Content Warnings: past captivity and sexual abuse, trauma.

Sample

Prologue

~Leopold, last year

The door of the Moonlight Diner closes behind me with a twinkling of bells, and the night air welcomes me.

Catch the subway, head home, turn on my computer and log on to the forum, then chuckle along while the tongue guy trolls the cab crowd. That’s the plan for the rest of my night. I wish I had found more at this diner than a secret base for sex work and damn good soup, but what can you do? I’m sure there’ll be a new clue at some point, and I’m not going to give up.

On my way to the subway, along a wide sidewalk that’s all but empty at this hour, I can’t quite stop thinking about all those silly posts about the cabs, those far-fetched conspiracy theories, and I blame every single one of those posters, because when I see a cab parked on a side street, really close to the diner and with the lights on and the driver not in their seat, I stop. I think.

Maybe the cab crowd was right. Yes, it’s more likely they aren’t, it’s more likely there is some other business happening in that cab, a john and someone from that diner maybe.

Either way, the logical thing to do is go and check. Either I find something strange that gets me closer to solving the mystery of being alive, or I interrupt a business transaction. I’ll apologize if it’s the latter and jog to the subway if necessary to minimize embarrassment.

So I turn left and head toward the cab. What a downright stupid thing to do, but that’s hindsight for you.

Chapter One

~Leopold

St. Auguste was a beautiful school. Seriously, being sent to take mandatory classes there felt far less like a punishment and more like a continuation of my university days, and there was nothing wrong with that. Our classroom was light and airy, the chairs new and comfortable, and the Wi-Fi was good. Each table had a power outlet.

About the punishment aspect of this whole thing, I had been assured by my Hawthorne case worker that this wasn’t about punishment at all but about welcoming me into the world of the supernatural and educating me about all its many wonders. But we were expected to take notes and there were tests, so obviously it was to punish us.

Our class was currently about fifteen people, but the numbers changed. As I understood it, it was generally rolling enrollment to accommodate people such as myself who opened a cab door to investigate a rumor and found themselves face to face with tentacles and an erect cock.

Really, nothing wrong with either, but the combination had been quite a bit more than I had bargained for. Of course St. Auguste was the closest thing to solving the mystery I had found since I had set out to look, so I wasn’t complaining.

Most of the students were already present and on their phone, some even looking through their notes in case there was a quiz. I’d quickly made friends with Tate, a TA at the local university. Tate had a supernatural roomie, and he was eager to dive into this strange new world, more eager even than I was.

Today, Tate was, as ever, excited for class to start and skipped across the floor on his way to his seat to my right. That it was too hot for hanging out in the bowels of St. Auguste until 8 pm or that our instructor had two heads, if anything, only fanned the flames of Tate’s excitement.

He dropped his messenger bag on the desk and grinned.

“I think I finally figured out who that guy was.”

“What guy?” I asked. Tate had an uncanny talent for dropping a conversation one week and then picking it up exactly where he left it the week after. It was annoying as fuck.

“That guy. I told you. With the guyliner? The goth. I think that maybe he was a new vampire, and he was trying to understand how that would make me feel. Maybe he was trying to come out as a vampire to someone human in his life and used me as a sounding board.”

I groaned and sagged back in my chair. Ever since June of last year, it had been this, the mysterious stranger who’d had dinner with Tate, had had a weird interaction with one of the kids going here and with the guy at the cafeteria counter, had promised to show up to class only to then disappear into thin air like some specter.

“Can we talk about something else? Or can we get a drink? I don’t think I can do your red thread theories sober, Tate.”

His grin deepened. “There is this bar—”

The classroom door fell shut.

“Good evening,” Instructor Arick said from two heads, one human, the other not. It had horns and a canine-like snout with eyes like that of a goat. If I was being honest, that chimera head was kind of cute.

Arick, taller and broader than anyone I’d ever met, slowly walked to his desk while the class quieted. He put his bag on the desk, and both sets of eyes looked at me.

“Mr. Hill, please report to the principal’s office right away. You may leave your things here and rejoin us when he is done with you.”

I had no idea what that was about. Tate gave me an open-mouthed look, and some of the others stared as well. There was nothing I could do but report to the principal’s office like a high school student who’d cheated on his test.

***

The principal was a vampire named Farrow. I didn’t know if it was his first or last name. I only knew him by Principal Farrow, given I had been brought into this office by someone from the Hawthorne legal department the very night I had opened the stupid cab door and caught the driver with a tentacle down his pants.

“Ah, Leopold! How have you been?” Farrow asked the moment I stepped into the office. “Would you like some tea? The kitchen sent up scones. They assure me they are very fresh. Please sit.”

Farrow had light blond hair and an easy smile. He motioned me to sit in one of his too-flowery armchairs. On the coffee table, something that looked a lot like afternoon tea had been set out.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked before sitting. “I swear, I didn’t do anything.”

Farrow pouted and poured me some tea. “Is it that I am the headmaster here? I swear, it is the title that makes everyone think they have done something bad and are in for a punishment when they come here. As if I would take a ruler to your undoubtedly tender behind, Leopold. Those days of corporal punishment are far behind us. These days, we are nice to miscreants and show them how to hold the spoon with which they shall dig themselves out of their mountain of trouble.”

I cocked my head. “So I’m in trouble? Am I being punished?”

“Not at all, I was just ruminating. Do you take sugar or cream?”

I looked at the spread. “Both.”

Farrow gasped. “My, aren’t you a delight?” He topped off the cup with a cube of sugar and thick cream from a tiny pitcher before handing it over to me. “As I said, this is not punishment. Instructor Arick, both of them, are delighted with your progress, and our Hawthorne liaison was very happy to hear that. Your case worker there too. In fact, they were wondering whether you’d be interested in working for them. You are a paralegal, no?”

I nodded. “Yeah because I dropped out of law school.”

“But you haven’t been working?”

“I was looking for you all.”

Farrow nodded and filled a teacup for himself. “Working makes the centuries go by, but I suppose if one is driven enough, one does not need a job. Unless one wants to pay for food and shelter.”

Farrow sipped his tea and gave me an expectant look.

I shrugged. “My grandma left me the house and some money, and my dad left me some as well. It’s not like living off that is wrong.”

“It certainly isn’t—ah, I like a frugal man. But wouldn’t you be more fulfilled if you did something? Now that you have found us all and no longer need to look.”

I drank down my tea in one go and put the delicate china cup back on its saucer. “It’s a stipulation, isn’t it? That I work where someone can keep an eye on me. So that I don’t post Arick’s notes on the message boards.”

“It’s Instructor Arick for you, and it’s more of a guideline. Really, Hawthorne wants you to thrive in our society. And why wouldn’t they? Instructor Arick agrees that you have potential, and he expects great things from you.”

I could actually believe that. I had expected…I wasn’t sure. Something a little more Supernatural and less Suits meets Gilmore Girls, but the supernatural world I had sought and found by tentacle fellatio was all in all just very…bureaucratic.

“I’m not working as a paralegal. I’m done with all of the law stuff, and I only got certified because my grandma insisted. How about this—I find my own job with a non-human individual, and you give the paralegal job to someone who actually wants it. Will that get you off my back?”

“Please, the cook was insistent that you must try the scones. And it is not I who is on your back, although that is certainly a fantasy one might indulge. I will suggest it to Hawthorne, not the fantasy but your suggestion of finding gainful employment that suits you. They tend to be accommodating, so I see no issues there. And certainly, you taking the initiative will go over very well with their team I imagine.”

“What’s this?”

Farrow leaned forward. “Apricot marmalade? Or jam. Is that not to your taste? I always tell them not to serve anything red because of the headmaster fear and me being a vampire. I don’t want to remind anyone of blood, you see.”

Some supernaturals were just really, really weird.

***