Christmas of the Vampire Read online

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Titles by P.S. Power

  Young Ancients:

  (Tor)

  The Builder

  Knight Esquire

  Knight of the Realm

  Ambassador

  Counselor

  Slave Line

  (Timon)

  The Dark Half of the Sun

  Dead End:

  A Very Good Man

  A Very Good Neighbor

  A Very Good Thing

  A Very Dark Place

  Keeley Thomson:

  Demon Girl

  Keelzabub

  Mistress of Souls

  *Christmas of the Vampire

  (Related Universe Novella)

  Gwen Farris:

  Abominations

  Monsters

  The Infected:

  Proxy

  Gabriel

  Cast Iron

  Proxy: Reunions

  The Lament:

  Without Rhythm

  Other Places:

  Shortcuts

  Stand Alone Titles by P.S. Power

  Crayons

  Unrelenting Terror

  Christmas of the Vampire

  P.S. Power

  Chapter one

  Richard looked at the folded piece of paper in his hand again, the red crayon drawing at the bottom was crude and hard to decipher, but not that bad if the words under it were correct.

  “Maci, age five.” The words rolled out smoothly, his voice deep and pleasant even to his own ears. It was a thing that age hadn’t dulled for him at all, he still secretly loved the sound of his own voice. The fangs got in the way of perfectly clear speech a bit, but with practice a Vampire could learn to get around that. He had, having almost three hundred years to figure out how it was done. Without that skill he never could have run for political office, much less won. Not on the state level at any rate.

  The drawing had words above it, telling a little story. It wasn’t very clear, the writing all in colored wax and lopsided, since it wasn’t on lined paper. He couldn’t make out all the words either. Just a few. The words ‘help’ and ‘Greater Demon’. That last part caught his attention faster than almost anything else would have. There were less than a million beings on the planet that knew that Demons actually existed at all. That they were categorized as greater and lesser wasn’t known to many five year olds at all.

  That was all the picture held. A plea for help, some indecipherable words and a picture of what looked to be a woman wrapping up a distorted red and white man with rope. Tattered string perhaps? It was too hard to tell. Richard set the drawing down and decided to get back to work, setting up his office space. It wasn’t nearly as grand as he’d hoped it would be, because being a member of the House of Representatives sounded pretty good on paper. Still, he’d worked in worse places. He’d lived in time periods when this humble room would have been a palace to most people in fact. It helped keep things in perspective.

  The desk was old and fresh out of storage, this being the temporary office space that he was allowed to use, his corrupt predecessor not wanting to give up any power at all until he absolutely had to. That was understandable and within the rules. It also wouldn’t help the man. Rich had won by popular vote, the citizens of his district removing John Kincaid overwhelmingly, even though the man had tried to cheat and drive voters away from the polls using hired goons. They wanted the man gone so badly they’d elected a Vampire for goodness sake, even thinking that he must be a crazy person or a blood fetishist.

  That part was incredible to almost everyone that heard the story in the supernatural world. The people knew he claimed to be a Vampire, had questioned him about it on live television… And didn’t care. Sharp teeth and all, they’d accepted him.

  Which was why he had mail waiting for him already, no doubt. Not a lot, and some of it even more incomprehensible than Maci’s drawing. Offers to have lunch with him or to meet and discuss various matters, mainly from lobbyists and special interest groups. A few people looking for jobs in his office, if the places weren’t already filled… and that one drawing from a child that he kept coming back to. It haunted him for some reason, even though he didn’t know what it meant.

  Sighing he nearly set it aside, after all, five year olds didn’t vote, and trying to do anything about a drawing was more insane than running as his true self had been. Something called him to it again regardless, his eyes showing the tiny fingerprints on the edge of the paper. The scent of macaroni and cheese being the strongest thing to come off of it, but under that was just the faintest hint of fear. Desperation too.

  Whoever Maci was, she meant her plea for help, and if she lived in his district, that meant he was responsible for her. After all, that was the position he’d sought. He was, in a very real sense, the Lord of district seven now. It was his part to see to the well being of his people, even if power hadn’t really changed hands yet.

  It was annoying, but part of the job. He had to at least investigate the matter and see if there was anything to it. Maybe the girl had just been having nightmares or something trivial like that? If so, it wouldn’t harm his image to find out. He could send her a teddy bear and call to reassure her perhaps?

  The normal thing to do would have involved a private detective, or at least one of his nosier friends, to track down the address on the envelope, but the only words on it that he could read said his name. There was no return address, just wavy lines. It was like the girl didn’t know how to fill out a missive for delivery at all. It also said the words Greater Demon. That meant that no one he knew would be willing to touch the thing with a ten foot pole. In the main it was unwise to deal with any Demon if you could help it. They could be unpredictable. Worse, even a fairly old and powerful Vampire like himself couldn’t stop one if they decided to do something. If they decided he was dead, that was simply what would happen.

  The only saving grace to being his kind of person was that Greater Demons couldn’t own a Vampire. Or at least they couldn’t until The Mistress of Souls had come along. Just thinking about her sent a chill down his spine. She’d taken another Vampire as a total slave, having made a “bargain” with him, against the man’s will. That was unheard of as far as Richard knew. There weren’t even old tales of it happening. She was so mighty that rumor had it she’d even enslaved another of her own kind that way. For a time at least.

  He didn’t know about that, but the woman, if she was female at all, made him afraid for more reasons than one. The worst part of her aspect being that she was…

  Nice.

  Friendly and kind even. Or at least she seemed that way the few times they’d spoken. She’d even funneled funds into his campaign in return for some favors to be named later. Over a million dollars, all of it legal, as far as anyone could tell.

  That meant he owed her, which made him want to run far away and hide as best he could. There might be worse places in life to be than beholden to the Mistress of Souls, but if so he didn’t ever want to see them. He had no clue what she might require of him for her aid. Really he would have turned it down, except that he didn’t want her to know how afraid of her he really was.

  Which made it really hard to pick up the phone and dial the numbers she’d given him. She answered on the second ring, the ambient sound around her showing that she was clearly in a room with a lot of other people. Young people. Hundreds of them too. The sound of it made him a little hungry, even given that he’d eaten earlier that day. It was possible to live off of animal blood of course, which he and his wives were doing for the duration. Having cows in the back yard for food was almost normal. A stable full of humans would raise some red flags with a few groups however. Rightly so. One of his platforms h
ad been the suggestion that he’d work to get Vampires off of human blood and into other kinds of foods, if elected. Everyone in the human world thought it was a joke, but he really meant it.

  Humans were just so mouth watering.

  “Hi Rich!” The voice in his ear was decently clear, even if she was talking over a cell phone. The new technology was genius of course, but the quality was still lacking to his ultra keen senses. It worked well enough at the moment, which was the point. He needed to convey some information, not sound good.

  “Mistress of Souls…” He didn’t really know what else to say. How did he bring up that he had a strange drawing from what seemed to be a little girl? That wasn’t something he’d have normally addressed in her presence at all. Or anyone’s, to tell the truth.

  “Here, wait a second. I’m in the lunchroom at school. You sound worried. Let me get outside…”

  She didn’t wait for an answer from him, so he simply listened closely, wondering what horrors a being like her might bring to school students. Was she trapping their young souls in between classes or perhaps warping their minds in the restrooms? He envisioned her promoting a lot of drugs and smoking behind the building at the very least.

  “Sorry about that Richard. Now, what’s at hand? You sound worried. More than usual even, which is saying something.” The voice suddenly sounded older. Not ancient, but cultured. Crisp and like a person use to having the world delivered to her instantly.

  It wasn’t comforting.

  “Well… You know that I’ve won the election, correct?” They hadn’t spoken about it, but he had a feeling that the Greater Demon would have caught more in the news than just the fact that they had a new President.

  “Of course, I followed that closely, having a horse in the race. A Vampire at least. Congratulations. Do you need assistance there? I know that the man you’re replacing is a piece of work. Is he troubling you? I might be able to help you remove him, if he becomes too difficult. I might anyway. Maybe he should die in a plane crash? I really hate corrupt government officials. If they aren’t working for me at least.” There was a hint of cheery playfulness in the words that nearly took the edge off the death threat.

  Richard took a deep breath, an old habit that he hadn’t really broken over the years. He didn’t need to breathe for survival purposes, but if he wanted to talk, air still had to run past his vocal cords, just like everyone else’s.

  “No. Not yet at least. The man is a pain, to tell the truth, and refuses to let go, but he will. He has no choice now. The numbers were simply too overwhelming. I…” He picked up the paper again and looked at it closely, almost ready to say it was nothing and just try to get off the phone. It was stupid of him to have called in a Greater Demon just for this. That fact rang through his mind suddenly, filling him with dread. She might just kill him for bothering her. “It’s… I have this letter you see, from a little girl, named Maci. She’s five.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, not even the sound of breathing came from over the phone. When the woman, the Demon, spoke, her voice had gone low, almost to a whisper.

  “You believe that this letter has something to do with one of my kind?”

  Richard blinked, shocked into movement by the leap in understanding.

  “I… Don’t know. The only words I can make out are ‘help’ and ‘Greater Demon’, the rest might as well be squiggles as far as I can determine. It’s most likely nothing, except… the whole thing smells like fear to me.” He got ready to be ridiculed, or even punished for being so daring, bothering her with so little.

  “I need to see that letter then. You as well. I’ll send Balthias for you. Would seven this evening your time be alright for you? We’ll have dinner here. Or rather at my house. You’re still going the ‘vegetarian’ route? Only eating animals I mean?” There was a soft rustle of movement from the other end of the phone, walking if he had it right.

  “That’s right. I didn’t know you knew that.” He should have, of course. She seemed to know everything about him.

  There was a soft, sweet sounding chuckle then.

  “Is goat alright? We have a few on hand. The back yard isn’t really big enough for larger animals. As it is we’re fighting with the city about keeping livestock. I had to have them rezone my whole neighborhood.”

  It wasn’t that subtle of a hint, not to him at least. She needed to have food for his kind on hand, because she kept some as servants. Slaves. Worse, they were Manthori Vampires. They might look different than he did, but they were more powerful in many ways than a “Classic” like him. He got an edge by being normal looking. Like a human with a few pointy teeth. They had an edge in mental gifts. They were hard to subdue that way. Pointing it out to him was kind of a threat. It made Richard angry for a bit, until he remembered that it was also a legitimate thing. The correct attitude here was fear, plain and simple.

  “That sounds wonderful. Should I bring anything? Other than the letter, of course?” It was the polite thing to ask, when invited to supper, so he did it, almost forgetting that he was dealing with a being so powerful that even being in her presence was dangerous.

  “Well, we’re planning to put up the Christmas decorations tonight, so something to go with that theme? Some eggnog or something? Or… well, how about some rum? If we try to bring in store bought nog The Technician will throw a fit. She insists that everything be done from scratch when possible. Perhaps you’d want to bring your wives?”

  “Ah…” He didn’t want to be rude, even though the idea of a Demon having a Christmas decorating party seemed insane, but if there were going to be two of the Greater Demons there he really didn’t want to expose his family to them. “I don’t want to seem out of place, but… no?”

  He stopped breathing, rather than holding his breath. Waiting for the preternatural explosion of fury. It didn’t come at all. Instead he heard a bell ring in the background.

  “Oh? Alright. Well, maybe next time. I’ll send Balthias just for you then. Don’t forget. I’ve got to run now. Math class. I don’t want to be late.” The phone hung up leaving an oddly empty feeling as the pressure of the Demon was relieved, her attention off of him for the moment.

  It was five hours away, the meeting with the dangerous being and her people, so he had time to set his office space to rights, taking a few much more pleasant and simple phone calls. One of them was slightly surprising, coming from another Vampire, if a young one that was, interestingly enough, looking for a job.

  “Well, I suppose I could look at your credentials. What kind of experience do you have?” It was a fair enough question, since most of his people weren’t precisely up on modern technology. Richard couldn’t use a computer himself, but the young sounding man on the phone apparently could.

  “I’m pretty new. Um, I only came over about three years back, so…”

  That could be a problem then, Richard knew.

  “Your master is alright with you finding work of this nature?” It was a high profile job and a lot of very young Vampires couldn’t really handle being out in public very easily. They got hungry and tended to find excuses to feed on whoever was nearest, rather than showing discipline. Most couldn’t stay awake during daylight hours either. His kind could, if they were of the right line, but it was so rare that it got his attention. Maybe one in a thousand Vampires were born with the gift. The rest had to age into it.

  “She left. I don’t know what happened to her, but she was with me one day and when I woke the next all her things were gone. I have to do something to pay the rent.” There was a shrug that showed in his voice. A more modern movement for this part of the country. It hadn’t been popular even a hundred years before.

  Richard paused for a moment and finally decided to give the boy, Jonas, an interview. It really would be helpful to have one of his own on staff, and if he was that new he’d need help adjusting still. It could take a while to really learn the ways of the world.

  The only surprise there was that t
he man had called from just down the hallway.

  “I figured it would be harder to deny me if I was here. I know, it’s presumptuous, but I really need this job.”

  He was a plain looking boy, thin and pale, of course, but normal looking. Almost perfect that way. The trend lately had been to make new Vampires from the very pretty, taking them when they were very young, about twenty or possibly twenty-five. It was a mistake. Whoever had sired Jonas was intelligent enough to pick a man that looked real. He was in his thirties or so, and had been when he died, which made him look reasonable for the job at hand.

  “Well, I guess you should work to impress me then. You can use computers?”

  “Oh, sure. I was in I.T. for Coretechs before I, you know, changed. That means I fixed them for other people. Then I had to leave, because all my coworkers were a little too tasty looking. For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to live off of the dogs in my neighborhood. They’re pretty hard to catch.” He smiled though, his teeth flat and normal looking. The scent was right, so he was truly undead, but that marked him as one of the new Vampires. They looked almost completely normal. Not a classic like him at all. It explained his being awake at least.

  Decently strong and hard to kill, with almost no special mental skills. Also, in this case, potentially useful.

  “Alright. I’ll give you a shot. This isn’t a normal position however. I’ll require you to do work at all hours and be both my human and supernatural liaison. Don’t let the two things become confused. For tonight I’ll take you with me…” It was dangerous, but if he was careful about it, perhaps he could put this youngster in between him and some of the Demons? Having a front man was a long held Vampire tradition for a reason, and it was a good one.

  “Great! I’ll do anything you need.” The pale flesh was a sign that he hadn’t fed recently, which got Richard to go to his mini-fridge and pull out one of his glass bottles of blood.