Vampire Storm (Volume 1 : The Hurricane Journals)

- Vampire Storm -

-

Volume I of

The Hurricane Journals

-

- By R.M. Plaiscia -

A Shroud of Ages Story

Vampire Storm

The Hurricane Journals – Volume I

The Shroud of Ages Saga

Copyright 2014 - 2023 Ronald M. Plaiscia Jr.

Published by Ronald M. Plaiscia Jr. at Smashwords

Thank you for downloading this free eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends, family and anyone else within shouting distance. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoy this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Find Other Works By R.M. Plaiscia at Smashwords.com - https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RMPlaiscia

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This work is dedicated to Gloria and Kenneth Young.

Witch-ionary I

Basic Witch Terminology

Willborn – Young Witch, born of sheer will; lack of foresight.

Foreborn – Elder Witch, able to overcome their own will; dependant on foresight.

Foolheart – Young Warlock, ignorant to most magic; playful, void of testosterone.

Warwalker – Elder Warlock, having become one with the battlefield; flooded with testosterone.

Brightling – A Warlock who has embraced the art of wizardry instead of war; flushed clean of testosterone.

Kindlefell – Young Wizard, not yet skilled in the arts of wizardry, like kindle for a fire that is not yet lit.

Wakenwide – Elder Wizard, awakened to the magical arts of wizardry.

Arken – The Native Witch’s term for Vampire, believed to be their ancient creators.

Terra – Used both as a witch description for Earth, and to describe the magical energy they can create and wield.

Hylum – An ancient type of wood carved to create wizard staffs.

Frening/Draking/Draker – Not as versatile as the human variation of the F-word, but each are still used to promote emphasis, or to express anger, annoyance, contempt, or surprise.

Table of Contents

Prologue – August 29th, 2005

Chapter 1 – Arrival – September 22nd, 1722

Chapter 2 – The Underground Chamber

Chapter 3 – Warwalker

Chapter 4 – For The First Time

Chapter 5 – Learning

Chapter 6 – Preparation From The Start

Chapter 7 – Walking With The Storm

Chapter 8 – When Something Terrible Churns Ashore

Chapter 9 – First a Frantic Calm

Chapter 10 – And Then The Raindrops Howling

Chapter 11 – One Last Time

Chapter 12 – Finding Way From Trouble

Chapter 13 – And From The Dirt of Which They’d Landed

Chapter 14 – A Palace of God Turned to Rubble

Extra Content

(Prologue)

Monday, August 29th, 2005

So I guess I’ve got to start this story over again.

This would be… what?

The third writing, I believe… but the first in quite a long time.

None of this ever should’ve held so much importance. Honestly, it should’ve been long ago discarded to the sands of time without an eyebrow even being raised upon my brow. But, over time, it actually became something more than I intended it to be. You see… when it all began, when I first picked up that initial notebook, it was only to keep me from being swallowed by the boredom of my own depression, and keeping track of my experiences was a perfect escape.

This story had no name, no planned plot. Hell, it was hardly even a story at all, simply a way to keep myself sane in a time of dark reflection. But since that time, after following these individuals for so long – these characters, if I may – it became clear they possessed a life all their own, and some with a fate not even I could sway.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m supposed to be starting from the beginning, here… and that beginning was a very long time ago. So long ago in fact, there’s no logical way I could ever start from there. So, instead I’m going to begin somewhere closer to the end, or, should I say, the present. Even so, this will no doubt be too far in the past for some to believe I was even a part of it. And that’s fine. Those who doubt me can turn away from these pages and never even read the following words. And if that doesn’t do it, just wait until I start talking about witches.

So let’s go ahead and get it all out of the way, right now. Yes, these individuals I speak of, these characters I’ve followed for so very long, they comprise several types of supernatural beings, primarily the race of Wicca Urth Dawnicus, more commonly known as witches. So if you’re not a fan of witches… well… don’t blame me for the resilience of their kind. Trust me… I’ve wished the bastards dead for several millennia now and still do.

But anyway… now that that’s over with… for those lingering eyes who have chosen to follow me along this journey, the eyes which remain to read these words, prepare your minds to enter a realm of fantastical truth all but blotted out from the pages of history, an age of the past shrouded black by casted shadow, where the race of Witchkind remains concealed to prying eyes.

For the sake of placement, I might as well explain how this all came to be nearly three-hundred years ago, upon a mighty river’s crescent. But be warned now that very few of the original pages of my journey are still intact. Still, I will display each that remains between my own recollections of this past. Each entry will be dated with italic lettering to distinguish from my memories, while both will serve as the only true remnants of this forgotten time.

Most of those original writings had to be left behind in the Gulf of Mexico during an unnamed storm in 1856, one eventually dubbed the Last Island Hurricane. After that, it forced me to rewrite everything I had learned if I wished to pass this knowledge on to the future. But most of those journals were lost mere minutes ago, as this most recent storm, one given the name of Katrina, decided to carry its floodwaters into the confines of this Crescent City known as New Orleans.

All those journals, all that history… drowned by the waves now claiming this land once more. Thus despite my current predicament – crammed inside an attic, surrounded by rising water, with winds ripping at the roof above me – I must return to that time of so long ago, that time when I first logged my experiences onto paper, if I truly wish to keep this knowledge alive... which I do.

There was another hurricane hovering above this same land 300 years ago, one dubbed by the mortals as ‘Terrible’, but remembered by the witches as… ‘The Vampire Storm’… and that is exactly where I shall begin my journey again…

Chapter 1 - Arrival

Tuesday, September 22, 1722

Does fate exist?

Can fate exist?

Can such a transcendental force such as fate or destiny – a force which allows not for someone to control their own future, but for it to be inherently bestowed upon each and every worthy and unworthy creature – truly exist in such a physical reality?

Is it that fate which guides our actions?

Or is it something far greater, something far more powerful than any preordained prophecy could ever predict?

Or… maybe all this philosophical ape-shit isn’t the way we should begin our journey together. Maybe questions such as those simply aren’t eye-catching enough. Maybe we need to move things along a bit faster. Because, after all, it’s about trust, right? If we plan on making this work, we both need to trust each other. So, to honor such an agreement, allow me to set the stage…

This all started long before this river’s crescent where I now sit, before I even realized how capable I was of swaying the future of any events. Because I’ve never really thought of myself as being anything special, it took awhile before I truly understood the power I possessed. Before then, I always saw myself as no different from any other creature on this Earth, just as vulnerable to the same emotions as everyone else… joy, anger, happiness, love. But as of late, my goals have become much more focused.

Once I began to realize how different I truly was, how unnatural my evolution had been, joy was no longer something I craved, love became no more than a distraction, and happiness… ha, if only such a thing were possible… because it is anger, the anger I feel from the failures I’ve accumulated, that I seek to avoid. It had been my anger alone guiding me for so long, ruling my actions, controlling my very being, until I learned how to rise above it, to conquer it. But conquering that anger… it wound up costing me everything. By thinking clearly, I only learned how to ignore those who cared for me that much better. But it also brought me closer than ever before to achieving the vengeance I shall always seek.

It was so long ago when this vengeance was first spawned, when I basked as a child within the blood of my parents, slaughtered by an ancient species wishing to negate my creation, a species not of this Earth, nor anywhere near it.

The young Sapien race may have come to know them as Gods, but I knew them as nothing more than monsters… monsters without remorse, without emotion… and they destroyed everything I ever loved, all that I cared for. They took it all away from me, save the one thing untouchable to their grasp… my life. That was all I got to keep, no matter how much I’d wished it to be otherwise.

They left me barren and beaten with the corpses of those I loved broken in the path before me.

But never did I falter from that path, not once, because I knew it was the only path to lead me back to them. No matter how long it took me to find them, whatever star, whichever universe they wished to hide behind, whether I must melt the flesh from my bones for my hands to reach their necks, their deaths will be mine to claim.

It began with an uprising, and then evolved to a war. Despite the stakes, though, it was all thwarted, and not by those so-called Gods alone. They may have locked me within the bowels of a volcano to get rid of me, but it was the guardians left behind once they finally retreated – the Protectors of Terra, the species of Wicca Urth Dawnicus – who had caused me the most trouble of all. I was able to escape my molten cell in time, but only for them to force me back into hiding, leaving me all alone once more, and it was there where my true search for achieving my revenge began.

I found myself alone within a frozen landscape, snowcapped domes of ice surrounding me, exactly where I had left something very long ago. I could remember it well as I approached, the one stubborn bastard who simply refused to cooperate with my plans. When he should have been dead, I had given him a second chance at life. And while he should have been grateful for my actions, still he refused me. He had once held significant power, and still did. But this fool had locked it all away from me, all so I would never be allowed to manipulate it.

But little did he understand, at that time or forever more, he was a conscious being who lived within the realm of this existence. And that meant he would always be under my control. So over time I’d learned to maximize that control of mine, and to be patient in my search for vengeance. Just as the Gods before had done to me, birthed my creation in their own image, so did I plan to do for him, to create him anew… in mine.

Never, though, would he give into my ideals, annoying me to the point of no return, fighting against me every chance he found. When at first I saw him as nothing more than my best chance at achieving my retribution, now it seemed I had made the same mistake as those Gods before me. My creation, what was meant to be my greatest achievement, had quickly become my mightiest foe.

Thus there was no other choice but to dispose of him, no differently than the Gods had done to me.

I left him right outside of an ancient underground chamber with a dagger through his heart, destined to sleep forever more. But as I arrived at the ice-cave marking that chamber’s entrance centuries later, he was nowhere to be found. All that had been left buried in the snow was a shard of wood covered in frozen blood alongside the mutilated carcass of a Polar Bear.

It seemed he had awoken to have his first meal… yet had clearly been gone for quite some time.

But not only was he gone, he was awake for the first time in many millennia. It was a slumber that would have meant death for most species. But the blood coursing through his veins was anything but normal. Still, despite his length of life, after sleeping for so long, there was no telling how much his mind had deteriorated in such a time. There was no way to know how much he would truly remember of his former life. If it was too much, he could ruin all that I had been working towards during his absence. But if his memories have indeed been washed away by the blackness of his sleep, then it would only be that much easier to manipulate his actions.

And that’s exactly why I remained patient – both before and during my search – despite losing that – once upon yet never – love of mine to the grains of time, because I don’t care if fate is working against me. It doesn’t matter if fate is even real. With the right amount of planning and just enough conceit, I could manipulate even it.

Despite its stature, maybe fate isn’t some magical force of the universe after all. Maybe it’s simply something we all make for ourselves, something each of us builds with each step, every action, all the breaths we take. And maybe fate is just as unavoidable as any prophesied destiny would be, just as forceful in guiding one’s choices, yet still able to be wielded by free will. And if so, does that free will actually allow those otherwise unworthy souls the chance to control their own fate, to help themselves, possibly even rise up beyond one’s own given status, becoming, themselves, worthy of a better future? Or would that, in a way, simply be fate playing its role within the laws of our spiraling reality?

Has the future – my future, your future – truly been written by some unseen hand, one that just goes around scribbling the fates of those deemed worthy enough on some random pages somewhere out in the shadows of this existence? Are the words carved within the stones of time truly unchangeable? Or can that destiny be manipulated by simply understanding it is there, by doing nothing more than reading those writings with eyes wide open?

I say… maybe it can be.

Maybe every last one of those weak and feeble creatures walking brazenly throughout this reality has the ability to mold their own future. Maybe destiny is attained by any who strive towards it, and no mere words carved in any stone would be able to stop them. But either way, in the end no one could avoid that impossibly long list of decisions and choices which are always left lingering within the inevitable wake every life tends to leave behind.

Maybe no one escapes their fate, whether designed or not. Maybe it’s just impossible to change the future that our own past creates with each passing day. Or maybe I’m just cold, wet, and frening lost in some damned by the fates swamp, too impatient to think out the entire concept properly.

So I digress.

I don’t even know what the fury I’m doing out here, anyway. I’ve tracked this monster seamlessly for the past five years, but because of this damn storm, I’m probably so far off of my course and nowhere close to my intended destination. But something keeps tugging at my memories, pulling me towards a familiar feeling in this completely unfamiliar place. It was long ago, yes… but I can remember words being spoken which have now found a way to connect to this very moment.

If only this rain would give me a moment to frening think.

Alright… so, now that I’ve found a nice place to hide from this stupid rain, and since I just explained the entire core of my plans to a frening piece of paper, everything is becoming a bit more visible. I can see now how my memories are trying to remind me of something.

I have not found this swamp by accident.

What that says of fate, I cannot be sure. But however I found it, whatever brought me here… I was without a doubt meant to find it… because this is the moment that Waken scum was talking about. The very same place that crazy old wizard thought I’d lost it all. He was of course my favorite ancient adversary, but that meeting was something different. He spoke of things that had not yet happened. Yet here I stand.

I stand upon the exact river’s crescent he spoke of, his words still ringing with clarity inside my mind… That’s where it all went wrong, isn’t it… back upon that river’s crescent… back in 1722… in that fury-bound swamp… after Ashish disappeared. You found that creation of yours and forgot all about her, didn’t you?

At the time he spoke those words, they meant nothing. But over time, without me even noticing, events began falling into place. When I first met Ashish, her name had been so familiar to me, but never could I place it… not until she was gone.

Only in hindsight could anything make sense to me. But this, right now, is a search for my creation, another chance to redeem my failures of the past. Yet in those moments… that’s when I saw it, clear as the night sky is black. I realized how I had reached the time my ancient foe had spoken of, the time he fought so desperately to keep me from reaching. And now, here I am… upon a river’s crescent… within some fury-bound swamp… in the year of seventeen-hundred-and-twenty-two… and my lonely search continues.

I know it has all led up to this, and will at last lead me to the something I’ve waited so long to attain. I can feel it, somehow, this familiar… something or another.

It has to be what I came here for, the culmination to all of my efforts. Still for some reason, maybe because of nothing more than those words that had been spoken by my ancient wizard foe, I know if I just keep waiting here in this swamp, here in this exact spot, I’ll find exactly what I sought to find all those years ago.

* * *

As I recall, it was as normal a night as any other in this southernmost swamp of this newly founded province of Louisiana. No reason for me to think otherwise. The moon hung halfway across the sky to mark the mid of night, the birthing of a new day, this one dubbed the twenty-second of September, year of 1722. As for me, I was simply minding my own business, like always, looking for something that I had lost track of quite some time ago.

I had only recently found my way, getting lost after following some fresh tracks that I’d discovered along the banks of a mighty river that cut through this newly found land from top to bottom, The Mighty Mississippi, they would come to call it, to a lush swamp near the end of it all.

I’m not even sure if it had a name at that time, the river or the slowly building settlement hidden within that crescent swamp. But either way, that’s where I was, on the edges of that as yet unnamed mortal settlement that hugged the northern tip of a wide crescent as it curved the great river east and then south before its final miles out to sea, like a wild snake carving through the land.

It was a sight to behold, that river, before they contained it with their levees… murderous yet magnificent, monstrous and wild. A simple glance of its sheer power was able to strip away breath, not to mention its depths. Its current was like a thousand cold and suffocating hands, splashing and crashing violently, rising up and down as it churned constantly southward. But while speaking of cold and suffocating hands, that brings me to the claimants of this new land, the mortals.

Rancid little creatures, they are.

I can’t even stand the sound of it… mortal.

I even hate the way it is spelled, though it may be the best way to describe them – not words like cruel or hateful, although both would apply, just… mortal.

They welter quickly and break easily.

Those letters, when placed together in that order, translate a natural death, one brought on by nothing more than time, which I suppose is normal to them. Yet a much more degrading name had been passed down to them due to all the hurt they’ve inflicted upon the Mother Earth… Human! A word meaning they can only care about themselves, the epitome of selfishness. It was a slur before they claimed it proudly for themselves, which is fitting, I suppose.

But she suffers now because of them, Earth does… and in turn, she will always cause them torment. But now I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me just say that… they are creatures that I am not particularly fond of. In my horribly humble opinion, they are horrid creations… cruel hearted, hateful, greed filled, ill minded, spite driven, war hungry, ideologically indifferent, horribly dressed, murderous souls… downright disgusting little animals. Though I am sure you already know that.

These specific mortals, though, the ones colonizing the swamp, were French settlers migrated from the old world across the sea to establish their own colonies here in this new one. They were claiming it before anyone else did, just like their greed always forced them to do, ignoring those that already called it home. And finally, just like always, they will fight over it. But that would be me getting ahead of myself again. For the time being, they did no more than build shoddy little shacks and huts to mark it as their territory. They even built a nice sized church. Of all they had constructed, it was where most of their time had been spent. They put more time into building that thing than anything else.

What strange creatures they were, indeed. As one of them crossed in front of my line of sight, his head pivoted to the side, suddenly startled.

He’d heard something. And so had I.

It was a scream coming from the not too far off distance, cutting through the warm night air and catching both of our attentions. But while he ignored it and went about his own business, carrying with him a bucket of fish that he would probably go and cook for his family, I moved to investigate.

Leaving him behind, I ducked into the darkness of the tree line alongside the river, slowly and quietly making my way forward, towards the noise, hiding within the shadows that the moonlit swamp provided. The mud squished beneath my feet, but I worked to balance my weight as best as I could, distributing it properly to make the least amount of noise.

As I grew closer, the sounds of struggle became more apparent, muffled speaking now audible between the screams.

Don’t fight us, bitch! Just hold still! A man’s deep voice shouted with aggression, speaking French, I believe. But I am more than happy to translate. Another voice quickly followed his, saying, "Hurry, damn