The vampire's meeting

Life is but a dream. We take it for granted at times. But what if I told you my life might be a lot longer than yours. I have lived for over a century now, and even though my colleagues are much older than me, I take their wisdom in stride. Now you might be thinking what does this half to do with the library. I am getting there.

I am a vampire you see, and we hold our meetings and federations in unused libraries within our communities. We are very prominent in our communities on many foundations, charities, even have our own homes. No, we don't live in caves or seek out women of the night. But we do drink blood and we do need it to survive. But we like to get our pickings from the slums and low lives of the earth.

Now, why do we have meetings and especially in a place like a library? We rent the space and call it a charity meeting, the mortals don't suspect this.

I got dressed in a lavish dress, kissing my mortal unaware husband good night as I took my red purse with me. I had a mortal husband who was unaware of who I was. I got away with this as much as I could as I truly did love that man. I am a night nurse at our local ICU ward at a prominent hospital. I sleep during the day and wake up at 5:00 pm when the sun sets but sometimes it is earlier and sometimes it is later. It depends on the day of the year. 

My husband works at an accounting firm and I always have dinner ready for him, homemade, even though I cannot eat it for certain terms of my contract with death. We have a happy marriage and now that we are ten years in he wants kids. I have told him we should adopt. But also I am afraid that as I get older he will be suspicious of me and soon I will have to tell him.

I remember the day I married him. It was the best day of my life but bittersweet because of why I had to become a vampire. It was that or die with a twist of deceit. 

I have been a vampire since 1818. I was 19 years old, just shy of getting married to some farmer with a long beard. I told my father no, that I didn't want to marry a man who hurt people. My father, in the old south, was a brutal man, a wife-beater, and a kisser to the lads of the current council. He told me I will or I will suffer the consequences. I told him no that I will just run away. He snapped and at that moment he took me and broke me till I was a pile of bones and mush. A vampire in the area came and saved me. He bit me and turned me into this powerful creature. It took a week for the transformation but he saved my life and I went back and burnt my father's place down leaving him with nothing. He tried to attack me, but he was my first feast.

"Honey bean, you lost in thought tonight?" He asked cuddling into me as he kissed my lips, so sweet.

"Yes sorry, I'll be home in the morning. I have work after my meeting." I replied rather quickly.

"How is the charity coming along?" He asked loosening his tie as he kicked off his fake leather shoes.

I smiled as I put a glass of fine wine in his hand kissing his cheek. He smiled as I sat next to him for a second making sure my efforts were human-like. I did have red eyes. I admit that. But he doesn't notice that much. Our photos are hard to talk about. He thinks that there is a curse that none of them come out, just of him. I have too much dignity to tell him the truth just yet.

"Going well, we finally made efforts with the local youth addiction centers." I lied to him, which broke my heart.

"Well, someday I want to go to this late at night function." He assured me as I slowly leaned into him laying softly on his shoulder. 

"Sweetie, you know the charity is limited and besides, my friends are old fuddy-duddies." I laughed, giggling half-heartedly.

"It's all women, right?" He asked gently, trusting me.

"Yes, sir- ritos auto square," I assured as we both laughed.

I slowly got back up realizing the time. I decided I would drive there while the others 

"And that is why I love you. Have a nice shift at work babe and tomorrow let's go out to dinner.

"We can always go out to dinner why not a lovely hike tomorrow night.

"Lovely idea. Bye pumpkin," He said slowly nodding off on the couch with his wine glass in his hand.

I sighed opening and closing the door behind me. It was a short run for me to get there. But I was trying not to have the issue of him questioning why I walked there last time. I told him it was just twenty minutes, but he said it was odd as it was late at night and some people might be out and about. Since 1818, the world I knew and well half loved- half loathed was destroyed, gone to the acidity of modern politics.

I turned the car over and was there at the library within ten minutes. The lights to the library were off but I know that was just the look of the outer tier.

I walked in and small candlelight was on the table surrounded by the company of vampires who were catching up with each other. There were men in our group, including a young-looking old vampire that was my creator and mentor, Marius Alin Dragomir, of the royal Romanian bloodline.

I sat next to him hugging him. we chatted amongst ourselves waiting for the meeting to start.

"Rose, how you doing with your husband?" He asked as he sipped on a pint of blood from a blood bag

"He is well, doesn't suspect a thing," I replied listlessly. 

"Well, you should know the vampire council and king of vampires will be here tonight. And they don't know of you with a mortal." I imparted to him as I hugged another vampire who was from my neighborhood.

"I'll keep it on the down-low," I whispered unsettled by this.

It was quite worrisome that the council was coming. They never interfered with our meetings. And to me, that was quite unsettling. The council is like your government. They are our government that oversees and ensures compliance with vampire laws and regulations. The king demands compliance and writes the laws as well as works with the council to ensure that our secrets are safe and that as a community and as our own governing body we are safe from the mortal world.

The meeting started quickly after that. The leader of our council, a quite young vampire named Margaret Devereaux started us off.

"Welcome everyone. As always we must start this meeting at 8 pm sharp, which we know the second it starts. Today as always we start with any sightings, anything recommended, or anything that is an issue in your communities, we will start with Mr. Dragomir, you have the stand." Margaret regarded simply as she pointed to Dragomir who nodded standing up.

"Hello everyone, well as the oldest vampire. I want to thank you that I have heard nothing of recent. No disappearings as of late and no vampire sightings. But I do have a couple of concerns before I get to pass the torch to my change-ling. We have seen that there is an increase in well mysterious bite marks on innocents. As you know as a group our policies, we never go after the innocents. We rather pick off those that harm than the ones that did nothing. And these have not been killings. Keep on high alert as this can be a showing sign for the authorities to look into these things. And also I want you all to get out into your communities and do something. This is not a club, but a sanction of the vampire line. We must coexist with humans whether we like it or not. And there are humans out there that have excellent clubs that are late night, join one along with your jobs and maybe even charity work for people. We want to be known more than a fake charity group, don't we, but that is all.

I applauded him as we all did and slowly stood up.

"Well as you all know that there has been a lot of intimidation from the underground vampire network and that is concerning as these vampires could expose the idea of us. We need to keep track of and hope that they don't as one can start a domino effect. And lastly, we also are having community days upcoming in the summer months. We need to start patrolling these areas to well actually start to make our communities safer. That is all." I exclaimed happily.

I heard as the door opened violently as we all turned our heads. We all stood up and bowed to the king and the council. I slowly sat back down.

"I love that idea, we should be patroling ensuring that our communities are safe for the innocents." The king said as he paused quietly talking to Margret, the chairman, and leader of our vampire community.

Margaret stood up as she offered her chair, he obliged. 

"You might be wondering what I am doing here. Well, I have a couple of questions as well, first, why hold it in this library after hours." He snarled a bit.

"It is much safer your honor." Dragomir snarled back.

It was the most hot-headed I had seen Dragomir, the name he liked to go by as he said Marius was too woke for him.

"Well amuse me with why it is safe." The king tested, speaking directly to Dragomir. 

"The library is close to all of us. This is a meeting point for us and we know that all of us will know to come here if there is a serious issue and that we need to up and leave." He spoke softly as he pointed to the rows and rows of books filled with mortal literature.

He sat coldly staring at all of us.

"Well, I see the reasoning for it. Well, I came with the council to bring up the issues we are facing in your communities. I have a couple to say. There has been a recent case of vampire sightings in the nearby town of Paradise. There are also alleged acts of crossing the threshold of marrying a mortal, against the laws of man and vampire. And this library, a claim to the mortals is not appropriate in my opinion for a meeting amongst our kind." The king shouted manically.

"Your honor, if I may talk to you and the council." I phrased standing up to stare at him. I had only met the king once and I knew him as a brutish man with no thought in his vampire's brain.

"You may," He warned

"Well this place is our home your honor and I get that a library is an unusual place for a vampire. But we love it here and this place we come to engage in the mortal's ways. We also think as a community of vampires we need to engage with them rather than be against them." I responded powerfully. 

"What is your name changeling." He asked softly staring at all of us.

"It is Rose your honor, and also I have been far from a changeling. I am 222 years old your honor, and I believe we as a meeting work well with the meeting, but we need to up our game, as vampires and as citizens of this community." I repeated staring at him with darker red eyes than the amethyst ones I had before.

He paused as he slowly talked with his council lightly. He stood up and bowed to us stopping at the door for a second.

"I will take that into account and jurisdiction. Well, have a good day my vampires. We will see again." He assured us we all exchanged looks. "Oh and Miss Rose, we will be looking out for great things from you?

The door slammed faintly as we all stood up, and Margaret took her post again.

I slowly stood up shaking a bit. I knew he knew something.

"I think that can wrap up the meeting for now. We will see each other again on the next full moon, in one month. Be prepared for some changes. The meeting is adjourned; Respect the vampire, cold as night, blood is drawn, from fangs wrong, though shall see the light." She imparted smiling at all of us.

We repeated the verbatim of 'Respect the vampire, cold as night, blood is drawn, from fangs wrong, though shall see the light.'

We all left as I slowly got into my car and left for my evening shift at the hospital trying to think what changes would be made.