38

38
TESSA'S POV

The supply closet in the third story of the vampire palace had turned into our off-the-record war room, which said all you needed to know about how coordinated we were. Six of us crowded into a case that was originally built to hold ceremonial chalices and ancient blood wine, whispering about an overturn of centuries of vampire dominion while someone kept watch for patrols.

“I cannot get over that we are doing this,” Marcus whispered, a young vampire I had turned only two scant years ago. "Omigod, my sire is totally going to murder me when he hears I was at a supernatural ethics meeting.”

“That’s the problem,” I said, trying to invoke some of the bravado that I’d seen in Kayla, although it felt deeply inauthentic. “We need not fear an open dialogue about whether genocide is the effective way to conduct inter-species relations.”

"But the queen says—"

‘The queen who has been saying the kind of thing for eight hundred n years. Just maybe it is time we also started to ask ourselves whether eternal wisdom might just be eternal stubbornness.”

Elena, a former philosophy professor at the time of her turn, raised her hand as if we were in a legitimate classroom. “So I’ve been reading up on historical failed attempts at integrating cultures, and statistically speaking, cooperation yields better long-term results than extermination.”

“Are you really using academic research to vampire politics?” another member asked.

"Why not? We’re immortal!”

Our revolt was more “storming the palace” and less “very concerned book club with vampire attributes.” But I’d seen Kayla face down Prince Darius, Queen Morvana; standing up to them was— in that moment at least—a kind of courage. At times, it appeared to mean asking the uncomfortable question and then turning down easy answers.

"What do we actually want?" Marcus asked. "Like, specifically. Trying to overthrow the queen, or just persuade her to change a few policies, or...?"

And I understood that I hadn’t even gotten as far as thinking about that. "I think we want the freedom to decide our own ethics and not feel bound by tradition. To ask whether predation is? Is it really necessary for us to see cooperation as a viable option with other species?”

“That’s somehow ambitious to be having in a closet,” someone muttered.

“All revolutions start somewhere,” said Elena. “The Enlightenment started in salons and coffee houses. And why shouldn’t vampire ethics reform begin in a supply closet?”

The absurdity of comparing myself to philosophical movements that reshaped history did not escape me, but there was something empowering about naming our own story. We were not monsters, products of ancient programming; we were sentient beings in search of something better than the constructs under which we had been designed.

“I can’t stop thinking about my sister,” I confessed to the group, feeling it was an easier admission in this small chamber than it might have been amid the grand edifices above. “She is still a human being, out there somewhere alive. Some day, when the queen is discussing the need for werewolf eradication as a necessary evil, I consider what happens next. Unless we're willing to tolerate genocide against one species, what little moral high ground we have vaporize's faster than lighter fluid on a bonfire."

The thought settled in the room like incense, and recognition dawned on several of their faces. We all had ties to our human lives—family members we’d remembered, friends we’d lost, the people we’d been before immortality was forced upon us.

“My mother is not dead,” Marcus said softly. "She's seventy-three and she believes I died in a car crash. If the queen's philosophy is universal for all 'lesser species', how long before she turns that thinking on humans as being nothing more than food to be consumed?"

“Which brings us back to the primary question,” Elena cut in, her professor voice taking over. “Do we believe in the law of the jungle? The latter supremacy makes them dominating and destroys them? Because then we reject the whole underpinning of vampire supremacy.”

The talk that ensued was the most intellectually stimulating talk I have had since my turning. We argued on ethics, power structures, what consciousness was even for whether immortality brought us special responsibilities as opposed to special privileges. It was just the sort of philosophical excavation I had so relished as a student nurse, applied to subjects I’d never imagined talking about.

Nowhere was the battle between my vampire instincts and burgeoning beliefs more evident than inside me. The hunger for blood, the instinctual perspective of all other creatures as prey, the millennia of cultural conditioning to believe that cooperation was weakness — it all screamed that I was betraying my kind.

But then I remembered Kayla, about her friendship without expectation of reciprocation. About how she’d treated me like a person who might not be a monster, had believed in the fact that I could be more than just what I was made.

“What keeps me up during the day,” I said, “is worrying if I’m vampire enough to be with my own kind, or human enough to relate to other species, or just mired in this awkward no-man’s land forever.”

“Perhaps that middle space is where we should be,” Elena said. “Not predator all the way, not civilized all the way, but something that has access to both ways of looking at the world and can bridge between them.”

"That's very philosophical and not very practical when the queen is about to plan genocide," Marcus clarified.

“Well, reality follows theory,” Elena said primly. “We have to figure out where we stand before we can decide how to enact those beliefs.”

“For example, we start small,” I said with a forming idea while I was speaking. “We’re not going to knock the queen off or overhaul vampire society in one night. But we can put alternatives in place for those vampires who don’t wish to kill. Medical uses for our gifts, cure weekends, ways you can help supernatural society that don't involve the food chain.”

"Like a vampire-detox," Elena said, her eyes shining with academic fervor. “Retraining vampires who are seeking to give their talents a more constructive application. That's brilliant."

"It's dangerous," Marcus warned. “the queen isn’t going to let us undermine her power structure.”

All good things are dangerous," I said, conviction forming in my chest. “And if we’re not ready to take risks for what we are about, then we must be somewhere near the vampires with their hands in the bloodbath.

The door flew open to our closet rebellion headquarters, and we stopped dead like naughty children caught with their hand in the cookie jar. But instead of the vampire enforcers, Kayla eased inside, arching an eyebrow at how crowded we were.

"This is your secret headquarters? I’ve been to scarier girl scout meetings.”

“We don’t have the resources,” I countered. "Has anyone seen you come here?”

"Please. I’ve been tiptoeing around vampire palaces for days. “And I’m getting pretty good at it.” She gave our small group an energy that I wasn’t anticipating. “So, what’s the revolution scheming today?”

I described our idea for rehabilitating vampires, and her own face paled as she listened like it was an actual source of news.

"It's not just good for vampires," she said. "That's good for everyone. "Think of werewolf medics treating our warriors with vampire healers and the fusion of our unique supernatural powers to enhance healthcare.

So hopeful I felt something close to joy getting under way.The vision she painted was so different from the seemingly incessant war that characterized your average supernatural When it meant the kind of peace-and-harmony-good-will-toward- men situation I was praying Cecile’s bleeding heart wouldn’t assure us we would have. Maybe we couldn’t change everything, but we could start to envision something else.

“Tell them about the blood bank idea,” Elena prompted.

My colourless cheeks reddened with confusion. "It's just a concept. Vampires who want to avoid murder might instead be able to consume ethically sourced blood, drawn from life-volunteers or — here is the 21st century twist — sold by people willing to sell their plasma. It would take involving the human medical system, but —”

“But it would give vampires choices other than hunting,” Kayla concluded. “How to feed the hunger without feeding upon lives. That's revolutionary."

We carried on talking for an hour, procession after possibility exploding out of each point. We weren’t just whining about vampire culture — we were doing something by making a choice to imagine another way, by dreaming of a future where our nature wasn’t destiny.

All of that was interrupted by fliesets blaring through the dark halls, throughout the palace — not the delicate notes of standard security measures, but some kind of emergency response code someone important has just caught wind of something he shouldn’t have.

"They know it," I whimpered, the chill now literally coursing through my veins. “The queen is aware of our meetings.”

Shorter but just as confident, Kayla took my hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. "Then we deal with it. Together."

But as vampire guards crowded the hallway leading past our closet, I knew avoiding Queen Morvana's wrath would not be as simple as holding hands. The door swung and there I saw the queen herself, her ancient eyes watching our puny rebellion with some cold amusement.

“So touching,” she said, her voice brimming with force enough to make all of us fall to our knees in genuflection against our will. “Young vampires playing revolutionary in my own palace.”

"Your Majesty," was all I could stammer, struggling not to drop to the ground. "We were just discussing—"

"I know what you were talking about, Tessa. Do you suppose I would be deaf to it when one of my own starts poisoning others with seditious thoughts?”

She stepped into the closet, and her glamorous façade vanished; now was exposed the haunting predator underneath. This was Queen Morvana on her game—ancient and powerful, unapologetically ruthless with any opponents to her rule.

“You might have a decision to make, dear child,” she said, focusing her bloody eyes on me. "Prove yourself loyal to vampire supremacy by killing the werewolf who made you. Kill Kayla and I will forgive the youthfulness of your foolishness now, I must give an example to prevent others from trying to follow."

The long silver blade she drew was intricate and not made for actually performing executions. She handed it to me and waited for my selection.

“No,” I said, and the word flew out of my mouth without a prayer over consequences.

"No?" The queen's brows lifted in genuine astonishment. "Then maybe you just need a little more motivation."

She waved at Marcus, Elena, and the rest of them huddling against the shelves. Vampires such as myself who extended kindness to werewolves, who harbored these foolish notions of coexistence – I will put them on trial. Beginning with your friends in this closet. Their deaths will be your responsibility, Tessa. “If you want to save them, test them the same way you sought to test me: Prove that you know where real loyalty lies.

I glanced at Kayla again; she gave me a friendly nod as her eyes locked with mine. She wouldn’t plead for her life, or tell me to murder others on her behalf. She was willing to die for her beliefs.

I glanced then at my friends—Marcus fearful for his mother, Elena whose only ethos had been in the battle joined, all of them who imagined they could be something other than predators.

“I can’t,” I whispered as tears ran down my face. “I won’t be able to kill her, and I can’t bear witness as you murder my friends for having consciences. So if someone has to die to demonstrate a point about loyalty and power, let it be me.”