Sharp Teeth || ONC 2023

Chapter 2 - Interview with the Vampire

Dao had sat down carefully beside her at the threshold of their tiny clubroom, where Pom had dragged herself to rest after having outrun some especially violent humans. She was still gasping for breath.

“Do you remember…?” Dao left the question hanging deliberately.

Pom looked at him with wild, searching eyes, ready to dart at the slightest sign of danger. She shook her head warily and started to look away. But Dao let his fangs drop and relief bloomed in her face. Giving into the exhaustion, Pom had slumped back against the of the clubroom, leaving Dao to go back inside and inform the elders about her arrival.

"Where are you from, kid?" Gabjuk knelt down beside her. He lifted a hand, probably to pat her on the head, but the action made Pom flinch again. Gab had withdrawn his hand immediately.

"I don't know," she rasped.

"Okay," a spirit nodded this time. "Are you still being chased?"

"I… don't know."

Someone clicked their tongue from the back of the little crowd that had assembled now. "What a disaster! You've probably led them here. Legally, we can't use our powers to even defend ourselves against the humans, you know that, right?"

"What are you saying?" Dao glared.

"He's right," a poltergeist piped up. "Maybe she's a spy for the mortals. That's why she is luring them to us."

A thick blanket of silence fell over the crowd. Dao was too angry to articulate his thoughts coherently on the matter. His mind kept supplying images of the vampires that had fostered him when he had wound up at their door several centuries ago, just like Pom.

This was his turn to do the same, he just knew it. But before Dao could begin to speak his mind, a feeble voice startled him.

"I'm sorry," Pom was muttering. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She kept repeating it like a chant, rocking back and forth on her haunches. One drop, two drops, three drops slipped from her eyes and the very next moment, her body racked with violent sobs.

Gabjuk had stood up. He turned angrily towards the crowd gathered. "Will you stop yapping? None of you younglings would have survived the humans if we hadn't taken you in." He singled out the one who had brought up the legal issues. "You, Lahjam, did you forget your foster mother? Did you forget how she protected you from the humans until you were brought safely to one of the undead colonies? A siren like her would have been ashamed of you if she saw you today."

Lahjam hung his head low. "And where did it get her?"

A figure shrouded in white came forward. She hadn't been in the clubroom before this. Her saree was drawn over her head with her hand clutching its free end across her face. "We're a community. We take care of our own," her deep voice rumbled in the night. "Your foster mother got purged because she believed in her ideals, she believed she was doing what was right by saving you first," she told Lahjam. "Bring the child to my pond. I'll take care of her."

"But she can't live with you in your neem tree, Jeenia," Gabjuk said thoughtfully. "She's still a vampire, she will need her space."

"We can figure that out later, no?" As Jeenia extended a bony arm, her white conch and red coral bangles shone in the moonlight. "Come, dear. Let's get you cleaned up."

Jeenia held a different kind of authority in their undead community. She had arrived much later than Dao, but the resolution in her voice commanded respect whenever she spoke. It had made them see reason even in the most difficult times.

Pom had taken Jeenia's hand and stood up when Gabjuk suggested, "I could put her up in my house."

"Everytime you call that a "house", I feel like shaking you, Gab," it was the spirit from before. "That's a mansion right there."