Ginger Residence - In a Tree

The Night is Still Young!

Tyler adjusted his binoculars until the image of the girl in the window sharpened with scintillating detail. He gave a low whistle and lowered his hand to add a few more lines to his sketch. Tyler had turned peeping into an art form. He had spied on girls from every district in the city, in varying degrees of undress, and varying levels of attractiveness, all immortalized in graphite on the pages of his sketchbook.

His latest unsuspecting nude model was that delectable lady from the bar. No, not Miri, he was getting rather bored of her. Tyler idly sketched with one hand as he lifted the binoculars again and watched the buxom ginger framed in the window. Her slender arms wove through the warm, orangey light of her room as she slipped off her bodice.

It was as though a pair of stolen grapefruits fell from her chest. Tyler, caught in the middle of a swig from his bottle, was unable to contain his laughter. Whiskey surged back up the wrong pipe. The alcohol burned through his nostrils as his laughter quickly turned into tiny, pathetic shrieks of agony. Eyes watering, he heard the sound of a small scream and a window opening, which he connected with the shoe that then ricocheted off the side of his head.

Tyler groaned and rubbed his head as he sat up on the hard ground beneath the tree. Gathering his sketchbook, he still couldn't help a tiny snicker as he erased his ambitious curves and replaced them with much more modest ones.

He briefly wondered what he was doing with his life.

Tyler picked himself up and continued on his rounds of the city. There was something he was forgetting... Something important... He took another swig of alcohol to help him remember. He took a swig of alcohol to help with most things. It mostly worked never. Morabella Fontaine - it suddenly came to him. He'd never sketched a rich woman before.

Old, rundown signs flashed by: 12, 11, 10, Tyler counted districts backwards to nine. All the women in the Refugee Capital were the same. He wondered if being rich changed that. He wondered if money could save one from the streets. Strange places. Strange men. Strange new bruises. The same story. He sometimes thought that if he had one, he'd treat her right. Although, that thought was rare: his thinking mostly just extended to having one. Or two. Or ten.

The first thing he noticed about district nine was the sign. It was immaculate. From the pristine, unchipped edges to the words that were actually legible. It had to have been the most beautiful thing Tyler had ever seen in the Refugee Capital. That was until he saw the rest of district 9.

Tyler drifted through district 9 as if he was in a dream. It certainly felt like one. Or maybe like being dead. Every house - no, palace - looked like it had to be a fixture in heaven: the residence of a god. He half expected a host of angels to come strolling by!

The wonder didn't last. His mouth slowly closed again, lips pressed together in a grim line over the bitter taste. The rest of the city squabbled over crusts of dry bread and then there were these people. Who knew how they got there, but it brought back a memory so old that it seemed frayed around the edges in his mind: a memory of his parents on the night of the Incident. The apocalypse. The goddamned apocalypse, and they were still sitting in a plush carriage.

A sardonic smile curled Tyler's lips as he briefly entertained the possibility of meeting his father in this place. It was no stretch of the imagination. He could picture it now: his father was probably fat. Alcotts never starved. His mother... Perhaps more matronly in figure, but she'd have the same green eyes. He was willing to bet they even still had their fusty old butler, starched collar, oiled moustache and all. The thought made him chuckle.What was he thinking? He'd dodged a bullet! That overbearing family? When they weren't trying to engage him to girls he didn't know and enrolling him in boarding schools for terminally stuck up brats, they were always nitpicking over everything he did. Find them again? Ha!

He wanted it more than anything.

Tyler finally found the number on the card that the priest had given him. It was like meeting the goth kid in a family of preps. Awkward. The mansions on either side of the address were painted bright white, if only to attract attention away from the ginger-headed stepchild that was the Fontaine Residence. It was no smaller or less grandiose than the rest of the property on the block, but it was dark.

The place was old, there was no question to that, but most houses grow personalities as they age. This one had developed an evil alter ego. An air of death and despair seemed to hang over the place, shading the house and shriveling the vegetation.

As ugly and ill-advised as the place looked, it wasn't the dark coat of paint on the walls, or the blacked out windows, or even the dirty, dry fountain choked with parasitic creepers that held Tyler's attention. It was the gate. It had to have been an exact replica of the one that caged the Alcott Estate.

Tyler's breath quickened at once. He felt his chest cave inwards as if from a blow and it made him sick to the stomach. A second look was all it took to spot the tiny differences: the variations in a curlicue or the patterns of a wrought iron leaf to separate it from the gate, but it was enough to unnerve Tyler. He quickly moved on to phase two of his plan.

After climbing every tree in the general vicinity of the Fontaine Residence, Tyler realized he was not going to learn anything this way. Every window that he could find (and there really weren't that many for a building that large) was blacked out with curtains and tape.

"A creepy recluse who lives in a black mansion and despises the sun..." Tyler muttered under his breath. "I'll cry vampire when the fangs come out," he decided stubbornly. He did need a more direct approach, though.

Tyler dusted himself off and approached the gate. A very direct approach. He held a hand out, but before his fingertips had so much as brushed the gate, it was moving away from them. The wrought iron gate groaned inwards, stirring up a few dead leaves by the cobbled walk. They settled with a mighty thud that sent tiny tremors up the soles of his boots. Tyler swallowed hard and proceeded inside.

Dead leaves, grass, and possibly bones crunched under his feet as he made his way up the walk. It parted around the dry fountain. Tyler cast the figure in the center of it a nervous glance. Strangled in a clutch of creepers, a marble man and woman were locked in embrace, screaming soundlessly up at the sky. The shudder down his spine drove Tyler quickly onward.

The heavy brass knocker sent loud complaints of sound reverberating through the house. Tyler tugged at his collar a bit and waited. He wasn't sure what exactly he was expecting when the door creaked open, but whatever it was, it definitely wasn't what he got. The girl who stood in the doorway was just a waif of a thing. Shorter than even Tyler, which was saying a whole lot, she was slender to the point that she couldn't even fill out her tiny, doll-like dress. Her tiny body made her head seem abnormally large, and her magenta eyes enormous as they peered out from a mass of curly black hair. Tyler didn't have many standards when it came to what he found attractive in women, but the only thing that he could think about her was, That's unnatural.

The girl's spindly fingers clutched tighter at the edge of the door as she drifted halfway behind it, using it as a shield.

"Who are you?" she spoke in a small voice. Tyler cleared his throat, remembering himself.

"Good evening m'lady, I'm Tyler Alcott. You must be Ms. Fontaine." She shrank further behind the door.

"Leave... You need to leave," she whispered around the edge of the door slowly swinging closed again.

"Wait, hey! Listen-" That was when another voice sounded from inside.

"Esther! Let me meet our guest." The girl froze, then quietly stepped aside as a figure much more suited to fill that palatial doorway took her place. Now this was more like it! Tyler looked up at her, his mouth floundering for words.

"Marry me- I-I mean Maaorabella!" he laughed nervously, "You must be Morabella Fontaine. I-I'm a pleasure and it's Tyler to meet you!" he shook his head and stuck out his tongue a bit as if to let the backed-up garble of words fall off the tip. "I'm Tyler." he fell meekly silent.

Morabella's blood red lips curled into an amused half-smile as she sized him up. "What brings you here, Tyler?"

"I was, uh, looking for a job," he said, getting back to the script. "I figured, classy woman, gorgeous property, you can't have too many servants, right?" he turned up the charm ever so gently. Fontaine's half smile became whole.

"What a wonderful proposition. Please, come in and we may discuss the terms." Morabella swiveled around, her dramatic curtain of black hair cutting through the air in her wake. Tyler sighed dreamily and stepped past the threshold - a hand curled around his wrist. Tyler looked, shocked, at Esther. She was stronger than she looked. A lot stronger. She stared back, with a face so completely blank that it made Tyler's skin crawl.

"Leave," her whispered words sank in like a cold snap. In the blink of an eye, she was gone again, melting away down a dark corridor.

The inside of Morabella's mansion was as grandiose as Tyler would expect from any wealthy swell. Intricate tapestries were draped over the walls, punctuated by coats of arms and oil-painted scenes. A chandelier hung over them as they entered the main hall, their faint light illuminating a spiralling staircase. But as incredible as the place was, a dank smell clung to everything: the smell of stagnant, old air. Not to mention the dark. Oh, Fontaine loved the dark.

Which was fine in Tyler's eyes because, after all, thieves work best under the cover of night. It was night all the time here! And what a good place to be a thief indeed... Tyler completely lost the plot as he let his appraising gaze wander over the valuables in the house. Only the sound of Fontaine's voice snapped him back to attention.

"I'm having a bit of a... Party tonight." she said. Tyler tried not to look surprised by that. "I could use an extra pair of hands." It was more perfect than he could've hoped for. A one-off job? This way, he could spy on Morabella for the paranoid priest, rob her blind and disappear all in one night!

"I'll do it," he said right away.

It had been a very long time since Tyler had seen a suit. He stood in front of the mirror, squinting in the low light. He couldn't be sure but he was pretty certain he was hot.

"Not bad, Mr. Alcott," he muttered as he adjusted the ends of his overcoat, rapping them sharply over his skinny chest. He ran a hand through his pale blonde hair and shot himself a smoldering look in the mirror. "You're a vision, Mr. Alcott." His gloved hand cut neatly through the air as he brought it to his chest and bowed immaculately. The angle between his torso and hips wasn't a single degree off. "Of course you may have this dance, Ms. Elizabeth," he winked an enigmatic green eye.

"Leave." Tyler whipped around and scanned the dark room for the source of the sound.

"Who's there?!" he yelled. Only on the second sweep did he single her out from the surrounding shadows. Esther sat in the corner with her knees drawn, to her chest, the ruffles of her dress framing the black stockings pulled over her legs. "What are you doing in here?!" Tyler demanded. A girl was actually stalking him for once and it wasn't nearly as fun as he'd thought it would be! "You know what? I think you need to leave!"

"This is my room," she whispered.

"Well," he said with all the dignity he could muster (which quickly diminished once he contemplated how long she must have been sitting there), "I didn't know that. And I'm leaving now."

Tyler reported for duty in the mansion's extensive kitchen. It was fully staffed, with a small team of cooks, a head chef, and three waiters, one of which would be Tyler for the evening. He adjusted his bowtie with one hand as he balanced a tray of drinks on the other. He felt the horrified gaze of the other servants boring down on him and looked up briefly.

"Lighten up, would ya? You look like you've seen a tainted one!" he laughed as he pushed through the doors to the ballroom. And then it was Tyler who looked like he'd seen one.

Because he had. Well, not really. It was more like a roomful of them. And it was a pretty big room. Tyler was frozen to the spot, but his eyes swiveled wildly around the dimly lit room. There was no mistaking it. No tailored suit could hide a mutated, twisted claw of an arm. No dress hem could be casually cast over a snaking tail. And there was no makeup that could conceal the dead, empty eyes of a soul hunter.

"Ah! Tyler!" The menagerie of a crowd parted slowly to form a corridor to Morabella. She was resplendent in a trailing, low cut red dress that was accented in black, but Tyler was in no state of mind to appreciate it. She beckoned him forward with a long, pointed red fingernail.

No way, lady. Tyler turned around to find his escape route blocked by the other servants standing in a silent line.

"Come here, Tyler," she laughed, "I don't bite." He was seriously starting to wonder about that. Tyler slowly walked through the crowd towards Morabella and realized she was standing with another man. Though he had the same emotionless eyes as a hunter, Tyler still couldn't help thinking he was everything he wished to be. Right off the bat, the hunter was tall. He towered over most of the others, with broad shoulders and a toned, muscular body that filled out his black suit with what seemed like raw power. It didn't hurt that he had the most beautiful woman in the room on his arm either. The man traced Tyler's gaze over his form and his thin lips split into a grin.

"Tyler, I want you to meet Lord Alastor Wickerheart," Morabella stroked his sleeve.

"Lord?" Alastor chuckled.

"You will always be a lord in this mansion," she smiled up at him seductively, and even in his horror, Tyler managed to feel disgusted by the exchange.

"You do know how to make a man feel welcome," said Alastor as he tugged her in a little closer. He reached for the tray that, incredibly enough, Tyler was still holding. Although, now he was shaking so hard that blood red wine was starting to spill over the rims of the glasses. Alastor took a long, slow sip as he sized up the quaking young man.

"So this is what you wanted to show me? He doesn't seem very-" Alastor's eyes suddenly widened. "No... You're right, he is tainted... But he's suppressing it."

"Isn't it fascinating?" Morabella seemed pleased with herself. "I've never seen anything like it, except in the Guardians of the Purity, and the high priests of Arcadia."

"Among others..." Alastor muttered, "But how do you do it? You completely unremarkable... Insignificant... Little man?" Tyler withered under his intense stare. He didn't answer but his gaze flicked nervously to the alcohol on the tray. It widened Alastor's Cheshire grin.

"No..." he chuckled, "Alcohol? You suppress the taint with alcohol?" It morphed into a full-bodied roar of laughter. "You're no saint! You're a filthy drunk!"

"Does he amuse you, Alastor?" Morabella crooned, running the point of her fingernail up his arm. "I can give him to you. A pet."

"We don't want to arouse suspicion before we're ready."

"Are you joking? No one will miss a worthless street rat like him."

"Well, if you insist..." It took Tyler a few seconds to realize they were negotiating the terms of his enslavement.

"Allow me to prepare him for the transit." Tyler started running too late.The tray clanged against the floor, spilling wine and broken glass everywhere. His flight was halted by arms around him, over his chest, around his waist, holding him back.

"No! Let me go! Let me go!" he thrashed as hard as he could, bucking against his captors, but slowly, surely, he was being ferried back to Morabella, as if on a sucking tide.

Then he was enveloped in her frigid embrace.

"Relax, Tyler, I think you'll really like Reich's Arch," Morabella laughed, "I hear there's even a princess." Tyler breathed hard as he pried at her arms.

"Don't eat me!" he shrieked, "I taste like booze and sweat!"

"Let me be the judge of that."

No rumor could have prepared Tyler for the horror of those fangs sinking into his flesh. He wanted to scream but it was as if his voice had drained away along with the blood in his veins. Tyler felt his knees give out and then he was hanging limp in her arms. His gaze meandered away, unfocused, until he saw a shape in the corner. Esther stood half hidden behind a curtain. He found her magenta eye and clung to it, as his world faded to black.

Looks like the fangs came out after all.