THE HUNT

CHAPTER-TWENTY

The low fog curled around them as if the darkness of the moonless night were caressing them. And why wouldn't it? Hadn't they often embraced the darkness, drawing it closer like a lover, letting it wrap around them, smoothing them even as it soothed them with its warm familiarity?

And yet they yearned to be free of it--unbound from the pinch of the dark. That was why they'd come tonight because they'd heard rumors about this vampire. About his extraordinary powers. How he could heal. How he could make them whole.

The burning inside them had become so violent--so raw--that they had no other option. Because if they couldn't ratchet back the darkness, it would certainly consume them. And once that happened, they would be gone forever, lost inside an inky black void filled with only the scent and the taste of blood.

~•~

Dagan lifted the whiskey glass to his lips and tossed it back.

That bitch of a seer. . . .Those fucking men. . .

When they'd captured him they'd entombed him rather than staking him through the heart. They had pierced him with metal stakes. His chest. His gut. He'd bled and bled and bled until he was nothing but a dried-out shell withering on a cold mason floor.

But he'd be alive. Alive as a helpless infant, unable to move. Lost in his thoughts, a perverse miasma of images and emotions. He'd been too weak to even order his mind, and he drifted in a dream-state for days, weeks, years.

Dagan still didn't know what had finally initiated his return to consciousness. Pests, maybe, making a home in his mouth. Them dying, attracting rats. Blood was the key. Somehow, blood had entered his mouth.

At first, the blood only brought torment, the amount was insufficient to infuse his body to life. The drops of blood merely made him more aware of his hellish condition.
When the months trickled by at a painfully slow pace.

No longer was his consciousness swirling with no connection of time. Instead, he felt the turning of the earth. Saw the shift of light in the dim stream of his ceiling above him. The light--odd, and he realized later why--was streaming in through the window of a crypt. Had he been bathed in the full sunbeam, he would have truly met his end. Most days, he wished for that.

Slowly, his strength grew. Worms, disgusting creatures nested within him, and though their bodies gave him no relief, when there was blood it added to his strength. After a time, he was able to move his mouth and tongue, and that victory allowed him to snap down upon those creatures. He could kill and he could feed. Decades passed with Dagan trapped inside his own mind, his demon surging unable to hunt. Madness kept at bay, of the simple act of plotting his revenge. Even the thought was ultimately defeated.

Had anyone found him, they would have seen what appeared to be a mummified corpse. The bastard had hidden him in a private cemetery, tucked away in a hidden room beneath a family tomb.

By the time Dagan had fully regained his senses and could move his weakened body enough to slide out into the world, the Crawford were long dead, entombed above the very same crypt where Dagan had suffered his long imprisonment.

He'd made his way to the house upon the hill. Once there, he slit the throat of the first person he found and drank his fill of fresh, creamy human blood. Ah, yes, yes. Power.

He drank again from the next human to pass through the door. Only then did he look around and notice the changes to the world. Strange. The cars were sleeker. Everything looked space-aged. He marveled at these things--but even such wonders could not keep him from his goal. Stronger now, he accosted the next person he encountered--a female who arrived in a red Mercedes-Benz. She quivered in his arms, said that she didn't have any money on her. He assured her it wasn't money he was after and asked the name of who owned the house. Her reply--"Crawford--" The name sent joy through him. His tormenter may have already died, but Dagan could still feast upon his heirs.

He wanted to squash her humanity. Humans had tormented him, and now all humans would pay. Starting with the Crawford, of course, but he had no intention of stopping there.

They thought they'd beaten him. Trapped him and bound him. Perhaps for a time, but they were nothing but food for the worms now, whereas he had been resurrected, like a God. Hell, he was a God, and it was by his hands that they would live or die. 

He'd crawled out from that wretched tomb almost fifteen years ago, and he had spent those years meting out his own justice against the humans, rallying other vampires as well to rise against them.

What was the point of being a God if you allowed the baser creatures to bind your nature? Why did the PSI punish those who acted by their natural urges to fed off humans?

His race was becoming weak, and it disgusted him. And made it his mission to bring as many of his kind back to their true nature and thin out humanity in the process--while growing stronger on their rich, delicious blood.

Dagan was in his study, and Tony was sitting across the desk from him. Dagan's second in command, a young vampire named Winchester, stood behind him at attention.

"Our assets?"

"It wasn't a problem," Tony said, "We intercepted the vehicle, and the extractions went off without a hitch."

"Good. They've been training hard, working as a unit. They'll need discipline when we make our move against the enemy." He looked at Tony. "Do we have a location on the bloodstone?"

"No, not yet."

Dagan reached for the paperweight on his desk and curled his fingers around it, squeezing hard to repress the flare of irritation. "Did I not make myself clear that time is of the essence? They'll soon know that I exist. I need that damn stone. If we don't find it soon, we'll be fending rather than attacking, and that is an unacceptable turn of events."

"I'm aware," Tony said. The witch didn't have the location of the bloodstone. But I explained to her that it would be in her best interests to find its whereabouts and give it to us."

"How much time?"

The Blackthorne toxin will kill her in forty-eight hours without the antidote. When we have the location, we're ready to move to retrieve it. The men are fast and sharp and hungry. Isn't that right Winchester?"

"Yes, sir. And if I may say, so, Sir Peavey, I'm looking forward to serving you."

"Thank you, for your loyalty, Winchester." Dagan said, with a slightly menacing tone."
Dagan fought the urge to slap the young vampire. Dagan wasn't interested in coddling his men. No, he was interested in retrieving the damn bloodstone and performing the Sylvana ritual for his revenge.

"Word is, PSI agents has been scoping out the club," Tony said.

"Does that frighten you?"

"Of course not."

"Good. I want to see the redhead tonight. We'll leave within the hour, " he said, placing the paperweight down on the desk.

"Is that a good idea?"

"Are you questioning me?"

"No." Tony frowned. "You're the boss."

Dagan tamped down the irritation that flared within him for the second time tonight. Certain things we're unacceptable to him, and saving somebody's life was cause for undeniable loyalty. He had no intention of Tony breaking that code. Nor did he have any intention of explaining himself, yet again to his second in command. "The discussion is over. I will see the woman."

~~•~~

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