"Madame Margarita? That's it? That's all you're giving me to work with?"

Frost crunched beneath my feet on the sidewalk as the scents of cold produce and frozen fish wafted down my block. Rubbed my eyes. It was getting early. Spent the remainder of my night staked out – don't, I know what I said – at the otherwise vacant security desk in Lily's building, watching the camera on the seventh floor for any sign of her returning home. Zippy. Pushed it for as long as close to sunrise as I could before packing it in, and I was growing more tired with every minute that inched toward dawn. My phone's low battery warning beeped in my ear as Phoebe huffed.

"I wrote down the address. Listen, I'm almost home. I'll leave you the notes inside. Or I can text."

"Both, please," I could picture her annoyedly twirling a phone cord round her finger, foot tapping. "And don't expect any results. Or a quick turnaround!"

"I keep you around for more than taking calls, you know. Just inquire, Phoebe. Please. I know you got the brains for this."

She snorted. "Firstly, you keep me around? I am the best thing that has ever happened to your shoddy PI firm." I smiled, grimaced, and said nothing about her lousy filing skills. "Second, I know exactly what kind of brains I have. Don't be so patronizing. But it's the paperwork, Greg. Paperwork you know I can't file in person so I will be forced to fax the Society Scrolls, Grimoires, and Records Department a request for a copy of a Tourism and Entertainment license—because despite being a government youse all built around magic, a fax machine is still how you file records requests—and I have to do this for a woman whom you can't even give me so much as a last name for! Did you at least get the name of the business?"

I winced. "Don't even think she had one."

"Okay," Phoebe sighed. "And remind me exactly what verifying whether this woman is a licensed psychic will do for the case?"

Yeah, old boy. What goodwouldthat do?Well, if she's human and faking, she won't be licensed. Society is strict when it comes to dishing those out. And proving she's human would do what, precisely, pal? Will it help you find Lily or just quell a nagging feeling in that noggin of yours?

"Just following every lead."

Lily was alive, I'd bet a stake on it. Where was she now? Don't know. Would I check her apartment again tomorrow? Of course. And yet despite coming up with this brilliant plan of action, I still couldn't shake the question of why a girl with a vampire admirer might have sought out the advice of a psychic.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" I asked Phoebe.

A long silence, and then, softly. "Well, second chances are always a nice thought."

"Yeah," I agreed. They are. I've had plenty. Phoebe, my dear, had never been so lucky. I cleared my throat, not wanting this mournful silence to be the last thing between us before I turned in for the day. My front door was in sight, and I needed to put this long night to rest. "Last thing. I've got Lily's address. Naturally, I'm locked out. Kept on it all night but she no showed. If my situation doesn't change by tomorrow, I may need you to call me in a favor with—"

"Alas, what news have you, Gregorio!"

I jumped. Smacked my head against the metal awning Dmitri was hanging from. Dropped my phone too. Listen, I'm sure as Shirley not proud of it but the kook caught me off guard this time. The bump my head earned after that'll probably match the one Margarita was trying to hide on her forehead.

"Evening," I grumbled, leaning against a fruit stand made of wooden pallets.

"What news!" Dmitri's hind claws—for Society's sake, put on some shoes man, those are disgusting—released from the awning that covered the width of the sidewalk. Normally it shaded produce vendors from rain and harsh sun. It did not normally hide agitated, geriatric vampires. Dmitri landed beside me with a thunk and swooped his arm around my shoulders. "My Rosemond, where is she?"

"It's been one night, Dmitri."

"Gah!" the vampire wailed. "Has it already been so long? This night is endless!" His grip on my shoulder tightened. "And you have found nothing."

Oh for the love—I was too tired to deal with this. I didn't want to be out here. I didn't want chit chat anymore about this case tonight. I was just wanted to be in my own bed when the sun came up. "I've got some leads. But it's nearly dawn," I pointed at the awning, "that's not going to cut it at sunrise. Go home. Get some sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."

This answer clearly did not satisfy Dmitri. As I attempted to move past him and toward my front door, the vamp kicked me in the shin son of goatsucker that hurt. Without giving me so much as a moment to hop up and down on one foot, Dmitri scooped me up by the armpits like I were an infant. He threw me. My back hit the awning, crunching the plastic.

I rolled away as Dmitri soared upward, latching his toes on the edge of the awning. Before he could bear down on me again, I stood up to meet him and wound up having to catch my notepad and wallet as gravity turned out my pockets.

Dmitri took advantage of my distraction and shoved me against the window of a butcher shop. He grabbed my jacket as it turned inside out around my ears and twisted, knotting my arms inside the sleeves as they hung below my head.

"You will tell me. Where is Rosemond."

"Lily," I tried to wriggle away but Dmitri held firm. "The poor girl's name is Lily Perez, don't pretend you don't know that. I've been retracing her steps from the last night anybody saw her, and speaking of, one of your dame's coworkers says you two did talk at the café. They'd seen you together. That means you lied when you hired me, Dmitri. Said you never spoke."

"Psssshh," Dmitri scoffed—I nearly retched at the sight of his brown and decaying fangs—shaking his head. "I merely decreed that for a love like ours—"

"Words were unnecessary, yeah, I remember."

"Does not mean I did not ask my beloved how her day was,you insolent twat. Tis only the most gentlemanly thing to do, inquire as to a lady's wellbeing, when a suitor visits his modern, independent woman at her place of employment." Dmitri rested his head against my arm and sighed. "What pitiful existence do you lead, Gregorio, if you have never tasted a love so sublime that no word can capture how it is you feel for your paramour!"

I don't know why, but I thought of Madame Margarita's tattoos. Flower petals dancing over her shoulders as she shrugged. Carnations, I think.

"You should have told me the last time you spoke. How can I help you be reunited with your truest love, if you don't give me the full story?"

"Jason doesn't know," Dmitri mumbled into my chest.

"Pardon—Julian? Your valet?"

I agree with you, the boy had said. That girl doesn't need to be found. Happy hunting.

"My keeper," Dmitri spat, "did not approve of our impending reunion. Do you know how hard it is to find good help these days? In the old world, one did not need to promise one's slave immortality upon his release from service. They understood their place beneath us."

You know, sometimes it feels like I'm the only vamp out here who remembers we sure as hell didn't come into the world this way. I bet more the half the blood suckers prowling tonight all begged their respective masters to give them a bite of immortality.

The rest of us begged them not to.

"Is that what all this lordship and liege business is about? Reliving your medieval glory days? And since when did you start turning all your servants?"

"I have no intention of turning that sniveling sycophant." Dmitri released a rare and dusty chuckle. "Do you recall my valet when you came crawling off that rat infested boat, ah, what was the bloodbag's name? Edward? Edwin?"

"Irwin?"

"Yes! Irwin!"

"Course I do." Distracted by his own memory, Dmitri's grip loosened. Gingerly, I began wiggling my right arm out of my jacket sleeve. While performing my best Houdini impression, I faked a laugh to match Dmitri's. Getting around the temperamental old git's more passionate side had always been an art form, one I'd nearly forgotten from not having spoken to him in nearly a century. "He was the warm body for the front on that speakeasy of yours in the 20s, wasn't he?"

Yep. Not even magical creatures were exempt from the laws of Prohibition. In fact, many, like Dmitri here, took advantage of it. What better way to lure unsuspecting blood donors right to your dinner table than by providing them with the inhibition lowering poison they craved?

"Don't you mean," Dmitri winked, "the barbershop?"

"Yeah. Course. I remember Irwin's Barbershop. I also remember him showing up to work one night with some shiny new fangs. Didn't know it was you who turned him."

"Do you recollect what became of him?"

I shuddered as the memory crept up and shook me. "I suppose someone's finished scraping his guts off the walls by now, but if they weren't, it wouldn't surprise me. You spread him... thin. But why—"

My hand slipped out the sleeve, slackening Dmitri's hold on the jacket. He noticed, unfortunately, and opted to crush my throat with one hand instead.

"I refused his request." He spat with putrid breath. "I do not just transform any mere mortal who grovels for my favor. I reserve that ascension for my soulmate. I swore an oath.When I refused him, he went behind my back and recruited some low-blood with no respect for our traditions to turn him. What insolence."

"What does this have to do with me, Dmitri?" I coughed, vision swirling. "Why me! We haven't spoken in ages!"

"You are a hunter, Gregorio. I know this of you. Known since the moment I pulled you from out from the gutter." Despite the pride in his voice, Dmitri punctuated his sentences with squeezes on my larynx. He was grinning. But upside down, and with spots dancing in my eyes, he just looked like a sad Cheshire cat. A line of drool slithered from his mouth down to his forehead. "And you, unlike Irwin, are thankful to me, yes? Thankful to be given purpose."

I coughed. It was supposed to be a laugh.

He wasn't wrong. Not entirely. The loon did, quite literally, pull me out of a rough patch. I was fresh off the boat. A feral thing who'd spent weeks stowed away and starving in a cargo hold. Had nothing but the clothes on my back and a hunger in my veins. Course I'd been grateful to be picked up by another vampire, any vampire, after leaving the nest of the "old country" behind. But Dmitri gave me a job, not a purpose. A job I left, too, when it no longer suited me. I had no master here, in this country. I wasn't intrinsically bound to anybody's whims but my own. Thinking of those first few years stateside as anything other than temporary was laughable. But that was the problem with our lot, wasn't it? Either everything was fleeting or unchanging. There ain't no in between.

I'd pity Dmitri if he wasn't trying to kill me every five minutes.

"And your purpose is to be bring my Rosemond back to me. Safe and whole. Yes?"

I remembered the spray of blood that rained down all over the club when Dmitri tore the first of Irwin's limbs off. He didn't start with a little finger.

"Of course, my liege."

"Good!"

Dmitri dropped me. Hadn't even realized he pulled my feet off the bottom of that awning till gravity gave me a little love tap. I bounced, shoulders first, off the fruit stand below and onto the pavement. As soon as I stood back up again, woozy and wobbling like the chair in Margarita's parlor, Dmitri was on the sidewalk. With one step forward he pinned my lower back against the fruit stand, his leathery arms shifting into leathery wings.

I tapped his arm, softly, signaling him to move. He didn't budge. "But, uh, if she isn't exactly whole?"

Dmitri sprang off me, tearing his claws out the wood, splinters flying up and scratching my face. He came down behind me, on the fruit stand. I heard the wood crack and tried to run away, only to be caught again by Dmitri's claws. He grabbed my jacket and yanked me. My back slammed hard against the pallets, my dangling feet now kicking above the sidewalk. Dmitri's gnarled face loomed over me. He held a splinter of wood in his hand that hovered precariously close to my chest. The heel of his other hand pressed firm against the hollow of my throat.

"Didn't mean to offennngggghhh."

Dmitri dug his palm in my throat and cut me off.

"If my dearest Rosemond is in any way harmed," he snarled, spittle pattering on my face, "before I break my fast against her sweet throat on our wedding night, Gregorio, it shall be pieces of you that will be scraped from the walls."

Irwin sure did make a terrible sound as Dmitri twisted him apart.

"Understood."

"Word. And here," Dmitri dropped his makeshift stake on me—flung it off like it carried the plague—and slapped a slip of paper on the pallet. "Your secretary rang for another check for your expenses."

And with that, the vampire transformed into his more (less? eh?) monstrous form and hurled himself into the night.

I laid there, picking a splinter out my neck. Fasting? Wedding night? Fangs.

Speak Philadelphian: . The 9th Street Curb Market, better known as the Italian Market, popped up in the 1880s and remains one of the largest open air markets in America open today. Originally outside William Penn's city border, the area is where many immigrants settled, and is still considered the heart of the Philadelphia Italian community. The market has become home to immigrants of varying cultures, from Mexico to Vietnam, witches to werewolves, vampires to Valkyries, cyclops to Chupacabras. Vendors line the ten city blocks selling produce, fish, spices, potions, wishes, curses, and more.