Free Halfway Bitten by Terry Maggert

reeking of age and experience. Those, I can tolerate. I think.
    The second kind is far more dangerous. They’re well on their slide into some kind of barely-controlled animal state in which their bodies have become little more than a skin covering for a coiling mass of hunger. They kill without thought, or even malice, really, because the echoes of the human they used to be are lost to the punishing drum beat of their need for blood. Philip struck me as neither, so I wasn’t sorry about needling him to the point of violence. I was curious about what lay under his veneer of humanity, and in my own way, cut him to see what he was made of. His reaction was most welcome, despite me being in close proximity to a vampire of his age.
    Simply put, I was right and he knew it. Indulging him in some fantasy about his status as a victim was almost comical. I thought about how many unwilling necks he’d pierced during the years of his eternal hunt and felt myself stiffen once again, the anger at such wanton disregard for life giving me a stinging rush of anger.
    After a long moment, he sighed. It was a bitter sound, and it seemed quite human.
    “I will never be used to my status as a relic,” he began.
    That got my attention. In my experience, vampires are usually so in love with their own power, they think the sun rises and sets on them. If they can tolerate sunlight, that is, which is a neat trick that more than a few of them have mastered. But back to their status as epic narcissists—you don’t think they all dressed that way simply because they love vintage opera costumes, do you? No, they’re arrogant, prideful, and powerful enough to be disconnected from their own mortality by an endless thirst for blood and dominance.
    I tilted my head at Philip and pressed him on his appearance. “Let me explain why I’m so unimpressed with your arrival. I got a note indicating that there are vampires keeping prisoners on my family land. Do you know what that means?”
    “I can surmise. I assume that’s a violation of your coven’s policy?” he said. There was no hint of avoidance in his answer.
    “That’s one way to put it. Keeping someone as living food is cause for summary justice on the part of my family. But it doesn’t end there, Philip. Are you aware of retroactive magic?” I asked him. When he shrugged, I explained, “Witches are like badgers. We’re most powerful in our own dens. Think of these mountains as my den,” I said, waving grandly, “and my familial magic is intensified by the location of it when cast. So my spells can be shaped to act like bloodhounds. They don’t just destroy the being who commits a crime against our people, the magic actually becomes a metaphysical force that will seek out the entire source of this affront. Oh, it’s true that a really skilled caster might interrupt some of the effects, but over time my spell will worry at their defenses until it finds a crack. Then, anyone or anything associated with the abuse of unnatural power in our lands will be killed. No warning. No gradual erosion of their powers. Just instantaneous death—or true death, in the case of your kind—and there is little that can be done about it. So when you tell me that you are the Tidewater Clan, I have to say that I’m not entirely saddened by that, because some other clan is keeping humans as cattle. On my. Family. Lands. Do you see what you’ve walked into, Philip ?” I was standing close enough to him that I watched his eyes widen at the threat in my voice.
    “I keep no humans, nor have I ever. I spent my mortal years as a kind of slave myself, and would not visit such a thing upon others.” He raised a hand as a kind of vow.
    I laughed in his face. “Do you think you’re the first vampire to tell me that you’re different ? You’re right about one thing: purebloods are slaves, but only to their lust. If you don’t have human blood in your veins, you can’t beat this thing, Philip. It owns you.