Hunter's Moon

Chapter 1

Lounging in his chair, Eric scanned the chessboard. He could see check in three, mate in five. He moved the black knight and then started to rotate the table top around so he could play the white pieces.

            A noise from the downstairs interrupted his chain of thought. It sounded like fighting. Not yelling or screaming, but an actual physical brawl. Eric stood, very unhappy at the commotion.

            Eric stormed out of the bedroom and looked down from the railing, “There had better be a damned good reason for disturbing me with all that noise!”

            What he saw stopped him cold. One floor below he witnessed a slaughter. The members of his coven were being decimated by . . . what? It was moving fast, even faster than his eyes could follow. The blurred streak of blackness moved about the room, subduing each of Eric's brethren. They were in pain, and incapacitated, but they weren't being killed. His coven lay sprawled out on the floor of the room below, just barely moving. Their bones clearly broken and sprouted at odd angles, if they had been fully alive they'd clearly be in excruciating pain.

            The attacker slowed, and looked up at Eric. It looked like a foul reflection of what he knew himself to be. Gnarled hands, crude misshapen head: this creature was a vampire, a very old and hungry vampire.

            Eric had to think quickly. “Greetings, O wise one.” He started walking down the stair slowly. “I thought the age of well, your age, was gone. I was sure that you would be either extinct or hiding away in the bloodless sleep of torpor.”

            The ancient vampire regarded him and spoke in broken English with a heavy accent, “You are correct to . . . . . be caution at me. I have power, you do not.”

            “It seems my friends did not recognize the power you wield.”

            “Yes, true,” the creature said with a shark-toothed grin. “I wield much, and will wield more.”

            Eric considered what the elder said. He had reached the bottom of the stairs and was moving cautiously toward the creature, “Yet you have been asleep for a very long time. You may be unfamiliar with the ways of the modern world. I could help you. I could assist you with your plan for more power.”

            “Yes. You will assist. You will raise army. I will give them freedom from the day.”

            “You know how to let us regain the sun's favor? That surely is much power. If the likes of us were no longer confined to the shadows and the night, we could once again rule this world, rather than living like parasites on the overfed sheep.”

            He was now standing next to the creature. Its attire was that of rags, and a jacket of a local security guard firm. Eric thought he recognized the emblem as one that had the contract on the local cemeteries.

            “Swear.”

            Eric was confused, “I'm sorry?”

            The ancient one repeated, “Swear fealty and then choose weakest.”

            “Ah, yes,” Eric realized that this elder vampire was from a different time, possibly from long enough ago that feudal governments were normal. If he wanted to survive, Eric would need to play by this creature's rules. He knelt before the older vampire. “And who, pray tell, is my new liege?”

            “I am the Stramos.” the vampire said.

            “I pledge my eternal allegiance to he who is named the Stramos.” Eric intoned with his head bowed. His coven had been watching throughout this entire interchange and looked at him with contempt and fear. “As for my choice as to who is weakest?” he said as he glanced at his coven. He would need to prove to the Stramos that he had no divided loyalties. Only then would he have a chance to survive. “All of them. They are all weak.”