Chapter 1

There was a knock at Juniper’s door, but she made no effort to get out of bed and open it. She valued her sleep more than anything these days, a basic right she would not be denied. Whoever was bothering her this late could come back tomorrow. 

Well, late for her, early for everyone else. Juniper rose as the sun set, as she’d done for centuries now. With the bright sun peaking through her poorly adjusted blackout curtains, she decided it was best to act as though she wasn’t home. 

The problem was the knocking had only been getting more insistent the more she ignored it. Knocking had turned to pounding with no sign of stopping, a sound that Juniper could feel reverberate in her chest. Still, she did not move, supposing that a neighbor would eventually hear this racket and get them to stop. She was beyond peeved, but her annoyance was not enough to get her to deal with the problem, preferring to pull her covers over her head. 

“Vivian?” a voice shouted, followed by a few more pounds on the door for good measure. “I know you’re in there. Don’t make me take this door off its hinges.”

Juniper knew this voice. She gave a long groan, finally slinking out from under her covers and onto the floor, taking the comforter with her. “Alright, alright, I’m coming.”

The knocking paused at her reply. Juniper took her time picking herself up from the scratchy carpeting. Evidently taking too long, as the knocking continued to let their impatience be known. 

She hadn’t gone by Vivian in ages. The last time she used that name had to be, what, the 50s? All those years passed her by and she still looked more or less the same. After Vivian was Nicole. And after that was Mia. Juniper was just the most recent alias. While other vampires tended to loathe the process of relocation and assuming a new identity, Juniper liked to have fun with it, finding pleasure in the regular opportunity to reinvent herself. 

Only one person came to mind who knew her as Vivian, and would track her down here half a century later rather than assume her dead like a sane person would. 

Juniper wrenched the door open, blanket still over her shoulders. The knocking finally ceased as there was nothing left to pound on. Juniper glared through tired eyes. “You can track down an address but you still can’t keep the name straight.”

Yu-Jun scoffed. “You can’t honestly expect me to remember every time you change it. I don’t know why you bother.” He walked in with a flourish as though he owned the place, not waiting to be let in. 

“Maybe you could remember if you bothered to keep in touch,” Juniper shut the door behind him. 

Yu-Jun never bothered with assuming new legal identities because he never saw much value in living among humans and mortal societies. He had always been Cho Yu-Jun and always would be. 

“Keeping in touch goes both ways. Last I checked, you were the one who didn’t want to speak anymore, not the other way around,” Yu-Jun chastised. “If you wanted to chat, you would have.”

And Juniper definitely didn’t want to. 

“What do you want from me? Do you have any idea what time it is?” she groaned, rubbing sleep from her eyes. 

“Vivian dear, it’s past noon. If you want to live among humans, you should really adapt to their sleep schedule, no?”

“It’s Juniper now.”

“Not for much longer, by my accounts. That little pseudonym has run its course, and it’s about time for you to be moving.”

Yu-Jun was right about that. She lived in this city under the name Juniper for the better part of twenty years. Eagle eyed observers were bound to start taking note that she never seemed to age, despite her ID stating she was in her mid forties. It was time to get moving, or the council would come along to push her out themselves. 

“And why do you care? I can deal with my own affairs, thank you.” Juniper didn’t think she sounded so sure of herself, standing with her pajamas and bed hair, blacked wrapped around her like a cloak. 

“In all honesty,” Yu-Jun plopped himself down on Juniper’s worn couch. The one that came with the place. “I don’t care much about you being allowed to continue living like— this,” he gestured widely to her bare studio apartment, a living area that showed minimal signs of life. “But I do know that living and moving costs money, and you don't have much in terms of funds.”

“What could you know about my finances?” Juniper asked. She meant to sound accusatory, shaming him for daring to ask, but she could sound sure of herself when he was correct. She’d spent the last few years completely withdrawn. From vampire society, for human society, from everyone. She thought if she could have some semblance of a break mentally, she’d be able to figure out what to do with herself moving forward. But it seemed she’d run out of time to make a plan for herself, and she had nothing to show for herself. She usually only left her house for necessities, mostly her weekly trip to the butcher for animal blood. She didn’t have the money to continue living like this, especially as her rent kept increasing. 

“Listen, Vivian—”

“Juniper.”

Yu-Jun sighed. “Listen. You work for me for a while, a job or two. You walk away with a hefty sum, and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“I don’t do contract work anymore.”

“I think you’ll be interested when I tell you about the target.” He was smiling now. That cocky, shit-eating grin of his. 

“I don’t care,” Juniper said firmly. “Now could you please leave?”

“I would have thought you would change your mind by now.” Yu-Jun put his feet up on the coffee table and unbuttoned his blazer, getting far too comfortable. “You’ll get to crash a wedding,” he added, like that would seal the deal. Like Juniper was still a young girl who could be lured in with the idea of playing dress up. 

“I said I don’t care.”

Yu-Jun pulled a note from his breast pocket. For someone who didn’t care about living among mortals, he dressed surprisingly modern. The fitted crisp suit with his slick back hair made him look like he made his living as a venture capitalist, not a contract killer. 

He read from the note. “The mark is a twenty-seven year old man who’s part of a tech startup— not sure what that is— that’s on the verge of bankruptcy. His fiance would like to have him taken out right after their marriage has been officiated. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

“No, it doesn’t. Now can you please get out of my house?”

“This is an apartment, not a house,” Yu-Jun clicked his tongue. “I would have thought you’d jump at the opportunity to be a black widow again.”

“Like I said, I don’t do contract work anymore. And I’m pretty sure you’re only a black widow if you kill your own husband. Something I never had, thanks to you.”

“You didn’t even want to be married—”

“That’s not the point.” Juniper rubbed her eyes. “I don’t work for you anymore. I don’t owe anything, money or otherwise.”

“Well then, think of it less like employment and more like I’m doing you a favor.” Yu-Jun smiled again, fishing another scrap of paper from his inner suit pocket. “This one’s better. Someone who wants you to take out her husband so she can claim his life insurance for herself and her children. It’s always about money these days.”

He waved the paper at her, expecting her to take it from him. Juniper wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. 

“I know you love a chance for altruism,” he stressed the last word like an insult. “Maybe get to know the woman’s story and take out your combined anger on the poor sap.”

Juniper didn’t want to entertain the conversation any further, not having the energy to argue any more to get Yu-Jun to leave. She walked over to her bed and flopped onto it, pulling the covers over her head. 

Yu-Jun sighed. Juniper didn’t hear him stand to leave just yet. 

“You know,” he said, piercing the silence. “This isn’t any way to live.”

He clearly referred to her drab apartment. Nothing to her name but some forgotten trinkets shoved into a corner, a few pints of chicken blood in the fridge. “You grew up with the finer things in life, the life of a nobleman's daughter. You can have that again,” he said with a sudden softness.

It made Juniper uneasy, Yu-Jun speaking like a man still the human emotions he constantly chastised. 

“I grew tired of the finer things a long time ago,” Juniper mumbled from under the covers.

“So you’d prefer to live like this?”

“It’s not like I’m running out of time.” Why was he so concerned about her rotting her days away?

The cover was ripped off her head, Yu-Jun glaring down at her. “You’ll have plenty of time to sulk later. But if you’re so adamant on doing it in a shabby place among mortals, you are running out of time to get your papers in order. If you don’t want my help, the next person pounding on your door will be a councilman, and they can be quite irritated when you’ve been ignoring their letters.”

Juniper sighed, pulling herself up into a sitting position. He’d made the effort to find her and come all the way there, he clearly wasn’t going to leave her be. And he was right about her not having many other options. 

He didn’t want to let on, but he was clearly desperate to be asking for her help. She had at least a bit of a leg up.

“I do this for you and you leave me alone,” Juniper groaned. “For good this time.”

Yu-Jun went back to smirking after that, finding her assertiveness more amusing than anything else. “For good, such a finite thing. Those words become meaningless after a century or two.” The two of them would know, both pushing a milleana in age. 

Juniper glared at him. “Another fifty years then? Long enough to get the taste of your collonge out of my mouth.”

“Ugh, you wound me so,” he put a hand to his heart in mock pain, turning to leave without actually agreeing. “I’ll give you the details tonight, once you’ve had your beauty sleep.”

He opened the door to let himself out. He turned back. “I’m not sure what name you’ll choose next. Most likely a reference to one of those motion pictures, something stupid like that.” His expression softened. “But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try the name I gave you. It still suits you.”

Juniper hated that name almost as much as she hated these sorts of visits from her father. But blood relations were near impossible to distance yourself from, even if you put an ocean between you. 

The door closed with a click, softly rather than his flair for dramatic exits. Juniper didn’t bother locking up behind him. She gritted her teeth and buried herself under her sheets again. 

Juniper tossed and turned in her bed, but sleep did not find her again.