It might surprise you to know that witches actually hate Halloween.

Witches are generally very quiet, introverted creatures. So the screaming children pounding on our doors and demanding candy... well, that just really isn't our style.

The little witch costumes are always kind of cute, though. It's nice to be a role model for just one night.

Vampires, on the other hand, love Halloween. Kids aren't usually out after dark, except for on this one night, and so the Vampires crawl out of their hovels (or their crummy, downtown flats) to ooh and aah over the little children and their costumes.

I can tell you're tense already, just thinking about that. Well, don't worry – our kind have a pact for Halloween. We don't touch children. Because of the... nature of some of our population, we can't guarantee that children will always be safe. But on this one night? We make sure the kids can come out and have a good time without fear of losing a limb or worse.

We're not the monsters you think we are. Well, not always, anyway.

So that Halloween night, I found myself sitting in my living room, studying from the Anatomy of White Magick, drinking some Da Hong Pao black tea, sent to me from my cousin across town.

I was finally totally relaxed after what had amounted to a long, hellish week, and was really enjoying myself... when I heard a scraping at the window.

I saw a shock of blonde hair outside the glass and had to suppress an eye-roll. I absolutely wasn't in the mood to be toyed with that night. But I rose to my feet and stalked over to the window, throwing it open with a dramatic flick of my wrist. The creature outside my window clapped as though the very sight of me inspired awe.

"Hey, sweetheart, invite me in!" he purred, his voice deep and smooth and hypnotic.

"Don't call me sweetheart," I deadpanned, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Geez, fine, you can be such a hardass," he said, irritation showing in his voice. I could tell it rankled him that his seductive powers had no effect on me. "C'mon, just let me in, I really need to talk to you."

"Is it about Halloween?" I asked.

"It's about Halloween. And it's very important."

I stared at him with pursed lips for a second. When people think of vampires, they generally think of tall, pale, dark hair, brooding... that kind of thing. Honestly, I blame Dracula. Bram Stoker was such a drama queen. The man before me was none of those things. He had sandy blonde hair and a deep tan, flashing blue eyes and blindingly white teeth. He had a real Beach Boy aesthetic. And they call this guy a creature of the night? I scoffed. Vampires get all the good literature.

I uncrossed my arms and said, "Fine. Come in, Gale."

He climbed in through the window and landed lightly on his feet, smiling at me. Smirking, more like it.

"I always knew I'd get inside your house one day."

"Seriously, what do you want? I'm having a perfectly lovely night in and I don't need you here to ruin it."

"Ooh, you wound me," he clutched his heart and threw his other hand over his eyes, as though about to faint.

My lips twitched but I forced back a smile. "Come on, just spill it. You said it was important."

He sighed, "You're no fun, you know?" Then he became serious. "We have a problem down on the east side of the city."

"What do you mean?"

"At least four kids have gone missing. They were trick-or-treating together. I ran into their parents who are pretty frantic with worry. It could be nothing, but I have a feeling that somebody has taken them."

"Do you have anything to base this feeling on?" I asked.

He shrugged. "No. But it's a pretty bad feeling. I'm going to go look for them. I'd appreciate if you'd help me out."

I gazed longingly at my tea and book. I'd really much rather have stayed inside, but Gale was only two hundred years old. He was still finding his feet as a vampire and it would be just like him to run off and do something stupid and get in totally over his head. And then I'd have to deal with the fallout. At least, that's what I told myself... so I'd have an excuse to say yes.

I heaved a put-upon sigh. "Fine, fine. Let me get my coat. And shut the window, we're going out through the door, like civilized people."

I turned to grab my coat, then thought better of it. I ran to the closet near the foyer and pulled out a black cloak, a bag, a pointed black hat, and a broom.

I heard Gale muffling laughter behind his hand. "Wow, are you for real right now?"

"It's Halloween," I shrugged. "I might as well look the part." I didn't wait to hear any of his other comments before stalking out the door in search of whoever was ruining my night.

It only took me a moment to get us to the other side of town. Witches have a lot of ways of getting around. My favorite method is to manipulate reality, melt the reality we exist in and transfer to a reality where I'm at my target destination, then merge the two reality strands. Sci-fi fans would like you to believe that this is dangerous, but their fears are vastly overstated. There is nothing so mundane and easy to manipulate as time.

Gale, however, was not nearly so used to this sort of magic. He crouched down with his hands clutching his head when we stopped.

"What's wrong? Feeling a bit queasy, are we?" I asked. I was glad I had chosen a secluded area as my destination, that way nobody would bother us to ask if he was okay.

"How do you do that and not vomit every time? Seriously." He looked pale as he focused on taking deep breaths.

I waited patiently as he calmed himself down. We were back on the move five minutes later, watching all the children running around, giggling, screaming.

"Look mom, it's a witch, a real witch!" shrieked a little girl. She had a sparkly purple tutu, a pointed hat, and a very ornate wand that I surmised she had painted herself.

"I see that, sweetie," said her mother. She winked at me and I laughed.

"Hey, you're good with kids," said Gale as we turned down a side street. There were fewer kids the further we moved, even though this part of town was pretty densely populated.

"You sound surprised." My voice was dry and I was shocked to find myself a little offended.

"I just never knew you liked them, is all. I could get you one, if you want." He waggled his eyebrows at me and I gave him a look of total disgust. "Not like that! I'd just... swipe one."

"You're just making it worse," I mumbled, pointedly ignoring him.

He grabbed my arm and pointed at the end of the street. There was a group of parents speaking to some police officers. That must be why the trick-or-treaters are staying away from here, I thought.

"Let me get a little closer, I'll see if I can hear what they're saying," said Gale, slinking off down the street, hiding in the shadows of the buildings.

"Don't get caught!" I hissed. I stood there awkwardly in the dark, wondering if I should have followed him. I was beginning to feel nervous for absolutely no reason at all. I wondered if it was a premonition. No, that can't be it, I thought. Gale just got his panties in a bunch over nothing. Hell, the cops will probably find the kids before we do. Maybe they just snuck off to the woods or something...

Gale reappeared next to me while I was lost in thought and I just about shrieked.

"Don't DO that!" I said. He grinned at me.

"I knew I could getcha. I heard the parents say the kids disappeared while they were on Jay Street. The parents took their eyes off of them and when they turned around, the kids were gone."

"Geez, how can they just let kids out of their sights on Halloween?" I mumbled in irritation. "It's like they WANT them to get killed. Well, we might as well head down to Jay Street. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

"Don't worry, I'll sniff them out," Gale replied. I shuddered a little at that. It's true, vampires have very keen senses, and his super hearing or super smelling might turn out to be useful in just such a situation... but it still weirdly grossed me out. Unnatural, that's what it is.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm one to talk.

As we headed towards Jay Street, Gale asked, "What will the Association do if it's one of us?"

The Association is... hard to explain. It's sort of like our version of government. It's a bit less restrictive, I guess – they don't have many rules. It's just that the rules they DO have are very, very important. You reeeeally don't want to break them, trust me.

"Well, there will be an investigation, I'm sure. And once the Association makes a decision... I'd guess it would be death."

Gale paled. "You mean like... permanent death?"

"Yup." I was sort of enjoying watching him squirm. "So you better watch yourself. One misstep and you could have a blessed wooden stake right through your heart."

He glared at me. "That is NOT funny..."

He stopped short just as we stepped onto Jay Street. He lifted his head and took a long sniff, like some kind of hunting dog. I could just picture him with ears and a tail. It was actually a cute thought...

Oh no. OH no. I shook my head to clear it of that horrifying vision just as he looked at me with excitement.

"I can smell it. They're here. I know it's them."

"What do you smell?"

"Blood."

Shit. "Is it... a lot of blood?"

"I mean, the smell is pretty strong, so there must be a significant... oh." His grin faded as he realized the implications of what he was saying. "Well... maybe it isn't them after all?"

"Can you take me to the source?"

He nodded and started down the street with renewed vigor.

"So, are you gonna tell me your real name?" Gale asked.

"Nope." Gale frowned at me.

"C'mon, we're friends!"

"Nothing doing."

"Surely you don't want me to call you Ambrosia forever..."

I grimaced. Ambrosia is the name given to me by the Council of Witchcraft. It's symbolic but also practical – it binds me to the other witches in our community, and if I were to ever break our Code, they could use it to subdue and restrain me. Plus, no witch gives out her real name. Our real names hold unbridled power over us, and to do so could very well mean suicide.

But, still... Ambrosia? That's got to be the worst name in the history of names. Seriously.

"I'll think about it," I answered.

"Hey, if you don't want to use that name, why don't you just join a coven instead?"

"NO!" My voice came out much louder than it needed to be, but seriously, I would never dream of disgracing myself by joining a coven. Covens are for witches who are rejected from the Council, and who are stuck in the middle ages. You know those pictures of witches you see, where they're a bunch of old, haggard women covered in boils and eating children? Yeah, those are the kind of crazies you get when you start a coven. Hard pass.

"Hold on, hold on," said Gale, holding up his hand. His head tilted to the left and he sniffed the air again. "It's there."

He pointed to a rather large house with the lights off. It didn't look like a super welcoming place – no Halloween decorations, no sign of any life. I wondered why the kids walked up to it. Other than the fact that, you know, kids are dumb and tend to do dumb things.

"Alright, let's go in."

We made our way up the pathway and I stooped down in front of the door. After discovering the door was locked, I slipped a bobby pin from my hair and started to jiggle it around the lock.

"C'mon, don't you have some kind of, like, door-unlocking spell?" asked Gale. He was bouncing on his feet, eager to find the source of all the blood.

"Yeah, I don't use magic on something that stupid. Picking a lock is easier and, honestly, faster." I heard a click and tried the handle again. This time it turned. "Okay, let's go."

We entered the house, prepared to search it from bottom to top in order to find the source of the blood, but it turns out we didn't have to.

We found a body slumped against the wall in the foyer, blood smeared on the walls and pooled on the floor. Gale swore as I knelt down by the child and put my finger to his throat. He was definitely dead, as if the sheer amount of blood loss hadn't already given me my answer.

The child couldn't have been more than eight. He'd been wearing a superman costume that was now torn in the chest. He had multiple stab wounds in his chest cavity and a few in his legs and arms. His eyes were blue and glassy.

"What do we do?" asked Gale, all traces of his earlier humor gone.

"First, let's find the others," I said. I stood up and gave the dead kid a pat on the head, as though it would comfort him. Not that he really needed it anymore.

A few blood drops led us further into the house, past the dining room and into the kitchen, where we found what appeared to be the basement door ajar. As we approached the door, we could see a light and hear the faint sound of somebody crying.

"That must be it," I said. I turned to Gale. "When we go down there, our primary goal is to get the kids out. Whatever has them, you hold it off while I grab the kids, okay?"

"What do you think it is?" he asked. He was trying not to sound worried.

"Well, it used a knife, so I would guess it's a rogue witch or wizard. Performing a dark magic ritual. You'll need to be careful, but we have an advantage. They aren't expecting a vampire."

He nodded and I took that as permission to begin my descent. We crept down the stairs as quickly and quietly as we could. The basement slowly came into my field of vision.

There were two children tied and gagged in the far corner of the basement, a spaceman and a pirate. At the other end of the room there stood a man with his back to us. He was holding a young girl against the wall by her left hand. She, too, was gagged, and she was dressed like a witch. I saw the man had a knife in his hand and I realized what was happening the same second that Gale did.

"Holy shit. He's human, isn't he?" Gale didn't bother whispering or concealing his voice. Everyone in the room turned to look at him, me included, and I glared.

"What?" he shrugged. "This'll be a piece of cake, honestly."

I looked back at the man and the girl and saw that she was missing a finger on her hand, the man having sliced it off with his knife. My eyes went dark and I saw red.

"Alright, Gale. Kill him."

Gale's face went slack and his fangs peeked out from under his lips. He rocked back on his heels and then lunged towards the man.

You'll notice that I haven't actually told you what the man looked like. The murderer. And there's a good reason for that. See, he was just so... ordinary. When I first laid eyes on him, the scene seemed so absurd to me. He looked like a regular, middle-aged, balding salary man. There was nothing sinister about him. Nothing that would indicate that he was fucked up. That he liked murdering children.

And somehow, that scared me more than anything I've ever encountered in our world. And it's something I don't like to think about.

So I watched Gale lunge at the man with something akin to relief. As Gale slammed the man into the wall, he dropped the child and she sat on the ground, sobbing behind her gag. I ran to her and grabbed her, dragging her back to the corner with her friends.

I sat her down by her friends and started searching the floor frantically. I spotted her finger on the ground and grasped it, bringing it towards her. She was pale and hyperventilating, about to enter into shock. I placed her finger back in its rightful place and reached into my bag, grabbing out a handkerchief and a small blue vial. I wrapped the handkerchief around the hand and finger and breathed over it, mumbling a spell to myself as I did. I poured the blue solution onto her hand and let it soak into the cloth. I waited for a beat or two before removing it.

Her finger was reattached and good as new, with nothing but a small white scar to show that it had ever been injured. She stared at it in wonder, her breathing evening out. I reached up and pulled her gag off.

"Hi, there. My name is Ambrosia. What's your name?" I asked her. She stared at me uncertainly for a moment. Her eyes shifted behind me and I could hear the slurping, sucking sounds Gale was making. "No, no, don't look there, look at me." Her eyes shifted back and she took a deep breath.

"S...samantha," she said.

I smiled at her. "That's a beautiful name. Are you a witch, Samantha?"

She nodded, then shook her head. "Well, I'm not a real witch. I'm just pretending."

"I see. You could have fooled me, you look JUST like a real witch. Samantha, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to face the wall and not turn around. I'm going to untie your friends and then we're going to go find your parents. How does that sound?"

She nodded and turned towards the wall. I slipped a switchblade out of my pocket and cut the ropes off the other children.

"Alright, guys, let's get out of here, shall we?"

"What is he doing to that man?" asked the pirate. I had a very good idea of what Gale was doing, but I decided to avoid that particular topic.

"You guys don't have to worry about that. That man isn't going to hurt you anymore, and my friend wouldn't dream of hurting you. We want to help you. That means you have to come upstairs with me, alright?"

The kids nodded, a little hesitant, but still trusting. I couldn't imagine still trusting someone after what they'd seen, but that's what's magical about kids.

I led them upstairs. I kept them distracted while we walked by the body of their friend. As we reached the door, I turned around and knelt down. I whispered a few words in each of their ears and watched as their eyes went blank.

I ushered them out the door. "Your parents are down the street, waiting for you. Go on, now!" They walked away in something of a daze. A quick memory-wipe will do that to a person.

I turned back and looked at the dead child in the foyer. "Now what do I do with you?" I murmured. I stared for a moment, then walked back down to the basement.

Gale was kneeling over the body of the murderer, covered in his gore and blood. The man had been eviscerated, his entrails pulled out and spread around the room in disarray. His fingernails had been pulled out and shoved into his eyes. His teeth were scattered all over the floor. Huh. Dude never had his wisdom teeth taken out, I guess. He was still gurgling and choking on his own blood as I walked over. I could see that Gale had left him alive, at least for the time being.

"Geez, could you take any longer?" I asked. The man's head jerked towards me, terror written in the lines of his face. I looked away and focused on Gale.

"Well, after what he did to the other kid, I wasn't going to give him a quick death." Blood dripped from Gale's lips and covered his front. His pupils were so large they overtook the color of his eyes. That happens when they feed. I'm not sure why, but I've always found it enormously attractive. But I found it even more attractive that he was showing enough self-control to make this son of a bitch suffer.

"Well, we need to pick up the other kid's body and get out of here, so if you could finish up..."