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*** Chapter 1 ***** My master bids me, so I am. Minion. Whore. Assassin. My place is to serve, what life is there else than this? I am one, among many human willing slaves to their masters and foot soldiers of the Vampire King. Why? "For vanity is the comfort of man. He cannot believe all he is destined for is the grave. His pursuit of immortality, strips all other beliefs aside. Even his kindred is a bargaining chip on which to deal." Our ranks are filled with the desperate. With the damned. Rich. Poor. Social outcasts. Pillars of the community. All of them, come to lay beneath the boot of the Devil himself. His name is Garak, and he is the undisputed leader of the New Orleans Vampire Clan. He resembles a line-backer in American Football. A hefty, broad shouldered 6foot giant with three claw marks over his cheek - legend has it that they were made by a werewolf he had a dalliance with long long ago. But unlike most frightening rumors of my King, I know this rumor to be somewhat true. Garak would never admit that he allowed an inferior monster to touch him, let alone mark him for all his unlife. So he merely killed the rumors with his own brand of editing. For immortality, you'd be surprised how many put up with the never-ending fear he struck into him. For immortality, they'd even envy me. But most have not lived, as I have lived here. All will die without ever knowing that promise guarded by the master. They disappear one night, never to be seen again. The vampire generals say they were rewarded with immortality. A footsolider in another battalion within the city. Lies. They are fed to the weak, to make them stronger for this battle. His dominion is for the chosen, the most strongest and purest of his hellish creation. He builds a kingdom of vampire Nazis, and those who crave immortality are never to join his children. They are chattel, here below, to feed from in the darkness - when the monsters need to recover. And above, in the sunlight, they're no more than glorified pimps doing their masters bidding, collecting more among the living, to feed those of the dead. And if they are slaves to it, I am a slave because of it. Our king is my master, and I his daughter sworn. He saved me as a new born child, where my mother was attacked by the mortals, or as we know them, the uplighters. In a moment of rare compassion he saved me, but my mother was already gone. I heard the rumors. She was a vampire mage. A hooker. A girl. No one special until He had saved me. All said to humiliate me as a child growing up among Gods. But He brought me below the city, as his pet. I grew up beneath the city, and in his shadow, always reminded of my debt. He was both mother and father. And as such, could walk almost anywhere in the darkness unafraid. Mostly. I was and always would be an inferior mortal. But I did everything in my power to win his favor by vehemently casting off my humanity. Not out of fear, although to have none in his presence is madness. Not out of debt, though greatly that is why I served. Not for immortality, for what value has that compared to the many years I harbored the bitterness of my mothers death, at the hands of the uplighters? So I did everything he commanded of me. I governed the mortals into a vampire-inspired army. I rose among my uplighter brethren as their leader, and come as close to the throne of the master as any corrupt mortal dare. I was just as ruthless and cunning as my vampire counterparts, while never presuming to be their equal. I had once made that mistake. After a successful raid, one night, given briefly to emotion, I foolishly remained standing in the presence of a lower general, and paid dearly its consequence. It took me years to get back to peak condition, both in the Masters eyes and in his council. I learnt a valuable lesson then. Emotion was a weakness, and I stripped it from inside me. Everything human. Everything good. Their are those vampires around his council who would see me dead, for I have the ear of the king, when he bids it. I have told him nothing but the truth, even if it cost me a beating or scars that run the length of my body because it bitterly contrasts with his own claim. He knows I will not fault, not for the promise of life eternal, but to be beside him when his realm and kingdom crush the uplighters, my mothers ruthless killers, beneath their vampire boots. Tonight, my master is worried. I kneel before him, only raising my eyes to place him as he strides angrily, pacing the volumious sewer chambers beneath the darkening city. I dare not make a sound as he barks orders to the demons and vampire charges around me. The culminated order of an entire army poised to do battle against an ancient foe. Foe; singular. For all in all, there has only ever been one. *The* Vampire slayer. And her name isn't Buffy. **** End chapter One. << Back Next >> |