MV2: Progress

The early-evening Spades game expanded to include the wolves Jürgen and Sam W, the ghost in the trench coat and fedora who called himself Ace -- "from A.C., as in Air Conditioning" -- and a vampire who was calling herself 2 Claudia as if she were a book in the bible. When Y.T. joined as well, Andy found that he could rotate himself out, or let one of the others do it instead if they didn't feel like playing.

Online classes remained one of the more pleasurable parts of his nights; he hadn't been lying about enjoying school.  He'd raced through the early bits, and caught up to his current studies, then kept going. Mr. Carillo was pleased with his progress; so was Andy. He'd even added a couple of extra courses on the side. 

Self-Defense For Monsters was interesting. The shared curriculum was pretty standard: unarmed combat, a mix of striking and grappling; melee with a variety of weapons, starting with knives, bats, and staves; and finally guns. Trainer Jim would then split them off into more specific things: fangs, for those who might make bite attacks; claws, for those who had them; and making use of incorporeality for Dana Z, the ghost in the class. Maria OG and Tom started showing up as well, and it turned out that Maria could call out very effective claws, while the black-eyed child Tom... 

Tom could reshape flesh, take control of minds, and do other things as well. Physically, he was as frail as the child he resembled, but Andy noted that Trainer Jim was careful not to put him in direct combat. "He says I should keep my distance," Tom explained, as they were heading back to the dormitory near dawn. "I can shoot people, or use powers, but I shouldn't try to hit people or wrestle or anything like that."

"Makes sense," Andy had admitted. "That's some powerful stuff."

Tom had looked proud, and Maria OG had looked grateful.

It turned out the Academy kept a herd of cattle behind the main complex, mostly cows but some sheep as well. It was part of how they funded the place, but it also allowed a lot of the monsters to feed without the need to rotate regular humans in and out the way the Authority had done for him at the hospital. For Andy, that was a profound relief; he could age a cow just a bit, not worry about overdoing it with a human or another monster, and still be reasonably well-fed. 

The wolves, the two nature spirits, and the black-eyed child could all eat regular food and be satisfied with that. The vampires could drain blood from the cattle, and Agrat B could drain their life force without killing them -- much the same as he and Y.T. could.  Maria OG was the odd one out there: as a ghoul, she needed dead flesh, preferably human, to sustain her. The small cemetery at the edge of the property wouldn't have supported her for more than a week -- it was mainly used for wights and similar to speak to the dead, or raise them temporarily. 

Andy had no idea what sort of arrangement the Authority had come up with, but while Maria OG was willing to tell him about her needs, she always ate in private and she always looked... sad, afterwards. Andy wished he had any idea how to comfort her about that, but he didn't. The best he could do was not judge her.