Pierce
The air crackled with tension as my brothers and I assumed our seats at the long table. None of us spoke. It was never a good thing when the matriarch - our ‘mother,’ Margaret - called a family meeting.
An ancient grandfather clock ticked in the background, and was the only thing shattering the total silence.
“So…” My younger brother Theodore hesitantly picked up his golden spoon, examined it, then set it down again. “What do you think she’s going to say?”
Adriel, the eldest, shook his head. His long, silky black hair was tied up neatly, but a single strand fell over his forehead. He was as anxious as the rest of us. “It’s impossible to read her.”
“Yeah,” Theo agreed.
Silence again.
“Was she in a good mood the last time anyone saw her?” Theo asked with cautious optimism.
But Adriel frowned. “Not when I saw her, no.” He turned to me. “Pierce?”
“I saw her last week, up late before sunrise,” I admitted. My brothers listened eagerly. “But she wasn’t well. Coughing and whatnot. I don’t know if she’s come out of her room since.”
Their faces fell again. I knew what they were afraid of, even if nobody said it out loud. Margaret was sick, and if she passed away, we would be completely on our own. Which wouldn’t be a problem normally, since we were all competent, adult men - except Margaret held the key to our survival.
Out of all of us, she was the strongest vampire - an elder vampire - and the only one capable of keeping us hidden and alive.
Other vampires generally lived far from human civilizations in secluded areas, but remained close enough to feed. We were the only coven I knew of who hid in plain sight. Things had changed in the past few centuries. People were different now. They lacked fear - true fear, the way humans of old experienced. Fear of the paranormal. Now they thought of it only as fiction.
Which is a mistake. It’s all true, of course.
But despite that, present-day vampires had a different problem. No longer was it acceptable for us to feed the way we were used to - at random, at will, pulling people off the streets to suck them dry and leave them for dead. The humans might have been foolish enough to believe we didn’t exist, but they still didn’t take kindly to the gruesome deaths we left behind.
To humans, a vampire’s feeding would simply be a murder. The murderer would be tracked down, and the vampire would obviously fight back. But even a vampire is no match for a whole team of humans with guns and armor and weapons.
That was why we needed Margaret. As an elder vampire, she had the ability to manipulate humans. It was an old form of mind control, to trick the fog of people’s minds into seeing a slightly different version of reality, into seeing what shewantedthem to see. It was not a magic my brothers and I could emulate. Margaret manipulated the fog to make humans believe that the criminals from the local prison going missing and turning up dead simply died of natural causes.
Without her, we couldn’t feed - and without feeding, we would die. All of us.
Earlier tonight, Margaret had sent a bat messenger to all three of us. In the bat’s tiny claws was a note to meet her at the long table for a family meeting. We knew instantly it couldn’t be good news.
If Margaret died, it would eventually spell death for my brothers and I.
“I’m scared,” Theo murmured, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Out of the three of us, Theodore was the youngest vampire, turned only fifteen years ago and stuck at the biological age of twenty. Adriel and I suspected that Margaret missed having children of her own, before her turning, and Theo was the result of that. Margaret always insisted it was cruel to turn children, so she found a young man barely in adulthood to turn.
“Everything will be fine, Theo,” I soothed him.
But Adriel didn’t stop frowning. “You can’t promise that. We’ve all known of Margaret’s declining health for some time now.”
I glared at him. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you not to be so blunt all the time, for Theo’s sake.”
Adriel huffed but didn’t respond. Theo gave me a small appreciative smile, despite our brother’s grumpy attitude.
All of us stopped breathing - well, not actually, because we didn’t breathe in the first place - because of the dining room door creaked open.
Margaret stepped past the door threshold. Her movements were slow and measured, like every action took a tremendous amount of effort. I tried not to wince - it almost felt like watching a very old, brittle cat walk.
“Let me help, mother,” Adriel offered as he strode to her side.
But she growled at him. “Don’t touch me. I’m not that sick.”
