++The sun is the greatest enemy of the vampire, and likewise the greatest friend of humanity. It is their fear of sun that forces the undead to maintain a connection with us, so as to influence the world while unable to bear standing beneath its skies.++

  Book 2: Chapter 28

  Travelling with Anne wasn’t pleasant. Reggie hadn’t exactly been expecting some intellectually stimulating conversation, of course, but he’d assumed that…well, he didn’t know what he’d assumed. That some conversation would happen at some point. More than zero, at least, right?

  Wrong, apparently. She was quite content to sit beside him in complete silence, even days into their travels. The closest thing to interaction with a living being Reggie got was when he fed from the soldier ant and had chance to observe how it was becoming increasingly weaker in its struggles. That also became his way of measuring out time, and five days into the journey, when it was reduced to a mere one kick every five seconds, was when he eventually caved and threw his pride away to start the conversation with Anne rather than hoping she’d do the same.

  “You’re reading,” Reggie began by pointing out. He nodded to the book in her hands, as if his words would have left some doubt as to which book she was reading, and watched her.

  Anne glanced up at him irritably.

  “I see the stories of vampiric intelligence are true, you really do notice things that a meagre human mind doesn’t.”

  “Don’t be a cunt,” he told her. “I’m just surprised you know how. Your dad couldn’t read, could he?”

  She bristled. “You’re calling him stupid?”

  “Don’t be a cunt,” Reggie repeated. “I’m calling him someone who couldn’t read, is that wrong?”

  Anne looked like she was trying to find another reason to be offended, then seemed to give up.

  “No,” she said at last. “No it’s not wrong. He couldn’t read, not well at least. Knew a few words, enough to keep records with the tavern. When I was a kid he forked over money to have me taught by one of the town’s clarks. Said it was a better investment than paying for one to book-keep. He was right, the tavern did well once I took over.”

  Reggie realised then that he’d never heard this story, because ‘when Anne was a kid’ referred to a period after his death. It made him realise how much time he’d lost, and how strange his place in the world was. A little girl had turned into a woman in the course of Reggie’s life, yet here he still was. Nevermind being still kicking, something he’d already doubted would be the case at this point back in those days, he wasn’t a day older than he had been.

  “Smart decision,” Reggie said, since the alternative was saying nothing and being stuck with his thoughts.

  Anne looked like she was struggling with a thought for several moments, then managed to reluctantly spit it out.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “What about me?”

  “You can read, how?”

  Ah. Nobody had ever bothered to ask Reggie that before, not even Ludvich for some reason. He realised that he didn’t quite know.

  “I guess I just taught myself,” he shrugged. “I would’ve been…uh, maybe eleven or twelve-ish?”

  Anne stared at him.

  “What?”

  She just looked back to her book and kept reading, saying nothing. Reggie folded up into his own irritation and decided to say no more. If she wasn’t going to continue the conversation then he certainly wouldn’t be embarrassing himself by trying to.

  A few hours later they were close enough to Ilgran for him to finish off the ant. By then Reggie was down to barely half his reserves of ichor, and what little remained in the insect barely tipped that up to three fifths.

  “You’re looking pale,” Anne told him.

  “I’m a dead body.”

  “I mean you’re looking paler than normal,” she growled. “Are you hungry?”

  Reggie paused. “...Yes.” He’d never actually considered what starvation did to his complexion, most of his time looking at himself early on had been through disfiguring burn scars. Did he appear corpsier when there was less blood in him? Not ideal.

  “I am,” he admitted. “But there’s nothing for it.”

  “You could…feed from me.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Reggie didn’t think there was a word for how surprised that made him. “Really?”

  Anne looked suddenly angry. “I’m not doing it for you,” she spat. “But you remember when I said our fates are tied with yours now. The elves won’t care how reluctant Norvhan was in helping you, and I’m not going to see my people slaughtered because some fucking vampire decided to take control of their town and we weren’t strong enough to stop him.”

  “Fuck you,” Reggie told her. “Give me your wrist.”

  He still didn’t like drinking from humans, didn’t like how off it felt. Cannibalism had a certain ick factor that Reggie didn’t even really want to go away, if feeding on other people ever felt natural to him then he didn’t know what else would.

  Of course he realised this wasn’t exactly a logical feeling on his part, it wasn’t like Reggie ever felt that way draining elves or anything.

  Anne’s blood was odd. Reggie thought he’d known the taste of human vitae, he’d fed from both Ludvich and Norman but…hang on, no, they’d been different too. Ludvich was all sharp and strong, like a blade against the tongue, while Norman had been subtler and oily. Anne tasted hot and sour, more like fruit than meat. Something about that just disgusted Reggie even more, the idea of people having different tastes like they were livestock or something.

  Then Reggie realised, all at once, that a human only had so much blood, and he was drinking fast. He pried his lips away and willed the remnants of Anne’s blood to hold where it was in her veins. With another thought, he scabbed over the dregs at its surface and sealed her wound. She eyed him and he eyed her, but fortunately found that the woman wasn’t visibly diminished by his drinking. He’d have to be more careful next time.

  Soon enough, they were closing on Ilgran. Reggie hadn’t actually seen another town beside Norvhan before. Lorwick, of course, had been a city, and the stretch of land he’d run across to reach it had been uninhabited. He found himself comparing the new settlement to all his precedents and marking down the ways it fell short or pushed above them.

  Bigger than Norvhan. Bigger in terms of size and certainly in terms of population, he was stunned by the number of humans there.

  And stunned by the state of them. They walked with heads down and wore tattered clothes that all looked at least twice as old as the people they covered. Faces were lined and worn, and the buildings even more so. Reggie had seen similar sights in the more run-down areas of Lorwick, though finding a whole settlement of that sort struck some deep part of him he hadn’t known was still there.

  “Lovely place,” he muttered. Anne didn’t say anything, looking paler now than she had after the feeding.

  They rode deeper, past the town’s outer walls, which were low and crumbling things, and stopping only once they came to what looked like a stable. By the sight of it, Reggie got the feeling that it hadn’t welcomed a newcomer’s vehicle in quite some time. He stepped out and moved towards the stablemaster, who gazed up at the carriage through hooded eyes and seemed on the brink of a seizure.

  Reggie’s Royal Presence put an end to that. In an instant he saw the man’s suspicion and fear give way to indifference, then acceptance as he spoke.

  “You should take care of our vehicle while we’re here,” Reggie told him. “It’d probably be a good idea. Keep you out of trouble if you don’t cross us, eh?”

  He wasn’t threatening him, really. In the state the man was left by his Royal Presence, catching an implicit threat simply wasn’t possible. He merely heard Reggie give him a suggestion and, affected with the total apathy that he was, found it a good one. The man nodded.

  That left Reggie and Anne free to head out into the town and look for some place they could stay. Or, rather, some place Reggie could stay. They only had an hour or so until dawn, and with the grimwoods’ fogs nowhere to be seen, that would spell death for Reggie in just a few minutes.

  Funny, now, to think how eager he’d been to hit Tier 3 before. Would he still have been, knowing that his weakness to sunlight would worsen so fast?

  Yes. Obviously.

  Anne and Reggie cut it pretty close. Ilgran wasn’t that different from Norvhan in layout, but it boasted far fewer signs and far less friendly people. That latter point was almost impressive considering the inherent cuntiness of everyone from Norvhan. Fortunately, Royal Presence was to social affairs what Form of The Beast was to fighting people, and Reggie was able to lubricate enough conversations that they were directed to an inn before long.

  Even to Reggie, it looked like a shithole. The walls were thin enough that Anne could’ve punched through them, let alone him, the draft was like an iceberg hyperventilating on them, and there were enough holes in the ceiling that he’d have to sleep under the bed and still wrap himself in the shoddy blanket just to stave off the sun.

  The one redeeming quality, though, was the rats.

  “God, there’s so many of them!” Anne looked horrified, like she’d just seen a giant arsehole sprout out of a wall.

  “Excellent,” Reggie grinned. He blasted out his Royal Presence at the animals and watched them all just freeze, looking up at him as he seized one and gently pulled off its head. Blood Magic saw the creature’s veins emptied into his mouth practically instantly, though he didn’t feel the slightest difference after it. A score more rats at least made him notice something, though Reggie realised that at his new Tier it would take literally hundreds or more to come close to filling him.

  He looked up and saw Anne staring.

  “That was repulsive,” she told him.

  Reggie just shrugged. “You can have the meat if you want.” She almost threw up, while he cackled, but then the sun was starting to shine and Reggie realised he only had a while before it was high enough to pierce in through the apartment’s cracks.

  They got to work quickly, finding the spot where there was the least exposure from above and planting the bed firmly under it. Shortly after Reggie was rolled up beneath it and wrapped in the blanket.

  After that, he could only wait. Not a pleasant sensation at all, and for more than just the physical feeling of staying put for hours. As a vampire, Reggie didn’t feel cramps. Didn’t matter how long he spent staying still, or how badly he was contorted while doing so, his dead muscles and joints didn’t give a shit and wouldn’t let out the slightest twinge.

  His mind, though, was still alive with activity. And there was nothing fun about laying there completely at the mercy of others.

  If Anne was less logical than she’d been pretending, Reggie might find his room stormed by nasty men with pikes and muskets. He might find the building lit on fire with him inside it, the roof blasted apart by a thrown powder keg, any number of things. It was so easy to kill him, now. With daylight glaring down and such shoddy cover protecting him.

  Reggie had started to feel like being a vampire was making everything easier, and here he was trusting someone again.