Vivian sat up in bed with her hands pressed against her lap. The joy she’d felt earlier that night had disappeared, replaced by quiet contemplation as she processed what she’d just been told.

“Are you sure it was an illusion?”

“No,” Valen admitted, “but then again a good illusion wouldn’t feel like one.”

“And an illusion is far more plausible than a miracle,” Enid added.

“What makes you say that, Enid?” Vivian asked.

“We know for a fact that illusion magic’s a thing. People use it for special effects in the theatre all the time. But no one’s been able to cure the Divine Plague since the gods dumped it on us. When met with something unbelievable, the most plausible explanation is usually the right one.”

“Plus the High Priest guy was super sketchy,” Louise added. “Real cultish vibes.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Vivian looked at Valen. “Valen, this High Priest you saw, did he have a Necropolian accent?”

“No?” Valen felt taken aback by the odd question. “He spoke Commontongue like any other Dragonite.”

“Was he a vampire then?” Vivian continued, further baffling him. “Were you able to tell through the mask?”

“He was a bit on the pale side but I can’t say for sure. Vivian, why does that even matter?”

Vivian’s red eyes dashed between the three visitors at her bedside, though it was clear her mind was elsewhere. In the end, she let out a long sigh.

“I’d hoped I’d never have to speak of this again,” she said, “but I suppose you three have the right to know now.”

Valen felt more confused than ever, and so were Enid and Louise judging by the looks on their faces.

“Know what?”

Her blood red eyes met his. The kind smile that always graced her lips became replaced by a stern frown that quivered as if in hesitation.

“Valen, you know where our family comes from, right?”

“The Necropolis Empire,” Valen answered, figuring that she’ll answer his questions in her own time. “We left because the old emperor our family sided with was usurped, right?”

Louise furrowed her brow. “Sorry, but I think I’m a bit out of the loop here.”

“Me too,” said Enid. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“I’ll get to that,” said Vivian. “What you two need to know is that the Necropolis Empire was not a good place. It’s one of the few absolute monarchies still around. The entire ruling class is made up of vampires, as was the imperial family. Other races lived there, sure, but they were all second-class citizens to the vampire population.”

Valen still wasn’t sure where she was going but he decided to play along for the time being. “It must’ve been a hard change for you moving to Dragon’s Rest.”

Vivian let out a mirthless chuckle.

“It was jarring to go from nobility to someone who can’t even work in customer service. Still, I’m glad our mother brought us here. I hated living there even before the throne got usurped.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, hold up!” Louise looked wide-eyed at Vivian. “Did you just say you were part of the nobility?”

“That’s news to me too.” Enid turned to Valen. “Did you know this?”

“I did,” he admitted, “I just never thought it was important enough to bear mentioning.”

“It was a long time ago,” Vivian continued, “Mother was pregnant with Valen when we were in the empire but he wasn’t born there. I got to spend enough time there to never wish to see it again.” She focused her attention on Enid and Louise. “Tell me girls, have either of you ever heard of bloodcrafting?”

Valen felt his blood run cold. His back visibly stiffened at the mere mention.

Louise shrugged in her blissful ignorance. “No idea. Some sort of magic?”

Enid, who was far more educated on the topic of magic, gave a slow nod. “It’s how vampires use magic, right? Because vampires can’t generate mana they have to use their own blood to power spells instead.”

“That used to be the case,” said Vivian. “But over time it’s evolved into its own school of magic. The darkest and most taboo kind that’s outlawed here in Dragon’s Rest and spoken of in the same vein as necromancy.”

“You’ve told me about this before,” said Valen. “How a bloodcrafter can turn the blood in someone’s veins against them.”

“Bloodcrafting of that level takes a human lifetime of training. Even back in the empire its practice was reserved for the highest nobles. I’ve only seen it in action once.” Vivian’s eyes fell. The blanket on her lap shrivelled up in her grip. “There was an assassin sent to kill a member of the imperial family. The way his blood boiled out of eyes and mouth…I’ve seen bloodcrafting do impossible, unspeakable things.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Valen silently wondered if the Divine Plague had gotten to her brain yet. “What does this have to do with that High Priest curing the Divine Plague?”

Her next words hit him like a tonne of bricks.

“Bloodcrafting can heal the Divine Plague.”

The world went silent for a moment. Vivian’s words echoed over and over inside his head as Valen realised the severity of his mistake.

Louise was the first to break the silence with a quiet “Oh shit.”

“How does that even work?” Enid asked, still sceptical.

“The Divine Plague attacks the blood.” Vivian touched the black vein marks on her neck. “Advanced bloodcrafting controls blood. A skilled practitioner can cure it by separating or nullifying blood corrupted by the Divine Plague from healthy blood. I’ve never seen the process before but I’ve known Divine Plague victims who’ve been healed by bloodcrafters. I just never thought there’d be one here in Dragon’s Rest.”

“You think the High Priest was using bloodcraft?” asked Louise.

“It’s either that or illusion magic because I know from experience that praying for this to go away doesn’t work.”

“I have to go.” Valen stumbled away from the bed in a daze. “I’ll return to the chapel. Apologise for doubting them. Maybe then they’ll-”

“No.” The sound of Vivian’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “You did the right thing getting out of that chapel, Valen.”

Valen spun around in frustration. “But they could save you! Who cares if it’s by bloodcrafting?!”

“I do!” Vivian raised her voice at him for the time in what felt like forever. She seemed as shocked about it as he was and quickly composed herself. “Valen. There’s a reason why using bloodcraft to cure the Divine Plague isn’t common knowledge.”

“Because it’s illegal here and the government doesn’t want us to know about it?” he asked.

“I don’t think Dragon Rest’s government even knows about it.” Vivian looked Valen in the eye, her lips pursed in a serious frown. “Bloodcrafting is an evil art, Valen. Even more so than necromancy. Those who know its true power don’t go around talking about it. Just practising it requires the mage to put both themselves and especially others through unimaginable pain.”

“But if bloodcraft can cure the Divine Plague and some guy’s already gone through the trouble of mastering it, shouldn’t we take advantage of that?” Valen argued. “Whoever he might’ve had to hurt in order to learn it, we can make sure their sacrifices weren’t in vain by putting that skill to good use.”

Vivina shook her head.

“It’s not that simple Valen.” The light in her eyes dimmed as her mind wandered back into her distant past and her gaze fell to her lap. “I once knew a girl who had the Divine Plague. She was a human in addition to being a commoner-the worst lot you could be born with in the empire. So when a duke offered to use bloodcraft to heal her, she saw it as a miracle given unto her by the gods.”

Vivian’s breathing quickened into ragged pants. Her grip on her blanket tightened into a trembling fist. Sweat moistened her neck flushed face. The vacant panic in her eyes betrayed her mind, lost in a time and place far away from the bedroom her body was in.

Enid looked at her in concern. “Vivian?”

“You okay there?” asked Louise, too hesitant to approach her in her state lest she make things worse.

Valen rushed to her side, moving just slowly enough to not startle her.

“I’m here, Vivian,” he said, resting his hand over hers. “Just breathe. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Her breathing steadied at his touch. She released her vice grip on her blanket and sucked in a deep breath before shaking her head.

“No, you have to hear this.” She looked up at him with the faintest hint of a smile on her pale lips. “You’ve always been a good kid, Valen. I know I might not have always been the best older sister, but I’m glad I was able to help raise you right. There’s a reason why I didn’t tell you about how bloodcraft could heal the Divine Plague.”

“Why?” Valen asked though he already knew the answer.

Vivian raised her hand and cradled his cheek, her slender fingers brushing against his long black hair.

“Because I knew that if I did, you would’ve stopped at nothing to try to save me with it.”

Gods know, she was right. Even now he wished she would forget whatever happened to her in the past and get herself healed, methods be damned.

“What’s so wrong about that?”

The smile faded from her face and part of her mind wandered back into the past while Valen’s touch kept her anchored to the present.

“That girl I mentioned. The duke cured her of the Divine Plague but he didn’t do it for free. She became a maidservant for him and I started seeing her less and less. When I did, she’d always have this haunted look in her eyes and cuts all over her body that healed too quickly. She never looked the duke or any man in the eye again.”

Valen was silent as Vivian spoke. He could guess what the duke must’ve done by the way she talked. Judging by the quiet but palpable rage emanating from Enid and Louise, so could they.

After a brief pause, Vivian continued.

“Advanced bloodcrafting is all about controlling living things. Usually the control has to be taken by force, but in order to be cured of the Divine Plague, my friend had to give the duke her permission to hold dominion over her body and that bastard exploited her trust. He replaced the Divine Plague in her veins with the taint of his own blood that he could manipulate on a whim. Turned her into some less than a servant or slave. A living puppet painfully aware of her own helplessness as her master jerks her around with her own veins. She was craving death after the first year but her master wouldn’t allow it.”

“And what if it isn’t bloodcraft?” Valen went back on his own word in one last desperate attempt to save her. “What if it really is a miracle from the gods?”

A sad smile spread on Vivian’s face.

“I wish that were true, Valen.” Her gaze shifted to Enid leaning on the wall beside her. “But Enid is right. The most plausible explanation is usually the right one. That High Priest you saw was either using illusions to trick people or bloodcrafting to enslave them. Whichever it is, it’s a good thing you three got out of there quickly.”

“We can’t just leave this here though, right?” said Enid. “There’s still an entire congregation back at the chapel either eating his bullshit or offering their bodies to him.”

“Agreed,” Louise cracked her knuckles. “I say be bust in there and-”

“Or,” said Valen before she could continue, “We could call the police.”

“Oh, yeah.” Louise slumped her shoulders in disappointment. “I guess we can do that too.”

“Right. I’ll-”

The sound of the doorbell ringing cut him off mid-sentence.

Enid checked her phone for the time.

“It’s two in the bloody morning,” she said. “Who the hell would be knocking at this hour.”

“It’s the Nocturnal District,” said Louise, “Everyone here has a fucked up sleep schedule.”

“Must be the crafting supplies I ordered,” said Vivian. “I’ve been doing a lot of knitting lately. Helps take my mind off things.”

“I’ll go get it,” said Valen. “Wait for me before you call the police, yeah?”

“Do bring it up here if it’s the crafting supplies,” said Vivian as he walked out the room.

“Got it!”

Valen descended down to the dusty living room. Cockroaches scrambled into cracks in the walls at his approach. Now that Vivian was no longer going to hospice at the old cathedral, he hoped that she’d take Enid up on her offer and spend her last nights somewhere decent.

He pulled open the front door expecting to see a tired postal worker with something for him to sign.

Instead he was greeted by a teenage human in a bright green polo shirt holding a large pizza box. Strands of greasy brown hair poked out from under his red cap and pink pimples dotted the entirety of his pale face.

His car, a tiny green and yellow rental from Scrabble’s Pizza, parked a little ways away with the engine still running.

“Pizza delivery,” said the teenager.

“Sorry, sir, but there must’ve been a mistake,” said Valen. “We already got our pizza earlier tonight.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure this delivery is for you.” He opened the pizza box and reached inside. Oddly enough, Valen couldn’t smell any pizza from it. “I have the address right here, see?”

The pizza box fell away to reveal the cold metal of an open sawed off shotgun in the delivery boy’s hand. Red and gold cartridges poked out from the exposed back end of the double barrels.

The teenager snapped the shotgun close and the sound of the barrels locking shut jolted Valen out of his shock just in time to defend himself.

Valen slapped his right hand over his heart and wrapped the entirety of his left arm around his neck. He shrunk his face into his elbow to make his head as small of a target as possible.

A single thought raced through his mind.

“Protect the heart and head, you can regenerate everything else.”

A white and orange flash lit up the night before him, accompanied by a thunderous boom that sent a cluster of iron pellets straight at him.

The recoil of the blast sent the shotgun flying out of the teenager's weak grip and into his own startled face handle-first.

It would’ve been comical if Valen wasn't the one standing in front of the barrels.

He’d read first-hand accounts of people who got shot before. Most described it as painless at first due to the bullet passing through them too quickly for their mind to process what was happening.

But none of them had a vampire's heightened perception of time.

Blood so dark it was almost black sprayed out of Valen where the red-hot pellets hit.

Burning pain ripped throughout his arms and chest as they tore into his flesh. The pellets slammed to an abrupt halt upon hitting bone. Another, much sharper pain exploded across his body as his insides were pierced by the splinters of his own shattered bones.

The shockwave of the impact threatened to knock him down but he steadied himself enough through gritted fangs to instead fall into a backwards step that kept him on his feet.

Valen lowered his bloodied, shattered arm through the pain. Blood spilt from his wounds and splattered onto more dark stains on the grey carpet.

He looked at the terrified teenager who shot him, the pupils of his blood red eyes narrowing into vertical slits. The shotgun, his attacker’s only advantage, lay spent on the ground.

Judging by the two smoking barrels, Valen guessed both shots had been emptied into him.

His pale lips curled into a sneer that showed his extended fangs thirsting for blood to replace every drop gushing out of his wounds. A low, guttural growl clawed its way out of his throat.

Valen forced his right foot forward, not sure what he intended to do to his attacker but knowing he had to do something before he hurt those in the house behind him.

The teenager stumbled back on shaky feet. He fell on his arse and Valen took the opportunity to take another step forward. The effort caused the pellets inside him to shake inside his wounds and further tear into his flesh, but he refused to let it show on his snarling face.

Colour drained from the teenager’s face. He’d poured all his meagre resolve into that shotgun blast and lost the will to fight the moment it was spent.

The teenaged assassin scrambled to his feet and scurried back to his car, leaving his shotgun behind on the doorstep.

Valen kept his eyes trained on him the entire time without saying a word. His hateful glare and extended fangs were warning enough, even if they were just bluffs.

The sound of panicked footsteps crashing down the stairs behind him coincided with the roar of an engine as his shooter sped away as fast as his shitty rental car could take him.

Vivian was the first to call out to Valen.

“Valen?!” The sound of her voice was followed by a dull thud and the clattering of her walking stick on the ground.

“Viv?” Valen turned to see Vivian on her knees at the bottom of the stairs struggling to catch her breath through the black veins strangling her neck.

Enid and Louise rushed to her side to help her up. Valen took a step towards them out of instinct to help.

The world around him melted into a blur. His head grew light and his eyelids heavy.

A pellet lodged near his lung forced a bloody cough from his chest. Blackish blood filled his mouth and spewed from his lips. Somehow, it tasted even worse than a rat’s.

The solid floor felt like the deck of a ship in a storm under his wobbling legs. The already dark living room grew darker still and he suddenly found his vision plummeting to the floor.

“I got you!” cried Louise’s voice.

Valen felt a pair of furry hands hold him up. One of them pressed against a cluster of bullet holes in his chest in an attempt to keep anymore blood from spilling out.

“Get him on the table!” Enid shouted, though Valen could no longer see her apart from a bright scarlet splotch in his blurred vision. “Now!”

“Right!”

Vivian struggled to follow after Enid and Louise as they carried her brother to the kitchen that doubled as the dining room, the tip of her walking stick thumping against the floor with every frantic step.

Louise swept the cheap fake rose pot from the kitchen table and with Enid’s help managed to haul up Valen onto it.

Enid aligned his arms on his side, careful to point the bullet holes up to slow down blood loss. She tore open his bloodied dress shirt and waistcoat ran her eyes up and down the wounds on his chest.

“Most of the damage is on his arms,” she said. “Some is on his chest but it doesn’t look like it’s reached his heart.”

“He needs blood,” said Vivian in between pants. “To help his healing factor kick in.”

“Got it!” Louise went up to Valen’s head and held her furry white forearm to his mouth. “Valen! Bite me!”

Valen scrunched his nose as the day-old pizza-scented fur of Louise’s arm irritated his nose.

“You’ll just make him sneeze.” Enid scrambled to the kitchen knife rack just a few feet away. “And he might not have the strength to bite you.”

“What do we do then?!” Louise pulled her arm away and turned to see Enid holding a small curved knife meant for carving fruit. “Wait, what are you-”

Without hesitation, Enid pierced the curved tip of the knife into forearm so that it hooked her skin and slashed it down in one fluid motion. Blood trickled down from the long vertical slit she made and she hurried to Valen to not waste a drop of it.

“Put pressure on the wounds,” said Enid as she brought her self-inflicted injury up to Valen’s face. “Keep him from losing blood while he heals.”

“Alright!” Louise put her tiny hands over Valen’s wounds while Enid tried to feed him.

The sweet smell of blood flooded Valen’s nostrils and filled his mind. The powerful magic concentrated within it added a distinct fragrance that made it all the more enticing. Like a special spice added to an already delicious meal.

Saliva mixed with his own blood inside his mouth. Soft flesh pressed against his lips and the magic-scented blood flowed against his lips.

His instincts screamed at him to bite. To sink his fangs into an overflowing vein and suck it dry.

He parted his lips to allow the blood to flow down his throat but didn’t bite, even as the urge gnawed at him. He felt like a lost traveller in the desert who’d just stumbled upon an oasis, eager to quench his thirst with indulgence but knowing that doing so would cost him his life, or in his case, something much more important.

Strength returned to his body with every drop that trickled down his throat. Cracked bones set themselves into their proper place. Torn flesh stitched itself back together sinew by sinew. Breath returned to him, slowly at first then in a sudden surge when the hole in his lung closed.

His half-lidded eyes flew open. He gasped for breath only to choke on the blood Enid was feeding him. She angled her bleeding arm away from him and stroked his long black hair with her other hand.

“It’s okay Valen.” Enid’s voice sounded a lot more gentle than usual, though that might just be the blood loss still affecting him. “Just take it easy. Everything will be alright.”

She slowly pressed her forearm back against his lips. Valen gladly continued to drink from it.

His body started to physically reject the foreign objects inside it. Louise let go of his wounds as the flesh pushed the iron pellets out of his wounds.

The pellets rolled down his chest and arms, though Valen could still feel a few remain inside him. He guessed they were lodged too tight in his bones to come out on their own.

“Thank the gods you’re alright.” Vivian wiped the tears in her eyes.

Valen gently pushed Enid’s arm away from his lips, careful to not open her wound any further. His healing factor was already doing all it could do.

“Will you be alright?” He looked at the self-inflicted wound Enid made for him.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, rolling her jumper sleeves back down. “I got my own healing factor.”

“That’s good.” Valen slumped back onto the hard wooden table with a sigh that tasted of iron and gunpowder. He’d almost forgotten how much getting shot hurt.

And as he lay on the table listening to Enid call the police, he got the feeling he’d get plenty more reminders if he stayed in the Nocturnal District.