Page 136 of Nocturne

I oblige, giving her another push that sends her soaring toward the mist-shrouded treetops. Her dark curls bounce with each arc of the swing, her tiny hands gripping the chains with determined strength. Even at three, there’s something of the predator in her movements, in her intense focus, in the way she watches the world around her with those knowing eyes.

“Not too high,” Victor cautions, though his smile belies any real concern. He stands nearby, hands in the pockets of hisbell-bottom jeans, looking both perfectly of-the-moment and somehow timeless. His hair is longer now, curling just past his collar in the current fashion, though he’s eschewed the full hippie aesthetic embraced by so many of the young people flooding the Haight this summer.

“She’s fine,” I say, giving Olivia another push. “Vampire baby, remember?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Pre-vampire,” he corrects. “And still breakable.”

Twenty years together, and he still worries. Still protects. Some things never change, even as the world transforms around us.

And what transformations we’ve witnessed. The post-war prosperity giving way to Cold War paranoia, the buttoned-up fifties yielding to this new explosion of color and sound and freedom. San Francisco sits at the epicenter of it all—a crucible of change, of possibility, of the new world struggling to be born.

I look down at my own outfit—a flowing peasant blouse over a long, embroidered skirt, my newly bleached hair falling straight and parted in the middle, reaching nearly to my waist. Summer Breeze, they call me at the club where I’ve been singing this season. Another name, another persona, another way to hide in plain sight.

“Careful of your dress, sweetie,” I tell Olivia as she leaps from the swing at its highest point, landing with preternatural grace on the sand. Her floral sundress is already smudged with dirt and grass stains, evidence of a day spent exploring the park’s many wonders.

She grins up at me, fearless and wild. “I’m a butterfly, Mommy!”

“The prettiest butterfly in the whole park,” I agree, catching her as she launches herself into my arms. I breathe in her scent—sunshine and earth—and marvel again at the miracle of herexistence. A vampire child, born against all odds, part of both of us yet entirely her own person.

“They’re here,” Victor says, his gaze focused on a group of figures emerging from the fog-shrouded path.

Abe leads the way, elegant as ever in a tweed blazer that seems deliberately anachronistic amid the tie-dye and denim flooding the city. Ezra walks beside him, having embraced the new era more enthusiastically with a paisley shirt and round, wire-rimmed glasses that catch what little sunlight filters through the mist.

Behind them come the others—Wolf, massive and golden-haired, his booming laugh audible before he fully materializes from the fog; and Absolon, ethereal and ancient, moving with the quiet certainty of one who has seen civilizations rise and fall, his blue eyes holding secrets from ages long past.

“Uncle Wolf!” Olivia squeals, wriggling from my arms to rush toward the towering Norse vampire, who scoops her up and tosses her into the air as if she weighs nothing.

“There’s my little wolf cub!” he exclaims, his accent thickening with delight as he catches her.

Olivia giggles, tugging at his long blonde hair. “Did you bring me a present?”

“Olivia,” I chide her.

“A present?” Wolf says with a grin. He pulls out a small paper bag of penny candy, her eyes going wide with delight. “Will this do?”

Great. Now she’s going to be hopped up on sugar. Well, Wolf will bear the brunt of that.

Absolon approaches more sedately, offering a formal nod to Victor before turning to me. “Summer,” he greets, using my current alias with the faintest hint of amusement. “I’m starting to think Northern California agrees with you.”

“Solon,” I return, trying to match his cool persona and failing. “How’s business at Dark Eyes?”

“Flourishing,” he replies. “The current cultural climate has proven unexpectedly advantageous. So many young seekers, so many looking to expand their consciousness throughany means available.” A slight smile touches his handsome features. “They come for the experience, the thrill of surrender. They leave lighter, we leave satisfied. A perfect symbiosis.”

The feeding club he and Wolf established in the basement of the Westerfeld House has become something of an underground phenomenon—an exclusive sanctuary where select humans can experience the euphoria of vampire feeding in a controlled, consensual environment, a more expansive, hedonistic version of what Abe had in Los Angeles.

“Your new tenant is quite the character,” Victor comments as we make our way toward a more secluded area of the park, away from curious human eyes. Too many vampires around each other seems to make them nervous in ways they can’t explain.

Wolf snorts. “Kenneth? He’s harmless. Obsessed with the occult, but what artist isn’t these days? His films are quite striking, actually.” He shifts Olivia to his shoulders, where she perches like a tiny queen surveying her domain. “The company he keeps, however…”

“The house has become something of a pilgrimage site,” Absolon explains. “Artists, musicians, seekers of various sorts. The energy is…stimulating, if occasionally chaotic. I find myself staying at our other house down the street, just so I can escape the dreaded drum circles.”

Abe chuckles, falling into step beside me. “What they mean is that the Westerfeld House has become the epicenter of San Francisco’s counterculture. Quite the change from when I first visited in 1908.”

We find a spot beneath a massive eucalyptus tree, its uppermost branches lost in fog, and spread blankets across the damp grass. Ezra produces a basket containing thermoses—blood for the vampires, apple juice for Olivia.

As we settle, Victor sits beside me, his arm sliding around my waist.

“What say we move here, kitten?” he asks me.

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