Fresh Blood

FRESH BLOOD

Vampire Writers Support Group

Anthology Volume No.1

FRESH BLOOD copyright © 2013 Vampire Writers Support Group. All individual stories contained herein copyright © 2013 by their respective authors.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the authors, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Tear of Blood was originally published in Reflections magazine issue #17, May 2013, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imaginations or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

Edited by Dan Shaurette and Karen Plaisance.

Published by Dan Shaurette.

Phoenix, AZ, USA

Paperback ISBN: 978-1492733812

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This anthology is dedicated to

all of our fellow authors

who are compelled to write stories in which

vampires stalk the pages,

and to our fans who are enthralled for more.

We are also dedicating this collection to

everyone with a charitable heart,

proving that even in the darkness,

you can still find some light.

It also goes to show that

vampires don’t just take,

they give just as freely.

Table of Contents

The Vampire Writers Support Group

Acknowledgments

Avery Goes on a Bender ~ Brian Patrick McKinley

Aya's Call ~ Jessica Cage

Bitter ~ Jay Wilburn

Black and White ~ Dan Shaurette

Black Cat Bone ~ Lucy Blue

Blood Bank ~ Donald L. Pitsiladis

The Case ~ Danielle DeVor

Ghosts and Houseguests ~ Karen Plaisance

High Stakes ~ Tabitha Grace Smith and Emma Rawlin

Mary Sue Wants to Die Forever ~ Daven Anderson

Psych ~ Selene MacLeod

Revelation ~ Donna Fernstrom

A Tale of Posthumous Paternity ~ Drusiana

Tear of Blood ~ Matthew E. Banks

The Vampire Writers Support Group

Like many writers, I don’t have a lot of family or friends who really understand this whole writer thing. Sure, they know what I do and offer me congratulations and encouragement, but most have never actually taken the time to read my book and fewer still have any experience with writing themselves. They’re great people, but they just don’t get it.

They don’t understand how much of my mental energy is spent inside a world of my imagination. They can’t grasp how real my characters are to me, and that these beings I’ve created are almost a second family to me. Whether good, evil, or in-between, I know these creatures intimately, more than I might ever know anyone else. So, naturally, I seek out the company of other writers.

Cut to Facebook, where I joined several writers groups and Friended every writer I met who seemed remotely interesting. Unfortunately, as I discovered, not even all writers understand me. I got many dismissive comments (or, worse, ignored completely) when I would post on writing groups about my vampire novel. Vampires, they’d write, "haven’t those been done to death?" Sadly, even some other writers didn’t get it.

Facebook has proven a wonderful social tool for me. I don’t have a wife or girlfriend and most of my friends are married or live far away, so I don’t have a lot of social outlets in which to talk writing. I found a publisher on Facebook and met even more authors, but I never felt comfortable posting updates about my book or concerns out to the public where only a few people would understand or care about what I was saying. I started the Vampire Writers Support Group in 2012 mostly as a place where I could discuss my work with other writer friends who wrote paranormal-themed books.

That’s all. No grand plans of anything beyond being able to talk shop with other writers who understood. Then, to my surprise and delight, the group grew. I started getting membership requests from people I didn’t know and group members began inviting their friends and writers they knew. Only a year later, The Vampire Writers Support Group has over 350 members and is publishing its first anthology of member stories. To say that I’m proud to be a part of this is a massive understatement. I’m blown away!

You won’t find Stephen King, Laurel K. Hamilton, or Charlaine Harris within these pages, but what you will find is earnest new fiction from the post-Twilight wave of vampire authors. There’s some fun stuff in here, including my own small contribution, and I’m deeply indebted to Dan Shaurette, Donna Michelle Fernstrom, David MacDowell Blue and all of the other participants for making this happen. I may have started the Facebook group, but they’re the ones who made this anthology a reality.

They get it.

Brian Patrick McKinley

October 2013

Acknowledgments

I would like to take a moment to thank all of the excellent authors who answered the call to submit stories to this anthology. Furthermore, everyone involved with it has been supportive of the project, and moreover, of each other.

As an editor and publisher, I couldn’t be more proud to work every one of them. As an author, I couldn’t be more excited to be included among them.

Thank you, Brian, for creating a group that has attracted so many talented authors. This anthology owes its life — or undeath — to you.

Thank you, Karen, for stepping up and helping polish up all of these stories. You have provided a much appreciated extra set of eyes.

Finally, thank you, dear reader, for picking up this book. I hope you’ll find all of these diverse tales tickle the darker side of your imagination. Know also that your charitable heart is matched by our authors who have agreed to donate all net proceeds to charity.

Dan Shaurette

October 2013

About Brian Patrick McKinley

Brian is a lifelong vampire fan from New Jersey and has written four screenplays, a stage play which won a state-wide contest and was produced by a NJ community theater, and numerous short stories which have been published online in various magazines. He is also a member of the HWA and a regular contributor to the website Vampires.com.

He wrote this story specifically for this anthology, because the idea of a vampire seeking help from a support group just resonated with him. Having spent some time in a support group or two himself, so his intention here isn't to poke fun at them or mock the people who attend them. Ironically, writing this story helped him fall off the wagon after a literary dry spell and inspired him to start work on the sequel to ANCIENT BLOOD, which will hopefully be done soon!

Please stop by and say hi at http://www.brianpatrickmckinley.webs.com.

* * *

This story takes place in Brian’s Order Universe or Order Saga a few years after the end of his debut novel, ANCIENT BLOOD. The main elements to note as you begin are that his stories take place in the world as we know it, but reveal a hidden aristocracy of vampires who secretly manipulate our institutions.

Avery Goes on a Bender

Brian Patrick McKinley

We got a new blood chef named Mike about a year and a half ago and I think that’s where things really started. I should mention that I was always a comfort and boredom eater when I was human, but it didn’t occur to me that I could do the same as a Vampyr. However, having a live-in blood chef who could transform regular human blood into decadent concoctions both sweet and savory, I started to turn to eating again. We have donors, of course, but Caroline has determined that the optimum method of feeding is to take a large syringe full of blood from a live, willing donor (we pay the staff a blood bonus for contributing) and inject it straight into our veins. Two or three injections a night is ideal. Caroline claims it wastes less of the nutrients in the blood and allows us to survive on a smaller amount.

Sure, it makes sense, but who wants to get their breakfast, lunch, and dinner from a needle?

So, for the past year, I’ve been binging on gourmet vampire junk food courtesy of Mike, watching TV and movies, reading books on magic, training a little with Ash just for the hell of it, and spending ridiculous amounts of time on Facebook and online forums bashing Twilight. I do an obscene amount of online shopping, since being Caroline’s Executive Assistant pays very well for the fact that I do no real work anymore. Caroline doesn’t like for me to leave our island except when I have to go somewhere to represent her at some ceremonial function, since I might get kidnapped and ransomed.

A couple nights ago, I reached my breaking point. I needed to go out again like I used to and hang out with normal people. Relatively normal, at least. I didn’t consciously think about it at the time, but I also wanted to try feeding for real. So I lied to Ash, our Security Chief, got permission to leave the island, and took a boat to Manhattan. Once there, I changed out of my business suit and gothed myself up for night at one of the vampire clubs I used to frequent.

I chose tight black leather pants and a black spandex shirt because I now have a body that allows them to look good, and added black boots with chains, a spiked collar, and a sweet black leather trenchcoat. I’ve been wearing my dark brown hair slicked back for a while now and I thought I looked like a cross between Brandon Lee in The Crow and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In reality, I probably looked like Mike Myers from those SNL sketches where he says, Now ist ze time on Sprockets vere ve dance!

I waited until I got closer to the club to add the black lipstick and nail polish, since some cabbies won’t pick you up if you look too freaky. I didn’t bother with white make-up, of course, since I’d been out of the sun for over two years and figured I was pale enough. Still, compared to most of the crowd, I was almost mundane.

As a Vampyr, my hearing and other senses have improved due to the increased circulation of blood to my brain and what Caroline calls a significant enhancement in neurotransmitter speed, meaning my nerves send signals faster that my brain interprets quicker.

The thump of the music was audible outside, but as I entered, it hit me with a force that almost threw me against the wall. The blood red lighting and strobes from the dance floor were also more intense than I remembered and I had to take a few seconds to adjust. The air was thick with the oily smell of fog machine smoke, various perfumes and colognes, sweat, car exhaust from outside, and the acrid stink of clove cigarettes that clung to people’s clothes. The clothes were what I expected: lots of frilly cuffs and cravats, walking sticks and Regency long coats, tight corsets and dog collars for the women, and more leather and spandex than you’d find anywhere outside of a comic book convention. Piercings and tattoos were common (neither of which I had), and hair colors ranged from the standard raven black to bone white and everything in-between. There were fangs visible everywhere, mostly prosthetics but some of the more hard-core vampires had dental implants, and many sported red contact lenses.

Having acclimated myself, I strode in with confidence and looked around for anyone I recognized from the old days. I admit I wanted to show off a little bit. Here I was, a real live Vampyr, the embodiment of the fantasies and desires of everyone in this club.

No one paid any attention to me.

Even as a mortal, I was never a big clubber. The music is too loud to talk comfortably, I was never a big drinker, and I don’t know how to dance. I really should learn, though. All the cool vampires know how to sweep girls off their feet on the dance floor. I went over to a table where some guy (who looked more like Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder than Lestat) sat with two younger women in very revealing leather corsets. I asked if any of them were donors.

Sorry, man, we’re exclusive, Blackadder shouted back. I asked if he knew of any donors around tonight, but he didn’t. Donors are what they call people who enjoy being fed on rather than drinking blood themselves. I’d gotten my breakfast injection after waking up, but I was very hungry now. Under all the other scents, I could just pick up the copper tang of blood. Someone was feeding in here, probably several people, and I needed to find someone willing to share or a single woman. I know, it seems silly, but I still felt a little weird about feeding off a guy.

I thought about hitting the bar, but then I remembered that this club had a VIP lounge upstairs that was more conducive to intimate behavior. I made my way over to the stairs and gave the bouncer a hundred bucks to let me up. I’d been up here once before as a guest and it was as I remembered: a crimson velvet and black leather club within a club. The music was muffled up here and the air was thick with sweet smoke from hookah pipes on several tables where everyone sat on pillows. Along the walls were large velvet banquettes with small tables, one of which caught my attention as soon as I entered. A curvy, tattooed woman with blue-streaked raven hair bent forward over one of the tables wearing a tight black lace corset, high heeled knee boots and black spandex tights that were pulled down around her knees. A skinny, long-haired guy with a goatee, rubber pants, and a velvet long coat opened to expose his heavily tattooed chest whipped the blonde’s bare ass with a leather riding crop. These weren’t gentle taps, either; the guy was putting real effort into each, as evidenced by his glistening chest and heavy breathing. The paleness of the woman’s skin made the redness of her buttocks even more apparent, but despite her sweat and cries, she continued to squirm pleasantly with every smack of the riding crop. A small crowd gathered to watch, mostly men but a decent number of women, and a few were counting the strokes. Thirty-three...thirty four...

I’m not much of a kinkster, but the vampire subculture has a lot of crossover with the BDSM crowd, so I wasn’t shocked. However, it had been a while since I’d been intimate in any way with Caroline, so I was surprised by how strong my reaction was to the scene. I got very aroused, which is not comfortable in tight leather pants.

As I tried to discreetly adjust myself, a female voice to my right said, Becky’s going to fifty tonight. I turned and saw my ex-girlfriend Michelle sitting in a banquette with a guy named Mark. Mark recognized me at once and almost choked on the sip of beer he had taken; he’d never really been a friend of mine, but he’d hung out in some of the same circles. He’d put on weight and lost some hair since I’d seen him last, but still had the scattering of adult acne pimples on his cheeks. His Smiths t-shirt looked like the same one he used to wear. The Michelle I knew wouldn’t go out with Mark on a dare, so their being together was a bigger shock than seeing them here.

She digs the public humiliation as much as— Michelle continued until she turned back and recognized me. Oh my Goddess, Avery, it is you!

If Mark had put on some weight, Michelle had almost doubled in size. Her dark blonde hair was dyed black and she wore it shorter than she had when we’d been together. Her