Sheridan Society's list of untouchables

The Sheridan Society's list of untouchables is an annual register of practicing vampires whose names are supplied to police in exchange for protection from ordinary law enforcement. It is both a mechanism for managing vampire violence and a measure of the moral compromise at the center of that arrangement: the people afforded the strongest protection are often the most dangerous, while those who abstain or feed less severely receive none.

Purpose and Structure

The list belongs to a clandestine partnership between the Sheridan Society, a collective of practicing vampires, and a small number of police officers who know that vampires exist. Will Radley describes the Society as looking after its members; its name comes not from a founder but from Sheridan Le Fanu, a long-dead writer of vampire stories. The Society sends its list to the police every year, and officers generally keep away from the people named on it. The arrangement is not presented as public knowledge or as ordinary legal immunity. It operates within a concealed channel of communication between the Society and police, with the aim of influencing vampires without exposing their existence to the wider public.

The term untouchables refers to practicing vampires who kill and whose names appear on this register. The protection has a practical condition: the police expect those covered by the arrangement to follow rules. The list therefore serves not simply as a shield but as leverage. Police officials argue that granting protection to some of the most notorious vampires gives them a means of limiting those vampires' conduct, even as it makes the partnership ethically troubling.

How the Bargain Developed

The arrangement follows an earlier, harsher approach to vampire-related deaths. Such deaths had not led to official trials or convictions; historically, police concealment was accompanied by covert action. Specially trained officers used crossbows to kill vampires, who then disappeared without public explanation. That zero-tolerance policy increased conversion rates, however, and the police came to fear an expanding, visible conflict with the vampire community. Protection for selected vampires became the alternative to trying to eliminate them outright.

This change created a system of negotiated restraint rather than equal enforcement. The police work through the Sheridan Society and, as Alison Glenny explains to a superintendent, prefer solutions in which vampires act against vampires. She says that establishing mutual rules and respect has reduced incidents by nearly half, while emphasizing that the overriding aim is to manage the danger without public knowledge. The list is central to that approach: it gives selected vampires a reason to cooperate, and gives police a channel of influence they would otherwise lack.

The Rules and Their Ethical Cost

The system defines an acceptable killing according to whether it is likely to draw attention. A death must not be captured on camera, leave a body to be found, or involve a victim likely to attract sympathy from tabloid editors or questions from the public. This standard does not make killing lawful in any ordinary sense. Instead, it sorts violence by how safely it can be concealed. The criteria permit the exploitation of people with little social protection, including prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless people, failed asylum seekers, and bipolar outpatients, while excluding victims whose connections or public visibility might bring scrutiny.

That selective calculus exposes the bargain's central inequity. Police protection is offered to some of the most depraved vampires in return for influence over their behavior; abstainers and more moderate vampires remain unprotected. The list's promise is thus not safety for the vampire community as a whole, nor justice for victims. It is a way to contain incidents that threaten the secrecy of the community and the credibility of the police arrangement. Its effectiveness is measured partly by the reduction in incidents and by whether violence remains unseen, not by whether the underlying violence stops.

Will Radley and the Limits of Protection

Will Radley has long belonged to the Sheridan Society and is usually near the top of its list. Many Society members expect him to remain protected because Isobel Child holds him in great affection and her brother, Otto Child, oversees the register. Their confidence shows that personal standing within the community can reinforce the protection attached to a name. Yet Will has never reliably followed the rules. He takes victims without shaping his appetites to fit the Society's police-endorsed framework, and his recent killings have been especially careless, intensifying pressure on the Society.

Fifteen days before the events described, Greater Manchester Police deputy commissioner Alison Glenny receives a call from a man whose familiar, cold, tired whisper informs her that Will has been removed from the list. The removal marks a consequential change in status: the Society's protection is not an unconditional entitlement, even for a prominent member. Will's conduct has made him a liability to the arrangement, and the police are notified that he no longer has the standing that once kept officers at a distance. Through his case, the register appears at once powerful and precarious: it can shelter a killer, but only while the organizations maintaining it believe that shelter serves their larger purposes.