A Real Blue-Blood Vampire
From my vampire novel "Trancing Miranda:" Scene 2 as promised
Miranda O’Malley was at the Black Goddess, sitting at her usual table, sipping a tall milky green glass of New Viridian. Sketcher was late, as usual, so she toggled back and forth between checking her messages and watching the crowd.
Like most other clubs inside the Regio, almost all the vampires at the Black Goddess were half-breeds. Individually, their energy was barely discernible. Collectively, it buzzed, faint but continuous, like a faraway swarm of insects.
Miranda was just about to tune it all out when she noticed another energy—moving like a current underneath the static. It only took her a couple of minutes to home in on the source.
A real blue-blood vampire in a dark velvet jacket and matching tapestry vest.
His eyes were unusually bright, and his hair was dark and a little curly on top. The eyes were a little strange, but Miranda liked the hair and the cut of his shoulders and the high perfect bridge of his nose—and so did everyone else.
Most of the women were already watching him and those who weren’t knew he was there. Not one, but three raven-haired goth-girls hovered closely behind him. Miranda wasn’t sure if the four of them were together or not, and while she was trying to figure it out, the vampire turned and caught her staring.
He inclined his head, regally, then turned and said something to one of the women. Miranda smiled. She had been dismissed, but she didn’t mind. She wasn’t here for a vampire.
She was here for the antidote.
The antidote, otherwise known as Vamprax, was supposed to wean people off vampires, but most people just kept taking it—and Miranda was no exception.
She sent Sketcher another text, and when she looked up, a small girl with long, silky dark hair and pretty brown eyes was standing on the other side of the table like a deer poised to run.
Her sister’s best friend, Layla Peterson.
Miranda didn’t like Layla particularly, and Layla did not like her back, but she smiled as if she did. “Hey Miranda.”
Miranda put down her phone and made herself smile back. “Hey.”
Layla was wearing a gauzy white top with delicate white embroidery on the sleeves and neck. It made her look young and soft and pretty.
“It’s been a while,” Layla said. “I guess you were away?”
As if she didn’t already know. “Rehab.”
“Right. I remember now. But you’ve been out for a while?”
Which was none of Layla’s business. “Why?”
Layla shrugged. “I don’t know. I just heard Daniel went away. That was after you got back, right?”
Miranda tried to give Layla the benefit of the doubt. Like most of the other human girls in the Regio, Layla was interested in Daniel and more than a little jealous of the whole more-than-cousins thing between him and Miranda. “He had some family thing in France. He’s back, or that’s what I heard.”
Daniel and Miranda had the same grandfather. They weren’t first cousins, which was supposed to make it okay—but it didn’t really. Inside the gates of the Regio, Daniel was the Authority, the single vampire in charge of everything.
He made the rules and everyone else followed. Miranda had liked that once. Now it was annoying, or scary, depending on Daniel’s mood.
“You haven’t seen him?” Layla asked.
Miranda resisted the urge to go back to her phone. “Nope.”
“I heard you guys were fighting.”
Miranda shrugged, which was as good as an admission. “Have you seen Sketcher?”
Layla picked at her pearly pink nails, and the white-on-white sleeves slipped down to reveal three sets of fresh double dot bite marks. She’d gotten tired, apparently, of waiting for Daniel to notice her. “Not lately. There’s no V anywhere that I’ve heard of.”
“I’ll live,” Miranda said, though she was not actually positive.
“I can’t help you with Vamprax. But there was a vampire asking about you.”
It was a step in the wrong direction, if not an outright relapse, but buying V on the street after you were supposed to be weaned wasn’t really okay, either.
What was another couple of feet nearer the precipice? “Where?”
Layla made a quick over the shoulder gesture. “By Kali. His name is Tony Gyari. He comes here off and on.”
Miranda studied the skinny half-breed vampire on the far side of the altar. His dark hair was slicked back and his complexion was pasty. The plains of his face were sharp in the flickering light of Kali’s candles—and his canines were fully extended. “Is he safe?”
Layla pulled down her sleeves. “Absolutely.”
Miranda focused on the fuzzy pulse of the half-vamp’s energy, and the static around her began to fade.
Check out the next installment!
Raw Weeping Flesh
Chapter 1 Scene 3 | Trigger Warning: Violence happens off page but aftermath is graphic. | Nick tuned out the donor chattering into his left ear. The fae girl was still at her table. Her friend had left, and a half-breed had sat down...
Read the first scene.
Not Full Fae, But Close
Chapter 1 Scene 1 | It was the first time Nick Markovich had been to the Black Goddess in over ten years, but it was exactly as he remembered it. Same bundled barbed wire over the bar, same beat up black walls, same crowd.
From my upcoming novel Trancing Miranda © 2024 Barbara Graver, All rights reserved
"It’s challenging because I want to keep ripping it apart and trying to fix. Not sure if that’s an ADHD thing or an autism thing or a me thing but it’s hard to resist."
I think it's a writer thing. :-)
All writers are probably neurodivergent in some way, I suspect.
I shudder when I see some of my stuff after it's been published. I encourage you to just say, "The h--- with it," and let it fly. You're a good writer.
I also love the name of this substack.
Loving this story!