsters flocked to it like moths to a flame. The city was vast, ever expanding, and there were all sorts of seedy underbellies happy to find a home to nest in. What Opal thought of first were the gardens atop the Charlatan Hotel. Where the leaves of Auspic Trees would glow with a light that could hunt down and reveal the stars the city’s neon always hid, “But there’s a few I could show you. At some point.”

  Dante nodded more so out of an ill hid triumph, as he was finally successful in reaching out to Shallow. The moist thickness of his psychic arrival hit Dante like a dump truck, and Opal unconsciously went to cover her mouth, surprised by a sudden bout of nauseousness.

  “YOUNG WOLF, YOU FEEL…AMBIVALENT. SOMEWHERE BETWEEN ABSOLUTE TERROR AND BLISS. WHAT HAS HAPPENED? HOW WENT THE EXAM?”

  Dante, with as few words as he could gather, proceeded to thrash them all at once until they crafted a tale to bring Shallow up to speed, and then he pleaded with him to clean up the apartment a bit before making himself scarce.

  Shallow, finally free from only having Dante’s acquaintance to look forward to, happily rejected half of the demand.

  “A CLEAN APARTMENT YOU CAN HAVE, BUT I MUST MEET THESE PEOPLE. THEY SOUND FASCINATING.”

  Dante, not wanting to clue his 2 partners in crime in on his wordless conversation, fought back the urge to smack his forehead.

  “We cannot let them know that you live there. In case you weren't paying attention these two are in serious shit, and they’re trying to bring me along for the ride. The sooner we get them outta the apartment, without me, the sooner we can get to enjoying my winter break.”

  “YOUNG WOLF, YOU SHAME YOURSELF. WE HAVE COMPANY. AND NOT YOUR USUAL KIND, THE MERE MORTALS THAT BRING LACKLUSTER PROVISIONS AND SIT UPON THE COUCH ONLY TO STARE AT THEIR SCREENS. THESE ARE TRUE MONSTERS. HEATHENS! ONES WE MUST BUILD A RAPPORT WITH. HOW CLOSE ARE YOU?”

  Dante leaned forward in his seat, “Take this left at the light, and go into the second parking garage that you see on the right.” Varin nodded in response, his eyes not leaving the road ahead of him.

  Dante locked back into his conversation with Shallow, “We’re just a couple minutes away. Please, you cannot meet these people. They’ll want you to come along for backup.”

  “NONSENSE. A COUPLE VAMPIRES AND A VERY POWERFUL WEREWOLF IN TOW?”

  “That’s the thing. They don’t know I’m a werewolf, and they’re not going to know.”

  They pulled into the parking garage, and Dante navigated them to the very tippy top, where guests were allowed to stay without fear of getting their car towed. They stepped out into the brisk cold air, and Dante led them into the apartment building as Varin kept one hand inside his jacket. They opened the door to find a decently clean and completely empty apartment. Dante, thankful Shallow was actually capable of listening to him, invited Opal and Varin to the couch, not wanting them to venture anywhere outside of the living room.

  Varin took the chair that sat alongside a windowsill at the table where Shallow enjoyed whooping Dante’s ass in chess every once in a while and took a peek through the blinds. Opal took a seat on the couch. She tapped her hand on the seat, and Dante took it in turn.

  Opal glanced over at Varin and said, “We should really bring him up to speed.”

  Varin nodded, “Quickly, then.”