Blood Rider

This is so not right.

-We should feed again.-

Lee ignored the grumble from Charlie. Her head throbbed and pulsed with aggravation, feeling like it was cracking at the seams. Such pain always made Charlie more violent.

-The blood will sooth you. Something strong and sweet.-

That was like waving fresh bread in front of a starving man. It was cruel to taunt her so.

It was a bad night all around. The aching migraines were always so very neurological. On top of the excruciating pain that is. It distorted all her perceptions; light was painfully bright and haloed, sounds sharp and a warping tingle under her skin. It messed with her vampire instincts, making her think she perceived something that was actually just her brain misfiring. Her balance was all off, with the ground and walls seeming too far away or too close. It was a lot like being drunk and stoned at the same time, plus of course, one hell of a hangover. Just awesome for hunting down crazed rogues.

We have to watch, not hunt.

Not that Lee liked that policy or agreed with the damned cruel, stark uncaring policy of the Council but fact was outside of the University City grounds if a rogue wasn’t seen to kill, Lee wasn’t authorized to hunt it. She was monitored to ensure she adhered to policy, so it wasn’t like she could bypass the system to spare a few humans. When she was on guard duty within University City that was an entirely different story because vampires, Clan or not, were not permitted to feed on citizens let alone kill them. So she could act as she pleased. It didn’t matter that she told them it was obvious to any vampire that another was a bleeder and intended to kill his victim, or was in the process of doing so, and she could prevent it. The Council wouldn’t risk aggravating the Clan in the neutral unclaimed territory and therefore they didn’t care about the victims, only eliminating the rogue bleeders, once confirmed. In this case, both Clan and Council wanted the source of the rogues found, which meant following, not killing, these uncontrolled non-Clan fledglings. No matter the casualties.

-All the more reason to have hunted beforehand.-

Lee sighed. A lot of good that did her now. She couldn’t exactly excuse herself from a stakeout to go find a registered donor because she had a migraine. A migraine that vampires were not supposed to get anyway.

In her entire existence she only knew a few things that helped with such migraines; blood, sex, sleep or all three. Usually she avoided all stimuli when one of them hit her; usually, she was incapable of doing much anyway. But she had work to do and following a blitzed bleeder didn’t require much effort.

She had been stalking one particular bleeder for two nights. This ended up being harder than she thought, since where the woman went to ground at daylight, was not where she found her the next night. She had to then scent track her all over again. She didn’t interfere with her activities in any way, in order to see where she led her. The woman hadn’t been hard to find. Lee had simply gone to the poorest, least secure human areas of the city and waited for the predators to arrive. Honestly, prior to this recent problem, all feeding grounds would be Clan run and all she would have spotted would have been Clan fledglings. It hadn’t taken long at all to pick up traces of scent activity that indicated more than a few vampires were trolling the area regularly, feeding heavily and had the markings of bleeders. Bleeders being careless feeders she had staked out an area with high-density humans, with low security, and waited until she chanced on the vampire female.

She had found a few fledglings flexing their muscles in the same area. The Clan permitted feeding on humans, so long as they had no mark or recollection of it. She watched these young vampires, able to blend better than her because they still looked human, behaved and dressed as their peers. So fresh. They even dressed like they still felt the cold and maybe they still did. She had given up such facades a long time ago, simply because she felt no need to be uncomfortably warm in order to pass for something she wasn’t. Likely because she didn’t need to hunt. No, instead, she got Beth yet again and her little inquisitive tag along.

The rogue she chanced upon had come out to play as well. She had been openly hostile to fledglings she encountered. She had violently attacked a human. No numbing or swamping of the prey’s mind. And she had gone for the kill. What Lee had observed was so out of sorts she wasn’t sure what to think. It certainly wasn’t normal vampire behaviour. From her initial observations, the woman had been like any other human homeless person with a mental disorder. There were not many homeless in Quarter City, it was too cold, and they were prey for everyone. If you couldn’t survive the environment, you would find no sympathy from those who could.

The city was large enough for all the vampires, wolf-kin, changed and humans. With plenty of empty buildings, ruins left for someone to claim. The city had been pretty much untouched by the chaos of Post-Creation years. As human survivors clustered together to piece things back together they had left the city behind, moving south and fortifying smaller communities.

The Changed were outcasts from such communities, often killed but certainly exiled. They had scavenged and survived in the large ruins of the city, establishing a secured Quarter for themselves. Across the river, using it as a natural barrier. Maybe they had done so on the mythical basis that vampires could not cross moving water and if so, she bet they’d been surprised it worked. In the sense that vampires were uncomfortable doing so and had to have a bridge. Across the river was their claimed territory and she was impressed by how they had established themselves over time. Such as it was to be a vampire, to see people evolving over time. Although she worked for the Council, she saw the benefits of their self-preservation of isolationist ideals.

The Council had created the local faction a century ago, a small outlet, but to keep ties to the organization, which based its power in the southern climates where human population was high and the Changed needed to play well with others. It claimed the land that had once been a university, fortified it, and created a small city within a city. Her townhouse was in the outskirts of it, where most with more supernatural natures resided, alongside a growing wizard community. The rest of the Southside was pockets of humans and vampires. The freelands of unclaimed territory and the gutters full of drunks and druggies. Not segmented off by massive walls and fences and free to be claimed. And fought over.

This bleeder traced through all Quarters as if she didn’t know they were there, only avoiding the blockaded human sub areas, fortified by various gangs, or the walled in Town.

Blundering into other-kin territory was unexpected from a vampire. It was plain stupid. The Clan vampires wouldn’t dare intrude on the area their group had claimed unless they were trying to take it from them. They were not cohesive, those that lived around the University City, not united at all, but they had an impressive wizard community and one established were-kin pack in the river valley. Even if she had been evicted from a Clan, or clanless, she would have been hunting in unsecured human communities. Hell, if she was newly turned and not linked to a Clan she would bunker down in a human community and discretely feed off them. Of course, that wouldn’t work for these rogue bleeders. When you left dead bodies around the neighbours tended to notice it.

This bleeder wasn’t keeping a low profile and, in fact, it didn’t even seem to cross her mind to do so. It was possible her maker was a bleeder; she had been turned by a vampire who hadn’t the capacity to know he had done so, or to care. Left to her own devices, the first hunger would have been all-consuming and killing her first prey understandable. Yet, killing one prey didn’t a bleeder make. The first hunger satiated her rational mind would have kicked in and survival instincts would have taken over. Not this incapacity to even mask her actions. It was so damned blatant.

After a decade of killing and consuming the vital essence to the spirit level a bleeder would manifest many symptoms one would expect from a schizophrenic. They could no longer tell reality from delusion; they heard many voices from the fragments of spirits clinging to their own energy and were often paranoid. Yet they maintained a level of functionality for at least another couple decades before they were so consumed by the addiction of energy and inner fracturing that they ended up compromising their own survival.

Any vampire could become a bleeder really. Any vampire that just went one step too far and tasted the exquisite euphoria Lee had heard bleeders talk about, and then, well, the temptation to do it again, once in awhile, was always present. It was entirely possible they had a bleeder turning humans and then encouraging them to become bleeders, but it wouldn’t explain the magnitude of this fledgling’s tendencies. It wouldn’t explain the fact she was loony already and her functionality was quite low. It was disturbing. Lee would brush it off as a failed turn. Perhaps something wrong neurologically with the human that the rider couldn’t repair. If not for the fact the rogue bleeder she had taken down prior hadn’t been so similar. If not for the fact there were more of them in the area.

She watched the woman, who was now slumped against a building, completely buzzed on her kill. Oblivious to Lee and she was close enough for the little vamp to sense her presence. Fledglings would usually trace away from her if she were this close.

“I peg her at only two years max.” Her figure wasn’t as trim as a vampire reaching its first decade. The first twenty or so years brought about many subtle but obvious changes. A certain slimming down and increase in muscle mass. Her shade of brown hair and similar eyes were very human. ” But she is far gone enough to have been a bleeder for fifteen years. There is just no friggin way. It‘s like vampire dementia or something.”

“Was that remark for me?” Tia asked blandly, taking a sip of her coffee. Coffee shipments were rare in these parts, thus expensive, but the both of them loved the bitter brew. The Arcane Café was one of their favorite haunts and it was a pleasant break that their prey had stumbled close enough to it. It wasn’t as though their prey was particularly clever or swift. And everyone was notified to leave her alone to track although the closer to the inner city the vampire got, the more likely she would be ashed for her audacity and Lee would have to track one of the others to the source.

Once Lee had contacted her elusive Handler about her contact with Eric and his unofficial vampire problem she was free to gain assistance from any Council freelancer. Which for her, being the anti-social person she had perfected, meant Tia, and her wizard roommate. Tia had excellent hunting skills and many furry associates. In order to find the maker they would have to find and track its fledglings. That is what Eric wanted. How she dispatched the rogue fledglings was entirely her choice, he simply wanted the name of their Sire. Lee fully intended to dispatch every single one of the crazed fledglings as soon as they could locate the damned Sire, but for now, it was a matter of using herding techniques. She couldn’t, according to her Handler kill these rogues prior to finding the Sire but that didn’t mean she had to let them feed indiscriminately either. All she had to do was ensure the bleeders didn’t know they were being followed, which was apparently pretty damned easy. When they were in ‘kill mode’ it was just a matter of finding ways of distracting them from their kill.

Lee took a sip of her latte and made an off-hand gesture. “Whoever is listening. Charlie seems quiet tonight.”

“Makes sense. He seems to be quiet when you have a migraine, which I think you do by the way you are squinting.”

It was true to a point. Charlie was more insistent about their needs, but definitely not a chatty presence. More demanding.

She was sure she wasn’t squinting. Tia could probably smell pain. Inwardly she grimaced in distaste at having such powerful olfactory skills. The very thought of it made her nauseous. “So freakin annoying. Is it never allowed to be dark? Must they light every single building and street so they can work 24-7 like busy little drone bees? And why would you call my rider a ‘he’.”

She had a vivid image of what the Old World had been like, sparked up with light everywhere, people around day and night. Lee was glad to have missed that. Enough to make a person photophobic. Still, in a well-lit wizard community they did run longer hours in the light than human populations without.

“First of all, my dear, your perception of society is slightly skewed since you only see it at night. I, at least, can fully function in the real world. As for your rider, well, I always assumed it was male, as you refer to it as Charlie.”

Her brain was getting fuzzier the more the migraine progressed, so it took her a second to comprehend the words she heard. She wondered if Tia noticed she was a bit slow on the uptake or the scent of Tia’s heady blood was distracting her. “Yeah, but it’s just a name. They’re neither male nor female, or both. Even the voice can’t be placed. I’m not sure energy, even one attached to me, can have a gender and if it does, I’m not sure I want to know,” she said, very aware her speech was a bit mumbled and by the time she finished she forgot her point. “I had a female cat named Charlie once. She was a stray tabby I found. Bit feral. Good a name as any.”

“So does the voice change?”

“Oh, shut up,” she said lightly. It was Tia’s not so subtle way of asking if Lee had more than one consistent voice. She thought Tia was trying to figure out if she had been a bleeder and didn’t remember it, or if she was crazy when she was turned and just got stuck that way. Both viable theories. How was she to counter that? But she was the only one allowed to speculate about her sanity. It made her irate when others have the audacity to do so.

She looked back at the woman, still looking comatose. It was almost boring to track her, if not for the oddities that intrigued Lee. One of which was the fact she had come in contact with others like her and had not been aggressive at all. They communicated, crossed paths and even for one feeding grouped together. That implied one maker, clanless, thus uninitiated.

The accidentally turned didn’t associate with each other, because they had no bonds of loyalty. Unless they had the bond and their maker was a mad bleeder, turning, bonding them into his own mad bleeder sub-group. What a lovely thought. They had sent off a few of Tia’s pack friends to track three of them and see where that led. It had led to a few more and they were up to nine. A high number when vampires outside of the Clan were very rare. Nor was it a localized phenomenon, as it would be if a bleeder was turning those in his hunting grounds. Eric wouldn’t be pleased when he found out. A Master vampire was innately a control freak when it came to his territory. Even one rogue was too many.

“What I meant is this bleeder is too young to have gained the symptoms of insanity so strongly. Since she’s so young, she would have been a bleeder from turning, and even then wouldn’t be this far gone.”

“I don’t know about that, but the ones we’re tracking are the same.” Tia pointed at the report and read a few lines of detail, “Mostly homeless or recently homeless by appearances. Erratic hunting behavior. Barely lucid after. Extremely aggressive to other vampires. I don’t think they can function enough to hold a job. But they seem to have money and a place to lie low.”

Obviously. Vampires may not mind the cold and in fact thrived in colder temperatures, but sunlight was an issue. But did they go back to the safety of their maker? If so, suggesting he was intentionally turning them and a true Sire to them. Or did they have their own little nest to hide in? Certainly they had not seen, nor sensed around them a vampire old enough to have created them. Lee had to have Tia and her contacts helping her as it was, simply because she could not track all the ones they found and more disturbingly where they took their day rest was not necessarily where they were to be found the next night. She suspected they were making use of old rail lines or tunnels.

Tia was looking thoughtfully at the woman. “Okay,” she said finally. “What’s bothering you the most? Pattern wise. Other than the obvious blood frenzy, then doped up thing they all have in common?”

“Hmm.”

Lee turned back to the woman. Something about her just bothered Lee but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Or all nine of them. It was on the tip of her brain like an itch she couldn’t scratch.

Charlie, scratch that itch, wouldja? My brain ball is killing me.

-I’d prefer we eat. On Tia. Right now.-

Well, since you are my uber strong demon rider and you can’t seem to control my body physically enough to get rid of a migraine you’re going to have to toss me an assist on this one. Give me a clue. Toss me a bone.

-You know what is bothering you. Think about Eric and his extreme control freak ways.-

“They are a group; that’s clear. They don’t attack each other. So they must be bonded to each other. So they are bonded to their maker in some way. Yet they behave like bleeders and always go for the kill. Unlike bleeders though they are insanely aggressive and have no basic survival skill wired into them. What I notice mostly about their pattern that is completely different is that it’s completely chaotic. We mapped all nine of them. There is no regular feeding ground. No regular routes. Just chaotic movements. Hard to find the maker if they rarely return to him or her. This is not like the Clan, this is a group, with some sort of bond, but completely disorganized. I’ve never seen vampires organized like this, it is not in their nature. They stake out territory, because they are very territorial, they protect it, they feed within it and they are very careful to hold it. If this is a new grouping something isn’t right. Something has gone wrong with the turning, with the bond, something.”

“Okay, so the pattern is different. That is something. We will have to track them all.”

“Given the size of the unclaimed areas of the city humans’ slum in I suspect we will come across more of them as we do. We might get lucky then. If it happens we end up that one of the ones we track ends up in a high density vampire area he should back down because somewhere near there will be the nest.”

“I have a theory,” Tia said.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Most of the fledglings seem to be a couple years old. I’m thinking the maker is a bleeder from out of town. Some small town somewhere where he lost control of his blood lust and created a bunch of fledglings. Messed it up royally but took ownership of it. He got them out of there and came here to hide within the masses, bigger feeding grounds and all. I think part of the problem is that they are literally starving when they came. Damaged goods from a poor turn, improperly taught by a Sire who is a nutter and starving by the time they arrived.”

“As far as theories go it has potential, but honestly, Tia, I think something is seriously wrong with these rogues. Let’s just track them and get this done. We will find wherever that is tonight. We could track this girly in our sleep.”

“We, as in me, because it will be too close to dawn for you too.”

Lee nodded and smiled, but her face felt stiff and unresponsive. She was beginning to feel sluggish, even though dawn came late in February. “That is precisely what I meant, roomy. Anyway, my conclusion is that all of the rogues we have found, which is about nine now, are all feeding in excess of what they need, from the moment they turned, before they could even crave the kill. No one gets addicted to the kill that fast, nor even feels the need to do so. It’s usually the power that gets them into it. But they don’t start doing it all the time and certainly not every day, as this one has. All that power every day. Why?”

“Vampire blood lust leads to one heck of a high. Maybe they are thirstier. Or want the high.”

“You’re so not a help. Have you noticed anything?”

Ignoring the slight mocking tone Tia smiled and replied, “Many things. They all have the same pattern. Wander around like your every night loony and then snap, they go into hungry mood and aggressively track and kill one victim, sometimes two a night. Then the rest is spent in this drooling high they get. It is the contrast though between normal mode and killing mode. They move like any vamp in the dusk, but when they go to hunt, it is all wrong. Not fluid, graceful. Barely even paying attention to threats around them, or leaving their kill in the open. One of my friends got to close and was attacked, violently, suddenly, but with no words said. Yet when they’re all hopped up you could go right up to them and they wouldn’t sense the threat. Creepy really. It’s like there is no one home, but they’re on autopilot. I suspect if you attacked they would go back into kill mode.”

“Hmmm. Makes them easier to take out at the right time though, eh?”

Lee stared at the woman across the street, even from the distance she was she could tell her expression was slack. Empty. She knew that look and could almost feel the flutter of the woman’s spirit battering against her own skull, trying to get out. She shivered, deeply, like a thousand ants crawling on her skin. Tia may think these vamps were abnormal, and they were, as abnormal as Lee was at times. When her rider took over, she was there, in her mind, pushed aside, watching herself. She has such a fear of being locked in her mind, there, but unable to communicate with anyone, after she first merged with her rider and went into a sort of coma state, where she was completely aware. Which of course, she blamed it for, since Charlie had inflicted herself on Lee, without nary a warning. So every time the rider took her over, it is hellish. And rude.

-For your own good.-

Not the point. Or maybe it is the point. It’s a frightening experience by itself, worse if it’s not done ‘for your own good.’ Obviously, some riders have more than self-preservation in mind. And, I know, for you it’s all about self-preservation and not me-preservation.

“It’s the riders, Tia. They’re in control for the kills and maybe at other times. Given the lack of ability to do anything other than drool, I suspect the rider takes control prior to dawn as well. This is why such blitzed bleeders could outsmart the both of us. Which is likely the most disturbing thing of all. Moosh for brains there may look all out of it, but come dawn we‘ll lose her, like the others.”

“Is that possible?”

“Certainly. A rider can override your will to preserve the host. I haven’t heard to happening to others… only vague accounts of something amiss, or a rider exerting more force and helping with information. It is very rare and I suppose you could say it must be because they are all fledglings. I have heard the merging between a new host and its rider is weak. Likely the fault lies as well with the maker, if he wasn’t old enough to turn properly. In fact the oddness of these rogues could be because the initiation wasn’t properly done.”

-It is because for some reason these riders are choosing hosts with weak wills they can overpower, instead of seeking a strong host. I assume a bleeder Sire cannot be the best to choose who to initiate. Any merging with a weak host is weak, but these riders are strong and can make use of it to disable their host when they please. So the question becomes what is the rider after, why are they doing this, and not the host. Not true bleeders at all, just along for the ride.-

“A ride into insanity you mean,” Lee said.

“I hate it when you talk to it, you look vacant.”

“Whatever, chickie. It just means it is more important we find that nest and observe only at this point and that I find out more about the Rider-Host relationship.”

Her eye caught sight of a vampire, sleek and fluid emerging from the shadows as if they clung to him. He ignored the open hostile stares of the other people on the street, ignored how the light enhanced his paleness and glittering eyes and came right for her. She knew he was one of Eric’s peons without even having to skim his mind. Only one of them, the Quarter City Clan bred, would approach her so arrogantly just outside of University City walls.

“Looks like news,” Lee said, nodding toward him.

Tia visibly stiffened and her lips pulled back like she wanted to snarl. That is why she liked Tia; she had some serious self-control. The vampire stopped a few feet from Lee, gave a half bow and waited. Vampire protocol of course. Stay outside the bounds of the inner aura of someone you wished to approach and wait for permission.

She took another sip of coffee and studied the man flatly. He would wait, imitating a statue, until she allowed him closer. She only waited to irk Tia, see if her canines would elongate and her ears point. When she growled low Lee waved a hand as though brushing away a fly and the vampire approached the table. “Master Voltross wishes to have a word with you,” he said, bowing again and holding out a smooth quartz sphere cupped in his hands. “To allow a telepathic link.”

“I’d rather not,” she said, eying the wizard globe warily. “Can’t we arrange a meeting?”

“He is otherwise occupied at the moment. He wishes to pass on an invitation.”

“To where?” she asked, thinking he meant the opera. Vampires loved the opera and were transfixed by soulful music and orchestras. It was a common place to meet and associate with older vampires. Lee hadn’t gone in ages, but when she was first situated in the city she had made a lot of contacts there.

“I don’t have the details.”

She stared at the globe stubbornly for a moment, knowing it meant a direct link to Eric’s mind. He may claim it was just a telepathic communication device, a light surface contact, but he would lie if he could get something from it. She reached out and touched a fingertip to it, feeling a slight tingle and a shiver up her spine. A liquid coolness spread up her arm and she sensed Eric, politely hovering in her awareness without intrusive effort. Yet this aura mingling made her head throb even more than it had been, flaring up her need for blood to help quash it.

“Eric, it has been days. You’re late.”

-Testy. It took a bit to make the arrangement but you can meet Lucien.-

Guarding her thoughts tightly she said, “Good. And I have a line on your bleeders as well. I’ll have to give you the details later. Maybe after the meeting.”

-Fine by me. Meet me tomorrow evening, here, and we will go together,- he said, and then the connection was severed with a snap and an electrical shooting pain. Lee waved the vampire off and he left, task complete, showing no irritation of having been sent on such a ridiculous task. Yet another reason never to join a clan.

“Okay, I’m set up for my meet. I charge you with finding that nest and watching it closely. With riders in the driver’s seat we don’t know their motives or who is the leader of the pack.”

Tia grinned, which was a feral sort of joy for the hunt grin. This is why Lee didn’t understand the distaste vampires had for werewolves in particular. They were damn fun to play with. “The leader of the pack, darling, I suspect will be the saner one.”

“Good point. If there is a leader. This could be some sort of anarchy rider movement. For other than clanless, those in the Clan are all bound to another, with an infinite amount of rules and protocols and the merging is too weak for the rider to do much with a fledgling. All of that limits the rider as much as the fledgling. Keep track of their movements, while it is chaotic, I assume within there is a nest. They have to be feeding near and around it. So tracking these guys might narrow us down anyway.”

“Got it. We’ll get ’em cornered.”