Night Rose

Eighteen wasn’t a birthday. It was a branding. The day they tested your blood for defects, disease, before burning your worth onto the nape of your neck. A single letter, followed by a plus or minus, sealing your fate.

Rarer blood meant you might be more than a quick meal. Those cursed with what the Vampire rulers coveted as ‘Golden Blood’ – Visceral Gold, they called it – stood a high chance of adoption into the upper echelons. A gilded cage, perhaps, but better than the farms.

Most could only hope they were aesthetically pleasing enough to avoid the breeding pens.

After the Great War, the pact between the Werewolf and Vampire nations laid down rules for their human chattel. Humans, brought close to extinction during the war, were now protected property – to be kept healthy, granted minimal rights. Your luck depended on your overseer. Rumour held that Werewolf territories were kinder, though Vampire propaganda dismissed this as wishful thinking designed to stop humans fleeing.

Poland, caught between Vampire and Werewolf domains, was a contested banquet. That neck brand wasn’t just a label; it was a claim. Choosing anonymity meant risking a Werewolf tearing your throat out on a whim. Few wolves took human partners, fewer still friends. So, when Jagdia’s eighteenth came, she stood in line, waiting for the sear of the brand.

A sensible choice then. A year later? A death sentence, if seen.

Whispers started first. Rumours of a defect in one blood group, debilitating to Vampires. Excitement curdled into fear as rumour solidified into fact. Germany had a new leader – Hitler, they called him, whispered to be Dracula’s own descendant. The stories shifted from small human victories to relentless suffering.

Then, September 1st.

Resistance felt futile against the tide that swept across Poland’s borders in the dead of night. Uniforms of black. Poland, declared defenceless, still bit back, teeth bared, fighting for every inch. Ten days, longer nights, struggling against Germany’s grasp. But human soldiers stood no chance against the beautiful undead descending as men, bats, dogs.

By October, Poland was carved up between Germany and Russia. Survival became a battle, not a given. The Vampire leaders, once a scourge, now seemed potential protectors against the new horrors pouring across the border. The German government – the Third Reich, the Nazi party – began gathering specific blood groups.

Anyone marked RhD negative was dragged away or executed publicly.

The minus symbol became a target. Hair worn long, collars high. Desperate people paid exorbitant sums to have a positive (+) branded over the fatal negative (-), hiding the fresh scar until it healed. Parents stopped branding their children, seeking escape routes through the blood farmers. Panic gripped the last months of that year.

Families and friends shunned those with negative marks, terrified of association, of accusation. Worries shifted from Vampire placement to simple survival. Homes weren’t sanctuaries. Churches weren’t sacred ground.

Early attempts to shelter the negatives in churches failed. The invaders were patient. They blockaded the areas, waiting. Humans couldn’t outlast them without food, water. Surrender or starve. Some gave in. Many waited for death inside. Others resorted to the unthinkable. Cannibalism, a horror unheard of since the Great War, returned. The invaders tightened their grip, poisoning water supplies.

Weakened, morale shattered, some humans – those with the ‘safe’ positive brands – collaborated. Jagdia understood. Food. Clean water. Shelter. Some even warmed the invaders’ beds.

Months bled into each other. Poland wasn’t alone in its suffering. The world was at war again. This time, humans allied with Werewolves. Jagdia, nineteen, found herself praying for a Werewolf saviour – something she’d once thought impossible.

For a time, the resistance gambled on daylight attacks, hoping to cripple the night-bound enemy. They assumed the daytime soldiers were human. Some were. Until a failed attack on a German stronghold in Warsaw. Gunpowder, homemade explosives, a car rigged with a brick on the accelerator, aimed at the hotel doors. The guards outside – assumed mortal – moved with impossible speed. Attack thwarted. Realisation dawned cold: Germany had vampires who could walk in sunlight.

Weeks of reconnaissance, infiltration, finally yielded a name: Schutzstaffel. The SS. Recognised by uniforms, insignia. Paramilitary arm of the Nazi party, alongside the Gestapo. Sun-walking vampires. Another blow to resistance morale.

Still, they rallied. Underground. Building their own government, army, beneath the noses of the undead seeking to eradicate or farm them. Poland wasn’t extinguished. Fire burned in her people.

The same fire scorched Jagdia’s chest, tightened her nerve-wracked grip on the bottle. Petrol and holy water sloshing inside. A scrap of cloth soaked in the same mixture stuffed into the neck. Matches clutched tight. She stayed low against the alley wall, pressed into the cold, damp brick.

Timing was everything.

Weeks they’d watched the changing of the guard. Nightwalkers handing over to day walkers, precisely in that sliver of darkness before dawn. Forty members total – eighteen foot soldiers, a captain, a commanding officer per unit. Jagdia wasn’t alone. Others waited, hidden. For security, positions unknown to each other.

Sweat prickled her palms. Breath hitched. She strained to hear marching boots over the roar of blood in her ears. Calm, she told herself, they smell fear. Counting backwards from ten. She reached six as the ground vibrated – the heavy, militant tread of the night unit.

She slipped out a match. Too soon to strike. Their eyes, their ears, too keen. The moment to act was during the handover, the exchange of details.

Shadows coalesced around the corner. Indistinct figures stomping to a halt in the small square outside the hotel. Seconds stretched. Jagdia tensed, ready to light the match, to throw–

FWOOSH. An explosion of fire. Screams tore the pre-dawn quiet. Soldiers scattered, searching for the source of the agonised cries. Jagdia’s heart hammered against her ribs. She could only watch, frozen, as a human torch staggered into the square.

High alert. Plan compromised. Too risky now. Gambling her own life was one thing; exposing others hidden nearby – fleeing already, perhaps – was another. The plan was ash. Dispose of the bomb. Quickly.

She scanned the alley. A small metal bin. Footsteps approached behind her. Orders barked. Day walkers, active early. Night watch retreating into the hotel.

Jagdia stood, wrenched the lid off the bin. Thank Christ, not empty. She shoved the bottle deep inside, burying it under refuse, the stench of rotting food thick in her throat. Lid replaced. Running was suicide; they’d catch her in seconds.

Shaky breath. Hands up, as ordered. She walked towards the alley mouth.

The dawning sun silhouetted the man in the centre of the formation, soldiers aiming rifles at her. He took a single step forward. His boot crunched on the smouldering remains of the burning man; the skull crumbled to dust beneath it.

Jagdia’s pulse hammered. She heard the sharp inhales, the sniffing from the surrounding vampires. Throat tight. Should have thrown the damn bottle, she raged internally. Gone out in flames.

They wouldn’t need to see the brand on her neck. They could taste her blood type on the air, gulping it down. Jagdia wasn’t RhD negative. She was Golden Blood. Rare. Delectable.

“Goldenes Blut.” The man’s voice dominated the sudden silence. He tapped his boot tip on the cobbles, dislodging skull dust. His eyes, the blue of a cloudless summer sky, held no warmth. None. Staring into them was like falling into a beautiful void. Luring you towards absolute emptiness.

Fear clamped down as she heard the barely suppressed salivation from the day walkers around her. She had to force their hand. Make them attack, not savour. Physically, she was no threat. But the holy water in her pocket...

Timing. Luck. Even the slightest twitch was suicide. Distraction needed. The ring on her thumb – studded needlepoint. A drop of blood would send them into frenzy.

“I would advise against such a cheap trick.” The man’s voice, suddenly beside her ear. Movement so fast, so silent, she hadn’t registered it. The cold pressure of a gun muzzle pressed against her stomach jolted her back. She didn’t fight as he slipped the ring from her thumb.

He rolled it over his own thumb, gaze locked on hers. “Your pocket,” he murmured, a predatory curve to his lips. “I’ll take that too.”

He pocketed the ring. Held his hand out flat. Expectant. The gun pressed harder. Jagdia sucked in a breath. Wily. Perceptive.

She lowered her hand cautiously into her coat pocket, meeting his unwavering stare. Index finger extended, she pushed the small cork into the glass vial.

Fingertips slick with holy water, she withdrew the vial, hand clawed over the opening, hiding the now-floating cork. His palm remained open, waiting. A faint line appeared between his thick brows.

She poured the holy water onto his waiting hand. Held his gaze. Defiant.

Skin hissed. Blistered. Water splashed over his palm, dripped from his fingers. He didn’t react. No shout. No flinch. Not even suppressed rage tightening his features.

A sharp pain sliced Jagdia’s palm. She cried out, flinching as a grip like iron clamped her wrist. Blood welled, far more than the cut warranted. The nearest vampire lunged, jaw gaping–

“Halt!”

The single word, a physical blow. Jagdia’s eyes squeezed shut, painfully aware of her heart trying to batter its way out of her chest. The iron grip loosened fractionally. His thumb stroked up to the cut, pressed down. Hard.

She squirmed, tried to yank her arm free. Stopped as the tickle of his breath cooled the throb in her palm.

“Consider yourself fortunate they are not entirely starved,” he whispered, his accent twisting her language. “Or you would have experienced a quite... miserable death.”

Eyes met hers again. Jagdia swallowed hard as he deliberately trailed the tip of his tongue over the cut.

“You should also be grateful,” he spoke the instant his tongue left her skin, “that I possess restraint.” Still utterly calm. Controlled.

Released, Jagdia snatched her hand back. Skin tingling where he’d touched it. She tried to shake off the feeling of forced coagulation. She became aware again of the surrounding soldiers. Restless. Eyes strained. Jaws clenched so tight the muscles bulged, fighting primal instinct.

“Your defiance was costly.” He flexed his healing fingers, skin knitting back together with unnatural speed. “We are remarkable trackers, once exposed to a scent.” He sighed, a sound almost like pity, making it worse.

Jagdia didn’t need him to elaborate. She knew the price. They had her face. They had her scent.

Her time in the resistance was over.