Chapter 1: Glamis
Mon, 2 Oct 2034
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Mon, 2 Oct 2034
Skye waited, leaned up against a cargo van outside the warehouse. With a critical glare, she watched the two new recruits chatting one another up by the other van. They had just gone through the vetting process to make sure they would never reveal the truth about this job. This was their test-run. If either of them proved subpar, they would need their memories of the vampire world wiped. Skye had only cleared these hurdles two weeks ago.
The sound of heavy boots on concrete announced the night shift supervisor, Cathy. She paired her high-visibility vest with a full face of makeup, and styled her long, bleached curls into a ponytail. Her fake tan and curvy figure hid the reality that she was, in fact, one of the undead residents of Glamis. She wasn’t just any undead, either; the community in Glamis called her the ‘Blood Conductor’ because of the blood rationing system she had built over the last century. Skye was her familiar.
Though Cathy’s voice was hoarse, her Scottish accent and sweet, red-lipped smile rounded out its edge. She spoke to the recruits, “Evening, loves. I’ll be with you two in just a second.” She swept on over to Skye.
Skye pushed her purple box braids over her shoulder and mirrored the smile. “Hiya.”
“Hiya, dear. How’re you feeling about those two?” Cathy asked in a lowered voice.
“Don’t know.” They’ll be fucking each other by morning. “I hope neither will take my spot.”
Cathy shook her head. “Like I said, you’re going to stay my familiar. They’re here to help you. Demand’s doubled just this year. Poor Dom was scunnered by the end of it.”
Dominic had been Cathy’s previous familiar and one of Nixie’s friends. He had referred Skye to Cathy as his replacement, now that he was a vampire. “You think they’ll be happy with that arrangement?”
Cathy nodded. “If they aren’t, then they don’t get the job.”
Skye allowed herself to relax, though only marginally. Her new position as familiar felt unsteady. In Glamis, Cathy was the only vampire allowed a familiar in the past decade due to the influx of undead seeking refuge and blood in the city. She only turned someone once every five years or so.
Cathy lifted her chin towards the van Skye would be driving tonight. It belonged to the warehouse, unlike the usual delivery van, which Cathy owned and kept here. “All the blood’s been loaded?”
Usually, the blood stayed in Cathy’s van from blood bank to delivery. She also had the van modified to appear totally off while its temperature system maintained the blood at four degrees. “Yes,” Skye answered.
“Cooling system working fine?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. You best be off. I’ll be here when you get back.”
Skye fished out the keys to the warehouse van, unlocking it and entering. She paused to watch Cathy in the rear-view mirror as she strode over to the two humans. Skye pushed away whatever worries remained and departed from the cold storage warehouse.
Skye had to deliver almost seven hundred litres of blood weekly, though tonight she only had to drop off around four hundred. That didn’t stop her from tensing up as she crossed the threshold of the industrial area into the wider city. She supposed that, one day, she’d get over the uneasy feeling of driving around stolen blood.
She got an alright wage for one night’s work a week, but the big payment came at the end, when Cathy would turn her into a vampire. During her initial meeting with Cathy, Skye had said that she wanted to escape death but omitted the niceties. It felt too personal to share the whole truth. Cathy was satisfied enough with that answer to take Skye in.
Skye’s first stop was a flat where Dominic lived. Since Cathy kept her delivery personnel human to minimise the risk of someone nicking blood, his recent turning had created the job opening. He, like his Sire, was an Enchanter – a vampire’s type of magic was determined by who sired them. Enchanters were known for their psychic abilities. They were also the most common type, though apparently few early generation Enchanters remained. Why, Skye wasn’t sure, but she did know earlier generations were more powerful. Perhaps that had something to do with it.
Dominic was waiting outside, a cigarette between his smirking lips. He was a lanky guy coated in tattoos, with slicked hair dyed black. Skye found a parking and got out.
“Hiya.” He dropped the cigarette, killing it under his boot. “You alright?”
“All good on my end.” Skye headed to the back of the van, Dominic following. “Got two potential recruits. Will see how that works out.”
He leaned up against the van. Skye was tall, but he was like a palm tree compared to her. “I doubt Cathy will actually bring one of them on.”
“How come?”
“Inge was the one who suggested it. She felt bad for me. Cathy’s more worried about leaks, y’know? Will be more work for her to make sure they stay solid.”
“Well, you know Cathy better than me.” Skye opened the back of the van and pulled out one of the boxes. “Here’s your rations.”
“Thanks.” Dominic took the box. “Hey, you’re performing at Blush this Friday, yeah?”
Skye shut the doors to the van. “Oh, yeah.”
“Cool. See you then. Also…” Dominic scratched his stubble. “Just so you know, I’ll be at Marked next week. You can stop by there. For my delivery, I mean.”
“Sure. Thanks for letting me know.” She got back in the van and left.
A couple of stops later, she reached the gay nightclub Blush. It had been Skye’s haven when she had first flung herself from English Coventry to Scottish Glamis. She wanted to find herself outside of the context of her family and hometown. With her family (even the half whom she loved), she was the transgender queer one with no parents. In the Coventry queer scene, she was one of a handful of people of colour. Glamis, despite being comparable in size, drew in people from across the world with its university and art scene. Blush had been at the heart of this queer diversity for decades.
The nightclub had helped Skye find herself. Singing and dancing were hobbies she had allowed to slip during her teen years; they returned to her life through performing there for some cash. It’s also where she met friends, including Nixie.
One of the more jarring revelations when learning about vampires was that, not only was the person who owned Blush a vampire, but she was the most powerful one in the city. Both politically and in her blood.
The closer a vampire was to the first generation (which only had one occupant, enigmatically called ‘The First’), the more powerful they were. Almost all vampires in Glamis, including Cathy, were the relatively weak adynamos, who belonged to the eleventh generation or later. Blush’s owner, Inge, was a fourth generation Sunborn.
Sunborn were the rarest type of vampire, with only five in all of Glamis. They could be out in the daylight, turn invisible, become smoke, and the most powerful of them were also capable of generating solar blasts.
Inge received her deliveries at Blush, which was open all nights of the week. Tonight, right in the only parking spot available, was a dishevelled homeless man who had gotten an empty twin-sized pram stuck in the street gutter. Aren’t those expensive? Where’d he get that?
“Oi, Teddy!” Inge’s voice pierced through the van’s window. The vampire with choppy blonde hair hopped down the pavement to aid the homeless man. Teddy hurried away with the pram as Inge waved Skye into the parking space.
Skye got out and headed to the back of the van. “Thanks, Inge.” She slid one of the boxes out and into Inge’s hands.
The vampire – who stood scarcely above five foot – held the seven-kilogram box effortlessly. “How’s the night going?”
“Should be over earlier than usual. New recruits,” Skye answered.
Inge nodded quickly, her short fringe bouncing. “Hope Cathy’ll take them on. Would better if you don’t have to drop off boxes into the early hours of the morning.”
“She said the population’s doubled in just the last year?”
“Yeah. Enforcers outside Scotland have been getting a little more murder-y, lately. I’d thought they had calmed down. Guess they want to go back to solutions from the 1500s.” All Enforcers had the right to cull adynamos if they deemed it necessary. Inge, Scotland’s Enforcer, didn’t do that, though. That’s what made Glamis safe.
“Will we have enough blood for them all?” Skye inquired.
Inge shrugged, the box lifting over her chin for a moment. “Cathy’s good at making plans. You just focus on deliveries.” Her head turned to Blush, like she had heard something. “Gotta go. See’ya!”
Skye flew through her deliveries. Chain-wearing, chain-smoking Enchanters rooming in a tenement; a Sunborn couple in a luxury flat who’d recently adopted a human child; a few of Cathy’s older familiars now weaved into the medical system’s bureaucracy one way or another. Her ex-familiars helped her pull off the blood disappearing act as the system got more sophisticated. Skye supposed that she may need to slot into that system after she got turned. The thought of wiping the same minds and datasets weekly was enough to put her to sleep. Still a much better fate than Huntington’s, though.
The night eventually reached Skye’s favourite delivery: a cat.
The third and final type of vampire were Shifters. These could transform into animals. The earlier their generation, the more animals they could take the shape of. They were relatively rare in Glamis, as they tended to prefer a rural lifestyle. Some even remained in their animal forms forever and stalked forests, hunting lonely hikers. When in their animal forms, they were also not in danger of sunlight. There were just over a dozen in the city, including one who had taken on the form of a tawny shorthair cat going by ‘Bastet’. She lived a cosy life in a townhouse. She had not been in her human form for decades.
The drop-off point for Bastet was at an oak tree in Glamis’ oldest graveyard, morbidly placed opposite its largest hospital. The graveyard was her regular haunt. Bastet sat by the tree, her fat tail twitching.
“Hey, Bastet,” Skye greeted as she set the box down. “Hope you’re having a good night?”
Bastet purred, circling the box. Skye was unsure of how and where Bastet stored the bags, but it seemed like she had a system that worked.
A few more drop-offs later, Skye reached her final stop. This was with another Shifter, one who resided outside of the city. On the motorway leading out, the world quietened and darkened. The dashboard’s digital clock said it was eleven. The sky was overcast and moonless. Skye’s luminescent yellow nail polish glowed against the wheel. She turned the music off. The dark, silent road was invitingly eerie.
Her destination was a cabin in the woods, where the Shifter called Benny resided. The cabin had chipped bricks, mismatched wooden roofing, and a barbed wire fence around the perimeter. This was the only delivery where Skye didn’t have to directly hand the cardboard box over to the recipient. Apparently, ‘Nibbly Benny’ was not just an affectionate nickname.
His cabin, unlit as always, showed no signs of life. Skye had asked Cathy if anyone ever did welfare checks on him. Cathy reassured her that Benny was as alive as any vampire could be.
Skye dropped the box off by the wire gate and hopped back into the van. Done for the night, she headed off.
She was back at the warehouse just before midnight. Cathy waited inside, sipping on a maroon slushie. The other van was not back yet.
Skye parked and hopped out, her bracelets clinking like a windchime. “Hey, the other two aren’t back?”
“On their way. Done with deliveries, at least. But they only had half of what you had.” Cathy shook her head. As sweet as Cathy was, she did not like inefficiency in her system. “You get on home and get some sleep before class.”
“It’s just sociology. I’ll skip it,” Skye said with a shrug.
“Don’t skip class,” Cathy chided. “I don’t want this job to interfere with your education.”
Skye chuckled. “My flatmate’s drinking will do more damage than this job ever could.”
An unfamiliar voice with a thick Irish accent interrupted, “Catherine, I presume?” The two women pivoted in the direction of the voice. A figure stepped out of the shadows. Her movements were fluid, footfall silent, and her unnaturally green eyes studied Cathy and Skye. She had unkempt ginger hair pulled into a low ponytail, a bulky backpack slung lazily over one of her shoulders, and her clothes were plain and worn.
Cathy’s posture tensed. “Who are you? How did you find this place?”
“I just followed the van that was distributing blood.” The stranger looked to Skye. “I assumed it would take me somewhere important.”
Skye winced. “You – what?”
“No vampires are meant to know this facility’s location,” Cathy stated firmly. Even past familiars had to get the location wiped from their memories before being turned.
“… Oh.” The stranger gave the warehouse an impassive scan. “Whoops.”
“Who are you?” Skye asked.
“My name’s Ceana,” the stranger answered, voice monotone. “Folklore calls me The Dearg-Due.”
“Dah-reg-doo-uh?” Skye echoed.
Ceana’s lips twitched into a faint smile. “Close enough.”
Cathy’s voice sharpened. “Skye – go.”
Skye’s eyes flickered between the two. She asked Cathy, “You’ll be OK?”
“I just have information to share. If I wanted a fight…” Ceana shrugged, looking to Cathy. “Well, I wouldn’t have wasted my time with a conversation first.”
Cathy’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll be fine, Skye. You go.”
Skye did so. Both her worry and curiosity kept pulling her eyes over her shoulder. Cathy and Ceana switched over to speaking Scottish Gaelic, a language Skye couldn’t begin to decode.
She exited the warehouse and headed for the nearest bus stop, where she took a seat. She said she’s in folklore. Skye took out her phone to search for what ‘Dearg-Due’ was, but she couldn’t piece together how on earth to spell it. Just as she gave up on her search, the bus arrived. She was the only occupant of the driverless vehicle. She sat by a window and sent Cathy a message, ‘Hope all’s good?’
When she was halfway home, she got a reply from Cathy.
‘I’ll explain what that was. Don’t worry about it.’
I’m less worried, more curious, Skye thought. But she answered, ‘Alright.’
She locked her phone and looked out to the city. The outline of her face reflected against the backdrop of passing brick buildings, neon signposts, and the nocturnal residents weaving through the streets.