The next morning, Marcia wakes up from where she sleeps on the couch, to the reek of garbage. Her cell phone is ringing. Seeing her brother’s number, she picks up.

“Marcia,” Fernando says without preamble, “the assisted living center is saying that you requested that I be given durable power of attorney for Mother and Father.”

“Yes,” says Marcia. “I need you to do that, Fernando, I’m—”

“My firm is going public,” Fernando says. “I’m pulling eighty hours a week right now.”

“What about Sarah?” Marcia says, referring to Fernando’s wife. “She is staying at home; you have a nanny, and—”

“We can’t have Sarah making medical decisions for our parents!” says Fernando.

“I like Sarah,” Marcia says. “She—”

“Is too busy with our twins,” says Fernando.

Marcia scrunches her eyes shut. “But I have—”

There is a light ping at the other end of the line and Fernando says, “It’s my investors, I have to go.” And he’s gone.

Marcia puts her head in her hands. It’s been years since she lost William, and she had thought she was used to it. She loved William. They may not have always been perfect together, but they were always on each other’s team. Now she is playing solo, and the weight of his absence is suddenly so heavy she feels like she can’t breathe. She sucks in a deep breath, to prove to herself she still can … and is overwhelmed by the reek of garbage.

Throat tight, she gets up and goes to the kitchen. Alicia’s and Joshua’s doors are shut. Cindy is leaning against the counter, eating yogurt from the container, last night’s makeup smeared down her face. She still looks gorgeous, but …

“How can you eat with the reek?” Marcia asks.

Throwing her yogurt container in the sink, Cindy hisses, “Deidre says you were ridiculous,” storms out, and slams her door. Marcia should feel angry, but then she hears Cindy break down into sobs.

She feels her stomach churn. If she doesn’t take the garbage out, Joshua might, but he’ll complain about it the entire time. Cindy will call him a drama queen, he’ll say “pot, you’re black,” and the situation will go downhill from there. If Joshua doesn’t take the garbage out, Alicia will. She won’t complain, won’t say a word … she’ll just do it. And for some reason, Marcia finds that scenario worse.

Sighing and holding her nose, Marcia opens the garbage can. A moment later she steps out of their apartment and pads down the hall in her pajamas, her nose wrinkled, her stomach about to heave, carrying a stinking, dripping bag of fermented yuck. She’s almost at the door of the garbage chute when a voice behind her says, “Madam, may I help you with that?”

She turns, sees a man with fangs, screams, and promptly drops the garbage. The man swoops in, picks up the garbage, and points to the door Marcia was just about to go into. “Is that the rubbish chute?”

She nods dumbly. It’s the same man-vampire she’d spoken to last night, the one with the teenagers, not the one who’d tried to seduce her daughter.

The man-maybe-vampire disappears into the garbage room.

The door to Marcia’s apartment opens. Alicia hangs off the door frame into the hallway and demands, “Mom, did you take out the garbage again?”

Marcia darts for the door. Joshua’s indignant voice rises from within the apartment. “You made Mom take out the garbage!”

She hears Cindy angrily retort, “She decided to take it herself!”

Joshua roars, “Because you were too lazy and now the house smells like putrid chicken!”

“I’m sticking this piece of bubblegum in your sewing machine!” screams Cindy.

Feeling her stomach roiling, Marcia rushes past Alicia and says, “Shut the door!” Not pausing for breath she gasps, “Cindy, don’t you dare!”

“Ah, I see I have come to the right domicile,” says the man.

Marcia blinks. Cindy comes running out of Joshua’s room with her brother in hot pursuit so fast that Marcia’s head spins. She turns and finds the maybe vampire in the doorway. Alicia’s lips are parted, her eyes are wide, and she’s looking quickly between Marcia and the maybe bloodsucker.

“Mom,” Alicia whispers. “I recognize him from the party. We shouldn’t slam the door in his face.”

Before Marcia can protest, the man asks, “May I come in?” He is definitely a vampire! Marcia can see his fangs when he talks.

Throwing up her hands, Marcia implores, “Don’t let him—”

“Sure,” says Cindy.

He steps in with a smile, giving Marcia an odd look. Alicia shuts the door behind him. Eyes wide, Marcia backs up. She tries to think of anything in the kitchen that might do as a wooden stake and gestures for Alicia to stand next to her. Alicia just looks at her quizzically.

“How can we help you?” says Joshua, rolling on his heels. Cindy elbows him. He elbows her back.

Marcia wonders if she can hit a wooden spoon against a counter hard enough to break it and give it a sharp point. She starts slowly edging toward the kitchen, motioning for Alicia to follow. Alicia’s brow furrows, but she doesn’t move. Marcia sucks in a breath. Normally, she thinks of her eldest child as the most perceptive one.

The vampire clears his throat. “I apologize for disturbing you. My name is Darerick Razvano …” A long litany of syllables follows. He must see their slack jaws because he clears his throat and adds, “Please just call me Dare. I’ll be working with the Night Elf embassy. First off, I want to return this.” He opens a satchel and pulls out a package wrapped in blue tissue paper. Bowing to Cindy, he says, “Your shoe, madam.”

Cindy smiles, puts a hand to her mouth, and walks forward to take it. Before she can, Marcia snatches it from his hand, and hands it to Cindy, glaring at the vamp. Cindy gives Marcia a dirty look, but then smiles at Dare and says, “And?”

The vampire opens his mouth as though to speak, and the fangs are there! Can’t her children see them? Are they just blinded by how handsome he is, how other worldly?

“If you’re here for Cindy’s hand in marriage, take her,” Joshua says.

“Joshua!” Marcia hisses, edging toward the kitchen.

“Pardon?” the vampire says, eyes widening, and skin flushing all the way to the ears. He’s deviously hidden their pointy tips behind his curls, Marcia notices. When her family’s bodies are found later, the neighbors won’t identify the man who entered their home as an elf.

Cindy doesn’t hear Joshua or doesn’t care. Blinking up at the vamp, she gushes, “The prince? Did he send you?”

The vampire’s jaw drops and he looks at Cindy. “Ah,” he says, and Marcia can see the exact moment he catches on to what she’s getting at. “He did not send me. I have business this way, and I thought I might return the shoe as well.”

Cindy’s face crumples. She bows her head, turns on her heel, walks to her room, and slams the door. Marcia has one kid out of the way; now, how to get the other two behind her? She gestures to Alicia again. “Mom, are you feeling alright?” Alicia asks.

The vampire looks at Marcia’s eldest daughter, and back to Marcia. “My primary order of business is to speak to you, madam. It is a matter of most urgent importance.”

Marcia says, “You’re—” She almost says a vampire. Catches her breath, and smells garbage, on her, and on him. It gives her pause. Had she ever seen a horror movie where a vampire helped take out the garbage?

“He’s a Night Elf, Mom,” Joshua says, in the same tone he uses to say, you’re embarrassing me.

“—not as dangerous as you perhaps think,” the vampire says, gold-flecked eyes on her.

The kids look between themselves and shrug.

The vampire takes a deep breath and adds, “The survival of my species is at stake.” He winces. “If you’ll pardon the expression.”

Marcia raises an eyebrow. The kids’ lips purse. After a long pause, Alicia says, “Mom, I think you have to help him.”

“Yeah, Mom, I don’t think the Sierra Club will ever let you back in if you refuse to save an endangered species,” Joshua adds.

Marcia glares at the vampire. He looks … contrite? He’s in her home, and if he was going to attack them, wouldn’t he have done that by now? Also, it’s daylight, and he’s out and about. Since the realms have opened up, humans have learned that a lot of the things they believed about magical creatures weren’t true. Is it possible, vampire fearsomeness might be another myth? Or maybe he’s not a vampire at all. Maybe he sucks the nectar out of flowers, or some such with those fangs. She huffs. No, she doesn’t believe that.

Looking nervously to the side, he says, “We need to speak someplace private … if you don’t mind?”

Vampires in myths and movies don’t talk nicely. They either bite you and drain your blood or use magic to control you and drain you later. Marcia swallows. There is only one place to talk that doesn’t entail leaving her children.

“The balcony is private,” she says.

He looks beyond her. “Ah, there?” he asks. The apartment is rather small.

Marcia nods. “Yes.”

He raises his hands. “May I wash up first? My hands smell like putrid chicken.”

More than anything, that makes Marcia think he might not be immediately dangerous.

Marcia points to the right. “Powder room right there.” She watches him go in, and then glances at the balcony. It’s early morning, but the balcony is western-facing, so there is no sun. Putting her hand to her side, she wonders if he gives up his right to entry as soon as he steps out. She also wonders if she can push him off the balcony.

The sun is slipping past its zenith. In another thirty minutes or so, it will clear the balcony above Marcia’s and shine on her ‘guest.’ She feels vaguely sick, and it might be because she is, at a deep intrinsic level, very sick. And it might be because of all that Dare has told her.

“So you are a vampire,” she says.

“We like to be called Night Elves,” says Dare. He’s sitting on the only other piece of furniture on her balcony, a fold-out chair that has a rubber lattice. He’s too big for it, and his spotless Armani suit doesn’t fit the cheapness of the chair any better. “Vampire conjures too many images of predators …”

“ … and you’re more parasites.”

“We prefer the term ‘symbiote,’” Dare says, grimacing.

Marcia narrows her eyes. “You haven’t exactly explained how you’re symbiotic.” He’d said that vampires require mammalian blood for survival, but not enough to be harmful to the host, unless the host is a very small creature, like a mouse. He’d also said, to thrive and be healthy, they need human blood. Not very much, he had assured her, and not even consistently —whatever nutrient they need from human blood they apparently can store for a long time. But without access to human blood, they eventually become infertile, ill, and often so depressed that they die. “Are gone” were the words he used to describe it. Still … “Symbiotic implies some benefit to the host species. Not harming the host isn’t the same thing.”

Dare’s face goes blank for a moment. “I am not at liberty to divulge the benefit.” He smiles tightly, and gazes out at the parking lot across the street from her apartment. It might be Marcia’s imagination, but she thinks he looks sad.

“You can’t turn into mist,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Though it would be convenient.”

“You don’t convert anyone you bite into a vampire.”

He shakes his head.

Marcia huffs a soft laugh. “I always thought that wouldn’t work. The predator-prey relationship would never be balanced.”

“We prefer the term sym––we’re parasites,” he amends at Marcia’s sharp glance. “But it works the same way.”

Marcia looks at her knees; she’s still wearing her pajamas. “And you aren’t stronger than a human, faster, or able to enthrall us. And blood drawing is a consensual thing. Vampires feel a bond between themselves and their hosts and so wouldn’t want to jeopardize it?”

He’s quiet a moment, and then he says, “That all holds true …” He bows his head and steeples his fingers. “ … for most of us.”

Marcia raises her eyes. He meets her gaze. “All magical creatures: Night Elves, Light Elves, Dark Elves, Fire Ettins, Vanir, Jotunn, Aesir and the Dwarves … they all possess some innate magic they can do without thinking. For Fire Ettins, it is the manipulation of fire; for all elves of all kinds, that innate ability is … usually … immortality.”

Marcia leans her head back on her chair. The word itself has weight. And then she bites back a laugh. Forget forever; she’d take just three years.

Dare goes on, “For the Vanir, Aesir, and the rest, the innate ability is more individual. For some, it may be controlling fire or ice, great strength, or longevity, or they might be particularly good at some craft or trade. But all magical creatures, if they learn to harness magic, can learn to do all these things—be strong, control fire, be faster, be charming …”

“No turning into bats, though?” Marcia asks impulsively. She’s beginning to feel light-headed.

He smiles. “It would be fun, but no.”

Marcia’s brow furrows, and she picks at her pajamas. They’re too big. She’s lost so much weight in the last few months. “In our myths, vampires are—”

“Sadistic and evil?” Dare supplies.

Marcia’s breath catches, and she turns to face him.

Meeting her gaze, he says, “There is some basis in that.”

Marcia sits up very tall in her chair.

Dare sighs. “There are very few vampires strong enough to walk through the realms. Moreover, it has been illegal for us to do so for nearly a thousand years. The only ones that have come—”

It’s Marcia’s turn to sigh. “Lawbreakers … powerful lawbreakers.” When Alicia was an infant, she’d become obsessed with all news of kidnappings and pedophilia. The network news people love to say, “it could be anyone.” That is technically true, but Marcia had discovered that it is a hell of a lot more likely to be a certain type of person: someone who breaks the law is at the top of that list. A vampire that broke the law to get to Earth was unlikely to be a vampire who respected the laws of humans.

“I think …” Dare says, softly. “I think that certain members of my species … who were used to being able not to care nor to love … they sought to kill their hosts so they could loosen that bond.”

Marcia’s eyes blur. There is a perfectly good word to describe humans like that.

He winces. “I only mention this because I want to be completely honest with you.”

Grabbing her side, Marcia’s brow furrows. There is a gaping hole in his story. “Your prince was about to bond with my daughter.”

Dare snorts. “No, he’s rash, but even he wasn’t about to crack a vein with someone he’d just met.”

“Then what was he—”

Dare shoots her a look that says, really?

Marcia sags in her chair. “Ah, just some innocent hanky-panky …” She glares at him. “With a sixteen-year-old.”

“In his defense, she … ahhh … misrepresented her age and he has very little experience with humans. A sixteen-year-old vampire … ” He holds out a hand as though to indicate knee-high. “You may have noticed the prince was quite … upset … by what transpired.”

Sadly, Marcia can believe Cindy “misrepresented” her age, and she had noticed the way the prince had turned green. She can also believe all the rest of it, and still not find his species particularly … evil. No, she doesn’t find them evil at all. She can readily believe a few bad apples could be responsible for all the heinous crimes attributed to a whole race. It hadn’t taken many Conquistadors to wipe out the Aztecs. She sighs. Not that the Aztecs were angels, either. She gulps. And there is a vocal, violent minority of humans calling for a reclosing of the realms and the extermination of any magical creatures that might wind up trapped here.

She turns her gaze out to the parking lot across the street, which is almost empty, since it’s Sunday. “So how do you keep the strong vamp—Night Elves away from Earth?” Marcia asks.

Dare stiffens in a way that seems almost defensive, but then he rubs his forehead. “We actually have been studying your technology ... We believe that we wouldn’t have to send anyone through—well, except for a modest support staff, and the odd procession of dignitaries. You have machines now that would allow blood to be transported without chilling or chemical additives.” Head bowing, he nods, as though to himself. “It is … ” He sighs. “It will be fine.” There is something in his voice, something resigned. But her mind is getting too fuzzy to ask, and so she asks the question at the forefront of her thoughts. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“So you don’t talk,” Dare says. Too soon for her to draw away, he reaches over and takes her hand. His fingers are dry and cool. “It is a fluke that you realize the nature of Night Elves; and, if humans know, it will make things more difficult.”

Marcia stares down at their entwined hands, too tired to pull away, and it isn’t just her illness. It’s also from lying. She works in an oncology department—only as their web designer—but she knows enough about cancer to realize that her recent symptoms had warned of something very bad. The scans she had just confirmed it. Now she has to tell her children and her family about what’s really going on … she has a meeting with a therapist … right after her next oncology appointment. She’ll ask her … She feels tears biting at the edge of her eyes. She’s frightened of holding it in that long, frightened of giving it away, too.

“Don’t hide it, Dare,” she says, staring down at his hands. They are large, heavy, and masculine; and by comparison her own hands look frail, small, and very old. She seldom notices how wrinkled the skin around her joints has become during her half century-and-change on the planet, or how visible her veins are, but next to Dare’s magical youth she can’t help but notice. She remembers Alicia asking if she feels well, and Joshua’s anger at Cindy “making” her take out the trash. “Something will give you away in the end, and lying will make it worse.”

He takes her hand in both of his own, and turns it over. She hears him exhale. “How would I even go about that?”

She’s slouching in her chair, overwhelmed by life—and him—and this. She glances at him. For most of the conversation, he’s maintained an air of self-assuredness that belied the age he looks. But now he does look all of twenty-eight or so, and Marcia feels older than his … centuries? Millennia?

She takes a deep breath, her head clearing. She’s worked at an oncology department as their web designer—which really means designer, coder, and copy editor. She knows how to soften medical terminology, make it easier to understand and accept. It occurs to her that maybe maturity is based on experience, not years.

She tells him what she would say. When she’s done, she feels exceptionally light. She supposes that, if you’re going to die, helping save an entire race as one of your final deeds isn’t a bad way to go.

“You think, framing it as an inheritable disease, like hemophilia, and our people as in great need of … transfusions … that humans will find this acceptable?” Dare asks, squeezing her fingers lightly. At some point in the conversation, he’d leaned closer.

“You’re in need of blood,” Marcia says. “Something we give voluntarily, and offering to trade it for tellurium and lithium, things we don’t have and need for our new magic power converters and batteries. It will work out.” Bless human industrialism and greed, it might just save a race.

She glances over at him. He’s leaning sideways in his chair, sunlight covering one side of his face. During their conversation, he’d pulled a pair of aviator glasses out of his pocket and put them on. In the hand not holding hers, he is clutching a small tube that advertises itself as Titanium Dioxide Sunscreen for Baby’s Sensitive Skin.

“You don’t look well,” she says.

He waves vaguely beyond the balcony with the hand that holds the tube. “Perhaps a bit too much sun.” He holds the vial up to his nose. “Although this ointment is amazing.”

“Let’s get inside,” Marcia says, jumping up from her chair. She waits for the tide of nausea she expects to pass—but it doesn’t even come. Not letting go of her hand, Dare slowly gets to his feet. As she leads him into the living room, he stumbles on the track for the balcony door.

“Why don’t you lie down?” Marcia says. “I’ll call you a cab.” Perhaps seeing him so feeble and in obvious need gives her energy, because as he flops on the couch and she bustles about, she doesn’t feel tired at all.

A few minutes later, she’s downstairs waiting for the cab with him. He looks so awful she suggests a hospital, but he waves it off with a mumbled, “It will pass.”

The cab is just arriving, when she suddenly recalls how resigned he’d seemed when they’d discussed blood banks. “You don’t really want to use blood banks … you find it a bit …” She doesn’t know what the word is. Distasteful doesn’t seem right. The word she wants is sad, or maybe lonely, but she doesn’t know why it fits.

For the first time since they left the balcony, he smiles. “What can I say? I’m a romantic.”

Before she can ask him to explain, he’s stumbling out the door, into the sunlight, to the waiting cab, clutching his side. Marcia’s still pondering it when she reenters the apartment.

“Some fairy tale,” Cindy says, staring at her shoe.

“See, no such thing as fairy tales,” Alicia says resignedly.

Joshua says, “We’re still stuck with you, too! Loser.”

“Joshua,” Marcia growls in warning. She gives her eldest daughter a covert little nod.