Chapter Text
Mark died a few days after Thanksgiving. You were in the car, coming home from having spent the weekend celebrating with some of Mark's friends a few towns over. It was late, or maybe early, about two in the morning when he pulled into a rest stop.
"It's thin here." He reminded you as you walked up the path towards the main building.
"I know," you called back, "But so are Wal-Marts and airports after dark. It wouldn't be in a residential area if it wasn't safe." For reassurance, you turned and blew him a kiss anyways. You'd never admit it, but places with a thinner veil gave you the creeps. You just wanted to go to the bathroom, get your snacks, and go.
Mark was stretching his legs, leaning against the driver's side door and texting. A hand slid over his shoulder and he relaxed into it at first, before the palm was against his neck and he realized it was too cold to be you. There was no time for him to scream, though you did plenty of it. You almost choked upon seeing him slumped on the ground against the car. The creature that attacked him had left no blood in it's wake, only two gashes at the side of your boyfriend's neck and an empty, blue-grey shell.
You would have preferred something gorier, you found yourself thinking as your initial shriek of horror faded into a shaky wail. Something that didn't leave him looking so... inhuman. You dropped to your knees and gripped his sleeve tightly, unable to touch his freezing skin. You wanted longer to mourn, to hold him, but the fear of the creature coming back forced you to take shelter in the car.
You had to think of something to do. What could you do? Could-- Would 911 do something about this? You dialed the number with shaking hands.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"I'm at a rest stop, I think there was a vampire--"
"We're sorry, we can't handle situations relating to undead, magic, or otherwise immortal beings. Please call a Nonhuman emergency number." There was a click. Were they allowed to do that? Would you have been brushed off so quickly if you had mentioned your boyfriend-- your human boyfriend-- was dead? They didn't even bother to redirect you or give you a number to call.
A quick Google search solved the number problem. You closed your eyes and sunk lower in the seat as it rang, wondering if the vampire was still around and wanted seconds. You almost sobbed when the line picked up.
"What's your emergency?"
"My boyfriend is hurt, he might be dead. I think it was a vampire attack."
"Can I get your name and current location? Emergency services will be on their way."
Ten minutes, they said. You were numb after hanging up. All cried out now, you just sat as far back in the seat as you could and thought. A plane ride would have avoided this, or you could have skipped the snacks and been back sooner, a different route on the GPS could've avoided this, trusting your gut and going to a different rest stop could have avoided this, or you could have taken Mark's friends up on the offer to stay just one more day.
Your heart went right to your throat when you thought about Mark's friends. You hardly saw them but a few times a year thanks to your schedules. What would they say? Would they blame you too?
Ten minutes later, the responders arrived and found you crying.
The next few hours were a blur for you. The combination of being awake for too long, plus your adrenaline getting all cried out, left you drifting in and out of sleep. It was a police car and an ambulance that had arrived; the officers were content with wrapping you in a blanket and letting you sit in the back of their car. You remember panicking when you watched Mark get loaded into the ambulance, faintly hearing the officer who had too many eyes tell you they would get a tow for your car. It was an hour drive to the hospital. They made sure you were conscious enough to answer questions and identify the body.
The Nonhuman hospital was less of a traditional sterile-white building and more of a renovated, four-story apartment. Sitting in a chair, watching a medical team calling technical terms and drawing blood and venom and attempting to revive Mark, you realized Nonhumans were a bit more different than you thought.
There had been a heartbeat, someone told you later, and you were correct when you had guessed a vampire attack. But the blood loss, the severed veins, the poison from the bite, there was almost nothing anyone could do. Mark was declared dead at three-nineteen in the morning. With no immediate family, you were the only one available to make decisions about what would happen to Mark, another difference from regular hospitals.
"Can I.. Can I just have some time, please?" You gently nudged away a clipboard full of papers that was being held out to you. The glowing, horned doctor nodded once.
"Of course. I realize this has been a rough night for you. The last thing you probably want to think about is burial options for Mark." First-name basis. Nonhumans didn't have surnames or honorifics for the most part. This didn't bother you. "We can keep him preserved for up to a few weeks while you decide."
You stood up, "Thank you. Um, can I please go home?"
The doctor called for someone to drive you home-- settling place is the word he used. It was sunrise when you left the hospital. Before you left, he had recommended you call a life insurance agent to help you make funeral arrangements, possibly transfer Mark to a different hospital and then a morgue. He preceded every word with Human, capital H. He considered it to be the "right place" for you to go.
You sat on the floor for a few minutes-- an hour, probably-- after getting home, not bothering to turn on the light. The tiny apartment you had shared with him meant nothing to you anymore. After what felt like years of leaning back against the front door, you picked yourself to your feet. You dropped your bag on the side table, pulled a blanket from the back of the armchair around your shoulders, and flopped down on the couch.
The sun was just beginning to set when you woke up. This wasn't healthy, you told yourself. You would fall into a rut at this rate. You should probably eat something. Your fingertips dragged over every surface as you went from the living room to the kitchen. There was a pack of bagels in the breadbox. You took one out and chewed on it, not bothering for condiments or putting it in the toaster first.
Something snapped in you a few moments into languidly gnawing at your bagel. You chucked it into the trashcan and went back to the side table you had dropped your belongings on. You were not going to accept this. Keys in hand, you threw your bag over your shoulder and went out the door.
There was a neighborhood near you-- a district, more like. A kind of an off-limits district. You had only been there once when you got lost on your way home, and it didn't take long to realize the people who lived there were not your kind of people. It was past your street and then a few more down and you felt on edge recalling how far the walk was. You'd arrive right as the sun was dipping below the horizon and the shadows were getting longer. It was thin. But you knew someone there, and they had what you needed.
The first sign that you had found the right place was when you bumped into a pair of girls rounding a corner. "Sorry!" Two heads on two sets of shoulders and a single torso ducked apologetically, six black eyes lowering their gaze as she went around you. A part of you felt sick and uneasy about whether you should continue. You remembered the lacerations on Mark's neck and shut your mouth tight, continuing on.
Walking through the heart of the community had you feeling like you were on every pin and needle there was. You saw all kinds of beings who you almost thought were humans, before spotting a tail, horns, wings, or any number of multiple appendages on them. Others were much less subtle. A stone golem with a pumpkin where his head should have been walked by you, arm in arm with a radiant and winged mass of light. You wondered if any of them could tell you were a human. You wondered if that mattered to them.
You were alone and disoriented, and no one around you seemed to be speaking English. Old, dead languages filled your ears in the form of broken Latin, low wind-whistles of sound, and a high pitched keening that made you feel woozy. It only took a few minutes to realize you were lost. You sat down on a nearby bench, only to leap back to your feet when your body temperature dropped as if you'd been suddenly thrust into a snowbank.
"Hey! I'm literally sitting right here!" You turned, but found no one for the voice to be coming from. "Did you not--" Whoever was speaking cut themselves short. A grayish, see-through figure with dead eyes materialized right before you, standing up from the bench where you had just tried to sit. You recognized suddenly that you had sat on-- and through-- what you could only assume was a ghost. "Oh, you didn't. You can't see me."
"I'm so sorry--"
"Are you alright?" You must have been on the verge of tears. The ghost took you and sat you down where it just stood up from. It was much more tangible now as it placed its hands on your shoulders, possibly because it was more corporeal. "You've got death all over you, dear, are you okay?"
With another look, you realized the ghost was a young lady, elegantly dressed in what looked like 1900s attire. She looked like a dark version of an Edwardian woman with her hair all done up and falling out of tight curls. She faded in and out of opacity, and you got the feeling it was because your eyes were human.
"I'm okay," you mumbled, "I got confused. I'm lost."
"Well, obviously!" The girl said with a laugh, "I haven't seen a human in this neighborhood in years. Now, where do you live? I can probably point you in the right--"
"No, I meant to come here. There's a shop I'm trying to find, I think. A witch runs it. His name is Jack."
She blinked at you. "Oh!" There was a beat of silence. She looked like she was trying to figure out if you were joking or not, visibility flickering a few times. "I know the place you're talking about. Would you like me to show you?"
You nodded. The ghost took your hand and started leading you through the crowds. Her appearance got dimmer as she led you. After a while, you could barely see her, but the feeling of her hand around yours prevented you from feeling like you'd been abandoned. She was semisolid; your hand could phase through hers if you just pulled sharply. On the outside, she didn't have a temperature, but it was bone-chillingly cold within her outline.
Though she had taken you in the right direction, the witch's shop was hard to find at first. You noticed there were no distinguishable landmarks between the streets aside from the shape of buildings, so you felt less like an idiot for losing your way. A beat after the ghost lady spotted it, becoming once again visible to point it out to you, you had already recognized the tea lights floating two meters off the ground outside the door. You thanked her, and she bid you goodbye and good luck as the two of your parted ways.
A wind chime jingled as you pushed open the door, despite there not being any chimes in sight. Within seconds there was a man behind the counter. He was organizing things on the shelves with his back to you. He had definitely not been there just a second ago.
"Hello?" You called to the man. He didn't turn, arms full of various items that he was arranging.
"Hello!" He acknowledged you with a tilt of his head, "Welcome to McLoughlin's Magic and Curios! How can I help you?"
You tried to recognize him. The last time you had seen Jack was your senior year, so you weren't sure if you would even notice him walking right by you. Your Jack was short and scrawny, a tight haircut and a baby face. Even just from behind, he didn't look like your Jack.
"I, um... I'm looking for something." You had to duck under a collection of kitchen ware, hung from the ceiling amongst various other things. Vines growing out of soil-filled lightbulbs, feathers and beads on knotted twine, an array of different kinds of dolls, items that you hoped were not bones but probably absolutely were bones.
The man was suddenly next to you. He grinned when you jumped in surprise. "Anything in particular you need?" You looked up to face him, but stopped short. It was easier to recognize him when he was facing you. That was your Jack.
"Jack?"
His expression twitched, confusion shining through that customer service pleasantness. "Yes?"
"It's... do you remember me?"
You knew immediately that he didn't. He stared at you, trying to recall where he knew your face from. "Sorry, are you-- I mean, you're human, right?" You nodded.
"Did we go to school together?"
Another nod.
In a second, realization flashed over his eyes. Your heart leapt as he suddenly called your name and threw his arms around you in a hug, picking you up and spinning you. "Oh my god! Oh my god, I remember you! It's been... Jesus Christ, it's been like five years, hasn't it?"
Jack put you out at arms length and scanned you over. "Jesus, I've missed you."
"I missed you too."
"You look so different! You were such a dork in school."
"You're the one who looks different!"
He looked surprisingly more normal than you expected, wearing dark jeans and a plain grey shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Dark bands of tattoos wrapped about his forearms. What really caught you attention was his eyes, specifically the patch covering his right one. You caught yourself staring at him. Jack caught it as well.
"Yeah, it's a little weird, huh?" He ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't think green would suit me, but it turned out a lot better than I imagined it would." It took you a moment to realize what he was talking about. Finally, you glanced up a bit further and noticed the top of his hair was dyed a dark green. You tried to imagine him in highschool with the same style.
"Oh!" You exclaimed, and he laughed, moving his hands to rest in his pockets. You tried to stammer out an apology, but he stopped you.
"It's alright, don't worry about my eye. It's 'cause of a spell I did a while ago." Jack never seemed to stop smiling. Normally, you would've let it carry over to you as well. He seemed to sense your mood and relaxed his posture to something more neutral and less high-energy. "So, what can I help you look for?"
"A spell." You said quickly, "For my boyfriend."
He raised an eyebrow. "Boyfriend?" A coy grin appeared on his face, while you felt a rolling sense of dread remembering what happened to Mark. "I've got whatever you need." Jack led you to an aisle filled with scrolls and books. He ran his fingertips over various titles, pointing out ones that might interest you. "Whole books full of love spells, or a simple little scroll for putting spark back into a relationship. Oh, or I have a scroll with a more complicated spell involving some rocks and candles if there's an ex that needs to be forgotten. Speaking of candles, they aren't just for incantations, they make great mood lighting as well. I offer some that can last for hours, or ones that won't burn your skin or drapes. Any ingredients required, you can find here, whatever you need."
"What about something for raising the dead?"
Jack stopped. He turned to you and furrowed his eyebrows, "I thought-- you-- for your boyfriend..?"
"My boyfriend died. Uh, last night." You stared off to your left. "I was hoping you might be able to.. to bring him back. It was a leap, I guess. I don't know the first thing about magic, but you're the only witch I know of, and I just wanted to see--"
"I can bring him back."
Your heart swelled, you almost began crying again right there. "Really?" Jack seemed unsteady, looking past you rather than directly at you, but he nodded. "How? I'll do anything, I swear."
"Follow me."
Jack turned and led you out of the aisles, behind the counter, and into a back room. It was like a darker, messier version of the shop, but it was way harder to see. While the store was at least lit up by what seemed to be a hundred tea lights, there was only one source of light here: a glowing, bubbling cauldron in the center of the room. Jack maneuvered around just fine in the low light, and you stuck close to him to avoid stepping on anything. Books were in haphazard stacks all around you, towering way over your head. The shelves were filled with plants, crystals, boxes, and all kinds of trinkets. Stones with runes either carved or painted on were everywhere.
There was a narrow hallway off to the side that Jack took you down. Despite having gone so far from the light source, you could still see faintly, and you realized with a start that it was because something by Jack's head was glowing. You couldn't see what it was since you were behind him. The hallway turned sharply to an empty doorway that extended to another, smaller room, hardly bigger than a closet. With a snap of his fingers, an ancient-looking oil lamp burst to life and illuminated the walls in a flickering yellow light.
Jack began searching through piles of scrolls, making handfuls of them float towards him, sorting through quickly, and then sending them off to the side when they didn't contain what he was looking for. After thirty or so, you began to lose hope that he would ever find it. Finally, he took a scroll into his hands after reading the title, allowing all the others to drift to the floor. "This is a resurrection spell." He said, and turned to show you.
"How much?" You reached for your bag. Jack stopped you and shook his head.
"I can't sell it. I can teach you the spell, though. But, there are things missing. I know where to get these things, but it's dangerous."
"I can go. Really, I'll do it. I don't care how dangerous it is."
"No offense, but that's stupid. You can't go alone." Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his posture relaxing. "This is serious, you know. It could go incredibly wrong. Are you sure you really want to bring him back? Grieving is different for everyone, you could just--"
"I want to bring him back. Please, I..." You stopped when your voice cracked. You didn't want to cry in front of him. "He's everything to me, he's all I have-- had. We planned so much. He had so much ahead of him."
Jack was quiet for a moment. "I believe you. And I want to trust you..." He sighed, looking down and away, "The resurrection thing... it's really powerful. I don't want to put it into the wrong hands. There's things you need for this spell that are pretty intense."
"What can I do?"
"You really love him?" Jack asked softly. You nodded and wiped a few tears away from your eyes. "Will you let me put a spell on you? Temporarily. It's the only way I know how to do this."
You gave him your permission, and he sat you down on the floor with him. Jack fixed his sleeves, pushing them up above his elbows again. The intricate rings of tattoos actually moved around his arm, glowing faintly. You were taken aback when he removed his eyepatch, actually yelping in surprise when a version of his left eye with a green sclera removed itself from its place and came toward you. You could see a tiny, partially melted white candle burning in the now-empty socket.
"Don't be alarmed." He told you, though you were anyways, "It won't hurt you."
"That's... your eye."
"His name is Sam."
You could have laughed. His name is Sam, said so casually. "It's special?" You asked.
"It sees." Jack said. "Everything. Through things. To things. Past things. It's mostly to make sure you won't lie."
He gestured to the scroll on the floor. With a simple motion, it lifted up and came between the two of you, unraveled. A list of instructions, warnings, and a contract line at the bottom.
"You ready?" Jack's eye-- Sam-- began to glow, the same blindingly neon green as Jack's tattoos. A strange feeling settled over you. "Try to lie first." He said, "What city are we in?"
Nothing came out when you opened your mouth. Cincinnati, you attempted to say, then Miami, Atlanta, Seattle. Finally, "Los Angeles."
"What day is it?"
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you tried. "Sunday."
"Good, good. Now," Jack took your hands and faced them upward, placing his palm-down on top of them. "Your boyfriend is dead?"
"Yes."
"You want him back?"
"Yes."
"You're ready to take it upon yourself to travel as far as is required to collect the ingredients needed, accepting the possible consequences of working with necromancy, even if it comes down to your life?"
You hesitated. You almost expected your voice to not work when you said, "Yes." The line on the scroll shimmered, and you watched as your name signed itself into the blank. Something, maybe pride, probably some fear, welled up inside you. It was then that you realized just how willing you were to do this, to dabble in forces you had never even dreamed of before today. You wanted Mark back so badly it hurt.
Jack was silent for just long enough to make you nervous, looking down at his hands with a serious expression.
"I'm coming with you."