Page 3 of By the Pint

I’d also received a lot of visits from … admirers. Of all genders and species. So, there was that. Difficult not to get big-headed when at least a third of the patrons were wondering what I looked like naked.

Pretty good. I’d admit that much. Not that I had anything to do with that. Another perk of my undead status. My body had been frozen in whatever condition it was in at the moment of my turning. Based off my ‘unusual-for-the-time’ build, I’d say it had been in a good condition. I was tall, for a vampire, and on the lean-but-slightly-muscled side. These were really the only physical differences I had from the rest of my brethren. I still shared the same black hair, red eyes, grey-white skin, and the same core body temperature of a refrigerated bag of hamburger meat.

“Dima! My friend!” Aleksandr the Aloof called out, rounding the corner to my booth.

“It’s been too long, D,” said Vlad the Vague.

They were twins. Not in the true sense that they’d been pushed from the same human vagina, but blood twins. Turned on the same night, by the same sire or dam.

I didn’t know where this tradition of vampires adopting a ‘the’ title came from, and I couldn’t quite figure out whether I liked it, but I’d often wondered what mine would be if I gave myself one.

Dima the Daft? Dima the Damn-He’s-Hotter-Than-I-Expected? Dima the Desolate?

Hmm, it needed more work.

“Hey, Alek, Vlad. How are you enjoying the conference this year?” I asked.

And yes, another Vlad. The vampire equivalent of John. Everyone and their nans were Vlad these days.

Alek’s collar was tucked in on itself and Vlad had a couple of wayward eyebrow hairs shooting for the sky. I fixed both with my telekinesis, because I could, and I was a nice guy, but it was yet another thing I didn’t tell folk about. Mostly because those with telekinesis often, but not always, had telepathy, and people might ask questions. But also, because sometimes, it was fun to mess with people.

“Well, you know, same old shit, different decade,” Alek said. “Except your speech, of course, my friend.”

I snorted my laughter. It had been a lie. Alek despised the speech. Thought I was a pompous tit.

“Yeah, right,” I said.

It didn’t bother me. One benefit to being able to read everyone’s minds was knowing not to take things personally. People were surface level deep, they only cared about themselves. Only wanted to dwell on their own foibles and failings. I was merely a fleeting blip in those thoughts.

He slapped a hand onto my shoulder. “You always see through my bullshit, D. That’s what I love about you. We ought to hang out more frequently.” Another lie.

“Yeah, nah, I’m good,” I said to a round of laughter.

“You coming to the bloodbath tonight?” Vlad asked. “I hear there’s an unaccompanied familiar in attendance. Human too.”

“Unaccompanied? Poor human. RIP to them,” I said.

“I know, right?”

The bloodbath. It was the reason the conference was always a sell-out. It happened on the last night of the event. Essentially, a huge party, where vampires gathered, drank booze-blood, did drugs-blood (which, for now, was still illegal), and the main attraction: swapped familiars for the night.

An orgy, not to put too fine a point on it. Hundreds of vampires and hundreds of familiars, writhing against each other right there in the castle’s great banqueting hall-turned-auditorium-turned-discotheque. You’d get interspecies shenanigans, toys and whips and gags and chains, and breakaway groups. Couples might nip off into the gardens or their hotel rooms, or into one of the many secret passageways and hidey-holes the castle offered. Often not accompanied by the person they’d arrived with.

It was a free-for-all.

Dubbed the bloodbath, because it got real messy, real quickly. Like literally. Blood everywhere. Such a waste. And almost every time, at least one or two familiars would mysteriously vanish from existence. Nobody called the vampolice. No one even batted an eyelid. All part of the deal. You got what you signed up for.

I never went. I could barely tolerate one person’s inner monologue while fucking, let alone several hundred. No thank you, ma’am, far too noisy for me. I always stayed in my room,put the TV up so loud it was impossible to hear thoughts through the walls, and telekinetically sewed my quilts. Or I’d just get my driver to head back early.

“No, I don’t think I’ll go tonight—” I began but stopped myself because I felt it again. The mind reader. Floating about the stalls. Getting closer. Thinking about … me. They were seeking me out. My heart rate spiked.

“We were hoping for a sanguich with the unaccompanied familiar, weren’t we, Alek?” Vlad said.

A sanguich. A vampire-human-vampire three-way.

“Reckon they’ll be pretty popular tonight,” Alek said with a laugh. “You know, whilst they’re still alive, that is.”

My companions laughed. I feigned a titter. The mind reader was getting closer still. A few booths away from me. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel their minty aura.

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