Sineater

It smelled like a graveyard.

Like one that had lots of fresh flowers. There was a musty death smell hiding under the fresh fragrances of dried flowers hanging all over the shop, while there were other places where all the plants were still in soil. Behind the counter across from the door, there were rows of glass jars with more powders and dried ingredients than I could identify.

“Ah, a young mage and her…” The woman behind the counter sniffed the air. She leaned forward and licked her lips, letting her tongue glide over her canines. “We don’t get many of your kind around here anymore.”

Vampires were unsettling to me. I hated how they looked at everyone in the room like they were a dish they wanted to sample. It was like walking into a room with a big mosquito that you were unable to slap. You knew that the bug was going to eventually try to bite you, but you weren’t able to do anything about it until it did.

I folded my arms in front of me and tried to ignore the pale skinned parasite. She had been an Elf before she was turned or her ancestors had. I knew that some turned Vampires were able to reproduce and those that could spawned a stronger form of the parasitic race.

Her red eyes were locked on to me as she smiled and tapped her long red nails against her pale cheek. She had long black hair hiding most of her pointed ears. Her clothes were baggy for what I would have expected from a Vampire, with lots of pockets sewn all over and long sleeves. Almost like she was trying to protect her very resilient body.

“I have a list of items that I need.” Starna marched over to the counter and held out the piece of paper.

“Someone has the scar.” The Vampire purred as she looked around the room. “I have everything here except…” She began tapping in the air at different places in the shop, like she was counting out the ingredients. “Blood root powder.”

“I’ll take what you have.” Starna took out a coin and placed it on the counter. “Would you have a lab that I could rent or know where one is in this town?”

“My lab has everything you need…” The Vampire motioned towards a door to our left. “But the rest of this won’t be enough to cure whoever’s been poisoned without the blood root.” She tapped the counter as she stood up. “There’s so little call for it, no one carries it, but…” She started taking down jars of ingredients. “You should be able to find some at the Ranger’s Station, they keep those types of rarely used ingredients on hand incase of an outbreak.”

“I’ll just rent the lab there.” My brunette companion smiled with more cheer than I’d seen her use the whole time I’d been with her.

“A pity.” The Vampire finished laying out the small amounts of the various ingredients so that Starna could approve of them before she bagged and bottled them up. There were five small pouches the size of teabags and three vials that went into a small paper bag. “I would have enjoyed watching something made outside of the boring concoctions.”

“If I wasn’t pressed for time, then maybe you could have talked me into coming back.” Starna took the bag and put it under her arm. “Have a blessed day.” She gave another small bow before turning to leave.

“You wouldn’t want to make a donation?” The Vampire purred as her eyes locked on to me.

I just shook my head. Considering the high that a Sineater’s blood was supposed to give a vampire, a donation was her way of asking if I was open to sell her some of my blood. Even if we weren’t in a hurry, I wouldn’t have wanted to indulge her. There were just too many things that could go wrong when dealing with a vampire.

“Pera Glynot.” The vampire flicked me a coin. “Does that change your mind?”

I caught the coin and looked at the object. It wasn’t a coin that was useful most places because it was a blood coin. Vampires would use their own blood to create different objects, usually weapons or armor. The strongest of them would make coins that would mark the holder as someone who exclusively sold them blood. In this case, a matriarch had just offered me her coin.

There were few vampires who would dare try to harm me with such an item in my pocket. But it would also act as a locator, allowing this Vampire to know approximately where I was.

Starna’s eyes widened as she saw what I was holding. I closed my eyes for a moment, then walked up to the counter. “Why would a matriarch be working in a shop?” I placed the coin on the counter.

“We have to have our hobbies…” The Vampire put her finger on the coin and it turned into a puddle of blood, then hardened back into a coin. It was her way of proving that it was her coin.

“How much..?”

A syringe the size of my finger was on the counter before I could finish the question.

As much as I didn’t want to deal with a Vampire, it was too good of a deal and she knew it. I saw the victory in her eyes as I took the syringe and stuck it into my arm and filled it with blood. I placed the full container in her hand and reached for the coin.

She caught my hand. “Not yet.” She pushed out a single drop of blood onto the coin and the blue disk drank it up. She let go of my hand and held up her prize. “Now it’s ready.”

I picked up the coin. In a way it was worth a lot less and more at the same time. It was more or less bound to me, so I couldn’t give the protection she had offered to someone else, but I had a feeling that even if I’d left the coin on the counter and walked out of the shop, it would find its way into my pocket.

“Come back when you can.” Matriarch Pera waved at me as I walked out of the shop.

Starna just stared at me once we were in the street.

“What?” I patted my pocket where I’d put the coin. “Are you going to tell me..?”

“You’re something…” Starna shook her head. “Come on. We still have to get what we need from the Ranger’s station.”