2: Generation War
It was true that the longer a vampire exists, the harder it was for them to pass as human. But it wasn’t because vampires change. It was because humans did.
It was mostly the ancients, that handful of vampires still around after a thousand years or so, that had a truly alien look around them, reminiscent of the Progenitors who had blessed them with their immortality in the first place. There was the occasional throwback to the look in younger generations, but it happened less and less as time went on, as the sheer numbers of more human-looking vampires changed the ideal of what a vampire was.
For the most part, you could make a pretty good guess as to a vampire’s age based on how much they fit the human ideals of the time they were born. It wasn’t perfectly reliable, but it could be used to make some pretty good guesses. Lissa wore the thin, slightly muscled frame of her handful of centuries, and Benny the softer, fatter look that humans had favoured fifty years ago, and still did, so far as Lissa was aware.
Madame’s staff were a smattering of different styles, both in their physical bodies and their fashion choices, most of them deliberately mismatched; light, bright cotton skirts on famine-round hips, bear leather jackets with the long red hair popular in the island-trade era, when a temporary change in the ocean currents had pulled the worst of the contaminated waters away from the shores and allowed a brief flurry of easy trade with neighbours. Or so Lissa had heard. She hadn’t paid all that much attention to human affairs since coming to the Scarlet City.
Benny endured the goodbye kisses of the staff, more shy than Lissa was used to seeing him, as they crated up all his possessions from the large, luxurious villa and discussed whether it was worth loading them onto the train for a single stops or simply wheeling everything the short distance to his new home themselves. Benny was all for doing at little labour as possible, but Lissa didn’t think he’d ever been through the hassle of loading a cargo train before. She knew better. It wasn’t worth it.
“Lissa!” Madame’s musical tones rang through the acoustically perfect front chamber as she swept down the stairs wreathed in diaphanous scarves. “You’re here to take my darling boy away from me. So sad! But thank you, darling, truly, for your help.”
“Madame.” Lissa held her hand out – not the offer of fingers, not supplication, but the handshake of a subordinate to a superior. One step less pertinent than most would be with Madame. But Lissa was confident enough, even surrounded by the woman’s cronies, that nothing would happen to her here.
Madame’s expression was never easy to read. She was one of the oldest living vampires, face mostly human but twisted out of shape by its resemblance to the Progenitors – cheekbones far too hollow, chin far too pointy, lips too full and pinched, to make expressions that could be easily read without practice. The edges of her completely black eyes that Lissa was pretty sure were aimed at her (it was hard to ever be certain) wrinkled. It might have been amusement. It might have been irritation. But she took the hand, firmly, her inhumanly long fingers curled around Lissa’s, the handshake of a superior.
Lissa didn’t dare try to curl her fingers around Madame’s. She wasn’t suicidal.
The ancient Abby released her hand after a moment ans turned to sweep Benny into a tight hug, planting her lips on his forehead. “My baby boy. Are you sure you won’t stay?”
“Thank you, Madame, but no,” he mumbled. “I have, you know. Stuff to do.”
“And I’m certain that you will show me all of this amazing ‘stuff’ soon enough, and it will justify you leaving my arms so soon.” She let him go. “The porters will help you with these.”
“We can handle the – ”
“The porters will help you move in,” Madame repeated, a dangerous firmness in her tone. Benny didn’t gainsay her again, merely nodded meekly. Madame’s expression softened; she glanced around the room, back up the stairs, and turned to leave. “Oh, and Lissa, my dear. There’s some sort of hubbub at the Capitol Building. Involving your sister, I think.”
“What sort of hubbub? Is Taira in trouble, or…?”
“How should I know? I was far too heartbroken over my boy to pay attention.” With a vague wave of her hand, she swanned off back up the stairs.
In the sudden silence after her, various staff watching them like they were attending some sort of live performance, Lissa said, “Benny, I’m sorry but I have to – ”
“Yeah, yeah; go. We don’t need to be here anyway; the porters will deal with this stuff.” He sounded upset about it, defeated; Lissa wasn’t going to waste time trying to untangle the politics of Madame’s household. She made straight for the Capitol Building.
She got looks as she approached the building. She always did. She looked just enough like her sister to be easily mistaken for her in her place of work, and Taira was an influential enough politician to get waylaid by random petitioners and media people. But today she got less looks than normal, and that made her heart sink a little, because when people weren’t mistaking her for Taira, it was usually because they knew exactly where Taira was at that moment. And that meant, as Madame had put it, a hubbub.
The Scarlet City didn’t have a whole lot of reporters, but it looked like just about every one they did have was gathered around the front steps of the Capitol Building, along with an unusually large crowd of onlookers. That might mean something gruesome, but that thought had barely occurred to Lissa when she saw her sister, alive and well, composed and making some sort of impromptu speech.
“We are pleased to announce that the new potato crops tolerate the current level of contamination in the water extremely well,” she was saying, “and we expect a human population boom within the next few years, in concert with a permanent increase in food production capability. As such, we’re authorising an immediate increase in our population, in lockstep. I can’t give solid numbers on approvals until we hear back from the humans aboveground, but let me say that we’re expecting a large enough increase that we’re looking to deliberately favour the petitions of younger creators in this boom. Our elders are of course due their respect, but for the health of the City as a whole, we’re looking for petitions from people below five hundred years old who wish to bring newcomers into our fold. I will tell you right now – yes, this is unusual. No, it will not be this straightforward. Expect other restrictions, restrictions that might sound strange, that might seem unfair – this is all part of the process of diversifying our community. I can’t tell you what those restrictions will be right now, but our choices are this initiative, or the status quo of defaulting to the preferences of elders. I honour and respect our elders, of course – but just this once, why not try something different?”
Ah. So it wasn’t some gruesome, brutal assassination – yet. What was Taira thinking?! It didn’t matter how much lip service she paid to respecting the old and the powerful, she was openly mocking them with a statement like this. Even openly admitting the unspoken truth that the old and powerful were naturally advantaged in petitions when it came to creating new vampires (as well as any other kind of petition, really) was career, and possibly literal, suicide. Openly saying that in a speech, and then openly suggesting the intention to do the exact opposite? Ridiculous!
The smartest thing for Lissa to do would be to walk away and cut off all contact with her sister until the scandal died down in a decade or two, but instead, she steeled herself and matched Taira’s pace as Taira walked down the steps and off down the street, responding to the shouted questions if reporters with steely silence until they all peeled off. Only then did Lissa quicken her pace and come up next to her.
“What, in the sun’s sucking light, was that?”
“Oh, hi, Lissa. How did Benny’s move g – ?”
“Don’t give me that! Are you trying to get yourself killed? What was that little stunt about?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. You worry too much. Trust me; I know how things move on the inside. I have the support to do this.”
“No, you don’t. And even if you do – why? You’re either going to get stabbed in some alley, or start riots.”
“You don’t have much faith in the common sense of our citizens, do you?”
“You’ve been here as long as I have! You know better than to expect any kind of sense from anyone! What are you doing? What’s the point of this?”
Taira gave her a sidelong look, a strange sort of fervour in her eyes. She grinned. “Don’t you get a little bored with this status quo? The city’s old, Lissa. Don’t you think it’s time to mix things up a bit?”
“Are you insane?” Lissa asked, and the question wasn’t entirely hyperbolic. Minds didn’t last forever, and the centuries of being a vampire in a dark city could cause… effects. Well, all life caused ‘effects’ on everyone, of course, but it wasn’t entirely remarkable for one of their own to simply lose all good judgement and start doing apparently random dangerous activities in a bid for adrenaline-fuelled variety until something killed them. If the City was lucky, they eventually walked into the sun, never to be seen again. If it was unlucky, they died starting a massive brawl, or went on a human hunting spree until the Night Guard killed them, or set something important on fire and died in the flames. Or, perhaps in this case, started a massive political scandal and tried to take down as much of the system as they could before they got assassinated.
Was that what was going on? Was there a way to tell if Taira’s judgement was sound?
Taira just rolled her eyes. “You worry far too much. It’s a basic power ploy. I do know what I’m doing. Trust me.”
“So your proposal wasn’t serious?”
“Oh, it’s dead serious.” She winked. “You’ll find the details very interesting, I think. And don’t worry, sis. I’ll protect you, alright?”
“Protect me from what?”
“Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about anything.” Taira quickened her pace, pulling away.
Lissa let her.
With a move like that, why would Lissa be the one who needed protecting?
What was going on?
Derin Edala 