Gracen's Only Undead Friend Watches the World Unravel

Gracen never came back to work after those few nights following his surgery. His complete disappearance is not a mystery anymore. Luc told me he was turned, so my services in ‘babysitting the brat’ as he most infuriatingly described it were no longer needed. I wanted to talk to Roman to confirm this, but when I dropped by the coven… I can’t even remember clearly what happened. Roman said exactly the same thing Luc had, as Luc was standing there at his right hand, close enough to whisper in the master’s ear. I wasn’t suspicious for some reason. I was probably being controlled in fact, now that I think about it, but Roman never does that to us unless he’s looking for entertainment.

And I am never his entertainment, to clarify. I’m a pretty average looking guy, far from his tastes. I was turned by one of my patients, a low ranking member of Roman’s coven. His master recruited me to watch Gracen only because I happened to have past work experience that suited his son’s desired profession. That, and my first rate self-control. I’d had the ability ever since I was turned to just shut off the bloodlust, remember my human self, and keep executing the programmed moves of my decades of ER training. Roman didn’t trust any of the other vampires to be around his son. They are all of them schemers or lust-driven animals. Whereas all I wanted was to be ignored and do something worthwhile with my now limitless time.

I obeyed Roman and reported to him purely out of fear at first, the same as everyone else. But seeing how much he loved his son, worrying about his safety and his happiness… I grew to genuinely respect our master, even if he was a tyrant. I felt kind of like Gracen’s uncle at first: shadowing him in college, then showing him the ropes of ambulance work. Then he became more of a friend and colleague. He was really passionate about the work, smart and level-headed, and I liked the nights we went to grab a beer after work in the narrow window of time I had between 4AM and sunrise. I started to see clearly that he thought of me as more than his father’s informant. I was his genuine friend, even if he could never fully trust me. He knew his every word would be repeated back to Roman the second my master asked about it, but he didn’t stay resenting me for that.

Now I haven’t seen him in close to a year… I miss the kid. I have a new partner at work, and he’s fine, capable, chatty. But rather than football, I’d prefer be talking about how to manage blood-lust and the benefits of an animal only diet. You know, being my honest self.

I don’t just miss my friend either. I’m worried about him. I know he probably hates his new life in the coven, trapped in the dark as his father’s turned tool.

The first time I went to visit him… Roman banned me from ever intruding into Luc’s nightclub again. “You are useless to me now. Just be happy I’m declaring you exiled and not crucified. Go find your own food source and cease annoying Luscious or asking after my son. He is dead. To you.” There was a strange, microsecond long pause between the two halves of that sentence that made me seriously alarmed. He only made that statement ‘dead to you’ when Luc shot him a sharp, little nudge.

Roman would never, under any circumstances have killed his son. Gracen was the most precious thing in the world to him. It’s true, he may not have survived the transformation… But if that were the case, the man I spoke to would have been grief-stricken, probably going on a violent rampage, not sitting there empty-eyed and robotic.

Whatever he was hiding, he is not the master I’ve been serving so close this past decade. He is just… different now. A part of me thinks…

A part of me dreams that Roman’s been dead for months, and I was speaking with Gracen all those times. Gracen: using his powers to control and manipulate everyone on Luc’s command.

That’s a crazy thought though. Roman never would have allowed that to happen. He’s an ancient, unbeatable juggernaut. Even the other ancients like Luc and Damian are just his slaves as much as they are his lieutenants.

I’m powerless to do anything against Luc or his cover anyway, so I should stop thinking about it. Let go and just focus on my work. I am finally free.

I gave the knife-wound victim I’m stabilizing tonight a long, tender bite while my partner was focused on his driving. The venom helps with their pain management, even better than opiates. It also quickly clots serious bleeds, but Gracen never had the self-control to even attempt it. He said he was a human being and he would never take in a single drop of sanguis, not ever again, so long as he lived.

Now he’s a full vampire with no choice but to drink. Not just that, but he’s surrounded by living, demented livestock – praels. It has to be destroying him.

Maybe I should try calling him again.

If I borrow Kate’s phone, maybe Luc won’t screen the call. She is his ex-girlfriend, a former prael he used to let sleep with absolutely anyone in that coven. Before he irrationally exiled her anyway.

I found her rampaging through the alleys one night by my favored bar, sucking dry some college kid. I stepped in to keep her from killing him, brought him to the hospital for a blood transfusion, and the chatty nurse told me her entire tragic backstory. “I was a selfish, slutty idiot, and now I’ve lost everything…” She started dry sobbing into my shoulder, trying to summon tears, because she really felt like crying. She just couldn’t. I held her, gave her comfort. Then she started kissing me.

I kissed her back, of course, but kept my hands respectfully off those double D, bra-less breasts pushing right against my chest.... I still can’t believe she had sex with me, right there in that ambulance. She is way out of my league. I think she’s just suffering from that newborn appetite, and maybe I shouldn’t have taken advantage.

She says I’ve been good for her though. I tutored her in controlling her bloodlust for a few months. Then I used my connections and got her her job back at the hospital. “I have been making a lot of money with my Only Fans account…” she told me. “But I kind of miss being a nurse. People respect a nurse, and I’m sick of whoring.”

“You’re not a--”

“Yes, I totally am!” she cut me off, and I cringed. “And I want to like reform my ways and shit. Settle down with a nice guy…” She seized my hand, and I felt my heart do a back-flip. “Like you, Brett. You are a nice, genuine guy, and I like you, so let’s fucking move in together, okay?”

It was way more than ‘okay’. It was an ecstatic yes. I haven’t met many vampire women. Both Luc and Roman’s covens are oddly, exclusively male. I think women have a slimmer chance of surviving being turned, and most vampires prefer them as food-sources to equal, immortal partners.

But I am head over heels in love with Kate, and it is not just the sex.

She is funny, and sweet, and affectionate… Okay, the sex is mind-blowingly good. I don’t know where she learned all these tricks, but… damn. Just… damn. And it is so much easier than it is with a human woman. Dating as a vampire, I was always trying to control my appetite, keep from biting my partner in the heat of it, come up with excuses of why we could only meet after dark that didn’t make me sound like a booty-calling asshole, and keep bottled in all these secrets and deceptions.

Kate knows everything about me though. She tells me everything about herself, and I don’t care that she has a body-count in the high double digits. She was kidnapped into a fucking coven. Of course she had a wild time, but she is committed to me now, and that is all that matters.

The only thing she’s evasive about is when I talk about Gracen. She gets really uncomfortable, and she won’t answer any of my questions about how he looked when last she saw him in Luc’s coven. She told me bluntly this last time, “Brett, I cannot tell you, so stop asking. Sire’s orders, alright?”

That mean’s Luc ordered her to keep quiet about all his schemes when he kicked her right out of his inner circle. That man is up to something.

But I guess it’s none of my business. I’m a vampire outcast, and I prefer it that way. I am happy with Kate. We’re just two sappy exiles making a better life together.

She’s working tonight when we rush our newest patient in on a gurney. The waiting room was just swarming with backlog, and it’s not any better as we head past the treatment rooms. Kate looks tired, strung out, but I can’t comfort her now. This woman needs a blood transfusion, so where is the fucking doctor? “I need a blood-test for her, right now,” I tell Kate, gesturing to my patient. “There was no family or other contacts that know her blood type. So start with O negative, and--”

“We’re out,” she snaps, distractedly checking the pulse on an unconscious middle-aged man, someone who just came out of post-op.

“Alright. Testing kit first then--”

“We are out of everything,” Kate clarifies, and I feel my eyes flare.

“Are you saying the ER is out of blood bags?” My partner gawks. “How many fucking accidents were there this week? That should never…”

I leave him with our patient and pull Kate aside, demanding, “How many did you drink? I told you to stick with the butcher run-off. This hospital cannot afford--”

“It wasn’t me!” she snaps, and I swallow. “Luc’s men came by. They cleaned us out.”

“What?”

“Roman’s order. No one argued with that.”

“He would never do that!” I insist. “The amount of people who are going to die tonight, and the attention it's going to draw... They have praels.”

“Maybe Julian’s decided he doesn’t feel like snacking on people this month and wants to start a stockpile without ever considering the consequences,” she bitterly mocks.

“You still miss him,” I sigh.

“Shut up!” she orders. “He is out of my league, and Luc will never let me have him anyway. That’s why I am totally fine settling for you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Teasing!” She smiles. “Now stop distracting me. I have to get this IV line in. No blood, but we’ve still got plenty of saline solution, so the burn victims should make it.”

I go back to work, but it’s a hell of a night. There’s blocked off streets, and mass panic, because there are fucking packs of vampires openly walking around tonight and biting people, feeding off of them right out in the open.

Me and Kate try to break up one of the assaults on our way back to our apartment and nearly wind up with our heads torn off in response. “Roman’s given us free reign, bitches! So fuck off and find your own dinner.”

I’m sure they’re lying, but Roman’s not answering his phone…

I call Gracen, even though it might invite major punishment. He picks up this time. “You again? I thought I told you not to pester me.”

“Gracen.” It is him. I recognize that voice. It is not Roman, and now that we are not face to face, he has no way to use his compulsion to convince me it is. “How long has Luc had you pretending to be your father?”

“Luscious isn’t here--”

“Then stop fucking talking like that!” I snap, and I hear a shaky inhale of breath.

“Who…? Brett?” He sounds so different suddenly, small and timid and on the verge of breaking open.

“Yeah, kid. I… I think I should see you. Do you have any idea what’s happening out here?”

“Happening where?” he distantly mutters.

“Downtown, the hospital, just… everywhere. Is your father…? Is Roman dead?”

“Roman is dead,” he hollowly repeats. “Julian shot him in the head.”

“Shit.”

“We are all dead.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I bluntly counter. “I don’t know what’s been happening with you these past nine months, but I need you to focus. It’s important. If Luc is behind this…” I’ve no idea why he would give his followers free reign like this. It’s stupid and irrational, and it’s going to invite world war, mass panic, and takeover from the other clans. But whatever. I can’t decipher that schemer’s head-space. I just need to take action. “We need to stop him. You can stop him, Gracen. Now where--?”

“Gracen is dead.”

What the fuck?! “Kid… I am talking to you right this moment,” I earnestly, calmly enforce. “You can’t be dead. Dead people cannot answer the phone.”

There’s no response to that assurance. I think the cell dropped to the floor, because there’s this thudding sound, as Gracen just leaves the line open and wanders off somewhere. Calling after him does nothing, so I hang up and tell Kate, “I’m going to Club Noctus. Gracen’s… Something is seriously wrong.”

“Okay. I’d go with you, but you know – sire enforced ban. Can’t go within a hundred feet of that place. So just… be careful. Don’t let them execute you either.”

That was the perfect time to tell her, ‘I love you, Kate.’ I really should have said it, because my actual last words: “Don’t worry. Just stay inside. I’ll see you later.”

That arrogant last claim turned out to be a lie.