Page 218 of Vampire Kings Box Set

“Is this where Carter lives? We’re gonna find out on Creepy Cribs!”

“We’re going to see if VampireCarter is legit, or if he’s been faking it with filters and SFX. It’s my belief that VampireCarter is a fraud. I’ve got the evidence, and now I’m getting the receipts.”

The vloggers, streamers, and tubers were all making their own videos, consulting one another on the best filters and templates, tinny music blaring into the night. They were paying absolutely no attention to the tall, elegant, dangerous figure sliding through the night toward them.

The tall iron gates keeping them out and the vampires in swung open slowly in the dark night’s mist. There was so much drama in the moment that some of the vloggers actually put their phones down for a moment and took several steps back. They were the ones with a modicum of sense, but the bolder ones surged forward, phones held up like crucifixes of old, rear cameras lit with tiny torchlight which illuminated Gideon’s unholy handsome face.

He had clothed himself in what they would have called vintage velour, a suit with clean lines and flair in equal measure. His lower legs and feet were clad in shining black boots, long, to the knee. His hair flowed around his head in a dark raven curtain, framing his deep, twisted gaze. He appeared to the Gen Z’ers as an incredibly beautiful man, so perfectly graceful and elegant they found themselves entirely ignoring the danger he represented.

Programmed to trust all things pretty, they had no inkling of the danger they were in. They had no comprehension of the incredible evil before which they stood. They were far too distracted by the trappings of majesty and power.

“Hello, children,” he purred, not bothering to ask the obvious question as to the reason of their presence.

Fenwick, @fafferspunk, took the lead. He was a handsome man in his twenties, late acne still hanging about his jaw. His hair was a garish orange and green, and he wore a t-shirt with a graphic image of his own face on it. He was self-important, narcissistic, and devoid of the charm he imagined he exuded. He smelled delicious.

“Are you Carter’s maker?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Gideon said softly. “How might I help you?”

There was still time for them to make a decision that might save their lives, and here and there, a few of the mob melted back into darkness. Gideon let them go. Only the impudent and foolish would be taken this night.

“Can we come in and see Carter?”

“Yeah! Can Carter come out to play?”

A smattering of laughter rippled through the remainder of the group. There were at least ten still left, becoming emboldened every moment something terrible did not happen to them. They were impatient, these young men and women. They had been trained by their phones to believe everything, good or bad, would manifest instantly. It did not occur to any of them that they were being lured into the den of a vicious vampire coven, mostly due to the fact they thought they were trying to get in.

“Carter cannot come to you, but we would be more than happy to invite you in for dinner.”

At this point, only the bloodiest of idiots would take up that invitation. They believed themselves to be on the trail of the internet’s most popular vampire, and Gideon, elegant and beautiful as he was, could not avoid exuding menace on the word dinner.

“What’s for dinner?”

It was a bold question, one with some modicum of intelligence. Gideon smiled and answered simply.

“A banquet.”

A little while later…

They had almost finished the last body when someone said something about it maybe not being the best idea to have killed all these people all at once.

Gideon wasn’t sure who had said such a silly thing, and he did not have the energy to investigate.

Blood drunk and satisfied for the first time in a long time, Gideon paid that comment little mind. He was reliving the glory days, when impudent villagers would inevitably find themselves on his menu. This was how it should be. This was how it was always intended to be. He was quite grateful to the fledgling for rejuvenating his interest in the world, showing him that this technology could be used to nourish.

Gideon no longer felt bored and sleepy. Instead, he felt invigorated and ironically, alive. For the first time since awaking in this cursed age of technology and collapse, he saw a path forward for himself and his kind. These little blood bags were insolent and so removed from the basic fundamentals of life, they no longer understood what it was to be human. But prey didn’t need to know it was prey in order to be delicious. In fact, these young people making themselves digitally immortal were incredibly tender and tasty, almost like veal. Soft lives made soft people, made delicious food.

Gideon looked at the scene before him. It was bloody, to be sure, but he saw a similar expression on the several dozen vampires who feasted with him. They all had the look of predators long denied proper prey. They had been very careful to stay hidden in this modern world, to keep their existence from society at large. Ancient blood feasts were long forgotten. But Gideon remembered. Gideon remembered it all.

A little over a thousand years ago….

Bright sun beat down on Gideon’s back, warming his chilled flesh. He wore a headdress of quetzal feathers, a bark band securing it to his head with a diadem of jade. His people called him king, and for that he did not destroy them. He was not hungry, however. He had not been hungry for many years thanks to the hunting prowess of the warriors raised by his generals.

Gideon, wearing the name Etzli, walked the dry space cut out of the jungle. Great erections of stone made up a city that would surely be the glory of the ages.

Pens full of fattened prisoners ready to be walked up the thousand steps to eternity. Some wailed. Some begged. Some sat silent and wide eyed, knowing what their fate would be, for they had seen the fates of hundreds of others.

On days such as these, in the wake of successful war, the sacrifices happened six times per hour, for sixteen hours a day, beginning at dawn and going until dusk. Ninety-six souls per day, all going to feed Gideon and his children.