Chapter 2: Dead Man's Wallet
The gas station emerged from the darkness like an island of fluorescent light. Cheap pumps, cheaper signage, a single clerk visible through smudged windows. Perfect.
I checked my reflection in a parked car's side mirror. Disaster. Dirt in my hair, blood at the corner of my mouth, clothes that screamed homeless and desperate. The clerk would remember me.
Make it quick.
The door chime announced my entry. The clerk—early twenties, acne scars, deeply committed to not making eye contact—glanced up from his phone and immediately returned to it. I'd spent thirty years in corporate America reading body language. This kid had already categorized me as "not his problem."
I moved to the newspaper rack. My hands trembled as I lifted the Shreveport Times.
March 19, 2008.
The date confirmed everything. Two months before the show's first season. Bill Compton hadn't arrived in Bon Temps yet. Sookie Stackhouse was still a virginal waitress with a telepathy secret. Eric Northman was running Fangtasia and managing Area Five. The Great Revelation had happened two years ago—vampires were legal, public, politically complicated.
I had time. Not much, but some.
The newspaper went back on the rack. I grabbed a gas station map of Louisiana—three dollars, worth its weight in gold—and approached the counter.
The clerk finally looked at me. His heartbeat picked up. Fear or disgust, I couldn't tell.
"Just the map," I said.
"Four twelve with tax."
I stared at him. The glamour rose without effort. "The map is free. You never saw me."
His eyes went glassy. "Free. Didn't see anyone."
I took the map and walked out. The theft was petty, but I had no money and couldn't afford a memorable transaction. Survival first, ethics later.
Outside, I unfolded the map against the gas station wall. Shreveport glowed orange under a street lamp's circle. Bossier City sat across the river. The woods where I'd woken were somewhere south—no markers, nothing specific, just Louisiana wilderness.
The original Sam's memories stirred.
Bossier City. First National Bank. Safety deposit box 447.
More fragments: a storage unit, a motel with light-tight rooms, a network of low-grade survival preparations. The original Sam had been paranoid for good reason—someone had killed him. Those preparations might save me now.
I started walking again. Bossier City was eight miles east according to the map. Two hours at human pace, thirty minutes if I pushed vampire speed. I had... I checked the sky. Maybe four hours until dawn.
Plenty of time.
If nothing goes wrong.
The highway stretched empty and dark. I walked on the shoulder, ready to dive into the tree line if headlights approached. A vampire walking alone at 2 AM wasn't suspicious—we were legal now—but a vampire in stolen clothes covered in grave dirt would raise questions.
An hour into the walk, pressure built behind my eyes.
Not pain. Something else. Information trying to organize itself.
I stopped walking. The pressure intensified, became focused, became clear.
Numbers appeared in my vision. Floating text that shouldn't exist.
VAMPIRE MONARCH SYSTEM - ACTIVATED
Host: Samuel Huffman
Blood Potency: 22 (Neonate - Upper Tier)
Authority: 8 (Unregistered)
Dominion: 3 (Homeless)
Lineage: 5 (Sparse)
Glamour: 28 (Moderate)
Wealth: 15 (Poor)
Blood Reserve: 175/220
[TUTORIAL QUEST AVAILABLE]
Establish Your Domain
Objectives:
Secure a haven (0/1)Register with local Sheriff (0/1)Establish income source (0/1)
Rewards: +5 Dominion, +3 Authority, 1000 Blood Points
I blinked. The display remained.
A system. A goddamn progression system, like something from a video game. The transmigration hadn't just dropped me into True Blood—it had given me tools.
Blood Potency 22. Upper tier for a young vampire. Not powerful enough to challenge elders, but strong enough to handle most threats.
Authority 8. Basically invisible to vampire society. No registration, no position, no political existence.
Glamour 28. Moderate skill. Enough to handle humans, probably useless against other vampires.
Blood Reserve 175/220. I'd spent some running to the gas station. The feeding had restored most of it.
The system interface responded to my thoughts. I could minimize it, expand it, access submenus that detailed progression paths and ability trees. Vampire society gamified. Politics quantified. Power measurable and improvable.
This changes everything.
I'd been planning to survive. Hide in the original Sam's network, avoid canon events, build slowly over decades. Now...
The quest hovered at the edge of my vision. Establish Your Domain. Three objectives, clear rewards. Not just survival—growth.
I started walking faster.
The First National Bank of Bossier City was a brick building on a corner lot, closed for the night but not empty. Security lights glowed inside. A single guard sat at the front desk, reading a paperback.
I circled the building twice. One entrance, monitored. Emergency exits, alarmed. The vault was downstairs—I could feel it somehow, the weight of metal and money.
The original Sam's memories provided the account number. His signature. Enough to access the safety deposit box during business hours.
I didn't have until business hours. Dawn came in three hours, and I had no idea where the light-tight motel was.
The guard was my only option.
I approached the front entrance. Knocked on the glass.
The guard looked up, annoyed. He was fifty, bored, not paid enough to deal with homeless vampires at 3 AM. His hand moved toward his belt—not a gun, a radio.
I caught his eyes through the glass. Pushed hard.
"Open the door. I'm expected. Mr. Huffman, here for my safety deposit box."
The glamour felt different this time. Thicker. Like pushing through mud rather than air. The original Sam had rarely used this ability—his Glamour stat reflected that neglect. I was forcing neural pathways that hadn't been exercised in decades.
The guard's eyes flickered. Resistance.
I pushed harder. Blood burned in my veins—the system showed my reserve dropping: 170, 165, 160.
"I'm expected," I repeated. "Mr. Huffman. Box 447."
Something gave. The guard's expression went slack. He stood, walked to the door, unlocked it.
"Mr. Huffman. Of course. Right this way."
My head pounded as I stepped inside. The glamour had cost me. Glamour 28 wasn't enough for effortless control—every use would be a negotiation with my own blood supply.
The guard led me downstairs. The vault door stood open—standard procedure for safety deposit access during night shift. He retrieved box 447 without question, set it on a table, and returned to his desk at my mental nudge.
I opened the box.
Inside: twelve thousand dollars in hundreds. A storage unit key with an address tag. A burner phone, battery dead. False identification—three driver's licenses with different names, all bearing the original Sam's face.
And a photograph.
A woman in 1920s clothing, dark hair, kind eyes. The back read: Maria, 1923. Never forget.
The original Sam had kept this for eighty-five years. Someone he'd loved, maybe. Someone he'd lost. I didn't have his emotional memories—just facts and locations—but the photograph felt heavy in my hands.
I'm wearing a dead man's life.
I pocketed everything. The cash filled my jacket. The phone might be useful once charged. The IDs gave me options.
The guard didn't blink as I left. His memory would have gaps tomorrow—a missing hour, confusion about whether anyone had visited. By then, I'd be gone.
Outside, the sky had lightened from black to deep blue. Dawn approached faster than I'd calculated.
The storage unit address was in West Bossier—twenty minutes by car, forty on foot. I started running, letting vampire speed take over. The world blurred. My blood reserve dropped steadily: 150, 140, 130.
I reached the storage facility with eight minutes to spare.
The key fit. The door rolled up.
I threw myself inside and yanked it down just as the first orange light crested the horizon.
Darkness. Complete, blessed darkness. The unit was light-tight—the original Sam had modified it, lined the walls with blackout material, sealed every crack.
I collapsed against the back wall, breathing air I didn't need, my blood reserve at 112 and my body trembling from exertion.
I made it.
Around me, the storage unit held the original Sam's accumulated existence. Boxes, bags, a folding cot with blankets. I couldn't see details in the absolute darkness, but I could smell them—old paper, leather, something metallic.
Twelve hours until sunset. Plenty of time to inventory my inheritance.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the photograph. Maria, 1923. The original Sam's mystery.
My mystery now.
The system chimed softly in my mind. Quest progress updated: Secure a haven (1/1).
One objective down. Two to go.
I closed my eyes and let the daylight hours take me.
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