Blood Red Rose

A/N: So here is the rewritten version of Blood Red Rose! Finally, I know... So sorry for the delay but things got REALLY hectic. Anyways, updates should be coming more often (like every 2 weeks/once a month at worst). This version is quite different from the original so I'm taking the following chapters down. Same characters and same plot, just different way of presenting things.
I'm a sucker for compliments, but critiques also help me progress, so as long as you're nice about it, don't hesitate to tell me if you don't like what I write and why.

I also want to thank my amazing beta kareabookworm for helping me rewrite this!

All right, enough chit chat and on with the story. Enjoy!

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3, 4… no maybe 5. Luckily for him, they were only minor vampires. If he dodged through Lincoln alley on the left and sprinted across the John Jay Park – following the main path of course – he’d end up on Main Avenue and then he’d be safe. At least until he hit the railway intersection, because that would mean the…

“You forgot the werewolf.”

“Claudette… you’re interrupting my planning.”

“Yes, well… it’s childish and ill defined so I might as well. Or did you forget there’s a stray werewolf in John Jay? And considering how you’re already fleeing from 5 low level vampires, which, I might add, you stand very little chance against; do you really want to add an irate, potentially rogue werewolf to the mix?”

“… Are ghosts, as in dead energy amalgamations, supposed to be psychic? Or is that just one of your personal quirks?”

“My dear Timothy, how can a seer know so little about ghosts? Pray tell me, who was the pathetic creature that took care of your education?” A dramatic sigh, materialising as a puff of air in the cold atmosphere, was the only physical sign of the presence standing, well, floating actually, next to Timothy Greyson.

“You did Granny. Remember?” The young man snorted, holding back his laughter as the piqued ghost sulked in response. Being a seer wasn’t easy, but given that his only friends were ghosts, he wasn’t really complaining. Well, except for the psychic ones. Telepathy especially was extremely annoying to deal with on a daily basis…

“They’re getting closer you know.”

Sending the old woman a dark look, Timothy took his compact metal staff out of his back pack. Extending it and tapping it twice against the concrete of the sidewalk, he jumped to the right, surprising his opponent before hitting him on the head.

“Aaaaaargggghhhh!”

“Do they have to be so loud?! Such cry-babies! It’s not like sound waves ever hurt anybody.”

Rolling his eyes at his caretaker’s antics, Timothy dodged another vampire, tripped him and fled. ‘If sound waves are so harmless, why are you even complaining?!’

“I heard that…” She huffed, just as a gust of wind destabilised the 3rd vampire, causing him to narrowly miss his swipe at Timothy’s unprotected head.

Suddenly, a loud alarm sounded signalling the arrival of a patrol car. What they were doing here at this hour in this part of town was anybody’s guess, but Timothy was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Packing his staff, the human sprinted down the road away from the sirens, glad he would for once manage to get home on a Tuesday night without making a detour. Rory may have had a positive bias towards humans, but that did not make him a nice mage, if there ever was such a thing. And either way, Lincoln ally was eerie enough in the day time…

Really, one would think that since the Daytime/Night-time laws, high schools especially would be more careful in letting their human population out sooner…as in, while daylight was still there? After all, that was the only real protection humans had against Creatures…but of course, all the interesting courses were always assigned at the most unpractical times.

“That may have to do with the fact that most people do not consider ‘nomad demonic tribes in 18th century North Africa’ a very interesting topic.”

Claudette shrugged the young man’s irritated glare off, picking imaginary lint off her ghastly dress. Just because she was a ghost didn’t mean she never got dirty. Well, it did. She just liked to act like it didn’t. Being dead could be so boring… Or that’s what Timothy rationalised. He’d long stopped trying to comprehend the numerous quirks of Claudette’s personality. If only she would stop reading his thoughts…

He was very grateful to the ghost for taking him in. Human orphanages were a complete mess given the number of children abandoned or whose parents had been killed, so it had become common practice for other beings to take them in, becoming their caretakers. Ghosts in particular were prone to taking in human children. Claudette for example had 7 in her care, including Timothy (although he wasn’t much of a child anymore since he was already 18 and in his last year at Saint Augustine’s Academy. But well, with the legal age being 21…).

Struggling with his keys for minute, the seer finally stepped into his one bedroom apartment, unceremoniously dropping his bag and his keys in the basket near the entrance. Wondering whether he should drop by to his foster siblings’ apartment to say hello, he decided against it when he realised it was practically 11. Still, he was glad to see it had only taken him 20 minutes to get back from school. He gave a self deprecating laugh considering that he only lived 7 minutes away from the place, but had to systematically make huge detours on Tuesday nights to avoid the bad crowd around the Fishery’s entrance.

He’d once wondered why anyone would ever call a bar the Fishery but when he got the explanation – it came from the expression ‘there are plenty of fish in the sea’ – along with the hungry, carnal look in his interlocutor’s eyes, he decided he’d much rather not have known. It’s not like he could do anything to save the poor humans and low level creatures that got attracted to the sign’s shiny outside only to be literally eaten by the succubae inside… Most came out the next morning relatively unharmed anyways.

Unfortunately, shady, trouble seeking creatures and occasionally humans (those were the worst) always hung around the bar at night and that made Timothy’s trek home a lot more difficult than it should be. He’d gotten used to it by now, but it still made life that much more complicated. Dealing with the day/night divide was already hard enough as it was.

An international decree (The Daytime/Night-time Law) had been passed which split world power into 2 phases: daytime, ruled by humans and other ‘weak’ daytime creatures, and night-time, ruled by all other creatures (vampires, werewolves, etc.). Thus, each state had 2 parallel governments who were supposed to work together and maintain the balance between humans and non humans. The same applied to international institutions, with for example the UN, where one would find both Daytime and Night-time ministers.

Thus, in the daytime, all beings were subjected to the Human Laws; while at night-time they had to obey the Creature Laws. The latter were quite problematic for ‘daytime beings’ as they basically stood for ‘survival of the fittest’. And unless a human was extremely well trained, armed, and protected, even in the safest parts of town, he’d always lose.

Claudette snorted elegantly (the Southern Belle could after all be nothing but elegant). “That’s an understatement…” The young man sent her a glare and continued peeling his potatoes.

Creatures hadn’t always been a fixture in this world. No one really knew how they got here or why, or maybe they’d been there all along. But the chaos that ensued when they decided, somewhat justifiably, that they had a right to be legally recognised and accepted by the human majority, was unimaginable. Even as a minority, vampires, werewolves, fey, goblins, mages, etc. were undeniably stronger and more destructive than the average human. Splitting the world geographically would have been a catastrophe; and since most humans tended to be active during the day whereas most creatures came out during the night, the daytime/night-time divide just made much more sense economically and socially. And for the most part it actually worked out okay. Unless of course you were an anthropology student fascinated by nomad demonic tribes of 18th century North Africa.

An elegant giggle interrupted his thoughts, but Tim just rolled his eyes. Claudette may have been extremely annoying but she was basically the grandmother he never had and for that reason he tolerated most of her antics; including intruding into his thoughts. She blew him a kiss and vanished through the wall, probably off to ogle the new neighbour as he took his shower. Elegantly of course.

A shiver coursed through his spine at the thought of a 70 years old looking ghost (probably more than 200 years old) ogling a 20 year old naked man as his gaze landed on the laptop sprawled on top of his coffee table. He’d been lucky enough to get it so cheap and considering how much his life depended on it… Demonic nomad tribes didn’t really interest him as such. Their special relations with energy bound seers on the other hand did. Oh, Timothy found anthropology fascinating. The study of people and how they worked, whether human or not, was his passion. But it was a very self-serving passion as he lacked the status and power to get the information he needed through less fastidious ways.

It’s not like he could either beat up or pay off the Guards of the St Quentin’s library to give him information about the Corrupted. The laptop and his university classes were thus the only ready source of information he had. Most of the time they were insufficient but they did at least point him towards certain directions. He’d have to find other alternatives fairly soon though because he was beginning to run out of time…

Getting his potato gratin out of the oven, Timothy went to sit on the couch, relaxing in front of the television. It was already 11:30 but that was around the time where the sci-fi channel became interesting, so he didn’t mind eating late all that much. When he was done, he went back to the kitchen and washed his dishes; spending some time to clean the kitchen counter as well.

Exhaustion seeped through his joints as he got into bed. No matter how much of a good day he was having, as soon as he got into bed, the simple perspective of having to go back to school the next day sent tremors coursing through his body. Yet another day to look forward to in that hell hole where clans of human, vampires, shifters and werewolves fought to control the establishment. It was like a replica of society only on a smaller scale. There were other remarkable beings too, a couple of demons, a few sorcerers and even a psychic, but they were extremely strong and used their abilities to their advantage, and hence managed to successfully maintain their neutral position.

In this context, the seer was assigned to the last group of beings: the ‘worthless’. This group was entirely made out of outcasts considered to be burdens by the rest of the gangs. Usually, these were either beings whose kind was represented on school grounds but whose abilities were weak, or beings of isolated kinds who had no clan to attach themselves to and weren’t strong enough to make it as Neutrals. Unless they managed to attract the attention of one or another clan, they were basically doomed to be persecuted and humiliated until graduation. If they didn’t get killed first.

Timothy’s abilities were undeniably useless to anyone but himself so he couldn’t even attempt to join the human clan. A person who could see the fully dead in a school where everyone was more or less alive presented little interest to his peers.

Luckily, he’d grown used to it and knew the inns and outs of the academy buildings as well as how to spot and avoid trouble. The solitude incurred didn’t even bother him that much anymore; his ghastly companions made up for most of it. Sometimes he’d wonder what it was like to have an actual, living friend; one he could touch and whose body heat he could feel. Recently, he’d actually begun to make on such a friend: a vampire, who like himself was a ‘worthless’. Although there was no sharing of secrets, no manly hugs, and no advising in case of unrequited crushes, this showed there was at least one ‘living’ person at school who acknowledged his existence. And as much as he hated to admit it, it did wonders to his self-esteem.

His ghosts were wonderful and he loved them dearly but they weren’t exactly a part of his world. He himself wasn’t a ghost and there were some things only the living could provide. But with his new friend, Timothy had a feeling things would change. With this thought in mind, the boy fell asleep, a smile tugging at his mouth and Claudette’s lullaby echoing drowsily in his dreams.