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Izzy said nothing as Riley rolled his neck, chewing over his words, that Cerasus had been watching over her, and even come after her at his own risk that first day. The memory of it made her shudder. If he had not come out and dragged her back inside, she was sure she would be nothing but a pile of ashes right now. First he had spared her, then he saved her. Feeling his gaze, she met Riley’s stare.
A disgusted displeasure flashed in her eyes at the comparison of the whole thing to a human’s care for a pet, and she looked away as he finished.
She let a silence fall between them, mulling over everything he said.
“Okay,” she said at last, her voice nearly inaudible. “I get your point.”

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Izzy responded to Riley with a simple, noncommittal snort, then looked up when a voice floated from the classroom. Though it still held a hint of the childlike voice of Cerasus, it no sounded far more mature.
She looked to Riley, then followed after him as he headed into the classroom. She came to a halt just inside the doorway when she saw the new Cerasus standing in place of the child. She glanced around the room, wondering if he had a stash of dated school uniforms somewhere, or if that was another vampiric ability.
“Nothing like a nutrition-filled arm to make a young vampire grow up healthy and strong,” Izzy said, looking Cerasus over.

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Izzy had been relatively surprised at Cerasus’ rather aloof response to her bringing Trevor into the loop. Though part of her still worried about dragging him into this world of aberrations--with herself included in that category, she refused to refer to them as beasts or monsters--part of her felt that, if she did not talk to an outsider, to someone who knew as much as she did about this obscure side to the world, she might explode. And Trevor seemed to be a good guy, even, as much as she rebelled against it, perhaps a good friend.
So, with a quick check of the time, she managed to get a hold of Trevor and arranged their meeting.
That day, she had difficulties sleeping with everything running through her head, from what she planned on telling Trevor, to the conversation she and Riley had had. There was something about their conversation that had nagged at the back of her mind, as if she had missed something important. As, at long last, she began to doze off, her eyes snapped open as it hit her: unless Cerasus had told him about it, there was no way Riley should have known about her incident in the sun. Unless, of course, he had been there, watching them.
She inhaled and sat up. If he had been watching them, then their first meeting, him just happening to be passing by in time to save her, became far less like a happy coincidence.
She glanced to the door of her chosen classroom, thinking she should bring this to Cerasus’ attention in case he had not realized it.
It can wait until tonight, she decided. With that, she laid back down, using the backpack she had packed as a pillow, and did her best to get some sleep.


Izzy woke before the sun had fully set, hoping to lead Trevor to the school and begin her explanation before Cerasus awoke. With the hunters still in the town, and the barrier over the school, the rotting building seemed the safest place for them to talk. She waited at the door for the sun to sink below the horizon enough for her leave, then rushed out to meet Trevor and bring him to the school.
When she began her tale, from beginning to end, she paced in front of him, her arms moving in emphasis as she spoke. Once she began, she found everything pouring out, any filters abandoned. She cast him frequent glances, watching his expression and reactions carefully.
Upon finishing, she stopped pacing and stood in front of him. She straightened the bottom of her plain t-shirt nervously as she waited for him to say something.
“That’s what it looks like, yeah.” Izzy sat in front of him, her legs crossed. Her usual light camouflage jacket, now more of a vest with the remaining sleeve carefully torn off to match the other, sat discarded atop her backpack in a corner, her staff leaning against the wall beside it.
She glanced to the closed door, then looked back to Trevor, her voice low as she voiced her concerns from the previous day. “And then there’s Riley. He says he’s a neutral party, but if he’s been watching us this whole time, he has to be after something. And who knows how long he was watching Cerasus before I came into the picture.” She shook her head. “You know, you’re taking this a lot better than, well, most of humanity would.”

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Izzy cocked her head at Trevor’s nervous laugh, then raised her eyebrows when he voiced blaming himself. She let out a laugh of her own at the ridiculousness of it.
“Yes, it’s your fault my brothers drove me to get out of the house," she said sarcastically as she placed her arms behind her and leaned back, paying little attention to the rubble she felt beneath her palms. Between her favored woodsy environment and the past week of bunking in the school, it had all but become normal. She sighed. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time is all. That’s how it happens. But if that is the case, why don’t you make up a rumor for me that will get me out of this without having to duke it out with two more hunters?”

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“Oh?” Izzy cocked her head quizzically at him as he began. She nodded when Trevor checked his terminology.
Izzy shook her head as he leaned back on his chosen desk. “Rumors don’t cause anything besides a hype among those spreading them, or anger in whoever they’re about," she began, sticking to her original thinking. "Rumors don’t make truths, let alone bring beings into existence. Truths are what spread into wild rumors.”
She regarded him when he finished. “That’s right, you were, huh? So it shouldn’t surprise you that you found one!” She gave him a halfhearted smile, then sighed. “Trouble likes to seek people out. Go looking for it, and you’re bound to collide.”

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“You wanted a change?” Izzy nodded thoughtfully. “A bit surprising, but I understand that.” She had, after all, wished for the same thing a few days earlier, a change, an escape from the town, from everyone in it and the memories it held. “I guess we both got a bit more than we bargained for.” She gave a small snort, then sighed, her head turning to glance around the classroom.
She looked back to him when he straightened and collected one of the shopping bags.
“Oh, gee, thanks,” She rolled her eyes with a smirk at Trevor’s comment about looking a mess, and took the sack when he offered it. “You try hiding out here for a week and looking any better! I’d kill for running water and a shower right now. Figuratively speaking, anyway,” she added quickly, then looked in the bag as he continued. Realizing what sat on top, she closed it quickly. “I’m sure everything will fit fine.” She gave him a thankful smile. “I won’t take long to change. Though, with that comment, maybe I should make you look at me as a mess a while longer.” She placed the bag of clothes on another desk. “Thanks, Trevor.” She looked to him. “I owe you, big time.”
Izzy waited for Trevor to leave. She rummaged through the bag, pulled out what she needed, changed quickly, then went to the door to give Trevor the all clear.

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Izzy shifted her weight uncomfortably as Trevor looked her over. She glanced down at herself then looked to him, trying to gauge his thoughts. She thought they fit pretty well, but waited for his verdict nonetheless. She smiled and nodded when he spoke, then shook her head when he continued.
“You’ve done more than enough as it is. I mean,” she crossed her arms, “we’ve only spoken, what, four times now? I think it’s usually a common courtesy to wait until at least the sixth time you say ‘hey’ before asking someone to pick up clothes and bring them to a ruined school in the middle of nowhere.”
As he commented about her physical changes, she made out the sound of footsteps beyond the door as they headed toward them. She looked to the doorway a moment before Cerasus peeked inside.
“Morning, sunshine,” Izzy greeted before he solved the mystery of the unspoken “Why.” “Makes sense,” she said as Cerasus disappeared once more. At the sound of him apparently falling asleep to the side of the doorway, a look of amusement settled over her face. Sometimes, he made it easy to forget that he was a 500+-year-old man, and not the youth of the form he was forced to take.
Her attention returned to Trevor. “You should see him if you try to wake him early.” She cocked her head when he handed her the second bag. “A... present?” She took the bag, the feel of the contents distinctly a mix of books and what felt like magazines.
“Yeah, that was the plan. For him and the other two.” Izzy sat the bag down on the nearest desk and reached inside, glancing to him courteously as he spoke. Pulling out a couple of the comic books hidden inside, she smiled as what he said made sense. “That’s brilliant, Trevor!” She thumbed through one of the issues. She shook her head disbelievingly and chuckled. “Little did the authors know, their imagination would prove more useful then the knowledge of kung-fu masters.” She paused, contemplation replacing her smile. “Wonder if any of them did know,” she mused, picking up another to flip through it as well. “If this side of the world,” she continued softly, pensively, “with vampires, hunters, and who knows what else, exists, how much of what we’ve thought to be products of overactive imaginations is, actually, true to some extent?”
She shook her head as if to dispel the thought, then looked to Trevor again as he finished speaking. “This is great. Really.” She turned to meet his gaze. “You’ve gone above and beyond.” She sat the books she had been flipping through down. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just say the word.” She looked back to him. “So, think I’d make a good Superwoman?” She struck a pose as if about to jump into flight, one fist held above her head and the other back by her waist. She held it for a short moment, then relaxed her stance and crossed her arms. “I can honestly say that I never in a million years would have thought that reading comic books would count as doing research. I owe the nerds of the world an apology.”

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“Yeah, yeah,” Izzy responded lightly to his comment about friends. “Don’t rub it in, you sly fox.” All the same, she gave him a friendly smile. She groaned at his comment about the sun, then grumbled, “Don’t remind me.”
After Trevor left and Riley appeared with his news--she had the suspicion he had been watching the entire time, waiting for Trevor to leave, but did her best to hide her unease--she waited for the man to leave and pulled Cerasus to the side to share her suspicions about Riley watching them from the beginning.
Izzy spent the remainder of the night at the back of the school, the playground overrun with weeds and seedlings, reading through the comic books. She glanced around the area, wondering if Riley was lurking about somewhere, unseen through whatever powers he possessed. Putting that thought aside, she even occasionally acted out some of the fight scenes she encountered in her reading. At least here, no one would care about property damage.


As much as she distrusted Riley, of the many things he had said those couple nights past, a question he had planted the seeds for begged Izzy to answer it: how bad was her life that she had offered it to Cerasus instead of walking away?
Though she had debated against going, she now crouched in the shadows of a rooftop. The building she had chosen as her perch sat a couple blocks away from her family’s home, but she could still easily see it. Despite the late hour, the light in Zach’s room cast a golden glow through his window, and someone had forgotten to turn off the porchlight. She had called her parents earlier that day, thankfully getting their voicemail, and left a message telling them she and her friends planned on extending the camping trip for a couple more weeks, and to not worry.
What would I be going back to? she wondered.
Her brothers drove her insane. Though good people, between hiding from her brothers, always being outdoors, and their unpredictable work schedule, she rarely spent much time with her parents anymore. She had no other living family she was close to. No friends, other than Trevor. She had made sure of that. After all, she had planned on leaving this humdrum town the second she got the chance. Perhaps that chance had just come sooner rather than later.
However, she missed the sun. She missed spending long days and late nights outdoors, of not being bound by the cycle of the heavens. She had had plans to leave, to explore the life of other places, to experience the world, even if only a small grain of it, plans that being trapped by the sun would make difficult at best. She missed conversations not centered around fights or missing limbs, and not always looking over her shoulder, waiting for the next aberration to pop out of the woodwork.
But knowing that there were monsters out there, lurking, waiting to prey on people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, could she really, truly return to her old normal, or would she still be looking over her shoulder, wondering what secrets every shadow held, checking around every corner to be sure something was not there, waiting? Now, she had the powers of a vampire on her side to combat that knowledge, but as a human, she would have little, if any, means of defending herself against monsters. And she had to admit, this invisible side of the world was certainly not without its share of adventure. Which was just what she had wanted. Wasn’t it?
Izzy gave an irritated sigh, then pulled her phone out from a pocket to check the time. She did not want to risk overstaying her welcome. Replacing her phone, Izzy cast her home one last glance, then made her way back to the outskirts of town.


Izzy stood in the center of the athletics field, her form a dark statue in the night. She listened for any sign Episode had arrived, and waited for the warning she expected would accompany his presence. Not wanting to risk the demolishment of more clothes than necessary, she wore the same clothes as when she had met Theurge, including her jacket-turned-vest. After a minute, she instinctively reached toward a pocket to check the time on her phone, before remembering she had left it behind to keep it from getting broken.
With Episode still absent, she took the opportunity to run various scenarios of how their fight could go. Though, with the little she knew about him, anything could happen. She scowled as she thought of the conversation she had had with Cerasus about it before leaving for the high school...


Izzy bit back a sharp retort at his response, as if he had cared so little about it that he could ‘forget’ important details about Psychotic Episode. Still, she made a strangling motion with her hands as she fumed, then took a couple deep breaths.
“Okay,” she growled, gripping the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, and doing her best to not snap at him. “If you ‘forgot’ anything else, what should I look out for from a half-vampire? Will he be capable of vampiric transformation? Regeneration?” She paused. “I don’t suppose there’s a crash course I could take in transformation, is there?”

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Izzy cocked her head inquisitively from where she stood as Cerasus moved into another position. “What are you...” she started when he raised his hand, but finished with a loud, aghast, “Oookay then!” when he dug his fingers then hand into his head.
Stomach churning uneasily, she placed a hand over her mouth and chin and looked to the side of the room, his movements just in her peripheral vision.
“Y-you’re insane, you know that?” she said into her hand, and looked slightly toward the ceiling. The fingers of her other hand tapped against her leg as he, quite literally, rooted around in his head for a memory.
Seeing the motion of him removing his hand, she dared to look back to him.
“Feel better, do you?” she asked at his expression, her voice slightly higher pitched than normal as she moved her hand from her face to the back of her neck. “After that,” she continued as he returned to lean against the wall as if what he had done was perfectly normal, “I should hope you remember every little detail from the last half-century!” She shook her head, then said softly, "Maybe you and Psychotic Episode should think about swapping aliases."
She took a couple quick breaths as he informed her of what he had remembered.
“So, don’t expect him to be as... civil. Great. But you didn’t answer my question," she added almost hesitantly. "What do I need to be on guard for with him being a half-vampire? What can he do?”

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[i]How does someone forget that? Izzy thought, but dared not voice the question. Instead, she nodded at Cerasus’ warning.
“Don’t worry.” She crossed her arms . “I won’t.” She paused, registering that Cerasus had categorized a lack of shadow as a weakness. “How is not having a shadow a weakness?” In the whole mess of things, she had all but forgotten she no longer cast a shadow. She had rarely taken note of her shadow as it was before, let alone since she had been turned. Even knowing that, in the darkness of the school, she would not have had one anyway, she glanced down to check for one--rather, the lack thereof--at her feet. “I can see it being suspicious, sure, but a weakness?” She looked back to Cerasus. "Why don't we have one, anyway? It's not like we're see-through." She raised an opaque hand in front of her to illustrate.