Immortal Portraiture
Three centuries-old vampires walk into a tailor shop.
What could possibly go wrong?
---
Julien pointed at the floor. "Off. Now."
Lachlan sighed and unlaced his boots, muttering something under his breath about "fashion fascism." The boots hit the floor with two solid thuds, and then—
Silence.
Aldéric almost dropped the lilac swatch he held in his hand.
Julien lowered the Scotch bottle to his side.
Otto bit into his fist and blinked back tears.
Lachlan stood in one chartreuse argyle sock, barely clinging to dignity via a toe seam, and one black athletic ankle sock with a gaping hole exposing the back of his heel.
Julien blinked once. "Those are not a pair."
"They're close," Lachlan said.
"They are not close," Aldéric hissed. "One of them has aspirations of being a golf caddy and the other looks like it lost a fight with a raccoon."
"They're both socks." Lachlan mounted the pedestal with the confidence of a man who had long ago stopped caring.
Julien passed the Scotch to Otto. "I will compensate you for a riser replacement. You cannot possibly use that one again after those socks have touched it."
---
Three immortal vampires. One portrait sitting.
Centuries of friendship put to the test by fashion, banter, and mismatched socks.
To Wear a Wolf
It is Vinalia Rustica, and Julien Sinclair is where he is every August nineteenth, making his annual batch of bloodwine. Aldéric Rousseau saunters onto the scene wearing a fur coat made from a werewolf pelt. The coat and the vampire wearing it disrupt the ritual, ultimately costing Julien more than just his beloved bloodwine.
The Table Meeting
Julien Sinclair frowned at the wall in front of him.
“This is insulting.”
He picked a hammer up off the floor.
He did not rear back; he had no intention of taking the entire wall down.
The hammer met the wall with a high-pitched thwack. Concrete and mortar crumbled away, revealing a dinner plate-sized area of original Romanesque limestone, each block hand-cut and fitted together like a puzzle only medieval masons knew how to solve.
“You know how to use a hammer?” Lachlan Sullivan’s accent had long ago stopped bothering to decide if it was Scottish or English.
Julien had overseen many renovations and demolitions during his two hundred and thirty-three year existence, but never actively participated. Manual labor was beneath him, but this building was special. It was to be his most prestigious venture yet: a club for all vampire society, not just the elite.
Julien swung the hammer again. And again. “The philistine who covered these walls with concrete should be tarred and feathered.”
“Sadly, tarring and feathering went out of style centuries ago.” Aldéric Rousseau waltzed into the room, peeling his gloves off one finger at a time.
“Not sure it was a style thing so much as a legal thing.” Lachlan kept a wary eye on the hammer in Julien’s hand. He’d known Julien long enough to know the hammer was not in safe hands. “Torture becoming illegal and all.”
“That’s exactly what I said, dear Lachlan. Torture went out of style.” Aldéric flung his gloves onto a table, disrupting the dust that had rested on its surface for years. “Such a pity, too. There are crimes still deserving of inhumane punishments.”