Cozy Little Horrors

The Gays: Unburied

Two things could always get under Evgeny's skin: Lev being in trouble and uncertainty. In the face of both, all of his self-control was channeled towards not ripping out the throat of the next person that would say they don't know anything or that he should calm down.

Ms. Angelica needed the services of a necromancer after an accident with the time-traveling field trip, and Lev volunteered to teach her class in the meanwhile. Evgeny gave him the "don't start with "back in my day", you'll be teaching the 18th century, some students might feel uncomfortable" talk. Everything was going fine. And now, Lev, never-misses-a-deadline-Lev, loves-teaching-more-than-anything-in-the-world Lev, was missing.

Evgeny found himself in front of the door to a small summoning chamber and, in the irrational motion to check everywhere, even if the place was abandoned for years, pushed it.The door opened with a creak, scratching against the stone floor.A younger student was quietly crying in front of a demon-trapping circle. Inside the circle Lev sat cross-legged, flipping through some big, dusty book. Notes were scattered all over the place. The circle gave out cracking noises, and blue sparks ran across it whenever the tip of Lev's shoe touched it.

"Oh, hi, Zhenia!" Lev gave Evgeny a quick smile, pushed back his glasses, and returned to the book.

"Mr. Evgeny," the student mumbled, inching away from a visibly furious vampire.

"Lev. What, in the name of common sense, are you doing?"

"Well, this young lady here came up with an exquisite trapping circle. We're testing it out."

"Don't you remember about your class? Couldn't you at least tell me that you're going to be gone for"- he furiously checked his watch- "twelve hours??"

"Well..." Lev scratched his head, making the remains of his bun fall apart,

"I... made it sound more deliberate than it is. The fascinating thing about this circle is that it can't be broken - at least by any methods we've tried - from the inside or the outside".

"Wonderful. Did you draw a copy of it?"

"Yes, but why-" Lev broke himself off as Evgeny approached the circle and punched a hole through the floor. And another. And another. He went all around Lev's improvised prison until the stone and the remains of the floor beams crushed to the story below.

"You'll be able to study it later, then. Come. We both have classes to teach" Evgeny said calmly, snatching Lev out of the air.

Everyone got out of the room, the floor being in a condition far from the one planned by any architects. Lev, a bit shook, went to find his classroom, and Evgeny now had to try and teach a bunch of kids how to raise the dead.

That was far out of his usual monster-hunting arsenal of spells. In fact, raising the dead is the complete opposite of monster hunting, but there were kids here who needed to know how to do that, and Mx. Elin was busy resurrecting Ms. Angelica.

It shouldn't be so difficult, right? Resurrect, bind to the necromancer's will, watch over the kids while they do the same. Easy.

***

"Who"- Evgeny dodged another swing of the rusty Morgenstern- "in their right mind"- he jumped over the cemetery's fence- "buried a monster hunter"- he almost slipped on the wet grass, hardly regaining balance, now only a few feet away from his destination- "in a small village's graveyard?" Evgeny jumped through the classroom's window, the reanimated corpse following close behind, holding on to its decrepit weapon.

"Lev!" Evgeny managed to squeeze out.

"On it!" Lev, who already chased the students out of the classroom, was hastily drawing on the floor.

Evgeny made a couple of seemingly uncoordinated jumps, and the newly undead monsterhunter found themself in a demon-trapping circle. Many useless attempts to break out later they settled in the middle of it, staring at Evgeny with all the hatred they could convey.

"Won't it... get out?" Evgeny sat down on the floor to catch his breath.

"I used the new circle," Lev beamed, "I'll have all the time I need to study it now. Judging by their weapon, they're from your order, right? Maybe they'll be able to help me."

"I won't do anything for the likes of you!" an unexpectedly loud, clear voice came from inside the circle. The two ignored it.

"So, necromancy class didn't go that well?"

"Can you believe it? Some idiot buried a monster hunter here! Here! In this backwater cemetery! Why would anyone do such a thing? Monster hunters should get proper burials in the Order's grounds".

"Like you did." Lev nodded along, quietly sweeping away the mess left by the fight.

"Exactly! Like I did!"

"Wait," came the voice from the circle, "you there, monster!"

No answer from the two.

"You were a hunter, too?"

"Yes. And what of it?" Evgeny repositioned himself so that he could look down at the undead.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Tormenting a place where the Order used to teach?"

"We aren't tormenting anyone here. This is still a place of knowledge, believe it or not."

"Yeah, right. What do you do here really? Some type of human-hunting, dark magic, evil..." the figure began, then stopped themself, noticing the topic written on the blackboard, "...history?"

"History, among other things!" Lev chimed in, grinning, "we do languages, maths, physics, magic. Anything the young magefolk need to know to function in the human world."

"Dark magic, I presume?"

"Any magic they might need, and yes, what you call dark magic, too.

Magic is just a tool, and the wielder is the only one responsible for the results. Here, we try and teach the kids to be good wielders."

"And keep them from dying," Evgeny added.

"Yes, that too. We're better at the first part, though."

The figure in the circle gave the classroom and the vampire couple a good, thorough lookover.

"You don't actually know how to run this place, do you?"