Path of the Vampire forum

The sky was a hungry, velvet darkness on the night they found his body. Far above, beyond the golden, transparent glow of artificial lights was an expanse of diamonds. When we were younger, we used to leave Harper Rock to go camping and enjoy the twinkling of celestial gems, bathed in the warmth of a campfire. But there was no warmth on that night. The authorities told me, when I was called in to identify his body, that he had likely been torn apart by a wild animal. He had not yet been cleaned up, and he still had the stains of the city's gutters on him, the dirt and mud, and caked on flecking blood. He was still handsome, but pale as paper, with closed eyes and limp hair. He had been my husband for some ten years at that point, and staring down at his body; it was like this oppressive weight settled on my shoulders and chest. I felt the stink of heat behind my eyes and my mouth felt dry. It was everything I could do not to break down right there in front of the police and the coroner.

I had built a reputation for being a woman made of steel, and the idea of showing vulnerability to anyone wasn't appealing. Learned behavior. Every time I had ever cried in front of another man before, the result had been more pain. So I held onto my grief until I was alone some time later. Then I began to invest in finding out the truth. I had substantial resources at my disposal. One of those classic success stories. I dropped out of college when a business opportunity came up. Pursued my career vigilantly, with near religious conviction until I assumed full control of the company me and my friend started up. I grew it for a half decade before I ever met Ben, and even when we were together, he understood my heart belonged to my job.

Or so I thought.

By the age of thirty, I had given up on the idea of finding a partner, and had already begun the process of looking into adopting. It was only by chance that I met him at a charity dinner. He was a trust fund boy from the States, nine years my junior, who was only in the charity game because his father's company had been experiencing some bad press, and the charity was a way to get some good PR. I fell in love with his sense of humor almost immediately. He never took things seriously, and I loved that because it gave me permission to let down the iron veil that was my mask to the rest of the world. He was intrigued by me because I was a self made woman who had come from 'poor, moose hunting, log cabin making' stock. To use his exact wording.

Ours was a whirlwind romance, and no more than a month after we met, we eloped. The following ten years were the best of my life. I had everything I wanted, and even gave birth to our daughter, Evangeline.

She's twelve now, only four years after her father died.

Naturally, the idea that my husband had been torn apart by wild animals wandering the populated city streets of Haper Rock was ludicrous. So I put aside some of my substantial personal resources and began to look into other possibilities. Over four years, I gathered reports, and information I quietly developed several theories, but it was not until a few months ago, when evidence of the supernatural began to practically flow out of Haper Rock, like blood from a poorly stitched wound, that I became proactive. Discretely, with some other interested party, the Humanity First party came to life. Each of us had our own reasons, but mine were admittedly and deeply personal.

Benjamin was the love of my life, the only man I have ever loved. The only part of him that still lives is our daughter, and I cannot live in a world where I feel she is unsafe. I refuse to be a reactive citizen in a community that allows monsters to operate in the dark. I will not endanger my daughter by taking a back seat and letting evil control my home, the city where I grew up, toiled to create a successful business, and made my family.

Four years ago, I lost Ben because I was ignorant to the world. Today, I will get my vengeance. I asked to lead one of the squads going to the streets. I picked those who I consider the best; Aadila, Cooper, and Cerise.

We are the few but determined. We are the exterminators of monsters, candles in the darkness. And we are coming for blood and ash.

To be continued...

The cold, sharp feel of brackish spray across my face was my earliest memory as a boy. My father was a fisherman, and I grew up on the waters of Pleasant Bay. The briny deep has always been part of me. At the age of 17, I enlisted and joined the Royal Canadian Navy, and served for twenty years. Ended up retiring and joining the private sector at three times the pittance I made defending my country, but that's life for you. At fifty-two, I have the most real world experience in our little squad, and easily the most military experience. Naturally, Stasie is my direct superior. Chafed a little bit the first time she gave me an order, but in the past few months, the old ***** has proven she can be as much of a hardass as the next guy. I still have my reservations, because she's never been out on the field. She's never put herself in the line of danger, so I figure it'll be me watching everyone else's *** just to be sure we don't go home in bags.

The other two I don't know much about, don't care to know much about. Aadila is like a poster for equal rights. My dad would have called her a 'mud person', but in this day and age, saying that kind of thing will get you skewered. Since fighting broke out in Syria, we've been getting more and more of them. She's young too. Quiet thing. I don't quite trust her, but she's better than the alternative, if you catch my drift. At least she can ******* breathe, and doesn't suck blood any more than any other woman out there. Then there's Cerise, who is about as dependable as a house made out of cardboard. She's a real loser. Used to be someone's girlfriend, and that's all she's ever been. Without Humanity First, she probably woulda ended up dying choking on her own vomit. Not a druggie, no. Just one of those girls who needs to be skinny. Sad thing is she'd be pretty if she weren't rail thin. But that ain't my problem.

My problem is with the local govies, and how they haven't done ****.

I realized that Harper Rock wasn't normal about two years ago when I began to lose time. I'm the kind of guy who can account for every minute of every day normally. Comes with the territory, when you spend two decades having to be on alert. So when I noticed that I was missing a few hours here and there, and that I had weird, unexplained bruises, I decided to 'defend myself' if you get my drift. It's not that hard to secure a firearm and keep it concealed if you know what you're doing. About a week later, I figured it out. See every Friday night, I hit the strip club. I know that's a young man's game, but I never got married, so I figure it don't harm anything for me to have a little fun. Well this one girl I really like named Cinnamon decided to attack me when I bought a dance in a private room. She went in for a bite and ended up with a hole in her chest.

Of course I had to leave immediately after that, because I wasn't sure what had happened, and I figured explaining to cops that she had fangs wasn't gonna go down too hot. Over the next month, I wrote officials, the cops. You name it, I wrote to them, telling them about the problem. You can guess how that went. At first I understood. Acting on the existence of vampires without proof? **** no. So I tried to get that evidence to make the local government do something. Nothing. Not even a word back. Tried to go to the press to force it to a national level. It didn't even get aired.

So I began to get desperate. You attack a man in his own country, and try to kill him and he's got a right to do somethin' about it. Well after a few months of quiet, someone from the Humanity First group reached out to me. I guess they heard what I had been doing and thought my ex-military skills could be of use.

Here we are, only a short time later, and we're actually doing something about the vermin running around on the streets, ruining people's lives. We only have one address. Simple orders. Get in, confirm the existence of the vampires at the address. Destroy the vampires. Get out before we can be discovered. According to the higher ups, if we do well today, we may begin to make this a regular thing. For now we have to operate around the law, but once enough attention comes to what we're doing, we're gonna pick up more support. Soon everyone will be carrying around a mirror (our 'confirmation device' as Stasie calls them), and anyone without a reflection will end up a pile of ash. It'll be ugly, but war ain't pretty.

To be continued...