The sun’s rays burn brightly down upon his flesh, causing it to blister almost instantly and he lets out a scream of agony while Saffron’s smile grows wider.

“At first, I thought it was a joke, some crude attempt at scoring favour with those in grander positions, and now instead, I am impressed beyond comprehension. But in this, many questions are raised, of course the first begs an answer I cannot wait to ask, one I am sure you are asked many times. How is this the first time I’m seeing an actual true to life vampire in the flesh?” she says with a bemused bounce of curiosity in her voice as the sun’s rays are blocked from view.

“You talk as if you are someone of importance, when you hold no sway or title over your people to be called one. Had you been truly worthy, you would know our existence has been long known to your kind, but we keep ourselves hidden, because that is the will my people have been beheld to.”

“The will your people have been beheld to. Powerful words, you make it sound like you’ve never had a choice in the matter. Why?”

“What makes you think I care to answer your FUCKING questions!” he spits with teeth pointed and bared.

She nods her head, and the shade is removed once again, and he screams in agony until the shades cold touch is returned. “I think we both know my answer to that question, so save yourself some pain my pretty little pet, and tell me what I want to know, tell me why you’ve kept yourselves hidden or I will watch you burn.”

He grips his teeth together and twists his nose upwards. “Centuries ago, both our races co-existed in a complex harmony of living and dying, hunters and the hunted. We owned the night, while the humans ruled the day. All things existed this way for countless eons until an elder vampire by the name of Del Delgo seized control of several vampire clans, because he disagreed with the status quo, and believed vampires deserved to rule both night and day. So a war began, not between the humans and the vampires, but between the vampire clans themselves. For three decades we fought, both sides taking many casualties, but it only came to an end when my maker, Val Valger formed an alliance with the humans, and together they put an end to Del Delgo and all the clans that followed him. In the aftermath Val Valger and the humans agreed it would be wiser if we no longer freely roamed in their world, so he used his power of command over us, his children, and forbid us from revealing ourselves to humans.” he says with a wry grin across his lips. “Does that quell your thirst for knowledge?”

“How have you all survived so long, without revealing yourselves?”

“We have herds of what we call cows, humans bred only for their blood.”

“How do you manage to go unnoticed?”

“We don’t, every once in a while, a human will wander into one of our hives, like a fly into a spiders web, and they are quickly added to the milk shed.”

“I love your little analogies, so picturesque and inviting. I would love to find my way into one of these hives you speak of.”

“Fate has a way of twisting hands in directions it wishes them to twist, so you may find your way into one sooner than you think.”

“How do you procreate?”

“What?” he asks with a bemused look upon his face.

“How do you make new vampires you idiot!” she snaps.

“We don’t.”

Her brow furrows, and her lips arch in unusual ways. “T-Then how does your ranks swell if needed.”

“That is not of my concern, it is of his,” he says with a toothy grin as he nods past them, and into the darkness that has now settled around them.

***

Follow the below link to purchase 2020TOO Book Three to read all 20 five minute short stories.

Before you lies a piece of a puzzle far grander than you could ever know or imagine. For scrawled in blood upon the pages hidden within the above tome is stories twisted twenty in all, soaked in the embers of my insanity. Five minutes to glimpse inside the eyes of someone new, five minutes to answer, five minutes to sin, five minutes to do almost anything. A god, a demon, a harlot, a whore. A fascist, a killer, a sinner, a door. Death and division, humanity askew. A belfry of bats, a sea of black cats, so many moments out there to see, so many things you could see with me. So take a seat beside me and call it voodoo, because now you ride with me too…

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