Location: Vancouver, Northeastern District
Time: 1:18 AM, 11/17/2103
I was pedaling through a familiar set of streets at an unfamiliar time. Typically I wouldn’t have been nearly that far through delivering that day’s blood, but on that particular day, I needed to get things done quickly. Kathy’s Bakery was scheduled to cater for a funeral later that day.
I know, who gets a bakery to cater a funeral? Apparently the family of one Emily Evret Evans.
Anyway, that meant I had a few extra hours of prep work that needed to be done. Rather than start at 5:00, I’d need to be at the bakery by 3:00.
Fortunately, I’d gotten good enough at my delivery routes that I could manage a night or two working at superhuman speeds. The only real weak link in my plan were the links in my chain. My already decrepit bike couldn’t keep up with that kind of consistent use. But as long as it made it through one night I’d be fine.
The deliveries themselves were no real problem. It seemed like most of our clientele got the same delivery every night, so I didn’t have to bother with constantly checking packages.
Until I reached one of my more noteworthy homes.
I locked my bike to the familiar road sign while checking back over the night’s delivery list.
Three liters of extra virgin blood with added hemoglobin. Every night it was the same. I’d spam the mansion’s doorbell and the girl the owner kept as a servant would accept the delivery.
Except there was nothing. Forget changing up the order, he wasn’t receiving anything at all. I could have just moved on with my deliveries, but I take my work more seriously than that. Since I was already in the area, it wouldn’t be hard to confirm with his servant that he wasn’t receiving any blood. It could have just been a paperwork error, or maybe he just forgot to renew his order.
I didn’t know. Still, based on the size of his mansion, he wasn’t the kind of customer I wanted to disappoint. I also didn't want to risk him performing the mental gymnastics required to blame his servant for this.
After a few rings of the doorbell an uninteresting middle-aged man answered the door. He was a vampire, or at least an aberration similar to one.
“Mr. Raslin?” I hadn’t seen him before, but I was more than familiar with the name of the person I was delivering blood to every night.
“Ah, um, yes. That’s me.” He seemed nervous. Was he just an anti-social guy? Was that why he always had his servant answer the door?
“Sorry to bother you on this fine evening, but I just wanted to ask about your blood situation.”
He looked confused, and a little unnerved at my question.
“The blood? Why?”
“Why? Because that blood is what’s keeping me fed as well!” If I couldn’t make reliable deliveries that old man who runs the shop would cut me off as well.
His face continued to grow even more tense.
“Ah, I’m sorry, it’s been hard to keep track of everyone, but please, don’t talk about things like that so loudly. You never know who’s listening.”
Ah, he was worried about people overhearing us. Even in the Northern Territories aberrations had a bad reputation, so he was probably trying to keep things discreet.
“Sorry, sorry, my bad.” I lowered my voice to match his. “I get it. Sometimes I worry that I’ll be caught fantasizing about going to town on a defenseless neck.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“A neck?”
“Of course. Where else would a vampire bite?”
“I mean, before now I’ve never bitten a human anywhere.”
Obviously not. If the situation was half as serious as Elodie made it out to be, attacking a human as an aberration was nothing more than suicide.
“Well I haven’t either, but it’s a mental thing. Seriously though, if everything is good here I really need to get things moving. I’ve got a funeral to prepare for.”
“A funeral? You mean, you’re going to actually give her a service?”
What? Why did he care about some random person’s funeral? Were funerals considered taboo among vampires? I’d never heard anything about that, but either way, it wasn’t my problem. I was just the guy making the food.
“Hey man, listen, it wasn’t my call. I just show up and start up the oven.”
“So she’s being cremated?”
“How should I know? All I need to worry about is making sure there’s enough for everybody to eat.”
“Ah, yes, I agree. But that’s not your responsibility though, is it?”
“I just do what the boss tells me to do.”
“The boss? So you know Elodie?”
“Elodie? That pink haired weasel? Listen, I don’t know what she’s told you, but you shouldn’t trust a word that comes out of her mouth. She plays at being innocent, but that girl’s dangerous.”
“So you know her?”
“Of course I do! She owes me big time!” I was still waiting to be compensated for the damage done to my sole means of transportation.
“Then what are you doing? Get inside. She’ll want to see you.”
He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me through the doorway. I was strong enough to resist him, but I didn’t want to make a scene. Besides, it would be a lie to say I wasn’t curious about what Elodie was doing there.
I could manage to spare a few minutes before getting back to my deliveries.
Without further explanation, he turned around and started moving through the house. I followed him down the hall and forced open the ornate looking door he’d left cracked open.
There she was. The servant girl I’d grown accustomed to seeing. Her face was non-expressive as ever, but for the first time, it didn’t seem out of place. She was unconscious, lying on a long table in the center of the room. A semicircle of 6 aberrations, including the one who’d let me in, were surrounding her. At the far side of the room, overwatching all of this, was a young girl standing on top of an impromptu dais.
“Yes, another lost soul has come to join our feast. Take back the honor they stole from us at birth. They threaten us with Hunters because they fear the change we’ll bring.”
The small crowd of aberrations cheered at the girl’s declaration.
Elodie.
At a glance it was unmistakable that Elodie was the one leading this conclave.
But I’d developed a few techniques more reliable than glances. Despite her appearance and the sound of her voice, that look alike wasn’t Elodie. What’s more, she wasn’t even a vampire. That girl was nothing more than an augmented.
Why couldn’t the others tell? Were my senses better than an average vampire’s? Or were they in on the whole thing? Basically, was this a trap set up to trick me, or was this something bigger, and I was just a mistake?
And what was I supposed to do in either case? I’d already turned Elodie’s job offer down, so I didn’t really have a reason to care about her doppelganger.
But what about the servant girl? I’m not the smartest guy around, but even I could read the writing on the wall.
So that’s why he wasn’t getting any blood tonight.
Mr. Raslin and his closest friends were treating themselves to something a little more fresh than what I usually deliver.
His closest friends? No. That doesn’t make sense.
All it took was a bad string of miscommunication for him to welcome me into this dine in meal.
He didn’t know any of them. Then who was setting this up?
My eyes moved back to the fake Elodie.
Why though? Why pretend to be Elodie in order to organize something like this?
And more importantly, why should it matter to me?
I pulled my vision away from the fake Elodie and onto the servant girl. I don’t know how much blood she’s got, but probably not enough to feed all six of them. She was going to die.
And it would be my fault. Not directly, but her daily interactions with me are what put her at risk. No, that shouldn’t have been enough.
I interact with lots of people every day, but as long as I don’t get too close they shouldn’t get wrapped up in my fate.
Was it because I took pity on her? Because I spent too long thinking about her? No, there was definitely more to it than that. Not that it mattered. I was focusing on the reason because I didn’t like the solution.
I had to save her. Unfortunately, I’m still not the kind of guy who could ignore the messes he causes.