A/N: Like most of the prose I've submitted here, this new story takes place in the same universe as "Madrugada". Many of the characters have already shown up in other stories, and some are new. This particular story is written in two viewpoints: a hunter living in 1940s New Jersey, and the story he tells of a young man in Ireland.

I'm posting this in lieu of a new chapter of "Madrugada", because my week has been incredibly crazy. If you haven't already, please take a look at that story and let me know how you like it. While review-whoring turns my stomach, feedback does wonders for a shaky self-esteem.

---

I hated nights like this.

No sane person would come outside. It was after ten, chilly, and raining just enough to make me really, thoroughly miserable. Me and the half dozen people I could see going about their business, whatever that might be. At least they probably had business outside that night.

I guess that meant I was the crazy one.

I dug my hands deeper in my coat pockets and started another lap around the shopping centre. I must have looked like a mugger, hunched into my coat, walking along the same patch of road for the ninth time that night.

Well, fine.

I didn’t really fancy dealing with people just then. It was almost time for me to turn in for the night, anyway. I was wet, I was cold, and I was starting to think that anyone out in that shite much longer was better off outside of the gene pool.

They should know better. Anyone out so late should know they stood a fair chance of running into somebody like me, except it actually would be a mugger. Losing a wallet was the least of their worries, and even that should be enough reason to get the hell back home.

Goodness knew I wanted to get the hell back home. I had a day job too, after all.

My shoes made soggy noises on the pavement. Thanks to a particularly deep puddle an hour before, my feet were completely soaked.

I’ll just stay until these last three people bugger off, I told myself. Can’t be much longer. That one was locking up his store, and one of the others looked like he was heading for one of the two remaining cars. Damned if I knew what he was doing here. Damned if I cared. Just go home, I willed them silently, just go home so that I can go home and everybody will end up warm and safe in their beds.

Yes, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Not going to happen.

In a way, I should have been grateful. It’s why I was out there in the first place. Because without fail, every night, there was at least one of those bloody suckers.

I could see him on the other end of the parking lot, just coming out of the trees. I made a mental note to tell Sari—could be a nest back there. She liked to know about those sorts of things.

The sucker paused for a moment, trying to decide which one to take. The shopkeeper and that other guy were taking off. No way he’d catch either of them in a car. That left me and some idiot who was smoking a cigarette on the corner. The sucker started walking toward the nicotine addict.

I sighed. Just once, I wished that one of them would try to take me.

Well, at least I had time. The two of them were practically at opposite ends of the shopping center, and there I was in the middle. I altered course to cross the sucker’s path at a convenient alley between two of the shops. Neither one seemed to notice. I was just a dirty-looking bum, and maybe I would go away if they ignored me long enough.

I faked a wretched-sounding coughing fit, just to be safe. Yeah, that’s right. Ignore the smelly old homeless man; he probably has some disease, if not a knife hidden up his sleeve.

Dark alleys. My best friends. I passed the sucker. At the last moment, I snatched his collar and dragged him into the alley with me.

I slammed him against the brick wall and gave him a grin. He gave me a growl.

Sorry, sucker, no blood for you tonight. A second later he was a cloud of dust floating gently into a puddle.

I walked back into the parking lot, brushing off my hands and whistling cheerfully. The idiot with the cigarette was still standing there. I caught his eye and glanced back at the alley.

He got the message. He left in a hurry.

And I could go home. Thank heaven.

Gabriel Kavanagh was a good lad. He respected his parents and always did what he was told until he was old enough to not need the telling. Always the friendly sort, he was well liked by just about everybody in his little town, and he helped out even without being asked.

I suppose if things had gone a bit differently, he would have lived a peaceful, happy life.

He certainly never would have left that little town.

It was more of a village than anything, although they did have their own carpenter to do very fine woodwork, if I do say so myself. That was the lad’s Da.

Fearghas Kavanagh trained up his son from the time he was hardly more than a tot, so that one day he could take over the family business when his Da was too old to work. The lad took to it well, without much incident. There was one close call when he was eleven years old and just learning to use the heavy saws, but that is another story.

The truth of the matter is that there is not much to tell about Gabriel’s youth. He lived a peaceful life in a peaceful town, learning to be a good carpenter and a good man from his Da.

When Gabriel turned twenty years old, his Da decided that there was nothing more he could teach his son. After that, he still worked for his father, but he also got some money in his pocket. For five years they worked together, father and son. They did good business, too. There were other villages that did not have their own carpenter, being mostly farmers, so they came to Fearghas and his son for woodwork.

Then came the fateful day in 1896 when a man from the next town came to ask Fearghas to make him a fine bed frame. Well, that was a bit too big to carry from Fearghas’s shop, so he sent his son with some tools to the other town to make it. Gabriel, now grown to a man, carved the prettiest bed frame he had ever done.

He had some motivation, you see.

It turned out that the man had a daughter. It was she that needed a new bed frame, as she had been sleeping in the one she had since she was a child. Now the lass was seventeen and her da had decided to buy her a new one, as might actually fit her.

Gabriel stayed in that town for two weeks, working on making that bed frame just as pretty as he could make it. Truth be told, he may have lingered a bit on some of the designs, taking his time and making them as perfect as he could. That man certainly got more than he paid for. Gabriel was a good lad, though, and flat refused to accept any more money for the job.

Instead, he asked the man permission to court his daughter.

The man decided that he would be glad for his daughter to marry a skilled tradesman and so he gave the younger man his blessing. He had, in fact, noticed the two of them smiling at each other many times over the past two weeks. It was as fine a match as he could hope for.

Over the next several months young Gabriel Kavanagh traveled to visit his lass as often as he could, and wrote her letters when he couldn’t. Aoife was her name, and Gabriel was sure that she was the prettiest thing he had ever laid eyes on, with golden curls and eyes as green as the hills.

He visited her many times that spring. They would walk through the fields between the two towns, her telling him all sorts of stories about the Tuatha Dé Danann and the fair folk, and him mostly trying not to make a fool of himself.

That spring and summer were the happiest days of Gabriel’s life.

---

I woke up in my bed a few hours later. Sunlight filtered in through my cheap curtains. That was later than I usually slept. What was the bloody time, anyway?

I squinted at the clock next to my bed. A little after nine in the morning. Shite, that meant I had slept for ten hours. I must have been getting lazy in my old age.

Oh well. It was a Sunday. I was allowed to sleep as long as I liked on Sundays. My foreman got a mite bit tetchy if I woke up that late on any other day of the week, but Sundays I could do whatever the hell I liked.

The first step in any successful day is always a pair of pants. Other details could be worked out later, but at that moment I needed breakfast more than a full set of clothes.

I pulled down the cereal and fetched a bowl from the cupboard.

Milk. I needed milk. Fortunately there was still half a bottle left in my icebox. No, make that refrigerator.

I’ll get it straight one of these days.

Blessed General Mills. I used to hate having to find something for breakfast. All I had to do now was add milk. Voilà: one complete meal.

Breakfast dealt with, I gave the newspaper a cursory glance. It didn’t have anything interesting in it that day, though. The politicians were still talking at each other in Berlin, like they’d been doing for the past two weeks. Only politicians could talk for two weeks and not get anything accomplished. I tried not to think about it too much. It wasn’t any of my business. I can’t even remember why the damned war started in the first place.

I had more pressing matters.

For starters, my cupboards were running really low on food. Plenty of Cheerios, but that was about it. As much as I liked cold cereal, I could probably only go a day or two without anything else.

I went back to my bedroom and flipped on the radio whilst hunting for a clean shirt to wear. I should probably do a load of laundry soon, too. Maybe I could get Rosalie to do it for me. I was pretty sure she did the wash on Sunday. I hoped she did. It was either that or spend money on the laundromat. Besides, Rosalie had one of those automatic washing machines, so it wasn’t as if it would be any extra trouble.

First things first, though. I happened to know a convenience store where the owner sort of hung around on Sundays. It was just a couple blocks away, too.

The walk was nice. It was the middle of summer, so the morning was as warm as you could ask for, and the sun shone nice and bright. And to think—I’d missed a good four hours of it. It was a damn shame.

Anyway, I reached the store after a few minutes. The place was all dark, but the door was open so I let myself in and picked up a shopping basket.

“Hey, Hal!” I called. “Hal, get your arse out here, don’t you know you’ve got a customer?”

“Yeah, I hear you! Give me a minute, will you?”

Satisfied that he would come out and make me pay for things, I wandered around the store throwing groceries into my basket. I only really needed a few things to tide me over for the next few days. At least until I could get to the big supermarket in Newark.

I dropped my groceries on the counter. Hal gave me a look.

“So what brings you to the store on a Sunday morning, anyway?” he asked, ringing up the merchandise.

“The usual. It’s not my fault it was a weekend this time.”

“Nothing but cold cereal in your pantry, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s about the whole of it. I must have ate everything else without noticing.”

“That sounds like your fault to me.”

I grumbled at him and handed him a few dollars.

“You ought to turn your lights on when you have a customer,” I told him. “Person could get hurt or spill something like this.”

Hal rolled his eyes at me. “Come on now, you know I ain’t supposed to be open today anyway. You want me to get fined, do you?”

I took my groceries and gave him a wave.

“You know I’m kidding, Hal,” I said before walking out the door. He sighed and returned to his office in the back.

Well, the food I just bought should last me the week. I was going to have to remember to get up to Newark next Saturday, as long as I got off work early enough. If worse came to worst, I still had my Cheerios.

I walked back home and spent about ten minutes putting everything away. That still left me with most of the day before sunset. I decided I should head over to Seth’s place as soon as possible. I took a moment to decide whether showing up with a laundry bag slung over my shoulder was maybe a bit asinine, but then decided just to call the man first. Rosalie had done my laundry before, but it was always better to ask.

“Hey, Seth,” I said when he picked up his phone.

“Hey, buddy. How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks. Listen, is Rosalie doing the laundry today?”

“Yeah, she is. Why do you ask?”

I hesitated for a moment. “Well…”

Seth has known me entirely too long. He chuckled into the phone and sighed. “I’ll ask her to wait until you get here.”

I grinned. “I’ll see you in a couple minutes.”

Seth lived a few miles down the road. I could have walked, but chose to drive instead. I had finally bought myself an automobile a few months ago and I have to admit I used it a bit more than I really needed to.

In my defense, it was a good car.

Besides, I was bringing a sack of dirty laundry with me. I liked to limit myself to looking like a vagrant only once every twenty-four hours.

I got to his house soon enough.

Rosalie opened the door at my first knock, taking my sack with a roll of her eyes.

“One of these days, you will have to learn to wash your own laundry,” she admonished me in that fancy French accent of hers.

“Hey, not my fault you went and bought one of those fancy automatic washers,” I retorted. “Can’t hardly blame a man for trying to save a few dollars.”

“You’re lucky to be such good friends with my husband,” she said, and walked away with my laundry.

“I tell him that almost every day,” Seth said, emerging from wherever he had been. “So, good night last night?”

“Just got one. Vampire. Up at that shopping center a few blocks away. I’m going to see if Sari knows anything about a nest in the area—it came out of those woods.”

Seth frowned.

“The woods? I have to say, it’s not like one of them to hide in the woods. Weredemons? Yes. Vampires? That sounds somewhat unusual.”

“Just telling you what I saw. Anyway, it was only the one.”

I sighed and settled into a chair.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said, “It would make my life easier if people knew what sort of things were after them on a night like the last. Remember when we first started out, forty years ago or so? Respectable people went home at night. That Stoker novel had just come out, and people were all too scared to leave the house after dark, and nobody was a bit surprised if they happened to see something they maybe shouldn’t have.”

“You don’t have to convince me, you know,” Seth said. “I told you years ago we could have them eradicated in no time, if people stopped being foolish enough to let themselves be turned.”

“That’s people for you. Each as damned stupid as the next.”

Seth shot me a warning glance.

“I would ask you to watch your language, please. Lily is at an incredibly impressionable age.”

“Sorry, Seth. Where is the little angel, anyway?”

“Off playing with her dolls, I suspect. She has recently discovered the Tea Party,” he told me with a smile. “Lily! We have a guest. Come say ‘hello’!”

From somewhere in the house came the frantic pattering of small feet. A few seconds later a little aes sídhe in pink ruffles came running down the hall, clutching one of her dolls. She came straight for me and crawled into my lap.

“Hi there, sunshine!” I exclaimed. “Have you been a good lass?”

“Yup!”

“She has been a lovely young lady,” Seth said, disappearing into the kitchen.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Want to see the picture I drew?”

“Of course!”

I set the five-year-old back down on the floor and she dashed off, returning with a piece of paper covered in crayon. I couldn’t tell what it was meant to be, although there seemed to be a great deal of pink and yellow. Seth stuck his head out from the kitchen.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, “Glass of milk, perhaps?”

“Please! That sounds perfect.”

I returned my attention to the drawing while Lily watched me hopefully, waiting for my verdict. I finally decided that the largest scribble was intended to be a bunny rabbit, and the surrounding splotches were flowers of some sort.

“It’s beautiful, Lily,” I said, handing it back to her. She beamed. “Go give it to your Da. Maybe he can hang it up for you.”

Seth accepted the masterpiece and set it on the kitchen counter before returning to the living room. He set two glasses of milk on the table.

“Perfect,” I said again, reaching for one of them. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

Seth grinned in appreciation of my joke.

“Tell me about last night,” he requested. “Did the vampire give you any trouble?”

“None at all,” I said smugly. “I did my dirty homeless man act. Hey, you think they’re afraid of catching ill?”

“Not likely,” he said, laughing, “Although fleas could be a unique dilemma.”

We both chuckled a bit at the thought of vampiric fleas.

“Although, come to think of it, I don’t suppose they would change at all!”

“No, I daresay they wouldn’t!”

“Oh, I do miss hunting,” Seth said with a wistful sigh. “I still go out every so often, mind you, but it really isn’t the same. Between Lily and work I hardly have the time.”

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“You are very lucky to have them,” I said quietly.

Seth offered me a small, apologetic smile.

“You will find somebody one day,” he reassured me. “It just takes ti–.”

“I don’t want anybody,” I interrupted him. “Except her, and she’s gone now, and that’s that. You’ve known this since the beginning.” I sighed. “Listen. I’m glad to have you, and Rosalie, and little Lily in my life, but that’s all.”

“I apologize. I cannot even imagine what it must be like.”

“No, you really can’t.”

Another one of those damned uncomfortable pauses.

Honestly, you’d think that two men who had known each other for over forty years would be able to avoid them. I drank my glass of milk in silence. I was at a complete loss for something to say next. Seth, clearly, had the same problem.

Rosalie came to our rescue in her usual way, with a cheerful smile and a plate of biscuits.

“Here, have a cookie,” she said, setting the plate next to our glasses. “I just baked them this morning.”

Seth reached for a one. I eyed the plate, trying to decide whether I wanted any.

“Don’t be shy,” she admonished.

I grinned in concession and took a biscuit for myself. Never call me a poor houseguest. They were quite good, besides. Seth had certainly found himself a wonderful wife.

“Seth, darling,” she said, “Did you tell him about the picnic next weekend?”

“Oh, yes! I had nearly forgotten. There is a picnic next Saturday,” he told me, “At the park. Everybody is invited, of course. You are free, aren’t you?”

Damn it all, there went my groceries.

“Always free for a picnic, you know that.”

“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “It starts at twelve o’clock, as usual. If you get the chance, do try to bring something for it. Rosalie is making her special crêpes again.”

“You mean the kind with the fruit and the chocolate drizzled all over? Now I really will have to come to this thing. I’m not certain you want me cooking, though.”

At the moment, the best I could probably manage would be to bring one of my boxes of Cheerios.

Especially if I wasn’t going to make it to the market in Newark.

Seth and I chatted for a few more minutes. Lily came back into the room at some point and resumed her artistic pursuits, pausing every so often to present either me or her da with the latest composition.

Before I left, Rosalie extracted a promise from me that I would actually return for my laundry the next day. Alright, so maybe I had once waited so long to fetch my clothes that they had been completely soaked by rain before I got to them. I still had my suspicions that she’d done it on purpose. But a man had obligations, didn’t he? Even if that man could never quite seem to say what those obligations were when it mattered.

At the moment, for example, I had an obligation to tell Sari about that sucker from the woods. After that, I could look forward to a week’s worth of obligation to finish that new office building with the rest of my crew.

It was such a hard life.