Chapter Text
1824
The circumstances I found myself in were not unfamiliar. Sitting crosslegged on the beach, gargantuan Aleppo pines at my back, moonlight bouncing off the water. The breeze was warm, ruffling my decades-old tunic and cinched slacks, and the waves were foaming gently at my feet.
I’d wandered the most beautiful beaches and cities and mountain ranges for a century. But there were two key factors that set today apart.
The first was that I had recently learned to weave. The brambles in the forest lent themselves nicely to my hobby. I’d woven myself a hut, a makeshift bed and so many baskets that I had to make a bigger basket to carry them in.
The second was the bloody, bedraggled pirate laying a few meters down the beach. He was in pain, convulsing, gasping air down his throat, hands scraping at the sand beneath him.
He was turning into a vampire. He’d been this way for about five days now. I hadn’t injected him with enough venom, it was prolonging the process. I wanted to apologize, maybe hold his hand, comfort him, but I was hesitant to push any closer. I had adapted to feeding on animal blood in lieu of human, I hadn’t fallen off the wagon since I was a newborn — until I bit him. It had felt impossible to stop once I’d started; the taste still lingered now, prickling on my tongue and smoking in my throat.
I had to admit I wanted to get a closer look at him. I knew he was a pirate because of his attire — the long dirtied jacket, waistcoat and trousers. The sheathed bayonet on his hip was a giveaway as well. I’d been expecting his crew to charge out of the woodwork and snaffle him, but they hadn’t. They must have assumed he was dead — I’d found him half-drowned with his ribcage shattered. Maybe he’d looted the wrong people.
As I sat idly and theorized, I wove and tucked and fiddled with the brambles in my hands. I knew the emotional turmoil of being thrust into a deathlike life was not remediable, but, I’d reasoned with myself, might a fetching hat help? I just hoped I’d finish it by the time he awoke.
I pawed at the sand next to me but came up with nothing. I sighed, pushed myself to my feet and headed into the woods behind me. I ducked under wild reaches of leaves, leapt over massive logs melded to the ground with spongey moss. Brambles gushed down from a rock bluff like a waterfall. I followed a stem with my finger, tore it loose from the growth and shucked the thorns off.
Arms full of brambles, I headed back to the beach. I dropped my spoils onto the sand.
Oh dear.
The pirate was gone.
And something sharp was up against my back.
I cringed and raised my hands. “Good. You’re awake.”
“Don’t move. Try for a weapon and I’ll blast your head off, understand?”
“I have no weapons on me.”
“You had better not.”
His hands patted roughly down my torso and legs, along my arms.
Then I heard his blade slide back into its sheath. “Don’t follow me.”
He strode into the forest. I spun around, gaping; did he not want answers? Even if he didn’t, I had to educate him on his new life, the limitations, the vampire world, lest he slaughter an entire town or break a law he didn’t know existed.
I grabbed the hat and ran after him. “Wait!”
“I said not to—” A sound like a tree splintering in half. “Shit!”
When I pushed through the last of the undergrowth, I saw he was slumped over an ancient log, the wood beneath him crushed.
“You need to take it slow,” I said attentively. “Your body doesn’t move the way it used to.”
He scampered out of the wreckage and aimed his bayonet at my face. His voice was taut, gravelly. “How many times do I have to threaten your life before you take a fucking hint?”
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to hurt me, not even with your gun — which I assume is waterlogged anyway.”
He didn’t relax his stance, didn’t take his finger off the trigger. “The blade will work just fine.”
I sighed. “Try to kill me if you want, but this forest has never seen a fight. I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
His eyebrows pulled together. Abruptly, he straightened out and marched deeper into the forest. I followed a safe distance behind him so he wouldn’t pull his gun again. He was staring down at a little contraption — a compass — tapping it with his finger.
“You’re a vampire,” I said bluntly, not sure how to lead into it. “I made you a vampire because you would have died otherwise. That’s why your heart isn’t beating.”
It didn’t seem to phase him.
“I’m here to tell you everything you need to know,” I continued. “I’ll start with the Volturi. They’re an ancient coven based in Italy who act as the rulers of our world. There is only one law: humans cannot know we exist. Any breach of that law is met with annihil—”
“How far is the nearest town?”
I blinked. “Pardon?”
“The nearest town, how far is it?”
“Um, not that far, a mile or—”
“Which direction?”
“You’re on the right track.”
He nodded without turning.
“Moving on,” I said. “There are two methods to sustain ourselves — human blood and animal. I personally subscribe to feeding on animals. Some misconceptions regarding our kind: wooden stakes, onions nor sunlight affect us — a vampire can only be killed with fi—”
“Is there somewhere I could find ammunition in town?”
“Yes, I suppose—”
“A dock?”
“Ye—”
“Is it a wealthy town or a poor one?”
“I have something to say,” I blurted. “I… I made you a hat.”
He turned his head halfway toward me, considered me without slowing his pace. The moonlight caught his cheekbone, shaded the rest of his face, but I could see the gleam of his fangs when his lips came open.
“I don’t wear hats.”
“But I made it a cocked hat. And you — you’re a pirate, aren’t you?”
This time he turned full way round. His features were graceful, drawn in sharp lines. “You don’t know who I am then?”
“Should I?”
He turned again, kept walking. “I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“No, wait, who are you?”
“You’ll learn.”
“Or you could introduce yourself? I’ll start — I’m Bang Chan.”
He wasn’t listening anyway. His hand was on the hilt of his bayonet as the trees thinned and the town came into view, low-standing buildings and deserted cobblestone roads. I was glad he had woken at night; he was obviously on a mission, and I didn’t know how I would have intercepted him if there had been humans in his path.
“I’ve never met someone like you,” I said. “Who just — walked away after you woke.”
“And?”
“I’ve been alive since sixteen ninety-nine. By all accounts, by my own account, when a vampire wakes from turning, they’re disoriented, overstimulated, hungry for information, and desperate for human blood.”
He swallowed, cleared his throat. “Your point?”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I have more to think about.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing for you to be concerned about. Where’s the ammunition shop?”
“It won’t be open.”
He arched one regal, chestnut-coloured eyebrow.
“It’s down Main Street.”
He marched down the road, looking into the storefronts, and once he saw the sign, he drew his bayonet and slammed the back of it through the window. The glass shattered to the ground around his feet, and he climbed into the building.
“That… was not necessary.” I craned my head into the makeshift entrance.
“Do I look like I care?” He was dumping boxes of ammunition into a burlap sack. “Feel free to flag someone down to put me in my place — or hell, do it yourself.”
A faint glow of light in the second storey windows.
“You woke the owner,” I said, panicking.
“Ah, shame, must be a light sleeper.”
“Look — er — sir, you’re a vampire now, you’re at risk of being compromised by human bl—”
“How weak do you think I am?”
“It’s not about being weak, it’s about being young—”
A door at the back of the store swung open, and a man strode through, a pistol in one hand and a lantern in the other.
“I’ve a gun, crook, don’t move a goddamned muscle!”
He held the lantern up to the pirate’s face. His skin went white.
“Bak Haseong,” he murmured. “I-I’m sorry — I haven’t seen a thing, I swear on my life.”
The pirate grinned, still focussed on his sack of ammunition. “Obliged. Be off.”
The owner stumbled back through the doorway and the light went with him. Haseong threw the sack over his shoulder and headed out through the window.
“Who are you again?” My jaw was hanging open.
“I’m a pirate.” He took the hat from my hands and perched it on his head. “And that’s about all you need to know.”