WIP Snippet #5

Of Blood & Oil

Directly from the pen of Sean Morrigan, who first features alongside Albert in The Weakest Link, a free prequel novella available exclusively to my newsletter subscribers. If you already have book 1 of my series, A Storm of Paper Starlings, you’ll find a link to bonus content, which includes the whole story of how Sean met Albert.

Albert Habsburg

I never met a vampire who couldn’t sire another before. Albert was unique. He couldn’t be bled, and his bite killed. His desire to feed was weaker even than mine. We met on the fourth of March 1744, during the War of the Austrian Succession, and he recognised what I was immediately.

He was young when he was turned, I’d say little more than twenty, but he’d attained a great age in his eyes. I didn’t know at the time whether to attribute it to his years or an innate wisdom. I eventually learned it was both.

Our friendship was firm and fast. He was born to be a soldier, he told me. He grew up in the middle of a war and had never known peace. After the death of his mother, he was raised by his half-brother, who became a soldier just a year or so after he rescued Albert from the riots surrounding a burning synagogue.

Albert and his brother came under the protection of a benevolent bloodborn, also hailed a great general, who took an avid interest in Albert and paid for his education. He later offered Albert the world.

He took it, one war at a time.