Page 217 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“The fuck are you doing!?”

Carter spun, winked at his phone, and pulled finger guns. The smile on his face faded instantly as he picked up the phone and stopped the video. He ignored Chauvelin’s hysterical question and set about updating his social media.

“Hey! Give that back!” He acknowledged Chauvelin’s presence for the first time when Chauvelin grabbed the phone out of his hand and began thumbing through it, in the way only complete assholes do.

Chauvelin was shorter than Carter. It did not take long for Carter to regain possession of his phone by placing his hand on Chauvelin’s head and just reaching in and grabbing it back from him. Carter was quite powerful for a fledgling, due to the blood in his veins. Maddox was one of the three eldest vampires known to Gideon’s coven, and so the one made with his blood shared a particular intensity with him.

Chauvelin might have been weaker and smaller, but he had eyes, and he had not missed the little notification that indicated VampireCarter had five million followers.

“Christ!” Chauvelin exclaimed, as appropriately scandalized as any Luddite. “Did you know this little shit has been broadcasting the private, secret worlds of our lives to five million humans?”

“I knew Christ,” Gideon drawled. “You know what nobody ever talks about? What a fan he was of hummus. That man adored hummus.”

“I thought hummus was invented in the 13th century,” Ray said.

“You think everything was invented in the 13th century,” Gideon sighed.

“Your lords,” Chauvelin interjected. “If I may be so bold as to bring it to your attention, Carter is not only revealing himself as a vampire in these videos. He is potentially giving away your location, oh esteemed Maker.”

Gideon’s upper lip curled with just a hint of disgust at Chauvelin’s unapologetic bootlicking. Of course, he was due respect from all lesser vampires, but Chauvelin had a particularly nauseating method of groveling. He was a clout chaser, a brown noser. He was everything creatures of power despise and yet he could not see it because he was so absolutely inept at reading others.

“There are many people on the internet capable of using very small visual cues to locate people and things. Once, a group of young internet activists pinpointed a flag in the desert using nothing but the position of the sun and contrails from flights.”

He was not speaking a language either Gideon or Ray were familiar with. Gideon was only passingly familiar with powered flight, having encountered it in the Second World War, and slumbered since.

At one time, sleeping a century meant waking up in much the same world one had gone to sleep in, but these days, sleeping a hundred years meant waking up in a world so rife with technological wonders one barely understood how any of it worked. Humans now spoke across the world in an instant, and though they rarely said anything of obvious importance or weight, it was clear that great cultural shifts were occurring due to this technology.

Chauvelin was a modern vampire with enough age to view the social media patterns of youths with suspicion and fear. His expertise as an agent of the FBI made him understand far better than his betters what kind of danger they were in.

“He’s just freaking out,” Carter said. “It’s fine. It’s the internet. Nothing real happens on the internet.”

Because neither Gideon nor Ray could see, touch, or taste the internet, they were inclined to agree. So Chauvelin’s pleas for Carter’s activities in cyberspace to be reined in were not heard.

At least, not until later that night, when a cacophony of guard hounds at the gate indicated a small but robust party of young people milling about the front. They were lit up by their cellphones, and easily visible at a distance to the great many vampires dwelling in Gideon’s home.

There had been very little in the way of slaughter, in accordance with traditional living practices. It was never good form to take too many humans from the local area, lest they become furious and start going about with pitchforks and such. An exception, however, had always been made for bands of travelers causing trouble, due to the fact that the locals quite appreciated having such people, traditionally bandits and such, removed from the vicinity.

The youngsters at Gideon’s gates knew nothing of this, of course. They knew the rules of their world, which were that when something cool was found on the internet, the most invested fans would go out and find it.

“I told you!” Chauvelin practically danced next to Ray and Gideon, a vehement little shadow. “I told you Carter would give away your secrets. They are here because of him.”

“Is this true?” Gideon turned to Carter with a raised brow. He had taken to keeping a personal eye on the fledgling, knowing that Maddox was absent from the home, no doubt embroiling himself in the dramas of the family Carter had come from.

“What? Yeah. I guess.”

Carter turned up the volume on his phone and held it out so the origin of all evil could see what was going on at his own front door. There were multiple feeds from multiple accounts, and all of them were being broadcast from his doorstep.

Outside…

A man who was far too old to be doing such things stuck his tongue out at his phone and opened his mouth in a wide leer, while performing odd contortions with his fingers.

Behind him, a pretty college girl who should probably have been studying for a final of some kind undulated her body in a repetitive, simple dance, glow sticks in her hands.

A cacophony of voices announced the same events at the same time, all speaking over one another, none hearing the other.

“We’re here outside the vampire manor.”

“I’m here, at the vampire lair!”