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Usually, when people curse you, nothing really happens. They’ll say “frick you!” or “go to Hell!” or anything they can come up with to attack you somehow. So, when someone told Aster “I wish the skeletons in your closet come to haunt you,” he didn’t think much of it. Well, it’s not like the skeletons came out or anything, but something of the like did wait outside his door last night when it was pouring, and still hadn’t left by the time he was heading out for work the next morning.
“Were you ignoring me!?” she pouted immediately after he showed himself from behind the door.
You see, his response to seeing a decaying carcass at his window while it was raining cats and dogs outside after watching a horror movie about a zombie apocalypse was to pretend it wasn’t there because his mind was just playing tricks on him after watching something scary. Obviously, it wasn’t.
“Uh, kind of?” he hesitantly admitted, a mix of emotions flowing through him.
If he had to explain it, something like shock because what looked like a zombie could talk perfect English, confused-ness at the fact she sounded Aussie so he has no idea how she got here or why no one had paid her any mind, fear of what was to come, and a few other emotions, but those were the main ones.
He doesn’t know why he said it, but he moved aside as he invited her in, “Do you… want to come inside?” Again, he doesn’t know why he was offering a zombie to come inside his home, but he thinks maybe he felt pity for ignoring her when she clearly sounded human now. Maybe he wanted to make things right in fear some other curse was going to be placed upon him for disrespecting the dead. Who knows.
What he does know is that begrudgingly, she accepted his offer, stomping in like the storm that raged outside his window last night, her water soaked boots staining the carpet every which way she stepped, and the stench of something like the sewers following her. He did his best to hold back a retch or reacting anyway similar to disgust to try to respect the dead, but he’s only human, so there’s only so much he can hide on his face. She was quick to pick up on that.
“You have to help me get back home!” she demanded, standing in the middle of his living room as a puddle began to form at her feet. If he could ignore the pungent smell of sewer water, he would admit she looked very cyute.
Now embarking on his new quest when he should be heading to work, he first asked, “Okay, where do you live?”
“I don’t know,” she replied quickly, her arms folded and her face very much still scrunched up.
Aster blinked at her a few times before pressing, “Okay, well, do you have any clues or something I can work with?”
“No,” was all she had to say, which made Aster even more confused.
“Why were you outside my window then? Shouldn’t you have been finding your way home?”
“I was, but there was that scene of that one guy torturing that other guy, and he had him strapped up to a table where bamboo stood underneath it. I wanted to see what happened, and when I did, I wanted to see how the movie ended, and then I wanted to watch more, but then you turned off the TV, so I thought if I waited outside your window you’d put it back on.”
Obviously he didn’t. “What do you want me to do then?” Aster wasn’t necessarily losing his patience, but he was getting there. He was never a puzzles guy in the first place, but this one’s like he’s been given the board and has to find the pieces himself, and even then, he’s probably not going to be able to solve it because he doesn’t know what the picture looks like so he doesn’t know what pieces he’s looking for.
“I don’t know,” the zombie girl replied as she looked around, spotting his gamer chair and setup. She pointed at it, walking over to sit, as she continued, “Oh! We can just-“
The stench around the house Aster can clean up, but he’ll be damned if he lets his setup be ruined. “N-n-n-no! Stop!” Seeing her look at him in confusion and offense, he added a little more meekly as he sat down before her, “Why don’t I do it? I have to login anyways.”
The first thing that came to mind was cemetery. Specifically, what coffins and caskets had been exhumed recently, since the zombie girl didn’t really have any recollection of where she came from. Nothing came from that search, but they did find reports of occult activity popping up, so they explored that, thinking that maybe she came from a ritual or something. Not being occultists themselves or being related to people who were, they didn’t find much from that search either, but they did see an advertisement for a witch’s service that was nearby.
Well, supposedly a witch. When they visited the website, making sure things were legit and they weren’t walking into a scenario in which they would leave with two zombies, they found most of the things the witch was advertising as her “successful” experiments were very weird food combinations. At their worst, they did look like some vile concoctions, but after reading the ingredients listed underneath the images, Aster and the zombie girl found at the very least you’d get a stomach ache, and at the very worst, you’d die from food poisoning but even that would be a prolonged death you’d be able to avoid. How this supposed witch was able to not only keep her site public but also be allowed an advertisement on the public web they don’t know.
They drove to her location anyways, Aster buying a bunch of air fresheners and seat covers and stuffing them in the back of his car before he let the zombie girl in. The “witch” lived in a cabin in the woods far away from any known trails or paths. That checked out. When they knocked on the door, a voice merrily welcoming them in, they walked in and saw a woman with long, wavy hair the color of raven feathers, blood red eyes that shone like rubies, wearing a deep red milkmaid dress with a black corset and a hat that screamed “witch” the same colors, they were pretty sure… she was dressing up for Halloween. It was the holiday, after all.
“How can I help you?” she asked in a low, sultry voice, her eyes filled with mirth as she stood up from where she was sitting at a table entirely made of sticks, her bear pelt stool walking out from under her to give her room.
“What’s your name?” the zombie girl perked up, and Aster realized he didn’t get hers.
“My name is Scarle, and I’m a witch!” the witch, who now has a name Aster knew, announced proudly as she rested her fists against her hips and stood tall. “And you two?”
“My name is Aster, and this is…” Aster introduced as he then gestured to the zombie girl whose name he did not know but had spent about half a day with.
“Maria!” the zombie girl announced equally as proudly as the witch. “Can’t believe you just now ask me that,” she muttered under her breath.
Before Aster could retort, the witch repeated, “So, how can I help you today?” She looked a little nervous, but Aster thanked her for the save internally.
“I need help getting home, but I don’t know anything that can help. I was wondering if you could,” Maria replied as she stepped forward and clasped her hands together, her eyes downcast as she looked on the verge of tears, and Aster may have felt even more guilty he didn’t know her name before.
The witch hummed as she nodded, before she remarked, “That does sound difficult. BUT, difficult problems call for easy solutions!”
With the wave of her hand, a book appeared from thin air, opening itself to her as it flipped through the pages for what she desired. When it stopped, and she started saying something in some foreign language that seemed long forgotten by any civilization, Aster and Maria were fairly certain she was actually a witch. In a puff of smoke, a buff, super swole demon lady appeared, her wings black as feathers fell from what was barely there. They looked like they had been scorched off, cinders and ash latching onto the ends of feathers half burnt. She locked eyes with the witch, her eyes blowing out for just a moment, before closing them and bowing slightly.
“For what have you summoned me for?” she said unto the witch.
“This girl, named Maria, needs to get home, but she doesn’t know where to start since she has nothing to go off of. Do you know if there’s anything you can do?” the witch asked as she closed the book and snapped her fingers, the book disappearing on its own.
The demon looked at Maria, pondering as she rested her chin against her hand and remained quiet for a moment. Then, she spoke, “I can erase her for good.”
“What!?” Aster squawked.
“No, don’t!” Maria cried out, and Aster felt that pang of guilt again.
“Can’t you do anything else!?” Scarle pleaded as she stood between the demon and Maria, blocking the zombie girl from the demon’s sight.
The demon shook her head, replying, “My expertise isn’t looking into the past, it’s to create chaos. Destruction and death follow my every step, and this is all I can do. You would have better luck summoning another demon.”
“No, we can make do with that. We can make this work,” Scarle reasoned as she looked around her cabin. She drew out a document wedged between some shelves as she rolled it out on her table. It was a blueprint, and looking at it, everybody but her seemed to know they were not going to be able to replicate it.
“I’m not going to be able to replicate this,” the demon voiced what everyone else was thinking.
“No, no, we’re going to do this on a smaller scale. If we cut some corners here and here, we’ll be able to make a new home for Maria in no time!” Scarle beamed as she looked at all the annotations on the blueprint.
“Where did you even get this?” the demon asked as she lifted one of the corners of the blueprint.
“A vampire friend of mine gave it to me as a token of our friendship,” Scarle replied as she crossed her finger all over the paper. “If we make this smaller, and this shorter, we should still have a door for Maria to walk through. We should probably also flatten out the roof since we don’t plan on keeping an attic.”
Scarle continued to take note of adjustments she wanted to make to the original design, before finalizing on a concept Maria nor Aster were sure she had any concrete idea of what it would look like. She initially set Aster out to collect wood for the building, and Maria to fetch pelts for bedding and warmth, but they decided to switch tasks since Aster wasn’t going to be able to carry all that weight, and Maria couldn’t feel anything on her muscles, so she would be fine. Besides, Aster could just drive into the nearest town for blankets and bedding rather than Maria collecting more dead carcasses to remind her of where she would have been if not for whatever happened to her that made her a zombie.
As for the demon, Scarle said she needed something special done from her before kicking Aster and Maria out of the cabin. With nothing else to do, they decided to head out to complete their tasks.
It was getting dark, and Aster was sure by the time he drove to the nearest town, everybody would be closed, so he promised to drive back when he was sure at least one store was open to get the stuff. Maria only collected around a few dozen sticks more fit to act as kindle to a fire, but it’s because she didn’t know what tools Scarle wanted them to use to cut down the surrounding trees. It wasn’t like Maria could just uproot them and walk away with them. She may not be able to feel anything in her muscles anymore, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their limits. What if she pulls off her arms from trying to lift a tree?
Anyways, they had been walking around for a while when they heard howling before a beast jumped them. They evaded it, scrambling to their feet to regroup with each other, and again, the beast pounced on them. On instinct, Maria got one of the particularly long and sturdy sticks she picked up and stuck it out to the monster, piercing through his side, and it made him retract from the both of them. It looked too big to be a normal wolf, but it wasn’t a bear either. Then, Aster remembered something: it’s Halloween night. He looked up at the sky, and sure enough, there was a full moon out. Crap.
“Get out of here!” the beast snarled through his teeth, ready to attack them again if they dared not move, crouching low to the ground.
“We were just looking for logs to collect to build a home,” Maria excused as she held the stick more firmly in her grasp.
“Do I look like I care!?” the beast snapped, biting the air as he showed off his canines that could tear flesh like paper.
Then, when there seemed to be no easy way out, a voice chimed in, almost melodically, “Kyo! You can’t be mean to strangers! They were just looking around, weren’t they?”
A cloaked figure swooped in between them, and as he removed his hood, Aster could see the sharpened fangs most known for a werewolf’s worst enemy, second to all their known weaknesses.
“I don’t care! All of you better leave or I’ll make sure you never come back!” the beast barked, prowling ever closer to Aster and Maria as he rounded the vampire.
Said vampire quirked a brow before disappearing and reappearing at Aster’s side. He reached his hand over to his, gliding up his arm to hold his chin, and with Aster’s eyes locked onto his as he smiled at him with the gentlest eyes Aster’s ever seen from anybody, the vampire told him, “I’m sorry.”
Aster felt teeth pierce into the skin of his neck before feeling a wet tongue lick at the wound. He tried to push the vampire away, but he stood like a rock as he held Aster in place. Some lewd thoughts may or may not have passed Aster’s mind, but that’s because his blood was literally being sucked out of him, so his brain didn’t have enough juice to think straight. When the vampire finally let him go, he laughed at him as Aster nearly fell back, the vampire swooping an arm around him to bring him back to the vampire’s form. Aster told himself he was feeling light headed because his blood was rapidly drained from him faster than his body could process more, but as he rested against the vampire’s chest, Maria and the werewolf could tell it was more than that.
“He’s my thrall now, Kyo, so you can’t hurt him,” the vampire declared, his voice sickly sweet like honey.
“Then get away from me already,” the werewolf, apparently named Kyo, grumbled.
“I could make you one too, if you’d like,” the vampire proposed as he dipped Aster low enough that they weren’t touching from where either of them were standing, but if they bent lower they would.
Aster’s only response was to gasp as he felt the heat of something nearing ever closer to him, and he’s not sure what it was, but if he had to guess, it had something to do with the way the vampire never took his eyes off him since he pulled Aster into himself. And probably also the fact he was being dipped like they were dance partners at a ball even though they had just met not ten minutes ago, and they didn’t know each other’s name.
“Nah, I’m good. I think I’d rather eat another one of that witch’s concoctions than be another one of your servants,” the werewolf rejected as he turned around to leave.
The vampire stood Aster up and covered him with his cloak as he laughed again.
“Could I have him back actually? He’s supposed to help me get some stuff for my new home with a witch,” Maria spoke up before either of them could leave.
“What’s her name?” the vampire asked curiously.
“Scarle?” Maria knew the witch’s name, she just wasn’t sure why the vampire had asked.
“Oooh, Scarle! It’s been a while since we’ve seen her, hasn’t it, Kyo? We should see her again!” the vampire perked up like a puppy.
“You can go ahead. I don’t have to see her all the time,” Kyo rejected as he continued on his way.
“Oh don’t be so rude! C’mon, let’s go see her!” the vampire demanded as he grabbed the werewolf by his shoulder.
Aster woke up the next morning finding nothing needed to be done. Apparently, the vampire, named Ren as he introduced himself, had some spare materials from when he was building his castle — the one on the blueprint Scarle had — so he gave those to use. As for building the structure, it took a lot of hard work, but with the joint efforts of Maria, Kyo, Scarle, and Ren, they were able to make it happen. From the looks of it, it didn’t look like it was going to fall over anytime soon, but Kyo said there was a lot of struggle putting the thing together, mostly in part because communication was all over the place. On the subject of the werewolf, Scarle was tending to his wound.
Now freed from his quest which allowed him to neglect his obligations from leading a normal life, Aster decided it was about time he returned before his employers fired him. As is customary of social norms, Aster let everyone else know.
Ren looked at him with a quirked brow as the werewolf cursed the witch after a particularly loud snap of one of his rib bones. “You can’t leave. You’re my thrall now, so you have to stay with me.”
Aster just looked at him like a deer in headlights because he didn’t know what to say. Meanwhile, Scarle was scolding Kyo for getting stabbed in the first place. Maria was trying to apologize to him, but Scarle kept assuring her it wasn’t her fault some werewolf decided to be hostile to her right off the bat.
Ren burst out laughing after a moment of silence, informing, “Sorry. That was a terrible joke. You’re free to go.” And with a flourish, he turned around as he walked over to mediate between the two, Aia — the demon lady was called as Ren had informed Aster earlier — already there.
After that, the travel back home was relatively normal. Nothing happened on the road. He’s pretty sure no one knew he was gone because nobody said anything to him. Nothing was missing when he got in though, so that was a plus. Better yet, since he was feeling a little exhausted, when he entered his room, he found the bed was already made, so he plopped himself face first as gracefully as a sack of sand, kicking his shoes off, and taking his clothes off despite all the extra work he was probably putting in when he could’ve just stood up and taken them off.
He wondered what his higher ups would say to him tomorrow. They’d probably lecture him and let him go with a warning, and then everything would be back to how it was. He wouldn’t see his ghoul friends again, so he treasured the time he had with them, because he was sure it was going to be a while when something exciting happened again.
That was before he heard creaking from his window though. Looking in its direction, it was wide open as the curtains fluttered inside his room. Defenseless and naked, Aster accepted his fate as he just looked around warily for whatever had crawled in.
What he was not expecting was to see a tall, looming figure standing at the end of the bed closer to the door, ocean blue eyes piercing through the darkness as they looked at him mischievously. As the figure crawled onto his bed, Aster could faintly make out who it was approaching him.
“What are you doing here!?” he shouted as his body finally listened to his mind to cover himself with the sheets.
“Just because I said you could leave, doesn’t mean I can’t find you,” the vampire indulged as he prowled ever closer, before stopping short and pulling back to sit where he was.
Aster peeked at him from over the covers, and for some reason, he looked a lot smaller than he remembered. He looked like he was trying to look smaller, his shoulders drawn in as he avoided eye contact with the human, instead focusing them on the sheets between them. He looked sad.
“What’s wrong?” Aster asked softly, slowly lowering the sheets until they covered up to his shoulders.
Ren seemed to be mulling over his words, before replying, “Could I have a bite?”
Aster’s mind stopped working for a moment. “Can’t you just do that without asking?” As far as Aster remembered, vampires only had to ask to be invited into a residence to enter, and that was it. Something the vampire didn’t do but still did without repercussions Aster noted, but what was he going to do with the thing that could kill him within reach of him?
The vampire huffed, “Well, I don’t want to force you. If you don’t want me to do it, then I won’t.” He was looking at Aster now, and from what he could tell, he was picking up on a little bit of frustration or anxiety. Or maybe both.
Aster thought for a moment. Ren came to him for a reason. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come at all. Aster’s not sure how long Ren’s been without blood, but he guesses he might be in some sort of drought right now, since to Aster’s knowledge, Ren doesn’t have any other blood bags, so he can’t say no to him. He can’t let him bite his neck again though, or else he’ll have those thoughts again and maybe more. So, he settled on a compromise.
Aster reached out one of his arms, Ren perking up like a curious cat. Turning his wrist around to show the nerves, Aster proposed, “You can bite my wrist, but if I pass out, I better not wake up dead.”
Ren nodded, before nearing closer. He sunk his teeth into the skin, Aster flinching for just a moment, but relaxing when he felt the vampire lick the wound like the first time. He was considering where else he should let the vampire bite him since it seemed every direct contact with his nervous system was more painful than he realized.
Ren didn’t suck him dry like a Capri Sun, thankfully, and like before, all Aster was left with was a bite mark and a little bit of soreness, the first wound starting to hurt just a tad bit more. As he rubbed at the wound on his wrist, he was not expecting for Ren to still be there. Looking at him, he looked sad again, his eyes downcast.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Ren looked away towards the door as he replied, “I don’t mind coming over when I need a drink, but everyone’s going to miss you, you know?”
Aster stopped rubbing his arm as he processed those words. All he did was bring Maria somewhere she wouldn’t be alone. Why did it matter that he wasn’t there? “I didn’t know I was going to be missed,” was all he could say.
Ren nodded, telling him, “Scarle didn’t get to thank you for bringing Maria. If it wasn’t for her-“ Ren furrowed his brows as he continued, “If you hadn’t brought Maria, Scarle would’ve been waiting for the next time Kyo came to visit her again, or when I dragged him along.”
“Well, now she has Aia and Maria to keep her company.” He knows it sounds like he’s making excuses. Because he is.
Ren sighed as he finally looked at him, Aster getting lost in those eyes that scared him earlier in the night. They were soft this time, almost pleading. “Would you ever come back for a visit? You could see where I live since I technically know yours,” Ren suggested.
“You do know where I live,” Aster corrected.
Ren looked down again, agreeing somberly, “Right.”
It was quiet again. For the longest time, Aster didn’t know what to say.
Ren sighed as he withdrew from the bed. “Good night.”
By the time Aster could say anything back, Ren was already gone, the window closed, and the curtains drawn. It was like he was never there in the first place, which oddly, didn’t sit right with Aster.
So, when Scarle, Aia, and Maria saw him again a few weeks later for a visit, he just told them he was in the area. Scarle didn’t pass up the chance to call Ren over, and when he came, he made sure to drag Kyo along with him. Overjoyed at the prospect she could finally thank Aster properly this time, Scarle made sure to prepare the most extravagant dinner for him, which meant plenty of food for everyone as well. Aster ate his fill, enjoying small talk with everyone else, and yeah, maybe it was enough for him to come back to visit again. And again and again and again…