Work Text:
1.
Master,
I wrote the address of the closest Red Cross center on the back of this note. I know you don’t like bagged blood, but in case you need a source
Guillermo stops, the pencil hovering over the page.
It’s a Halloween-themed pencil. Last year, Nandor had insisted on buying a pack of them to hand out to trick-or-treaters alongside mints and gumdrops. That was also the year that Laszlo tried to distribute real cigars, having vaguely remembered the existence of candy cigars.
As for the note - this isn’t a good start. You never know what you could get with stored blood. Andre, another familiar Guillermo once met at a mixer, had told the story of his master getting hallucinations for weeks after consuming a bag he’d stolen from a hospital.
With a frown, Guillermo crumples the note and resolves to try another approach.
2.
Guillermo shuffles the print-outs. It had taken him two hours of browsing, but he’d finally settled on the top three candidates.
httxps://www.familiarbook.com/sam_shirazi
Name: Samantha Shirazi
Age: 24
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Religion and Mythology, New York University
Languages: English, Farsi
Hobbies: Photography, painting, piano
Rating: ★★★★☆ (14 reviews)
Top Recommender: Duke Astaroth
Ranked Highly in: Arts & Entertainment, Rituals & Summonings, Victim Procurement
httpxps://www.familiarbook.com/steve_wallace
Name: Stephen Wallace
Age: 43
Education: n/a
Languages: English, French
Hobbies: Gardening, basketball, fencing
Rating: ★★★★☆ (31 reviews)
Top Recommender: Tilda
Ranked Highly in: Athletics & Warfare, Janitorial Services, Sex & Sensuality, Victim Procurement, Weapon Restoration & Upkeep
httpxps://www.familiarbook.com/trojan
Name: Trojan
Age: 7
Education: Santa Anita Park
Languages: Equine
Hobbies: Racing, grazing
Rating: ★★★★★ (93 reviews)
Top Recommender: Edmund Dracula
Ranked Highly in: Athletics & Warfare, Sex & Sensuality
He studies the profile pictures. The first, a young smiling dark haired woman. The second, a man dressed in a snappy white suit. The third, a noble gelding with a dappled coat.
“Any of them would work,” he says to the camera. “A near perfect match for life here on Staten Island, you know? My master would like them.”
A second later, the camera pans over to the fireplace, where the papers now lie smoldering.
3.
“Is the video on? Okay, I’m going to start.” Guillermo clears his throat and stares at his phone, which one of the documentary crew is aiming right at him.
“Hi, Master. If you’re watching this video, this means that I’ve decided to quit. I was going to write a resignation letter, but it is the twenty-first century and I think it’s easier this way to -- to get everything out.
“I’ve always liked making videos, by the way. I mean, we’re doing this twenty-four/seven with the documentary crew around, but I’ve posted stuff on TikTok and they’ve been getting some views. A lot of random strangers seem to think that me covering Nadja and Laszlo’s songs is funny, even though they’re the original versions.
“You know, like -- Bye, bye, Mr. American Pie/ Drove my buggy to Kentucky but the sun was too high / And them jolly old chaps were drinking whiskey and rye / Singing, this’ll be the day that I die…”
Guillermo interrupts himself mid-melody. “Maybe I could be a singer after this. Start up a Soundcloud. Or I could work at a comic bookstore; I’ve spent a lot of time luring virgins from them and I know too much about the last crossover event.
“I could be anything, I guess.
“That’s the point of this message. Why I’m leaving. I came back last time, but I don’t think I can come back again this time.
“It’s like -- alright, yesterday, Nadja called me to go into the fancy room because there was something thumping against the window. She thought a witch had sent some kind of familiar animal, or maybe it was a pixie.
“It wasn’t a pixie.
“It was this dumb little butterfly that somehow got into the house, and it kept hurling itself at the window, trapped in between the curtains and the glass. It just kept smacking its wings against the window over and over again,” Guillermo demonstrates with the clap of his palms, “and it still couldn’t get outside and fly.”
“Eventually, I got the butterfly out -- well, Nadja kept trying to check it for curses -- but I scooped it up, went out the front door, and let it fly away.
“That’s when I realized that I had to leave for good, Master. Because I’m that stupid butterfly -- which is a metaphor, not literal. Not a were-butterfly situation; stop-- stop thinking that."
He adjusts his glasses, and blinks. “I just don’t want to keep doing this. Trapped in the same place for more than a decade. And I’m not the guy you think I am, because what happened with Carol wasn’t a one-off…
“I could go Buffy on this entire house. I know a hundred thousand ways I can do it, it’s all fucking instinct, and everytime Laszlo calls me Gizmo, or Nadja tells me to wash her bloodstained goblets for her, or you--”
Guillermo lets out a staggered breath. There are tears pricking his eyes. “I can’t. Not anymore.”
Not even for himself, not even for his dream of becoming a vampire. It hasn’t been enough and it won’t ever be enough.
“Thanks,” he says, quietly. “For eleven years of craziness. Stay safe, drink healthy, and enjoy eternity. I lov-- shit. Me lleva la chingada.”
Fuck.
Flushed, wide-eyed, he waves his hands and snaps, “Hey. Stop recording. Delete it!”
4.
The night before he leaves, he hooks up his laptop to a projector and beams a movie on a large white sheet hung up on the wall.
“You’re putting on Twilight, Guillermo?” Nandor peers at the set-up: the sofa in place and a goblet of leftover blood from last night’s victim on the coffee table.
Guillermo makes a noise of acknowledgement and busies himself with adjusting the projector’s focus.
“It is a masterpiece of moving pictures,” Nandor says, his cape sweeping up behind him as he sits down on the couch. “Vampire representation is very important.”
Guillermo can’t help shaking his head. “But, Master, doesn’t it bother you that it isn’t realistic? The Twilight vampires aren’t conquerors like you. They’re attending high school.”
If Guillermo was immortal, he sure as fuck wouldn’t put himself through high school again.
“Don’t take it so seriously, Guillermo. Now, shush. The movie’s starting and I’m trying to watch.”
Guillermo leaves Nandor to it. He changes out the candle stubs on one of the corner tables for fresh sticks; he dusts the tiny statues of warriors and cannons on the mantle.
Tomorrow night, Nandor will wake up without him. But it seems fair to keep everything neat and tidy in the meanwhile.
I need to tell him. Sometime during the movie or after it, I’ll tell him.
He zones out, making plans in his head. His mother had told him about a panadería that’s hiring. Maybe he can get Colin Robinson to write a recommendation letter for him.
-- No, not unless he wants to get back ten pages in 9 point Comic Sans font.
He’s startled out of his thoughts when Nandor says, over the sound of piano music, “Guillermo, I should take you up a mountain the next time we go flying.”
Guillermo doesn’t look up from the bookshelf he’s arranging. “There aren’t any real mountains on Staten Island, Master.”
“Well, we can go on vacation, then. Isn’t that another thing your familiars’ union has been demanding? It’ll be a special occasion, though. I won’t be in the habit of granting you a vacation every week.”
Guillermo lets out a small laughing huff. “I understand. Maybe, Master.”
And he feels himself thinking again: It hasn’t been enough and it won’t ever be enough.
Really, Nandor could take him anywhere: to sprawling cities, to legendary vampire hideouts, to battlefields where he once fought and triumphed. He could tell him the stories of all the historical figures he’s encountered, the flings and the feuds. He can show him all the magic that exists in the world, as real as the oxygen in the air and the blue of the sky.
Vampires are real. Werewolves are real. So are witches and mermaids and babadooks.
But Guillermo will always know in the beat of his heart and the warmth of his skin: This isn’t what I want.
Just say it, Guillermo de la Cruz. Just tell him goodbye.
He opens his mouth. He looks at his master, who’s leaning forward and watching the movie, intent and absorbed, the goblet hanging from his hand undrunk.
(Nandor hisses, “Werewolf!” when Jacob’s onscreen.)
And Guillermo doesn’t say it.
5.
Dear
MasterNandor,Do you remember the second Twilight movie when Edward leaves Bella because
Nope. He’s not doing this.
+1
SORRY.