Samhain Miracles (short story)

Samhain Miracles was the first short story in the 2023 anthology Horrors of Arcbeatle, and the first entry in the Small Miracles series. It took place in the Amazolian system and introduced the characters of Maurice Griss-Ventner and Martin Edenkind, as well as the latter's people, the Miracles.

Part I
It is Halloween in the Amazolian system in 2483. On the planet Ulk, the Ulk-Ra are engaging in their own autumnal festivals, and on Aurichall, the Mad Mind of Aurichall's possessed thralls influence the hive mind to act out a meaningless pantomtime of trick-or-treating in the First City, but the human colonists of Holofernes stopped celebrating Halloween centuries ago, and don't feel the day to have any particular significance. This includes the three sole inhabitants of the Moon of Holofernes, namely archaeologist Danielle Griss, her wife Lana Ventner, and their young son Maurice Griss-Ventner — Danielle being the reason they're all staying in a habitat on that deserted moon, as she's digging up some ancient Cyber-tombs.

Maurice, however, is not especially lonely, because for a few months now, another boy his age — gold-eyed Martin Edenkind, of the nearly-godlike posthuman offshoot known as the Miracles — has been popping in to visit him and whisk him away on various games or little adventures. Tonight, Martin arrives shapeshifted into a young werewolf as a Halloween "costume", explaining the holiday to Maurice and giving him a transformation token he borrowed from the older Miracles for the night. Meant to help younger Miracles safely experiment with shapeshifting, it will generate a holo-costume for the wearer based on their imagination. After some hesitation, Maurice decides to disguise himself as a cartoonish Dracula-esque vampire to match Martin's werewolf. Martin then offers to take him somewhere interesting to try out trick-or-treating.

Part II
Martin's mystery destination turns out to be the planet Karnstein, to which the vampires and werewolves of old Earth relocated after the Seventeen Years Invasion in the 22nd century, as part of the same mass exile during which the Miracles' own ship, the Psyche, first left the planet, going on to split off from the "baselines". Though very distant from the Solar System, it had been chosen because the rays of its "blue star" did not trigger vampires' weakness to sunlight and its moon, Argentium, was constantly full. Its oldest inhabitant is the vampire Elaine Della Spada, who personally witnessed the landing of the first enemy saucer during the Invasion. Out on a walk with her husband Rodolfo when Martin and Maurice materialise on Karnstein, she instantly smells the arrival of a human, and, turning into mist, she tracks them down.

She is immediately dangerously possessive of the human boy, but is hostile to Martin, and ends up using her powers to expel him upwards into the sky. Maurice is only mildly perturbed, confident that his friend will come back for him, despite Elaine and Rodolfo's attempts to convince him otherwise. In the meantime, they decide to abduct him away to their home, promising sweets; Maurice is naturally suspicious of their intentions, though they swear to him that they do not intend to eat him or drink his blood as such. As they start to leave, a misunderstanding finally becomes clear; in contrast to Maurice's understanding, the Della Spadas did not recognise Martin as a Miracle, but rather took him to be an actual werewolf. It turns out, contrary to Martin's out-of-date information from the Miracle Mental Matrix, that Karnstein is now exclusively home to vampires, and the werewolves are no longer welcome here, hence Elaine's hostility.

Part III
Having landed on Argentium, the Moon of Karnstein, which is where Elaine sent him, Martin Edenkind comes to the same realisation as he sees the werewolf settlement aglow with partying: evidently, like the Miracles but unlike the vampires, the werewolves never gave up on Halloween. Realising that he collided with somebody's front door, he greets the middle-aged werewolf woman who lives there. She mistakes his odd lacunae of local knowledge for attempts to make fun of her, and assumes he's there to bully her son Douglas Fangveldt, who is apparently "sick" in some way. When he decides to reveal that his wolf-like appearance is a disguise and reveal his true human-like visage, however, she changes her demeanour entirely for reasons he doesn't quite understand. Curious about his "disguise", she guesses that he's come to speak with Douglas and possibly share its secrets with him. She tells him to go talk to Douglas while she finds Douglas's father and her mate, Philip.

Meanwhile, on Karnstein, Elaine and Rodolfo spend several hours feeding Maurice a variety of chocolates and sweets, "secretly" laced with Elaine's blood, with the effect of slowly, painlessly converting the boy into a vampire himself. His would-be "adoptive parents" are rather put out when Maurice casually reveals that he's aware of this, but confident that Martin will be able to reverse it when he comes back. In fact, it turns out that he's been here already, invisible, for several minutes, waiting for a chance to make a good entrance; Elaine beginning to say that reversing a full vampiric transformation would take "a miracle" proves the perfect occasion for him to reveal himself, after which he effortlessly removes the Taint from Maurice's body, then prevents Elaine from using a supernatural attac on him. After apologising to Maurice for keeping him waiting, he begins to explain what he's learned on the werewolves' moon, and surprises the Della Spadas yet again by saying that he's found a way for them to adopt a child after all, consensually this time.

Epilogue
Later in the evening, Maurice and Martin have each returned home. Before going to sleep, Maurice insists on telling his mothers, returned from the archaeological dig in his absence, about the day's adventures while Lana folds up the silk clothes he brought back from Karnstein and Danielle begins poking at the rusting cyborg carcass she dug out of the tombs with Lana's help. After he finishes the story, the mothers ask for clarification on what dreadful condition Douglas was suffering from, which resulted in Martin thinking to suggest that he could be saved by being turned into a vampire child as a last resort (thus helping both the Della Spadas and the Fangveldts). With some embarrassment, Maurice explains that the child was born with a "genetic defect" which shortened his lifespan considerably and made him appear pitiful and tragic to everyone on Argentium — which is to say that he'd been born as a baseline human without the ability to take lupine form.

Meanwhile, back in the Edenkind's zone of the Psyche, a "heavenly garden" where he sleeps on "a mattress of living, cotton-soft moss", Martin is also reflecting — to himself — on how everything worked out before he lets himself fall asleep. He is particularly pleased with one thing: after getting back, he managed via selective omissions to let his parents believe that Maurice lost the transformation token on Karnstein when he changed out of his costume and into the real silk outfit gifted to him by the Della Spadas. In fact, Martin thought to recover it and has brought it back — which means that he won't have to wait for next Halloween to experiment with shapeshifting again, even though a Miracle his age cannot yet truly alter their body without supervision.

"Yes, it was going to be an interesting twelve months."

Characters

 * Elaine Della Spada
 * Rodolfo Della Spada
 * Martin Edenkind
 * Helena Fangveldt
 * Danielle Griss
 * Maurice Griss-Ventner
 * Mad Mind of Aurichall
 * The Philosopher-King
 * Lana Ventner

Mentioned only

 * Lucy Edenkind
 * Douglas Fangveldt
 * Philip Fangveldt
 * Willy Wonka

Worldbuilding

 * The Amazolian system's star is called Amazol.
 * The Miracle still live on the Psyche, the modified flying saucer on which they left Earth; in its current form it is described as a "world-ship". They are divided into several clans including the Edenkind, Ectokind and the Molekind, among others. Accordingly, the Psyche's interior contains "different zones and quadrants" spanning "a dizzying variety of environments tailored to the needs and aesthetics of each Miracle clan".
 * Halloween lost popularity in the 22nd century following the Seventeen Years Invasion, which started in 2150. During the course of the War, various populations who'd been living hidden among humans were exposed, including the vampires and werewolves, "the magicians and the shapeshifters, the undead and the lizard people", and other such populations left the Earth after it was liberated.
 * One of their prior adventures, Maurice and Martin travelled to Karosia and each brought back a Vaal kilt, a garment described as a "rainbow-coloured, almost metallic skirt".
 * Vampire stories known to Maurice include Detective Kryptic, Wise Blood, Dracula, and Carmilla. The latter story exists, among other things, as an "old series" which had "a lot of girls kissing".
 * The salvaged Tyrant saucers used by various groups to leave the Earth behind after the Seventeen Years Invasion included the future Miracles' own Psyche as well as the Qetesh, the Peter Pan, and the vampires and werewolves' Hecate.
 * Rodolfo Della Spada's "thick black moustache" is described as being trimmed in "the classic Vlad Tepes style".
 * Elaine carries a black lace umbrella with a metal spike on the tip.
 * Elaine's maiden name was Elaine Carfax. She married Rodolfo 272 years prior, i.e. after they both moved to Karnstein.
 * Maurice describes Karnstein as "the Planet of the Monster Mash".
 * Martin told Maurice that ghosts had "their own place", distinct from the vampires and werewolves settling on Karnstein and its moon.
 * When reflecting on his skill as a chocolatier, Maurice muses that "Willy Wonka had nothing on Rodolfo".
 * As he was created collectively by the Edenkind clan, Martin has a number of "mothers and fathers and assorted parents". His Cousin Lucy is mentioned on several occasions: first because she'd be jealous of Maurice using a Devil costume for unstated reasons, then as someone to whom Martin intends to recommend that Carmilla webseries Maurice mentioned his mothers liking, and finally as having been "positively thrilled" by Martin's summary of his trip to Karnstein and Argentium after he returns to the Psyche.

Continuity

 * The Amazolian system previously appeared in the Faction Paradox short stories PROSE:, PROSE:  and PROSE: . It is here explicitly established as the location of the Ulk-Ra's home planet, retroactively establishing it as the setting of the Short Trip which introduced Coloth himself, PROSE:.
 * The Cyberons' homeworld was revealed to be another planet in the Amazolian system in PROSE:, which dubbed it Aurichall and introduced the Philosopher-king of the Cyberons; both are featured here, allowing the identification of the Mad Mind of Aurichall as another name for the Cyberon hive-mind itself.
 * It is stated that the Miracles had not "abandoned the concept of childhood" "unlike certain other transcendental species". This is an allusion to the Time Lord worldbuilding in PROSE: and specifically the idea that most Gallifreyan "childrene" were loomed as adults.
 * Elaine, a very powerful vampire, is said to have "honed skills thought to be the privilege of the progenitors alone, the Star Vampires themselves". Later, Martin identifies the vampiric biodata in Maurice's body as "the Yssgaroth Taint" and describes it as "cold and other-dimensional". These elements reference the backstory developed in TV:, PROSE:  and PROSE: , depicting vampirism as "the Yssgaroth taint", originating as an eldritch gestalt in a parallel universe and carried into the Doctor's universe by the Great Vampires in the Dark Times.