Page 64 of We Were Eternal Once

I consider this, tilting my head just as you do when you think.

“So what is it you do here? Ponder over Enlightenment?” I ask, deferring my answer.

“Yes, and no,” Tomasz says. “Sometimes we hunt together, sometimes we enjoy a play or two, sometimes we read a pamphlet and discuss it. Sometimes we do not appear for months on end. We are a group of friends, above all.”

Friends. Had I ever had that? Surely I did in the temple, when I was just another rat scurrying along. Since then? It is only you; there is only space for you.

To make space for them would mean pushing you aside. Perhaps I could do it, a centimeter at a time. Little by little displacing you with their silly jibes and someone else to attend a play with.

Someone to hunt with.

Friends. I test the word in my mind, considering it.

“It is nice to have another for safety,” Eloise says, shuddering.

“Safety?” I ask. Other vampyrs are the only things I had to fear, and the sun. Humans were nothing, easily controlled, easily killed. What safety did they mean?

“From the hunters,” Yusuf said blankly, blinking at me in concern.

“Just keep your head down and you’ll avoid them,” Margarethe says with a wave of her hands. “They are transients anyway. They will lose interest in us and move on, as they always do.”

“I am sorry—hunters of what?” I clarify. Is he speaking of the whispers from Germany, of the humans who claim to know of us?

“Us,” Yusuf says, his frown deepening. “Vampyr hunters.”

I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. The room is silent, their gazes everywhere but on me. A memory tugs at me, another evasive conversation where my questions rotted and fell to the floor at your feet. But something breaks through, phrases you’ve said in passing. “If humans knew our true nature, they would exploit it. They need only find where we rest.” And “A wrong that brought our numbers from hundreds to less than ten.”

Is this what you spoke of? A time where humans knew of us, hunted us? Is this something to fear, or something to mock like the pamphlets?

How dangerous could these humans really be?

A Chance Encounter

“Melinoë, what do you think?” Tomasz sits on the edge of his chair, leaning toward me.

“I wasn’t listening,” I admit. They don’t mind my truths, even if they’re rude. Had I given you anything but my full attention, I would have suffered for it. Yet here I was, in the company of other vampyrs, bored of their drivel.

“The aristocracy,” Caterina reminds me. Ah, of course. The class they belong to yet decry. A system they benefit from, but act as though it is appalling. They’ve all made their wealth some way through the centuries, mostly by taking from the humans they killed.

At some point things gained value and could be sold, or perhaps they simply claimed a home and gained status by proximity. I suppose that’s how you’ve done it, a mix of coercion, theft, and trickery.

Funny how we all grew up separate, and turn to the same means for coin.

“What have they done now?” I ask, and the group laughs. Have I made a joke? It was a serious inquiry—it seems they’re always on the verge of something awful. Or having just done something awful. Or promising to do something awful.

I cannot keep up.

“Class exists for a reason,” Eloise says. “Rank is important.”

“Did you feel that way when you starved on the streets? When the price of flour went up, and never went back down?” Yusuf asks.

“Yes, I did,” Eloise says between clenched teeth. She is the youngest of the group, turned just ten years ago. “I understood it and accepted it.”

“You accepted that you starved on the streets while the rich looked down at you?” Yusuf presses.

“I deserved my position. I did not contribute,” she says, her fingernails digging into the arms of the chair she sits in. Her ridiculous dress makes it hard for her to move about, so she’s resorted to violence on furniture. I suspect if her outfit were less voluminous, she would fly across the room and rip Yusuf’s throat out.

I rather like Yusuf, but I wouldn’t mind a good show.