Music is My Muse Series: Book One
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The young were easier to hunt.
They may be faster and far stronger than those of age, but they were also easier to outwit. Their instincts blinded them, the bloodlust searing in their minds causing them think of nothing but their next catch, their next feed. It consumed them, that all powerful need for blood leaving them unable to deny their thirst when presented with a mortal. That was when I would make my move, when they would lurch forward, teeth bared, in anticipation of the feed. Drawn to me by the sweet smell of blood running hot through my veins they would come to me. But their fight was not focused and they would quickly lose, my blade wounding if not killing them on the first strike.
Those who have spent a few years as one of the damned were harder to catch. They not only had control of their faculties but wouldn’t falter just because blood had been shed. They were harder to deceive, more effort being put in the fight then the pursuit.
This one was somewhere in between.
I had chased him through the damp alleys, climbed up chimney pipes, even leapt from roof top to roof top behind him as he attempted to elude me. More than once he had turned and hissed his surprise to see me still behind him. But he would not escape, not from me. This is what I lived my life for.
Killing vampires.
I was one of the elite hunters of the night, a select group of specially trained killers that had the sense to believe the stories of what truly lurked in the shadows. Together we worked to rid the cities and towns of their malevolence, each of us for our own reasons. Some for righteousness, others to protect those they cared for, a few simply because of the excitement the hunt brought with it. Myself, I fought for vengeance.
It was one of those filthy bastards who stole my sister not a decade ago.
Mother and father were late returning from the village, leaving my elder sister to tend to me and our infant brother while they traded and sold our harvest for what were needed to live through the winter. Our parents had heard the stories of the demons lurking in the shadows when we settled on this land, but as God fearing people they did not believe them. They didn’t believe in the beasts that came in the night, killing livestock and stealing the lives of children. So of course they thought nothing of it to leave us alone.
Nearly a woman herself at sixteen years of age our parents had left us to her care often, and she did well by us, treating us with care and love as a mother would and not a sister. She would have made a wonderful mother herself, but that night that future was stolen from her.
It was well past dusk and Angie had begun lighting the oil lamps, filling the house with light to make it easier for mother and father to find as it was a moonless night. But then something startled the sheep, the sounds of their mews reverberating through our modest home as they fled in panic. Angie had ordered me to stay in the house as she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, telling me to watch after our brother as she walked out into the crisp fall night, one of the lanterns in hand.
We had been having some trouble with wild dogs and she thought she would shoo them away, keeping them from stealing another of our heard and as such our livelihood. I stood in the doorway, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and covering my sleeping brother as I cradled him in my ten year old arms, watching as Angie made her way to the small shelter built for the sheep.
I remember cringing seeing one of the dead ewes in the lamplight, its throat was opened but there was no blood save what was already matted in its wool. It seemed wrong to me even then, that whatever attacked the sheep had left it there to rot rather than taking it for its meat. That’s when I saw the man for the first time, a man I had seen more than once about town. He was the inn keeper, the man who saw to the travelers who happened to pass through our village. But that night he didn’t look like the kind man who offered me sweets whenever we crossed paths, that night he was hellish. His clothes were dirty; his white shirt dark with blood. His long hair had escaped its bow and was wild about his face. A face that shone with excitement as blood red eyes fixed on what was in my arms.
“Give me the infant,” he had hissed at me, showing me the fangs I had never seen before.
I clutched my brother tighter to my chest, turning him away from the man.
“Give him to me or you too will die tonight child,” he spoke as he neared me. Again, it wasn’t the joyful tone I was used to but filled with rage, hatred…need.
I stepped backwards and back under the protection of the house, one hand holding my brother the other ready to close us behind the door. But I stopped remembering about Angie who was still by the sheep’s pen. She hadn’t noticed the man nor he her, he was too fixed on his prize.
“Angie!” I had cried and she shot around, her eyes going wide.
The man turned at her hushed gasp, his gaze now torn between my brother and I and Angie. But it took him only a moment to decide which he wanted more, “innocence is always the sweeter treat, youth its sugar,” he purred and began towards me again.
“No,” Angie shouted, “leave them be!”
Again the man turned to her, his eyes no longer expectant but angered. Realizing now what was standing before her she went pale for just a moment. But her fear was short lived and she straightened her back, her face filled with determination before she did the unthinkable.
“Take me instead,” she told the man, her voice steady, unwavering.
The man laughed at her offer, a cold cackle that chilled the already cool night, “you do not have what I want, go,” he waved her off, “go or I will kill you simply for getting in my way.”
She took a step forward as if to follow the man as he turned from her, “you want blood do you not?”
He gave her malevolent grin, “ah, so you are aware of what I am, aren’t you child?”
She nodded to him in a quick jerky movement, “I am. But I also know that my siblings will not satisfy you.”
Again he laughed, “Do you now, and why is this?”
Now she had his full attention and he began at a casual gait towards her.
Even in the dim light I could see it as she swallowed deeply, knowing what would become of her if he accepted her offer, “they are small,” she began, watching carefully as the man walked around her, appraised her of her value, “they will not sate your need.”
“And what do you know of my needs?” he purred as he took the lantern from her hand, placing it gently and purposely on the ground in front of her.
“I know of the hunger inside you, a hunger they will not fulfill.” She kept her chin high, kept her neck exposed to temp him into taking her.
He took the invitation but he did not strike, instead he brushed her golden hair aside and leaned in slowly, his eyes closing as he took a deep breath, “and do you know of my other needs, know what will become of you and your…innocence if I do indeed choose to take you?”
Her affirmation was merely a breath on the air, “yes,” she whispered quietly, her own eyes closing as she began to tremble.
“Angie no!” I cried but my voice broke, the tears I hadn’t realized had begun to fall catching my words in my throat.
The man took one last look at me where I was frozen in the doorway, unable to move, unable to help, unable to save my sister from the vampire.
“Then it is done,” he said sharply, grasping Angie brutally by the back of her neck, his eyes locked with mine, “remember this night child, remember how your sister died to save your life.”
And then like that he was gone. There was nothing left in the yard but the lamp, its warm light unable to break through the chill wrapping around me.
It was there my parents found me, still standing in the doorway, my brother still sleeping in my arms, unknowing of the fate that had almost fallen upon him that night. They were hysterical over their lost child, and when I told them what I had seen they had beaten me, told me not to make up lies. It couldn’t have been the inn keeper they told me, that they had seen him in his shop just before they left the village and he couldn’t have made it before them.
No one ever believed me. And when I could bare the stares and the hushed whispers in my presence no more, when I was of an acceptable age to leave home, I did. I left my family and the village behind, a village that would protect a vampire before believing the word of a child.
But it wasn’t all for naught. I spent the rest of my days in that village watching the man, learning the sights and patterns of his ways. I learned what it was to be a vampire, knew they could not stand the high sun, that gaze that said they were measuring their next victim, those small inflections that set him apart from the humans he surrounded himself with.
I learned and then I hunted.
He was just my first of many vampires I killed before I found Luke and his clan of hunters. Men who believed me when I told them what had taken my sister, men who hunted the same demons as I did through the night. It was they who found me, standing over the headless body of a vampire some years ago. They had been tracking the same vampire for a fortnight but I had managed to do what they could only hours after arriving in that village. So they welcomed me in, gave me back the family I had lost, gave me a purpose.
They never did recover my sister’s body. I prayed everyday that I would not meet her in my travels, prayed that filthy animal did not take my beautiful sister and make her one of the damned as well. Because then I would have to kill her and that, in turn, would kill me because it was for her that I did what I did. She was the driving force behind me, the reason for my hunt, the reason why I chased prey through the night such as this one. And I would not rest until each and every vampire paid for what the inn keeper had taken from me. Not just my sister but my family, it was because of him that they turned their backs on me. To my parents they hadn’t just lost one child that night but two.
Killing vampires was all I lived for now.
But this one was reluctant to meet his fate. This was the third time in less than a week I had pursued him, the two times before chance had let him escape, the gasp of a woman bearing witness the first time. She had startled me, and in that one small moment of surprise, when I had turned to see the appalled look on her face as I held my blade at the ready, he had escaped. My own arrogance was the second reason. I had assumed when I had shut him inside that third floor room he had nowhere to go, but I was wrong. Instead of facing off against me again, a battle that too had surprised him as I met him blow for blow, he chose to leap out a window to the cobblestones. But that was not the worst of that night. No, it was when I realized he had brought me back to the place of his kill.
The shattered glass rang though the empty night and within moments the owners of the general store were upon me, seeing their slain child at my feet, seeing the bloody blade in my hand. They thought it was I who had taken the life of their son. And it was not the first time I had been caught in that state.
Nearly a dozen times I had been caught as such. All hunters were from time to time, but without the body of the vampire to prove your innocence then you became the mark. And this was twice in this small city, a large village really, that I was caught as such. If I didn’t stop this vampire soon then I would become the hunted. I needed his dead body so I could shift the blame, so they could see I was one of the righteous, not the wicked.
Tonight was going to be that night. It had to be that night.
The law had ordered my capture and there were notices bearing my face on every wall and post in the city. There was a reward, but thankfully it was only if I was alive, dead meant I could not answer for my so-called crimes. Dead meant they wouldn’t have the enjoyment of the witch trial they were so looking forward to conducting. After all, why else would a woman be murdering children if not for their blood to use in her black magic?
But I was not a witch, not the she-devil they referred to me as. I was their savoir.
Or I would be as soon as this vampire’s heart stopped beating.
I had torn down two of those notices just tonight, my comrades doing the same whenever presented with the opportunity. No, they would not turn me in either. There was no reward high enough for them to turn on one of their own, on their only sister among brothers. They knew the good I did on the streets was far more valuable then gold in their pockets.
And they were here tonight as well, lying in wait in the shadows, waiting for my signal. But there would be no signal, this had become about more than the hunt, now it was about pride, honor. I had to fight twice as hard as the men because I was a woman, took me twice as long to rise in their ranks because I had to prove I was indeed and asset and not a liability. And this vampire had not only eluded me but in doing so he made me appear weak, inferior to the rest of my brothers even though my kill count was only a handful shy of our leader’s. He would not escape again.
He was nearly three roof tops in front of me, not more than four or five left before this row ended, leaving a sizable gap where the street cut through the buildings. I thought he would slow, prepare for the stop and the moment he would have to fight me once again, but instead he hissed at me one more time and then leapt across the open air once again. This time he did not land on the next rooftop as he had done so many times tonight, this time he dove towards a window, shattering it as his body passed through.
Not again, I thought to myself. I would not let him trap me again. But what other choice did I have? I couldn’t let him escape, couldn’t let him have his way with the residents who undoubtedly were already stirring at the noise.
I shook my head and set my jaw knowing there wasn’t a choice. As a hunter I had taken an oath to protect the innocent, even if it meant my own life. And should I ever turn my back, should I ever let one of the damned harm another purposely, because I was too indolent to act, then it would be my life. My own brethren the ones who would take my head.
So I pushed harder, my already burning lungs at the point of failure from this lengthy chase. The thick leather bodice I wore for protection hindered my breathing even further, but it was of necessity. Not just to keep my womanly self in place but as armor against the deadly sharp claws the damned fashioned their fingernails in. I looked ahead of me, knew where my feet would land without looking down. I looked around me, taking in my surroundings, watching for signs of trouble without moving my head. A Hunter learned to measure these things without ever taking their eyes off their prey, a Hunter was not distracted.
I leapt over one alley, my feet pounding across the wooden roof, my thighs protesting with the incline, my leather boots fighting for purchase on the decline. Another leap. No momentum lost. I cleared the peak of the roof and prepared myself for the dive, taking in one more deep lungful and then I pushed off the eve of the house. I reached into the air, made my body as long as possible as I sailed through the night for the broken pane. I knew very well that it would tear me to shreds if I misjudged the distance, the jagged shards razor sharp and unforgiving. I bore many a scar as it was so pain was not a high concern of mine, but I was not ready to shed blood in front of this vampire, not unless I had no other choice.
And I did, I cleared the gap with room to spare. I tucked myself into a ball the moment my hands met the floorboards’ of the room, rolling myself to my feet as I pulled my blade from its holster on my back. I had been known to carry up to a dozen including my throwing daggers, but tonight I thought to keep it light, choosing only this arm long blade and the six inch dagger in my boot. It wouldn’t sever his head the way my blade would, but it was long enough to puncture a heart. And though a vampire can very well heal itself, repeated spears to the heart can and very will end their half lives.
I kept my eyes shut in the dim light; my sight was no good to me here. It wouldn’t only prove a hindrance as the shadows played with my vision. Instead I relied on my other senses, my instincts. I felt the uneven boards beneath my feet, no rugs to cover them meant this was not a heavily used room. I could smell the night air blowing in from behind me, fresh and light compared to the heavy mustiness of the room, again, this was not a room used to life. Even my taste told me what the rest of my senses hinted at, the taste of age on the air. This was a storage room at best. It gave me a fleeting moment of relief; it meant he hadn’t had the chance to end a life before I made it here.
But most important was my hearing. Vampires were a noiseless breed by nature. Their lungs worked but they did not overexert easily so there was no heavy breathing. Their hearts beat but they did not feel emotion, meaning there were no anxious heartbeats to hear even if I was capable. And their feet moved like death, purposeful, lethal, and silent.
It wasn’t him I was listening for though, it was the sounds around us. Though my arrival brought with it a thump as my body hit the floor, there was also a chorus of creeks as the nails moved against the loose boards. But there were no protests from the floor now, which meant he wasn’t moving. There had been no thud, no rush of warm air from the occupied rooms below signaling that he had left though a door either. He was here, watching me.
I slid a foot carefully behind me to turn around, the sound of my boot scraping across the bare wood deafening in this small room. But just as I was about to shift my weight, as I was about to turn myself around the air at my back cut off, the hair having escaped its bindings no longer stirring about my face. He was behind me, and he was about to attack.
I dropped to the floor as he lunged, kicking out a foot and sweeping his legs out from under him. I pushed upwards as he stumbled, swinging my blade where I thought his neck should be. But I only grazed him, my blade slowing as it dug into his flesh but not resisting the movement as he recovered. I felt the air stir sharply about my face as he swung for me, it brought with it the scent of blood, his. I leaned backwards putting the weight on my heels and missed the blow, his other hand reaching around and missing as well. Then I ducked, pulling my blade through the air once again. I knew I was far too low this time for a fatal wound, but I managed to catch him in the side, the sharp edge forcing a gurgled curse to escape his lips as he faltered.
But it wasn’t the only words being uttered; voices began echoing though the wood door, footsteps pounding up stairs.
No more games, I had to end this before I had an audience, before the vampire had potential hostages.
With my eyes still closed I reached for the blade in my boot with my left hand and moved to stab it through his heart, but though he was wounded, blood thick on the air now, he was still aware. He snapped a slick hand around my wrist and bent my arm backwards as keys jangled from behind me. I didn’t pause, I pulled my leg up sharply, my knee meeting the open wound in his side and he lurched away again, a warm stickiness seeping through the man’s breeches I wore for the hunt.
Skirts and petticoats were just not suitable clothes for hunting.
The sound of metal scraping over metal as a key entered the lock met my ears and I opened my eyes, the light from a lamp pooling from under the door giving me just enough light to see. The vampire was hunched over now, a red slash across his chest as he used both hands to hold on to his side desperately. It was my chance. I reached my blade over my head, ready to deal the lethal blow as the click of the lock rang across the room. He sneered at me, his blood red eyes looking to me in vengeance as I began my downswing.
But I didn’t get to finish it before there was an explosion of sound, before the bullet buried itself into my back.