Prompts and motivation to create something out of nothing

The Old Ways can rub some people wrong — especially those coming into the supernatural world fresh from this modern era of excess, privilege, and internet anonymity. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen societal changes and cultural shifts in every direction you could plot an axis for; live for nearly 3500 years as I have, and you too will come to understand that Change is the one and only constant in this world. But what our more, shall I say, exuberant (indignant, entitled, take your pick) newcomers tend to misunderstand is that Old Ways — and those of us who uphold them — don’t stand in opposition to change; we’ve just already seen all their ‘new’ ideas brought forward before, been accepted, gone stale, and get discarded for the next.

The Old Ways aren’t rules, they’re just how you come to behave once you’ve lived through a few revolutions of the cycle. They’re also not written or codified in any way, but if I had to articulate the particular tenet that seems most abhorrent to our most recent newcomers, it would be this: Respect is owed to your elders, because they’ve already damn-well earned it in the past.

The recent upheaval in the supernatural underworld wasn’t particularly upsetting, or even that surprising: some newly-minted vamp shaking things up, gathering a following, killing off a few of the established vampire lords. I don’t overlap much with the neck-biter scene, so it wasn’t very concerning to me. But as ill-luck would have it, he kept growing more famous, and thus harder to avoid hearing about.

He was turned fairly late for a vampire, in his 40s, having already led a deeply troubling life steeped in conspiracy theory, hoax, and rabbit holes into the occult. So rather than take the traditional path toward amassing strength for a vamp — which is basically just to feed regularly and get older — he instead continued his dive into the occult. To his credit, this did score him the power he needed to oppose (and depose) many of the vampire lords of London; to his detriment, it also placed him rather firmly on a collision course with me.

I’d put a handful of wards and contingencies in place out of habit, but I wasn’t particularly concerned. Vampires are about as dangerous to me as… eh… now that I think of it, I don’t have a great analogy on hand for this. There isn’t much that’s truly all that dangerous to me at all, anymore — about as dangerous as a mosquito, I guess? In that I’d be annoyed if one bit me?

Still, he did manage to surprise me, if only because I never thought he’d be stupid enough to come for me there, in the Tavern. But like I said: in this storied community, the impetuous youth flaunt or ignore the Old Ways at their own peril. And it had started as such a nice, quiet night, with me seated at my usual booth in its dimly lit, secluded corner of the restaurant.

“Here you are, darling, you just let me know if you need anything else, okay?”

The head server of the Tavern is a lovely woman, seemingly 30 to 40 years of age, who despite the many years she’s spent in England, still speaks with an accent from the American south. Her ethnic heritage is clearly from a region further south-west in Africa than my own.

“Of course, thank you Catherine,” I replied as she placed an impeccably plated salad on the table before me. It was one of my favorites at the Tavern, a delightful little number with tender bamboo shoots, and some kind of sweet and spicy mustard vinaigrette. Catherine smiled and whisked off toward another table. I folded a piece of baby spinach over an arugula leaf and pinned them to a bamboo shoot with my fork, and had just lifted them to my lips when the doors to the Tavern slammed open into the walls of the entryway. The small, decorative windows in the doors shattered on impact, showering the hostess’ podium with shards of glass.