A Vampire in Flip-Flops:

An Excerpt from Blind Spot: The Covenant’s Forfeit

By Thio Isobel Moss

Veritas clicked the Nubivagant link — a vacation rental platform. Punk Bunks was a 5-star Neo-Victorian micro beer hotel. He skimmed the gallery — fantastical rooms and proportionate rates — before hitting a wall: there was no calendar or booking options.

Ah ha! His spidey senses buzzed. Hands twitching with anticipation, he dug in.

Minutes later, a jolt penetrated his fixation, code unravelling like magic — he’d hit the motherlode. And Egress, Hooligan, and Nubivagant shared a unique dialect. The same programmer had built them — he’d bet Russell’s squeaky Groot on it. Searching their calendar, he saw only one room, the Keeper’s Sanctum, available.

It was fate.

Veritas snagged the Keeper’s Sanctum for the entire eleven-day span it was available — exorbitant, but two meals were included. He punched in his payment, hit confirm, and grinned — until a questionnaire popped up.

“Please specify your Origin,” he read, flummoxed. The options were therianthrope, vampire, fae, dverg, hybrid, or opt out. Something near his heart tightened painfully, and his breath stuttered, joy overwhelming him; it was a themed beer hotel! A shrill sound escaped him that should only ever come out of ball-gowned, six-year-old birthday girls presented with their first ponies.

Veritas bolted to his guest room, dug his custom fangs out of the dresser — Halloween relics — and tested them with a chomp. Not bad. He recited the Jabberwocky with only minor lisping. Perfect. Darting back to the screen, fangs still in, he entered “vampire,” opted out of the cadre question, nixed blood but claimed a garlic allergy for authenticity. Blackout curtains, yes; sunlight issues, no. Daylight hours, sure. No aichmophobia.

Giddy, he erased his tracks in a rush, overlooking a sample of his patois still buried in the code — a ghost in the machine.

“Clotheth,” Veritas gasped, turning to Russell, who’d shuffled in through the doggy door. “How doeth a vampire dreth for thummer?”

He snickered, picturing a fanged fiend in a Hawaiian shirt sipping a Bloody Mary from a coconut with a pink umbrella — sporting flip-flops and a fanny pack!

Springing to his cosplay closet, he flung open the doors and mourned — it was too hot for leather. Finally vindicated in his hobbies, he rummaged through two decades of costumes. Did vampires wear socks? They must. They wore boots, and boots without socks were just nasty.

A soft whimper brought his attention back to Russell, gazing at him with anxious eyes.

His chest tight, Veritas knelt and scratched behind the dog's ears. “Thorry, Ruthell. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I need to do, you can't be part of,” he murmured tenderly — lisping in his best Bogie imitation.

Russ buried his face against Veritas’s leg.