Even God leaves on the last ship from Laureut.

*

Warning: Gore. Nothing Sexual though.

 

*

The bus shakes around him, and Corom honestly thinks the thing’s going to collapse in on itself. His legs are numbed both by the cold that leaks through the draft under the door and the fact that his seat is as soft as a rock.

What landscape he can see outside the bus’s pale brown windows are barely-there trees and bushes, laden heavy with snow and slick ice. The sky is a sombre grey, the horizon a frown.

Corom pulls his luggage closer. Even with three jumpers, a hoodie and a raincoat, he’s chilled to the bones. He wants to stamp his feet but he can’t feel them.

There’s no one else on the bus. Being alone makes him nervous, even though he’s no child anymore, but he doesn’t worry he’s on the wrong route. There’s only one, after all.

The cold is getting to his brain, numbing it too.

He’s flown all the way up here, right to the rim of the world.

It had been a big change. He’d lived in America before, of course, he’d gone to university there, and that’d been his main bargaining tool with his sister, Abish. It was a big change, she’d said. Too big. One extreme to the other.

His hometown was hot, and breezy, dusty earth blowing like tumbleweeds on the wind. It was full of people. People teemed from everywhere, people climbed out of rafters and popped out of the ground, friendly and kind until they disappeared again, right on schedule.

Laureut’s bus station was empty, save for a pale man who dropped off half-way through the route, in a patch of snowfield that looked identical to the rest of it.

At least there was nothing to slow them down, Corom figured. That meant it was only... another five minutes.

The scenery outside seemed to be playing on loop.

It was a long five minutes.

*

Laureut College didn’t look like much, probably because of its lack of competition. For one, it looked more like an old hospital, plasticky walls stretched up to the tops of the trees, streaked with yellowy-brown. There was a pale gap where a notice-board had once hung. The paint peeled on the double doors and the corridor inside was a grey sweep of yet more sticky plastic. It was bordered by dark green lockers though, just like in all the movies, only half of them seemed to have collapsed in on themselves, as if they’d been attacked by a rhino.

Corom dragged his luggage as best he could with stiff fingers, the suitcase smacking against the sharply-cut stone stairs. Inside it was dark and spooky.

It was hardly any warmer inside, but at least there was no wind.

His shoes stuck to the floor as he ducked his head around to the reception area. It was deserted.

He stared down the dark hallway.

Corom considered his options, not that he had very many. He couldn’t go home; the next bus wasn’t for a few days. Laureut didn’t get phone reception, and he did have a satellite phone somewhere buried in his luggage, but it would take a taxi at least five hours to get here from the city. And anyway, even if the dark corridor wouldn’t look out of place in a horror film, who’d set a horror film in a cold school?

He sighed through his nose. There was no way he could just hang about around the doors.

Corom bundled up his luggage and set off down the hallway, choosing a right when it branched off.

He passed lots of neat identical classrooms, colourful posters that curled up at the edges, warning about snow blindness and ice hazards.

Corom was pretty sure he was lost. Every so often the corridor turned sharply, splintering off into stairs or corridors, and he’d been down too many than he really wanted.

At last, he heard voices.

He smelt the coffee, and he sped up.

Someone stood in the doorway, and glanced up at him as he approached.

In the yellow light spilling from the classroom, her eyes shone inhumanly red.

He stumbled to a halt, heart jolting.

She looked at him. He’d seen bloodshot eyes, eyes of men with bleeding eyes, but hers shone brightly and clearly. It was no trick of the light, she moved her head and blinked and her eyes still shone.

He stared.

She was waiting.

“I’m... Corom Hunter? I’m here for the substitute position.” He said, gears in his brain beginning to turn, rustily.

She didn’t smile, but her face softened. “Oh, you’re a day or two early. I’m Larolae Weaver. I teach religious studies, languages,” She gestured inside the classroom, “And that’s Sebastian Honeylock, he teaches English, he’s also the librarian. Shona Harkenwing, who’s not here right now, teaches Art and Geography. The Headmaster also teaches, he teaches History.”

“The Headmaster teaches...?” Corom frowned. “What about the paperwork?”

She folded her arms. “It’s mainly done by his assistant.”

“Um, what about Science, and social sciences?” Corom asked.

“Ah,” Larolae lifted her shoulders in a half-shrug. “Ivy does a lot of biology classes. She knows a lot about Optics and alike as well.”

“Invite him in, already.” A voice said, from inside the classroom.

Larolae looked inside with an air of distaste, before pushing off the wall and going back inside.

Corom took it as his invitation.

The classroom, which was in fact a staffroom by the looks of it, was yellow and smelt very strongly of coffee. The desks were pushed against the walls that weren’t lines with bookcases. The curtains were drawn against the bright snowy landscape, and a surprisingly young-looking and fresh faced man leant against the desk, tapping at a laptop.

The man he guessed was Sebastian Honeylock had features only a little less weird than Larolae’s red eyes; he looked albino. His hair was pale and long, scraped back into a scruffy bun. His eyes were a deep brown, and his face was the wrinkles perfection of an airbrushed model. There was something intensely annoying in his half-smile.

Larolae purposefully sat a few chair away from him, scooping up a steaming coffee as she passed.

Corom perched on the end seat, unsure of what he was supposed to be doing. He watched the coffee’s steam curl up into the chilled air.

“You don’t have very many teachers here do you?” He said, finally.

“Not very many pupils,” Sebastian said, “Only ’round forty in each year.”

“Only forty! That’s only two-hundred students!” Corom said, shocked. “I knew this was a small school, but...”

Corom shook his head. “Could I have some coffee?”

Sebastian laughed “Yeah.” Sebastian poured him some. “It’s all we can drink, these days?”

“I thought it was a while ’til the mocks?” Corom quirked an eyebrow.

Sebastian was still smiling as he passed him some. “Are you staying at Lar’s?”

Corom frowned. “I thought the school board was finding me lodging?”

“Ah,” Sebastian said, “We are the school board, us and Mr. Sunshine ’n Hershie. And the Headmaster, and his assistant.”

Corom kept frowning. “No PTA?”

“The students are orphans.” Sebastian said, frowning too. “Of course?”

“All of them?” Corom straightened up. He didn’t know about this ‘of course?’ nonsense. “All... Two-hundred of them?!”

Sebastian frowned at the ceiling, looking confused. “Well, ah, no, I suppose some of them are purebloods, they have family.”

“Purebloods?” Corom scowled. He didn’t know what it was referring to, but it sounded deeply racist. A pure, Aryan race?

“Well, yeah. They’re born vampires, rather than turned.” Sebastian said.

Corom stopped.

Outside, snow began to drift down gradually, curling patterns in the air. Larolae turned a yellow page in a book she was reading. Her expression didn’t change. She seemed to be unable to hear them as her fingertips ghosted over the words.

“...Vampires?” Corom got out, eventually.

“Yeah.” Sebastian said. And then, as if he just remembered, he added quickly. “Don’t worry, we don’t eat humans.”

“What do you eat, then?” Corom asked, crossly.

“Uh, animals really. We’re carnivores. We can eat, eh, human-food, but it’s like... a bit gross.” Sebastian said.

Sebastian turned to Larolae. “Wasn’t the agency supposed to tell him?”

“Not like we could tell the agency.” Larolae said, and then scowled suddenly, tossing the book away. By the time it hit the yellow wall with a dull thwack, she’d already scooped up another one.

“What if he, y’know, spread the word.” Sebastian said the last bit in a whisper, as if Corom wasn’t closer to him and could hear fine.

“They’d think he was crazy.” Larolae said, starting her new book.

Sebastian frowned at the mediocre excuse, and slowly turned back to face Corom. He set his hands down carefully on either side of his chair. “Oh, so.” He said, and then stopped.

Corom stared at him, unblinkingly. “You’re not joking?”

Sebastian nodded, slowly.

“So you’re crazy.” Corom said, slowly.

Sebastian sucked in his lips to stop himself from smirking.

“You’re teaching a school! And you think you’re vampires!!” Corom started to breath, rapidly, and stood up fast, knocking his chair over.

Corom started to back away, and fast, when Sebastian stood up too. Sebastian’s hands raised in a calming motion.

“We don’t—” Sebastian shook his head and sighed angrily, gritting his teeth.

Corom stumbled backwards. His knees refused to work. This was bad, worse than he’d imagined. Worse, even, than a horror film. If they thought they were vampires, what would they do to him? Drink his blood? Keep him prisoner?

His back hit the wall suddenly, and he straightened up. This was real, this was real. Corom’s heart thundered in his ears.

Corom tumbled forwards, and skidded, darting straight out of the door.

He crashed into someone, sending him reeling. His head bounced off the floor, and he rolled over, scowling.

Corom tried to sit up; squinting at the person he’d bumped into, thoughts of vampires knocked from his mind. “Oh, s-sorry—!”

The boy he’d hit was skinny, tendons pushing from his thin arms. The pale t-shirt he wore contrasted sharply to his light brown skin. He wasn’t half as brown as Corom was, dyed by a harsh and raw Mexican sun, but the boy wasn’t white either.

The boy picked himself up, ignoring Corom who was hovering around him. He moved slowly, but smoothly to his feet, and Corom saw his bones jutted from his ankles.

The boy’s hand caught his wrist, fingers like a manacle, just as Corom’s eyes found Larolae again, and he remembered.

Corom froze, hair prickling on the back of his neck. He was rooted to the spot, mind silent and still. The hand clamped around his wrist held him fast.

“Corom.” The boy said.

K’oro-mm.  He didn’t say it clearly or carefully, like it was a foreign thing he’d never seen before. He didn’t slur it either, he said it thickly, voice rich and textured, a deep voice that remind him of Mufasa.

Corom turned his head to him, unsure.

The boy’s face was not a boy’s face. His face was heavy and eyes deep-set, deep shadows cast thickly by an arching brow. His eyes, his eyes were old, ancient eyes, eyes that had no place in a boy’s face. But Corom was struck with the unsettling feeling that this wasn’t a boy. His soul was an old one.

His gaze was steady, and Corom desperately wanted to look away but didn’t want to, at the same time. He faltered, like a moth to a flame.

“We aren’t like you, Corom.” The boy said, surely.

It was such an old voice, he couldn’t disagree.

*

Corom didn’t wake up suddenly for the first time in weeks.

He faded out of conscious without a bang or a fanfare or even the piercing squeal of the almost-broken alarm clock that lurked on his bedside table. His eyes opened with only half a mind behind them. It took a while for Corom to take in his surroundings in his bleary half-consciousness. The room was white washed, pock-marked and yellowish. The shadows were thick on the bare walls, distorting the corners and shrinking the already small room. Light filtered under the door, a dirty yellow stream.

It felt cold, the deep, underlying frost that stuck to the walls and drifted through the air coloured the room as well. It sunk through Corom’s blankets and rubbed his bare arms raw. He wrinkled his nose.

There was someone in a chair by his bed.

Corom startled, shocked out of his daze. He stared, wide-eyed, but he couldn’t make into a shadow. As his eyes got used to the dim light, he saw it was Larolae.

Corom’s heart beat painfully in his chest. He remembered her bloody red eyes. He remembered the endless reams of vampire horrors he’d read in the fan’s breeze in the patchy attic of his childhood home. He imagined her ripping through his neck, blood rolling down her chin as her hair fanned in the icy breeze. He imagined the gaping hole in his neck as his throat exposed itself, a shocking vivid red to match the monster’s eyes.

Corom’s hand slapped to his neck, to touch the soft curve of skin to check it was his imagination, that puckered red marks hadn’t appeared on his side, to know that the fast images of monsters tearing through his mind wasn’t real, didn’t happen.

He trembled under his own tight grip, swallowing with difficulty. He shuffled backwards, head smacking the metal bars at the head of the bed.

Corom imagined her throwing down the book she was reading, and leaping onto the bed, long talons tearing into his shoulders in an iron grip before she leant down to wrench out his windpipe. He imagined her smacking her fangs together as he faded out of existence.

He imagined himself manacled down, siphoned of blood. He imagined losing his lifeblood to deep tankers every day, as he weakened and weakened, skin as thin as paper and bones bending dangerously under his own weight.

Her book hit the floor with a dull thud and he almost had a heart attack.

Corom froze, shivering very slightly as his mind hurtled through him getting ripped apart by wild animals in human skin.

He sat there, rooted to the spot for at least a few minutes, before he began to thaw slightly.

Corom shifted suspiciously, still tensed for Larolae’s lion-like leap at him. He shifted to a more comfortable position, leaning on his arms, staring intently at the would-be vampire next to the foot of his bed.

In the half-light, she looked fragile. He knew he shouldn’t be fooled, but her long hair seemed to fade into the dark shadows, like she was only half there. She was beautiful, too, but unreal. Men may come to desire her, but find themselves unable to touch her, for fear she’d vanish in their arms.

He’d noticed, with so many people of different ages, that faces seemed to go out of fashion. He remembered his father’s face, it was weighted and deep set, wrinkles setting expressions firm from years of practice. Larolae’s face was a traditional one, though, smooth and porcelain. It wasn’t the airbrushed beauty of the magazine pages, he’d changed his mind, more the sort that  pre-Raphaelites drew. A pretty thing with a forlorn expression, dark eyes and pale skin against an overcomplicated background.

Corom didn’t know why, but he felt his fear ebbing away. Even when lions, monsters, even when demons sleep, surely they still look vicious? Surely the blood stained on their fangs, surely their faces were still heavy with snarls, foul mouths spill curses on reflex?

Corom looked at her. Maybe sleep wiped it off like cheap face paint, restoring balance.

But Corom at his core was more than his excitable imagination. He was rational. Larolae hadn’t pounced on him with all the fury of hell’s own, and she’d treated him like an equal. Even Sebastian had. They were decent people, and hadn’t harmed him yet, even though he’d fainted for a while and been even more helpless than usual. They were good people.

Good people, if incredibly deluded.

*

Larolae’s eyes flickered, open and she sat straight up. She glanced at the young teacher.

He was awake, and... reading?

She narrowed her eyes. “Is that my book?”

Corom nodded cheerily. “Sorry. I couldn’t find a bookcase in here and I didn’t want to leave the room until you woke up. By the way, Vampires sleep?”

Larolae’s eyes combed over him. He looked fine. His close-curled hair was slightly messed on one side, but otherwise he was bright eyed and calm looking. She straightened up, running her fingers through a side of her hair, sighing. “Yes. We do.” She said, finally.

She patted her hair down and ran her fingers through it again. It was brighter in there since Corom must have opened the door fully at one point, and the shadows had been chased to the corners of the room, but her hair didn’t shine brilliantly. Her hair glowed yellow on the edges, like a half-halo, but it didn’t shine. It wasn’t a proud mane of a humanoid mythical beast. It was dishevelled, unbrushed, tangled. Human-like. 

“Are you immortal?” Corom asked, suddenly, words gushing through his teeth. The book was forgotten on his lap, his sharp eyes clear and searching. His shoulders were tensed.

Larolae fixed her eyes on his. Even her eyes looked normalish now, no shock coursed through Corom’s body. They didn’t glow unnaturally with the bioluminescence of an unearthly creature. They were just red.

“Sort of,” She admitted after a moment’s deliberation.

“Sort of?” Corom’s shoulders shifted slightly, loosening.

“Well...” She breathed out through her nose, hands clasping awkwardly in her lap without a book to hold. “It’s difficult to explain. Purebloods are natural vampires, and they are immortal. They’re pretty rare. The second generation of vampires are bitten by them, and they have weaker blood. They are technically immortal, but they only remember the last hundred years of their lives. Third generation are so weak they can only remember fifty years in to their past and only live for around five-hundred years or so. Does that make sense?”

“Ah,” Corom took a breath. “It does, kind of. What about fourth generation?”

“It doesn’t get any weaker than third generation. Third generation vampires have no venom.” Larolae folded her arms, fingers tight to her upper arm to stop her fidgeting.

“What generation are you?” Corom asked.

“Second.” Larolae said. “I only remember the last hundred years.”

“So you remember...” Corom struggled to think of something that happened in the last hundred years, “...when man went on the moon?”

“Yeah. But I couldn’t tell you much about it.” Larolae shrugged. “I spent most of the last hundred years here, in Laureut. Most of the history here isn’t confirmed by any reputable sources though.” She smiled slightly. “You’re out of luck there, I suppose.”

Corom frowned, and settled back into his pillows. His gaze dropped off Larolae and onto the brass bars at the end of the bed. “What sort of school is this anyway.”

Larolae shrugged. “We don’t re-teach the kids everything every five years if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Corom raised an eyebrow. “What do you do then?”

Larolae smiled. “We teach them things that interest them. We discuss it with them. Most of the kids don’t have birth certificates or if they do, they’ve been missing for so long nobody remembers them. We don’t know if they’re older than us or not, so we treat them as equals. Our teacher-ness is only a title to keep the government looking into it.” She unfolded her arms and sat on her hands. “Hershie’s definitely older than us all. We sometimes joke Hershie was probably born around roman-empire times.” 

“Hershie’s a pureblood.” Corom said simply.

Larolae nodded. “He’s the one you ran into. He’s a real fossil.”

Corom was quiet. He closed the book he’d taken, setting it square down on his lap. “I-I don’t... I don’t know if I believe you.”

Larolae frowned. “Didn’t you see his eyes? Hershie’s only physically 17, but he still looks—”

“Not.” Corom said sharply, “Not, just Hershel.” He breathed out a long sigh.

Corom cradled his face in his hands. “It’s just—It’s just crazy. Vampires aren’t real.”

Corom rubbed his eyes. His thoughts weren’t racing, more plodding by sluggishly. When he was younger, he’d so believed of all the crazy tales about monsters and magic that his father had told him. Abish was wiser than he was, but he’d genuinely believed the devils than lived under his floorboards and dust spirits slipped through the shadows. He’d absorbed the wild tales of transformations and heather magic turning ordinary girls and boys into extraordinary heroes and maniacal villains.

Corom had grown out of the childhood-long phase painfully and suddenly, magic sucked out of the world by the death of his... mother. His mother, elegant and immortal, had been struck down so easily.

It had hit him hard, even harder than it’d hit Abish, because it haunted him long after she’d accepted it. The loss of magic and the loss of fantasy had left him lacking. He didn’t stay up listening to the settling of the house and believing to the marrow of his bones it was wood sprites scampering about on long claws. He didn’t watch the dust scatter through the afternoon sun and wonder how dust sprites stayed to the shadows on a day so bright.

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to feel like there was more to live than the mundane slug of the human machine. He wanted to think about werewolves and gallant princes and beautiful princesses and the slow rumble of a dragon’s heart. He wanted so much for it to be real, he felt sick.

It opened up a raw wound in Corom’s chest. It spiked an ache rooted deeply in his bones. He felt the loss so deeply and so freshly.

“Are you real?” Corom asked so quietly he was reaching inaudibility. “Are you real?”

Larolae’s eyes were solid again, and firm. They were red again, really red, like the setting sun or the shine of fresh blood. Incredibly red. Inhumanely red.

They locked eyes, Larolae’s strengthening his. Her face lost all sense of humour and human. She was a carved statue again, a masterpiece.

She opened her mouth, and there was a soft sound as her fangs descended, long shards of bone, shinning milky gold in the yellow light.

“Yes,” She hissed through her teeth.