++The spreading plague of revolution is not a new one, and like all infestations it waxes and wanes. Do not succumb to the temptations of greed and disloyalty. They will pass. ++

  Chapter 35

  Reggie was allowed to keep his apartment, the shitty little rat-hole he was barely able to afford. Provided he kept paying for it, of course. And provided he showed deference to Walyn as an occupant of his territory. Reggie was told this, and expected to be grateful for the fact.

  He said thanks. Of course he did, choices were a luxury he’d never enjoyed in life and was too smart to expect in death.

  Walyn didn’t accompany Reggie outside, only the Lady’s words did.

  “I’ll be in touch,” she told him. It sounded like a warning, like a promise of trouble to come. It sounded like that because it was. But his situation regarding choice hadn’t changed much in-between this pile of bullshit and the last a few seconds earlier, so Reggie just nodded his acknowledgement and headed out without complaint.

  He didn’t have long left now. Neither did Walyn, but Reggie saw the vampire disappear without much hesitation. Or fear. He probably lived closer to where they were now, the bastard. Reggie had to run to make his way back in time, and it killed him inside not to sprint the whole way.

  Almost killed him outside, too, the extra minutes he cost himself were enough for the sun to start kissing him as he drew near to his apartment. Several minutes of exposure might be deadly one day, he’d have to kick this habit.

  “Alright Sycily,” he said once he was safe inside, “I need some information on vampires. What are most of them like?” It’d been an oversight on his part not to ask sooner, but then in Reggie’s defence he’d not expected them to be anywhere near as common as they apparently were.

  That’s a broad question Reggie, what would you like to know specifically?

  If he didn’t know any better, Reggie would’ve guessed that Sycily was actually pleased to be answering. Then he realised why. He’d not spoken to her in over a day, she was probably getting lonely. That actually made him feel bad to only be talking again now that he needed something.

  “How powerful are they on average?”

  Averages are difficult to establish, there is no ‘standard’ vampire as their powers and specialisations are varied. For the most common Tier, however, I can confirm that it is anywhere from 2 to 3.

  That surprised him.

  “Wait so…I’m actually pretty average? I assumed I was weak.”

  You certainly are weak, remember that the average Tier 2-3 vampire has had much longer than you to approach the peak of their powers. They may not have as high a ceiling as you do, but you’re far from the ceiling of Tier 2 already. Draining creatures and humans still gives Attribute improvements even when Tier stops being raised.

  That made a level of sense, for more than one reason. Reggie massaged his temple. Not swollen. His body didn’t seem to swell anywhere now, no matter how hard he was hit, but the flesh around that spot was still a little tender. It’d probably hurt much more were he still living.

  Reggie didn’t have much to do inside, and now that he’d actually gotten out of the sun he wasn’t feeling as much urgency. He risked venturing back out within half an hour, after he’d soaked up a bit more info on the more standard vampiric abilities and given his skin time to rest.

  One day, he’d not be able to survive an hour of daylight. Might as well enjoy it while he could.

  It certainly helped his cover, and it was another chance to observe Lorwick. This time Reggie saw the city at the peak of its activity, as he kept darting to and from his apartment to give his skin a chance to recover its tolerance for the sun’s glare. Hours slipped by and the streets became more crowded than ever.

  Crowded with a lot of things, a dizzying variety. People were selling foodstuffs out of carts and stalls at the sides of the road, calling out competing prices to everyone who’d listen. One street down, he saw people seated against walls, hands out and quietly begging. They attracted more spit than coin.

  Then there came the protestors. The unions, they called themselves. Reggie hadn’t heard of such a thing, and he eagerly looked into it. It was new, interesting. Exciting. And it was a simple enough concept that he didn’t take long to learn a good deal.

  One labourer asking for better wages wouldn’t have great odds of getting them, but at some point a few of those labourers had figured that fact out and started to ask all together. These days they were asking pretty hard. It hadn’t gotten them what they wanted yet, but it was sure as shit getting them noticed.

  Reggie could see guards on them, mean looks upon the men’s faces and tight grips about their batons. They weren’t moving in. Yet. Outnumbered maybe six to one by the workers putting up such a fuss, they probably didn’t have the balls to make a move even if explicit orders were to come their way.

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  If those orders did come, though, Reggie had a feeling they’d be accompanied by a lot of reinforcements. He had no illusions about how big this gathering of a thousand was in the grand scheme of things. If even one man in every thousand in Lorwick was loyal to the elves, the unions were outnumbered a good deal.

  As if to punctuate Reggie’s thoughts on the powder keg, some idiot threw a roof tile at one of the guards. It hit him square in the head, hard enough that it might’ve killed a person without mana in his body. Instead the fragile ceramic just broke apart and sent the man back a step.

  It was damage enough. Everything devolved into chaos at once, more jeering and screams, then guards drawing clubs and advancing. Panic. People melted back, more screaming. The guards faltered. It seemed only to sink in then how many protestors there were, how angry they were.

  Reggie saw the tension build, then start to recede. He figured it’d been a lucky break for the outnumbered party.

  He was just about to break himself and head off when his own luck ran dry. Someone spotted him, someone lurking at the edge of all the action and, evidently, keeping an eye out for any interested parties.

  “Good afternoon, sir, see something that catches your eye?”

  Reggie resisted the instinctive spasm brought on by his address. This wasn’t an attack. He could calm down. He could…no, he couldn’t relax, but he should pretend to at least. It’d stop this from escalating.

  “I was just watching all the…everything,” Reggie replied to the stranger, turning and finding a short, wiry man with eyes that weren’t half as friendly as his smile.

  “And what did you make of it?” The man was probably trying to ask innocuously, to seem innocent and not particularly invested in Reggie’s answer. He didn’t do a great job at it. In his defence, very few people could reliably hide their motives to Reggie. Growing up with the threat of pitchforks and torches every day had a tendency to focus your attention.

  “It’s a nice idea.” Reggie said instead, though he personally couldn’t say much on the topic of wages. “I hope it works out.”

  It was the most nothing statement he could’ve given, and the man clearly saw it. What had he expected?

  Reggie didn’t need to guess, because the guy kept talking.

  “We’re being called radicals, but we’re not. We just want security for ourselves. We’re not here to overthrow the elves, we’re not a threat to anyone. We just want a future. Can you tell me we shouldn’t have it?”

  The words punched right into Reggie’s core and broke up the crust of ice he’d formed between the man and himself. Of course they did.

  “No, I can’t,” Reggie admitted, “good luck.”

  The man smiled with a bit more genuine warmth now. “And to you sir. The name’s Norman Bates if you’re ever interested in learning more about us, my, uh, office is down by the docks.”

  Reggie was picturing a shack at that, and probably wasn’t so far off. He was also polite enough not to give as much away though, just nodding and turning, heading down the street. He paused when he found Walyn waiting for him in a shadowed alley.

  “What were you doing over there?” the vampire asked, his voice oozing with enough suspicion to set a paranoid for life.

  “Investigating,” Reggie replied, “looking around, studying the city.”

  The vampire didn’t appear mollified by his answer. “Well you can investigate away from those rabble, they’re causing problems for the Lady.”

  “Problems how?” Reggie frowned.

  “They’re making the guard more active on surveillance, patrols, the works. There’s been fights. Guards who get into fights are in bad moods, harder to manage. And the elves are antsy. A Circumscriber was hurt last week. Not easy for the Lady to work around action like that.”

  Reggie thought about that. “I don’t suppose she’s working to get the union what they want? Seems like the best way to stop them, if you ask me.”

  “Nobody did ask you,” Walyn spat. “We have a plan, and it’s above your paygrade.”

  Reggie was somewhat doubtful it was within Walyn’s paygrade, either, but that didn’t seem like a polite thing to point out.

  “Alright then,” Reggie replied, “okay, I didn’t know that, now I do. I’ll steer clear of them if you want me to.”

  “Yeah, you will.” Walyn seemed less grumpy now that Reggie was acquiescing, which was about what Reggie had banked on. Petty bullies like him threw their weight around and challenged people not to find conflict, but to find others avoiding it with them. He’d keep doing it, now that Reggie had surrendered, but he’d keep doing it harmlessly, not feeling the need to escalate things.

  Not causing more trouble that Reggie would end up stuck in. Or so Reggie hoped.

  He moved elsewhere into Lorwick and kept his eyes out, taking everything in until his skin could bear the sun no more. Then Reggie headed back to his apartment.

  It was drafty in the apartment, though Reggie didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel it because he was a vampire now, and his body’s Toughness high enough that any temperature outside the extremes of freezing or boiling water didn’t feel like much. He didn’t feel it because he was a vampire, and sleeping by day meant that sunlight warmed those drafts before they even seeped into his home.

  And he didn’t feel it because he was a busy vampire with a great many things to concern himself with. Ludvich and Ajoke would still be in the throes of his Addictive Ichor by now, probably searching for him. Maybe searching without even knowing what they were searching for. He worried about that. Every time he went outside, Reggie worried that he’d see their faces in the streets and have to make himself scarce.

  There were other concerns too. He’d stopped gaining Attribute improvements or progress to his next tier.

  [Eat people, Reggie, you’ll become so powerful.]

  But as usual Dvo wasn’t giving him any advice he could dream of following. In this case, Reggie wasn’t quite sure why. He just knew he wouldn’t be draining a human. Wouldn’t be feeding like a monster did.

  Like the other monsters did.

  So was that it? He’d prove he was still a person by holding off on eating them? Hell of a reason to get killed if so.

  But then he’d almost died for worse ones, so it was hard to complain. The decision was made easier knowing that, at this point, Reggie’s Tier was already too high for Workers to even grant him Attribute improvements.

  Eventually Reggie settled down and found himself slipping off into unconsciousness, his body slowing, dying, becoming a corpse in truth as his mind rested and his spirit did whatever it was that vampire souls did during their sleep. When he woke up again, he had work to do.

  Except the message telling him hadn’t come from his construction job, but from the Vampire Lady of Lorwick herself. Walyn was the one to present it, and he looked far from pleased about the fact.