6

You look like shit. Bloodshot eyes, skin pulled back from your nails and teeth, thrift-store clothes. Even your satchel looks like someone dragged it down a highway. You check the satchel; your deliveries—the USBs—are still in there.

Then you hear sound outside: a few whispered words in Spanish, weeping.

Thank God. Food. You just hope there's something you can eat. As a member of Clan Ventrue, your palate is more refined than that of other vampires. Not only can you not drink bagged or animal blood, you are limited to the living blood of—

You have fairly broad tastes for a member of your clan, and acceptable prey for you is obvious from a distance. Both are advantages on the road. Your sire, for example, is restricted to feeding from police officers. The old Prince of Tucson could feed only on immigrants.

What causes these restrictions to manifest? Are they supernatural, psychological, or something else? What counts as an "immigrant," or a "woman"? Both are interesting questions for our times, though it's not clear that the Clan of Kings has any answers.

Olivecrona told you that limits are how we test ourselves and grow strong. Other Ventrue insist that their preferences elevate them spiritually. Members of other clans call you Blue Bloods and just assume that the Clan of Kings is fussy.

Julian Sim believed that the limitation was put in place to force early members of your clan to engage in exchange, rather than simple theft, incidentally establishing the trade routes of the ancient world.

No matter. Your restriction to feeding on older women is an inconvenience, though it does have advantages. Who is more forgotten in our society than an old woman? They make easy pickings. Your greatest inconvenience is that you can rarely feed on someone who's trying to destroy you; most soldiers, cops, and hunters are men.

Next

They must have pulled some boards away to get inside, then covered them up so no one from the road spots their flashlight.

You're in the middle of the disused convenience store's three aisles, invisible in the darkness. At the far side of the store, a short hallway leads to three doors: a locked bathroom straight ahead and then two doors, one to the left and one to the right. You guess the left door leads to a storage room. The mortals are trying to get it open.

You count four of them: a man and a woman in their midtwenties, an ancient woman, and a frail and gray haired older man, even smaller than the old woman.

The younger woman whispers something in Spanish you don't catch, then forces the storage room door open with a shriek of metal.

"Not much here," the young man says, sweeping the storage room with his flashlight. He's traveling heavy: crowbar, backpack, water bottles, road flares…those are your road flares! They must have found your Honda.

Whoever they are, they're foolish or desperate to bring a woman in her seventies (at least) and a guy who isn't built for this kind of work. You're surprised that they're this far north without having already made contact with someone. The younger woman starts jiggling the handle to the bathroom, which is between the storage room and the office. Bored and fearless, the old man hobbles down one of the aisles.

Your Beast screams, but you can't feed off the old man. The old woman sticks close to the young man, and he carries himself like he knows how to fight. You wait in the shadows for an opportunity.

So you have an excellent view when the young woman finally gets the bathroom door open, and the thing inside bites down on her face.

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