Page 2 of By the Pint

The audience laughed. One guy thought,Gods, he’s such a dick.

I bit back my own laughter. I was a dick. But I made me laugh.

“I’m here to talk to you about success, and my journey to it, and how you can all recreate it on your own terms.”

Collectively, minds quietened down, and I delved into the speech.

Soundbite, soundbite, joke, soundbite. Repeat. People laughed where appropriate, ordered their familiars to take notes, and fewer than a quarter of the folk there were mentally telling me toJust get it over with already.

I was ready to knight the whole thing a success. That was, until I feltit.

The cold, minty aura — presence? — of a mind reader. Another mind reader.

I paused, stumbled over my words a little, regrouped my thoughts. “Your comfort zone is a boulder tied to your ankle. Leave that shit behind.” Etcetera, etcetera.

Another telepath? We were a scarce breed, even amongst vampires. I only really knew one other, andhewouldn’t dare show his face here.

I scanned the crowd, looking for the source.

Nowadays, it was such an ordeal to turn a new vampire, it was hardly ever done. One needed to apply for the undeath certificate, pay the extortionate turning fees, register them, travel to an official, sterile turning facility, and stay under the care of said turning facility for upwards of a year. This meant new vampires, vampires younger than two-hundred-years-old,were rare. Extremely rare. This also meant I recognised almost everyone present that night, at least by name, and none I knew were telepathic.

Was it possible that mind reading powers could develop later on? Mine happened at the moment of my turning. A ‘gift’ from my sire. My blood-brother got it too. But this was the last place I’d expect to see Killian.

Anyway, back to my speech, where was I? Oh yeah, “Jumping headfirst into the vast ocean of believing in oneself.” Yada yada, soundbite, joke, joke.

I tried to concentrate. I really did. But my eye kept getting drawn to the far side of the hall, where it was too shadowy, even for me to see who was lurking. But they were there. Our mind reader. I was sure of it. Waiting in the wings. Too far away for me to identify them or hear their thoughts over the bedlam of everyone else’s. Or for them to hear mine. I pulled up the barrier in my mind, regardless. Now, if they attempted to penetrate my thoughts, all they’d hear/see would be my love of quilting. Cotton and minky and flannel, and jellyrolls and bias binding. Nothing else.

It took me hundreds of years to perfect that barrier. Make it impenetrable. And it had never been breached. But it also hadn’t been tested for systematic weaknesses in a very long time.

I guessed now I’d find out just how rusty it’d become.

I really did love quilting, though.

There was something so satisfyingly sedentary about it. Not to mention all those colours and snuggly fabrics.

“So, in conclusion,” I said, looking down at my notes. I had stumbled to the end of my speech without even realising it. “Nobody can define success to you. Only you can do that. But a fuck-ton of cash certainly helps.”

The audience laughed, obviously. Vampires loved money as much as, if not more than, virginal blood.

I scanned the crowd a final time, still nothing.

“I’ll be in booth one-eleven for the rest of the conference if you have questions. I’ll also be selling signed copies of my book,Quilting Patterns for the Undead, if anyone is interested in that. And now I’m gonna pass the mic over to your next speaker. Please welcome,” I peeked down at my notes, which were hovering an inch from the podium. I slammed my hand onto them, hoping nobody saw. “Vlad the Persistent, to talk to you about his multi-award-winning vampire real estate company, Echo Relocation.”

I had a lot of visitors to my booth, and no time to work on my latest quilt. Of course I did. Everyone wanted — hoped — I might let slip some little business nugget that perhaps I’d forgotten to mention during my speech.

They wanted to get rich without the effort. They saw what I did with Blooze — collecting the blood of drunk humans, canning it, selling it to vampires, and making mountains of cash — and they wanted to recreate it for themselves. Especially with certain drugs set to be reclassified or decriminalised by Borderlands’ authorities, every other vampire at the conference was hoping their own Blooze moment was just cresting the horizon.

But what the conference’s patrons hadn’t seen was a vampire pouring his heart and soul and every waking second into a start-up simply to fill the aching void.

I had nothing new to tell them. No get rich quick schemes. No fast bucks. The only thing that made people successful these days, in whatever endeavours they werepartaking, was unfaltering, dogged, obstinate, often idiotic, tenacity.

If you wanted something. You made it happen. Simple as. Not that any vampire could bear to hear that. We tended to be a rather sedentary bunch. I may have mentioned that.

So, they were welcome to my ideas. To recreate what I did with Blooze. I had no intention of chasing that high again. Didn’t need to. Not with my cocktail of enterprises, and properties, and stashed hoards. I had enough money and success to last a thousand human lifetimes.

Though, it would have been a lot less disheartening if I didn’t have to listen to their internally huffed,What a waste of time,as they left my booth.

On the plus side, I did almost sell out of my books. Granted, I only brought four copies to the conference, but Goldie owed me a hundred silvers. He wagered I wouldn’t shift a single one.

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