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The flickering lamp-light shone on three bodies, tangled together in one bed. Two were furry, the half-wolf, half-human forms of a pair of large werewolves. Sandwiched between them was the well-muscled but still much smaller shape of Thomas Harris, their vampire lover. He was of fairly average height, looking small only because of the two massive werewolves that bracketed him. His naked skin was startlingly pale, his hair jet black and worn in a long tail, though it was currently coming loose from its tie. His eyes were blue-gray and intense.

Not long ago the trio had been engaging in passionate, primal sex in that same bed, but now they were snuggled together comfortably, enjoying the fading remnants of their mutual afterglow.

"What was it like?" said the voice of Justin, the slightly senior werewolf.

"Hmm?" murmured Thomas drowsily, stirring from his state of dazed contentment.

"The Return. When the magic came back and the world changed. You said you were there. Tell me what it was like."

"Talking is aftercare for you too, I swear," muttered Ian, the other big wolf, with an indulgent roll of his eyes. Justin stuck out his tongue at his partner but kept most of his attention on Thomas. "It was so long ago, none of the were-folk except I guess the dragons can remember it anymore," he said.

Thomas sighed softly, casting his mind back over a hundred years gone. "Nobody knew what had happened at first. The changes weren't obvious, after all. The gates to underhill were unlocked, but nothing came through right away, and it wasn't a full moon. The vampires were probably the first to start to realize, at least on this side of the world, since it was daylight. But in the moment it happened I thought it was just an earthquake..."

---

"Oh dammit all!" The lights in Thomas' dorm room all went out at once, just as his computer died, taking the essay he'd worked on for the last two hours with it. He hardly had time to curse his lost work, though, for the ground beneath his feet was shuddering. It was sick-feeling, a rolling beneath him as if nothing was solid any more. An earthquake, it must be. He dove for some kind of cover, in case the building fell down around him.

Then it passed, and a light followed it, the windows that overlooked the dorm room's ugly parking lot swelling swiftly from ordinary daylight to an eye-searing white that was utterly blinding. Thomas threw both hands over his eyes, crying out in shock. It's the end of the world, he thought. Somebody's nuked us, and if they bothered to hit Southern Utah U, they've hit everywhere and we're all dead.

He expected the sudden flare to pass, but it didn't, the white-hot light kept pouring into the room, like a hot weight lying on him. After a long moment with no rushing shock wave of annihilation, only the continuing horrible light, he knew it couldn't be a nuke.

Thomas stumbled into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, hoping to shut the glare out. The lights were out in there too, but where it ought to have been pitch black, the threads of light leaking in around the door jamb were brilliant enough to provide clear sight. He blinked, tears streaming from his eyes, feeling the room's comparative darkness as a complete and utter relief. Sparkles flashed across his vision, half-blinding him, but they slowly began to fade now that he was out of the glare. Leaning his hands on the sink, he lifted his head to the mirror, expecting to see quite a sorry sight, given how he felt.

Instead he saw nothing.

Thomas blinked. He could see the reflection of the door, white-hot light edging it all the way around, and he could see the towel rack on the wall a bit to his right, but he couldn't see himself at all. It was as if he wasn't there.

He lifted a hand and touched the mirror. The mirror still reflected nothing but an empty room.

Oh god.

Thomas felt a shock go through him. He was utterly terrified. His heart should be racing with it. He put his shaking hand on his chest, feeling for the pounding lub-dub of fear.

Nothing.

He lifted his fingers to his neck, seeking a pulse.

Still nothing.

He swallowed hard, his mind jumping to an impossible conclusion, then ran his tongue over his teeth.

Fangs. Definitely fangs. His canines were a little longer than they had been, and much, much sharper.

"What the fuck?" He finally said out loud. He didn't usually swear much, but the occasion seemed to call for it. He'd turned into a vampire. Which was absurd. First because vampires were fictional, they shouldn't even exist. But second because if they were real after all, he'd never heard anything in any story anywhere about people just instantly becoming one. You became a vampire by being bitten by one, or through blood contamination, or maybe by being born as one, or dying in the wrong way, depending on what kind of story you were in. But this was the real world and he'd just been turned into one by...what? Some kind of freaky power surge?

He shook his head. Maybe he was dreaming. That would make sense, but usually if he noticed he was dreaming, he then woke. Nothing about this felt like a dream and he didn't seem to be waking up.

"Thomas? You home?" The voice of Brad, Thomas' roommate, sounded from somewhere on the other side of the bathroom door. It should have been muffled, distant, but it sounded almost as clear as if Brad had been in the room. Thomas rubbed the bridge of his nose. Apparently he was at least getting the benefits of vampirism, along with its detriments. His hearing seemed unnaturally keen.

His vision, though... Not wanting to go back out into the blinding glare that was probably just ordinary sunlight, Thomas called back through the door, "I'm in here."

"I'm coming in," said Brad a moment later, as the doorknob began to turn. Thomas closed his eyes and put his hand over them to shield them as the door swung open. "Thomas?"

"Close the door already," Thomas said, trying not to shout. Even with his eyes closed and his hand covering them, red light bled through his eyelids, and he would just about swear he could feel his skin starting to burn.

"Okay." Brad stepped into the room, sounding puzzled, but he also closed the door, much to Thomas' relief. "So why are we standing around in the dark?"

"Something really weird is going on," said Thomas. "It's not blindingly bright out there to you?"

"Nope. Just an ordinary day."

"Well it is to me." He considered pointing out his lack of reflection too, but wasn't sure he wanted to try and explain what he didn't fully understand himself yet. It was probably too dark for Brad to see anything in the mirror anyway. He could certainly see clearly, though. Clearly enough to see the thoughtful expression on Brad's handsome face as his roommate considered their current situation.

Thomas had always thought Brad incredibly good-looking. Brad did track and field, and lifted weights too, so though he wasn't super bulky he was very fit, with defined, wiry muscles over a broad-shouldered frame. His hair was sandy blond, his eyes hazel, and his face strong-jawed and very masculine. He was a few inches taller than Thomas, too, and in this small space Thomas found himself hyper-aware of Brad's closeness, of the scent of him; sweat and musk and a hint of blood. He could hear Brad's lungs working, even faintly hear the beating of his heart. It was downright bizarre.

It was also extremely compelling. He had always been a bit attracted to Brad, but now he could not only picture himself pressing in close and kissing the other man, he could picture biting him too, sinking his new-found fangs in and tasting the blood he could faintly smell. The thought was as much erotic as it was driven by hunger, and Thomas didn't know which motivation was worse.

Brad saved him from that train of thought by saying, "I think there's been some kind of EMP or something. I'm sure you noticed the power going out, since we're here in the dark, but my phone's dead too, and it had a full charge just a minute ago."

"Huh. That would explain some of this, I guess," said Thomas, frowning faintly as he tried to yank his wandering mind back to the problem at hand. An electro-magnetic pulse, or EMP, would definitely kill the computer and could probably fry the lights and the phone. But EMPs didn't turn people into vampires. He kept coming back to that bizarre impossibility.

"I heard something that might have been a car crash as I was coming inside. An EMP could possibly knock out cars too, so I wouldn't be surprised. Since I guess nobody knows what's going on, I'm going to go and see what I can do to help."

"I wish I could help too, but I think if I go outside I'll end up blind."

"Weird. I'll shut the door after me, then," said Brad. A moment later he was gone, leaving Thomas alone, blinking sparkles from his eyes again.

---

"I'm just as glad I was trapped inside until sundown. By then the people in all those car crashes and other accidents were mostly either dead or fine. We didn't know it at the time, of course, because all computers, all phones, all communication was completely destroyed, but the disaster in our city was repeated everywhere across the world. Power went out. Cars crashed. Planes fell out of the sky. Ships were adrift. The death toll was horrific, especially as the hospitals weren't spared." Thomas gave a little shiver.

Justin wrapped his arms tighter around the vampire, holding him close. "You don't have to talk about it if it bothers you."

"Like I said, I was spared the worst of it. I couldn't leave the apartment until sundown, and by the time starvation and anarchy set in I had left the city entirely. That was thanks to Brad. I'm very glad he was my roommate, for more reasons than one. I always used to think he was handsome, you know. He had this wavy blond hair that I just wanted to run my fingers all through, and he would forget to get it cut for months, so it was always falling in his eyes. I never made a move, though, even though he was openly gay. I didn't want to make our living situation awkward. When you live together and you start fucking, it either leads to marriage, or it leads to drama. He didn't seem like the marrying kind."

Ian let out a snort of laughter, and Justin chuckled too, loosening his grip on Thomas slightly.

"But it was thanks to him and his crazy family that I was spared the worst of what happened right after the Return too. I never saw the famine and the riots." He rolled onto his back between the pair, staring up at the shadowed stone ceiling above. Finally he said, "They call it the Return because magic came back, but so much went away. Electricity was in _everything_back then. Far more so than magic is in things now."

"Magic is dangerous to use," said Ian. "And mages are crazy. I knew one, he told me that the magic is constantly twisting, fighting, trying to find a way to create chaos. You spend more energy containing it than you do summoning it."

Thomas nodded. "Yes. I think that's what caused the disaster, actually. There used to be a saying, about complicated devices having 'gremlins' in them, because it was so easy for some little thing to go wrong, seemingly for no reason. There's magic in electricity, quite a lot of it. I think when magic flooded back into everything, that all our marvelous devices got flooded with gremlins too, and everything that could go wrong did go wrong, as fast as it possibly could. I think that's why the car crashes in particular were so bad. If all the cars had just stopped at the same time, most of them wouldn't have hit anything. But the fancier, newer cars, with more electronics had more magic--more gremlins--so they failed instantly, while the older cars that might only have electricity in the battery and the spark plugs had less magic trying to make them go wrong, so it took longer for them to fail. Brad said that it was like hell on the streets that day..."

---

Thomas had exited the bathroom once the sun began to set. He drew the blinds against the last reddish light, which still stung his eyes. The lights were still out, which didn't surprise him. Whatever this weirdness was, it was something profound, something that wasn't just going to go away.

The apartment door swung open and Brad stumbled into the little front room which was also the kitchen. His hands and clothes were stained red, and Thomas caught a strong whiff of blood, the scent almost overpowering, even from the other side of the room. His stomach clenched, half in nausea at the blood-splattered mess, half in sudden_hunger_.

"Brad? You okay?" The question was as much to distract himself as to find out how Brad was, though he looked white as a sheet.

Brad gave a shudder and dropped into a chair. "It's hell on earth out there," he said. "I did what I could. A lot of people did what they could. But the hospitals are blacked out too, there aren't any ambulances, and there were so many wrecks..." He shuddered again.

Thomas wanted to go put a hand on his shoulder, but he felt like he might do something they'd both regret if he came too close to all that blood. Gods it smelled wonderful. Which was horrifying, given what Brad had just said. Dead men's blood and all Thomas could think of was how hungry he was. "I'm sorry," he offered lamely.

"I did what I could. I helped some of them. The rest..." He shook his head. "My crazy parents were right. It's the apocalypse at last. The EMP or whatever it was hit the whole city. No way of knowing if it reached further, the highway is jammed in both directions." He went as if to rub his forehead, then stopped. With a shudder he shot to his feet and went to the sink. "Water's still running," he noted as he vigorously rubbed his hands, no doubt distracting himself from the gore on them, "but it probably won't be for long. Gravity still works and we're below the reservoir's level here, but the pumps don't work, I bet, so it'll run out eventually."

Thomas nodded. "What do we do next, then? Whatever it is, I'd like to do it before daylight."

"Yeah, I bet. There was somebody else like you out there, I pulled him out of a car. Not even hurt at all, not a scratch on the guy, though it's weird because he had some blood on his shirt and there was debris all over his car. But he was blinded and getting sunburned. Got him inside somewhere and out of the light and he seemed to be improving. So I guess you're not the only one to have that happen. It's pretty weird, though. EMPs shouldn't do...whatever the hell that is to people." He shook his head. "I think the thing to do, though, is get out to my parent's bunker. It's not far-" he stopped suddenly and laughed, and the sound was a little bit manic. "Not far by car! God, it's more than twenty miles outside of town. They thought it was great, having desert all around but being such a short drive from the shops. But it'll take us ages to walk there."

"I can do at least ten miles in a day," said Thomas, with a sigh. "Or night. Whatever. So two days?"

"And no camping gear, we'll have to rough it. No proper backpacks either. Damn. But we can't just sit tight here. I've already seen the looting starting. Even if this just affects Cedar City and nowhere else, it's still going to be bad. It'll take forever to clear the roads enough to ship in more food. They'll have to chopper in supplies, and from where? St. George, I guess, but that's hardly a major metropolis. Vegas is the closest thing. And I figure this probably hit there, and Salt Lake too. Nobody would single out fricking Cedar City."

"You think this is an attack?"

"Well it's not something natural, so what else could it be?"

Thomas ran his tongue over his fangs again. Not something natural indeed.

"Come on. We should see what we can pack for the road. Given your weird sunlight aversion, we should make as much time as we can while it's dark."

"Yeah. I'll go get my backpack." Hunger still clawed at the back of his mind, unwilling to sleep now that it had woken. As the pair set about loading what food there was on their bachelor pad shelves into a pair of backpacks, Thomas wondered what on earth he was going to do about it. The granola bar Brad was chewing on as they worked wouldn't do anything for him. In fact the thought of it was weirdly sickening.

He put the thought aside as much as he could for now and concentrated on packing the most useful things. Brad promised him that the bunker was very well stocked, so he didn't worry too much about what to bring, but he did want at least a few changes of clothing.

With a shake of his head he also picked up a novelty sombrero a previous roommate had abandoned, which had been jauntily perched atop a lamp in the kitchen for more than a year now. He dusted it off and donned it. It wasn't perfect, but it would be better than nothing. He made sure to select long-sleeved shirts too, and no shorts, only long pants. The only gloves he owned were knit winter gloves. With a shrug he stuffed them in a pocket. They'd be too warm, given it was April in the southern Utah desert, but he might want them all the same. A pair of sunglasses completed his protective ensemble. They probably wouldn't make things comfortable, but hopefully they'd at least help.

"Ready?" said Brad.

"Not really, but we should go anyway." Thomas donned the ridiculous hat, since it was too large to fit in the pack so that was the easiest way to carry it, and they set out into the night.

The shadows hid much of the destruction along the roads from Brad, but to Thomas' eyes the faint moonlight was as clear as day, and he could see the empty wrecks--and worse, the ones that weren't empty--all too well. They'd barely gone three blocks when he saw the first body lying beside a ruined car. Somebody had pulled the man out, either just after or just before he died, and with nothing better to do with it, had just left the body lying there. Maybe Brad himself had earlier. He didn't say, and Thomas didn't ask.

They saw several more bodies as they made their way out of town, up into the hills in the eastern part of the city. The bodies weren't the worst part, though. At least not for Thomas. The worst part was the scent of blood that hung heavily in the air around many of the crash sites. It was largely dried and fading, but still strong enough to torment and tease the hunger that gnawed his stomach. He wanted to be sick, passing places where people had bled and died only hours ago, yet he also desperately wanted to taste the source of that wonderful scent.

He walked a little faster, and Brad made no comment about pacing themselves, he just trotted at Thomas' side. Brad was in track, and Thomas didn't seem to be getting out of breath at all any more, so they both kept up the rapid pace with ease.

The city seemed mostly deserted as they went, but rowdy voices twice made them pause as groups of people hurried down nearby streets. Cedar City wasn't a major urban center, but it was a university town, and it seemed like some of their fellow students were already forming raiding gangs. A glow behind them indicated that somebody had started a large fire, almost certainly somewhere on campus. "The apocalypse," Brad muttered as he looked back at it, then he looked forward and hurried his pace a little more.

Shop windows were broken in most stores they passed, and in some cases motion inside indicated the presence of looters still within. Nobody would be stealing TVs this time, at least not if they had any sense, but food and other supplies would soon be scarce, so the looting was hardly a surprise. Brad and Thomas crossed the street several times to avoid coming too close to looters. They probably wouldn't turn violent, but it was better safe than sorry.

Fortunately the university was on the east side of town, so it didn't take long for their eastward course to carry them outside the city limits. The two-lane "highway" that wound up into the hills had only scattered cars on it, traffic in that direction being sparse enough that most had come to a safe stop rather than wrecking.

There were no people in any of them, their occupants had apparently headed into town. The further the pair walked the fewer cars they saw.

Some time well past midnight Brad called a halt. Neither knew the actual time without their phones. They both took off their packs, Thomas putting his absurd hat atop his. He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky. The stars were a stunning glory overhead. Not only were his eyes better than they'd ever been, but there was no city glow to wash them out. The milky way was a clear, bright band, the way he'd only previously seen it in very good astronomical photographs. But now he could see that glorious spill with the naked eye, easily. He looked at the beauty for a long time, while Brad rummaged around in his pack.

"Hey, you should eat something. You packed food, right?"

Thomas swallowed. Brad was chewing on a block of dry ramen. Not appetizing at the best of times, but Thomas had eaten the stuff that way before during finals week, when he'd felt too rushed to spare even five minutes to cook it. Now, though, the thought of biting into a brick of pasta was unbearably sickening. His stomach turned and clenched. He was ravenously hungry. The thought of biting into _Brad_suddenly crossed his mind, and it was wonderful.

"Thomas?"

Thomas licked his lips, staring at Brad.

"Is something wrong?"

Thomas gave a shudder. "Y-yes. Sorry."

"What is it?"

He licked his lips again. "You're going to think this is crazy."

"Crazier than the rest of this day has been?"

"Maybe. Though I think it has to do with the rest of the day. You know the thing with sunlight?"

"Yeah."

"It's not just sunlight. It's... I'm.." He licked his lips again. How could he even say this?

Brad looked at him. He glanced down at the pack, with the sombrero sitting atop it. "I think I figured it out. Vampires, huh?"

Thomas blinked. "Uhm... Yes. But how...?"

"I'm not dumb. I actually had the thought earlier, when I pulled that guy from the car. He had a scar right under the place where there was blood on his shirt and it was torn up. I thought it might have been a coincidence, but three coincidences make a pattern. Sensitivity to sunlight, plus fast healing, plus not eating, which you're not right now, equals vampire, right? Today's weirdness, with all the technology dying and some people turning into vampires... I read a story kinda like that once. In the story all those myths about dragons and demons and things were real, way back when. Then something made the magic fade for hundreds of years, and then it started to come back. In the story it was gradual not all at once, and it didn't ruin technology, they had like...unicorns using computers and shit like that. But that's what this was, I bet."

Thomas stood there blinking at his roommate. "I didn't know you read much," he said lamely.

"Eh, I've never been a huge bookworm, but books are okay. I broke my leg about three years ago, couldn't do track for months, and books filled the time up while I was waiting, so I read a ton that year. Just about read out the local library, it was a really small branch, so I read some really weird stuff. Including a bunch of vampire novels."

"I see." Thomas took a deep breath. "I'm glad you're not freaking out. I'm freaking out a little bit. The real problem, though, is that I'm also starving."

"And I'm starting to look like lunch, huh?"

Thomas nodded.

"What happens if you bite me?"

"I have no idea."

Brad looked thoughtful. His gaze swept up and down Thomas. "It seems to me that either you're a ravening monster, who's going to inevitably kill me anyway, or you'll have some self control and can take a little blood without hurting me. I've donated blood before, after all. They take a whole pint at the Red Cross. Which is a heck of a lot. Think you'll need that much?"

Thomas shook his head. "I don't know. And there is a third option, which is you just leave me behind and I don't take your blood at all."

Brad immediately shook his head. "I wouldn't do that."

"Why not? I'm just your roommate. It's not like I'm your brother or your boyfriend or something."

Brad chuckled. "I still won't just leave you. So we might as well find out if you're a ravening monster. But I kind of suspect not, or you'd have just attacked me when you became hungry in the first place. So come on." He tugged the collar of his polo shirt away from his neck.

Thomas hesitated. He'd read enough vampire fiction himself to have some worries about losing control once he tasted blood, but it was true that he felt in control of himself for now.

"Come on," repeated Brad, and Thomas finally took a step closer. A little voice in the back of his head brought up all the other times he'd considered approaching Brad and had decided not to. He pushed those aside. This wasn't about sex, this was about survival. The hunger in his stomach agreed as he drew closer.

Brad was a little taller than Thomas, so he didn't have to duck his head much. He felt awkward, not knowing where to put his hands. Holding Brad seemed far to intimate, but just leaving his hands by his sides seemed weird. That problem was solved as Brad put his own arms around Thomas. "Go on," he said softly.

Thomas sighed, putting his arms around Brad in return, and put his lips to his roommate's neck. He could smell his blood, the enticing scent wafting from beneath his skin. He could hear it too--the rushing in his veins, the thudding of his heart. His hunger clawed desperately at him. He could feel the pulse throbbing in Brad's neck against his lips. But biting right on the vein seemed far too dangerous, it would be very easy to lose control, to bite too deep, to take too much. Instead he bit lower down, at the join between neck and shoulder.

Brad gasped as Thomas bit in, but he hardly noticed, for the first taste of blood had trickled into his mouth and the wonderful rush of it pushed all else aside. It tasted amazing, hot and heady--as electrifying as a shot of whiskey, but without the harshness, as rich as chocolate but not at all cloying--and he drank deeply, sucking at Brad's neck with no more concern for awkwardness or anything else.

As that first rush passed, though, Thomas became aware of something else. He could feel, could sense a strange doubled sensation. He was biting Brad, yet he was somehow also being bitten, the feelings that Brad felt carried with the blood, in some kind of intimate, empathic link.

And what Brad felt right now was partly the prick of pain and the startling shock of being bitten, but mostly it was the arousal of holding Thomas' warm body against him. That arousal seemed to join with the intense rush of Thomas' feeding, merging into an upward spiral of pure pleasure.