Grim Games (The New Protectorate Syndicate #2)

Prologue

To my knowledge, there are no ancient traditions in this world that do not find their start in the spilling, keeping, or sharing of blood.

If you look far enough into the past — and sometimes not very far at all — one can find the essence of life pooling below even the most innocuous of traditions.

How we celebrate a birth, memorialize a death, and mark the passings of seasons all draw from that same pool.

Menstruation is just as culturally important as war.

Both require blood, and both are draped in traditions as old as sentient life.

But no beings on this planet are as closely tied to blood as vampires.

Vampiric oral histories hint at the struggle of this time and the years of strife to come.

It’s never been easy to be a vampire. Grim’s Gift, the kinder name for vampirism before the discovery of virology, is said to have been bestowed on “the ill and the most wretched of the world; those beings so beyond hope that only Death’s cold fingers could reach their hearts.

” (A Treatise on Grim’s Delight by Doctor Ramsfield Turner 1793) This likely alludes to the mutation of the virus and its origins as a plague that tormented people who had no way of understanding it.

If one dares to imagine a plague pit, or perhaps a quarantined hut full of festering bodies kept carefully apart from a desperate village, one can also picture the horror that community might’ve felt when a loved one emerged from a place of stinking decay, apparently alive but forever changed.

Did some dying wretch, too weak to do much else and yet still carrying the will to live, do the unthinkable?

Imagine now you’re the one in the pit, suffocating beneath the weight of the putrefying.

You’re alive, but for how much longer? Was the first sip of blood an accident, a drip from above, or a choice made out of pure instinct to survive?

We will likely never know. Whether it was fate or a decision, genetics can’t tell us. What we can put together, are the clues given to us in pieces through oral histories, records, and traditions.

Vampires, by necessity, aren’t particularly precious about culture.

They are a melting pot of peoples and places, some born and some made, all of whom bring their own desires, taboos, and morality to the table.

However, one thing marks every vampiric subculture I’ve encountered in my work: desperation.

Considering the suspected origin of the virus itself, as well as the restrictions of a vampire’s diet, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

The invention of synth blood is only a hundred years old.

Before then, every vampire that has ever existed has depended entirely on the blood of another person to sustain themselves.

(Author’s note: A notable exception here being those born as vampires, who can breastfeed until their fangs come in, at which point they lose the stomach enzyme to digest milk.)

This is no easy life. Firstly, a vampire must find someone who isn’t claimed by another, since vampire venom is poisonous to their own kind and saturates the blood of a claimed mate, or anchor, as they say.

Secondly, if they do find someone unclaimed, they must then convince that person to agree to the lifetime commitment of being another person’s sole source of nutrients.

This requires many sacrifices, not least of which is the transition to a nocturnal life.

In less accepting times, it also meant being kicked out of one’s social group due to fear of the virus.

Every vampiric tradition I’ve studied hinges on the acute awareness that at any moment, they could starve to death. If one can’t find an anchor, they could die. If an anchor is stolen, they could die. If they get into a competition for an obviously limited pool of anchors, they could die.

Not all solutions to these dire circumstances are the same.

Some vampiric subcultures have found unique and relatively peaceful ways to coexist and intermingle with their non-vampire neighbors — the anchor markets of Bavaria, for instance, where willing potential matches meet single vampires in a grand spectacle of courtship for three nights, when community gifts are exchanged and ties strengthened to everyone’s benefit.

Another example are the clans living in the Fujian tulous — massive, communal earthen dwellings located in Southeastern China, who trace their origins to vampires offering shelter in the mountains during a time of war and have happily coexisted with them since at least the twelfth century.

Broadly, many vampires moved to finding their anchors in the same way other beings find their mates: mutual friends, dating apps, and the lucky meet-cute. Some of the pressure has been understandably lessened with the wide adoption and availability of synthblood.

But not all traditions die simply because their necessity has. Many just change.

In United Washington and other big cities in the Neutral Zone of the United Territories and Allies, an ancient practice has taken on new trappings.

One night. One prize. As many vampires as are willing to put their money and reputations on the line.

The exact origin of Blood Games remains elusive. Understandably, not all vampires are willing to disclose their secrets or private cultural practices to outsiders, particularly when they have become so entangled in gambling, violence, and the shadow of the vampire syndicate.

The best guess is that the Games began in the bowels of nineteenth century London, but there are some convincing claims that they began earlier, in the catacombs of Paris, where many vampires lived for centuries.

Whatever the case, the practice has been thoroughly — if quietly — embraced in the UTA.

At its heart, the set-up is simple: a person (or persons) volunteers to be an anchor, an organizer gets a group of vampires together, and then, for a fee, they can participate in a series of fights to win the volunteer.

It doesn’t take a genius or a PhD in cultural anthropology to see the shades of what must have been the very first Games.

When there’s only one anchor to be had, vampires would do just about anything to be the one to claim them.

Some ancient entrepreneur, perhaps thinly disguising their involvement as a way to civilize what was probably an extremely bloody war over limited resources, whipped up some rules, and charged an entry fee.

The rules of the Games vary from place to place and subculture to subculture, and the entry fees can be as little as $100 and as much as $100,000, depending on the desirability of the anchor.

According to those I’ve spoken to, it’s the generally accepted terms that an anchor gets a cut of those collected fees, as well as whatever other benefits are specified in their contracts.

Those contracts, by the way, are not considered binding until they’ve been blessed by one of the goddess Grim’s acolytes. Rumor has it that they, too, take a cut.

A modern world requires modern Games, I suppose.

That appears to include the “proxy clause” which stipulates that any entrant can opt to put a proxy fighter in their place rather than enter the ring themselves.

The wealthiest vampires seem fond of this practice, which separates them from the violence and allows them to put bets on the fighters, all while keeping their names on the board for the ultimate prize: the anchor.

It cannot be expected that every anchor who volunteers for the Games is in the same position. Supposedly, there are many safeguards in place to avoid intentional or unintentional exploitation. The blessing from the acolyte, for instance, was intended to serve this purpose.

A much more concrete safeguard, in my opinion, is the contract.

I was given the chance to speak to a repeat Blood Games prize, who we’ll call Quinn, about the process.

“The risk really depends on who you know and how smart you are,” he explained to me in a high-end cocktail lounge in downtown UW late one evening.

He wore what I can only describe as a “high fashion” outfit full of mismatched prints, the occasional strip of real fur, and a glittering diamond necklace around his throat.

All of it, including the healing bite just above the stones, must have cost more than my entire year’s salary.

He’s built a remarkably successful business out of the Games with his partner, who organizes them.

“The biggest risk is obviously that they’re gonna expect things from you that you aren’t giving away.

Companionship, sex, even bites. None of that is necessarily on the table.

All that’s promised is blood.” He pointed to his neck.

“I have it in my contract that my winner is only allowed one bite. Everything else is given through needle and tube.”

I was fascinated by this. “Do you stop them from biting you because you don’t want to go through withdrawal at the end of the contract?”

No one could blame him. Regular exposure to vampire venom is a legendarily blissful experience, but it isn’t all feel-good chemicals.

It’s an evolutionary weapon. A vampire injects venom every time they bite, which not only makes their anchor’s blood poisonous to other vampires, but it changes the chemistry of their bodies so they can produce vampiric off-spring.

And, of course, it causes horrific symptoms of withdrawal.

The sickness that comes with it is so bad that one in ten people will go into shock and require hospitalization, while many others experience months of muscle pain, nausea, insomnia, mood swings, hair and tooth loss, as well as severe disruptions to their reproductive cycles.

It’s a handy incentive to keep your vampire mate close, that’s for sure.

But Quinn shook his head. “Not really. I mean, obviously that’s a factor, but it’s more of a business decision. If you keep them wanting, they keep coming back, and there’s more motivation to stick to the rules.”

He told me that he makes a good living volunteering for the Games once a year but that he’s not “special.”

“There are some prizes that go for hundreds of thousands, even millions,” he explained, palms up like he worried I wouldn’t believe him.

“Rare blood types, famous people, anchors from aristocratic families. You name it. Those are the Games that get really nasty. It’s not just the competition, but the betting around it.

People try to fix fights, or even sneak out with the prize if they think they can’t win.

The circles I run in are way more relaxed. ”

“Would you say it’s a dangerous tradition?”

Quinn tilted his head from one side to another, weighing his answer.

“It can be, definitely, but it’s better than the alternative.

I think everyone has put a lot of thought into how to do it right, to keep it fair and only for people who really want to participate.

I’ve never had any problems. My healthcare is paid for, my rent is covered, and I’ve made so many friends doing this. ”

I sensed the but before it left his handsome mouth. “We’re talking about vampires,” he added in a quieter voice, almost like he was afraid of being overheard, “and we’re talking about the syndicate. You’ve got to be smart.”

“What’s one way it could go wrong?” I asked, thinking I already knew the answer. To me, it seemed clear enough: that one might end up in a violent situation.

He surprised me, though, when he immediately answered, “If a vampire gets too attached.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “There’s nothing more dangerous than a vampire in love.”

Ah, I thought, understanding at last.

Love is, at its heart, desperation. It is the need for another being, the utter impossibility of existing day to day without them. No wonder Quinn thinks that’s more threatening than anything else.

Hunger for blood can drive a person to do terrible things, but a craving for the soul is far more dangerous — and much less easily satisfied.