Teaser Tuesday: Vampire Shenanigans

Another Tuesday, another Teaser! This is another one from the urban fantasy novel (still unnamed), which is coming along very well indeed. I already have a list of issues I want to address when I get to the editing stage. That's a good thing - it means that I don't have any illusions of perfection that might be rudely shattered once I start reading over the first draft.Today's teaser goes into a bit of detail on my vampires. Their description here is fairly standard stuff (I will not be blowing any minds by having vampires that are both graceful and off-putting in their appearance), but there is a bit more to them than what I'm revealing today. I guess you'll just have to wait for the rest of the book to find out more, though.(Was that a tease-within-a-tease? I do believe it was.)

The auction was taking place in what had once been a small theatre near the outskirts of the city. The whole area had moved rapidly upmarket after an infusion of Society money, and was now host to a series of fine restaurants, antique dealers and pricey apartments, all of it pumping money into the already-overstuffed coffers of Cambridge’s most powerful vampires.I had done my research well in advance. I knew that the theatre included an extensive series of basements and underground storage rooms, which is where the preparation for the auction would take place. I was due at one of the service entrances in less than twenty minutes for ‘processing’, a term that grew increasingly more ominous in my mind the more I thought about it. The front entrance was reserved for the vampires themselves , all of them dressed elegantly for a night among their peers. From my seat in a café across the street, I could only just tell that they weren’t human.It wasn’t anything to do with their appearance. They had become very good at blending in, after all. No, it was the way they moved. Their bodies displayed a kind of unnatural control, as if they were constantly aware and in charge of every moment they made. They looked choreographed, as though every step from their cars to the doors and every casual turn of the head to greet an old acquaintance had been planned in advance. You would never see a vampire stumble or trip over their own feet.I can see why a lot of people find it off-putting. Besides inducing an instant inferiority complex, it’s also a little bit eery to watch, particularly when you have a lot of them together.