around us ages and if we do not change with it, then we cease to be relevant.” I looked at him with a cheeky grin. “And you, my dear sir, have ceased to be relevant.”
Laucian scoffed. “I have never considered myself relevant... thus, I am afraid I do not care.”
I smiled. “On that, we can agree.”
For a moment his face was hard, but then it cracked into a smile. “Very well. I am an irrelevance. I am an anachronism. I am a dinosaur. So be it.” He reclined back in his chair.
And it was hard to argue with that. If Laucian was a dinosaur—the analogy was as good as any other—then it was in the same way as James Bond. The super spy was a ridiculous anachronism, his tactics out of step with modern technology, his behavior outdated to the point of being embarrassingly offensive, like that elderly uncle at family gatherings who always insists on airing his views about foreigners. But somehow Bond remained forever cool, and so did Laucian, albeit in his own way.
“I did not come here to verbally spar with you, Sinjin.”
I nodded; I had surmised as much. “Why did you come? It cannot have been easy in that dastardly pirate ship of yours.”
“She is faster than this bloated behemoth you are captaining.”
“Faster is not necessarily better.” I replied, though even I thought Laucian’s clipper was significantly cooler than my three cruise ships. Of course, I would never admit as much to him. I had a reputation to uphold, after all.
“I do like the names you chose for your ships,” admitted Laucian.
“I thought they would appeal to you.”
“It is good to know you have not completely lost touch with your roots. There is a vampire still inside you somewhere.”
I sighed. “You were explaining why you came here.”
Laucian nodded, his face growing serious. “You have heard of the Vryloka?”
I nodded. “Of course. Everyone’s favorite vampire fairy tale.”
But Laucian shook his head. “More than a fairy tale, Sinjin. They have returned.”
I scoffed at this. “Returned? For goodness sake, Laucian, they never even existed! You have been drinking spiked virgin blood.”
“The Vryloka were as real as you or me. They existed once and now they exist again.”
“You have seen one, have you?” I put him on the spot.
Laucian flinched. “Well, I have not seen one with my own eyes…”
“Well, then.” I poured another glass of blood, hoping it was spiked. I could use a good hallucinogenic trip. “You and I have—how many centuries between us?”
“Many.”
“Quite right,” I said with a clipped nod. “We have been everywhere (or at least I have) and seen everything. You really think, in all those hundreds of years, if the Vryloka existed we would have missed them? Maybe they did back in the day, before even you and I were around, but not since then. And, Laucian, creatures do not just ‘return’.”
“As far as you know.”
“Did you miss the vampires and the bees lesson, Laucian?” I mocked him. “If so, let me fill you in: a mummy Vryloka and a daddy Vryloka who love each other very much, start to get certain urges…”
“Do not patronize me,” Laucian kept his cool, but I could hear the steel beneath his words. “I did not come here to play games.”
“Then why did you come?”
“To warn you. Vampires do not need a ‘mummy and a daddy’, do we? And the most powerful among us can even come back from dust, with enough blood. The Vryloka are related to us, who is to say they do not share more of our abilities? The Vryloka…”
“Are a myth,” I interrupted him, making a fart sound with my lips. “If they ever existed (which I seriously doubted) then they are all gone now. What on earth makes you think otherwise?”
Laucian levelled a cool stare at me. “A smarter man might have asked that question to start with, rather than pouring scorn before hearing the evidence.”
“There is evidence, is there?” I was fairly comfortable pouring on the scorn. The Vryloka belonged alongside dragons, winged horses and talking cats. They simply were not real and it was rather embarrassing to hear a Master Vampire talking about them seriously. Perhaps the centuries of his strictly traditional lifestyle had finally caught up to him and Laucian was going senile.
“I have word from people whom I trust,” said the geriatric.
I shook my head; he was making this too easy. “Oh well, I did not realize you had such ironclad evidence. I thought you were going to produce