New Moon
       
       Xander is thirty minutes from home, and two hours from sunrise, when his tire pops. He scuttles his Aston Martin to an awkward stop, narrowly avoiding the ditch.
       After meditating on his options, he rolls up the sleeves of his expensive dress shirt, steps out of the car, and finds the spare. It's been decades since he's done this. While the pitch-black helps him see, he's also starving and struggling to concentrate.
       His mouth waters as he eyes the 28 gallons of blood through the backseat window. He should have found a blood bank closer to home by now, but he knows he won't. Too much trouble.
       He hauls the spare tire out of the trunk and sets it against the car. He loosens the lug nuts easily enough, but he can't remember how to set up his jack to lift the car. He doesn't even have gloves, and the texture of the car's rough underside makes his skin crawl.
       In an effort to refocus, he counts the lug nuts holding the tire in place.
       One, two, three, four, five.
       He's tried and failed to detach the old tire three times when headlights appear above the hill. He covers his eyes with his arm, trying not to appear wounded by the light. He waves down the pickup truck, and it stops behind his car.
       A huge paw brands a print in the dirt. The massive beast uncoils from the truck, then glares at Xander with glowing orange eyes.
       He has one thought before the beast lunges and sinks its jaws in his forearm:
       But there's no moon tonight.

       Xander slams his head against his coffin lid upon waking. Everything throbs -- his head, his gut, his arm -- but the worst of the venom has made its way through his system. Settled in his bones, his nerves, his veins...
       The gentle lantern above his head eases his stress. He had it imported from Denmark, along with scentless candles and feather-soft blankets. He's embraced Hygge in almost every aspect of his home, other than sharing it with loved ones. He doesn't have many of those.
       He tries to focus on the external calm he's curated in his apartment, not the internal chaos brewing within him.
       When he steps out of bed, naked body smeared with blood and guano, he has an idea of how he escaped. He cringes at the soiled silk interior of his bed.
       He vaguely recalls sinking his teeth into something before flying away in blinding, pulsing pain. Xander places a hand on his pale belly. He isn't hungry anymore. Perhaps he won?
       His wound drips fresh blood onto the soft carpet. He can't remember the last time he bled.

       Saxophone chords flow between the booths and tables of Bel Pipistrello. Golden light glows from individual table lamps. Chatter between friends, lovers, and enemies remains hushed yet relaxed. They sip exquisite cocktails and soothing whiskey.
        Ordinarily, Xander would haunt his usual corner, keep an eye on business, and let the music wash over his psyche. Tonight, he paces the grounds, nursing a scotch with one hand and a haphazardly bandaged wound with the other.
       Once he returns to the bar for the third time, his lead bartender takes notice. "Doing alright, boss?" Jaquelin measures a shot of basil liquor.
       He wraps his hands tighter around his glass. "I had a...health scare recently." His arm stings beneath his suit.
       It isn't a lie; he hasn't stopped fearing for his health for the past 48 hours. He can hardly sleep during the day, soaking his coffin with sweat. He should have taken more time to recover in his apartment, but his safe home was starting to feel like a claustrophobic hotbox. He needed to move.
       However, while his undead status is an open secret here, he'd like to keep this new development a closed one.
       "Yikes, I'm sorry. How bad --" Jaquelin accidentally tips over a bowl of peanuts while reaching for a used glass. "Shit!"
       Without a word, Xander collects the spilled nuts and begins counting them back into the bowl.
       "Thanks." She sets the dirty glass in the sink, then washes her hands. "Anyway. Just a scare, right?"
       Three, four, five. "Right." Six, seven, eight. "I'm keeping an eye on it, though."
       Jaquelin nods as she pours the cocktail into a fresh glass. "Good, keep it up." She looks directly at him for the first time tonight and smiles. "Hey."
       He pauses on the last peanut. "What?"
       She gestures at his face. "Your stubble, it looks good. I didn't think you could grow one."
       He freezes. The peanut slips from his fingers and bounces off the counter.

       Xander is particular about how he feeds. Type A with coffee, Type B with scotch, and Type O to sip in a stainless steel bottle throughout the night.
       Now, he stalks the streets of the food cart district, noise-canceling earplugs removed because the silence he once worshipped now makes him antsy. Horns blare, sirens ring, and he floats through the soundscape.
       Of course he's starving again - he abandoned his blood stash in his car. Still, he thought he'd sooner suck his doorman dry before consuming solid food. But here he is, ordering three hotdogs, two burritos, and a meat-lovers pizza from three different vendors.
       The grease stains his shirt sleeves, so he reluctantly rolls them up. Tufts of thick, void-dark hair coat the tops of his hands. The same hair that's been growing on his head, face, arms, feet...
       When was the last time anything grew from him?
       When he founded Bel Pipistrello? It's certainly been a comfortable way to spend forever. Soothing tunes, mood lighting, familiar flavors. The frantic early days of his undead transition are gone, when he had no tools to manage the onslaught of a suddenly brighter and louder world.
       A young man pulls his attention away from the meat, drops some coins on the lid of his pizza box, and shuffles away. Xander counts them one at a time -- eight quarters -- before returning to his meal.
       What grows from Xander now is an entirely new body, one that savors vibrant flavors and slippery textures between his fangs. One that doesn't belong to him yet.
       Not to mention, a body without a digestive system doesn't know what to do in this situation. After feasting, he parts his lips to release the inevitable bile. Instead, dark smoke leaks from his mouth, swirling towards stars beyond the light pollution.

        A ghost in Bel Pipistrello's bathroom startles him out of his skin. The wispy form twists in on itself, trembles, gasps for breath in a similar rhythm of Xander. When he straightens, the ghost does too. But when he stretches his arm past the mirror's dimensions, the ghost doesn't follow.
       This isn't a ghost. It's him.
       There's a small bowl of mints on the counter, and he reaches for it like a lifeline. He spills the candies into the sink, then counts until the panic in his body rests. He's thankful he hasn't lost this trait of vampirism, and he hopes he never does. It keeps him saner than he could have hoped for.
       Now that he's calmed down, he inspects his body. He is clearly not an apparition, but this cursed reflection has taken the appearance of one. Something between what he once was and what he's becoming.
       Xander steps closer, examining the soft, transparent edges. His new girth is outlined in the mirror. In the past week, he's gained twice his former muscle mass. The bartenders keep asking which gym he goes to and he wishes they would stop.
       But his face...he can't make out the details, but it's so round. The scraggly beard can't be helping, but there is no line to distinguish his jaw from his cheek. He's changed, but he truly hasn't aged. He's a child in a monster's body.
       He touches the glass, sending soft ripples through his reflection. He would've been in his fifties, now, had he not been turned. Grey hairs would begin salting his pepper-black head. His knees would be a bit weaker, his back a bit sorer. He'd be married, maybe have a kid graduating college. His life could've been so beautifully ordinary.
       He's accepted his fate, letting the decades blur together. He's created spaces that don't overwhelm his heightened senses. He's made vampirism look suave and aloof, not as disturbed as he once felt. Without a window to the past, no way to monitor the status of his soul, there has been no choice but to move forward.
       On the verge of more power than one can imagine, he's never felt more vulnerable, more mortal. What will his life be now?

       He doesn't know what spurs it, only that he can't stop it.
       Xander scrambles out of a meeting as his bone structure elongates. Excruciating doesn't begin to describe the pain as he stumbles into the elevator.
       He tries to count the elevator buttons, but he's too dizzy with metamorphosis. His suit disintegrates beneath his heaving form. The red hues of the burgundy interior fade to a dull charcoal.
       By the time he reaches the first floor, he bursts through the elevator on all fours.
       Instincts are a funny thing. He's spent so long not trusting his own, or lack thereof. Undead creatures hardly make the wisest decisions, hence the scores of business books on his shelves for professional guidance.
       He doesn't know where this new internal compass points him, only that he must run. Fear doesn't join him -- only certainty in his muscles, his bones, his heart.
       It's a ten-minute sprint before he reaches the dog park.
       He rolls in the moonstruck meadow, sniffing daffodils until they clog his nostrils. He splashes in the pond, startling sleepy geese. He considers howling, but deep down, he's afraid to invite others to witness such unfiltered glee. It's like he's flying without wings.
       It's foreign. It's embarrassing. It's magic.
       His reflection shows the wispy outline of a beast, tongue lolling out of his mouth, jaws parted in a brilliant smile.
       Xander plays until the early dawn, until his paws morph back into hands, snout to nose, tail to ass. Where the sun once roasted his skin, it now leaves him pink and flush.
       After fashioning undergarments out of dog waste bags, he weaves in and out of alleyways for three blocks until he reaches his building. The doorman gives him a puzzled look, but lets him inside.
       When he jiggles the spare key in the lock and enters his apartment, he's ready to pass out. Then, he sees a note on the floor, slid through the mail slot.

       Meet me in Winifred Park in two days.
       I have your car.
       - T

       Xander is no fool -- he's armed with a silver blade from a nearby pawn shop -- but he doesn't feel enough fear as he approaches the stranger in the park. He doesn't see the best in others, but it's hard to wrap his mind around anyone caring enough about him to wish him harm.
       Despite having a bite taken out of him nearly two weeks ago.
       Golden streetlights silhouette the man's frame. He's taller than Xander in his human form too, but far more slender than he expected. His chestnut beard straggles in odd directions, and his long hair is balding in several patches. His nose is peeling from a fresh sunburn.
       The man outstretches a fist with keys jutting between his knuckles, but releases them before Xander can catch them. That isn't all he drops - tiny grey seeds rain on the sidewalk, bouncing gently on impact.
       Damn it.
       Panic writhes in his chest as he folds to his knees, but calms slightly when the stranger joins him, moving slow and non-confrontational. His shaggy hair hides his right eye, and his left eye glows burnt orange.
       "Right, how do we wanna do this?" The man splits the pile of seeds in two with his forearm. "Half and half, or I pass them to you?"
       Xander swallows, hands shaking as he recombines the pile. "No. I'll pass to you." He plucks one poppy seed, takes a mental note -- one -- and places it in front of the man.
       He grins, flashing a fresh pair of fangs. "Good thinking." He begins a separate pile beside a daffodil growing through the sidewalk crack. "I'm Theo, by the way."
       Two, three, four. His anxiety fades as he takes control of the situation. "Why are we here, Theo?"
       With the hand not occupied with counting seeds, Theo pushes the Aston keys closer to Xander.
       "Why else?"
       Theo gulps. "I'm...thirsty." He pauses, choosing his next words carefully. "My dad's a lumberjack; my family works with him out in the woods. Every mosquito bite they got out there, I could sense it. And when my little bro sliced his hand on the axe..." He blinks moisture from his eyes. "If I didn't have the supply in your car, I don't know what I would've done.
       "So, I wanted to ask where you got it." He nods at the seeds between them. "I didn't think your venom would make me obsessed with counting shit, but... Well, I thought this could keep us from killing each other."
       Xander glares, a growl building in his throat. "You started it."
       "I thought you were someone else." Theo bites his lip. "My girl, she left me for some rich guy. Stalked him online, learned he's really into vintage cars. I saw your Aston, and I just saw red. Big mistake, hm?" He chuckles, gesturing at the fang marks till scarring his neck. "It was...stupid. I'm sorry."
       Xander counts silently for a few moments, biding his time. He believes Theo. The problem is he doesn't know if he should. At the same time, is the cost to offer this information really so high?
       "There's a blood bank in the St. Theresa hospital, forty minutes north of the city." Thinking about it makes him thirsty. "I used to live closer, but it's familiar, so I kept going after I moved downtown. And they make vampires fill out less paperwork than the bigger hospitals here."
       Theo winces. "I'm...still getting used to that word." He does a once-over on Xander's new muscles. "You used to 'werewolf' yet?"
       "I'm not used to any of this." Xander remembers his partial reflection in Bel Pipistrello's mirror. "Eating instead of drinking, longer transmutations instead of quick ones... The hair." He briefly pauses, lifts his tufted hand. "Not a fan of the hair."
       Theo barks out a laugh. "Some folks go to really fancy wolf spas to keep it in check, but that's out of my tax bracket. I'm guessing it's in yours."
       Xander grins timidly, making Theo laugh more.
       His smirk morphs, suddenly serious. "Why didn't you report me? I could've killed you."
       Xander's mind pauses, even as his hands continue working. He doesn't know what to say.
       Theo shrugs. "Maybe we're even; you could've killed me, too." He looks at his hand, pale as paper. "My world... It's so much smaller now. One of my brothers invited me to a music festival next month, and I said no. Can you believe it? The thought of all that loud music, bright strobe lights..." He shakes his head. "It's what I deserve. Stay at home, where I can't hurt anyone."
       They work in silence for a bit; Xander's seed pile growing smaller, Theo's larger.
       "It's a curse, most definitely, but not for the reasons you think." Xander takes a deep breath. "My world was never small, just intentional. Curated. Still is, though I'll have to make some tweaks. You'll find your way, too, despite hybridity's complications." He pauses on a seed, rolling it between his fingers. "I didn't report you because I don't waste time on matters that can't be undone. It's the only way to...deal with it."
       When Xander looks up, Theo's gaze is unbreaking. "Well, you don't have to deal with it alone anymore."

       Over the course of twelve hundred poppy seeds, they trade secrets back and forth. Xander learns the best brands of razors and elastic underwear; Theo learns the best emergency sunscreen brands and soothing jazz bands.
       After collecting the seeds in a jar, Theo stands and tilts his head to the sky. Dawn creeps in, but the moon is still visible. "She's beautiful tonight, isn't she?"
       He squints his eyes. "Right, about that..."
       "Yeah..." Theo chuckles. "You don't need a full moon to shift. It happens sporadically until you can control it. Moonlight is more of a...cultural thing for us." He smiles softly. "Spiritual, even."
       Xander looks at the moon, too. When vampirism reshaped his life, it brought all these rules to follow, rules his mind would not allow him to break. It almost made the change easier. He thought lycanthropy might play out in the same way, but it hasn't. It's looser with its lore. This isn't a new toolkit to wield, but a new way of being.
       Maybe this is the real power: harboring order and chaos in one body.
       Theo breaks his gaze from the moon to look at Xander. "My brothers do a pack run every full moon. Do you want to come tomorrow night?"
       Xander blinks. "You want me there?"
       Theo shrugs. "It's the least I owe you."

       On the roof of the building, Xander and Theo sit with a bottle of scotch and a blood bag between them, glasses in each hand.
       "Type B, huh? Good shit." Theo picks up the bottle and ponders the label. "What does Bel Pipistrello mean?"
       Xander blushes (another new side effect). "It's Italian for... No, you can look it up later."
       "Come on, man, I won't tell anyone."
       He sighs. "'Handsome Bat.'"
       Theo is still laughing by the time his brothers arrive - three men in sweatpants, baggy shirts, and sandals despite the chilly night. He sets the bottle on the ground. "Hey, guys, come meet The Handsome Bat."
       Despite himself, Xander laughs with them.
       It's not long before they tug their clothes off and kick off their sandals. Xander stands awkwardly in his briefs, unsure how to behave. There's a communal warmth between the brothers. Yes, they're family, but it's deeper than that. They're so comfortable around each other, despite the physically unpleasant activity they're performing tonight.
       At midnight, the men transmute into beasts, one after another. Some grunt their way through the process, some remain silent as their bones reorient themselves. Theo waits patiently for Xander, encouraging him to 'dig deep' and 'let go' and other nonsense he can't translate to making his body shift.
       "It's been taking me longer, too." Theo tilts his chin up. "Howl with us for a while. If you don't shift before we start running, you can hop on my back. Cool?"
        The beasts begin howling, and Xander has never felt sillier. No one looks at him as if he's doing it wrong, but he feels wrong, deep in his gut. He harbors no ill-will toward these folks, but he isn't one of them. Half of his blood resembles theirs, but the other half is his. He and Theo have changed each other irreparably, and they may never relate to any other monster ever again.
       Xander tries to count the stars, but he can't see them clearly enough. He can't ground himself, feign control, or squash the devastation writing in his chest.
       Something between a roar and a shriek erupts from his throat, a rage long held in waiting. Maybe for Theo, maybe for his body, maybe for the bastard that sank fangs into his neck all those moons ago. All he could've been, all he'll never be...
       All he is.
       The pain is no less blinding the second time. His tendons and muscles rearrange themselves with precision. He falls to his knees, then to his four legs. He catches his breath, shakes sweat from his dark fur, and lifts his head.
       Theo's spine extends to twice its original size. He jerks his body at disturbing angles until messy brown fur settles across his body. Xander thinks he's finished until two sharp bones sprout from between his shoulder blades. At least, they appear to be bones until they fan open, revealing spindly wings.
       Xander's head whips around to his own back. He didn't notice upon his first shift, but he has his own pair of translucent bat wings.
       Fear, anger, and sorrow melt away; all that remains is wonder.
       The rest of the pack shakes their heads, refocusing. Xander and Theo join the formation, and their instincts synchronize. The oldest of Theo's brothers stands at the front. He paws a few times before stomping --
       Once.
        Twice.
       Thrice.
       The pack breaks into a run. They jump to the next building, the two hybrids leaping higher than the rest. On and on, they bound between buildings, hooting and hollering. Xander runs with his tongue hanging out.
       It's hard to remember all he's lost as his claws scrape the stars. In fact, he feels more like himself than ever before. What a joy to be one with the night sky. What a gift to hold two abominations in his once-frozen heart.