The beginning? – Vampire Librarians (#1)
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.
[Since I posted this, I’ve split this initial piece into two parts]
“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.
***