It was like I’d entered some form of the Twilight Zone. Everyone was acting like Gi hadn’t been a social reject at school for the past two years since she’d come out and absolutely no one even turned to look at me.
Grayson nudged a few of the football players out of the way to make room for Emerson and me, whilst all Gi had to do was smile and they parted enough for her and the rest of the AA Team to find their seats. The cheerleaders looked uncomfortable with Jenny sitting next to them, but Robbie was chatting away with his teammates and since she was a varsity sportsman’s girlfriend, they let whatever animosity they had go.
Charlotte wore her human mask, laughing along with her friends. She was one of the only people on the table not to acknowledge Gi. If any of the guys stared at me, it was barely more than the types of looks I would have expected from them acknowledging I was once again Emerson’s choice of girl.
I finally understood Emerson’s change of outfit. The casual joggers and cap he wore with me made him fit into our ragtag group of loners, but here he was one of the Sons. Top of the food chain. And now he was back to dressing like that’s where he belonged. No one could question his position when he looked like the poster boy varsity star. And since I was flanked between him and the ex-queen bee back on top, no one dared say anything to me.
Martha was the only one who looked uncomfortable and like this was at all strange. At least I had her for a shred of normalcy.
I was thankful I’d already scarfed down my lunch because being in the middle of this weird parallel world was making me queasy.
‘What’s going on?’ I whispered to Emerson.
Several heads turned towards my question, clearly intent in hearing what he had to say. Grayson noticed I wanted to talk to Emerson so began distracting most of the guys at the table who’d been vying for his attention. Grayson’s loud energy drew any attention away from us.
‘Lunch.’
I gave him a withering look. I knew he was being obtuse to get back at me for how I’d acted when I snapped this morning and had been short with him.
Emerson tapped his thumb to his bottom lip a couple of times before bending his head close to mine so he could speak low enough that other people wouldn’t be able to hear unless they really listened in.
‘Gi’s like you in a way,’ Emerson said. ‘She could deal with people being shite to her, but after what Emma did Friday, she couldn’t just stand by anymore.’
‘How’s that like me?’ I didn’t let anyone give me shit. Every time Emma had been a bitch to me, I’d stood up for myself. I never let anyone walk all over me like Gi did.
‘She’s selfless. She puts other people first.’
‘That’s not me at all.’
Emerson just shook his head at me.
I realised Emerson hadn’t answered what I wanted to know. He’d tried to distract me with a half answer that didn’t actual answer anything.
‘But what did she do?’ I asked.
This wasn’t normal. Drama like what had been posted about me in the gazette didn’t just magically disappear – especially not with hormonal teenagers at the forefront of it. They would have been gossiping about it for years. Even after I left NRHS, I expected someone would be giving the new kid a tour around campus and they’d remark upon the spot Olivia Morgan’s incestuous murder story was pinned to her locker and all her shameful secrets were laid bare.
‘Gi didn’t do anything,’ Emerson said. ‘She just stopped… not being herself.’
His tone of voice skewed a little at the end, like he was trying to tell me something more, but couldn’t find the words, or wasn’t able to say them here. He looked pointedly at Gi, as if to encourage me to do the same and find the answer.
Like at the party, Gi was surrounded by people. They were smiling and laughing; none of them in a malicious way like you might expect if they were fawning over Emma.
Even as she sat down, she had people stood up around her, just trying to be close. Once again, as I looked at her, I felt that there was something different with her appearance. She still wore the same wire glasses, her long black hair in braids and vintage clothes she’d done up herself, but there was something…
It took another few minutes, but eventually I could see it. It was the same feeling I got looking at Gi as I did when I looked at Emerson or the other Sons. Gi was giving off a glamour. An energy that said trust me, like me, but much, much stronger the more you looked at it.
Gi wasn’t a vampire. There was no way, not when she had kid twin sisters and I’d seen the photos at her house growing up through awkward adolescence and met her very human dad. But finally, all the little details that didn’t make sense started to pull together.
Emerson being certain that I couldn’t sense witches when I’d been adamant I’d never met one before. Even though I’d promised myself never to be friends with anyone, Gi had managed to make one out of me anyway, without even trying. There had simply been something about her that persuaded me to spend time with her, and protect her against threats. And Gi’s eighteenth birthday was coming up soon. Very soon.
The puzzle pieces finally slotted in one after the other and I saw the missing piece that would have given me the answer right at the start if only I’d looked. Emerson met Gi in the summer holidays and then he started school. I’d focused my attention on wondering whether Charlotte was a human and had been the reason the Sons had begun school here; I hadn’t thought about Emerson’s close friendship with Gi.
‘Shit,’ I said, under my breath.
Grayson gave Emerson a questioning look, but Emerson just shook his head at him.
I couldn’t wait for lunch to finish. I pulled Emerson away from the table and the prying eyes and ears of the Cheer crowd.
‘Is Gi lamia?’
*
I had taken Emerson’s silence as an affirmative to my question, especially when we ended up skipping next period and talking in Grayson’s car.
‘Gi’s why you’re at high school. You couldn’t have just told me that? Do you know how much freaking time I spent wondering what the hell you were doing here?’ I lectured.
‘You could have just asked.’
‘I could have just-’ I stopped myself. I hadn’t asked. I’d broken into his car and his locker. I’d stolen files from his laptop. I’d gotten Ali and Nowak to check out his reason for being here, but I hadn’t actually asked.
Emerson looked smug. ‘I have always told you that all you have to do is ask.’ I wanted to punch that smug prick in the face.
‘Gi doesn’t know, does she? That she’s lamia, or even about the Blood World?’
She hadn’t known what the secret Emerson and I were keeping was, after all.
‘No. She has no idea, that’s why it’s my job to introduce her to our world before she turns eighteen.’
‘You encouraged her to find her mom’s family,’ I remembered.
‘Her mom’s side is where her lamia blood comes from. Over Thanksgiving they should be able to explain about the Blood World and her heritage. I’ve been giving her hints so she’ll be more open to it when the time comes.’
That explained the books he’d been buying that time I’d seen him at the bookstore, ones like the texts I’d seen around Gi’s house and just assumed they were part of her Halloween décor. And the weird question she’d asked me at the bonfire.
‘All this time you really had no idea why I was here?’
‘Besides YA novels telling me vampires just love to hang out in high school? No. I didn’t.’
‘What did that Order official tell you when you got him to check in on me?’
‘Nothing. Just that you being here didn’t break the Code.’ I had mentioned at the time that Emerson was open to me asking questions, so there might have been the possibility Nowak just expected me to get the answer directly from Emerson. ‘I didn’t know vampires had jobs.’ Emerson gave me a look. ‘I swear to god do not tell me how misguided I am.’
Emerson laughed at
me. It was funny how easily we returned to the same roles, to that effortless way of talking.
‘The Order oversees enforcing punishment for Code breakers, keeping the secret, that sort of thing, but there are a lot of overlap nowadays between the work of the Blood World and the Order. One of the most important ones is finding lamia who don’t know anything about their heritage.
‘Family had a more central role in society in previous decades, but there’s a shift in the modern world where people tend to make their own families from friendship groups and not really care about the history of where they came from. A decline of family values and marriage has left a lot of lamia in the situation Gi finds herself in.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re blaming gays and one-night stands.’
‘I’m totally blaming one-night stands,’ Emerson grinned, ‘but I think you might not have paid attention in biology if you think gay sex is leading to lost lamia babies.’
‘I was on about society’s view of broken-down family values – forget it,’ I interrupted myself, noticing Emerson’s teasing smile.
‘The job of the Finders is to make sure lamia like Gi are found before their eighteenth and given all the information they need to be able to make their choice.’
As Emerson’s own choice had been taken away from him, I could see why that job would appeal to him. He wouldn’t be able to stand the idea of someone missing out on their chance to be who they truly wanted to be simply because they weren’t aware of their own history.
‘Finders? Bit on the nose for a name, isn’t it?’
‘Firefighters, policemen, office administrators… most job roles are obvious from the name. You think lamia would get more creative, why?’
I ignored him. ‘Without you – or Finders in general – what happens to the lamia who don’t make a choice? Do they just default to human, or… witch?’
‘Not human,’ Emerson said. ‘There are a few lamia out there who never show any aptitude for supernatural gifts until their choice. For them, if they never chose to accept their witch heritage on their eighteenth, it would seem like they were human. But lamia are biologically different no matter if their magic shows.
‘A lamia could only fully become human if they actively chose to give their power away.’
‘That can happen?’
Emerson nodded. ‘Some witches don’t count their magic as a blessing, more of a curse. Or some don’t want a semi-immortal life. Those lamia are usually power augmenters, precognates, or mind readers. When they’re young, witches who show an aptitude for those powers tend to be easily manipulated by older lamia and decide that their lives would be better without the power. Sometimes, it’s simply that they don’t like knowing too much. I only saw people’s feelings, but I could understand how reading people’s minds might become too much.’
‘What’s Gi’s power exactly?’
‘Charisma.’
‘Humans have that,’ I said. ‘That’s not magic.’
‘It is the way lamia possess it. It was what put the Order on her family’s radar before she reached puberty. Usually, at sixteen, someone like her would have exploded with surges of magic that would have endangered the secret, but it just happened that at the same time she usually would have had to excuse herself from school to work through her magical changes, that she came out as gay and ostracised herself from everyone. As Gi’s magic is a form of glamour, it needs people to feed it. She’s been starving it for the past couple of years and so no one has been able to notice the change.’
‘What do you mean her power put the Order on her radar?’
‘Finders work with witches who look for surges of power around a lamia’s eighteenth, just to make sure that parents are keeping their kids in check and aren’t endangering the secret, or if there are lost lamia who might give the game away without knowing it.
‘Gi’s charisma has been strong since she was in her early teens. They’ve kept a steady eye on her, but she’s mostly been able to keep her own power in check. It was only this past year that the Order decided a Finder needed to step in to teach her about the Blood World before her choice.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been better to give her a few years to get used to the idea of lamia and witches and stuff, rather than six months?’
‘It’s a part-time gig. But, maybe. This is my first try at this. I don’t really ask questions, I just accepted where I was sent, the lamia I was sent to and worked from there.’
‘You’re not really her friend, then? It’s all just a job to you.’
‘I’m Gi’s friend,’ Emerson said, something bordering on anger lacing his tone. ‘Just because I met her for a job doesn’t mean that we haven’t grown close, and if I didn’t become her friend, there was Grayson or Charlotte to back me up and tell her about our world.’
‘Charisma kind of seems like a shitty gift on the face of all witch powers she could have gotten,’ I said, changing the subject.
‘It’s actually the origin of vamp-glamour, as you called it. It was likely that the first vampires weren’t infused with any sort of supernatural magic, but then anyone might be able to see their true form and you know…’
‘Humans love to kill monsters,’ I finished for him.
‘Exactly. The vamp-glamour gives off an aura of likability, but also masks a vamp’s true face and makes them more physically appealing.’
‘Gi could make herself more beautiful if she tried, then?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Her particular brand of charisma magic also means, should she choose to be a witch on her eighteenth, she’d be able to take charisma from people – make them repulsive to others – and have strong influential powers, like compulsion.’
‘That’s what she’s doing now, isn’t it? With the rest of the school: making them forget about what Emma published in the gazette and treat me like I’m normal. It’s why she looked different; the glamour is working on her.’
‘You can see her glamour, too?’
‘I thought that’s why you wanted me to really look at Gi,’ I said.
Emerson shook his head. ‘No, but I guess that’s one more thing to put onto your list of things that makes you different. You couldn’t sense that she was a witch, but you could sense her using magic.’
‘Is it dangerous?’
‘I mean, if it’s not hurting you-’
‘No, not me seeing the glamour. Gi’s magic. She must be using a lot to be able to make sure that no one remembers or comments on my history with Christian, or whatever it is she’s doing.’
‘Dangerous to her or to the ones she’s using it on?’
‘Both.’
‘She’s lamia so it poses absolutely no danger to herself by using it,’ Emerson assured me. ‘Just like not using it wouldn’t pose any danger, either. A witch’s magic is like the ability to run. We spend our lives walking, we know that we can run if we pick up the pace a little and put the effort in, but there’s nothing forcing us to – unless in extreme situations.
‘It only hurts if we overexert ourselves or push ourselves further than our bodies could take. We’d be able to see if it was hurting Gi to compel other people. She’d look out of colour, tired, ill in general.’
‘And the other people?’
‘Does my vamp-glamour harm them?’ Emerson asked. I didn’t bother answering, as it was rhetorical. ‘It’s just brain chemicals and hormones, the same as all the other stuff that happens subconsciously in any other human’s mind. She’s not altering memories, just the perception of how people feel about them. If they were repulsed or inquisitive, or whatever emotion would have been attached to what happened Friday, Gi just changed that emotion to disinterest and refocused their attention on her.’
‘So, she doesn’t know she’s lamia, but she knows she has magic?’
‘I don’t think she does. I think she’s just… being Gi,’ Emerson said. ‘People have always been influenced by what she said or thought. She’s not actively casting spells or rummaging around in peopl
e’s minds. She’s just talking to them, hanging out. Doing what she would have done before she came out years ago and decided she needed to take a step back to protect other people from Emma’s wrath.
‘She’s not come and asked me about any of it yet, but she knows that the Sons are different, and have a similar energy to her sisters, but not her dad or any of her other friends.’
‘She… she asked me something at the bonfire. Whether I thought there was other intelligent life out there, or just humans.’
‘That’s good,’ Emerson said. ‘It’ll mean she’s more open to it when she gets to talk with her mom’s family.’
‘Do you think she’ll be pissed: when she finds out what secret we’ve actually been keeping from her this whole time?’
‘Would you be?’ Emerson asked, genuinely curious.
‘I’d think I was insane,’ I said. Which I had done for years until I’d met Ali.
‘That’s what I’m here for,’ Emerson said. ‘To make sure she doesn’t feel that way.’
I laughed. ‘Emerson, that’s the shittiest reassurance I’ve ever heard.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because vampires are quite literally the worst of the lamia/human options out there to console people about what constitutes as good mental health.’
Emerson stared at me for a long moment before he started laughing, too.
20
Between going to Emerson’s baseball practices; more frequent rehearsals, as the We Will Rock You opening night looming closer; and eating in the cafeteria, rather than hiding out in the auditorium, I became fully aware of just how effective Gi’s charisma was on the student body.
If I didn’t know Gi, perhaps I might have been a little terrified of the way in which she was able to manipulate so many people without anyone ever knowing. But Gi wasn’t actively messing with their minds, nor had she ever tried to use her gift to persuade them from their bullying when it had been directed towards her. Gi had stepped back in the spotlight for me, and for however little I cared about what people thought of me, I was still glad I didn’t have to actively been on guard every day I walked through the school doors.
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