Chapter Two Reginald

TWO

Excerpt from The Annals of Vampyric Lore , Seventeenth Edition

“Index of Notable Vampiric Organizations,” pp. 2313–14

THE COLLECTIVE

Original accounts from vampires in the court of William the Great suggest The Collective , as it is now colloquially known, first formed in England in the eleventh century A.D. as a social club for dilettante fledglings from powerful vampire families. While The Collective still serves a social function for current members, The Collective ’s central mission has grown dramatically over the centuries, expanding far beyond its original scope.

Today, the group is primarily focused on three things. First: celebrating their rarefied lineage (eligibility for membership remains limited to those who can directly trace their bloodlines to the original founding Eight). Second: creating new vampires. And third: vigilante justice for wrongs that many in the vampire community consider trifles.

While the vampiric community has historically turned a blind eye to most of The Collective ’s antics, it has drawn more criticism in recent years. Some of its more vocal detractors have argued a group so affluent and storied ought to find better things to do with its time.

Reginald

I leaned back in Frederick’s leather armchair and reread the The Collective’s note. It was crumpled from how frequently I’d gone over it since it arrived at my home four nights ago.

I had to admit that scribbling their threat in what looked like blood but smelled like raspberry syrup was impressive. An admirable commitment to the bit—even if the bit involved wanting to kill me.

“On the one hand,” Frederick began, “I’m not surprised these people are furious.”

For what felt like the thousandth time in the past four days, I went back over the circumstances that had caused this predicament. “Even if I fucked up—”

“ If ?” Frederick asked, incredulous.

“Okay, fine,” I conceded. “I did fuck up . I admit that. Even so, it’s hard to understand why they’re still this angry with me. It’s been a really long time.”

Frederick got out of his chair and began pacing his living room, hands clasped behind his back. He always did this when he was thinking. Between the two of us, Frederick had always been the more circumspect.

It was part of why he was so annoying—the man couldn’t even order dinner from the South Side blood bank without agonizing over his choices for days—and why I knew I couldn’t handle this situation without him.

“You’re right,” he finally said. “It was over a century ago. Even I didn’t hold my grudge against you for that long.” Frederick stopped pacing to admire a new painting his girlfriend had recently hung up behind the leather sofa. Although, calling it a painting was generous. Cassie called herself a found art artist . The framed picture Frederick was looking at had McDonald’s soda straws and a bunch of other stuff glued to the canvas. Treasures , she called them. Crap was what it looked like to me.

But there’d be time to criticize Cassie’s so-called art later. For now, there was preserving my life to think about.

“I’d have hoped they’d have found something better to worry about over the past hundred and fifty years,” I muttered.

Frederick raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Like…oh, Hades, I don’t know.” I shook my head and ran a distracted hand through my hair. “Climate change, maybe.”

Frederick shot me a skeptical look.

“No, really,” I continued. “Climate change is definitely more important to vampire life in the twenty-first century than a party faux pas from over one hundred years ago that might have resulted in slight calamity.”

“Slight calamity?” Frederick asked, incredulous.

I didn’t blush anymore. I couldn’t; the blood stopped flowing when a person turned. But if I could blush, I’d probably have been doing it then. “Depending on how you view things, you could even say I’d saved those people’s sorry little lives.”

I turned away before I could see the face Frederick undoubtedly made at my claim, then crumpled up The Collective’s letter and threw it on the floor. I wished Frederick had a fireplace I could throw it into. Watching it catch fire and disintegrate into ash…well. I’d never had the opportunity to throw a letter threatening my life into a fire before, but I imagined it must feel really good. But while Frederick was comfortably off, and his home was filled with the kinds of comforts usually only enjoyed by the comfortably off, he didn’t have a working fireplace.

And so the stupid letter sat there like the crumpled-up wad of nasty Denny’s menu it was rather than bursting into a far more satisfying ball of flames.

“Pick that up,” Frederick said. He eyed the thing like it was a dog dropping. “Cassie will be home from work soon.”

I snorted. “She’s a slob. Why would she care?”

Frederick only glared at me. Frederick’s and Cassie’s different attitudes towards housekeeping were one of the few bones of contention they had as far as I could tell—though I supposed it was one thing for someone to criticize their own human girlfriend for leaving her dirty socks on the kitchen table and something else entirely for your friend to do it.

Especially when you were as utterly smitten with your girlfriend as Frederick was with Cassie. He didn’t talk about their future plans often, but I knew he wanted to propose soon.

Bewildering.

I couldn’t relate to wanting to become that close to another person. Especially when said person was human, and therefore mortal. I hadn’t been able to relate to that sort of feeling in centuries. Not since…

Well.

Not since.

Love was a good look on my old friend, though. He hardly even brooded anymore. Since Cassie came into his life, sometimes he even smiled . I would never tell them this, but I was rooting for them. Even if I didn’t really understand what they had.

I held my tongue and capitulated, picking up my death threat and stuffing it into my pocket so I wouldn’t have to look at it.

“Thank you,” Frederick sniffed.

“Of course. Guess I’ll be off, then.” I needed to go home and think through how I was going to approach this mess.

“Before you go…” Frederick placed a hand on my arm. He looked worried. “Do you think that woman guessed you aren’t human?”

I thought back to my encounter with Amelia Collins. Dark blond hair, bright eyes. Tall. Absolutely furious with me. Under different circumstances, she’d have been just my type. I’d known it was a mistake to tell Frederick about her even as the encounter had practically poured out of me the minute I got to his apartment.

The problem was, I’d always had a thing for accountants. Their organized minds were such a delicious contrast to the intentionally erratic way I lived. But there was no time to think about what Amelia Collins might look like when she was laughing for real, or how that warm little hand of hers I’d briefly touched would feel like entwined with my own. I’d never see her again.

More importantly, she was human . I had sworn off fucking with anything mortal during the Carter Administration. Though perhaps it would be all right for me to hire her to help me with my taxes, once my current situation was resolved. My finances were a mess. One of the unexpected perks to living forever and having obvious advantages over humans was that money seemed to always find me, no matter how hard I tried to dodge it. I needed an accountant who was good at their job to help me figure out what was going on.

I bet she was good at her job.

I bet she was good at lots of things, even if fake laughing wasn’t one of them.

Frederick cleared his throat. He was waiting for an answer. “She…didn’t have time to notice me,” I lied. “I apologized for bumping into her like the gentleman I am, and immediately flew here.”

Frederick didn’t need to know I was lying. Fortunately, he seemed to take me at face value. He simply nodded, then took a small step back to eye what I was wearing. “You need to start borrowing my clothes. You stick out like a sore thumb dressed like this.”

I looked down at my outfit. This T-shirt and pink skirt combo had been my favorite ever since I found it at the consignment store a month ago. Frederick had a point, as much as I didn’t like it, but what was the point of living forever if you had to blend in? But even I had to acknowledge that standing out too much right then might get me into trouble.

“I’ll miss my band T-shirts,” I said, wistfully.

“I know.”

“And Old Fuzzy.”

Frederick gave a sympathetic nod. Which was nice of him to do; I knew he loathed how I dressed. “Once you no longer need to blend into your surroundings quite so much, you can go back to dressing like a stolen car.”

I was looking forward to that.

Hopefully, I’d live long enough to see it.

“Here,” he said, pressing something thin and rectangular into my hands. “Cassie wanted me to give you this.”

I vaguely recognized it as one of those flowery journal things the chain bookstore downtown sold near the registers. It said My First Bullet Journal across the cover in flowing pink script.

“Why did Cassie want me to have a bullet journal?” I asked. Reasonably, I thought.

Frederick put a hand on my shoulder. I stared at it mistrustfully. “You’ve been under a lot of strain,” he said gently. “I also know you don’t want to talk with Dr. Leicenster about it—”

“That man is a quack,” I cut in.

“A point upon which reasonable minds can differ,” he countered. “Cassie— we —just think that if you’re going through something this difficult, and you don’t want to seek professional help, at least you can journal about it and see if organizing your thoughts helps.”

I didn’t see how writing about my feelings would make me feel better. But I also wasn’t in the mood to argue about it. I was tired, I was rattled, and I was hungry.

I just wanted to go home.

“I’ll think about it,” I lied. The first Little Free Library I saw on my way home would be getting a new donation. “Tell Cassie I said thanks.”