Vampiric Retirement. The Vampire War Commences: Book 1

Prologue

Vampires exist among the human population. They have not existed for three hundred years as depicted in stories and legends. They have lived secretly among humanity, constantly feeding off them, using them as a food source for thousands of years.

They are not an anomaly born of Vlad the Impaler, nor are they the progeny of Count Dracula, but an alternative creation brought into existence by nature as mankind also flourished. They filled a gap in the development of intelligent life on the planet, a divergent pathway from the evolution of mankind.

They cannot change humans to vampire by their bite. That is a fallacy created by the minds of writers attempting to describe a story. They progress their nation by breeding much as their food source breeds, using those rare genetically matched few that are suitable as hosts.

The older they become the more powerful they are. The elders, the six original surviving creatures have roamed the world for eons untold, and as such are near perfect in their abilities, and evil beyond contemplation in their desires.

Sunlight is no barrier to the older vampires, it has little effect and does not kill them. The cross of God means nothing to them as most consider themselves almost Gods in their own right. Silver does kill them turning their bodies to burnt cinder. The storytellers got that right.

Why this story exists: In the seventeen hundreds, four of twenty new vampires fought against their natural tendency. As they aged and developed, passing through the centuries growing stronger, they learned and developed both in abilities and disgust at how their race had degenerated. They rebelled. So were born the first aid to mankind, creatures from a dark past brought into the light. The age of the vampiric protector was born.

Death followed until, of the four, there was only one. He decreed that the race as it was should end, but that entailed the destruction of the Elders, that the progenitors of the race, the oldest of them all should be consigned to history.

They decreed that he should join his rebellious comrades. So, the battle for the lives and souls of all commenced. The hunts were initiated. The end of the human rule was instigated as the war between races moved forward from the shadows, into the light.

PART ONE

DAY ONE: The War Is Underway.

Click. Click. The hammer drew back to full cock. The sound froze the black shadow that cautiously entered the darkened home. He, the interloper, listened knowing the sound, feeling the hairs on his neck standing up in reaction to the presence of another, of the one he sought.

His body remained still, slightly crouched, looking. Allowing his eyes to adjust the final amount necessary to penetrate the darkened area across the room from him. Slowly the dot, which was the hollow barrel of a pistol, clarified. The chambers behind gleamed in the very faint light from a log-burning fire. Death stared him in the face.

The hand holding the ancient pistol had never wavered or twitched. He saw clearly the finger squeezing against the curved metal of the trigger, applying a controlled even amount of pressure. He knew that this pistol needed approximately two and a half pounds of pull against the trigger to free the cocked hammer onto the paper and powder cartridge, prior to propelling the solid lead ball from the barrel. 'Old, but deadly,' the voice echoed in his mind, 'Old, but deadly, if it did not miss-fire.'

The room coated in darkness and silence remained just that, black and threatening. Slowly the dark interloper lifted his hands upwards and outwards, taking great care not to allow the silenced automatic he held to point remotely toward the seated figure. He had clearly seen a tartan blanket laid over the seated man's legs. Still the colt peacemaker remained pointing directly at his chest. 'Always hit the center of mass,' his instructors had drilled into him.

He was wearing a Kevlar woven bulletproof vest beneath his black high neck pullover. The jacket he wore over that was loose and unzipped and perfect to conceal the sidearm he habitually carried. The silencer he screwed on prior to making his slow cautious approach on the seemingly empty home was in place.

His target was the man sitting in the chair. His aim for the first time in his life was not to kill one of them, but to rescue, to protect, to save a life. The man in the chair had waited, somehow knowing an intruder would arrive. How many nights had he sat, just as he was, watching the two windows and the only door, expecting? The interloper wondered, but then he cursed himself for allowing his mind to wander. Some expert… Some professional… he decried himself, but then this situation was like no other he had or would ever face again. Death hovered between the two men, also waiting. Silence accompanied it as the two studied each other.

A light clicked on illuminating the man seated holding the ancient weapon. It fit the image he projected, both he and it looked old. Both were apparently worn out, on the edge of failing, but both capable of being deadly for just one last time. The shock hit the interloper with the power of a punch driven into his solar plexus. He gasped, breaching the training he had received throughout his life for the second time in just a few seconds. He remained still, knowing the seated man could add the final pull to the pistol's trigger and unleash the lead-ball at him, if he did not recognize him or perceived him as a threat.

He had to rely not on his skill, for the man seated opposite was his equal in years and like him well trained. He had to trust there remained a much deeper bond of brotherhood, which might, he hoped still exist between the two combatants. A bond of their bloodline, of nature and intent, coupled with a desire for their race. There should exist a truly unbreakable bond binding one to the other until death separated them from each other, and nature won the final battle.

Silence remained, the boom of death stayed absent. The barrel wavered slightly, but the interloper remained perfectly still. Slowly the barrel tilted towards the floor. At the last second the man's finger pulled against the metal of the trigger and the weapon discharged. A single shot fired filling the room with thunder and thick choking smoke as the solid lead ball, which had been fired, ploughed deep into the floor at the interloper’s feet, shattering through the planking. It took a large chunk of wood with it into the cavity beneath the house, prior to ploughing into the compacted soil beneath. There it buried itself forever in the dirt to be lost and forgotten.

The black powder smoke created a nauseous cloud that swirled around the seated man as the pistol fell from his fingers. It bounced once off the man's covered legs and tumbled to the floor with a deathly finality. Slowly the interloper lowered his arms. His hands joined, his fingers gripped the silencer and unscrewed it, knowing that he would not need the weapon now. The automatic slipped into the hip-holster, gliding into the plastic and was gripped by the finely adjusted locking screw, which held the weapon secure. Then, and before doing anything threatening, he spoke to the silent seated man. He was not original or smart, only concerned.

Are you ok? He asked.

The reply did not come in words, but in a low groan as the body slowly leaned forward in the last act it would ever fulfil. Death followed the expiration of the last breath. Death brought on not by natural causes, but by the intervention of another, but not the interloper. With realization he lunged forward catching the body before it completed its fall. He tilted it back into the chair. A metal and plastic dart protruded from the victim's neck. The fluid it once contained, injected on impact, and was gone. There could be no doubt the man in front of him had become a victim, the data was self-evident.

Carefully, he removed the tiny projectile. He noted the fine nylon feathering which stabilized the weapon in flight. A glance right showed nothing, but already his instincts were taking control of his actions. Grief for the departed would wait until later. First, he had to deal with an assassin.

He approached the outer wall. A quick, but detailed look revealed the dart’s entry point. A half-inch hole bored through the wood. It appeared drilled by a slow turning, low powered drill having been eased against the wood. It had taken time, and all the while the assassin would have been nervous of being detected and therefore attacked, if not killed, by his target.

'He or she', the interloper corrected himself, knowing there were women working in his chosen profession. Women with the delicate touch needed for a job like this. Women who were every inch as equal in training to the task as he himself. Women exactly like him in ability and also of nature, and he was now the last of the four remaining. The choice of weapon for the assassination led him to only one conclusion, silence was important, but also there had been only one target, the seated man. No guest or visitor had been ordered to be taken out with him. Only the target had to die. No one else mattered to the assailant.

Of course he reminded himself, the assassin could not have known or expected his presence. Had they done so, perhaps the attack and result would have been very different, for he too was a high level target. His death was sought as much as had been the man in the chair.

Approximately two minutes passed as he assessed the situation. Two minutes which he could not spare if he was to locate the assassin and extract vengeance for the dead man. He left by the door he entered through, having reasoned the assassin would have vacated the immediate area as quickly as their legs would carry them. No bullet or dart flew at him, but automatically he twisted his body, altering his profile, hoping to distract and confuse any would-be assassin that might be waiting for him. He crossed the gap between house and trees in seven long flying strides. He had entered into the woods un-assailed. He was safely away from the cabin.

Now he slowed down, falling silent in his movements, listening for any sound that might betray a waiting killer. He expected to hear nothing and nothing he heard. Facing the house, but twenty-feet inside of the woodland, he began to hunt. Circling toward the far side of the wooden building he moved in the manner he had so painstakingly been trained to.

Lifting each foot he rolled it as he placed it down. He sensed the ground beneath his sole for anything that might crack or scrunch, hesitating before completing the step then repeating. He searched with eyes, ears and nose. He tried to reach out through the woodland, attempting to discover his quarry.

Ambush in a hunt of this nature was the biggest threat to his survival. He was aware of that and so proceeded forward with extreme caution. He could not know if his quarry had stopped in flight and settled somewhere to wait for any attempt to follow. He reasoned the assassin was aware of his presence because 'they' must have been slowly drilling their hole when he arrived.

What, the interloper wondered, had gone through the shadowy figure’s mind as they realized another was present? Still the assassin completed the assignment and departed. Professional, he thought as he penetrated deeper into the woodland. Also, desperate and afraid of their quarry despite the certainty that death had settled on their victim. Did the assassin know death was not necessarily a barrier to extinction or even revenge by him?

His nose twitched at a familiar aroma. His ears caught the distant sound. Instantly, he recognized it as a vehicle ticking over. Presumably, he reasoned, it was waiting for the assassin’s return. He moved. His pace increased as he tracked the sound. Ambush seemed unlikely. Escape would be the assassin’s prime drive. He ignored silence in exchange for speed. He flew through the ground foliage just in time to see a shadowy figure pull them self into the driver's seat of a van. It was partially hidden and waiting with its engine running, ready for a fast exit from the murder scene.

Dark as the night deepened, he still retained his perfect night vision. He saw the glass panel in the rear door drop and something metal being pushed through the glassless gap. He hit the ground, rolled twice into the foliage, extended his arms, his hands holding his pistol four inches clear of the ground. The van accelerated away, twenty then thirty, then forty feet. The interloper had drawn his pistol and fired four shots toward the van at twenty-feet, a further three shots aimed at the petrol tank at thirty-feet. He was not in the hope that it might explode as seen in nearly every movie. He knew better. Petrol tanks do not explode when ordinary bullets hit them, and especially not when steel jacketed, high performance rounds puncture the thin steel. His pistol held jacketed rounds. He shot at the tank hoping to puncture it so a thin trail of petrol would leak to the ground.

Soon the van would reach a junction and the petrol would show him which way it turned, if he was lucky. The last three rounds he aimed at the door just below the window, hoping to hit the shooter he knew was aiming out of the rear of the van. Returning bullets exploded in a popping series of explosions. Ak 47, an old and quite unusual weapon to be carried these days, but still very effective as he shortly discovered to his cost. He had rolled seeking the better protection offered by a thick tree-trunk with his first shots fired.

The ground around him exploded in a series of dust devils as bullets tore toward him. His last shots having been discharged at the escaping vehicle, his roll took him behind a tree where he sought protection, but not before the last round fired from the van hit his shoulder, forcing the air from his lungs filling him with an instant burning agony.

His pistol fell to the floor undamaged, but useless to him. His heart rate accelerated hitting fifty-two beats per minute, as the wound turned numb with the onset of shock. Torn flesh ripped asunder flowed with his blood, thick and constant. He needed to reach his car to utilize the best treatment available to him. He turned intending to crawl using his good arm and feet to push him toward the sanctuary his vehicle offered, but he remained stationary, thinking.

Forgotten for the moment, the van and its assassins, only reaching his concealed Range Rover mattered. The blood-flow eased then stopped, as his clotting accelerated. His heartrate slowed as the adrenalin of action faded. Soon he would feel the onset of sickness caused by that beneficial adrenalin, a reaction even he was not immune to.

He stood up instead of crawling. He straightened his back feeling the slow closing of his flesh, which signified the bullet was made of mild soft metal, not as he had feared, a specialty round. He picked up the fallen pistol. Its breach was jammed open by his discharging of its last round.

His weapon held nine-rounds when fully loaded. It was now empty and useless. He shot off every one of the clip of nine. Those rounds allowed the shooter in the van to pinpoint his position by his weapon’s muzzle flash. He made a mistake and it had cost him a wound in return, something he could not allow to happen again. Mistakes of that nature could get him killed. He had been lucky in that instant, the bullets were normal and so he would heal swiftly and live to seek his revenge. The van’s shooter had not expected to encounter him so was unprepared. That alone was the single reason he was still alive.

He dropped the useless clip into his jacket pocket, slamming in a fresh fully loaded and checked replacement clip. This time he loaded rounds more suitable to his prey, because the van was still very much his prey. Shortly, once he had rejuvenated his body and soul, he would be about the hunt. For now his weapon was once again ready. He did not jack a round into the chamber, but waited and listened.

He started jogging along the track until he found an area of ground with flattened grasses. Beyond the screen was his vehicle, four wheel drive and very capable. A Range Rover waited. It had a large bore much modified engine, just perfect to give chase to the van and its assassins, though he would not be using it for that.

He needed to know who carried out the hit and more importantly who ordered it in the first place. Was he a target? He suspected he was not because of the rounds fired at him, but suspicion was not knowledge and so the hunt must continue.

Once at the vehicle, he opened its spacious boot revealing a silver aluminum case in which resided the cure to his needs. Small freeze-dried pouches of cattle-blood filled the case. He took one out, popped the flip-top and squeezed the paste into his mouth. His saliva mixed with the contents. The warmth of his mouth warmed the blood as he swallowed it down, feeling the burst of energy it provided flowing down his throat. Almost instantly the bullet ejected from his shoulder. The torn flesh knitted fully. Within seconds the wound was so much history. He finished the pouch and turned once more toward the direction the van departed, but only briefly. Now he could hunt. Now he could discover whatever was to be discovered.

He turned back to the vehicle and placed a blood pouch in each of his jacket pockets. With that done he closed the case lid pushing it back deeper into the vehicle. From the wheel-well he removed a leather belt. Affixed to that strip of leather were a series of pouches, each filled with the tools of his ancient trade. He strapped the acquisition around his waist feeling its weight and the reassurance of familiarity. He was ready. The car boot slammed shut. Now, the hunt would begin.

DAY ONE: Revenge.

Four stepped away from the Range Rover. Entering the vacant space near to his vehicle, he stood on the grass looking toward the distant past, seeing the image of the van as it hurtled away from him. The vehicle was long gone, but the image was burned on his retina. He looked up into the sky seeking it through the trees as the change began.

His body felt light, his face moved into a rictus spasm of flesh, with eyes glowing red. He became the creature that lived within him, only ever released at times of his greatest need. His arms reached upward, his body followed them into the sky. Free now of the ground, having burst effortlessly up through the trees, he sought out the distant road.

The track both he and the van followed joined passed a shack and entered a hard packed byway. Glistening on the ground, drying fast but clearly visible to his eyes, was the trail of spilt dripped petrol. It leaked from the bullet pierced van’s fuel tank. He turned to his left accelerating his flight, looking forward whilst following the twisting road as it snaked through the hills, heading toward a distant motorway link.

Beneath him, moving as slowly as a snail in his estimation, hurtled the van, its rear-wheels loosing grip as the driver sought yet more speed. He settled above the vehicle effortlessly matching its speed as he prepared to exert his will on it. Slowly he glided downward toward the vehicle until he could reach down and touch the metal of it’s roof. His fingernails extended turning hard and gaining points as he lunged down, having timed his attack to an outward turning bend.

He gripped the metal, tore through it as though it was made of paper and exerted pressure downwards. Bullets peppered the roof, most missed him, but those that did find their mark had little to no effect on him. Closing his clawed fingers tight, gripping the metal hard, the vehicle beneath him lost headway as its suspension collapsed beneath his pull.

He twisted and heaved upward suddenly, spring coils of metal extended reaching down for the vanished ground. Wheels lifted clear as the rear of the van rose. He pushed and twisted feeling the metal rip asunder, but his intent was done. The rear of the vehicle pivoted. The van having lost power turned in the air as he held it. He released it allowing contact with the ground to be gained, but to the driver’s horror the van was now hurtling toward the mud-bank, which sided the road.

The crash occurred exactly as Four wished it to. His flight slowed as he pirouetted in the air, not wanting to give the occupants any opportunity to react. The van's front hurtled into the mud bank where it twisted spinning around and around until smashed and deformed it halted with its gathered energy finally spent. The rear door ripped easily from its frame as he punched through its metal skin. The door flew, unable to offer any resistance to the strength he exerted.

Crumpled, and clearly dead against the front-seats of the van, was the rifle shooter. A human without life was of no interest to him. Fast as lightening, he yanked the driver's door from the vehicle, reaching inside before the door even hit the ground behind him. He dragged a female from the seat. She was the one he had seen, the assassin that killed number Three. She was breathing labored gulps of air as her head turned toward him, her jaws opened as she hissed at him in defiance. Had she been like the shooter, a human, not one of his race the crash would have killed her outright, he would have had nothing to gain.

She was not human she was vampiric… young, but vampiric all the same! He pulled her out of the crumpled steel shell dragging her effortlessly by the throat. Casting her to the ground in his anger, she hit hard. Beneath her body the tarmac of the road shattered with the impact. She lay before him indented in the blacktop, still very much alive and still available. He lunged at her, pinning her where she lay. His hollow pointed fangs extended, his mouth opened as he sought her neck. Not to feed, not for the pleasure of biting her but to learn, to read the blood memory contained in her younger vampiric blood.

Images filled his mind, the van… the drive… the shaded trees… the shack… the drill and his arrival. He read them all and discarded them equally. He already knew the information revealed. He bit deeper, opening twin chasms in the throat, seeking out the hidden information locked within her flowing blood.

She fought back trying to lever him from her body, but she was young, less than two hundred years old. He was far stronger having lived centuries to her years. The images changed as he overrode her resistance. She crumpled beneath him as he drove deeper. He saw the telephone… he saw the room… a lounge of the normal human type nothing in that to give her away.

Then he heard the voice. A dark hissing evil voice. He listened to her blood as Elbitalaent the third of the ancient six spoke to her. He heard the evil intent and the instructions given and realized his original target had been discovered. His hiding place revealed to one of the ancient six.

Elbitalaent was one of the oldest vampires on the planet, a degenerate offspring of nature's development of a new branch of life. He existed not for centuries, but since the very beginning. He hunted the world as one of the Fathers of the Race. A creature so old, one from a time when intelligent life was just beginning. He was thought to be fifty thousand years of age. To the vampire nation, he was one of the six gods, creatures who were the ancestors of them all.

Fear raced through the hunter as he read the pulsing cool blood of the assassin. Fear for his life, for the life of number Three and for the continuing existence of the human race pounded at him. He thrust the girl from him. Disgust filled his mouth as the blood he had been forced to accept dripped from his chin. His anger flared as his hand reached into a pouch at his waist. From within it he withdrew a thin silver stake. As their bodies parted he twisted the weapon outward, as he readied himself for the single thrust to be delivered.

She looked up at him, her head straightening, her eyes met her assailant. Realization dawning, she knew exactly what he was about to do. She desperately struggled. She tried to rise, but he was far too strong and far too old a vampire for her to have any chance.

The thrust entered, its needle-thin point punched effortlessly through her skin. It passed between her ribs and onward searching out her heart. It was quick for her, far quicker than it had ever been for her human prey. The stake pierced the beating organ then rammed onward and deeper by the wrist action of the assailant. The heart beat one last beat as the silver reacted with the blood chamber and the heat exploded.

She burned beneath him as the silver stake did its job. She died and passed on leaving only a small pile of dark ash, which the wind would later carry away. Four felt euphoric.

As for the dead human, the assistant and shooter sent along with her to kill number Three, his body was placed in the van's front seat with the rifle placed next to him. To any who looked, they would assume he was the van's driver and died in a crash when he lost control. Questions would be asked about the ripped and torn steel of the van's roof, but that could not be helped. The vampire stood back looking at his handiwork, wondering what awaited him when he returned to the house with its currently almost-dead body inside.

He departed as he arrived, in a burst of energy driven flight, his mind already planning for whatever awaited him as he flew. His return to the Range Rover went unnoticed by any living creature. He landed silently, crouching down, blending with the silence of the woodland. Caution had become a way of life to him and it kept him safe throughout the long centuries of his exile. An exile chosen by him and the three others of his birthing time. He chose to live as an exile from his own world, his own people and their culture of destruction. A culture he could not accept or tolerate to remain in its present form.

He listened, sensing the land around him, searching with eyes and ears and something else. He sensed their arrival before he saw them descend. There were seven of them. Seven to one he thought, knowing the odds were heavily loaded against him, but wanting to even the score for the nearly dead body in the house. They split up, three heading to the left, three to the right, leaving one alone in the center facing the house.

He lowered himself to the ground easing his body into the undergrowth, feeling the darkness emanating from the one left alone. He recognized the man-like creature instantly and fear flooded his deepest thoughts. An Elder was here. An Elder was directly involved in this hunt.

He knew that was the case ever since he read the blood memory of the female from the van. Still, he had not expected an Elder to attend, to check and to finish what the assassins started. Only an Elder or one of near equal age could have stood up directly to number Three and an Elder had arrived, late but eventually.

The Elder ordered the attack. Now, he had set out to join the fray, intending to ensure the outcome. Clearly, he had been far away and it took him too long to arrive. Now that he had arrived, he would ensure everything was as he expected it to be, that the nearly dead would become the actually dead.

The Elder's confidence overrode any suspicion he might have that he was not alone. He strode openly toward the home of number Three. He stepped effortlessly up the narrow steps and reached out to the door handle. His age gave him the confidence and the power he would need if number Three was not nearly as dead as he expected him to be.

All around the house his foot soldiers took up positions, not because they were needed to help Elbitalaent overcome what might be waiting within, but to ensure he was not disturbed as he put an end to one of the four renegades.

*****

I waited knowing that to enter the building after him would be the death of me, but still I found that I could not leave. To depart to a safer place made perfect sense, but for some reason I could not go. I had to remain no matter the personal danger. From inside of the house I heard nothing for a short time and then an ear-splitting scream filled the air. Shortly the Elder reappeared. I knew that