The heat broils miles of St. Cyriac pasture and lets too many smells linger in the air at once. Manure. Freshly cut grass. Laundry detergent. Garlic…

“Well,” remarks a jaded tone, “gotcha.”

It’s followed only by a grunt.

Jinsoul remains quiet, save for the curse she murmurs at the mosquito on her palm when she slaps her sticky forearm. Her unconditional love encompasses most animate beings, with the conditioned exception – more or less – of two: 1) bloodsuckers and 2) the undead.

Mosquitos fit into one category. The guy in front of them – known around town as Chanhee – fits into both. He’s familiar; the well-mannered kid in an unbecoming Toy Machine tee who arrived in town a little over a year ago with nothing but the clothes on his back and works weekdays at the gas station on main. Jinsoul’s used to seeing him stand tall, hands behind his back in polite service, not small and rendered to his knees by the string of garlic at Sooyoung’s feet.

His head shifts slightly as if to look at the homestead behind him, but it never follows through. So, Jinsoul takes a look for him.

The sheriff’s farmhouse, with its white clapboard sidings and line-dried sheets billowing in the wind, is an idyllic sight that belongs on the pages of Anne of Green Gables. The sheriff, head in his hands, paces back and forth on the porch. A girl watching cautiously from a second-floor window meets Jinsoul’s eyes and immediately dips behind the curtain. 

A pitying sigh slips from her lips.

Meanwhile, Sooyoung’s still lecturing for no real reason, since Chanhee’s fate was already decided the second they caught him. Jinsoul can do nothing now but watch.

“Amoco–“

“It’s Chanhee–“

“Amoco,” Sooyoung presses with the nickname, “you greasy, cradle-robbing son of a . The sheriff’s daughter, of all people in town. What, ‘cuz she’s easy pickings?”

Disappointment is an understatement. If he were someone else, Sooyoung wouldn’t give him a glance nor the time of day, but Chanhee had managed to blend in for months and integrated. He might as well have been a local.

“It’s not like that, she’s nice and she’s–“

“Yeah, she’s all that and a bag of chips. You know what, I don’t actually wanna know. She’s sixteen, for heaven's sake.”

“So am I!”

“No, you’re not,” Sooyoung curtly retorts, “you’re far from it.”

"Fine. I'm eighteen, if you wanna be a fussy about it. Barely two yea-" 

He stops when an arrow tip presses to his jaw. Sooyoung leans over him with a hard stare. "I'd be careful who I call a if I were you." 

Jinsoul winces, but stays mum. It's not her place to intervene. Chanhee glares at Sooyoung, seemingly challenging her, only for the fire in his eyes to extinguish and be replaced by an eerie nothingness. "It's not like I wanted this. It just hasn't even been that long since I was…" he sighs, hunching further into himself. “Nevermind. You don’t care.”

If his mumbling had any affect on her, Sooyoung doesn't show it. She directs her attention to the Walkman that fell out of his pocket when he dropped to his knees and opens it, snickering when she sees the tape.

“Look. NSYNC,” she says to Jinsoul. 

“Careful,” Chanhee speaks up, “that’s Jisun’s.”

“The Backstreet Boys are better.”

“Whatever.”

Jinsoul purses her lips. Looking down at him, his boyish features suddenly seem more obvious; tousled hair sticking out at odd directions and yellow headphones hanging around his neck, skinny arms and mud on his jeans. 

He was just a teenager. Or at least, he looks the part.

But then there are his eyes – hollow and gaunt – and he wears a stoic expression that ages him unnaturally. His fangs have retracted but his pale lips are coloured red by blood, a smear that reaches his chin as he had been yanked off of Jisun’s neck mid-bite. Jinsoul’s glad they didn’t shoot him right then and there.

She recalls the girl shouting as they dragged Chanhee out of the house, her wet sobs ebbing into whimpers as she watched him instantly recoil at the crucifix Sooyoung held up to his jugular like a knife. Jinsoul had chalked it up to trauma, but giving it a second thought, she wonders of the real meaning behind the girl’s cries.

“Jinsoul.” The hand on her shoulder pulls her out of her thoughts. She turns to find Sooyoung and her warm eyes, a world of difference from the way she looked at the vampire they just apprehended. “We should bring him to the barn.”

Jinsoul hums in agreement, knowing they can’t do what they have to while a young girl is watching. “I’ll talk to the sheriff.”

The sheriff is muttering to himself when Jinsoul approaches. “…That those evils which we suffer for our sins we may overcome,” she overhears, “through Christ our Lord…” He pauses when he spots her, eyes widening in fright. “I can’t believe you expect me to wait here and just twiddle my thumbs. Why can’t you just do it?!”

“As I explained before, sheriff, it’s out of my hands. Only the Reverend can perform the purification rites,” Jinsoul explains to the restless man. “I promise my uncle will come by later today. You can seek guidance from Saint Michael in the meantime.”

He groans in discomfort before rushing back inside his home with a slam of the door. Jinsoul hears several locks clicking. She reserves her own prayers for his daughter, not because of what she’s been through, but rather what she’s about to when she faces her father’s wrath. That might just be worse. 

She returns to Sooyoung helping Chanhee to his feet. A kind gesture, if not for the scowl on her face and the indifference on his. Without any resistance, he climbs onto the bed of Sooyoung’s beat-up Dodge. As usual on these rides, Jinsoul volunteers to sit with him and keep watch, just in case he jumps off mid-drive. Chanhee seems too weary to pull that kind of stunt, though.

The truck drives off, dusty gravel flying beneath its tires. Sooyoung’s trying to make it as smooth a ride as possible for Jinsoul’s sake, but it’s futile on these gravel roads. The rosary hanging on the rear-view mirror swings erratically like a pendulum.

Jinsoul takes one last glance at the second-floor window, but the curtains have closed. She turns to Chanhee, but he keeps his head down. Her eyes go to the burn mark on his neck where the crucifix had made contact.

She feels bad for him.

Why couldn’t you have just controlled your urges, Chanhee?  she wants to say.

Truth is, Jinsoul had found out weeks ago – but since he’d keep to himself and go as far as regularly attend Sunday mass, she let him off in a rare show of mercy with a quiet warning about staying out of trouble.

But her hands are tied now, and she can only do so much when word gets out. She can’t even bring herself to say sorry; seems like neither can he.

They ride in silence, surrendering themselves to the miserable clutches of summer heat and pricking conscience.

 

***

 

What comes next, as Jinsoul’s father had taught them, is not only ritual and tradition, but also a necessity.

Execution is done in a barn just outside of town, ideal due to its privacy and proximity to the graveyard. Rundown and weatherworn, it looks like it could collapse in an August thunderstorm – but it stays standing time and time again. And when the sun seeps through the holes on the roof, Sooyoung feels it like a beam of divine light, emboldening her just a little bit more.

At the far end, the vampire stands – or kneels – with their wrists and ankles tied and their head covered with a burlap sack, as if to diminish them to a mere chore.  

On the other end, Sooyoung stands steady, wooden crossbow digging into her shoulder as she carefully aims a silver-tipped arrow at the chest. It was a pistol back in the days, but the sound would reach town and scare the children, or so oral history says. 

Sooyoung’s thankful for the change. Arrows are more graceful than bullets anyway; the target isn’t violently knocked back, they simply slump over at impact. No mess, no blood on her hands. Nothing a quick hose down couldn’t get rid of.

Burial follows immediately. The grave is marked by a headstone with only the date of death – their final one. The priest says his prayers with a bible tucked beneath his arm and holy water is poured in libation to purge the body of evil. 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, he’d sing, may God have mercy upon your soul.

All that while the mouth is stuffed with a clove of garlic and an iron stake is driven into the chest to pin them to the earth, like a nail to a coffin, so they can never rise again. The body is covered with a shroud, the dirt is put back, and then the people disperse and carry on with their day.  

That’s all there is to it. This is the way it’s done in St. Cyriac, as it has been for decades.

Sooyoung can probably do it all with her eyes closed.

 

***

 

Jinsoul waits beneath a tree, staring up at cotton clouds and fiddling with the small cross around her neck. Sooyoung comes out barely two minutes later. It used to take her much longer.

“How are you?” 

Sooyoung gives her a reassuring smile. Jinsoul always asks, even if she knows the answer will be the same every time. Why don't you ever ask 'how was it?', Sooyoung asked her once. Because that's not where my concern lies, Jinsoul answered.

She has always wished she could relieve Sooyoung of the responsibility, but at best she misses and at worst she can’t even pull the trigger. Her strengths lie in tracking. Sooyoung insists on doing it anyway. So, Jinsoul does what she can and takes the crossbow from her calloused hand, to let her know that the job is done and the danger has passed. You don't have to hold this anymore.

They watch as some of the laity bring out the body in a cart and wheel him towards the graveyard. Sooyoung peers at the sky and heaves out a sigh, wiping a bead of sweat from the side of her face.

“Jesus ing Christ, it’s sweltering,” she groans before glancing at Jinsoul with one eye shut. “. Sorry. Used the Lord’s name in vain.”

With pursed lips, Jinsoul squints at her. “You know that’s not exactly what it means…” She cracks a smile. “Wouldn't be the worst of your sins anyway. Easy undo in confession, I bet.”

Sooyoung grins.

(It would be easy, if it weren’t for that time she kissed the deacon’s daughter in the confessional box just before an Ash Wednesday service and never felt any remorse for it. They were only thirteen. Sooyoung reckons God confiscated her right to sin absolution that day.

But she saves that quip for another time. Maybe unwise to say it in front of the deacon’s daughter anyway.)

Sooyoung reaches for her hand, an act that maybe shouldn’t be as natural as it is. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jinsoul gives her a questionable glance.

“I know you're starving. Let’s swing by the diner. How does breakfast for dinner sound?”

Jinsoul wasn’t planning on skipping Chanhee’s burial, perhaps to make up for the fact that she couldn’t utter out an apology to him on the car ride earlier, but Sooyoung’s gazing at her so expectantly and her resolve weakens.

“Alright,” she acquiesces – hard not to with Sooyoung looking at her like that, so full of… – she smiles. “Besides, how can I say no to Griddle pancakes?”

 

 

 

Located right in the heart of town, the Sizzling Griddle’s got that painfully hackneyed classic-fifties-diner look going on – checkered floors, flamboyantly red vinyl seats, and all – but having been owned by the same family since forever, it has become a cemented part of local heritage.

While Jinsoul loves to eat here, she knows Sooyoung has always thought the place was nothing to write home about. Still, she cuts the unremarkable food some slack. For Jinsoul, perhaps.

“Eat slowly,” she chides when Jinsoul stuffs a forkful of pancake into .

“What were you saying about the city?”

“I said hunting there must be a blast. So many more places to hide. And to see! Don’t you think?” 

“I guess so." Greater thrill, Jinsoul supposes, but meaner folks, both alive and undead. "Why, you thinking of leaving me behind?”

It’s a joke, but Sooyoung frowns anyway. “Of course not. I’m not going anywhere.” (She’s anchored to St. Cyriac in too many ways, and Jinsoul might just be the heaviest of them all.) “Besides, they need us here.”

Jinsoul gives her a perfunctory hum. They’re a necessity, true, and their craft boasts a long history as an irreplaceable tradition. She’s been too cooped up in this bubble of a sleepy town all her life to think otherwise.  

That’s just how it is; the world only goes as far as the edges of the county. The thing with living in a place with only two traffic lights to its name is that she’ll be seeing the same faces for the rest of her life. That also means there aren’t enough of them to go around. Jinsoul’s father has always described vampire hunting in the words of Matthew: ‘many are called, but few are chosen’. To defend against infected souls in the name of God, of Saint Michael, is salvation.

Naturally, the responsibility has fallen into the hands of the priest and his family. A sacred vocation that is passed down the generations, its underpinnings drawn straight from the proscriptions of the bible.

In town, Jinsoul’s family name has become synonymous with the practice, as much as it has with religious authority. She was born into it – and in places like this, breaking family tradition is borderline sacriligeous.

Sooyoung’s a different story. Scandal and ostracism;  a turned mother and an inevitable slaying; a runaway father and unread postcards; resentment and misfortune. It’s the kind of tale that would set alight a town in which nothing ever happens, reverberating in whispers for years until it becomes a thing of the past – like most things, no matter how sensational they may be in the moment.

Old news by now, mostly. But it’s a constant in Jinsoul’s mind, especially when her family was the driving force behind it, no matter how necessary they say it was.

Ultimately, they’re in this for the same reason: obligation – one filial and the other vengeful.

They make for a good team too. Whether she likes it or not, Jinsoul has a sixth sense of sorts for sniffing out vampires. Sooyoung jokes that it’s some kind of genetic superpower – or perhaps God has blessed her with some sort of divine revelation – but Jinsoul thinks she’s just observant.

Sooyoung, on the other hand, makes up for all of Jinsoul’s shortcomings by having enough grit in herself for the both of them. She always does the slaying, being the good aim, and Jinsoul has worried more than once about what that may do to a person.

“It’s no big deal. I’m just better at it than you are,” Sooyoung would say to her, instead of what she’d be really thinking (‘I do it so you don’t have to’). 

But the best part of their harmony is when they’re not hunting because Sooyoung, despite all she’s been through, acts the same as when they were younger. Considerate, funny, doting; the girl Jinsoul spent much of her youth thinking about in ways she repented for, the sole person whose hands she would not hesitate to leave her life in.

Despite all that, there are moments where Jinsoul’s reminded that they’re not always on the same wavelength. And that should be okay, but she worries still. 

“I knew something was off about Chanhee, didn’t I tell you guys?” chirps the perky waitress stopping by their booth with a steaming coffee pot. “Sounds like Sheriff Noh’s got some damage control to do.”

“Damn, it’s barely been an hour, Jiwoo.”

“St. Cyriac might be the only place in the world where sound travels faster than light,” Jinsoul quips.

They’re used to glib locals picking up on their goings-on before the newspaper does, but it’s only inevitable. Being a chatterbox might as well be a way of life here, and Jiwoo practically lives on the grapevine.

“I believe that. Word spreads fast, girls.”

Sooyoung tilts her head and tsks. “Gossip is bent. Don’t you know what the scriptures say about wicked whispers?”

“Oh please,” Jiwoo smirks, “how do you think the whole of Galilee got the four-one-one on the hot new Messiah in town?”

Sooyoung can’t help but chuckle.  

“Let me know if you two want more pancakes. Or coffee. Or a tag-along on your hunts…a second crossbow…anything, really.”

Jinsoul doesn’t miss the wholesome grin Jiwoo sends their way; her words weigh heavier than she makes them out to be. It’s really no secret to Jinsoul that the girl would rather be slaying vampires with them than flipping pancakes. As chatty as she is, she does have the intuition for it – if only she wasn’t already consigned to her family’s business.

(Jinsoul would never admit it, but just like Jiwoo, she’d hand over the job if she were given a choice.

But oh, the inescapable chains of expectation.)

“I have one request, actually,” Sooyoung says, to which Jiwoo nods a little too eagerly. “Can you change the song? It’s depressing as hell. I don't think anyone wants to listen to this.”

She motions to the speakers above. Black hole sun, they crackly croon, won’t you come and wash away the rain?

“Um, I do. I like Soundgarden,” Jinsoul interjects. There’s something oddly cathartic about listening to grungier music after putting a body in the ground.

“Who? See, this is why you’re not in charge of the radio.” Sooyoung tsks before turning to Jiwoo with her hands pressed together. “Pretty please? Something good, like the Spice Girls.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jiwoo answers, somewhat disappointed. Jinsoul isn’t totally sure what kind of request the girl was realistically expecting from Sooyoung.

Nevertheless, Jiwoo is finally shooed off, pleased enough with the ‘thank you’ Sooyoung mouths her when the speakers change, and suddenly the diner is filled with Scary hollering what she wants, what she really, really wants (zig-a-zig ah!). 

“ yes.”

“We already listened to this on the way here. And on the way to the sheriff’s. And back to the church.”

“I know, it’s total ear candy. I’m saving you from the ear-bleeding.”  

Jinsoul pulls a face, slightly offended by Sooyoung obliquely insulting her music taste, and changes the topic to the sheriff's daughter. “Did you notice something off about Jisun today?”

“Not really,” Sooyoung answers, “why? Don’t tell me you think he turned her.”

“No, no, not like that. I mean she seemed super torn up about Chanhee.”

“They were friends.” Sooyoung pauses when she sees Jinsoul blinking at her. “Well, they were obviously more than that.”

Jinsoul suddenly lights up. “Right? That’s what I thought!” she exclaims before lowering her voice. “Wow. To think we could fall for vampires.”  

Sooyoung’s ears perk up in shock. She gives Jinsoul a look. “We? Yeah, and to think OJ didn’t kill Ron and Nicole,” she snarks. “Crazy and impossible, is what I’m saying.”

“You don’t have to like it, but you don’t think it’s at least fascinating?”

“As if. Don’t get it twisted, the tragic love story between mortal and immortal is a thing of fiction,” Sooyoung bluntly retorts. “You know how teenagers with bat parents like her are. Remember the high school Sadie Hawkins dance last year? When she gave herself Baby Spice pigtails and got caught sneaking out? Her dad threatened to shave her head. Made her repeat the Act of Contrition in the chapel for three hours instead. Equally torturous.”

Jinsoul shivers at the memory. To think someone like him is in charge of law enforcement. “Okay, but your point is?”

“He was just a scrub with an ulterior motive, and she was just a sheltered girl sick of having a 7PM curfew. Less a fairytale, more a convenient arrangement.”

Jinsoul arcs an eyebrow, but Sooyoung continues with her tirade.

“I mean, did they seriously think they could get away with it? The problem with parents like that is that their child doesn’t end up properly learning right from wrong. There’s no winner here. Poor girl will probably be thrown in a convent on her 18th birthday, but until then, she’ll spend the rest of her days praying for forgiveness and dialing fake numbers on her Dream Phone over and over again ‘til Matt or Steve or Scott goes ‘you’re right! I really like you!’ so she can pretend she’s got some semblance of a social life…”

At her partner’s dramatics, Jinsoul smiles and rolls her eyes. “Okay, now I feel attacked. I’m pretty sure girls her age don’t play with the Dream Phone anymore.”

“Whatever it is these days,” Sooyoung says dismissively. “God help her. Glad we caught the bastard before he could sink his teeth into anyone else. I can't believe he lasted a year, this is unacceptable for us.”

“Yeah…but hey, you used to like Chanhee. He’d let you take more gas than you paid for when you filled up.”

“Well, turns out his kindness was just self-preservation,” she grumbles. “That’s how they weasel in.”

“You're so cynical,” Jinsoul says. She can’t really help it, despite the danger of too much sympathy. Her father's voice would ring in her head; don’t be so fragile, he'd warn. Yes, pa, she’d say back, they're different, I know.

Sooyoung waves her fork at her. “No, I’m just being realistic. You can only be cynical about actual human beings. And human beings they are not.”

“Well, they were.”

“Right, note the past tense?” she counters, absentmindedly reaching across the table to wipe syrup from the corner of Jinsoul’s mouth. “Humans and vampires can’t co-exist like that. And asking if you can cozy up with one is like asking if you can cozy up with a donkey. The bible says no, babe.”

(‘Cursed is he who lies with any animal.’  And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ Deuteronomy 27:21.

Although Sooyoung, heart firmly set on the woman in front of her, really isn’t one to preach about what the bible says is right or wrong, joking or not.)  

Jinsoul’s tongue subconsciously swipes at the spot Sooyoung's thumb had just touched. “Well, excuse me for retconning the bible,” she whispers, because God hears all, “but I’d say that’s a bit of an overdramatic comparison.”

They’re not people. They’re not animals. They’re somewhere in between, she reasons.

“Alright,” Sooyoung thinks for a moment, “then it’s like asking if you can cozy up with a relative. The bible says no.”

(‘Cursed is he who lies with his sister, the daughter of his father or of his mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ Deuteronomy 27:22, in Sooyoung’s defence. If not , then it is!)

Jinsoul smirks. It’s always funny when Sooyoung lets the indoctrinated side of her take over. Jinsoul doesn't know if it's conscious or not, but the problem with it is that she never thinks before she speaks. “So you admit it? If they’re like relatives - human relatives - they’re just like us, yeah?”

“What?” Sooyoung’s face slowly contorts at the childish checkmate. “Whatever, you know what I mean. It’s dangerous, okay? Immoral, dare I say.”

“You sound like my family.”

Sooyoung lets out a snort. “Now why do you say that like it’s an insult? They’re good people.”

Jinsoul’s eyes bug out and a floodgate is inadvertently opened. “I mean, yeah, they’re good people, but you know they’ve got a bit of a blinkered outlook on things – and I get it, sometimes, ‘cuz everyone over fifty here does – but it’s not necessarily a good thing!” she rambles, hands waving around vaguely. “On top of that, they’re fiercely God-fearing Catholics – which has its merits, totally, but I mean, also its flaws and its–”

“Jinsoul. Breathe,” Sooyoung interrupts with a chuckle. And then she her head as a dumb, teasing grin forms on her lips.

Jinsoul notices her gaze. It’s the kind that used to make her nervous – and still does, occasionally, though she’s learned to subdue the fluttering in her chest. “What?”

“Nothing,” Sooyoung says nonchalantly, “I just think it’s hilarious how whenever you wanna badmouth your family, you feel like God might smite you, so you backpedal on everything you say like an anxious kid who just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.”

(It’s also an amusing habit of Jinsoul’s that Sooyoung finds terribly, heart-wrenchingly cute – but that’s a bit of info to keep to herself.)

“For the record, I love my family,” Jinsoul replies, defensive. “It’s just that God is all around us. Obviously.”  

“So? I bet the Big Man wants in on the gossip too every once in a while. He’s like a local.”

“Exactly.”

Sooyoung lifts an eyebrow. Jinsoul lowers her voice and leans in.

“That means He won’t hesitate to dish the dirt on me…” she whispers, taking the fork from Sooyoung’s mouth to feed her a sausage, not missing the way she her lips afterward, “…and tell Mrs. Jung – via divine vision during evening rosary – that her daughter’s having religious misgivings and curiosities of steamy interspecies romance… And that is so not ideal.”  

Sooyoung immediately grimaces and to that, Jinsoul laughs, pushing away the thought of Sooyoung embracing her family’s values, and realising just how hurt she’d actually be to see someone like her turn out exactly like them.

(Sooyoung laughs too, pushing away the thought of Jinsoul falling in love – really falling in love – with someone else, much less a vampire, and realising just how devastating of a heartbreak it would be.)

 

***

 

The actual simple-minded reason behind why Sooyoung believes humans and vampires shouldn’t fall in love is not because it’s sinful, or because the bible explicitly teaches against it, but because in every heroic story, the line between the good guys and the bad guys is clear and uncrossable.

They say the scariest part about vampires is that they look like everyone else. They could be your neighbour. They are fundamentally deceitful. Wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“But don’t let them fool you. Everything they do is an act of manipulation to satisfy violent temptations. They are not your friends, they are Satan’s lackeys running rampant! The Antichrist! For only Jesus can rise again and anyone otherwise is a false prophet. In the Book of Leviticus, we read that blood represents life and to drink is to sin – a sin punishable by death. But fear not, for I…”

Chaewon’s gaze wanders up the storefront. Back in her time, it was a candy shop where her cherished balloon-tire bicycle was stolen. Today, the sign reads ‘RadioShack’ in funky red letters.

“…the secret to my community being vampire-free for the last three months? Faith! What else?” spouts the televangelist on the 12-inch portable TV on display. “This decanter in my hand holds water that christened John the Baptist himself – yes, the River Jordan! And with my additional blessings, you can use it to protect yourself and expel the devil…”

Chaewon narrows her eyes. She recognizes the preacher as the same charlatan who was convicted on federal fraud charges ten years ago. Nowadays, he’s suddenly got a southern twang and shouts conveniently interpreted gospels at cameras.

Well. All the more reason to keep her decades-long grudge against this cursed, cursed building.

“…in three easy payments. Remember, our ministry also accepts donations as vows of faith. For inquiries and orders, please call the number below…”

She sighs. Chaewon has tried to live her life prioritising the welfare of human beings over her own, but their prejudice simply runs too deep.

She takes off her sunglasses and stares at her reflection on the glass. Her skin is blemish-free, not a single sign of wear and tear on her features. Pretty, young, guileless.

It is deceitful, in a way – not in the sense of a friendly face veiling nefarious intentions, like what fearmongers and legends say, but rather of a fresh-faced glow veiling exhaustion. She’s reached the end of her tether. How deceitful to look like she hasn’t lived a day past twenty when she has seen more in her lifetime than most.

But Chaewon was never made for this life. It’s solitary. Unpredictable. She was raised to have strong solid roots, but she was pulled up, displaced, and left constantly on the run. It’s exactly why she finds herself back in St. Cyriac. Hopefully, enough time has passed.

Everything looks different than it did half a century ago, but no matter where she has gone, the feeling of familiarity persists, a warmth that welcomed her the second she stepped off the bus.

For the first time in a long time, Chaewon feels at ease.

But it’s a new era, and she's no longer a familiar face.

Luckily, she knows newcomers in small towns usually end up there because they’re fleeing from something, or everything. Perhaps she’ll fit right in – even if she’s really just trying to come back home.

 

***

 

Nature, in all its glory, never hesitates to reclaim dominion, and where land has been disturbed – where human hands have forcibly ripped plants out by the roots – it always reappears to remind everyone that its absence was only temporary. 

The grass already sprouting over Chanhee’s grave is a testament to that. It's barely been a week. 

At the foot of a different grave, the blades have grown so tall, they tickle the skin under the hems of Sooyoung’s dungarees. She could stomp it down if she wanted, but that would mean leaving the signs of a visit.

There’s nothing on the ground save for a headstone engraved with a single date – a day from almost a decade ago marking not the start of a life, but the end.

“It’s her birthday today,” she says when she hears someone approaching from behind, “I wonder if anyone remembers but me.”

“I do,” Jinsoul replies.

“Really?”

“You think I wouldn’t notice you sneaking out here on the same day every year?”

Visiting is the least Sooyoung could do. She hates coming to the graveyard as much as the next person. There’s a chilling uncanniness that hangs over the air, even on the hottest of days. Unmarked graves lie in uneven rows, neglected. In lieu of flowers and memorabilia, there are weeds and overgrown grass. Whenever she can circumvent a burial, she does.

It’s not that the locals of St. Cyriac loathe the dead, but rather the opposite; the real dearly departed are in a cemetery in town, much closer to the world of the living. The graveyard is reserved for slain vampires. Located on the grounds of the old church, they say it’s the perfect eternal resting place for the unredeemable, far from the holy good.

People rarely step foot here, except for Jinsoul’s family. Even then, they only come around for the upkeep of the old church and the burials.

No one ever visits. But Sooyoung owes this to her mother.

“Also,” Jinsoul hums, “your mom would go door to door giving out homemade snickerdoodles on her birthday every year. I’d always wait on the porch.”

The tips of Sooyoung’s lips twitch up at the fond memory. She never missed the chance to tag along on those walks, wearing her Sunday best and grinning up at the neighbours with her missing teeth. “You remember that?”

Jinsoul smiles. “Of course I remember.”  

Sooyoung’s eyes drop to the engraving on the headstone, to the numbers that signify an entirely different day, an entirely different memory. Her smile falls and she stares, pensive. She’d do anything to wipe this date off her memory, but would she be able to find her mother again amongst all these stones if she did?

Maybe that’s what her mother would want for her, but it’s just impossible to forget. No matter how many locked doors Sooyoung keeps it behind, the memory of her mom getting bitten and writhing in pain – turning in front of her very eyes – is one that’ll likely stay with her forever.

“Have you ever wished her name was on the headstone?” Jinsoul asks curiously.

“Never. It’d make the shame…physical, I think.” And she already feels enough of it in her.

When she glances at the surrounding stones, it dawns on Sooyoung that there must be others here who were also St. Cyriac-born and raised, once as much a part of the community as she is today. Branches on family trees that have been burnt off for reputation, for posterity. Who are they?

Her reflection brings her attention to the very person beside her.

There’s a Jung here, too, somewhere.

It’s almost criminal to bring this up out loud, but they’re alone and it seems alright, so Sooyoung musters the courage to ask Jinsoul the same question. “What about you? You ever wished that for…” her words trickle off. She doesn't know how to finish it.

Jinsoul looks at her, slightly surprised but far from puzzled.

“I mean,” Sooyoung shifts on her feet, “I can’t imagine you would want to.”

A vampire amongst the hunters is a frightening possibility, though a very real one, just like the way there was Judas amongst the Twelve Disciples. Given the risks, it’s expected that one of them would get turned in the line of duty. The fact that it hasn’t happened again since then is more surprising, though everyone knows the Jungs have a near-faultless track record minus that blip from decades ago.

To Sooyoung’s relief, Jinsoul mulls it over for a moment. And then she shrugs. “Even if I did, I still wouldn’t have a clue which one she'd be. No idea what she looked like, much less her name.”

“Consider yourself lucky.”

Sooyoung has always harboured a slight envy, how couldn’t she? A vampire in Jinsoul’s lineage and it’s barely a stain on her family name. What’s permanently besmirching for Sooyoung is just a forgotten tragedy in the past for Jinsoul. Not everyone has the privilege, only granted to the Jungs because they’re the ones responsible for doing away with vampires in the first place.

But it only makes sense. They did what they had to do and killed one of their own. A virtuous show of fortitude more than anything – and so is what Sooyoung is doing now. Or so she hopes, at least. Desperately, because otherwise…

“I do, trust me,” Jinsoul says quietly.

“It’s sobering though, huh?”

“What is?”

“No one’s immune from getting turned. No matter our prayers, our scriptures, our crucifixes. Any of us can turn, you and I more likely than anyone,” Sooyoung murmurs, eyes falling on the grass over the grave. “To think, I could lose everything and everyone in a blink of an eye…”

Her head shakes, words fading off once again. Being turned might just be the worst kind of fate to befall on anyone. It’s death – in more ways than one.

Sooyoung feels terribly sorry for her mother.

Suddenly, she feels warmth on her palm and fingers weaving into hers. Jinsoul brings their intertwined hands up to her lips and leave a feather of a kiss on the back of her hand. Sooyoung glances at her. Her pulse goes arrhythmic. Jinsoul with her fond eyes, so softhearted and tender, always so delicate with her that it makes her heart swell as much as it makes it twinge–

Jinsoul isn’t hers, not in the way Sooyoung wants her to be, but hell, she might as well be with the way she looks at Sooyoung sometimes.

“Hey. I would never let that happen to you,” Jinsoul tells her before a gust of wind blows hair onto her face and her soothing smile is broken with a grin, wide and radiant, the kind that has her cheeks jutting out and her eyes curving.

She’s got a warmth that emits even amidst the eerie miasma of the graveyard, and Sooyoung can’t help but think Jinsoul’s the most beautiful person she’s ever met.

“I know.”

Sooyoung is no prophet. She can’t gaze very far into the future, but God won’t stop the world’s spin for anyone, no matter how badly misfortune strikes them. But if that ever happens to her – and the world is thrown off-kilter – at least she won’t be left alone, floating aimlessly in space.

Jinsoul keeps her tethered to earth; her very own iron stake through the heart.