++Witchfinders and elves are well accustomed to the powers of manipulation possessed by vampires, but few others are. Always be wary of such things, for it is not through force and terror that these insidious undead control their prey. It is through subtlety and charm.++

  Chapter 26

  Reggie was sure he’d been brought into a trap for a few moments, before remembering that he’d tossed the ìràwà woman’s sword into the woods. Might’ve tossed it out of the woods, actually, he’d put a bit more strength behind the throw than he meant to. Either way, it meant he probably wouldn’t need to deal with getting attacked again.

  By her, at least. For now.

  “You’re different,” the woman said at last. “Compared to what we know of most àìkú. What we think we know, at least. The older ones I suppose. You’re young?”

  “I’m twenty one,” Reggie told her.

  “You’ve been undead for over twenty years?”

  “Oh. No, that’s just when I was born. Or, I mean, yeah actually I’ve technically been a vampire for a while, it…” Reggie managed to stumble through his explanation of the weird events preceding their conversation, how he’d been killed, buried for a decade and a half, everything. She nodded and had the look of someone paying attention for more reasons than just curiosity.

  “Unusual from what I’ve heard of your kind,” the woman noted, “àìkú tend to keep the others they create on a tight leash.”

  “Why?” Reggie asked eagerly, any chance for more vampire lore not starkly tied to Attributes and powers was welcome to him, even if this source in particular would need a bit of filtering.

  She seemed almost hesitant to answer, but he figured that was just a reflex. She was used to hoarding information and so she felt urged doing it now, or so he hoped.

  “Vampires primarily create more of their kind to serve them, that’s their purpose as they see it. Once a progeny—an àìkú made by another—is powerful enough to resist the subconscious influences of its creator, they go their separate ways and become essentially just another rival.”

  Reggie thought about that. He couldn’t exactly say it was less social than his experience of humans, at least. Sounded like the vampires didn’t deliberately keep their kin around to torment and kill, so they had that over his old species.

  “How do vampires procreate?” he asked.

  “They drain a human of blood, bury them and then sprinkle their own blood on the soil atop them. After a few days the human rises as a vampire.”

  “I took years to come back.”

  She paused at that, looking confused for once. “I’ve…never heard of that happening, I can’t say what caused it.”

  Reggie had been hoping for a bit of illumination in that regard, having only Ludvich’s guess about healing time to go off, but he wasn’t so disappointed at not getting it. He was used to figuring stuff out for himself in any case.

  “So I’m different from most vampires because I feel compassion and stuff, meaning you’re willing to cooperate with me?” he couldn’t be bothered to phrase the question less bluntly.

  “Yes,” the woman replied, with equal bluntness. Reggie nodded at that.

  He didn’t know what it was about vampires that led to their reputation for evil. He didn’t feel evil himself, but then maybe that was how evil people felt. Completely normal. Maybe that feeling of normalcy just persisted no matter what they did, until the most heinous crimes felt like nothing at all.

  Or maybe he was just listening to hearsay and rumour against a group of people who were pretty damned rare and not generally able to correct such stories. Reggie supposed he’d find out if he ever started eating babies.

  “What’s your name?” he abruptly asked. The woman hesitated again, a new reluctance glinting in her eyes.

  “Yours first.”

  “Fuck off, what’s your name?” Reggie wasn’t sure why he argued, just did suddenly.

  “Fuck you,” the woman shot back, “what’s yours?”

  They glared at each other for a second.

  “We share at once,” she suggested. Reggie nodded. They counted, hit three, neither of them spoke. Glared some more. Eventually they did.

  “Ajoke,” said Ajoke.

  “Reggie,” said Reggie. A rare chance, giving someone his name instead of having them know it already from someplace else. He hadn’t even thought between using the version nobody else used.

  And they’d both spoken at more or less the exact same moment, so Reggie decided that neither of them had enjoyed a victory in their exchange.

  “Never heard a name like yours,” he grunted.

  “That’s because it’s ìràwà, idiot.”

  Reggie did not like talking to the horrible little foreign woman who constantly yelled at him, but he liked not knowing things even less, so he gritted his teeth and stuck with it.

  “If we’re going to be cooperating, then I need to know the basics of what you’re doing here right? Not your plans or anything, but where you’re likely to be going. I have a bit of pull among the town’s Witchfinders—the people who almost caught you today—and if you need areas for them to steer clear of I can try to make that happen.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  She thought about it at least. “They didn’t almost catch me,” Ajoke replied grumpily. Reggie decided not to start that particular argument and just waited for her to add more. “I need sight of the town,” she said after a moment. “I need to enter it and look around.”

  Reggie winced. “That’s not going to be easy, everyone’s jumpy now and there’s a wall.”

  “I’ve seen the wall,” she hissed, “I’m asking if you can find a way to get me past it.”

  He thought about that, and decided he could. Reggie had slipped in mostly because he was already familiar with Norvhan’s layout, which had remained foundationally the same in fifteen years. He knew which spots would have you jump over to land in the middle of a street, and which would leave you sheltered behind a big building.There was no reason someone else couldn’t, particularly someone who boasted a lot more physical power than he had in the days immediately following his resurrection.

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “I can. But that’s a big risk you’re asking me to take. You won’t exactly blend in with the locals.”

  “So ask for something in return.”

  He thought about that, and didn’t take long to have an idea.

  “How good are you at draining animal blood?”

  ***

  The next few weeks were quite productive for Reggie, all things considered. Though he’d faced more than a few hitches in dealing with Ajoke, it soon turned out to be worth it. With her in the woods, killing animals and drawing Witchfinder attention, Reggie was free to hunt as he needed. He’d been nervous at first, feeling certain the woman would get herself caught. Reggie had hovered around her to keep an eye on things.

  Fortunately, she hadn’t been entirely bragging when she’d talked about not coming near death the other day. One run in proved enough for her to adjust strategy and keep beyond their reach, or at least avoid any incidents notable enough for Reggie to hear about them in town.

  This freed Reggie himself up to hunt again.

  His Attributes grew. A dozen more woodlice died to his claws and fed his power, and that power tasted like heaven in his veins.

  Name: Reginald Smith

  Age: 21

  Race: Blood Courtier [Inheritor Race, Tier 2]

  Class: None

  Attributes:

  (S)Strength 22

  (P)Speed 22

  (P)Celerity 22

  (S)Toughness 22

  (P)Charisma 20

  Abilities:

  Blood Magic I

  Form of the Beast II

  Royal Presence I

  Traits:

  Enhanced Senses I

  Regeneration I

  Addictive Ichor

  Progress to next Tier, 38/50.

  Reggie was getting close now, he’d have been able to feel it even if Sycily wasn’t telling him. Closing in on his next Evolution, on claiming another slice of immortality for himself. Sycily had explained how his Traits and Abilities were limited at matching, never exceeding, his temporary Tier, which meant another Evolution was a lot of opportunity to improve just about everything.

  But he’d need to pace himself and make sure his Attributes were as high as they could go before evolving a second time, that much he’d decided already. Restricting his feeding even more without extra strength would be suicide. Even still, he was quivering as he closed in on the Tier threshold. The sensation of that proximity was like lightning in his veins.

  But it wasn’t the only thing occupying him in town.

  He spent much of his time in Garwin’s —Anne’s—tavern, still enjoying the novelty of not being at risk of getting stabbed to death for no reason while he drank. Though the food and alcohol didn’t really do much for Reggie anymore.

  This was more than just another contribution to his disguise, of course, as the place being so full of humans meant that he also found the perfect opportunity to play with his Royal Presence while there. Reggie learned a lot about the power, some of it disappointing and some of it very promising. All of it was useful.

  Reggie found out that he could dial down the ‘yield’ of his Royal Presence, which came in handy when he wanted to keep from leaving people full-on debilitated by its effects. Apparently raising his Charisma to almost 20 meant that the power was more noticeable than the subtle effects he’d enjoyed before. After a close call in which Reggie noticed everybody paying a bit too much attention to him, he quickly toned things down to less overt levels and started toying with what he could do using a few mental nudges instead of shoves or haymakers.

  Anne became a bit more polite, despite starting out seeming grumpy and tired. Reggie wasn’t entirely sure how much of that was down to his influence though so he tried it with other humans. He found that he could choose which emotions he was outputting, or, rather, which impressions he was giving people. Everyone in Norvhan always stared at outsiders, as people in little towns did. So Reggie made himself seem uninteresting, innocuous. It was pure anecdote, not the best test possible, but he thought he saw most of the eyes fixated on him turning away as he did.

  That would come in very handy. As would the second effect Reggie toyed with, making himself seem trustworthy and safe, turning those naturally suspicious stares that remained into calmed and neutral gazes that slowly slid away from him. His major limit was the inability to broadcast more than one impression at once, that and the intensity of his power seemed to limit how many people it could affect and how well.

  Early on, Reggie had caught a handful of people in a powerful enough effect that he’d seen its result almost instantly. Now there were more in the tavern, maybe a full score, and he had to dial his powers up all the way just to have a semi-noticeable impact. More information, he noted it for later.

  “You alright?” Anne asked him, snapping Reggie out of his reverie. He realised he’d left his drink untouched for a while, gotten a bit too focused on practicing.

  “I’m fine,” he forced a smile.

  “Worried about that vampire in the grimwoods?” she asked, nerves showing as she did. Apparently the news had already circulated around. Reggie wasn’t so surprised by that, Witchfinders got drunk too. If anything the shock for him was how orderly everything still seemed in Norvhan despite it.

  “Yeah,” Reggie replied honestly. He was worried about the vampire in the grimwoods. Worried someone would kill it.

  Anne nodded, apparently not knowing what more to say. Neither did Reggie, and he’d killed just about enough time already. He got up with a smile and placed a few more coins on the counter. “Thanks for the drink as usual.”

  It still felt weird to have interactions where people didn’t recoil from every move he made. A bit uncomfortable actually, Reggie never really knew what to do with himself when he talked to normal people. Never knew what they’d do, either. He was glad to be out of the tavern and into the streets, feeling cool air on him as night fell.

  Reggie didn’t have long to relax, just a few minutes more. There’d be a period soon, a balance between too-high light levels and too-vigilant guards, where Ajoke could make her way into the town most easily. Reggie hoped that advantage would be enough to offset the raised security.

  He and Ajoke had agreed on a specific spot for her point of entry, and Reggie waited by it for all of five minutes before the woman leapt over the wooden wall and landed deftly inside. She had her sword back, he saw, but fortunately it wasn’t drawn. Yet.

  “Alright, you’re in,” he told her, “now what are you doing?” This was Reggie’s other reason for helping of course. The favours in drawing Witchfinders away in the grimwoods were helpful, but having a chance to see what Ajoke intended for Norvhan was maybe even more important.

  “First I’m going to take a look around,” she told him under her breath, heading off at a pace that Reggie would have personally reserved for fleeing a wolf spider.