Afterlife - Nico Pontevecchio

The steaming mug of coffee sits untouched on the table in front of Nico.
It’s not what his body wants.
Not anymore.
The waitress who set it down had a defined blue vein snaking across her jawline.
He wraps his hands around the mug and swallows a scalding gulp.
Rain ticks on the windows, each drop that slides down reflecting the pink and yellow neon of the sign that proclaims the establishment is open twenty-four hours a day. 
Grease hisses in a fryer in the kitchen. Dishes clatter and people chatter in a mixture of languages and a radio plays a scratchy, fading in and out pop song about a cheating lover. Cars outside splash by through the puddles, water trickles down the storm drains with strangely metallic, echoing plops, horns blare and sirens scream. 
The sounds are the worst.
He can sort of block out the smells. Apparently, having had your nose busted a decade ago on a hunt does in fact make a dent in even vamp super-senses. He can pick out the bacon grease and the yellow peppers and olives and sweat and perfume, but it’s almost a manageable level.
Sight isn’t really a problem. He’s been highly attuned to small movements for all of his adult life. It’s like being twenty again, able to catch a rat’s tail whipping around a corner.
But the sounds. 
The sounds are overwhelming.
He shouldn’t have come here.
It’s too soon. He’s not ready.
He shoves a few bills under the barely-touched coffee mug and bolts out the door, pulling up the hood of his sweatshirt as a protection against the driving rain, and against whoever might recognize him as the man who used to be a teammate.
He has to get this under control. 
This isn’t what he wanted.
But it wasn’t his choice.
His family was so desperate to have a little more time with him that they let him turn. 
And then he almost killed them.
Memories of his hands around Vanessa’s throat, Ricky screaming at him and trying futilely to pull him away, the hot, salty, iron-tangy blood gushing from his son’s arm when he caught it in his teeth pour down on him, colder and more brutal than the rain.
He’s not sure either of them want to see him again.
He’s not sure trying to get himself clean and get the hunger under control is worth it. They wanted him back in their lives then, but they might never again. Not after seeing what the monster he returned as is capable of. They have every right to bar him from their door forever. To cut him out of their lives like a cancer that would eventually destroy them. 
Maybe he should just stop running and hiding from the Sunrisers. Let one of his old friends stake him through the heart and end this.
But something in him wants to survive. Desperately, like a feral animal caught in a trap.
He’s not sure he should listen to it. Vampires who give in to their urges are the most dangerous predators in the world. He’s staked dozens of them. Captured countless more. 
And now, he is one.
A disaster waiting to happen.
A massacre with a ticking timer on it.
A bloodthirsty creature that can hurt even the people that meant the most to the dead man whose face he’s wearing. 
He can hear the heartbeats of every person who brushes past him.
He can smell the blood on the chin of the man who must have cut himself shaving, under the Avengers bandaid on the finger of a kid with a blue rain slicker. 
He turns aside into an alley, crouches behind a dumpster, and pulls his last packet of synth-blood from his pocket.
Four hours.
He made it four hours between feedings this time.
It’s not good enough.
He swallows down the cool, slightly bitter saltiness and squeezes every drop he can from the plastic before tossing it into the trash. 
He lowers his head into his hands, shoulders shaking, tears burning his eyes. This is what he’s become. This is all he has to look forward to. 
The scent of something earthy and not quite canine enough to be right drags him back to the present. His head snaps up, eyes scanning the alleyway.
There’s a man there who wasn’t a second ago. Not particularly tall, wearing a long coat and a flat wool cap that’s spilling rain down over slightly sharp-tipped ears.
Fae. A shifter. The closest thing to a real werewolf that really exists.
Nico snarls.
He may want to die, right here, right now, but the thing inside him will be damned if it goes down without a fight.
Truth be told, it’s damned already.
“Not sure who you are, but seems like you could use a little help,” the shifter says, his voice carrying the distinct sound of Bay Ridge born and raised, but a life spent in various slices of the city’s underbelly. Probably one of the unregistered fae making a living doing private detective work for cash.
“Why don’t you scram and leave me be.”
“Not really my thing.” 
Actually, he thinks he knows who this might be. At least as far as family affiliations. One of the Phelan pack. His Sunriser team crossed paths with them a few times. Sometimes, they had the same objectives. Sometimes, at odds. 
He’s not sure which this is going to turn out to be.
“Fae and vampires don’t mix.”
“You saved my dad’s life once on a hunt. The pack owes ya.” The wolf crouches on his heels in the alley, coming down to Nico’s level, clearly none too worried about being outmatched in a fight. “Word of advice. Get outta this borough, sooner rather than later. Sunrisers are plannin’ a huge dragnet operation. Too many people complainin’ about vamp activity.”
“Thanks.” 
The wolf turns away, disappearing into the wind-whipped rain.
Where he was standing, there’s a chipped slice of shale stone with a few numbers and letters scratched on its surface.
The calling card of an earth-fae.
An address.
Nico almost tosses it down the closest storm drain.
He tucks it into his pocket instead.
He can’t be sure these fae would actually trust a vampire. They’ve warned him he’s in danger. To them, that might mean their life-debt is cleared up, and that he has no favors left to cash in with them.
But if he gets desperate enough, maybe at least they’d kill him quickly.
He can’t say the same for the Sunrisers.