Chapter Text
They taught those ancient fucks how to dance.
Pocket went over to the band and whispered something to the bassist, and on the next song, they switched into something livelier, spicier, something you might hear in a jazz club in Harlem. Pocket moved like a firework, tapping, spinning, snapping, shaking, stopping only to hang their suit jacket on a chair before they got too hot. Mina was a little out of her depth, but she happily followed their lead, her dress shimmering as it spun, throwing dots of pearlescent light across the floor.
The dance floor was theirs. A few of the nearby olds shuffled away in disdain, but one white-haired couple seemed to like it, joining them in their own shuffle, smiling underneath their masks. By the end of the song, another few joined in.
Three songs later, the dance floor was packed. Many were dancing, but half of the crowd was just watching Pocket and Mina. The violinist had swapped to a saxophone and was soloing breathlessly. It was a maelstrom of energy, with them at the center.
The solo came to an end, and Pocket spun her around, dipping her with a flourish as the saxophone landed a final staccato sting. Cheers went up from the crowd.
She looked up into the eye slits of their mask, breathless and flushed.
“Adrian Harker’s pretty fun,” she said in a half-whisper. “Where’ve you been hiding all this time?”
“Down on the streets, Miss Ha,” they half-whispered back. “You just had to look.”
Someone from the crowd called out, “Kiss her!”
Mina fluttered her eyelashes, which was pointless because they were covered up by the mask. “The problem is, we’ve got too much chemistry. They’ll be suspicious if we don’t kiss.”
Pocket took the initiative this time, dipping her deeper and then capturing her lips. Their masks, which covered the upper half of their faces, clunked awkwardly together. It wasn’t like their first kiss, tinged with melancholy and desperation. This was a performance, a show. It didn’t actually mean anything, which meant she was free to simply enjoy it.
Enjoy it she did. Pocket was almost as good a kisser as she was.
The crowd whistled and cheered, and then Mina ended the kiss because they were starting to creep her out. As they walked back to their table, she scanned the room. They seemed to have won most of the party over, but the rest had moved away from the dance floor.
The old couple that had been first to join them drifted alongside them. “I love your dress,” the old woman said. “Are you two professionals? That was such fun.”
Mina nodded and smiled and made polite conversation. Her and Adrian Harker ended up holding court at their table, answering questions and telling their fabricated life story to some of their adorers. The women gasped in delight when she revealed that they were “engaged”, and oohed and awed as she showed off the diamond ring. One of the men clasped Pocket on the shoulder and grunted Well Done.
Shortly after a waiter stopped by, carrying a bottle of something from the last century under their arms. They displayed it and then popped the cork, pouring two glasses and setting them down.
“Courtesy of the hostess, Lady Jeanne Geist,” the waiter announced, and gestured to a nearby table. “She requests a moment of your time.”
Mina looked at the table they pointed to in surprise. It was right next to the dance floor, dead center in the room, impossible to miss. There was Lady Geist, looking straight at them, giving a little wave. Mina had scanned the room a dozen times already and had not seen her. Nor had she seen that table. She could have sworn on her un-life that it hadn’t been there.
Mina picked up a glass, handed the other to Pocket, and as she did whispered, “Don’t drink it. We need to stay sharp. It’s showtime.”
There were two others sitting at Lady Geist’s table, all three of them without masks. One was a posh-looking white-haired gentleman sporting a monocle and top hat, the Lord that Pocket had come here for. The other was the Viscount of New York City.
Pocket followed her gaze, then looked back at her and gave a microscopic nod. They clinked their glasses, took fake sips, and stood.
A million questions spun through Mina’s head as she walked.
How do I look? Do I look good? Is the dress too much? What if she hates it? What do I say? Does she even know who I am?
Pocket took her hand as they walked, their thumb lightly stroking the back of her hand. The thoughts went quiet. She exhaled and squeezed thanks back to them.
She had never been this close to her before. Lady Geist was perfection. She made the rest of the party, except maybe her and Pocket, look like trash. The Lord and the Viscount were both plainly enamoured with her, and who could blame them?
The air shimmered as they approached the table, passing through some kind of magical veil. Mina swallowed hard. She was at a total loss of what to say, but Lady Geist spoke first.
“Aren’t they something?” She said, addressing the other two at her table, not even glancing towards her. “Free entertainment for the leeches. They’ve turned my masquerade into a… sock-hop.” Her mouth was smiling, her eyes were not. Mina’s blood chilled by a few degrees.
“I thought it was stupendous,” said the Lord. “Bravo! I’ve always thought these events could do with embracing the youth a little more, hehem.” He was smoking a pipe, staring openly at Mina’s chest. Pocket stepped slightly in front of her.
Lady Geist shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right, Lord Brighton. Perhaps we should be adapting to the times. It’s a changing city.” She had a jade cigarette holder in one hand, holding it towards Lord Brighton to light the cigarette. She took a deep puff, staring out at the party, still not looking right at Mina. “Who are you wearing, dear?”
It took a moment for Mina to realize she was being addressed. She smoothed out the front of the dress. “Oh, this is—” she was about to say Mine, but a burst of nervousness suddenly took hold of her, and she hid behind the mask. “This is Mina Ha’s work. One of one.”
Now Geist turned and stared straight at the dress, still not looking up at her face. Her expression was inscrutable. “Hm. It’s certainly ambitious.” This was close enough to a compliment to make Mina’s heart lift.
“You’re one of mine, aren’t you? Freshly turned.” The Viscount spoke up. Mina had been so taken with Geist that she had barely looked at the most powerful vampire in New York City. He was a handsome, ageless, black-haired man with a hypnotic voice and the appearance of a forty-something. He was dressed sharply with not one hair out of place. His pupils were nightmarishly black. “I like your moxie. I hope you’re not the one who bought your way in.” He nodded to Pocket. “Is this your thrall?”
Pocket was shifting back and forth, unsure what to do with themself. “Uh, Adrian Harker. I’m just, uh… we’re… engaged. I’m not her thrall.”
“Of course not. Congratulations.” He winked at Mina.
Lady Geist stood. “It’s so noisy in here. Why don’t we move to the balcony? The view of the city is heart-stopping.” She began to walk away, not waiting for anyone to catch up. Lord Brighton said “Already?” and scrambled after her, nearly dropping his cane. Pocket fell in beside him, their suit jacket folded over their arm. The Viscount offered Mina his arm and indicated that they should follow.
Mina’s heart pounded inside her. She couldn’t believe how perfectly everything was going. Pocket was getting a chance to learn what they needed to know, the Viscount seemed to be taking a liking to her, and Geist was inviting her to an exclusive part of the masquerade. She was still cold to Mina, but she’d anticipated that. A woman like Geist did not reach her position by walking around with an open, bleeding heart. Getting on her good side might take months or years. Just being acknowledged for now was enough.
As if reading her thoughts, the Viscount said, “I hope you don’t mind our hostess friend. She’s always prickly at these things.”
Up ahead, Geist disappeared through double doors at the end of the ballroom, followed by Pocket and the Lord. Mina swung back by her table to pick up her umbrella, hanging it on her arm: just in case. “She’s wonderful. There’s nothing fake about her. I want to be like that.”
The Viscount stopped for a moment, studied her. “Start by losing this, then, Miss Ha.” He slid the mask off her face and tossed it away. He turned to the party, many of whom were staring at them. “Mina Ha, everyone!” There was applause and cheers. Mina would’ve blushed if she could. She felt utterly exposed.
The Viscount turned them around and carried on. “I don’t think she’s as honest as you take her to be, but she’s certainly an admirable woman. If she were turned, I’d be afraid for my position.”
Mina nodded, pulling him quickly towards the double doors, not wanting to be left behind. “She’s a legend. I just want to learn from her, that’s all. I don’t even need her to like me.”
“I think she might, actually.” Mina’s heart lifted again. “But she’s going to haze you first. Push you, test you. Especially after what you and your ‘fiancé’ did back there.” He continued on, intoning in his hypnotic way. “Right now, you’re the belle of her ball, and she’s going to want something to go back her way. She’s funny like that. I thought she held these events for attention, but then she hides from it. But if anyone else gets the attention…”
“I’d give her anything she wanted. I’m prepared to sacrifice.” They passed through the doors, entering a dimly lit hallway. She could see the door to the balcony at the end of it. Two bulky security guards nodded as they passed, dressed smartly in suspenders and white button-ups, smoking cigars.
The Viscount smiled, showing off their fangs, so subtle they could be mistaken for regular teeth. “I thought so. I think she’ll be quite happy with what you brought her. Though next time, bring one along for your Viscount. Don’t forget where your blood loyalties lie. I’ll assume you didn’t know I’d be here and let it slide this time.”
“Of course, but…” Mina slowed. “What do you mean? What did I bring her?”
“No need to be coy, Miss Ha. Geist’s arrangement is an open secret. You dangled your thrall’s youth in front of her like a rare, juicy steak. It was brilliant. Dangling your own youth, however, that was a dangerous taunt. You must know she can’t use vampires.”
“You’re saying… my thrall…” Mina’s world spun on an axis. She had heard the rumours about Lady Geist, of course, but she’d always dismissed them as jealous superstition. But if it was true… if everything the Viscount was saying was real…
Pocket.
She threw the Viscount’s arm off of her and rushed down the hallway.
“Miss Ha, wait—”
But Mina was sick of all her engagements ending the same way.
She burst through the doors onto the balcony. Pocket was there, on their knees, blood dripping from their mouth. Their mask was broken in half, the other half on the ground next to their splayed-out suit jacket. A growing bruise stained their cheek. Lord Brighton was standing before them, indignant, tapping his cane against his palm. Lady Geist was bent over behind Pocket, an arm wrapped around their neck, a pistol held to their temple.
“What are you babbling about, Lord Brighton?” Lady Geist sneered, not acknowledging Mina. “This galopin is mine. A certain King brought him here for me, and that arrangement far supercedes the one between you and I.”
“I’m just asking for patience, Jeanne.” Lord Brighton jabbed his cane toward Pocket, making them flinch. “I need answers first. I arranged this rat’s assassination years ago, and I need to know who failed so I can seek proper retribution.”
Mina began: “Lady Geist, please—”
Geist put a hand up towards her. “If you know what’s good for you, girl, you’ll keep your mouth shut.” Behind Mina, the security guards burst onto the balcony, surrounding her and each putting an hand on her shoulders. “I know what you want from me. Here’s your first lesson: Detachment. Watch and learn what love gets you in the end.” She covered Pocket’s face with the long, ghostly fingers of her spectral hand. Mina watched in horror as Pocket screamed, their very essence being draining out of them.
“Damn it, Geist!” Lord Brighton roared, charging forward.
But Mina was already there. She split herself into a hundred bats and surged forward, out of the guard’s grips, swarming into Geist’s face and forcing her to try and knock the swam away. Pocket used the chance to roll forward, grabbing Brighton’s cane as it swung towards them and yanking it free, sending them tumbling to the balcony floor. Mina reformed by Pocket’s side, pulling them to their feet.
Geist raised her gun, pointing it — not at Pocket, but at Mina — and, just as she was firing, Pocket whipped the end of the cane towards it, knocking the shot off-course — it whizzed by Mina’s ear — and sending the pistol flying over the edge of the balcony. Mina and Pocket backed up, Mina’s heel happening to step on Lord Brighton’s face in the process. He groaned feebly.
Silence hung in the air as everyone surveyed each other. Lady Geist was on one side of the balcony, attended to by her two masked, muscled guards. Her revolver was raised. Mina and Pocket faced her, Lord Brighton underfoot. She could sense the Viscount watching silently from the shadow of the hallway inside.
Mina couldn’t help but cling desperately to status quo. “Let us go. We’ll leave here, forget all this. I’ll leave you alone forever, Geist. Or I’ll make you a thousand dresses, whatever you want. It doesn’t have to go this way.”
Geist laughed icily. “My god, you are naive, girl. No one in this city forgets a single thing. Not ever. But arrangements can be made. You want your fiancé to live? Fine. But you’re going to have to—”
“They cannot live,” wheezed Brighton from underfoot. “That is Arin Fairfax, yes, that Fairfax. I don’t know how or why they’re alive, but it cannot be. Forget the interrogation. End it, Jeanne, and I’ll triple our arrangement. I’ll drown you in young bodies until the year two thousand.”
Mina scoffed. “What is this idiot talking abou—” She was silenced by the look on Pocket’s face.
The look on Pocket’s face.
Adrian Harker’s face.
Arin Fairfax’s face.
Arin Fairfax.
Arin.
Arin?
Mina’s mind had unravelled to a single thread, a weft being passed back and forth between two sides of the loom, looping on the same thought in the hope that it would start to make more sense.
Pocket is Arin. Arin is Pocket.
Pocket is Arin, who she was engaged to. But she is engaged again.
Pocket is Arin, who died. But they didn’t die.
It made no sense, it made no sense, and once Mina’s brain had appropriately reprocessed every other fact and aspect of her life, it made perfect sense.
“You— you…”
Pocket was wide-eyed, caught, embarrassed, sheepish, bleeding, grimacing, wincing, smiling, all of it still half-hidden behind the broken mask. “Well, I was gonna tell you right after this.”
Mina felt distinctly like she had been stabbed through the chest. The enormity of this revelation was so great that it took her many more seconds to look down, see the massive, jagged shard of solid blood sticking out of her midriff, and realize she had, in fact, been stabbed through the chest.
She looked up at Geist, whose spectral hand was raking across her other arm, drawing blood that ran together and rose up and solidified into a second glowing, magical dagger.
“See? Arrangements can always be made.” Geist snapped her fingers twice. “Leave the girl alive. Kill the other one.” The guards advanced towards them, drawing batons.
Mina fell to her knees, doubling over as if in tremendous pain. She was in tremendous pain, but that wasn’t why she doubled over. She doubled over to unstrap New Money from her thigh and unlatch the safety, slipping it out from under her dress just in time to fire point-blank at the first guard. She caught him in the shoulder and he stumbled backwards. Her and Pocket split, rolling in opposite directions to get away from the second. He swung his baton at Pocket, who caught it with Brighton’s cane, which cracked in half in the process. Pocket tried to sprint past him, catching the baton in the back in a second swing. They shouted in pain, crumbling and falling at Lady Geist’s feet, on top of their discarded jacket. Mina fired off two more shots at the second guard, grazing and then missing as the first guard reared up, trying to grab New Money out of her hands. She kicked at him, trying to wrestle the gun back, but he was stronger and was about to take it entirely. She looked over to see Lady Geist, triumphant, her monstrous jade hand poised over Pocket’s half-masked face once more.
“As I was saying,” she sneered, “watch what love gets you in the end.”
Mina caught a flicker of expression on Pocket’s face. The smallest, triumphant smile.
Ghostly essence began to drain upwards into Geist’s hand once more. She inhaled deeply, glowing, satisfied… and then bent over and began vomiting. Pocket rolled away and leapt to their feet. They flung off the broken mask and there, clinging to Pocket’s face, was the tiny, ghostly frog they had shown Mina before. Green wisps of energy drifted off of its tiny form. Geist hadn’t been draining essence from Pocket at all.
Mina laughed in disbelief. She was still losing the wrestling match for the gun, so she let go entirely, and the unprepared guard stumbled backwards, nearly going over the balcony ledge. He recovered and aimed the barrel at her so she scattered into bats, reformed on the ledge behind him as he fired, wrapped her arms around him and sunk her fangs into his neck. He emptied the rest of New Money’s cartridge in a panic, trying to shoot her off of him, until finally slowing, swaying, and collapsing woozily to the ground.
Mina surveyed the damage. One guard passed out, the other bleeding out. Pocket was jamming the door to the balcony shut with Brighton’s cane. At one end, Brighton was cowering; at the other, Geist was on all fours, dry heaving. The Viscount was nowhere to be seen.
Pocket walked over to Brighton. Mina walked over to Geist.
Lady Geist wiped her mouth and glared upwards at her, murder in her eyes. She looked decades older.
Mina looked down at where she’d been impaled by the blood shard. She bit her lip and pulled it out in one go. “You ruined my dress, you absolute bitch.”
“You think you’re something special? You’re—” She was interrupted by her own coughing fit. “You’re an impudent little brat. I’ve dealt with a thousand of you before.” She pointed towards the ballroom. “This is my world you live in, girl. You cannot survive it without me.” At the end of the hall, a few guards were running towards the balcony.
Mina shrugged. “I don’t know. They loved me in there, while you haven’t even shown up to your own party. I think I made a few new friends tonight who’d be very upset if something happened to me.” She smiled sweetly. “See you around, Geist. Let me know if you ever want me to teach you a thing or two.” She stood and walked off.
Pocket was rising up from a whispered conversation with Lord Brighton.
“Arin Fairfax,” she called.
Pocket turned. The ghost frog was now tucked snugly into their chest pocket. “Mina Ha?”
“This party’s lame. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Gladly.” They peered over the balcony ledge. “Any ideas?”
She picked up her umbrella, knocked to the balcony floor in the chaos. “This thing’s stronger than it looks.” She looked down at Brighton, giving him a good kick in the stomach for his earlier leering. He wheezed like a deflating balloon. “Get what you needed from this creep?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.” Inside, security was banging on the balcony door, trying to kick it open. Arin hopped up on the balcony ledge, offering her a hand. They had a swollen eye and a massive bruise on one side of their face, and the suit she had lovingly crafted was bloodied and torn.
Mina took their hand and hopped onto the ledge as well. She looked back only to try and catch her own reflection in the glass of the balcony door, but it wasn’t desilvered, so she wasn’t there.
Arin rolled their eyes. “You look great. Let’s go.”
The security guards burst onto the balcony at last. Mina opened her umbrella. “Hold on tight.”
Arin wrapped their arms securely around her, and they went over the ledge together, falling into the darkness.
The wind was harsh so high up, but the umbrella didn’t move an inch, except to descend downwards at a safe clip. The night was otherwise peaceful, and the view was incredible. Arin was squeezing her so hard she thought she might suffocate.
“I hope you know I have about a million questions for you,” she said.
Arin looked down, and then somehow began squeezing her harder. “You may as well start. I’m not going anywhere for the next few minutes.”
“Well, right now I’m still deciding whether to turn into my swarm and let you plummet for a while.”
“If you’re gonna do that, you might as well have let Lady Geist dessicate me.”
“No way. If anyone’s feeding on my fiancée…” She licked a bloodstained spot on their tie. “...it’s me. Hold the umbrella, my arms are getting tired.”
They carefully switched over, Arin holding the umbrella, their other arm wrapped around Mina, Mina hugging them tight.
She tallied the night’s damage. “Betrayed by the Patrons, Geist hates me, the Viscount probably hates me, my best work ever is nearly destroyed…”
“I know you were looking forward to it. Sorry it was such a disaster.”
“Well…” Mina yawned, resting her head on Arin’s shoulder as they floated together through the endless night. She turned the diamond ring around again and again on her finger. “Wasn’t all bad.”
The assassination-prone idiot who ruined her life smiled.