Haldred Chronicles: Alyssa (4 page)

“Well, if you'll
take me?”

“I'll put in a
good word.” promised Alyssa.

The two of them
chatted the rest of the way.  Fortunately for Alyssa Katy set a brisk pace so
Alyssa didn't need to worry about the impending sunlight catching up with her. 
It turned out they had a great deal in common, for a human and a vampire
anyway.  Katy enjoyed reading and embroidery, just like Alyssa, and had an
interest in geography, again like Alyssa.  They even discovered they had
attended rival schools.  But while Katy lived with her family, Alyssa was an
orphan.

“I'm so sorry,”
she said after Alyssa told her. 

Alyssa just
shrugged.

“It's ok, I was
lucky.  The orphanage where I grew up taught me a lot about living.”

Nothing about
being a vampire mind you but still...

They finished
the brief walk knowing each other a lot better and having realised the night
hadn't been all bad.  They were firm friends by the time they arrived at Katy's
door.

The Barnsburn
district was in the east of the city, an area known for its close knit family
groups.  As well as its distrust of strangers. More than once Alyssa had felt
eyes on her from behind parted window shutters.  The houses themselves were
like slightly larger versions of James' house, but much less well kept.  Dirty
red brick, with ageing timbers supporting the walls and shuttered windows
instead of modern bottle glass.  Signs of do-it-yourself home repair were
everywhere, from wooden boards serving as doors to what appeared to be
ship-timbers boarding up windows.  They had seen better days, but then, that
was the same all across the country.  The world had been at war up until
recently after all.

“Thank you again
Alyssa.” Katy said at the door

“No bother.”

The two of them
embraced, Katy hugging Alyssa tightly (though not overly tightly this time, for
which Alyssa was thankful).  Katy however frowned as she stepped back, casting
Alyssa a worried look.

“Are you ok?”
she asked.  “Seems like your stomach's all swollen up.”

Oops! Again!

“Ah, no, no. 
I'm fine!  Just...” Alyssa rubbed her stomach, hoping that the action on its
own would decrease the swell.  It didn't.

“...just
stress!” she settled on.  “You know?  Delayed action.  Scary situation, that
sort of thing.”

“Oh,” Katy
seemed to accept this explanation rather well.  “Well you sure you're ok?”

“Yeah, I'm
fine.  I'll sleep off the...stress.”

“Ok.  Well,
thank you again.  I'll pop in to the Elk's Horn tomorrow night then, if that's
ok?"

Alyssa nodded. 

“I'm in your
debt.” Katy said next.  “You're a really good person.”

Alyssa smiled
warmly and the two parted ways, Katy waving before entering her house, Alyssa
watching her go.  It was only when Katy was behind her closed door that Alyssa's
face fell.  She sighed, scratching the back of her head.

“No Katy, I'm
not a good person.” she muttered.  “In fact I'm not even a person anymore.”

With that she
checked her glasses again and turned, heading off to her own house as quickly
as her full stomach would allow.

* *
* * *

Alyssa was back
at her house in short order.  That was fortunate.  Even as she entered the
first rays of sunlight had started to creep across the horizon.  She had left
it later than she should have but avoided exploding.  She changed into her
bedclothes, a fine white night dress draped over her.  She sat her glasses on a
dresser by her bed, with a single candle having been set alight beside them. 
Another habit, unnecessary for a vampire gifted with exceptional night vision but
necessary for a vampire-trying-to-be-human.

I'm such a
grob.

She was feeling
very much like a wine barrel at the moment.  Sluggish and heavy she decided
that laundry and cleaning could wait till tomorrow.  She was far too full to
care.

New rule.  No
more fat bad guys.

BUT THE BLOOD
GIVES YOU STRENGTH!

Sighing as she
sat down on the bed, Alyssa rolled her eyes.

“Hello Vlad.”
she said out loud.

WHY DID YOU
NOT DRAIN THE VIRGIN?

The voice was a
guttural growl, echoing inside Alyssa's head.  Sadly, that seemed to be where
Vlad lived.  She had nicknamed him Vlad: the name he had given for himself was,
for her at least, impossible to pronounce.  It was some ancient vampire
language.  Either that, or he was just being difficult.  Vlad hated the name
Vlad, apparently because it was some kind of vampire put down.  It was one of
her ways of getting back at him.  She wasn't sure what he was, exactly.  A
vampire spirit? An undead monster of some kind?  A final curse set on her by
good old Igor?

Whoever, or
whatever, he was he kept annoying her.  Always demanding she '
SLAY THOSE WHO
OPPOSE YOU!'
or '
TURN THEM TO YOUR BIDDING'
.  All of which Alyssa
did her best to ignore.

“Just so you
know, I've not missed you.” she said without humour.

WHY DID YOU
NOT DRAIN THE VIRGIN?
Vlad repeated with greater intensity, demanding an answer. 
HER
BLOOD WOULD HAVE DOUBLED YOUR STRENGTH!

“Because I would
have burst!” retorted Alyssa, though truth be told her main reason was of
course that, as a rule, she didn't kill anyone.  A rule that Vlad disapproved
of immensely.  Hence why Alyssa liked to provide practical reasons for not
killing anyone, just to placate him a little.

She deliberately
looked down at the swell of her stomach, forcefully directing Vlads attention
(she hoped).

“Do you see how
stuffed I am?”

Vlad was more or
less the only 'thing' Alyssa knew who really got on her nerves.  No other could
cause her this kind of annoyance.  Then again she suspected that was his
intention.  He seemed to prefer it when she was angry.

RAGNOR THE
RAVENOUS WOULD GORGE ON THREE A NIGHT AND WAS AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE!

Vlad seemed to
have an encyclopaedic knowledge of vampiric history and gloried in reminding
Alyssa that every other vampire before her had been so much better.

“
He
wasn't an eighteen year old girl!” she retorted 

FOOLISH
CHILD!
  he
bellowed again making Alyssa flinch. 
YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR LEGACY. 
REGORASH TURNED YOU SO YOU COULD RULE.  RULE THE MORTALS OF THIS PATHETIC LAND!

Great, now
he's off on one...

RULE THEM
WITH AN IRON FIST, SLAYING ANY WHO WOULD OPPOSE YOU.  CRUSHING ALL BEFORE YOU
AND...WAIT...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  CEASE!

Alyssa had
learned, through trial and error mainly, that there was a way to shut Vlad up.

She liked to
call it 'putting him in his box'.

She would
concentrate very hard, thinking of a box.  Then she would visualize Vlad,
normally as a black cloud of nothingness.  This seemed to suit him well.

NO!  NOOOOO!
YOU CANNOT SILENCE ME!

A pigging wordy
black cloud of nothingness.

Then, quite
simply, she would place him into this box.  She would imagine locking the box
with a strong metal padlock and that blessedly, the box was completely
soundproof.  Unfortunately it wasn't a permanent solution.  It took a lot of
effort and inevitably Vlad would escape his improvised prison, but it would at
least give her a bit of peace tonight.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

C
lick

Then, just like
that, he was silenced.  For a while anyway.

Normally a
couple of days or a couple of weeks; there didn't seem to be a definitive time
on it.  She wondered if next time she could visualize eating him and maybe shut
him up for good.  Unfortunately that thought just made her feel queasy.

Alyssa closed
her eyes, enjoying the silence.  A goofy grin started to spread across her
face.  She was thinking of James.  She lay down on her side, still grinning
broadly and grabbed Mr Rabbit to hug him close.

Another reminder
of her orphan days, Mr Rabbit was a rather plain white stuffed animal that had
always kept her company at bedtime.  He now performed the additional task of
maintaining her humanity and being her silent confidant.

“I was flirted
with tonight.  By a boy,” she told the inanimate object.  Its expression
remained disappointingly neutral.  “And he was really cute!”

She giggled to
herself again.  Then the more adult part of her brain reminded her that she was
talking to a stuffed animal and giggling like a schoolgirl.

Wise up!

She blushed a
little, thinking how much of a child James would think her if he knew what she
was doing right now.  She gave Mr Rabbit a formal apology.

She had checked
the blackout curtains already (incredibly important!) and her house windows and
doors.  All locked tight, all closed down and none in a position to let any of
the lethal sunlight through.  She was safe.  She pulled her covers over her
head, just in case, and summoned her strength to place her in her
death
sleep
.

Vampires didn't
need sleep but it was incredibly easy to get bored when you were stuck in the
house for stretches of up to 12 hours a time.  So she had learned that she
could force herself to slip into a state of unconsciousness, particularly when
her stomach was full.  She would imagine herself falling asleep, like she used
to when she was alive but more forced, almost like putting herself into a
trance.  Slowly her body would follow her wishes.  Slowly, but surely, she
drifted off.

She knew she was
asleep when the dreams began.

* * * * *

The world can
often seem a very illogical place.

If you were to
apply proper logic to the circumstances, then the fat drunkard Alyssa had
encountered should have awoken with a bad hangover (and little recollection of
what had happened to him) then have stumbled home, fallen onto his bed and
spent the next few days recovering; wondering if perhaps getting drunk again
was a bad idea.  If the reality were different he may have considered joining a
support group and giving up on drinking altogether.  He might even have moved
on to becoming a model citizen.

However, this
theoretical series of logic events are
not
what occurred.  The reality
was more brutal.  As said drunk was now hanging by his chin from a spiked metal
railing; very dead.

To the casual
observer it would appear he had fallen from the pathway that ran along the top
of an earthen mound that in turn ringed the cities' southern districts.  The
south of the city had been identified long ago as not easily defensible in war,
so to remedy this the Argon army had raised the mound around it.  After the Six
Nations' War a pathway had been laid on top of the defensive mounds of earth. 
A good idea on the surface, but the problem lay in that the mounds were
augmented by spiked metal rails pointing inwards and outwards that ran
continuously either side of the mounds, originally as defensive barriers and
now as generally dangerous hazards for the general public.  The Mounds Walkway,
as it was known, was not a safe place when your ability to walk in straight
lines was impaired.

It had still
been dark when the drunk awoke only an hour after his encounter with Alyssa. 
His body was discovered in the early hours of the morning as the first shafts
of sunlight creep over the city buildings.

The discovery
was made by a militia patrol made up of an old veteran and a bright eyed new
lad just finishing their night patrol.  The body was easy to find; the drunkard
had been a very fat man in life after all.  The smell kind of gave it away as
well.

The new lad
happened to be a clever one, one gifted with the kind of detective skills not
often found in a militia beat patrol.  He quickly concluded that because the
man had fallen on the bloody dangerous spikes the incident gave them a good
reason to ask the city council to get the damn things removed, and quickly.

But he noticed
something else.  Something which made the discovery a lot more suspicious.  The
corpse didn't seem to have bled all that much.  With the ugly wound made up,
into the man’s chin, one would have expected a great deal more blood to have
spilled down the spike at the point of impact.  Whilst the unfortunate victim
had bled, it wasn't as much as one would have expected from so dramatic a
death.

They reported
the discovery at one of the nearby militia watchtowers.  A little winged
courier fey (a race of creatures no bigger than a few inches, very fast fliers
and possessed of perfect memories.  Show-offs in other words) was quickly sent
to the divisional headquarters, requesting assistance.  HQ replied by
dispatching a Death Warden.

Normally said
Death Warden (an investigator of sorts who, as the name suggests, investigated
death in all its myriad and horrible forms) would have told them to get stuffed
and stop wasting his time.  Tonight however nothing, literally nothing, had
been going on and he was bored out of his skull.  A trip out of the office was
just what he needed, even if it was something as vague as 'concern raised that
not enough blood coming from corpse' (as the watch sergeant had so elegantly
put it).

An hour later he
made it to the militia watchtower; half an hour after that the patrol
reappeared and escorted him to the scene.  Upon arrival the Death Warden was
able to confirm the body really hadn't bled as much as would be expected and
granted, that was odd.  Almost as if the individual hadn't had enough blood in
his system even before his dramatic death.

Upon examining
the body he had found no reason for this.  No wounds to speak of other than
those inflicted by the fall, and no animal bites.  The body was high enough off
the ground that no stray dogs or rats had come to investigate.  It was also in
an area where there just weren't that many birds interested in feeding off a
human corpse.  Despite minor bruising to the corpse's forehead, the Death
Warden saw no reason to consider foul play.  There was no evidence that magic
had been used, or any evidence of disease.  Not as far as he could see anyway.

After some
careful thought however the Death Warden decided that maybe this did warrant a
little extra investigation.  He decreed that the case should be referred to the
Magic's Branch.  Just to be absolutely sure.  Wouldn't want to make a mistake
with such an odd death.  Something he would subsequently point out on his
overtime claim parchment.

So the Magic's
Branch was informed, a part of the militia dedicated to the investigation of
all forms of magical mishap.  Teams of Militia Sanctioned Mages (fancifully
nicknamed the 'M&M's') worked at all hours of the day and night, on hand to
deal with everything from rogue Pyro mages on a rampage (a mercifully rare occurrence)
to Life mages causing someone's beard to spring to life (a more common
occurrence.  The Life mages did have rather undeveloped senses of humour).

It just so
happened that there was a mage in the branch house that night and not out on
patrol (the term '
on patrol'
can be read to mean
in bed
. Whilst
procedure said they worked all hours, that didn't mean they actually did).  He
had failed in his duties the day before, (the fire hadn't been his fault.  Some
idiot had spilled fire conductor and forgotten to clear it up.) and had been
punished with the boredom of night duty and the forced adherence to being awake
with an unhealthy intake of high concentrate sleep deprivation serum.  So when
word reached him of a case requiring his attention he literally leapt at the
chance to get out and make use of the silly amount of energy the serum had
given him.  After all, you can only build so many ingredient bottle towers. 
This would also hopefully end his shift early given the rising sun.  The term
night shift was taken very literally.

He arrived at
the site and, after a hushed conversation with the Death Warden, he quickly
determined that there was indeed something odd about the body.  It would
require some closer examination, back in the laboratory.  They were going to
need more men out, as well as more time.  Nobody seemed to notice the Death
Warden giving the thumbs up sign as the mage pronounced his intentions.

Just like that a
single mildly-suspicious death turned into a full scale operation.  Dozens of
militia descended on the site, securing it, whilst heavyweight contract ogres
were brought in to move the body to the lab.  The overtime coffers were bled
dry that night, and the body was finally moved into isolation.

Of course in the
late morning the Head of Magical Investigations for the militia just happened
to be in the office and immediately asked why there was an 'obese odorous
recently deceased male' in his lab.  He was handed the hastily written report
of the night-shift mage, hastily as they had only just got the body into the
lab (the night shift mage had been keen for overtime coin, but not for doing
any additional work).  After a very quick read through, the Head ordered that
the investigation be concluded with all haste because he didn't particularly like
fat people, especially if they were dead and causing a smell in his lab.

A different day
shift mage had the unwelcome task of giving the dead body the once over. 
Whilst the Death Warden had carried out the initial post mortem, a mage had to
conclude things once it arrived in the Magic’s' Branch's laboratory. 

Check for
kill wound:  Spike to the throat, immediately fatal.

Check for
other injuries:  Bruising suggests impact to the front of the skull.  None
fatal.

Check body
for liquids:  Unusually low level of blood in body. 

Unusual
confirmations but not unheard of considering the man was a drunk and probably
didn't consider good health top of his priority list.

Check for
anything magical or otherwise unusual about the body:  He's a big fat mess. 
Mark that down as unusual
given that nobody had any money for food these days.  War had generated plenty
of work.  No war meant no work, and no work meant no money.  The economy of Argon
had fallen on hard times and had yet to adapt itself to the state of peace.

Use 'the
scope' to check for possible healing potion use:  Nothing to...

Wait.

The mage found
something.  Very faint and faded as he inspected it with the Scope.

The Scope
resembled a magnifying glass, but was infused with a kind of magical energy
that allowed the most minuscule details, be they wounds, markings or otherwise,
to be seen.

On the body, it
had revealed two tiny almost pin prick wounds about an inch apart, on the man's
throat just above the main artery.  Invisible to the naked eye, but not so to
the Scope.

The Scope never
lied.  A particularly useful fact in court cases.

Odd wounds.
Still, did it really matter?  He'd no idea what could cause such wounds other
than maybe rather vicious humming birds.  It never occurred to this particular
mage that they might be a vampire bite.

Sod it.

The mage filed
it in his report and passed it on.  The Head of the Magic's Branch received the
report and scanned over it.

Odd wounds.

Hmmm

The description
seemed very much like a vampire inflicted wound.  The Head Mage had a little
bit more knowledge about unknown creatures and activities that had taken place
during the Six Nations War, such as vampires.  Whilst Regorash might have been
the last vampire, well, you could never be sure could you?

Passing this one
to the right people might just get him that promotion too.  A promotion out of
the Magic's Branch and maybe into the city councils more well paid 'Magic
Training and Safety Division'.  A ponderous title with a big pay grade.

He passed it up
the militia chain of command (
Hello sir, something for you.  Little
unusual.  Thought it might need looking at.  You're looking well by the way. 
New robes?
)

That boss passed
it up to his boss as well.  Who passed it on to a different boss at the same
level.  This continued to the extent that all of a sudden, by the afternoon, it
was passed in its original format to a very particular desk.

Of a very
particular organisation.

* *
* * *

Victoria Haldred
was a woman regarded as having zeal for her job.  A zeal that remained ever
burning as she executed her duties as an investigator for the Council of
Peace.  A most singular vocation. 

Ever since the
World Wide Peace Agreement (the good old WWPA, or Waapa as it was nicknamed)
had brought fifty years of constant warfare to an end between the Six Nations,
the multinational Council of Peace had been charged with maintaining the peace
between the previously warring states.  By any and all means necessary.

Victoria had
joined its investigative department early on, practically on the first day of
peace.  She had previously worked with the Larrick City Militia, in a variety
of roles from street patrol all the way up to murder investigation.  The
Council of Peace had immediately recognized that she had the capability and
skills needed for the council's job of maintaining order internationally.  An
often thankless but necessary job.

She had
travelled the known world over the last year and half, rooting out those who
wished to bring the world back to war and successfully dealing with them.  She
preferred dealing with them peacefully (of course) but she was more than
capable when the alternative was called for.  Something many had discovered the
hard way.

The actual facts
were that Victoria wasn't overly a zealot.  She was just professional.

Where others saw
zeal, Victoria saw it as just wanting to do the job and do it to the very best
of her abilities.  If it required an aggressive interrogation, so be it.  If it
required a punch in the face, so be it.  If it required a rapier to be plunged
into someone's guts...well, so be it.  After all, it maintained peace and as
far as the Council of Peace was concerned, all methods were entirely justified
when people tried to make war.  Too bad for the individual on the receiving
end, but then again if you're a warmonger, well, you had that coming.

Victoria had
lost three brothers in the war.  Each to a soldier of a different nation. 
Whilst she no longer bore any ill-will to the nations in question, she did have
an overriding intent to ensure no one else had to go through what she had.  No
more families mourning.  No more pain for the siblings, or in her case sibling,
left behind.