Yes, we are vampires, that's true, but we do NOT take from the unwilling. No BUTS! Yes I'm aware of our nature, and that we must drink blood. We only take small amounts, enough to survive, and only from WILLING DONORS!
Fortunately, you left them alive. You will IMMEDIATELY treat their injury and we will make restitution. And if you pull this stunt again, I will, PERSONALLY, hand you to the Watch to be stuck in a sun-cage, understand me?? -- Lessons
Some cities never sleep. Some residents of those cities don't sleep either. Not technically. You could call them... dormant... during the daylight hours. Even in a smoke-wreathed warren of streets and hives of buildings like Kluushia, the sun can be painful and even fatal to those... denizens.
It just takes longer when the smoke of so many fires obscures it.
No matter what kind of denizen inhabits a place like this, the birds of a feather flock together. They develop rules. Codes of behaviour. Guidelines to preserve the many, and woe betide the few who break them. Like Venette, who had nearly killed a man in an alley.
There's the City Watch, and Palace Guards, and the obligatory stupid guard in every prison. Kluushia, with it's thriving Vampire community, also has the Night Watch. They arrived almost too late. Almost.
They bound her in gold, which a Vampire could not corrupt. And if they could not corrupt it, they could not break it. She hissed at them.
"We do not kill the mortals," said one of the Night Watch. "No matter what."
"Not even if he's a murderer?" She asked, trying to wriggle out of her golden chains. "You and the day shift have been trying to catch the Springheel Ripper, haven't you? Not trying very hard."
"Some of us try harder than others," noted the Vampire holding her chains with special gloves. "You're saying that's him?"
"There's a reason types like that only go after Roundheel Mollies. Nobody else gives a shit. So I did a bait and switch." She spat. "Tastes as foul as he is. I didn't bite until he stabbed me," She had to point out the slash in her dress, and the bloodless wound underneath.
Just like so many of the Springheel Ripper's victims. The knife was still in his possession, though it was in danger of falling from his fingers. A surgeon's blade in a butcher's hands.
This changed many things.
"This only changes some things," allowed the first Watchman. The helmet declared them Number 457. "We still don't kill. That's how we all stay alive."
"Willing participants," added the other, Number 454. "They have to consent to being bitten."
"I'll remember that the next time I'm baiting a murderer," snarked Venette. "I can give testimony and be evidence. Doesn't that count?"
457 and 454 exchanged a look. They knew which was the bigger crime. But they also knew how many lives depended on the rest of Kluushia seeing it that way.
"Only if you give testimony and evidence," allowed 454. "If it comes to the line, you can always claim you're a newcomer and didn't know the law. You can only get away with that once."
"Then it's the Sun Cage," warned 457.
They had some clean-up to do. Including making it seam nice and neat for the day shift.
[Image by Clément Falize on Unsplash]
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