He was twelve years old when his father first handed him a pistol. He knew that within it contained a single bullet and five other empty shots, and if he put the gun to his head he would almost certainly die.

“It’s a game, Kieran.”



To tell the truth, there isn’t a voice he can put to the name that makes him feel like a child again. He remembers only the feeling of his father’s strong arms reaching out to tousle his hair, to touch his face, then slither down an arm and rest over Kieran’s own slim, childlike fingers that grasped the shiny butt of a firearm.

“No fun if you die.”


“So it’s fun if you don’t.” He sounds cheery. A little strained.

Kieran puts the pistol to his head and it clicks.

— -

The good thing about having Alta in the house is that fourteen-year-olds peer pressure themselves into cheap flamboyance while sixteen-year-olds subconsciously assume themselves to be superior to their peers and thus often assume most of what they believe to be right when it is all just meaningless conjecture. Fifteen sits between these two peaks- a mild amalgamation of two severe outbursts with, perhaps, a little more decency and a little less snark. Kieran counts himself lucky that he was not there to witness Alta’s thirteenth birthday - he shudders at the mere thought of overbearing tween talk - and graces her presence with a cheerful smile. Combined with the appetising smell of eggs and crispy bacon, he almost certainly believes that he’ll start this morning off better than yesterday’s awkward conversation.

“Sorry but… Is there something wrong with my face?” Between bedridden hair and a squinting stare, Kieran observes dark circles under her eyes he didn’t notice the day before. “You look scared.”

Preposterous. Kieran’s brow furrows as she walks past him and towards the bathroom. “But... I fear nothing.”


Alta shrugs, head popping out from behind the doorframe with a toothbrush stuffed in her mouth. “Then hwhy are yur theeth cthlenched?”

— -

Fortunately for him, Alta doesn’t question the red smudge in the backseat of his car as she flings her schoolbag into the left seat.

“Uncle Kieran,” she hesitates, arms hovering over a dry rag stuffed between parting leather. “Should I move this for you?”


“What is it?” She holds it up for him to see, in the rearview mirror, and Kieran curses as her dainty index finger scrapes the bit of dried brain that had stuck to the weathered fabric. Of course he had to leave his blood rag in the back seat.

“Throw it into the trunk.” He sighs, “I think I emptied it before you came.”


“Oh, it was… full?”

Clearly, she’s trying to start a conversation. Kieran observes the questioning tone in her voice to be a heartfelt attempt at trying to connect with her bloodsucking uncle, he supposes, but unfortunately he had woken up this morning to the sound of Grace’s shrill, grating voice screamed into his left ear telling him to get a move on before the job was handed to that damned arch-nemesis of his.

“Would you like to know what it was full of, niece?” He drawls, she opens her mouth to answer, and he abruptly continues. “No.”

“Dead bodies?” He frowns. Somehow the fact that she is not disturbed only makes her all the more disturbing - he had originally braced himself for frequent police calls and horrified faces, grimaces, a disgusted child traumatised by his pokerfaced attitude towards contract killing. Alta stares back at him, merely inquisitive, and it sends a chill down his spine.

He ignores her. Admittedly the action is childlike, but at the moment he doesn’t want to care and changes the subject.

“Today after you’re done with school, we will make two rounds to the supermarket. You will buy two bottles of white vinegar and some antiseptic cream. I will buy a snack for you, a new shovel, and those newfangled EarPods. We will pretend that we don’t know each other but comment on how we are buying these items for an estranged relative who is getting married in a few months. My brother in July and your uncle in August.”

She purses her lips, thinking.

“Should I say the vinegar was part of your bridal registry?”


“… That's not funny.”

— -

Alta texts a lot. It’s only been the first day that Kieran has had to drive her to school, but Alta texts a lot and she doesn’t seem to notice because one of her hands is tugging so roughly at the tie on her neck he’s positive it will just rip off.

“Do you want to be more gentle on that tie?”


“No.” She says. Fair enough.

He can hear his niece sigh in the seat behind him and he imagines that her eyes are yet glued to the screen between her fingers. In the rearview mirror, he watches her flick away at her screen and her thumb becomes a mirage of several different motion-blurs as it swipes back and forth. Strangely, he’s reminded of those Indian deities on the posters of cheap fusion restaurants: Parvati, Kali, Vishnu perhaps, and Alta completes the list as he watches her jab her thumb once again at her screen. It seems as if she has ten thumbs on her left hand and only one head to ignore him with.

A traffic light above him blinks red, horns begin to blare and Kieran is about to close his eyes amidst the indistinguishable chaos of noise until a harsh rapping sounds at his window. He curses, rolling it down.

“Not hot in that scarf, are you?” A cheery man smiles back at him, nodding his head at the aforementioned scarf that obscures Kieran’s mouth, neck and ears.

“Oh, I am hot.” Kieran answers. “So hot I could literally vaporise in this seat right now unless that eldritch abomination of a ball of gas stops showing up every day to try and kill me.”

“Eldritch-” The man takes a step back and Kieran catches a glimpse of blonde hair and green eyes, a splash of innocent freckles across his nose and flaking red skin at his jawline. “Oh, you’re a… vamp?”

“No.” Kieran drawls. “I simply require an excessive amount of sun lotion and long-sleeved shirts because my skin is allergic to the very thing that gives me life.”

Behind him, Alta stifles a giggle.

“That’s funny,” the man grins, letting his forearms rest on the matte edge of Kieran’s window. A small sizzle of noise sounds between them and Kieran pities the face of instant regret on the man’s face as heat scorches a thick line across his skin, albeit amusing. Still, the man leans forward, determined to do his job. Kieran is almost touched.

“You know what else is fun?” He smiles; his lips are chapped. “Free tickets to our new ride at Disneyland. Just opened yesterday.”

“What a smooth segue,” Kieran replies dryly. “You must be experienced in this field of work.”


“I take my time with my customers.” The smile turns into a smirk and his hand hovers slowly over the window above Kieran’s lap. There flutters a pamphlet, a Mickey Mouse head dominating the cover.

Ah. Disneyland. Kieran considers throwing the pamphlet out the window, but the man is still there. A parasite on his Bentley.

“Seriously, though.” The voice is painfully affable, eyes crinkling a smile. “Come at night or something. You look like a gipsy in that.” He draws back before the traffic light can blink green and slinks through the narrow pathway of cars as they rear their engines and thick smoke dissipates into the hot morning air.

Alta releases her held-back chortle and coughs into her phone.

“There was nothing funny about that.” Kieran frowns. “And now all of the AC has gone out the window and it’s hot in here again.”


“Sure.” She snorts. 


“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Kieran would twist around to look her in the eye if he were not so dead-set on trying not to roll over the car in front of him. Not that it could be possible, judging by the size of the monster truck that slides into his lane in front of him. “You indicate everything with the word nothing.”


“Sorry,” Alta mutters, sliding further down her seat. “I just thought he looked kind of cute, talking to you. Talked for so long the cars starting honking and you didn’t even blink an eye.”

“I tune out the noises of mortals.” He glares.


“So I guess he’s a vampire?”


“What? No, don’t-” Something in his eye twitches. He isn’t exactly sure what it is but at this rate, Alta will give him a haemorrhage which certainly will not be helpful to his commission. “I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”


“Forget it then, I’m sorry.” She says finally, pinching the bridge of her nose. Finally- a Miranda-like attribute. For some reason, it unnerves more than comforts him. “I was teasing you.”

“I see.” He stares ahead at the road.

“Do you not… go outside very often?”


“My trips to the external world are purposeful.” He shrugs. “When you lack the human desire for food, it all just comes down to whether or not I’m in the mood for pizza.”

“Huh.” For a second their eyes meet. “You’ve lived a lotta years unlived.”

Oh, Alta. His eyes narrow.

“You don’t know the weight of your own words do you, niece?”

— -

An hour after Alta is safely delivered to school Kieran finds an excellent place to plan and prepare the assassination of Selena June Bovy.

“Our rainbow frappes are only 2 dollars today.”

“Yes.” Kieran pauses, hands hovering over his three bills. “But I want a coffee.”


While one might assume that planning the assassination of an important figure in Starbucks is incredibly foolish, the reality of the fact is that there is nowhere better. There is nothing more mundane, more dull, yet more thrilling than sitting beside a small child whilst calculating the approximate budgetary needs he will have to consider when scheduling planned murder. So long as one doesn’t draw attention to oneself, he finds solace in the quietly un-quiet atmosphere of bubbling human noise and incessant slurping.

“Hi what are you doing?” a small boy beside him chirps, looking up at him. Between those little, plump lips he spies a peeking fang. A little vampire.

“I’m going to assassinate someone.” He responds bluntly. The woman across from him - presumably the boy’s mother - chuckles softly as she glances up from her phone. They make eye contact and she smiles, which he’d reciprocate if he hadn’t learned today with Alta what a terrible mistake that would turn out to be, so instead he ducks his head and feigns embarrassment.

“What’s assassassate?” The sparkling wonderment in the child’s eyes is almost worth applause. Kieran draws back, pen in hand, before smiling thinly.

“It is the act of committing a crime that nobody will know about.”

The toddler purses his lips, frowning as he attempts, within his growing little cranium, to understand exactly what this tall, pale-skinned man is on about.

“A secret crane.”

“An illicit offence.”

“A eelsit fence.”


“A clandestine meeting.” Kieran continues. The plans are left untouched.

“A cland-” the boy’s faint line of an eyebrow furrows. He pouts, hands flailing. “That sounds like something my mom taught me. Like frankerstein.”

“Frankenstein.” Kieran corrects. “Do you think fifty dollars is a lot of money?”


The toddler shrugs, twisting in his booster seat. “Less than an Ecks box.”

“Exactly.” Kieran smiles, tapping his pen against paper. “You’re exactly right. It’s less than an Xbox.”


“Do you have an Ecks box?”

With a final gulp of coffee, Kieran tucks the book of planning under his arm and stands.

“I might just.”

— -

There’s a homeless vagrant two blocks down from where he’s currently standing - half empty coffee in hand - which, if paid the right amount of money, will have Selena’s schedule ready in three days. Kieran wracks his head for a name that rests on the tip of his tongue - Parchment. Feather? It involved an archaic method of sending blotched, inked letters of illicit affairs or formal proposals on horseback - yet the name doesn’t come to him until he spots the man himself and fills in the blank.

A cat nestles its head in the crook of the vagrant’s folded arm as he babies it like its own mother; his head is a bird’s nest of oily black strings, face nearly obscured by the smudges of dirt and layers of dried sweat patched to his skin.

“Poor son,” Kieran says with a faux air of pity. “Child of a street who doesn’t want you, clinging to the filth of an unswept sidewalk.” The beggar looks up, eyes wide as he scrambles backwards against the wall until he recognises Kieran’s wrapped up figure and forms a thin scowl with his mouth.

“I’m not talking smack until I get until I get my money, capisce?” Quill snaps.

Ah. The bare essential tool of all medieval artists. Kieran congratulates his brain on its valiant effort and hands him a twenty dollar bill. A woman walks past them, bundling her child into her coat as she strides forward before the street is void of any passerby once again.

“Selena June Bovy,” Kieran mutters. “Publicist. Preferably dead by the end of this week, so I’d appreciate getting her schedule in the next couple of days.”

“Fuck, man.” Quill stuffs the wad of two tens and the coins into his baggy pocket, scratching his nose with a huff. “I dunno. That’s Kilgrave’s territory.”

“Wha-“ Kieran blinks. “Since when?”


“This morning. Six thirty. You’re getting old, man. You take it too slow.”


“Old?” Kieran snaps, eyes riveting with fury because yes he may be reaching the appropriate age for a vampire’s mid-life crisis but he is certainly not old by their standards. In fact- In fact, Kieran resists the urge to stomp childishly - he is at his peak. “By no accounts am I old, Quill.” 


“Hey.” Quill shrugs. “I’m not the one who met Hitler,” and after a long drag of smoke from a week old cigarette he mutters, “600-year-old fag.” 


Huh. No wonder he forgot Quill’s name; it didn’t need remembering.

With a simple tilt of the head, Kieran locks eyes with the beggar’s slouching figure, right hand gripping the now-empty cup of coffee in his right hand. If only Quill had found a narrow alleyway to park his slimy, degenerate rear. Then, perhaps, the vampire would actually be enjoying himself.

“How interesting,” He drawls, leaning forward against the wall with his hand bracing rough, grey cement. “That despite knowing where we both stand in the hierarchy of this cruel, cruel world, you still have the audacity to speak back to me.” Quill’s shoulder tenses.

“Can’t take a joke?” He spits back, lower lip trembling. Beneath his hobo blanket, Kieran spies the outline of an AK-47 through the shadows of a harsh sun. Does it scare him? Not really. Kieran has died worse deaths.

“I can.” Kieran shrugs. “I just can’t take insults spewed from the mouth of a filthy derelict who lives most of his days in squalor and is too lazy to be anything more than a cheap imitation of a spy.” 


“Hm.” Quill’s eyes narrow but his mouth curves into a smirk, “You know you just gave that filthy derelict twenty dollars, right?”

“What can I say?” Kieran raises his hands, “I keep you fed.”

The beggar’s wide grin is all he needs to see before the vampire swivels his head away from the beating heat of the sun.

“Thank you, kind stranger!” he shouts hoarsely behind Kieran, voice muted by the sound of Kieran’s own footfalls as he strides towards the direction of his car. “Your generosity will be rewarded in the future, I’m sure.”

“Oh, please.” Kieran yawns.