When the Vampires Came
Introduction: Many years ago, Australian spec-fic publishers Ticonderoga announced a call for Dead Red Heart (Goodreads) - vampire stories set in Australia. I immediately realised that if I was going to be serious about writing at all, I had to write for this. This was before I had sold or even donated anything.
That first story hit the wall of "what is it about?" and I started a second. The second turned out to be too tongue-in-cheek and I abandoned it.
I never submitted anything.
Years later, a friend in the Brisbane goth scene asked for newsletter submissions. I pulled out the tongue-in-cheek one, dusted it off, finished it, and offered it up.
Here it is.
That first story hit the wall of "what is it about?" and I started a second. The second turned out to be too tongue-in-cheek and I abandoned it.
I never submitted anything.
Years later, a friend in the Brisbane goth scene asked for newsletter submissions. I pulled out the tongue-in-cheek one, dusted it off, finished it, and offered it up.
Here it is.
Reality broke on a Thursday evening. So far, nobody has been able to attach any significance to that fact.
It happened in Brisbane. Nobody has been able to work out if that fact is important, either, although many people have tried and even more have made sarcastic suggestions. But they were from New South Wales, so their opinions didn't really count.
It happened in Fortitude Valley, and that didn't surprise anyone at all.
The ghouls were first. Filthy, deformed creatures, they may once have been men and women but now barely knew enough to talk to each other in broken English. They appeared after dark, without warning, hunting in packs for human flesh to eat. Many homeless people, several drunkards, a few normal drunks and two police officers were killed and messily eaten that first night, and more died in the stampede to escape. Extra police were called in and the Valley was cordoned off. Then day broke and the ghouls disappeared.
The first theories started with mass delusions and mass poisoning, but when the bodies were photographed and the first dead ghoul was discovered, ideas became wilder and covered the predictable range from genetic military experiments to divine retribution or even the death of God.
The obvious many-worlds interpretation is still a solid contender, but fantasists claiming time travel were shot down pretty quickly and survive only as another branch of conspiracy theory crackpots.
The second night, the Army came and police in riot armour surrounded the Valley. All residences in the area had been evacuated and no businesses were open, but nobody had wanted to stay anyway.
No live ghoul had been found anywhere during a frantic day of searching, and only two dead ones.
All was quiet for the first two hours after sundown.
Then the werewolves attacked.
The ghouls had been fast and vicious, but fragile, and cowardly even in groups.
The werewolves were small enough to surprise most people, closer to the weight of small men than the usual movie monsters, although still larger than real wolves. But they were shockingly fast, unnaturally strong, vicious and enraged, and tough. They attacked in the face of continuous fire, getting chopped to pieces without slowing down.
The soldiers fell so far back they had to evacuate extra premises. All the soldiers and police there that night received commendations. Many of them were posthumous.
The evening after the werewolves arrived, the Valley was caught in a ring of floodlights and steel barricades with gun ports. It was a building project nearly as fast as some of Brisbane's more infamous demolitions. The Clem Jones Tunnel underneath the Valley was also closed, but I’m not sure anyone noticed.
Saturday night began so tense the air thrummed, even the most aggressive elements of the media happy to stay almost as far back as the police were requesting.
For two hours all was quiet.
Then the vampire appeared.
It says a lot for Australian Army training that nobody pulled a trigger when he stepped out of the shadows.
He regarded the barricades and the very twitchy soldiers behind them for almost a minute before stepping forwards with a courtly bow. He apologised for things having become messy and out of hand.
"Werewolves are very undisciplined when we are not there to keep them in line," he said, but said nothing about where they had been.
The footage of that night, from TV cameras with zoom lenses - they do appear on film and in digital recordings - shows a slim man with an unlined face that looks perhaps 30 or perhaps 40, wearing a simple suit with a black waistcoat and a dark blue shirt that shimmered in the spotlights. He had long hair held in a silver clasp, and the manner of someone wearing full Victorian court dress. The footage quality is just good enough to reveal an occasional glimpse of fangs in his upper jaw, and the audio - the vampire’s voice carried unnaturally far - reveals a neutral English accent and careful enunciation.
He kept his hands loosely clasped behind him while he spoke to the highest ranking military officer present, talking pleasantly and mildly about the mass slaughter that had happened and how many more of his kind there may, or may not, be.
There is probably nobody alive who has not seen how that first conversation ended.
"All wolves will be destroyed!" The Major said. "And you will surrender your people into my custody!"
"No," the vampire said, quite pleasantly. "Those two things will not be happening."
Then he turned and walked away, to a stunned silence quickly broken by shouted orders to stop or they would shoot, moving at a normal walking pace until, quite suddenly and without any great fuss, he walked through a patch of shadow and simply wasn't there any more.
Soldiers fired anyway.
The day after the vampire spoke, there was deathly silence from inside the barricades. All water and electricity into the area was turned off.
Those with binoculars or telescopes started seeing firelight -nothing large, just candles or lanterns - flickering inside buildings. Despite the light, nobody could see shadows or movement, inside or outside.
The next day, the Army went in.
They evacuated another block all around the barricades, chased away all press - even those of us who tried to hide - and then sent in two armoured personnel carriers.
For an hour, there was silence.
Then the APCs came back out.
Then there was more silence from the authorities, for a day, before the din from frustrated journalists and angry or fearful locals became too much for the Government to handle.
The Major who gave the press conference looked as if he had run over his little daughter’s puppy.
“The patrol was ambushed,” he said very stiffly and very uncomfortably, “by werewolves, and overwhelmed. There were no injuries or casualties but all weapons were confiscated and the patrol was ordered to retreat. Under the circumstances, the officer in charge cooperated fully with this request.”
There was a barrage of questions - “What retaliation are you going to take?” “Is the RAAF going to respond?” “So werewolves can talk?” - but answering them exceeded all the patience the Major had and he handed the stage to the Premier, who looked even less happy and gave even less information.
For two days there were wild rumours flying in every direction, including the possibility that all of Brisbane would be evacuated and then carpet-bombed, and then the vampire spokesman gave a press conference.
I had been lurking around the barricade each night trying to see something, hear something or find out anything at all, attempting to justify my existence to officialdom by flashing my UQ Journalism and Communication Students membership card. It didn’t work very well and I had a very frustrating time of it, but somebody had obviously spotted me.
I was getting lunch at uni when I found an envelope in my pocket, made out of the sort of paper used for wedding invitations.
Inside the envelope was a note on the same paper, written in immaculate copperplate handwriting, inviting me to a press conference, meeting at the St Paul’s Terrace gate before 10pm that evening.
I stared at it a long time, not knowing whether to feel terrified or flattered and wondering how the hell they put it there and when, before the woman behind the counter and the queue behind me got cross with me and I had to go back to finding my wallet and paying.
When I arrived at the fence, fifteen minutes ahead of time, I found a group of deeply unhappy soldiers who insisted on stopping me and reading me a small riot act on taking my life into my own hands.
That was interesting - I hadn’t been expecting to get let through at all.
On the other side of the soldiers, the open gate was guarded by four vampires, two men and two women, all wearing impeccably tailored black suits over black silk shirts with black silk ties. Somehow, even in that weird combination of bright floodlight lighting and contrasting black shadows, the texture of each piece of black clothing was immediately obvious.
I looked carefully, but couldn’t see any earpieces on them. I also didn’t see any obvious communication between them - at any point in that entire night.
I wasn’t the first to arrive and I wasn’t the last. The vampires at the gate checked our invitations as we got there, then pointed us inside to where two more vampires - one woman, one man, both in the same black outfits - herded us together.
While we waited, I had a good opportunity to study our hosts' faces. They were both ageless without being aged. Their eyes had round pupils, but they glinted cat-like in the light from the floodlights.
Whenever any of them talked, they opened their mouths just wide enough to show a glint of fang and no wider, but their voices carried clearly through pretty much any noise no matter how loudly they spoke. It was extremely unsettling to hear.
I looked back at the female vampire’s face, and she gave me a look that on any human face would have been a blatant sexual come-on but on her face made me feel like one of my cat’s free-range rodents.
I hastily looked away and found myself staring at the male vampire, who gave me the exact same look.
Of course, being an aspiring journalist, I walked up to him and asked “Is our safety guaranteed tonight?”
There was a deathly silence from my competing colleagues.
The male vampire gave me a wider smile that showed a lot more fang.
“Your safety and well-being is absolutely guaranteed, unless you request otherwise,” he said in a velvety voice that arrived at my ears without apparently going through the air first.
From most people, I would have taken that as a joke. From him, it was possibly the strangest and most unsettling thing anybody had said since the vampires appeared.
Before I could work out what to say in response, one of the vampires at the gate called “Time!” and in two seconds the gates were shut, leaving a late journalist very red-faced and angry on the other side. I made very careful note of that. It seemed to be an insight into vampire mentality that would be worth remembering.
A third vampire materialised holding an open briefcase. I use the word “materialised” advisedly – I couldn't see where he came from, but I didn't see him appear out of thin air, either.
“As you were informed,” the female vampire purred, her voice also at just the right volume for me to hear without seeming to have been spoken loudly, “we don’t allow digital recorders or cameras of any sort on this side of your barricade. I must regretfully request that you place all of your mobile phones in this briefcase, until the end of this evening’s conference.”
I could sense definite resistance to that idea from my colleagues, but nobody wanted to be left out. There was a flurry of movement and unlocking of screens and turning off and then a brief crowding around the vampire with the briefcase, but not too close. I wondered how five different iPhones were going to be returned to the right people. At least my Nokia was rare and geeky enough to be distinctive.
We were lead into the heart of the Valley, walking by the light of old-style hurricane lanterns held high by our escorts. I was pretty sure they were the $15 ones sold in any of the Valley’s many budget shops. I also smelled citronella from the lamp oil which, given Brisbane's mosquito population, was either for their benefit or a very considerate touch for ours. I nearly drove myself mad trying to work out which. What happened to a mosquito that drank vampire blood? Could a mosquito drink vampire blood? Did they have circulating blood?
The complete absence of other people would normally have been enjoyable, but during that walk it added to the feeling of spookiness. There was occasional movement on the fringes of our vision, but nothing I could ever pin down.
By the time we had gone two blocks, I could sense a definite twitchiness from one or two of my colleagues. Another couple gave off a sense of being sick of the theatrics. I had managed to convince myself that since I was committed to this I may as well be having fun, and was composing different openings in my head.
We ended up at The Church nightclub, on Warner St, which must have been a pointed message to us. Yes, for those who don’t know, it’s in an old church. The message seemed to be pretty clear - you don’t know us. Don’t underestimate us.
I had never been inside The Church, but I could tell there had been remodelling.
Candles and cheap hurricane lanterns filled the room, making it almost oppressively warm. The main bar was empty except for a round table with a half-moon row of comfortable chairs on one side and a baroque armchair facing them. I did a quick count - there was one chair for each of us. Not one for each of us and the journalist who hadn’t made it in time - one for each of us present.
A vampire in a less sinister but not less tailored suit took drinks orders. I steered clear of alcohol and asked for coffee while every student instinct in my body screamed at me to take advantage of the free stuff while it was being offered. Most of my colleagues took advantage.
It took me a minute to wonder how they were intending to make coffee or pour cold drinks if there hadn't been any electricity for a day. I certainly couldn't hear a generator running.
I was still wondering when the drinks arrived.
It was the best coffee I had ever tasted.
I was still staring at my cup in shock when the woman next to me jumped and I looked up quickly to see the vampire spokesman sitting in the armchair.
His hands were folded on the table and his young-old face carried an expression of infinite patience and slight amusement. This time, his shirt was red satin. He wore rings on two fingers of each hand, all of them intricate, large and apparently extremely old - Celtic pre-Christian old. I had a strong suspicion they had only ever had one owner.
There was a glass in front of him. It looked very much like blood, but I was sure that was just for the effect and it was actually wine. Mostly sure. I carefully sniffed, and couldn't detect any coppery notes.
He waited until we were all staring at him before speaking. Getting a group of journalists to shut up for that long went beyond impressive and into the realms of creepy.
“Welcome,” the vampire said in his velvety voice. “I have invited you here to tell you what our intentions are. Your politicians have not been amenable to a meeting, but thankfully this Australia has an ostensibly free press.”
I filed away the “ostensibly” for later, and then filed away “this Australia” as well - the many-worlds idea was looking better. I also noticed, finally, that if I closed my eyes I couldn't tell where his voice was coming from. Tigers in jungles are supposed to be able to pull off that trick. The comparison did not escape me.
“I do hope you’ll take notes,” he continued, a little pointedly. We had all been frozen until he said that.
At least we all already had our notebooks open in front of us, and there was no embarrassing scramble.
“I am so glad none of you decided to try and sneak in a digital recorder. I am a traditionalist in this regard."
How did he know?
“I believe we can dispense with this charade of candles, as romantic as they may be.”
He waved a hand in the air and the electric lights turned on. By twisting in my seat, I could see them turning on in surrounding buildings, the streetlights joining them. I couldn’t see the traffic lights on the intersection.
“We had been told,” an older man to my right said abruptly while I was still forming a question, “that the entire Valley had been isolated and there was no electricity.”
“Oh, they assuredly did,” the vampire replied, showing a little more fang. “But we have our own resources.
“But where are my manners? I am Drustan Cadeyrn, and I am considerably older than the language we are now speaking. So are many of my colleagues. I say this merely to point out that we have had considerable time to observe human society, and we do not make decisions lightly.
“Yes, we are vampires. Yes, the first creatures you met were ghouls and the second, werewolves. No, you do not know all about us based upon those labels. I do not intend to enlighten you too much, but I will say that religious iconography and paraphernalia are merely quaint icons of bygone superstitions, and I personally have not needed to kill to feed in a little over 400 years. We would not have survived as long as we have without the ability to find willing donors.
“So: We are, now, here. That is interesting, even intriguing, and we are considering the consequences of that fact most carefully. We do not, I regret to say, understand it yet, but expect to get closer in time.
“We are not going away. The circumstances of our arrival were regrettable. When we are able to open diplomatic discussions with your government, we hope to discuss reparations for those who died before we were able to restore order.
“But we are not going away. Since we arrived here, in Fortitude Valley, we are going to base ourselves here. We are now the owners and landlords. In time we hope to welcome most businesses back, and will not alter rental arrangements too much.
“There will of course be resistance to the idea of us taking possession of this much real estate.” His smile, which had been implacably assertive, became sinister. “We suggest that anyone who has issues, ask the Aboriginal community how to deal with them.”
His smile morphed to welcoming again.
“It is not our policy to withdraw from all contact with humans. We appreciate that you, being in the majority, have built this country and its economic structures, and we will participate. We will respect your laws in all our dealings with you, but we will run our own society by our own laws. The best analogy is Vatican City. We will operate as a diplomatic mission with free economic activity.”
His smile became assertive again, but without losing any touch of warmth. “I am sure you will raise all sorts of objections based upon the presence of your - really quite well-trained, credit where credit is due - Army, or your Air Force. Understand that we have been playing at human politics since before humans realised they had politics, and you have seen evidence of our ability to defend ourselves against what we see as racially motivated violence from members of your armed services. We would really rather negotiate for an outcome that is beneficial to us both.”
Charm radiated off his face, almost making the presence of his fangs fade into irrelevance.
“Now,” he said warmly. “What would you like to ask? One at a time, please.”
That was how the vampires came.
It happened in Brisbane. Nobody has been able to work out if that fact is important, either, although many people have tried and even more have made sarcastic suggestions. But they were from New South Wales, so their opinions didn't really count.
It happened in Fortitude Valley, and that didn't surprise anyone at all.
The ghouls were first. Filthy, deformed creatures, they may once have been men and women but now barely knew enough to talk to each other in broken English. They appeared after dark, without warning, hunting in packs for human flesh to eat. Many homeless people, several drunkards, a few normal drunks and two police officers were killed and messily eaten that first night, and more died in the stampede to escape. Extra police were called in and the Valley was cordoned off. Then day broke and the ghouls disappeared.
The first theories started with mass delusions and mass poisoning, but when the bodies were photographed and the first dead ghoul was discovered, ideas became wilder and covered the predictable range from genetic military experiments to divine retribution or even the death of God.
The obvious many-worlds interpretation is still a solid contender, but fantasists claiming time travel were shot down pretty quickly and survive only as another branch of conspiracy theory crackpots.
The second night, the Army came and police in riot armour surrounded the Valley. All residences in the area had been evacuated and no businesses were open, but nobody had wanted to stay anyway.
No live ghoul had been found anywhere during a frantic day of searching, and only two dead ones.
All was quiet for the first two hours after sundown.
Then the werewolves attacked.
The ghouls had been fast and vicious, but fragile, and cowardly even in groups.
The werewolves were small enough to surprise most people, closer to the weight of small men than the usual movie monsters, although still larger than real wolves. But they were shockingly fast, unnaturally strong, vicious and enraged, and tough. They attacked in the face of continuous fire, getting chopped to pieces without slowing down.
The soldiers fell so far back they had to evacuate extra premises. All the soldiers and police there that night received commendations. Many of them were posthumous.
The evening after the werewolves arrived, the Valley was caught in a ring of floodlights and steel barricades with gun ports. It was a building project nearly as fast as some of Brisbane's more infamous demolitions. The Clem Jones Tunnel underneath the Valley was also closed, but I’m not sure anyone noticed.
Saturday night began so tense the air thrummed, even the most aggressive elements of the media happy to stay almost as far back as the police were requesting.
For two hours all was quiet.
Then the vampire appeared.
It says a lot for Australian Army training that nobody pulled a trigger when he stepped out of the shadows.
He regarded the barricades and the very twitchy soldiers behind them for almost a minute before stepping forwards with a courtly bow. He apologised for things having become messy and out of hand.
"Werewolves are very undisciplined when we are not there to keep them in line," he said, but said nothing about where they had been.
The footage of that night, from TV cameras with zoom lenses - they do appear on film and in digital recordings - shows a slim man with an unlined face that looks perhaps 30 or perhaps 40, wearing a simple suit with a black waistcoat and a dark blue shirt that shimmered in the spotlights. He had long hair held in a silver clasp, and the manner of someone wearing full Victorian court dress. The footage quality is just good enough to reveal an occasional glimpse of fangs in his upper jaw, and the audio - the vampire’s voice carried unnaturally far - reveals a neutral English accent and careful enunciation.
He kept his hands loosely clasped behind him while he spoke to the highest ranking military officer present, talking pleasantly and mildly about the mass slaughter that had happened and how many more of his kind there may, or may not, be.
There is probably nobody alive who has not seen how that first conversation ended.
"All wolves will be destroyed!" The Major said. "And you will surrender your people into my custody!"
"No," the vampire said, quite pleasantly. "Those two things will not be happening."
Then he turned and walked away, to a stunned silence quickly broken by shouted orders to stop or they would shoot, moving at a normal walking pace until, quite suddenly and without any great fuss, he walked through a patch of shadow and simply wasn't there any more.
Soldiers fired anyway.
The day after the vampire spoke, there was deathly silence from inside the barricades. All water and electricity into the area was turned off.
Those with binoculars or telescopes started seeing firelight -nothing large, just candles or lanterns - flickering inside buildings. Despite the light, nobody could see shadows or movement, inside or outside.
The next day, the Army went in.
They evacuated another block all around the barricades, chased away all press - even those of us who tried to hide - and then sent in two armoured personnel carriers.
For an hour, there was silence.
Then the APCs came back out.
Then there was more silence from the authorities, for a day, before the din from frustrated journalists and angry or fearful locals became too much for the Government to handle.
The Major who gave the press conference looked as if he had run over his little daughter’s puppy.
“The patrol was ambushed,” he said very stiffly and very uncomfortably, “by werewolves, and overwhelmed. There were no injuries or casualties but all weapons were confiscated and the patrol was ordered to retreat. Under the circumstances, the officer in charge cooperated fully with this request.”
There was a barrage of questions - “What retaliation are you going to take?” “Is the RAAF going to respond?” “So werewolves can talk?” - but answering them exceeded all the patience the Major had and he handed the stage to the Premier, who looked even less happy and gave even less information.
For two days there were wild rumours flying in every direction, including the possibility that all of Brisbane would be evacuated and then carpet-bombed, and then the vampire spokesman gave a press conference.
I had been lurking around the barricade each night trying to see something, hear something or find out anything at all, attempting to justify my existence to officialdom by flashing my UQ Journalism and Communication Students membership card. It didn’t work very well and I had a very frustrating time of it, but somebody had obviously spotted me.
I was getting lunch at uni when I found an envelope in my pocket, made out of the sort of paper used for wedding invitations.
Inside the envelope was a note on the same paper, written in immaculate copperplate handwriting, inviting me to a press conference, meeting at the St Paul’s Terrace gate before 10pm that evening.
I stared at it a long time, not knowing whether to feel terrified or flattered and wondering how the hell they put it there and when, before the woman behind the counter and the queue behind me got cross with me and I had to go back to finding my wallet and paying.
When I arrived at the fence, fifteen minutes ahead of time, I found a group of deeply unhappy soldiers who insisted on stopping me and reading me a small riot act on taking my life into my own hands.
That was interesting - I hadn’t been expecting to get let through at all.
On the other side of the soldiers, the open gate was guarded by four vampires, two men and two women, all wearing impeccably tailored black suits over black silk shirts with black silk ties. Somehow, even in that weird combination of bright floodlight lighting and contrasting black shadows, the texture of each piece of black clothing was immediately obvious.
I looked carefully, but couldn’t see any earpieces on them. I also didn’t see any obvious communication between them - at any point in that entire night.
I wasn’t the first to arrive and I wasn’t the last. The vampires at the gate checked our invitations as we got there, then pointed us inside to where two more vampires - one woman, one man, both in the same black outfits - herded us together.
While we waited, I had a good opportunity to study our hosts' faces. They were both ageless without being aged. Their eyes had round pupils, but they glinted cat-like in the light from the floodlights.
Whenever any of them talked, they opened their mouths just wide enough to show a glint of fang and no wider, but their voices carried clearly through pretty much any noise no matter how loudly they spoke. It was extremely unsettling to hear.
I looked back at the female vampire’s face, and she gave me a look that on any human face would have been a blatant sexual come-on but on her face made me feel like one of my cat’s free-range rodents.
I hastily looked away and found myself staring at the male vampire, who gave me the exact same look.
Of course, being an aspiring journalist, I walked up to him and asked “Is our safety guaranteed tonight?”
There was a deathly silence from my competing colleagues.
The male vampire gave me a wider smile that showed a lot more fang.
“Your safety and well-being is absolutely guaranteed, unless you request otherwise,” he said in a velvety voice that arrived at my ears without apparently going through the air first.
From most people, I would have taken that as a joke. From him, it was possibly the strangest and most unsettling thing anybody had said since the vampires appeared.
Before I could work out what to say in response, one of the vampires at the gate called “Time!” and in two seconds the gates were shut, leaving a late journalist very red-faced and angry on the other side. I made very careful note of that. It seemed to be an insight into vampire mentality that would be worth remembering.
A third vampire materialised holding an open briefcase. I use the word “materialised” advisedly – I couldn't see where he came from, but I didn't see him appear out of thin air, either.
“As you were informed,” the female vampire purred, her voice also at just the right volume for me to hear without seeming to have been spoken loudly, “we don’t allow digital recorders or cameras of any sort on this side of your barricade. I must regretfully request that you place all of your mobile phones in this briefcase, until the end of this evening’s conference.”
I could sense definite resistance to that idea from my colleagues, but nobody wanted to be left out. There was a flurry of movement and unlocking of screens and turning off and then a brief crowding around the vampire with the briefcase, but not too close. I wondered how five different iPhones were going to be returned to the right people. At least my Nokia was rare and geeky enough to be distinctive.
We were lead into the heart of the Valley, walking by the light of old-style hurricane lanterns held high by our escorts. I was pretty sure they were the $15 ones sold in any of the Valley’s many budget shops. I also smelled citronella from the lamp oil which, given Brisbane's mosquito population, was either for their benefit or a very considerate touch for ours. I nearly drove myself mad trying to work out which. What happened to a mosquito that drank vampire blood? Could a mosquito drink vampire blood? Did they have circulating blood?
The complete absence of other people would normally have been enjoyable, but during that walk it added to the feeling of spookiness. There was occasional movement on the fringes of our vision, but nothing I could ever pin down.
By the time we had gone two blocks, I could sense a definite twitchiness from one or two of my colleagues. Another couple gave off a sense of being sick of the theatrics. I had managed to convince myself that since I was committed to this I may as well be having fun, and was composing different openings in my head.
We ended up at The Church nightclub, on Warner St, which must have been a pointed message to us. Yes, for those who don’t know, it’s in an old church. The message seemed to be pretty clear - you don’t know us. Don’t underestimate us.
I had never been inside The Church, but I could tell there had been remodelling.
Candles and cheap hurricane lanterns filled the room, making it almost oppressively warm. The main bar was empty except for a round table with a half-moon row of comfortable chairs on one side and a baroque armchair facing them. I did a quick count - there was one chair for each of us. Not one for each of us and the journalist who hadn’t made it in time - one for each of us present.
A vampire in a less sinister but not less tailored suit took drinks orders. I steered clear of alcohol and asked for coffee while every student instinct in my body screamed at me to take advantage of the free stuff while it was being offered. Most of my colleagues took advantage.
It took me a minute to wonder how they were intending to make coffee or pour cold drinks if there hadn't been any electricity for a day. I certainly couldn't hear a generator running.
I was still wondering when the drinks arrived.
It was the best coffee I had ever tasted.
I was still staring at my cup in shock when the woman next to me jumped and I looked up quickly to see the vampire spokesman sitting in the armchair.
His hands were folded on the table and his young-old face carried an expression of infinite patience and slight amusement. This time, his shirt was red satin. He wore rings on two fingers of each hand, all of them intricate, large and apparently extremely old - Celtic pre-Christian old. I had a strong suspicion they had only ever had one owner.
There was a glass in front of him. It looked very much like blood, but I was sure that was just for the effect and it was actually wine. Mostly sure. I carefully sniffed, and couldn't detect any coppery notes.
He waited until we were all staring at him before speaking. Getting a group of journalists to shut up for that long went beyond impressive and into the realms of creepy.
“Welcome,” the vampire said in his velvety voice. “I have invited you here to tell you what our intentions are. Your politicians have not been amenable to a meeting, but thankfully this Australia has an ostensibly free press.”
I filed away the “ostensibly” for later, and then filed away “this Australia” as well - the many-worlds idea was looking better. I also noticed, finally, that if I closed my eyes I couldn't tell where his voice was coming from. Tigers in jungles are supposed to be able to pull off that trick. The comparison did not escape me.
“I do hope you’ll take notes,” he continued, a little pointedly. We had all been frozen until he said that.
At least we all already had our notebooks open in front of us, and there was no embarrassing scramble.
“I am so glad none of you decided to try and sneak in a digital recorder. I am a traditionalist in this regard."
How did he know?
“I believe we can dispense with this charade of candles, as romantic as they may be.”
He waved a hand in the air and the electric lights turned on. By twisting in my seat, I could see them turning on in surrounding buildings, the streetlights joining them. I couldn’t see the traffic lights on the intersection.
“We had been told,” an older man to my right said abruptly while I was still forming a question, “that the entire Valley had been isolated and there was no electricity.”
“Oh, they assuredly did,” the vampire replied, showing a little more fang. “But we have our own resources.
“But where are my manners? I am Drustan Cadeyrn, and I am considerably older than the language we are now speaking. So are many of my colleagues. I say this merely to point out that we have had considerable time to observe human society, and we do not make decisions lightly.
“Yes, we are vampires. Yes, the first creatures you met were ghouls and the second, werewolves. No, you do not know all about us based upon those labels. I do not intend to enlighten you too much, but I will say that religious iconography and paraphernalia are merely quaint icons of bygone superstitions, and I personally have not needed to kill to feed in a little over 400 years. We would not have survived as long as we have without the ability to find willing donors.
“So: We are, now, here. That is interesting, even intriguing, and we are considering the consequences of that fact most carefully. We do not, I regret to say, understand it yet, but expect to get closer in time.
“We are not going away. The circumstances of our arrival were regrettable. When we are able to open diplomatic discussions with your government, we hope to discuss reparations for those who died before we were able to restore order.
“But we are not going away. Since we arrived here, in Fortitude Valley, we are going to base ourselves here. We are now the owners and landlords. In time we hope to welcome most businesses back, and will not alter rental arrangements too much.
“There will of course be resistance to the idea of us taking possession of this much real estate.” His smile, which had been implacably assertive, became sinister. “We suggest that anyone who has issues, ask the Aboriginal community how to deal with them.”
His smile morphed to welcoming again.
“It is not our policy to withdraw from all contact with humans. We appreciate that you, being in the majority, have built this country and its economic structures, and we will participate. We will respect your laws in all our dealings with you, but we will run our own society by our own laws. The best analogy is Vatican City. We will operate as a diplomatic mission with free economic activity.”
His smile became assertive again, but without losing any touch of warmth. “I am sure you will raise all sorts of objections based upon the presence of your - really quite well-trained, credit where credit is due - Army, or your Air Force. Understand that we have been playing at human politics since before humans realised they had politics, and you have seen evidence of our ability to defend ourselves against what we see as racially motivated violence from members of your armed services. We would really rather negotiate for an outcome that is beneficial to us both.”
Charm radiated off his face, almost making the presence of his fangs fade into irrelevance.
“Now,” he said warmly. “What would you like to ask? One at a time, please.”
That was how the vampires came.
