Nick stood alone in the empty converted barn cum auditorium, fidgeting in the scratchiest castaway clothes Agatha and Winona had been able to find. They hung off him like elephant skins, but still somehow managed to feel clingy. His ears pricked at the dozens of voices echoing in from outside, riding strong, lilithian scents. Stonewood Valley Winery was one of the Lennox family’s many holdings. Mostly it was a way of extracting money from the herds of Adam. Mortals would come to imbibe their red drop, throw concerts, and commit that most human of blasphemies: marriage. As ugly as aiding and abetting such things was, it did pay for the upkeep of both the family and the wider coven. In a sterling example of corporate socialism, most lilim of the Old Colony lived in housing paid for by the Lennoxes. And while the Children of Lilith didn’t do Sunday church, they had their share of festivals. The lunar new year; the summer and winter equinoxes; the last followed bitterly by Christmas, when they cursed the birth of the Old Father’s dreaded spawn; but redeemed by Black Easter, where they celebrated his death.

Today, the Old Colony was celebrating Nick’s liberation from original sin. Like a Bat Mitzvah, but better. A familiar, flat-faced grey kitten slithered through a crack in one of the barn’s window shutters. It swelled and reshaped into Danny Sutherland. “Hey Nick.”

“Hey Danny,” said Nick. He grinned. “They ready to gaze upon my glory?”

“Almost. Maybe five minutes?”

“Thank Lilith,” said Nick, scratching behind his neck. “These clothes suuuck.”

“I know, right?” said Danny. “They were like that at my thing, too.”

“Where do they find them?”

“Homeless leftovers, mostly.”

“Oh.”

Nick pointed at Danny’s bare waist. “Where’s your Batman belt?”

Danny’s blank expression twitched. “Ma and Pa think having a phone at a reclaiming is rude or something.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Parents.” A thought occurred to him. “Hey, Dan.”

“Yeah?”

“Your mom and dad, they live in the same house, right?”

“Yeah…”

“And Wanda’s your full sis?”

Danny nodded.

“So they’ve been together for years and years?”

“That’s how time works, yes.”

“Dude, your parents are totally married.”

Danny actually frowned. “They are not!”

Nick sing-songed, “Married, married!”

“They mate with other people! I have tons of half brothers and sisters!”

“Not a bastard, not a bastard!”

Danny lunged forward, only missing Nick by an inch as he jumped backwards. “Am so!”

The pair chased each other around the barn, literally bouncing off the barn walls. Nick crashed down through a flower arch leftover from a wedding. Danny landed on his chest, knocking the air out of him. It was okay. Air was optional. They both laughed. “I’m glad you’re joining the coven, Nick.”

Nick patted Danny on the arm. “I’m glad you’re in it.”

“You nervous?”

Nick shrugged, still pinned. “Nah. I killed like, twenty Nazis my first night.” He squirmed. “Just want to get out of these friggin hobo clothes.”

“Nazis are squishy,” remarked Danny. He looked up at the auditorium stage. “I was in a play here once. It was about Lilith and—”

“Yeah,” said Nick. “I saw it.”

“You did?” Danny stood up, grumbling, “I wanted to be Cain, but Shadow beat me in the audition.”

“Huh,” said Nick. “Didn’t think he was the acting type.”

“Broke both my legs.”

“Ah.”

Danny turned around, strolling towards the barn doors. “He’s gonna beat you up for calling Ma and Pa married.”

Nick laughed. “He was already going to do that.”

A few minutes later, Tabby dropped in through a skylight. Like any good bride, she hadn’t let Nick see her since he woke at dusk. Turned out she’d painted every inch of herself in tiger-stripes. “They’re ready for us! So weird having a human out there.”

“Nobody’s going to eat Ivan, are they?”

“Nah, the Moms gave him a badge and everything. It’s not like he’s the first human we’ve ever hung out with.”

Nick nodded. “Cool.” His eyes flicked up and down Tabby, impressed. “That must’ve taken ages.”

Tabby giggled. “Got Simeon to do it. Super fussy.”

“How come I don’t get badass body paint?”

“Because we’re doing this properly!” Tabby declared. “We’re not heathens like the Grey King.”

Nick was glad to know his new family was in the middle of the weird religious vampire food chain. “Why do you guys even have to do this? You’re born badass.”

Tabitha rolled her eyes. “We gotta prove we deserve it. Like they’re gonna suck the vampire out of us if we don’t. The Moms put chains on us.”

“Least they can’t say they were heavier when they were kids.”

Tabby snorted. “Yeah.”

“So, do you have to do that before you’re allowed to turn people?” Nick asked. “I mean. Sounds like the sorta thing they’d want you to prove you were cool before they’d let you do it.”

Tabby shrugged.

“You think too much. We are real vampires. No one’s changing that. ‘Sides, it’s not like me and Zeke changed tons of people. Just one each.”

“... Wait, really?”

Tabby frowned. “What?”

“I’m your first?”

“Yep.”

Nick stammered. “But—but why?”

“Why what?”

“Why me? Why just me?”

Tabby tilted her head. “What, you think we just go around upgrading every kid we find?” She laughed. “We’d run out of food. And vampires last forever. Imagine if I had to hang out with a kid called Chet for a zillion years. It’s suuuuck.”

“...Why would you turn a Chet?”

Tabby grinned and rocked forward on her heels. “Exactly.”

“So… why me?” Nick asked.

The question hung in the air between the children. Nick quickly forced a grin. “I mean, you picked right, clearly.” He smoothed his hair back.

Tabby giggled. “I mean, you seemed pretty smart and I thought it’d be cool to bring someone home for once, and… you were sad. I thought it’d be nice to see you smile more.”

Nick blushed. It looked like fresh blood on snow.

“Oh, and you hit me with a wrench and screamed so hard you swallowed my blood. Kinda took away my options.”

That did not help.

“Coulda still killed me,” Nick muttered, a little stung.

“Dude, you’re not listening. You. Hit. Me. With a wrench. Me. A vampire. Do you know how badass that was?”

He felt a little better at that.

A bell rang outside. Tabby pecked Nick on the nose, leaving a black and orange smudge. “C’mon. The coven wants to see ya smile.”

Tabby pushed the tall barn door open with one hand, leading Nick out with the other. Their path was marked for them by a long black carpet, the history of their race embroidered in thread so bright and colourful, it almost looked like neon. Under the children’s feet, Adam and Lilith played together at the beginning of everything. As they walked, Lilith tried and failed to convince her mate—her friend—of their creator’s cruel, hungry heart. One pace forward, she fled alone from the Old Father’s grasp, growing to womanhood in the yawning wilds of an empty world. That part of the story always made Nick sad, no matter how triumphantly the Moms or the Primer told it. She must’ve been so lonely.

Nick knew lonely. He knew it well. But he’d only realised what it was once it was over. Nick hadn’t had friends when he’d been human, unless you counted his mother and his employer. He’d told himself other kids were too stupid or mean. Maybe a lot of them were, but truth be told, he’d actively tried not to talk to other children. Nick wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was to do with his earliest spider-threads of memory. Brief, disconnected, but achingly vivid flashes of curling up against his mother on a homeless shelter cot, of his entire life fitting in a plastic shopping bag. At best, other children had been fleeting presences, like shadows on the wall. At worst, they’d been competition for scraps, points of purposeless violence as they struck out at someone smaller to vent their own frustration. Nick didn’t remember much from those days, and he knew that was a good thing, but sometimes, he wondered how much of him was just echoes of those forgotten years. It made him feel stupid, like a frog still hopping around with gills and a tail.

They were getting closer. The scents of the coven put Nick on edge. Kin. The one thing bar God that could really hurt him if they felt like it. He shook himself. He was being paranoid.

There were maybe a hundred people in attendance. People for the moment, anyway. Some were wolves, cats, or rats. Huh. He hadn’t known about the rats. One was a raven, but he wasn’t sure if that was one of them or just a stray bird. The person-shaped people sat in ripples of white folding chairs with a gap for Nick and Tabby around a picnic table under a black tablecloth. On top of it rested a birdcage, the whippoorwill Nick had caught in the woods singing anxiously. Nick had fed that thing every morning and night for over a fortnight. He called it Llewellyn.

Four nights ago, Agatha and Winona had asked Nick which of them he wanted to officiate the Reclaiming. He’d pretended to hesitate politely, then answered Agatha. The vampiress stood in front of the table in a hooded cloak and thick leather gloves. Nick had been surprised by the clothing, but then, how much exposed skin did a vampire want when handling a solid silver shepard’s staff? Could silver smell? Because it make Nick’s nose twitch. Like bug spray.

Tabby and Nick made their way to the table. A few of the onlookers waved as they passed. Ivan did, grinning from one of the front seats. He had a Stonewood Valley employee badge pinned to his dress shirt. It might as well have said “Do not eat.” He wasn’t the only one, either. The old guy from Agatha’s company was there too. A cheerful wave, which Nick returned half-heartedly. The children stopped before Agatha. She looked down at them, her eyes glinting catlike under her hood. “Why do you stain my eyes with this human child?” she asked Tabitha in strident Enochian.

The question was pure ritual, Nick knew. They’d rehearsed it and everything. Being called human still made him bristle. Like thousands of years of enmity had been transfused into his veins.

“He is no human!” Tabby shouted back. “I have freed him from the Old Father’s shackles!”

With a few surprisingly deft movements, Tabby cut away the castaway clothing from Nick. He let them fall away from him, rolling his shoulders and sighing with relief.

“You have shared your blood with this boy?” Agatha asked.

“Yes!”

“Do you take responsibility for him? Do you share his pride and his shame?”

Tabby took Nick’s hand. “Yes!”

Nick squeezed back.

“Then we must see if he is worthy to leave the herds of Adam behind!”

Nick shouted. “I am!” Without any cue, Nick slipped out of Tabby’s grip and darted past her mother. He bent the thin bars of the birdcage open and snatched the whippoorwill out. The poor bird tried to beat its wings against the new cage of pale fingers, seeming to stare plaintively into Nick’s eyes. He shrugged. Sorry, Llewellyn. Better you than me.

Nick shoved the bird into his mouth and chewed, feeling the creature thrash momentarily as small, delicate bones crunched between his teeth. Not for long, though. The hard part was the feathers. He swallowed Llewellyn in two hard swallows. He tickled his thoat on the way down. The Old Colony cheered all around him. Ivan Jones grimaced in polite silence.

“He swallows death,” said Agatha cooly, turning to address Nick. “Kneel.” She put a hand on Nick’s shoulder, forcing the boy down onto his knees. Without preamble, she lowered the shepherd's staff towards his bare skin, like a pastoral queen dubbing a knight.

Nick’s hand flew up to meet the staff. His skin burned at the touch. He screwed his eyes shut, trying not to scream. “You do not stand above me,” he intoned through gritted teeth. “As the Old Father before you. I am my own master.”

For a few seconds, Nick knelt there, letting the silver burn against his palm. Claiming freedom had been painful for Lilith, so it would be for him. Zeke had managed twenty seconds, Tabby thirty. Nick wanted to do at least as good—

The world went still. The breathing from those in the audience who did breath stopped. The burning faded, just a fraction, distanced by a wall of time. Nick glanced around. “Oh.” He hoped this wasn’t the vampire version of wetting your pants on stage. He let go of the staff. Agatha, of course, did not react.

Eh. Whatever. If he’d learned anything in his life, it was that people liked a statement.

Nick wrapped both his hands tight around the staff. Time resumed to the sound of shattering.

The audience gasped as the staff fell in pieces at Nick’s feet. He smiled up at Agatha, eyes watering with the pain. Then he swung around on his feet, displaying his burned hands to them. “I do not fear Him!”

Cheering. People were rising from their seats, clapping. Ivan was slapping the shoulder of the pointy looking vampire next to him. “That kid used to work for me!”

Agatha raised Nick’s arm into the air like a prize fighter. “Hail Nicholas Robinowitz, son of Abel and the Old Colony!”

Nick beamed. The Minister would have hated this. His stomach gurgled. He surreptitiously tapped against Agatha’s side. She bent down to let him whisper into her ear:

“Ah, Agatha, I think I need to get rid of Llewellyn…”

⚸

Nick wretched bloody feathers into the toilet bowl. Apparently, vampires did have a use for restrooms, at least if they’d been mainlining silver after swallowing whole birds. He wiped around his mouth. He hoped it still counted. Would be a waste of a good Llewellyn.

Right, time to rejoin his adoring public.

Tabby was waiting for him outside the Vineyard restroom. Her paint job was starting to flake, which Nick thought added character if anything. She looked like an extra in the European cut of the Mad Max film that Ivan said wasn’t as good. She was holding Nick’s jacket with a pair of barbecue tongs. “Hey. Thought you’d like this tonight.”

Nick took the jacket and slipped it on. He smiled. “Thanks. So, ready to party?”

Tabby smiled back, before biting her lip and averting her eyes. “Yeah. The Moms have a surprise for you, first.”

“Oh?”

Please be a phone, please be a phone… a real phone, with games! Games that trick stupid people into paying for them!

Tabby led Nick out of the vineyard’s main building. They passed a small circle of lilim children. In the middle of it, Shadow was beating the shit out of a redhead girl. Nick could tell Tabby was itching to get in on that. Ivan was at one of the snack tables, nursing a vodka cruiser and chatting to a wolf cub perched one corner of the table beside him. “So, what you gotta worry about the most is pallet campers. Fuckers can pretty much drop them practically half a map away, and if you’re one pixel too close…”

The wolf cub nodded sagely.

Halfway there, Tabby covered Nick’s eyes. And nostrils.

“This is stupid,” he said, sounding like he had a cold.

“Surprise,” she insisted.

After a few yards, Nick shoved Tabby off him. “Come on, don’t be—”

Valerie Collins née Robinowitz was sitting at a small table, typing away at her old writing laptop. She looked up at her son and smiled. “Hello, Nick.”

Nick stood there, eyes wide. “I—you—Mom…”

Valerie patted the chair next to her. “I’ve missed having my editor. Mind taking a look?”

Nick nodded mutely, walking over and sitting down beside his mother. She started typing again. Nick rested his head against her shoulder. “Where does he think—”

“Amateur romance author convention. Not a lie, either. It’s this weekend.” She tilted her chin proudly. “I’m on the paranormal panel.”

“Really? A panel?”

“Yep.”

“...Did you watch me eat the bird?”

Valerie smiled wincingly and shook her head. “Skipped that, honey.”

“Okay.”

Agatha and Winona watched the reunion, nursing glasses of rosé. Agatha had changed into a black pants suit with a floral undershirt. Winona was in a dark red, dimly Turkish gown. “You know,” she said. “If you hadn’t invited the humans, we could’ve feted Nicholas properly.” She took a long sip. “I’m getting tired of my current beau anyway.”

Agatha pinched the bridge of her nose. “Winona, don’t be a bitch.”

“The term is queen, sister. Don’t get me wrong, I approve. A boy’s allowed to have a pet.”

Agatha sighed. “So that’s a no, then.”

⚸

The party was starting to wind down. It had to. Dawn was coming. Shadow had finally accumulated too many broken bones to take on new challengers, and had already passed out in the back of the Grey King’s limo. Zeke and Gren were doing karaoking cheesy 70s duets. Ivan and Valerie were laughing and swapping Nick stories. Not coincidentally, Nicholas was lying under a tree at the other end of the property. Tabby was chewing on some fairy bread beside him.

“So,” said Nick. “What now?”

“What do you mean? It’s done, your set.”

“Exactly. What now?”