The house that Cerriwyn led us to was one of the largest homes in the area and directly across the street from the park/forest where the Fairies made their home. It was a large two-story brick affair that was mostly hidden by crawling vines growing over it and the small grove of cherry trees that had taken over the front yard. The backyard was similarly overgrown but there was a small deck at the back of the house that would be nice to relax on with all of the trees back there.

Overall, the house was in good shape, and the Fairy told us that only relatively minor repairs and some major cleaning had been needed to make it livable. The Fairy Godmother had been considering housing little Ella there but decided against it since the house was too big for one little girl to live alone in, and she wanted her close to the Fairies so they could see to her needs properly. There was no furniture, but Cerriwyn promised to show us where we could get some in Shadowtown, as well as where we could get extra sets of keys made. She planned on showing us things like that after we went to the bank the next morning.

The place did have a working fridge and stove and even a washing machine and dryer that had been left there when the place was eventually abandoned. The latter two were in the large unfinished basement and hadn’t worked when the Fae first assessed the places in the neighborhood, but they had been able to repair them in preparation for possible tenants so now they worked properly. Everything else we were going to have to get on our own to make the place comfortable for us.

Still, even with four of us staying here, this was a lot better place to live and stay hidden than we would have been able to find outside of Shadowtown, and now it was ours. It had the unfinished basement, three bedrooms, a full bathroom on the upper floor where the bedrooms were, and a half bathroom on the main floor as well. The best thing was that it had working heat, electricity, and running water.

At first, I wasn’t sure how they had managed all of that until Cerriwyn explained it. Knockers, Brownies, and other Fae who were good at fixing things and cleaning maintained the water, sewage, and electricity systems for Shadowtown and were paid well to do it. We didn’t get our electricity from the main power grid either. There was an old, abandoned coal power plant within Shadowtown that the Fae had repaired which now provided our electricity, though they didn’t use coal to fuel it.

The heat that the plant used to create the steam for the turbine was provided by a small colony of Bluecaps that made the power plant their home. They were similar to the Wisps that I had seen floating in the air all over the city, only instead of emitting bright light in various colors; they produced extremely hot blue flames, which were plenty hot to make a continuous supply of steam to supply our power.

We had a mated pair of Bluecaps nesting in our basement as well, as did most of the buildings in Shadowtown, to provide our heat and hot water. In return, they got a nice cozy nest and the people hosting them usually kept them fed as well so they wouldn’t have to leave to gather food on their own. We were told that they usually eat seeds and that both of the markets in Shadowtown and the various convenience stores, carried birdseed that suited them fine.

Cerriwyn introduced us to the pair when she showed us the basement, though their names were damn near impossible to pronounce so the pair allowed us to call them Blue and Belle. They actually resembled Fairies when you got a close enough look, though their wings and the rest of their tiny bodies were sheathed in bright blue flames. They seemed friendly enough, but even when they were being careful to keep their flames and heat low for us, we couldn’t get too close without risking a burn, especially Belle. She was expecting the couple’s first child soon and apparently, that made her burn hotter than usual.

Once we had said our goodnights to the pair, Cerriwyn quickly finished our tour of the house so that Greta could get some rest. The Witch looked like she was hanging on to consciousness by a thread and our Fairy guide thought it best for her to get some rest as soon as possible so she could restore at least some of her mana reserves. Greta seemed to agree since she didn’t even stick around for the tour of the second floor, she just claimed the bedroom at the top of the stairs as hers and closed the door behind her.

Fortunately, that left the master bedroom available for me and Goldie when Cerriwyn bid us goodnight to find a comfortable spot on our windowsill to nap until we all woke up. The master bedroom was a south-facing room, and for the moment the trees outside would prevent any direct sunlight from getting inside, so Goldie wouldn’t have to worry about exposure before we could get some curtains. I made a mental note to do that as soon as possible since the leaves on the trees were in vivid shades of red, orange, and yellow, and would likely be gone altogether soon.

I was trying to get somewhat comfortable on the carpeted floor of the master bedroom when I heard the knock at the door. Goldie had managed to fall asleep already, but from what she had told me, she was used to sleeping in uncomfortable places and she didn’t get cold so the lack of blankets wouldn’t bother her either. I was trying to get comfortable using my jacket as a pillow when the knock came, so I reluctantly got up and went to answer the door.

I assumed that the early morning knocker was Berry, and looking through the peephole confirmed it. I had expected her to take a lot longer to dispose of the body, but at least she wouldn’t be waking me up. Stifling a yawn, I opened the door and was instantly groped and passionately kissed. I was gasping for air by the time she broke the kiss, did she forget that some of us have to breathe?

“Mmmmm, I missed you Red. The body is disposed of, so how about we make up for lost time?” she practically purred into my ear before licking it and releasing me. Something was odd, other than just being practically molested by a very amorous slime girl and the talk of getting rid of bodies. She seemed a bit taller and bigger overall, even her already large chest seemed a bit bigger. I looked up at her in confusion and then moved my eyes over her, trying to figure out what was different.

When my eyes reached her abdomen, I stared in shock for a moment and backed away. There, plainly visible through her translucent pink body, was a human skull dissolving inside her stomach. “Ptthhpt! Ew ew ewww!” I sputtered and spat before wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my hoodie. “You just kissed me after eating someone?! I think I’m gonna throw up…”

“So, that’s a turn-off then? It’s not as if he even touched my lips and tongue, I just… absorbed him. We could turn off the lights if you want,” she replied as she moved closer again, seemingly oblivious to why it might bother me.

Under normal circumstances, seeing her digesting something might be cool, though how under any circumstances even interacting with a slime girl could be considered normal was beyond me. Welcome to being an Arcane, Red, weird shit is your life now. Her nonchalance about the whole thing wasn’t making me any more comfortable about it either.

“Yes, that’s a turn-off! You just ate a person! And even if I was interested in having sex with you right now, which I’m not, turning off the lights wouldn’t help!” Even if I didn’t have good night vision, just knowing what she was currently digesting was making me sick and upset.

“Hey! It’s not as if I killed him or ate him alive, it was the quickest way to get rid of the body and I was hungry. What are you complaining about? The body is disposed of, and nobody is ever going to find it. That’s what you wanted, right?” She couldn’t even seem to see why I was upset about it, as if…

Well, fuck. Of course, she couldn’t understand. She was a magical construct with only a few hours of real-world experiences under her belt, she was probably mostly following whatever instincts that she was created with. Hell, it was probably a minor miracle that she could talk and communicate with us in any meaningful way at all. Greta hadn’t created her to have a life of her own but to have a single purpose before vanishing into oblivion. It was only because she had no control over her powerful magic that Berry came into being the way that she did.

The Fairies seemed to believe that she was bound to me, and she was more than a little obsessed with me because of that. She had disposed of the body for my sake, and she had done it in the fastest and most efficient way that she could conceive of, by doing what was natural to her. Because we hadn’t thought to tell her otherwise, and here I was freaking out at her. Now I felt like a heel.

Berry wasn’t the problem here, I was. How was I going to adapt to all of this Arcane stuff, if I kept freaking out at every weird thing that caught me by surprise? She was right too; it wasn’t like I could taste the dead human on her lips and tongue, just a hint of a slightly citrus-like flavor. It was really no different than Goldie kissing me, and that probably should have freaked me out more than this had since we had gotten together because I could sometimes smell and taste a hint of blood from her feedings with my newly sharpened senses.

I was upset about this because I had seen the death happen and had seen the remains of her meal that was still being digested inside of her. I had met the man that skull belonged to, had seen him die before my eyes, and, in a way, I had contributed to that death. This had been a grisly reminder of that. It also blatantly displayed that Berry was what most people would consider a monster, but then, weren’t we all?

I let out a sigh and tried to look anywhere but at her abdomen. “I’m sorry, Berry, I… it’s been a long night and there’s just been… too much death in my life lately.” And I had been responsible for much of it. “I think I need to try and get some sleep.”

I didn’t give Berry a chance to reply, I just turned on my heel and fled to the bedroom and Goldie. I didn’t have the energy to deal with whatever advances she might make. I almost thought that I heard her sigh in return before she spoke to my retreating back. “I’ll… I guess that I’ll wait for my meal to finish digesting before I come upstairs.”

My sleep was full of nightmares once again. Granny, and her death at my hands, made another appearance, but mostly I dreamt of the life that I had been forced to leave behind, and would never be able to return to, and my inevitable path toward becoming a monster. I woke up not long after falling asleep, screaming, with tears running down my face.

When I awoke from the nightmares, I must have woken Goldie as well because I was aware of her holding me tightly in her arms and whispering softly in my ear. “Shhh… it’s okay, Red. It was just a nightmare. I’m here, and you’ll be okay. Everything is… okay.”

Even as sleep-dazed as I was, I could hear the catch in her voice, the slight sniffle as her body shook ever so slightly behind me. Did she have a nightmare too? I tried to turn around in her arms, but she was too strong and holding me too tightly. The slight catches of her breath made it sound like she was crying. It was hard to believe since she hadn’t seemed bothered by anything that had happened since we met, she seemed to take it all in stride so easily.

After a moment of listening as she clung to me and tried to assure me that everything was okay, I whispered in the dark, “Everything is not okay. Not for me, and not for you. What’s wrong, Honey? Did everything that happened tonight get to you too?”

A heavy silence settled over us for several moments before the blonde Vampire haltingly replied. “A little, I guess. Mostly it was your… warmth.”

“My warmth?” I asked in drowsy confusion.

Goldie took in a deep breath and pulled me closer. “It comforts me, but… at the same time... it reminds me that I’m not really alive. I’m… just an animated corpse. I don’t really need to breathe, and my heart only beats when I focus on it. You know, when I was first turned I… tried to resist the temptation and my need for blood…”

There was another brief hush after she trailed off and I finally spoke again, uncertain if I truly wanted her to finish her thought or if I just wanted to fill the uncomfortable silence. “What happened, Goldie?”

She hesitated before telling me, “I… I start to decay if I don't feed. Eventually I… couldn’t resist the call for blood, I ended up going into a bloodlust and feeding on a family to restore myself. I… can’t let myself lose control like that again and… I don’t want to rot away. I’ve been trying to live this parody of a life since and enjoy what time I have. It’s why I don’t hesitate and try to live in the moment, but sometimes… I’m reminded that I’m a monster.”

“You are not a monster. None of us are,” Cerriwyn’s small voice said quietly from the windowsill. “Monster is just a label, a word that humans use to define that which they do not understand. Monsters, myths, fairy tales, fables… they have so many labels to define and divide us but do not let the humans tell you who and what you are. They do not know you; most do not even believe you, or any of us, exist. The only person that can define you is you, through your words, actions, and self-discovery. Many of us who exist beyond the ken of men have chosen to label ourselves as Arcane, those touched by magic. We cannot change what we are, so we choose to own it.”

Goldie and I fell back into silence at those words, each lost in our thoughts. Maybe we were both trying to define ourselves or, at the very least, decide who and what we wanted to be. It was a while before I fell back to sleep. How much choice would I really have in who and what I was going to be once the full moon came? If I could learn to control it somehow, I thought that I might be able to live with being Arcane, but I was so damn scared of becoming a monster.