Englishman

For the first couple hundred years most vampires are very fund of being vampires. They try to dress like their elders, talk like them, and follow whatever trend corresponds in their minds to the typical behaviour of a vampire of their family. Between that are about 50 thousand years the typical vampire becomes very attached to its past as a human, they tend to go back to the clothes, musical taste, smells and language that was familiar to them in their human days, particularly the identity traces that mattered to them in the last few years before the transformation. That tendency defines most the social rituals in Nocturnal Courts, in many periodic events you are expected to show up dressing as you used to dress in your daily life before the transformation. This elder who was now supposedly testing me was for times that old.

He was approaching the period in vampire life when individuals start being called “young elder”. Around 500 thousand years after transformation, but the informal title may come earlier than that or much latter, depending of the reputation earned by the individual.

Vampires of that age usually have dropped their identity as humans. They get used to embrace an image related to some contemporary nation and subculture. Uncle Bob, the vampire over two and a half million years old who is considering to became a member of my family by adoption, is the image of an Australian. The accent, the Crocodile Dundee figurine, big yellow moustaches coming down all the way to the chin. This fellow, Percival, on the other hand, is know nowadays as “The Englishman”, supposedly since around 1500.

Goes without saying, no Elder Vampire is really from the nation they adopt as identity. Those fellows need vampiric powers or other means just to pass as homo sapiens. I didn’t imagined there was any sort of talking animals on Earth 7 million years ago, until I was introduced to the fact that vampires are real.

I got myself a house through a lawyer that mostly works for criminal organizations, drug cartels mostly. Unknowingly the lassie does some jobs for vampires, mostly lowlife vampires lucky enough to have some money and contacts, because Noble Vampires, those who are members of a vampire family represented in some Nocturnal Court, they usually have better means at their disposal.

Ironically, the lassie with shady moral principles works for some vampire hunters too. Knowing nothing about supernatural conflicts.

Sharon got me the house with six suits plus a panic room build like a vault, except that this one locks from inside. She also got me a small arsenal of military weapons and explosives, without ask any question about why I wanted them, and managed to adapt me one of the rooms, turning it into a big freezer. I was not hiding the fact that I have some money to expend in comfort and safety.

The Englishman would track all that money to some online schemes and there was no where to go from there.

Apparently, his blood thrall who was working undercover as spy in the Vampire Hunter subculture had an intracranial cell phone, like the one V got installed in all members of our family, myself included. It turned off moments before the fight in Berlin, thanks to V’s drones flying above the area, but before that the English got a good picture of my figure.

His AIs didn’t had difficulty to find me online after that. Doing tourism.

We knew something like that would happen sooner or later.

This young elder vampire and his family wanted to catch Caroline Golden-Coin, for a matter of honour and prestige, by this time. He wanted to know what had happened with his agent. We had a story of accident in mind.

I would try to play innocent. I knew nothing about this Caroline, she got information about me by accident, from someone who disliked me. Sold that, exaggerating my importance in order to get something from the vampire hunters. Was easy for any Elder Vampire to verify that I am no million years old vampire of Earth, hardly needs any research, they basically know each other all by name and biography, if not in person.

The hard part was to came up with a story about who I was supposed to be in reality. Because lowlife vampires are marked to destruction, I needed in my story some reason to not be killed immediately. I was not looking to fight an army of vampires, or a bothered vampire elder in need of a distraction.

V managed to plant some false clues that suggested I was connected to one of the reclusive families from the lost continent of Atlantis. Originally Extraterrestrial those fellows are on Earth as refugees or something like that, and keep little contact with local vampires.

Their bonds with groups of interest outside Earth motivate local vampires to avoid conflicts with them if possible. Uncle Bob helped plant some evidences that I was adopted by a particularly hard to find Atlantis House. I was waiting for his visit, since he would bring me personally the pendant I was supposed to have, to validate that tale.

Before that, I had to hunt. Also, I needed a stock of human blood in order to not need to hunt more often than the absolutely necessary.

Usually when a vampire needs blood bags for emergencies, if this vampire cannot use the resources of his family, is easy to go into a hospital and ask for it. Unfortunately, I was still not capable to use mind control powers basic to vampires. My mental defences had improved since Berlin, immensely. Despite that, I could barely use some superficial mental influence over humans.

Probably a psychological block. Self-repression.

Hunting was easy, I had the collective background of 61 seasoned vampire hunters to teach me about hunting. Hunt humans, as a vampire, was much easier. Tutorial in easy mode, you could say.

I realized that I was being followed a moment after I left the apartment of my first prey. Better than hunt in the streets, risking accidents. Was to brake find my way inside someone’s home, protected by shadows. Pick a lock silently, knowing that there was only one person home, and that person was sleeping. Super-human hearing improves the chances of success. Reduce risk.

Instead of try to lose them, I steal the first car available and drive calmly out city. Looking for a dark place with no witnesses.

Cops didn’t try to stop me, I can see two cars following, a van and a jeep. No attempts to be discreet. Human hunters would have abandoned me, or followed me from distance to plan carefully their next move. Lowlife vampires decided to challenge another lowlife for hunting rights in that territory would have attacked by this point. Anyone in that position would assume I was taking them to a trap of some sort.

I stopped after a curve, in the middle of nowhere.

Not knowing the region I could not be sure, but that seemed a discreet enough place for conversation. Or murder. Therefore, I left the car and walked in the woods.

Moments later I was surrounded.

“If you have a reason to be here, and a family at your back, you better present your credentials now. Otherwise, we will assume you are a lowlife and destroy you, outsider”

“I missed that formal moment when you present your credentials to me, child” I bluffed.

“We are from the Court of Cave Bear Cavern. I don’t have to give you our family names, you are an outsider and probably a lowlife. Rich lowlife, looks like. Still, lowlife. And you are trespassing!”

“No noble vampire hesitates when asked his family name. They boast about it when no one asks, I was told.

Those are lowlifes, but not regular, hungry homeless, lowlife vampires. Professional tugs trained to do unofficial tasks like that. Expendable mercenaries, who cannot easily be tracked back to the client, because they do not know who the client is.” Says a voice in my head. Uncle Bob.

I wasn’t aware that I had been transmitting.

“Can’t you tell the difference between a cyborg link and telepathy yet, mate? I am sitting in a plane, about to enter Canadian air space. I just pushed my thoughts ahead to see how you are. So, that is how you are! Never got one of those intracranial devices myself, not since I was 500 years old and still part of civilized vampiric society.

Not relevant to you, right now.

They are there to get information, not destroy you. Fight back, don’t give the impression that you are a push over. On the other hand, I suggest you hold back and take a beating. Don’t let them catch you, but lose that fight, run away and see how long they keep tracking you.

I suspect they will give up long before sunrise. Let’s find out if I am right”

His generous suggestion of risk my existence for the sake of satisfy his thirst for knowledge was touching, as you imagine, but I followed the plan he was suggesting anyway.

I shot my way out, pushed them back, only three of them were fast enough to maybe keep up with me, and I think I probably would be able to escape even them. I deliberately avoided to show all my speed and strength, tried to stay only one step ahead of those vampires. “Remember, you do not want to be captured, and you don’t want to give them the chance to get any drop of your blood”

“So, you can fee this all through my eyes, despite all the mental-shields I have developed”.

“To be fair, I am considerably older than the vampires usually hunted by human hunters. However, you are actually allowing me to keep that telepathic link open. Unconsciously your mind was looking for assistance, and apparently you trust me as your ally. Despite the fact that I have not yet decided if I will join your house as a member.”

They surrounded me time and again, I managed to escape. They kept shooting at me, with conventional weapons of human fabrication. I Shot them back. All the time uncle Bob was somewhere at the back of my mind, providing his perspective.

In his opinion the leaders were trained mercenaries, variating from 1 and 10 thousand years old, give or take few centuries. Lowlife vampires, possibly had been vampire hunters when they were humans. Cliché. Supporting those 8 guys there was between 20 and 30 vampires variating between 500 and 1500 years of experience as nocturnal predators. In the mix, some interesting vampiric seeds, nothing rare but many useful things.

Sadly, in Uncle Bob’s opinion, I was not hunting tonight.

We kept this game for one hour, more or less, then his voice in my mind sounded worried.

“Something is not right here!”

Almost in the same instant a burning sensation came from my right hand, when I looked half of it had disappeared, burned.

“Dense Wave pistols! DW is alien tech. Highly restricted, those things are not supposed to circulate outside Noble Vampire families. One hit in your head or hearth and they have you captured. Situation just became serious, your majesty!”

Second shot almost got me, coming from a different direction.

“The vampires caring those guns either are Noble Vampires who had been pretending to have less powers than they actually have. Or they are highly trusted lowlifes. Those weapons can be tracked back to the vampire who gave them to those fellows, and if that sort of indiscretion would be a problem even to the most prestigious elder.

I recommend you start running back as fast as you can, to the city.”

“I am not sure which direction it is!”

“Use the geo-localization function in that cranial cell phone of yours”

I realized that they had been pushing me away from the urban area. When I seriously tried to escape, they started showing powers they had not used yet. Shadows moved to hold me, stone statues raised from the ground shaped like giant dogs, even the trees moved to block my way. I was feeling the pressure in my mind, like a buzz, someone was definitely trying to affect my perceptions of time and space in some nasty way. Failing, fortunately.

In the middle of all that, another two of those DW weapons showed up. I was about to abandon all caution and throw my best card in this game. When I felt a and on my shoulder, and heard a familiar voice.

“Stay still.”

Uncle Bob was there. The other vampires moved forward, ignoring us.

“Now relax. No need to whisper, just don’t scream too much or make unnecessary scandal. Let’s leave this place, if you don’t have anything else you want to do here”.

“This…”

“Yes, the Cloak of Oblivion is a power of mine. My favourite blood seed. I took one of those spicy guns by the way. In my way in. From that we should be able to get leverage against the English, or who was behind those children.”

All things considered, this was a profitable night.