The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes Page B

bet was to play along and blend in until she finished her job, and we could bail.
    “My dark children,” Lord Drake began. “For too long we have been forced to live this way. Feeding in secret, locked within the shadows, existing as nothing more than myth and fancy in the eyes of the cattle we call humans.” There were mumbles of agreement that rippled through the table. I myself made mumbles of non-committal curiosity. The differences are subtle, but very important.
    “We have suffered much humiliation at the hands of those in charge. Worse yet, most of our kind have been domesticated. They truly believe a vampire is meant to slink and sip, instead of dominate and destroy. We are the strongest beasts here, and yet we walk as if dogs with tails between our legs, ashamed of our own power and grandeur.” The agreement was getting a touch more boisterous now. I was oddly reminded of pep rallies in high school. Everyone was getting fired up around me, yet it was abundantly clear that I was not a part of what was going on.
    “And now, the final insult. A mere human trickster, a mage, being made the emperor of our sweet city. This is a blow which I fear we cannot bear. I will not bow to cattle. I will not scrape my knee to the ground for nothing more than a human with a few cantrips. That is why we gather here tonight, my dark children, so that we may carry out our plan to revive our rightful place in this world’s hierarchy.”
    They weren’t mumbling anymore; they were downright cheering. The only ones who were moderately subdued were me and my guide, Maria, who just stared on with wonder and fascination in her eyes.
    “Tonight, we do what should have been done long ago. Tonight we remind this world that vampires are creatures to be feared, not handled. Tonight we leave the shadows and put ourselves back on the path toward our rightful place of rulers over the cattle and the lesser monsters.” Lord Drake leaned in closely now, and the cheering died in an instant. Everyone was still as death, no pun intended, as the great Lord Drake licked his lips and let his next words fly.
    “Tonight, my dark children, we kill the emperor!”

4.
    “I have got to stop leaving the apartment,” I mumbled to myself as we skulked through the forest towards the main area where everyone was assembled. I mean “skulked” in a very literal way. It seems all of we Revivalist vampires had an ability to blend in with the scenery and become more or less invisible. According to the back of the badge, the way we signified this was by moving hunching over and moving carefully, as well as putting up our index fingers on both sides of our heads.
    That’s right; I was hunching my way through the forest with finger horns. Somehow, when I was human and dreamed about a different kind of life, one where I was powerful and immortal, this was a scenario I had never imagined. Most of those fantasies had been cheap rip-offs of well-done films, involving me being socially gregarious as well as unstoppably cool. I couldn’t even fathom what would make someone incorporate something this asinine into their own fantasies. Still, I was supposed to blend, so blend I did.
    It took us considerable time to get back to the main event, mostly because of our slow moving pace, but finally we parted a section of trees and found ourselves facing the mingling crowd and a folding table stocked with foam weapons. Lord Drake jerked his head northward, and we began our agonizing walk in that direction.
    Let me tell you something: I’ve been forced to do some ridiculous things in my lifetime. I’ve put my head in the toilet for swirlies, eaten dirt, even been made to dance like a cha-cha girl on one humiliating occasion, all to avoid being beaten up. For the dickens though, I cannot imagine what would make someone willingly do what we did as we crept through the crowd. We did our hunch walk with our finger horns, skulking through them, all the while pretending they