Greta at the Cafe

For Greta, safety feels like a dim memory…

Except in the café. There, Greta finds a place she can sit and read in peace without having to worry about other vampires. Or even the vampire hunters who also frequented the café. They all hung out in Nina’s place for peace and quiet and really good coffee. Greta can only take a few sips these days, but as a newborn, she truly relishes a place where she doesn’t have to maintain her guard.

Until the Master vampire walks in. One she doesn’t know. One who could definitely mean trouble for a vampire trying to avoid hives and vampire politics.

But what starts as an unnervingly tense situation turns into something completely different fast. And Greta learns just how much she doesn’t know. And how dangerous that lack of knowledge could be.

GRETA AT THE CAFE is available to read for free until the 15th of July, when another story will be posted. For readers who would prefer to read on a device of preference, or who would like their own personal eBook of this story, you can find it here.

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Greta at the Café

A Café Story

Greta leaned against the cushioned back of her chair in the corner of the café, attempting to look as small as possible. She wasn’t a small woman under normal circumstances. At over six feet tall, being “small” wasn’t usually in her vocabulary.

But there was another vampire in the café today and she didn’t want him to notice her.

Not that he’d be able to miss her. She was relatively new, still getting used to her powers, and it was the middle of the day anyway, so her “powers” were taking a nap. The sun didn’t bother her too much yet. In fact, that had been a great surprise and something of a relief when she’d been turned and found out she could still go out into the daylight without turning to ash.

She’d grown up watching TV shows and reading books where vampires couldn’t allow any sun to touch their skin. And she’d dreaded that when she’d woken up in the crypt, knowing she’d died and come back. There’d been no one there to tell her otherwise, so she’d waited until she was certain it was dark before leaving the crypt.

The craving had hit hard that first night. Who knew the thought of blood could do anything but turn her stomach. Of all the people to get turned vampire, someone squeamish about blood who used to pass out at just the sight of it would rank up there with the least likely of people. She hadn’t really planned on being a vampire. That had been bad dumb luck. Turned out it was good that the call to drink blood overrode her squeamishness or she’d have died a long time ago.

Her first “meal” had been a squirrel that had the bad luck to be caught out in the cemetery. The blood had tasted…meh. But it had quieted the drive to feed and she’d been able to think. Felt bad about the poor squirrel, though.

The whole first few years had been a lot of trial and error, and the fact that she was still alive was a testament to how bloody hard it was to kill a vampire. Even a young one willing to be killed because she hadn’t turned on purpose. Had the café owner Nina’s boyfriend Rhys found Greta a few years ago and killed her, Greta wouldn’t have blamed him or even have been mad at him in the moment. She might have tried to survive—her instinct to survive was surprisingly strong, even now, when she was, technically, already dead. But that was all instinct. Her brain, in those early years, would have been okay with dying permanently.

Because the life of a vampire was complicated and weird.

Finding the café, and being safe here, had been one of the things that moved the instinct to survive closer to a desire to survive. A safe place during the day to hang out with other people and not feel weird or horrible or…hungry? That had been a lifeline. So to speak. Nina never rushed her out when she came in, so Greta could sit in the corner reading whatever new book she discovered in the attached bookstore and pretending to sip her coffee—she could actually stomach a few sips before it started to make her nauseas so she did drink a little. It was really very good coffee and had she found the café before turning, she would have been a regular then too.

She wasn’t the only vampire that made this place a regular hang out either. There were two others who came in regularly—not counting Rhys’s rather terrifying brother who was also a wizard as well as a vampire and whom she avoided at all costs because he still hunted vampires with Rhys. She didn’t trust Virgil the way she trusted Rhys not to kill her so long as she didn’t cause trouble. At any rate, the other two vampires were here for the same reason Greta was. A little peace and quiet and time away from vampire politics and machinations. If they happened to cross paths in the café, they’d established an unspoken agreement to just ignore each other. That worked out very well for all involved.

But this new vampire in the café wasn’t one of the other regulars. And he wasn’t Virgil. And he wasn’t someone from the hive she was avoiding getting roped into.

At least, she didn’t think he was.

Most vampires lived in a hive, under the protection of a Master vampire. Especially newborns. There was safety in numbers and enough vampires willing to teach a newborn so that the newborns could survive better.

As far as Greta knew, the other two regulars here were part of a hive, though she got the impression it was different ones and this territory didn’t overlap either, so this was considered neutral ground. No vampires claimed this particular area of the city as their territory. Whether that was on purpose—because a witch owned the café and a vampire hunting wizard and his wizard vampire brother were regulars here—she didn’t know, but she did know it was considered neutral ground, and no Master claimed it.

There were hiveless Masters who just roamed around doing as they liked. Sometimes they joined up with a hive and sometimes they kept to themselves. But as a Master that was fine. They were powerful enough to take care of themselves with or without a hive. Sometimes those lone Masters got killed by a local hive Master. As far as she could tell, that was because of territory disputes.

But at any rate, the hive and the Master vampire were the backbone of vampire lives and politics. What was incredibly rare was a newborn without a hive or a Master to teach them. Those newborns didn’t usually last long. Without a Master, they tended to lose control of the bloodlust, go on a killing spree, attracting the attention of a vampire hunter or something like one, and then getting killed.

If the other vampires didn’t find and kill the newborn first to avoid unwanted attention.

A newborn who survived for even a few years without hive or Master, like Greta had done, was apparently not normal. She wasn’t sure why she was different. But she wasn’t about to get herself swept into a Master’s plots and plans by going to one to ask.

Outside of the café, she made an effort to avoid other vampires, so she only knew the things she did from what she’d learned on her own or through reading—and the reading was hit or miss on accuracy.

What she did know, and what she could tell instantly and by instinct, was that the vampire who’d just walked into the café wasn’t just an ordinary vampire from one of the local hives. He was a Master vampire.

And Master vampires didn’t hardly ever come out during the day.

That all by itself would have made Greta nervous. If she’d been a little smarter, she would have slipped out through the bookstore the minute this new vampire walked in. Might have been a little obvious, but she’d have been away before he had a chance to sniff her out. The other two regulars weren’t here today, lucky for them, or she might have realized quicker and moved. The other two seemed to recognize other vampires faster than she did—maybe because of living in a hive?—so she could have taken her cue from them.

She’d been engrossed in her book, though, and hadn’t felt that telltale tingling of awareness that made her skin feel itchy and the hair on her arms stand up until it was too late to move without him noticing.

Instead, she sank back into her chair in the corner, put the book up so it mostly covered her face, and watched him as subtly as she could.

He would sense her, she was certain. If he hadn’t already, he’d know any minute. The other two regulars knew she was a vampire. Nina knew. But Greta sort of hoped this new vampire would ignore her because she was a newborn and not very powerful and as far as he knew probably belonged to some other Master.

Thinking of herself as a newborn after five years of being a vampire was strange, but given how long vampires lived—if they didn’t get killed—it felt appropriate. She wasn’t sure if other vampires considered her newborn still, though. She’d never asked.

The new vampire went to the counter and ordered a coffee. When he wasn’t looking at Nina, Nina cast a glance in Greta’s direction. But that was the only indication Nina showed of knowing this was a new vampire and she had another vampire hiding in the corner. She smiled and was her usual professional self as she got the vampire a cappuccino. Her familiar Boo, a giant pale gray Maine Coon, sat on his usual stool next to the register, licking his paw and pretending not to pay any attention to the vampire.

Cats didn’t usually like vampires. She wasn’t sure why. She’d gotten along well with cats before she was turned, and she still seemed to get along okay with most of them. But she’d watched cats get really upset every time other vampires walked by. And she had read in a book that there was animosity between cats and vampires. Boo never showed that reaction, though. Never made it obvious a vampire customer was a vampire by hissing at them.

Probably because Boo wasn’t an ordinary cat.

He’d let her scratch him a few times, though she tried only to do that after she’d fed and her skin wasn’t so cold. Being able to pet a cat was…soothing in a way she wasn’t sure how to explain. So she was extremely grateful to Boo for allowing her the kindness. Yet another reason she’d made the café a regular hangout.

The vampire took his cappuccino when Nina slid it across the counter to him, and then he turned and scanned the seating area. Greta ducked further behind her book and tried to project, small and unobtrusive.

She wasn’t sure why she tried to look small. Size was hardly a factor for most vampires. Tall, short, large, petite. Didn’t matter. The physical strength, speed, and power didn’t come from a vampire’s physical size. Maybe it was still a leftover instinct from when she’d been human. To shrink so no one noticed her. At six foot tall, it had been very difficult to walk around unnoticed. Since she hated attention, her height had been a very unfortunate quirk of biology.

The vampire’s gaze skimmed over her, past her without lingering. He took a seat at the back of the café near the counter, one of the cushioned seats like the one Greta occupied. The seat put his back to the wall so he could see the café’s front door. He sat gracefully, set the coffee on the little wooden table beside his seat, crossed his legs, and settled his arms on the armrests.

He wore a business suit in pale gray, which suited his light brown skin, black shirt underneath with no tie. He wore his black, curly hair in a short style that was almost completely shaved on the sides and a little fluffier on the top. At that moment, his skin had none of the nighttime mesmeric qualities he might otherwise display, none of the subtle glow and luster that added to a vampire’s attraction, which helped him appear human.

In fact, if she didn’t know better, Greta wouldn’t have guessed on sight he was a vampire. She would have just assumed some sort of businessman.

At night… well, since he was a Master, she imagined his power was overwhelming. Especially since he was sitting around in the daylight looking perfectly comfortable, despite the fact that he wouldn’t have access to most of his vampiric powers at the moment.

Yeah, he was definitely someone she didn’t want noticing her. A Master out in the daylight spelled trouble.

Greta watched from behind her book for a solid fifteen minutes, leery. Waiting for him to notice her and attack. But nothing happened.

The Master sat there, lifted his cappuccino occasionally. The drink seemed to disappear, but she couldn’t see him taking actual sips. He checked his watch once. Mostly he just sat there, his attention on the front door. He didn’t sit so still that it was overly noticeable. He made an effort to move a foot, a hand, to adjust his coat, ran a hand over his head. Blinked. Breathed. All things she knew for a fact he didn’t have to do.

But the stillness that a Master vampire could fall into so naturally was noticeable in the daylight to humans. A Master, sometimes even a lesser vampire if they were old enough, could remain so still they looked like statues. Without those small gestures that a human did without thinking—the fidgets, the tiny adjustments, the blinking—a vampire’s stillness became impossible to ignore. Could draw attention in a way that seemed counter to the fact that they weren’t moving. Humans instinctively recognized that kind of stillness as dangerous. A threat. The predator watching and waiting to pounce.

This Master was obviously used to being around humans, blending in and making sure they didn’t notice him as otherworldly. They might notice him. He was tall, handsome, dressed impeccably. But they’d notice him as a human. Not obviously a vampire.

All the more reason to be afraid of him. That he was powerful enough to sit in sunshine without bother and do so regularly… Terrifying.

As she watched, Greta considered the possibility that she’d misread him. That he was in fact much younger than she’d assumed. That he wasn’t a Master, even if he did trigger her own vampiric instincts that saw him as one. Him being young and maybe even not all that powerful would also explain why he still fidgeted and moved like a human. Why he could be out in the daytime without it really bothering him. She still fidgeted sometimes. She still passed through the day without too much trouble. And she was very young for a vampire.

But her every instinct shrank back from his power. Power that she should have had a harder time noticing in full daylight. Whatever else he was, she knew he wasn’t a young and powerless newborn.

After watching him for so long from behind her book she was starting to feel obvious—she hadn’t turned a page in ten minutes—she realized he wasn’t here to cause trouble for her. He wasn’t even glancing in her direction. He had to know she was there. But he didn’t care. He continued to watch the door. And as she set her book down, tempting his attention, he checked his watch again. A nice, silver wristwatch she thought was probably very expensive, but she knew nothing about men’s watches. Or women’s watches for that matter. Getting a watch had always seemed pointless and weird. Time meant something completely different to a vampire and it moved differently.

She supposed that was another strange thing about this Master. Wearing a watch, even an expensive one, and checking it spoke to human time and schedules.

When another five minutes passed without issue, she allowed herself a tiny bit of relaxation. She didn’t relax fully. That would be stupid around a Master. But she let herself slid up and take a more relaxed position in her cushioned chair rather than hunching down in it trying to disappear.

She glanced at her own coffee mug sitting on the small table next to her chair. What was left in it was cold now. She needed to replace it. A coffee an hour was the fee she paid to sit here as long as she wanted. Nina ran a business and sometimes that business was crowded, the tables and chairs at a premium. Greta didn’t want to get banished from the place, so she ensured she paid for her seat.

She was considering whether to wait for the Master to leave or to just go to the counter for another coffee when the bell over the door rang.

And another vampire walked in.

What the hell? It was like someone had called a meeting she didn’t know about.

This was a stranger to her too. Not another one of the regulars. Not Virgil. Not any of the local hive vampires who occasionally tried to lure—or trick—her into joining their hive.

And like the Master, this vampire was a surprise.

She was a white woman who had that general look of being somewhere in her thirties maybe. A sort of neutral “adult” age. She could be younger or older but she didn’t look like a kid and she didn’t look like an old woman. She was dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and flannel shirt. The t-shirt had a pop culture reference to a popular science fiction movie franchise on it. The flannel shirt was red and black patterned. The jeans were loose and faded, like they’d been worn a lot, not like they’d been purposefully distressed. She had light brownish blond hair that was longish and pulled back into a ponytail. There was no real style to it. And she wasn’t wearing any makeup or jewelry that Greta could see outside of small silver stud earrings.

There was nothing about her that screamed vampire. She wasn’t moving with that smooth grace that vampires had—even Greta moved with unconscious grace if she didn’t modify her movements to more closely fit in with humans. The new vampire didn’t seem to be a Master, but she also didn’t appear hesitant or leery as most none Masters were when out in the daylight around other vampires.

The new vampire scanned the café, spotted the Master, gave him a nod, then went to the counter. All very normal human things. Ordered a coffee, chatting with Nina, smiled and gave Boo a little scratch. The cat reacted to the woman as if she were an ordinary human too. Which…was unexpected from the familiar.

The woman leaned on the counter as she waited for her coffee. Straightened and pulled a cellphone out of her back packet to check it. Slipped it back into her pocket and pulled cash out of her front jeans pocket to pay for her order. Even dropped a bill into Nina’s tip jar. Then she sauntered over to the waiting Master as if there were no hurry and she hadn’t kept him waiting for twenty minutes.

She grinned as she slid a chair close to him, pulling a wooden seat from one of the nearby tables, and settled with her legs crossed, cradling the hot mug between her hands.

With her exceptional hearing, Greta could hear every word spoken in the café if she didn’t purposefully block it out. All the noise could be overwhelming, was overwhelming right after she’d risen. She’d spent considerable time learning how to dial back her senses so she could be among others without losing her mind. Now she could adjust her hearing, to filter out most things and hear only what she wanted to.

But despite the fact that she watched their mouths move, Greta couldn’t hear the conversation between the two vampires. Even when she tried to eavesdrop.

Her curiosity was piqued. Her instincts and leeriness high too, though. Strange vampires having a meeting in her café in broad daylight. One at least was a Master and, while he could pass as human quite well, looked like someone you could see being a vampire from his impeccable suit to his immaculate styling. The other, definitely not a Master—at least not triggering that instinct—and dressed so lazily human Greta would never have guessed her a vampire.

And at least one of them was strong enough to ensure the other vampire in the café didn’t overhear their conversation.

That was probably the Master’s doing. Though… It was the middle of the day. He should be without access to most of his vampiric skills. Both of them should. Things like heightened hearing and vision were still there in the daylight, and though dampened compared to at night, those senses were better than a human’s all the time. But mesmerism, strength, speed, all those nighttime vampire skills went away during the day.

That included any mental manipulation skills.

Greta assumed the ability to hide their conversation was a mental manipulation skill but maybe it was something else. Maybe a… A spell or something? Maybe one of them carried a magical object that did that?

After five years and learning most of what she knew through her own experience and reading books that may or may not have any basis in reality, Greta wasn’t exactly an expert in all things vampire. She had to assume this was a trick she just hadn’t learned about yet. And it was one that worked during the day.

Curiosity had always been her weakness. Hell, curiosity was the thing that had gotten her turned. Following disturbing sounds into an alley at night and then being stupid enough to try and pull the man off the woman he was hurting. Only realizing too late the man wasn’t a man. And neither was the woman. It had been a trap to lure in a hapless human.

Sometimes Greta wondered if the vampires who’d killed her realized that hapless human had risen after they’d drained her dry.

Her curiosity was going to get her into trouble again. The need to know what was happening so overwhelming it felt like an imperative. Like she needed to know what was going on at that table for her own survival.

Moving to a closer table would be obvious. And draw their attention. Which she didn’t want. Walking past them on her way to the counter for another coffee would require she go out of her way. Again, too obvious. How could she get closer? And would that even help. The distance shouldn’t have prevented her from hearing in the first place, so getting closer probably wouldn’t solve the problem.

She narrowed her eyes, wondering if maybe Nina knew what was going on. The witch might give Greta a heads up if this was something she needed to worry about.

Risking drawing their attention, Greta stood, leaving her book in her seat, and wove through the tables to the register. From the corner of her eye, she saw the Master take note of her, but other than that brief touch of his attention on her, he paid her no mind. Most of his attention was on the woman across from him, who seemed to be chatting in an animated human way that looked perfectly normal in the café. Yet because Greta couldn’t hear her, the conversation had to be anything but normal.

At the counter, she slid her half empty coffee mug to Nina. “Another please,” she said, fixing a pleasant smile onto her mouth so she looked harmless. It never slipped her mind that Nina’s boyfriend was a vampire hunter, even though Nina had never given Greta any reason to be worried. Better for them both to remember she meant no harm and just wanted a safe place to hang out.

Nina grinned, but her gaze jumped to the other vampires. “You okay?” she asked quietly, her tone much more serious than her expression.

“Guess so. Don’t know either of them. And they don’t seem bothered about me.”

Nina nodded. “They’re new here. Never seen them before either.” She went to the espresso machine.

The hiss of steam and grinding beans from the machine sounded louder than usual and Greta realized she was still trying to listen in on the vampires’ conversation so had her hearing dialed up too high.

Nina returned and slid the mug across the counter. She took Greta’s money, rang everything up, but under her breath and the sound of the cash register, she said, “You want to leave or stay? I’ll make sure they don’t bother you if there’s an issue.”

If Greta still breathed normally, she imagined she would have let out a little gasping sigh at that comment. The relief that she was in fact safe here made her a little light headed.

“Thank you.” She cradled her freshly made coffee, the smell of richly roasted beans rising on the steam to surround her head, the warmth seeping into her cool hands. “I think I’m okay. But I really appreciate the concern.” She glanced at the two vampires. The woman was still chatting pleasantly. The man watching her. Greta realized he didn’t seem to be talking all that much. “Do you know what they’re talking about?” she asked Nina quietly.

Nina gave her a look. “You can’t hear them?”

“No. Are they talking loudly?”

“No, but…” Nina gave her a funny look, then glanced at the vampires. “But I assumed you had, you know, really good hearing.”

Nina knew she was a vampire, but Greta realized they’d never talked about that fact out loud. Nina was very good at just implying things so that people were at ease. Saying it out loud in the middle of the day with ordinary humans around probably would have been a bad idea. But since Nina already knew, she didn’t mince her words.

“I do,” Greta said. “I can hear people having a conversation in the bookstore.” She glanced at the vampires before putting her attention on Nina so the vampires wouldn’t notice she was watching them. “But I can’t hear them. They must be…blocking me? Is that possible?”

“You don’t know?” Nina sounded genuinely surprised.

If Greta had more blood in her, she probably would have blushed. “I’m…kinda young?”

Something she’d just assumed Nina knew, the way the witch knew she was a vampire. Which was why she’d made the statement a question.

Nina nodded and visibly seemed to shift her thinking. She rolled her lips into her mouth briefly then firmed her shoulders and nodded again. “Right. Okay. So. From what I’ve heard, there are some people…like you, who have a gift for…” She frowned a little, then said, “For pitching their voices to certain frequencies. Frequencies that can…filter out who can and can’t hear them.”

“Like subsonic talking?” Greta had read about. It was a vampire trick. It took practice and she hadn’t come close to mastering it yet. But… “I can hear that.”

“Yes. Yes. You can. Where others couldn’t hear that particular range of sound. Right?”

“Right,” Greta said, drawing out the word.

“So, there’s this…very specific, uh, you kind of frequency. A young…you frequency. And there are some older people like you who can speak in a way that filters out the sound that someone young like you can hear.” Nina frowned. “Is this making sense?”

“It is. Sort of. But I’ve never heard of that.”

“As I understand it—and I’m not an expert mind, so you might want to double check with…someone…” Another frown, like Nina realized that might be a complicated thing for Greta to do.

She was right. Greta didn’t really have any older vampires she could ask about these things. Not safely. Not without getting roped into joining a hive. Greta wanted the information. But she also wanted to be able to steer clear of the demands of living in a hive and be subservient to a Master. Since the vampires who made her had abandoned her—and likely didn’t even realize she’d risen—she didn’t seem to have need of a Master. She didn’t want her sliver of freedom to change just to get questions answered.

Nina gave her head a little shake and continued. “As I understand it, the skill is pretty rare and limited mostly to Masters—though not all of them can do it.”

Greta frowned and glanced back at the two vampires talking. They’d be able to hear what she and Nina were saying to each other, if they were paying attention. Yet they never even glanced toward the counter. Greta and Nina were speaking quite quietly. With vampires, that wasn’t enough. Using the word “Master” should have drawn their attention more fully. It didn’t.

On top of that confusing behavior, Greta realized that of the two vampires, the one she’d assumed wasn’t a Master was the one doing all the talking that Greta couldn’t hear. She’d noted that the Master wasn’t talking much. But she realized he wasn’t talking hardly at all.

He probably couldn’t do the voice modulation to filter sound so a newborn couldn’t hear.

But the vampire who wasn’t a Master could?

“This is weird,” she murmured to Nina.

Nina took a rag out of her apron and wiped off the counter, as if wiping away an imaginary spill. “Little bit,” she admitted. “But then, the café attracts all kinds.”

That made Greta snort-laugh because yeah it did.

Nina tucked away her towel and then leaned on the counter, closer to Greta. “For the record, I blocked our conversation with a little spell, so they can’t hear us either.”

Greta glanced sharply at her. “When did you do that?”

“When you said you couldn’t hear them, and I realized we’d have to speak a little more bluntly.”

“But you’re still not using the word for what I am.”

She shrugged. “Never hurts to be careful in case something goes wrong with a spell. But if they knew what we were talking about, the Master at least would have glanced at us. Right?” She said this last word as if she was speaking to the Master.

The man didn’t look away from the woman across from him, who was still talking animatedly, her gestures and whole demeanor very human for someone who’d modulated their voice so Greta couldn’t hear them.

It struck her then… “Can everyone else hear them? The humans and stuff?”

“What I’m hearing,” Nina said, “is a conversation about a camping trip the woman took last year. So I suspect that’s what everyone else is hearing.”

“But that’s not what she’s talking about?” Greta couldn’t quite make that make sense. Why would an ordinary vampire who passed really well as a human, meet a Master in a café in the daylight to tell him about her last camping trip? A Master being out in the daylight like this was odd enough. Him being here just to have an ordinary conversation with another vampire seemed very weird.

“I don’t think that’s what the underlying conversation is really about,” Nina confirmed with a nod. “So either the woman can speak in two different frequencies at once, or there’s some sort of code inside the camping exploits that the man understands.”

“This is so weird.” Greta was both fascinated and a little more nervous than she’d been when the Master walked in. There were things happening that she’d never learned. And that felt very dangerous to her survival. She’d made it this far by sheer determination and trial and error. But watching the two older vampires speak, she worried that there was so much she didn’t know that, on her next trial, she might make a fatal error.

And after five years, Greta had adapted enough to this new life to know she didn’t want to die again in the permanent way. Not yet anyway.

But how could she learn everything she needed to learn without getting dragged into a vampire hive? Or even killed because she wasn’t protected by a Master?

“The Master seems pretty annoyed,” Nina provided. “I think he’d like to speak but can’t do whatever the woman is doing.”

“How can you tell?” Greta looked at him closer. “Oh. I see.”

He’d settled into that stillness that wasn’t quite human. He wasn’t making an effort to fidget or move or appear to be breathing even. His eyes were fully focused on the woman, and as Greta watched, she realized he’d forgotten to blink. If any of the humans glanced up and looked at him for too long, they’d notice something weird. Maybe not be able to tell what was weird about him, but they’d notice him now.

That seemed significant. But Greta wasn’t sure what it meant. Especially since he’d been so good at appearing human just moments ago.

There was a very faint glow in his eyes too. A hint of the yellow that often shined from a full vampire’s eyes, especially at night, and especially when they were either angry or getting ready to hunt.

Greta would bet money on angry.

“Guess the conversation isn’t going well,” Nina said. She adjusted her position, leaning her hip against the wooden countertop and folding her arms.

The move reminded Greta that she was supposed to fidget too. She shifted from one foot to the other, brought the mug to her mouth and took a sip. The richly roasted coffee had just the right amount of dark without being bitter. It was a shame she couldn’t drink more than a few sips over the course of the day.

She took a second sip and also leaned against the counter. From the outside, she hoped it looked like she and Nina were just talking, but it was getting hard to pretend they weren’t watching the two vampires. And now that Greta knew Nina had used some sort of spell to prevent everyone hearing what she and Nina were saying to each other, it was hard for Greta not to spill all her questions and worries and wonders.

The Master finally cut into the woman’s chatter, holding up a hand with his palm facing her—a human gesture, so he was back to being aware of his surroundings. The woman fell silent and her animated arms gestures stopped. She looked at the Master with a pleasant, expectant expression that seemed to belie the tension in the conversation.

The Master spoke, and this Greta heard, though he spoke too quietly for the humans in the café to hear. “I have tolerated you and your roommate in my territory for many years. The others are now questioning my ability to hold the hive together if I do not do something about you.”

“Since we’ve hurt no one, interacted with none of them, and haven’t changed our behavior in any way, I think this is a you problem, Semere. They’re questioning your leadership. What’s changed to start that?”

Somewhat to Greta’s surprise, the woman didn’t ask that question with accusation or gloating. She genuinely asked, leaning on the table as if truly interested in what the Master had to say. As if they were equals having a conversation and he didn’t have the power of an entire hive behind him ready to kill the woman.

Greta sipped her coffee again, this time pretending, but couldn’t seem to look away. It was like watching a soap opera. She was fascinated now. She wasn’t usually privy to vampire politics directly because she went out of her way to avoid them. But she knew enough to know that the way the woman was acting was…unusual within vampire circles.

Semere’s eyebrow rose. “Unless you’re prepared to join my hive, that is not a topic we will discuss.”

“That’s fair.” The woman said something else that Greta couldn’t hear even though she watched her mouth moving.

Semere’s lips flattened, and the faint yellow in his eyes flared briefly.

“Did you hear what she said?” Greta quietly asked Nina.

“That last sentence? She said the weather in Upstate New York was gorgeous this time of year.”

“That wasn’t what she really said, was it?” Greta was starting to get this figured out. A little anyway.

“I suspect not. But I also suspect that woman is a stronger vampire than she appears.”

Greta didn’t jolt physically at hearing Nina say the word vampire out loud. But she did mentally. Even being a vampire, Greta sometimes wondered if the world she lived in was real. Real people didn’t believe in vampires. And when they talked about them it was because they were discussing a movie, a book, folklore. Never real vampires. Not out loud. Greta knew what Nina’s boyfriend Rhys was and they all knew what Greta was and Greta knew that Nina was a witch and Boo was her familiar. But they didn’t talk about it out loud with words that weren’t euphemisms.

Freely discussing something this bluntly with the full range of words spoken aloud was, actually, a bit unnerving.

The conversation between the Master and the woman went on for another few minutes and then the Master stood, abruptly. He snapped down the sleeves of his suit jacket—a suitably human gesture—gave the woman a glare, and without a word, walked out.

No parting threat or anything.

Given that he was pissed at the woman, that seemed strange.

“Okay,” Nina said as the bell over the door stilled following the vampire’s abrupt exit. “That was interesting.”

“Weird,” Greta agreed. Again. But she could relax a little more now. All the tension and readiness she’d been holding in her shoulders and gut released and relaxed. She doubted anyone noticed the difference in her body from the outside, but inside, she felt a thousand times better. Of course, she still had the woman vampire to deal with, but since she wasn’t a Master looking to rope hapless solitary vampires into their hive, Greta was a lot less worried.

The woman watched the Master leave, and for the first time Greta saw a hint of her vampire nature. Her eyes were mostly brown, but a hint of that yellow glow flared briefly before fading. Probably if Greta hadn’t been watching and wasn’t very aware of other vampires, she might not even have noticed.

Then the woman made a little face, shrugged, and picked up her coffee mug. She brought it back to the counter. It was empty. “Thanks,” she said to Nina. Gave Greta a grin and a head nod, then disappeared into the bookstore without another word.

Okay. That was… “That was odd, wasn’t it?” Greta said. “Like, she didn’t even acknowledge that I was a… You know.”

“I know, right?” Nina said, sweeping up the cup the vampire had left behind and setting it into a sink before rejoining Greta. “Given her personality, I was sort of expecting her to wink at you or something.”

Greta had never had a vampire wink at her to acknowledge their shared natures, but then again, Greta had never encountered a vampire quite like the woman who’d vanished into the bookstore.

“You think the Master will be back?” Greta asked Nina. Not really expecting an answer.

“Might be. Will that make you too nervous? I can ban him?”

Greta blinked slowly and turned to fully face Nina. “You would do that for me?”

“I take care of my regulars,” Nina said, very seriously. “This is your place. He’s not a regular. You are. So yeah, I’d do that for you.”

Greta knew she’d felt comfortable and at home here at the café. But hearing Nina say that made this place truly feel like another home. And that made Greta feel a bit emotional. She couldn’t cry unless she’d just eaten and then the tears were red, so she avoided doing that in front of other people. But if she was going to be safe to cry anywhere, she felt like this café was that place. She really was at home here.

Instead of sniffling like a human, she smiled, carefully closed-lipped so she didn’t show her canines, and thanked Nina. She wasn’t sure what else to say.

Nina did wink as the bell over the door rang and a new customer—a human this time—walked in. Greta left Nina to run her business and returned to her seat in the corner.

She went back to reading her book—an excellent science fiction one—really reading this time instead of pretending to, allowing herself the luxury of sinking deep in the story. Time vanished. The shadows and movement around the café in her peripheral vision were just background, people settling, getting up and leaving, new people pulling up a chair to a table.

So she didn’t notice at first when someone sat down right in front of her. Just another shadow. Just another human coming and going. She didn’t even notice the warning signal that poked her instincts.

That little tingle of sensation like a flush of warmth when she was in the presence of a stronger, older vampire.

When the warmth sank in, she blinked slowly and looked up. Had she the usual sort of heartbeat, it would have been hammering. Had she the usual sort of bodily reactions, her pulse would have sped up.

Instead, what she did was freeze. In that inhuman way that made it impossible to pass as ordinary. So still even the rise and fall of her chest to simulate ordinary breathing stopped. She didn’t need to breathe per se, one breath every few hours was more than enough, and only that because she was young, but she simulated the movement to blend in with humans during the daytime. In her shock, she dropped even that habit.

The woman who’d been speaking with the Master sat in front of her, in another one of the wooden seats from a nearby table. She’d turned the chair backward and was straddling it, her arms resting across the backrest, her chin resting on her arms. She was smiling softly as she looked at Greta. But, Greta realized, not in a predatory “I’ve caught you and now you die” sort of way. It was a patient, almost…friendly smile.

“Must be a really good book,” the woman said. “You were on high alert when Semere was in here. And rightly so. He’s dangerous.” The woman snort-laughed. Then rolled her eyes. “Okay, yeah, I guess we all are. But whatever. You know what I mean.” She waved a hand as if dismissing the topic. “Anyway, I thought we should talk, but I wanted to make sure Semere left before I approached you. Wouldn’t want him to pay much attention to you, right?”

Greta didn’t answer. She was really too startled and still in panic-freeze mode. Her brain slowly slowly coming back on line. Realizing that this woman could have killed her before Greta even looked up from her book. That did not bode well for her survival instincts. And here she was thinking she had great instincts because she’d survived this long even when there’d been times she hadn’t cared if she survived.

“You have great survival instincts,” the woman said, as if reading Greta’s mind. “And no, I didn’t read your mind. But the fear is written all over your face and in your scent. But also…” The woman shrugged. “I remember feeling that way right after I turned.”

Greta still didn’t know how to respond. She couldn’t process all of this.

“So,” the woman said, “I won’t expect much from you until you can adjust to what’s happening here, but you should do some blinking. You know. The whole blending in thing.”

Greta made an effort to blink. It took a lot of concentration. She blinked twice more. Then adjusted her book, bending the corner and setting it aside on the table. All very human moves.

The woman winced at the corner bend. “I’m a bookmark person myself. But to each their own, right?”

Because she was attempting to move back into looking like a human, Greta nodded.

“Hey! Well done. You really are going to do great. I know you are. Okay. Here’s the story. You’re not like most vampires and eventually someone is going to notice, but the good news is you probably have at least another decade or two before they do. You won’t ever need a Master and you will weirdly not be compelled by them. I say weirdly because most of our kind who never make the Master level end up having to belong to a hive to survive. You won’t. In fact, a hive will drive you bonkers and you would hate one.”

“Yes,” Greta said, her voice sounding a little harsh and strained still, but she agreed so thoroughly with that last sentence the word just popped out.

The woman grinned. “Already figured that part out, huh? Yeah, Nora and I were pretty quick to figure we wouldn’t be able to tolerate a hive too. I’m Everill, by the way. But you can call me Eve.”

Greta managed another nod and was pleased with herself for it. Even more pleased when she was able to say, “Who are you?”

“Now. There you are. Coming around again. Good job. Okay, so this is a long and complicated story. And don’t worry, no one is listening in. Took me a couple of centuries but I’ve got this speaking in two frequencies thing down pretty well now. You’ll be hearing one conversation. And everyone else is hearing us talk about books. Cool? Great.”

She hadn’t really waited on Greta’s answer but Greta didn’t have an answer so she let it go.

“To make this believable, though, I do have to talk a lot. And kind of fast. Sorry about that. It’s how I figured out to get it to work. Anyway. The thing is, my best friend and I got involuntarily turned centuries and centuries ago. Abandoned and had to figure all this stuff out on our own. Kinda sucked the first few years. But we had each other and we got there. I realize you have a question there, please hold it until I finish cause I’m in full swing with the two frequencies now.”

Eve did pause for what looked like a breath—which was odd—before saying, “The thing is, Nora and I were never like any of the other vampires we encountered and we realized why after a few decades. We can’t tolerate hives. We aren’t subject to the powers of a Master. They don’t hold any particular control over us and can’t control us. Which, of course, they hate. But it is what it is. We didn’t arrange to rise from the dead this way. Just how we both turned out. Probably something to do with our sire, but we killed him kind of quickly after we found him so never got the answers. Short sighted on our part. Except he wasn’t the kind to have given us answers anyway. At any rate, now we just live our lives and are pretty content. We get new work every few decades—like real human jobs—because that keeps us active. Well, I like to do that. Nora can sometimes go decades without a regular job because she gets bored with them…”

The rambling went on but Greta’s brain was having a lot of trouble processing what she was hearing. She could hear the woman just fine, despite the fact that she was speaking rapidly and a big rambling. But the words weren’t penetrating.

This woman, this vampire, was saying that she and Greta were alike. That Greta didn’t have to worry about Master vampires? That seemed wrong on many levels. That she wouldn’t want to live in a hive was a given and it was maybe a bit of a relief to discover that was a natural thing and not just a her thing. It also confirmed for her that she could and wanted to remain outside that structure.

But there was a lot of the other stuff that was flying past her. Why get a job? What kind of job would a vampire do? In the rambling, she thought she heard that Eve worked as a writer at the moment, but there was so much information pouring out it was hard to say if that was a current job or a past job or a job her friend Nora had done.

A pause in the stream of talk gave Greta a chance to lock back into the conversation. Eve was grinning at her.

“Yeah. That’s a lot. Sorry. But blink.”

Greta blinked and gave her head a little shake because those were human gestures. She didn’t normally have to work this hard at the human gestures. She hadn’t been dead long enough.

“Okay,” Eve said. “Long story short…” And then she laughed.

It was a surprisingly pleasant laugh. A normal laugh. Not the sort of rusty sinister laugh Greta associated with old vampires. And whatever else she was, Eve was a very old vampire.

“Long story short,” Eve repeated, “you can live this way for a long time and be perfectly happy and content, but there are a few things you’ll want to learn to make that journey easier. Nora and I had to learn the hard way and that really sucked. No pun intended. So we do try to help when we find others like ourselves who are new. And you’re new. Oh! Before I forget, that Master, Semere, he isn’t interested in you. He assumes you’ll either die or come to him when you’re ready. The benefit of being young but not causing trouble. The local Masters aren’t concerned about your existence. He would be if you were leaving a lot of bodies in your wake but you’re not. Yay, you!”

Greta wanted to say something to that but wasn’t sure what to say. Mostly because she felt weirdly reassured and complimented by Eve telling her she was doing okay so far. That was… Well, a relief.

“So Semere won’t pay any attention to you for years and years. And by the time he realizes you’re like me and not like a normal newborn it’ll be too late. So that’s exciting, right?”

“Sure,” Greta said.

“Look at you talking already! Well done. I don’t mean this to sound condescending, by the way. I am proud of you. Even though we don’t really know each other. You’re going to do great. You’ve already overcome the hardest stuff. Getting used to the whole…drinking part of things. And you aren’t leaving bodies in your wake. That’s fantastic. Nora and I were not that circumspect initially. We didn’t figure out we didn’t have to kill people for like a decade. It was bad. Anyway. Once you’ve thought about all this and the stream of information I’ve fired at you has settled so you can think about it, if you want to find me and Nora, I’m going to leave you a card so you can. We can help with some of the finer points that’ll make the next few years easier and help you stay under the radar of most Masters. Here’s the thing, you will never be a Master vampire. That’s not how we work. Which is weird too, but also a relief. But you will also never be required to subjugate yourself to a Master’s hive just to survive. Tradeoffs, right.”

“Sure,” Greta said again and was weirdly pleased when Eve gave her a wide grin and a reassuring nod.

“So when you’re ready and you want to learn more so you can actually enjoy a long life with only a few occasional inconveniences, then you come find me and Nora. Oh! And if you feel like we may be setting you a trap, that’s a fair concern. Like I said, you have good survival instincts. So take your time. And you can set the parameters of our meetings. Where and when and all that. If you need time, maybe even time to get to know us before taking on any of our information as real, that’s fair too. I mean, that’s the one thing we all have lots of is time. So you don’t worry about delays or not being in touch for even years if you need it. We’ll be there when you’re ready.”

She slid a card onto Greta’s chair’s thick armrest so it was within easy reach of Greta but not right under her hand. It was plane white cardstock with the name Everill Rossetti printed on it and a phone number that Greta thought might be a cellphone. She hadn’t come across many very old vampires she’d been willing to talk to, but she got the impression from the other two younger ones that visited the café regularly that the older vampires didn’t always embrace new technology. There were very very few Masters who might have a cellphone on their person.

“You can text any time and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. I’ll answer a call, too, but honestly, I’m more of a text kind of person.” She shrugged. “In the meantime, just know, we’re rooting for you. And avoiding Master vampires and hives is an excellent idea. You’re doing great!” She gave Greta two thumbs up, a huge grin, and then said, “Enjoy your book and your coffee! Wish I could drink more than a sip these days. That stuff is really yummy.”

She patted the back of the chair she’d been straddling, then stood and replaced it at one of the close tables. Since Greta hadn’t seen her come in, she made an effort to watch Eve leave. She went out through the front door this time, pausing to talk to Nina quietly and give Boo a scratch. Nina, through narrowed eyes, murmured a few words to Eve. Eve reassured her she wouldn’t hurt anyone that visited the café ever, and spoke in a quiet voice that the humans wouldn’t hear but that was loud enough for Greta to hear. Then she left, the bell over the door jingling pleasantly behind her.

Greta sat for a long time, staring at the plane card sitting on the armrest just a few inches from her fingertips. There wasn’t anything sinister written on the card, it wasn’t elaborate or fancy. In fact, it was so plane and ordinary, so lacking in decoration or even information, it looked a little silly. But also a little intimidating.

She sniffed at it, to make sure she didn’t smell any poisons—thanks to a true crime phase a few years ago, she knew there were some poisons that would react by seeping in through the skin. There didn’t seem to be anything at all on the card. In fact, it just smelled of paper and ink and maybe pocket lint. Finally, Greta put a finger to the card, and let her sense of touch tell her if there was anything there she needed to worry about. Nothing. Just ordinary paper. Nice and thick, with tiny threads that a human wouldn’t have noticed instead of a glossy smooth face.

Greta thought about everything Eve had said, some of it finally penetrating her brain enough so she could remember and analyze the stream of information. She found she liked the idea of learning more about her nature and how to survive. What she could and couldn’t do. And learning that from vampires who’d lived a long time but who weren’t trying to rope her into a hive seemed…ideal.

She wasn’t sure if she should trust the option. She’d need to think about it.

Knowing that the Masters in the area weren’t going to be interested in her for a while was a huge relief too. And that felt like something she could watch, study, a way to test whether or not to trust Eve’s information. If she went for another few years and no Masters paid attention to her, that might be a good sign that Eve was at least somewhat honest.

Could she afford to wait another few years before texting this number and asking all her questions?

Greta still had the impatience and sense of time she’d had as a human to some degree. Felt like the opportunity would slip by if she didn’t act on it quickly. But this was vampire time, not human time. She could wait. Survive. Learn more. Maybe research this other kind of vampire now that she knew there might be another kind of vampire. Others like her.

She slowly picked up the card, stared at it for a long moment, then slipped it into her jeans front pocket. Okay. She had time to decide. But this might just be the thing she’d been looking for for five years. Since rising when no one thought she might and having to use a squirrel for her first source of blood. This might just be the opportunity to get answers she wasn’t likely to get anywhere else.

Yeah. She’d think about it. And she’d take her time deciding. She might even ask Nina for help since Nina seemed happy to back her up. But yeah…

Greta was going to keep that card. And maybe, just maybe, someday soon, she’d send the most important text of her life.

***

Thanks for reading GRETA AT THE CAFE. I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like your own personal eBook copy of this story, you can find it for sale here. You can also peruse the previous Café stories that are individually available for sale here. 

Don’t forget to check back on July 15th for the next Free story from The Café!

 

GRETA AT THE CAFE Copyright © 2026 Kat Simons

All Rights Reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.