Groom 1
Samuel slowly walked Deeno down the hill as he grazed. Vampires would be up in a couple of hours when the sun set. Retracting his gaze from the horizon, he gently rubbed the throroughbred’s neck.
He took his pride in his shiny chestnut coat and in his position as a groom.
Despite how his masters cared so little about horses in their own stables.
They were vampires. They didn’t need horses.
Unlike humans, they wouldn’t show their delight about his breed or his good-natured temperament. After having employed at the vampires’ palace for two years, Samuel was still bugged by the differences between the human race and theirs.
They would normally travel in a much faster way, on foot, while horses were more a decoration or for when they needed to sightsee around the town.
“Let’s go back to the stable, boy. The sun is dipping fast.” He slightly tug the lead.
Malcolm should end his shift in an hour. Yesterday they had agreed to meet at Craft’s after the sunset. Despite many human sentinels, he had been his only drinking mate for a year now. Before that he had drank alone at Greta’s which had been shut down for months because of a blood supply scandal.
He felt like he should’ve known, having seen their clientèle disappear into the backroom.
He wasn’t expert in vampires’ history since he had migrated five years ago, but a few vampires he talked to had claimed King Magnus had been the most magnanimous ruler in millenniums. So would be his son Orion when he inherited the throne one day because they worshiped them. Vampires were archaic, admittedly. And brutal.
Not that they would threaten humans. Not the civilized ones at least. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have moved from the states.
He was lucky to have his own bathroom since many human staff including kitchen servants would share communal bath houses. They were addressed them as servants but since they were paid well nobody ever complained.
A shower. No bathtub. All made of hardest stones human demolishing workers wouldn’t be able to take down .
Back in the bedroom, he picked up his clothes from the mess he had made during the week. He could’ve rang up laundry workers and housekeepers but he’d have to pay them. He wanted to move out of the palace and open a shop in commoners’ neighborhoods as soon as he could.
Buttoning the vest, he exited his room.
He might be early at the pub. He waited a bit but no signs of Malcolm. He ordered butter chicken and mashed potatoes for starters. He would normally fill his stomach before the drink. Too much garlic in mashed potatoes. He wondered if the cook changed again.
The man didn’t show up after he ordered his drink. The clock on stone slabs of the wall showed the sun had been set for a good hour. No windows to allow outdoor light in.
After finishing the first glass, he felt undecided about ordering another glass. Malcolm had never been this late since they knew each other. Being a human guard at a vampire kingdom had its own challenges. Their shifts were normally during the day while vampires hid away from the sun and he had heard of stories demons dominating these streets a millennium ago.
This country had a bit of shifters, a bit of faes, a bit of this and a bit of that though mostly occupied by vampires and humans. Back in Delaware, he had never met a vampire or any of those races whenever he walked down the street. He had heard of New Jersey and Umber City having those populations but he hadn’t been a traveler. When he traveled, he moved right to the vampire kingdom’s capital because of the news about humans getting well paid.
He ordered another glass. After this, he would go to his quarters just in case. The man might be in trouble with one of those vampire guards who condescended on their human counterparts. He knew because he had heard of him complaining all the time. How they thought they were high and mighty and they didn’t need human sentinels.
Malcolm had been born to the vampire kingdom unlike him. His mother was alive, working in the royal kitchen, and his father had passed some years ago after catching an illness.
When he left the pub, the road was getting busy. The start of the busiest hours of the capital. During the daytime, the streets would be scattered by humans and day crawler races.
A woman bumped into him. One of those quack witches who sold cheap trinkets for exuberant prices. After forcing him into a bargain, she shoved a thin sheet of metal into his coat pocket and accepted 10 pennies. He should have shooed her away but he had felt a little bad.
Once he was on palace grounds, he took the garden paths to go to the west wing instead of going down the corridors. These blood suckers could be creepy when he was alone with them in dimmer parts of the palace. They didn’t move the way humans did. One second, they would be on the other end of the corridor, and the next, they were right behind you.
And their fangs, were akin to rabid dogs’. Long canines and poisonous.
He rapped on the door.
“Are you in there? Malcolm?” He waited. “I was at Craft’s. Thought you might be sick.”
He pressed his ear against the intentional crack in the stone door. The man had once admitted to him that he had pounded a hammer at the door until his arms gave out. All to get that crack. Because there was only one way to communicate to him from the outside without that crack. Magical bells. Since vampire sentinels could hear without them, he didn’t want to be looked down upon.
Most human guards’ rooms had similar cracks or holes in their doors for that purpose.
No answer came through.
He pushed open the door and entered the living room. Being a sentinel, he had two rooms instead of only one. A book on the floor. One chair turned sideways from the table. The carpet was rolled up in some spots.
He proceeded to the bedroom. No sign of the man.
He frowned, exiting the rooms. Nothing could have happened to him, right? As creepy as these vampires were, they weren’t lawless. Nobody in the palace had ever threatened on his life.
It was another story in alleys and isolated streets. Still, the vigil would have seized anyone if they were found committing a crime. As magnanimous as the king was, the dungeons were rumored to be crawled with frightening things.
He had heard of stories about vampires who had committed minor crimes and had been locked up. When they were released at last, they were without their mind, but their torturers could only be pinpointed on ghosts.
That was true. Ghosts. Because they didn’t exist.
“Excuse me!” He called after a passing by sentinel when he was outside. “Have you seen Malcolm?”
Without an answer, he continued on his way.
Shaking his head, Samuel searched for another person, possibly a human being to ask about.
After several attempts, he found someone who had seen the man heading to the northern wing.
Now he couldn’t understand why Malcolm would be heading to that particular part of the castle. He had never been there. Didn’t know anyone who had been there either. If someone were to ask him why, he wouldn’t be able to say much more than nobody had any business to be there.
The northern tower was ancient. That was what he had heard at least. The difference wasn’t visible from the outside.
He looked around. Asking someone to go find him would be pointless since nobody would be willing. He poured a glass in the kitchen before he made his way to the northern wing. The corridors were cold. All the corridors were. No real lamps on the walls to give warmth. Those magelights felt soulless.
A sentinel stood every two columns. He asked one of them before he rounded the last corner to the northern wing. He was asked to identify himself. Was questioned a hundred matters about his job.
“You cannot proceed,” she prevented him when he was about go his way, giving up on receiving an answer.
“Why?”
She stared—at least that was what he thought with the hood covering half her face—at him for seconds.
“You cannot proceed,” she repeated.
“I didn’t know this rule…”
“This isn’t a rule but you cannot proceed.”
He darted his eyes to gleaming intricate carvings on the walls. “Thank you. I need to find my friend.”
He turned around.
“You cannot proceed,” she repeated yet again.
He couldn’t wait to put distance between him and her. He quickened his pace. She sounded almost concerned but…
It must be the chills in the air. He rubbed his arms.
He passed another sentential and rounded the last corner.
He was taken back at what was waiting before him. No more guards. No sign of life. From where he was standing, the corridor narrowed down and down. Almost endlessly until it ended with a staircase. The magical carvings on the wall were replaced with ancient plates of copper. Or gold. They looked reddish yellow.
Some plates had fallen off, leaving dark patches in their spots.
No rules meant he wouldn’t be punished. He would have to up to that staircase.
The corridor was longer, much longer than what he had initially believed it to be. In fact, it would never end or so he thought until he was at the foot of the stairs. He looked over his shoulder to find he was a world away from the civilization which had ended at the last corner.
The steps before him were very old. They had fractures; one particular line was quite deep.
He stood still, squinting up what might be at the top of these steps, but he couldn’t see the end of the spiral.
“Malcolm!” He called, going up.
The man must have fainted somewhere. He went up and up until he was before gilded walls. These were gold, he was sure this time. He found a few sets of doors, a dozen feet tall and heavy at a glance, but the corridor was empty. At this point, he was ready to going back down. He must not be here.
He wiped the sweat of his forehead. He had thought the night was cold but older corridors might be different.
Equally gilded doors. One set of them was…ajar.
A moan seeped through the gap.
Faint and almost inaudible.
