Midnight Shadow

Midnight Shadow - Prologue

Prologue

I hate the smell of Blood.

I know that sounds crazy, people can’t actually smell blood. But then, I’m not exactly a person am I? I suppose the fact that I have walked the earth since the early part of the Egyptian Empire supports the theory that I’m not exactly human. But I am a person. I was human before that fateful day five thousand years ago when my existence was forever altered. My life and the lives of six other humans. We were all changed that day I think. There are still parts of that day I can’t remember. Scenes flash in my head from time to time. Fighting, Blood, the blocked out sun, the inhuman screaming, Cal. Yeah, I have more memories of my brother Cal than anything else that day. Cal, the captain of Pharaoh's secret army. Cal, My older brother. I remember the last thing he ever said to me. “Be careful Ash, I’ll meet you back here when we’ve corrected this. See you soon”

That was the beginning. I’ve been alone ever since. Well, not alone like “not around people”. I’ve simply lived everyday with my secret. I’m not human anymore. I’m not exactly certain what I am to be honest. I look exactly same as I have for thousands of years. That makes it pretty difficult to stay in one place for a very long period of time. People get suspicious when they’ve known you for twenty years and you still look seventeen. But I look human. I have sun blond hair and silver blue eyes. I’m not particularly tall for this time period but I was very tall for a human in Egypt. Six feet tall is average now.

There are differences though. For example, I’ve never met a human that could punch through a concrete wall or outrun a car. I’ve never met a human that only needs to sleep a few hours a year or can hear whispered conversations across a crowded gymnasium. And I’ve never met anyone else that could focus on another being so intently that they could share their subjects mind. But I can. I can focus on a single person and share their mind. I can see through their eyes, feel their joy and pain and hear their thoughts. Humans can’t do that. But I am not human, not anymore. I may not be human but I know what else I’m not.

I hate the smell of blood.

I am not a vampire. I am not one of them. They are my responsibility. They are my prey. I am their nightmare. It is their fault that I am here, still on this earth after five thousand years. Their existence is what my brother Cal was talking about when he said we had to correct this. It was our job to hunt them. All of them. I remember the screams of the people in Pharaoh’s palace when the vampires attacked. I remember the blood and the bodies in the fire light when my brother found me and the six became seven. We were all that was left. It was our job to fix this mistake. The others wanted to explain everything to me but Cal refused. He said there was no time. So he sent us each in a different direction with one order. Don’t come back until every vampire was destroyed.

He sent me east. The shortest amount of area to cover. He told me how to kill them and a few things about what I had become. How I was stronger and faster. How I was different now. That they had released vampires out into the world through a horrible accident and that it was our job to hunt them down. We had to correct our mistake! To make up for our failure to every human in the world that would live from then until every vampire was dead. The greatest mistake in the existence of mankind was on our seven sets of shoulders to correct.

Since that night I have followed my brothers order. I have hunted and killed more vampires than I ever thought could exist. Thousands of them have died in my fury. Ground to dust by my hands. Every time I cross paths with one I search his mind as he dies for evidence of the others like me. But there is never any thought of Cal. He must be alive. He was the greatest and strongest of us all. The bravest and purest. If I was still alive, and I am, then he must be also. Continuing our sworn duty to rid the world of the greatest evil.