Chapter Text
Harrowhark Nonagesimus stood before the grand steps leading up to the doors of Canaan High. The place didn’t look half bad, with its cracked windows, decaying flora, and gothic architecture. Pools of grey, murky water surrounded the building like someone had tried to make a moat then got bored. Her black bags sat beside her feet on the concrete ground, and she awkwardly looked around, unsure what to do. The headmaster was supposed to meet her here, but the whole place was silent. Silent, decrepit, and, quite frankly, very dead.
Movement flickered in front of her. She braced herself for a ghost to materialise, but instead the air shimmered with iridescent colors. The movement formed a wall before her, and Harrow debated sticking her hand out to touch it. Before doing so, a man—completely human looking—stepped through. The air parted for his body, forming around him and bathing his body in an ethereal light. He wore a crown of leaves and bones on his head, which was stylish in Harrow’s opinion.
“You must be Harrowhark,” he said cordially with a bright smile. “I am John Gaius, the headmaster of Canaan High.”
She shook his outstretched hand briskly, feeling a small magnetic tug in the back of her brain. Ignoring it, she said, “It’s nice to meet you. What is going on with the air?”
He looked back at the shimmering wall behind him then laughed. “My apologies, I forget not everyone has seen a shield before. This is how we keep humans from trying to cause trouble within our school.” He stepped back through the air, being absorbed into it, and vanished from view. Harrow hesitated, then stuck her head through.
The other side was filled with life! The barren courtyard burst into view with students walking along the suddenly bright lawn and bubbling pools. Some were sitting on the steps which suddenly had a creamy shine to them, the railing no longer rusted to hell and back. Others moved through the open doors and into the opulent halls of the school, sunlight glistening through the cracked crystal windows. Harrow gasped and pulled back, her vision returning to the grey and dismal outside. It was a perfect mask.
With her total of three muscles, Harrow hauled her three bags through the barrier and into the courtyard. John Gaius smiled with pride at her shocked expression. “Humans tend to be too curious, so some protective measures had to be taken.” Harrow didn’t mind; the word humans left a sour taste in her mouth still. Even though the attack had been months ago, she still bristled when she felt a human draw near.
“This is magnificent,” Harrow managed to get out. The small praise was enough for the headmaster who motioned for her to follow him up the steps and to the doors. Harrow’s black robes dragged on the ground as she walked, and she grappled at them with one hand so as not to trip on the steps.
“That fabric is so three centuries ago!” Exclaimed a voice from below her. Sitting there, legs splayed across the cream and opal steps, was a golden woman with curls piled so high on her head she looked like a mannequin. She smiled up at Harrow with the radiance of someone who knew they were hot and expected you to agree.
Harrow already didn’t like her.
“Well, it’s three centuries old so you aren’t wrong,” she deadpanned. The woman beamed sunlight (ick) and extended an obscenely long arm with a jeweled hand at the end. She was draped elegantly in gemstones, gold, and purple fabric. Bandages as golden as her skin were wrapped over her forearms as well as her neck and legs. Harrow shook the hand quickly, uncomfortable with the sight.
“Oh don’t worry darling, they’re decorative!” The golden creature laughed upon seeing her expression. She flapped the bandages and shimmers of light were thrown about, and Harrow swore she also saw glitter. “Purely because they make me look the part!”
“The part of what? A chandelier?” Everything this woman was wearing looked like it belonged in a museum. Her outfit was a light and airy dress of purple and (of course) gold with jeweled sandals and an absurd amount of cleavage showing. Even her earrings cost more than everything Harrow’s family owned.
She received another laugh. “The part of a queen, darling! Coronabeth Tridentarius, undead daughter of Cleopatra. Pleased to meet you!”
Harrow stepped back suddenly, staring at the mummy with equal parts curiosity and fear. She’d never met a child of the Nile before. Her town had such a dismal ghoul population; she wasn’t sure the proper etiquette for addressing royalty. “Uh, I’m Harrow,” she said quickly. “I’m a vampire.”
Coronabeth’s eyes burned with the power of someone who had never been denied a damn thing in her life. They were inhumanely purple, which just added to her royal air. “Oh a bloodsucker! We have quite a few of those back home. Not as interesting, no offense of course.” Harrow nodded, taking full offense, and moved farther away from the smiling mummy. “I do hope to see you around, vamp!” She called as Harrow made a hasty retreat up the stairs to the doors.
Do not call me a vamp, she seethed, but didn’t vocalise. Who knew what kind of charms and spells Coronabeth had up her bandages. John Gaius was grinning like a dope back at her. “The Tridentarii are an interesting sort.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Oh yes! Corona has a twin named Ianthe. Trust me, Corona is the nicer of the two.”
Inside the entry hall students moved about, some heading to classes with arms full of books while others perched on window ledges chatting with friends. Harrow was dazzled by the amount of color in the otherwise decrepit school. Flimsy cloth hung on the windows, casting rainbows of light over the marble floor and large staircase leading upstairs. Statues bedazzled with precious rock guarded said staircase as well as each hallway on the ground floor. Harrow was tempted to pull her hood up and hide from the multicolored eyes that fell on her as she followed John Gaius across to the stairs. She was a black knife carving through the sea of color, and she already hated it.
The headmaster stopped before two figures who Harrow thought were statues for a second. They were the only ones not wearing an inordinate amount of color, and they stood stiffly together, heads bent over a book. “Harrowhark, meet Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus,” John Gaius announced. “They have offered to show you around and help you get acquainted at our school.”
The two people were wearing all grey up to their necks. The woman—Camilla she assumed—had short brown hair chopped neatly at her chin. Even her eyes were colorless—dark as dirt, which Harrow liked. Palamedes had a nerdy pair of glasses on and eyes as grey as the cloak he wore pinned neatly to his neck. They were both holding backpacks filled with books, each one the same stormcloud grey. Camilla extended a hand stiffly. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her voice near monotonous.
Harrow shook, skin tingling from the amount of physical contact she was putting it through. Her eyes flickered to Camilla’s exposed section of skin as she pulled back the hand, taking note of the stitches neatly running around her wrist. Not stitches like you’d get from an injury, but stitches that seemed to be holding her hand to her arm, pinning the skin together.
“Uh, yeah,” she said awkwardly. Was the universe determined to make her meet a million new kinds of creatures today? “No offense, but what are you?”
Camilla smiled thinly and the duo both pulled down their shirts from their necks to show shiny silver bolts stuck to the sides of each. “The fabric is waterproof,” Palamedes said, voice easily more alive than Camilla’s. “So we don’t zap anyone if water gets on us. These mechanisms are highly advanced, but you can never be too careful.”
Harrow felt absurdly crude as she said, “You’re recreations of Frankenstein’s monster.”
Camilla shrugged. “More advanced, but yes. Creating children in a lab has been in our family for generations; it’s really not much different than humans and genetic engineering.”
“It’s a bit different,” Palamedes countered. “If we were the same thing I don’t think humans would find us appalling.”
Harrow snorted. “I understand that.” She peeled back her lips and showed her fangs. “Once they see the teeth suddenly I’m dangerous.” Camilla and Palamedes both nodded in understanding.
“Take Harrowhark up to her room,” said John Gaius, who Harrow had forgotten was there. “Then show her around to where her classes will be.” Then to Harrow, “I do hope you’ll be happy here, Ms. Nonagesimus.” With that, he walked off.
Harrow followed Palamedes and Camilla—who quite frankly, were incredible feats of scientific creation—up the stairs and down the hall to the left. The windows vanished and instead the space was lit by electric torches mounted on the walls. Running along the whole space were doors on either side with names printed on them. Her eyes caught ‘Tridentarius’ on one and she grimaced. She felt bad for whoever ‘Tern’ was, the name for who they shared a room with.
Her guides stopped at a door almost to the end of the hall. Her name was the lone one on the door and she breathed a sigh of relief. On one side was another door with the lone name ‘Nigenad’ and on the other side were the names ‘Chatur’ and ‘Tettares’. “We’re right across the hall,” Camilla said when she saw Harrow checking out who the neighbors were.
“Is this place really as good as it claims to be?” Harrow asked. “Is it really a safe haven for people like us?”
“Of course,” Palamedes said—his voice was incredibly gentle and human sounding compared to his partner’s. “Headmaster Gaius makes sure we live in a secure and safe environment. We’re allowed to venture into the human world too, as long as we’re careful. I’ve gone a number of times to the library in town.”
“Against my advice,” clipped Camilla. She was cautious; Harrow respected that. “The headmaster said you had a bad history with humans,” she continued. Great, she was curious; Harrow hated that.
“Yes, but who doesn’t?” Her response was thankfully enough and no further questions were posed as she pushed open the door to her room.
It was a vampire’s dream room. The ceiling went higher than Harrow thought it would, arching up into a circular area with beams stretching across. She could stretch her wings up there even on rainy days. The windows had black paint on them, masking the sunlight coming through to less painful levels, but she would still wear her robes. Everything was either rich brown wood or black metal, including the large bed with velvet blankets folded gently at the foot. It all screamed Victorian, and she was very appreciative. “I like it,” was her only verbal comment. She dropped her three bags on the floor and the impact threw dust up.
“Ortus Nigenad is your neighbor to the right,” Palamedes said, not crossing the threshold; another thing Harrow appreciated. “He’s a vampire too, although he acts as though he’s a human playing one.”
“I have associated with vampires of all kinds my whole life,” Harrow said as she observed the beamed ceiling again. “I’m very much aware of how annoying we can be.”
“Can you turn into a bat?” Camilla asked suddenly. A spark of life came into her voice as well. “Ortus refuses to,” she added, as if to prove her question had a purpose.
“Yes I can.” Both the lab monsters seemed to light up, and Harrow swore Palamedes’s bolts let out a quick shock of electricity. She was quite surprised; vampires were so common in the ghoul community, and so varied in powers, that people stopped caring about the specificities of any they ran into. “Would you like to see?” She offered.
Palamedes nodded quickly—Harrow briefly feared his neck stitching would tear—but then stopped and composed himself. “If you’d be so kind. May I take notes? I have a collection of studies on different subjects and their powers.”
“So being a scientist is a genetic trait for you,” Harrow replied, to which both creatures laughed. Well Camilla snorted, but that seemed to be her version of a laugh.
Harrow took off her robe and let it lay on the floor, closing her eyes gently. She stretched her limbs, becoming aware of how her skin flexed across her bones and muscles, how her blood flowed from veins to arteries, how her lungs expanded and her heart twitched. She compressed those feelings down, mentally picturing herself shrinking, contorting. Her limbs filled with a fuzzy static and her bones molded themselves into new shapes as she kept compressing. When Harrow opened her eyes, the fuzziness was gone and instead her blood was roaring in a new pattern around her now small body. Her arms, well now they weren’t arms, stretched out and unveiled black wings. She flapped up from the ground and circled the room once, the wind rushing past her fur. She let out a short screech as she came to a stop at the door. Camilla and Palamedes were watching her with wide eyes.
“Fascinating,” the man said, taking quick notes in a thick notebook. “I’ve only ever read about the transformation, but getting to see it happen is incredible.”
Harrow flapped back to her cloak, wanting to test out flying around those beams, but not wanting to be watched while doing so. She landed on the fabric and buried herself into it before closing her eyes and redoing the process. Account for bodily functions, expand outward, feel her body twist and grow back into limbs and flesh. She shook the static from her limbs and head as her body reformed into the robe. “So you’ve never met another vampire who could transform?” She asked, her voice high and squeaky still. She cleared it a few times hastily.
“I’ve never met another vampire besides you and Ortus,” Palamedes said, still taking notes. “Cam and I spent our whole lives in the lab. Being here at Canaan, we’ve been exposed to so many other kinds of ghouls. It’s incredibly helpful to my research.”
“Speaking of exposed,” Camilla said in a gruff whisper. “Let’s let her get dressed.” Harrow gave a brief nod of thanks as the two moved aside and shut the door, their voices hushed whispers as Palamedes continued taking notes. She slipped out of the robe and redressed in her long sleeve shirt and pants, all black of course. The one reason she hated transforming was losing her clothing when she turned back. Once her boots were laced back on and her robe in place, she stepped out of the room.
And nearly ran into two teenagers who were dashing down the hall.
“Sorry!” The one—a girl—called back, her wild brown hair flying around. She continued down the hall after the other teen, each of them wearing long navy blue cloaks. Harrow also instantly noticed the short brown ears each of them donned on the heads, mostly because each one was punctured by about a dozen earrings.
“Those two need to go to the gym if they want to run around,” Camilla said sternly. Palamedes had finished scribbling in his book and was nodding in agreement.
“Werewolves I’m guessing?” Harrow asked, happy she finally recognized a creature in this place.
“Yep. Jeannemary and Isaac,” Palamedes said. He angled his head to the door to the left of Harrow’s. “They’re your other neighbors.”
“Oh joy.”
Harrow was led back down the hall and the stairs to the main floor. Palamedes explained that the upstairs was all living quarters and the main level was for classes and other rooms such as a library and cafeteria. Harrow was incredibly interested in the library, but first she had to endure the rest of the tour.
The cafeteria was first and it looked like any other school cafeteria. Tables in various shapes and sizes were set up in a surprisingly colorless room with large windows making up the far wall. Some students were milling about in there, some sitting and talking and others surrounded by books and papers. Harrow didn’t like the social feeling of the place.
Next they passed by classrooms. Some were full and others were empty. One particular one had the door opened and Harrow saw rows of desks leading down to where a rather disgruntled ghost was floating around, pointing at the display of an eyeball labeled ‘Gorgon’. Her peach hair was flying erratically as she moved, the rest of her body eerily pale. “This is the cornea, you infants!!” She shrieked, and Harrow wondered if she was part banshee.
“Anatomy with Professor Mercymorn,” Camilla said dryly as they passed. “It’s hell.” The exhausted screech of the ghost followed them past a few more classes until the hall rounded and they came upon glass doors. Looking through, Harrow saw her least favorite thing in the world: a gymnasium.
The floor was so shiny she could already hear the squeaking of sneakers against it. The electric lights overhead buzzed loudly and illuminated all the dastardly torture devices the place held. Including treadmills, balls, and weights along the back wall. “I’m hoping this class is an elective.”
“I wish,” said Palamedes, obviously as against physical activity as Harrow was. “Pyrrha and Gideon are intense and dedicated to fitness.”
As he spoke, Harrow watched a rather imposing man cross the gym, making sure everything was in its proper place. “That’s Gideon I suppose?”
“That’s both of them,” said Palamedes. At Harrow’s confused expression he elaborated, “Are you familiar with the story of Jekyll and Hyde?”
“Yes.”
“Well in this case it’s Gideon and Pyrrha.”
“So—so they’re both in there?” Harrow motioned to the body that was moving about.
“Yep,” Camilla answered shortly. “Pyrrha’s nicer, but not by much.”
They moved away from the gym and the dual-personalities who inhabited it. The hall was mostly empty of students as they circled around the whole school, passing more and more classrooms. Harrow glanced out one of the windows and looked across the green field acting as a courtyard to a dark tower rising a couple feet from the edge of the school. “What’s that?” She asked.
“That’s the headmaster’s tower,” Camilla said. “Students aren’t allowed over there.” It looked relatively boring anyway.
Finally they came to the place Harrow was most excited for: the library. The doors were made of dark wood and Palamedes pushed them open with a flourish. The inside was dark and ancient looking, which made Harrow want to jump around in joy. Bookshelves reached up to the ceiling and there were dark tables with yellow lamps spread around. The floor was crushed velvet carpet that left a rich smell in the room. Chandeliers of the same warm yellow color cast rays of dark light—if that was even possible—over everything, and the windows were covered by black curtains. Harrow was in love.
“This is my favorite place too,” Palamedes said. A rush of cold air came upon them and Harrow flinched as a ghost whizzed past carrying a handful of books.
“Watch it,” it—or he—snapped, with an improbably deep voice. His long white hair was braided over one shoulder and he wore chainmail over his body which clinked as he flew.
“Rude,” Harrow said once the spector had gone.
“Silas is always rude,” Camilla hissed, obviously familiar with the spirit.
Ignoring the unpleasant encounter, Harrow wandered around the library a bit, picking out random books to examine. They were of various ages, some being more modern while others were leather bound with ancient paper inside. The modern ones were mostly sciences and history while the ancient ones were literature from various countries. Harrow was eager to read through every single one. Palamedes and Camilla both seemed at peace in the library too, and a small part of Harrow hoped she’d keep running into the duo. They seemed like reasonable people, and most importantly didn’t see her as just some boring vampire.
“Hey, Cam! Sex Pal! What’s up?” A loud voice appeared from the yellowed darkness of the room. Harrow peered around the corner of the bookshelf she was examining to see a woman with horrendously bright red hair sitting at a table surrounded by books. None of them were open, she noted. Camilla and Palamedes—who looked absolutely horrified at the nickname the woman had used—approached the table.
“Gideon, aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Palamedes asked.
The woman—a second Gideon—shrugged and said absently, “I mean probably, but I didn’t feel like it.”
“Your father will kill you if he knows you’re skipping again.”
“Stop being a stick in the mud, Sex Pal. Dear old Dad doesn’t care that much about me.”
Harrow approached as well, intrigued as to how two seemingly reasonable people knew the obviously dim redhead. When she noticed Harrow, she quickly reached over the table and picked up a pair of retro aviators. The sunglasses were slipped on her face, much to Harrow’s amazement. Who wore sunglasses indoors, much less in an already dark room?
Palamedes noticed this too, but instead of comment he turned and motioned for Harrow to come closer. “This is Harrowhark Nonagesimus,” he introduced. “She’s new; Cam and I are showing her around.”
“You can just call me Harrow,” she said in general. Her full name was such a mouthful, having a nickname was more for convenience than familiarity.
“Hey Harrow, I’m Gideon,” the redhead waved. She looked Harrow up and down. “You a vampire?”
“Uh, yes,” Harrow said, rather shocked. “How’d you guess that?”
“I meet a lot of ghouls. I have a knack for it. Plus you dress just like Ortus.” A clanging bell sounded overhead and Gideon instantly shot up and gathered the books into her arms. “Cam are we still on for sparring tomorrow morning?”
“As long as you don’t make me late for class,” the woman replied.
“Gotcha. Harrow, Sex Pal, adieu,” with a stupidly charming semi bow, Gideon vanished out the library door, glasses still on.
“What’s with the aviators?” Harrow asked finally.
Camilla and Palamedes exchanged long looks, as if telepathically asking what do we say? “Gideon has,” Palamedes said slowly, “an interesting ability.”
“She looks pretty human to me,” Harrow said curtly.
“It’s true, she has no physical ghoul attributes,” Palamedes continued. “But trust me, her and her father are incredibly powerful creatures.”
“Who’s her father?”
“The headmaster, John Gaius.”
Gideon jumped down the front steps of Canaan High and crossed the grassy field to the tower she called home. As a child she’d loved pretending she was Rapunzel, trapped in a tower until a woman in knights armor came to rescue her, but she quickly realized long hair sucked and had kept it chopped off ever since. She punched the code in at the base and the door swung open, cleverly disguised as part of the wall. The spiral staircase led up and up past meeting rooms her father used for the faculty as well as the rooms for some of the teachers who were close to her father.
All the way up at the top was a door with a gold handle: her and her father’s quarters. She pushed inside and breathed a sigh of relief to see he wasn’t sitting at his desk. The entry room was supposed to be a living room, but it had been converted into her father’s study a long time ago. The long window along the left wall gave him a bird’s eye view of the front of the school, and he had positioned his desk right in front of it so he could always watch. He had such a God complex it wasn’t funny. Gideon dumped her backpack and books on the floor and crossed the room to the small kitchenette along the back. She searched the fridge, but upon finding nothing to eat just took an energy drink. She turned and jumped to see her father standing there. “Can’t warn a person before you just turn up?!” She barked.
“Augustine said he didn’t see you in class,” John Gaius said by way of both greeting and apology. “That’s the third time this month Gideon.”
“Fifth,” she corrected.
Her father hung his head and rubbed his eyes wearily. “What on Earth am I going to do with you child?”
Gideon brushed past and chugged a quarter of her drink, wishing it was alcoholic in some way. “His class is boring, what am I supposed to do? Would you rather I go and fall asleep?”
“History is an important subject.”
“So are English, anatomy, and biology, but you don’t see me attending those either.”
“Gideon, why can’t you take anything seriously?” Her father was trying the whole ‘caring parent’ routine, but he had blown that a long time ago when he’d chosen to build a school instead of love his child.
“I take a lot of things seriously,” she protested, gathering her things from the floor and heading to her room. “I take gym seriously; I take women seriously; I take myself pretty seriously.”
“This conversation is proving my point exactly.”
Gideon pushed open her door with her hip and tossed her school shit on the desk she rarely used. She turned back around to look at her father, who was wearing his ‘very disappointed’ face. Dammit why did she still give a damn if she made him upset? “Look, I’ll go to his class tomorrow, I promise. I just didn’t feel like it today.”
“You’ll go the rest of the semester as well,” he countered. “And if you don’t I’ll tell Pyrrha not to let you in the gym after hours anymore.” He paused as she took off her glasses and tossed them on the table with her books. “Why do you insist on wearing those things? I thought you grew out of your childish fear of your power.”
“I’m not scared of my power, you moron,” she snapped. They’d had this conversation in different forms so many times. “The glasses are a precaution.”
“I don’t wear glasses as a precaution.”
“Because you’re a dick.”
An explosive sigh left his mouth. “It occurs to me that a lot of your social issues could be solved if you just embrace your power, Gideon.”
“As I’ve said a hundred fucking times ,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “I’m not comfortable forcing people to be my friend by controlling their minds! Cam and Pal like me just fine, even knowing what I can do. And plenty of other people are comfortable talking to me: Dulcinea, Corona, Judi—”
“Gideon, you’ve always been sorely lacking in people your own age to hang out with. I’m not saying you need to constantly control every aspect of a friendship, but maybe what some people need is a little siren convincing to not be so scared.”
“You’re literally suggesting I use mind control to stop people from being scared I’ll use mind control? Dad, that’s even stupider than the time you suggested I use my power to get a girlfriend!”
He took a deep breath, mouth moving as he counted to ten. Gideon was a very taxing person to talk to. “I still think you misunderstood me in that situ—”
“Mind control is not consent, Dad!”
The two stared each other down, which was easy because Gideon was just as tall as he was. Their eyes met strongly, and Gideon expected to feel him trying to poke into her brain, but the static of their power didn’t appear. Of all the crazy and alienating powers out in the ghoul world, her father just had to pick a siren to do it with, giving his child the most alienating power to exist. No one wanted to hang around the person who could order you to do anything they wanted. No one wanted to be friends with someone who with one long look into your eyes could control everything you thought and did.
After a few more minutes John Gaius gave up trying to have a conversation with his daughter. “I don’t enjoy having this fight with you every time we talk. Just don’t skip class again, Gideon.” He extended his arms like he wanted to give her a hug, but she slammed her door shut. He didn’t play father for half her life, suddenly Mom dies and now he wants to act like he loves her? Hell no.
Gideon flopped down on her bed and stared at the magazine cutouts she had taped to her ceiling. Dozens of women in various outfits from swimsuits to ball gowns, some incredibly buff and muscular, others thin and timid looking. They were all gorgeous. One of her latest additions was a girl in all black with an absurd amount of cleavage. Gideon thought of the dark robed vampire Sex Pal and Cam had with them. Her black eyes had been gorgeous, and Gideon had seen the glint of her fangs as she smiled while running her hands over the books.
“Harrowhark,” she ran the name over her tongue. It was a cute name. She had been pretty cute. Gideon had always had a thing for vampires, and she wondered how sharp Harrow’s fangs really were. She hoped she’d run into her ag—
Nope, nope, bad thought! Getting close to people wasn’t a viable option in Gideon’s world. Once you got close to people, they started asking questions. And they always asked that one specific question: ‘What are you?’
And when they heard ‘siren’ she never saw them again.