Night in Court

“Nocturnal Court “is how vampires refer to their own society. The official political structure in regional scale, institutional body. Or, the entire collective of civilized vampires. You need context to know which one.

“Our”, I should say. Not “their”.

The Courts love duels. They keep finding excuses to place children of the night to fight each other. Often fight to final death. With the victor claiming the last drop of blood as spoil.

Douglas was turned 9 years ago, took part in 27 duels so far, 5 of them to final death. Carlos has been a vampire for 11 years, took part in 8 duels, 8 of them to final death. I don’t really like to see those things, but once people start taking position around the duellists is impossible to ignore the event without attract unwanted attention.

The Official Apprizer designated by the Court sips a drop of blood from each duellist moments before the action start. Everything is done in very ritualistic fashion.

I imagine it could look spontaneous for a casual human observer. You need to see this many times to realize how little variation there is.

Before each duel, for months, the families do their own researches. They know what expect, even if the exact powers of each duellist are supposed to be secret. In this case, of course, they have the previous fights of each side as reference.

Douglas Wood-Hound has seeds for extra-strengh, speed and physical resistance. He has the Artifex seed also, but that is hard to grow and he hardly had the necessary time to start. He moves first.

The impact is significant. Impressive in speed and in power. The extra-mile in it is telekinesis, the Ghost-Hand seed.

I only recognize it tanks to the memories of other people inside me. Partially digested minds and personalities, identities tainting mine.

Truly, if I was the average vampire I would have no chance to know this. Given my personal experience. I am from about the same generation of those two children of the night. Far more powerful than them, and given how my powers work I have more knowledge than what I have right to have by personal merit.

Only the most seasoned melee fighters, and those who have the Ghost-Hand themselves may have realized what I just described.

Carlos Piche flies vertical trajectory fifteen vertical meters up, some five horizontal back, to hit the marble arch with a blow. Then hit the ground again, in free fall. To the senses calibrated by his ascending movement the fall obeying gravity feels like slow motion. All his bones are broken, by the looks of it. Head almost lost connection with the rest of the body. His brain must be liquefied. The head took most the impact.

The duel is over. Not the way most imagine.

Carlos is healing. Vampires do that when they have blood in their organism.

We do, in our organism.

Fast. We heal very fast, even younglings in the average in terms of self-regeneration. Like Carlos. Vampires heal fast, duellists came to fight with full reserves of blood in their bodies. Everybody knows that.

What is important here is that Douglas failed in decapitate Carlos.

He had to attack directly, his telekinesis is certainly not powerful enough to win a fight like that from distance. I assume he has no power that would provide that option.

Douglas wasn’t even trying to decapitate Carlos. The only explanation for that is that he must have neglected the information his family provided about this opponent.

Mr Wood-Hound had the chance to win this, but only one chance. What he had to do was to decapitate the adversary. Or extract Carlos’s hearth from the ribcage. Doing both would be safer.

Unless the vampire has some specific power that makes regeneration far more effective, by lower cost in blood. Or some power that provides some other alternative. A child of the night do not have enough blood to grow a new head after being decapitated. With vampires over 50 thousand years old that is a possibility without any specific additional power. Not with young fellows.

Once you have the vampire decapitated, you have the vampire defenceless. Usually.

Then the tricky decision would be to try drink all the blood from Carlos’s hearth or not. If I was Douglas I would consider carefully that part. If I had his powers. Because there is always the risk that a defeated vampire can turn the table against the victorious enemy. Win the dispute of will and consume his enemy when it is trying to claim the final victory. This power Carlos has, is one of those that make this extremely unlikely event less unlikely.

Still, the temptation would be great.

Carlos raises his arm. Douglas still thinks he is winning. His opponent on the ground, begging for mercy.

Is too late.

The impact left a spot of blood on Douglas’s ar. Carlos’s blood.

The vital liquid moved through Douglas’s telekinetic defensive layer with the impact.

It was already burning through skin and flesh. Like living hunger.

One more instant and the black goo has consumed arm, shoulder, half the neck and face.

Tentacles move from it, mixing into one single tong, seeking the hand of its master. Through it Carlos was about to consume the last drop of Douglas’s blood.

If a feminine voice didn’t sounded: “No! …please”

“Stop, my dear. Now!” sounded a different voice from the other side of the room.

Both in whispers. Impossible for all but a few in this room to hear. The secong voice was likely accompanied by a direct mental command.

Two elder ladies. Bad deal for the Wood-Hounds. A favour like that, asked directly by an elder, is worth the lives of hundreds of children of the night.

Still, vampires can be remarkable emotional when the life of their favourite family members is under imminent threat.

“It is going to happen, you know. In another thousand years, if not before that”.

“What?” the duel had distracted me from that conversation. The bald elder sitting next to me was giving sequence to it. I tried to peek pace.

“How would that work? In practice, I mean. Do we turn our family domains into sovereign nations? Should we appoint diplomats, get sits in the UN?”

The Disclosure. Some elders have been talking about it lately.

“You are joking! Of course, there is no need to let them know anything about or domains. Or about the inter-galactic community and our ties with it. We must have proxy institutions to represent us, but not necessarily one for each family. Their role will remain superficial.”

“They will know about the lowlifes. Will demand explanations about why we kill our own kind without specific accusation of crime or due process. The human governs will learn how to kill us. The Hunters will certainly do their best to turn the rest of humanity against us. Then, of course, there is the matter of our need to hunt unwillingly human prey. Along with the fact that those hunts sometimes end in dead for our prey. I imagine that will cause intense political debate in wild human society.

Could be messy”

“Oh, the hunters will try to turn humanity against us. They will fail. The law, their wild human law, will be by our side. Culture, universities, media and the financial system will be by our side. The human hunters are terrorists, will be treated as such. Trust me”

“I am not so sure, friend. They have the churches! Religion is no longer what it used to be, for the human spirit. Nevertheless, it is still there, and it is still something to take under consideration”

“Nonsense! I mean, yes, religion is not a factor one can dismiss. Even among us. What I mean is that hunters have a few fanatics. Fundamentalist, mystic, figures. The actual institutions of all large religions are easy to handle. Without that, the hunter packs don’t play a consequential role in anything. They are effective killers of distracted young vampires, and lowlifes. Nothing more.”

“Still, human armies and law enforcement will know how to kill a vampire. How to destroy us permanently. Generally speaking, not the entire community of course but the individual vampire.”

“This knowledge will not spread to all humans. We are already restricting it even among our own children. The knowledge will spread, of course. More than it has spread anywhere in recent centuries.

That is not a bad thing, I say. Makes The Hunt more interesting.”

I tough about this argument.

“I suppose. Perhaps.” But deep down, I was not convinced yet.