writingrobin

So this story came about after a fantastic chat on Mastodon between some friends: Vul, Square Moon and River. We shared cool details and things that we would like to see if someone wrote a story about vampire librarians. So I wrote that story, or at least the beginnings of one.

These are their stories [dun dun!]

As with all things, sharing for fun but if you want to collaboratively work on something with me/us, just let me know and please don’t steal anything. That would be lame.

“Shit! Stupid bloody code!”

The irritated exclamations continued until they became muttered under-the-breath curses, inaudible to most but not to the vampire who was sitting nearby. Ferdinand raised an eyebrow and carefully placed an index card that he had been working on down onto the antique oak desk in front of him. Rising carefully from his leather chair, he walked leisurely over to his colleague's desk.

The basement office space that they inhabited was large enough to accommodate many metres of metal rolling compact shelving, the type operated by rotating a circular handle to open each set of shelves. The shelves were situated around the edges of the room with the hub of operations in the centre. Ferdinand's working area was made up of an antique oak desk that he had had for several centuries, immaculate despite its age and heavy use. An old fashioned card catalogue stood nearby with mutiple drawers open, frozen in the middle of a cross-referencing hunt for the knowledge they indexed.

Notebooks, pencils and an ornate fountain pen rested on the desk, each in its exact place. Tidy and ordered much like the vampire that used them. A still steaming cup of herbal tea sat on a coaster. The last person who placed a drinking vessel on Ferdinand's desk, thereby leaving a circular mark on the polished surface, found themselves mysteriously disappeared down a dark alley the following night.

As Ferdinand crossed the short distance between his working area and his colleague's, he took in his surroundings so to better prepare himself for what approach would be best suited to calm the situation.

“Seriously, why aren't you working?”

Sasha hit the keyboard with a clenched fist, running her other hand through her hair. She paused briefly in the long, fuschia pink strands that were tied in a messy top knot before absent-mindedly stroking her recently shaved undercut. Ferdinand knew this as a sign that she was anxious rather than angry. A soft approach was needed.

“Everything okay Sasha? Can I make you some tea?”

An olive branch. Ferdinand hoped to cut through the stress cloud that he could almost see manifesting above Sasha's head.

Sasha pushed back from her desk, her seat of choice being a wheeled ergonomic office chair. A monstrous piece of architecture as far as Ferdinand was concerned. She started to rifle through the papers that had built up on her desk space, among the used coffee cups and snack wrappers.

“Sasha?” Ferdinand enquired gently.

She jumped as if only just noticing him. “Sorry Ferdz, was I doing it again?”

He smiled, wincing at the nickname that he loathed but tolerated for the moment. “Yes. You were. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Sasha snorted so loudly, it seemed that her many nose piercings might shoot across the room.

“Oh Ferdz, you're sweet but you're not very techy. No it's fine, I just wish I could get a shot from someone who knows what they're doing. All the online tutorials and write ups from different tech bros who think they're God's gift have just spun my brain for a loop, so my code just keeps breaking.”

It was true, Ferdinand mused. He had lived for centuries. Seen the rise of the printing press, the advent of electricity, and had been known to tap out a few replies to emails on his reluctantly purchased laptop. While he could do things in the modern era, he chose not to. He preferred paper. It didn't change, it couldn't be overwritten by nefarious powers, and it couldn't be lost in some etherial storage system. But paper was fragile and Sasha's latest outburst had distracted him from his work digitising a very old and disintergrating card catalogue which kept records of their collection from the 1930s.

“Getting “a shot” as you put it isn't really a good use of our skill set is it?” Ferdinand knew his judgemental tone would do nothing to calm Sasha down but her flippant reference touched a nerve.

Sasha huffed and crossed her arms while slouching back in her chair. She knew he was right. She had been a vampire for far less time than Ferdinand and she often felt his approach to utilising a certain side effect of drinking blood to be too restrictive. It was only when things went wrong that she was reminded of his sound reasoning for being so cautious.

Drinking another soul's blood after all did not come without a certain level of baggage. As a vampire drinks, the lived experiences, dreams and emotions of their victim of choice all come flooding in with the warm, delicious liquid. Depending on the individual, this could be a rush of mundanity and regret of a life not fully lived. Or it would be flashes of creativity and madcap schemes. Or it could be a oozing sludge of deep, dark evil for those who had lived especially depraved lives. This latter category often included vampire because the effect of absorbing another soul completely was not limited just to humans.

When used with purpose, these feedings could be very illuminating. Ferdinand has discovered some centuries ago that if a vampire were to selectively feed from an individual who was making a particulary strong impact on history, for good or for bad, they could get insights into their knowledge, philosophies, and future plans in a second. By being selective, it also meant that said individual was not drained and could continue living our their life with the future left unchanged by this small, tooth-based intervention.

Sasha shuddered at the memories of particularly bad feedings that took months to recover from while also recalling some of the better moments when she was able to build on breakthroughs being made in a scientist's brain so to better manage the library's strange collection of artefacts.

“Sasha?”

Ferdinand's continued prodding brought her out of her reverie.

“Do you think a walk might help? Get out of the library for bit, stretch your legs? It is supposed to be useful, at least according to the humans.”

Ferdinand gave a small grin to show he was offering this suggestion out of care and not a wish to kick Sasha out, even though the benefit of some space wasn't entirely a selfless wish. He did have a lot of work to be getting on with after all and found being constantly distracted to be particularly frustrating today.

Sasha grinned and grabbed her coat. It was February and the chill of the season had not quite lifted yet.

“Okay, you've convinced me. I'll head out for a bit...want me to pick you up a coffee on the way back?” She gestured towards the various coffee shop branded cups that peppered her desk space.

Ferdinand nodded noncommitally. She would get him something whether he asked for it or not so it was best to acquiesce so she would leave for a while. Sasha tore out the door, leaving Ferdinand to absorb the silence left in her wake.

-—
Sasha emerged into a bright but cold winter's day. They always got the cold a month or so later than the rest of the country and today was especially fresh. She put on a pair of sunglasses as, while she wouldn't burst into flames in the sun despite the rumours, she did find full sunshine made her itchy and hurt her eyes if she wasn't too careful. Looking at a computer screen for hours on end probably didn't help with the latter very much either.

She exited the modern office block that they called home before turning towards some of the city's green space. Their building was surrounded by new glass and stone neighbours, all popping up in the fast-paced development that followed the claim that this small patch was the new Silicon Fen. A play on words that never ceased to amuse Sasha given that this part of town that attracted all of the big tech companies was a stone's throw from one of the oldest universities in the world. The juxtaposition of ancient tradition with the dazzling vision of some of the tech coming out of the buildings that towered over Sasha was fascinating and partly why she still hung around. Besides, it was all the tiny startups that were doing the most exciting work, not the behemoths with their instantly recognisable logos.

Sasha turned down a street and suddenly found herself surrounded by greenery. Expanses of grass cut through by meandering streams which eventually widened into a fully flowing river. She continued down a quiet path, across several bridges and through a few wooden gates before she hit the wildest part of her walk. She couldn't hear the hum of the town anymore and it felt good. A few ducks were bobbing about on the river and one particularly brave individual was in a wetsuit and swimming past a heron as it quietly watched for its next meal from the river bank.

Sasha took a risk and flumphed down onto a patch of sunny grass. It was still damp from the morning dew but she appreciated the sensation of the cool moisture seeping through her clothes and against her skin. It felt like the cold shower she needed to shake the fog from her brain. She always found getting stuck on things to be challenging but this project was personal.

It was all Olivia's fault. They'd met at a tech conference and Sasha had been drawn to her in an instant. She saw her standing at the bar at one of those awful compulsory social events, keeping away from the rest of the attendees. As Sasha approached the bar, she was able to take in Olivia's incredible bone structure and all six foot of her, dressed in a cool tshirt, skinny jeans and an incredibly stylish leather jacket. Olivia watched her advance.

“Hey...good to see someone else hiding out from the sausage fest going on over there!” Sasha gestured to the significantly higher proportion of tech bros than women being loud and brash in packs dotted around the room.

Olivia grinned as Sasha ordered a drink. “Can I get you anything?”

Olivia, intrigued, shrugged and waved her empty martini glass. Sasha gestured to the bar staff for another. They drank in silence while observing the room and all of the strange rituals that were taking place around them, the secret meanings known only to this particular kind of male-dominated environment.

“Want to get out of here?” Olivia asked in a husky voice and drained the rest of her drink. Sasha could feel the combination of Olivia's incredibly hot body and voice, as well as the whisky she had just drank too quickly, taking over. She gulped, rarely one to feel nervous in these sorts of situations. “Sure!”

And get out of there they did. While the sex was amazing, Olivia was a trans woman and so knew her own body intimately as well as how to give others pleasure in ways Sasha had never experienced, they soon moved beyond just a physical attraction to something deeper. Olivia was working on a groundbreaking cybernetics project and so she and Sasha bonded instantly over their shared love of code and trying to innovate in spite of all the testosterone filled barriers that tried to hold them back. They shared their passions together for months, physically and mentally.

It was only in the last few weeks that they were together that things started to go wrong. Olivia became more secretive and paranoid, worrying that she was being followed. Sasha had put it down to her not sleeping or drinking too many energy drinks, until she saw the car. Non-descript with darkened glass, it appeared regularly on the street outside Olivia's block of flats. She could tell there was someone inside, watching and waiting. For what exactly Sasha couldn't be sure but Olivia knew. They wanted to steal her work. Who “They” were was unclear but Olivia suspected a particularly powerful and mean billionaire who was looking to make inroads in brain implants and was scooping up any and all research (and its researchers) on the topic. Olivia has refused him a few years ago and had forgotten about it until recently.

On one particuarly rainy evening, after another amazing few hours exploring each other's bodies, Sasha confessed her vampiric nature to Olivia. She had taken it well despite looking incredulous for the majority of Sasha's monologue, explaining her life and what she did for work. As the end of their time together drew closer and Olivia became more frantic, she had offered her blood to Sasha. She wanted someone else to have her knowledge and ideas in case anything happened to her. Initially reluctant, Sasha agreed as she could see how utterly terrified Olivia was of the unseen forces slowly closing in on her. The knowledge that came with Olivia's blood was what was informing Sasha’s work now. It was personal which is why it was so upsetting to not be able to work through what wasn't working with the very person who had created the work to begin with.

Olivia disappeared shortly after their feeding session. Sasha came to check onher and her flat was empty. The building manager said she had handed in her keys and moved out without giving any notice. The fact that she hadn't said anything or told anyone she knew that she was leaving was the hardest part for Sasha. Had she left willingly or had something happened to her?

Tears started to sting Sasha eyes as she lay in the damp grass. She feared the worst for Olivia and her heart ached with not knowing what had happened to her.

A cyclist rang their bell as they whizzed past Sasha's resting spot. She jumped and realised she had been reminiscing for over an hour. “Best head back” she whispered to herself, rising from the grass and brushing a few flecks of mud from her jeans.

She took one last look at the river, the sun catching the ripples on its surface, making it glitter and dance in the midday light. She smiled sadly to herself and turned to head back to the city, not noticing the jogger that watched her from a nearby bench. Dressed in black, he squinted at the retreating pink hair before tapping something into his phone.

***

#writing #VampLibs