When a vampire is made, the human is drained of all vital blood. Normally, this is just over twenty percent of the total blood volume—enough to keep them alive, perhaps listening and even seeing, depending on the individual's prior health. Then, the human must imbibe about three to five percent of the vampire's blood. Again, the ratio depends on the person; every snowflake is unique.
The blood of a vampire is so potent that it has the supernatural ability to repair and restore. The recipient should remain on bed rest for at least thirty-six to forty-eight hours, or the change will not hold. The body could die if they do not. Even if they are revived with human donor blood, they will most likely still change over the next week. When we change someone, we adhere strictly to this process to reduce suffering. In the early days, the agony was so intense that only fifteen to twenty percent would survive the transformation. This is why many movie vampires are young; we had to use youth for the higher survival rate.
The Potency of Fluids
With that said, all the fluid from a vampire is potent. Each secretion possesses unique properties:
Saliva: Can induce sleep in high doses.
Tears: Act like a stimulant. They cause the body to retain an abnormally high level of oxygen and release adrenaline.
Pulmonary Fluid: Can numb like Novocaine or be used as a focused poison.
Semen: A very powerful narcotic, though never fatal. On a human body, it has the same effect as speedballing—a mix of heroin and cocaine—pushing past standard tolerance levels. The narcotic speeds and numbs, while the sedative relaxes and may induce sleep. The more you take, the more you crave, and the less you feel like you are on anything at all.
Secretions from a female vampire are very similar but not nearly as strong. I won't even get into what urine does.
After Sera and I spent the night together, I placed her into one of our cars. I had Johnny, the funny black gentleman who works the club door with Chad, take her to her mother's house. He was instructed to put her in a safe, quiet spot to sleep off the night she had with me at the club and at home.
She should wake up believing that what we did was little more than a dream. This way, she can continue living her life. But she will also have an unconscious pull to this club and to me. Like a sleeper agent living with Kyle. There is a better-than-average chance that our night together will have satisfied what she was missing. She will be content for at least a few years.
A Coven to Deal With
In the early part of the evening, I was informed that a very aggressive coven of witches was making noise from a suburb on the north side of the city. One of our familiars reported that they have been traveling to other towns. They raise bodies to act as slaves and harvest pieces for spells and potions. This is something we cannot allow. When bodies start to go missing, the first place authorities check is the underground communities—which means my club. The second is Satanists. Next, they jump to vampires nesting in the area. Again, that means my club. Eventually, someone will show up at my door, looking too closely. I do not like the attention.
It is tolerable when it is just local cowboys. But when law enforcement or government agencies get involved, things become messy. I have had to move before because of situations like this. I have a spot now that I truly like, and I will fight for it. What I fight for, my girls will fight for. I love them to death. But when they get emotionally involved with a personal issue, they truly unleash chaos. What do they say? A woman scorned, and so on and so forth.
The Trip to Elmcrest
I told Chad to let everyone know that the B-squad would run the club tonight. Chad will drive, and I will be taking Jade along for this one. She possesses perfect foresight—able to see physical attacks and weaknesses I cannot always perceive. The three of us climbed into the "whip" and began the two-hour drive to Elmcrest—a yuppie, Betamax paradise.
If you make mid-to-high six figures and want to marry a woman you can submit to, this is the place to be. Nothing but women with overinflated senses of accomplishment. Low-T men talking about how many women they pretended to have in college. Even when I was human, people like this made me sick. They make more money than they need, help only themselves, and spend most of their money on additions, repairs, and other things they should be able to do themselves.
You have people making ten dollars an hour, slaving away for eighty hours a week. Meanwhile, these people put in their forty hours—working maybe ten of those—and pull in $800,000 a year.
Jade was born for this type of conflict. Taking out suburban white women who brag about how much they hate themselves, yet feel the need to access the dark arts for an edge. Her freckles had vanished beneath the red flush of her rage. We had only just pulled into town.
I brushed my hand softly against her cheek and said, "Easy, my love. Save that energy for when we find these people. Cannot have you blowing your load in the can. I do not want to see you wasted when we find them." She looked at me with aggression, but once our eyes met emotionally, she began to breathe deeper and slower. She gave me a half-grin and blinked slowly, showing me she had ceded to my emotional stability.
"How far we gotta go into this place to find them, Daddy?" she asked.
I told her, "Should be closer to the center of town. Just let Chad do the driving. He will signal us when we are getting close."
After a few more miles, Chad rapped his fingers on the dash and pointed out the window. We slowly pulled into a cemetery. Chad drove up to a giant mausoleum and shut the car off.
The Confrontation with the Witches
Chad cuts the engine beside a giant mausoleum. The headlights die, leaving only the moonlight stretching across the stones. We step out together, the sound of our boots against gravel lost under the low hum of energy ahead.
Chad moves a few paces in front of us, head tilted like he can hear through the soil. The tension in the air thickens as we round several rows of graves. That's when we see them — six women standing in a circle, their voices rising and falling like waves.
The one leading the chant stands on our side of the circle. The oldest of them, gray‑streaked hair and a necklace clutched tight in her fist, anchors the far left. Between them, power moves like static, the air pulsing with rhythm.
We close the distance — maybe thirty feet — fast, deliberate, silent. They're not oblivious. They feel us before they see us. The chanting stutters for half a heartbeat as their instincts scream danger. Then the oldest woman reacts.
Her hand tightens around the object at her neck, and light detonates from her closed fist. The blast hits Chad dead center. He's thrown back forty feet, slamming into a headstone hard enough to crack it in two. Smoke curls from his jacket.
That's enough to pull every witch's attention our way.
I move — the world drops into slow motion. Shadows bend with me, and I become the darkness itself, closing the gap toward the chanting witch. I mean to tear through their circle, to break whatever working they've built—
—and then the world punches back.
Five feet from the coven, I collide with something unseen. The impact is brutal, a ripple of purple‑white energy exploding out from the point of contact. I'm thrown backward, landing hard beside Jade. The air tastes like iron and burnt ozone.
A shield. They already had one up.
Jade, not wanting to make the same error I had just made, ran up to the threshold of the barrier. She moved slowly across the line and grabbed the woman who had been speaking, her movements fluid and controlled despite the lingering hum of magic in the air.
The old lady tried to send another surge — a violent flash of green-and-black energy meant to knock Jade away from her leader. The surge struck the witch full-on. The impact threw her backward into Jade, and the two of them crashed to the ground right beside me, dirt and small stones spraying in every direction.
The witch did not move — easily unconscious. Jade bent down and lifted her with ease, like a bird snatching up a tiny dog. The casual flick of movement as the witch dangled limply in her grasp.
We found our footing and sprinted for the car parked a good three hundred yards away. The witch hung limp between us, her body weightless in Jade's hands, and the air was still vibrating with residual magic. We piled in and slammed the doors, the metallic clang echoing sharply in the night.
Chad left a calling card in the landscape as the engine roared to life. The car jerked forward, feeding all five hundred horses at once. The surge of motion pinned us deep into the seats, our bodies pressed into the leather as the tires tore across loose gravel. The world outside streaked past in a blur of muted green trees and darkened tombstones. We tore out of the cemetery and away from that cursed town — for now, at least.
It would not be the first or the last time we clashed with that coven. I only hoped Kara and her idol hobby had yielded more fruit than I expected over these past few years.