Chapter 1: Wrong Side of the Bed

As a vampire, I had all the time in the world to make plans, so when the coffin lid was sealed in 1819 I trusted my lovely retainer to do what I asked of her.

My sire worked on finding out the truth of who was feeding the hunters information, but they were hot on my tail, forcing me underground. We both figured a week in torpor would give the city enough time to calm down. Then we could kill the hunters without alerting the mortals. It was never a good look on a fledgling city when the Inquisition decides to pull people out of their homes and put them to the flame because they might be a vampire.

But, as I closed my eyes and drifted into unconsciousness, something nagged at the back of my mind. A worry that something wasn't right about the whole thing. It was too easy to hide. Then my world went black and I fell into a dreamless state of nothing until I heard screaming and tried to rouse. Strange flashes of unusual sights filled my mind for a moment. A world asunder by ungodly flames. They ceased just as abruptly and I found myself back in the black of torpor.

Heartbeats pulsed through my ears, pulling a strange thread in my mind as I awakened from torpor. Distant voices called out in the dark. Three mortals by the heartbeats I heard.

The comfortable darkness within the coffin tried to lull me back to sleep, but the voices felt odd. Speaking English, sure, but not any accent I ever heard. They walked above me in my house and were likely hunters searching for me, because one called out. “Hello? Anyone here?” a man with a calmly beating heart asked.

I could have replied, but only an idiot would expose themselves to hunters like that.

My heavy eyes closed in the abyss, not doing much at all anyway, but then they snapped open as another voice spoke, “Amelia? Are you with us?”

“Alright, guys!” a third voice said far, far too loudly as he wandered through the front door. “We’re bringing you another ghost hunt this week and this time it's out in Westcal. Deep in the heart of the Halifax Shard. Locals tell tales of a phantom haunting this old mansion that’s been abandoned since before the Collide.”

There is no way my house was abandoned!

It had Amelia and I in it, which meant the cretin was mistaken. And… Halifax Shard? My house was in Encinar, California!

I pushed on the coffin lid, but the heavy wood resisted my efforts like something was weighing down on it. Dirt most likely if Amelia buried me in the ground like planned. I tried again and my weak limbs barely cracked it open.

“One legend says that on the longest night of the year you can hear sobbing coming from an upstairs room. Other nights, people report candlelight moving throughout the house. So we’ve got a real haunting on our hands.”

Light blasted into the coffin as a set of ethereal fingers pushed their way between the gap, blinding me for a moment. They lifted the lid with a gentle creak. A glowing figure stepped aside and turned away from me. Her fancy dress reminded me of one from my wardrobe as she floated over to a set of candles inset into the stone wall.

The ghostly woman’s billowing hair moved with the dress on a non-existent wind while she wordlessly worked to light candle after candle. It gave the room a soft glow that should feel warm, but wasn’t.

I rubbed my face in an effort to beat back the effects of torpor, but I needed blood. My gnawing stomach yearned for it. But, at least my dress stayed nice and neat in the coffin. It was a wonder the damned thing fit under the lid, as changing attire into a nightgown wasn't a priority at the time.

The ghost turned away from the wall and floated past me, all the while holding a hand to her face so I couldn't see who she was. I took a deep breath, letting in as much air as my dead lungs could take.

“Who are you?” I asked softly, as I didn't remember making any mortal my eternal servant and the way this ghost was acting was strange.

An urge to feed from the three blood sacks pulled at my fangs, begging for them to slide out.

One of the loud newcomers exclaimed something I didn’t fully understand, as it was a bit of jargon that the others failed to respond to aside from saying their hellos.

“Who is the blood sack talking to?” I whispered to the ghost. The hunger tore across my scalp and fangs with an ache I shouldn’t ignore for long. I really should get up there and deal with them, but I couldn't if they were hunters. I wasn't strong enough in my current state, which felt a lot more than three days without food. Three days is nothing, but the feeling was vastly different to that.

A visceral hunger I thought I kept hidden. One which I wouldn't be able to stop myself from killing the first blood sack I sank my fangs into. While not a problem, it might draw the hunters to us again. Unless the blood sacks were hunters. Then it didn't matter. They get a shallow grave out back.

“Amelia,” the woman above said, drawing the ghost’s attention up to the ceiling.

The ghost can't be Amelia, can it?

I blinked a few times, and then squinted in the dim light even though it did nothing. Her face was away from me, so I climbed out of the coffin and stood on shaking legs.

“We are only wanting to ask you some questions,” the woman said quietly. “Can you answer them?”

The ghost looked over at me and that’s when a shiver ran through my body as if I just jumped overboard from a ship into arctic waters. I don’t recommend it. Even as a vampire. Her round face and beautiful cheeks were Amelia’s. Those empty eyes of hers held no joy, only sorrow and anger at the life lost to time.

A life I could have saved had I been there for her…

I reached out for my retainer’s help and fell to my knees, feeling only a slight stab of pain as the wood slammed into them. Amelia dashed to my side, gently wrapping her glowing hands around my waist and hauled me to my feet. She next put a cane in my hand, floated back and nodded.

I didn't need a cane normally, but the gesture didn't go unnoticed.

“Did anyone hear that?” the third voice asked as his heart rate picked up, practically fluttering in his chest.

“Hear what?” A fourth voice called out.

“I thought I just heard something move, but I don't see anything.”

Likely because he was above us walking like a child with his heels digging into the ground first.

“I found a storage crate of clothes,” the calm man said from one corner of the basement. “Some really old paintings, too. Looks like an old woman lived here with her servant.”

“What happened to them?”

“Is anybody with us?” the woman asked.

“May I? I feel… drawn to speak with them,” Amelia whispered in an odd tone, colder and sadder than I remembered her ever being in life.

What happened while I was in torpor?

I nodded. “Let us toy with these blood sacks before we make ourselves known.”

Amelia floated off to the door and passed through it, leaving behind a ghostly after image, just before it faded to nothing.

Above me, I heard another voice. It was distant, but filled with an unusual noise making it hard to hear clearly. All it said was, “Yes.”

The woman gasped. “Guys! I got something! Can you tell us your name?”

“Amelia,” the strange voice said.

The other mortals seemed to be drawn to the woman as well, as their footsteps moved in her direction. Based on where they were in the room I could leave my hidden chambers and get behind them without any of the blood sacks knowing. If I could climb the stairs in my current state that is. All I needed was a sip and could smell blood closeby.

They asked if Amelia was a spirit, which she answered accordingly. I still had a hard time believing it was her. I remembered her worried bright brown eyes just as the coffin lid shut, sealing me away to keep me safe.

It was going to be okay, she had said. We’ll deal with them for you, Mistress.

“Can you give us a sign?” the odd woman asked.

Something slid across the floor above.

The woman gasped excitedly like she hadn't ever seen a ghost move a box, followed by the annoying one saying, “Look! Look! Look! There's actually a ghost. We captured our first ghost on camera!”

Capturing a ghost on camera didn’t make much, if any sense, because the exposure was too slow to do anything.

I wobbled my way to the door, pausing next to a soup bowl at the foot of my coffin. An iron-filled scent teased my nose as I stared at the glittering crimson liquid. There were stains around the edges where dried blood overflowed at one time. Even in death, she knew how to take care of me.

I gently picked the warm bowl up and brought it close. Rabbit’s blood if the sip was anything to go by; rancid and foul, but any blood would do and she knew it. I wasn't some proper princess like some of those stuffy nobles in London who only drank from the upper class.

Those fucking Blue Bloods like Jean looked down on my sire and I because we were nomads who wanted our own cut of the world.

As I brought the steaming bowl to my lips, the woman asked Amelia if she could describe what she looked like.

To which Amelia said no.

Then, the woman asked a few rather personal questions like if she lived here and if she had a message.

Both of which were yes. Amelia’s message was simply, “Leave.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The warm blood flowed into my mouth and fangs, down my throat and was absorbed before hitting my stomach like a boiling hot cauldron.

“But we only wish to talk with you and help you move on,” the woman stated.

I closed my eyes, steadily slurping from the bowl while my system absorbed the liquid nourishment. It wasn't deer, and certainly wasn't human, but it'll do. It'll do.

“Do you hear something?” another voice called out above me.

“Run!” Amelia yelled through whatever object they were using.

“I think we should listen to her,” the woman said. “She sounds frightened.”

Or annoyed.

There were only three heartbeats, but four voices. “Something about this room feels odd,” the fourth voice said. “Does anyone else feel it? I smell… no, it can't be. This house is abandoned, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it, Caleb?” the second voice asked.

“Run!” Amelia shouted through whatever it was they were using. They could be witches from Nassau come to collect a debt and that’d be bad for us both, but they seemed like they were new to whatever they were doing.

The fourth voice, Caleb, stood right over top of me and tapped his foot against the floor as if he was looking for something. “Nothing. We should leave like the ghost says.”

The woman whined, “But we found a ghost. We can't leave yet!”

“Something feels wrong, Jezebel! I think the house is occupied.”

“What do you mean occupied?”

“Trust me! I have a bad feeling about this.”

“But we have a ghost!”

While they argued over whether or not I lived there, I tilted the bowl back and drank the last of the piping hot liquid. A gnawing in the back of my mind and fangs demanded I march up there and kick them from my abode. She demanded to drain each blood sack until they breathed no more. A deep, unsealed, yearning for blood spurred me forward. Living. Mortal. Blood.

I had to feed properly and rabbit’s blood was only a disgusting entrée to the proper main course; Every single drop of a human.

My feet made nary a sound as I ascended the dark and ancient staircase under the cover of Amelia throwing things around. Dust fell from my shoulders and trailed behind me like snow.

She better clean up after herself when these blood sacks were dealt with.

From what I could gather, the walking blood sacks were both terrified and excited to see furniture moving all on its own. I would be, too, if I was still mortal. I should feel something for Amelia, but there was only a gaping wound she used to occupy in my chest.

Not only that but the group was conflicted on what to do, because they kept arguing about staying or not. That was perfect. Their shouting would mask my approach.

As I approached the hidden door, I heard one of the others speak out about stubbing their toe in the dark, which was a good thing, as that meant they wouldn't see me until it was too late. I opened the door and rusty hinges betrayed my movements with the ungodliness of a banshee screeching through the darkness.

I froze.

“What was that?!” the woman shouted from somewhere in the dark. Small hand held lanterns swept through the dark, revealing dead wood, a pitifully sagging ceiling, and far too many luggage boxes to see clearly through.

I crawled out and closed the door behind me, allowing the enchantment to cover it once again and hide the door from prying eyes. At least that part of the wall wasn't so damaged the rune was exposed. Then, I focused on willing what little blood I had into the shadows around me. My heart thumped once as the darkness enveloped me in a warm blanket.

“Did you guys hear that?” Caleb asked from far away.

Three people, not four, were in my basement. Two clustered near each other with objects in their hands: one with a hand held lantern of sorts and a strange device in the other. The second person, another lantern and another equally strange device that resembled a pen with tiny lights.

From what I could make out, the people wore trousers and shirts better suited to working outside than attending a ball. As for the third person, she was the most underdressed woman I’d ever laid eyes on. Not even saloon girls or prostitutes dared to show that amount of skin.

Undershorts and a top that showed off her stomach? Prime real estate for biting into anywhere I pleased. The perfect target. With a small smile, I stayed low behind the boxes and moved toward the least dressed blood sack, waiting for the opportune moment. I assumed she was Jezebel, as I didn’t see or hear any other women.

“It is too late. My mistress has come for you,” Amelia said through the strange device the woman held in her hands.

Jezebel brought the device close to her ear, glancing around as she waved the lantern like a lunatic. “Guys?” she called out. “I’m starting to think we came into someone’s house...”

“I’ve been saying that!” Caleb called from the dark, but I didn’t see him anywhere. “I think… I think… it’s not making any sense!”

Jezebel’s hands trembled as she swung her mini lantern all across the room looking for something, anything out of the ordinary, but she wouldn’t find it with the darkness keeping me hidden from view like an old friend. Once her back was to me, I stepped out from the shadows and stalked toward her.

“Good bye, mortal,” Amelia said.

“We should leave. Now!” Jezebel shouted as she walked toward the stairs.

I wrapped my arms around her, one hand going for her mouth to muffle the scream that came next while my other moved to pin her arms in place. Her wild hair looked strange and made her head look a little… off? Didn’t matter. Blood.

Fangs bared, I opened wide to bite down.

“It’s been abandoned for over two hundred years!” a voice shouted at the same time I leaned toward Jezebel’s neck. “That ghost is just fucking with us.”

Two hundred years?!

My hand slipped from the blood sack’s mouth. She screamed in unholy terror as she tore herself away from me, voice cracking like a banshee screeching into the night.

“Jezebel!” Caleb shouted as someone ran toward me in the dark.

Two hundred... Two hundred years?!

“What happened to a week…?” I whispered right as every handheld lantern whipped in my direction and illuminated me like lighthouses in the night. Running wouldn't do much good when I felt famished. I used the only blood I had to sneak up on the woman and these clearly weren't hunters, because if they were they would be in armor and not mostly naked!

The woman aimed her objects at me. One was tiny, about the size of her hand with a rather large camera lens on it. Next to it was a strange flat section and all I saw was the glow in her face as she stared wide eyed at me, heart pounding away so fast it was like a speeding locomotive.

“We found the homeowner from the paintings…” Jezebel said, her voice an odd mixture for sure. Fear, but also something else I couldn't place. Awe? Her eyes glowed bright blue in the dark and I wasn’t sure how I didn’t notice them before.

I couldn't see clearly thanks to the bright spots in my eyes, so I took a step back from her and shielded the lights with my hands. Not even squinting helped to see past those infernal things!

The idea of fleeing bubbled to the surface, but so did confusion as my mind worked over the timeline. Two hundred years asleep. Two hundred years of not knowing what transpired outside my slumber?! No. That can't be right!

“Amelia?!” I called out to her, hoping she’d appear.

She did. The ghost popped out of a box and floated over, holding her hands out as she asked, “Mistress? What's wrong?”

“It…” I instinctively took a deep breath and let out despite not needing to breathe. I did it again. “It's been two hundred years?!”

“Do not listen to these mortals, my love!”

“What in the devil happened to a week?!”

“It is still eighteen nineteen and we must deal with them before the Council finds out!”

“Fuck the council! What about their clothes? Their accents?!”

She glanced at the mortals before glaring at me. “They are lying. Kill them, my love.”

“Do not lie to me, Amelia!”

Amelia hissed, becoming a strange specter, turning into that of a skeleton with a stake through the chest. She floated away from me, spinning to the side. The specter covered her face and shielded her chest from view before flying through a wall.

“Amelia!” I called out and reached for her, my hand slipping through the cold air as she disappeared.

That left the four mortals. They encircled me. Each pointed their small lanterns and objects in my direction until one of the men set his objects down.

He held his hands up, glittering red eyes filled with stolen lifeblood staring right at me. Those unnatural eyes could only belong to a vampire. Bright and filled with magic that kept corpses like me walking about.

“Easy there, grandma,” he said calmly. The vampire stepped toward me but kept his distance when I took another step back.

“I am not your grandmother.” I stood as tall as I could, which was still shorter than the men around me and even the woman was quite a bit taller than I. She looked odd, but I couldn’t place it at first, because she was moving around too much.

Jezebel kept her odd camera pointed at me, a wide grin on her face. “Oh, this is perfect! Go ghost hunting and find a dormant vampire. But only five viewers…? I need to promote the fuck out of this when we get out of here!”

“You've been asleep for sometime if that layer of dust is right.” The more the vampire talked, the more he sounded like that Caleb fellow. He slowly reached into a satchel on his side and pulled out a clear bag filled with a dark, nearly black liquid. He ripped open a corner of the bag and the unmistakably iron scent of blood drifted out.

“Gods damn, she looks old,” Jezebel whispered loud enough I heard it.

Her language made me frown, but I didn't have any thoughts aside from blood on my mind. My hand moved on its own as I took the bag from Caleb and gave it a sniff. It was made with a material I hadn't seen before, but if two hundred years had passed then that meant things were different for sure.

I looked around to see if there were any other humans in the room aside from the four and saw a ‘normal’ looking Amelia sitting on one of the nearby boxes, observing me with curiosity in her void eyes. No one but me appeared to notice or even hear her.

She’s never lied to me before…

It certainly wasn't 1819 with the thick layer of dust on all of the boxes, and on me. My hands, while older when I was embraced, were withered away and looked more like a rotting corpse than an unliving vampire. The only thing that'd return my appearance to my elder self was a full body of blood and daysleep.

I sank my fangs into the bag and tilted my head back. Ice cold liquid assailed my senses, my mind burning with the thought that it felt wrong. Nasty. Vile. Disgusting like it came from pigs! I damn near spit the liquid out. My stomach churned, telling me the blood wasn't right. There was no flavor, no substance, only a facsimile of it being blood. But I willed my stomach to keep it down and drank the entire bag, tossing it aside.

“Whoever you got that blood from has no flavor.” I took a handkerchief out from a pocket and dabbed away any dribble. No sense in looking like a toddler to others.

“It's manufactured,” Caleb said.

“What?” I blinked at him, feeling the revolting blood seep through my body to rejuvenate the skin. There were three fresh blood sacks nearby and I needed their energy. That ‘manufactured’ blood felt like it did absolutely nothing for my hunger.

“It's made in a factory,” the vampire said. He pulled a can from his sack and flipped it around. A beating heart dripping with blood was drawn right there on the can. Along with the name Bleeding Heart Simulation Blood Co. 16oz. Type O+ $10.99. It went on to list the various ingredients and flavors that I didn't taste, claiming to taste like steak.

But it tasted like manure.

“Ethically sourced?” I raised an eyebrow at the strange can. He opened it for me and I drank from it. The man didn't look happy, but I didn't care. I was hungry, dammit! And the terribly tasting fake blood would have to do until I could separate one of the three blood sacks from the vampire.

Caleb folded his arms across his chest. “Means it doesn't come from unwilling people. Like you tried to do a minute ago.”

“And?”

“That blood is made in a laboratory and shipped all round the Shards.”

“The what?” I asked, shielding my face right as Jezebel moved close and aimed the device at me.

“It’s a long story,” Caleb added, “But imagine things… aren’t… exactly what you think of as ‘normal’ if you went to sleep two hundred years ago.”

“And here we have a vampire from another age learning about the modern day,” the woman said.

I pushed her device away from my face and hissed at her before returning to drinking from the can.

“What does it mean?” she continued, “Will she realize that humans and vampires coexist in a world completely changed by magic, or will she go mad with the knowledge? Stay tuned to find out!”

That made me stop midway through devouring the can. I scanned the room and found that Amelia floated closer with a worried look in her eyes. She was quiet, which was odd. None of them noticed her. Not even when a man shined his lantern on Amelia. Although he changed the color of the beam and it highlighted where she had been sitting and where she touched the crates.

“So, we do have an actual ghost here, but where is it?” he asked.

Caleb glanced around the room and shrugged. “Probably resting, but we found something more interesting.”

He gave me a strange, small identification card belonging to a country named Halifax with his photograph on it; Name, date of birth as being 178, 197 as his date of embrace, the fact that his race was classified as vampire and a few other things such as his home address in Encinar, Westcal. Caleb’s class was Level 22 Merchant.

“What in tarnation is this?” I asked, flipping the business card over. On the back it had a strange black stripe and some other stuff like restriction from driving in the day, which meant they still used wagons.

“My System License,” Caleb said, taking the card back and sticking it in his wallet. “To show you that times have changed. Look, there’s something–”

“How?! The last I remember, we were being hunted down by the inquisition. They were rooting vampires out of their homes left and right, putting them to the flame and sun in the name of ‘peace’. Anyone that stood in their way…”

My voice trailed off when I remembered what transpired only the night before. “Amilia?!” I dropped the vile canned blood and ran in the direction I last saw her.

The stairs.

The others yelled at me to wait. I refused to listen and ran for the basement stairs faster than any of the mortals could move, throwing the cracked door off its hinges. I practically flew upstairs to the first floor. “Amelia?!” I yelled again, hoping she’d respond.

“Stop!” Caleb called out from behind me. “Don’t go outside yet!”