The strike propelled Markus backwards and slammed him into the solid timber frame of a house. Pain burned in his face, and he wondered how the demonic brute had failed to rip his head from his shoulders. Cool blood ran over his neck and tracked sticky lines beneath his garments. Agony surged through his body as his fingers touched the wound. Four deep lacerations had almost torn the side of his face away. He bit hard, thankful nothing had been broken.
The werewolf came for him swiftly. Markus gripped the sword’s hilt tight as he thrust it forward, driving the steel weapon deep into the lycanthrope’s chest until he felt a release of pressure as the blade exited the beast’s back. The wolf howled in pain, staggered backwards, and collapsed upon the banks of the ancient river.
Markus sat motionless while his heart slowed. He listened to the night but couldn’t hear anymore man-hounds. Maybe there’d been only two, or maybe others were waiting in the darkness, deciding on their next move. Without his sword to hand he would be powerless to prevent their onslaught. Even a warrior as aged as he would be no match undefended against their feral rage. He looked into the deepest shadows of Ebgate but saw nothing move. The rendezvous time had passed and more troubled thoughts wormed into his brain. What if the werewolves had killed his comrade, gaining even more superiority? What if the pestilence had not affected their recruitment program as it had done with the coven’s? He breathed deep, trying to shake away the disturbing feelings.
A low growl rippled from the gloom and the shadows stirred. The werewolf rose forcefully to its feet and gazed at him with eyes that seemed to scorch holes in the night. Eight foot of furious monster towered over him, muscular and solid, the sword’s gold hilt with its rounded pommel clearly visible against the creature’s dark fur.
The feeble wall of the house felt like heavy stone, and London seemed more foreboding than ever. The supernatural predator edged from the riverbank to cut off his escape route through the streets. Markus glanced quickly to his right and ignored the flash of agony engulfing his head from his savaged face. He could lose himself in the waters of the Thames, but felt sure the werewolf would follow and track him until it had finished its brutal deed. Two centuries of immortal existence played before his eyes as the creature closed, and despair settled deep in Markus’s guts. He couldn’t believe he would meet his end within the teeth of a filthy man-beast upon London’s diseased streets.
A black-clad figure dropped silently behind the monster. Markus glimpsed a flash of silver before the lycanthrope’s head bounced on its shoulders, then fell away and rolled into the Thames with a muffled splash. Its body slammed lifeless onto the lane.
The assailant sank to one knee, head bowed, bloodied sword extended across the cobbles. When the vampire warrior looked up, Markus admired the exceptionally beautiful features, pale skin a radiant glow amid dark hair hanging around a youthful countenance.
“Sire,” the Enforcer whispered; her voice soft and smooth.
Markus stood, reached out and grabbed his sword, then yanked it from the headless corpse. “You have a habit of arriving at the last moment, Ilanna.”
“At least it’s a habit of arriving, instead of not at all.”
Markus smiled. “And of that, I’m eternally grateful.”
Ilanna rose and smiled with him.
Using his boot, Markus pushed the body of the lycanthrope into the river. He listened for sounds in the night but heard nothing to increase his unease.
“Let me tend your wounds, Sire. They may be infected.”
Markus shook his head. “They’ll heal. It’s nothing more than a scratch from a disobedient dog.”
“I’ve seen others in the city,” she said, “hiding in human form. We must leave; it is not safe when we are so small of number.”
Markus sighed. The tide had yet to be turned and he feared it never would. Their numbers were depleted in a way Markus would never have imagined. He remembered the days when vampire and werewolf coexisted until the coven’s greed overtook all else and they pushed the werewolves into obscurity. They had not been prepared for the lycanthrope’s great retribution, and Markus felt ever since that night the coven fought as much to stay alive as to eradicate the werewolf species. The dark days of mankind meant little to him in comparison with the dark days his coven now lived through.
“We must get word to the others within this dying land,” Markus said. “We move north, and with speed. Now, tonight.”
Markus sheathed his blade, grabbed Ilanna by the hand, and led her to the roofs of London.
* * *
From a vantage point atop houses near Moorgate, Markus watched werewolves searching the city. It was easy to discern black shapes as they scuttled over roofs near London’s centre, some climbing to the top of numerous church spires to enhance their view. Many had shifted shape from their feeble human guise and adopted their more powerful lupine form. The blood of their fallen comrades rode the polluted air with a sharper tang than mankind’s illness, incensing the fiendish beasts. Markus could see frustration in their agitated movements. The search had stalled momentarily, Markus glad the wind had changed its course and now blew northwards, hiding their vampire scent. He knew it wouldn’t take long for the man-hounds to pick up the trail again, and when they did, he wanted to be far away from the city walls.
Ilanna gripped his arm. “Come, Sire; we must move with haste. It is not safe in this city any longer.”
Markus looked into Ilanna’s beautiful cobalt eyes and nodded. She gave him a smile, turned, then leaped from the building. With no guard at the gate, the two warriors dissolved silently onto the Moorfields like particles of shadow.
Night settled deep outside the city; a hollow shell of the life that had once prospered there. Ilanna ran swiftly by his side, her face hard set with determination. He wondered if the same troubled thoughts plagued her mind as they sprinted through England’s fields of abandoned crop.
The recruitment program had to be sustained and Markus hoped mankind could fight its way towards salvation from the pestilence. He found it ironic to hope strength and courage would remain with mortal man. Riddled with pestilence and choked by death, he questioned what use humans would be if any of them prevailed. Markus touched his fingers to the quickly healing wounds upon his cheek and prayed to the immortal gods that the coven would be spared.
1595 A.D.
HUNGARIAN-AUSTRIAN BORDER
The mattress had bounced when she landed upon it, almost tossing her to the floor. When she laughed through a salacious smile, her fangs had elongated, venom tingling on her tongue. She’d thought how strange it felt to be in the company of a reviled lycanthrope and yet to feel no hatred at all. The coven would be angered but it held no sway with her emotions. She wanted the creature enfolded in shadow and climbing onto the bed: she wanted him and all the feral energy he possessed.
Fear had not touched her when his fingers had lengthened, the bones crunching in a lust-fuelled metamorphosis. His talons pressed her flesh, and she’d felt his transformation rise then subside, bone twisting the contour of his palm as it stroked and squeezed her breast. When the sharp points of his canines pinched her pale, delicate skin, she hissed with passion. He had not broken the skin and his wolfish breath caressed her neck like an extra hand. His wet snout had cooled her nape as he gnawed at her.
Kayla gasped as she slipped and the memory of that glorious night snapped from her mind as she fell heavily on rough woodland earth. Soaked with sweat, her head throbbed from a cut above her right eye. Gentle, above the wheeze of her exhausted breathing, she heard the rhythm of a stream flowing over smooth rocks and the relaxed calls of birds hidden within the foliage. It added a bizarre serenity to her predicament. Kayla looked up at afternoon sunlight carving tunnels through the forest to drape warming beams over the child’s face. Her son’s fear edged the changing contours of his hybrid features, nose and jaw line protruding, before, in the next instant, receding to allow fangs to surge over his bottom lip while his wide eyes darkened i
nto black irises. Emotions were tearing the boy apart but he couldn’t express or control them.
Her heart ached with love for the child.
“Oh Cornelius,” she whispered as she scrambled to her feet and pulled the boy into the forest’s depths.
She’d whispered the man’s name once before, in the darkened room of a castle as candlelight shadows danced on the wall. She’d whispered the lycanthrope’s name when the huge Alpha-Male penetrated her. Kayla had pushed her fingers through his rough animal pelt, her talons tracing lines over his shoulders and down his thickening spine. Her mouth hung open and a hiss had escaped, once reserved for hatred against a tortured werewolf, issued with desire in the presence of her sworn enemy. When her clawed hands reached his rump—nails digging into taut buttocks, urging him deeper—Kayla had looked at the mirror to her left, her pale legs drawn up and hooked over the transforming werewolf.
Pain lashed at her as bare branches tore at her clothes and face. She saw nothing ahead except thick trunks. She pulled her son along, brushing branches aside with outstretched arms. She ignored the sting as they whipped across her skin. The forest spoke to her in whispers, wind whistling through the trees like a thousand lost souls searching for a way out. She wished the wind were strong enough to pick them both up and carry them away. It penetrated her torn clothes and licked its tongue over bruised, split skin.
Cornelius’s tongue had found her ear and he’d lapped at her in a state of fevered excitement. Kayla had struggled to keep pace with the Elder, the wolf within the man driving his covetousness.
She thumped into a solid tree and staggered backwards, her body resting on a rough trunk. She leaned against the cold bark and gulped air scented with the unwashed bodies of the pursuing horde. She ran shaky hands over her cut face, dirt wedged in the sores. Kayla’s fangs hurt, filled with too much intoxicating venom. She longed to fight back but knew it was futile. Carried to her on the wind, their howl sent fear rippling through her essence. She hoped it had merely been the cry of wind squeezing through forest foliage to resonate off compact trees. Looking back, she saw dark shapes moving swiftly in the depths of the forest.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
She looked at her child, the boy caught between lycanthrope and vampire, his countenance a bizarre deformity. Kayla smiled and brushed her cold hand across his dirty cheek. In spite of the confusion surrounding him, he still had the love to ask after her. Her stomach knotted in a ball of affection. Grief swelled too—she had to leave him.
“Yes, I’m fine son.” After all these years she had yet to give him a name. She would never have picked a suitable one without the guidance of Cornelius.
“Are they going to kill us?”
She held back her tears. “They will try.”
“Then we must go.”
He started into the woods but Kayla remained by the tree. She didn’t have the strength to continue. Without Cornelius, supernatural vigor would not be enough to keep running. The boy stopped and looked at her with pleading eyes. His orbs resembled his father, even in their hybrid state. Kayla remembered the look Cornelius had given her when he’d left the stonewalled bedroom that night many years in the past; the way an owner would look at a dog that had just disgraced itself. She continued to tell herself the flickering candlelight had distorted the Elder’s features.
To her left she saw the water of the stream she had heard moments before. The run had widened, now a river deep enough to flow untouched over the rocks, it meandered through the woods towards its eventual destination. Against its furthest bank the darkened twigs of a beaver’s home were partially hidden among roots from trees close to the water’s edge. She hurried towards the river, her child following.
“You must hide in there,” she said, hoping her voice wouldn’t crack. “In the dam, beneath the water, they will not find you. The beaver’s blood will sustain you for a while; their flesh will keep you healthy. It should be long enough for you to be free.”
He looked at her with dark eyes—as profound as Cornelius’s—and didn’t blink. His jaw line receded as he pondered her words, human features becoming more defined and sharp.
He will be a handsome man when in human form, popular with the ladies I should think. She almost cried.
His hand slid into hers. “But I cannot leave you, Mom.”
“You must. This is your destiny.” She didn’t believe herself but knew it would be the boy’s only hope. She could smell the man-beast’s scent and it repulsed her. They were gaining. “Please, son. Do as I say.”
He gazed to the dark mound on the river’s opposite bank, then back to her. He glanced over his shoulder, obviously aware of the destruction bearing down on them. Crying, he looked upon his mother’s bloodstained face.
“I love you, Mom.”
Kayla smiled but didn’t speak; any words would break the moment they were formed.
The boy left the riverbank, reluctant to release his fingers from hers. He waded to the centre of the flowing water then risked a glance at his vampire mother.
‘I love you’, she mouthed, and it was his turn to smile.
The boy ducked his head and only ripples remained on the surface of the river.
Undergrowth snapped behind her, bushes crunching under the footfalls of charging monsters.
Kayla pushed herself through the woods, away from the river. The forest tugged at her clothes. Her lungs burned, protesting with exertion, throat taut through fear and grief. Panic scratched at the surface, searching for a way out as she charged disorientated through the woods. She tripped over an upturned root and crashed headlong into the undergrowth. Earth tore her face, a scream curtailed as air rushed from her lungs. Gasping, she pulled at the forest floor and tiny thorns ripped her hands.
A fetid aroma punctured the air as a huge weight pressed upon her head. A deep growl rumbled in her ears and rank breath—hot and foul on her face—wafted from the gigantic werewolf as it pushed her face into the soil. She felt their presence around her, branches snapping as they emerged from the woods. The pressure released and Kayla spun onto her back.
Werewolves towered over her, their fur a subtle orange in the late afternoon sun. Drool coated their jaws, long arms reaching to her with fingers tipped by scythe-like talons. Kayla studied their faces. Cornelius was not one of them. She would recognize his transformed countenance anywhere; such was her love for the man-beast. Briefly, she wondered if he had ordered the cull or had he been slain himself? Adrenalin empowered her body, lengthening her claws and fangs. Kayla had been a mere servant of her vampire Elders, and although she’d seen defeated lycanthropes in torture chambers, she had never partaken in their slaughter. If death was coming, she would rather do it fighting.
The werewolves closed in, ready to strike.
“Move aside you mangy dogs!”
The voice sounded familiar and it sparked hope within her eternal heart. Cornelius would spare her, she knew it. A man parted the ring of beasts, dark coattails flapping behind him in his haste. Cornelius had not come for her—perhaps he never would—but she recognized the man. Her husband would be the only vampire brave enough to stray so close to so many lycanthropes.
Kayla glimpsed other vampires in the woods, keeping their distance from the pack of wild animals.
“Lucas,” she whispered. “Thank God you have found me. Take me home. Spare me from these beasts.”
Her husband looked at the creatures surrounding them. They gazed back with hate-filled eyes and Kayla knew The Truce would not last. Abhorrence ran deep in the supernatural world, and centuries-old blood feuds were not forgotten over a few fleeting decades.
“Once again vampires and werewolves chase a common quarry,” Lucas said. “Ironic that it should be you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have crossed the bloodlines, Kayla. You, and those other fools, will be hunted to the end.”
She almost pleaded with her husband to spare her child. She almost begged him to find C
ornelius so she could beseech the lycanthrope to spare her life. The words caught in her throat, locked by fear as Lucas flipped his coat-tails aside and drew the saber from its crafted sheath.
Loathing wrapped her husband’s words. “To the end, Kayla.”
Dying sunlight glinted on the blade as it swung through the air. The pain was brief, and for a second Kayla saw the forest spinning before her eyes.
Then, oblivion.
1785 A.D.
VIENNA,
AUSTRIA
Eighteenth century Vienna cowered under the squall and fell silent beyond the extreme downpour. Buildings around the courtyard ran glossy with rain and puddles settling into the square’s uneven cobbles flowed thick with ageless blood. Wind caressed him roughly but he didn’t feel cold. Spikes of rain hammered his naked skin but he couldn’t feel their dampness. Samson had no umbrella or long coat to protect him from the weather, but he wished he wore boots so he wouldn’t have to tread barefoot in filthy vampire blood.
The first night of the campaign has gone very well, he mused, very well indeed. He had waited almost two centuries for this night and its success had gone a long way to making his wait worthwhile. Samson and his clan had carried out both ambushes to perfection. The group of bloodsuckers now scattered in pieces around the courtyard had been pursuing a ragged squad of werewolves. The lycanthropes had already been eradicated. Samson could still taste their foul aftertaste on his tongue and sinewy meat remained lodged between his teeth.
He strode with authority through the strewn remains of vampire Enforcers.
In the centre of the courtyard a fellow hybrid crouched on all fours, its face buried into the opened torso of a vampire. The bloodsucker’s head lay a few feet from its body, black irises like dark holes in a pasty face. Undead lips curled back in a pained grimace and its fangs were frozen at different lengths, caught in the middle of the creature’s attempted metamorphosis. The speed of their surprise attack gave none of the pale heathens a chance to react.
BLOODLINES -- Blood War Trilogy: Book I Page 2
