Light of Dawn

Chapter 36 - Prepping

~*~*~*~Issac~*~*~*~

I was kneeling in the middle of my floor with a freshly drained bag of blood in my hand. My breath was just no starting to even out and everything was beginning to look somewhat clear again. Falling back on my rear, I let out a relieved sigh as my head fell back and my eyes closed. That was a close one. For the past several weeks I'd been trying to cut back on the amount of blood that I took in, or at the very least I was trying to not eat nearly as often. Before I'd only need to drink an entire bag's worth of blood if I waited too long to eat, but recently I've been needing to drink more and more to satisfy my cravings. Now I needed an entire bag just to satiate my weekly feeding...

I let out a sigh and leaned forward bringing the blood bag around to my front and looked down at it. A vampire's appetite reflected their age so a young vampire wouldn't need more than a cup or a cup and half to satisfy themselves. Anymore and they'd run the risk of putting themselves into a coma for a week. Issac was over 200 years old, making him one of the oldest known vampires in the entire world. He remembered the time when the three human factions would actively hunt and kill vampires on sight rather than go on a patrol for the trouble makers. That wasn't a good time to be a vampire, especially a special one like Issac was as a Gargoyle.

The reasoning for the active hunting was because after Stark had gone insane and destroyed an entire hunting party that was sent after him, the human factions realized that was a situation they didn't want to be repeated. Stark was a fairly old vampire but there were vampires that were older while I was still considered a young vampire. The human factions knew this and couldn't risk having an even older and stronger vampire going down the same road as he had, so the order was given to kill on sight.

This was especially true in the east where the Shinobi made their home and also where I resided at the time. I'd had my fair share of run-ins with the Shinobi fifty years ago and to be frank I'd gotten lucky to have only encountered younger less experienced Shinobi. But, now that I was 223, my cravings have become harder to satiate and I've found myself needing to either spend more on blood bags... or hunt.

It's not something I'm proud of but a week ago I had taken advantage of a woman at the Millennium night club. I didn't bite her, but I glamored her and convinced her to fill a bag of blood for me. I still haven't told Jake about that, and if I can have it my way I'm not going to. Which brings me back to the current situation. I only had one more bag of blood left. I'd brought more but two of them had burst when that odd Shinobi Oda had attacked. I looked over at the remaining bag of blood in my pack and found myself thinking about what I should do about it. I could probably go and get some more, but I didn't bring a very big amount of money for that and I dared not risk hunting. If I was caught than I didn't want to think about what would be done to Jake since they branded him just for calling other humans for help and beat the hell out of him when he'd invited me over.

But, if something happens out in the field, if I get hurt I'll need more blood to help my body repair itself... After seeing Gabriel and knowing he was here because of Stark I knew that there was going to be a fight to be had. But I'm still not sure whether or not I could bring myself to fight against my own son. For Stark it's a simple thing to turn on family, aside from being driven insane but it's been said that once a vampire reaches a certain age their emotions, the last part that was human simply disappears. Truth be told, I don't wholly believe that Stark was as close to Matthew and Mary as he claims to have been. If anything he may have only been trying to get close to them in order to better learn how to fight... But if Jake's version of the story was true about Stark already being a very good fighter then what reason did Stark have for getting close?

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn't even notice the woman at my door until she spoke. "Excuse me." She began in a somewhat soft tone that didn't match what Issac knew about the dark elves. Turning my head I found myself looking up at a pale grey face and two bright blue eyes meeting my own. The moment my eyes met hers did she look more than a little nervous. "S-sorry I just wanted to say thank you for earlier."