Nocturne: chapter 1

    A woman was walking the familiar streets of her world just after midnight. The city had changed much over the last few thousand years, she mused. The lamps on the side of the road were out but that wasn’t a problem for her kind. Vampires. She was one of the old ones, one of the originals. She didn’t drink blood carelessly anymore and never let the prey live. She didn’t need to. The next time she would drink and let live, the human would be her mate for the rest of his immortal life.
    She had been troubled recently, though.  Some of her kind had been disappearing. In the past week the disappearances had been centered in the part of the world she resided in power over. The killer seemed to be making his way to her. A vampire hunter was in town. The numbers of her kind slowly dwindled. The world of Nocturne, Dashikanawe’s world, was divided into seven territories. Each territory was ruled by one of the seven vampire elders. As an elder and ruler of this territory, it was her job to find and kill the being that threatened them.
    “Mama Dashi!”
    Dashikanawe turned to see who had cried her name. It had to be one of her fledglings. They were the only ones who called her mama.
    She looked down at a pale boy with flawless features. He seemed to be no older than sixteen. Dashi had turned him almost a year ago. The boy fell to his knees, knowing the respect she demanded as an elder, “Mama.”
    “Hello Jonathan. What has you hunting after me, fledgling?” she replied.
    “Dashi, Marcus and I were at the blood bank,” Marcus was another of her fledglings. He had been no older than eighteen when she turned him turned four years ago. The two fledglings were unusually close for vampires. When Jon was turned, Marcus had taken the roll of being his mentor. Vampires are solitary creatures and, to this day, their behavior puzzled her. “The hunter-”
    Her eyes glowed a fiery red at the mention of the slayer. “What happened, Jon?”
    “He showed up when we were raiding the freezers. He staked Marcus. Right over the heart.” She swore, were he physically capable, he would have been crying.
    Marcus had never been her favorite offspring but he was still hers. The slayer would pay for killing one of her children when she found him. Dashi would make sure of it. “We need to hold a council meeting, then. I dare say you shall be required, dear. We need to do something about this unnecessary human pest.”
    “Are you sure the Vampire Council can do something about him? I mean, not that they’re incompetent, but he’s a slayer. He has super strength and all that other stuff.”
    The old vampire’s icy lips thinned as what he said ran through her mind. The council was all comprised of elders, she being one of them. “Do you doubt us, fledgling?”
    Nathan’s head hurriedly bowed in penitence. “No Mama! Never! I would never doubt you!”
    Dashi could feel he was on the verge of panicking as she probed the edge of his mind. He was in a mess over Marcus. She had a momentary thought that their care for each other may have been something more. “Calm yourself, little one. You must keep them in check before of the council or they will doubt your sanity.”
    “Yes, Mama.” He took a deep breath and she waited for his mind to clear before she continued.
    “Be sure not to call me Mama in their presence. It would seem rude to the rest of the council and they already seem to doubt me.” Dashi was currently third from the top of the ladder in the council of seven old vampires. They believed themselves greater than any fledgling and would never entertain the idea of talking to one as an equal. “Call me by title.”
    “Yes, Lady Anika.”


    The human world of Nocturne was the most infested place he had been since the planet Earth. It disgusted him. It was like a plague. This world was overrun with vampires.  He had given up with Earth, which was why he was here. That planet had been impossible to rid of the bloodsuckers. Most of it had been overrun. Sure, there were a few refugee camps but over 85% of the world was vampiric now, in the year 3078. The vampire numbers were growing quickly.
    He believed the Goddess had called him to work here. She wanted him to rid the world of creatures that disobeyed the laws she set millions of years ago before the world came about.
    Vampires, it was his job to kill them. That’s why they called him the slayer. It was his destiny. If he put his all his power into his task, he could kill even an old vampire.
    The fledglings of an old, what he had been killing lately, were wimps compared to their creators. If hunters killed the old vampires before the younger vermin, the vampire blood would become thinner and weaker over the years. This would result in weaker beings. Eventually vampire kind would die out giving the humans a chance to lead a normal life. That is, as normal as a life can be with werewolves still about. This was his theory.
    The living dead trembled in fear of him. He was the only slayer who had been able to kill an old vampire on the planet Earth. He would be the death of them all… and they knew it. He could tell. There had been less of their kind out lately. Even the day walkers didn’t dare to show themselves. He could feel their resentment, like sweat dripping off their ice-cold skin. He was invading their territory.
    They thought he meant to kill them all.
    That was partially true. They just didn’t know one thing. Nathan Brown meant to test his theory.
    He had heard tell of an old vamp that had a nest in this desolate city. She was told to be one of the most powerful elders. A slayer able to face her would make an excellent enemy to any old, if they lived of course. But those were only rumors.