Here’s Chapter 1 of Skin, Blood and Sediment, a vampire urban fantasy novella releasing early 2026. The full story follows Daniel Reed, an 84-year-old vampire professor, as supernatural politics upend his carefully maintained human life and force him shed his old life and start a new one. The story is based out of Houston, Texas.
The novella will be available in print/ebook and as a podcast (YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms). Honest feedback welcome. Thanks for reading.
Skin Blood and Sediment
Chapter 1
I have seven days to die.
I was supposed to have seven months. Enough time to finish my work here at the university and say proper goodbyes to my daughter Marta and grandkids Tommy and David. Then a tragic death at sea during a fishing trip. Fate, however, had other plans for me.
Today I am in my office at UH, the afternoon light painting everything in shades of amber. I spent decades doing fieldwork throughout the Yucatán and Louisiana bayous that eventually earned me tenure in the anthropology department.
A knock at the door pulls me from the papers I’m grading. At first, it sounds like a student, but there is no hum of a human mind on the other side. Either no one is there, or someone’s thoughts are sealed behind psychic walls.
“It’s open,” I call out.
The door swings wide. A young man in his twenties enters, built like he lifts trucks for fun. He wears a black hoodie despite the Houston heat. I push my chair back and stand. His glamour is easy to spot, appearing as a bright white line of light vibrating around his form.
“Dr. Reed.” His voice is surprisingly soft for his frame.
I keep my own glamour firmly in place, maintaining the elderly professor façade. I look eighty-four years old, silver-haired and stooped with wrinkles. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”
He steps inside and closes the door. “I’m Jesse. Jesse Villareal. We’ve met at the equinox gatherings.”
The name clicks. Jesse is one of the younger vampires in the Sangre Aquifer, probably around forty or fifty years old, still learning how to navigate our world. Last I saw him, he was complaining about attending college to maintain his cover.
“Hello, Jesse.” I acknowledge him with a slow dip of my head. “This is unexpected. What brings you to campus?”
He reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out an envelope. It is cream-colored paper, sealed with dark red wax. Even from across the desk, the symbol pressed into the seal is unmistakable. It is the sigil of the Sangre Aquifer, a round drop of blood with roots spreading away from it.
“I was asked to deliver this personally.” Jesse sets the envelope on top of my essays. “Make sure you received it and understood what it means.”
I take a deep breath, reluctant to touch the paper. Personal delivery means a command, not an invitation. “When did it arrive?”
“Courier dropped off a stack yesterday. Sofia and I got ours already.” He pauses, studying my face. “Attendance is required. No exceptions, and I don’t think they’ll accept any excuses.”
I grab the envelope and break the seal. The wax crumbles between my fingers. Inside, a single card is printed on heavy stock in elegant script:
By decree of the Sangre Aquifer, you are hereby summoned to witness the Formal Presentation of the Shardborne. You will appear at the Ranch on December 19th at the stroke of midnight. Your presence is expected.
A simple invitation, yet it will turn our world upside down.
Shardborne. Among our kind, that is the title for the first vampire. In the distant past, that meant literally the first, the one from whom all others were born. Now it means a Noctarien ruling a house. The Sangre Aquifer has never had a Shardborne before. It was one of the few territories left without a king.
“I heard the rumors of this a few months back, of a family visiting the ranch,” I say quietly.
Jesse leans against my filing cabinet with his arms crossed. The posture looks casual, but tension bunches in his shoulders. “Fifteen years old. They kept it quiet until they were sure he’d survive. Noctariens are vulnerable when they’re really young.”
Fifteen years. Still a teenage boy. That is barely a breath for our kind. He has thousands of years of life ahead of him if the stories are true.
“He’s doing good now,” Jesse continues. “Fifteen years old and already I’ve heard he’s seven feet tall. They say that he can bend shadows, and that his wings span twenty feet when he lets them show.”
I set the invitation down, pushing it away as if it were toxic. Noctariens are myth made flesh. Born with wings on their backs, they carry the full weight of the curse. They are stronger than any of us, both physically and psychically.
“And his parents?” I ask, though part of me dreads the answer.
“Elara and Dmitri Korsakov. They’re Crimson Pilgrims.”
The room seems to tilt. This is bad.
The Blood Road is a religion to some and a philosophy to others. It makes the hunt sacred, stylizing it as the single most important act a vampire can perform. It brings visions of ritual sacrifice and vampires preying upon anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Crimson Pilgrims are those who have walked all seven Blood Roads of the world. Two hundred years of dedication. Blood and terror.
Above all, it represents one core belief: human life is livestock. Nothing more.
“They’ve claimed the Sangre Aquifer as his seat.” Jesse leans forward. “He’ll be our king. Our Noctarien.”
The air in the office feels like a knife suspended over our heads.
“The Aquifer never had a Shardborne,” I say carefully. “That was the whole point. Two thousand vampires across seven states and half of Northern Mexico, and not one of us mattered to the great houses. We survived by staying beneath notice.”
“That’s all changed now. They settled at the Ranch six months ago.” Jesse’s voice drops. “No one’s heard from Nancy Colhen since. Bill Woods went to negotiate two weeks back. He had a small army of vampires and humans as backup, ex-special-forces types armed with silver bullets. At least a hundred of them. Nothing. The Ranch is in complete lockdown. Nobody in or out.”
I remember Bill Woods. At close to three hundred years, he was among the oldest of our kind, even if his glamour made him look middle-aged. A rancher based in New Mexico, he claimed he was the only survivor of the Alamo and fought at San Jacinto. He had served in dozens of wars since that time.
My parents introduced me to Nancy upon my awakening fifty-seven years ago. She taught me the Aquifer’s rules and traditions. Bill and Nancy together had kept this territory as valued neutral ground between the eastern and western houses. All that is gone.
I sink into my chair to contemplate the wreckage. “We can only assume they’re all dead, or wishing they were by now. Bill was our only chance. Now there is no one else to save us.”
We sit in silence. Outside my window, students walk across campus, laughing and checking their phones. Oblivious.
“What are your thoughts on this?” I ask, studying Jesse’s face.
He shifts his weight. “Honestly? I think we’re fucked. I’ve been hearing things from people who’ve been near the Ranch. They’re building something out there, construction and supply convoys. And there are new vampires. Young ones. People are saying the Noctarien made them himself.”
My blood runs cold. “Thralls?”
“At least a dozen. Probably more.” Jesse meets my eyes. “All of them completely loyal. Bound to him.”
Vampires created by a Noctarien aren’t free. Incapable of disobedience, they would make for perfect soldiers.
“He’s building an army,” I say quietly.
“Yeah. And they’ll want us to help supply it.” Jesse’s jaw tightens. “I’ve heard what happens when a Noctarien consolidates territory. Tribute. Live humans delivered to the Ranch.”
The words settle in my gut like lead. I’ve killed twenty-eight people over fifty-seven years. Carefully chosen. People whose disappearances wouldn’t trigger investigations. It was evil, and I hated myself for every one of them. But abducting families? Delivering victims like livestock?
“That’s a line I can’t cross,” I tell him. “I can’t kidnap people and take children to the ranch.”
I lean back, the old leather creaking under my weight. My mind races through calculations. Sofia will have to navigate this carefully. She follows the Velvet Road, where the hunt is about seduction, not violence.
“What choice do we have?” Jesse’s voice carries an edge of desperation. “We can’t fight. Two thousand of us scattered across a territory the size of Western Europe. We’re ranchers, business owners, academics. They’re Crimson Pilgrims with a Noctarien son.”
“You ever seen a Noctarien?” I ask.
“Never.”
“I have. Once. From a distance.” The memory still makes my hands shake. “In New York, about thirty years ago. The Ashen Court. James Shoemaker was just standing in a ballroom. Just existing. And every vampire in that room, maybe two hundred of us, we couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.”
“Psychic pressure?”
“Like standing at the bottom of the ocean.” I look at the invitation again. “And that was a Shardborne at rest. This one,” I gesture toward the letter, “this one will be trying to scare us. His parents will make sure of that.”
Jesse runs a hand through his hair. “So, what do we do? Just show up and swear fealty? Give tribute?”
“No.” I think about the Crimson Pilgrims and their beliefs. “There might be another option.”
“What?”
“We could request pilgrimage. Ask for leave to walk the Blood Road.”
Jesse blinks. “Would that work?”
“It’s a religious practice for some of our kind. Sacred to Crimson Pilgrims. They walk the ancient roads, hunt in the old ways, and connect with the philosophy.” I lean forward, the plan taking shape. “Elara and Dmitri walked all seven Blood Roads. It’s the foundation of everything they believe. Denying someone the Road would be sacrilege.”
“So we just… ask to leave? And they let us?”
“In theory.” I check the date on my phone. December 19th is six weeks away. “I’ll attend the presentation and see the Noctarien. Then we formally request leave to walk the Road. If they grant it, we leave with their blessing.”
Hope flickers across Jesse’s face. “And then we disappear.”
“Once we’re far enough away, yes. New identities, new territory, new lives.”
“That could actually work.” Jesse straightens up. “The Road stretches across the whole continent, right?”
“The New World Path stretches from Alaska all the way to Tierra del Fuego. It’s huge. And that’s just one road. There is Europe, Africa, Asia, anywhere in the world, really.”
“Where would you go?”
The question feels natural enough, but something about his tone makes me pause. Just for a heartbeat.
“I don’t know. Maybe the Continental Divide. Neutral territory. No one to answer to. Maybe present myself at other houses, but that is just trading one king for another. All I know right now is that our lives here are over.”
Jesse nods slowly. “Yeah. I see your point. My girlfriend, she’s human and knows what I am. We just want to find a place to settle down for a while.”
“Good. You’ll need someone you trust.”
“What about you?” Jesse asks. “Who else knows about this plan?”
“Just you and Sofia. I’ll talk to her tomorrow to get the logistics sorted.”
“Keep it quiet,” Jesse warns. “The fewer people who know, the better. Can’t risk word getting back to the Ranch.”
“Agreed.”
He moves to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “December nineteenth. Six weeks.”
“Six weeks to get ready.”
“You really think this’ll work?”
I offer a small shrug, a human habit I can’t quite shake. “It has to. It’s the only option that doesn’t end with us dead or enslaved.”
Jesse nods. For just a moment, something crosses his face. Relief, maybe. Or satisfaction. But it’s gone before I can read it clearly. “Thanks, Daniel. At least we have something now. I was… I was panicking.”
“We’ll get through this. We just need to be smart.”
He slips out, closing the door softly. I sit in the gathering darkness, the invitation glowing pale in the last rays of sunlight.
December nineteenth. Six weeks.
But my timeline just compressed even further. I was supposed to have seven months to become Theo Lang. Now I have less than a week to die as Daniel Reed, then six weeks to convince a Noctarien and his parents that I am sincere about walking their sacred path.
I pull out my flip phone and dial Sofia’s number. She answers on the second ring. “Let me guess. Jesse found you.”
“How bad is it going to be?”
There is a pause. Jazz music plays in the background. She is likely at her workshop above the Cuban café in Galveston, probably entertaining clients.
“Honestly? I don’t know. Could be fine. Could be a bloodbath.” She sighs. “Elara visited me last week. Very polite, very friendly. Complimented my forgery work, asked if I’d consider taking on special projects for the new administration.”
“And you said?”
“I said I’d be honored, of course. What else was I going to say?” The jazz swells, then fades as she moves to a quieter room. “Look, Daniel, you’ve got the luxury of checking out. Most of us don’t. We’re staying, which means we’re adapting. But you…”
“I need to move faster.”
“Yeah. How fast can you be ready?”
I look around my office. The diplomas. The artifacts. The life I’ve built here over eight decades. All of it is about to be fed into a furnace and reduced to ash.
“I want it done by next week. Maybe less.”
“Then I’ll start the final preparations. Come see me in Galveston tomorrow night. We’ll go over everything.”
“Sofia. Thanks for…”
“Don’t.” Her voice softens. “Don’t thank me yet. You’ve got a ton of work ahead of you, and most of it is going to hurt like hell. Save your gratitude for when you’re driving out of Houston as Theo Lang.”
She hangs up. I take one last look at my office and gather my things: the satchel I’ve carried for forty years, my reading glasses, the coffee mug a student gave me in ’87, and the Palenque rubbing.
The hallway is empty. My footsteps echo as I make my way toward the exit, careful to maintain the illusion of frailty. I reach my Volvo. Like me, it has seen better days. The Gulf wind carries the smell of rain and exhaust.
Outside the city, a fifteen-year-old creature with wings is learning to reshape our world. Here, an old professor is planning his exit before the world crushes him. I slide into the car, the seat springs groaning.
Tonight, driving back to my Montrose apartment through streets I’ve known for eighty-four years, I allow myself to simply be Daniel Reed. The radio plays something soft and forgettable. Traffic flows in its eternal Houston snarl. The sun bleeds red across the western sky, painting the city in fire and shadow.
My name is Daniel Reed, and I am eighty-four years old. And I’ll be dead in a few days.
The Blood Road plan feels solid. Jesse seemed genuinely relieved. And why wouldn’t it work? Crimson Pilgrims can’t deny someone the sacred path without undermining their own faith. I just need to sell it. Walk the Road long enough to prove I am sincere, then disappear.
I turn onto my street and park. After climbing the stairs to my apartment, I lock the door behind me.
Tomorrow, I begin the process of killing Daniel Reed. Tonight, I write letters to the people I’ll leave behind.
