Faerie undergoing social change, a Lydian goddess seeking divorce, a detective encountering the supernatural, a man saying goodbye, a woman beginning something new, the anniversary of a passage, a boy discovering himself, a flower's regret, and pion...
When one kept house with a shape-shifting semi-divine being, one became accustomed to waking up to a strange face. This one had a soft jaw, smiling lips, light eyes, and dark-blue hair. The presence of the small green lizard on her shoulder almost convinced Julien that this was one of Morpheus's forms, but she smelled wrong.
She didn't smell of Human blood and sweat, or have that Angelic ozone-like scent, or the smoky odor of Djinn. She had no scent at all; like she wasn't there.
People who weren't there couldn't very well be scary. There was probably an explanation.
"Why is Katy Perry in my bed?"
"Who's Katy Perry?" Not-Katy asked.
"After your—"
The lizard's explanation was cut-off by singing. "Boy when you're with me, I'll give you a taste, make it like your deathday everyday~"
"Oh my Gawd." Julien groaned and rolled over. Morpheus was dancing at the other side of the bed, doing a Katy Perry cover.
"Happy Deathday, Baby!" Murph was back-lit by sunlight through translucent drapes, and had a blue halo as he leaned over Julien. It was him. The fragrance that was neither fully Human nor Angelic but like night-blooming flowers. The something more behind his dark eyes.
"Is it morning?" Julien squinted against the light. "Gawd, who did I drink last night?"
Morpheus laughed. "I don't know, but I discovered turkey can actually make me sleepy. Weird."
"I need to brush my teeth." Julien pushed himself up from the bed. That woman who wasn't there was still draped across Morpheus's side of the bed with River perched on the epaulet of her motorcycle jacket. "You know Thanksgiving is a movable feast?"
"Yeah it is," Murph said with an eyebrow wag.
"What day did you die?" Not-Katy asked.
Julien glanced side-eyed at her. "The 26th. Yesterday."
"We were busy yesterday," Morpheus said, "and you died on Black Friday. Either way, you've been a Vampyre a century now."
"Yeah." Julien shrugged. "I don't see the big deal in being a Centennial or Millennial. I feel the same as the last eight decades: not quite up on current pop culture. Speaking of, you're not the type to bring groupies home, so I assume she's a friend."
"Julien, this is Jericho. Jericho, Julien."
"And you're...?" Julien didn't know what the etiquette for ghosts might be.
Jericho rose and sat cross-legged on the bed. "Honestly, I'm not sure what I'd be called here."
"Ghost?" River suggested.
"But I can see her," Julien said, "I usually can't see ghosts—or Fae in their true form—without horn-rimmed glasses."
"Jericho's not a ghost," Morpheus said, "Not a lingering mess of memory and unfinished business, I mean."
"I was. For a little while," Jericho said. "That's how we met." She waved a hand towards River and then Morpheus.
"We helped her with some unfinished business so she crossed-over at peace," Morpheus admitted.
Jericho smiled wide. "I'm an ascended soul now," she said, "Ninety-nine years in December, for me. I only just learned how to project myself back over to this world."
"Full-bodied apparition," Morpheus said, "Like how saints can appear to multiple people."
"I don't think I self-identify as a saint," Jericho said, "I don't have any special message of enlightenment to share."
Julien sighed. "I don't think real saints, if you believe in such, self-identify as saints, either. It's a label other people put on you."
"He doesn't like to talk about religion much," Morpheus whispered.
Julien glared at Morpheus. He was right there!
"Nothing to do with that myth about crosses," Julien said, looking at Jericho. He flicked the gold cross hanging at the pit of his throat.
Jericho lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender.
Murph put a hand to Julien's bare shoulder. "Go get dressed. Your being a Centennial is a big deal, to me." Murph went on talking while Julien staggered past the windows, around the bed and into their bathroom. "Maybe your body's stuck regenerating in that same form, but you've grown a lot the past hundred years. If you'd died that day, instead of being given the blood—"
Julien paused with a toothbrush before his fangs. "If I'd died that day, I'd be a civil servant in her world."
"That only happens in Tim Burton movies," River said. He ran across the unmade bed.
"There's a lot of good to celebrate," Murph said. He lowered a hand to River. "That's all."
Julien moved at speed to dress: jeans and a Madonna t-shirt. "You have a plan?"
"Well, it is Black Friday...." Morpheus hinted.
"All right." Julien nodded. "Uptown? East Village?"
"I died in the East Village," Jericho said.
"Probably under gentrification, again, anyway. What about Long Island? They have malls, or is it all data and drones now?"
Morpheus grinned. "They have malls."
THE END
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