There are moments in everyone’s life when they hit the bottom, when there seems to be no light on the horizon whatsoever. Every moment is agony, and the strong urge is to scream, cry, and break things.

For Ferdinand Anghel, this moment came on the seventh hour of his first transcontinental, Economy class airplane flight. He put away his book – The Complete Plays of Tennessee Williams – and nudged his traveling companion, who was avidly watching the movie.

They made an odd picture to those of their fellow passengers who weren’t contemplating suicide. Both men were as pale and thin as skim milk, wore dark, wraparound sunglasses at all times, and never smiled with their mouths open. They also hadn’t eaten any of the snacks or meals provided, instead sipping constantly from opaque thermoses. Their clothing was completely at odds. Ferdinand was all dark, solid colors in long sleeves, complementing his black hair, while Nat’s bright orange hair screamed against lurid, electric blue.

Nathan Silver took off his headphones. “Is something wrong?”

“You’ve been around the world, Nat. How do you survive?”

“If you want to get to Thailand, mon ami, you must suffer a little. Think about white sand beaches, misty mountains, tinkling temples, majestic monks, sumptuous Thai food…”

“Not for us.”

“True, but it smells nice.”

Ferdinand fidgeted. “I wish I could use my Blackberry. Dianne might be awake now.”

“Your daughter can survive two days without hearing from you.”

“Why are you watching that idiotic film? Anything with Hilary Duff – “

“Is faintly amusing.”

“Is not fit to be refuse in the city sewage system, I should say.”

“What do you have against her? She’s very perky, and blonde, and well, perky.”

“Sometimes I wonder about you, Nat.”

Nat grinned, and Ferdinand clapped a hand to his friend’s mouth. “Don’t do that! Someone might see!”

Nat removed the hand. “People don’t notice what they don’t expect. And what do you think would happen? ‘Vamps on a Plane’?”

“Ssh. You haven’t been mobbed. You don’t know.”

“Actually, I have been.”

“Where?”

“Vietnam. I mean, I was biting the enemy and everything, I don’t see why the US Army hated me so much. Prejudice, simple prejudice.”

A flight attendant in a purple skirt, top, and heels, with an orchid pin, came by with two mugs. “Coffee, sir? Tea?”

“No, thank you,” both said.

Nat nudged Ferdinand. “Pretty cute, huh? Huh?”

“Stop it. I’m a married man.”

“Yes, to a dead woman.”

“Do you want me to give you the silent treatment for the rest of the flight, you incredibly juvenile centenarian?”

“Said the fifty-year-old pipsqueak. I’m sorry. Do you want to play Scrabble?” They had a folded up board and tiny tiles that snapped into place.

Ferdinand stole a look to see if anyone was watching, and saw that everyone was either asleep or trying to be. He took his sunglasses off and rubbed his eyes, watering in the dim light. The irises were deep crimson. “No. My mind’s all foggy, my feet hurt and my back aches. I’m tired of reading, and I don’t like the music they play, and this movie makes me want to jump out of the cabin. I wish I could sleep.”

“Why don’t you shut your eyes for a little while? That’ll do you some good.”

“I can’t sleep here. It’s too open. I need walls around me. How am I supposed to sleep in a bed for the entire trip?”

“You did it when Selene was alive, and you can do it now. You’ve got one wall to your side, and I’ll make a barrier, and you’re hemmed in by the seats.”

“Could I lean on you?”

Nat affected a tough, blue-collar male voice. “I think I might be able to restrain my manliness enough.”

Ferdinand sighed and put his head on Nat’s shoulder. “When do we need to have another session?”

“Let me finish my movie, and I’ll psychoanalyze you.”

In the course of six years, Nat had managed to become Ferdinand’s best friend, tenant, roommate, ordinary doctor, dentist, and psychiatrist. In 1972 Nat was a veterinarian, walking to his hotel from a convention of American veterinarians when a pale young woman attacked him in an alleyway. Once he realized he would live for a few centuries more, he began a successful medical practice for the pets and work animals of people with no insurance. After ten years, he made enough money to return to medical school, where he became a general practitioner. He came back every few decades to learn something new, and was now proficient in obstetrics as well as his other talents. From wandering the world he had picked up Vietnamese, Hindi, Thai, Mandarin Chinese, and French.

Ferdinand had owned the house that Nat paid rent for a room in, but aside from the paid-off house in a small town, Laconia, he had no wealth to speak of. While his wife was living she earned most of their money as a high school counselor’s salary, which was princely compared to Ferdinand’s earnings as a historical fiction novelist. With her departure he had withdrawn from the world until his only contacts were Nat, Ferdinand’s daughter Dianne, a literary agent, and some boys next door who did his yard work. Among the community he was “that strange Mr. Anghel – don’t go by his house after dark, his wife has scratches and cuts she never explains.”

The reason behind the scratches was that Selene Anghel was a werewolf, who had given her only child the ability to transform without the link to the moon. Instead, Dianne changed based on her emotions, which meant her new husband was a brave man.

The entire town of Laconia was odd by anyone’s standards. There were unexplained incidents, benign, but seeming unnatural. There was singing in a strange language and feathered arrows found in the woods, along with mysterious lawyers who appeared out of nowhere, representing something they called the OMHI.

The Official Magics-Humans Institute, calling itself the Official Mental Health Institute in public, ostensibly dealt with people who were insane enough to say they had seen vampires, werewolves, seers, nymphs, Elves, or any kind of demon. There was also a young man named Derrick Jangoral, who cheerfully defied classification and sold pets. Behind the closed doors they urged the ‘deluded’ to keep quiet about it; these people are real but just leave them alone. Dianne and Matthew, her husband, lived in an apartment building designed for the not-quite-human resident, a place called Pleasant View. They had rules about tolerance and refraining from shooting flames with your fingers.

It was the OMHI that ordered Ferdinand to undergo therapy, take medication, and go on vacation, ever since his suicide attempt last August. Nat’s new role was as his keeper, to watch him, to keep him from hurting himself, and to either heal him or keep him from deteriorating until they could return to Laconia and Edofine Fletcher, the Elf psychiatrist. Elves were particularly adept at psychiatry, as well as construction work.

When the movie was near its end, Ferdinand sat up. “Is there something on my head?”

Nat looked around, appearing confused. “Nothing.”

“I felt like something was touching me.”

“I didn’t see anything touching you. Ah, credits. I didn’t know they needed stunt doubles in a teenage romantic comedy. Let me get out my clipboard. Recline your chair as far as it will go.”

“Edofine doesn’t make me lie down to talk to him.”

“Edofine fails to do many things that I indeed do.” Despite the ever-present sarcasm, there was warmth in Nat’s voice, creeping in every few sentences until he withdrew it again. He pulled a legal pad out of his voluminous backpack. “A shrink is nothing without scribbling notes. Let me look over your file, Ferdinand. Hmm…you are infected with HIV, which you got from biting a mugger. Interesting.”

“Nat, you were the one who diagnosed me.”

“You’re not reclining.” After Ferdinand grumbled and inched his seat back, Nat added, “I have to play the part and make it all professional. It’s bad enough that we’re friends. That messes up the objectivity and everything.”

“The OMHI believes in subjectivity, and knowing people as friends and relatives rather than associates or clients.”

“Don’t go quoting jargon at me. Let’s talk about you. Have you bitten any other living human beings?”

“You know this already.”

“Tell me in your own words, please.”

“You were there! The gang members released Rottweillers on a chained-up Dianne because she wouldn’t work for them, so we whipped in and you saved her. I got carried away and bit three.”

“Were there any other fatalities?”

“I was found innocent of manslaughter, you know.”

“They found you innocent, but have you found yourself innocent? I recall that eight men had broken necks.”

“Are you saying I should feel guilty?”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do. I have nightmares about it. I don’t know how the horror-movie vampires do it. How did you do it?”

“That was during a war. It was different.”

“Does that give you nightmares?”

“Duh. But we’re analyzing you right now.”

Ferdinand clasped his hands together. “Last day I dreamed of double jeopardy, that I had to go to court again, but it wasn’t the OMHI court. It was the ordinary, human court, and everyone had burning torches, and all of the dead men testified.”

“What did the dead men look like?”

“Pale, like me. Thin, like me. They had holes where they should have had eyes.”

“What were they saying?”

“They said I should have never gone to Romania, never should have married, never should have brought Dianne into the world. They said she was an abomination, that the dead should never beget children, and that she was bound for misery.” Ferdinand spoke in a low, toneless voice, his eyes shut.

“Did you believe them?”

“I went to the gallows and hung myself, but I couldn’t die, even though I couldn’t breathe.”

“You know that’s not true, physiologically. Were someone to hang us, we would die, but it would take hours and would be extremely unpleasant, like that scene in Night. We’re not dead.”

“Yes, I know. We’re mostly dead, which means we’re slightly alive, which means we’re sort of human.” This was Nat’s mantra, and Ferdinand quoted it now with a note of despair.

“How do you feel about being in crowds, like we are now?”

Ferdinand shivered. “Awful. Images keep flashing through my head of me slaughtering people.”

The person behind Ferdinand tapped on his seat. “Excuse me, what are you two doing?” she asked.

“We’re having an emergency therapy meeting, ma’am,” Nat told her. “I promise you, my patient is a threat to no one. He’s just nervous.”

“This is an emergency?” Ferdinand asked.

“Any time you start feeling low is an emergency for me.”

“Have you thought about how the root of ‘emergency’ is ‘emerge’? It is the process of something beginning. Oh, heavens, when will this wretched flight end?”

As they talked, Ferdinand opened the window, where he could see the sun set in a blaze of red. The next time they saw it rise, they would be in Bangkok.