"Yeah. — I don't think as a first resort," he says, at the look on Marlo's face. "But she's going to start doing real damage soon if she hasn't already and if we can't contain it —" 

"You don't have to convince me, hummingbird." 

"Doesn't mean I don't want to clarify." 

"We could try talking to her."

"I was folding that under containing the damage but yes." 

"I'm not sure what else we could try to contain the damage."

"Talking to her, giving people charms they're likely to wear will probably work better than zero." 

"We can try talking to her tomorrow. --You might want to try coordinating with Asher ahead of time though."

"Yeah. This would be a lot easier if I had his phone number but I remember where the neighborhood is, I can go looking for him tomorrow and talk to Lilith the next day if I find him?" 

"Problem: isn't he actively avoiding you because Marlo said to?"

"Yes, which is why my plan is to go looking for his house and not to hang out at the coffee shop." 

"I'm worried he's going to run away. I guess maybe if you have a note attached to your shirt that says 'MARLO KNOWS I'M HERE.'"

"I did specifically say 'unless he contacts you.'" 

"I guess it depends on how risk-averse he is."

"Yeah. It's worth a shot, at least." 

Asher is STILL BORED.

Being tortured was upsetting and then, upon reflection, hot. (The stern look on Marlo's face! The casual way he grabbed Asher's hand! The fact that even the lightest brush against Asher's skin would be torture! Asher wants to burn his lips off blowing him.) But as hot as it was you can only jerk off so many times in the day.

And he still has NO shows and NO journal articles and he is still bored by both math and physics, and now he can't murder or mind-control anyone because he's trying to keep his nose clean so he isn't tortured to death, as hot as that would be.

Marlo explains why there weren't any other vampires in Berkeley. Shit. He knew he should have looked the gift horse in the mouth, but he was so excited to get to do as many murders as he wanted, and of hot people, while he was fucking them, instead of old terminally ill people that he doesn't want to fuck at all.

There's a knock on Asher's door. 

That's weird. He didn't order takeout.

He opens the door.

"Hi! My boyfriend knows I'm here and okayed this, by the way." 

"Oh, good. He's pretty hot but I'm not sure I want a repeat performance."

"He is indeed very hot but that's fair. Can I come in?" 

"You don't need an invitation to enter people's homes unless something has seriously changed in the past week."

But he steps aside to let Sasha in. 

"Do you need anything? Water, a snack, the bathroom?"

"It's still polite to ask! Water would be nice but actually I'm here to ask for a favor, we have this classmate who has a habit of throwing her weight around to be cruel to people and she just found out she's a fairy princess and we're trying to contain the damage as much as we can but aiming you at her is a better backup plan than anything else that was suggested." 

Asher gets him some water.

"What do I get out of this?"

"A snack, for one thing, but feel free to make requests." He drinks the water.