Free Hair of the Wolf by Peter J. Wacks

mocha and a chai tea?”
    “Sure thing.” The girl rang her up and started making the drinks. “You guys come in here a lot. Always at three or four in the morning. Is that when you get off work or something?”
    Mina sighed. “Nope. It isn’t when we get off work. We’ve been married a long time. We don’t try a lot of new things. This place works for us.”
    “Cool. I can’t imagine that, though. I move every couple years. New city, new friends, new experiences. What’s it like? I can’t imagine not trying out new all the time.”
    Mina glanced back at the door. Jon wasn’t here yet. “Mostly, it’s boring. But … the stability is nice. Knowing there is someone I can count on, that I’ll always be familiar with my surroundings.” And being a vampire it’s nice knowing I won’t get stuck in the sunlight. She smiled wistfully. “Really, a new city every few years?”
    “Really, really. It’s amazing. I want to see the whole world. Can’t do that sitting still, you know. If you sit still too long, life passes you by, no matter how old you live to be, you’ll miss it all. That’s what I think.” She slid the drinks across the counter.
    “Thanks.” Mina dropped a couple extra bucks in the tip jar then grabbed the drinks and headed out to meet Jon. Lilly’s words were echoing in her mind.
    ***
    Lilith
    Lilith wore the night sky like a gown, dancing through the stars. Smiling slyly, the other survivors, the three sisters and Loki, waited for her in a vast vaulted hall that had nebulas and galaxies floating inside the wall.
    “Ah.” She smiled warmly. “The grandness of creation. Why don’t we meet here anymore? It’s been centuries.”
    Loki picked at his fingernails, cleaning imaginary dirt from under them. With each speck of nonexistent grease, he wiped his hands on his jeans or his red flannel. “You know it’s just an illusion. Why do you care?”
    “Because it has style.”
    He shrugged.
    Lachesis, smooth skinned and wearing an ivory-colored toga that was barely paler than her skin, cleared her throat. “I don’t like it. I remember a time it was full of life, not the echoes and emptiness of the dead. Why did you call us here?”
    Lilith smiled sweetly. “It has come to my attention that you have all meddled. We have a plan, why do you ignore it?”
    Loki sat up. “You have all?” He glanced at the sisters. “I’ve done nothing outside of my nature. I’m sticking to your precious plan, Lilith.”
    The sisters spoke in unison. “We have done only that which the pattern allows.”
    Lilith stared at the four of them. “It’s so creepy when you do that. How is it that the embodiments of structure and chaos both have the same answer for me? Unlikely, don’t you think?”
    Loki shrugged, still picking at his nails. “None of us trusts each other. Even in the old days, when belief was plentiful, we were at each other’s throats. Nowadays it’s hard. I always assumed each of us had our own agenda.”
    Lips tightened in a forced smirk, Lilith waved a hand at the illusionary hall. “And we can see how far having our own agendas has gotten us, yes?”
    Atropos, tugging on her blond pigtails, twirled in place. “There are powers greater than us too. Snippety snip, no? Even the gods will pass from the universe in their time. It’s not for us to say how much further we go.”
    “If not for us, then who? Where are these powers that we do not know?” Lilith snarled. “I’ll not be scrubbed from this reality because uppity children that we helped create want us gone. You do not choose when my thread is cut, Atropos.”
    “Don’t I?” The little girl grinned wickedly as she twirled a pair of golden scissors around her fingers. “You think my shears haven’t cut the threads of gods? Shiva, Thor, Quetzalcoatl … ask them how powerless we sisters are. Oh! Butterfly!” Atropos suddenly looked delighted and wandered away from her sisters.
    Lilith snorted in disgust, but Loki