Misty Rose: Nature
Chapter 33
Two nights after the party was the next vampire social thing, and I still hadn’t gotten all the glitter off. I could at least wear normal clothes, so I was wearing my hoodie and leggings, but I still had a bunch on my face and neck and in my hair because I didn’t want to use that gasoline-smelling shit on my head. So I sat in my back corner of the throne room and tried not to be noticed. Which wasn’t different from what I usually did at those things, except this time I had glitter all over the place because it somehow even got onto my clothes before I could get out of Kaitlyn’s glitter zone.
Didn’t really work. Being bitchy kind of seems like it’s part of the way vampires are, and a few of them went out of their way to be bitchy at me. So, yeah, a lot like high school. Of course, it probably didn’t help that I was sitting pretty close to the door into the place, so it wasn’t all that far out of their way. But you’d still think vampires would have better things to do than harass me.
And you’d be wrong.
First one was one of the suits. Looked sort of like no one had told him the eighties were thirty years ago and it was time to stop playing power exec. Huge shoulder pads on his coat. He came over and looked down his nose at me and said, “You have glitter all over your face.” Like maybe I didn’t know, and it was… I don’t know, some kind of personal insult to his dignity.
I just nodded. “I know,” I said, trying to be neutral. Guess he expected more because he just sort of sniffed and walked away. But at least he left. After that, a couple more vampires told me about the glitter. Because I guess they thought I was too dumb to know and that no one else was smart or important enough to point it out before them. One of the dirtier vampires asked me what it was. One of the pretty ones asked why I didn’t wash it off, and I told her the stuff stuck to vampire skin better than to human skin. Another asked if it had anything to do with Twilight, which it definitely didn’t. And it kept happening even while the Baron was doing his formal talk stuff because I guess either messing with me was worth the Baron getting mad, or I was far enough away from the throne that anything they said didn’t count as interrupting the Baron. And of course, I was getting more and more annoyed, which wasn’t helping either.
But hands down the worst was one of the other pretty ones. Sort of. I don’t know what he was trying for but he… mostly looked like a skinny guy crossdressing or something. He was wearing… well, I guess it’d be a kilt, or maybe it was just a skirt anyway, and some kind of cropped tank top and way too much makeup, and he had shaved legs and a fucking happy trail and face stubble. But his hair was long and definitely pulled back into a girl’s ponytail because guys don’t usually take the time to make sure they’ve got those cute loose strands or use hair clips and barrettes. And he was one of the more wrong vampires, too. Like he wasn’t human kind of wrong.
Okay, I feel like maybe I should say here that I got no problem with LGBTQ people. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was a wrong vampire who just happened to be genderfluid.
“Oh, honey,” he said, and he was… well, I’ve heard voices like that, but usually from someone making fun of gay men. “Looks like you need to learn to clean up after a night out.”
“It’s body glitter,” I said. “From a party.”
“Really?” the creep said. “I was going to say unicorn bukake, but I’m not judging, girlfriend.”
Something about that just set me off. It was bad enough having to put up with the other vampires being a pain in the ass, but having to put up with one of them making that kind of comment was just too much. I was on my feet and up in his face and yelling before I even realized it. Not that it mattered. I’m just not intimidating at all. He actually sort of looked like he liked it, too.
“Unicorn bukake?” I glared at him. “Really?”
“Uh oh,” the guy said, leering at me. “Did I hit a nerve?”
“No, it’s ’cause you’re a sick fucker!”
“Honey, what you do with horny horses is your own business. I’m not judging.”
“Look,” I yelled, glaring up into his face. “I get vampires are gossipy bitchy social rejects, but…”
At that point, the rest of the world got through to my brain. I stopped and looked around because everything had gone quiet. Everyone in the room, and I do mean everyone, was staring at me yelling into the freak’s face. I honestly couldn’t say which was worse, the ones that were glaring or the ones that were grinning. But right at the top had to be Baron Whatshisname, sitting on his throne and looking not at all happy with me. The Baron waited a moment or two once he saw me looking right at him, then did that gesture thing at sword guy, who’d just appeared to one side of the throne. And then sword guy was standing right next to me. Well, okay, it wasn’t instant. I sort of saw him coming towards me way faster than humans can move and I felt the air moving with him, but it may as well have been instant because I didn’t have any time to react before sword guy grabbed my arm and literally dragged me back to the Baron’s throne. At the same speed, like I didn’t weigh anything at all. Sword guy shoved me over onto my hands and knees when we stopped, but I didn’t really need the help because I basically just fell over anyway. And all I could think about right then was that sword guy was standing over me with that huge sword like I was going to have my head cut off.
I didn’t, obviously. But that’s what I was thinking at the time. But I guess Baron Whathisname was in a good mood. Or just wasn’t the sort to have some dumb newbie vampire killed because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. At least not the first time. Think the only thing I said at that point was “Shit.” I was scared out of my mind, okay?
“I don’t tolerate interruptions,” the Baron said.
“S-s-s-s-sorry,” I said. I don’t usually stutter, but I was shaking pretty hard because I was so scared. I also don’t usually have a giant vampire with a huge sword standing over me because I’d disrespected a vampire Lord. Took another moment or two of silence for me to remember what I was supposed to say. “Um… I’m really sorry. Sir. Your Highness.”
I didn’t dare look up, but I heard the Baron sigh. “Since you seem unable to hold your tongue in the face of minor provocation, and I have more important matters to attend to than punishing an obviously terrified child, you will be escorted out of my Elysium. You may return next month, but until then, do not intrude on my court unless invited. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, honest.”
The Baron sighed again. “I don’t care what you intended. What you did was interrupt, and I will add, you are still interrupting. Someone escort her out before I change my mind.”
Right then, I felt a hand on each of my shoulders. I flinched away because I was still scared, but when I looked up, Pops was on one side and Ferret was on the other. Neither of them smiled as they helped me up, but I didn’t get the feeling they were mad at me. But they also weren’t wasting time. Pops gave the Baron a short bow, then they both more or less hustled me towards the door. Pretty sure I could hear people laughing as I went by. Or maybe I just thought they’d be laughing because they’re assholes and bitches. Didn’t really matter, though, because we didn’t wait around to see on our way out to the parking lot. I think I was still shaking until we got outside and Pops just… pulled me into a hug. because he knew that helps. And he just held me until I stopped shaking.
After a little bit, Pops patted me on the shoulder and let go. He and Ferret looked at each other. “I can walk her home,” Ferret said.
“I’m sorry if I caused any trouble,” I said. “I still don’t, um…”
Pops smiled at me. “It’s not a problem, child. Are you alright?”
“Um… I’m better now, thanks,” I said. “I just thought that… I was gonna…”
“The Baron is… complicated,” Pops said. “I believe he knows you didn’t mean any disrespect.”
Ferret made a face. “Yeah, and I’m sure a terrified girl got the message across.”
“What?” I said. That didn’t make any sense.
Pops chuckled at Ferret. “Our friend doesn’t approve of the current system.”
“Oh,” I said. “Um… do you?”
“It’s not what I’d prefer,” Pops shrugged. “But I’ve seen much worse. Even just in this city.”
“We would have done fine if it wasn’t for those traitors,” Ferret scowled.
“I was referring to those before you,” Pops said, smiling. Ferret nodded.
I looked at both of them. More vampire stuff, I was guessing.
“I should go back inside,” Pops said. “Or the children might get bothersome.”
“No kidding,” Ferret grinned. “I can take things from here.”
Pops nodded and patted me on the shoulder again. “You take care, and don’t worry. The Baron isn’t vindictive enough to punish you for that sort of thing as long as it isn’t a habit. Just be careful not to let it happen again.”
“Even if the one harassing you is…” Ferret started, but trailed off when Pops raised an eyebrow at him. “Anyway,” Ferret went on. “I can walk you home if you want.”
“Um… yeah,” I said. “I’m done with those people for tonight.”
Pops patted me on the shoulder again, then turned and walked back into the building. Me and Ferret started off down the street. Didn’t say much. I was still trying to get my head on right, which is probably a good way to describe coming down from thinking my head was going to get cut off. We didn’t really hurry as we walked, and after a few blocks, I calmed down. “Um…” I said.
“We’re bitchy and gossipy?” Ferret asked me.
“I didn’t mean you,” I said. “The other vampires.”
“Okay, that’s fair. Especially Blair.”
“Blair would be the weirdo talkin’ about unicorn bukake?”
“That’s him,” Ferret grinned. “He enjoys making people uncomfortable.”
“I got that feelin’ yeah.”
“I’d watch out for Blair,” Ferret said, more seriously. “He… or she maybe… is a sorcerer, and is the head of a cult of a very old blood goddess.”
“He’s one of the wrong ones, I know that,” I said. “And he’s a freak.”
“Not surprised. Blair is… one of the stronger blood sorcerers in the city, so I’d be careful not to piss him off too much. I don’t think he’d kill you, but… I don’t think you’d like what he’d do.”
“Jesus,” I said. Great, another weird vampire to avoid. “Is he that old?”
“Older than me,” Ferret said. “Not as old as Pops. Victoria said he was around since she was a newbie. Except… well, he was different then.”
“Different like not so much of a creep?”
Ferret took a deep breath and looked at me. “Okay, I’m going to need to be… sort of politically incorrect if I’m going to explain Blair. Just so you know.”
“I think I can handle that sorta thing,” I said, giving Ferret a look back.
“If you say so,” Ferret shrugged. “Blair really likes making people uncomfortable. He doesn’t pick whatever… alternative lifestyle he looks like because he cares about it. He picks it because it’s something that makes people feel like they have to tolerate him no matter how much of a perverted freak he acts like. And people like you are one of his favorite targets.”
“Why me?”
“You’re nice, and more or less normal, and feel like you have to support people’s lifestyle choices. Their right to live as who they are, not what traditional roles force them to be.”
“Right, ’cause I’m not an asshole.”
Ferret nodded. “But that means Blair thinks he can force you to put up with whatever feels like doing, no matter how warped it is. Because otherwise you’d be against whatever group he’s pretending to be part of at that moment.”
“Oh,” I said. “So he’s a troll.”
“Pretty much,” Ferret grinned at me. “But he’s been doing this for a lot longer than the internet has been around. Victoria said that when she was a newbie, Blair was going around to speakeasies pretending to be a flapper.”
“A what?”
“Socialite during the Roaring Twenties. They were… I guess you could call them the progressive counterculture of the era. They smoked and had short hair and drove cars and swore and were sexually active outside marriage and used birth control and pissed off a lot of people.”
“That doesn’t sound like much,” I said. “Well… in most places, anyway.”
“Not compared to modern women, but back then they were seen as wild and dangerous. Some people considered them illegally attractive.”
I rolled my eyes. “How’d that work with the stubble and stuff?”
“Blair probably didn’t have it then,” Ferret said. “Otherwise he could probably just dress like a flapper. The look didn’t really show much of their figures, so he could put on some makeup and hang out in speakeasies. Probably shocked a lot of guys once he got them alone.”
Took me a moment, but I got it. Some guy gets a flapper alone, thinks he’s going to score with one of the… party girls of their time, and she turns out to be a guy under the dress. And it sounded like that was the sort of thing Blair got off on.
“Okay, I think I get it,” I said. “What’d else did he do?”
“I don’t know about after the twenties,” Ferret said. “But when I got here, he was doing a Prince thing. That’s Prince the musician, not a noble Prince.”
“What was that like?”
“Assless chaps, lots of makeup, fetish outfits, rhinestones, and frilly shirts. But what really stuck in my mind was the assless chaps. I remember those every time I see Blair.”
“Uh…” I thought about that. There was a lot bugging me about the idea, but one thing did kind of stick out, I guess. “Um… aren’t chaps the things you wear over pants?”
“Yep,” Ferret said.
“So… aren’t they kinda assless already?”
“Well, yeah,” Ferret said. “But that’s… sort of… assless by default. The ones Blair was wearing were aggressively assless. Please don’t make me describe how.”
I grinned at Ferret. “I think I get the idea. And I can imagine how Blair looked.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a lot worse if you know what Blair actually looks like.”
“What?”
“What you saw tonight isn’t what he actually looks like.”
“Uh…”
“Blair has nosferatism. I’ve only seen it once, but he actually looks like a mummy without the bandages. Dried up old corpse. Smells bad, too.”
“Um… so how’s he… look like he does now, then?”
“Magic,” Ferret shrugged. “Can’t say any more than that. Rumor is that his cult can make anyone pretty for the right price, at least for a little while.”
“Pretty like Blair, or pretty like most humans mean it?” I asked.
“I’m guessing it’s pretty like Blair,” Ferret grinned. “Don’t see a lot of takers.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay. Watch out for Blair. Gotcha. Um…”
“You have more questions,” Ferret said, grinning at me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Dunno where to start. Like would Baron Whathisname really have…”
“Baron Whatshisname?” Ferret grinned at me.
“I can’t pronounce it.”
“Most people can’t,” Ferret said. “The Baron is from Poland originally, and it’s not his real name. Most of us don’t use our real names, and his comes from an old Polish movie. The people who made the movie deliberately used the name because it was difficult to say.”
I looked at Ferret. “How did you know that?”
“Luck,” Ferret said. “I was looking up how to spell his name and couldn’t find it. But I did find a site about really hard Polish words to pronounce, and there it was.”
“Why’d he pick that name?”
“No idea. Maybe it was a joke. Maybe he wanted to make it as hard as possible to figure out.”
“Can you say it?”
Ferret grinned at me, then said… well, near as I could tell it was right. But it was just about impossible for me to get. And it was stupid, but thinking about this was easier than about what’d happened, so I sort of got stuck on it. “Wait,” I said. “Go slower.”
Ferret said it again, slower, and I still didn’t get it. I’m not going to go over the next few minutes of me trying to get the damn name right because I didn’t manage it. But it gave me more time to calm down, so I guess it was worth it at the time.
“Maybe his title would be easier,” Ferret said eventually. “That’s also Polish.”
“You mean the one no one uses?” I asked. “Kan-slesh?”
“Yep,” Ferret said. “Only it’s spelled k-a-n-c-l-e-r-z and it means Chancellor.”
I gave Ferret a look. “Luck again?”
“Nope. International Phonetic Alphabet for Polish.”
“Nerd.”
“Don’t be mad because my Google-Fu is stronger than yours.”
I just glared at Ferret. Not like real glare, though, more joke glare. Which is suggesting that people see my real glares as not joke glares. They don’t, but whatever.
“Anyway,” Ferret said, once I’d given up. “No, the Lord wouldn’t have had your head cut off. Not for what happened tonight. This was about fear, that’s all.”
“Fear?” I asked.
“Yeah. The Lord rules a lot of his people through fear. Fear of what he knows, fear of what he’ll do about it. Fear of the Sheriff.”
“And you don’t like it.”
“No,” Ferret said, frowning down the street. “It shouldn’t be that way.”
“Why?”
Ferret looked at me for a moment. “We should be able to work together. Humans manage it.”
“You been watchin’ the news?” I asked him. “Humans aren’t doin’ so good at that.”
“True. But humans mostly don’t need a tyrant ruling through fear to work together.”
“And vampires do.”
Ferret shrugged. “Seems that way sometimes.”
“Okay,” I said. “And the Baron is a tyrant?”
“He can be. But he’s not cruel because he wants to be. It’s because it’s necessary.”
“Because his people are vampires.”
“Pretty much.”
I thought about that for a bit. I… guess it made sense. Vampires were pretty shitty on top of… well, being vampires. So maybe keeping them in line with fear was the best way. Still didn’t answer all my questions, though. Like what Ferret said to Pops.
“Okay,” I said. “But you said you would’ve done fine if it wasn’t for those traitors.”
Ferret nodded. “City used to be the old guard’s territory. You remember them?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Victoria said they were… old lords and barons and whatever.”
“Close enough. Feudal system, more or less. Well… a few years after I got here, a group of more modern vampires broke the old guard’s power bloc and took over.”
“But you said ‘we’ Ferret. You were part of that, weren’t you?”
Ferret grinned at me. “Not bad for a blond.”
I rolled my eyes. “Funny. So what happened?”
“Quislings,” Ferret said. His grin faded into a scowl.
“What’s that? Fairies?”
Ferret snorted and gave me a look. “You’re thinking of quicklings, and I’m shocked you’d know about them. Thought you were a cheerleader.”
“Uh…” I thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Prob’ly saw them online somewhere.”
“Well, quisling means traitor.”
“Doesn’t sound very scary.”
“Didn’t pay attention in history class, hmm?” Ferret said, giving me another look.
I gave him one back. “No. I was a cheerleader, remember?”
Ferret rolled his eyes, then grinned at me. “Okay, that’s fair,” he said. “Short version is that Vidkun Quisling more or less ran the government in Norway when it was occupied by Nazis.”
“Oh,” I said. Yeah, Nazis were bad news.
“Uh huh. Ended up convicted of treason, for obvious reasons,” Ferret said. “Also of murder, because Quisling’s government helped Hitler murder Jews.”
“So… genocidal,” I said, wincing.
“Yeah. Which is pretty much what vampires too young to have lived through World War Two call the quislings,” Ferret said, scowling again. “Also murderous bastards and lots of obscenities.”
I didn’t say anything. Ferret looked angrier than I’d ever seen him, but… also sort of sad. Whatever it was the quislings did to him, it must have hurt. I figured if he didn’t want to talk about it, I wouldn’t push him. And if he did want to talk, he would.
“We were busy building a new system,” Ferret went on after a moment. “Everything was going great. Then the quislings hit… pretty much everything all at once. We couldn’t respond fast enough to stop them.”
“Jesus,” I said. “That must’ve really been bad.”
“Yeah…” Ferret sighed. “They hit us at more or less the exact worst time in the worst places. Like they knew where we were weak. Some of us… well, some of us thought the old guard had somehow made a deal with the quislings, but… they aren’t like that, and both sides lost people. Between our revolution and the quislings, about half of the vampires in the city were killed in a month. Mostly by the traitors. They’d been hiding among the rebels.”
“Holy shit,” I said. Okay, vampires were pretty horrible, but it sounded like that’d been really awful. I mean, losing half of everyone like you all at once… yeah. Sounded like a war.
Ferret was quiet for a bit as we walked, and I let him be. Figured he was probably thinking about people he’d known who’d died, so I didn’t want to interrupt. “Anyway, there didn’t seem to be anything we could do except run away. And then the Baron managed to stop the quislings somehow,” Ferret said after a few moments.
“How?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Ferret said. “He hasn’t said how, but somehow he figured out where they were going to hit and even how many would be attacking. He got made the local head of his faction, then what was left of our system voted him Baron. And we fought back and won.”
“You drove the quislings out?”
“No,” Ferret looked at me. “We killed them all. They didn’t retreat or even run away. Every last one of the quislings fought to the death. A lot of them were spies and turncoats. Some of them… were even friends. And they were quislings.”
By that point, we’d gotten back to my apartment, but… I sort of felt like Ferret didn’t want to be alone right then. Normally he was such a goofy dork that it was hard to remember he was a vampire, least if you weren’t looking at him. But right then… yeah. It was like I could tell he’d been through a lot of shit. Lost people he cared about. Hell, lost a cause too, from the sound of it. I didn’t know what to say, so I just… gave him a hug. Held him for a little while.
“Thanks,” Ferret said eventually. “I’ll be okay. You?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m gonna… keep tryin’ to get this glitter off. And stay out of trouble.”
Ferret nodded as he let go of the hug. “Alright. Take care, alright?”
“You too. Seeya round.”
Ferret seemed like he’d gone from wanting a hug to wanting to be busy, so I didn’t mind him leaving so quickly. Wasn’t really in a mood to talk much myself, so it was probably best that Kaitlyn was already asleep by then too. I kept forgetting that vampires could have to deal with everything a human had to, and that might mean wars and losing people they care about. And vampires don’t die from old age, so they could have to deal with a lot more than most humans ever do.
Anyway, I let myself into my apartment, and like I said, Kaitlyn was asleep. I spent the rest of the night scrubbing at the glitter because tomorrow night was going to be my first night on my new job, and I didn’t want to look too unusual while I was getting used to the routine. And I was fucking tired of having glitter all over myself. So, yeah, more time in the shower with that horrible glue remover shit. Figured if I kept it up, I’d get it all off just in time for Kaitlyn to go on a glitter spree again. Only this time I was going to make sure she wasn’t spraying me with craft glitter glue spray.
I did end up looking up the site Ferret mentioned. It wasn’t helpful.
