Five days ago, I found this in my mail, Vinyl said. I’d asked a friend close to the council to keep me in the loop about the blood shortages. This is what she sent me.
Bon Bon mouthed the words written on the wagon. She looked up at Vinyl. “You don’t think this could actually be…?”
Vinyl shook her head. The Bloody Queen is just an old story that vampires tell each other to make themselves feel special.
“You’re sure?” Bon Bon said, setting the picture back onto the coffee table. “This wouldn’t be the first time…”
One hundred percent, Vinyl said. The Queen of Blood is nothing more than a myth.
She sighed. Of course, the thing about myths is that sometimes ponies believe in them a little too much.
The lights were out. That was a good sign. It meant the ponies she was looking for were here.
Vinyl lowered the hood of her hoodie. Had the back alley behind the grungy Manehattan warehouse been lit, her neon mane would have stuck out like a spotlight.
She began walking towards the warehouse. The lone guard spotted her almost immediately.
“Hey!” he shouted. His horn lit, bright orange, illuminating the silhouette of his head and the shape of the doorframe he was standing in. “Stop where you are!”
Chill, Pack. It’s me.
“Vinyl?” The horn light dimmed.
The one and only, Vinyl said. How’s Mindy?
“Fine,” he said. “She appreciated the birthday present. Says it goes well with her eyes.”
I told you it would. You still planning on blasting us?
“Depends,” the unicorn said. His horn grew brighter. “Why are you here?”
Extra protection.
“I didn’t hear about any extra protection.”
It’s off the books. You want our help or not?
He considered it for a moment.
“Couldn’t hurt,” he finally said, his horn winking out. “Wouldn’t’ve expected to see you signing up for this kind of job, though. Thought you didn’t like the rougher stuff.”
Desperate times.
Pack wasn’t an ugly pony, exactly, but he had the kind of face that more polite ponies would call ‘rough around the edges’. His muzzle was crooked, his eyes were deep-set, and one of his ears was missing. A burn scar ran under his left eye.
All in all, not the kind of pony you’d want to meet in the back of an alley. Even disregarding the fangs.
“Come on in,” he said, stepping out of the way of the doorway. “Before you start attracting the wrong kind of attention.”
The inside of the warehouse was just as dimly lit as the outside, not that that made a difference to any of its current occupants. The half-a-dozen-odd vampires were currently busy loading metal crates into the back of several covered wagons. They paid Vinyl little mind as she joined in; if Pack knew her, that was good enough for them.
Three of them in particular had struck up a conversation.
“Look, man,” one of them was saying. “All’s I’m saying is, we need to be on our guard tonight. I don’t want to end up a smear on the side of the road like Morningstar.”
“Is she back on her hooves yet?” another asked. “Her name’s still off the duty roster…”
“Last I heard she was still asleep,” the third said, dropping a crate into the wagon. “It’s been a few weeks, though. Must be a slow healer.”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t all get as lucky as you, Barge,” the first said. “If you turn out to be a friggin’ immort, I swear…”
The one called Barge, by and large the largest of the three, snorted. “You jealous?”
“’Course I’m jealous,” the first replied. “If I could grow back limbs in a couple of days, they might actually start paying me a decent wage!”
They all had a good chuckle at that.
“So, this vamp that’s attacking the caravans,” the first said. “You heard the rumors?”
“Which ones?” Barge asked. “I’ve heard everything from her being a giant bat to her being the spawn of Nightmare Moon.”
“I’ve heard she can turn into mist and wolves and things,” the third said. “Y’know, like the ponies think we can, only for real.”
“No way,” the Barge said. “That’s hogwash. What, is she allergic to garlic, too?”
“Well, I dunno,” the third said. “It’s just what I’ve heard.”
“They say she’s calling herself the Queen of Blood,” the first said. “You don’t think she could actually be…?”
“I dunno,” the third said. “At this point, I’d believe it.”
“You’d believe anything, Buck.”
“Well at least I’m not as ugly as you, Stoney.”
“Right back at ya, lard-face.”
“Well,” Barge said, dropping another crate into the wagon. “All’s I know is: if whoever-it-is tries to take down our caravan? She’ll be buying herself a one-way ticket to a cement coffin, ‘cause we’re the best in the business.”
Once the wagon was loaded, we headed out, Vinyl said. I rode in the back of the first wagon with Pack and some of the others.
The back of the wagon was freezing, and not because of the cold night air. The refrigeration enchantments on the metal boxes kept their contents fresh, but at the expense of anyone trying to sit on them. Like, for instance, Vinyl, who was trying her best not to shiver as she leaned against one of the stacks.
Pack ducked his head back in from out the back of the wagon, the flap that covered it falling back into place and cutting off the moonlight. “Looks like we’re about halfway to Fillydelphia,” he told her. “Maybe you shouldn’t have wasted your Saturday night, Vinyl.”
I won’t complain if you’re right.
As Pack sat back down, one of the other guards—the one the others had called Stoney—glanced up.
“Vinyl?” he said. “You mean like that famous DJ, that Vinyl?”
Vinyl nodded.
“Huh,” he said. “Thought you looked familiar—my marefriend’s a fan. Didn’t know you were one of us, though.”
“Kinda quiet for a DJ, aren’t you?” another guard—Buck, if Vinyl remembered right—said. “You haven’t said a word since we hit the road.”
Stoney swatted him behind the ears. “She’s mute, ya dingus.”
“Oh, believe me,” Pack said. “She can be one heck of a chatterbox when she feels like it.”
“So what’s a big famous DJ doing on caravan duty?” Buck said, rubbing the back of his head. “Spinning records not paying so well these days?”
“I told you,” Buck said, swatting at him again. “She’s mute.”
Stoney ducked it this time. “Well she’s gotta know sign language or somethin’, right?”
Vinyl lifted her forehooves and made a complex series of motions in the air.
“See?” Stoney said. “Hey, Pack, what’d she say?”
Pack snorted. “If I had to guess, she just told you to go jump in a lake.”
Vinyl grinned. Buck laughed.
“Yeah, yeah,” Stoney said, settling back against the wagon’s wall and folding his forelegs. “Laugh it up.”
All at once, his ears perked up. “Hey, you guys hear that?”
Vinyl had. She hopped to her hooves.
Pack, we’ve got company.
“Whoa,” Buck said. “What the heck was that? It was like there was a voice in my head—”
That’s me, Vinyl said, waving. Hi. Telepath. Nice to meet you. Pack, there’s a pegasus coming in from the left. I can hear their wings.
“I hear ‘em too,” Pack said, getting to his own hooves. “Get ready.”
He made his way over to the back of the wagon and pushed aside the flap, illuminating the wagon with moonlight. He stuck his head out.
“M-maybe it’s just a mailpony,” Buck whispered.
“At three in the morning?”
“…Overnight delivery?”
Quiet down, Vinyl said. Pack, what do you see?
“Nothing yet,” he whispered. “Where’d they—”
Thump.
At once, all their eyes turned upwards, to the top of the wagon. The sound had come from above.
Something had landed on the roof of the wagon.
“Hey! You on the roof!” Pack shouted, out into the night. “This is a guarded caravan! If you don’t leave immediately, you will be removed by force! This is your one and only warning!”
“Ooh, a warning!” came a voice from up above. “That’s new. The last caravan just started shooting.”
Barge’s horn lit. A crossbow levitated up beside him. He pointed it upwards, towards the source of the voice.
“Well, I’m feeling charitable tonight,” Pack shouted back. “You have five seconds.”
“Funny,” the voice said. “I’m not.”
With a great crash, the roof broke into pieces. Vinyl raised her foreleg over her eyes to protect them from the shower of splinters that rained down around her. She heard a crossbow fire.
When she uncovered her eyes, there was a mare standing in the middle of the wagon. Her orange eyes shone like fire in the moonlight that streamed through the hole in the roof. A crossbow bolt stuck out of one of her wings.
“You know,” the mare said, “it’s not nice to talk about people behind their backs.”