Dead Men Tattle No Tales

*ring*

*ring*

This is the home of Daniel Hebert, I'm sorry I can't take your call, please leave a message.

*beep*

A sallow, dark-haired teenager licked her lips. How do you do something like this?

"Uh...hi dad," she said in that hyper-pleasant tone one generally associated with someone in the middle of a complete mental breakdown. "It's me...You don't need to worry about me."

Depending on how you looked at it, she was either trying to not cry or cry actual tears. "Something happened to me dad. Something horrible."

She looked down at the gun she stole. "Something that turned me into something horrible. Oh god..."

She gave up, red liquid streaming down her cheeks. "I...I don't know what I am-"

All right, show's over. I felt my own blood fizzle away as I activated my Devotion to affect the clone I made of her cell phone, causing the actual speaking voice to switch over to mine. She looked up in surprise as her own broke out in static.

"It's okay, sweetie-I'll take over from here."

Now she was actively panicked. A pair of fangs that...were actually kinda cute on a face like that (I suspected that if she was triggered by rage they'd be less cute) descended as she swiveled around for the source of the voice.

Undeterred, I kept speaking. "Mr. Hebert, I'm Sarah Wibourn's mother, Lisa. As you know, Taylor has been the recipient of a rather psychotic bullying campaign, and she is currently staying at my daughter's house to recuperate. However, the reason she has been avoiding her school for the past three days is because she's been heavily traumatized and was nearly catatonic. She's been here for over a week, trying to work up the nerve to call you. She states, and I quote, 'I can't go back there, it reminds me of Emma.' As it is, she's going to be a lodger over here for a while-you can visit any time you like, but I'm a psychologist and I think it's probably better that we listen to her on this. Call me if you have any questions."

End call. And step out of the way of a revenant in Rotschrek. Not that she could see me, but I guessed it was probably better to let the scared proto-Kindred calm down enough to understand reasoning before actually trying to reason.

"WHO!? WHERE!?"

If only I could shut up. "I'm your new best friend who just saved you from doing something very stupid."

"SHOW!"

"Not until you stop running around like a calf with a hot dishwasher on your back."

"I...I.." Slowly, the fangs retracted as Taylor Hebert's reason returned to her eyes. That actually worked? Wow. Probably a fluke, but wow.

"Excellent. Just hold on..."

And Obsfucate dropped. I gave my award winning smile.

"Nice to meet ya."

Annnd now she was crouching like a dog ready to attack.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Easy...easy...I'm like you, okay?" Fangs out.

Now shock. Then relief.

Then the sensation of being held on to for dear life. I didn't normally breathe, so no choking, but it still was massively uncomfortable.

"Tight," I wheezed out.

She loosened up a bit, but I was still being hugged. Felt nostalgic, somehow.

Then she suddenly remembered her phone. She jerked back; she didn't look ready to fight now, but she was definitely defensive. "Who are you, and how do you know me?"

"Well, that's the thing; if I used my real name, someone might remember a certain rich white girl vanishing around the fifties, and people would start wondering why I'm still a teenager instead of somebody's grandma." I shrugged. "But I use the alias Tattletale a lot, because I know all your dirty little secrets, and I'm not afraid to use them. Of course, that's a description ofall Mekhet, but I didn't know that until the name got stuck."

"Mekhet? Is that the proper-you haven't answered my other question."

"There's a third in that, but if you're going to join the Cacophony-that's our little hidden culture, by the by-you probably need to know anyway. We're called Kindred, or vampires if you want to be not-asshatted about it, but there's several different Clans, or families of the wider undead. I'm a Mekhet, a," I made my voice as eerie as possible while waving my fingers around, "mistress of the shaadooows."

She grinned despite herself. Good, disarm the situation as much as possible.

"Second, you've...kinda broken the rules. You're not supposed to leave evidence of feeding like that."

Almost immediately, she looked ashamed of herself. Not angry about breaking something she didn't knew existed? Reanimation really broke her.

Then again...yeah.

"Hey, hey, nobody sane blames you." I neglected to mention that a lot of elders weren't sane at all. "You were infected with cursed blood thanks to a quirk of fate and then left to rot for two days, and you were faced with the person who threw you in there when you were starving. Frankly my coterie-that's my vampire friends-had to debate finishing the job ourselves."

She didn't look any better. Okay, gambling time.

"Which is why I was promised a favor if I help you with your blood loss problem."

Full house. She looked up, surprised, disbelieving...and hopeful.

"See, vampires aren't normally created when we feed. There wouldn't be anybody left to feed on if that were the case. See, you have to die first with vampirism-infused blood...except that's not the whole story." I looked at Taylor's latest meal, an unfortunate cat. Phew, I did not need to talk down Rachel tonight. "Normally, we have to deliberately feed a prospect with a bit of our personal blood, deliberately, if we want to make a new clanmmate. If not, there's more than a slight chance they become someone like you." I turned back to Taylor. "A revenant, a clanless vampire."

Her mind, the thing that already interested my more amoral side, was already putting it together. "And revenants can't retain blood from night-to-night."

"Ding-ding-ding!" I gave her a thumbs up. "And it's pretty horrible when you lose the red stuff."

She shivered. "Please don't remind me."

"And since you're always hungry, the Beast-that's the name for vampire predatory instincts, you know hunt, eat, sleep, repeat, crush everyone who tries to break the sequence-is always a little pissed off and grouchy." I smiled. "Of course..." I slid a bit closer. "The Beast also knows that it's incomplete. You have one little advantage over full Kindred, and that's the ability to adopt a clan, and with lose your blood anorexia."

She caught on really quickly, I gave her that. "...is that invisibility unique?"

"Not even to Mekhet in general. We're stealthy mind readers, and Brian-you'll meet him pretty soon-is a member of the other stealthy clan, though Nosferatu are lords of nightmares."

She mulled it over in her head. "...mind readers?"

"And object readers, and diviners, and occultists." I smiled. Take the bait, take the bait, take the-

"Is there any special ritual I need to become one, or...?"

Got it. Hello, new childe. I held out my arm. "Nope. Just take a sip, I'll do the res-ow."

Desperate much? Oh well.

I closed my eyes and let the Beast tear off a bit of my soul. I felt it travel down my arm and into Taylor's mouth, and from there, to her own formless iteration of the instinct. I could almost see it eagerly enfold around that piece of absolute darkness, and from there melt into the form of a stealthy jackal, wise, cunning, and a colossal troll.

When I opened them, something had changed in Taylor. Where before there was a sort of haunted hunger about her, a starved woman so desperate to survive she'd hunt down humans just to live a little longer, she now had the quiet confidence of a spy or assassin, the calm stance of a girl who knew who everyone was and was completely prepared for anything from them. Assuming you saw her to begin with.

She looked up. "Tastes...sweet."

"Probably a lot nicer than feline, right?" I held out an arm. "Time to meet the family."

A Worm/Vampire: the Requiem Crossover.

A/N: By the way, Revenants? The way they can't retain blood over the night? They sweat it.

Which meant every night Taylor was waking up covered in blood.