Shadows Over Camp Darkness

Meeting the Monsters

The Nephilim was sitting on the edge of a bland but brand new couch, his body language screaming polite confusion. Out of all the Intakes this year, this poor soul was the one who resonated the most with Gideon. She knew what it was like to have two split halves in one body. Or at least the battle of wills that takes place when fully half of your personality is a homicidal maniac and the other half is a confused teenager searching for a sense of personal identity outside of preconceived limitations. It’s not as fun as the afterschool specials make it seem either.

Gids let her observational skills pick up the body language cues from the boy that let her know that Angelspawn was the one in charge right now. Omen knew why he was here and had that arrogant swagger that was a genetic trait for the demonkin. But Angelspawn was clearly lost and trying to hide that fact from the group around him. His parents wanted the Camp to help him decide which personality would take complete dominance. The problem was, only one personality even KNEW that they were sharing space. They’d tried to inform the Anglespawn personality many times before but he never accepted it and rejected the possibility. Which was what Gideon suspected was the reason for the complete schism of his mind and powers.

Darting her eyes to the next hapless child left in her apparently tender care, Gideon spotted trouble. The vampire Dilhil was getting the tremor to his hands that indicated the first wave of withdrawal was starting to break through his system. She’d handled vamps with rampage issues, a pyro vamp who kept catching fire and a few with some serious eating disorders before, but this little fellow was an addict. The fact that he was a vampire was only coincidental to the form of his addiction. He liked Faerie blood, which was actually poisonous to the vampires in large enough doses. Like mortal humans eating the Fugu fish to chase the high that the poison in that caused, this little vamp had found his own proverbial puffer fish venom. Of course the analogy wasn’t perfect; there were physiological differences and the whole Portentum angle that complicated matters. Gids knew it was more like a combination of the fugu comparison and a cocaine addiction. His body would crave it, his mind would demand it and his feeble will power would try to succumb. To add to the fun complication, there was a member of Faerie in her Intake as well, the Half Elf Cala.

The irony of the fact that she was a High Elf made Gideon want to giggle but that never helped to invoke an appearance of authority, or sanity for that matter either. And these kids were scared enough right now to believe that she was one incident away from a full blown murder spree. It might be fun to toy with that at another time, but right now she had to start laying the foundation of trust necessary for these kids to start building themselves up again. Besides, the Elf wanted her human blood excised, not her Fae heritage, so she would be more than unwilling to allow the vampire to feed on her Faerie blood. That was if the vamp even wanted to try. There was a slight chance that he would compound Cala’s issues by refusing to want to drink her blood based on the human ‘taint’ in it and Gideon wondered just how likely that scenario would occur. All while her eyes kept darting over the rest of her Intake.

Aglaope was sitting closest to Anglespawn, her nature suppressed momentarily but it would be awakening soon. The Siren was trying to resist the urge to Sing but there would need to be more steps taken. Seeing her with a predator’s eyes, Gideon could tell that the girl was nowhere near as weak and ineffectual as she first appeared. The same knack Gids had for spotting another dangerous creature also saw that Mardrom was watching her with an intensity that actually would have raised Gideon’s hackles had she any.

The Nightmare wanted to die, and she was calm and accepting of this environment only because she seemed convinced that Gideon would eventually follow through on her own biological nature. Hey you, killer, where do we know her from? Gideon asked her Fury-self knowing that there would eventually be a memory, although it probably wouldn’t be very pleasant to recall.