As the son of a veterinary doctor, Jesse learned a lot of things from watching his mother work. Like, he knew the average lifespan of a well-cared for Pomeranian, and the appropriate heat lamp temperature for a pet bearded lizard. He knew where they kept all of their emergency surgical tools when they weren’t in use and even how to trick the twenty-year-old vending machine in the breakroom into giving him chips without paying. But most importantly, he knew where his mother kept the spare key to the backdoor of the clinic.

  The next day after school, the day that they decided to pursue the imp queen, Jesse paid a visit to the clinic. He thought it would be best if he went alone, so he would have a better chance of slipping in unnoticed. He just needed to find the bat and get out.

  But when he reached the back room where she was being kept, he froze. Damien was there, sweeping the floor, a volunteer name tag attached to his leather jacket.

  “Hey, fledgling,” he greeted before Jesse had a chance to escape. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I, uh, just came by to see how the bat’s doing.” How did he forget about the nocturnal vampire working here?

  “She’s good.” He nodded over to where she was sleeping in her cage. “Still not able to fly yet, though she’s getting better every day. We decided to call her Lucy.”

  Cute, he’s named her.

  “I know I haven’t even known her that long,” he continued. “But I’m really gonna miss her when she has to go back to the wild. Maybe I can see her every once in a while when I’m flying.”

  Jesse had to stop himself from asking how. Duh, he probably turns into a bat. One of these days he was going to blow his cover by asking a stupid question. Instead he settled on, “Do you like working here?”

  “Actually, yeah,” Damien admitted. “At first, I came here just for Lucy, but Dr. Carmen’s been teaching me a lot about the other animals. It’s surprisingly fun.”

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  The idea of having a vampire hanging around so close to his mom didn’t sit right with him, but he seemed to like her so maybe he didn’t have to worry about her getting eaten.

  “Speaking of Dr. Carmen, she should be around here somewhere. Let me go get her for you.”

  “No, wait!” Jesse stopped him by grabbing his arm, earning a raised eyebrow. He decided to just bite the bullet. “Listen, I need your help.”

  He explained everything (or almost everything) for what felt like the hundredth time, about the imp queen that was currently infesting Oak Hollow Middle School, and how he and his friends were trying to take care of it.

  “You still go to school?” was all Damien had to say.

  Now it was Jesse’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You don’t go to high school?”

  “Only when the truancy officer catches me,” he said with a grin. “I’ve been seventeen for a couple decades now. Just give it a few years and you’ll stop caring, too.”

  The statement was a stark reminder of his vampiric nature. He certainly looked and acted like a normal teenager, but Jesse found himself wondering just how old he really was.

  There’ll be time to think about that later. “Anyway, I need to borrow the bat- Lucy,” he corrected. “She can help us track down the queen.”

  “No way,” Damien said flatly. “She’s still injured; I’m not letting you put her in danger like that.”

  “She won’t be in danger,” he pleaded. “I’ll be with her the entire time. I won’t let the imp do anything to her.”

  “Do you promise?” His brown eyes glinted as he leaned down to Jesse’s height. “Do you promise to protect her, keep her safe from harm, and not let anything bad happen to her?”

  He was close enough now that he could see the tips of his fangs poking out from his mouth. The threat in his question was clear.

  Jesse steeled his nerves. “I promise.”

  He didn’t say anything immediately, but took Lucy out of her cage, holding her out in front of him, level to Jesse.

  “Now promise her.”

  It felt a little silly, talking to a bat, but when he met the shiny black eyes looking up at him, he thought he could almost feel the connection Damien had with her.

  “I promise,” he said again.

  Damien considered his words. “Fine. I’ll cover her disappearance for you. But you better have her back here as soon as you’re done with the queen.”

  As he handed her over to Jesse, he added. “And be careful with her wing. If anything sets back her recovery, I swear-”

  “I know. I’ll protect her.”

  And he meant it.