Chapter Text
The angel Lassiter had planned his day carefully.
He wanted to do absolutely nothing.
From the haggard comfort of his shitty mattress in his crash pad no one knew about, he wanted to do nothing but stare at the peeling wallpaper and simply exist.
For just a few hours, he wanted to put the chaos of his so-called life behind him and convince himself that maybe this post-death reality wasn’t the most fucked up thing that could have happened to him. And you didn’t get to be an angel unless your life hadn’t been dumpster fire to begin with.
Just for a little while he wanted to forget about the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
The Omega.
The missing Scribe Virgin.
The war between vampires and lesser.
Heaven.
Hell.
Angels and demons.
GOD.
He wanted all of it behind him and as far away from his mind as he could manage. He wanted a day off.
Being an angel, though—being Lassiter—meant he’d never see such day.
There was a dog in front of him. A mutt with some clear pit bull. It had that thick head and weird spots. It would have been a cute little thing if Lassiter didn’t know better than most what dogs truly were.
“Sure, I’m not worthy of your time any other day of my eternal existence but the one day I decide to take a vacation you just show up, huh?” He grumbled as he rolled off the mattress after the damn dog pawed at his chest for the hundredth time.
He walked to the door of the shack he was currently attempting to hide in and threw it open. It rattled the entire foundation. “Go away.”
The animal didn’t budge, just cocked his head from side to side and whined.
“What’s your problem? You have thousands of other assholes to go pester. Why do you make it your daily goal to remind me I’m the only one you can’t fucking stand?”
He rubbed his eyes, frustration growing in his body as much as his heart. He wanted to get out of here, but he also knew there was no where in the world he could go where this dog wouldn’t find him.
“Fine,” Lassiter grumbled when the animal didn’t budge. “Let’s get this bullshit over with.”
He should have been a little more amiable about the whole thing, because the dog didn’t take any pity on him when he ghosted them both to the front door of a ranch-style house. At three in the morning, the residential neighborhood was quiet, only the front lights were on in a handful of houses. It wasn’t anything special, a non-distinct welcome mat and an empty driveway.
Lassiter glanced down at the dog, his stomach still reeling from the ghosting.
“You thinking about remodeling? Suburbia is your thing now? That’s where you spend your time off these days?”
The dog pawed at the door, whining as his nails scrapped the hard surface. The animal shuffled back and forth, nosing the door and pawing at it relentlessly.
“Fuck.” Lassiter grabbed the door handle and ripped the whole things clear off the frame. He’d apologize later—if necessary.
The small place was clean and organized, maybe a little sparse. It smelled of rosemary and lemons cleaners. Lassiter would have liked spending time in a place like this if something weren’t so obviously wrong.
The air was thick with pain. So much suffering clogging his senses. His blood started to turn to sludge as he looked around the small, clean space. Nothing appeared to be out of order.
The dog grabbed ahold of the leg of his leather pants, tugging on it with a growl. When Lassiter looked down, the animal let go and dashed to an open door way just down a short hall. He followed, knowing that whatever was waiting for him was certain to ruin his day.
Nothing good had ever come from following Dog.
He prepared himself for blood, lots of it. Dismemberment. Organs hanging from light fixtures. He thought made an elderly man, dead for several days now and bloated.
Lassiter had not been expecting her, though.
Young, pale, so small she barely made a dent on the mattress. She was so painfully thin that all her skin hung from her bones, her joints sticking out from her body. He was at her side faster than he thought possible, touching her cold skin, wanting to cry at the smell of sweat and pending death that clung to her.
He had no clue how long she’d been where she was. The sheets were strewn every where, like she’d tossed and turned for hours. There was a glass of water knocked over and still dripping down the bedside table to the floor. She was still breathing, but there was no strength left in her.
The dog jumped up on the bed, nosing her throat. He whined and burrowed his face against her.
Lassiter pushed him away.
“Do something, damnit!”
Why bring him all the way here just to what a stranger die? Why not do something? He had the power so why cry instead of helping her?
He gathered the girl up in his arms, a tear slipping down the bridge of his nose when her head dropped back, exposing her throat.
And her teeth…
Canines. Long, white, and sharp.
“Fuck!” He morphed his teeth into canines, shredding at his wrist before shoving it against her mouth. She didn’t latch on to him as he’d seen vamps do to one another before. She didn’t even respond.
What were the fucking odds that Dog would bring him to the doorstep of a vampire? And only to let her die?
He looked at the dog. “You know everything! Get us to Harvers. Now!”
In a blink of an eye, he stood in front of the building that led to the vampire doctor’s clinic. The dog was nowhere to be seen.
Lassiter juggled the girl in his arms, banging and kicking on the door. “HELP!”
He turned his face up to the camera, hoping that someone would recognize him and let him in. Harvers took precautions but Lassiter had been here often enough with the Brothers.
He looked down at the girl, still unresponsive even though her mouth was overflowing with angelic blood.
The door opened. The doctor himself stood there with his tortoise shell glasses and lab coat. He paled at the sight of the girl, but Lassiter had to compliment him in the way the vampire reacted in the bat of an eye.
He moved forward, reaching for her pulse. He tipped her head back and she coughed as the blood drained down her throat. “Come inside.”
Lassiter followed him into the elevator, his eyes focused on the way his blood ran out of his veins and into her mouth.
“What’s wrong with her?” He heard himself ask as too many nurses surrounded him, their hands trying to get her out his hold.
“She’s going through her transition.”
“Can you help her?”
“Please let go of her, sir,” Harvers said as he tried to pull the girl from his arms. “Please, sir.”
He didn’t want to. His blood was strong, it was the only thing he had to thank God for and if any one could help her, it was him.
“If she’s going to live, you need to let go of her.”
He deposited her on a hospital bed, having to juggle her body and his wrist as he did so. He watched as the nurses descended on her as he moved back, scissors in their hands as they cut through her clothes and draped warm blankets over her body. They attached monitors to her skinny arms and bags of blood were rolled in the room even as Harvers tipped her head back and intubated her.
The room was full of vampires, and each of them kept pushing him back until he was out of the room. The door closed in front of him before he could stop it.
He nearly collapsed to the floor, catching himself against a wall. He’d underestimated how much blood he’d given her.
Too much.
Contrary to what he’d told everyone, he could be killed.
He could die.
And as Lassiter stood in the clinic’s hallway, staring at a white door that felt miles away, he wondered if this was his final sacrifice. If Dog had taken him to that house with the sole purpose of watching him give what little of himself he had left.
Giving his blood and existence for a total stranger.
He slid down the wall, his eyes going to the bright lights above him. It would have been funny, Lassiter decided, except that he wasn’t sure if she was going to live or die so he didn’t want to go just yet. He hoped he wouldn’t have to go just yet.
That was when he faded away.