Chapter Text
The guests circulated like blood through failing veins, clotting in clusters around the hors d'oeuvres and the open bar. Cassandra Goth did not believe in the sanctity of funerals, of viewings. She believed in preservation, in procedure, in the quiet dignity of doing something correctly even when it no longer mattered to the subject. The dead were past caring. It was the living who required the ceremony and illusions of closure, the careful choreography of grief so it didn’t spill everywhere and embarrass someone.
This particular funeral was doing a poor job of that. The chapel smelled faintly of lilies and industrial disinfectant, which Cassandra noted with mild approval: someone had at least tried. The lighting was wrong — too warm: the corpse looked jaundiced — and the casket had been positioned at an angle that did no favors for the embalmer’s work. Amateur hour. A Goth would have never let this happen. This could only be the work of some tacky bitch who didn’t actually care. Dina.
Cassandra stood beside her parents in a tailored high-necked black dress selected for its discretion rather than its beauty. On anyone else it would have read as severe; on Cassandra it felt chosen, a kind of inherited elegance worn without sentiment. Her hair was pulled back into two pigtails, a choice that her mother had considered commenting on before deciding, correctly, not to.
“You look like you’re about to testify at a murder trial,” Bella had said instead, gently.
“I might,” Cassandra replied. “The cause of death remains unclear to me.”
Mortimer had made a small, strangled sound at that, and retreated to fix his tie for the third time. (It didn't need fixing.)
Now, Cassandra folded her hands and assessed the corpse with professional interest.
“They used too much filler in the cheeks,” she muttered, barely moving her mouth. “He looks like Handsome Squidward.”
Bella stiffened. “Cassandra, really.”
“I’m not wrong.”
Mortimer barely hid a smile behind his gloved hand.
The deceased looked fine. But fine was the enemy of honest death. His skin had been warmed artificially, his mouth coaxed into something approximating peace. The arterial sutures were neat, but not clean enough. There was a faint bruising along the temple that the makeup hadn't quite covered, which was odd given that he'd supposedly died of a heart attack. Cassandra filed that away for later consideration. Whoever had done the work had aimed for comforting, not accurate. A shame. Accuracy matters.
Cassandra felt the familiar emptiness in her gut, not hunger exactly. More like a blank space where hunger should have been. She had eaten that morning. A measured portion of her latest iteration, pale and viscous and nutritionally perfect. It sat in her stomach like wet cement, but it gave her everything she needed. Fuel was fuel.
She shifted her weight, bored already, but then—
A disruption.
Her pulse stuttered.
It was subtle enough that she almost missed it, an irregularity, a faint static under her skin. Her senses sharpened involuntarily, the way they did when something interesting entered the room. Cassandra frowned, displeased. This was a funeral. Nothing interesting was supposed to happen — it already had. She turned her head, and there he was, standing near the bar with a tumbler of something amber in his hand, his posture too casual among everyone else grieving. He was tall and improperly dressed. Black suit, yes, but the shirt collar was open, no tie, sleeves pushed up like he’d come straight from somewhere else and decided grief could wait its turn. His hair was dark and annoyingly well-styled, but still not appropriate for a funeral. And to top it all off, he was smiling.
Cassandra stared. She didn’t know who he was. But she knew his type.
Across the room, Dina Bachelor emerged from the hallway that led to the powder room. She had been crying, or pretending to — her mascara was smudged artfully, her lipstick reapplied. She wore a black dress that clung in all the right places, nearing club attire, and when she saw the man at the bar, her expression softened. The man spoke quietly to Dina — Aunt Dina, technically, though Cassandra had never managed to internalize that without discomfort. Beside her, her sister Nina looked bored enough to achieve what Cassandra privately considered the only true way to liven up a funeral: a second death.
The man leaned in, murmured something. Dina snorted.
Ah. A pair of idiots.
The man turned suddenly and caught Cassandra looking at him. He blinked, clearly recalibrating. People did that when they noticed her, took a moment to adjust their expectations. She met his gaze without flinching, cataloguing as she went: clear eyes, strong carotid pulse (visible even from where she was standing), skin flushed just slightly under the chapel lights.
Her pulse stuttered again. Disgusting.
The viewing lasted another hour. Cassandra moved through the room like a shadow, pausing occasionally to exchange pleasantries with her father's associates, nodding at their condolences for a man she had loved... selectively. Uncle Mike had been jovial and exhausting, the kind of man who filled rooms with his presence. Cassandra admired him, in a way. She could never determine whether that loud, boisterous personality had been carefully manufactured, or if he had simply been born that unfortunate. It had once been easier to admire him than to examine him closely. He'd cut off most of his family when he married a girl — one nobody had even heard him mention before — suspiciously close to her eighteenth birthday. Dina had been born December 2nd. They'd eloped December 3rd.
Now he was gone, and the room was full of people pretending they would miss him. Her mother would, genuinely. Everyone else was performing.
Cassandra found herself drifting toward the casket again. The crowd had thinned near the front — most guests preferred their grief at a distance, diluted with wine and small talk. She stood alone, studying the stitching along Michael's jawline where the mortician had closed the mouth, and made another note: Sutures too visible. Consider adhesive for future reference. She was so focused on the sutures that she didn't hear him approach until he was right behind her, close enough to read over her shoulder.
"Jesus Christ."
The voice was low, startled. Cassandra turned.
It was him. Dina's friend. Up close, he was even more excessive — eyes the color of spring, vivid and unsettling in their clarity, a sharp jaw, with the kind of bone structure that would photograph well and age even better.
“Are you critiquing the embalming?"
Cassandra kept writing as she replied: "Yes."
"At his own funeral."
"It's a viewing, technically. The real funeral is tomorrow."
He blinked. Then he laughed, a short, disbelieving sound that made several nearby guests glance over. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. "You're…”—he took a moment to study her face, trying to place her—“…Bella’s kid, right? Cassidy?”
"Cassandra."
“Hey, I was close.” He smiled. It didn’t work. “I’m Don."
He extended a hand, and when she didn’t take it immediately, he left it hanging in the air between them, confident it would be accepted eventually.
She looked at his hand. Strong fingers. Clean nails. No rings, or tan lines betraying any. She took it then. His palm was warm, his grip firm but not aggressive. His pulse: faint and steady, against her fingertips.
"You're Aunt Dina’s boytoy," she said, flipping over his hand in hers, studying further.
His smile faltered. "I — what?"
"At his own funeral."
For a moment, he looked genuinely taken aback. Then the smile returned, sharper this time, with an edge of something that might have been respect.
"Wow. Okay. You don't pull punches, do you?"
"I don't see the point."
"Most people at least pretend to be polite."
"I'm not most people."
"Yeah," he said, still smiling, still holding her hand. "I'm getting that."
She should have felt disgust then, or perhaps pity. Instead, she felt nothing, nothing except a faint, clinical curiosity and something else. Something that prickled at the base of her skull, that made her aware of the distance between them, the angle of his throat, the way his pulse might feel if she were close enough. She withdrew her hand, tucking it back into her pocket. He watched her, head tilted, as if she were a puzzle he was trying to solve. She'd seen that look before on men who thought they were clever. It never lasted.
"So," he said, leaning against the side of the casket. "You're into dead people?"
"I'm into mortuary science."
"That's a fancy way of saying dead people."
"It's a precise way of saying I'm interested in the preservation and presentation of the deceased."
"Right. Cool. Super normal hobby for a..." He paused, squinting at her. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"Seventeen. Jesus." He straightened, suddenly looking less comfortable. "You're in high school."
"I am not. How old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-seven.”
She frowned. Actually frowned.
“That’s young.”
“Excuse me?”
“I thought you were 35.”
He scoffed at that.
“It’s that thing growing out of your face,” she said. “You look like a youth pastor. Or someone’s unfortunate father.”
He put a hand to his chest. “Nonsense. Everyone knows my goatee is legendary.”
“Perhaps,” Cassandra said, “in 2003.”
He laughed, but something in his eyes readjusted.
“Wow. Vicious.”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
He winced.
“Uhh. Sorry. About your... uncle? By the way.”
“I didn’t like him,” she said honestly. “But thank you.”
“Hm, so… Should I be worried?”
“Not unless you plan to die here. I’m sure Aunt Dee could help with that.”
She said it reassuringly, even through the dark bite.
Bella cleared her throat. “Cassandra.”
“What?”
“Inside. Voice," her mother all but hissed.
“I am inside.”
Don rubbed the back of his neck, laughing again, a little shakier this time.
"Well," he said. "It was... nice. Meeting you."
“Be seeing you, boytoy.”
He hesitated, then nodded as he left. She watched him go, watched him slip his arm around Nina’s waist, watched them disappear into the crowd. And for the first time, Cassandra felt it.
Hunger.
It wasn't the dull, distant ache she had learned to ignore, nor the background static of a body that did not need what it wanted. This was sharp. Specific. A pull low in her chest that made her aware of the heat in the room, the sound of pulses layered like a symphony, the particular brightness of his.
No.
She had spent years resisting this. Years proving she was her mother's daughter, sustained by food and water and the stubborn machinery of a half-human body. She did not need blood. She did not want it. Nope. She pulled out her notebook with hands that didn't shake — she would not allow them to shake — and wrote: Subject: Don [last name unknown]. Relation: Dina Bachelor [woohoo partner], Nina Caliente [woohoo partner]. Observed behavior: confident, tactile, performatively sympathetic. Probable occupation: none of consequence. Then, after a pause: Blood pressure: elevated. Cardiovascular health: excellent. Favorable genetics.
She didn't know why she wrote that last part. She closed the notebook and returned it to her pocket. Crossed the room to find her father. Mortimer was alone now, standing near the window with a glass of red wine he'd hardly touched. He looked up when she approached.
"Cassandra."
"Father."
"Are you alright?"
"I need to speak with you. Later. At home."
His eyes searched hers, and she saw the moment he understood. Or thought he did.
"Of course," he said quietly.
Cassandra nodded and left him there, walking past the mourners and the casket and the man with the excellent blood, and out into the cool night air. She stood on the front steps and breathed in, deeply.
It's biological, she told herself. Clinical interest. Nothing more.
She exhaled. Her pulse did not settle.
That's new.
Ophelia Villa was silent when they returned, the kind of quiet that came from a house built to keep secrets. Cassandra walked through the foyer, past the grandfather clock that had stopped working in 2005 and had never been repaired, past the portrait of some distant ancestor whose eyes seemed to follow movement, and up the curved staircase to the second floor. Her mother had gone to bed. Cassandra had heard her footsteps overhead while they were still removing their coats, the soft click of the bedroom door closing. Bella did not like conversations about the other half of her daughter's heritage. She participated when necessary, but she did not linger.
Mortimer was in his study. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three walls, packed with volumes in languages Cassandra was still learning — Latin, Romanian, something older that had no name in modern tongues. A fire burned in the hearth despite the mild evening, because her father believed a study should always have a fire. It was "atmospheric, traditional," he'd say. (Pretentious.)
He sat in his leather chair, a book open in his lap, but Cassandra knew he had not been reading. He had been waiting.
"Sit," he said, closing the book.
She sat in the chair across from him, the one that had been hers since childhood, worn smooth in places from years of her sitting exactly like this — spine straight, hands folded, expression neutral, never fidgeting. She'd been trained out of that years ago at boarding school.
Neither of them spoke for a while. The fire crackled. Outside, an owl called from somewhere on the grounds.
"You felt it," Mortimer said finally. It was not a question.
Cassandra considered lying, dismissing it. But her father would know. He always seemed to just know.
"Yes."
"Who?"
She chose her words carefully. "There was a boy at the viewing. I noticed his cardiovascular health was exceptional. And I experienced a physiological response."
"Hunger."
"Yes."
Mortimer leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. He studied her with an intensity that would have made most people look away. Cassandra held his gaze.
"How long has it been since you last fed?" he asked.
"I don't feed. You know that, Father.”
"How long since you last felt the urge?"
"Never. Not like this."
His eyebrows rose slightly. "Never?"
"I've felt... awareness. Background noise. But nothing that demanded attention. Nothing I couldn't ignore."
"And this?"
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "This was specific."
"Specific to him?"
"Yes."
Mortimer smiled. It was not a cruel smile, but it was not entirely kind either. It was the smile of a man who had been proven correct about something he had suspected for a very long time. He found himself thinking, briefly, of the boy: young — too young for this, no doubt — and wholly unaware that he had become significant. It was never the remarkable ones who suffered most from this sort of attention. A shame, really.
"You're seventeen now," he said. "Nearly eighteen. The blood matures at different rates in children, but it always matures eventually. I've been waiting for this."
"I don't want it."
"Want is irrelevant. You are what you are, Cassandra."
"I'm half of what you are," she corrected. "The other half is human. That half has sustained me perfectly well for seventeen years."
"That half," Mortimer said gently, "is a foundation. Not a ceiling. You were always going to reach this point. The only question was when."
Cassandra's hands tightened in her lap. "I'm not interested in your legacy. I'm not interested in hunting, or seduction, or any of the theatrical nonsense you and your kind indulge in. I want to be a mortician. I want a quiet life. I want—"
"To be normal," Mortimer finished. "Like your mother."
“No, not normal like her, but, I won’t be like the people who hurt her.”
He regarded her for a long moment. Then he rose from his chair and crossed to the bookshelf, running his fingers along the spines until he found what he was looking for. He pulled down a slim volume bound in dark leather and returned to his seat.
"Your mother," he said, opening the book, "is the most extraordinary woman I have ever known. But know that she is not normal, Cassandra. No one who has loved what we are could ever be normal. She has simply chosen a different kind of extraordinary."
"She chose to be with you."
"She chose to be herself. As you must."
"I'm choosing not to pursue this."
Mortimer smiled again, and this time it was definitely not kind.
"You think you have a choice."
"I do."
“Then why are you here?” Mortimer asked. “You have never brought me a problem already solved.”
Cassandra’s jaw set.
“You want a remedy,” he said. “Something clean. Something with instructions. You've spent seventeen years building a life around the fiction that you are human enough to escape this. And now that fiction is crumbling, and you want me to tell you how to shore it up. How to make it stop."
"Can you?"
"No."
The word hung in the air between them, final as a headstone.
"But," Mortimer continued, "I can teach you to manage it. To control it. To take what you need without becoming what you fear."
"I don't need anything."
“Oh, of course not, child, but you will," he said calmly. "Eventually. The hunger doesn't diminish, Cassandra. It compounds. You can resist for days, weeks, perhaps even months if you're stubborn enough — and you are certainly stubborn enough. But eventually, you will feed. The only question is whether you do so with control, or whether you do so in a moment of weakness that you will regret for the rest of your very long life."
Cassandra stared at him. At this man who was her father, who had given her half of what she was, who loved her with a fierceness he reserved for almost no one — but who would not lie to her, even when the truth was unbearable.
"I'm going to bed."
"Cassandra."
She stopped at the door but did not turn around.
"If you insist on pursuing this... resistance," Mortimer said, "at least be smart about it. Learn his patterns. Understand what draws you to him. Knowledge is control. And control is the only thing that separates us from monsters."
"I'm not a monster."
"Not yet," he said. "But you will be, if you keep on this path. Hunger ignored doesn't disappear, Cassandra. It waits. And when it takes you, it will not ask permission." His expression shifted, tenderness beneath the severity. "I have seen what happens to our kind when they deny themselves too long. I will not watch that happen to you."
She left without responding, climbing the stairs to her room and closing the door behind her with a control that took every ounce of will she possessed. Only when she was alone, when the lock was turned and the curtains drawn, did she allow herself to sit on the edge of her bed and press her hands to her face.
Her father was wrong. He had to be wrong. This was nothing more than a quirk of her mixed heritage asserting itself at an inconvenient time. It didn't mean anything. It didn't change anything.
Cassandra pulled her notebook from her pocket and opened it to the page where she had written Don’s name. She stared at the words for a long time. Then, in small, precise letters, she added: Observation protocol: establish baseline behavior patterns. Maintain distance. Do not engage directly unless necessary for data collection. It was research. Scientific method. Control group of one.
She closed the notebook and laid back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Outside, the owl called again. Closer this time; it had caught something. Cassandra closed her eyes and tried not to think about the warmth of Don's hand in hers, the steady drum of his pulse against her fingertips, the way her mouth had watered when he'd leaned close enough for her to smell him.
"Hunger, when properly managed, is nothing to fear."
The owl's call broke abruptly.
Satisfied.