I decided to send Abel a text after wrapping things up in the studios and meeting the rest of the people attending my course. I was nervous as the phone was telling me the message was sending. What if I had completely misread the whole situation and he just felt super sorry for me? What if he had given me his number out of pity and actually didn’t wanna hang out with me? What if it was some kind of cruel prank and he’d be all like-

- Hey! I’m over by the benches under the statue. There’s a tuk-tuk that sells horrible coffee. Wanna join?

I sent a text back saying, I’d be right over and walked on surprisingly jelly-like legs to the statue. It depicted a large dude holding a sword and a pen. It was probably something about the pen being mightier than the sword or something, but the sword looked a lot mightier in his hands.

I found Abel standing by one of the stone benches with an accompanying table. He waved at me and held up a paper cup.

“Hey! I didn’t know how you took your coffee, so I opted for black.” He smiled widely.

“Black is great.” I took the cup from him and took a sip. “You really didn’t lie about the coffee being horrible though.” It was bitter and disgusting. And not bitter in the way actual good coffee was supposed to be. It also smelt burnt for some reason? I wasn’t sure how you could burn a liquid, but this guy obviously had a talent for it.

“Nope,” he laughed. “Anyways, meet my friends!”

I hadn’t noticed there were other people around. All I had noticed was him.

“Hi Gael,” Fred said and peeked out from behind Abel, waving at me.

I smiled widely and waved back. “Small world!” My voice came out high-pitched and it was kind of embarrassing, but Fred didn’t mention it.

“You know each other?” Abel asked and arched a brow, the hairs peeking over his aviators.

“Same class,” Fred replied and took a sip of her own cup.

“Right, right, right,” Abel said, nodding with each word. “This is Creek.” He pointed to another person sitting on the bench. He waved a little, his fingers barely emerging from the big sleeve on his oversized hoodie. He looked tiny. Kinky dark hair made his head look a little bigger and it was almost the same colour as his dark brown skin.

“Hi, I’m Gael,” I said and smiled.

“So, we’ve always been missing a werewolf in our mix,” Creek said as if that whole sentence wasn’t really weird and out of nowhere.

They all looked at me. I stared back at them with wide eyes. How did they know? Did I emit some kind of weird energy?

“I…” I started and stopped. And then I just turned on the heel of my foot and started walking away.

“Gael!” Abel yelled out after me, jogging up beside me. “I’m so sorry about that. Creek is shit with new people.”

I stopped and stared up at him. “I have never told anyone in my life. How did you know?”

“Uhm, yeah so… You smell of dog.”

“I have a dog at home.”

He cringed a little. “Not that kind of dog. You smell like a wolf. Come on back and we’ll explain everything.”

It was hard to determine if he was genuine or not when he was hiding behind the aviators the whole time. I did follow him back to the table where it looked like Creek had gotten a proper scolding from Fred.

“Hey, I’m sorry if I said something offensive,” Creek said and glanced up at Fred, who had taken a position on the table with her feet on the bench. She gave him a short nod.

“I just don’t understand,” I said and folded my arms across my chest.

“Right, so I’m a vampire,” Abel said.

I frowned and slowly turned towards him. He removed the sunglasses, revealing a pair of very black eyes. As in there was no iris or pupil, just a big black dot. It looked like those contact lenses that’d make you look like a cartoon character, because the iris would be abnormally large. And he also did it so dramatically as if explained anything? Okay, my guy, you have some pretty extraordinary eyes, but what does the vampire business have to do with that?

“Fred’s a witch,” he said and nodded towards her.

I glanced at Creek, and he shrank a little.

“Banshee,” he said.

“Is this a joke? Are you all those weird roleplaying people?” I took a step back.

“We could do a whole show-and-tell but there’s people around. And we knew you were a werewolf, which really should be enough proof.” Fred shrugged a shoulder and then threw her hair over it.

It made sense what she was saying, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “I thought I was alone,” I said with a tiny voice.

Abel put his glasses back on and offered me a lopsided smile. “You’re not.”

“Not anymore,” Creek offered and smiled too.

I decided I needed to sit. Creek moved over so I could sit down beside him, as Abel sat down across from me.

“Creek is an odd name,” I said in lack of something better to say.

“My name is actually Carson. Carson Creek Jr. I know. It sounds like a summer camp. But everyone just calls me Creek since my dad is Carson.” His hands flew around while he talked, and he was very animated to watch. It was kind of adorable.

“And you’re a…?”

“Banshee. Yeah. Not a whole lotta banshees like me around, so I’m a rarity. If you hear me screaming, just assume someone’s dead.”

I arched a brow.

“Creek screams when someone dies. It’s a prediction of death. Has ties to the other realm as well. Ghosts and stuff,” Fred explained.

“That’s… Pretty cool.”

Creek lit up. “You think so?”

I nodded a little hesitantly. “Better than turning into a monster once a month.”

They all cringed a little.

“So, that’s… Definitely a thing? At every full moon?” Abel asked.

I nodded and looked down at my cup, slowly peeling off the sticker label.

“What do you do?”

“I go to the forest. It’s a lot easier here than in the city. Also, since you actually have wolves here. I can blend in pretty easily with them. They were also quite nice so that’s good for the wolf.”

“I mean, it’s good for you,” Fred said.

“He and I are not the same. He has control, I don’t. Like split personalities.” I shrugged a little. “So, vampire? How come you can be out in the sun?”

“See, there’s a lot of misconceptions about vampires. Like we’d die from garlic and the sun? Not true.”

“Wooden stake through the heart?” I asked and grimaced a little.

“I mean, who wouldn’t die from a wooden stake through the heart?”

“Me.” Creek raised his hand. “I can only drown.”

“Technically a wooden stake would kill me, but I could heal myself. Even without casting a spell.” Fred shrugged.

“What about silver?” I asked.

“Yeah, that shit is actually accurate. Keep it away from me. Burns like a bitch.” Abel shivered a little. “Which is too bad since that’s totally my metal.”

I couldn’t help but snort. He was so casual about it all. Didn’t even seem like he had issues with being a monster. Same with Creek and Fred.

“So, a witch?” I asked then.

Fred nodded. “Actually, close to the traditional stories about witches. I come from a long line of them, like Creek comes from a long line of Banshees. We’ve lived here for generations.” She took a deep breath and then a sip of coffee. “So, blood is the fuel for my magic, as blood is where my ancestors left their power. It’s a small sacrifice. A prick on the finger and the remote comes flying from the other end of the room.”

“Blood magic,” I muttered under my breath. “There’s been this whole supernatural world out there this entire time?”

Abel nodded and patted my arm. It was actually quite comforting.

“Odd how you chose this particular town, huh.” Creek glanced at me with a saying look.

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” I said, realising something big. “I felt a pull towards this place when I saw the ad and read the name of the town out loud.”

“Imperium. Means ‘power’ in Latin.” Fred threw her hair over her shoulder again. “Power because of the pull there is. Power because all supernatural creatures who knows of this place eventually ends up here. It’s like a magnetic pull from the ground.”

“Well, that’s one theory,” Creek muttered. I turned to him and waited for an explanation. He jumped a little and pulled his sleeves over his hands. “My family believes it’s because there’s so many of us. We pull on each other.”

“Like wolves looking for a pack,” I murmured.

“Yeah. We live in the humans’ world, after all. We’re just guests.”

Fred rolled her eyes. “My family believes we own this world and they’re the guests.”

I looked to Abel. He shrugged a bit. “I’m a vampire. My great-grandfather is still alive and kicking. They believe vampires own the world and soon we’ll be out to the humans, and they’ll worship us.” I could tell he was rolling his eyes behind the sunglasses.

“So, the immortality thing is real? How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-four,” he snorted. “I was born a vampire, so we grow up and then stop aging when our body determines we’re at our strongest. We’re like lobsters. We’ll just keep living unless we’re actively killed.” He smiled and again I found myself chuckling.

“Lobsters. Really?” Fred asked and sighed.

“Theoretically they can live forever, since they regenerate their own cells and age doesn’t affect that process.”

“Abel is book-smart,” Creek said. “Not very smart in any other department.”

“That’s such a hurtful thing to say,” Abel muttered, the corners of his mouth turning downwards in an almost cartoonish way.

“The truth hurts. Like when lobsters are boiled alive.” Creek made a face and rose to his feet. “I gotta go. Family dinner at the Creek’s tonight. Whole lotta Banshees coming in from all over the country.”

“What are you doing?” Abel asked me.

“I uh… Wasn’t really planning on doing anything.”

“Wanna go out?”

I swallowed something and nodded. Was he asking me out on a date here? Did I want it to be a date? Everything was really messed up and I wasn’t sure about anything right now, but still I really wanted to go on a date with a gorgeous boy and be normal. And that was hard because this boy had just confessed to being a vampire. A freaking vampire! Was our date going to be in his castle where I’d be whisked away under the guise of being a reporter documenting his life or some shit?

And most importantly, would I even be against that? I could be a pretty good reporter, if it meant getting whisked away to a gothic castle.

Focus, Gael.

“We… We could order pizza. And watch a movie at my place.”

Amazing job at reeling in that crazy.

“Sounds awesome.” Abel rose to his feet. “Now or?”

“Uh yeah. Now would be good,” I more or less stammered and rose to my feet. I looked back at Fred, and she shook her head.

“Can’t. My girlfriend is making porkchops.” She winked at us and jumped down from the table, grabbed her bag and waved at us.

“Her girlfriend makes awesome porkchops,” Abel said and grabbed his bag too. “So, do you live far from here? I’ve got a car parked around the back.”

“Oh no, it’s not far, but you can park outside of my house, if you want.”

“Yeah, I’d rather not leave my baby.”