The Glass Vampire

by David Page

  The Glass Vampire

  David A. Page

  Copyright © 2009, 2016 David A. Page

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art and Design by Cori Dietsch

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  DEDICATION

  For Alia

  Forward

  In early 2000, I worked a contract job as a Technical Support Rep for Amazon.com. At one point, I had to work the graveyard shift for a week to cover someone’s vacation. One night, while I sat there in the early hours of the morning staring blankly at my phone, my mind wandered into the realm of Science-Fiction / Fantasy. I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but sometime during those musings, the idea of a Vampire Technical Support Rep working the “graveyard” shift struck me. I thought about what kind of a world would create such a position and how it might come to pass.

  I worked on and off on this book all through the 2000’s and my thirties. I would focus exclusively on it for a while, take a break, work on something else and ultimately return to it. After editing it for the 400th time, I finally declared it done in 2009. After that, several more edits reared their ugly heads as I just couldn’t let it go. Eventually, in 2014 I truly declared it complete and promptly sat on it.

  Like any work of art, this book reflects my writing skill and approach of the past. It was born out of a different time in my life and I convinced myself that, nearly seventeen years after starting the book, it no longer had value. As I have batted that idea back and forth in my head, I have finally realized that ‘it is what it is’. It doesn’t matter who I am, what I think and how I write in the here and now. This book represents an important time in my life and it deserves to have its day. So, with all of that said, I hope you enjoy my Vampire Period!

  -Dave

  Prologue: In the Dark

  Stinging pain flared across the side of Richard Saxon's face as a second rock hit him in the jaw, drawing a ragged line of blood across his cheek. He staggered away from the alley and pressed his back against the worn bricks of his apartment building. His heart crashed against the inside of his ribcage, a sensation that had once been a rare occurrence but which now happened all too often.

  A strong wind shook the skeletal branches of the maples lining the nearby street causing them to rattle like unsettled bones. He blinked and looked first left and then right, frantically searching for anyone who might be able to help, but the sidewalk was empty, the shops closed for the night and the apartment buildings seemingly devoid of life.

  “Damn,” he muttered. No one would lift a finger to help him.

  "What's the matter? Are you afraid of the dark?" The teenager’s voice, loud and overconfident, came from the alley.

  Richard rubbed his bruised and bleeding face and looked at the dark, gaping maw of the alley. At this angle, he could not see inside, but he knew with certainty that his enemies lurked within, waiting for him like the pathetic curs they were. It never ceased to amaze him how little mankind had changed over the past one thousand years. Technology had advanced, women had gained equal rights, wars had been fought, land had changed hands, but there was very little difference between the teenagers who terrorized him now and the French peasants who had hunted him during the Middle-Ages. Humans were always eager and willing to pick up their proverbial pitchforks and torches.

  He sidled up to the corner of the opening and risked a quick look, squinting against the darkness within. In the ambient light provided by the buzzing streetlights behind him, he could just make out several large crates and a dumpster resting against the brick wall near the middle of the alley. Beyond that, a single door led into his apartment building and safety. As a member of America’s lowest minority, it was the only portal through which he was allowed to enter. His manager, Lyle, had been kind enough to rent him a room at all. If he wanted him to be discreet and use the rear entrance, then he would do just that.

  He sighed. Once, liveried servants would have come running to greet him. His lip curled into a sneer at the thought of how far he had fallen and at his own weakness in dwelling on that which he could not change. He shook himself. There was no time for self-pity or for thinking about the ‘Good Old Days.’

  He pulled back, sniffed the air and listened. The salty tang of the ocean tickled his nostrils and he heard water dripping from somewhere ahead, but of his would-be attackers he could detect nothing. He clenched his fists. Once, he would have been able to sense their body heat, their movement and the very beating of their hearts from half a mile away; now he could barely see in the dark. He looked up at the black, roiling clouds hanging low in the sky. The universe could not even provide him a moon to see by.

  Gritting his teeth, he wondered what other humiliations they would come up with for tonight. If only he had a sword, his sword, he might have been able to present a more formidable front powers or no. At the sight of his long lost blade, they would probably soil themselves. He smiled for an instant, but it quickly slipped into a frown as his anger swallowed any good feelings he might have had.

  Damn the Department for tying his hands and preventing him from even defending himself as any human could. Should he attempt any violence against these youths, he would surely be tossed back into the camps. His throat tightened at the thought. He had been free of that mud-soaked hellhole for nearly two years, but the tortured memories of the pain he had endured there would never fade. He closed his eyes, pressing away such hideous thoughts. He could never go back there. Death would be preferable.

  “No…” he cursed under his breath. There could not be an Alamo for him, no last stand against his enemies. If he perished, he would never know who SHE was and could never free her from whatever terrible fate had befallen her a millennia ago. He had to survive, had to continue to search.

  "Come on, blood sucker!" A second young man yelled, his voice quaking with excitement. "You can't stay out forever."

  Richard discarded his thoughts, crouched low and opened his eyes again. He instinctively reached for his powers, but found only cold disappointment. He could feel his supernatural energies lurking just beneath the surface, tickling his soul from beneath an invisible barrier. He continued to reach into the core of his being, calling to the energies within. His body shook and sweat beaded on his forehead. And then something different happened.

  A thin wisp of fog drifted past, so small that he might not have seen it if he hadn't been looking directly at the cracked pavement where it appeared. A sliver of hope blossomed within him as he realized he had breached the wall even for an instant. His momentary joy quickly vanished, however, as the mist evaporated as quickly as it had appeared.

  "Damn." He slammed his fist into his open palm. That simple manifestation of his abilities was more than he had been able to do since they had striped him of the supernatural attributes of his nature. Perhaps something had changed; perhaps the virus’ hold on him was weakening. He held his breath as the epiphany settled into his consciousness. Given time, he might eventually be able rend a hole in the viral shield.

  A baseball bounced off the ground near his feet and rolled into the street. He gasped, his shoulders tensing as they always had before battle. His assailants had hurled insults at him in the beginning. Later it had been water balloons and rotten fruit. Then rocks, but they had never used anything as big or as potentially dangerous. Their increased weaponry lent credence to what he already knew. If he did not face them soon and give them bloody noses, they would eventually resort to more serious violence and possibly do him great harm. He had to find a way to defeat them, without hurting them.

  He frowned and ran through the options in his head. He could call the police for an escort knowing that they would probably ignore his request or he could simply step into the
alley and allow them to pummel him. Facing such an attack and surviving it, often achieved the same goal as the bloody nose, although it was a good deal riskier and more painful.

  Glass shattered against the alley’s worn cobblestones as they switched their weapons of choice yet again. Richard tensed. He might be just one of the boys now, but he had centuries of experience and skill to draw upon. He doubted the teenagers could truly be prepared for that. All he had to do was show bravery in the face of their onslaught and they would abandon their foolish quest.

  A glint of light hit the tracking manacle on his left arm where it emerged from under his black dress shirt. He never knew when the Department might be watching, but to expect assistance from that quarter was utter folly. More likely, they would simply sit back and listen to the show over the manacle's audio pickups.

  Someone whistled.

  "Come on, wuss!"

  "Why don't you come out and use your superpowers on us!" A young woman spoke this time, her voice pinched with anxious anticipation. "Oh wait, you don't have any!"

  Richard took a deep breath. It was time to act. Hoping that his intelligence and cleverness would be enough to get him out of his predicament, he stepped into the opening.

  "Very well, my friends. Was there something you wished to tell me?"

  He strode confidently down the center of the alley, stopped just shy of the dumpster and eyed the door to his apartment building longingly. Beyond that, a brick wall blocked the far end of the passage. There was no way out, a perfect place for an ambush. Perhaps these children were not as foolish as he thought. His eyes slid back to the trash receptacle and he frowned. It sat at an odd angle offering an excellent hiding place for any would-be attackers.

  He took a long slow breath, held it and then released it. In the early years of undead existence, he would have ripped out their throats. Later, when he had learned that he did not need to kill to survive, he might have simply terrorized them with a flash of fangs and the hypnotic power of his own mind. At the very least, he could have called the fog to hide his passage. Now all he could do was call a cab, if he could make it to a pay phone. Vampires were not allowed to possess cellphones.

  "Why don't you prove that you are not afraid of me by showing yourselves?" He spread his arms wide and offered his best, disarming smile.

  "I’m not afraid." As he had anticipated, a broad-shouldered young man, clad in a red and white high school jacket and blue jeans, stepped from the concealment of the trash bin. His short, blond hair and blue eyes marked him as the child of one of Seattle’s Norwegian families, possibly from the Ballard neighborhood.

  The leader.

  Four similarly dressed young men followed him, fanning out to block the path to Richard’s door. They stopped and watched him. The one on the far right carried a basket filled with stones. The girl Richard had heard was nowhere to be seen.

  "Harassing a vampire is not generally considered to be adult behavior. Why don't you just tell me what it is that you want of me and we can work this out like civilized people." He did not expect this approached to work. The lies spread about vampires by the Department’s propaganda machine had taken their toll. That, coupled with the way the undead were portrayed in movies, had everyone convinced that vampires were all crazed bloodsuckers bent on the destruction of mankind.

  The leader’s angular face split into a grin and he pointed up.

  "Ask them."

  Panic wrapped Richard’s chest. He threw himself against the wall, unsure what was about to happen, but certain it would not be good. Three cinderblocks smashed on cobblestones where he had been standing. So much for finesse, these youths were trying to kill him! Adrenaline seared his veins lending energy to his flight as he sprinted back the way he had come.

  "Get him!" The leader bellowed.

  The walls blurred past, rocks whizzed by and another block smashed on the pavement in front of him. He slipped on the rubble and nearly lost his balance, but managed to regain his footing and keep moving. His shoulder throbbed as a sharp chunk hit it. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel slanted as his balance shifted, but still he ran.

  "He's getting away!" The girl cried from the rooftop.

  "Let him go!" The leader ordered.

  The alley erupted in a chorus of mocking laughter.

  "See you around, Vamp!" One of them yelled after him.

  Richard was breathing hard when he reached the sidewalk, but he kept on running. He stopped four blocks later in front of a small convenience store, and leaned against a forest green SUV to catch his breath. As he stood there gasping for air, shame and despair scorched his face. The group of teenagers had nearly killed him. Had they succeeded, it would have meant more than just his death. His thousand-year quest for the vampire who brought him across the void would have died with him leaving her trapped in a living death state for all time. His body trembled at the thought as if something deep within him reacted to that thought on a genetic level, proving that although he could not remember who she was, they still shared a connection.

  A car sped past, jarring him. He blinked against its bright headlights and looked back towards his sad little home. His enemies had successfully denied him access to his designated apartment entrance. If Lyle caught him entering through the front door, he could have him evicted. He balled his fists. Ten years ago, no one would have been able to touch him nor would they have even believed he existed. Now he was but a glass copy of his former self, fragile and breakable.

  He glanced up at the low, ominous clouds overhead, breathed in the damp air and clenched his teeth. He would find a way to recapture what he had lost and then he would find her.

  1

  Richard closed the door, locked the deadbolt, and lowered the metal bar into place. He pressed his back against the wall of his cramped entryway, closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. He had made it inside undetected. For the moment, he was safe. Turning, he opened his eyes and surveyed his pathetic flat.

  It was the smallest apartment he had ever seen. In his other lives he would have considered it to be small even for servant’s quarters. His twin bed, with its faded blue comforter and flattened pillows, filled nearly the entire width with barely a foot of space on either side. In front of it, a small, cracked sink and an antiquated toilet nestled against the front left corner opposite a minute yellow-tiled countertop on which a dented toaster oven barely fit. Richard was not sure why Lyle had given him the toaster. It was not as if he could eat human food. He had thought about returning it, but decided to keep it in the hopes that at some point he might actually have human friends and those extremely hypothetical friends might want to enjoy his hospitality. It was a far cry from the grand ballroom of his manor near York, where hundreds of nobles and wealthy merchants had gathered at his invitation, but it was all he had. He sighed. It was better than the camps.

  A shiver ran through him. Anything was better than the camps.

  He removed his patchwork wool overcoat and tossed it into the pile of clothes that filled the crack between the right hand side of the bed and the wall. Next, he went for the mini-fridge wedged beneath the sink. There were only two blood-packs and a frozen blood bar left within. Opting for a liquid meal, he grabbed one of the hospital style packs, removed the top, and took a sip.

  It had taken him a long time to get used to cold, cloned blood, but it provided the necessary nourishment he required and was preferable to starving. The fluid oozed down his throat causing warm lust to rise within him. He shook, and his face flushed as a tingling sensation swept through his body. His fangs elongated from his canine teeth despite his attempt to keep them dormant. His desire for fresh blood made him dizzy and he had to fight hard against the urge to hunt. In his present condition, he was no stronger than the average human being, and whereas once he might have used his mental abilities to assist him, those too had been denied to him. Chilled by his grim circumstance, the heady feeling passed quickly.

  He chuckled bitterly and
sat down on the end of his bed. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the small, glass figurine he kept with him at all times. It was a replica of a knight, standing with arms crossed, sword sheathed. When he had spied it at the Junk Shop, he had used some of his meager salary to buy it. It had come to be representative of his predicament. He had been a knight of good reputation a thousand years ago. After that, he had become a vampire of incredible power. Now, he was a fragile shadow of his former self, who, like his glass knight, could be easily shattered. He sighed and stared at the floor sadly. How far he had fallen.

  He took a deep breath to center himself. Self-deprecation could not serve any purpose. Instead, he retrieved his newspaper from his overcoat’s inner pocket and sat back on the bed against one of his poor excuses for a pillow. He opened the rolled up paper. The main headline read, “Questor Probe Continues.”

  Richard ignored it. The self-destruction of a biotech company, even one as big and important to Seattle’s economy as Questor, did not concern him. Instead, he thumbed his way towards the back of the first section where he found what he was looking for. Under a segment called Vampire Tidbits, he found a small heading entitled, “New Leads Bring Small Hope”. A short paragraph read:

  Investigators in the Seattle Police Departments Undead Crimes Division believe they are closer to finding two missing vampires. According to Lieutenant John Maynard, new evidence indicates that several humans might have been involved in the disappearances in what amounted to a hate crime.

  And that was the extent of the daily vampire news segment. There had been a time after the Announcement when people had eagerly awaited the latest news on the roundup of Richard and his kind and they had not had to dig through the paper to find it. For nearly a year after the Announcement, he and his fellows had sought to evade and even fight back against the Department. Of course, such a conflict could only have ended in one way. The fact that Richard and so many other vampires had survived at all cut off from their abilities was nothing short of a miracle. They had the vampire rights activists to thank for that. If left up to the hard-liners, he and everyone like him would have been staked and left in the sunlight for good measure.