“I’ve been out here for six nights now and no one has hurt me. That was one of my greatest fears.” She looked over her shoulder at a vampire who threw a brick through the window of one of the stores and I tried not to wince at the sight. I’d been trying to stop them from doing that, as I was the one having to find the money to pay for all of the damage they’d caused. “Every night they’ve checked to make sure I have plenty to drink, they’ve shared their food with me, and I’m beginning to realise that my preconceptions were entirely wrong. Vampires aren’t evil, they aren’t monsters, they’re people like you and me who deserve a chance to live their lives.” She shook her head. “They want to work. They want to pay taxes. They want a place for themselves in our community and I think it’s time we gave them that, otherwise this is what we’re going to be living with.
“Anyone who agrees with me should write to the government. Anyone who disagrees should write to the government. This is a time of change. We have to be a part of it.” I was surprised her producer hadn’t switched to something else, as she wasn’t meant to be speaking on behalf of the vampires. “This is Susie Jenkins reporting from the streets of London.”
“We have been getting letters.” I turned to look at the government ministers. “Opinion is divided. I’m sure you can understand why Ms. Mead. Vampires, to most people, are dangerous creatures who should be exterminated, and I can understand why that is the way you are viewed. We have done nothing to help you change the way you’re seen and we regret that now.”
Biting my lip I stopped myself from laughing again, because it wasn’t going to help. I tried to find the words I needed to tell the ministers exactly why we were having so many problems. “There was a time when your party was doing its best to help us. Now, though, you see us as little more than a problem you want to get rid of and that’s not going to happen. Unless you do try to exterminate the vampires, which you’ll find is much more difficult than you think it is, you are going to have to work with us.” I sighed. “You might have thought we’d go quietly if you made it obvious to us that you were going to do nothing to help us, but you were wrong. We will fight for our right to have a life.”
“Did you truly know this was going to happen?”
“I knew it could happen, but, no, I didn’t know this exact thing was going to happen. If I had I would have done everything I could to stop it, because I don’t believe this is the way to get things done, but other people disagree with that. They think it is the way to get things done, so this is what they’ve done.”
The minister nodded. “That’s what we were told. You’re the voice of the vampires, someone who’s tried to fight for your rights for a long time, and we should have listened. I’m sorry that we haven’t.”
“Why are you sorry?” Another minister, one I’d known was going to be a problem, looked at me. “You will put a stop to these riots and then we’ll think about listening to you.”
Nothing I did then stopped me from laughing. It sounded more hysterical than anything. “Stop the riots?” I shook my head. “Do you really think it’s that simple?”
“They listen to you.”
“They listened to me. Now… my words aren’t going to stop this from happening. I wish they would, but it’s gone too far for that. They truly believe the only way they’re going to be able to get you to listen to them is by rioting.” I opened my mouth and then closed it again, wishing it was easier for me to find the words I needed to explain it all, but it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. “Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Ten years ago they felt like things were beginning to change for the better. We had a couple of years when we really seemed to be getting somewhere, which were really exciting for the older vampires, and then it all faded into nothingness. Every time something else went against us those old vampires found themselves becoming angrier, unable to believe after all the work we’d done that nothing permanent was going to come of it.” I shook my head. “I’ve been fighting for the last eight years for you to actually do something and now the vampires are rioting, due to that anger, and frustration, and pain, you think I’m going to be able to stop them from doing this by telling them you’ll listen to us if they stop. It’s not going to happen.” I stood. “This may come as a surprise to you, but I’m not going to sit here and be given ultimatums. You think it will all go away if you arrest a few of the vampires? Doing that will make everything worse, because they know you haven’t done anything to adapt anywhere for vampire use in the day, so they’ll know what you actually want is to execute them.”
“No, that isn’t what we want.”
“Really? Standing here it seems like it is.” I looked at each person sat around the table, wishing that I wasn’t the one who’d been chosen to speak for the vampires, but I knew why I had. I was young enough to be able to see things from their point of view and the vampires trusted me. They trusted me because Ben had chosen me - Ben was a respected member of the vampire community and I was the first person he’d chosen to change, so there had to be something special about me. “You have two options. You can work with me to fix this or you can work on your own to fix it, and nothing any of you have said makes me think you’d be capable of fixing this alone.”
“Please sit down, Ms. Mead. We do need your help with this and we understand that one person can’t put an end to the riots alone, especially when they’ve been caused by years of resentment.” The speaker was the older man I recognised and I wished I could remember what his name was. “Gregory, you need to understand the position we’re in. Nothing is going to stop the vampires from rioting and there is a chance this will get worse before it gets better. They’re furious with us for not doing enough to help them and that is something I can understand after everything that’s happened.” He shook his head. “I want everyone in this room to listen to me. We are here to fix things. We are here the heal the deep divide between the humans and the vampires, which is something we can only do with the help of one of the vampires, and Ms. Mead had been working with us for a very long time. She is someone who deserves our respect for continuing to be here when all we’ve done is let her down.” He smiled at me, which was unexpected. “Thank you for giving us another chance. I realise this isn’t something you should have given us, not when we’ve screwed this up so badly, but I’m grateful that you were willing to come here and try to help us resolves these issues.”
“Why are you being nice to the vampire?” Gregory glared at me. “She is a part of the problem. She should be out there telling those rioters to stop what they’re doing, otherwise they will be arrested, and I don’t care if they die in the cells. They deserve to die. Vampires are monsters.”
“Of course we are. That’s why I swooped into this room and killed you all, before going to kill the Prime Minister in order to put one of our own in his position.” Gregory’s glare faded a little. “Start thinking, instead of reacting. I came here to talk with you, to work with you, when a monster wouldn’t have bothered.” I sighed, wondering why I was trying again, because there were days when I truly thought it was pointless. “If vampires were monsters we would have taken over this world. It’s wouldn’t be hard to do. We could have created farms of humans, we could have fed whenever we wanted, and we could have alienated you in the same way you’ve been alienating us. We didn’t. We don’t want that. We don’t want to be in control. We want to live our lives and that’s something we can only do if you help us.”
“I don’t think we should help you.”
I studied Gregory. “Who did you lose?”
He looked uncertain. “What do you mean?” He looked down at the table. “Who says I lost anyone?”
“After spending as much time around humans you come to understand why they react the way they do to certain things. You’re furious with the vampires and that, in my experience, only means one thing. You lost someone to the vampires. A sister, or a daughter, or possible a mother… tell me what happened. Tell me why you hate us, Gregory.
”
Teresa
Most nights I found myself watching the riots. Paul’s interview had been repeated multiple times, often with commentary from humans who seemed to think they knew better than the vampires what the vampires were actually dealing with, which was irritating. That was why I found myself on the phone. It wasn’t a plan I’d thought out in advance - I’d just picked it up and dialled. I’d had enough of listening to the misinformation being spread around to make the riots seem like a lot of noise about nothing, when they were about something. As I waited, being more patient than I’d ever been before, I tried not to listen to anything that annoyed me, otherwise I wasn’t going to be any use at all. When I was talking to them I had to be as calm as Paul had been.
“We have a caller waiting to speak with us tonight. Good evening, Teresa.”
“Good evening, Alison.”
“Thank you for ringing us and offering to speak. Hearing from someone in your position will help us all to understand what the vampires are dealing with. As someone who’s employed by a vampire we’d like to hear your side of things.” Both Lisa and Jess appeared in the doorway then. Lisa looked much more uncertain than Jess did, while Jess had her thumbs up, so I knew she approved of what I was doing. “Why did you decide it was a job you wanted to do?”
“It was something I’d been doing for my sister and I knew how hard things were for her, especially as she was a young vampire, so I wanted to be able to help other vampires who were in the same position. When she was first turned, as she was someone changed during the epidemic, there were shops she could go in, shops that were willing to sell to vampires, but it wasn’t long before everyone started closing.”
“She could buy online.” That was one of the commentators, the one I was most annoyed with, and just hearing his voice made my hackles go up. “Paul came out with some story about how they can’t even open a door, but that’s just a myth.”
“Have you seen a vampire when they’ve opened a door during the day, Mr. Streep?”
“No, I’ve never met a vampire.”
“Well that at least explains me to me why you’re spreading this misinformation.” I had no idea how my voice wasn’t full of anger, but I sounded amazingly calm. “My sister, when she was first turned, tried to keep acting normally. She didn’t want our parents to know what had happened to her, because she knew how they were going to react. Fortunately I was the only one in when she tried to answer the door. The scream was… it’s indescribable. I have never heard a sound like that and I never want to hear it again. She might have ended up going up in flames if I hadn’t dragged her away from the door and that was terrifying for both of us.”
“Do you have any proof of what happened?”
“Yes, actually I do. We wanted to see how long it would take those sorts of burns to heal, so we started taking photographs from the first day, and I kept them all, as I thought it might become important. Do you have an email address for the studio? I can send them to you.”
“Send them to vampire stories at London City News dot co dot uk.” Alison smiled at the camera in such a way I had a feeling she knew someone who was a vampire and she wanted someone to show everyone how much damage the sun could do. “While you’re doing that why don’t you tell us more about the vampires you work for.”
Glancing over my shoulder at Lisa and Jess I waited for them to make a decision. It seemed like Jess was talking Lisa into letting me talk about them, so after a couple of seconds I got a nod. “I can do that.” I started typing the studio’s address into an email as I thought about what I wanted to say. “They’re both very different people. I really do think that’s the important thing - they are both different.” Attaching the pictures of Nay’s hand was easy, because I had a folder for them that was in date order. “No two vampires are the same. My employers… neither of them wanted to become vampires and they were changed at a time when it wasn’t possible to have the people who’d changed them arrested for vampiric terrorism. Getting vampires arrested actually doesn’t do a lot of good, because it’s not as though you can put them in jail.”
“Of course you can.” Mr. Streep was speaking again and I breathed deeply, tapping the send button a little harder than I really should have done. “I really wish you’d stop perpetuating the lie that sunlight is somehow bad for vampires. I know, for a fact, there is no difference between the skin of a vampire and the skin of a human.”
“Really, Mr. Streep?” Alison raised an eyebrow. “There are the pictures Teresa kindly sent us, of her newly created vampire sister. I believe these show there is a difference between the skin of a vampire and a human.” Seeing them again made me wince. “According to what she sent us it took six months for the burns to full heal and there’s still scaring. How bad is the scaring after ten years, Teresa?”
“Take a picture of my hand now.” Nay’s voice made me jump, because I hadn’t known she was there. “Show them how badly we heal after a sun burn.”
“Give me a couple of minutes, Alison. My sister’s just given me permission to take a photo of her hand now, so we can send you one from today.”
“We appreciate it. While Teresa is busy, Mr. Streep, do you have anything to say about the pictures you’ve seen.”
“I think it’s quite obvious what we’ve seen there, Alison. It’s a hoax. There is no way the sun can do that much damage to a vampire’s hand.”
“Would you accept it as the truth if we had photos from other vampires who’d dealt with the same thing? I’m asking, because since we showed the photos of Teresa’s sister’s hand we’ve had photos sent in by 300 more vampires, all showing off their own burns.” I tried to focus on the photos I was taking, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. All of the photos were horrible and I couldn’t help smiling, because we were working together to show the majority of humans what it was like to be a vampire, which was what we needed to do. Finally I had one I was happy with, so I sent it to the study. “Wonderful. Teresa just sent us the picture she took of her sister’s hand. Can you see that, Mr. Streep? It still hasn’t healed properly and you’re telling me that it’s all a myth.” She shook her head. “I believe this proves you wrong.”
Mr. Steep just sat there. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he shook his head. “No, it doesn’t prove anything.”
“You’re telling me that 300 people have managed to come up with fake pictures in the time we’ve been talking to Teresa.”
“No, they planned this all in advance, because they want us to believe these lies, and having a human ring us… it gives them another voice. It’s not just the vampires speaking, but it’s the vampires and the humans speaking together.”
“I don’t know 300 vampires.” I bit my lip. “At most I probably know twenty, because they only gather together in great numbers for the solstice and even then it’s uncomfortable. Vampires don’t like being in big groups. It makes it easier for hunters to attack them. Luckily the hunters won’t dare attack the solstice. They know better.”
“Why won’t they attack the solstice?”
“One night a year all eyes are on the vampires. If one of the hunters chose to attack they’d be arrested, although the same thing wouldn’t happen if a vampire was to report an attack on any other day. The police… they’d rather the vampires were gone.” I sighed. “Most humans would rather the vampires were gone and that’s us fearing people who are different from us.” Shrugging, I brushed a hand through my hair, grateful I wasn’t being videoed. “Some vampires are dangerous, but every one I’ve met would much rather have the chance of living a mostly normal life, because that’s what was taken away from them when they were changed.”
“Tell us more about your sister.”
I looked at Nay and she squeezed my hand. “Naomi and I were always close. It didn’t matter that she was much older than I was.” I smiled at her. “We’re now the same age and we’re still as close as we once were, which is nice, because I’m the only one in the family who didn’t care what
she’d become.” I remembered being the first person she’d told, and the fear in her eyes, which turned into relief when she realised I wasn’t going to abandon her. “When she became a vampire the only thing I wanted to was help her and that’s exactly what I did when our parents told her to leave.”
“How did they find out?”
“Nay decided to tell them. She thought it was better than trying to hide what she was any longer, because it was really hard to do. When she said the word vampire… Mum’s face changed first, closely followed by Dad’s, because she worked out what Nay was talking about faster then he did. I wasn’t meant to see any of that, but I was watching from the door, so I’d know what I needed to do - and that was the day I learnt my parents’ love had limitations. They had no interest in trying to help their eldest daughter through the transition. I spent three hours after that ringing up members of my family, people who were meant to care about Nay, and it wasn’t until I reached one of my paternal aunts that I found us somewhere to go.”
“Do you mind telling me how old you were?”
“No, I don’t.” I smiled. “I was 8 at the time.”
“So you’re now eighteen?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And you’ve been helping your sister for 10 years?”
A Bloody London Tale (Book 1): Unrest Rising Page 4
