Bad Blood

Mythical Mayhem

"How many are there?" The voice modulation shrieked through the old holo screen, overwhelming the tiny speakers.

"Monsters or Aliens?" That the Preceptor was uttering those words with a straight face was in and of itself a phenomenon. The whiny pitch of the Holo screen filled his office. This is what their world had come to, beasts of myth and legend battling extraterrestrial invaders. Dracula's call had echoed into the deep, dark places of the world and they had answered. He could not help but wonder why. Why did the monsters of old come to Earth's defense when man had categorically invaded and hunted these creatures to near extinction? Across the map, every story, myth and legend demonstrated one of humanity's biggest flaws; prejudice. Our great dislike of different. Even in this vaunted day and age of acceptance, humanity had its limits. Narrow ones.

"There is a correlation between the two."

"Oh?" The darkened holo screen showed its first signs of interest.

The Preceptor tapped rapidly on the holo screen and a large world map flickered to life. A dozen bright red dots were scattered across the globe. "The locations marked on the map are the cities in which the massive lightning events have occurred over the past three months. The first one taking place in Manhattan on New Year's Eve. Each event has precipitated thousands of casualties and thousands of...survivors. The Skrekk's numbers have risen astronomically."

"Where is the correlation?"

Another series of taps upon the screen and a slew of vivid green dots appeared on the map. Each red dot was nearly supplanted by a green marker. "These are the sightings that have been reported across the globe," he highlighted each one individually. "Dracula and his wolves of course, are in Manhattan, at the site of the first lightning phenomenon," the mark in question blinked rapidly. "A Basilisk in London, Hoji in Japan, the Makara in India, a pack of Chupacabra in Mexico." The Preceptor had been shocked to learn from the Werewolf Alpha, Phasma, that the Chupacabra were actually a part of the Lycan family. "There are several werewolf packs across Europe and..."

"And?" The modulated voice crackled with impatience.

"A ship was capsized in the Mediterranean Sea near Haifa...by what my records call a Leviathan."

"What is a Leviathan?"

"Contextually, it seems to be a sea...creature." The Preceptor rifled through a stack of papers on his desk, finally reading, "In Psalms- 'Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.' "

He rifled manically through more dogeared papers, "In Isaiah- 'In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.' "

"Are you quoting the Bible?" The dark screen grew utterly still and he heard the incredulity of his mystery speaker even with the modulation.

"What else would you like me to quote? This mythical creature- excuse me, what we presumed to be mythical- creature is literally crawling out of the sea near Israel. One that so happens to be described in no other text but the Bible." The Preceptor's temper was growing shorter by the second. "There are even rumors of a Dragon wreaking havoc in Shanghai."

A loud squawk reverberated through the old speakers, vibrating the wooden desk beneath his fingers. "Did you say a Dragon? As in teeth and scales and...breathes fire?"

"I have not seen the creature myself, but I would assume it possesses those qualities." Stunned silence filled the line. The world map was a blaze of red and green dots, the chaos widespread. "I hope you realize there is no hiding this now. People know."

"The Order has informed the appropriate governments. They will decide who should be informed." The Preceptor's dislike of the shadowed figure grew tenfold. To brush off such a potentially cataclysmic issue as someone else's problem rankled.

"I know it is most likely too late to reverse events, but I feel quite strongly that care should be taken when involving these...creatures in human affairs."

"Is Earth's invasion solely a human affair?" Something quite strange was happening to the voice modulation. It seemed to twist and stretch into a long sibilant hiss. The Preceptor shuddered, banging the holo screen. "I confesssss myssself disappointed, I expected quite a different mindsssset from you."

The Preceptor studied the well worn books lining his office shelves, the pictures of friends and family and colleagues. How small and ignorant his life now seemed. How uninformed. The awards for his research on Folkloristics and Mythology as a Key to Human Society hanging in their glossy frames seemed especially paltry and trite. He had always prided himself on his open-mindedness. The entire paper had been predicated on the belief that the world of mythology provided guidance for crucial elements of human existence- life and death, truth and lies, war and peace...good and evil.

To not understand a difference between societies was not an automatic cause for fear or hate, but for study, for relation. Much as it pained him to admit however, Dracula gave him pause. Werewolves and Vampires and mythical sea beasts gave him pause. It was the proverbial fly in his ointment. Perhaps he was a hypocrite, a fraud, a hack. Whatever his shortcomings, he did not for one second believe Earth's new allies were to be trusted. The more he studied them, the more his unease built, his fear. Were they to win this war between worlds, what happened after? What happened when it was just us and them?