Eat Them All: Book 2- Chapter 40 (Patreon)

++The period of long slumber that certain, older vampires undergo is not fully understood, for the simple fact that it is exclusively found in those examples of their species who are overwhelmingly too cunning, cautious and powerful to be captured for any sort of study.++

Book 2: Chapter 40

Reggie’s first instinct was actually one that dated back to a long while before he became a vampire; running the fuck away. This was something he’d learned as a human, back in Norvhan. When everything in the world was stronger than you, and you were essentially alone, you didn’t stand around and wait to be killed, you started running, running fast. You threw shit at them to buy a moment’s reprieve and scurried away on your little rat legs until they ran out of breath trying to chase you. Anything less than that, the very notion of pride or courage, and you may was well just kill yourself on the spot.

People didn’t win fights against superior opponents in real life. That was what made them superior.

“Maybe we can come to some kind of understanding here,” Reggie suggested with a smile. He regretted it instantly. Now the new vampire’s eyes were on him. 

“What are you?” it asked. 

Reggie didn’t stand there blinking, or draw in a sharp breath. Such human reflexes were almost behind him now, and he was careful to suppress what little of them remained. Instead he just stared back.

“See, now, that’s an odd question to ask somebody,” he noted. 

“You are not Veranthor, not Velithean, certainly not Irazhtan, what is your Lineage, fledgling?”

That question was a bit more precise, which wasn’t good for Reggie since it also made it harder to dodge. He made a valiant effort all the same.

“I don’t know what LIneage my Sire was,” Reggie replied. “Don’t know what Lineage I am. I was kind of dumped into the world.”

The vampire didn’t look convinced at all, but then it was kind of hard to read any precise facial expressions on something with skin that looked to have been pulled taut around the bones beneath. Was that amusement? Probably not good if it was, Reggie had gotten a good idea of just what sort of shit amused vampires.

“What year is it?” the vampire asked. 

“Release the woman, first,” Reggie told him. The vampire tilted his head.

“You would make demands of me? And yet you are so fresh from the crimson cradle that I saw your fright written in the expressions of a man when you found out my Tier.”

“I think I’d surprise you in a fight, asshole,” Reggie spat. “And you’re hungry.”

He didn’t want this to escalate, truth be told Reggie wasn’t confident of punching two Tiers above his weight even with his enemy’s condition being what it was. But if he started making too many concessions he’d just be walked over.

“You care for this human, then?” The vampire asked him. 

“She’s useful,” Reggie replied, and ignored the spasm of feeling in his gut. Did he care for Anne? Kind of. Vaguely. He didn’t like watching people die, and she was a person. That was how much he cared for her.

But even that much was something a vampire would make use of, he had no doubt. Reggie made himself meet the Irazhtan’s eye.

“So I have something of use to you in my hands, easily destroyable,” the vampire echoed. 

Reggie sighed, then decided it was time to gamble. He turned to Krieg. “Maybe you were right, I don’t think this one’s possible to reason with.” 

Krieg did exactly as Reggie had hoped, starting forwards and readying his sword. Of course Reggie didn’t have the balls to go over and start a fight with Anne held hostage, but he was just gutsy enough to get Krieg to do it for him. 

“Stop,” the Irazhtan instructed, just as Reggie had planned. 

Reggie had not planned for Krieg to keep going anyway, then swing with an arc that would’ve had his sword cut right fucking through Anne if the intended target hadn’t dragged her back with himself. In one motion the Irazhtan threw her through the air to land in a heap, but Reggie barely caught that with the sudden fight erupting ahead of him.

Watching Krieg fight from the outside, he was still just as impressive as ever. Reggie saw his blade come down like a falling tree and watched as the Irazhtan, actually slower than the Varenthor, just barely evaded it. Hard stone cobbles met the steel and split apart, letting it dig deep into the dirt below. Krieg freed it with a single tug, then was back to swinging.

This time, the Irazhtan didn’t oblige him by letting the gap close. And Reggie saw at last what ‘vampire wizard’ really meant. Before Krieg had taken even one more step, the space around him was a mess of…darkness? Yeah, darkness, the only way to describe it. Like shadows made three dimensional and solid, jutting and jagged and promising razory kisses if he touched them. Even Krieg was sent back by that, for a moment at least. 

Then farther back as the shadows lunged for him, almost catching the Varenthor before he leapt into the air and let them pulverise the ground he’d just been occupying. He landed ten paces back in a crouch, then kept backing away. 

Cautious.

Reggie was cautious too. Too cautious to stand back and let his only ally die. At best, Krieg would leave the Irazhtan weak and injured enough for him to finish. At worst, he’d get drained before dying and leave them more powerful than they were now. 

“We don’t need to fight,” Reggie called out evenly. He didn’t stop repositioning himself for that fight, of course, but his moral objections to it were still well conveyed. 

“Tell it to the tresspasser,” Krieg spat. 

The trespasser is being a lot less aggressive than you are, actually. But he didn’t say it, that would only anger Krieg more, and if he got angrier than he already was then de-escalating this would go from difficult to impossible. 

“Krieg, you were entrusted with this territory by your sire, right? Do you think Guerra would want you to risk it—and your life—picking a fight with something this strong?”

It didn’t look like Krieg had even heard him, for a second, and Reggie could only stare while the tension built. Then all at once the Varenthor glanced his way, still keeping his guard up and his eyes on the Irazhtan. But thinking at last.

“...No,” he spat, like the words were reluctant to leave him. 

It was a start. “Maybe we’ll win if we fight this fight, but we don’t know that,” Reggie pressed. “I don’t know that I’ll survive, for sure, and if I die then I’m not going to be able to do any more translation work for you, and you won’t be able to keep your end of our deal.”

Krieg was still thinking, and unfortunately that meant that he was coming up with his own ideas rather than just considering Reggie’s.

“Like we could trust one of his Lineage to keep their word, even if all of us stood down.”

“I will give my word,” the Irazhtan said breezily. “But if it is not to be believed, I can offer no assurances to a stranger that it ought to be. You do not know me, or my history, after all.”

“...And as soon as he’s fed, the power dynamic shifts here,” Krieg pointed out. 

Reggie had to admit, he had a point. He turned back to the Irazhtan. “You said it yourself, you can’t offer any assurances that we’ll be spared just because you’ve given your word saying as much.”

The vampire met his eye for a moment, then nodded. “Correct,” he replied. “Allow me to rectify that.” 

Reggie felt a sudden weightlessness, then an even more intense weight. It was like gravity had simultaneously gotten stronger and confused, now pulling him in the wrong direction. Before he could do anything about it, like scream and flail helplessly around, he was yanked into the air and sent flying hard and fast. The speed involved meant that he couldn’t have been skyward for more than a fraction of a second, but with his Celerity as high as it was now, that was all the time in the world to respond. 

At last, Reggie got some use out of his experimentation with flying via Blood Magic. Kind of. 

He succeeded in wrapping big ropes of his own blood around himself, and promptly smashing face-first into the ground. This was precisely why he’d been hesitant to use the ability until now, of course. Fortunately, it at the very least had him down where he could touch dirt and move under his own power again, and if Reggie would have to count his teeth in a few minutes he was at the very least grateful for that.

No time for counting now, though. Reggie threw himself to his feet just in time to be hit by Krieg’s flailing body as the Irazhtan tossed him too, then the both of them went rolling back another twenty paces as their limbs tangled up and the dirt was torn apart beneath them.

“Get—OFF!” Krieg smashed an angry fist into Reggie and flung him a good ten feet to the side to make room for himself, storming to his feet with sword in hand.

But he was far too late, because the Irazhtan had already reached Krieg’s retainers and started feeding. His Blood Magic was clearly better than Reggie’s. It took less than a second for each person to become a dessicated corpse.

Reggie’s disgust as the sight of seeing human lives so casually converted into strength was exceeded only by his fear at the vampire responsible. Before his very eyes, he could see the Irazhtan’s body restoring itself. Skin softened and flexed, creases eased out of it and moisture returned as it became smooth once more. The wiry, almost rotted musculature beneath became thicker bands of tissue that might feasibly move a living thing. Hair regained colour, eyes sharpened as the milky cataracts faded from them, lips pumped back to the sort that a person might speak with.

It all happened fast, faster than Reggie could close in. Was it Regeneration? No, he didn’t think so. The vampire’s body was just going from starved to well fed, and by the time it had finished he’d gained several inches in every dimension. 

“It seems the balance of power has now shifted into my favour,” the Irazhtan noted dryly. He was a handsome man, now, which only pissed Reggie off more. He didn’t have the heavy muscle of someone who’d done much labour or fighting, but wasn’t wiry either. His features were thin and almost hawkish, his hair black and his eyes bright, his nose hooked. 

He seemed to stare right through Reggie, like his skin was glass and his organs mist. Krieg didn’t even earn that much, not a single glance went his way. And he didn’t renew his assault.

Of course he didn’t, because he’d clocked exactly what Reggie had.

Shifted in his favour? The Irazhtan had already enjoyed the advantage in power while he was weakened, and now it was just exaggerated even more in his direction.

“Don’t suppose you’d care to de-escalate things and move this back into a negotiation?” Reggie asked.

He hadn’t transformed yet, that was their big advantage. He’d kept that much to himself, mainly to keep from turning this into a killing fight right away. Now it was a secret, his enemy would be surprised when it came. If push came to shove, he could use that.

Reggie would close with Krieg, and the Irazhtan would ignore him in favour of the deadlier target. Then, when his attention was focused elsewhere, Reggie would transform and use the sudden burst of Speed to close and—

—”of course, I have been seeking to negotiate as polite equals from the start.”

…Huh.