by Aya DeAniege
“Please, as if—”
“I am well rested and have spent centuries preparing, have you?” Quin demanded.
“So mean to your Maker. Should you never have a Progeny like yourself.”
“By God, I hope not, because I detest the kind of vampire I would need to be, to make another like myself. Helen, get your things.”
I checked my pockets, making certain my phone was there. The tablet was still around my neck. I stood and cleared my throat quietly, afraid of breaking the silence.
Lu and Quin seemed to be glaring at one another. The tension between the two of them was obvious. They might have come to blows if I had interrupted the wrong way.
I didn’t think vampires would stop to consider mortal bystanders when they fought.
Quin turned and grabbed me roughly. He pulled me out of the living room and back towards the garage.
The door stood open, darkness within.
Quin swore.
He glanced back towards the living room, then pushed me into the garage ahead of him. He closed the door behind him, and there was a moment of darkness.
I struggled to keep hold of my emotions. Panic was overwhelming me quite quickly. To be in the dark with a vampire, and another missing, was frightening enough.
Then the light turned on, and Quin grabbed me. A hand slapped over my mouth, and he turned me, pulling me tight against him.
“Found George,” he muttered.
I struggled in his arms, pulling away.
My heel hit something as I attempted to step back. Before I knew what was happening, I was falling backward. It took me a moment to register the fact that I was falling, then I got so far as to curse silently to myself.
Quin let out a startled sound and lunged forward.
He caught me by the front of my shirt and ganked me upward.
Ganked, while more jarring than jerked, probably isn’t a word, change it.
“If you insist on being in control of yourself, then you are not to scream.”
“Three vampires in one night is not random!” I hissed at Quin, keeping my back firmly on the mess behind me.
“And one mortal, son of a bitch ate my driver.”
“When?” I asked. “Lu was with me almost the entire time.”
“He’s got tricks up his sleeve. Mortals are delicate. So, if you don’t mind, close your eyes. He’ll be capable of movement in about ten minutes but still bound to the house for a few hours more. I’d like to not be arguing with you and dealing with him.”
“Fine,” I slapped a hand over my eyes and decided to act like it wasn’t a big deal.
If you don’t focus on it, it’s not that shocking. People I didn’t know where dead.
People die all the time.
Or maybe that’s the anti-social behaviour in me talking.
Quin led me to the car, helping me into the passenger seat before he walked around to the driver’s side.
I looked out the window.
There was the driver. The body crumpled near the back wheel of the car. His head was obviously separated from the body. The pool of blood around him was relatively small.
Given the removal of the head, I’m guessing the small pool meant that someone had fed on the man before killing him.
George was all over. I trusted Quin to know how many dead there were, but just looking at it, I felt like there had to be more victims.
I locked my door and turned to look at Quin. Ever so slowly, I turned to the backseat of the vehicle, my heart pounding in my chest as I stared into the darkness. Quin started the vehicle and hit a button. A light turned on in the backseat. No one was back there.
“If there were another vampire, they would have attacked in the darkness,” Quin said. “They would have counted on you getting in my way.”
“Did you just use me as bait?” I shouted.
In the small confines of the car, the sound of my own voice was shrill. Panicked, even.
I was panicking over what we had just walked through. I think I’m allowed to have that panic.
Quin appeared calm as he backed the car out of the open garage. He turned it around and drove towards the gate.
Which was open.
“The other vehicle was gone,” I said as it dawned on me.
“Lu had a visitor,” Quin said. “I now have to find them and kill them. Pray that they’re mortal, or at least still close enough to die.”
“Or you can get the tool. Lu thinks you’re strong enough to wield it.”
I’m not certain, but I think Quin muttered, “He’d certainly be the one to know.”
“How do you find the visitor? And why did George allow the visitor?”
“George had a mortal lover, who likely visited because he’s far too old for Lu. George is a lifer, he finds lovers young and sticks with them throughout their lives. Mainly chosen from his stock. So, easy enough to track because George tags all his stock.
“Poor bastard might not even know what he’s doing. But that’s for another night. Tonight, we’re going to get breakfast for you. Then you’re going to sleep. Tomorrow night I’m taking you to the Council. I’m pretty certain Lu is going to make an attempt on your life.”
“You can’t know that for certain.”
“Did he call you my whore?”
“... Are you sure your place is going to be safe?”
“My security goes far beyond what you can see and hear.”
“I’d probably feel better at this point if you said it was magic,” I muttered.
“Then, it’s magic. Warded so that he and his powers can’t get through. And trust me, he has powers that could get through, otherwise.”
Did he just admit to magic?
Not like psychic powers or vampire stuff, but real, actual magic. Like spells, and where there were spells, there were witches.
While Quin hadn’t talked about other supernatural creatures, I assumed that magic meant witches. Everyone knew that witches made magic, and it had to be different than what vampires did, right?
“Has he done it before?”
“Oh, yes, yes he has. Though what’s gotten his panties in a bunch is beyond me.”
“When you two were talking, I spied on you.”
“I know, what is it with women and man on man sex?”
“Not all women are into that, that’s like saying all men are into women on women sex.”
“Yeah, but then there’s no room for me,” Quin muttered.
“Did Lu happen to get some action in?” I asked. “I didn’t see anything but you up against the wall.”
“He kissed me, does that interest you?”
“And, can other vampires taste the venom of another?”
“Yes, that is a thing. He probably tasted what’s been aggravating me all night.”
“That you want to turn me, or, since the ban almost a thousand years ago, have sex with me? Which, for a jealous mortal is a problem. You also said vampires obsess a lot.”
“Great,” Quin said. “This is all happening because I was chosen for the interview.”
“Why didn’t they remove you from the pool?”
“Because they included all the names but those who were barred. They told the mortals they were doing this randomly and they meant it. Those like Lu and the highly unstable were removed, that’s it. And they never thought he’d behave like this. Then again, I never told anyone what happened last time he caught me with someone.”
“Last time?” I asked.
“I think that’d be a good thing to tell you. Then you can just play it back to the Council while I go about doing my thing.”
“Which involves what, exactly?”
“If I told you that, it’d be on your little recording device, and then you might get in trouble for collaborating with me or some other term for that.”
Vampires have been known to be jealous creatures. We are obsessive and controlling. One needs to be, to stay rooted in the present and to do what we needed to do to s
tay hidden from mortals.
We often find lovers among our own kind, and that was no exception for me. Two vampires stumbling on one another in a city of mortals and hitting it off fills our fiction.
In reality, such encounters are treated with distrust.
While the Council maintains a firm grip on all vampires, there are three or four factions of vampires at any given time.
There are the Council followers, such as myself, and then all the others which can come and go.
The Council, without a doubt, recruited the strongest while they were still fledglings. They allowed the new vampires a long leash, always welcoming them back to Council lands. With power and the right Maker, a fledgling could get away with murder and mayhem, even one like Lu might be granted a reprieve.
Just ask Margaret. The things that woman has done? Even as recent as the 1950’s?
The Council may not be able to kill those who break the rules, but we still have methods of confinement that work on most vampires.
Other factions do not have these methods, or if they do, they are primitive at best.
Because only one in five vampires even has powers, we tend to hold the upper tier of our world.
If we are useful, that is.
Sasha and Lucrecia are very useful. Margaret has made herself an invaluable member.
Vampires would rather take a wound to their pride, than to upset Lucrecia. Her family is small, but we have a great many talents among our number.
The other factions have varied over the centuries.
The Devils were once such a faction and, in some form, they still exist to this day. Those who are part of a dying faction, move into the others.
Wars are not unheard of.
The Council went to war with the Devils, even with George, when the time came that they could no longer hide in the shadows of humanity. Our wars are bloody, with few casualties, even among the mortal.
The wars we’ve used mortals in are not about the factions. They are about stock and land. Personal vendettas waged against other vampires or families, even.
Factions don’t waste their time on that. On more than one occasion, the destruction such a battle wrought necessitated that we tell the mortals tales of meteors fallen from the sky.
Because, yes, there is a vampire who has that kind of power. It turns out she can only go off at the moment of our so-called death. We’ve since been very careful not to kill her in such a manner.
The tale of Romeo and Juliet is one you are familiar with, no doubt. It is also one that has played out in some form throughout history. The star-crossed lovers would attempt suicide, then report to the Council in annoyance because they survived.
During the war between the Council and the Devils, I was very nearly that star-crossed lover.
In the middle of a mortal city, while looking for blood bags as you put it, I found another hunting the streets. I stalked him, meaning to snap his neck and take him home to Lucrecia.
Unlike a cat owner, Lucrecia appreciated when we brought our kills from battles to her. As long as they are still fresh, or half alive at the time.
I gave up hunting mortals to slip into the shadows and stalk bigger prey. One cannot hunt mortals and immortals at the same time. I knew the stranger had seen me, but we both treated the other as we always do strangers. We kept on walking.
While the Council has never had a colour or mark to show them off, the Devils did. The pentagram stitched into the stranger’s cloak made mortals turn away because they didn’t want to be involved with anyone who wore that symbol openly.
I was likely viewed as a stranger. Many came to the site of a battle just before and then just after to witness the aftermath. Our fields were chosen to be further from cities and mortal settlements. Some few happened in areas that had been abandoned by mortals.
One happened in a village where the enemy faction ate the villagers. The Council chose to clear them out, which I don’t blame them for in the least.
When I say, they ate the villagers, I mean quite literally, in the cannibalistic sense, not in the vampiric.
Such are those that the Council wages war against.
For the part of the Devils, fighting the Council was more about pride. Their members came and went over the centuries, with many of us joining the battle as a last hurrah to the days of old.
So, while new factions view it as a battle between the Council and the Devils, we do not. Most of the participants view it as a fabulously good time.
That didn’t mean that Lucrecia wouldn’t have appreciated me bringing a limp, attractive Devil home to her. I figured she’d tie him up, have her way with him, then set the man free to tell all the tales of glory to his friends.
It was sometime in the early morning when the vampire went to bed down. I had followed him that far, so by then I was simply a part of the background.
Into a public bathhouse, I went, him leading.
The bathhouse was all but empty. It was the perfect place to corner my prey and be on my way. I even could have made it to Lucrecia and back in time to still participate in the battle.
As I was getting ready to pounce, however, I noticed the strangest thing.
Did he have boobs?
No, no breasts, however, his genitalia clearly were not male. The poor man was a hermaphrodite. One of the many physical representations of them, I’m sure you can look them up if you’re curious.
I just might do that.
As I’ve mentioned before, if one was not fully male or a male born in a female body, I was open minded about where and when I slept with someone. With him, I found myself quite curious as I had never seen a mortal, let alone an immortal, who looked like that.
His face was young and appeared to have no failings from the conflicting hormones.
A beautiful body is typically healthy, but beauty has always been in the eye of the beholder. Over the centuries, throughout the years, it has changed greatly.
His features were that amalgamation that Rome saw thanks to all the civilizations coming together, which meant that he was older than I was, and had likely been born in Rome to a slave. He was what many vampires would call a mutt, so mingled from the various races of humans that his true line could not be distinguished.
Wait, are vampires racist?
Some are. We were mortal once. Just as some are misogynists, so we are racist and sexist.
The fear vampires had was that by mingling the races we’d end up with creatures like him. That may have been why his Maker turned him, as an example of what could happen.
Vampires knew little more about breeding than most mortals did. We bred our stock the way one did a horse. We weren’t thinking about the genes not being in the right place or any of that other nonsense.
His being in the Devils made sense at that moment. They recruited the downtrodden and victims, teaching them to shed the image of the victim and to stab mortal morons in their stupid faces for making fun of them.
Despite their name, the Devils were rather progressive for the time. At least, for vampires.
My foot slipped on the tile as I went to turn away.
Lucrecia would only entertain full genders in their true form. She accepts the other, but not as personal entertainment.
He heard me and was chasing after before I even realized that I was fleeing. He caught me before I made it to the exit of the room, he was that fast.
We fought.
While he was fast, he wasn’t overly strong. His speed would have been enough, were I not flush from feeding that night, and known for my strength. As it was, we were almost evenly matched.
In the end, I let him win. He mounted me in triumph, and I lay there and took my punishment.
Should there be air quotes around punishment?
Probably.
Actually, yes, air quotes and a giant grin.
The two of us barely had the thought to find a place to sleep the day away. He needed less sleep than myself, and when I awoke, I found a mort
al waiting for me. He waited patiently as I fed, then removed the mortal and sent them on their way.
Throughout the entire process, he was silent. When I tried to engage in conversation, he shook his head and pointed to his mouth.
Someone had cut out his tongue before he had been turned.
By then I was really confused.
We don’t turn those with disabilities. An eternity without a tongue is one of those we would not consider. Blind or deaf, that’d depend on how well they got about in the world.
For us, it’s like turning a child, forcing someone to live like that forever is terrifying. Even those of healthy body and mind when they’re turned become unstable eventually.
Despite my confusion, and his lack of speech, we ended up having sex several more times throughout the night.
It doesn’t always happen like that. Plenty of vampires will wait decades before having sex with one another.
He and I, though, just got it out of our system.
As the battle drew near, we met more vampires. Those we had both worked with in the past. I learned that no one knew his name, they all just called him by something else. Even they were confused, coming together and talking about him with different names.
None of them ever tried to call him by the name one of the others had given him.
He seemed to sort everyone by what they called him.
Asking him what he preferred to be called drew a startled response that turned to annoyance. So, I shrugged and gave him no name whatsoever unless someone else was present, then I used the name they had given him.
I did learn that he was turned by an archivist.
Then I met Androgen, who was posing as a full male. I don’t like Androgen as a male.
He’s a fucking asshole.
Back then, he was running with the Devils. His face could frighten even a vampire, it becomes so emotionless, and with the right paint, he even managed to imitate Death’s mask.
Androgen was the Progeny of my mute hermaphrodite. Even he doesn’t know his Maker’s name. The pair had learned to communicate through sign language and, of course, the written word. But names were never shared between them.
One was Maker. One was Child. Androgen changes names almost as often as Sasha does, and used his Maker’s method of introducing himself even then. It annoyed me, so I said that he must be the opposite of his Maker.
