The Guild

Accounts of a Vampire's Guild from the inside.

The Guild

 

Everybody knows the Guild exists. They just don't like to admit it.

I am part of the Guild. Although at first I was reluctant to accept that fact, I grew accustomed to it, and even began to take pride in it. When I first became what I am, though, I hid in the shadows, both socially and literally. I boarded up the windows of my house, locked the door, and sat, hungry, for days on end.

I had regular food, but every time I ate I became more hungry, so eventually I simply stopped eating altogether. I grew pale and sickly. My muscles grew weak, my skin grew cold, and most of all, I was hungry. I was dying, slowly but surely, because I had no sustenance. No blood. I was a vampire, I just didn't know it yet.

But the Guild did.

Centuries ago, the Guild council members performed magics known only to them. A book was created to house the names, locations, and states of physical being of every vampire in the world. And with this, they could tell I was dying. On the twentieth day of my seclusion, and my fifteenth day without regular food or water, the Guild came for me. Its retrieval team--all powerful vampires--ripped down the door as if it was nothing, yet picked me up with tenderness and care. They spirited me away to the Guild headquarters.

I was given a bowl of blood. At first I weakly refused, but with the firmness and sureness of a mother tending to a reluctant child, they tipped back my head, opened my mouth, and poured the blood in. It tasted nothing like the blood I had tasted when I was human. This was not salty or bitter, it was sweet and tasty. I consumed it ravenously, and I felt my strength returning.

After I had recovered, I was sent to the head of the Guild, where I was asked to give the nature of my transformation into a vampire. I told them the truth: that I had been walking around at night, staring at the moon, when something dark had swooped down on me and I had felt two points pierce my neck. I was immediately paralyzed, not, as I found out, with fear, but because of a natural toxin that is secreted through a vampire's saliva. This toxin cuts off the signals from the brain to the limbs, but not to the organs, so the person being attacked is able to stay alive.

I was drained of most of my blood and thrown like refuse into a nearby gutter with incredible strength, yet when I landed I did not feel pain. I fell unconscious.

As soon as I woke up I screamed, for it seemed like red-hot brands were being pressed against my skin. I looked up at the sun and realized, with a gasp of horror, that it was what was causing this. I ran into the shade of a nearby doorway, just barely escaping being fried. But as soon as I got into the shade, my skin began healing. I watched with fascination as my skin reknitted itself, smoothing over the blisters and bubbles my skin had conjured up as a reaction to the sun.

Luckily for me, there was no one in sight, but I had been a long way from my house when I had been attacked. So I moved carefully, leaping doorway to doorway, pausing only to let my skin heal itself after any exposure that lasted for more than a few seconds. I eventually reached home and shut myself in, afraid to face my neighbors or friends. And twenty days afterwards, I was taken by the Guild.

The head of the Guild listened to this with careful attentiveness, occasionally taking sips from a goblet filled with blood. He is a young-looking man, yet he is in actuality many centuries old; in fact, he is one of the original vampires that performed the spell to create the vampire-tracking book. All of those years have given him wisdom, and it seemed he was using it now as he thought about what to do with me. He explained that there are two kinds of vampires living in the world: those part of the Guild, and those not, living their own lives as ordinarily as they can manage. He asked me which I would like to be. I chose the former.

I was instructed in the ways of the vampire: on what were the best ways to obtain blood, how to fly, and how to harness my superhuman strength. I learned that the vampire that attacked me was either not a member of the Guild or was immoral, as the Guild, knowing that becoming a vampire would destroy most folks' lives, teaches its members to drain blood in other ways than biting. Instead, we use specially coated blades that do three things: cut, of course, paralyze, and stop the blood being drained from clotting for a short time.

I was pleasantly surprised by the consideration of my brothers. In fact, the Guild has clamped down on this issue so much that pretty much the only ways new vampires are created is simply through two vampires mating with each other. In a year, only fifty vampires out of a thousand are created through non-mating means. "We are a frightening breed," said the Guild leader with a smile, "but not mean or sloppy. It is almost always the case that only those not under our watch make vampires out of those that were previously human."

I also learned that the reason vampire numbers only slowly increase instead of growing at incredible rates is that there is a fierce demand for vampires to be killed due to false propaganda. While one thousand new vampires are born a year, 995 vampires are killed.

Naturally, the Guild (and now I) feel a little bit outraged at this. So we developed a punishment system. If a person kills one or two vampires, they are attacked and are drained of some blood, although not transformed into vampires. If a person kills three to five vampires, they themselves are transformed into vampires (the only time Guild members can validly do such a thing). And if they kill more than that before we are able to catch up to them...they are killed as an example to other hunters.

Yet this does not deter them, and the level of demand stays the same. But we are always watching. So the next time you ask for vampire hunter services, or attack a vampire yourself...

You shall meet us.

Everybody knows the Guild exists. They just don't like to admit it.

 

End.

Author's Note

Hey there. I know it's a mouthful (or rather, an eyeful) but it took a while to describe things the way I liked. Critique as always!