by R. L. Weeks
Night Stalkers are human souls after death, turned to harbor energy from others to remain immortal.
Dying violent deaths, usually, they are stuck on Earth and live amongst humans, and in the network of underground cities for the supernatural.
Feeding off fear, they can take a human soul for their own once the person is psychologically broken. Once they are, the Night Stalker can enter the mind and suck their soul out – therefore giving them enough energy to remain undead for up to two years without feeding on others.
As they are in-between life and death, they can enter a person’s subconscious and with practice, can influence their dreams.
The more souls they fully take, the more a soul of a Night Stalker will darken – until they lose their humanity and become vampires (see page 616).
Night Stalkers are known to mainly reside in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, North America, Japan, and England and feed at night. Most prefer women to men to prey on and usually kidnap their prey and take them to one of the underground cities.
Strengths -
Twice as fast as a human.
Twice as strong as a human.
Excellent memory.
Heightened sense of smell and hearing.
Can influence the subconscious mind of a human.
Weaknesses -
Silver
Relies on the energy from humans to remain undead.
Capable of human emotions.
If the person they are stalking feels no fear, then they have no power over their target.
Can be killed by hunters using stakes of wood or exorcised by a practiced exorcist and banished to the underworld.
I turned to page 616 and crossed my legs. The book smelled like leather and musk, which tickled my nose.
Vampires are Night Stalkers with darkened souls and no humanity. They crave human energy like Night Stalkers, but find they need to obtain that energy through the drinking of blood. Most end up bloated after a feed, and lock themselves away for days in crypts or other dark places as the sun irritates their hyper sensitive skin.
They feed to kill, and have no regard for human life. Inflicting pain brings them enjoyment – they are known for using various medieval torture methods to get their victims to break, unlike Night Stalkers who do so psychologically.
Strengths –
Seven times faster than a Night Stalker
Seven times stronger than a Night Stalker
They can entrance humans to do what they want.
Heightened sense of smell and hearing.
Feels no human emotions.
Weaknesses –
Reckless.
Can be sent to the underworld by hunters using stakes of silver.
Garlic.
I closed the book and turned back to the bookcase. I walked my fingers across several spines until I came across one – Pleasant Springs Orphanage and Hotel.
Pleasant Springs Hotel was opened in 1922 after it had been abandoned for over fifty years. It had once been an orphanage, but burned down in 1871. The Hotel was bought by two rich property developers who had built an amusement park only eight miles from the building. They also used the fire from the orphanage, holding ghost tours in the hotel saying that the children from the fire still haunted the rooms to that day.
It was a popular tourist spot until the disappearances started. The owner and her husband were Margaret and Alfred Fletch. They had moved from Georgia after going on trial on charges of kidnapping and murder, but were later found not guilty. However, their neighbors still believed them to be guilty, so they sold their house and moved to Connecticut to further their dreams of owning an amusement park.
In 1923, six children had gone missing at the amusement park and an investigation began on the area, however, no one suspected the elderly hotel owners. Another eighteen children and adults were murdered before the couple were brought to justice.
After the hotel was abandoned and the road blocked, many cult followers used the abandoned buildings to perform rituals.
The building was boarded up and the road removed from the maps.
Due to the residual energy left over from the deaths there, many recently departed souls were drawn to there after their deaths.
It was made as a gateway to the underworld, and then passages were built underneath the hotel leading to the underground cities. Alligators have been known to kept in the hotels, brought up from the cities to kill humans.
They are also used for humans who want to be turned into Night Stalkers. (Find out more about that in the Blood for Blood novel by Vlad Morian.
I closed the book and sucked in a deep breath. Suddenly, the room felt all that more eerie. I quickly searched for the Blood for Blood book, but instead found a book about Pleasant Springs. Curious, I opened it.
Pleasant Springs was founded by two families, the Morgan Family and the trepez family.
I was descended from the Trepez family.
It was a popular gold mining town in the 1920’s, but by the 1940’s the population had decreased by over half after the mines became increasingly dangerous as it became over mined and the gold ran out.
I closed the book and returned it to the dusty shelf. I tried to calm my mind after what had been the most confusing couple of days of my life. I had tried everything to distract myself from the ache in my chest, but it was still there. I thought of George and that woman. How was I going to enact my revenge?
No. I do not think that way. I do not get revenge.
Fuck! The hotel was already turning me dark.
I flinched as the door swung open with force, hitting my bed. Dust fell from the fabric above the four-post bed onto the blanket. Scorpio huffed and sat on the end of the bed. “Sorry for what you had to see last night.”
I forced a smile. “It is what it is.” Really, I was seething.
“Now you know what we are capable of.”
I nodded. “And George. That woman, she was the woman I saw that night when I was with him. I think he knew she was there.”
He fell silent.
“Scorpio,” I scorned. “Please, tell me what you know. Look, if you tell me the truth, I will consider becoming a Night Stalker. I just want to know everything first,” I lied.
He hesitated, then stood up. “You promise you’ll consider it?”
I quickly nodded. “Yes. I was anyway.”
“Okay.” He gestured for me to sit next to him. “I will tell you the truth about your heritage. You are a hunter. Your grandmother was one. Hunters have been in your family for generations.” I sat back, stunned. He pressed his lips tight. “Now you know.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A hunter?”
He nodded. “Yes. That’s why you’re a target.”
I expected tears, shock, anything – but instead I laughed. “So, wait, I am supposed to be a hunter? Which means I’m supposed to be able to kill Night Stalkers? Yet, I can’t even kill a mouse. If I am a hunter, then I’m the suckiest hunter in history.”
He shrugged again. It must have been his favorite thing to do. “Look, you are what you are. Good at it or not. Regardless, if you became one of us, you wouldn’t be a target anymore.”
I pursed my lips. “How did they even know about me?”
“George,” he admitted. “He found out what you were when you were together. When he was killed, he made a deal. Information about you and your heritage in exchange for him becoming a Night Stalker.”
My jaw dropped. “That son of a –”
‘Don’t,” Scorpio warned and placed his arm out to stop me from running. “He knew that night when Janine came in to sleep with him and you were there. He wanted to test you. She entranced you, and you broke free of the entrancement. Then he had it confirmed.”
I gulped and sat down. “He was going to sleep with her? In front of me?” My face flushed red.
He touched my hand, but I pulled away. “I’m so sorry.”
A part of me wanted to become a Night Stalker just so I could
kill him again.
“Don’t do that.”
I leant back. “So, you can get inside my head?”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he just looked at me mysteriously.
“No!” I shouted. “Stop that.”
“It’s only when your emotions get out of hand. I can’t any other time.” He looked annoyed by that.
I inhaled deeply and looked out of the window. “What bet does George have with you?”
Scorpio looked away from me. “That you won’t become a Night Stalker. He wants you here because, well, if he hands over a Hunter, then he would be paid a lot. If you do become one, then he gets the money anyway – either way he wins.”
My eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “He was going to auction me off?”
Scorpio frowned. “Yes, but he didn’t. Instead, he made a bet with me. He bet me that you won’t become a Night Stalker within two weeks. I bet him you would. If I didn’t, he would have just handed you over, and you’d be dead by now.”
I growled under my breath. “Why doesn’t he just hand me over?”
“I bet him a lot of drachma. The same amount he’d be paid if he did hand you over. Like I said, either way he wins.”
That bastard.
“Why do you want to help me?”
He didn’t answer, so I changed the subject, mainly to stop myself thinking about George and how much I wanted to kill him. “How did you end up here, anyway?”
He laid back on the bed and sighed. “I can’t really tell you.”
I huffed and paced the room. “Fine! Share nothing with me about you even though you seem to know everything about me.”
He sat up. “I can’t tell you, but I can show you.”
Chapter Five
Scorpio walked me through his memory.
We looked up at the tall wrought-iron gates that screeched open to a four-story building, which was surrounded by trees that looked like they had never seen sunlight and tangled roots that covered the ground.
I gasped as we approached the old wooden doors lit by candlelight. “This is the hotel.” I saw the sign that read ‘Orman’s Orphanage’ in faded, black writing. “This is where you lived?”
He nodded slowly and trudged into the building. He was shaking and seemed uneasy. I bit my lip. Scorpio seemed like the type of guy whom nothing could shake, yet the mere memory of the orphanage injected fear into him.
Scorpio turned to me with a dark expression. “What you’re about to see… Try not to judge me harshly.”
I nodded but walked into the orphanage cautiously. Children ran up the stairs quickly as a door closed on the left of what was now known as the ballroom. A woman in brown and white clothing walked out and screamed at the children. “Back to bed, before I beat you all!”
The kids wore bleak uniforms of scratchy, brown cloth. I followed Scorpio up the stairs and past the woman who looked right through us. I reminded myself that no one could see this. We were in a memory – his memory.
I looked around for a little Scorpio as we walked past the doorways in the corridor, each leading to dormitories.
Instead, I saw a Scorpio who looked like the Scorpio who was with me. “Was this the day of your death?”
He took in a deep breath. “Yes.”
We walked into the room with memory-Scorpio. He was sitting with a couple of younger kids, telling them a bedtime story.
Scorpio turned to me. “I was the eldest here. The mistress kept me here because I helped out with the kids after I was supposed to leave.”
“Makes sense,” I said as I watched the other Scorpio, more filled with life, finish the story and tuck the kids in.
Memory-Scorpio picked up an oil lamp and stood up. “Be quiet,” he said to the kids. “Don’t wake the mistress.”
They smiled and closed their eyes. He left the room, and we followed him down the stairs into the room with the mistress. He sat on a chair across from her by the fire. She lifted her gray skirt, showing off her cellulite-covered legs. “You know what to do,” she barked.
Memory-Scorpio gulped and moved over to her. “Oh my god, what are you doing?” I asked as he went down on her.
“I didn’t want to. It was one of the conditions of her letting me stay here.”
I put my hand over my mouth and looked away. He watched with tears in his eyes. “What happens next is the reason why I am where I am.”
She tried to pull his pants down. Memory-Scorpio fought against her, but she whacked him with a belt. Finally, he grabbed a candlestick from the mantelpiece and bashed her over the head with it.
“She wanted to have sex with me. I didn’t want to, not with her. I panicked,” he explained, his expression full of regret. “I didn’t realize it would kill her.”
I looked down at the woman with gray and black hair and her skirt up over her waist, and I gasped. “I’m sorry she did that to you.”
“She made me start doing that when I was fourteen – it carried on for years,” he admitted. “You’re the first person I’ve shown this to.”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. We watched memory-Scorpio panic. “I needed to get rid of the body. If they’d had found it, I would have been hung.”
I understood and leant my head on his shoulder. “It wasn’t right, but you didn’t mean to kill her. You panicked. You were hurt.”
“But like you said, it doesn’t make it right. Look,” he pointed at memory-Scorpio. He had begun pushing the woman into the fire.
“Oh my!” I looked away again, but he motioned for me to watch.
Before he could stop it, her hair had caught on fire and then the paper surrounding the fire had also caught on fire. The room filled with black smoke, and Scorpio ran to shut the door, to try and contain the fire.
“I panicked. I didn’t think,” he admitted.
I watched as the fire spread. The orphanage was made of wood. Memory-Scorpio passed out in the hallway as he tried to run up the stairs to warn the kids.
Three hours later we were both standing by a charcoaled orphanage.
He turned to me, tears falling down his porcelain cheeks. “There were no survivors.”
I cried too. I had hated watching it. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t blame you.”
Still, I rubbed his arm. “Why did you become a Night Stalker?”
“I was dead,” he started. “I didn’t know that there were no survivors. When Lilith came to me and offered me immortality, I said yes. I wanted to try and save them before it was too late, but it was.” He lowered his head. “I regret it.”
I don’t know why I did it, but I wrapped my arms around him. He rested his head on my shoulder and sobbed. “It’s okay, Scorpio. You tried to make it right.” I sighed. “I won’t tell anyone.”
He pulled away and looked into my eyes. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me. Only what you think.”
I took in a deep breath and pushed back my fine hair. “I… We should go back.”
“Yes. Casey, I’m worried for you. Look, I only take glimpses of human energy. I’ve never taken a soul, nor would I. I don’t want to be this, but it’s better than being dead.”
“Then why do you want me to share the same fate as you?”
He gulped. “It’s that or you die.”
It was all black and white for him. He didn’t see the gray areas I saw. “I can fight them. I’m a hunter, right? Help me find a way to fight them.”
He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“You said I was supposed to help you all.”
He nodded. “Yes. It was written a long time ago that you would save the creatures of the night from the Night Wanderers – and from themselves. But you can’t do it as a hunter – you’re not strong enough. As a Night Stalker, you would be on a level playing field.”
“Scorpio…” I said, looking behind him.
“What?”
“You know how you said if the others at the hotel found o
ut, they’d kill us both?”
“Yeah.”
I gestured to behind him. The memory of the orphanage had disappeared, and standing at the door was the woman from that night – George’s lover – George, and the Italian man from the stage.
Chapter Six
“Go now!’ Scorpio screamed as he threw himself in front of me. “The window.”
My heart hammered as I ran to the window. I pushed it open and looked down. We were on the second floor. I turned and saw Scorpio fighting all three of them. He was being hurt badly. George sliced Scorpio’s cheek open. “Bet’s over. It’s been two weeks. Give her to us.”
“No!” Scorpio shouted and pushed George with such force that he flew through the wall. The Italian man threw himself into combat with Scorpio while the woman ran over to George.
I looked down and turned back. “Fuck!” I couldn’t leave him. I grabbed the coat rack and snapped it over my knee. I was surprised at my own strength. Scorpio fell to the ground and started turning transparent. “No!” I screamed and ran at the Italian man with the coat rack, plunging it through his chest. “There you go, fucker.”
The woman turned and bared her fangs at me. “Oh good!” I shouted. “I’ve been waiting to kill you!” I ran at her and pushed her into the wall.
She pushed me back, and I flew across the room, slamming into the bookcase. She ran at me, and I got a heavy book and threw it at her head – then another, and another. This only irritated her. She batted the books away and jumped on top of me.
Adrenaline surged through me. I pushed my fingers into her eyes, pushing harder even when I felt a pop. The woman screamed, scratching at my arms and chest, tearing off my top. She grew weaker, and I eventually pushed her off me.
Breathlessly, I crawled to Scorpio’s side and looked around for George. He had gone, probably to get the others. “Scorpio, wake up please! They’re going to come for us.”
His eyelids flitted open, barely. “You should have run.”
