Chapter Text
Pearl hummed to herself as she worked, a little shanty Ren had taught the townsfolk a few months ago. Her heart ached at the memory- a long and rowdy night spent in the tavern before everything had gone to hell. She wouldn’t let grief keep her from humming though, not when Ren would have loved to know someone still sang his songs.
She and Cleo had been hard at work for the last few weeks, resuming the task of refurbishing the castle. It was slower going with two than with eight, but they were a pretty good team if Pearl said so herself! They’d finished the structure of the castle itself, adding a few bedrooms and a study to the back corner by the crypt entrance. While Cleo was working on the decorative bits upstairs, Pearl had decided to finally start tackling the crypt itself. It was dirty and musty at the moment, but it had lots of potential as a place for guests to stay. Or maybe a storage room. Or a little library! The possibilities had her creative mind buzzing.
But first she had to clean up the place.
The crypt, like the rest of the castle, had been left an absolute mess in the frenzied last few days of the war in Oakhurst. There were random holes dug in the walls and items scattered everywhere- broken bottles and tools and armour pieces littered the floor.
Her current project was cleaning up the blood. A trail of it had been left from the hall, down the stairs to the crypt, and ended in a pool in the corner where Pyro had finally fallen.
His body was gone. The day after the beacons were all desecrated, once everyone had left, Cleo had buried him near Legs behind the castle. Pearl had raised an eyebrow when she saw Cleo carrying him up from the crypt.
“Even he deserves to rest.” They’d explained. “He was dealt a terrible hand and made some piss-poor choices with it, but he still deserves to be mourned.”
Pearl had nodded. She remembered that first day, meeting Pyro in the tomb. He’d been a bright and curious young man. Then he’d become cold. Now he was gone. Another friend she couldn’t save.
But it was no use dwelling on things that couldn’t be changed. So she kept on humming and shovelling bloody clumps of dirt into her bucket.
She had just dropped the last bit of crusted earth into the bucket when she heard a hollow sounding gasp behind her, immediately followed by panicked breathing. She whipped around to look for the source and came face to face with… “Pyro?”
He looked up at her, black eyes wide. Before Pearl knew it she had snapped her shovel handle over her knee, and the jagged half in her right hand was stuck right through Pyro’s chest.
Pyro looked down at the makeshift stake. Then back up at Pearl. “...Rude.” They said dryly.
“Wh- hey, you died!”
“I did.” They acknowledged. “Right in this very spot, in fact.” Pyro’s typical aloof demeanor had quickly slipped into place to mask their panic, but Pearl’s sharp eyes still caught the way they twitched at every rustle of stone and flicker of torchlight. Like a cornered animal.
“Then… how-?”
Pyro scoffed. “What, you believe in vampires and werewolves, but ghosts are where you draw the line?”
“So you’re…?”
“A spirit? A specter? A poltergeist, if you will?” Pyro grinned sharply.
… Pearl supposed the whole ‘being a ghost’ thing would explain the lack of resistance when she’d tried to stab him.
Now that Pearl looked closer, she could have kicked herself for not noticing something was off. Unlike the archetypal ghost, Pyro wasn’t translucent, but he did look… fuzzy around the edges. The air around him bent like the shimmer of heat around a fire. His voice was strange as well- it sounded tinny, sort of like he was speaking into a can.
He looked even more inhuman after his second death. All his teeth were now pointed and sharp, and his pupils had turned to slits. His wounds that had refused to heal as a vampire now shone with black ichor, like they were infected with a supernatural rot.
“Alright, sure. A ghost. Why not.” Pearl rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here then?”
“Unfinished business, I suppose. That’s what all the stories say.”
“Uh-huh. And what is this business?”
Pyro grinned wickedly with too many teeth. “Well, I never did get to go to the capital and slaughter everyone who’s ever wronged me.”
Pearl frowned. “That’s it.” She picked up her bucket and turned on a heel, marching back towards the crypt staircase. “I’m writing to Abolish, maybe he knows something about exorcisms.”
“No!” Pyro cried behind a now very startled Pearl, voice desperate and ragged. A far cry from his mocking tone from a few seconds ago. “No, please, I’m sorry, please, I can’t go back! I can’t face him again!”
Pearl turned to blink in surprise at the man now begging at her feet. His form seemed to have become unstable- he flickered rapidly between the vampire that she knew, his ghostly appearance, and an even more decayed version. Pearl thought she might have even caught a brief glimpse of messy brown hair and blue eyes. She hadn’t expected him to take the threat seriously at all, let alone have a reaction like this.
Pyro was terrified.
Pearl quickly understood that she had a choice to make. She thought back to those final few days of the war. The exhaustion. The grief. The loss. Everyone had put their differences aside to avoid more casualties. To help the most people, human or not. Pearl knew what her choice would be, knew that she would probably never choose any different.
“...Okay, fine. But you’d best behave! I swear I’ll figure out how to fight a ghost if you start acting up.”
-
Cleo had started to think things would be normal.
Well, not normal normal, but normal for them. Pearl and them were settling down, putting the losses and trauma they’d suffered behind them and trying to create something new amongst the ashes.
And then Pearl had walked into the ballroom with the mangled ghost of Pyro in tow.
Pearl had offered to let them stay. Of course she had, she was Pearl. She had a habit of seeing straight through someone’s guise and reputation, understanding their core with keen accuracy. That habit had saved half of Oakhurst from a futile, bloody end. It had saved Cleo. Now, it seemed she was going to try and save the other half of the town as well. Cleo should have known something as silly as death wouldn’t stop her.
The first step was to try and determine what they were dealing with, and who all had come back to haunt them. To their disappointment, Cleo had been unable to find Legs behind the castle. She hoped that meant he’d moved on.
Now the trio was headed towards town, looking to find out whether it was Pyro or Legs that had been the fluke. If Ren and Martyn had come back as well, this was where they would be.
“I can’t believe Pearl turned willingly, you were so adamantly against it when I offered.” Pyro remarked. He had figured out how to float and was currently gliding alongside the other two with his arms behind his head.
“Yeah well, things changed after you died. Besides, if I had to become a vampire I always wanted Cleo to be the one to do it.”
“Aww, look at you two lovebirds!” He cooed mockingly.
Cleo sneered. “Jealous that you didn’t get to run off with your sire?”
Pyro replied with a childish “Mimimimi!”, just like they had all those months ago at the riverbank. Cleo responded in kind.
The bickering was nice. Cleo wouldn’t have admitted it but a part of her had missed her sire. Missed having someone to poke at who would jab right back with no hesitation and no real harm done.
“Alright you two, quit it.” Pearl said with an amused smile as they arrived at the town gate. What was left of it, anyway. “We’ve got a pair of ghosts to find.”
That task turned out to be surprisingly easy. The second they passed the threshold of the gate, Ren’s shout came from behind them. “Demons! What are you doing back in this town? What more could you possibly take from Mr. Woodhurst and I?”
Having suddenly appeared under the towering archway were Ren and Martyn, Ren standing guard in front of the younger man and brandishing a sword. Cleo briefly wondered how he’d even managed to pick one up. Or was it a ghost sword?
“Could you put the sword down? We’re just here to figure out-”
“Enough! I won’t listen to you evil specters of my long lost friends anymore!”
“We’re not- okay you know what I’ll give it to you, that description does actually apply to one of us.” Cleo replied drily with a sideways glance at Pyro, who seemed pretty comfortable with that label.
“Ren, your voice. It’s different.” Pearl noted, surprised. She was right- the man’s strange mishmashed accent was gone, replaced with something far more intelligible.
“…Yes. My tongue has in fact been freed from its curse in death. It’s about the only thing I’m grateful for in all this.”
“Fascinating!” Pyro had moved closer to the other ghosts and was intently studying Ren with a hand on their chin.
Ren whirled around to Pyro, the tip of his sword millimetres from the vampire’s nose. Their eyes widened slightly, but they didn’t seem inclined to move. “Back foul beast! Leave us alone!”
“We’re not here to hurt you Ren, we just want to figure out what’s going on!” Pearl insisted.
“And why should we trust you after your vampire kind betrayed us?”
“It wasn’t a betrayal, Ren, Legs was only trying to help.” Cleo forced their tone to stay even. Diplomatic. Shove down the rage that simmered at Ren’s implication about the late doctor.
“Then why did I die?” Martyn asked.
Cleo’s gaze flickered to Martyn and gods, the man looked terrified. His chest was puffed out to appear strong, but he trembled behind Ren, eyes moving rapidly between the three vampires in front of him. Cleo sighed and softened slightly. “Ironically, you died because Apo saved your life.” At Martyn’s quizzical look, they continued. “When you fell off the bridge all those months ago, she fed you some of her blood-”
“She tried to turn him into a monster!” Ren interrupted.
“No, she didn’t.” Cleo bit back, letting a little bit of the anger they felt seep into their voice. “Drinking vampire blood doesn’t turn someone, it just gives them a bit of extra strength. Martyn was dying, and he wasn’t going to get better on his own, so Apo saved him the only way she could. He would have been dead a lot sooner if it wasn’t for her.”
Cleo didn’t mention anything about thralling. Now wasn’t the time, and despite their gripe with Apo, they knew she never would have abused the link she created with Martyn. Even with all her faults she would have never stooped that low.
Realization and a mixed bag of other emotions dawned on Martyn’s face. “That’s what she meant- in the meeting room, she said she gave me blood.”
“It was still in your system when Legs tried to turn you, and your body couldn’t handle the influence of two different vampires. It was an accident, Legs was only ever trying to help, and I will not have you,” she whirled to Ren, “disgrace his memory by trying to tell anyone otherwise!” Cleo’s anger had turned into a flame, and she couldn’t keep herself from shouting at Ren anymore. The doctor had been one of the best people she’d ever known, and anybody saying otherwise was unacceptable.
“...Doc is dead?”
“Yes, he’s dead.” Pearl answered Martyn gently. “We followed through with the plan after you died. I cured Abolish and then we turned all the beacons. Everyone else went home.” Cleo didn’t know how she stayed so calm, Cleo could never be calm like that.
Ren spoke into the silence, voice quiet. “I’m sorry about the doctor, I really am. But I meant it when I said I didn’t want to dabble in dark magic- to avoid fates like what happened to Mr. Woodhurst.” he gestured at Martyn. “Do what you want, but I don’t want you coming back around here again.”
“That’s alright, we can leave the two of you alone, but only if you answer some questions first.” Pyro stepped forward, practical and business-like. “We’re trying to figure out why the dead are suddenly being drawn back to the land of the living.”
“We’ll help.” Martyn volunteered before Ren could get a word in. “I’d like to know the answer to that question myself.”
Pearl got straight to business. “Right. Well now we know it’s not just vampires coming back. It’s everyone.”
“I’m not sure about you two,” Pyro said, “but I felt a pull right before I came back, like a rubber band that had been stretched too far. I let the band snap back and I appeared down in the crypt.”
“That’s where you died I assume?”
Pyro nodded, eyebrows knitting together slightly.
“That tracks, the same goes for us. I got pulled back and showed up by the beacon tower about two hours ago.” Martyn looked at Ren expectantly, but the other man didn’t seem inclined to speak, avoiding eye contact with the whole group. “Uh- I found Ren outside Doc’s house, he said the same thing. Looks like we were all drawn back here by something.”
“If you all showed up at the exact same time, that means something happened to bring you back, it’s not just a thing that happened over time.” If the ghosts had been coming back naturally, that meant Avid should have appeared a few weeks ago, and Cleo was certain they would have heard from him by now if that was the case.
“Maybe it’s something to do with those spirits. The ones who gave us all those books?” Pearl mused.
Pyro scoffed. “I doubt that. It makes sense for those two, but why would holy spirits want to bring me back?”
“Just because they said they were holy doesn’t mean they actually are. If they were really so benevolent they wouldn’t have let any of this happen in the first place.” Cleo countered.
Her and Pyro descended into bickering over what technically constituted a holy spirit, until they were interrupted by Martyn. “Oh my god.” He muttered, sounding slightly dazed. “It was all a game.”
“What?” Came twin replies from the two arguing vampires.
“Everything- the war, the beacons, the deaths. It was a game to them. Think about it- why else would they have given both sides a fighting chance?” Martyn started pacing. “If it was about purging the evil of the vampires then there wouldn’t have been a way for them to get out, and if it was about getting the humans killed then we wouldn’t have been given all those tomes! That’s why the beacons worked the way they did!”
“Only one team can win.” Pearl said, eyes wide.
“If the prize for winning is getting to go home…”
“That means the losers can never leave.” Pearl finished Cleo’s thought.
Their little circle grew dead (haha) silent as the three ghosts grappled with the implications of the theory. It was a sickening thought, but it was the only idea they had that explained everything. It explained the confusing behaviour of the spirits, and it explained why all these ghosts had come back at once. They died, they lost, so they didn’t get to leave.
Cleo’s veins boiled with rage at the idea that everything they’d endured the last few months was just a game to some sick higher beings. It seemed Pyro agreed. “So what, everything I lost, everything I did was for something else’s entertainment?” They spat, voice cracking.
“It’s the best guess we’ve got at the moment.”
“Let’s destroy these spirits then. An eye for an eye.”
“That seems a bit drastic.” Pearl pointed out, right back to being level-headed as ever. “Besides, if they’re the ones keeping you here then killing them might send you back to the afterlife. You said you didn’t want to go back.”
“I- you- ugh!” They shouted before flickering out of sight. Which apparently they could do. Cleo briefly contemplated following suit, but elected to stay beside Pearl.
Martyn broke the ensuing silence. “They seemed to take that pretty well.”
Biting back harsh words, Cleo responded with logic instead. “That was pretty earth-shattering news, you can hardly blame the guy for being upset.” They understood Pyro’s actions these last few months, better than anyone else present could. The castle coven had been tense and cutthroat- if you weren’t deemed loyal enough you were threatened into submission or worse. And Cleo was sure they hadn’t seen the worst of it, having not quite been in the fray like Pyro had. Scott may have been trying to do better in the wake of Avid’s death, but gods he had really taken a hammer to his fledgling’s mental state beforehand. Learning that all that turmoil had been for nothing would send anyone spiralling.
Pearl glanced at the horizon, where the orange of the morning sun was just peeking over the tree line. “Sun’s comin’ up. We have uh- other business to attend to, but you two are always welcome to stop by the castle.”
“I told you, I won’t be associating with demons anymore.” Ren said coldly, turning away and walking back towards the town center.
Martyn grimaced. “I’m sorry about him, he’s still reeling from… everything. I think we all are.” He stared at his shoes for a moment. “I’m sorry about me too. I made a lot of rash decisions in the thick of things, and I’m pretty sure I made a lot of things worse. Cleo, you trusted me back when you first turned and I just kept throwing it in your face. Hopefully we can have a proper chat about it sometime, but for now I think I need to stay here with Ren. He’s been alone for so long, I don’t want to leave him right now. Maybe I’ll convince him to come around eventually.” He suggested with a small hopeful smile.
…As mad as Cleo was with Martyn, they had to admit it felt good to see him smile again. “I think a chat would be good. I’ll be at the castle whenever you’re ready.”
With a few more friendly words and goodbyes exchanged, Pearl and Cleo headed back in the direction of the castle they were slowly turning into their home. After the night they’d had, Cleo would gladly sleep for 24 hours straight. But they knew Pearl better than that.
As soon as the two were out of eyeshot she veered to the right, into the woods. It looked like Pearl wasn’t going to rest until she’d tracked down every single ghost in Oakhurst. Cleo pulled two parasols from their inventory with a lighthearted sigh. This was going to be a long few days.
-
Avid was starting to get bored of the dark.
Don’t get him wrong, he had been terrified at first. He still was.
The last thing he remembered was Owen and Pyro attacking him at the bottom of the pit trap, and then he had woken up still in the hole. His blood covered the ground, so it hadn’t been some kind of nightmare. They must have left him for dead- the stake must have just missed his heart.
He had silently trembled with fear for a while, terrified that they would come back any second to finish the job. But they didn’t. Nobody came at all. The crypt above was silent, and it felt like the weight of the earth above was pressing into him. Like he was in a grave.
His items had all gone missing, so he couldn’t even dig himself out unless he clawed at the stone with his bare hands. He wasn’t quite that desperate yet. He sat down there for hours, with nothing to do except think about that weird dream he’d had about Elle, which he definitely didn’t want to do, so instead he was bored. Boredom was fine, in the grand scheme of things.
But it was hard to keep that face out of his head. Her face. Except it wasn’t. Not entirely. A jagged void-black line running up her cheek, ending at a twisted horn coming out from her hairline-
Nope. Back to being bored. Back to not thinking about the tears in her eyes and the question in her voice, asking if he was-
“Avid?” Someone called from above. Avid seized with terror before realizing it was a woman’s voice. Pearl. Pearl was looking for him?
“Avid!” That was Cleo. Cleo and Pearl were looking for him. Avid’s mind raced. Had Pearl joined their side? Had Cleo joined the humans? Maybe those two were on their own side. They kind of always had been.
Avid weighed his options and decided it was better to risk being captured by the town than be found by his attempted killers. “Hello? I’m down here!” He cried.
Almost immediately pebbles rained down around him, and light trickled through a newly formed hole in the ceiling. Pearl’s face appeared over the hole, followed shortly by Cleo.
“Oh thank goodness you guys are here! Owen and Pyro tried to kill me, they left me in this hole! I- I can’t bat or anything right now and I don’t have any of my stuff, can you guys make a staircase or something?”
The two exchanged some kind of loaded glance before Pearl replied. “Sure thing Avid, I’m comin’ down.”
Pearl finished digging out the ceiling and built a spiral staircase on her way down, motioning for Avid to follow her up once the stairs reached the bottom. Avid climbed on shaking legs, squinting as he got closer to the sunlight. It was morning, had he been down there all night?
“Thank you guys so much, I don- Whoah!” Now that he had the chance to actually look at his saviours, he realized that one of them looked quite different. Pearl’s eyes were red, her teeth and ears were pointed. Her hair was streaked through with bright crimson and she now wore a red shirt in place of her usual white. “Pearl! Are you- did you turn? Are you a vampire now?”
“…More or less?”
“Man, how long was I down there?” Avid asked incredulously.
“Avid, liste-“
“Wait! Owen and Pyro are still out there, we gotta get back to the castle! We need to go warn Scott, what if they try to kill ano-“
“Avid.” Cleo stated firmly, fixing him with an intense look. “Stop talking and listen. Owen and Pyro aren’t going to try anything. They’re dead.”
“Wh… Okay seriously, how long was I down there?” They were dead? Had Scott done it? Did he find out they’d tried to kill Avid and had his revenge? Despite the fact that the pair had tried to kill him, Avid still felt a sting at the loss of part of his new family. Once upon a time he had hoped they could be friends.
“You’ve been down there for a little over two months.” Pearl responded with a gentle tone. Like she was breaking the news to a recent widow.
“Two-?! That can’t be right, then why did nobody come looking for me until now?”
“...Owen and Pyro didn’t just try to kill you. They succeeded. You died down there.”
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
A phantom heartbeat thudded in Avid’s head, a steady beat, as sickening dread replaced his every thought. He laughed nervously. “Hey uh, funny prank guys but I- I don’t think this is the time. I get you all want to- y’know, razz on the new guy! But-“
“Look at your hand.” Cleo interrupted.
“What?”
“Look at your hand.”
Avid hesitated, searching the other two’s faces. He didn’t see any mirth, no hint that this might have been some kind of cruel joke.
He looked down.
His hand was… human. His skin was once again pink and looked flush with life. His claws had turned back into familiar chewed up fingernails.
He stretched out his fingers in front of him. They were fuzzy around the edges, like he was just a mirage, an image superimposed into the world. A ghost.
His bangs fell into his face. Black. Human.
Dead. He was dead. He’d been murdered.
Avid couldn’t believe it, he’d been given another shot and he’d gone and screwed up again. He barked out a short high-pitched laugh, probably looking mildly unhinged. He couldn’t really be bothered to care.
Grieving himself was a strange feeling. Stranger still was the wash of relief that came with it. After all, he’d been waiting for this for a long time- ever since his first encounter with that thing in the woods five years ago. He’d expected to die then, and the anticipation had never faded. The shadow had loomed, ever-present, since that moment. Only now was it gone, replaced with a hollowness that left him feeling tilted off-balance.
“Why don’t you come back to the castle with us? We can fill you in on what’s happened, it might help you figure things out.” Pearl held out a hand. Avid reached for it, desperate for some stability, and fell right through it, barely managing to right himself and avoid face planting into the stone floor of the crypt entrance behind her.
Avid laughed again. And then he started crying. While still laughing. It was a bit of a mess. “Oh! Yeah, I- that makes sense, I guess that’s how that works now!” He rubbed the tears from his eyes and sniffled, feeling rather pathetic. “Okay, I- I’ll come with you. Is Scott there?”
Pearl pursed her lips. “…Maybe we should start at the beginning.”