Blood Wars

Chapter 1: First Encounters (Pic of Reese)

“Reese, down!” I ducked as Stella, my five foot two cousin, threw a silver knife at eye level towards my five foot nine body. Shape shifters were nasty but Stella never missed. The knife barely missed my head as I hit the floor. A thud resonated from the shifters body as the knife penetrated its heart.

            As it fell to the ground, its face bubbled and the skin of the hospital nurse it had chosen shifted back to its original form. A man in his late thirties lay in her place. Stella helped me up with a smirk on her freckled face. The task we had been assigned was a curious one to say the least. Shifters usually stayed close to wilderness areas where they could easily hunt without drawing to much attention. To find one in Ambrose's local hospital was suspiciously out of character.

            The job was done, and Stella and I where one task closer to finishing our apprenticeships. Four more and we would be initiated into the upper ranks of the Families. The Families were the three founder families of our coven. Direct descendants of council members were given the titles of Priest and Priestess while the others were left to discover their powers on their own and become witches and warlocks. We were a tight knit group; Stella wasn't even my real cousin, but all the founders addressed each other as brother or sister, and Stella and I thought that made us cousins when we were younger. It was not until years later that we understood but old habits die hard.

            When I was steady on my feet, I shoved Stella hard. “What the hell! You could have killed me!”

            She chuckled, “ You know I never miss, and besides I told you to get down.”

           

            Temper not abated, “Yeah mid throw!”

            Tired of the conversation, Stella headed towards the body to pull out her knife. She wiped the black blood off her black hunting boots and put the knife back in its sheath. Still furious I stomped towards the door like a petulant child, all the while, Stella continued to giggle.

            As I reached the door, her laughter was quickly cut off ; a gasp escaped before the sound of struggling overwhelmed me. I spun around to find the shifter had gotten up and grabbed Stella by the throat.

            “Stella!”

            I ran towards the monster and planted a rib cracking kick right in his chest. Stella fell to the ground and cracked her head on the concrete floor. The hospital basement was cluttered and crowded; the kick had only thrown the shifter backward and now he had disappeared, but I could still feel him stalking us.

           

            Stella was barely conscious on the floor and managed to only state the obvious before passing out completely” He's a Primus.”

           

            “Shit” I crouched over Stella, now I was alone; this monster was a Primus. A Primus is essentially the father or mother of its kind; Primus means first in Latin which explained why it was at the hospital. The only way a creature could be made was by a Primus ,and they had to be given permission to turn their prey or else the human would simply die. And a hospital full of desperate and sick people was easy pickings.

            They also had none of the “allergies” their offspring acquired which meant that they were practically immortal. Only a Primus could kill another Primus.  We were screwed. As descendants of the founders, Stella and I were significantly more powerful than an average witch or warlock, but to take down this asshole would take an entire coven.