Page 11 of The Vampire's Mercy

“Don’t worry about them,” she added. “Can I give you a lift?”

Erm, hard pass. Just because she spoke kindly and exuded warmth, that didn’tnotmean she wasn’t a serial killer.

Call me cautious in a world full of vipers.

“Do you have any spare change for the tram or sub-rail?” I answered, sizing her up.

“Er, sure. Let me see.” She rifled in her pocket.

Her cheeks definitely looked puffy from crying.

The crowd dispersed, going about their day again. Really, I was touched any of them bothered stopping. City folk usually stepped over you, no matter your condition.

The mermaid found a couple of silver coins. “How’s this?”

“Thank you. Appreciate it.”

She dropped the coins into my hand. “Well, take care.”

“You too.”

She didn’t leave. “Are you sure you don’t want a lift?”

“I’m sure. But thanks anyway.”

With a scratch of her cropped auburn curls, she added, “I hope you’re going that way.” She pointed eastward. “They’ve closed the stations directly north of the Albion.”

“Oh?”

“Sinkhole. There’s loads of guardians there right now sealing it in.”

“Right. Thanks for the heads up.” I didn’t elaborate on my direction of travel.

She nodded, hesitated for a moment, then left with a cheerful goodbye that read, I don’t know, kind of awkward.

I brushed myself down, catching a whiff of my armpits. Yikes. Talk about onions left out in the sun. I needed soap and water like five minutes ago.

Picking up my pace, I made my way across the bridge, happy to see the Albion River flowing east with no ice, my mind on the mermaid.

That’d been weird. Why did she seem so keen on giving me a lift? Her vibe was off, my scalp prickling. I kept checking behind me in case she decided to get her stalker on.

I’ll knock you the fuck out if you do!

The mer were usually firefighters, lifeguards, or some water-related job. There used to be mer singers until their voices were taken away by law. Their song caused too many issues, driving folk crazy. I’d heard some scary stories in my time, one involving a woman swan diving off a skyscraper because her vicious merman ex fucked with her mind with his song.

Every mer had to drink a potion at birth to permanently destroy their voice, the mer song dying out in every bloodline years before the vampire war.

I possessed the mer song, albeit in a diluted form.

Executioners were injected with the blood of the other races the moment they arrived at the academy. In my case, I received werewolf blood, mer blood, and human mage blood. Together, they gave me strength and speed beyond any regular elf to match that of the vamps, as well as gifting me with useful attributes from the other races.

For me, it went like this:

A werewolf’s natural healing.

A human mage’s magic, which kept my stakeblade hidden inside me, which I could summon at will.

A human’s constitution to balance the energy.