Chapter 13: Wake of the Huntress

epenthé had been the first whorehouse, and with the way things were going, the gentrification eating up The Block smaller and smaller every year, it was going to be the only one—at least, until whoring was legal again.¹ It was an old building of grey stone and timber, with wide plank floors of age-darkened wood, and the lower floor had always been a public house with a stage, with the upper floor originally having been the rooms of the full-service whores.

But the second floor of Nepenthé was largely open, these days, with a kitchen on one side partially enclosed by its own cabinets, made from dark wood that matched the aged floorboards and beams of the old stone buildling, which had been here since the first English had colonised the area. There were a few crown-glass doors in some of the cabinets, relics not from the Colonial era but the seventies; they didn’t exactly match the old windows of same that looked out over the street, but they didn’t clash, either. René didn’t like things to clash.

The kitchen’s pass-through counter faced an old dining table, and it was here that Michaela and Erastos were sitting, papers and forms spread out between them. St Croix and Heather were down enjoying the club, and one of René’s many submissives, a chef, was at his craft in the kitchen, working on a meal for their guests and waiting for the order from Aix. René was in his favourite settle from the lobby’s old life as more of a pub, that had been moved up here against the corner window, right above where it used to be. When Cameron opened the door, René didn’t look up from his game of solitaire, but said,

‘Hungry,’ Cameron said, ‘I want to get their food order in, then I have a full debrief.’

‘So soon?’ René said, looking up, the knave of hearts still held between his long white fingers. ‘Mais vas-y, dis au Chef,’ he said, knowing that if Cameron had a fault, it was being too eager to find orders in René’s words. As Cameron spoke with Chef for a few moments, René put the deck of cards away, and Cameron soon came back over to sit at René’s booted feet, laying his head on his master’s lap adoringly. René ran his nails through Cameron’s long red hair, smiling as a purr started up almost immediately. Werecats were small cats, making sounds more like cheetahs or cougars—it meant they could purr, and this made them extremely popular lovers, especially in recent years.

René stopped after a few minutes, so that Cameron could speak, but Cameron just got out his laptop and opened it up, showing René the chat window.

‘Ah,’ René said, as he started petting his boy again. He’d been baffled as to how someone could be ready to account so soon, but to type it up was much different than to speak—something which Aix seemed to know, from their words. Michaela came over, after a minute or two, and René appreciated that she didn’t read over his shoulder. She sat down across from him, waiting patiently, and he turned the laptop when he was finished, letting her read. When she looked up, the vampire was looking thoughtfully out the window, still petting Cameron, who was slowly draping more and more of himself over René’s lap.

‘She was looking for Cthulhu,’ Michaela said, her heart breaking at the fact that her name had made Aix a target; but nevermind, nevermind, Aix was fine now, and safe as houses….

‘Yes,’ René said. ‘mes constituants have been picking apart her wake, and she was on the trail of Cthulhu—which means her friends in the police force are going to take her disappearance as encouragement.’

‘Lucky she just disappeared,’ Michaela said grimly. ‘No body means no proof there was a crime, and Aix is in the clear.’ She sighed, leaning back in the settle. ‘Still, best if Aix got out of town.’

‘For a while,’ René said, softly, in that tone that everyone listening knew damn well—that was the N’est Pas Possible tone, the one he used when he wasn’t to be argued with.

Michaela, however, had never paid that any mind. ‘They’re moving into Gin’s building, they have an apartment and a job lined up,’ she said, and it was a warning.

René had never paid that any mind. ‘ “Inasmuch as a city recently deprived of a Hunter is known to be vulnerable to further destabilisation, the party deemed responsible for that Hunter’s death can be obligated to replace them.” ’

‘Yeah, “pursuant to the agreement of relevant governing bodies for each culture nocturnus creaturae considered to have established significant territory within that city.” Don’t quote the fucking treaty at me, you old bitch,’ Michaela said, with a smile that promised a bolt of mesquite straight through the heart, ‘I know how much of a mess this town is, all the weres here, and the dragons in the harbour. If you wanna pull this stunt then I’m gonna hold you to every single part of that Treaty.’

René smiled, his dark eyes narrowing the way they used to when he spied an English ship in the distance. ‘You underestimate how much we all hated The Heeren, Ms Van Helsing.’

‘I am not traumatising that boy further by letting you put him in a cage,’ Michaela snarled.

‘I would never attempt to control a witch with anything,’ René said, putting up one long-nailed hand in peace. ‘Not even emotions. But I must think of my city. Perhaps there is a hunter willing to relocate here?’

Michaela knew damn well there wasn’t, not one that could handle Baltimore. It had become the mecca for the rarer kind of were—swan, boar, hyena, bear, and others—and had become the settling point for a family of sea-dragons, since places further north they were bullied by selkie out of their preferred colder waters. And that didn’t go into the deep-rooted nekropolitik out here; Baltimore was one of the oldest continuous settlements of vampires, and Ana’s constant necromancy had only made the restlessness of the dead buried here worse. The only place more difficult to be a hunter than Baltimore was probably Boston.

Michaela didn’t want Aix saddled with that; but, she reasoned, some people flourished with a lot of responsibility, and Aix’s clarity and lack of panic said a lot about how good a Hunter they would make. On the journey here, Michaela and Aix had spoken for hours upon hours about everything, and Aix was a very strong-willed person, stubborn but flexible in the way a Hunter had to be. With a bit more confidence…

‘If you want him as Baltimore’s Hunter, then just ask them,’ Michaela said, catching herself and using ‘they’ again, now that she was calmer. ‘And have a home and an income to offer them, and support.’

‘Of course,’ René said, but there was no ‘of course’ about it—very few Hunters were on such symbiotic terms with their nightfolk. It was usually a good idea if they weren’t, because then there was no conflict of interest.

But that was the old world, the one that also assumed a Hunter was always going to eventually kill all the monsters, that the Hunters were never, themselves, anything but human; that was not the world Michaela and her fathers before her had wanted to build. That was not the world that Opa had worked the last decades of his life to build, pivoting in a face-turn from his time being one of those Hunters; in his old age he’d grown tired of the violence, wiser to whether it was really the answer (it wasn’t). Ana Heeren had been of the old guard, which was all the more insulting because of how young she had been.

Aix wasn’t a hunter; Aix was a witch, in the style of the old tales—a member of the community, but also outside it. A liminal being: a monster to the humans and a human to the monsters. Maybe… ‘but it’s Aix’s decision.’

Renè hummed; Michaela was young, and American—she believed in individualism, deep down, did not understand fully that one’s choices were not at all independent of everyone and everything else.

René knew better, and suspected that Aix, if they did not know already, was in the process of learning better.

Erastos wheeled over to join them, he and Cameron mutually careful of one another, and folded his hands on his lap. ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Aix has been isolated for a long while; he told me he was worried about going from being totally alone in the quiet of nowhere to the buzz of the biggest city in the country.’

Erastos had chosen ‘he’ for Aix, and did not much waver, after a few days; unlike the other three people at the table, Erastos was trans, and he noticed how Aix reacted when Erastos called him ‘he’. Aix may not have noticed yet that he was still traumatised from being repeatedly and violently shoved back into the closet, but Erastos did. Using ‘they’, dressing in modest female clothing that hid his body and even his face and hair… there was a lot going on there, and after listening to Aix speak on certain events, Erastos was certain that Aix going from fully transitioning to male to avoiding the subject of gender entirely was hiding, was a fearful paralysis. Aix was a little brother, and he’d had no elder brothers in the queer community, rejected over and over by the very people that were supposed to be his brothers. Erastos was determined to stay with him, until he learned to love himself, love his masculinity.

‘I’ll stay with him here,’ Erastos said. ‘I’ll teach him what he needs to know. But the important thing you need to remember is to make sure you understand, both of you, that he’s newly Disabled, capital D; and that means he’s under a great deal of ongoing financial abuse from the human government. Abused people are desperate, and desperate people do not make good decisions.’

‘In Manhattan, he has a position and a home, and a mentor or two, yes?’ René said. ‘I will offer him the same.’

‘He also has transportation in New York, and that means freedom and independence.’

‘We have had trains since 1969,’ René said, evenly. ‘Perhaps not as extensive for les gens du soleil as New York, but we have more fées de la terre than New York, so le chemin de fer nocturne is her equal, down here.’

‘Mais oui, very much so. My late Master did not like it to get about, but his cane was not merely for show. And les fées do take pride in their mechanical things. The elevators are old, but safe. Built to last.’

There was a rhythmic beeping from down the hall, toward the elevator, and Pippin led Aix into the large room. They’d obviously showered, from the damp of their hair, and it was startling to see them without their head and face covered.

René understood, now, why Victoria and Dmitri were so smitten with the witch—and he knew his fellow vampires well enough to know they’d all pick Aix out of the hoi-polloi for that magnificent bone structure. He couldn’t help sounding a little breathless as he said,

‘Ah, bonsoir,’ and rose to his feet, giving Cameron’s head a final caress before crossing the room, ever the gallant host. ‘Come, sit down by the fire…’

Pippin, gave a very distinctive little ‘oooh’, and her Flash turned pink and red, her Mask going positively harlequin with mischief, little red heart appearing on her forehead.

René sighed; was it always so hard to be subtle with a clown in the room? He noted, however, that Aix looked down at Pippin, and seemed confused, sitting down in one of the well-worn leather balloon chairs by the fireplace, setting their backpack down. Pippin climbed up on Aix’s lap—which was a change, because until Aix’s arrival, she had clung to René. Aix pet her.

Aix didn’t have to know what René had said, was surprised at how well they picked up on what René meant from body language alone—but René had very expressive body language, and strong shapes to his black eyebrows and sloe-black eyes, and… a very beautiful, full mouth, that was always painted some wonderful dark colour. Right now it was a deep sapphire blue that looked black until the light hit it, that went with his long nails.

‘I can’t hear,’ Aix said, still quietly. ‘But Pippin says she can understand, and she uses telepathy like the Starfolk do. She says she uh, she did some mischief and made you spill blood on your shirt, stole the shirt, summoned the All-Mother with it. She wants you to know that, so you understand why she was being naughty. But she saved my life, so she’s not sorry.’

‘We are all grateful she did,’ René said, and addressed Pippin. ‘Tu étais une petite fille si héroïque, ma chere Pippin. Grand merci.’

Pippin purred and turned her Mask pink-cheeked and bashful, and watched as Cameron came over to group around the fire, bringing his bag with him. Aix’s phone chimed, and Pippin alerted them to it by trying to get it out of their pocket.

BRRH: Do you want me and Erastos to stay over here or do you want us to come over there? <3

Aix: I’d like to focus on just one person at a time. Was… Was René flirting with me?

BRRH: Not exactly but he definitely has a crush. I get why Victoria and Dmitri are so smitten with you, you look like a statue from Ancient Greece or Rome.

Aix couldn’t argue with that, but it was nice to hear it again from someone that wasn’t their lying ex, because it helped them believe it was true. The idea that Victoria and Dmitri thought Aix was attractive, that René thought Aix was attractive… it was heady, Aix decided. It was nice. They were going to enjoy it, and not worry about whether it was true or not. That wasn’t the point. Opinions didn’t have to be true or false, they were opinions and Aix couldn’t control them. Even someone lying and saying something like that still was deciding to say something that would make someone feel good, and that mattered.

Magic fren liiiike Duckie wan Duckie stay here take ferry road up to newyork. Bees quieter here for Duckies. Our house have secret ferry road underground for Duckie just like newyork.

Pippin showed Aix a memory of being in George’s arms² and being in an old elevator, going down to a beautiful subway platform that was astonishing in its cleanliness, with beautiful archways and fornications of carved stone, and mosaics of glowing tiles on the walls. The train was in shining brass, and the seats were lacquered wood with brass rails.

‘You have a magic steampunk subway?’ Aix breathed, eyes wide as Pippin’s memory cleared from their vision. ‘Pippin—Pippin says you want me to stay in Baltimore, and that there’s—there’s a “secret fairy road”. I had her show me because I wasn’t sure what that meant.’

René looked throughtful, then nudged Cameron, who got out his laptop and started typing.

SineoftheFeline: Chemin de fer > road of iron > railroad. She’s saying *fer-y* road, not fairy road—though it’s both, technically, because of who built it. He speaks to Pippin in French and apparently she’s been learning! It’s so cool she can talk??? We should get her those buttons like for dogs and cats.

Metasepia: …I should get those for Cthulhu. It would be easier for both of us than sign language.

‘Actually…’ Aix said, pausing. ‘It would be better to continue this on instant messenger, if that’s okay? I think and talk better with a keyboard.’

SineoftheFeline: ‘It’s certainly faster than a slate and chalk,’ he said.

Metasepia: …hon, you can call him whatever his dom title is, it’s okay. 💚

SineoftheFeline: -^w^-;; Domine wants you to stay here and be our witch.

Metasepia: 1. omg you call him Domine that’s so hot. B. I would need the same things I’m getting in nyc like a high up place to live (for quiet), some way to get income to live on (so I can get off the financial abuse of SSI), and support and medical advocacy. I guess if the secret subway is as good as nyc’s that’s already covered.

Metasepia: However, I have to admit, I’ve kind of missed Baltimore. It’s way different now, less bleak. It was the first city-city I ever lived in, and I was living in Canton in a shitty rowhouse on the end of a corner of Clinton St. I used to sit on the roof and look at the natty boh sign, and just… sort of look over the city.

Metasepia: For him: Why do you want me to be your witch? Is this a ‘if you kill the old one you get her throne’ sort of deal? You… you realise I didn’t actually fight this woman right? I just happened to call for help and someone answered.

SineoftheFeline: So you’re a warlock then? You’re a cleric? You’re out here using divine magic instead of arcane magic?

Metasepia: …if I become the Witch of Baltimore or whatever does that mean I can’t do anything about René having a pash on me? Is this one of those professional things? I am not the Pining sort of gay, Cameron.

Aix waited while Cameron relayed this, missing their hearing very badly and glad Pippin was happy to sit on their lap and be petted, purring loudly. She only got down when someone came out of what Aix realised was a kitchen with a butler’s cart full of food and a carafe of iced tea with fresh mint with an empty wine glass turned upside down beside the plate. The person pushing it was dressed in chef’s whites and a practical headscarf made out of a cut t-shirt sleeve—just like Aix’s underscarves. They waved at Aix, flipped up one of the leaves of the tabletop, turned over the glass and poured the tea, and Aix was very proud of themself for not fussing and just letting themself be served.

‘Thank you,’ they said. ‘It smells amazing.’ It looked amazing, too—the tacos were clearly in hand-made shells, and all the little sides were arranged just so, and like always, Aix hadn’t realised they were hungry until they smelled food. They glanced at René, who gave an elegant gesture and rose to his feet, going to sit on the heart rug with Pippin, pulling out a deck of cards and starting to play with her. Cameron got up and sat in the vacated chair, still typing.

Feeling safe in that nobody was watching them, Aix finally could eat. If anyone was talking, they didn’t know, and it was easier to focus on eating without sound to distract—the high pitched tinnitus didn’t bother them much, it was only a louder version of the kind they were used to, and they’d been able to do the little trick where they tapped the base of their skull in a specific way and eased the volume of it down a bit.

The tacos were perfect, but Aix wasn’t one to really linger over food when they were hungry, and was nervous about eating in a room full of people. They turned the manners all the way up, highly conscious of sounds they couldn’t hear themself making, and frustrated at not being able to converse and eat at the same time. But they were good tacos, very good tacos indeed; and the avocado actually tasted like something, rich and nutty.

Once the tacos were done, they could linger on the chips and the tea, and got their laptop back out.

Metasepia: High compliments to the chef, that was the best Mexican food I’ve had since I was a kid in southern california.

Cameron relayed the message while Aix sipped the iced mint tea (which was pleasantly strong) and felt a little more like a person.

Metasepia: Victoria mentioned my steading may have chosen me, and that I saved everyone’s lives. I still feel like expecting me to do it again is folly, though. I don’t know if the gods will answer me again, or continue to help. I don’t know if the starfolk will.

Metasepia: On the other hand, a great majority of witching is people coming up to you like ‘I think my house is haunted bc [lists the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning]’

So… I’m not saying no I’m just expressing that I don’t know what’s expected of me. I’ve always had to hide being a witch from the community at large, because it was dangerous to make it known, whether that was because people would dismiss me as crazy or because they’d throw rocks at me and accuse me of the worst crimes possible because I wasn’t Christian.

SineoftheFeline: Are you still talking to Domine as well as me? Just checking.

Metasepia: I’m gonna need to talk to u about something that happened a little while ago. I’m safe now but briefly: I was kidnapped by a scary woman for a couple hours or something and also there were gunshots—not at me—and I’m safe now but uh. I should. Probably talk about that with you in a bit. Wanted to forewarn.

① René was too old to believe whoring would stay illegal for the rest of time.

② Aix hadn’t met George, yet; but it was Pippin’s memory and Pippin knew it was George.

Chapter 13

Wake of the Huntress

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