Chapter Two - Valnoir
Sunday
After two hours of trying to sleep, I give up and get out of bed. The sun is burning outside, I can tell, although nothing comes in through the window. It isn’t really a window anyway. From the outside it looks like a window, but from the inside it has bricks stuffed in underneath a coat of plaster. On the surface is a thin plasma screen that broadcasts the view from the outside. So I guess it is a window, in a way. There is even a skylight like that in the foyer, although you would be hard pressed to notice it unless you looked up and spotted the oddity. It, too, has the same level of brightness as the rest of the windows in the mansion, dimmer than real sunlight. That’s how it is inside the Fort.
The Fort is where we live. It’s an 18th-century mansion, and has all the problems that come from that. That is, while everything inside is quaint and dainty, it also has the musty, stale stench. But people like us can’t afford to move too easily, and they don’t build houses this large anymore. Unless they start selling school buildings, we are stuck here. Who are we, you ask! Well, we are vampires, but before you jump to any conclusions, let me make something very clear: we don’t sparkle in the sunlight, and we have nothing against the Cullens. We enjoy good fiction — or, not so good, in this case — just as much as you do. You want to know why? Because we are people, too, just like you. Except that, of course, just like a diabetic needs insulin or certain individuals have special dietary requirements, we need blood to survive, and we are photosensitive; exposure to the sun dries us up, and prolonged exposure to it will turn us to ashes, or dust.
Given our special needs, everyone at the Fort has jobs. We also have a president, head, master of the house. His name is Viktor and he is my father. Back in the 18th century, during the Great Plague, my father bit us all and turned us into vampires: me; my 25-year-old brother, Magnus; my 4-year-old sister, Charlotte; my 29-year old step-sister, Victoria; my mother, Lady Harriet; and my ex-step-mother, Lady Mary. I was 24 at the time. The Fort has over 500 rooms on about ten stories. Three of them are above ground, and the rest are underground. More continue to be dug as other vampires join us.
The perks of being my father’s son are limited to the exclusive use of the upper two stories for my family. Other than that we all are treated the same, get the same jobs that are passed out randomly and have to do important tasks and menial ones. But because we have over 300 people living in the Fort, there’s no rush to complete the tasks. We all get our assignments on Sunday evenings, and have to complete them before the next week.
I can’t tell you much about my brother, Magnus. He lived up to his name for about a century or two, being magnificent and all, but then he had his room reassigned underground. I haven’t seen him in about ten years, but rumor has it that he practically lives at the Harem — that’s where the ladies are. Guys of his age are the ones who frequent the Harem the most, because they’re in their prime and from a time when they couldn’t fuck around as easily, so the novelty of the whole thing hasn’t worn off yet. I doubt it ever will. Lady Mary and my mother used to bicker at every chance they got, the former calling my mother a harlot. I’m not sure if she deliberately distorted her name or just taunted my mother for sleeping with her husband while he was married. That marriage was doomed, though. Not having a son used to be a really big deal back then, and Lady Mary had failed to produce another offspring. Then there’s Victoria, known popularly as Victoria the Virgin or Virgin Mary. She’s still stuck in her time and hasn’t been able to find a gentleman yet. The only modern thing she does is watch Downton Abbey on repeat. Yeah, that show is from her time, although Lady Mary in the show did have premarital sex with someone who wasn’t exactly a gentleman, but Victoria hasn’t learned yet. She’s my half-sister so I won’t say much, and it doesn’t really matter anymore, but she’s jaw-dropping-gob-smackingly gorgeous and comes complete with the 18th century get up. That leaves Charlotte, my younger sister, who got trapped in her youth in a time when children played in the gardens. She ventured into the garden about two decades ago and never returned. It was a breezy summer day and her ashes went with the breeze, although we did recover her clothes.
I’m not callous, although it may seem that way, but after being alive for years, you get bored of people and don’t really care much if they live or die. The feelings you have for them certainly do die. No one was really bothered by Charlotte’s death except my mother, who sank into a deep depression and has kept to her room since then. We often find her hanging by a rope tied to the ceiling fan, looking embarrassed as hell upon being discovered. My father says she doesn’t really want to die, because if she did, she could just go outside during the day. Anyway, I’m getting off topic. Most feelings have died after all these years, as my father tells me every time I ask for a favor and play the ‘I’m your son’ card. “I have loved you enough for 20 lifetimes, so I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t have any more to give to you.” And I do understand, truly. I won’t shed a tear when he dies, that’s for sure. The only thing that has survived is lust, although even we have some lunatics who believe in love and all that.
We don’t really know much about our origins, to be honest. There were vampires before us, way, way before us. But we have customs and traditions, things that we have to do, although the reasons for all those things are obscured by years and years of history. You can learn all that stuff from the Ancients, but there are no Ancients at the Fort.
I can already hear doors opening, as people get ready for the meeting where the tasks will be assigned. With an air of efficiency and purpose, I abandon my bed and head to the Foyer. There’s a steady stream filing out of the staircase that leads to the underground floors. The lights are all on, and people start to get in order once my father appears in the gallery of the second floor. He doesn’t bother with speeches, just says a few words of welcome, states the issues, proposes resolutions, urges people to share their opinions and take matters to the Council. This week he announces that we are running short on blood, and our blood consumption has reached a high level. In his words, “Our stocks are neither depleting nor repleting, and that is cause for concern, for times change without warning, and before we know it our survival could be threatened. I urge you to keep that in mind and volunteer for tasks that will help the cause. The Wicce has also fallen ill and it is rather unfortunate that we don’t have others of her kind among us; the doctor is of the opinion that she will soon succumb to old age, and we don’t have anyone she can pass on her knowledge to. It would indeed be a great loss if we didn’t find a replacement in time. Anyone who does find us a replacement for her shall be handsomely rewarded.”
I know what he means, I think. From time to time we take in humans who are transported to the lowest level of the Fort. They are treated very well and mostly come of their own free will or are recruited. We give them the best food we can arrange, nutrition that promotes blood in the body, and our nurses regularly extract the blood and store it for us. There’s a high humans get when a vampire sinks their teeth into them, so some of them are here for that. Others prefer more civilized methods, like having their blood harvested through tubes and stuff.
As for the Wicce, she is just a witch. She has been with us since the beginning and, in spite of all those long life potions, she has aged — they all do, the best they can do is really slow it down. The Wicce has done a lot for us, can heal sun wounds, sits on the Council and is just as important as the Head (my father); what she does at the Council or in her chambers is not known to us, but we know that she plays an important part.
I sign up for blood collection because that is kind of an easy job. You just go to a hospital and rob the blood bank and make sure no one sees you, that’s all. And since I am so bored and in desperate need of a life, I decide to get the job done tonight.