Monsters

The same words came with a slightly new inflection, almost teasing. “Not exactly.” Her touch felt warm and friendly.

“But I am dead.”

“Non. No.” It sounded almost identical and very reassuring in either language. “Just the opposite.”

“Phew. That’s a relief.” I relaxed just a bit. “I’m alive then?”

“Not exactly.”

“Shit. How’d we circle back to that?” I swallowed my anxiety. “If I’m not dead, and I’m not alive, what exactly am I?”

Delphine looked me straight on. “You’re amongst the immortal, Otto. The undead. You’re one of us.”

“Oh. Nice.” I flip-flopped again, like Hollywood when it came to embracing diversity. “I was almost buying it.” Dead one minute, then back to life, what was I, Pixar Animation Studios? One thing I knew for sure, Seth Rogan’s Candid Camera 2020 was going to be a monster hit. “Very convincing. Immortal ... undead ... like witches, zombies, ghosts, and vampires.”

“Trolls, too,” Pansy said.

“And werewolves.” That came from Harriet.

“Werewolves.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re a werewolf?”

“I am.”

“There are female werewolves?”

She muttered something. A student of Mandarin, I was relatively certain the words were Chinese and insulting. As for the growl that came after, that had werewolf written all over it. “It’s shameful how under represented we are.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “It is. When I get back to the honeymoon villa, I’ll call my dad and pitch a new series all about female werewolves, how’s that? The CW will jump on it.”

“I get it, Otto.” Casper came close again and put an arm across the back of my shoulders. “It’s some right weird shit, mate. I’ve only been here a couple weeks. The first day, I freaked the fuck out, just like you. Lights out at nineteen and then to find out I’m part ghost there and all ghost here ... Is that how it works?” he asked Delphine.

“Not quite,” she said.

I removed Casper’s arm from my person, but then felt like a jerk for doing so. “You’re only nineteen?”

“And now, I’ll never be any older. They gave me this book that explains it all.” Casper held up two hands, palms facing the sky. Without even saying abracadabra, like Justin Willman would have doing card tricks, he made the book appear. “I didn’t do that.”

Admittedly, Casper’s grin was friendly, not menacing, friendly, like the ghost he was probably going to tell me he was named after.

“I’m not magical, now, am I?” He shook his pink haired head. “No. Gamila is.” He passed me the tome.

“Non Huis Hundi by Vitus Alopeus. Did I say it right?” The title sounded familiar. “Not of This World, right?”