Chapter Text
"I'll see you in a second."
Once again, Apo stood among a crowd of vampires and the last few humans in Oakhurst. Once again, she resisted the temptation to turn away with Ren. If anything somehow did go wrong, they needed to know so she could fix it.
Three human heartbeats thumped in Apo's ears as Legundo drank from Martyn's wrist—the men's quick and nervous, Pearl's a little slower and fainter with distance. Then one set of beats began to slow and diminish. Apo held her breath.
The doctor withdrew his fangs and stood up straight. His remaining eye scanned Martyn's face for signs of discomfort, his own expression one of professional concern.
"You did good, Doc." The murmur was so quiet that only a vampire standing near Martyn and paying very close attention to him would hear it. His fading heartbeat gave one last thump.
Then, Apo's breath rushed out in a silent sob of relief as a hard tug announced the presence of a new vampire, standing directly in front of them within arm's reach. She hastily blinked away the tears and held her breath again before anyone could notice and ask questions they'd be unable to answer. Fortunately, the onlookers' attention was on Martyn and Legs, not her.
Martyn let go of his wrist and glanced at it. Only a small red smear stained the skin around the pair of puncture marks.
"How do you feel?" asked the doctor.
"Cold." He looked around, squinting a little—probably adjusting to a vampire's enhanced vision. "But I don't see how it could have hurt any less. You did good," he repeated.
"Thank you."
Sausage reached for Ren as if to tug on his arm. "All right Ren, your turn!"
"Don't rush him!" Martyn caught Sausage's arm, stepping between the two men. His voice dropped to the same low volume as before. "He's scared. He's always been scared of this kind of thing." A little louder, but even more gently, he called, "Specs?"
Ren did not answer aloud, but the tension in his posture and heartbeat increased.
Martyn laid a hand on his shoulder. “Ren. Look at me.”
Slowly, Ren rested his own hand atop Martyn’s. “Your hand is cold, Mr. Woodhurst.”
“I know. Yours’ll be too. But not for very long. C’mon, Specs, look at me.”
Step by hesitant step, Ren turned around, lifting Martyn’s hand from his shoulder but keeping hold of it. When they stood facing each other, Apo saw Ren relax the slightest bit. Maybe he’d been afraid he would see Martyn with red eyes and white hair.
“See? It’s still me. A little colder, bit sharper teeth, but still me.”
“You won’t even have to drink any blood if you don’t want to,” added the doctor. “The sooner you turn, the sooner…” he shut his eye and sighed. “…the sooner you can be cured.”
There was a short intake of breath from somewhere behind him. Evidently, Apo wasn’t the only one struggling not to cry.
"Whatever you need to do," said Martyn. "Close your eyes, keep holding my hand, anything."
Ren took a deep breath. For a second, nobody moved. Then he nodded, and slowly extended his free hand to the doctor. Apo saw Martyn flinch slightly and looked at the men's clasped hands—Ren was gripping Martyn's hand so tightly that his knuckles turned pale. When Legundo bit his wrist, he couldn't keep from crying out in pain.
"That's it…hold still, he's almost done…almost—whoa!" Martyn stumbled as the familiar tug told every vampire present that their numbers had just increased. He looked around. "Did you guys feel that every time?"
"Feel what, Mr. Woodh…?" Ren trailed off, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide and round behind his glasses.
Everyone else stared too. The voice that had just spoken was one they had never heard before.
"It's lifted," he said into the awed silence. His voice still carried an accent, but a much smoother one, almost musical. "The curse has lifted!"
"We told you it would work." Scott sounded so smug that Apo longed to punch him, just to shut him up. "Being a vampire fixes all kinds of problems."
"Specs, that's great!" Martyn let go of Ren's hand to clap him on the back in celebration. "I guess we just needed to bring you to the right doctor, all along."
That got a laugh from Legs. "I'm so glad."
Ren shook the doctor's hand vigorously, thanking him over and over. His voice began to sound strange again, not from a curse this time but from the same kind of lump Apo had been holding in her throat ever since they'd all gathered here. Now, with more and more people swallowing and sniffling and blinking back tears, she let herself breathe again.
Drift was the first to break down completely, followed closely by Shelby. It was strange, how much easier everyone cried (well, almost everyone—Scott must have been telling the truth about his undead tear ducts, and Apo couldn't see Abolish from where she stood) when only one life was ending instead of three. Maybe Apo hadn't been the only one afraid to show vulnerability in Oakhurst, especially after two devastating losses. Maybe people hadn't wanted to make Legs feel any worse about his involvement in half the Militia's deaths and kept up a brave front for his sake. Or maybe Ren's earnest gratitude in this timeline had them all sentimental.
When Pearl leaned over to hug the doctor goodbye, Apo saw past her to Shelby, wiping her eyes and then staring at their hand in confusion.
"I thought vampire tears were red…?" She turned to Scott with a questioning look, but it was Cleo who answered.
"A sire's tears run red when they mourn the loss of a fledgling. It doesn't happen very often—usually fledglings outlive their sires, if either one dies at all."
"Oh." Shelby looked down. Apo saw Drift squeeze her hand.
She sighed. Sympathy for Shelby and Drift was one thing, especially since Apo knew what the loss of a friend felt like far too well. But they could not bring themself to miss Avid personally, not after what he'd done. At least now she knew where the faint trace of red in her own tears for Martyn had come from.
Reminded of Martyn, Apo looked around for him and saw that Ren had pulled him aside. The two of them had their heads together, speaking in hushed, rapid voices. Militia business? Apo took a step closer, but Martyn glanced up and looked right past her to beckon for Abolish instead.
"Don't."
Abolish stopped mid-step, pivoting to face the doctor. It was Legs who had spoken.
"I know what you have in mind, and I thank you. But please don't."
"Don't what?" Abolish looked confused.
"Don't sacrifice yourselves for my sake. I have enough lives on my conscience already."
"Enough lives…?" Martyn's eyes flicked around the crowd, probably counting the absences. "Who?"
"Not here. It was years ago, before some of you were even born."
"But we're not dead, Doctor Legs," protested Ren.
"By medical standards, you…never mind." He trailed off with a sigh. "Listen. Owen turned me because he wanted me to continue his legacy. Another monster just like he was, tormented forever by my own memories and forced to feed on the suffering of others, while he got to rejoin his love in the next world."
"He what?" Abolish's eyes widened. "Owen acted like he wanted me to cure him. When he died I thought he'd just—changed his mind, or couldn't accept the cure after all."
"No. Owen wanted the same thing he tried to take away from me—rest. Rest, and an end to this prolonged, unnatural existence that he endured for centuries of pain."
Apo listened closely. Whether Legundo's fledglings decided to take the cure or not was their business, not hers, but what he was saying now resonated with her. Someday…not anytime soon, for sure, but maybe at the end of what would have been their mortal lifespan…she would likely feel the same way. Especially if Cherri chose not to turn.
"I've made my decision," said the doctor. "You three can stay vampires if you want to, and I do sincerely thank you for making the offer. But I will not let my sire win." He clasped each of the men's hands in turn, then caught Cleo's eye. "It's time."
He didn't say he had us fooled this time. Good. That was just the sort of thing Martyn would misinterpret, as easily spooked as he was. Apo hadn't entirely understood the doctor's last words to them all herself, but everyone had felt the passing of a vampire and seen Cleo return alone, so he must have been sincere in that regard.
This time, when the jolt came, all three of Legundo's fledglings flinched. Ren even fell to his knees with a cry of anguish. Lurching forward in a too-quick attempt to catch him, Martyn disappeared into a sudden cloud of bats.
"What the—?" came his voice from somewhere amid the fluttering wings. "That is not what I meant to do. Help?"
More than a few of the onlookers laughed. "So," said Apo between giggles. "Vampirism breaks curses, but it can't fix clumsiness? At least now you can't freeze me."
"Shut up," retorted the bat that was Martyn, emerging from the swarm of decoys and wobbling unsteadily through the air. "Who-oa, I don't like this. How do I change back?"
"The same, uh—do the same thing you did to turn into a bat." Apo grimaced at their own lack of eloquence, but the explanation was enough. Martyn's human-shaped form reappeared at about head height and landed in an awkward sprawl on the street. Ren leaned over to help him up, moving carefully to avoid the same mistake.
"So, do you want out of being vampires now?" asked Pearl. "I got the holy water ready—if we can use one beacon for three cures I bet I can splash all of you with one bottle."
Abolish flipped through his pages of notes. "It says the cure uses up the beacon, but it doesn't say how many can be cured at a time. We might need to use three different ones."
"I think the crypt and the lake are closest, if we need them, and I can consecrate them myself if you all stand back." Pearl chewed on her lower lip. "There might still be a pitfall trap in the crypt stairs, though."
"We can cover that up." Abolish's tone was confident, completely assured that everything would be all right. And for once, Apo believed it would.
***
Three cures later, Legundo's former fledglings stood in the town of Oakhurst for the last time.
"Okay, you can leave now," said Scott with an impatient wave of his hand. "Go enjoy your short, mortal human lives."
“There’s something I need to do first,” replied Abolish, giving Scott a brief stern look before addressing the other cured humans. “But you two go ahead.”
Ren looked at Martyn. “Are you ready?”
“I have got to get used to your new voice,” he said. “I mean your old voice. Yeah, I’m ready. You want one last look around the pub before we go?”
“Great idea!” interjected Sausage. “We can all have a pint together. To celebrate peace, and the—“
“Sausage, you’re a vampire!” Apo shook her head. “We never served anything there that you can drink anymore.”
“Oh. Right.” He had the decency to look guilty. Maybe he even remembered how much longer Apo had gone without the pleasant tastes of human food and drink than he had. “Sorry, Mom.”
“That’s not much better than ‘sire mommy’,” grumbled Apo. But she followed the rest of the Militia to their former headquarters, with the burnt hole in the wall that one of them had patched at some point.
“Hey, there is something here that you two can use.” Glass clinked as Martyn rummaged through a chest in one corner. “Look—empty bottles, to take with you. I’m not filling them, though—you lot have had enough of my blood already.”
You don’t know the half of it. Apo passed some of the bottles to Sausage. “You’re not missing much,” they told him, and grinned. “He doesn’t taste very good.”
“Well, all right! There’s no need to be mean about it!” Martyn gave her an exaggerated glare. “I bet you don’t taste very good either. I saw some vampire blood, one of the times we were fighting. Can’t remember whose, but it looked gross.”
Apo would have been struck speechless even without the Time Being’s restriction on what not to reveal. “Ah—no,” she said at last. “I mean yes, it’s gross. You’re right. Don’t drink any.”
Fortunately, Ren interrupted before Martyn could get too suspicious of Apo's reaction. “I cannot believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to miss this place.” The others turned to look at him. “Not Oakhurst overall—‘tis a cursed town of massacres and monsters that I’ll be glad to leave behind. But the friends I’ve made and the places we’ve built…that I will miss. It’s been an honor to defeat evil alongside you three.” Then he looked straight at Apo and at Sausage next to her. “Including the evil within myself. I let fear and mistrust blind me to the truth—about you and about vampires as a whole. A pair of fangs does not a monster make.” He let out a long breath. “I was wrong. And I am sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Sausage said solemnly, shaking Ren’s hand. Apo only nodded silently. They honestly hadn’t paid much attention to Ren’s hatred of vampirism, since it mirrored their own distaste. Until it had gotten him killed, that is. But there was nothing she could say about that timeline, nor was there any need to…it could be left behind, just as the Militia were now leaving the pub for the last time.
“Where are you all headed?” asked Martyn as they stepped over charred stockade fragments and set off across the plain south of town.
“Home,” answered Apo immediately. “I can’t wait to see Cherri again.”
“Who?” Ren wanted to know.
“Judging by the look on her face, probably the girlfriend she mentioned,” said Martyn.
“A girlfriend?” Sausage sounded excited. “Ooh, tell me more!”
“Do you ever keep your nose out of other people’s business?”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah.” Martyn elbowed him. “Be nice to your sire. Where are you going, anyway?”
“I shall continue my travels in search of more stories to tell,” he announced. “With immortality, there’s no end to where I can—ow!” He smacked face first into a wall of air turned solid. Apo snickered.
“Mind the barrier,” said Martyn blandly. “Specs? Shall we?”
Ren clasped Martyn’s offered hand in his own. “Yes, Mr. Woodhurst. Let us go.”
They turned and walked into the barrier together. For a moment they moved slowly, as if wading through honey, but then with a lurch and a stumble the barrier released them.
“Yes!” cheered Sausage. “Hey! Hey guys, can you hear me?” The pair outside the barrier stopped walking and turned around. “We’ll meet you out there as soon as we get the beacon!” He turned to Apo. “You coming?”
“Go ahead,” they said vaguely, leaning on the barrier. “I’ll catch up.” A decoy bat went squeaking by as Sausage took flight; they ignored it. There was Martyn, and Ren too, not just alive but alive and free. She’d done it. She’d saved them both.
They are free in a way I will never be.
…Or could she? With enough rewinding and retrying, could Apo have gathered enough support in the end to stake Scott and be cured? Or go even further back, and avoid getting turned in the first place? It would definitely be difficult.
It isn’t worth the risk.
Sure, maybe they could just stay away from the castle that one night instead of going after Scott with an axe. Or yell and make a scene when he went to bite them so Drift and Avid would catch him in the act. But every change to the past had any number of unexpected consequences—look at what happened with Pearl when Apo didn’t turn Sausage, or the time Scott switched targets with no obvious reason at all. It had been hard enough picking her way through “too many possible futures” to find this one…going back as far as her own turning would mean undoing all that work. Putting Martyn, and probably others too, in danger of dying once again.
And so, for a second time, Private Kuna gave up their own humanity to save the civilians under their guard.
“Hey, Apo!”
She snapped out of her musing as Martyn came loping back toward the barrier. “What?”
“Freeze!”
Bright sparkles swirled from him, passing straight through the barrier and locking Apo in place. It felt a lot like holding onto the rewind dial, except everyone else could still move—Martyn himself was bounding away laughing.
“You—you—“ She gave up. Let him think they were struggling to find the perfect insult, instead of trying to hide how much she’d missed their back-and-forth teasing and pranks when he was gone. How best to get even? she wondered. Jumpscare him with a vampiric lunge? Sneak up invisible to lay cold fingertips on the back of his neck?
Apo felt a tug, though she remained rooted to the spot. A new vampire…there goes Pearl. Now only one human remained within the boundary of Oakhurst, and Abolish would be leaving soon. Silently, Apo wished Pearl well. It might have been her own homesickness and missing Cherri, but she’d noticed a certain fondness in the way Pearl and Cleo spoke about each other that suggested they’d both be in good company here.
Someone tapped Apo on the shoulder. “They just neutralized the beacon,” said Abolish. “Were you going to help desecrate?”
“Can’t. I got holy-worded.”
“You what?” He sounded a lot more surprised than amused. “Aren’t you level one?”
Apo blinked. “I was. I am…I think.”
“But you’re frozen.” Abolish nudged their arm, confirming his words. “Is it something to do with the cure, maybe? The holy powers we had come back stronger?”
“Maybe,” Apo agreed. “Is there enough open space back there for you to try a lantern thrash? See if it’s any bigger than before?”
His footsteps moved away from her, then back. “I’d rather not risk it. Maybe once I leave I’ll try it somewhere out there—or I can test my shoulder barge on a zombie or something.”
“Good idea.”
Movement was just beginning to return to Apo’s limbs when a thunderous rumble echoed across the sky from the north. She felt a surge of energy; the two figures out on the open plain staggered and looked back in the direction of Oakhurst.
“The last beacon.” Abolish sounded strained too.
Apo put a hand on the barrier. It was still there, but now it felt springy and yielding instead of a hard flat wall. Once Abolish left, it would give way altogether. They turned, meaning to ask if they could help him finish what he needed to do, and saw him carefully stacking the last stones atop a pair of grave monuments.
For a fleeting moment, Apo was afraid she'd gone back to the original timeline somehow. But a quick look over her shoulder confirmed Martyn and Ren were still alive behind her, now watching the sky for any returning bats. Then who…?
Grief and loss, held under tight control, were evident in Abolish's posture and expression as he stood back and looked at the graves. Apo took a few steps toward him, close enough to read the names while still keeping a respectful distance. Alaric and Reiah Veylocke.
"Veylocke?" she asked.
"My parents."
"When did they…?"
"About twenty years ago. Something attacked us when we were traveling."
Twenty years? Apo would have been a toddler then, with no possible way to save the Veylockes or even understand the idea of rewinding time. Here was someone Apo couldn't save that was completely and entirely not her responsibility. She felt relieved, then guilty for feeling relieved. And guilty too, that they had undone their own losses and could not do the same for Abolish. But that was up to the Time Being, wasn't it? If it wanted the Veylockes to live, it would have to find someone older to save them.
"I'm sorry for your loss," was all she said. The least she could do was be patient and not rush him. He would leave, freeing all the vampires, soon enough.
"Thank you."
They hadn't stood in silence for long before the first bats began returning, fluttering or coasting back into town. Apo slipped into bat form herself. The only people they wanted to talk to were already beyond the barrier, and they still needed to find a flower for Cherri. She wove silently through the flock of vampires until she was sure they would have no idea which bat she was, then flew off in search of the flower she'd found before.
Landing to pluck the bright poppy from the ground, Apo almost dropped their shield as soon as it materialized out of their wing. She realized what was happening, and began to laugh. I've succeeded at my assignment after all.
Her commanding officers had sent her to Oakhurst to stop any visitors from littering. As far as she knew, the only person—out of all fourteen unfortunates—who ever littered in the original timeline was Apo herself. Their Militia gear did still carry memories of two friends who had died and a third who blamed her for it, and she would probably still have nightmares about those losses. But they could wake up to the knowledge that the nightmares were no longer true. She would keep these belongings.
Settling the shield squarely on their arm, Apo tucked the poppy into their pack and strode to the barrier. It parted like a sheet of wet paper at her touch, and she was through at last, free of Oakhurst. She scanned the grassy plain, past the cluster of white-haired figures beginning to cross the barrier, until she spied one blond head standing out against the backdrop of grass and trees. As she began to run, she saw that Sausage and Ren were already with him.
"Miss Apo, there you are!" Ren greeted her with a wave. "We were beginning to worry when Mr. M said you were missing at the beacon."
"I think one of you knows exactly why I didn't go to the beacon." They caught Martyn's eye as he stepped behind Ren to hide his grin, and stuck out their tongue at him. He tried to hold back a snort of laughter, and failed.
Ren looked curiously between the two of them, then shook his head with a smile. "Well, we're all back together now."
If Apo spoke, she would start crying again. She nodded instead, smiling so wide that their fangs pricked the inside of their lower lip.
"All right, group hug, group hug!" Sausage made beckoning motions and held out his arms. In the awkward shuffle of limbs that followed, Apo managed to tuck herself between Martyn and Ren. One arm wrapped around each of the humans she'd saved.
It was very different from hugging Cherri, who smelled of sweet blossoms and fit snugly into the circle of Apo's arms. These men smelled mostly of sweat, and other woodsy, outdoor odors. But they were warm. Their breaths pressed against Apo's grip and their arms were a comforting weight across her back. If Apo weren't eager to go home, she would want to rewind and relive this embrace over and over again.
When they all pulled back at last, Sausage handed each of the others a small card. "Here—my fan-mail address. I'll tell my secretary to make sure anything marked 'from Oakhurst' goes straight to me, so we can keep in touch. Let me know when you write where I should send letters for you."
"Wow, thanks!" said Martyn. Ren peered quizzically at his card while Apo politely pocketed hers. "So, you're off then?"
"Off to see the world!" Sausage announced with a dramatic pose. He burst into a flurry of bats, circled the rest of the Militia once in farewell, and flew up and away out of sight.
Ren was still looking at the card Sausage had given him. "Mr. Woodhurst, Miss Apo? Might I ask a favor?"
Martyn nodded. "Sure."
"If it would not be too much trouble, might I accompany either of you in your travels? I came here seeking a remedy for my curse, and I have no further obligations now that I've found it." He turned the card over in his hand. "And—and I would very much appreciate being shown how to read."
"If it's all right with Apo, it's all right with me," answered Martyn. "She and I are going the same direction anyway."
"What?!" Apo had wanted to invite Martyn—and Ren too—to visit them and Cherri, but she hadn't given a single indication of that fact. Did he have the nerve to assume he was invited? Or had she tipped him off by accident somehow? "Didn't you say you lived east of here? I'm going west. West and north a ways, so it'll probably be snowing at home by now."
"Just because I came from east of here doesn't mean I want to go back. I'd like a new place to call home, a fresh start, and that might as well be near my friends." He looked sidelong at Ren. “I know someone who’s good at building cabins.”
“Can’t you just buy one, Rich Boy?”
Martyn opened his mouth, then shut it. He took another breath, and hesitated again, looking just the way Apo had felt when she’d wanted to say something the Time Being’s power wouldn’t let her.
“I have…something to tell you both,” he said at last. “I’m not actually rich…”
“What?” Ren rocked back, as if someone had hit him.
“…anymore,” finished Martyn with a hasty look at Ren’s stricken face. “Specs, you showed me—“ he swallowed and blinked several times “—showed me what it’s supposed to be like when someone cares about a person. I can’t pretend any longer.” He took a deep breath to steady his shaking voice. “My father—doesn’t want me back. I should have seen it a long time ago.” His eyes looked overly bright with unshed tears, but he managed a smile. “Consider me officially disowned.”
Well, if he’d rather laugh than cry about it, Apo could definitely help with that. “Guess that makes me richer than you now,” they teased. “I bet ‘middle class’ doesn’t seem so stinky now, does it?”
“Hmm.” Martyn leaned closer and sniffed the air. “Nah, you still smell bad.” He dodged the swat she aimed at him, laughing.
“I believe what you’re smelling is a vampire in the sun,” said Ren. He held out a hand to Apo. “Shall we find some shade?”
Illustration thread: https://www.tumblr.com/dbseamz/826518198891446272/all-illustrations-for-with-the-benefit-of?source=share