TimeLord The Vampire Chronicles Book One part two

CHAPTER THREE: USE YOUR SWORD FOOL!

However it quickly settled and came back into focus but not before I could have sworn I saw the red ball of that kid vamp's life force go zipping off into the darkness.

My head was still pounding and I knew I was going to have one heck of a headache later but that was the least of my worries right now as I stood up on wobbly legs.

Tesla came bounding up to me from out of the dark as he leaped over the growing piles of once again dead corpses. I hugged my friend's furry neck and he licked my face before I turned around looking around for the person that saved me.

At first I could see nothing through the cold black night then suddenly the dust and snow swirled and a tall figure stood in front of me as though materializing from the shadows. One minute he wasn't there and the next he was.

Several buildings behind me went up in a roaring fire, lighting up the surrounding area. I could see a few others too around the town center beginning to burn whether from the battle or on purpose I didn't know but it helped me to see this stranger more clearly.

He had a long mustache and goatee with what looked like a toothpick hanging from the corner of his mouth. He had close cropped salt and pepper hair I could see as he stared at me under the brim of his black fedora style hat with eyes that were oddly familiar and almost seemed to shift colors between blue and green.

Those eyes that I was sure I had seen before looked as though they had seen more death and destruction in one life than anyone should ever have to endure. Yet at the same time I saw so much compassion and hope and Love in them it almost made you want to cry.

I also saw and knew somehow that just behind them was a barely contained power just waiting to be unleashed. A power that was so great, if it were ever released in its entirety would surely destroy the cosmos. How could one man hold such an awesome power and responsibility all by himself and remain sane?

I felt as though he was looking right through me as we both appraised each other. He had a long scar on his face that looked like he had gotten it a long time ago but it hadn't quite healed all the way. I couldn't remember seeing him in the crowd earlier but with everything else that had been going on it didn't surprise me. At least not right then. Although I could swear that I had seen him before somewhere.

Another thing that I didn't think about until much later was the fact that Tesla walked right up to this stranger and nuzzled his hand as if he knew him already.

The man absently scratched Tesla's ears in the exact spot that he loved so much and my friend closed his eyes and whined softly in pleasure. The guy had a long trench coat much like my fathers and he held a long wooden staff in one hand that was carved with odd symbols that were then filled with a strange reddish silver metal.

There was a leather hand grip near the center of the staff that was attached with weaves of silver wire in an extremely intricate pattern that didn't seem as if it was possible for human hands to have made.

I could see the top of a sword hilt pointing up from over his left shoulder and as his coat flapped in the wind I saw the scabbard resembled the ones Katrina and Alexei had.

I noted too that every one of this man's fingers was adorned with a silver ring that had strange inscriptions all along them some of the words even seemed to be glowing with a white light.

There was something about his face that tickled a memory but I couldn't place it right then. He had several odd looking devices attached to his belt that looked decidedly futuristic. Some of them even looked downright alien I thought as the shadows played over and around him.