RoH: Dinner in the Darkness

Remant stepped into the palace cautiously, though with Kalla and her family leading the way he didn't think he was in danger. The place was all high walls and stalagmite towers from the outside, dim light spilling out from the open doors. Everything here was stone and metal, or else an unfamiliar sort of cloth or leather. Limestone had been smoothed and shaped, ceilings carved into arches and set. There were no guards in evidence, which could mean any of several things. He hoped the Presbyterium realized that he came peacefully among them this time.

The light came from soft flames, set atop metal cones; similar to and different from the light-crystals the upper world had once produced. He would have loved to stop and examine their magics -- there were thing here that would be invaluable if he could reproduce them -- but this was not the time. Still, if he survived this gathering then he needed to return at some point simply for this. 

The scene inside was chaos struggling to become order: a double-dozen Undergray spreading out to find their seat at the carefully-arranged tables. 

"Honored Elders," Kalla said, her voice filling the space. "I present Remant of the Sunlit Lands, who is heir to our former master Huoron and also our savior from that mastery. We welcome him to Shadowguard, and give thanks for his company."

Remant was fairly certain that he'd never seen a room settle down so quickly. "I'm honored to be here," he said, forcing the words out but making them sound natural. "I regret that we were once enemies, and hope that we can be friends." 

One of the Elders raised his voice and lifted his glass. "Likewise," he said loudly. "We welcome you, and offer you hospitality."

That was binding, and with that reassurance Remant came forward into the room. "It is my honor and pleasure to accept," he said, raising his voice to make sure it carried. That was binding, too. It meant that he would be equally bound by the laws of hospitality. Any violation on either side was likely to be punished by the gods, even down here. Until very recently, Shadowguard had been hidden away from the eyes of the gods, but that was no longer entirely true.

"Then come and dine with us," said another Elder, and Kalla led him forward. 

RoH: Introductions

Remant had never been below the Grand Hall. When he'd come in here with the heroes, he hadn't needed to. Now, with Kalla leading the way, he found himself looking out into a sprawling underground city, scattered around the bottom -- and top -- of a massive underground cavern. A river rushed down the center of it, wide and shallow as it washed over the limestone floor. A few lights flickered here and there, some glowing faintly like distant stars, but mostly it was dark.

The structure she led him to was not far away, and he could see faint light within it -- not as bright as flame, let alone the sun, but some small glow to ease the way. Zara followed along, and as they walked another of the Undergray fell in beside them. "Durken," the man said, and offered a hand. "Kalla's husband, and Zara's father."

Remant nodded and clasped his hand. "I'm glad you're both happy." 

Durken grinned, squeezed firmly, and then released him. "I'm glad I finally get to meet you. I always wondered what sort of man you were."

"At the time? Desperate. I don't know how much your people knew of it, but up on the surface we were losing the war. Huoron's armies had wiped out most of the cities, burned out smaller settlements wherever they passed, and were laying siege to the last real source of organized opposition. The Gray weren't in much better shape, but my people had reached the point where even if we did defeat them, we'd have nothing left. Or if they won, neither would they."

"Ah," said Durken. "So they sent their greatest warriors away from the siege, to come here and slay Huoron himself."

Remant nodded again. "Exactly. Five champions, and the squires they accidentally acquired along the way. Two of the champions made it into Shadowguard; the rest of us were squires, replacements for the other champions: rich in magical blessings, but inexperienced, only partly trained, and utterly terrified."

"And only you lived," observed Kalla, sadly. 

Walking beside her, Zara gave a startled squeak.

Remant huffed. "Even so, I was much changed." He swallowed, then changed the topic. "What can I expect inside?"

Kalla hesitated, then said, "Reactions will be mixed, but not actively violent. Your intervention freed our people, but some of the Presbyterium still lost family -- close family -- to you and your friends." 

RoH: A Dinner Invitation

"I'd hoped to have you join us for a quiet family dinner," Kalla said. "Instead, I need to offer you an apology. As soon as word went out of your return, the entire Prebyterium began lobbying for a chance to host our savior."

"They're probably going to be disappointed," Remant predicted. "Still, I'm grateful for their hospitality -- and yours." 

"You'll do it, then?" She frowned. "You could just turn away. With a little effort, you could travel through this darkness like we do. Nobody would stop you."

"No, I..." he sighed, because to the left he really didn't want to do this, but to the right he was genuinely curious. "I'd like to meet your people."

"Don't sound so enthused," Kalla answered, gently ironic. "But okay, if you're still willing, come with me. They've been preparing for over an hour now."

Remant followed, making an effort to hide his reluctance. Zara followed them, holding on to a corner Remant's cloak.

RoH: Childhood Wisdom, and Wisdom Grown

Zara studied him closely. After a moment she said, "You look funny, not scary. Why is your skin like that?"

"Pale, you mean?" asked Remant. 

The girl nodded.

He shrugged. "Born this way. Among my people, it's pretty normal. Among yours, it may be funny-looking."

"Oh." The child looked thoughtful. 

Kalla knelt down as well. "Go and find your father, Little Curiosity. We need to finish talking about grownup things."

Zara considered that. "I can be quiet."

Kalla looked at Remant. He shrugged, rose. "All right. Walk with us, then."

Kalla said, "Back here," and led him in a wide circle around the altar. It was good to see that it was smashed, but what waited beyond was... wholly unexpected. 

The Undergray had emptied the niches of Huoron's visages, and used them to create shrines to each of the fallen heroes instead. Here lay the bones of the Aesil mage Elendor, surrounded by his robe, staff, and sword. The niche beside it held the last remains of Darik, the Vanil champion, the bones still encased in his gleaming golden armor, mace and shield set to either side. Next was Lisla, the Vanil squire who had taken on Winstala's blessing and equipment in a desperate bid to help win their battle; she was set between her daggers, and still wore her cloak. Her bow and quiver of arrows was set behind her. Last was Shima, who had boldly taken up the blessings and weapons of her Santu, the Mordil champion Gairlos. 

Remant found that he was on his knees. He could feel his eyes prickling.

"It pleases you?" Kalla asked. "None may touch the sacred weapons save the Presbyterium, and none may take them up save yourself. It is... taboo."

Remant swallowed, and forced the grief back. "It... Yes. It pleases me, that you honor them."

RoH: The Temple Revised

"I only came here to retrieve some gold from Huoron's vault," Remant said quietly. 

"I understand," Kalla said. "We haven't touched that. We bargain with the Cobalts by offering late-night help with traders and would-be conquerors, in exchange for the food that helps sustain us more... naturally. So far, it's been enough."

Remant nodded. "If you need it, though..." 

"I'll keep that to myself," Kalla said. "Otherwise, my fellow Elders will find reasons to need it. But while you're here..."

She stepped back through the doorway to the temple, and a voice called, "Mama!" and soft footsteps rushed forward. 

Remant followed her through the doorway and stopped. The Great Hall had changed subtly. The Temple had changed dramatically. It was lit, for one thing, though the flickering light of the flames didn't pass outside the doorway to the hall. The sacrificial altar at the far end was broken, and a slow trickle of blood was seeping out of it. The dagger lay atop the shattered altar. 

Shocked, Remant came to a full stop as a small Undergray threw herself at Kalla's leg. She clung there, looking for a long moment, then looked up at Remant. "You didn't come back here to kill us?"

Remant smiled and knelt. "No. No, I did not. I'm actually glad to see that your people have survived."

"There were some concerns," Kalla admitted. "Mine were not among them, which is why I was the one who went out to meet you."

"Well you did," Remant admitted in return. "I'd have listened and dealt fairly with another, but it helps that I remember how you dealt with me when I was still wounded and far more vulnerable."

"Still dangerous, though," Kalla pointed out. She gestured towards the altar. "And that thing was still on the floor at your feet." 

Remant scowled. "It was. How did you get it onto the altar?"

Kalla's face went flat, then sorrowful. "A dozen sacrifices. They lifted it, moved it, and they died. After the first one, they were throwing it, even knowing what it meant to touch it."

Remant paused. "I'm so sorry. It should have been caged where it was."

Kalla shook her head. "No, the risk there was even worse. Here, with the altar broken, the dagger calls out the blood and lets us feed. Their sacrifice was needed so that we could survive in this." She paused, then motioned to the child at her side. "This is Zara."

Remant nodded. "Your daughter."

"Some time after you departed, I married Lorran -- whom you don't know -- and gave birth to Zara, who is the center of my world."

"I still want a sister," said the girl. "I know you have politics to do, but I haven't forgotten."

"How old?" asked Remant. 

"Four."

Remant rose, came forward, and knelt again. "Hello, Zara. I'm honored to meet you." 

RoH: Old Allies, New Negotiations

The woman nodded. Originally, she had been one of the Gray: the secondborn of the races that the dark god Huoron had created, strong and savage and completely under His control. But she, among others, had been chosen to serve in and help protect Shadowguard, and their time here had changed them. Unlike Remant and his companions, they had already adjust to the deeper darkness and could see perfectly well, their eyes shining like lamps. They had grown slender, even gaunt, skin and hair adjusting to a pale gray that vanished into the stone -- and likewise the darkness. Here, they would be all but invisible -- even to those who could ordinarily see in the dark. 

Unlike the Vanil, the Gray had been created to serve Huoron unquestioningly. Their wills were utterly subservient to his own. But when the god had fallen, they had also been among the first to feel the shock and find themselves freed. Kalla had been the first to approach Remant in the wake of his disastrous victory, when he was still in the process of trying to repair his damaged body and control his strange new powers. She had promised to leave him unmolested, and only asked that he do the same for her kin in return. 

Remant had agreed, out of what his own sense of caution suggested was necessity, and departed. He had no idea what might have occurred down here since then. "You've returned," she said quietly. "Do you mean to lead us?"

"No." Remant shook his head, disgusted with the very idea. "No, if you've managed to survive down here..." He hesitated. "How have you managed to survive down here?"

"Theophagy," she admitted. "We have water, and we trade with the Cobalts and others for surface food, but mainly we survive by draining tiny bits of the blood of the fallen god. It's transforming us, but it's slow and the Presbyterium believes we can keep it under control this way."

Remant cocked his head. "You're a member of this Presbyterium?" he asked.

She smiled. "I'm it's leader." She paused for a moment to let him absorb that, then motioned him forward. "Come, let me show you something, and then come and dine with us -- ordinary food this time, cooked over ordinary fires." 

RoH: The Second Descent

Remant wasn't as familiar with this area as he was with some others, so once he was safely outside the gates he paused to invest a marker. Then he teleported back to... that place. 

The entrance was just as he'd left it, dark and seemingly empty. He entered and began the descent, retracing the way he'd taken just a few years before. He'd been younger then -- centuries younger, it felt like -- and armed and armored very differently. This outer area was composed of simple, natural caves, water-carved, damp, and dripping. He smelled the traces of Cobalts around him, silver-miners who'd retreated here and allowed themselves to be transformed, but they could see in the dark as well as he could. He had to pause briefly while they filled one particular cavern with song; but afterwards they retreated unseen, and he continued unbothered. 

It was beyond those natural caves where he found the opening to the deeper darkness, perpetual and impenetrable, and began his descent into Shadowguard. He'd only come this way once, but the way was burned into his memories. The shadow elementals waited, and when they thought he was unaware one of them attacked. He cut it in half with his blade, then called for a burst of light that sent them cowering back. He could have extended his own darkness, commanded them, but... no. He might have absorbed a portion of the fallen god's power, but he had no desire to use it. Especially not here, where the remainder of that divine power and blood had soaked into the stone below. 

The spirits drew back, and he continued his descent. 

At last he reached the Grand Hall, which was the central nexus of Shadowguard. All thing dark came together here. He remembered having only the vaguest impression of sight, when he and the others had first arrived. Now he could admire the full majesty of the place: the arched ceilings, the ornate columns with their carved masks looking down, the twin openings to the throne room and the temple. Huoron had made sacrifices only to himself, to increase his own power, but he considered that every bit as important as his throne, and at the height of the war the stream of victims who died screaming in the dark had been constant.

He hesitated. Something here had changed. As he watched, a figure emerged from the temple, paused to make sure it was seen, and then approached him carefully, hands raised and palms out. A good spellcaster could still attack from that posture, but Remant wasn't particularly worried. "Kalla," he said quietly. "You yet live." 

Holy Crap, My Dreams Are A Mess

Two part dream, or maybe three: 

Part One featured a very particular co-worker of mine having shown up at my house because I'd taken a mental health/vacation day and apparently we were supposed to be upgrading something and so we both needed to be in the office. Only it wasn't our current house, it was the home where I grew up, so of course my dad was there. The house also badly needed roof repairs and was leaking improbably amounts of water from several unlikely spots. (This had better not prove to be prescient...) Anyway, in addition to the water I was rushing around trying to locate my work shirts, socks, etc. because my Mom had moved things around, and we were already running late.

So the basic scenario for the second half was that we were on a large family trip, and due to head back out in the next day or two, so I was trying to get everything together for that. 

Only there were so many half-constructed Lego sets that I was trying to preserve, and the whole place was hugely crowded, and finally manage to hunt down one of the food cleanup guys. (They have those? Apparently they have those.) He gives me some seal-able gallon bags to put things in, so now it's just a matter of making sure all the little pieces make it into storage, along with the doll house, the little metal cars, the action figures... all of it, presumably, for the younger generation. 

(It didn't feel like mine, if that makes any sense, and I didn't feel like a kid in this dream. Though on the other hand, Beautiful Wife wasn't present neither were our kids; my parents, however, were. So I hypothetically would have been somewhere between eighteen and my early twenties, I guess.)

So having finally gotten all this sealed into bags, sorted into bins,  and piled onto a cart, and stacked on top of a couple of trays that we'd made the big family dinner on, even though we were in some sort of resort hotel, I guess? 

Anyway, after pushing the cart through probably half the hotel, I finally located my Dad. We'd just determined that we had everything here pretty much in order and he asked if I thought I was ready. 

That was when the dream moved into full-on, high-grade nightmare fuel, in the form of body horror. 

'Cause, see, I couldn't leave yet: I suddenly noticed that I had these wide, unwelcome flaps of skin growing out of my upper right arm. They were maybe an inch wide and three inches long, with little white wiggly things coming out of the ends. Which, yes, some kind of carnivorous, parasitic worm. So my Dad figures out how to squeeze them out the end of the tube -- "Thank God I remembered which way to go." -- and onto the stone walkway of the hotel's garden. I have apparently picked them up during the trip somehow. 

And, of course, now that we know what they are (sort of) I can see where they've moved down to my elbow and trying to form another tube there, only they're just under the skin so we have to squeeze them out a lot more carefully. And then there's a line of them down my arm towards my hand, so we have to pull those out, and the opens a gods-awful long slice all the way down my arm, right through the skin, so I'm sitting there looking at it and thinking, I'm going to need to get to a hospital or all this is going to get badly infected.

Fucking subcutaneous worms, man. You can probably even guess which particular book series likely inspired that bit of the dream, at least if you've been reading it too. It happens right at the beginning of book two.  

RoH: The Deal

"I do most of my work in my laboratory in the basement, or else out there in the gazebo," Dirimant Acklin, the former Viscount Durzen said quietly, "and of course we aren't looking to provide housing for our descendants if Lariza plans on moving to Foringelt. I could cede the entire north wing to you, if it would let me hold the manor."

Remant nodded. "I doubt I need more than a single floor," he said. "A bedroom, perhaps a study and a library. I travel a lot, but it would be nice to have a base of operations to come back to."

"Ah," said the dead man. "You fought in the war."

Remant nodded, and patted the sword at his side. "Now that you're dead, you can no longer be the viscount... but it's possible that I could, and simply direct that income to you to dispense as you see fit. Steward isn't as prestigious as Viscount, but as a practical matter it would probably amount to the same thing. And being dead doesn't disallow you from stewardship, so long as the property has a living owner."

Dirimant swallowed. "Why are you doing this?"

Remant shrugged. "I'd like a place to settle, or at least some place I know I could come back to. And I like it here. Your servants seem happy to serve you even now that you're dead, which suggests that you've treated them well, and..." He sighed. "I've already done enough killing to last me a lifetime and more. Probably more."

"Very well. You have yourself a deal. Purchase the house, leave us be, and take the north wing of the house; the servants will acknowledge you as their master, but me as the steward in day-to-day matters. I will see them paid and maintained. I take it you aren't looking to profit from this?"

"Not particularly," answered Remant. "I just want a place to settle."

"Done," said Dirimant Acklin, and put out his hand. "See if you can become the Viscount Dirzen; that would help. But even if you cannot, I believe we can manage." 

RoH: Death Trap Ballet

He was halfway down the path, hands still up, when they rose from the ground around him: a trio of wraiths, misty and half-seen in the midday light. "Call them off!" he shouted, and drew his sword. 

They moved, and he danced through them. Wraiths were hard to kill; ordinarily, they could allow a blade to pass through them without making contact. Remant, on the other hand, had been very specific when he had commissioned his blade: it wasn't all that powerful, but it could damage anything. The first wraith was dispelled before it knew what had happened; the blade sliced through its ghostly presence as if it were ordinary flesh. 

The other two hesitated, and Remant used that pause to cut down a second wraith. The third one tried to come at him from behind, but he spun and thrust. Impaled, it wailed its death-cry and dissolved. 

He sheathed the sword and walked towards the gazebo. He was aware that the figure back there had tried -- and failed -- to attack him with a spell when the wraiths attacked. "Don't do it," he warned. The figure -- the Viscount Forzen -- backed away, but didn't flee. He's planning something else, Remant decided, and stopped at the foot of the steps. "Former Viscount Forzen," he called up. "Will you step forward and speak to me?"

There was a momentary hesitation, and then the Viscount presented himself. Remant counted that as a minor victory, but not yet a winning move. 

In the light of the sun, the former viscount wasn't obviously undead; it was no wonder the servants failed to fear him. The signs were there, to a trained eye: very slightly sagging skin over slowly-thinning flesh, bluish undertones to the skin, dark circles around the eyes. Nothing yet that couldn't be attributed to advanced age, if one were inclined to ignore the signs. 

"You mean to take my home," the former viscount said indignantly. "Explain to me why I shouldn't destroy you here and now."

Remant sighed. "I suppose I could have done this the other way around, but here's my proposition: I buy the house outright from your niece, and basically ignore the fact that you're still here and effectively running the place. The servants seem pretty loyal to you, and you seem to be taking care of them as well. Is that still possible now that you're no longer a viscount?"

The dead man hesitated, then said: "I forget that I am dead. The spell to convert me was triggered by my death, and so for me I felt my chest clench, saw the darkness draw in, and then was... just lying there on the floor, untouched." He sighed. "It seems an unfair way to take my home and position away from me."

Remant chuckled. "I suppose it would," he said, looking up at the older man. "My question remains: without your position, could you still support your staff?"

"I believe so," said the dead viscount. "I am rather an accomplished spellcrafter, and even selling potions and scrolls would bring in good money. It would be demeaning to resort to trade, but I believe I could manage it."

Remant considered that, then nodded. "Your niece, who inherited this place, wishes to sell it and move to Foringelt. As it happens, I have money enough to buy it from her, and I have no objection to leaving it in your keeping -- if I am given a place here, perhaps a wing of the house for my own."

The dead viscount Dirimant Acklin regarded him from the top of the steps for a long, long moment. Then he came down. "Don't set foot up there," he warned. 

"I wasn't planning to," Remant told him.  

RoH: The Rear Garden

The back doors gave way to a long brick walkway, flanked by regular pairs of columns and leading to a massive gazebo. Sculpted trees and flowers were discreetly arranged around gravel paths to either side, but clearly the path forward was the one intended: there was a human -- or humanish -- figure waiting in the shadows under the roof of the gazebo. 

Oh, this is so very definitely a trap, Remant thought. Aloud, he said: "That is the former Viscount?"

"Lord Forzen, Dirimant Acklin," the servant confirmed. 

"Then you've done his will and brought me here," Remant said. "You should go back inside and close the doors."

The man swallowed. "Do you mean to kill him?"

Remant shook his head. "Not if I can help it," he said quietly. "I'd rather work something out."

The manservant touched his sleeve -- cautiously. "Then take care as you approach. The first two the solicitor sent here came armed as you are, and tried to put him down. Our lord was... not kind to them."

Remant sighed. "Legally, he's not a lord anymore. The dead cannot hold office; neither can they lay claim to the properties they held in life."

"He's still our lord," the manservant said, with a stubbornness that Remant couldn't help but admire. "And he's an accomplished spellcrafter."

"I'm walking into an ambush, I think," he told the man. "Don't follow me. Go inside and close the door. You've done your duty. If I die, that's on my head, not yours." 

Remant started forward, holding his hands up as he approached the gazebo.  

RoH: Entry Achieved

It was perhaps twenty minutes later when the door opened again. Remant had spent the time in quiet meditation, reviewing spells and tactics in his mind. Most of the undead he'd fought previously had been relatively minor: skeletons, a few zombies, a chained ghost. During the war, he'd mostly fought living opponents. 

"M'lord?" asked the manservant. 

Remant turned, keeping his movements relaxed. "Yes?"

"His Lordship the Viscount will see you now." The man motioned him inside, and Remant moved forward. 

"He bade me take you to the gardens in the back, if that is acceptable." The foyer was beautifully appointed, and Remant glanced idly around as he followed the servant across it and through the doorway at the back. He hadn't grown up with such luxury, but he'd been introduced to it later in life and knew the basics of navigating in Society. A maid looked up from dusting a bookshelf in the library as they passed, then quickly looked away. 

He could smell something cooking already, and the scent grew stronger as they reached the rear of the manor. Light came from old-style enchanted crystals in sconces; they glowed coldly, and their light could be covered but not extinguished. It was an enchantment that had largely been lost in the war; this place was old and well-preserved. 

The war had only brushed against Verovia. The invasion of the Gray had approached the city, but been turned aside by a gathered army of Vanil, Aesil, and Mordil led by mage-commander Verna Wendilar.  With reinforcements from the city, she might have prevailed; instead, she damaged the invaders so much that they were unable to successfully assault the city. 

Remant turned his attention back to the present. The servants were still employed, still being fed and housed and paid, and if he had some way of approaching them elsewhere he might have been able to learn a lot more about what was going on here. Still, he supposed there was something to be said for the direct approach. 

RoH: The Price of Entry Is Patience

The man who opened the door wore a servant's coat over a respectable shirt and slacks. His hair was gray, but his face was young. He looked Remant over, then asked: "May I help you, Sir?"

"I'd like to speak with the late Viscount Forzen," he said. "My name is Remant."

The manservant's expression changed only for the barest flicker, but he asked politely, "Have you come from that dreadful solicitor?"

Remant held up a hand. "I have, but I've come to talk. If the master of the house would spare me a little of his time, I believe we can resolve this."

The manservant held his ground. "We were given very specific instructions to turn away anyone that woman sent."

Remant paused to consider, but the manservant moved to close the door in his face. With a sigh, he stuck his hand in the opening, then forced it back open. 

"She appears to have the force of law on her side," he said, as the other man gaped at him, "along with enough money to make a compelling argument. I don't wish to see you punished, but I do need to speak to the former Viscount. So..." He thought as quickly as I could. "I will wait out here. You will go and tell him that you turned me away, but that I remain waiting outside to speak to him. Would that be acceptable?"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" asked the manservant. "You could smash right through this door if you wanted. I couldn't stop you."

"Yes," answered Remant, "but that would be rude. And this is good mahogany, beautifully crafted. It would be a shame to damage it."

The other man swallowed. "Wait out here, please. I'll tell the Viscount."

RoH: The Mansion

Remant paused on the road up to the mansion, then dismounted and led his horse the rest of the way. There were ruins, artfully built and no older than the house itself, off to one side of the drive; there was a rambling garden off to the other. 

The stable was empty when he reached it, but it still held feed; he led Peregrine inside, found a stall, and set out food and water. Then he approached the main house. 

It stood three stories tall, with wide, two-story wings to either side and marble steps leading up to the dark mahogany doors. He saw no signs of movement through the windows, but then the servants should have been given their final wages and recommendations and dismissed after the death of the Master of the House. At least, that was how things had worked before the war, and Remant assumed that the aristocracy hadn't changed much since then. Having the Master return undead might have complicated the situation in any number of ways. 

He checked the sword at his side and the dagger in his boot, flexed his armored left hand beneath the soft leather glove, and sighed. He'd left the bow and his pack with the horse; he didn't expect this to be that sort of job. Mounting the steps, he lifted the knocker and let it fall, three times.

The sound echoed through the manor, and after a time he heard footsteps approaching. 

RoH: A Haunted Mansion

"He's supposed to be dead," the solicitor explained, "But he won't go to a grave, he won't turn the house over as his own will demands, and now he's summoned things to keep people out. It could be centuries before his descendants manage to claim it."

"So you want me to... enforce the will?" Remant asked. He wasn't bothered by the prospect; he'd dealt with undead before, though not frequently. 

The woman nodded. "My client -- his niece -- needs the house to be habitable, so she can sell it off. She plans to move to Foringelt."

"And she's offering one hundred gold from the sale to whomever makes it possible?"

"Yes. We have it on hand, ready for whomever completes the job."

"Huh." Remant considered that. "I'll right, I'll take it." 

MV3: Discomfort

London Fish turned out to be a good choice for a meeting: a small, quirky seafood place with plenty of windows and a good view of its surroundings, it had been converted from an older house and still looked to have living quarters on the second floor. On a Tuesday night, it was only moderately full, and Amy's family was easy to spot: they'd taken a table towards the back, sitting together and looking over the menus. 

Andy turned towards them, noting that Chante, Sal, and Tab had been seated at a table nearby -- not that there was anything in this restaurant that wasn't nearby. Brickhouse She was watching from a van parked outside, and Andy hoped she was comfortable. 

He approached reluctantly, paused to look at the three humans, and then drew back a chair and settled into it.

Donald Black looked much as always had: dark-haired, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and well-dressed. He was some sort of supervisor at Lockheed Martin, a former engineer, and he and Andy had never really connected -- though Andy had liked him well enough. Connie Black was black-haired, dark-skinned, and brown-eyed; Amy had taken after her. She used to smile when Andy came around; now she just sighed. Thomas was likely to be the problem here -- he was dark-haired like his father, olive-skinned and blue-eyed, and he glared at Andy like he wanted to commit murder then and there.

Then he really focused, and did a huge double-take.

"Yeah," said Andy. "This is me, now. I didn't live through them either. I just happen to be dead and walking around, instead of cleanly dead."

Thomas had been two years ahead of him in school; he'd already graduated when Andy and Amy first started dating. "You're really him?"

Andy sighed. "When I first started dating her, you warned me I'd better not hurt her. I promised you that if I did, it would only be by accident." He looked at Connie. "You always made the very best cookies, and looked like you just wanted Amy to be happy." 

Donald grunted, and Andy shifted to face him. "I never quite knew how to try to talk to you. I tried to help out with the grilling on the Fourth, but you shooed me away."

Donald grunted again, but nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe that was my fault. My baby girl, you know?"

Andy shook his head. "I felt that way about her, too." There. He didn't know how to be any more clear than that. "And then we were studying in the living room, and these things busted in the door and killed us, and now I'm one of them."

"You better have tried to protect her," Thomas half-growled. 

"How?" asked Andy, then swallowed and held up a hand. "No, I'm sorry. I tried, but they were well above my weight class. Judith only survived because they were busy with us, and she hid. If I'd known they were coming and had a ton of magic bullets, I might have been able to do something. I wish..." He swallowed. "I wish I could have gotten her out." 

"Thomas," said Connie. "He's right." She looked at me, then sighed. "I did some research. You're stronger now, aren't you?"

I nodded, reluctantly.

"A lot stronger. And the ones involved in the attack would have been stronger than that."

I nodded again. "Yeah."

Thomas sat still for a very, very long time. Finally he looked up and asked, "What do you think, Dad?"

Donald shook his head, then met my eyes. "I wish she hadn't gone over to your house," he said. "But my beautiful wife--" He reached over, and squeezed her hand. "--is right. It's like wishing she hadn't gotten hit by that drunk driver."

I sat back, and then realized that a waitress was standing beside us. "Um," she said, and cleared her throat. "Are you ready to order?" 

MV3: Reunions

Charleston by night was still beautiful, the flowers just starting to bloom and the waters, while cold, still welcoming. Andy didn't venture out to fully explore it; Chante wanted him under guard in his room, and he couldn't argue. The handsome man in the fitted suit had turned out to be a demon, Sal A. Czar, and the massive woman said she was one of the nephilim -- Brickhouse She. Tab turned out to be a nature spirit, her coat embroidered with colorful feathers, quiet and watchful. 

The Authority had confirmed that Amy's family was in town. The meeting was scheduled for the Chubby Fish, shortly after dark. 

"I don't like this," Chante said, looking out the window of the hotel. She'd sent Tab out to look the place over while it was still daylight, but she still looked nervous.

Andy stirred from where he was reading on the bed, and said: "I only agreed in order to get them off my family's back. I honestly don't like it either, but I don't want to call it off."

"We'll see it through," she assured him. "I just hope this Titus Anthropicus doesn't manage to show up."

Andy considered the gun under his pillow. "Kill him if he does," he said quietly. "I don't care if he takes me down with him, I want him dead."

Chante turned to look at him. "Yeah, well, our remit is to keep you alive, so I do care. Don't put yourself in the line of fire."

Andy nodded. "All right," he said, and went back to his book. 

MV2: Private Plane

"Andy?" asked the ghost, as he stepped out of the car. She was unfamiliar, and accompanied by a handsome man in a fitted suit, the holster under his arm visible but not glaringly obvious.

Andy nodded, and Mr. Siegel opened the driver's door and stepped out. "This is him."

"Good," the ghost nodded. "Tab's checking over the crew, so once she's done we can be on our way."

A massive figure strolled over from the hangar doors, wearing what must have been a custom suit. She was easily eight feet tall, and heavily enough built to seem even larger. She'd disdained a suit jacket in favor of a trench coat, but still wore a button-down shirt with her slacks. 

"Chante," said the ghost, holding out a hand. 

Andy shook it, ignoring the sudden chill, and nodded. "Andrew McFall -- Andy." He raised his voice slightly, so the other two could hear. "Mr Siegel... thank you." 

The wolf nodded. "I'll let Mr. Carillo know you made it this far safely."

Andy turned back to the ghost. "You're my... security detail?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I don't know who you are, kid, but the Authority sure seems to have taken an interest."

"Genuinely no idea why," Andy told her. "I'm a newly-turned wight, nobody important when I was still alive, and nobody important among us others either."

Chante studied him for a long moment, then shrugged. "No idea," she admitted. "But we have our orders, so off we go."

The massive woman huffed a laugh. "Just like always."

The handsome man in the custom suit smiled. "Once more unto the breach, whatever that turns out to be this time."

Andy nodded. "Glad to have you along." He followed them onto the plane as Mr. Siegel turned the sedan around and headed back for the academy. 

Valthor: A Pirate With A Vision

Valthor hadn't honestly expected to like the admiral, but then he'd been surprised before and at least this one was pleasant. Borith Cove was practically designed to be a pirate city, with a narrow, defensible channel leading into a sheltered cove and plenty of ships and crews to defend it. It had plenty of docks, plus its own shipyards -- and, it turned out, a whole set of farm plots run by widows whose husbands had been lost at sea. It wasn't quite enough to make island self-sufficient, but it looked to be well on its way. 

They'd found the admiral in the inn on one of the pair of islands at the center of the cove, and almost accidentally had confirmed that Captain Razin of the Gloamshine -- the boat they were currently traveling on -- counted himself among the pirates. As far as Valthor was concerned, that was fine; as freebooters went, they didn't seem to be especially evil or destructive. They'd certainly worked hard enough in trying to get the elves and orcs to their negotiations.

So now the four of them -- he, Rrhorask, and Tizrin of the Adventurer's Guild, along with a priest named Sy -- were exploring the town at the admiral's instruction. In person, she had turned out to be a drow elf -- which might have been awkward at sea, but worked well enough since her particular admiralty was over the town of Borith itself. Or, possibly, the whole island, but Valthor didn't think so.

So far, they'd met the captain of the Widows' Farms -- a rather friendly halfling -- and the captain of NewTown, which ironically was no longer especially new. She was a Tortle, already older than anything Valthor expected to live to see, and apparently the center of a network of information-gathering. Now they were on their way to where the admiral was having the old fort atop the hill rebuilt. He was looking forward to seeing it.

 

MV2: Meet With The Mortals

"They're insistent," Mr. Carillo told him, and Andy chuckled, then managed not to sigh. "They want to meet with you in person. Make sure you're not some kind of AI hoax."

"Where?"

"My supervisor is suggesting that we go long and try Charleston. Keep them, and you, well away from here. Plus, if your maker is still looking for you, he's unlikely to look east."

Andy considered that. "Not the worst idea I've ever heard. Any chance we can get the original team to oversee the meet -- Steve, Veronica, and Rodney?"

Mr. Carillo shook his head. "They're busy with something else. There's another crew available, though. Well-rated, reliable."

"Fine." Oh, this is such a bad idea and I so very much do not want to do this. "Let's get it over with."

Mr. Carillo studied him for a long moment. "All right. I'll call it in and get it set up. Anybody you want to take with you?"

This time, Andy sighed loudly. "No. Nobody here I'd want to put at risk."

He sat back and closed his eyes as Mr. Carillo solidified and picked up the phone on his desk. In half an hour it was settled: a meeting, two weeks from now, in London Fish in Charleston, South Carolina. Andy would be taking a private plane, so he wouldn't have to go through airport security or present any sort of identification; the security team would meet him when he boarded. And meanwhile Amy's family would get a free trip to another city, which... he hoped they weren't too far gone to appreciate it. He'd never been to Charleston himself, but it sounded lovely.

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.

MV2: Amy's Family

"We have an... interesting issue," Mr. Carillo said quietly. They were sitting in his office, a small room in the central building of the compound.

Andy waited. 

"It's your girlfriend's family: they're asking to see you. They want to hear the story from you."

"No."

Mr. Carillo sighed. "We told them it wasn't safe, but they say they don't care. They're not dropping anything until you meet with them."

"I could call them, but meeting in person? They know I'm being hunted, right?"

"Our people did try to explain."

Andy sighed. "Would the Authority even be willing to set that up? I mean, we'd need a safe location, security, I don't even know what else. Some ethical way to keep me fed, I guess. That's money and resources."

"And still a risk," Mr. Carillo added softly. "It might be the only way to get them off your family's back, though."

"Could we set up a video call?"

Mr. Carillo cocked his head at that. "...I'll ask."

Andy nodded. He didn't want to see Amy's family -- didn't want to talk to them at all. Her death was a dull, persistent ache in his chest, and the thought of hashing it out with them just made the pain more acute. But if that was what it took, he'd do it.

MV2: Rebuilding

"You don't actually have to do that," Trainer Jim said, and Andy turned to face him. "I can just order more. They aren't that expensive."

Andy shrugged. "It makes me feel better, especially since I didn't get permission before I broke them." He was in the woodshop, carving and fitting another pair of training dummies to replace the ones he'd broken.  

"Ah," said Trainer Jim. "Then you're not going to want me to help out with them, either."

"Nope." Andy shook his head. "They're... kind of crude, but they should still work."

"They'll be fine."

When Andy looked up a few minutes later, the trainer was gone.  

MV2: Spirits and Spades

Maria OG opted out of the game, claiming to prefer watching a bit more television to playing cards, which surprised Andy a little bit. He was less surprised when Tłʼóoʼdi suddenly appeared and took a seat at the table. She was dressed in a bright green skirt and top, with a cape of feathers thrown over her shoulders, and she studied Andy for a long moment as he cut the cards. He was suddenly very aware that he was dealing with newborn spirits here; it wasn't like the wolves, who'd all had prior life experience and then become monsters."Everybody good with numbers?" he asked quietly. 

"I can count," Tom said quietly, then glanced nervously at the other two. 

They nodded, so Andy asked, "And how a standard deck of cards is counted?"

Tłʼóoʼdi looked puzzled, so Andy launched into an explanation of the suits, the numbers, the face cards... and how all that fit into the rules for Spades. "So the way this works is that four of us are two teams. I'm sitting across from Tłʼóoʼdi, so we're one team. Divvy and Tom, you're the other team. What you need to do now is make your best guess about how many hands you can win with the cards you're holding; that's your bid. There's a rule called 'sandbagging' where you lose points if you win too much more than you predicted, but we're going to ignore that for now."

He dealt the cards, then sat back to let everybody write down their bids. Tom nodded seriously, studying his cards, then turned them towards Andy. "What should I do with this?"

Ahhhhh... Andy shook his head. "I mean, first of all, you're really not supposed to show your cards to anyone else, especially the opposing team. But all right, first time out, we'll just walk through it." He laid his own cards out on the table, face up. "With what I'm holding here, I think I can take three hands. Tłʼóoʼdi, will you show us your cards?"

She laid hers down just as he had, and cocked her head as she studied him. 

"All right," he said. "With what you're holding, I'd say you can probably take four. Tom, if you play it right I think you can do the same. Divvy, do you want to show us, or keep yours hidden?"

"Hidden," said the spirit. "That's what keep the game interesting, right? Not knowing what the other players are holding?"

"It is," Andy acknowledged, "but since this is our first game there's nothing wrong with looking at the strategies openly."

"Even so," said Divvy. "I believe I can take five."

"All right," said Andy, and wrote it down on the notepad he'd grabbed from the shelves. "Let's find out."

He picked his cards back up, and Tłʼóoʼdi and Tom did as well.  

"Trust your partners," he advised. "You don't have to put down the card you think is most likely to win a hand, if you think your partner has one that will do it or if you think what they already put down will take it. If you're sure your team is going to lose a particular hand, you can use it to get rid of low-value cards that you know won't win anything."

He wasn't terribly surprised when Tom and Divvy took the first game. Advantage of surprise, and all that, he thought, smiling. "Well done," he said. "Tłʼóoʼdi, well played. It didn't go our way, but you have the idea now. When we play again, nobody shows their cards -- and maybe we can kick their asses, metaphorically speaking."

The woman in the cape of feathers smiled at him. 

MV2: Spirits of the Land

"Oh, hi," Andy said automatically, stopping to study the dark-skinned man in the hallway. 

He was dressed in a swallow-tailed coat and a top had, with an enormous, garish feather affixed to it. Of the two newborn nature spirits, he was the one most often visible; the other one preferred to remain unseen most of the time. 

The man hesitated. "You're a wight," he said. 

Andy nodded. "Andy." They'd been over this in their early-evening group meetings, but maybe it needed to be reiterated. "And you're Divvy."

The spirit nodded. Like the black-eyed child Tom, he had a solid, physical presence despite his origins; the hand he offered felt like, well, a hand when Andy clasped it. "Where you at on environmental stuff?" he asked. 

Andy chose his words carefully. "Conservationist," he said after a moment. "I mean, leave some room for camping and hiking, but keep the natural beauty in place. Otherwise, why bother with the camping and hiking?"

Divvy nodded and grinned. "Baby steps," he agreed. "Like to see the whole continent returned to its natural state, but that ain't gonna happen."

Andy nodded softly. "Does seem a pity sometimes. You up for a game of cards? Maria OG and Tom are usually up by now, and I've been trying to teach them to play Spades."

Divvy laughed. "Sure, I'm in. All you had to do was ask."

Andy chuckled. "I've been trying to take it slow," he said. "Several reasons."

"No need to explain," answered the spirit. "Come on. If your friends don't want to play, maybe you can show me and Tłʼóoʼdi."

MV2: The Second Call

"Andy?" asked Mr. Carillo. 

Andy frowned. He'd only just gotten out of bed, and it was still daylight outside; early spring, but bright and crisp. "Yes?"

Mr. Carillo held out a cell phone. "Your  family called back."

"Ah." he put them on speaker, then said, "Hello?"

"Can we see you?" asked his mother, immediately. "Even if you're..."

"I looked up some information on wights," Judith put in. "Like, we know how you probably look now."

The sound Andy made was something like, "Ahhhgh--" He looked to Mr. Carillo, who said: "We could probably arrange something, but doing it without endangering you or your family would be... tricky."

"Maybe," Andy said into the speaker. "I don't know if you heard that, but... Like I said, the guy who killed me is still looking for me, and he wouldn't hesitate to use any of you as hostages. Or to murder you outright, if he had half a reason for it. I think the Authority would authorize social media contact -- assuming we can all be very discreet -- but I think it's better to keep my distance for now."

His father said, "That's... definitely better than nothing."

Judith sounded momentarily scared. "I don't ever want to see those things again. I have nightmares about them."

"I don't want them anywhere near you," Andy affirmed quietly. "Or me, really, but I'm the one they were looking for."

"But you're okay, right?" asked his mother. 

"I'm good," he replied. "We're working on feeding -- so far I have pretty good control of it -- and I'm finishing up high school online, and we're looking at self-defense after that, even though we're pretty safe here."

"That's... that's good, Honey. I'm proud of you."

Andy nodded, and managed not to rub at his eyes by an act of will. "If the situation changes, I'll let you know." 

They fell to more day-to-day issues after that -- how Judith was doing in school, how Andy liked his classmates, his dad's frustrations with his job as an engineer, his mother's taking a break from her career as a nurse. It was good to just talk about daily life -- a reminder for Andy that life went on, and maybe a reassurance for his family that he was still doing well even after the tragedy. 

When he finally hung up, it was full dark and time to get back to his studies. 

MV2: Practice Dummies

Trainer Jim -- apparently the werecougar's name was James Trainor -- had set up a a dozen or so wooden training dummies behind the classrooms building. Andy had already demolished three of them, with a combination of barehanded strikes, basic claws, and the longer claws of a wight. He knew there was a woodshop on campus; he'd have to build more to make up for it, but right now he needed to break things. Hitting the punching bag in the gym just hadn't done it for him. 

"Hey," said a soft voice behind him. 

Andy spun around, and found himself looking at Sam W -- Samantha Wolfe, she was calling herself, having apparently been turned in her late forties. He thought there was a joke to it, but he didn't get the reference. She was the werewolf who'd asked about shooting guns, though. 

She held her hands up and he put his claws away.

"Hey," she said again. "It's not really any of my business, and I'll go away if you want, but... are you all right?"

He shook his head. "No. No, I am so very much not all right."

She nodded. "You want to talk about it?"

He sighed, looking at the scattered bits of wood that had been three practice dummies, and the gouges in a fourth one. I should stop now, while there are still enough left for the class to use. Did he feel better? He wasn't sure, but he thought so. "I'm taking classes online to finish high school."

Sam nodded. "You mentioned that while we were waiting for movie night one time."

"Yeah, well... Internet connection. So I opened up social media, and saw... what my family is going through right now. Kind of had a meltdown."

"That's... how bad is it?"

"My family was in mourning. My girlfriend died in the same attack where I was turned, and her family is... turning their grief to anger. At everyone, including my family, the school... and particularly my sister, who survived the attack by hiding in her room and calling for help."

"Oh." Sam paused for a moment, picturing that. "Jesus. That's..."

"Yeah. That's why I've been hiding in my room for the last three days. Mr. Carillo arranged for me to call my family and let them know what's really going on, but I think I'm going to have to talk to Amy's family too. I've asked the Authority to give them more information about what happened, and how little chance any of us had of stopping it." He turned away, then turned back. "I thought I was okay, that I was handling all this, but then it all caught up to me and I'm... not."

"Andy... You're still calling yourself Andy, right? ...it's okay. You're allowed to freak out." Sam hesitated, then said, "God knows I did. If I hadn't been presumed dead, I'd owe the apartment complex a few thousand dollars in damages. At least all you did was hide away for a little while, and break some things that were built to be broken."

Andy sat down on the grass. "Thanks," he said.

Sam moved cautiously closer, and when he didn't object she sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. "I don't know if we're friends, exactly," Sam said carefully, "but I like you, and as far as I know the others do too. We've been lucky; no real assholes in this class, even if we do have our own issues. As far as I can tell, you're doing just fine. Plus, I owe you for getting us started on self-defense training. So if there's anything I can do to help, let me know."

Andy nodded. He didn't like asking for help; he never had. But the offer was genuine, and maybe it was time to consider that mutual support was supposed to go both ways. "Thank you," he said quietly. 

MV2: Family Reunion

"Andy?" asked his mother. "How... Where are you?"

"Colorado, I think. I didn't ask." 

She gave a shaky laugh. "They said you were dead."

"When I was very young, I had a stuffed turtle that went with me everywhere. When Grandpa passed on, I asked if I could leave it in the coffin with him, to keep him company."

"Holy shit," said his father, clearly audible over the phone. "How is this even...?"

Andy sighed. "I wasn't supposed to get in touch with you. I really did die. And then three days later I came back as a wight, because that was what killed me. The Authority has a whole system for dealing with situations like this, and they've been doing their best to teach me how to live as... something like this. Not quite human, not quite alive."

"But you are alive," said Judith. "I mean, you called, you're talking to us."

He nodded, knowing they wouldn't see it. "You wouldn't recognize me, though. I look dead. I don't have a heartbeat. That's why I didn't come back home."

"Son..." His father cleared his throat. "Come home anyway."

Andy hesitated, then shook his head. "I can't. The thing that killed me is still looking for me. I can't risk leading it to you."

"What about Amy?" asked Judith. "Any chance that she...?"

"No. A clean death, I was told. And I think if she'd been reborn the way I was, they'd have kept us together."

Mr. Carillo nodded at that. 

"Oh." Judith sounded sad. "I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't your fault you survived, Sis. You were smart, and lucky. Amy and I were... right in the line of fire. Dumb fucking luck, but there it is."

"Andy," his mother said. Then, a moment later, she continued with, "Never mind. It's not like your little sister has never heard curse words."

"Yeah, I know about those, Mom," said Judith. "I do watch YouTube."

"All right," said his father. "If you can't come home, and you were supposed to be dead, why call us?"

Andy hesitated for a long moment. "Because I thought it would help more than hurt. I might be dead, technically, but you'd still want to know I was all right -- and so far, I am. I can't imagine that this was any harder for me than it was for you, but... Listen, I'm still out here and I still love you guys. I worry about you."

There was a long silence, then his father burst into tears. His mother said, "I think... this was a lot. Can we... can we take a little while to sit with it, and then maybe talk to you again?"

"That might be a really good idea," said Andy, who was feeling more than a little overwhelmed himself. "Just... before I go... Judith?"

"Yeah?"

"You did the right thing. You stayed in your room and called for help, and it kept you alive. I don't really know how you're holding up, but I think you living through that was vital for Mom and Dad. You understand? And for me. You couldn't have changed things, and hiding wasn't cowardice. It... it was survival. Be proud of yourself, Sis, okay? Even if it's hard."

Judith sniffed. "I wish I could have saved you."

"I just told you: I think you did." He ended the call before he could say anything else, and stood for a time just staring down at the phone. His family doubtless had the number now and could have called back, but they didn't. He suspected they needed some time to adjust just as much as he did.  

MV2: Casting Oil On Troubled Waters

It took a few hours to get back on his feet, but when Tom threw his arms around Andy's waist he was glad he'd done it. Mr. Siegel was one of the wolves and one of the teachers, and willing to endanger himself by letting a starved wight feed off of him. Andy was starting to realize how much more life could be gained from other monsters than ordinary humans, and scaled his feeding down to suit. The beast stirred, but didn't rise. 

"You can't just give up," Tom said, looking up at him with those eerie black eyes. "Not when I don't even know where I came from."

Andy nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. I've just been... I think it all caught up to me."

Tom nodded. "Better now?"

"Not yet," Andy admitted. "But I'm willing to consider that it could be."

"All right," said Mr. Carillo. "Your voice shouldn't have changed much, and I've got a call going through to your family."

Andy stepped up, took the phone in a grip that should have broken it, and waited until an unmistakable voice said, "Hello?"

"Judy?" he asked quietly. 

There was a long moment of silence. Then his sister asked, "Am I supposed to believe that you're Andy?"

"Not really," he said, thinking fast. He was suddenly proud of his little sister for being suspicious that this might be a scam. "You remember those stupid banana-shaped earrings that I got you last Christmas?"

"Worst gag gift ever."

"Yeah, but you did wear them to school." 

"The uniform shirts are bright yellow. They matched."

"Okay, look. Put the phone down, go into my room, and look under the far left corner of the bed. I had a box back there."

Judith hesitated, then said: "All right, wait a moment."

When she came back a few minutes later she asked, "Condoms? Why did you want me to know you had condoms. Were you and Amy--?"

"I didn't want you to know. It was just the most secret thing I had -- the best way to prove that I'm me."

There was a long pause. "Andy?" Judith asked. 

"Yeah," he said. "I died. But I was killed by a wight, and I came back as one. I don't look... much of anything like you remember."

"But you're alive." 

"Sort of. And I am so, so grateful that you are really truly no-shit alive." Andy hesitated. "Can you find Mom and Dad? And put this on speaker?"

"No bullshit?" she asked suspiciously. 

"No bullshit." 

MV2: Hard Wall

There was a knock at the door, and Mr. Carillo's voice called, "Andy? Are you in there?"

And groaned and rolled over. "Go away," he called back. 

"Ah," said Mr. Carillo, a little more softly. "May I come in?"

Andy considered that. "If you must."

There was a brief burst of mist, and Mr. Carillo was inside the door. It remained closed, and locked, behind him. "Andy..."

"I'm taking a break," Andy said. 

"You haven't been out of your room in three days," the ghost pointed out. "You need to feed, at least."

"No," he said deliberately, "I don't. I need to wither, and fade, and move on."

"Andy," said Mr. Carillo, soft but intense, "What happened?"

He sighed. "I checked social media. My little sister's in shock -- and therapy, at least. My parents are grieving and sound like they might get a divorce. Amy's family -- she was my girlfriend -- are looking for somebody to take it out on, and with the Authority blocking them they're going after the people in my life: my parents, our teachers, the school... as if Amy should never have been allowed to come over, even if it was her decision, as if I could have done anything more to protect her, as if it's Judith's fault that she managed to survive when we didn't. She's fourteen, Mr. Carillo. She's not equipped to deal with this." He rolled over to face the wall. "Just seal me in and let me rot here."

"That won't kill you," Mr. Carillo told his back. "It might drive you mad, if you're lucky, but it won't kill you."

Fine, then I'll kill myself. It wasn't as if he hadn't thought about it. "Just go away."

The ghost actually sighed. "Not yet. I don't think we can afford to lose you. Y.T. seems to find your presence reassuring; Maria OG, Judgement, and Tom genuinely like you -- they were the first to ask after you -- and even the wolves respect you. They know you've fought."

Andy frowned, but rolled back over. "Then you're going to have to stage an intervention," he said, quietly. "Not with me. Tell the Gordon family what really happened, how little chance we had of stopping it, and get them off my family's back. Figure out if letting my family know I'm still around, even undead, would help or hurt. Get some restraining orders if you need."

Mr. Carillo hesitated for a long moment, then nodded. "All right. Will you come out and feed?"

"If it will help fix this," said Andy, flinging the blanket back and coming to his feet. 

"All right. I'll have to make some calls, so bear with me." 

MV2: A Hypothetical Job Offer

"Would you like to work for me?" asked the demon. "I could use an enforcer, and Y.T. already said no."

Andy frowned, studying her. She was just a little shorter than he was, beautiful despite the reddish tinge to her skin and the short black horns growing out of her temples. Her blouse had been adjusted to accommodate the wings on her back, and she was studying him in a way that suggested measuring his worth.

He wondered if it would be worth the effort to stab her, then said: "Ask me later. I'm not making any career decisions right now."

She shrugged. "You're going to miss your chance to get in on the ground floor. Once I've finished adjusting to this realm, I'm going to go big. I'm already making plans."

"Do your plans include a name?" he asked. "I'm Andy."

"Agrat B," she told him. 

"All right. Well, if you want to conquer the world or whatever, keep in touch. Just 'cause I'm not ready to commit now..."

"I'll keep it in mind," she conceded. "If conquest doesn't work, I might try starting a record label in LA."

Andy blinked. "I've heard worse ideas," he admitted.

MV2: Wolves and Claws

"Andy, step over here." Jim was sandy-haired, grey-eyed, and evidently could turn into a mountain lion; he had been brought in for their combat training. He wasn't tall, but he was solidly built and moved with a dancer's grace. 

Andy rose, crossed to the center of the roped-off training area, and positioned himself where the werecougar indicated. Y.T. watched him from the edge of the impromptu ring; so did the three werewolves, a ghost, and one of the vampires. Apparently he wasn't the only one who was worried about self-defense -- not by far. 

"Good. Jürgen, if you'd be so kind...?" One of the wolves rose, stepped into the arena, and planted himself opposite Andy.

"You've done some wrestling, haven't you?" asked Jim, and Jürgen nodded. Of the three wolves, he was the one who seemed most at peace with his condition, happiest at being a monster.

"Excellent," Jim said. "Keep your human form, and wrestle with Andy, here."

Jürgen came in immediately, tangling arms and trying for a lock; Andy countered, sweeping him up and carefully not breaking his back across his knee. Jürgen came to his feet, growling softly.

"Stop," said Jim. "So, this is the first lesson: don't underestimate your opponent. Jürgen, I deliberately set you at a disadvantage, and I apologize for it. But you need to understand that while both of you were athletic as mortals, wights -- in general -- are roughly as strong as wolves in our full-wolf form. And unlike us, they are that strong all the time."

Jürgen shifted to his half-wolf form.

"Good," said Jim. "Andy... claws."

Andy called out his claws, then called out the longer versions of them, hands and feet alike.

"Wights can have longer claws than we do as well," Jim said quietly. "Where we have an advantage, if we can use it, is that we can bite." He sighed. "Sit back down, both of you."

Andy went to sit back down, and Jürgen -- after a momentary hesitation -- did so as well.

"Combat is situational," Jim continued. "You want any advantage you can find. Claws, fangs... pick up a weapon if you can. Be aware of your surroundings, and it's best if you have friends beside you. Working together will give you advantages that raw strength or speed can't match." He hesitated. "That assumes you haven't had time to plan in advance, but we'll deal with more deliberate combat later. Right now, we're looking at situations where you have to defend yourself unexpectedly."

One of the wolves held her hand up. When Jim looked over at her, she said: "Question: will we be looking at weapons? I mean, claws and fangs are all well and good, but if I can just shoot a fucker instead..."

Jim nodded. "Yes. We'll be looking at all of it. Not least because not everyone here has claws."

MV2: An Animated Conversation

"Judgement," said the aggressively ordinary man, and offered a hand. He was just a little taller than Andy, with medium-brown hair, medium-brown eyes, and medium-brown skin -- for the moment.

Andy had happened to be passing by when the Animate came out of his room, before he'd put his face on; he was a silvery-gray humanoid figure, with fingers but no distinct toes, a head but no eyes or mouth and only the vague suggestion of nose and ears. "Andy," he offered in return, and shook.

The Animate's grip was firm but not aggressive. "Would you share your story with me?"

"If you like," Andy said. "What would you like to know?" He didn't see any real point in keeping secrets; not here, not now. 

"Would you start by explaining to me how you became a monster? I have heard Y.T.'s story, but I suppose yours must be different. It is yours, after all."

"All right," said Andy, and did his best to explain about being an ordinary human going about his life, being attacked by monsters, and waking up as one himself. When he was finished, Judgement nodded.

"I thank you. Would you care to hear my own?"

"Of course," said Andy. "We should get moving towards the classrooms, though."

"Let us talk as we walk, then." Judgement started down the hall, and Andy paced along with him. "I was a mannequin -- in a department store, I believe. My early memories are not the clearest. But I was stolen by a small group of friends, who were also employees of the store, and they enjoyed taking me along with them -- to their apartments, to their parties, to nightclubs... and to movies. They would sit with me, adjust me, pretend to talk to me -- or to talk for me, to others." He paused. "Then there was a moment. We were all watching the second Terminator movie, and there was a moment when the T-1000 paused to look at a mannequin like myself. I realized then and there that I was me, that I was alive, that I could alter my appearance just as it did." 

"That must have been a shock," Andy said quietly. 

"No more than waking back up after dying, I suspect," answered Judgement. "I did not wish to scare my friends, so I waited until they were asleep, took on the seeming of an ordinary man, and departed. I had no idea what I was intended to do, of course, and no real idea how to navigate the world -- and this was in Boston. It wasn't long before the Authority picked me up and brought me here."

"Well," said Andy, "It's a pleasure to meet you, and I'm glad you're among us."

"You as well," returned the Animate. "It is my hope to someday be human myself, but for now all I can do is look like one -- and do my best to learn their ways."

Andy considered that for the space of a breath, then for another. "That's an admirable goal," he said finally. "Let me know if I can help."

Judgement considered that. "For now, I collect stories. What I lack in living as a human, I hope to make in learning about them."

Andy hesitated, holding open the door to the central building that held the school rooms. "All right. I have other stories I can share, when we have time."

"You are gracious," Judgement observed. "Like my friends were." 

MV2: Human Wights Issues

"Have you tried talking to the dead yet?" asked Y.T., as they walked back towards the dorm. 

Andy shook his head. "No. I'm pretty sure my maker can, and I know he can reanimate corpses, but I'm not sure I want to develop that as a skill. Not unless I'm going to join the hunters, and that is not a decision I'm prepared to make any time soon."

"I finally managed it today," Y.T. said. "It's tricky, but I could help you."

Andy considered that, nodded. "Let me think about it. Also, congratulations."

"Thanks." She'd scaled back some of her initial intensity now that they'd had a few days to get used to each other. "I'd like to work on claws, but..." 

He glanced at her. "Why?"

She shrugged. "Paranoia, maybe," she admitted. "I'm stronger than most humans, but if another monster jumped me? Claws are about the only edge I'd have. Can't count on raising the dead to defend myself. And there are worse things out there than us."

"We can carry weapons," Andy observed quietly, "but..." He trailed off, thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of having a built-in fistful of knives as opposed to carrying a gun around. "I mean, I'll try to help if you want."

"Thanks," she said. "I... I find it a little hard to believe you're seventeen. You don't talk like it, and you sure don't act like it. If this had happened to me back then, I'd have been actively suicidal."

Andy huffed. "I can't say it did anything good for my mental health. And I spend a lot more time reading books than talking to other people, so I suspect I kind of talk like it."

"You do, but that's not a bad thing." Y.T. hesitated. "Listen, I'm sorry for coming on so strong when you first got here. I just... I really wanted to have somebody else like me around, so I wouldn't feel like such a fucking freak."

"See, now you sound like you're twenty-five. I'm seventeen; I felt like a freak even before I was turned."

That got a laugh out of her. "You want a hug?" she asked. 

"Sure."

They leaned in, awkwardly, hugged, and withdrew. "We don't really stop having human needs, I guess," Y.T. said quietly...

And Andy said, "Yeah." 

MV2: Settling In

It took two days to get him properly set up and logged in to the online classes, but once they were ready Andy loved it. He could work almost any time, even during the day when he was trapped indoors; he could work as quickly or as slowly as he wanted to; and while he still had particular curricula he needed to complete, he could look at other things as well. It didn't take him long to fill out his class schedule.

Maria and Tom were frequently awake, especially when night was approaching, and the three of them wound up bonding over shared schedules as much as anything else. Maria was calling herself Maria OG -- "Original Ghoul" -- and had been turned much as Andy had, though ghouls didn't usually bother with the living. She'd been working in a mortuary, she explained, and had the misfortune to cross paths with a particularly desperate ghoul. Unlike Andy's maker, hers apparently felt really bad about it, and had brought her to the Authority himself, risking a citation to do it.

Andy tried not to be jealous about that. 

Tom, on the other hand, was less clear on his own origins. The black-eyed children were another order of being entirely, more akin to a ghost or a nature spirit despite having a physical form. "I woke up beside a stretch of road," he'd said quietly. "There was a car going by, so I put my thumb out. The driver picked me up, and I knew he'd done horrible things and was planning to do them to me, too. So I did horrible things to him."

"So how did you wind up here?" Andy asked. "If it's not prying, I mean. Don't tell us anything you don't want to."

"No, it's okay," Tom said. "After they found the wreck, a few people came to poke around who felt... I don't know. More like me. I ran, at first, but after a while I decided to talk to them, and... here we are."

Maria had nodded slowly at that. "Well, if it's any help, I'm glad you're here, Mijo."

Tom had nodded. "I wish I knew what I was... like, am I kid? Am I a ghost who just looks like a kid? I have these instincts, but... I like being here, where you two like me. And you're not... what that guy I killed was."

Andy had nodded at that. "I don't know either," he said. "I barely know what I am. But if you have a problem and you want... I don't know, help or advice... I'll do the best I can." 

"Me too," said Maria. "But you know that." 

Tom hesitated, then just said, "Thanks."

And then they went back to watching the baking show. 

MV2: Feeding at School

"This way," Mr. Carillo said, then paused as they reached the hallway. "Ms. Jiménez."

Stepping our behind him, Andy found himself facing a black-haired, dark-skinned woman in her... late twenties or early thirties? He wasn't sure. Definitely a grownup, regardless.  "You were looking for me," she said easily. "And this must be the young Mr. McFall."

Andy nodded and remembered his manners. "A pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

She chuckled gently as she studied him. "We agreed I should be the first one for you feed on here," she said.

"Oh?" asked Andy. "All right."

"Would you like some privacy, or...?"

Andy looked to  Ms. Jiménez, who offered a small shrug. "Here is fine," he said. "It's not like I've had a lot of privacy so far."

"All right," she said. "We'll have some other options for you later on, but for right now..."

He nodded and reached out. She wasn't a tall woman, but there was something about her... Maybe it was just self-assurance. She wasn't afraid of either of them; she wasn't even nervous. 

He put his palm to her forehead, and felt a sudden and unexpected surge of power; he choked it back immediately, even as the beast tried to rise up inside him. He was not going to mess this up, and he was not going to hurt anybody who was trying to help him...

He yanked his hand back. He felt better, fresher, his thoughts sharper; likely he looked better as well. He already knew that without feeding, his body would wither into something even more corpse-like, and he didn't want that at all. His appearance was bad enough as it was.

Ms. Jiménez sucked in a breath, then smiled. "Very good," she said.

"What just happened?" Andy demanded. "That was... that was a lot."

"Claws," said Mr. Carillo. 

Andy looked down at his hands, then realized the full length of his claws were out. That had been the beast, and he hadn't realized it... but at least he hadn't done any harm with them. "Sorry," he said, and resorbed them into his fingers. 

"You passed a test," Ms. Jiménez told him. "I promise you, most times we'll warn you in advance. But feeding -- draining -- is a touchy issue, and one of the main sources of friction between monsters and the human world. So we needed to make sure you could handle yourself in unexpected circumstances."

Why would you risk that??? His expression must have been obvious, because Ms. Jiménez chuckled again. "I'm a sorceress," she said. "Also a witch, but that's less important here. I can set a working to break the connection if it passes a certain point, and I did -- only you didn't get there."

"I'm a little worried about the claws," Mr. Carillo said. "Veronica told me you could call them out, but wights don't usually extend them during feeding."

Andy considered that, but only for a moment. "There's... something in my mind. I'm not sure how to describe. It's like a second self, but it's... feral. Bestial. Feeding is tricky for me because it, uh... takes an interest when I do."

Mr. Carillo exchanged a glance with Ms. Jiménez. "That isn't usual either."

Andy shrugged. "The person who first tried to help me control my feeding was a psychic, I think. She touched it, it woke up, and she pulled back out -- fast."

Ms. Jiménez frowned. "That sounds more like a were than a wight," she said.

Andy nodded. "Steve -- he was one of the hunters who brought me here -- said that too. Then he smelled me and said I was definitely a wight, though." 

Ms. Jiménez grunted thoughtfully. "We'll just have to keep an eye on that, I guess."

MV2: Negotiated Planning

"We're probably going to have to set you up with classes online," Mr. Carillo said, as the other monsters filed out. "Feeding won't be an issue -- we have a decent staff of human donors, who rotate feedings so nobody gives too much. You can feed safely, can't you?"

"So far," Andy told the ghost. 

"That's a relief. What I'd like is to get you the rest of the way to your diploma in the earlier hours of the evening, and then work with you on abilities and anything else you're interested in afterwards."

That didn't sound bad. "All right," Andy said cautiously.

Mr. Carillo smiled reassuringly. "I feel like I should remind you that you aren't trapped here," he said gently. "We're trying to help you so you can go back into the larger world when you feel ready. You could walk out the gates right now, and nobody would stop you."

Andy nodded. "Except for the bit where my maker is out there somewhere, hunting for me."

"Except for that," Mr. Carillo admitted. "Still, it's your choice."

Andy sighed. "You're right, it's just... Look, I like going to school. I'm good at it. Online classes will be fine, and I do want to graduate. But this thing with Titus Anthropicus... I've done some fencing, some wrestling, and a little karate -- plus gymnastics and track. None of that leaves me feeling like I could defend myself against him, let alone all three of them."

The ghost took a long moment to consider that, then said: "First, let me emphasize that you're safe here. The wards around this campus have been built up over decades. Your maker and his friends would have a very difficult time trying to come for you here. Second... we don't normally train people to fight, but we can. I'd prefer if you also trained in things that might offer you some sort of reputable career, but there are those of us who make their living through violence. The Hunters are among them. So if you want combat training, we can provide that. Just be aware that it's likely to set you apart from a lot of your fellow students."

Andy shook his head. "I don't know about careers," he said. "I mean, I really have no idea. I just... right now, if they drove a van through the gate, I've got nothing going for me but claws. So sure, let's look at other things for a career -- Rodney suggested something along the lines of Accountant By Night -- but also I need to be able to defend myself."

Mr. Carillo nodded thoughtfully. "All right. I can pull some strings for that." 

MV2: Classmates

Distracted as he was, Andy hadn't gotten a good look at the inside of the building; but the room he followed Maria and the black-eyed child into had the very distinct look of a group therapy setup -- not that he'd ever been in that sort of therapy himself, but he couldn't imagine any other reason for a circle of chairs in the middle of a room with essentially no other furniture. 

Mr. Carillo was seated opposite the door, and Andy could see what Veronica had meant: he was misty, half-transparent, and hard to see even in the brightness of the fluorescent lights overhead. The chairs were cheap and basic: molded plastic seats and backs, with metal legs underneath. One of them creaked as a smooth-faced, androgynous figure settled into it. 

Y.T. squeezed his shoulder, but went and sat on the far side of the circle when Andy followed Maria and Tom and took a seat beside the boy. 

Once everyone was seated, Mr. Carillo stood. "Some of you have already met our newest student, Andrew McFall -- he goes by Andy. Andy, would you say a few words? You'll get the chance to meet your fellow students over the next few days, but for now I'll be getting you oriented and setting up your schedule."

Andy sighed and stood up, then looked around the circle of chairs. It was every bit as diverse as Mr. Carillo had described it; aside from Y.T. and the ghosts, he couldn't even remotely identify what sort of monsters his fellow students were. "Hi," he said. "I'm Andy. I'm a wight, obviously, newly turned and still kind of in shock about that." He sighed, then raised a hand a made a vague circling gesture. "Can we just assume I said the usual platitudes about being glad to meet you and looking forward to getting to know you? I'm not trying to be an asshole, and if you aren't either we'll probably get along just fine, but this kind of speech isn't really my thing."

Tom reached out and touched his hand, and a low rumble of laughter circled the room.

"Well said," chuckled a brown-haired man in dark slacks, a tan trench coat, and a fedora. He was misty and half-visible, just as Mr. Carillo was; one of the ghosts, then.

Mr. Carillo nodded. "Welcome to the Rocky Mountain Introductory Academy."

MV2: Names and Appellations

The other wight shrugged. "It's kind of a rite of passage. New name, new life."

And shrugged back at her. "You know I've only been a wight for like a week, right?"

"Seriously?" she asked. "And you can already make claws?"

Andy sighed, but decided not to answer. He didn't know what the other wight was looking for here, and nothing he said seemed to be the right sort of answer. After a moment he said, "Fine. What's your new name?"

"I'm thinking about using Y.T.," she told him. "Yours Truly. Whitey. It's a reference to--" 

"Snow Crash," Andy broke in.

Y.T. paused, then closed her mouth. "Yeah."

"I read it. Liked it, too. The character association is a little weird, but the name is clever."

"Um. Thank you? Maybe?"

He held up a hand uncertainly, dropped it. "I mean, she's... what? Fifteen? Sixteen? ...in the book. I'm guessing you're a little older. That's all."

"Twenty-five," she told him. "I don't know, maybe I'll decide on something else instead."

"I'm fine with calling you Y.T. for now," Andy said as they reached the main building and stepped inside. 

"Thanks, Andy. How old were you?"

He hesitated, then thought, What the hell. "Seventeen."

Y.T. gasped. "Seriously?" 

MV2: Getting Along

Maria and the boy rose immediately, and Andy followed a moment later. It was dark outside now, dark enough for them to move without fear of sunlight. 

Others were emerging from their rooms, falling into line cheerfully or reluctantly as they drifted along the corridor and out the front door. "Stay with us," said Maria, and the boy nodded. 

Andy nodded back. He had questions -- so many questions -- but this didn't seem the time to ask. He didn't want to be rude, and he'd accept whatever small kindnesses his fellow monsters cared to offer. This whole experience was dreamy, surreal; it wouldn't surprise him at all to wake up and find out that he was never really here...

But that was too much to hope for. 

"So you're him," said a voice in his ear. 

She'd come up beside him without his noticing, but he managed not to start. Instead, he turned his head and regarded a face like a corpse, white skin with bluish undertones, pale blue eyes, white hair...

A heartbeat of panic and dismay rolled through him, before he realized that this couldn't possibly be his mentor. This wight presented female, and was just as new-turned as he was... and most importantly, he had no sense of his maker's proximity at all.

"And you're her," he returned after a long, long moment. 

She nodded. "Word is you're something special," she said. 

Andy frowned. The hell? "What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Bypassed the usual training, assisted the hunters, things like that."

Andy huffed and shook his head. "No. My maker was hunting me, and the hunters got me away from him. That's it."

"So you can't do anything?" she asked.

Andy shrugged. "I can feel when my maker gets close. I can have claws, if I want." He could all but feel Maria and the Black-Eyed Child listening in.

"That's still more than most of us arrive with," the other wight said. "Usually when we come here we just know how to feed safely."

"Yeah, well... that was the plan. But we kind of did a speed-run of that part. I'm Andy."

"...Andy." The wight studied him for a long moment as they neared the central building. "Seriously? Just Andy?"

He shrugged. "You want something more theatrical?" 

My Subconscious Is Having Issues

Had a solid night's sleep with really, really weird dreams: 

It started with the return journey on some sort of trip. Usually I spend these sort of dreams trying find things and/or get everyone together, but this time no: there were some challenges, but we all got back. "We", in this case, was "me and the people I was traveling with" so also it wasn't a family trip (as these dreams usually are).

No, the family element picked up once I was back home -- in my childhood home, in considerable and accurate detail -- when I discovered that my parents (both dead now IRL, my mom for a decade and my father just under a year) were going through my stuff -- unpacking my bags, washing and sorting clothes. For some reason, this infuriated me.  I think maybe there were some things in there I didn't want them to find? I don't know. But it was a full-on yelling, breaking-things-in-the-Activity-Room, throwing-furniture-around session. On top of the which there a couple of unfamiliar kids there, playing on our computers, who didn't want to go away. I remember shouting at them to get out.

I really have no idea what set this off. 

Brains are weird. 

MV2: Unwillingly Awake

Andy shifted uncomfortably on the bed. He'd slept, dreaming again of that horrid, blasted landscape; at least the beast had kept him company in his dreams. He still had the phoenix feather in its glass case, and the pistol that Steve had issued to him; he'd returned the shotgun, but Steve had advised him to keep the pistol and its ammunition locked away in his room. Since that likely involved breaking -- or at least bending -- a few rules for both of them, Andy had simply nodded and said nothing else about it. A showdown with his maker would have been nice, a way to tie things off one way or another, but apparently he didn't get that. 

No surprise. He stirred, rose, and brushed his teeth -- whether that was even needed anymore was an open question, but he'd rather smell of fresh cleaning than not. Then he dressed himself. 

He'd always had a good sense of time, and while it wasn't dark outside yet it would be soon. Jeans, a t-shirt, and a decent set of sandals... he had a pair of hiking boots, but if he used his claws he'd tear right through them. No, he wanted to keep those for when he felt safe. He could probably call out claws on his fingers without extending them from his toes as well, but he had no practice at that and didn't trust himself to manage it in the moment. If a moment comes up. It might not.

He couldn't step outdoors, but he could certainly leave his room; the hallway was empty, but he could hear voices from off to his left. He turned that way, followed it down, and found a sort of communal living room with a large, flat-screen television playing on one wall. Couches and chairs were scattered around, along with a few side-tables. A woman and a child were sitting on one of the couches; both turned to look at him as he stepped into the room.

The child reached forward, picked up a remote, and paused the baking contest that was showing on the screen. Looking back, he said: "Take me with you, mister?"

Andy blinked at him. "I don't think any of us are going anywhere until we're ready."

The pale-skinned child blinked, then nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. Reflex. You're new."

Andy nodded at that. "Very new." 

The woman smiled. "Maria," she said. "Ghoul. And you must be the new wight we were expecting."

Andy nodded uncomfortably. The woman was what he would generally have classified as adult, without any idea of a specific age. "Andy," he said. "Don't let me interrupt you. I just couldn't sleep any longer."

"Yeah, it's a challenge," Maria said. "I can't sleep through the entire day, but I can't go outside in daylight yet. Tom, here, is the same. I'm hoping it'll be easier in the winter -- shorter days, longer nights."

The boy nodded. "You're another wight?"

"Entirely against my will, but yes," Andy said, forcing himself to meet those black eyes. "It's okay if you want to put your show back on."

The child-seeming boy nodded. "It's okay if you want to come sit with us."

Andy nodded and came forward, settling into a chair as the baking show began again. He had no particular interest in cooking, but the show was charming and he didn't mind the quiet company. It was a full half an hour later before a bell sounded over the speakers that he hadn't even noticed in the room.

MV2: Settling The Basics

"This is our dormitory," Mr. Carillo said. "Each student gets their own room, at least to start with. We're on a purely nocturnal schedule, though not everybody needs that."

"I will," said Andy, absently. He was missing Steve and Veronica, and even Rodney -- even though they'd just left. It wasn't quite one change too many, but it was close; they'd been anchors while he was at sea. 

Mr. Carillo nodded. "I know. We get more wights than you might think; we have another one here now."

"How many students?" he asked. There was something dully generic about this place: patterned carpeting, painted walls, panel ceiling, lights and doors at regular intervals. The outer walls were light-colored brick, and the lower floor -- which they were traversing now -- lacked windows, or much of anything in the way of decorations. 

"Fifteen, at present," Mr. Carillo answered. "One wight, two ghosts, two vampires, a demon, two new-risen nature spirits, a zombie, three werewolves, an animate, a ghoul, and one of the black-eyed children. Sixteen, counting you; you're our second wight."

Andy nodded. He didn't exactly care, but he thought he should know. "I suppose we'll have... what? Classes and a schedule?"

Mr. Carillo nodded. "Exactly. You're still finishing high school, and we'll help you get to a diploma; in addition, we'll work more on feeding, and developing some basic powers to align with the sort of monster you wish to become. Frequently, that includes a plan to avoid being any more of a monster than you absolutely have to: ignoring your powers, dealing effectively with restrictions and compulsions -- including feeding -- and finding a job that will allow you to fit in with the mundane world."

That sounded like a lot, but then they'd probably had a long time to study the problem and try things out. Andy couldn't imagine how he was supposed to have a normal life when he needed to drain a certain amount of youth each night, but maybe he could find something. 

The idea that an ordinary relationship was pretty much impossible was depressing, but not unexpected. I'm so sorry, Amy. If you hadn't come over to my house, you wouldn't be dead now. Yeah, it was a dumb accident and not my fault, but still... 

He shook his head and stopped beside Mr. Carillo at one of the doors. 

"This will be your room, for now," Mr. Carillo told him. "Put your things away and rest. We'll resume your education tomorrow night."