Thank you for your application and for coming to interview with us this past Thursday midnight. While we appreciated your enthusiastic interest in vampirism, we regret that we cannot offer you an immortal existence as a cursed undead being at this time.
As you begged that we be completely candid should we have any concerns, I include here a few specifics as to why we did not deem your soul to be a good fit for our particular type of damnation.
First, while it was clear that you had put an admirable amount of thought into the moral implications of vampirism, we cannot condone your plan for subsisting "on the blood of the evildoer." I think you will appreciate, if you think on it for even a short while, that beings of our kind are not eager to embrace the kind of moral absolutism that brands certain individuals as "evildoers" and advocates their destruction. We prefer philosophies that are more enabling and broadminded, for instance predators as an essential part of the natural cycle of life, damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't, and "everybody's gotta eat."
Second, while I hope you have since done a little further research and corrected this misapprehension on your own, daylight does not simply make our kind "sparkle," unless by "sparkle" you mean "perish agonizingly in flames." Consequently, most of the plans you described with such anticipation, such as returning to high school and space diving, are impractical. Additionally, I cannot fathom how you would imagine that a vampire could pass as a human in any situation without extreme and problematic dental work.
Overall, we found your understanding of the constraints and operational boundaries of contemporary vampirism badly flawed. How you discovered our organization at all is a mystery to me, although Frantisek of Bohemia's constant snickering during your interview may suggest that one or both of us had been pranked.
We would of course like to wish you the best of luck in all your future aspirations and endeavors. Sadly, we cannot in good conscience do so, as it is our policy to hunt down, eviscerate, and slake our thirst in the blood of any mortal demonstrating knowledge of our organization. Angus the Dour, who kindly agreed to deliver this message to you, will be noticing right about now that your gaze has reached the bottom of the letter and will take the necessary steps. If it is any consolation, I assure you that he is something very like an artist in these matters.
Sincerely yours, condolences, etc.,
Elizabeth Bathory de Ecsed
International Convocation of the Damned
The End
This story was first published on Wednesday, June 29th, 2016
We hope you're enjoying
Failed Interview with the International Convocation of the Damned by
Luc Reid.
Please support Daily Science Fiction by becoming a member.
Daily Science Fiction does not have a paywall, but we do have expenses—more than 95% of which are direct payments to authors for their stories. With your $15 membership, less than 6 cents per story, we can continue to provide genre fiction every weekday by email and on the website to thousands of readers for many years to come. You may also choose to support us via patreon.
Tell me more!
Support Daily Science Fiction
Please click to rate this story from 1 (ho-hum) to 7 (excellent!):
Please don't read too much into these ratings. For many reasons, a superior story may not get a superior score.
5.6 Rocket Dragons Average
Please join our mailing list and
receive free daily sci-fi (your email address will be kept
100% private):