Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Ari sniffled as she bit into her beignet. Her head was pounding from a migraine she had had earlier — those were getting more frequent every day she stayed in New 2, despite her love of the city. She had to ask Crank about getting an air filter; the oil and coal coming off of the streetcars couldn’t be good for her.

A cloud of beignet dust wafted into her nose and she sneezed.

Around the corner of High Street and Cafe du Monde, where she had gotten the beignet, was a soggy puddle that Violet had called a house. It might have been one ten years ago, but the hurricanes had ravaged it, tearing into the drywall and insulation and leaving behind a creeping mass of black mold. Sebastian had looked at her like she was insane when she had suggested heading over there for something to salvage, but Ari was long running out of money. Twenties borrowed from Bruce and Casey only lasted so long, and she didn’t want to call them and ask for money, let alone talk to the Novem. Violet and Crank worked hard, and they were only children; Ari could do some menial labor, too.

And besides, she thought she had seen something in the rubble of the house, a flash of gold or maybe silver that flickered in the moonlight as she had run past it on the way to the ball. She had kept her knife sheath from that night with her and as she swerved to avoid a bollard on the paved sidewalk, she felt the tip of the knife dig into her thigh. It was a comfort, now, after what had happened to Athena.

All around her she could hear streetside hawkers, jazz bands — she dropped a five into the saxophone case of one particularly good player — the hustle and bustle of the city intermingled with the horns and hisses of coal-fired furnaces and pipes. Somewhere she could hear bone chimes tinkling in the humid southern wind, the distinct sound of the voodoo practitioners of the city, and she twisted the bracelet Violet had given her after the ball. It was a part of New 2, yes, but one she would have to get used to after — well, after what had happened with… everything.

“Ari,” came a voice from behind her, and she whirled around, hand on the knife below her shorts. Sebastian took a step back, eyes wide.

“Y’want a beignet?”

Ari relaxed, holding up her still sugar-covered fingers. “Already got some, but thanks.”

Sebastian had agreed to come with her on her adventure, sighing loudly about how a new member of the family would need help trying to find something of value, but she knew it was a matter of spending more time with her. Everything had happened so fast, they hadn’t had time to be friends first.

That being said, as Sebastian took her hand and stepped up to the rotten concrete stoop of the house, she didn’t mind.

The railings on the porch were all French art noveaux in metal, carved into flourishes and embellishments, but she yanked her hand off of them when they started to flake off into bits of rust and grime. The door was creaked open and Sebastian tilted his head at her.

“Ari, headed in?”

She nodded.

Inside of the house was complete darkness, made even more so when she pushed the door shut with a loud creak behind her. The windows were all boarded up, covered in plywood and rusty nails since right before the hurricane — not like it had mattered. The house had flooded, like every building in New 2.

“Oh, damn, your hair is shiny!”

She winced — she was still getting used to having her hair down and visible — and then paused. “Wait, how can you see that?”

“Vampire, remember?” Sebastian said. She could almost see his sharp smile and she laughed back in the darkness.

“Yeah, you can see in the dark, you move at superhuman speeds, you’re pale and ice cold —“

“Ari, you’ve been spending too much time with Violet and Crank. Lemme see if I can find a light switch.”

“No witchy powers for that one, Sebastian?”

“Warlock.”

Ari heard him shuffle around in the darkness, the click of his boots sounding on what she was pretty sure was tile. She leaned back on the door. The house had said condemned, but Crank said the sign had been up for ages — if there was anything truly dangerous in the house, it was gone now.

She heard another shuffle and a faint crash, followed by a whir and a click. It stayed dark.

“Damn, power’s out.”

She rolled her eyes a bit at Sebastian, patently ignoring the smile she knew was on her face.

“The house has been abandoned for ten years, of course it’s out! You over at the breaker box?”

“Breaker?”

Oh my god. Ari had forgotten. Sebastian Lamarliere, son of the Novem — of course he didn’t know shit about house maintenance. When she saw Bruce and Casey again, they would probably hound her for dating a useless man. Shit, when she told Michael about this, he would probably yell at him for not knowing anything about house maintenance.

“It’s a big grey panel,” she said, stifling her snicker. “Lead me over there?”

In a flash, she felt Sebastian’s arm loop around hers and lead her through the central room. She could tell it was tile, now, from the way that her feet slid slightly when she took a step, and the cool and humid air of the room was oddly refreshing. They stopped their travel and the motion made her bump into Sebastian. She blushed and squatted down, letting his hand on top of hers direct her to the breaker box. Behind her, he shuffled around and pressed something cylindrical into her hand.

Her thumbnail found a switch and a faint light flooded the room.

“You had a flashlight and you didn’t tell me?”

Sebastian chuckled behind her. “I forgot about it, honest.”

She swung the flashlight in his eyes for revenge and he blinked.

Around the room they were in — she could see the breaker was in a cabinet, now — was a foyer. The mosaic tiles on the floor were mostly cracked and shattered, and the plaster followed suit, webbing up the walls. She grimaced — the upstairs wouldn’t be safe. What little furniture scattered about was all dark and slightly fuzzy, covered in cobwebs and mold, and the rest of the house was sparse, already looted.

She pulled a screwdriver out of her bag and set to work on the breaker — behind the panel, a line had been cut, and she managed to reassemble the connections. She flicked the switch and Sebastian jumped back as a surge of electricity flew through the house in a loud buzz, before the stained-glass flower light over the foyer faintly glimmered to life. She could hear a weird rumbling noise, too, and from a glance at Sebastian behind her, she could tell her also heard it. He titled his head left — a silent that way. The both stood and Ari fell in behind him, skirting over chunks missing from the floor into the main hall.

Chapter Text

The second room was in even more disrepair than the first, holes carving out slices of night and rotten plaster crawling over the walls. Around it curved two baroque staircases, once-ornate, and over the center a tattered chandelier hung, dimly lighting the room. Ari could see around the second floor, now, where grand ballrooms and decorated paintings of New Orleans had once stood. It was mostly mold and water damage, now.

The noise was coming from the center of the room, an increasingly loud rumble and roil, centered around —

Oh. That’s where she had seen the flash of metal; it was silver after all. A huge, ornate but worn down fountain with nymphs and dryads carved into the sides, dancing around a center piece with an ornamental tree in the center. The rumble got louder still and water burst form the top, cascading down the sides of the fountain. The water shone in the chandelier light, reflections of the glass crystals making it sparkle. The tree in the center was dead — had been for a long time — but Sebastian grabbed her arm and she saw what he was looking at.

Around the dead bark of the tree was Spanish moss, still dripping with water and definitely alive, and on top of it was a figure, a young woman clad in a white dress. She had her arms crossed and was definitely scowling.

“A vampire. Great,” the woman said, still somehow sitting atop the tree barely looking like it could hold half of her weight.

To her right, Sebastian, under his black hair, looked horribly affronted. “Half warlock!”

The young woman, to her credit, gave him a half smile. “Half warlock, then. Better for the forests, no?”

“Excuse me, but you’re sitting on a tree in a house condemned for ten years. And we’re in New 2. In a city. There’s no forests.”

The woman turned to look at Ari and she glared; her eyes were bright gold. “A child of Medusa,” she growled, though a sound of — Ari couldn’t really tell — tinged her voice.

“Okay, crazytown, and you are?”

The woman snorted. Her hair dripped like the moss below her. “Amphelos.”

Ari looked at her and came up blank. A glance at Sebastian told her that for once, he didn’t know who the monster of the week was either, but the woman acted like they should.

The woman dipped her foot in the fountain and flicked water at them. Ari blinked the water out of her eyes and her wet hair swept over her nose.

“I am a dryad. You, of all people,” she said, looking at Ari, “should know that.”

Sebastian looked at her out of red eyes, leaning towards Ari. “Aren’t you, like, tree people?”

Amphelos grumbled again and poured a wave of water at the pair. Sebastian got soaked and Ari tried not to look at him drenched in water.

“As you said, we are in New Orleans. I am of Spanish moss now.”

Ari’s head spun and she felt her migraine coming back. “You just, like, changed?”

Amphelos snorted. “Obviously that’s not how it works. New environment, new aspects. For all of the Greek gods. It’s why Athena…” she trailed off. “I shouldn’t tell you that, not now.”

“And yet you’re here, talking to us for some reason,” Sebastian said.

Amphelos sighed and looked towards the sky, where a hole carved out of the mansion let the moonlight filter in. The chandelier-light reflected on her cheeks, and for the first time Ari saw she was nearly transparent.

“Won’t be for much longer. When the water came back on, I got let out of the fountain… I’ll head back to the Gulf with my sisters,” she said. She fixed Ari with a stare, and she could see the tangle of moss in her hair drip with water as the nymph dissolved back into the fountain.

“I’ll be going now, but take some of the moss. Good against the goddess.” She flicked a glance at Sebastian. “Enjoy your date.”

With that, Amphelos vanished into the fountain and Ari and Sebastian were left alone in the hollow remains of the house. She looked at Sebastian, dripping wet with his hair in his eyes, and shrugged.

“I guess that counts as something productive?”

He sighed. “Productive, but we’ve gotta find something to make money, remember?”

Ari linked arms with him as they headed back through the rooms of the house, the light from the low chandelier reflecting on her hair.