Need… to… hospital…
Fire. Man. Strange gun. Sizzling. Hospital. Teeth ache. Eyes burn.
Am I… I’m alive!
My foggy thoughts catch up with me and my eyes shoot open, immediately encountering a group of people surrounding me.
I recognize the features: pale faces, glowing red eyes, tailored suits, and that strange gun.
I’m on my feet in an instant, partially closed fists in front of my face and scanning the room for exits. There’s one on the other side of the room. Not gonna happen. I notice from the corner of my eye there’s a door behind me, one that only a single individual is blocking. Not ideal but it’ll have to do.
Something seems off though. I’m about to dart for the door when the behaviour of the people surrounding me gives me pause. All of them bow in unison. “Congratutions on your inheritance, Mistress.” They all chorus.
The ck of hostility gives me pause and time to look around the room.
I’m not in a prison cell. If anything, this is like a drawing room for important guests. The kind of pce you take the boss when they come to your house to visit.A crimson metal table ys in the centre of the room, surrounded by seats made of a blue, bubble-like substance, reminiscent of the gel in sci-fi healing pods
The pristine white carpet caresses my feet, massaging them. I can feel it through my shoes. It doesn’t feel like it’s arresting me in pce, more like it’s trying to gently lull me into sleep with a foot massage.
I lift my foot, expecting resistance or a tugging sensation. It lets me go with a lingering caress like a parting lover. Gosh, that’s creepy. I set my foot back down.
The walls are covered in paintings. Some are the typical fancy shit you’d see in a rich persons home. A ke painted with watercolours, a crimson rose in a vase and an army marching onto the muddy field of battle in an epic csh. What really stands out are the ones I’d hesitate to define as paintings.
A glowing tetrahedron protruding from the frame. If I stared too long, my eyes would go buggy. A dragon skull, casually poking it’s head out from one of the walls with scales so detailed I almost thought it wasn’t a pstecine model underneath. The image of the man who attacked me, gring with glowing red eyes.
Then there was an image. It was depicted on what I presumed to be a tablet because it was animated. Ocean waves gently pped the shore of a beautiful sandy beach, sparkling in the moonlight. Then there was this random maple tree. It stood ramrod straight in the middle of the image, dispyed proudly as though an artpiece. Of course, the weirdest part of the whole scene was the fact that the ocean wasn’t the clear, sparkly blue I’d seen on holiday magazines. It was a deep crimson red.
Even the doors are weird. No handles, only a small hole for something to be inserted. I have no idea what. It looks like it could fit a small vial at most or maybe a very weirdly shaped key but I don’t know. Either way, it’s clear I’m not going to be able to open it.
Finished inspecting the room, I turn my attention to the people in it.
I look them all over. A man in a butler’s uniform stands at their head, his features suggesting a man in his forties who aged well. His clothes, however, stepped straight out of the 18th century. He even has the pocket watch and monacle you’d expect to see on an old historian. Instead of a handkerchief however, he had what looked like sticky notes. They were covered in writing so pristine it should be framed on a wall as art. Not that I understood a word of it. The writing was tin I was pretty sure, only because I recognised a few words form the days when I thought tin was cool.
Behind him loomed a woman who wasn’t even hiding her monstrous nature. I figured they were beyond human by now but this…
She stood at least 7 feet tall and prominently dispyed metal coated fangs. Her slitted eyes weren’t quite as crimson as the rest of them. The gaze of a predator weighed down on me and the feeling I got, was she even the same species as the rest of them? I questioned it further when I noticed the metallic pting grafted to her skin and the hunch to her back. Though that st one, I think it was because of what she was carrying.
A coffin, filled to the brim with weapons. Only a few of which I recognised. It hummed or maybe she did? There was a buzzing or humming coming from her direction, like a magnetic seal but I couldn’t quite figure it out-
Then suddenly, her arms seemed to make a puff like a piston was going off and they extended even further towards the ground as though she were showing off. One was scarred, the remnant needle marks and incorrect graftings evidence of whatever had been done to her. Or by the small quirk to her lips, she’d done to herself. At least the other arm looked mostly organic. Why did I get the impression she just got better at hiding it? As I looked up again, she met my eyes. Transparent coverings blinked over her slitted eyes, like those of a reptile. I gulped.
A pop made me turn my attention to the young girl of the three, standing by the door I had hoped to escape through. When she caught my eyes, she raised her head and grinned. I say caught my eyes but she was wearing gsses, so I couldn’t see if she shared the same crimson features as the others. They were the stupid type too. The swirly ones you see at carnivals or in shops specialising in illusions. She seemed to be chewing bubblegum, yet when she caught me looking she opened her mouth and I saw that it was glowing. Closing it, she then posed to show off her earings. They were beautiful, like little crystal mirrors hanging off her ears and I could even see a reflection of the door behind her reflected on them. I also noticed the wireless earbuds she had in.
She tapped her chin, casually showing off her nails. They were painted a metallic bck. Finally, she returned to a bowing position but made sure I got a good look at the clothes she was wearing as she lowered herself. A fluffy pink jacket over a crop top and half jeans. A stark contrast to the man who walked out of the aristocracy and the woman who was so chimerically monstrous I wasn’t sure the clothes she wore actually fit her.
“Great! We’ve all met, so lets get on with the reason we’re all here. I’m sure you’re pretty confused right now.” The fashionable girl said with a giggle.
“Patience, Ash.” Chided the butler. “Though I agree with the sentiment. It is a pleasure to meet you Mistress, please allow me to expin your current situation. You will find a number of changes in your life are forthcoming and I would like to guide you through them as best I could, if only for my own sake.” He expins.
I waited for the monstrous woman to also say something but apparently not. Hesitantly, I nodded.
“Excellent. Let us start with proper introductions.” He began, pcing a gloved hand over his heart. “My name is Gabriel Montague and I am the steward of this estate, as well as all of your holdings.” Questions immediately come to mind but he stalls them with his other hand. “All in due time young mistress.” He soothes before turning his attention to the woman still towering behind him. He has to crane his neck to meet her eyes.
“Mira is unlikely to introduce herself so I shall do so on her behalf. She is a bodyguard and leader of the chimera core.” The woman grunts, slitted eyes scanning me from head to toe before seemingly losing interest. “Grayvel is her surname. Do not worry if you are confused, I shall expin the titles in due time if you allow me.” He says before motioning to the young girl at the door.
With a roll of her eyes she answers shortly. “I’m Ash Lilycove, intelligence specialist.”
“Now, would you kindly introduce yourself.” Gabriel prompted.
I considered giving a fake name for a moment, I was good enough at hiding my tracks that they wouldn’t be able to find my real name. I got the impression though that they were far more experienced than me. In that case, a better idea would be partial honesty and my name only leads back to my family. Something they could find if they followed me anyway. “Nova Sincir.” I answered.
“Excellent.” The butler nodded at me turning a monacled eye to Ash.
“Checks out. Nova Sincir, 19 years old and studying in the Chryssallis Crypto for the past 3 years after being given educational probation. Wow, a soon to be government stooge huh? Let’s see…” Ash continued scrolling through her phone. “Caught hacking into their servers at 17 she was given the choice to either join the government program or head to jail. Hah, human criminals do often make decent white hats if you can tame ‘em.” She commented as she read on.
“Adopted into the Sincir family 7 years ago, bit of a quiet kid. One adopted brother, two adopted parents and all on the autism spectrum. Oof, rough family to be adopted into huh?” The comment sparked some rage but I kept it to myself. She seemed to notice anyway.
“Guess not? My bad.” She took her eyes off her phone for a moment. “Name’s legit, she’s got a decent intellectual background too so we probably won’t have any problems. Bit of a wild child though. That’s what you get when someone kills the boss and takes over though, so I’m not too worried.” She told Gabriel.
“There is no need to scare the Mistress so with your abilities right away.” He chided. “Thank you for the information however.” He nevertheless finished.
“Hey, I gotta market myself to the new boss. Spent all that time building a rapport with that old perv, now I gotta start all over again.” Ash replied.
“My apologies for the abrupt sharing of your information.” Gabriel bowed his head.
“Then maybe as an apology you can tell me what the fuck is going on? I’ve been promised expnations and given threats.” I snapped back.
“Yes, of course. There is no need to be foul-mouthed about the matter, it is unbecoming of you.” He chided and I was about to lose it. “You, miss Sincir, have found yourself inheriting a rather vast amount of wealth, technology and possibly power depending on your perspective.”
“What?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“That guy you torched?” Ash prompted from the door, bubblegum still in her mouth. “He was rich. Like, waaaaaaayyy beyond your imagination kind of rich. When you took in his blood you became his only heir. So now you’re wayyyyy beyond your imagination kind of rich, not just money either. I’m talking territory, businesses, mansions, subordinates - the lot.”
“What’s blood got to do with becoming an heir. It’s not like I’m his kid or something?” I asked.
“Oh, right I forgot to mention. We’re all vampires and now so are you.”
“Oh, great yeah. Lets just add vampires to the list. The guy couldn’t just be part of a cult or some rich aristocrat from another nation. No, he’s an undead aristocrat with powers over blood or some shit...” I trailed off as Ash held up a hand. Then she casually sliced it off with the nonchance of someone trimming their fingernails.
Blood sprayed, though not as much as I thought there would be. I stared in mute horror. Then without warning, ash began fking from the wound and the hand that had fallen to the floor crumbled.
From her stump grew a new, unblemished pale limb.
I watched as something miniscule hovered out of her pocket and re-painted her nails while the blood that fell on the floor disintegrated. I thought it too turned to ash for a moment but there was something… different about how it was disappearing. Almost like it was being suctioned into a void.
“You a believer yet?” She asked.
I nodded mutely.
"Good. Oh and by our society’s standards, you kind of are his kid so…” Ash trailed off with a casual grin.
“Ew.” I blurted unintentionally, using the pse to regain my calm. Ash grinned at me. ‘I know right.’ She seemed to say with her eyes.
“You have been informed of a change in your species, status and financial stability yet your immediate reaction is ‘ew’.” Gabriel sighed. “We may have our work cut out for us it appears.
“What did you expect? Oh, great I’m a bloodsucker from fairy tales let me get right on to spending all this wealth I inherited.” I asked with obvious sarcasm.
“Yes. Typically greed is a primary human motivator.” Gabriel replied bluntly, adjusting the buttons on his tailcoat.
“Yeah, no. My primary motivation right about now is to head back home, sleep on it and decide whether or not I was dreaming when I wake up. Though I gotta admit, I am curious to test out what a vampire can do if it is true. Like, can I fly or something?” I asked.
“Some vampires do obtain flight but it is a rare inborn ability. We will have to determine your own abilities at some point in the future. For now however, I would suggest we introduce you to your holdings, responsibilities and needs as a vampire before all else.” He replied.
“Oh, so there are some hidden downsides to this sudden fortune. At least I know it’s not too good to be true any more. So, what’s the catch?” I asked.
It was Ash who answered. “Now you’re a Viscount vampire. That means you have a boss, you have a territory to run and best of all you’ve gotta keep everyone alive. How do you think vampires do that?” She needled.
“Oh, you’ve got to be…” I trailed off. “Some guy tries to murder me, I bloody kill a man and now I’m responsible for what? A few hundred vampires.”
Ash raised a finger. “You’ve gotta run the business,” She raised a second. “You’ve gotta provide food for just under 300,000 vampires,” I groaned. She raised a third finger. “You’ve gotta provide intellectual tribute to the Countess Isolde,” Who is that?! She raised a fourth as though a final nail in the coffin. “Finally, you’ve gotta manage a territory that spans 30 times the size of the town you live in, give or take.”
“Tribute? You expect me to work for someone I’ve never heard of?” I growled. “What do I know about territory management?” I muttered.
“What did you think Viscount means?” Asked Ash sarcastically.
“To be more practical about it, you are not working for Countess Isolde herself but more accurately vampire society as a whole.” Added Gabriel. “Intellectual tributes are what keep our society from becoming stagnant. Unlike you humans, we expect to continue progressing in all fields and becoming a noble means you need to be the epitome of that belief. Thus, you must make intellectual advancements and present them to your superior. They will, in turn, present all the advancements of their subordinates and improve upon them before presenting them to The Progenitor.”
“Of course, that means you also have to improve on the ideas of the Barons who work under you. All in…” Ash checked her phone. “A little under a month.”
I wasn’t going to even try and unpack that one right now.
“Surely I would’ve heard about an area of nd that size?” I tried.
“Oh, that’s the fun part.” Ash grinned. “The fae are really neat to have around because they can manipute dimensions and whatnot. Make a basement into a country or a shrink an ocean into your palm. Those little baubles with a roiling ocean in them are really pricy though.”
“So there are fae too?” I sighed. “I take it I’m not just going to get out of this with a ‘handle it yourselves’?” They were dancing around it, but I was pretty sure I was their only option. Otherwise they wouldn’t put up with my shit.
“That would not do.” Gabriel agreed. “Aside from the social faux pas of leaving a territory unattended, the rgest problem would actually be control. When we said you are the te Viscount’s child, we meant that quite literally. Vampires are capable of making 4 kinds of spawn: Ghouls, lessers, servants and peers.” He took on the tone of a professor as he spoke.
“Ghouls are just mindless monsters, lessers are essentially dolls and have little will of their own while servants are completely under the thrall of their sire. Peers however are individual vampires. They answer to no one, have the most power and are generally considered akin to children.”
“To make someone a peer they must ingest your blood and you theirs.” He expined.
“That’s why I turned into a vampire? Because I bit the guy when he tried to attack me?” I ccked my teeth together, noticing that my front two teeth felt a little off. With a flex of a muscle I didn’t know I had, they extended. I panicked and quickly let them slot back into pce but this whole vampire story was starting to get a whole lot more believeable.
“So it would appear.” Gabriel agreed. “The te Viscount did not need to want your existence to create it, merely fulfil the conditions.”
“So now I’m his kid and I get all his stuff dumped on me? All because I fought back?” I asked incredulously. “No. Thanks, but no.” I stated firmly.
“Don’t be so quick to dismiss it.” Ash said lightly. “Tell you what? Let’s show her around. Bet she changes her mind real quick when she sees what she’s actually been given.”
“You couldn’t pay me enough in gold doubloons and pirate treasure to take on all that.” I shot back.
“Fan of pirates are you?” She asked coyly. “We could probably do something with that. Maybe make you a flying ship. Or actually, how about one of those ghost ships you read about in stories that flies through mist. We could probably whip one of those up in a snap.”
“Huh?” I asked confused. Then I thought back to the weapon they all had at their waists and narrowed my eyes.
“Heh, she’s figured it out.” Ash’s grin turned into a smirk. “We’re wayyyy more advanced than petty mortals. I mean, a society of humanity’s best and brightest that has been around for longer than most countries is going to be a tad more advanced don’t you think? You monkeys discovered fire 1.5 million years ago or so and then didn’t go much further. We discovered blood a couple thousand years or so after that and we rocketed into space before the thought had even crossed your tiny brains.”
“So what? You got super sci-fi tech or something?” I asked, genuinely curious now.
Ash showed me her phone. Then she smashed it onto the floor with such speed her hand blurred and it shattered into tiny shards of gss. I jumped back in case any shards got embedded in my feet.
The others in the room didn’t seem to care all that much. Actually, Gabriel had a shard stuck in his cheek, which he carefully pulled out and discarded. The wound seemed to fke with ash for a moment. The next second it was gone and all that remained was pale, unblemished skin. Ok. If I didn’t believe they weren’t human before, screaming ‘vampire’ in my face like that certainly helped.
“Don’t get distracted by us. Look down.” Ash prompted and I did so.
The phone was now in such tiny shards I wasn’t sure they’d be able to clean them up without a dustpan and brush. Yet with effortless ease, they began to gravitate towards each other. I heard a hum or something like a buzz and before I knew it the pieces were recombining. A red light was joining the parts. When it stopped shining they were whole and it would move onto another section. Before I could even open my mouth to question this, the phone was back in one piece.
Then it floated up on it’s own and returned to Ash’s hand as though it had never moved. She caught it theatrically.
I had to admit that was cool. I still didn’t know if it was all special effects but… it was cool enough I kinda didn’t want it to be. I could believe a fancy repairing phone a lot easier than someone who could regrow a missing hand.
“See what I mean?” She asked. “Pretty much all our tech has that function and it’s only the smallest of changes we’ve made from the tech you monkeys originally created. You like to think of yourselves as the weak empowered by technology? We’re the strong who have been studying the advancement of science without the pesky limitation of lifespan for millenia.”
“As a Viscount, you would need to receive education on the test advancements in vampire technology.” Gabriel added. “You would also be given those products to use yourself. A regenerating phone is given even to servant vampires such as ourselves. As a Viscount, your own possessions would be considerably more advanced.”
That… was a tempting prospect.
I could walk away now, their name and the fact they needed me implied I had some sort of control over the servants. They probably had some way to resist it or they wouldn’t have told me. Still, it was enough I could probably get them to let me go back home at least.
I looked at Ash’s phone again.
“Show me around the mansion at least. After that though, I’m going home.” I gave in.
“Sure you are.” Ash replied with a smirk, fangs glinting and her gsses lowering a touch to show the amusement in her crimson eyes. So they really were red after all huh?
Ok, so this was supposed to go up yesterday around 8PM but honestly, I've been exhausted these past few days for seemingly no reason. I think I'm going to take a week or so off to re-orient myself and get a good stack of chapters ready, then come back the next week. Sorry if this is a little early or abrupt to be doing that but I just can't see myself writing quality stuff while I'm constantly distracted, tired and feeling like I'm dragging myself around. I'm hoping to fix it in the coming days, write a bunch of chapters and not have this issue again but who knows. Anyway, hopefully I don't forget AGAIN and this comes out around 11AM/12 but who knows. If it comes out ter, you know why.
