Young Writers Society

The mood in the basement of Black Velvet was sombre. The long, dark room was bordered with kegs and cages of bottles, crisps and peanuts. In the centre stood a round table. Three chairs surrounded it. There used to be five. In them sat Ezra, Silas and Dalia. They met up every few weeks to gamble. Blood and money were exchanged as they laughed and joked. But the gatherings were never really about that.

Ezra wasn’t quite an ancient. There wasn’t really a specific age a vampire had to pass to become one. The title was more about endurance and experience, but Ezra liked to think ancients were six-hundred or older. And at this moment in time, Ezra was in the company of two ancients, instead of four.

Silas flung his cards across the table. They spun and danced in the air before landing all over the place. “I think it’s time we stop pretending we’re here to talk about the weather.”

Both Ezra and Dalia lowered their cards, placing them carefully face down, as if the game was going to resume later on. All three of them looked to the empty space between Silas and Ezra. Ezra’s gut twisted. Two ancients gone, just like that. Ezra didn’t know the specifics, didn’t want to know. But Tyrone and Nat had been in the club the night of the raid, and now they weren’t at the table.

Ezra swirled his glass of blood before taking a sip, not daring to be the first one to talk about why they were really there.

Dalia sucked in a breath and ran her hands down her skinny black jeans as if to calm herself. “I’ve heard it’s bad. Everywhere. Worse than here.”

Silas nodded solemnly; his lips puckered. He was the oldest looking vampire Ezra knew. He must have been Turned in his late sixties, and he hadn’t treated his body well in his human years. His skin was thick and leathery from too much sun exposure, and he had scars on almost every knuckle from being a hot-headed teen who relied more on brawn than brain.

“My progenies in New York have gotten in touch,” he said. His voice was deep and gravelly from smoking a pipe. He had one of those voices that didn’t need to be raised to be heard. “There’s some kid – some small-time actor type – he’s come clean. Says he’s a vamp. He did the whole popping out his fangs and being burnt by silver to prove he’s legit. Filmed it. The videos will make their way here soon, I’m guessing.” He shook his head, jaw clenched beneath the tanned folds of his cheeks. He was never one to show emotion, so the slight flex said more than enough. Even though he always spoke with an even, loose tone like nothing really mattered, Ezra had learned to figure out when to listen. Now was most definitely a time to pay attention. “He’s a big hit,” Silas continued. “Fans are loving it. But you know for every fan who’s fawning over him, there’s a hundred humans clutching their crosses and fearing for their lives.”

Dalia hugged herself, the leather of her jacket squeaking in the silence that followed. She opened her mouth several times before she spoke. “Same thing’s happened in Copenhagen. Not an actor, but vamps are revealing what they are. Some ballerina, newly Turned. Did it to make her stronger and more agile but she ended up not getting work because she couldn’t show up to rehearsals in the daytime. Apparently, they’re loving her. Then there’s a couple of nobodies filming themselves showing off their vampire abilities. Probably hoping it’ll get them famous.”

This is why Ezra came to them. They had progenies scattered all over the world. They were the best sources when it came to global matters. And, as much as Ezra hated to admit, they were in the middle of a global crisis.

An angered exhale rushed from Silas’ nostrils and he ran his tongue over his teeth. “How are their Makers letting them do this? It goes against everything we stand for.”

“I guess they’re trying to control their exposure. They think it’s better to be the ones revealing what they are than someone else doing it for them,” said Dalia.

“But why now? This can’t all just be because of the Moonlight raid,” said Ezra.

Silas shook his head. “Stuff like this has always been happening. There’s been vampire hunters around for as long as we’ve been around. We’ve just been able to keep a lid on things. Compel people to forget what they saw. Killing progenies that step out of line. Or simply changing the subject. Someone claims they saw a vampire? Well did you also know that deodorant can cause cancer?”

Silas stared at Ezra with his piercing blue eyes that were more fitting for a Siberian Husky, making Ezra’s insides turn ice cold. He was daring him to react. Waiting for him to crack. Despite being over three-hundred years old, Silas had a way of making Ezra feel like a novice. He didn’t see it as an insult. Silas was his Maker, after all. It was his job to teach and mentor Ezra.

“This is too big for the Court. They can’t contain it now.”

Both Silas and Ezra looked to Dalia, and by the sharpness in Silas’ eyes, she’d said something wrong.

“I’m sorry, what? The Court?” asked Ezra. In the corner of his eye he saw Silas’ jaw clench. Dalia gulped and looked to her lap.

He looked to his Maker for an explanation. Silas’ nostrils flared, clearly reluctant.

“The Vampire Court,” he said through a sigh. “We’ve been the ones keeping us a secret for the past couple of centuries.”

Ezra blinked, shaking his head. “We?”

Silas watched him for a moment, his blue eyes studying the confusion etched across his face. He sighed again.

“I was recruited by the Court in the late 18th century. It was why I… taught you how to be a vampire the way that I did.”

Ezra looked away as bloody memories attacked his mind; the heart-wrenching sensation of vampire bonds snapping. Of being the one destroying them. He stared for a long moment at the cement wall, his eyes flickering to calm the tears welling behind them. The basement plunged into a heavy silence. He could feel Silas watching him the way he always did – like some sort of twisted combination of predator and protector.

Ezra’s jaw worked, shifting left to right. This Vampire Court… this power that he has only just found out his Maker was a part of… Their sole purpose was to keep their kind hidden for centuries and they had failed. His mouth moved trying to form words, before he managed to say in a voice so quiet it was barely more than a hushed breath, “Why does this feel like the end?”

Silas leaned back in his chair, his hand loosely around his glass of blood. “Because it is, Slick.”

The statement was so harsh and final it knocked the wind right out of Ezra like a punch to the gut. He looked down at the table, at the back of his forgotten cards. Sudden anger roiled inside him in the silence that followed. He knew his Maker wasn’t the type to hold his hand, to pat him on the back and tell him everything was going to be okay. He hadn’t done that when he had Turned him, he’d made him earn his new life the hard way; so why should he expect things to be different now?

But Silas could have died in that raid. It was only a stroke of luck that he wasn’t a mess of bloody goop being scrubbed off the hospital walls. Yet here he sat, working a cigarette out of the pack in his blazer pocket like they were all just a group of mates drinking and talking shit.

Panic and hysteria battled inside him. He felt for their bond to try and sooth himself with his Maker’s unshakable calm. But when he reached, mental arms outstretched, he was met not by a cool, still pool, but crashing waves.

Silas’ shining eyes cut to him across the table and their connection broke like a rope snapping. Silas stared, unblinking, as he slid his cigarette between his thin lips and lit it. Ezra gulped, too afraid to look away.

“They’ve gotten ahead of us,” said Dalia, breaking the stifling tension. Silas looked to her and Ezra relaxed. But Dalia’s back was ram-rod straight. The aloofness she had tried to trick Ezra with when he had met her last was gone. It had worn out. Now her fear was real and it was tight in her features.

“So, this is it. What do we do? Do I shut the club? Will they come for me? Are they gonna kill us?” Blood tears gathered in her eyes and ran down her lily-white cheeks. Her panicked shrieking had Ezra’s blood rushing with static once again. Ezra instantly regretted being annoyed by Silas’ indifference- the indifference he now knew was a rouse.

The ancient’s eyes slid to her lazily. He shrugged and tapped his cigarette against the ash tray. “I guess the balls in their court now,” he said through a smoky exhale. “We’ve just got to sit back and see what they do with it.”