OT Personel Files: Vlad Masters

by ElnaKernor

Vlad is the human son of a vampire and a no-maj, barely different from a no-maj except that he knows about magic, can see past no-maj-blind perception spells, and sometimes talks with the local ghost. His friendship with two ghost-enthusiastic no-majs, Jack Fenton and Maddie Ashworth, leads the three of them to find a strange archway rumored to be a portal into Death.

Vlad is the human son of a vampire and a no-maj, barely different from a no-maj except that he knows about magic, can see past no-maj-blind perception spells, and sometimes talks with the local ghost.

His friendship with two ghost-enthusiastic no-majs, Jack Fenton and Maddie Ashworth, leads the three of them to find a strange archway rumored to be a portal into Death - everything crumbles under his feet when Jack accidentally pushes him halfway through the archway.

---

The Old Tower employs people of all magics and backgrounds, oftentimes pushed into a corner by an unfortunate twist of their destiny. Their way to the Old Tower can generally be told in three parts: how they came to be; how they were recruited, and how they claimed their place within the organization.

---

In the Harry Potter world, but the USA, so the usual characters aren't really present.

worldbuilding about the magical US
my own take on vampires because we've barely seen anything about them in canon and I can do what I want

part 1 is Vlad until he becomes a human/vampire/ghost oddity
no idea when I'll post parts 2 and 3

---

OT Personel Files:

Vlad Masters

Part I: Inception

"Vladislav, come here, please."

Dad looked gaunt – his father was always a bit gloomy, by human standards, just like Vlad's older sister Dasha, but today something was tugging at his sharp smile, dimming his red eyes – and Mama's tone was too serious and quiet for the boy not to worry.

Vlad threw a look at his older sister: she winced, letting her fangs show without meaning to.

"Daria, your homework won't finish itself. Your father got you a place at the Vengekräizt Institute, try not to get expelled before graduation, would you?"

Dasha only lingered a moment longer before skulking out, obviously displeased at being sent away.

Mama sighed, and when she spoke again her Belarusian accent cropped in:

"Vladislav... We can't homeschool you forever. You are old enough to go to a no-maj middle school in September, and we thought, your father and I..."

"A no-maj school?"

Mama and Dad shared a look, and Dad crouched down, his red eyes searching Vlad's blue ones.

"Yes, a mundane school. You... Dasha got my vampiric nature, but you are like your mother, Vlad."

The boy glanced at Ekatarina Volkov, her blue eyes and healthier skin – but also, a round face Vlad didn't find in the mirror, eyes that couldn't see Old Gregor hovering around City Hall without her revealing glasses, pale blond hair similar to Dasha's but not Vlad's.

"Mom can't stand the smell of blood, you always need to have fresh blood blossoms around or she starts getting nauseous."

Vlad certainly didn't have that problem. While he didn't share his father and sister's interest in blood, he was also completely indifferent to the sight, scent and taste of blood.

Dad's nose twitched, annoyed in a way that said he thought Vlad was being voluntarily obtuse.

Generally it was Dad's clients and the representative from the Institute who got that nose twitch.

"You have vampiric traits, yes, but you aren't a vampire. Magical blood runs in your veins, you aren't a no-maj, but in the end... If we want you to live your life to its fullest, the mundane world is the best bet you could make. Wizards in this country still aren't fond of mixing the mundane and the magical, even if Rappaport's Law was recently revoked, and someone who can't do magic or claim any special status as a non-human being won't find a place there."

Vlad knew about Rappaport's Law, of course: it had been one of the first lessons he'd had with his father about the magical world, as it had still been active when Dad and Mama, a vampire and a no-maj, had started seeing each other. It hadn't been easy for them, at first – but more and more cases of mundaneborn witches and wizards protesting the law's stance on their families' memories had followed World War Two, and mixed couples who'd never married but effectively lived together anyway were coming to light, and by 1960 the MACUSA had been forced to revoke Rappaport's Law to put more tolerant regulations in place.

The United States still followed the International Statute of Secrecy, but family and signicant others were now allowed to know the truth – after an investigation from the Office of Heritage to ensure this knowledge wouldn't become a risk.

Vlad still wasn't convinced with going to no-maj school, as that meant keeping quiet about his family and vampires and ghosts and magic. He didn't fancy hearing people ask if his dad and sister were sick, perhaps, or having to pretend he had no idea what was happening when something magical disrupted mundane life, even if it meant getting an easier life down the road.

The boy stared at his parents, thinking hard – then his hand inched towards the side of his throat.

"I could... There's the blood ritual, if the problem is that I don't belong?"

Dad twitched in his crouch, a dark look taking over his face: his next words came in a snarl.

"You are not doing that ritual, Vlad!"

Mama took a chair from the kitchen table and put it besides her husband, so that she could sit down and put a hand on Dad's shoulder.

Her eyes, however, didn't leave Vlad.

"Vladislav, it's not that you don't belong, of course you do. However, you will have more opportunities in the mundane world than in the magical community. Besides, I went to a no-maj school and turned out just fine, didn't I?"

Vlad opened his mouth, looked at both his father and mother, rethought his answer and frowned: his mama was alright, and all the lessons about science came from her side of his homeschooling, not from Dad's. Science was Vlad's favorite subject, closely followed by mathematics – and looking through documents in search of informations, but that wasn't a subject per se.

"...But you didn't know about magic, then, Mama."

Mama smiled with a silent laugh, the corners of her lips tugging upwards.

"Sure, I didn't. It doesn't make everything I learned there worthless, and going to school won't make you forget about what most no-majs don't know. You'll have a chance to try and know more than anyone else, about magic from your father's side, and about science from mine. What do you say?"

She ruffled Vlad's dark hair and patted her lap, inviting him to come and sit there.

Vlad would say he was too old for that, now, but it wasn't every day that Mama offered.

"...I guess."

Mama shook her head fondly:

"You love learning new things and figuring out how everything works, child. I've always known that about you."

Not-biting his lower lip – the boy didn't have fangs like his father and sister, but his canines were sharper and longer than the norm for humans – Vlad nodded. One more moment of hesitation, and then he was sitting on his mother's lap.

With no one to look in the eyes, his father stood back up. Malcolm Bloodmasters let out a long sigh, passing both his hands – sharp, cutting nails almost breaking the skin there – in his ink-dark hair.

Mama pushed her boy's head lightly against her clavicle before glancing at her husband.

"Better, Malcolm?"

Dad's lips curled back for a moment, but he shook himself and went to light his usual candle – blood blossom fragrance, perfect for unsettled vampires to collect themselves and move past instinctual reactions, or so Dad always said – on the kitchen table.

"...Yes, Ekatarina. Still..."

Malcolm Bloodmaster's grip on the candlestick holder as he turned back towards his wife and son was, perhaps, whiter-knuckled than usual.

"Vlad. Don't you ever dare to bring up the blood ritual again, do you hear me? That kind of barbaric traditions is best left to our blood-crazed ancestors, and you are good enough as you are."

The boy nodded slowly, a bit shaken by his father's reaction.

Vampires were born so, from a couple of vampires or with fifty-fifty chances from a couple such as his parents': Dasha was a vampire, but Vlad wasn't, despite showing some "vampiric" – but definitely possible within a human frame – traits. The only exception to that rule was turning through the blood ritual, which only worked on part-vampires like Vlad – sometimes a grandchild might make it, but it wasn't a certain bet, which hadn't stopped medieval vampires obsessed with their bloodline from forcing the change on their entire human family, no matter the risks.

Aside from that, Vlad only knew that the ritual needed the bite of a vampireborn and was extremely long and painful. Dad hadn't been willing to elaborate more than that, and while Vlad and Dasha's paternal grandparents didn't understand their son's decision to marry a human and risk having a human child, they'd also wholeheartedly agreed that the knowledge of the blood ritual was better left to gather dust in a corner of their memories.

Vlad wasn't certain he liked the idea of hiding knowledge, but he'd wait until he'd be grown up before asking again.

As for his suggestion, earlier... It wasn't that he wanted to be a vampire like Dad and Dasha, but if that had been the only way to stay with everyone...

"Vlad."

Dad was still staring at him, lips pursed and jaw set. Should he grind his teeth any harder, the vampire's fangs might actually break the mucosa inside his mouth.

The candlestick holder trembled in Dad's hand.

"I promise, Dad."

The vampire nodded and carefully put his candle down.

"Good."

...When he'd be older, Vlad would have to track down a paternal cousin or aunt or someone who might agree to tell him what was so terrible about that blood ritual, if he couldn't ask Dad himself – and his grandparents would tell Dad, so.

oOo

Old Gregor glided around the city hall's plaza along the breeze, sometimes wandering out to do rounds of the shops and passersby, making sure everyone was still alive and well, smiling at dogs that had long gotten used to the ghost's presence and teasing the cats that still eyed him dubiously.

A typical day for the one-centuries-and-seven-years-old ghost, who hadn't left the limits of Oak Creek more than three times in almost as many years.

Most people couldn't see the old Greek immigrant wandering around town, but Old Gregor knew them all anyway – the only ones he still had to get familiar with were the new arrivants, as the town kept growing at an alarming rate. The ghost had been there for decades, now – even back when he was still a living wizard – and had seen hundreds of families come and go.

The too-serious teenager with his nose in a school book just outside the public library was one of those who could see him.

Old Gregor didn't notice anyone paying the kid any attention, and so went to join the boy sitting cross-legged on the grass.

Vlad – was it Bloodmasters? Volkov? the ghost wasn't sure how vampire-human couples worked on the matter of surnames, as the only vampires he'd crossed paths with during his lifetime had been more focused on gorging themselves on their victims' blood than on integrating into any kind of society, and from what Old Gregor knew that was the reason they'd ran from Poland in the first place. Anyway, Vlad, the boy-who-could-see-ghosts, glanced up from his textbook and nodded discreetly at Old Gregor.

"'Lo..."

"Tell me, Vlad, how is tiamichles high school?"

The teen blinked at him, confused, and Old Gregor clicked his tongue, frustrated:

"Tiamichles, I think the name has been no-maj for a while now? We call, or at least we called them tiamichles in Greek, from the words for 'fog' and 'eyes'. The Ottomans called them 'aguciz', something about them not having power?"

"Oh... Mundane school is alright, I guess. I like what we learn there, and it's not like I could do magic anyway... There are a couple of things that I know are wrong even if the teachers say so, but I also figured out that a lot of things we believe about no-majs aren't quite right either."

As a ghost with nothing else to do than wander around and watch other people live, Old Gregor had learned a lot more about tiamichles people and their habits than during his life, when he'd been too busy being a wizard and not interacting with people without magical blood. He wouldn't claim to be an expert, even now, but he did understand them a bit better.

The ghost guessed that, as a powerless child – equivalent to a squib, perhaps, even though neither of his parents were wizarding folks – Vlad could more easily consider a tiamiches' point of view.

"Such as?"

The boy shrugged, hesitating – and when a couple of younger girls got out of the public library, stuck his nose back in his book, not to be noticed as talking to – as far as the tiamichles girls could see – absolutely no one.

"Just, you know... They're absolutely oblivious to magic, that's true, but we're also actively hiding it from them. They're not idiots, it's just been centuries of wizards erasing everyone's memories and calling those who noticed anything delusional or liars. Also, they tend to be more logical than magical people. Like, not all of them, and not necessarily by much, but when someone says something nonsensical, the others are less likely to follow suit and agree."

The teenager frowned, biting his lower lip:

"...Usually. There are some things... But well. A classmate pointed out that my dad looked like a vampire the other day, and everyone rolled their eyes and moved on. Because, as far as they know, vampires don't exist, and it's not like Dad bares his fangs at random strangers in the street. They don't have proof and no reason to believe, so they don't. I find that you guys tend to go the other way, even if it's because of a single fleeting moment of seeing something that might, maybe, be suspicious..."

"Ah, I see... And what of friends, Vlad? Have you made any?"

The boy stared harder at his textbook, and Old Gregor reflected that even with magical kids, Vlad had never been overly popular. Not that they didn't like him or were truly unwilling to spend time with him, but he'd never become close friends with any of them.

Maybe because the boy didn't have magic the way a child from a wizarding family did, maybe because none of them knew what it meant exactly to be the human son of a vampire – and that divide would exist with tiamichles children, too.

Vampires tended to keep to themselves, at least as far as families were concerned – and when they didn't, they were more likely to marry a witch or a wizard, someone who already knew about them, so any human children of theirs would still have magic, unlike Vlad. The consequences were that Vlad knew no one exactly like him, and some children might not mind that much, but the boy did, if only because he didn't really know how to get closer to someone without a shared interest or something to relate to.

The teenager mumbled under his breath, trying to sound affirmative but sounding more petulant than anything else:

"I'm friendly with a bunch of my classmates."

Old Gregor did not point out that being friendly with someone was not the same as being friends.

"Try to hang out with some of them, occasionally. There must be some hobbies you have in common, I'm sure. Also, do you think...?"

A cat jumped off the nearby low wall before it could see Old Gregor properly. The moment it registered the ghost, the animal started back, immediately hissing defensively.

When the dead man did nothing and only stared mildly, the cat's hissing stopped – only a second before it darted away and out of sight.

Vlad leaned over his textbook, a bit surprised.

"What was that for?"

Old Gregor shrugged, unconcerned: it wasn't like a cat's claws could hurt him, nowadays.

"Its family moved in a couple of weeks ago, it's not used to me yet."

"...Do they all react that way to ghosts?"

"Cats, yes. Suspicious little things. Dogs are a bit calmer, might bark the first time but quickly figure out that ghosts won't harm them. I think they can't see me quite as well as cats, though. Not the mundane breeds, at least."

Vlad was biting his lip, a light frown over his eyes.

"What are you thinking about, boy?"

The teen started a bit, prompting his textbook to fall off his lap and into the grass.

"Oh, cru... crumpets...?"

Old Gregor raised an eyebrow at him, but allowed it.

Vlad laughed awkwardly and picked up his book to stuff it in his bag.

"You startled me."

"I'd realized..."

The teenager looked around one more time and, seeing no one close by, finally answered:

"Just, I was wondering why cats can see you, but dogs can't do it as well, and no-majs just can't. If it's only beings with magical blood like, uh, me or kneazles or griffins, then other animals shouldn't be able to see anything, or... I don't know, what makes an animal magical or mundane, and, even plants, how did wizards determine which were to be hidden under the Statute of Secrecy and which were safe for no-majs to interact with? And no-majs, again, why can't they..."

Vlad sounded a bit frustrated by the end of his tirade – it sounded like there were things he wanted to discuss with some of his classmates, but simply couldn't – so Old Gregor offered instead:

"Cows can't see me at all, and I don't think snakes realize I'm here either, if it helps?"

The teen's expression eased a bit, though he still looked as confused as ever.

He sighed.

"Maybe I should start taking notes. Try and figure out what counts as magic, potential and blood and sensitivity... How much no-majs could..."

Then he shut down, eyeing Old Gregor nervously, and shook his head.

"Nevermind. That'd be too risky, and the laws... I... I still have homework to finish, so I'll see you sometime, Old Gregor?"

The ghost bemusedly watched and waved as the teenager headed back home, a thoughtful – and slightly scared – look on his face.

oOo

"So, what are you planning, Vlad?"

Dasha had entered his bedroom without a sound, walking lightly with a calm smile on her lips. She was an adult, now, and never made the mistake of showing her fangs – out of a snarl, anyway – anymore.

Vlad looked back at his notebook and tapped his fountain pain against the paper twice.

"...I want to identify the magical component, or whatever it is that allows magic and everything it entails to happen, in... Everything, I guess. Why no-majs can't see ghosts, for example, but cats, even mundane cats, can. I've been working on it in my spare time since last year."

He could feel Dasha hovering just behind his shoulder, even if he hadn't heard her come closer.

Then she nodded behind him, long blond hair brushing against Vlad's cheek, and turned around to sit on his bed instead.

"Looks like no-maj science to me, you're certain you'll be able to find what you're looking for?"

Vlad threw his sister an annoyed look and closed his notebook.

"Well, I won't know if I don't try, won't I? And sure, some parts of science don't mix up well with some parts of magic, but there are always ways around that, so magic has to have some sort of scientific explanation, maybe a gene, a type of energy that only gets produced by some organisms, or a wavelength that no-majs aren't sensitive to. It could be several different things which were all put into one single category because people don't know the truth yet."

"And you think you'll be the one to figure it out?"

Dasha didn't look disbelieving, which was something. Politely curious, perhaps.

Vlad decided to give up and join her on the bed, like when they were younger and Dasha came back from her week at the Vengekräizt Institute, to the East, in Pennsylvania – and yes, Vlad and his sister were almost certain the founders had chosen the location on purpose.

Hearing tales of a small private school where all the – admittedly few – students and teachers were vampires like Dad and Dasha felt mildly alienating, but Vlad had been curious, nevertheless, and he thought Dasha had wanted to keep her younger, human brother close, in whatever way she could.

Vampires generally lived longer than humans – twice as long, on average – and they both knew it. It didn't show, but Dad was already seventy-five and should still live as many years – perhaps two or three decades more – while Mama wasn't yet sixty. One day, their mother would die and leave Dad behind.

One day, Vlad would die, and Dasha would still have decades left.

Dad could still be alive, too.

Besides, Vlad didn't think Dasha got to goof around with many people, as vampires tended to feel a bit disquieting to wizards and no-majs alike.

He ended up with his head on his older sister's lap, who carefully passed her fingers through his dark hair. Vlad had let it grow a bit, and was thinking of keeping it that way, perhaps longer.

He focused back on Dasha's question.

"I'd like too, of course, but even if I don't, I hope I'll still manage to find something, anything at all. Something that could be of use to the one who will figure it out in the future. I think..."

He trailed off, and Dasha's fingers stopped moving.

"You know, Vlad, I wouldn't mind if you had... doubts, let's say, about the Statute of Secrecy. As things are, it's necessary, but in the future... If you feel that keeping the truth quiet only leads to some people being left in the dust, I can understand that. Mama and Dad are proof that we can mix it up and make it work, after all."

And Vlad was the one who ended up with a foot in each world, she didn't say, but Vlad knew anyway. Dasha might not live that herself, but she was his older sister – and besides, her entire nature had to remain a secret to most of the world, and hiding in plain sight your entire life was perhaps not the most pleasant thing to do either.

Vlad rolled over to be able to look at her sister's face.

She seemed honest.

"I don't really know, Dasha. Just... Ignorance is one of the main factors of fear, and fear is one of the main factors of conflict. I'm not saying everything would be perfect if no-majs knew about magic and understood it better, but perhaps it could be better if we managed to go about it the right way. I mean, keeping everything secret also creates situations where no-majs get scared and react badly, and I don't know how many times someone magical did something crummy because they couldn't just say the truth..."

Dasha gave him a small smile and reached out, outlining Vlad's upper canines with her finger in an affectionate way that would seem weird to anyone who wasn't a vampire or family with one.

"Just don't put yourself in danger, then. Be careful, both with your experiments and with how you go about them. Maybe it is too soon to just blast the truth for the outside world to see."

Dasha grabbed Vlad's bouncing ball – he liked to send it at the wall repeatedly when he got stuck on a problem – and tossed it his way.

Vlad almost missed it, but caught the ball at the last moment.

"On that matter, I actually wanted to ask what you intended to do after graduation."

Vlad sat up, collecting his legs under him, and frowned as he sent the ball back.

"...Oh. I guess, college? Mama has been helping me look for appropriate courses, something in science, definitely, and Madison isn't that far. I want... Of course, I'm going to keep working on identifying magic through science, but I'll need a job too, and I'd like to try in that field. Not sure how exactly, but a degree will help both with job hunting and my personal project, so..."

Dasha nodded, the ball already on its way back to her younger brother.

"Good, you do have some idea, then. I was a bit worried that you hadn't thought about how to feed yourself in the future, but you do have a head on your shoulders."

Vlad scowled at his sister and stopped the ball from bouncing on his nose. It bounced weakly on the bed instead, and rolled for a couple of inches before stopping on the sheets.

"I need more food than you, so yeah, I thought about it. And how it's going with your blood network job? Dad said you were leaving for a while, on some trip to Latvia?"

Dasha had recently joined a newish, vampire-owned business that focused on establishing ethical and reliable ways for vampires to get the blood they needed to function – vampires could and did eat human food, but they had to drink at least three liters of human blood a week if they didn't want to get sick. It worked well enough within the United States, so other countries might start to look into allowing the trade too.

There weren't that many vampires around, so a more global approach was perhaps the only way for that business to last and reach enough clients to be profitable – and the various magical governments would probably appreciate the drop in vampire attacks.

Not that some vampires weren't gluttons who didn't care about hurting people to get extra blood, but most could be reasoned with and would welcome having more choices to survive.

Dasha nodded.

"Yep. It was Latvia or the UK, but the UK is a mess for now and my boss isn't confident enough to send someone quite yet. As for Latvia, their Directorate wants to do an official contract and establish a government-backed distribution point, because they have a problem with one old-ass family in Daugavpils keeping all the local vampires under their thumb by regulating the blood flow, which they can't throw off because of the no-maj situation with the USSR. It's a whole vampire mob, and either you leave the country and your family behind, or you join, no other option. They're fond of using the blood ritual, too, so Dad won't want you to visit, but I should be safe with the Directorate's backing. It might take a couple of years, though."

Vlad licked his lips, unsure of what to say, and looked away.

"...I'll miss you."

Something bounced on the side of his head, a small smack against his hair.

"Want to go and see Black Sabbath? It's being rerun in theater. I'll treat you."

Vlad almost said no because of the unprovoked bouncing ball attack, but he'd wanted to go and this was Dasha offering. He might not see her as often much longer, too.

oOo

Malcolm got off the ghostly diligence first – the diligences themselves were tangible, but full of perception charms to go unnoticed by no-majs, and the whole fleet was driven by ghosts who didn't care for the weather or being up in the clouds galloping at a hundred miles an hour – eyeing the University-of-Wisconsin-Madison campus suspiciously, before his wife pushed him out of the way and started getting Vlad's things off the diligence's roof.

"You can do your PI thing later, Malcolm. Help me out, would you?"

The vampire opened his mouth to protest – he was a PI, true, specialized in tracking criminals and missing people, which had earned him the nickname of "Bloodhound Masters", but he didn't have a tendency to doubt everything and everyone like Ekatarina seemed to imply – but a glance at the ghostly driver – who should be dealing with their son's luggage – made it clear that Vlad had thoroughly distracted the dead woman with questions about her ghostly horses.

Malcolm reached up and took the big trunk before Ekatarina could try and tear a muscle: he wasn't quite as tall as their son, but still had a couple of inches over his, admittedly tall too, wife, and he definitely had more muscle mass.

"Do you think the kid will ever get over his curiosity for ghosts?"

His wife laughed a bit and shook her head, adjusting her revealing glasses before they could slide down her nose.

"Even if he doesn't, it's harmless, isn't it? Vladislav is always careful not to get caught talking to thin air, and he likes learning and understanding things."

"A bit morbid, though..."

Ekatarina gave him an unimpressed look.

"You drink human blood every day, you don't get to call anyone morbid."

"It's not the same thing at all!"

"To a vampire, maybe, but I'm a human woman, and Vladislav is more like me on that point, you know it. Let him be curious, he's hurting neither other people nor himself. As long as he doesn't forget to live, who cares if he's interested in learning more about one aspect of death?"

Malcolm didn't seem to have an answer to that. Ekatarina shook her head fondly, before her eyes wandered back onto their adult, newly-arrived-to-campus-life son.

"Who knows, maybe he'll direct a funeral home one day, helping people send their loved ones away while earning his due. Would you mind, then, if he could use that interest for his own sake?"

As Malcolm did a good part of his work with his vampiric abilities, he could only concede his wife's point.

Except Ekatarina shrugged and continued.

"...Or not. Maybe college will push him on a new path, allowing him to leave his interest in ghosts behind, or letting it be a harmless hobby to go back to occasionally, who knows? Either way, there's no point in worrying about our son when nothing has gone wrong yet."

As if he'd heard them, their boy – eighteen already, when had these years gone by without Malcolm noticing? – looked over, sheepishly thanked the coachwoman and headed back to his parents.

Ekatarina put a hand on Vlad's cheek and smiled.

"Come, child, let's get your luggage to your dorm."

oOo

Vlad's bachelor degree in chemistry went by in the blink of an eye, with the young man barely seeing any trace of the magical world in his new life.

He was reasonably certain that the girl with a Polish-sounding name next dorm was actually a witch who'd decided to continue her studies after Ilvermorny in the mundane world, for a change – A halfblood, probably, or perhaps a mundaneborn. There was a bar, a couple of streets off the campus, which attracted a lot of rather strange regulars, and no-majs tended to simply skip it and not wander in – perception charms, maybe. One of the stray cats wandering around was definitely part-kneazle and kept giving Vlad the cold shoulder, but it also somehow always ended up near him – especially when the student forgot to close his shared bedroom's window, he'd wake up with a white-and-grey purring mass of fur stuck to his side.

The most concerning incident had been the weed dealer Vlad had noticed talking with the younger students, who had just the right profile to potentially be a vampire doing illegal blood collecting on his drugged clients – pale, because vampires couldn't tan and only got sunburns if they tried, with sunglasses to hide his red eyes and a somber look to himself.

The dealer had caught him staring, felt this wasn't a potential buy, and glowered at Vlad. A few minutes later, he'd followed the student into a building and pushed him out of sight – only to end up being snarled at in a familiar fashion, even though Vlad didn't have enough teeth to call those proper fangs.

The vampiric dealer had then taken a better look at Vlad, sniffed his throat, and taken a step back - "You're the Bloodhound's brat!" – before snarling back and leaving in a huff.

Vlad had never seen the dealer again, probably because the vampire knew exactly how badly things could turn out for him if someone who knew what he was and about his shady business reported him to the MACUSA.

None of this had prepared Vlad to stumbling, just before validating his bachelor, into Jack Fenton's dorm room and finding an ancient wizard's diary open in the middle of the large man's desk.

Jack Fenton was in the same dorm as Vlad, but they didn't share classes except for Chemical and Biological Engineering. They'd never really talked before then, as Jack was busy with two side jobs on top of his classes – "Next year I won't have to, that way!" – and Vlad... kept to himself, as usual, but today Fenton had forgotten half the contents of his bag on a bench outside the dorm and Vlad thought bringing it back was the right thing to do, so.

"Vladdie, right? Rightie, that's it, Vlad Masters! Thanks for bringing my stuff, I can be a bit scatterbrained, me!"

Vlad nodded slowly, not really listening – he did go by a diminutive of his father's surname in the mundane world, because tradition said only vampire children could get a vampire's name and part-vampire scions should keep the other parent's, but Mama and Dad had decided that him being called Vladislav Volkov while the Cold War kept going in the background of the USA was perhaps not the best idea, and at least Vlad Masters had a chance of being considered half-American if nothing more – his eyes still stuck on what was definitely an account of a ghost corraler from the seventeenth century called John Fentonightingale.

Fenton took his things from Vlad's hands and smiled wildly:

"Curious, are you? It's my ancestor's, and it's also proof that ghosts exist!"

Vlad almost choked on his own spit.

"Is... Is it?"

Fenton – seven inches taller than Vlad and about four times as large around the shoulders – didn't seem to notice his visitor's distress and only went on, passion in his eyes – and perhaps a breach of the Statute of Secrecy in his future, but hey, who was Vlad to talk about that?

"Sure it is! John Fentonightingale's job was to find ghostly disturbances, convince them to stop freaking people out, and if necessary, beat some sense into the spooks! Most people can only feel a ghost's presence vaguely, a chill and, ah, haunting noises following you around, except in some specific circumstances, but my ancestor, he could see them all the time, I don't know why! Anyway, he recorded all his cases in that book, and the stories match with rumors and newspaper articles from back then, too!"

Vlad's mouth twitched into a half-honest smile.

What Fenton was saying was mostly right and corresponded to what a ghost corraler did, negotiating with troublesome ghosts, and, should it fail, banishing the restless spirit with an appropriate method – be it wards, a dread elixir or protective talismans. John Fentonightingale had most likely been a wizard, who'd apparently operated around Salem right before the famed Witch Trials. The fact that the other student was saying all this to an almost-stranger, though...

Either Jack Fenton was completely oblivious to the Statute of Secrecy's importance, or he didn't even know of its existence.

"When you say your ancestor could see ghosts all the time...?"

Fenton shook his head strongly, even though Vlad hadn't stated anything to disagree with:

"Not all the time, all-the-time, he wasn't delusional or having hallucinations! I mean he had some sort of..."

The other student leaned over a bit, as if to share a secret.

"...Superpower!"

While Fenton did lower his voice a notch here, he wasn't exactly quiet for all that, causing Vlad to jump in his skin – at the same moment, the room's door opened, revealing Samuel Gordon, who was Fenton's roommate, and still wearing his practice jersey.

The basketball player – still not quite as tall as Jack Fenton – stared at his roommate and his visitor with a growing scowl, like someone who was utterly done with someone else's overwhelming fantasies.

"Still going on about that crusty diary, Jack?"

Gordon's exasperated tone seemed to fly right over Fenton's head.

"It's a piece of history, a familial relic, and the undeniable proof of the existence of ghosts, Sam!"

"Right... Well, maybe you should put it somewhere safer for old documents. Somewhere else."

"Sure thing, Samwise! Look at that, Vladdie, my roommate's always looking out for me and my important stuff, just like you! But did you want to know more about ghosts, perhaps? I think they're absolutely fascinating, especially the way most people just can't see them unless the perfect factors are all present, and I want to find a way for the everyday man to be able to witness them in all their scary glory!"

Vlad pursed his lips for a moment, leaning away from Fenton's enthusiasm to glance at Gordon, who looked like he needed a nap – certainly not an overly-excited roommate who didn't know about indoors-voice.

"That's... wonderful..."

It was: this was the first person Vlad could relate with, not because they knew about the truth – it was pretty obvious that, wizard in his ancestry or not, Jack Fenton was a no-maj who'd inherited something he didn't quite understand – but because they cared to know more – about ghosts, specifically.

Fenton was still a bit much to deal with, though.

"...But maybe we could talk about this somewhere else? I wouldn't want to impose on your roommate... What about the park? We could grab a soft drink or a coffee, and you'd tell me more about that ancestor of yours?"

The other student's eyes sparkled with interest: in less than twenty seconds, Jack Fenton was at the door with his ancestor's diary under his arm – Vlad would need to teach him something about handling fragile documents with care, because this was just...

"Brilliant idea, V-man! Sammie, good nap, old pal, I'll see you later."

When Vlad closed the door behind him, Sammie-Sam-old-pal-Samwise looked absolutely relieved with his roommate's exit.

Vlad let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and gave Fenton a tentative smile.

"So, the lake, or is there anywhere else you'd rather go?"

Fenton beamed at him.

oOo

The school year ended, Vlad and Jack became good friends and got their bachelor's degrees – Engineering for Jack, Chemistry for Vlad – got roped into a band after Jack's friend hesitantly picked up a guitar, claiming he needed at least one non-ghost-related hobby – it was fun, but also a great catastrophe in terms of rehearsals and popularity, and since Vlad and Jack were not that popular to begin with, the three other guys blamed them for the results even after they disbanded.

Too awkward and reserved, too nerdy, too loud and invasive and oblivious – Vlad kept grumbling that the organizational mess their practice sessions had soon become was perhaps a bigger factor in the utter failure their one and only performance had become, Jack didn't really mind and still hummed their three original tunes in the shower.

Then, vlam! Summer break and the need to choose what came next.

If there had been a ghost-specific degree, Jack would have, of course, picked it in the blink of an eye – he thought he might have even managed to convince Vlad to follow him, even if his friend had started talking about being responsible and finishing his time as a student with something more grounded, like a business degree – except no university offered such a course, so.

Back to engineering mechanics it was.

Vlad did end up picking a business degree, but also took a chemical engineering minor to stay within his area of passion. Jack trusted that his friend would do great, anyway: Vlad was the kind of smart that made almost anything possible as long as he took it seriously and worked on it.

Jack knew he worked more on instincts, himself, and that he could easily get distracted, so no need to add more things he could lose track of.

Anyway: new school year!

Also, Sam wasn't there this year, so Jack and Vlad were roommates, now! They could spend their free time together without having to relocate, and they could share notes about ghosts and what could potentially make them more visible to the average Joe! No need to tidy up because Jack's roommate didn't care about ghosts, either!

...Alright, maybe not that one. Vlad cared, obviously – the theories his friend could come up with, sometimes, it was like he knew things about ghosts that Jack had never even heard of! – but he also didn't like tripping on random experimental bits.

Last time, Jack's untidy habits had gotten Vlad's lower lip bleeding open, because he'd bit it too forcefully – and Holy Spirit, his friend had sharp teeth – while trying to avoid the wall. Jack had, maybe, panicked a little – that was a lot of blood – but Vlad had just glared at him between a wince and an attempt at stopping the blood flow.

"This year is going to be fantastic!"

Vlad looked up from his plate and around the cafeteria, one single eyebrow raised:

"Jack, sincerely: keep your voice down. Also, you don't need to say that again, you've done it twelve times already."

Jack did try to speak a bit softer – that usually ended up being a normal voice for anyone else, and it didn't necessarily last:

"It's just, Vladdie V-man, you, me, same dorm! We'll be able to plot and make a prototype of, uh, I don't know yet, but maybe something that could gather data in spots where ghosts have been sighed! Or, or, I want to try making a ghost detector, something that'd go 'ziiinng' if there's a ghost nearby! On a weekend, we could try checking out that haunted cabin on the other side of the lake, what do you think?"

Vlad's face contorted for a second, then Jack's friend pursed his lips – thinking, but about what? Jack had frankly no idea – and nodded reluctantly.

Which was weird, because Vlad didn't usually do reluctant if it was about ghosts.

Maybe he'd wanted to say something, but hadn't found the right words yet?

"...Sure. Might be a bust, though. Lots of ghost stories are either fake or the ghost was there but isn't anymore, you know."

Jack started nodding – of course he knew, he'd been to seven haunted spots during summer break, and only two of these places had potential legitimacy, though he hadn't seen anything good enough to count as proof...

"Are you two talking about ghosts?"

Jack's head turned around, a wide smile taking over at the prospect of sharing his passion – Vlad looked more wary, and perhaps they'd been mocked once or twice after being overheard, but this girl might be genuinely asking, who knew!

It was a young woman with reddish brown hair in a perm and violet eyes, a satchel that should be much too heavy for her frame hanging by her side.

"Sure, want a seat?"

The girl didn't need to be told twice: she put her pizza slices in front of Jack's seat and enthusiastically leaned over:

"So, ghosts?"

oOo

The thin opening in the cliffs dared Vlad to climb down and get a look – and Vlad, not being very sporty, didn't feel like taking the dare at all.

His friends, however, were Maddie Ashworth and Jack Fenton.

Maddie didn't know what fear meant and could also dropkick anything that came her way – she was working on getting her brown belt in aikido, and the perm only made people underestimate her until they ended up on the ground – and Jack...

Jack didn't stop long enough, when he saw something interesting, to wonder if that something could be dangerous. He wasn't the kind to exercise much, but that wouldn't manage to stop him either.

Vlad, on the other hand, was tall but thin like a stick, and didn't exercise more than what was needed to carry his – admittedly numerous – textbooks. Rappelling down a cliff was not an activity he usually engaged in.

Maddie already had her climbing gear in hand.

"Alright, boys! The reported hole into death is about ninety feet down, against the eastern cliff. The locals said it looks like half a natural arch, half a built archway with an ashy curtain hanging out of the top. Rumors have it whispering into some people's ears, but the facts are that no one's seen it in about fifteen years, so make of that what you want."

Vlad winced – he'd done about 80% of that research, or, as Maddie would put it jokingly, of the nosing-about, and yet still wasn't certain they'd find anything here, which didn't endear him to the necessity of cliff abseiling, if it was to find nothing at all.

Jack noticed and patted him – a bit too forcefully, as always with his taller, broader, dangerously enormous friend – on the shoulder, a bright smile on his lips:

"Aww, come on, Vladdie, don't be so full of doubt! I know you think the hole, uh, portal maybe, would be better known if it was real, but it's really far out of nowhere, and no one ever takes the supernatural seriously!"

...Jack wasn't entirely wrong, but Vlad also knew something his friends didn't – and that he couldn't quite tell them without explaining a lot more, potentially putting himself in jeopardy regarding the Statute of Secrecy: some people did take the supernatural very seriously and if this portal to a deathly realm was real, those people would definitely know and have delt with it, so Vlad, Jack and Maddie would find nothing because it had been hidden away.

The MACUSA and its offshoots had been so focused, during the last centuries, on keeping anything magical away from no-majs – which Jack and Maddie both were, and Vlad, too, or as good as – that Vlad was certain they wouldn't let any spot of high magic be easily found, or worse, stumbled upon.

"...I just apprehend climbing down the cliff, that's all."

Maddie laughed and got closer to the edge:

"I'm going first, setting the path and the rope. You can go next, Vlad, and Jack will secure the other end of the rope if you feel a bit unsure."

There was no point in asking Vlad to secure the rope for Jack, considering their wildly different weights, and none of them even thought about doing it that way.

"...Sure."

"I'll call out and tug on the rope when I reach the midway platform."

And Maddie disappeared down the cliff, leaving Jack to eagerly watch and Vlad to reflect once more on the things he couldn't actually tell – and wouldn't know how to – his friends.

Magic was real, and with it, a good number of other things.

Ghosts – which were Maddie and Jack's interest here – were too, but no-majs like Vlad's friends couldn't normally see or hear them. Occasionally, a no-maj migth feel the presence of a ghost, perhaps hear whispers or see a mirror reflection, but generally speaking... You had to be a wizard or a witch – or something else, something with magical blood – to perceive ghosts properly.

Vlad might not be a wizard, but he had magical blood. Not enough to make anything of it except perceive what no-majs didn't, and just like squibs, if he one day had children with a no-maj – something he'd come to consider since meeting Maddie, even if that also meant figuring out how much to tell her about everything else – they'd be fully mundane, with no trace of magical blood.

The wizarding world in general wasn't accommodating to people like him. Welcome to visit every now and then, but not expected to linger – but Vlad, despite learning a no-maj's ways, couldn't quite let go of the truth he knew to be hidden under perception charms and memory alterations.

Where Jack and Maddie believed in ghosts and wanted to prove their existence, Vlad knew and hoped he could one day share that knowledge.

Make it so that, perhaps, secrets would become unnecessary.

Getting there through the door opened by the existence of ghosts – all of magical kind, as if something in their blood made it possible for them to remain as echoes of their time alive – was, of course, a personal preference – and the foundation of Vlad's friendship with Jack and Maddie, even if they'd found other ways to relate to each other along the way.

Despite all that, Vlad wasn't certain of how either Jack or Maddie would take the fact that their friend's father was a vampire – and didn't only look like one – or, more importantly, that Vlad hadn't told them about being able to see and talk to ghosts, that half the things he'd theorized on the matter of spirits, poltergeists and the restless dead, were actually factual or something he'd observed while discussing with Old Gregor, that he knew exactly why some people could see ghosts but others couldn't.

That Vlad had hidden so much from them, about ghosts, about himself, about the world.

The truth was, Vlad was already telling them too much – not enough for them to get suspicious, but a MACUSA representative could and would drag the student to a disciplinary audience if they ever had a reason to look into his adjustment to living in the mundane world.

"All right up there?"

Maddie's voice echoed off the cliff, and Jack answered with an enthusiastic tug on the rope:

"Heard you loud and clear, Maddie! V-man, I'm keeping you safe, don't worry about it and get down: I won't let go even if a spooky specter tries to tickle my belly!"

Vlad opened his mouth to say that no ghost would – or could, as they were intangible – do such a thing – poltergeists, on the other hand... – but decided that wasn't the weirdest bit in Jack's statement and he was in no mood to explain why exactly his best friend wasn't making sense.

"...Right. Thanks, Jack."

"Just doing my part, Vladdie!"

Asking what Jack thought his "part" was in this situation might lead to a well-meaning but rather oblivious tirade about heroism and "doing the little man's job", so Vlad focused on getting down that cliff without dying instead.

It took him probably thrice as much time as Maddie had needed to get on the platform – a smallish space, you'd fit two Jack Fentons and a half there – and the young woman nodded approvingly before approaching the second part of the abseiling:

"Better I don't wait for Jack, we'd be a bit crowded here. I'll go and check the last forty feet while he gets down, alright, Vlad?"

Letting Maddie take charge of anything physical was, certainly, the better course of action.

"Of course, Maddie. There's more space around the archway, according to the rumors, but you'll confirm when you get there?"

"No problem. Jack, you can come down!"

"Banzai!"

Maddie's eyes widened, and she hurried over to get off the platform.

Vlad took a healthy step to the side, standing as far away from the rope as possible – just in case.

One broken bit of stone and an almost slip-up later, Jack stood proudly on the platform.

"Perfect execution, as always!"

Vlad couldn't resist a bit of sarcasm here:

"If you don't mind the weather forecast to be 'cloudy, with risks of rock fall', then sure..."

Jack guwaffed – and, thankfully, stopped himself before he clapped his friend on the shoulder: Vlad did not share his vampiric family's healing blood in case of a near-fatal fall off a cliff.

"Hilarious as always, Vladdie!"

The other student didn't think it'd been that funny, but at least it'd made Jack laugh.

The gigantic man – you'd think he had some actual giants from the Great Inoabak Tribe amongst his ancestors, not a wizard from Salem, Massachussets... though, to be honest, one didn't exclude the other – grinned.

"You'll see, this is going to be fantastic! We'll be able to do so much with the data from that passage into death, we might even manage to replica... Oh, I've got an idea: how about a portal-window, something that'd show everyone when there's a ghost, even if we shouldn't be able to see them?"

Down below, Maddie's voice rose before Vlad could even consider Jack's idea:

"Vlad, your turn!"

"Coming!"

He turned back to his friend.

"Maybe we'll see once we have results, yeah? But that's a good idea, Jack, I hope it's possible."

Jack's face broke into an even bigger smile: he wasn't the one, in their little trio, who had ideas the most frequently – that was Maddie – or the one who could frame those ideas and any piece of evidence into reality-compliant theories – that was Vlad – so he always reacted when either Vlad or Maddie believed in him, like a huge golden retriever.

"Thanks, pal! See you down there."

Vlad nodded and checked his harness one last time before going down the next forty feet.

The key was not to stare down, right. Maddie had put everything together, they'd practiced a couple of times at the campus' gymnasium just to be sure Jack and Vlad wouldn't mess it up royally, and most importantly, Vlad had already managed the first half of the cliff.

In other words, he was there and had already risked his neck, freezing now would nullify that.

Don't look down.

"You're doing great, Vlad. Only a couple of feet and you'll be able to put yours on solid ground."

Vlad let out a breath he'd been holding with relief, as Maddie's voice sounded somewhere close.

His feet touched the ground.

"Here, let me help."

The harness stayed on, but Maddie unhooked the rope and led him by the arm about five feet away.

"Jack, path's clear!"

"Sure thing!"

As the disquieting feeling of hanging into mid-air left him, Vlad's gaze fell back on Maddie. Unlike him, she seemed unfrazzled and comfortable in her body – yeah, maybe Vlad should start working out, if only a bit, he knew... – unbothered by the climb down. Perm tied up with a blue scrunchie, wearing outdoor clothes Vlad didn't often see on her.

She was, of course, beautiful.

Something he didn't quite understand motivated him to ask, then:

"Maddie, there's... When we're done here, I'd like to..."

"Here I am!"

Jack landed heavily on the lower platform, causing Maddie's eyes to instinctually check on her climbing anchors set-up: they still needed to get back up, after all.

Vlad pinched his lips, but told himself this was for the better: they already had one important matter to focus on. He'd try again when they'd be back on campus.

Maybe.

Jack, oblivious as always, clapped his hands noisily:

"Rightie, friends! Where's that death portal, then?"

Maddie finished unhooking their friend, while Vlad took a look around.

"The librarian said it was deeper inside the gorge, but not by much. Two minutes on the left, top. You're both ready to have a look?"

Jack was all but vibrating in his boots, and the only times Vlad had seen Maddie not be ready for something was when she had to choose a fancy outfit for a special occasion, as her wardrobe wasn't really geared towards such things.

"Do you need to ask, Vlad?"

He probably didn't.

"Well, then. Watch your feet."

They weren't right at the bottom of the gorge, after all, and there was still a three-hundred-feet fall down the side if they weren't careful. There was enough space on the ridge for the three of them to wander along the cliffside, as long as everyone minded their space cautiously.

Vlad sidestepped a hanging stalactite – Maddie wouldn't have a problem, here, but Jack...

A dumb noise resounded behind Vlad, and Jack's "ouch" that followed said enough:

"...And your head, I suppose."

"'S not my fault I'm seven-feet tall!"

"Of course not, but you also have eyes, Jack."

"Vlad's kind of right on that one, Jack. Please be careful, I'd hate to see you injured."

"Aww, Maddie, it's great that you care!"

Vlad let the two of them to – what, bicker? flirt? that one tugged at his chest, but Jack was so oblivious to everything, Vlad couldn't imagine him doing such a thing on purpose – and stepped into a small recess, just off the ridge and into the cliff.

Shadows encroached on the space, as sunrays couldn't reach in.

Dad or Dasha would see well enough – only complete darkness could trump a vampire – but Vlad only had a barely-above-the-norm tolerance for low lighting.

Whispers, however, were rippling somewhere in the dark, just loud enough to be noticed – but not understood.

Vlad squinted and took a tentative step in, his hand against the cliff for reassurance.

"Jack, Maddie? I think... I heard something."

Jack was behind him in the time it took for Vlad to suck in a breath, his eyes stuck on something that had moved in the dark.

"What? Where?"

"There, see? Looks like something going back and forth, not quite regularly. Could be the curtain, maybe? Maddie, do you have the...?"

A bright, unnatural white light shone onto the back of the alcove, illuminating the portal they'd heard rumors about – Maddie had turned their special torchlight on.

It was really there: a hole in the cliff, half carved stonework and half raw rock, the other side shimmering with dark greens and purples, barely visible behind ashy shreds of ancient fabric, less of a curtain and more of an ominous veil of ruin.

Vlad could still hear the whispers, and if he got just a bit closer...

"I don't hear anything?"

"Shh, Jack! I can... I don't know, it's very quiet, but there's... Uh, Vlad, should you get so close?"

Vlad stopped in his tracks, shook his head and took a deep breath.

"...You're right, Maddie. I just... I wanted to know what the voices were saying, but we should gather some data first. Make sure... Check if there's anything dangerous, radiations, I don't know."

Vlad, to say the truth, was fundamentally shaken by this discovery: he hadn't believed they'd truly find something, he'd been certain the MACUSA would know of this place and if there was anything worthwhile they'd have taken care of it, but here the three of them were, and nothing magical – except the veil itself – had gotten in the way.

"Voices? I'm pretty sure I hear music... Something faint, a bit dreary, but no voices?"

...What should Vlad do, then?

The expected thing was for him to distract Jack and Maddie – easier said than done – and warn someone, so that this could be dealt with. Maybe his friends' memories would be slightly altered, to make them believe they'd found a geological oddity, but nothing properly magical, nothing revealing, and...

"Well, I don't hear anything! At all!"

"...Jack, have you considered that you might be hard of hearing? It would explain why you speak so loudly, too."

This, though... This might be exactly what Vlad needed to... Maybe... He could, and Jack and Maddie too, and he might be able to lead them to the truth from there, and eventually...

"...Vlad? You didn't answer my question?"

"fangless, that one"

Vlad started, absolutely certain he'd heard actual words, this time.

Words that could only pertain to him, amongst the three of them.

Words that neither Jack nor Maddie could have known to call him.

"can hear"

Vlad took a step back, unnerved.

"Sorry, Maddie, you were saying?"

He didn't want to call the magical congress and relinquish this chance, but perhaps... This might be more dangerous than he'd expected, especially with two no-majs who had no idea of what dangers the magical world could hold.

Still. If he wanted his friends to know, one day...

"Just, I hear music. You say you hear voices?"

Vlad passed a nervous finger along his lower teeth – and decided that, for now, he'd keep quiet.

Towards whom, he wasn't certain quite yet.

"Oh, yes. Maybe we should... try and do a recording?"

Scientific means, and his – basic, but accurate – knowledge of magic: that was the way to learn, and, ultimately, understand more.

The three friends spent the next ten minutes trying all kinds of data measurements that came to mind; some worked well, giving them nonsensical but real readings, while others just froze out – expected when you knew how electrics and electronics reacted next to magic, though baffling for Jack and Maddie.

When Vlad focused on his friends or measuring, the whispers barely reached his ears, but if his gaze wandered a bit too long towards the archway...

He caught Maddie staring a couple of times, too – only Jack seemed unaffected.

Eventually, they had nothing else – nothing safe – to try, and Jack's attention wandered to the portal itself as he put down their EMF reader – which, kind of worked, but didn't tell them much despite what pop culture wanted you to believe.

"Do you guys think it's safe to touch?"

Maddie and Vlad shared a quick look: he put himself between his friend and the hole into death, while she hesitantly answered.

"Better safe than sorry on that one, Jack... I mean, it's potentially deadly behind that curtain, so..."

Vlad nodded, a hand on Jack's arm:

"Maddie's right. We could come back another time, once we'll have gone through the data we've just gathered? We'll have new ideas, be better prepared, maybe we'll be able to figure out more effective tests. I don't want us to fudge this chance up because we were too hasty and reckless."

Jack seemed to deflate a bit, but he agreed nonetheless.

"...Alright. But we'll come back, you'll see!"

The way he glared at the archway behind Vlad made it seem to be both a promise and a challenge – towards an inanimate piece of, quite mysterious but not sentient, supernatural architecture.

Before either Maddie or Vlad could say anything to try and comfort their friend, Jack jumped on his feet and clapped his hands.

"Oh, a picture! We should snap one with the portal!"

Maddie's face beamed at the proposition.

"Excellent idea! We'll stand a few feet away, we're still not touching it, but if we put the camera over there and you use the timer... Come on, Vlad, stand here."

Jack went and set down the camera on a big, flat rock, while Maddie dragged Vlad to the left so that neither of them would block the sight.

"Oh, Jack, don't forget to put the timer on 12, there's no need to ru..."

"And here we gooo!"

Jack ran across the little space between the camera and his friends – and Vlad wasn't sure why, but at that moment a whisper hissed by his ear "the blood mongrel can still be one of", causing him to look back towards the veil – as if he'd never make it there on time otherwise.

"Jack, careful!"

Vlad turned back, all too aware of the need to mind his best friend's arrival if he didn't want the gigantic man to somehow land on his feet and crush them with his very mass – Maddie had obviously remembered their trip to Washington and the camera timer incidents, too – only to see Jack was already there, in a spin to turn around and look back at the camera.

Vlad, surprised, tripped, barely evading his massive friend's shoulder in the process...

Maddie's head snapped towards him, alarm in her eyes:

"Vlad! Jack, I told you to be care...!"

Jack twisted at the admonition, looking for Vlad and whatever had happened to him: this time, Vlad couldn't dodge the huge elbow that caught him in the side – it hurt a bit, but the momentum did most of the work there – and sent him hurtling back a couple of feet.

"touch the fangless one"

Both Jack and Maddie's eyes grew, full of shock, fear and worry.

Vlad felt something cold wash over the back of his head, something harsh like fingernails tugging at the roots of his hair – and the shreds of gray fabric fell over his eyes, just as something grabbed at his ankle.

"Vlad!"

oOo

Maddie paced in the hospital waiting room, unable to help but aching to do something.

Jack, she knew, was frantically looking through his and Vlad's dorm room for notes and anything that could help the doctors – but that was useless, too, as they didn't have any kind of proof to make the medical staff believe in what had happened to their friend.

The only proof they had was hidden within a mostly unknown gorge seven miles East, and getting Vlad out of that gorge – mostly unconscious, delirious in his few moments of awareness, his hair entirely washed of color and a coldness to his skin that had been absolutely terrifying – had been enough of challenge. The moment they'd gotten back to their rental car, Jack and Maddie had sped towards the nearest hospital with Vlad in the backseat, and now...

Vlad had been in the hospital for seven days, now, and wasn't showing any sign of getting better. Jack had gone back to the campus for their notes and to give the rental back, but he should be back by tomorrow morning, and Maddie...

Maddie was there in case something happened, but for now, she could just stay here – useless after her friend had almost entirely fallen through a portal to an unknown dimension that they thought to be death – and hope the doctors wouldn't have to come and say...

"Vlad Masters, which room?!"

Maddie stilled in her pacing, her eyes searching for the man who'd just spoken these words.

"Excuse me, sir, but I can't just..."

There, at the welcome desk. Older but not old, tall, just under Vlad's height, she thought, with even darker hair and a paler complexion, but the look of him...

"Here, ID. I'm his father."

Gritted teeth, stiff jaw – but yes, Vlad looked much like his father, even with the tinted glasses hiding the color of the older man's eyes.

Mr Masters looked so tense and worried that guilt churned in Maddie's stomach all over again.

She knew she wasn't responsible for what had happened – if anything, Jack had been too careless, once again, and the kicked puppy eyes made it obvious he knew that, too – but still.

Maybe they'd gone into this without really understanding the risks. Vlad... Vlad had been a bit anxious, him, but Maddie had put that down to his usual habit of overthinking everything.

Now, Vlad was somewhere between life and death – and didn't seem to want to settle for one or the other. To be fair, Vlad didn't seem to want much at all, right now.

Maddie approached Vlad's father, digging for her usual self-assurance.

"Mr Masters, I... Vlad's my friend, he's on the second floor."

Something unpleasant crawled down her spine when the older man's focus shifted abruptly onto her, his eyes finding her face amongst the patients and visitors in less than a second.

Maddie forced herself not to react.

The nurse watched them warily and gave Mr Masters' ID back:

"Second floor, room 12. He isn't awake much, Mr Masters, but I could get the doctor in charge to come and talk to you if you wish?"

Someone – Maddie hadn't registered that the older woman just behind Mr Master was actually there with him, and she had grey hair and too many wrinkles to be Vlad's mother – shook her head gently:

"It might be better to have them talk to me. Here, my card.. Bloodma... Mr Masters' family has a... medical condition, shall I say, and I'm here to check if we'll need to transfer Mr Masters to our specialized clinic. Malcolm, if you could vouch for me?"

Mr Masters nodded stiffly:

"Doctor Soovere is my family's... practitioner. She... handles my parents, me, and my daughter. She'll recognize the clinical signs, if our condition is interfering with Vlad's..."

Maddie blinked, taken by surprise.

"Vlad's sick? He never... he didn't say anything."

Vlad's father gritted his teeth harder and turned on his heels, heading for the elevator at a brisk pace and leaving his family doctor to talk with the welcome nurse – he only answered when Maddie made it clear that she was coming too:

"My son isn't, but I am and so is his sister. Whatever you children did shouldn't change that, but I'd rather be sure than sorry."

Maddie took a better look at the man – he was rather pale, and maybe the tinted glasses weren't just for show – and told herself he was worried for his son – her friend – over legitimate concerns.

Maybe Mr Masters' tone was biting, but Maddie could understand that.

"We're not... It wasn't supposed to end like that!"

They took the corridor to the left, Maddie not even checking the doors: she knew exactly where to find the small room they'd put Vlad in, after a week in and out.

Vlad's father didn't seem to care.

"Of course it wasn't, and yet. What were you two doing, exactly?"

"Three, Jack was with us. We were... We went to check out a rumor about... Vlad is interested in ghosts, you know, and so are we, Jack and I, so when we heard about a potential portal to a death dimension in a nearby gorge, we..."

Mr Masters stopped abruptly in his tracks, just as room 12's door appeared around the corner of the corridor: his hands twitched, his lips quivered in a quiet grimace.

"A portal into... Vlad, you bloodrotten idiot... Where was it?!"

Maddie – who hadn't expected Vlad's father to take her seriously, even if she knew what she'd seen – started as his eyes bore into her skull.

"Where was...?"

"The portal, the gorge, the place this happened to my son!"

"...By the Whitewater cliffs, just outside the canyon. There's a trail off the main road, and we left our climbing equipment there to rush Vlad to the hospital, but..."

Mr Masters gnashed his teeth so hard Maddie had to stop herself from doing the same.

"...Fine. And what happened to my son?"

The unpleasant feeling from earlier was back: Maddie swallowed and didn't even consider not telling the man the truth.

She also had the distinct certitude that it'd be better for everyone if she didn't elaborate too much.

"Vlad... tripped and half-fell through that portal. I... Jack managed to grab his ankle and we dragged him out, but he was..."

Maddie didn't have words ready to describe what had followed – her eyes only drifted towards the room they'd put her friend in: almost nothing had changed since then.

"Malcolm."

The voice came from right behind her, and Maddie hadn't heard anyone coming close – she didn't like it at all. No one had sneaked up on her in three years, as she'd gotten better and better with her aikido lessons.

This voice, however, belonged to Mr Masters' doctor friend, she recognized it.

"Doctor Soovere. What did they have to say?"

The woman gave Maddie a piercing look from behind her small round glasses as she moved past her to put a hand on the door to Vlad's room.

"Nothing strictly pertaining to your blood, Malcolm. However, the doctor's description of your son's ailments makes me think we'll need to bring him to Sihutuuwa Hospital instead. He seems to have... stumbled on an unknown spot of high power with his friends. This hospital won't be able to handle it."

Mr Masters' nose twitched in what seemed to be irritation, but he only nodded and made to follow as Dr Soovere walked through the doorframe.

Maddie didn't like the way the two of them had talked, as if she had to be kept in the dark about something – and of course, the young woman couldn't tell what it was, now – but if she made it clear that she cared about what happened to Vlad...

"Mr Masters! Is there anything I can..."

The man paused, his fingers gripping the doorframe rather tensely – but he didn't turn around.

"I think you've done enough for now."

The door closed behind him, and Maddie ended up alone in the corridor.

oOo

The fresh scent of flowers reached Vlad through the emptiness of cold and whispers.

Voices – true, alive ones – spoke over him, in a language he didn't understand, with intents he couldn't guess.

The whispers snarled at those voices, displeased – then quieted down mullishly, unable to speak more, kept at bay, perhaps, by something they couldn't disobey.

Vlad still couldn't open his eyes – or perhaps they already were, but he couldn't see through them.

Touch and scent and hearing worked, yet he couldn't see and his mouth tasted of ashes.

His body didn't move when he wanted it to, either.

"Vlad."

That was his father's voice.

"Please..."

But Vlad didn't know what he could do to stop that desperation in Dad's tone – the whispers would be back soon, and with them, the cold and the promise of not letting him go.

Some part of him was still trapped behind the shredded curtain.

oOo

Dasha waited politely for the Hopi healer – she believed they often used the term "medicine men", though there were also shamans thrown in the lot and Dasha had no idea how they differed exactly, as native wizarding folks tended to be extremely wary of vampires, much more so than of any other non-humans – to leave her brother's side before she went to sit near his cot.

Their father was there too, his head in his hands and nails scraping his scalp. Mama was talking with the healer, as the only human family member, but Dad had been there first: he and Healer Soovere had taken a look at her brother and decided to go for the nearest healer clinic with a door to

Sihutuuwa Hospital, because there was no way no-majs could deal with Vlad's condition.

They didn't even know if magic could deal with Vlad's condition.

Healer Soovere was a vampire, just like Dasha and her father, but she specialized more in physical issues, not... whatever Vlad's problem was.

Vampires, mostly, were not big on magic, as they didn't have the same powers wizards did. They could practice a specific form of healing magic, their blood had healing properties for most humanoid species – though you didn't want it to interact with a pregnancy, as that always ended with a miscarriage – and should they be in enough control not to try and go for the bleeding wound, they did make good doctors, but generally speaking...

Physical wear and tear, more than mystical afflictions. Dasha herself had learned how to set a bone, how to treat an open wound, or how to use her blood as a restorative on various species while studying at the Vengekräizt Institute, though she hadn't taken the Health elective, and her brother...

She had no idea where to start with her brother.

On too many points, Vlad seemed dead.

His skin was colder than her own, his eyes didn't see her even during the few moments of lucidity, his blood smelled stale, and his heartbeat would slow down and stop for minutes on end.

Despite that, Dasha's brother was still there: he moved, cried in his sleep, whimpered when a too-hot fever burned through his cold flesh.

Convulsed against the mattress every now and then.

Most of the time, though, Vlad didn't move at all.

Dasha worried at her lower lip, careful not to cut herself in the process, but also uncertain she'd even care if that happened.

The hospital's medicine men and women might not appreciate, though, and Dasha didn't want to get thrown out to wait outside – or worse, to be escorted back to one of the A'angwa doors that connected Sihutuuwa Hospital to most recognized magical clinics in the USA. The family's arrival had already brought enough tension as it was.

Vlad...

Vlad couldn't afford to be let go – the healers' work hadn't made him better, but they'd stopped him from getting worse, which might get them enough time to find a way to actually help – and Dasha didn't want to leave him alone.

Even if he was currently doing his best impersonation of a corpse.

Dasha's eyes didn't leave her little brother, but she put a hesitant hand on their father's shoulder:

"Dad. When Mama comes back, you should go home. You haven't drunk anything in three days."

Dad didn't answer right away – and when he did, it sounded like he couldn't care less about the thirst for blood.

"It can wait another day."

Dasha winced and remembered the looks they'd gotten from the healers.

"...I know, but we're already barely tolerated here and I don't think they'll let us stay if we start giving off more vampiric vibes."

Dad hesitated: Dasha could tell he was starting to feel the edge of a lack of fresh blood, as something almost predatory oozed from his presence – he just didn't have the focus for it now, but his body couldn't lie.

Another reason why vampires were most often unwelcome in hospitals and clinics unless they were healers following a very strict regimen.

Dasha understood all that, but right now, it wasn't helping.

A sigh and a tiny nod – nothing more.

Vlad still wasn't breathing.

oOo

"curious"

"truly"

"just a step off death itself"

"won't last never does"

"shouldn't have to begin with"

"No! I...!"

Dad's voice broke through the muted whispers, angry and hurt in a way his son had rarely heard.

"...don't care if they disapprove! He's our son and I'm not letting them kill him!

The murmurs stopped for a moment, attentive – curious.

They usually only paid attention to Vlad, and he hadn't even thought they could perceive anything around him – that they were something and not just here. He'd believed they were stuck to him, laughing and hiding just beyond his skin, since he'd fallen through that veil, but...

No, perhaps they were simply aware of what Vlad himself could perceive – perhaps they were just peripheral to his own senses and being.

Something around here – he'd heard Healer Soovere talk about the only magical hospital within the US, rather than one of the numerous, but smaller clinics – was keeping them calm, most of the time.

"That's not what they said, Malcolm. Vladislav is stuck in agony, perpetually dying without getting to the next part, and there's nothing else the healers can do to help except allow him to move on."

The whispers seemed... uncertain, a bit shaken? with his mother's words, as if they didn't know what to make of their meaning.

"not how it goes"

"death is death death is absolute death doesn't stall death"

Vlad, for his part, ignored the implications of what his parents were currently talking about: the beginning of a headache was making itself known, and anyway, he still hadn't managed to move his mouth for more than trembling lips and perhaps drinking cold water – not even that, some days.

He didn't think anyone knew he was aware of their conversations, sometimes.

"And so what, Ekatarina?! Even if they have good intentions, even if it's the only thing they can do, would you let them do it?!"

No answer.

"no"

"ours"

"moving on isn't allowed isn't possible isn't tolerated"

"touched the Veil fell into death cannot back down belongs with us"

Vlad hoped the murmurs would stop soon. They batted at his skull, hissed under his ears, rattled along his bones. Said things he was too scared to understand.

When the healers came and hummed arie under their breath, the whispers diminished, no more than a passing presence – but as time passed between each treatment, the voices grew stronger again.

Always there.

Whispering.

Someone's hand gently touched Vlad's brow, sliding down his temple and losing its way in his hair.

"...Let's bring him home, then?"

His mother was just here, and Vlad couldn't even show her he was awake.

The voices laughed.

oOo

Ekatarina had to tear herself away from the fruitless contemplation of the bedroom's ceiling – even though that meant leaving her son's side.

Malcolm should soon be back from the little work he still did – menial cases, nothing too time-consuming or that could derail into more hours away from home – and Ekatarina herself had to cook something for dinner – that would also serve for her next few lunches at work when Monday'd come knocking tomorrow. Malcolm might manage without food as long as he had his blood, but Ekatarina was human and needed to eat regularly.

They'd both taken the two weeks after Vladislav's accident off, but that couldn't continue forever: if only to keep taking care of their son, Ekatarina and Malcolm needed some sort of income. Daria, in the same way, had gone back to work much earlier, as she still had a much longer life to build for herself – worrying about her younger brother wouldn't do either of them a favor.

Ekatarina sighed and stood up, her fingers trailing sadly along Vladislav's hair before she headed to the kitchen.

As usual, her son didn't seem to even register her presence.

In many ways, Vladislav was as good as dead, and Ekatarina didn't know what to do about it.

Mundane doctors wouldn't know what to make of the boy's symptoms, vampiric healers could only shake their heads at his condition, and witches and wizards hadn't been much help either: the Sihutuuwa Hospital staff had given the family enough ointments to keep Vladislav fed even though he was neither awake nor eating – the equivalent of IV feeding for no-majs – as well as a humming bowl to put by his bedside so that he'd be relatively free from the spirits that had apparently taken residence under his skin, and that kept him relatively calm, but it also wouldn't save her son.

The shaman had said Vladislav wouldn't die on his own – but he also wouldn't get better.

Nothing could make him better.

Nothing except death.

Ekatarina entered the kitchen and quietly, mechanically took out ingredients for her recipes, unable to truly focus on anything quite as irrelevant as the evening's broth or tomorrow's roast – yet, she tried.

The front door creaked across the corridor: Malcolm passed by the kitchen, a somber – worse, hopeless – look on his face and a dark weight on his shoulders.

Ekatarina couldn't muster the good mood to call out, so she only waited for her husband to put down his work satchel and take off his shoes. Either he'd come around to stare at nothing in the kitchen and by her side, or he'd go and wait moodily in their son's bedroom.

They both spent a lot of time waiting, since they'd come back from the hospital.

Nothing ever happened.

Malcolm wandered into the kitchen about ten minutes later – he'd probably stopped by Vladislav's room, then – and only stopped long enough to put his nose against Ekatarina's nape as she finished preparing the meat. The woman paused for a moment, acknowledging her husband's presence – then she moved away to continue the recipe, and Malcolm headed for his blood reserve.

When Ekatarina pushed the oven's door closed, her husband stood unmoving, staring at a black bottle from Daria's enterprise.

"Malcolm?"

Her husband put the bottle away, unopened.

"Vlad isn't getting any better, is he?"

Ekatarina closed her eyes wearily.

"...No, he isn't."

Grinding teeth. Footsteps. Something that sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

When she looked, Malcolm was holding his blood blossom candleholder with a dangerous grip, sharp nails digging mercilessly – and unremarked – into the brass.

The flickering flame did its best to alleviate the vampire's unrest, but Malcolm still looked like he'd rather pry his own fangs out than admit that the healers at the hospital were right about their son.

Ekatarina couldn't fault him there: she didn't want them to be, either.

What they wanted, however, didn't affect Vladislav's condition in the slightest.

Malcolm took a deep breath – only looked unhappier as he calmed down.

Anger and frustration were not happiness, but at least you could pretend that things would look better once you'd calmed down.

"If there's no way to heal our son, Ekatarina..."

The mother frowned at her husband, almost certain she was missing something.

"Malcolm? What are you thinking?"

He shook his head and put down the candleholder.

"It might be the only way. I don't even know if it will do anything, with how Vlad is... hovering near death, but it might..."

Malcolm didn't look at her as he opened the cutlery drawer and fetched a sharp knife, nor when he reached for a clean bowl under the sink – and certainly not when he cut open his own wrist above the bowl, letting vampiric blood drip in until the wound closed on its own about a minute later.

Ekatarina couldn't quite settle on an explanation for what her husband was trying to do, but she knew it had nothing to do with the healing properties of vampire blood: Vladislav's problem was hardly physical and could not truly be solved by such means. His fevers would disappear, yes, and maybe he'd feel more at ease in his unconsciousness, but those were just symptoms.

Symptoms came back.

Malcolm put his hands over the bowl with a thin depth of blood and closed his eyes. Dark red fumes rose between his fingers, somewhat similar to the effect of vampire blood being applied to an open wound.

The vampire's fingertips – sharper nails and pallid skin – covered themselves in a red-to-dark layer.

"I... Ekatarina, love, I don't know if this will... It might not do anything. But you agree that our son is already in a terrible place, right? It can't go worse, and maybe..."

His wife stood up, throwing a last glance towards the oven – she could ignore it for a while, they had the time – as she joined Malcolm on his side of the kitchen.

When Ekatarina finally stood right next to him, he let his head touch the side of hers, anguish racking through his every move.

"There is something you can try, then?"

The bowl, she noticed, was empty – and Malcolm was extremely careful not to touch anything with his blood-tinted fingers.

"It might not work. It might work and not change anything."

"If there's a chance... Malcolm, Vladislav may not be dead, but the difference hardly matters at this point. If he was in an unending coma and you could risk waking him up, I'd ask you to try, even if there was a risk. This... This is no way to live."

Her husband nodded – took a minute, then moved away, heading for their son's bedroom.

"If I turn him into a vampire... The change itself might override the effect that Veil had on him."

...Ah.

Yes, that made sense. Ekatarina hadn't recognized Malcolm's preparations for the blood ritual because he'd never shared the details, but now his reluctance was understandable.

oOo

A cold, burning touch left wet traces on Vlad's skin, along his jaw and in the hollow of his throat, over his heart and at the base of his skull, stirring the young man out of the numbness of inactivity.

He didn't know what was happening, but the voices didn't like it at all.

"no"

"no"

"don't touch"

"leave him to us"

"fangless"

"ours"

His mother's voice broke from further away, and Vlad could only imagine this was his father, doing... whatever he was trying to do, whatever the whispers disliked.

"Do you need me to hold Vladislav?"

The answer didn't come right away.

"...I think not. I can't tell you... I've never seen it for myself, but it's not pretty. If... He has to focus on me, not anyone else. You could get hurt and it might make the ritual fail. I'm unsure enough as it is... But, there's going to be blood everywhere and I won't be up to dealing with it afterwards. I'd appreciate your help then."

Vlad... didn't know what this was about.

Footsteps, again.

His mother's touch, for an instant and nothing more. A kiss to his temple, and then she moved away.

"if they do it if it works if they steal him from us"

"if they do it if it fails if he truly escapes from our grasp"

The whispers angrily hummed under Vlad's skin – and whatever they were considering, they only grew angrier, like an acidic presence gnawing at his flesh.

Dad sat on the bed next to him, quiet.

"Please..."

Vlad didn't know who his father was talking to, but.

His father leaned closer, a blind weight shifting the mattress and tugging at the bed sheets – and then, something sharp and painful, cold and wet against...

Vlad gasped so hard it broke through the forced immobility, his father's fangs tearing into his neck. Cold, sharp, painful. Wet lips barely felt around the bite, the teeth moving ever so slightly within the puncture wounds, and something – something weird, something humans weren't supposed to feel from a vampire bite, except Vlad wasn't quite human, was he? – extremely unpleasant spreading along his bloodstream.

"no"

"fangless he is and we'll keep him with us"

"vampire we can't know"

"don't touch"

Vlad could feel his hands – legs, arms, even his back – twitching when his father's fangs left the wounds on his neck.

"Vlad, please!"

He had a vague idea of what was happening – his father turning him, the blood ritual, except Dad had never wanted him to live through this and the voices were screaming in furor – and no time or focus left to wonder past that.

"Malcolm, is that..."

"His fangs should come out now, if they don't we can't do the next step and I don't...!"

Something pushed through Vlad's gums, breaking the mucosa in its wake. Blood bubbled under his teeth, slushing aggressively over his tongue – and the rest of Vlad's body seemed to disconnect for a moment, a sudden, simultaneous, excruciating strike on each individual nerves.

The scream tore through his throat just as his father's hold on him hardened.

"Damnit, no, don't...! Vlad, here!"

But he couldn't see anything, even though he could feel his eyes wide open – light came in, but nothing else. Everything looked the same way he felt: blurred, hurting, lost.

Something pushed against the back of his head, bringing his aching mouth against colder flesh.

Vlad didn't know what to do with that – and his body didn't either.

"Bite and drink. You need to replace enough of your blood with mine."

Vlad couldn't feel his own teeth – fangs? – over the pain, but if Dad said to do this, he'd...

He'd try.

The flesh – arm, it was an arm, his father's wrist, perhaps? – against his mouth twitched after the second try, and Vlad felt like he'd just latched onto something. The taste of iron – still as unappetizing as ever, but it wasn't like he minded – slipped into his mouth.

"...too... can't take him... ours..."

"Here, that's right... Go on, take as much as you can, you're made for this now."

Vlad blinked, and his sight focused slightly. The whispers sounded further away – not quite gone, but less insidiously present, outside of his skin for a change.

His father's blood still tasted like nothing except iron and salt, and Vlad couldn't tell if this was because it was vampiric blood, if the need and relishing in blood would only come later, or if something was wrong with him.

...So many things were wrong with him since Jack had inadvertently pushed him through that veil.

Still, he did his best to drink as he'd been told to. Unsure of the way to go about it, not quite aware of his own fangs, only half at ease in his body – completely at odds with time and needs after days stuck within his unmoving, aching frame – Vlad managed not to gag on the sluggish stream of blood – but not to keep himself from tearing through his father's wrist, the sharper points and edges along his teeth catching clumsily in the thin flesh and muscles.

Dad barely seemed to mind, his other hand his Vlad's hair, keeping him in place for as long as needed.

"All good, Vlad..."

He still felt like shit, but...

At least he wasn't locked in place anymore.

oOo

Irina Soovere had been a vampiric healer – who occasionally treated humans, but mostly worked for her fellows and their close family – for close to twelve decades now, and she could count on one hand the number of turnings she'd witnessed in a manner or another.

It was always messy business – even when the transformation was done in the most ethical and controlled ways – and she could easily understand why most vampires didn't want to mingle with humans, or, if they did, refused to have their children partake in the blood ritual.

Malcolm Bloodmasters calling her about her son was not something she'd ever believed could happen, not even with the latest accident.

They'd informed the MACUSA about the Veil Vladislav and his friends had – probably not accidentally, but they'd kept that part from the investigators to prevent more problems – found, and quite frankly, the little Irina had heard on the matter kept her unsurprised at the terrible turn in Vlad's health – though she'd hoped the Sihutuuwa healers could have done more for him than they'd truly managed.

Even that, though, hadn't prepared her for her assistant coming in with the words "the Bloodmasters have attempted a blood ritual and would like you to check up on their son, Healer Soovere".

As Irina tucked her practice's key ring back into her doctor bag and exited the public restrooms in Oak Creek, a couple of streets away from Malcolm's, she told herself this was, probably, an attempt at dislodging the status quo brought by Vlad's accident – after all, a change as big as turning into a vampire may be able to push away the deadly paralysis that had taken the young man over.

Irina wasn't quite sure the endeavor was entirely well-advised, but at the same time... Vlad's situation had been much worse than what a part-vampire scion would have to go through with the blood ritual.

She could understand why Malcolm would resort to such means.

Daria Bloodmasters opened the front door for the healer before she could even ring the doorbell: the girl – so young, twenty-something, and yet an adult in her own right now – looked a bit disheveled and rather dumbfounded, but not completely desperate, which had to mean something.

"Oh, Healer Soovere... Come in. We..."

Dasha wasn't wearing her usual tinted glasses. Her red eyes flickered over, losing themselves within the house, and her mouth seemed to twist for a moment – more in bewilderment and incertitude than in displeasure.

"Vlad's awake and relatively..."

"Well?"

"...No, weird. The blood ritual seems to have cured him of the ill effects from his accident, but... something's still there, and I don't think he's quite..."

The young woman shook her head and led Irina in.

"I don't know how to say it."

Irina had seen a failed turning once, back at the start of the century – but the boy hadn't survived it, that was why you called a blood ritual "failed", and anyway, Vlad was a first-generation part-vampire: such turnings never failed.

Whatever was wrong with him had to come from his preceding condition.

...If Irina Soovere hadn't expected Malcolm Bloodmasters to attempt a blood ritual on his human son, she'd been even less likely to imagine what she found when she entered Vladislav's bedroom.

Malcolm and his wife were there, of course, and so was their son.

Irina could actually see the bed he was sitting on through the young man's body – not entirely, there still was a solidity to his frame and colors in his body, but just enough to blink and shake your head in confusion.

"What..."

Malcolm stood from the desk, just as Vlad gave her a baffled look – and started scratching at his translucent cheek with a twitching hand – was the skin... peeling? And not just in the way that followed a bad sunburn, the layers looked thick enough to reach under the epidermis even though no blood gushed out... In fact, the flesh looked... blue-ish?

Malcolm didn't know what to say.

"He... I don't know."

Vlad grimaced – and somehow shifted into a more solid form, though that also meant the blue left and blood started welling up under the peeling skin.

"Something's... I can't control it."

...Whatever that was.

Irina rubbed her eyes for a moment, shook her head, and sniffed the air for a moment.

Uh. The boy's blood didn't smell human anymore, even closer to a vampire than it had been before – that was expected – but there was also an unusual tinge to it. Something a bit... fresher? Acidic, too.

The blood ritual had obviously worked, but it hadn't made him into a vampire like his father and sister. Maybe... A third of him was vampiric – he'd had only traces of it, beforehand – another third looked human in a roundabout way, and the last third...

Irina knew that smell, she was certain of it, but what...

She put her doctor bag on the bed and looked her patient over.

"Alright... What can you tell me?"

The peeled skin, she noticed, was already healing: that was a typical vampiric trait – and, in her opinion, the most useful of the bunch.

At least Vlad had that going for himself.

"I... blood doesn't taste any better than it used to? And it's... I don't... I'm not thirsty?"

Irina's eyebrows went up a notch as she carefully touched the boy's cheeks, tilting his head back.

"We'll have to see if you can truly get by without blood in the long term, but alright. What about blood blossoms? I know your father keeps scented candles around the house."

This time, it was Dasha who answered.

"It does calm him down, and it didn't before the ritual, I mean, not even when Vlad was..."

Ekatarina, the children's mother, nodded along.

"Vlad was extremely disoriented after... When it ended, and Malcolm wasn't feeling well either, so I lit a candle by the bed and they both fell asleep in less than a minute."

Irina checked Vlad's body temperature: vampires ran colder than the average human, but the young man seemed to be even below that, which was... painting a picture she wasn't sure she liked. She then got a look at his hands, before putting a pair of gloves on hers.

"Not surprising, but at least that's something normal. Vlad, open your mouth, please."

The young man complied – Irina frowned deeply, her fingers running along his lower teeth.

"No fangs? A bit sharper than they used to be, which gets unusual for a human, but no actual fangs... How did you manage the last part of the blood ritual? Or... did you just bite and break the skin without fangs?"

Malcolm's voice rose up from behind her, a dry tone to his words:

"Oh, he had fangs alright. Took a bit long to come out, I almost got worried, but they were there. The wounds may be healed by now, but I can assure you my wrist felt Vlad's fangs: they were normal-sized, with more than enough sharpness. I don't know why or how they've retracted..."

"Retracted?"

Vlad helpfully scrunched his nose: four fangs, the lower two shorter than the upper ones, shot out of his gums, then hid as ordinary canines – well, much sharper than ordinary canines – once again.

Irina blinked.

"Can't hold them longer than that, except sometimes they get stuck the other way around and I have to focus them away, so I don't know..."

The healer took a step back, obviously surprised.

"...Rectractable fangs, alright, why not... Good point is you'll have an easier time hiding them from no-majs, I guess. It's not like we need those for anything other than drinking blood, and even there there are ways to get bottled blood..."

Well, that, and snarling at attackers, but that was more of a reflex than a useful habit.

Besides, if Vlad somehow didn't have to drink blood, he'd have even less of a need for the fangs.

"The eyes seem to still be blue, which is one more point for you not being completely a vampire despite the blood ritual. Your nails are stronger than before, but not cutting. You have the healing, but we'd have to test whether you have the magic that goes with it, and you only look half as gaunt as I'd expect from a vampire."

Irina listened to his heartbeat for a while, but didn't find much there: the rhythmic difference between a vampire and a human was negligible when fully rested – and sated – only slowing down with the thirst and staying calm even under violent emotions.

Considering how Vlad's heartbeat had been almost inexistent at some point during his... condition, she'd still felt it necessary to check.

"You say your taste for blood hasn't changed. What about your sense of smell?"

Vlad didn't seem to know what to make of that question, and that was answer enough for Irina.

"Erh...?"

"It didn't change, then. No particular reaction to the presence of blood out in the open, no change in its smell? Just to make sure."

"I mean... Maybe I'm more aware of it, but that's about it?"

The healer passed her tongue against her own fangs in contemplation.

"You seem to have several of the traits that make a vampire, but never all the way through. There's also something... Well. Whatever was happening when I got there. The greyed hair, too, but that's a stress reaction from your accident. Anything more you'd want to tell me about?"

Vlad's eyes sought out the rest of his family – then he shrugged, ill at ease:

"It's... I... All the time I was... you know, stuck in bed? Sometimes I was awake, I just couldn't move or talk, but there were always... voices."

His mouth twitched unpleasantly, the fangs poking out for a few seconds – and his eyes, shockingly, shifted into a complete, luminous red for a second; not just the irises, but everything. Irina had to ask herself if she hadn't imagined it.

Behind her, Ekatarina quietly asked:

"You could hear us?"

"Not your voices. I mean, I could hear you, but there were also... voices. Whispers. Murmurs. Right by my ears, maybe in my head. They said... They kept calling me 'fangless', saying I was theirs. I..."

Vlad took a deep breath and half-closed his eyes – the red was back, and this time, the healer was certain of it.

The way it shone slightly dislodged a memory of a past encounter: Irina clamped down on it, unsure of where it could lead her but also aware that something would come out of it.

"I heard those voices by the veil, too. It was haunting, in a way."

...Her theory was starting to take form, and the healer didn't know how that was possible – or what the exact word for it would be – but...

"Do you still hear those voices?"

The young man hesitated for a moment, then shook his head negatively.

"No. But, there's... something about how I feel, I don't know how to describe it, that's very close to their presence. They're gone, yes, but me? I'm a bit..."

Irina winced and took a step back.

"Do you think you could force the translucence from earlier for a moment, Vlad?"

The young man didn't look very sure of himself when he answered:

"...I can try, I guess?"

For the next thirty seconds or so, nothing happened. Her patient's face twitched here and there, as if he was trying to get a grip on something and it kept eluding him, and Irina heard whispered words coming from behind her – Dasha telling her mother something, apparently.

Just when the healer readied herself to tell Vlad to give up, his eyes flashed red and something akin to victory tugged at his mouth...

Until the young man collapsed off – no, through – the bed and ended up on the floor, blinking fast.

Irina paused only long enough to frown, then offered him a hand to get back up.

"What were you thinking about?"

Vlad didn't look injured, just... bewildered.

And itchy, too, because his fingers twitched, and no sooner was he standing up – gingerly staying off the bed, looking vaguely wary of the piece of furniture – that he was scratching at the side of his neck, in the same manner he'd been doing when the healer had first arrived.

His skin – and whole body in general – looked just as solid as ever.

"I... I told you something felt off and like those voices, so I tried to get back to that feeling, making it clearer... And then, I don't know? It was like the bed just disappeared from under me, or..."

Irina could only tell herself none of this made sense, and yet.

She'd seen too much to honestly dismiss the idea.

"...Or maybe you disappeared off the bed. There's a possibility that... The archway you found with your friends? The Waverly West Wickenter mages who came to study it after MACUSA warded it out of sight said something along the lines of it being a type of breach into death, and that there are several others across the world. Veil of Death, I think they called it? It was in the Uktena Reports last week."

Not that the weekly review had much more to say on the subject, as the Wickenter – directly under the Congress' rule, which was enough backing for... anything, really, especially within the country but not only – kept a tight lid on all spots of high magic.

One could, theoretically, be allowed access to all known information and research about a location studied by the Wickenter – should they suffer through seventeen back-and-forths of paperwork, forms, written authorizations from a Wickenter mage of rank 8-2 or above, background checks, motivation and offer letters, cross-examinations from the Wickenter Secrecy Office, and one to seven binding vows.

The healer didn't think any of the people in this room would ever manage to clear all those steps.

Irina shook her head: there was no point mourning hypothetical knowledge she'd never get access to, not even for the sake of one of her patients' health.

"My point was, Vlad, if you've truly fallen partway through a doorway full of deathly energy, you might have gained some aspects of it... You aren't dead, but you aren't human anymore, and you aren't completely a vampire either. There was a faint scent of ectoplasm about you, when I got there, and of course the translucence and intangibility seem to hint at ghostly matters."

She'd expected her theory to be rebuffed – scoffed at, denied, perhaps brushed off – as living people shouldn't easily deal with someone being... deader than they might look.

Vlad, surprisingly, looked contemplative.

A bit shocked, perhaps, but he was actually hearing Irina out – perhaps moving on past acceptance and straight into hypothetical ruminations.

Behind them, Daria Bloodmasters didn't quite manage to keep her sudden burst of laughter to herself:

"I'm sorry, did you just say my ghost-curious, no, ghost-obsessed brother is now part-ghost?"

oOo

Dasha hopped off the train and beckoned him over before Vlad could even reach the door.

He thought his sister was awfully light-hearted lately, but didn't comment on it: she'd been getting happier with each day that passed since Vlad had been... not-quite-turned... and it was obvious that Dasha just liked seeing him get better, especially after the horrible three weeks right after the accident.

Despite Vlad being overall healthy – for someone who may be partially dead – and only having the occasional issue with his weird new powers, Dad was still worried – he didn't say anything but it showed – and Mama seemed calmer but also treated him like he was made of glass – which was warranted on some days but mostly annoying the rest of the time. Having someone who was just happy for him was...

Difficult to play favorites with your siblings when you only had one, but Dasha would deserve it.

"Come on, Casper! You spent two months on the preliminaries, it wouldn't do to get there late!"

Vlad rolled his eyes as he got off the train, adjusted his satchel's shoulder strap, and got a look at the folded map he'd gotten from the library for this trip to Kansas. He'd added a green cross where the Waverly West Wickenter's main building was supposedly disguised as a mid-rise archive building with a decommissioned theater on the ground floor.

"We've got half an hour or so, I think we're on time. I don't even know why you tagged along... It's not like you were included in my request to see a mage specialized in ghosts."

As the siblings made their way to their destination, Dasha jokingly – or not – answered:

"I'm not letting my half-dead, entirely-novel-creature of a brother get into a research center named after the real-life Wicked Witch of the West without making it clear that someone is waiting for him to come out, thank you very much."

Vlad winced: Dasha wasn't entirely wrong here, though she was dramatizing it all a notch.

"Waverly West wasn't that bad, it's more... I'll admit she had an ambivalent stance on ethics, but it's not like she purposely went and made people suffer. She... believed in the end justifying the means, and sometimes that led her to go too far in the hope of finding something better at the end."

"Uh uh. And I guess a muggle writer who didn't even know magic was real managed to write a book where his neighbor was so perfectly depicted despite his lack of knowledge that her own sisters laughed out loud when they found and read the novel, because, what? She was the least suspicious person in town, maybe?"

Vlad opened his mouth – stopped in his tracks, not because he had nothing to say but to check the street names – and turned right:

"...I will admit teaching forty crows to cry like babies in her backyard was perhaps not her most brilliant moment, even if it did lead to the method to tame and train trolls... Which she shouldn't have worked on in the forest right behind her backyard, either. I know the incidents with passersby and worried neighbors didn't help her reputation."

Dasha snorted from behind him.

"Yes, that and the blatant disregard she had for mundane and magical laws alike. On the left, Vlad."

"Oh, thanks. Anyway, she was the MACUSA's only multi-purpose expert on hand at the time, so they let her get away with it most of the time. They dealt with the consequences, quietly."

Or as quietly as you could manage with forty crying crows on your hands.

The theater's cordoned-off facade – with a "we'll be back soon" panel dating back to the thirties on the double doors – appeared behind a coffee shop's outer seating. No-majs could probably see the everlasting hiatus on the theater's status, but Vlad would bet it never stayed too long on their mind, magically hidden so that they wouldn't get as far as wondering why nothing was ever done about it even if they worked next door.

Vlad had been told to pass over the cordons and ring the bell twice to get inside.

Dasha's hand on his arm had him turn around quizzically:

"Vlad. That's my point, you know?"

The young man – if he could truly be called that at this point, which was up to debate – frowned at his sister.

"Your point? What point?"

Her eyes glanced behind him – at the theater, at the archive building, at the Waverly West Wickenter's research center behind it all.

Something like worry shadowed her face.

"The Wickenter is the MACUSA's gathering of experts, their convenient mages for everything that doesn't make sense and to get around anything that gets in their way. There's no way to know if they also let them get away with things they shouldn't, and I don't want you to end up fully dead, or wishing you were."

Vlad didn't know what to say to that.

He'd filled so many forms and left paperwork everywhere in his trail for this moment, but even that could be erased should someone wish it, and he couldn't deny the risks he was taking coming here and revealing himself, but at the same time...

He had no idea of what he was, of what he could do or should avoid, and staying in ignorance could backfire spectacularly too.

At the Wickenter, he might find answers – or at least people willing to find out with him.

"Dasha, I..."

His sister sighed and went for a hug – Vlad let her.

He could feel her heartbeat easily, now, but even if it remained as calm as ever, her attitude told him otherwise.

His heartbeat raced up, unlike hers.

"I'm sorry you still have to worry about me."

Dasha let go and put her hands in her pockets.

"Go on. I'll be right here when you get out."

There was the coffee shop, a small bookstore, and a novelty shop in the street. His sister would probably wander from one to the other restlessly, and there was nothing Vlad could do about that.

Not unless he wanted to risk not knowing what to do when the next bout of ghostly activity rose up.

oOo

Lydia hummed a little tune under her not-breath while Frederich kept rummaging around his various projects, irritably arguing at her as they waited for his appointment to show up.

"I don't know what that kid wants with us, seriously? He's what, twenty-three? Doesn't have magic, is barely the no-maj son of a vampire. Nothing to do with ghosts at all."

Frederich was one to talk: back when they were both at Ilvermorny, he was already only interested in ghosts and the kinds of magic that could be of use in regards to ghosts. Of course, Freddie had the excuse of being a wizard and thus slightly more connected to ghosts, whereas Vlad Masters would never become one – not like Lydia, who'd died nearly a decade earlier – but even that difference was honestly... minimal.

Lydia was a ghost, and probably the only one allowed to comment here – which she didn't intend to do.

She simply pointed at the right folder on the visitor's chair.

Frederich snatched the Veil's folder and started clearing the desk.

"...Thanks, Lydia. And, I guess, yes, he did stumble upon a Veil and suffered from it, I suppose he might want explanations, and perhaps he could offer a valuable account of his interaction with it."

Lydia smiled amusedly and finished her tune – "Search and Destroy", the Stooges – as the clock ticked ever closer to their appointment.

Freddie and her had been friends well before she'd died – almost siblings, not quite in love, something less and more at the same time – and she thought he'd never let go of his interest in ghosts – obsession, really – because of her accident in 1974, as they'd graduated barely more than a year before. He'd continued on the road of ghostly discovery, scrapping by his honestly lackluster grades – expected, as he hadn't seen the point of studying anything not related to ghosts even as a teenager – to eventually become a specialized mage for the Waverly West Wickenter, spending his entire time working with ghosts and other spirits, and occasionally with ghost corralers.

Lydia couldn't say she minded much.

A knock of the door, and Frederich scowled, dumping his disorganized lump of research on top of a drawer.

"Yes?"

The door opened quietly: a young man with almost-white hair leaned in, his eyes searching for the mage, but finding Lydia first.

Blinking at her, and, damn.

Lydia didn't know what was wrong with the boy, but he felt dead in a way no living person should.

He watched her a second too long not to be aware of the weirdness, before he finally turned to look at Freddie instead.

"...Mage Showenhower? I'm Vlad Masters, I contacted you about ghosts."

Lydia refrained a chuckle and sat – or hovered right over, same thing at this point – on the rolling bookshelf: apart from his colleagues, anyone who contacted Frederich Showehower did it because of ghosts. They were his sole point of interest, and coaxing the idiot into making sure he had enough to eat at home was one of Lydia's greatest challenges in her afterlife.

Watching this ought to be interesting.

Freddie looked the young man from head to toes, both unimpressed – by anything and anyone who interrupted him in his important research, as usual – and irritatedly curious. Either Lydia had been obvious in her surprise, or her friend was picking up on a few things too.

"...Right. Sit down. Tell me, grey isn't your birth hair color, is it?"

Masters' shoulders tensed a bit – Lydia could only see half of his face from where she sat, but even then she could tell his smile was only polite at this point.

"I fell halfway through a portal to a dimension of death, Mage Showenhower, and after that I spent several weeks alternating coma and convulsions. My body has been under significant amounts of stress, yes, so no, grey isn't my original color. I used to have black hair."

Lydia rolled her eyes at her friend from behind their guest: Freddie had never been good at being polite, and this time he was really laying it on thick – especially with someone who could definitely tell them more about the Veil.

Someone who exuded a similar presence to a ghost.

If she was the kind to get chatty, Lydia would definitely ask about that – except she hadn't said more than a whisper in two decades and Vlad Masters was too much of a stranger to understand her body language and facial expressions.

He was probably here to tell them about it, anyway. She just had to wait.

...And make sure Freddie didn't piss him off enough to leave even without answers.

The wizard was, of course, completely uninterested in any form of criticism, waving it away as if it was of little import.

"Right, right. I guess you're here about your accident. Looking to share a few of your observations, perhaps? Hoping you'd get answers to something absolutely beyond your understanding?"

The young man's teeth creaked loud enough for Lydia to hear it – however, no insult came forth.

Vlad Masters slowly unwinded, took the time to evaluate Frederich instead – almost thirty years old, as pale as someone who never got out could be, goth make-up and red eyes from too many late nights, red and black and grey clothes, and definitely not used to being under scrutiny for anything other than his looks – before he tilted his head and looked at Lydia instead.

Lydia, who hadn't changed since the day of her death – not that she really regretted it or that her tastes had changed, but sometimes she'd like to try something else than her old cloak and punk rock hairstyle.

The young man didn't seem to care about that, not beyond the fact that hers and Freddie's tastes aligned, that she hung around willingly, and...

Oh.

He could see it, somehow.

That was what he was looking for.

"...Ah. I see."

Masters stood up – but he didn't seem about to leave yet.

He looked once more at Lydia.

"Your friend, right?"

She hesitated a moment – not on the answer, but at the question.

When she eventually nodded, the young man scrunched his nose a bit with a "hmpf" and took another step back, to stand behind the chair itself with his hands on the back.

As if he had something to show.

Masters, Lydia thought out of nowhere, was exactly the kind of person she'd imagine the human child of a vampire to be: his demeanor, his face, his bearing. There was so much potential there, the possibility of style and presence, but no particular tendency to bring it out.

Put him in dark, classic clothes and just enough eyeliner, and he'd make a perfect goth sweetheart.

"Well, Mage Showenhower, let me show you: it'll be faster than an explanation for something I can barely comprehend."

...There was just enough controlled spite in those last words that Lydia didn't realize quite on the spot that the man was changing right before her eyes, something dark and misty rolling down and up his body and leaving a much less tangible image behind.

Freddie's jaw moved haphazardly two or three times before he could manage a proper sentence.

"Wh... No, what is..."

It was still Vlad Masters standing before them, except he looked – not quite a ghost – much deader than before, his feet floating about an inch above the floor, his entire body translucent – but not in shades of grey like a proper ghost, with blue tinting his skin and red all over his eyes, black hair floating behind him – and a typical coldness about his presence.

This time, he truly looked vampiric, piercing fangs glinting against blue lips.

Freddie smacked himself to stop the boggling.

"Are you a spirit-damned ghost?!"

Masters squinted at the wizard and took a step across – through – Freddie's desk.

"That's what I'd want to know, actually. Are you, or are you not able to help me with this?"

Something in his voice told Lydia that the young – man? spirit? ghostly being would walk out if he didn't get a proper answer in the next couple of minutes.

Lydia pushed herself off the bookshelf and hovered closer, a curious look on her face and the will to get Frederich back on track before the wizard said something he'd regret later.

Masters truly moved like an intangible being, she noted, as she stopped by her friend's side.

Freddie threw her an uncertain look – she answered with a grin – he cleared his throat and went to look at all this with a cleared head.

"Alright, alright... You... You're the human son of a vampire, you shouldn't have enough magical blood to leave a ghost behind in the way wizards and other magical creatures do. The vampiric influence is obvious, too. No-majs sometimes leave shades behind, but they're more like echoes of specific moments that resonate occasionally with our world than actual ghosts, and that's not what you are either..."

Freddie tried to turn around their mysterious guest – the desk and walls made it a bit awkward, especially as the wizard was the only one here who couldn't pass through physical obstacles – looking him over with new eyes.

"...The colors, though... There are other types of spectral beings, spirits and such. You could be a brand new race, a mix of several traits thrown onto your human form... Does your heart still beat?"

Masters sighed, passed a hand under his hair and retreated back into the guest chair.

By the time he was sitting down, he seemed human again, the red glow of his eyes dimming last.

"Like this and like that, yes."

He made a face.

"...I can force it to stop beating and feel no consequences, but I have to focus, it doesn't happen on its own. Not... not since I got better."

Freddie's eyes lit up with undisguised interest.

Masters didn't seem to mind – after all, he'd come here for this very reason, hadn't he?

"And what else can you do? Do you have any... powers? You've walked through my desk earlier, is there anything else?"

Ghosts couldn't really do much more than float and pass through solid matter – with the right medium and enough willpower, Lydia had managed to animate her tattoos during one of Frederich's experiments, but that was under very special circumstances – but the other kinds of spirits out there could do a lot more than that.

Probably because they were beings in their own right and not just what was left of someone after their death.

"Well..."

The young man's attention wandered over the desk and eventually settled on a simple quill.

He slowly rose two fingers: pink sparks – with a faint scent of charged ectoplasm, something Lydia had never smelled before – shone around the quill, which started to float above the desk.

Masters held it there for a dozen seconds, then winced.

The sparks petered out, the quill fell down.

"Can't do much better for now, not on purpose, but I've been having all kinds of odd accidents since I... woke up. I figure I'd better get it under control, and for that..."

For that, better to know what he was dealing with.

Freddie didn't even seem to take note of the young man's unease:

"That looks like poltergeist powers to me. Do it again."

This time, when Masters' eyes sought out Lydia, it was more wary than ever.

The ghost shrugged with a slight smile: Frederich might be a bit obtuse and not very social, and perhaps he could go too far on occasion, but he never ignored someone who wanted to back out, if only because he didn't want problems or to lose his funding.

Besides, Vlad Masters could escape any grip with a simple shift in tangibility if he wished so – Freddie hadn't expected a ghostly being to visit, the office wasn't warded, and immediate spells that were effective against ghosts were useful to chase them away, not to keep them jailed.

oOo

Dasha put down the sheets on the little bed and turned to look at Vlad, who was arranging a small selection of books on the bookshelf over the desk.

"Are you absolutely certain you want to take this job, Vlad?"

He looked over his shoulder and gave her a wry grin:

"It's just for a year. I'll help Showenhower with his research, he'll help me figure out how my body works, I'll get some money out of it, and Lydia will keep an eye on us both."

Dasha had seen Vlad's new boss, and he didn't think she liked much the look of Frederich Showenhower. She'd admitted, however, that Showenhower's ghost friend, a punk witch who'd died in her early twenties, seemed a touch more reasonable.

"Don't let him do whatever he wants, you hear me. If there's something you don't feel right about, just... blink out of there. You're... something new, and he looks like the curious sort, who doesn't really care about his subjects' feelings."

Vlad snorted and took a juice pack from the fridge.

One glass for him, one for Dasha, and they sat at the table under the studio apartment's only window.

"Yeah, that's why I'm going to take law classes on the side, both mundane and magical. I don't fancy not having rights because I'm not supposed to exist or something like that."

Dasha gave him a long look and said nothing, sipping at her orange juice glass with a mulish look on her face. A heavy silence fell on the siblings.

Vlad glanced across the table, to the stack of letters he'd gotten from the university back in Madison. He hadn't yet done more than look them over with a sick feeling in his stomach, and one in particular...

"Did your friends write?"

Vlad jumped in his seat and tried to look like he had no idea what his sister was talking about – with little to no success.

"Vlad."

The corner of his mouth twitched down.

"I'm talking to you, Casper."

The young man let out a long, drawn-out breath and slumped in his chair.

"...Maybe."

Dasha didn't seem impressed by that and picked up the stack of letters with suspicion.

University, professor, dorm termination, university...

She flipped the unopened letter with no official stamp on it – just Maddie's neat handwriting and Jack's scrawled signature – in her brother's face.

"Here."

Vlad looked away.

"...I know."

"Open it. Read it. Write back. Do something."

The young man gulped the last of his juice, and pushed the glass off with just a little too much strength. It wavered on its edges for a second before settling on the table.

"What, though?! I can't tell them everything, and what if Jack doesn't even apologize for pushing me? He didn't do it on purpose, sure, but I still... I could have..."

Dasha's expression became a bit softer. She put the letter aside, took his hands in hers.

"Maybe he does apologize. Or maybe he doesn't, but he would if you asked him too. And, maybe you can't stay close friends with them, not now that you are fully part of the magical world, but you could still see them occasionally, see if you three can stay in touch. They're your first friends, you should try to see if it can stay this way, if you could manage more, or if it's really not worth it, but at least try. Everything changed for you, that's true, but friends... They might surprise you."

Vlad worried at his lower lip for a moment – then nodded stiffly:

"I'll... try."

A look at his watch: it was only five thirteen. Dasha's train didn't leave before eight thirty, and he had nothing else to prepare for work at the Wickenter tomorrow.

"Do you want to go check the movies? Maybe grab something to eat if you can?"

Dasha's smile broke out with a laugh, and before he knew, Vlad had two hands ruffling his – grey, so weird – hair with enthusiasm.

---

Vlad has a lot more support here than in canon, because his family is in fact involved in ways they couldn't have been otherwise. Also, he's sick for a much shorter time. I could have gone with a closer approach to canon (make him a muggle like anyone else, with a family that has no idea what to do and no connections to the magical world) but I'm already doing that in "Dripping Down into Death" (minus the magic) and I wanted to bank on Vlad's vampiric design.

Things aren't easy for all that, but he won't end up the same as canon-Vlad did.