Chapter Three

Karkat Vantas

You didn't live at home anymore. Actually, your home wasn't even there anymore. After a few hundred years houses tend to get demolished for room to build new ones. You know both your parents are dead by now. Quite frankly you don't care. They were both werewolves. However, werewolves dont pass lycanthropy to their children. So growing up, you and your older brother Kankri were mundane. Normal humans.

Then when your brother was...twenty one? You can't really remember but it was somewhere around there. He was walking to his house after work. HE had worked late so it was late. By then you had both been fully educated on downworlders and demons. But he wasn't prepared when he was attacked by a lone vampire. Kankri didn't like to talk about it but some how he had consumed some of the vampires blood.

You remember not hearing from him for months. He didn't call. He wasn't at his house. Your parents searched for him everyday. You thought he was dead. Then one day you heard a tap on your window. When you opened it he was standing there. He didn't really look different. Just maybe a tad paler. Like he was under nourished.

You remember him explaining everything to you. If you hadn't been the son of two werewolves you wouldn't have believed him. It was the one and only time he had ever spoken of that night. When your parents found out they disowned him so to speak. The werewolves and vampires dispised each other and your parents would be kicked out of their pack if it got around they had a vampire son.

You couldn't just sit around while your brother left. He was your brother. You didn't want him to go. But he had to and your only other choice was to go to. So you followed him. After week of begging he finally agreed to turn you. He was terrified though. He didn't want to do it. But you wanted to be with him and this was the only way.

So long story short, now, nearly a hundred years later, you're still alive. Well, undead. A human soul in an animated corpse, kept "alive" by the demon disease. But you still have your brother and that's all that matters. You two still look like you did the day you were turned. Kankri still looked twenty one and you seventeen. Despite that you both were pale and thin, malnourished. You hadn't fed in a few days. You didn't like to.

You only lost control of yourself once. That was when you were first turned. But Kankri was there to stop you. From then on you only took enough blood to keep your hunger down. You always left the humans alive. So did Kankri obviously. It was against law not to. If you went around just killing humans the shadowhunters would surly go after your ass. All hell would break loose. Humans aren't stupid, if they see a bunch of bodies laying around with holes in their necks or wrists their gonna put two and two together.

Anyways. Now you live with your clan in this old hotel. Like seventeenth century hotel. It's glamored so human can't see it. You don't like being there at night though, too many people. You hate almost all of them. So normally you go out. Just walk around. Mundanes are sleeping so you don't worry about blending in.

You and your brother can withstand a certain amount of sunlight, more than normal but after about ten minutes it starts to burn. So you stay inside during the day. The only time you leave is to go with Kankri. He is high up in the counsel. He's important. That's all you really know, you don't like politics. But he drags you along when he has to go talk to other downworlders or the nephilim.

But he was just reading now so you decided to go for a walk. It's dark out (obviously) but you can see just as well as a human in the day time. That's how you're able to catch a glimpse of a figure on top of a roof out of the corner of your eye. You quickly turn, looking up to it. It takes you a moment but you can faintly make out an outline of...wings? They were so black they almost blended in with the sky.

You can see the figure, he's just standing there. Then he looks at you. You freeze a bit. His whole eye, all of it except for his pupil, was bright blue. Then he's gone. You look around, you can't see him anywhere.

Who was that? Then it clicks in your mind. Warlock. Nothing else in this world could have wings and eyes like that. You stand there for a minute, remembering what he looked like. You never saw someone so graceful. And you're a vampire. All vampires are graceful.

Soon you break whatever trance you put yourself in and walk back to the hotel. That's enough wondering for tonight. When you get back to your room your brother is in the same exact position he was in when you left. Sitting in his chair, his legs crossed with a book in his lap. You walk in silently but he knows you're there.

He looks up as you take a seat next to him. His face is kind, probably why so many people trust him so quickly and why the vampires send him to talk to their allies. "How was your walk Karkat?" You shrug and sink into your seat, the image of the warlock, wings silhouetted against the black sky coming to mind.

"You know, the usual."