Nikola had no idea what they had done to deserve this punishment, but as the system told him to dial 1 again, he just wanted to curl up and cry.
He dialed the 1.
"To speak with an agent, press #!"
Nikola could have cried with joy when he heard it. He pressed the #.
Soon, a bored voice greeted him from the other side of the phone.
"Yes, hello. My son is a necromancer. He was a case of coffin birth," Nikola said, as he held Timmy with his free arm. The boy was looking at him with his big blue eyes, a gentle smile on his face.
"Please give us an email address, and we will guide you through the registration. Do you have a personal number?"
Nikola had no idea what that was.
"No, I don't," he then spelled his email to the social worker. Or at least Nikola hoped that the woman was a social worker. He wasn't very sure about it all.
"I sent the forms. Please fill them in and send them back. A registration for a born again necromancer can take up to seven days from the date when we get the forms. Have a productive day!"
The lady hung up on him.
Nikola sighed. He checked his email. There were three new emails there. Each has at least five attached files.
Nikola wanted to weep.
What he did instead was to place Timmy in his crib and to go get his laptop.
After all, Dimitri and Bleda had gone off to get some new plates. Jack was still in his tent, doing god knows what.
Jean was… well, Nikola didn't trust the young vampire with the baby. Not because the man was a bad person, but because Bleda had told him that Timmy's blood is a delicacy for vampires.
One had to be careful whom they let near their adopted son.
The first form was 15 pages long. Nikola sighed, put it in Edit Mode, and then began to fill it up.
When Dimitri came back, Nikola was chewing on a pencil and trying to decide if he should note Timmy as a necromancer, a ghoul, or a vampire.
Bleda had said that the boy needed human meat once per year. Surely, that was making him into a vampire or a ghoul?"
"Honey?" Dimitri had never seen Nikola so deeply in thought. "What are you doing?"
Nikola finally showed mercy to the pencil and took it out of his mouth.
"The people at the Necromantic Union sent me some Formular. But I have no idea what to put in here!"
Nikola turned the laptop around, so Dimitri could see it.
"You do know that you could have let ChatGPT fill them out for you, right? Or even Gemini?"
Nikola blinked.
"Are you telling me that I didn't have to read through the fine print?" Nikola asked. Dimitri nodded.
"Can you show me how to fill it out with AI, then?" He asked, as Dimitri was making his way to him.
"Sure! Let me just put the bags away!"
Nikola smiled. They were soon letting the AI, which should not know this much, but knew every single piece of information Nikola required for the forms, fill in the forms.
Soon, they were all done with. Nikola sent them in the emails he had gotten them in.
He relaxed in the chair. Looking so, as if he needed to sleep, and quickly.
"Is he fed?" Dimitri asked, pointing at the smiling baby.
"He cried four times for the bottle and one time for the diaper," Nikola told him, as he leaned on Dimitri. "I fed, watered him, and cleaned him. He is… he isn't difficult at all."
Dimitri kissed Nikola on the forehead.
"Bleda is right. You were born to be a father," the vampire whispered against Nikola's forehead.
"But there is something you should do," Dimitri continued, as Nikola was melting in his arms. "You should go and speak with Jack. Before he decides to move. He is not a bad person. It is just who he is that forces him to eat human meat once per year. He is a ghoul, dearest."
Nikola bit his bottom lip. He had been avoiding Jack for the past three days. The man seemed monstrous to him now.
Which was strange, he had to admit to himself. He had seen Jack eat still-beating hearts, and yet he had drawn the line at something the man had no control over.
"Will you look over Timmy while I am gone?" Nikola asked. Dimitri kissed him on the neck next. Nuzzling his nose against silky skin.
"Dimitri, the baby is right here!" Nikola protested. Dimitri chuckled.
"Fine then, I will wait for you to come to bed," the vampire ran his fangs over Nikola's skin.
Giving him a promise.
Nikola felt as his cheeks began to heat up. He beat a retreat.
The cool night air was enough to make him consider living in a tent by the lake as well. He finally felt so, as if he wasn't melting.
Jack was right outside his tent, with a fishing rod in hand. The water was still.
"Jack?" Nikola asked, as he allowed himself to sit down by the ghoul.
"Are you here to give me my eviction notice?" Jack asked, but there was no bitterness in his voice.
It was just a question from someone who had gone down this route before and knew where it led.
"Jack, thank you for the notes on the fridge," Nikola said. He was truly grateful for those. "Without them, I wouldn't have known how to take care of Timmy."
Jack nodded in his direction.
"What I am trying to say, is… I am a hypocrite, Jack. I eat souls but felt ill at the idea that you eat human meat. It is just… it's not fair. I am sorry. Please, don't leave!"
Just as he said that something tugged on the fishing rod. Jack got a big fish that looked like a monster out of the lake.
Which answered a question Nikola had about the cabin for a very long time.
Namely, why they didn't have any neighbors in such a beautiful area?
It was a bit hard for humans to settle in. The lake teamed with monsters as it was.
"I will stay," Jack told him, as he took his knife and cut off the fish's head. "But know that I can't change my nature."
Nikola bowed his head.
"I know. I am sorry," he repeated.
And he meant it.
It was good to have his brother back.