Chapter 15: Rolling Bones

  My sire’s blood weighed heavy in my unbeating heart as I walked through the forest. We searched for a while, but found no trace of the other vampire. They simply vanished. Neither I or Isabella could find any footsteps or lingering magic that someone had been there.

  Isabella walked alongside me, a glowing ball of light in her hand as her silver eyes wandered from tree to tree. She hadn't really said much since she caught up to me. In fact, she didn't even look my way. It was odd, considering she helped heal me and mend my clothes with her magic.

  The night was still young and I had to speak with Jean about something. I couldn't really remember anything beyond… I slowed my walk to a stop and glanced to my side. She was in the forest with me and yet I didn't fully remember why she even showed up. Something about a break. She glanced over her shoulder at me, long hair partially blocking her face in an adorable way.

  The shadows cast by the orb in her hand looked fairly odd. I didn't understand why she was using the light when we both could see just fine without it.

  “You have something to tell me, fledgling?” she asked.

  My eyes went to the modern rifle on her back. It looked like it was fed by a magazine in front of the trigger guard. Tape wrapped around the grip and a small flip up scope.

  “May I see that?” I asked, motioning at her rifle.

  She smiled as she slid it off her shoulder with her gloved hands and held it out. “Sure.”

  Taking the heavy weapon from her, I tucked it up against my shoulder and aimed down the sight. It was set to a strange setting that showed off different colors from purples to reds and yellows. As I swept the rifle around and aimed down the scope, I saw animals crawling through the brush I couldn't otherwise see even when I looked with my own eyes. It was a marvel of technology!

  My sire showed me how to drop the magazine and clear the chamber. I held the massive round in my hand as I put it up to the light she carried. The rounds it fired were fairly small compared to my old rifle but packed with a massive powder charge. .308 caliber according to the brass cartridges.

  “What kind of a rifle is this?” I asked as I put the half-empty magazine back in the rifle.

  “A Rare Martin with a legendary thermal scope.” She took it back from me and slung it over her shoulder once again. “Allows me to track any targets in all weather or lighting conditions. Even vampires.”

  “You don't use your eyes?” I cocked my head a bit.

  Isabella threw a thumb back in the direction we came from and smirked. “Look what happened when you tried to use your eyes. Have you picked a class yet, fledgling?”

  I nodded slowly. “I had a few already and picked Pirate as my main class, but I don't know if that is the right thing to do.” With a heavy, human-like sigh, I glanced off to the side and rubbed my forehead a bit. “There are so many out there… I met a person who told me about one I liked, but I am unsure due to… technology and I not getting along well.” I threw my hands out to my sides.

  “What class?”

  “Salvage Pilot.”

  Isabella chuckled softly, barely audible. “Oh? That'd be perfect for you, Lady C! You’ll not have to worry about the sun or any nonsense going on around here!” Her smile was almost infectious as she stared into my eyes. “Do it.”

  It’d be a lovely trip.

  “Sire?” I blinked a few times at her, leaning away slightly.

  “Trust me, your little issue won’t be a problem.”

  “I have been doing fine with what I have though.”

  “You heard me!” She nodded firmly and grinned. “It’ll be fun for you. You like big weapons and a mech is a large walking weapon.”

  “But I’d like my seat on the council again.” I shook my head a few times, folding my arms across my chest. My sire knew I wanted to be on the council. I was the one to make contact with the mortals of Encinar. I made the deal, not her.

  “Don't be silly, Lady C. You haven't been on the council in two centuries. There just ain’t anyone who remembers you.”

  She was right in a way. All the mortals would be dead and any vampires may not allow me back. To them, I was an unknown who had to prove my worth, and what was the best way to prove my worth to a bunch of vampires? Show them I was competent. That I knew what I was doing and could navigate the modern world. If I could not navigate modern day Encinar then they would not allow me on the council, because then I'd be a buffoon who was easily controlled.

  “I will think about it,” I said with a small nod.

  “Better do more than think about it,” Isabella muttered. “The council ain't gonna allow you on if you don't got a proper class. Hells, most places won't even hire you without a class.” I opened my mouth to speak, but she held a hand out for me to stop and added, “Look, Lady C, pirate ain’t really a class that gets respect. You wanna be respected, don't ya?”

  I bowed ever so slightly. “As I said, sire, I will think about it.”

  “I’ll not have any fledgling of mine being a pirate in these times.” She frowned. “Pick a respectable class.”

  We walked on in silence. My sire disappeared by the time I arrived back at the scooter. The elder vampire said she had somewhere to be and for me to not speak of what transpired in the forest. I would abide by her wishes.

  I wandered out of the forest to find three more patrol cars on the exit with one blocking it off from people trying to exit the highway.

  The situation reminded me of the club in a way. An ambulance was leaving the area with the lights and sirens going. My scooter sat by itself with one officer going through the seat compartment and another taking pictures of the machine and area around it.

  Some policemen aimed their spotlights in my direction the instant they saw me. I slowly raised my hands over my head. My eyes moved from the men near my scooter to some of the patrol cars. All of them were drawing weapons and moving toward me. They shouted for me to get on my knees and comply with their orders. It was hard to see with the lights shining in my face like many suns aimed in my direction.

  I couldn't be captured by them. They'd drag me into the sun. It might not be a bad thing, because then I wouldn't have to deal with how different society is from only a few weeks ago. Why couldn't we go back to when things were simpler and we didn't have to worry about police who knew how to handle vampires?

  My instincts told me to run, and so I did. I fled. They shouted once more as gunfire erupted behind me; small pops and a few loud booms. Bullets snapped and cracked past my head, forcing me to duck for cover. One bullet streaked past, trailing flames, and exploded when it struck a tree, raining dust and splinters around the area. I couldn't be caught.

  Moving around a large tree, I stepped into the shadows and disappeared.

  *** ***

  Modern cities are strange when you're on your own and no one else is with you. The fools back at the highway were searching the forest when I wasn't anywhere near there. Their helicopter slowly circled above the trees, shining its massive lamp over the brush below. Any werewolf caught by that light is going to have a strange surprise.

  If there's any werewolves out there anymore. I don't know what happened to them beyond that they tried to take the city a few times. After that? Nothing. Hardly any howls in the night.

  Lyra was likely arrested or gone. The poor fledgling will have to figure things out on her own for tonight. She was more than capable of finding her own blood source. What with her having shown me a few options in that little black book of hers.

  As I walked along the overly illuminated city, motorcycle jacket draped over my shoulder, and eyes scanning for a good place to dump it. I kept an eye out for patrol cars and wandering officers. Each time I passed a mirrored surface, it showed off my inhuman reflection. A reflection of my powers rather than resembling a living breathing person. I'd have to avoid mirrors, lest my reflection alert mortals that I was not human or vampire.

  Because what vampire eats other vampires?

  Focusing my sire’s blood on my heart and appearance, I let it beat once. There was a short pause before it beat again, then another pause as it began to beat steadily. If a bit slowly. Enough that some semblance of color returned to my skin. Cool ocean air blew in from the coast, tantalizing my skin with a feeling I hadn't felt in eons.

  I was cold. Cold enough I had to throw the jacket on again. Likely a foolish idea, but there were enough humans along the sidewalk that I wasn't too out of place. Just an old, broad-shouldered, and narrow hipped woman walking alone. Hopefully that's what they saw and not a long haired old man.

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  There was a large store open twenty-four hours a day advertising vampire day rooms if needed, so I turned into the parking lot and walked toward it, hoping that anyone following me would grow bored of my path. I didn't know if they were actually following me. I had to be safe.

  The glass door didn't open when I went to push against it. It just rattled a few times as I pressed my weight into it. I frowned, stepped back and tried again to the same result. There was a bright yellow sticker that said it was an automatic door and to stand clear, but it wasn't working!

  I’d seen it open and close for other people as I approached, but me? No. It wanted to annoy me as I paced back and forth in front of the automatic door. Such a simple concept; use an arcane motion detector but instead of setting it up for a trap they had set it for opening a door.

  One person walked by, causing the door to open just fine for them. My face turned a deep shade of red as I slipped in behind them and was immediately hit with a strange feeling of not belonging to the world anymore.

  The surplus store and motorcycle dealership were one thing, but the store was a whole other animal. It was like they took a general store and made it as large as the eye could see with shelves upon shelves neatly organized. Including so many lights I had to squint to see anything properly!

  In total, the store had roughly forty isles for all manner of different things from fresh produce to frozen food and clothing. Even television screens, computers, video games, and furniture. I wandered the neatly organized isles. Jaw agape at just how many items were packed inside one building. Eventually, I came across the book section where they had a decent selection, but nowhere near the level of a library.

  Grabbing two books at random, I made my way toward the electronics section, keeping my head down as I passed people pushing metal carts full of items. Some were oblivious and on their phones while others looked around, and some had children who were dragging them off to the toy section. One person wearing a green shirt looked my way and called out, but I ignored them.

  Everything just felt so, so strange to me as I watched them all interact. A couple holding hands and looking at some new television screen, the woman ready to pop her baby out at a moment’s notice. Possibly getting their home set up, but why a television screen and not other more practical items?

  And that's when I came across a home theater demonstration booth. It was a darkened room away from the harsh light the rest of the store was putting off. Curtains blocked people from looking in on a perfect feeding room. Which is what happened when I walked inside.

  A mortal sat on a large chair in front of a television with an elf vampire on their lap, fangs buried in the mortal’s neck. She was one of those vampires with putrid pale greenish-blue skin. The kind where you'd think the near skeletal thin woman was going to start spewing maggots any second, but managed to keep the writhing buggers underneath her rotting flesh. She was the progeny of a vampire line that was known to be far closer to Death than any other line. Even mine.

  A hooded cloak covered most of her body like a blanket, exposed arms showing off pockets of flesh that moved in an unholy way. I felt strange watching the woman feed and couldn't quite describe the feeling other than how weird it was. Like I should just leave.

  She was using the sound coming from a television show to mask any odd noises like the mortal’s soft moans or her faint slurps. The feeling was one where I should look away, leave and let her be, and yet I couldn't tear my eyes from the strange sight.

  To come across a vampire feeding in a public area was unusual. Nigh impossible in my day, but now? I would have thought it more common. It seemed, however, that vampires still preferred to feed in private.

  “Are you supposed to be doing that?” I asked quietly.

  Whatever show they were watching sounded odd, because it was about mortals betting money on straight line automobile races, but the vehicles themselves looked and sounded meaner than anything I could imagine. I wanted to watch and see what it was about. But again. I felt like I should just leave.

  The vampire lifted her head from the mortal’s neck and stared with golden eyes glowing softly in the dim light. Blood steadily dripped from her yellowed fangs. She licked at the little droplets before clicking her tongue. “This room is occupied.” Her soft voice was like other elves I’ve heard and barely audible over the roaring engines on the television. Sound came from every direction around us ensuring no mortal could hear what was going on.

  “I see that,” I stated as I backed toward the ‘door’ to the rest of the store. “I just wanted a quiet place to sit and read, but I’ll leave you and the blood sack alone.”

  The vampire cocked her head a bit, her long wiry hair dangling down. Meanwhile, the mortal she sat atop blinked a few times as they looked around, seemingly as if they didn't know where they were.

  “Would you care for a bite?” The putrid elf pointed to the mortal’s neck. “I don't mind sharing a meal.”

  “I had my fill tonight, but thank you.” I patted my stomach a bit, nodding firmly and giving her a reassuring smile.

  She nodded back, cleaned the wound up so no one would find it, and climbed off the mortal’s lap. As she got up, her hand slipped into the man’s pocket and pulled a set of keys out. The putrid elf spun the keys around and closed her hand around them, smiling at me.

  Did she just steal their keys?

  “Wanna go for a drive?” she asked, twirling the keys in her hand like they were a revolver. First forward, then back and spun it around on a flat arc.

  I blinked a few times, glancing between the mortal and the elf. “A drive? Did you just… you two don't know each other, do you?”

  The putrid elf slowly shook her head. Her smile turned into a full on grin of yellowed teeth and fangs. She held the keys between two fingers as she sauntered toward me, using her other hand to pull the cloak’s hood over her head and shield her appearance from prying eyes. A strange decaying scent drifted through the room as she passed by and patted me on the shoulder.

  “Let’s go, grandma,” the elf said as she disappeared from sight. “Meet me outside.”

  My eyes went back to the television screen that no longer displayed the footage from earlier. Now it was of some person standing on a stage talking into a microphone in front of a crowd. With a heavy, mortal-like sigh, I turned and followed after Miss Skin Falling From Her Bones.

  *** ***

  The mortal’s old car was an unusual machine. Angled like an arrowhead with four exhaust pipes out the back and very little room on the inside for more than two people. Its LCM engine hummed in my ears with a faint whistle. Much like my sire’s motorcycle had and far more noisily than Caleb’s pickup. The interior reminded me of Dinner’s car with how sparse it was.

  Bones explained a bit more about how cars worked. She mentioned how people raced them for gold and credits on specific tracks and throughout the city at night. The latter was obviously illegal and we were heading across town to one such meetup she knew about.

  I don't know why a vampire such as Bones was even entertaining the idea of racing cars for credits and gold when she could be applying her skills at thievery in more appropriate areas. Like finding someone to buy said stolen car. The putrid elf had the lay of the city after all.

  Encinar was just as beautifully decrepit as when I first laid eyes upon it roughly a week ago. Glowing buildings stretched to the cloudy heavens as the rainstorm threatened to continue its assault from the daytime. The clouds flashed in a few places, but it wasn't thunder. Some helicopter was still flying around, likely looking for me, but I wasn't going to be where they were looking.

  Bones was heading away from the city to the forested outskirts where the werewolves used to be. We listened to odd music that was a lady singing about a bad romance without anything resembling a string instrument to be heard. All I could do was look over at Bones as the putrid blue-green elf sang along quite happily and on key.

  But there wasn't much to say to a singing vampire when she was in the zone, so I looked out the window ahead as Bones drove fairly conservatively. She kept up with the other traffic and didn't seem to be trying to weave like my sire and I. I inquired why once she finished her song, because it seemed prudent to do.

  “I break one law at a time,” Bones replied, waving at the dashboard as she shook her head from side to side. “No need to attract attention in a stolen car… yet.”

  “I could always convince them the car is yours,” I replied.

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oh? Are you one of them fancy high and mighty blue blooded vampires who won't soil your hands with the scum of the city?”

  “No.” I leaned back in my cramped seat and stretched as best I could. “I can and will shoot someone if needed, but I'd prefer it if we didn't get in a fight. There are other ways to deal with your problems.” Like throttling someone with your hands and bashing them into the concrete; or ripping their spine out. Or strangling them with shadows so you didn't physically touch them. Even tying them to an old ballast cannon and throwing them overboard works.

  The list went on.

  I frowned at my own thoughts as I remembered the police officer on the side of the road. Just why did I send my shadows after him? It doesn't make sense!

  “Fuck,” Bones said, “I kidnapped one of those weird council loving vampires.”

  I shifted my feet around until I became comfortable and took a deep breath. “What's wrong with the council?! I made sure every vampire’s voice could be heard!”

  She giggled at something, slowly shaking her head once again. The woman motioned in my direction. “You’re on the council?”

  “Yes. As Mayor of Encinar.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Two hundred years ago. We ran it like a ship and it clearly prospered in my absence.” I waved a hand out the window at the forest we were driving through.

  Her jaw closed and tightened against itself as the elf looked out the window ahead of us, nodding at my words. We were approaching the rear of what she called a station wagon. It just looked like a box on wheels to me. Bones glanced down at the speedometer for a moment.

  “The council's changed since then,” she said flatly. “Now it's like a bunch of angry teenagers trying to backstab each other for power rather than see that us non-council folk are doing better.”

  I shook my head. “You're lying.”

  “And you're an delusional old bag of dust. Tell me, what has the council helped you with in the last week?”

  We passed around the much slower moving car with Bones checking over her shoulder a few times. Those odd pockets of flesh threatened to burst just by looking at them. I leaned far away from her, practically opening the door. Thankfully the handle was in a recessed location and made it nearly impossible to accidentally open.

  “Well, my sire has—”

  Bones made a strange chattering noise as she tutted me, holding a finger up in disapproval. “I don't give a damn what your sire has done for you! We are talking about the council, not your master. What has the council done for you? What are you to them?”

  Again, I didn't have an answer for Bones, so I looked down at my hands with a small frown. The council should have come looking for me once my weeklong torpor was up. That clearly wasn't the case, because it's been over two hundred years! And the only people to even bother looking for me was… nobody. If Caleb hadn't come inside my house looking for Amelia, then I’d still be in torpor wasting the centuries away. Or perhaps I’d wake up alone.

  There was a concerning thought. If it was just Amelia and I then I might've gone mad with hunger and lashed out at the first mortal to come on my property. I would be a beast and nothing more. A creature who made the shadows deadly.

  I reached for my cell phone and sent Caleb a message: Thank you for waking me up. I will buy you a new pickup if you want.

  The poor ThinGen likely didn't want to speak with me, but I wanted to at least acknowledge his presence even if the man was still mad at me.

  “Hey,” Bones began as she reached into the center console, opening it with a soft click. “You ever seen a Blood Cannon?”

  The vampire pulled the strangest weapon from the center console. It looked like an old top break revolver the size of my boomcannon, but with a few modifications done to it. Most notably the barrel was short enough to easily hide under your shirt. It was built from a mixture of brass and iron with a thick walnut grip. Another oddity was the cylinder held five finger-length glass vials containing a deep red liquid that looked to be vampire’s blood.

  While mortal blood looked like, well, blood. Vampire blood was richer in color and had a faint glow to it. I licked my lips, wanting to rip open one of the vials and drink the juicy liquid. But Bones would get mad. The weapon didn't have a scope and looked quite a bit more practical to carry compared to my large hunting revolver.

  “There's only ten in existence,” Bones said as she waved a hand in my direction. “The council’s been trying to push back against the creation of blood-tech, so we can't make too many weapons without getting production hit.”

  The weapon felt nice and snug in my hand as I compared it to my heavy revolver. My coat easily hid the weapon when I put it in my holster, which made it an easier draw, too. I hummed to myself and gently opened the action to look at the back of all the cartridges. There wasn't any striker to hit the vials, so I didn't quite see how they worked beyond some wires going to where the firing pin would hit.

  Bones continued talking while I checked the weapon once more, “We can manufacture blood that sustains us, so why can't we use weapons that fire blood?”

  “It's a waste of resources,” I replied.

  “Bullshit!” Bones snapped her fingers and waggled them at me. “Think about this, granny. We’re making enough fake blood to sustain around a million vampires in the Bay Area. And there's ten times as many daywalkers than vampires, so where’s the supply issue?”

  “My sire said there's a blood shortage!”

  Bones slowly glanced over at me, eyebrows raised in the most peculiar of manners. Her putrid face contorted in a way I couldn't be sure if she was taking pity on me or about to laugh.

  “What?” I asked.

  Bones snorted. “Your sire, your sire. Always your sire! Are you a fledgling?”

  “No.” I shook my head and adjusted the seat belt so it wasn't so tight. “I am approaching four centuries.”

  “Then why do you talk about your sire like you're a fledgling?” She glanced over at me, cocking her head as one of her arm’s flesh pockets moved again, looking like it was about to burst open.

  I didn't have any words for her at first. I wasn't a fledgling. “Waking up in the future would make anyone feel like a fledgling.”

  “Uh-huh. Are you your own vampire, or your sire’s servant to be discarded when you're no longer useful?” She hissed, sneering at me as she said that.

  I looked out the window with the thought of teleporting outside, but I wasn't sure how that would work with us in a moving car. Perhaps I would keep moving at the speed I was. Perhaps not. I didn't want to find out.

  I huffed at the woman and folded my arms across my chest. “I am my own vampire.”

  “Prove it. Go the rest of the night without mentioning her.”

  That shouldn't be hard.