4.45 One for the Money

Molly screams loud enough to wake the dead.

Nah, not really. Her boss is still a gross pile of ash on the floor.

Dysen is the first to use his words. "Acheron what the actual fuck?"

Acheron loses his temper immediately. "Oh sure! Be pissed at me, when you were just about to turn into a werewolf and alert the whole town to your wolfness!"

"I was not!" Dysen protests.

"Yes you were!"

"So you kill some guy?!"

"I didn't know that would happen!" Acheron screeches, "Vampires don't die instantly from sunlight you know! I didn't know the potion was that potent! Shit! You know your way doesn't end well either right?! Or did you want to spend the rest of your life a slave to supernatural control?!"

"Let's all just calm down for a second?!" Orazia pleads

After messing himself up with the haphazard removal of a warding spell that forced him to truthfully answer questions, spectacularly underestimating the power of a concentrated sunlight potion and accidentally murdering a vampire crime boss, Acheron has had enough of this bad day and bolts from Torian Rook's office...

...Leaving Dysen, Molly, Orazia and Fairuza to meet the reaper.

Fairuza bravely approaches Grim, but he snatches Torian's spirit and leaves before she can get a selfie.

"W-what do we do about Molly?" Orazia whispers, too frazzled to concentrate to telepath her concerns. "She shouldn't know about-"

"Alright hold up," Molly interjects. "Rook was a vampire?"

That certainly explains why he never went outside.

"Yes. Acheron is certain the vampire was mind controlling my sister," Orazia says softly.

"He was probably doing the same to you," Dysen says quickly.

"I don't think so," Molly says, though she can't be sure.

"I'm sorry!" Fairuza bursts into tears. "I was doing it for cheap thrills!"

"I was doing it for money," Molly says bluntly.

"Acheron had a vision about something bad happening," Orazia tries to explain.

"Vampires, werewolves, potions, now visions?" Molly complains.

The more menacing of the office's two doors opens. "Four children, standing casually over my father's ashes. Are you just callous and shameless, or are you waiting to try to kill me, too?" she challenges.

Orazia grabs her wand. "It was an accident. I will defend us from retaliation if necessary," she stammers.

Tabira stares coldly at each of them before her gaze rests on Fairuza. "You brought these mages here."

Dysen steps in front of Fairuza. "Technically she only brought me here."

"Father hoped to recruit you."

Dysen frowns. "Eh?"

"That offer does not stand with me. Get out. All of you. And don't come back."

Orazia doubts that's the last she's seen of the ladyvamp, but she rushes her sister and cousin home.

And Molly, too.

"So Acheron was right! You've been stealing! A vampire can't control a person indefinitely," Orazia fumes. "Some part of you had to want to go along with what you were doing, for you to keep doing it and never even tell us about the vampire..."

"I'm sorry," Fairuza whines. She can't remember her big sister ever sounding so mad. "Please don't tell Dad. It's not like it can happen again."

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!"

"We need to find Acheron," Dysen interrupts. "We can worry about who's telling whose parents what after we're sure we're all safe."

"Is it even illegal to kill a vampire?" Fairuza questions.

"It was an accident!" Orazia shouts.

Dysen grits his teeth. "You know that's the kind of thing people would say about werewolves too, right? If anyone knew about us."

"Hey, I'm not trying to judge whose lives have worth or anything, I'm just worried about what level of trouble we're in..." Fairuza backsteps, as if the anger in the room is a wave pressing against her.

Molly, standing off in the corner, chews intermittently on her fingernails. "If Rook really was a vampire, there's no legal justice Tabby or anyone can seek without revealing their existence and operations here."

Dysen blinks "Tabby?"

Molly shrugs. "The scary lady who chased us out. I always thought she was Rook's sister. They look the same age."

"Will you wait for me here?" Dysen asks.

"I won't go anywhere," Molly promises.

Dysen, Fairuza and Orazia leave Molly hanging out upstairs while they go searching for Acheron.

The skies have darkened considerably. The drizzling rain is a match for the teens' uneasy mood.

"Let's get in the car and drive around," Dysen suggests. "If we can get within a certain range of him I should be able to sense him."

"Okay..." Orazia says dubiously.

"I've gotten a lot better at sensing magic," Dysen insists. "And Acheron is... peculiar and distinct, you know?"

"Go go werewolf powers," Fairuza says, without anything meaningful to contribute.

Orazia ushers them both into Lela's Yomoshoto Evasion and drives slowly around the city.

They check the playground, but Acheron isn't there.

City Hall and Police HQ are right around the corner, but that's the last place they want to think about. 

"Wait, I smell him," Dysen announces, and motions frantically for Orazia to reverse course back towards Starlight Shores's City Government Complex.

Orazia parks discreetly behind the building, then scrambles out of the car as she spots a blurry figure on the roof. "Oh no... what does he think he's doing up there..."

"Shiiiit," Fairuza whistles.

A line of sight portal spell gets them to the top of the building.

Acheron won't even look at them. "I just used the stairs," he says.

"Stop scaring us," Dysen growls. "And what... what is... that...?"

A sigil of glowing aqua-colored light is sitting up here, pulsing brightly in the stormy darkness.

Acheron plops down on a ledge and fixes his gaze on his tennis shoes. The rain comes down harder now, erasing the salty residue from his face. He's been crying, but now he breaks into a weird smile. "You think I'm up here to jump off and kill myself."

"Hey man, we can talk about it inside." Dysen steps closer to the glowing symbol. It makes him feel cold, a permeating cold that sinks into his veins. He shudders, walks around it and grabs Acheron's shoulder.

"Why don't you just shove me off?" Acheron asks. "It's not like I'll die."

"The ward's effect must be wearing off," Orazia comments. "He didn't answer you about the... uh... whatever that... is. What is that?"

Acheron looks up so he can meet her eyes. "It's just math. It's all math. The universe is made of math and math is how we talk to the universe. Call it magic. Call it whatever. I'm just messing with the grid... making it rain... with magic I learned from the future of a timeline that never happens."

Dysen tightens his hand on Acheron's shoulder and pulls him off the ledge, closer from what could be a scary fall. "So you wanted to sit out here in the cold?"

"You complained about Dysen transforming but you're changing the weather?!" Orazia gasps. "SC-"

"They won't notice," Acheron laughs.

"You can't know that," Orazia protests.

"Precog... remember?" Acheron taps the side of his head with one finger.

"Orazia said something about your visions in the car," Fairuza pipes up. "That's really how you knew what I was doing?"

"Yes..." Acheron's voice drops to barely a whisper, "but I never saw this part."

"It's going to be okay," Orazia tries to sound convincing, but her voice trembles uncertainly.

Acheron begins to cry again. "It's not! Maybe I just need to be stopped! All I ever do is hurt people."

Fairuza bites her lip for a moment. "Don't..."

Orazia frowns deeply. "Whatever else you've seen, you can choose to change it. Visions normally aren't super accurate anyway."

"Mine are. You're right about choice but I can't be trusted to choose the right thing, can I? Read my mind Orazia. It doesn't matter what you say. I know what I know and you can't change it."

Orazia closes her eyes for a moment, accepting the invitation for a psychic link. It's only a momentary shock, filled with conviction and pain and disturbing imagery. "You're very convinced you see the future accurately..."

"I am, but I shouldn't be. Before I knew about the cycles, I could see timelines where I died. My brain was calculating possible futures without taking the curse into account. Garbage in, garbage out I guess? There's the problem, too much garbage going in. I sense it from everywhere, from everyone, and then I calculate the future and I don't know how to stop, and if I knew would I make it stop? How can I wash my hands of it when you guys almost just got us all put in secret prison today? You just think I'm out of my mind though. You don't even know about the curse. Just like I didn't know, until I did..." Acheron's crying makes him that much harder to understand. "We all do this. We make connections, run mental simulations, we're just swirling chemicals and electrical impulses when you think about it, the slightest thing goes wrong and you just become somebody else."

Orazia looks at Fairuza. Fairuza shrugs.

Acheron stops crying just as suddenly as he started. He stares pointedly at Dysen's fingers digging into his shoulder. "Have you ever thought it's arbitrary where one thing ends and other things begin anyway? I mean once you get down on a small enough level, all the parts start looking the same. Atoms and gravity. The space between one atom and another starts looking huge, but if you zoom out that space disappears from your perceptions. Just like the difference between us looks obvious and insurmountable, but if you zoom out far enough we're all part of the same Katamari ball floating around a little yellow star. If my brain can talk to my hands despite the distance between them what's stopping it from talking to you? Nothing. I'm psychic. What if being psychic is just evidence we're all a single organism? What if we're the universe's gut flora running around pretending to be individuals? But more and more it seems like we're just strings of code with set parameters. Mine aren't met, so what are the chances I can actually break my neck on the pavement right now and die? Zero."

Dysen tightens his grip unconsciously, as if he could hold on to a shred of normal and keep Acheron's sanity from slipping away. "Did you drink any of those potions?"

"No matter what you do you end up with Molly and have three kids, Dysen."

"You're creeping me out, here," Dysen complains.

Fairuza snickers.

Acheron cracks his knuckles. "You get four, Fairuza Woods, so what are you laughing about?"

Fairuza blushes darkly.

"My son's name is Harcourt," Acheron continues. "His mother is a witch. Our research is... too important, apparently... to let anything be normal. He'd be harmed if he stayed with us so I let him get lost in the ocean and I tell his mother he's dead. And she doesn't actually believe me. It's all pretty messed up isn't it? I just want him to be happy. So he washes up somewhere far away from me and becomes a ward of the state and gets with this lady named Mara and they have a daughter who hunts ghosts. And he writes. I've read all of my kid's books and they haven't been written yet. And if I ever see him again, after I let him fall into the ocean... he gets mad at me. Why do I let these things happen? Why?"

"None of that has happened," Orazia says gently.

Fairuza pushes some of her hair out of her eyes. The rain has changed it from bouncy to heavy. "Can we just all get in the car?"

Dysen forcibly yanks Acheron away from the ledge. A werewolf's strength is useful. "Yes we can."

Acheron struggles against the pull, but it's useless. "I can't let you tell my mother! You don't get it! Every timeline where you do that—"

"Then we won't tell her!" Dysen yells.

"We don't have to tell anybody anything!" Fairuza laughs nervously.

"After what happened with Fairuza's mother, Uncle Milo really doesn't need to know his daughter almost became a criminal too," Acheron agrees, tone shifting from desperate to calm with no warning.

Fairuza glares at the sky, but quickly regrets it, as rain hits her eyeballs.

Orazia kneels down to examine the glowy sigil. "We need to get rid of this..."

Acheron motions at it, using the arm Dysen doesn't have restrained. The sigil vanishes. "I think it's how I convince Claire not to kill me," he says distantly. "I teach her magic she doesn't know."

"Who the hell is Claire?" Dysen asks, deadpan.

Acheron's nose scrunches up as he frowns, eyes fixed somewhere in the distance. "Well. Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?"

Dysen manages to wrangle Acheron into the car once Orazia portals everyone back down.

"I'll take care of Acheron," Orazia tries to reassure Dysen. "Just go check on Molly. Make sure we can trust her."

"It's Molly," Dysen protests, as if his girlfriend's trustworthiness should not be up for debate.

Acheron watches Dysen ascend the stairs, then looks to Orazia. "You can't fix this. That vampire is just the start. So many people end up dead because of me."

"Sheesh," Fairuza mumbles, looking away.

Acheron paces back and forth. "I tweak events here and there... today's not the first time I stopped someone in this house from sprouting fangs and getting us captured. Oh, we'd make excellent agents by the way. But it's only a matter of time, isn't it?! I was trying to choose a better future for us, but maybe that's bad. Maybe that's playing god. Maybe it's wrong to change things."

Orazia takes a deep breath. "We all make decisions based on what information we have. Still, I'd think you should know when to ask for help..."

Acheron hides his face in his hands. "I couldn't! Every time I tried to tell someone... it made everything worse. Just like trying to run from the girl who wants to steal my soul just means someone else gets killed in my place."

"I see," Orazia says slowly. "Visions like that would be enough to make anyone behave... erratically."

"You think I'm an ass and you're just trying to spare my feelings!" he hisses.

"No. I do not. Now wait here..."

"What?"

"I'll be right back," Orazia promises.

"I'm sorry if any of this is my fault," Fairuza says, once her sister is out of the room. Like Dysen, she stares at Acheron with wide eyes, searching for some kind of hint that things can go back to the way they were yesterday.

Acheron looks away from her.

He cannot make things go back to the way they were yesterday.

Orazia returns with a potion, which she proceeds to pour into a glass of clear soda. "Here. I want you to drink this."

"What is it?"

"Just drink it."

He does. He doesn't care what happens to him at this point.

The effects are immediate and disorienting. He drops the empty glass on the floor.

With his energy bar reduced to nothing, Acheron falls into a dreamless sleep.

"Wow," Fairuza says. "He just... standing up..."

Orazia trances briefly, scanning Acheron's brain for paranormal activity. Even his wards are down; his body doesn't have the strength to keep them up. "Not the most healthy option, but it worked," she announces. "He's in a sort of desperate rest mode. He shouldn't be able to have nightmares like this."

"Great?"

"Let's move him to the sofa before anybody questions."

"Right."

Orazia shuffles awkwardly, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "I want to think he's just ill, and mistaken, but I can't take the chance he's right about there being a danger to his mother if she knows. We can't tell the adults. We need to fix this ourselves."

"But... how?" Fairuza stammers.

"I don't know yet," Orazia admits.

Molly stays over late, chatting in hushed tones with her boyfriend. "So all the stories you told me when we were kids, about werewolves and witches... it was all true after all."

Dysen shows her his claws, then retracts them back into his skin with obvious difficulty. A half transformation is unpleasant, but a full one is worse. "Yes. I guess I needed someone to talk to, and you were always there to listen."

"That's kind of sexy," she murmurs. "I always knew you were special. Just not... that special."

"At the risk of sounding cliche... I'd give up all of the specialness just to make my family normal right now."

"Maybe Acheron just needs a little space. He'll recover."

"You didn't hear him talking on that roof..."

"What are you going to do?"

"I... don't know. He swore us all to secrecy."

"I love that you tell me your secrets."

"Heh, you don't count."

"Rude," she purrs.

"I hope you also love that I was going to fight a vampire for you."

Molly frowns. "Right. Are... are we okay, Dysen? After what you've told me, I feel like this is all my fault. Your cousin was involved with the syndicate, but you only found out because of me..."

"What matters is you're free of it. I hope." Dysen looks around. "Unless we're all about to be murdered so we keep our mouths shut."

"Murder? You really think I'd be involved with murderers?"

"I think maybe there's a lot you didn't know. Including that your boss was mind controlling you."

"Rook was nothing but kind to me," she whines. 

"...Sorry."

Molly nuzzles him. "Can I stay over tonight? I'm feeling... maybe traumatized."

Tabira places Torian's ashes in an urn on his desk.

"Tabs, where's the boss?" Stan Powers has been knocking at the door intermittently throughout the day. He barges right in when Tabira opens it. He has a good eye for detail, and his gaze quickly flicks to the urn.

"That would be me now," she answers.

"Hnnh," Stan makes a vaguely contemplative noise, not certain if he should offer condolences or ask how this happened. "Anything I can do?"

"Yes. Prepare for a second hit on the Gooder place. You'll be overseeing it."





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Etc.: I just realized it's Stan Power, not Stan Powers. He's a homeless burglar that comes with Starlight Shores. Oh well, his name has an extra S now.

I was going to have Tabs feed off of him at the end, for extra vampiric creepiness (also they're romantic interests!) but the animation for vampire feeding kept glitching out.