Modern Day

Ysanne Moreau paused in front of the window of a jeweller, her eye caught by a pair of pearl earrings nestled on a display of white satin. Diamonds were her usual gemstone of choice, but there was something undeniably timeless about pearls, and Ysanne had always had a soft spot for the finer things in life. It had been a while since she'd treated herself to anything.

Before she could go into the shop, she heard sudden, noisy sobbing, and she looked down the street to where a small group of teenagers were huddled around a mobile phone.

"You don't know that Jacqui was there," said one of the boys, trying to comfort the crying girl who held the phone.

"But that's the route she always takes when she's coming to visit," the girl sobbed.

The boy looked helplessly around at his friends, but none of them seemed to know what to say.

"She might not even have left home yet. No offence to your sister, but she's always running late," he said.

"We have to go there," the girl said. "People are trapped – Jacqui could be trapped."

"If she is, how are you going to get her out? The news report said the police and fire service were on the way. They'll know what to do," said the boy.

"All those people," murmured another girl.

Ysanne didn't know why she approached the group. Whatever was happening was none of her business, but something about the way they were looking at that phone, as if they were watching some terrible tragedy unfold, caught her attention.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"There's been a major crash on the A34," said the boy who'd tried to comfort the crying girl. "No one's sure how it happened, but at least fifteen cars are involved."

"And people are trapped?" Ysanne said.

The boy handed her the phone, and she refrained from grimacing. While she understood these devices provided modern people with a lot of benefits, the speed with which they'd advanced made her suspicious.

The phone showed a video of a dual carriageway, with crushed, mangled cars strewn around like toys. Debris was everywhere, glass glittering on the surface of the road, and someone lay very still on the grassy verge.

"Who's filming this?" Ysanne asked.

"Police helicopter. Apparently they were following a stolen car on the opposite carriageway when the crash happened. They abandoned the car chase so they could monitor the crash," another boy said.

"And you think your sister might be in one of these cars?" Ysanne said to the crying girl.

"I don't know," she wailed.

It was hard to see some of the cars, either because their licence plates had been smashed off, or because the cars themselves were too badly damaged to identify. But people were clearly still inside. Some of them were crying and banging on their windows, unable to get out because their cars were wedged together. A motionless figure was sprawled beneath a battered motorbike. Several other cars had parked a short distance from the crash and people were running to the scene. But Ysanne doubted they could get the trapped victims out without help from fire fighters, who still hadn't arrived on the scene.

A strange sense of calm settled over her.

For a long time now, she had believed that vampires needed to come out of the shadows and let the human world know they existed, and for decades she'd worked to spread this message. That had finally culminated in a meeting at her home here in Winchester, where she'd gathered as many vampires as she could and shared her vision with them. Some of them had been cautiously optimistic. Some had been openly hostile. But gradually, over the years that had followed, Ysanne had persuaded more and more people that this was the right path. Not everyone was convinced yet, and maybe this wasn't a decision that Ysanne should make without consulting anyone else, but all this time she'd wondered how she would go about revealing vampirekind, and in that moment she knew. There was no time to ask anyone else what they thought.

The crash had happened barely a mile away from where Ysanne was. She handed the phone back to the teenagers. "Thank you," she said.

Then she kicked off her heels, and ran.

The stench of burned rubber and petrol hit her like a slap as she arrived on the scene. Glass was everywhere, and Ysanne put her shoes back on – just because she could heal didn't mean she wanted her feet to be cut to shreds walking across this road.

The police helicopter hovered overhead, the sound of the rotor blades almost drowning out the cries of the people trapped in their cars.

Now that she was here, Ysanne thought she might feel some twinge of uncertainty or unease, the nagging doubt that maybe she was doing the wrong thing, but she didn't.

The vampires' time had come.

Several people were crowded around a crashed car, whose bonnet was badly crumpled into the back of another car. The framework of the vehicle had buckled, and no one could seem to get the door open. Inside, Ysanne could hear a male voice pleading for help, and a baby crying.

Someone broke away from the group and scanned the road. "We've got find something to break the window with," she cried.

Ysanne strode forward. Her heels clicked loudly on the road and crunched over shattered pieces of glass, and there was a strange feeling in her chest that she couldn't quite identify.

Everything was going to change from this day on.

"Stand back," she said, her voice cracking like a whip.

She didn't know what she looked like in that moment, but the group obeyed her, watching with wide eyes. Ysanne walked up to the crashed car. The man inside was only in his twenties, and blood ran down his face from an injury on his forehead. The baby was in the back seat, sobbing and writhing beneath a white woollen blanket.

"Please help us," the man said.

"I will," Ysanne told him.

She could put her fist through the window, but that still meant the man and his baby having to climb out through a frame edged with broken glass. There was a quicker way.

Ysanne ripped the door off the car.

She heard gasps and cries of amazement and disbelief behind her, and the distinctive click of someone taking photos, but she didn't turn to look. The man's seatbelt seemed to be stuck, so Ysanne snapped it in half, and helped him out of the car. He staggered a little, and two other men rushed forward to support him.

"My baby," he said, starting back for the car.

Ysanne had already climbed inside and reached into the backseat. She lifted the baby carrier, holding it with one hand as she climbed back out.

"Thank you, thank you," the man cried as he took the carrier.

"How the hell did you do that?" asked one of the women who'd come to help.

Ysanne ignored her.

In the middle of the road, four cars were twisted together like some macabre modern artwork. Two of them were empty, and another had a middle-aged woman slumped over the steering wheel. Blood sprayed her fractured windscreen, and as Ysanne drew closer, she detected no heartbeat. The woman was dead. But the car in the middle of the pileup had an elderly couple in the front seats; the driver lay limply, his head sagging against the back of his seat, while the woman in the passenger seat tried to revive him.

Ysanne climbed onto the bonnet of the dead woman's car, and surveyed the trapped couple.

More clicks sounded behind her, and she could only imagine how she would look in those photos – standing on a crashed car in skyscraper heels and a pencil skirt.

She crouched down so she could see the old woman's face. "Can you move?" she said.

"My hip . . ." the woman whimpered.

Ysanne spied a pair of crutches on the backseat. Her plan had been to tear away the damaged windscreen so the woman could climb to safety, but that obviously wouldn't work. Ysanne straightened up and looked around again. Ripping off another door would be the best solution, except the car was jammed on all sides by other wrecks.

She climbed off the dead woman's car and walked around the twisted wreckage until she was on the other side of the old couple, standing behind the car that had blocked them in. This would be harder than pulling off a door. Ysanne set her hands on the boot of the car and pushed as hard as she could. The car briefly resisted, metal scraping on metal, then it slowly rolled forward, more glass crunching under the tyres until the old couple's car was freed on one side. The passenger door hung askew, and Ysanne pushed it out of the way.

"My husband . . . help him," the woman said.

Ysanne leaned into the car and carefully listened for any sound of the man's heartbeat. It was there, but faint and erratic.

"You first," she said to the woman.

Ysanne lifted her into her arms as gently as she could, but the woman still moaned as her injured hip jolted. Her face was the colour of old milk and her eyelids fluttered.

"Someone take her," Ysanne shouted.

A burly man from the group rushed over and carefully took the old woman from Ysanne.

"Don't leave him," she said, stretching one hand back towards the car.

"I won't," Ysanne promised.

She climbed into the car to reach the woman's husband. Shards of glass dug into her thighs like needles, and as she stretched across the seat, a sharp edge of twisted metal cut into her leg.

"Your wife is safe," she told the man, even though he was still unconscious.

Ysanne lifted him out of the car and passed him over to two women. Blood was soaking her skirt and running down the side of her leg, but she couldn't feel the pain.

One of the women looked vaguely familiar, even though Ysanne was sure she'd never seen her before. Then realisation clicked into place – the woman looked like the teenage girl who'd been crying over her phone.

"Are you Jacqui?" Ysanne said.

"Yeah, why?" Suspicion coloured her voice.

"Let your sister know you're alright. She's worried about you."

"Who are you?" said the older woman.

Ysanne was already looking past her, to where the motorbike lay, its rider pinned beneath it. He lay so still that he looked dead, and there was blood all over the road, but Ysanne had just heard the faintest moan trickle from his lips.

She ran to him. His helmet was cracked; she couldn't see his face, but one of his legs was horribly twisted. Ysanne could do nothing about that, but she could move the bike. Gripping the main body of the machine, Ysanne lifted it over her head. She needed everyone to see what she was capable of. She needed the world to understand that she wasn't human.

In the distance, sirens sounded.

Ysanne set the bike down and turned around.

The police cars arrived first, then the blockier shapes of the fire engines and ambulances. Ysanne stood aside to let the paramedics get to the injured motorcyclist, and then she calmly turned to the people who'd been taking photos of everything. At least three of them were holding their phones up, presumably filming events, and the helicopter still circled overhead, filming too.

She lifted her chin, ignoring the blood still running down her leg.

"It's time the world knew the truth," she said, her voice crisp and clear.

She paused, because her next words would change the world as everyone knew it. Her face was as impassive as ever, but inside she was smiling, because this was everything she'd been working towards all these years.

"My name is Ysanne Moreau. And I am a vampire."

A/N: Another quick favour to ask. If any of you lovely people use Goodreads, could you possibly drop by and leave a review for Belle Morte. Thank you :)