While Sarah waited, she did something she hadn’t done before. She looked in a mirror in the palace entryway and applied lipstick. She had been carrying a stick with her since she was allowed to wear it by her mother, but she never put it on herself. She’d picked up a stick of blood red lipstick when shopping with Amee, at her friend’s insistence. Amee swore it went well with Sarah’s normally pale skin, something being a vampire just enhanced it. She allowed herself a peak at her fangs. Erik had snuck up on her and spoke to her.

“I did not take you for the make-up type.”

Sarah smiled and glanced around. Even while trying to keep herself on a tight leash as a vampire there was a euphoria that came along with it that made her inhibitions evaporate. She glanced around and seeing no one was looking she did something she had wanted to do all day. She pressed Erik against a wall out of the camera’s view and pressed her lips on his. Something pushed her to let him feel her fangs slip across his bottom lip as they broke their kiss. He leaned against the wall stunned by Sarah’s kiss. Sarah waved to him and walked out the door. Her supernatural senses had told her a car had pulled up. She could smell the vampire approaching to ring the doorbell. He looked rather surprised to be greeted by Sarah. She spoke before he could.

“Thank you. Let’s get this over with hmm?”

He nodded. Sarah glanced over her shoulder to Erik and winked while giving him a small wave. She rode in the backseat of the same armored SUV as she had been in before. She motioned to the fridge.

“May I?”

“There’s only blood, ma’am.”

Sarah smiled showing her fangs.

“I know, and I’m hungry.”

“As you like then, ma’am.”

Sarah opened the cooler and pulled out a bag. She pulled the seal off and started sucking on it. Her nose wrinkled instantly. This wasn’t the blood of Sextus, or Amee. It tasted stale. There was no emotion to it. No euphoria. Just cold…sustenance. Like… flavorless porridge. Not disgusting but not the real thing.

“What is this?”

“Synthetic blood. You don’t like it?”

“There’s… nothing.”

He chuckled.

“You get used to it. Better than a Reaper coming after you, yes?”

Sarah resisted the urge to ask what a Reaper was. Then she realized it must be someone like Helen or Cindie. They had strange swords. Probably for parting vampires from their body parts. Like their heads. She swallowed the synthetic blood hard at the thought.

“Not allowed to drink from humans?”

“Sure we are. Has to be willing humans.”

“Well, that’s easy…”

“Sure, until a Reaper or MANA figure out what you’ve been up to.”

Sarah nibbled on her bottom lip. At least it was going to keep her going.

“Used to be different before… Nice to be open, still talk to family. You young ones should be used to this. How did someone get permission to turn you so young?”

Sarah frowned. She realized the positions he’d just put herself in.

“I turned myself.”

“You’re one of the cursed?”

Sarah shook her head.

“No, cursed? Huh? No, I can turn into whatever I want. It’s part of my power.”

“And you chose a vampire of all things? Why not a werewolf? An adult?”

Sarah shrugged.

“When in Rome?”

He laughed.

“I suppose it’s better to be one of the vampires then food for vampires when you’re visiting us.”

Sarah tossed the plastic synthetic blood pack into the trash can in the back of the SUV.

“Especially when you get that… cardboard.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“So, you’ve had a drink from a human then? Few young ones can say that.”

Sarah nodded.

“It is quite the rush.”

Sarah nodded shifted in her seat remembering the lustful rich blood that had cross her tongue when she drank from Amee. He glanced in the rear-view mirror.

“Don’t spread that around. A lot of young ones choose to be disgusted by the idea. It seems to make them feel better. The less they know about how it feels the better for them. If they never know what they’re missing the synthetic blood will be heaven to them.”

“It can’t be that old… right?”

“No, it’s not but before that it was mixed blood. No euphoria.”

Sarah nodded. Even the vampires had their rules apparently. Which kind of sucked. No one was free in this world. She sighed.

“You’re in a limiter and you can still change? I thought they stopped power use.”

Sarah shook her head.

“They… help control them. Like umm… training wheels. But don’t need it as a vampire. Can only do vampire stuff, which is easier to control.”

He nodded. Sarah pondered if she was sharing too much. Enid had warned her about these lot. She wasn’t sure what Pugmentia were but she didn’t ask either. If it was like being called trailer trash the targets of that title were seldom impressed with the reference. Cursed was something she could ask about.

“So… there are vampires who did not get turned normally?”

He nodded.

“Very rare. Magical curses, or something to that effect. Not sure of the specifics but they are always odd balls. The two I’ve met seem to feel like this is a curse.”

Sarah shook her head.

“It’s a gift.”

“Exactly. Immortality? Power? Easy diet to follow? Work for the Lord and he pays for your clothes and home. Great life.”

Sarah giggled at the easy diet to follow remark.

“How old are you? Is that rude to ask?”

“I’m over a hundred years turned. Grew up in the 19th century.”

“Amazing. What do you think of how the world changed?”

“Russia is better than it was. Cars smell better then horse ass.”

Sarah leaned forward.

“You don’t seem that old.”

“I try not to take life to seriously. Or unlife as the case may be. Not like the stuffed shirts you’re going to meet tonight. The Lord being the exception. He’s a good man. Old…very old. Remembers the old Emperor.”

Sarah put her chin on the top of her hands as she leaned on the divider.

“What do you think of the current Empress?”

“That is a loaded question. You are at her school.”

Sarah smiled.

“I won’t tell. I promise.”

“I really don’t know. Her changes… well they were changes. Things are better and worse. Used to be able to drink when we wanted how we wanted.”

“How about Isis?”

“Who is that?”

Sarah blinked a few times.

“She’s a member of the council. Sort of… a friend of mine.”

“Now I understand the Lord being so adamant about your safety and ensuring your visit goes well. I thought it was the Empress.”

Sarah shook her head slightly.

“No, Eyre…the Headmistress… Empress. I don’t know Isis has always been honest with me. The Empress not so much. Also, I get the sense Isis is the one everyone listens to and just lets the Headmistress take all the crap… you know?”

He nodded.

“Makes sense. Let the Empress risk her neck and take the blame. What is Isis like? Is she old?”

“She’s very…very old. Nine thousand? She looks like she’s made of marble. But her skin is soft. She has golden eyes. She seems… normal though but you can tell she’s so far beyond you… like you’re looking at a goddess. I’m not sure. Every time I’ve dealt with her, she has been honest and friendly. Almost kind. As kind as I think she can be. I can tell she’s let her human feelings go though. I can see why. It’s nice to feel in control…”

“She’s so old she has probably had too. Imagine the insanity that would spawn feeling everything as a human for so long. Losing everyone you care about or turning them, then their feelings melting away.”

Sarah nodded she was about to ask another question, then stopped herself to ask the polite question.

“I’m sorry, I did not ask your name.”

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He smiled.

“Andrew.”

Sarah leaned her head to the side.

“Andrew?”

“Yes, is there something wrong with that name?”

“I don’t know I was expecting something extremely Russian.”

He laughed.

“No, my mother was British. I was named after my grandfather on her side.”

Sarah smiled and leaned back glancing at the cooler of synthetic blood. She glanced up and he nodded. She pulled out another bag and started sucking it down. Once past the initial shock she had to admit it wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever had. There was some tofu she recalled that surpassed it by a long shot. She finished it off then refreshed her lipstick. Andrew had fallen into silence. Sarah decided to tap her wrist and look over what she’d missed in the last twenty-four hours. She wasn’t pleased with what she was reading. Not that the various news stories painted her in a bad light. Just that there were news stories at all. She swiped her hand over the hologram and sunk into her seat. The pair drove silently until Andrew pulled into an underground parking lot. He didn’t reach her door by the time she’d gotten out.

Sarah’s sixth sense triggered. She shoved Andrew into the car with more strength than she realized her vampiric body possessed. Her instinct wasn’t to use her telekinesis. It was to remove the threat. She realized everything had slowed down around her. The bullets were stopped in midair. She looked around and saw a pair of men in tactical body armor holding assault rifles. She knew they were men she could smell it on them. Hear the heart beats. She danced through the wall of bullets gracefully and clotheslined both men. She hit them so hard they bounced off the wall and face planted on the concrete. As the first drops of blood splattered across the floor of the parking garage time resumed its normal flow for her and the bullets pelted the magically reinforced SUV leaving not even a scratch.

Sarah grabbed the men by the top of their back armor and slammed them onto the ground again. The armor could stop bullets but the amount of blunt force trauma inflicted by her ridiculous amounts of vampiric strength shattered the plates. They were still alive. Sarah hadn’t meant to do as much harm as she did. While she had absolute control over her muscles, she hadn’t expected them to be able to produce so much force so she just did what she always did, she used everything she could muster. She had intended to ask the men who sent them, but they were in no shape to answer. They would need a full-on trauma team and there was a high chance they would not survive.

Enid shimmered into existence in a car mirror. She was shaking her head.

“See? I told you vampires were dicks.”

Sarah pointed at the two dying men.

“They’re not vampires!”

Enid shrugged.

“So what? They came after you with silver bullets. You think they were going to have a nice chat with you? Probably Chechens looking for some revenge, based on their tats. You probably took out their sister or brother or some bullshit on that plane. No use feeling bad for them kid. They would have done the same to you if they could. Self-defense. Enough said.”

“How did I move so fast?”

“You can alter the flow of time. Its instinctual, burns up blood awful fast though. Bet you’re feeling hungry right about now. Also, all that strength you used, not cheap either. You probably could have taken these two out with your normal human strength. You hit them hard enough you could have thrown a train engine. Good armor though, they’re still breathing, for now. I mean if I were in control they’d be dead and their blood would be replacing what I used to put them down.”

“That’s murder.”

“No pumpkin, that’s life as a vampire. They want to attack you; They are offering themselves up for dinner.”

Sarah whispered harshly.

“Why did you tell me to turn into this then?”

“If I hadn’t, you’d have bullets in you right now. Think about that kid.”

Enid evaporated from the mirror when Andrew approached her from behind. He was looking between Sarah and the two dying men. He pulled out his cell phone and made a call.

“Take out, two, parking garage of Lord’s office. Also check on security. How did they get in here?”

Sarah was looking down at the men who were bleeding out on the ground. She started making her own call to emergency services. She wasn’t sure what number that was here in Russia. Andrew put his hand around her forearm and shook his head. Sarah looked back down at the men. They’d stopped breathing. She was glad she was a vampire right now. If she were human she’d be vomiting. This time the blood was on her hands. She hadn’t watched Enid kill two humans; She had done it herself. She looked at her hands and her arms. There was no sign she’d just ended two lives. She hadn’t even got blood on her shoes. Andrew released her arm as Sarah swiped away the hologram. He ended his call and glanced around.

A van pulled up from lower in the garage and four men got out. Two of them had body bags wrapped under their arms. They nodded to the pair. Andrew motioned for Sarah to follow him. The pair got on an elevator. He seemed rather calm. This shouldn’t have surprised her. She was rather calm on the outside too. This was how vampires lost their humanity. One life at a time. She should be in shock, but her body just wouldn’t allow her mind to do that to herself. A voice inside her, maybe it was Enid’s voice or maybe it was just her own reinforcing what Enid had said. They gave her no choice. She would always pick her own life over someone trying to harm her.

Andrew glanced at Sarah. He had his hands folded behind his back as they rode the elevator to the vampire court. Sarah was staring straight ahead. She knew killing people was wrong. She fundamentally knew it in her core. Enid’s lose morals where the sanctity of life was concerned must be the reasons it was so easy for her to justify her actions. That was the only explanation. Andrew finally spoke.

“You did not have to push me aside. I am here to protect you, not the other way around.”

Enid’s reflection appeared in the mirror finish of the elevator panel in front of Sarah and spoke.

“Yes, you did. Silver bullets would have put him down fast. Pugmentia have issues with the purity of it. Or the concept of purity of it. Comes from their tainted blood. Original sin. They were created from blood stolen from Sextus. Those two meant to kill any vampire protectors you had. I figure torture was probably on the table after they got their hands on you. Stupid mortals. Even without being a vampire you could have erased them with a snap of your fingers.”

Sarah glanced at the reflection but did not answer. She had no wish to look insane at this point. Andrew seemed to take Sarah’s glance and silence as a cue to continue.

“It looks bad that I could not protect you.”

Sarah looked at Andrew.

“They were silver bullets. They meant to kill you.”

“How did you know they were silver?”

“I can move so fast as a vampire time stands still for everyone else.”

“A girl your age should not… should not be in a predicament where people could get hurt.”

Sarah nodded.

“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t understand how strong I was.”

“Many new vampires make that mistake if they did not receive the proper education. If you move so fast likely it multiplied the strength many times.”

Sarah shook her head.

“It’s not like that. I’m not moving fast… everything is else is just moving slower? I don’t… its new.”

Andrew nodded.

“It is best not to dwell on such things.”

Sarah was almost the same height as Andrew who was just a touch over six foot tall.

“I just killed two people. I will never forget that.”

“It can be done…”

Sarah shook her head.

“No, I’m immune, and even if it could be done the trauma still remains and you slowly go crazy from random nightmares. No thank you. Been there, done that.”

Andrew looked as if he were to inquire more but then thought the better of it and simply said.

“I sense you are just as immortal as I am. Even if you’re only temporarily a vampire. People will die in your lifetime. You have superpowers, some of them may be at your hands. You have to choose whether you’re going to suffer for the rest of eternity with the guilt or move past it.”

Enid’s reflections smirked at Andrew’s words. Then spoke herself.

“Guilt is like a sack you fill with stones as you walk through life. Do not carry a full sack: Learn what you can from each stone. Keep the knowledge you gain but throw the stone away.”

Sarah blinked at Enid’s reflection. Out of everything she expected to pass through Enid’s lips, she would never have guessed she would hear very proverb sounding philosophical statements. She repeated the statement out loud. Andrew nodded to her.

“A Japanese POW told me that in World War 2 when I expressed my regret over his treatment. Very wise man. Poor man lost his family in Hiroshima. Had nothing to return home to after the war. Yet he still went back with his head held high. Taught Karate… last I heard.”

Sarah quirked her head to the side when she noticed a pained look cross Enid’s face. She knew the hard seeming woman had a heart somewhere in her what confused Sarah was why Enid cared about the plight of a random Japanese soldier.

“If you take that statement to heart you will be better for it, Sarah.”

Sarah nodded. The elevator dinged a few moments later. It opened into a hallway which led to a gathering place of sorts. It was a wide-open space with beautiful artwork. Paintings, statues. Strangely there were no seats. It occurred to Sarah that vampires wouldn’t require such things as they never grew physically tired, nor would the suffer for sore backs or feet. Sarah wasn’t much of an art enthusiast but even she had to admit the beauty of the place.

Sarah’s arrival with Andrew had not gone unnoticed by those in attendance but none approached her directly, so she was able to enjoy the art in peace while Andrew moved off to make a report to someone. Her vampiric senses allowed her to see the individual brush strokes. Small imperfections in the statuary. Somehow these things added to the overall appeal. She understood after the first painting why vampires would surround themselves in such things. They above anyone else could appreciate the beauty they offered.

Sarah mused some in the room may have been alive when the sixteenth century portrait she was looking at was painted. Sarah was intrigued by the pale woman in the painting. Who was she? Such care was taken in the painting, yet, she could see the painter had made the woman look… cold and heartless. She pondered if the artist had survived his work if the woman was as she appeared in it. Then she wondered if Enid knew her. There was a spark of recognition which made it all the more infuriating.

Sarah was pulled back to the room around her when she heard someone speak beside her. She glanced to the side. It was a tall man with an immaculately trimmed black beard and long black hair which was tied back in a ponytail. He was somewhere in his thirties she was sure… at least appeared that way, in a room full of immortal vampires he could have been ten thousand years old. No, his green eyes were too kind for that. He was dressed in an expensive black suit, blood red shirt with the top button unbuttoned. No tie. He had his hands folded behind his back. He repeated himself for her benefit.

“I often get lost in the art myself. The bloody baroness is one of my favorites. A rare mortal who had a blood lust that rivaled our own.”

Sarah immediately knew who the subject of the portrait was. Elizabeth Bathroy, but this wasn’t the portrait she’d seen depicting her on the internet. This was different. Less abstract, more as if the woman sat for it.

“Then this isn’t real right?”

The man smiled.

“Of course it is, I rescued it from her home shortly before the mortals burned the rest.”

Sarah blinked a few times.

“This is yours?”

The man chuckled.

“I daresay it is all of ours. Art shouldn’t be owned; It should be appreciated by all. Of course, some art would cause undesirable questions, hence it ends up in places like this, where it can be truly appreciated.”

Sarah looked back to the painting admiring its craftsmanship in a way no mortal could.

“Did you know her?”

“Yes. She courted many of our kind…my kind in her quest for immortality. None of us were foolish enough to risk our lives on the chance she would change once she was turned. I have my doubts any in the room were directly responsible for so many deaths as her. No, she would have killed so many it would have drawn attention to whomever brought her across. A Seer even investigated her on suspicion of vampirism, before the mortals caught wind of her doings.”

“You call them Seers, why do others call them Reapers?”

He smiled.

“A misunderstanding of the task they have been given. The young see them as Baba Yaga, a story they are told to frighten them into behaving. That if they break the laws, one will come and snatch them in the night and devour their blood. Their progenitor being who she was, I suppose the reputation is warranted. Enid Aurelius did not bode any breach of the law and she punished it most harshly.”

“You knew Enid?”

He smiled.

“Of course. She was… a dear friend, if she had such things.”

“I thought she didn’t like… Pugment… vampires like you.”

“Ah, you have heard the term. I feared you had been given a slanted view from the council. I am sad to see I was correct. You are also correct; Enid did not appreciate my kind. However, a rare few of us earned her respect. Not an easy feat. The world is lesser for her loss. I wonder what kind of Empress she would have made in this new world we find ourselves in. Her daughter does a passable job, but she lacks the conviction of her mother. Enid was very decisive. She could think on her feet. With her daughter its always the council, or meetings and investigations. Sometimes swift action is required.”

“Maybe she is just that old.”

“I predate our lovely Empress, and I still understand the need for swift and decisive action when it is required.”

Sarah offered her hand he took it and shook it firmly.

“I am Sarah, the Lord invited me tonight, I’m not really… a vampire.”

The man smiled.

“I am Lord Vlad Dracul. It is I who extended your invitation. I just absolutely had to meet the teenage girl who so eloquently accused a major press outlet of being in collusion with terrorists to silence their unfortunate questions.”

Sarah would be blushing if she physically felt she could.

“I was not myself that night.”

Vlad smiled.

“Oh, on the contrary, I believe you were your true self in that moment. Vampirism brings out the best and worst of us. It heightens everything, even emotions if we allow it. No, you are very intelligent and you never back down from a fight. It showed in your words.”

“I am normally not that rude, Lord Dracul.”

“Vlad, please. And never apologize for defending yourself. A well-spoken young woman who stands up for herself should be considered strong, not rude. Everything you said was valid. Likely unfounded, but you asked them as opposed to outright accusing. I saw that and pondered if I had wasted Abby’s time sending her to help you. Your words were pure genius. You deflected accusations without denying them, you gave the rest of the press pause before they asked their so-called hard questions. Words are weapons, my young friend. They can cut as surely as a blade. And no blade cuts as deeply as the proper word at the proper time. Though a blade can wound and kill. Words can destroy someone, even an immortal vampire. Words are our weapons of choice. And should you choose to make this transition more permanent, I assure you, you would be a force to be reckoned with.”

Sarah nodded.

“Feel free to avail yourself of the supplied beverages and enjoy the art. Should you wish to speak more I am here. Alas at the moment I must mingle further.”

Sarah turned and looked at him directly.

“Sir, Vlad, do you know what Abby wants to see me about tonight?”

He smiled.

“Unfortunately, I am not her keeper, just her employer. You will need to find that out from her. Though I do believe I overheard her say something about an insurance policy. I am interested to find out what intrigue she is up to. She does keep immortality interesting.”