Chapter Text
Enough with the hearts.
Logan made a face as he scanned the bulletin board by the Drexford High entrance. Whoever designed the poster for the Valentine's Day dance went overboard with hearts. And they were all laughing at him.
Those hearts had it easy. They simply floated around like balloons. They didn't need to summon the courage to ask Trevor to go out. Trevor just thought of Logan as a friend. They hung out in the same club because they were both creatures. Otherwise, Trevor wouldn't have paid any attention to him. Why should he?
It had taken Logan years to come out as trans. Dating was still an impossible dream. Then he learned a couple of months ago he was a witch. Before then, he hadn't known real witches existed. And not just witches. Werewolves and vampires were real too. All three types of creatures were in their club.
If only he understood vampires better. Would Trevor be offended? Logan didn't think vampires only dated vampires. On the other hand, Tess, the witch who was mentoring him, insisted that she and Finn were just friends, even though the two often seemed to be a couple.
Were vampires ever gay? The club members weren't much help. They mainly wanted to play Fleetnight Oracles. Hard to exchange life-changing revelations when you're battling orcs in a fantasy game.
"You thinking of inviting Trevor?"
Logan swallowed as he spun around to face Julieta. She was his closest friend at the club. Her dads lived not far from his grandparents' house. They usually walked home together. Julieta was a werewolf. Like him, she'd lost her parents. Quincy and Ramesh heard about her plight through the social app Casper and adopted her. She'd moved to Drexford a couple of years ago.
"Is it that obvious?" Logan asked, dismayed. Had Trevor guessed too?
"Only to me. You do a good job of hiding it from the others."
"You don't think he suspects anything, do you?"
"No, but don't you want him to? Trevor's nice. He's into fantasy games like you. He's attractive. What's not to like?"
"Me," Logan said bleakly.
She knitted her brows together. "Because you're a ...?"
"Witch, trans, nerd—take your pick." Logan did a quick scan but no one else was close. "I don't even know if he's into guys. Do you?"
"Nope. Want me to ask him?"
"Don't you dare!" As they exited the lobby, Logan zipped up his parka. Julieta already had put on her mittens and stocking cap. She was from Costa Rica and found Massachusetts winters a challenge. Trying to change the subject, Logan said, "How about you and Holly?"
She blushed. "We haven't discussed it."
"She could be shy. You could ask her."
"And scare her away? Never! Let's go to the dance as a group. No dates. Just four friends hanging out. We can take turns dancing with everyone."
"Yeah, that sounds good." Much safer. No hurt feelings. No awkwardness. He absently slapped the back of his head as he felt a sharp prick. "Do you see a bee around?"
"In February?" Julieta snorted her disbelief. "Owww!" She winced as she rubbed the side of her neck. "It got me too. Maybe it escaped from a greenhouse." She scanned the snowy surroundings. "Where is it?"
"Forget the bug," Logan said. "If it attacks us again, I'll zap it." He'd never felt so confident. "Is Trevor coming over to play Fleetnight Oracles with us this afternoon?"
"You know he is. Holly is too."
"Great! I'll invite Trevor to the dance. It will be our first date as a couple!"
"I'll ask Holly," Julieta said, smiling blissfully. "We can double-date."
Logan hugged her in his excitement. Why had he been torturing himself over Trevor? All those wasted weeks when they could have been together. Weren't those embarrassing dreams telling him something? Like it was time to wake up and live!
#
Quincy was closing the cash register at Tadmore Books when the bell attached to the front door jingled. He suppressed a sigh, hoping the customer wouldn't stay long. Today was his turn to get home early to start supper. Tess was working in the storeroom in the back. If necessary, he could ask her to help the customer.
"Hey, handsome!" Ramesh called out as he entered the store. "I couldn't stay away," he added, his voice deepening as he neared the counter. That sultry look in his eyes was usually only there when they were alone. Ramesh drew him into a tight embrace, his mouth demanding an answer that usually Quincy was only too happy to give.
This wasn't like Ramesh to be so forward, but who was he to protest?
#
Tess took Quincy up on his offer to close up and headed home on the early side. She dropped Edwina off at the house and then considered her options. Finn was probably still at the guitar shop. He'd lent her a CD of dulcimer music that she wanted to return. She'd never played the dulcimer, but he built them in his shop and had offered to teach her. He claimed they weren't difficult to learn.
After feeding Edwina, she retrieved the CD and headed for the guitar shop.
His band Night Fangs was playing at the high school dance this coming Saturday. He'd invited her to come along, joking she could play tambourine. She hadn't decided yet. Would the sight of all those happy couples bring back too many bittersweet memories of her ex-boyfriend?
Absently she swatted at something. Her neck started to throb. Had a wasp built its nest in someone's attic and now escaped? A lump wasn't forming, so it probably wasn't a bug.
She spotted Finn standing outside his shop and darted forward. His brown hair was pulled back into a bun. Those dark, smoldering eyes lit a fire inside her. What she felt wasn't simply the pull of vampire magnetism.
He turned to look at her. He'd undoubtedly smelled her from a block away. She hoped he liked the perfume she wore. But in the end, did it matter?
"Hi Tess, did you enjoy the CDs?"
There was only one response to that smile. She drew his head down and kissed him like she'd never kissed anyone before. Her senses went into overdrive as he returned the kiss. His momentary hesitation was simply surprise. He realized they were meant for each other too. Why had she waited so long?
#
When Logan spotted Trevor on the front walk in front of Julieta's house, he said, "I'll get the door." Not that Julieta was paying attention. She was too busy confessing her undying love to Holly.
Trevor's freckled face was flushed almost as red as his hair. Was it the cold or did he feel it too? "Sorry, I'm late. Did you already start the game?"
"No, I was waiting for you." All my life. "Would you like to go to the dance with me on Saturday?"
Trevor blinked. "Sure. I'd assumed we'd go as a group."
"I think we will, but I just wanted you to know how much ..."
Trevor had a bewildered expression on his face, but Logan had been wanting to kiss him for months. Surely he felt the same way.
#
Finn smiled down at Tess. In her sleep, she snuggled closer to his chest. His guitar workshop wasn't the romantic place he would have selected for their first time to make love, but she wasn't to be denied.
He'd been attracted to her since the first moment he saw her at the Sip & Savor, but he'd kept a lid on his desire. All vampires grappled with the need for discipline and restraint. The meds he took and his vegetarian diet served as a constant reminder not to give in to his instincts.
Tess hadn't mentioned much about her vampire ex-boyfriend, but Finn knew they dated for years. She was aware of a vampire's ability to charm. Finn was determined that if anything developed between them, she would initiate it.
And now she had.
He lingered over her delicate brown features. Her shoulder-length black curly hair was draped over his pale chest. Some vampires resorted to artificial tan preparations, but he'd never bothered. For a musician, pallor was unremarkable.
He pulled the padded guitar cover higher over her shoulders. She was sensitive to the cold. Did she find his low temperature uncomfortable? Tess turned to nestle her face in his side. He could remain like this for hours.
Suddenly she jerked upright, staring at him in shock. "Finn?" She looked down at her naked body and blushed. "Oh, jeez, can you ever forgive me?"
"For making love?" His stomach clenched at her reaction. "I thought this was what you wanted."
"I did, I mean, I do, but I don’t know what came over me. I never would have taken advantage of you."
"Hey, I don't think you cast a spell on me," he said, proceeding cautiously. "Your overture was unexpected, but welcome."
"That's just it. For several glorious moments, all my inhibitions disappeared, but now I'm myself again and I don't understand what happened. This is so unlike me."
#
"Don't apologize," Quincy told Ramesh as he reached for his house key. "Getting propositioned in the bookstore will go down as one of my major highlights for the year."
Ramesh groaned. "I don't know how to explain it. My downstairs brain was in overdrive."
Quincy turned and settled his hands on Ramesh's hips. "And I repeat, why is that an issue? You reminded me that we need to schedule more date nights." He waggled his eyebrows. "We could brown-bag our lunches tomorrow and meet in my office. Both of us have competent assistants who can manage very well without us for an hour."
"The way I felt, we'd only need a short coffee break," Ramesh said with a rueful smile that melted his heart.
"What was it that made me so irresistible? My sweater vest?"
"You always wear a sweater vest, and I love you in all of them. But as far as what came over me ..." Ramesh gave an awkward shrug. "Love was in the air?"
Quincy turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Julieta had mentioned that Trevor, Logan, and Holly were coming over to play Fleetnight Oracles. He expected they'd be in the rec room, and he saw a light coming from the staircase to the basement. But usually they had music on.
"I'll tell them we'll be in the kitchen," Ramesh said. "There's plenty of curry for everyone." He stopped, his expression growing intent.
"What do you hear?" Quincy whispered. Ramesh's werewolf ears were much more sensitive than his.
"Julieta's crying, and Logan doesn't sound in much better shape."
"Are the others there?"
"Hard to tell. We should check on them. I hope they won't think we're intruding."
Julieta was at that difficult age when sharing problems with parents was considered poor form. But she didn't cry easily.
When he and Ramesh headed down the stairs, they found Julieta and Logan sitting on the sofa. No sign of the others but their Labradoodle was sprawled next to Julieta, looking every bit as mournful as she did.
"Where are Trevor and Holly?" Quincy asked, pretending he didn't notice Julieta's red-rimmed eyes. "Did they decide to cancel?"
At that, Julieta burst into tears and hid her face in her hands.
"They were here, but decided not to stay," Logan said miserably.
Ramesh sat down next to him. "What happened?"
Logan made a face and turned to Julieta. "Do you want me to explain?"
"No, I'll do it," she said, blotting her eyes with the handkerchief Quincy gave her. "Logan and I invited them to go to the dance with us as our dates. I think we scared them off. I can't explain what happened. Logan and I had agreed on our way home to go as a group. A few minutes later, we changed our minds. We were convinced that's what they wanted too. Somehow I'll have to apologize to Holly."
"I know how ridiculous it sounds," Logan said. "I just hope we can mend fences."
"I may be able to help," Ramesh said. "Something similar happened to me."
#
"Could we have been bitten by a love bug?" Tess asked. Logan laughed but she was serious. When Quincy called her to ask if she'd experienced any unusual sensations, she hadn't wanted to say anything, but then when he described how Julieta, Logan, and Ramesh had been affected, she and Finn headed over to Quincy's house.
The only apparent common denominator was that they'd been stung by something, but that brought them no closer to understanding what was behind it.
The next day, Logan joined her in the Ghostnet archives to search for a possible magical cause. So far, they hadn't found anyone else who'd had a similar experience, but it wasn't the sort of thing you broadcast to the world.
Her lingering embarrassment was eased by the fact that a foreign entity was responsible. Logan's misery would take longer to get over. From the little he told her, she gathered this was the first time he'd invited anyone on a date. Ouch.
"Trevor was probably just surprised," she said. "You shouldn't take it as a rejection."
He glumly shook his head. "You didn't see the way he looked at me. Trevor may feel too uncomfortable to participate in the club now. I'm the one who should leave. It's my fault."
"Nonsense," Olivia declared, opening the door from the tech lab. The arrival of Finn's sister likely compounded Logan's misery. By now, he surely realized that vampires had much more acute hearing and that she would have overheard his remarks.
Olivia wore an Ace of Hearts t-shirt over her leggings. It had been designed by a girl at Drexford High and was being proudly worn by all those who weren't romantically attached. She dropped into a seat next to Logan. "I'll give you a break because you may not understand the pressures vampires face." She turned to Tess. "Have you told him about us?"
"No, I just found out he'd like to date one."
Logan hunched even lower in his chair. "No worries. I probably never will."
Olivia made a face. "Listen, kid. I bet Trevor likes you but believes he caused your burst of enthusiasm. Now he's wallowing in guilt."
"How do you figure that?" he demanded.
"Trade secret of vampires. I trust you won't spread it around. We can charm people to like us. It's an innate ability that we have to learn to suppress. Some say we developed it as a way to survive in a hostile world. When we go through puberty, in addition to all the other embarrassments—zits, flaming erections—"
"We get the picture," Tess said hurriedly before Olivia got carried away.
She grinned. "Okay, I'll keep it clean, but controlling the instinctual blast of charm is one of the hardest traits to master." Her expression turned serious. "Finn told me what happened. Your behavior was unexpected. Trevor likely thought he lost control. You shouldn't assume anything until you have a chance to talk with him." She turned to Tess. "Both of you need to get over it. We have a bigger issue to deal with. Who knows how many others have been affected."
"That's just it," Tess said. "We don't know of anyone else."
Olivia frowned. "So the same witch who caused the Grinch to crash our solstice party could be responsible. Kid, you need to come with me—" She stopped abruptly, her nostrils flaring, as Finn and Quincy appeared at the archive portal.
Finn waved a bug box at them. "Look at what just tried to sting me! It should have known better than to attack a vampire. Score one point for the home team!"
Edwina had already sensed something was off. She took one look at the new arrivals and bolted under the table. Ever since the nightgaunt incident, she'd become hyper-sensitive to manifestations from the etheric plane. But Tess wasn't about to miss out on the opportunity to study a new creature.
It appeared to be roughly the size of a bumblebee but flying back and forth so rapidly that its features were hard to distinguish.
"Can't someone make it stand still?" Olivia complained.
"Just watch me," Tess said as she pulled aether into her fingers and began weaving it into a mini-wind tunnel. "Put the bug box on the worktable and stand back," she told Finn. "I don't want you to get trapped in it too."
She twisted the strands of aether inside the box until the creature was immobile, suspended in a cocoon of air.
Olivia broke into a laugh. "A cupig is our culprit!"
Quincy frowned as he peered into the box. "Meaning a cupid pig? It does resemble a tiny flying pig."
"An adorable flying pig," Tess added, looking at the winsome creature. Its short curlicue of a tail ended in a sharp point. "Is it a real creature from the etheric plane or a fabrication like the Grinch?"
"My hunch is it's being controlled by Morgana le Fay just like the Grinch was," Olivia said. "Cupigs exist in Fleetnight Oracles. They inhabit a meadow where any adventurer runs the risk of being stung. If that happens, they lose control of their powers."
"This was the game Morgana challenged us to after we dispatched the Grinch!" Logan said, grinning from ear to ear. "And by capturing the cupig, we won!"
"It could also explain why only a few of us were stung," Quincy said. "But what's her goal?"
"I don't know," Finn said. "But I, for one, am much happier with a cupig in our midst than a Grinch." He turned to smile at Tess. "You could say this little fellow did us a service."
"Morgana could be testing us," Olivia suggested. "Or perhaps she's simply bored. What will we do with the cupig?"
Quincy reached for a camera from a shelf of supplies. "First we'll photograph it. Then I'll test it. If it's a real creature, it won't be hurt. But the odds are it's merely a blob of ectoplasm."
Tess had to remind herself not to grow attached to the cupig. Somehow it was receiving orders from Morgana. It could be her version of an android.
"Are you still getting messages from Morgana?" Logan asked Oliva.
"She tries, but she can't penetrate Ghostnet. My fellow techs and I outfoxed her with Merlin."
"The character from Fleetnight Oracles?"
She nodded smugly. "Morgana doesn't have a chance against him. When she tries to hack into us, Merlin laughs in her face."
When Quincy tested the cupig, as they suspected it dissolved into ectoplasm. Tess wished they could have kept it for a while. It hadn't harmed anyone. Getting rid of inhibitions wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Certainly not for her and Finn. But she worried about Logan and Julieta. Teen embarrassment isn't as easily overcome.
#
Logan anxiously watched the couples pour into the gym for the dance. He and Julieta were the first of their group to arrive.
"You'll dance with me, right?" Julieta asked, worrying her lower lip.
"You know I will. You haven't heard anything from Holly?"
She shook her head. "Not yet."
"Don't feel bad. I haven't heard anything from Trevor."
"I wish the cupig had stung them instead," she said with a small sigh. "They know about us. We're in the dark about how they feel."
The Night Fangs were already playing. He and Julieta started dancing as they tried to forget about their misfires. The fast music helped to calm his nerves. He hadn't told Trevor yet about the cupig. Maybe he'd think it was a good joke and they could laugh about it together.
"Can I cut in?"
Logan spun around to see Trevor standing behind him, a nervous smile on his face.
Score another point for Cupig!
#
Olivia's hand hovered over the keyboard. Morgana sent them a message but it had been blocked by their Merlin firewall. Olivia decided to enter the quarantine room, the only area Morgana could access. She used her Fleetnight Oracles avatar, a feline wizard, to represent herself.
Morgana arrived a few minutes later. "Did you enjoy my cupig?"
"What's your game?" Olivia demanded, not deigning to answer.
"You'll find out soon enough if you pass my final test. But know this, I'm not your enemy. Spiders are your real foe. Look them up on Ghostnet and you'll understand. In Round 3, winner takes all."
Morgana's avatar vanished, leaving Olivia with still more questions. She'd already heard of spiders. The term had been appropriated by a group of rogue creatures who didn't abide by established ethics. Vampires fed off humans. Witches practiced dark magic, and werewolves made no effort to control their aggressive side. Morgana appeared to have inside knowledge. Why?
Notes: Olivia will have her questions answered in the next chapter, Winner Takes All.