Chapter 1: A Hunter

[Warning, it gets a bit bloody.]

It was raining. That wasn’t surprising. It was Glasgow after all.

The two figures battling on the historic roofs of the inner city were more noteworthy, however. One was a particularly beautiful, yet pale, dark haired man, dressed in a soft ivory coloured greatcoat and looking like a ghost as he moved gracefully across the rooftops. The other figure was not human. A werewolf, with tawny red fur.

A snarl from the pale man revealed teeth unlike any normal human. For the man was, himself, a vampire.

He slipped out of the way of one of the werewolf’s charges. Just barely escaping his foe’s slashing claws, the vampire countered with a swing of his own silvered blade. The slash drew little blood, but the silver got a roar of pain from the werewolf.

The werewolf lunged again, and the vampire jumped above it, spinning as he did to slice a long slash down it’s back. This time there was more blood, more dark than red in the poor lighting of the rainy Scottish night. The werewolf howled in pain and stumbled forward.

The smell of its blood was strong enough even a human observer would have smelled it, and would have likely driven a younger or hungrier vampire into a hunger induced haze. This vampire was neither, however. Two hundred years seeking vengeance against the werewolves of the British Isles for what they’d done... he’d learned to control himself.

He took the initiative now, sliding in with a chopping motion, rendering the werewolf’s right arm useless. He spun with that strike, drawing open the left side of the beast’s neck. He then ducked under the left arm, swinging around and climbing onto the werewolf’s back. The vampire at last sank his fangs into the wound, tasting the sweet and hot blood of the beast. Holding on like a lion with its weakening prey.

A vampire’s fangs normally could not pierce a werewolf’s skin, especially not when one had to work through all that fur, but he had learned how to feed off them. Having become a hunter of his colony’s enemies, he learned how to survive in battle. The creature buckled as its blood was drained, falling on its knees, then forward onto the roof tiles.

Once he’d finished feeding the werewolf lay limp. Its body slowly shifted back to human form, though the vampire didn’t care what that form looked like. He’d set off down the grey and decaying streets of the city before it had finished shedding its fur.

Any other observer would, though, see as the werewolf shank, revealing the form of a red haired woman. From her lips escaped a nearly silent last word, her daughter’s name: “Mysie…”

-b-

The young girl slipped between the legs of the men and women in the main hall of the Coyne Clan. The grown ups seemed worried, ever since the night before, when her mother had hurried out on a patrol. No one would tell her or the other children her age what was going on, having merely tried to coral them all upstairs in the north wing. Mysie had managed to avoid the sweeps of the teenagers and was now tracking down her father.

He was a large man, two metres tall if he was a centimetre, with a barrel chested build. His red hair and beard formed a veritable mane around his head. His face was filled with worry, though, as Mysie approached.

“Still no word?” he asked one of Mysie’s younger uncles.

The young man shook his head. “She was in Cessnock the last anyone has heard, which was last night.”

Mysie’s father let out a low grumble, muttering about having already heard that, when he noticed the young girl approaching.

“And what do ye think yer doing down here, young lassie?” her father asked, his face turning softer as he looked at her.

“I just want to know why everyone is all upset? None of the older kids are telling us anything,” she replied, standing up straight to try to hold some authority.

Her father gave her a kind smile. “We’re still trying to work it out ourselves. Can you keep a secret, though? To not scare the other young ones?”

Mysie nodded.

“Vampires are about,” her father said. “More than usual. We’ve gathered the whole clan together to keep everyone safe. We want to keep you wee ones ever safer by keeping you all upstairs, in case those rats try causing any trouble tonight.”

“Ah! Because it’s a night with nae moon?” Mysie asked.

Her father nodded and ruffled her hair. “Clever as your mother, you are. But still very small. So, will you be a good girl and head upstairs for the night?”

Mysie gave her own nod as a reply and hurried off between the gathered grown ups. Almost the whole clan was here. Even if her mother was still out and it was a new moon, Mysie felt safe with the others.

When she made it upstairs, her one older cousin gave Mysie an annoying scolding for having run off. She then dragged Mysie into a bedroom with the other children her age.

All the other kids knew she’d have surely learned what was happening, with her father being the head of the clan. Mysie kept silent, however, as her father had ordered. She only told the other kids there was serious business afoot before climbing into bed.

-b-

She woke in the night to the sounds of honking cars and loud engines. Crawling out of bed, she saw that most of the others in the room had woken up as well, a few peeking out the windows, under the curtains. Mysie decided to take a keek herself and slipped down.

The Coyne Clan’s estate, sitting alone in the hills south of Glasgow, was surrounded by vans and cars and even a bus or two. Out of them were pouring shadowy figures, barely visible in the dark of a moonless night. They all seemed to be charging around to the front door, clambering over the outer walls and hedges of the estate.

There was a crack like fireworks, and then a half dozen more. Most of the children ran to hide, but Mysie wanted a better view of what was going on. She knew the home like the back of her hand and knew the various secret passages that the Coyne family had installed over the centuries to prepare for invasion.

In the closet of this room, if she shimmied up the small part in the side, there was a small door to slip through into the attic. She closed the door up behind her before climbing through the dusty darkness. It was annoying how, on a new moon, she could barely see in the dark, unable to use her wolf eyes. Still, she knew how far to go, and made her way to the small window, that was really more of a vent.

Once she looked out, she almost regretted it. It seemed as if every vampire in the British Isles was here, charging over the grounds of the Coyne House like a plague of rats or bats pouring from a cave. Mysie was sure there were hundreds.

The cracks of rifle fire continued from the ground floors, causing many of the vampires to fall, but it wasn’t stopping the wave of them. It filled the young girl with fear and she ducked down, hiding from the window. She tried to cover her ears, but could still make out the cracks of the rifles.

Other sounds, screams and shouts and breaking glass, joined the gunfire. She scurried into the dark, hoping to find somewhere to hide. She believed in her father, he was very strong, but surely even he couldn’t hold back this endless wave of vampires. Not without the blessing of the moon.

The window she’d been looking through smashed open. the silhouette of a rattish man crawling in. He sniffed the air as Mysie hid, before turning in her direction. He charged forward and she ran between the old crates and chests of the attic, swerving as best she could in the dark until she reached the top of a dumbwaiter shaft. it was narrow, barely big enough for her, and tight enough the vampire chasing her couldn’t fit, as skinny as he was.

Or, at least, so she’d thought.

Bending and struggling, he dragged himself through the gap. His eyes seemed to glow in the shadows with a feral hunger. She was sure his bones shouldn’t have bent like that. Hers didn’t…

She had no time to think about that, though. She had to scramble down the dumbwaiter shaft, doing her best not to fall as she tried to climb down as quickly as she could. At the bottom, she found the actual dumbwaiter itself, and fumbled with the latch to open the top of it.

Pulling herself through, she closed the top again and pulled open the cover between her and the kitchen, falling out and ready to run. Her mind froze, though, when she landed on a wet floor.

That, on the floor, that was… that was blood. Her eyes moving along she saw a body not far from her. She couldn’t bear to look at the body, to see which member of her family it was that lay there.

“A child?” a voice said, cold and English sounding.

She turned to see a pale man with dark hair standing above her, his similarly pale ivory greatcoat covered in splashes of blood.

He was obviously a vampire, she could tell from his blood red eyes and deathly pale skin. Those blood red eyes didn’t glint with the frightening hunger of the one that had chased her, though. He was looking at her more like she was a puzzle or a crossword in the newspaper. All the same, she was too terrified to speak.

The feral and rattish man crawled out of the dumbwaiter, licking his lips. She was frozen with fear. The beastly vampire lunged towards her, only to be slammed to the ground from behind.

The other one had done it, pinning the animalistic one under his foot.

“Gack! It didn’t look like you wanted to eat her, Kristoff,” the rattish vampire said.

The other one, Kristoff, leaned forward and sniffed Mysie, who was still frozen in horror and fear.

“A young child,” Kristoff said, Mysie thinking she heard something Eastern European in his accent too.

Closer to how you might think a vampire would sound.

“Yeah, yeah. Not much blood in her, but kids do taste bette—”

Kristoff stomped on the rattish one, before drawing his curved sword. Mysie watched him lift it up, and closed her eyes before he brought it down. She tried to ignore the oddly dry noise that followed.

When she opened her eyes, the tall vampire was looking down like he had stepped in filth. She did her best not to look down. She didn’t want to see what had happened.

“You, child. Are you a werewolf? A wulver?” Kristoff asked, his tone flat.

She nodded, not sure what else she could do.

He glanced off to the side, muttering something in a foreign language, before turning back to her. “Are there others?”

She stared at him with fear, not knowing if he might protect her cousins like he protected her. Not understanding anything of this strange vampire who had invaded her kitchen. His sword had already had blood on it when he’d raised it, so why was he protecting her?

Did he just want her to lead him to the others to take their blood too?

“There are,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Upstairs?”

Her eyes must have betrayed her. He put his sword away in a swift motion, then had picked her up, into the air, before she’d managed to remember to run. She was ready for him to bite her neck then and there, when, instead, he tucked her under one arm. He carried her off to the back staircase, from the kitchen up to the hallway near the children’s bedroom. As he carried her, she heard shouts from other rooms. There were still rifles being fired in other wings of the manor.

She wondered about screaming, hoping someone would hear and help. At least until they reached the bedrooms. She could smell death in the air. A blonde vampire who looked less beastly than the rat and less… otherworldly than Kristoff, emerged from the room she’d been sleeping in.

“Ah, he—One of the bloody brats got past us? Good catch, Kristoff,” the vampire said, his smile sending shivers down Mysie’s spine.

“What did you do with the others?” Kristoff asked.

“What did we… what do you think?” the vampire said, raising bloody hands in a shrug.

Kristoff’s sword was out of its sheath and pointed at the blonde’s neck faster than Mysie’s eyes could follow. “We’re warriors, not… butchers. They were children.”

“Th—they were enemies, Kristoff. Werewolves breed…” the blonde muttered, staring down at the silvered blade.

Mysie felt the beginning of Kristoff’s motion through his torso and closed her eyes. She heard two thuds as Kristoff then sheathed his sword.

He then turned, walking calmly back towards the stairs, when a voice called out Kristoff’s name behind them.

“What did you do?” the poshly English sounding voice called out.

Kristoff kept walking.

“Get him!!” the posh voice hissed, causing Mysie to peek around and see a half dozen skinny and pale vampires charging their way.

Kistroff pivoted, drawing his saber as he spun to face the assault. Mysie stared in fear as his sword sliced through the other vampires. There was no blood, which surprised her. She supposed it had something to do with how vampires were dead.

Not that she was able to do much thinking, her mind still so overwhelmed by everything that had happened.

The vampires fell with thuds, while the apparent leader of the group stood back, fear in his eyes. The slain vampires began to dissolve to dust where they lay.

“And you, Gregory?” Kristoff asked, his saber pointed at the man.

The vampire leader, who was blonde, like the first one, pulled a radio from his pocket, before turning and fleeing. He hissed something into the radio as he ran.

“Coward,” Kristoff muttered, before turning back to the stairs and heading down, back into the kitchen.

He moved outside quickly, long legs moving with determination. Mysie stayed quiet as she bounced in his arm. They were headed towards a van that had been parked around the back gate of the manor.

A lone vampire leaned against the van, smoking a cigarette. “Something up, Kristoff?”

“Did you know why we struck the back?” Kristoff asked, his saber pointed at the other vampire’s throat.

“T-to keep the, uh, Wulvers from running, right?” the vampire stammered.

“Did you know about the children?” Kristoff added.

“Kids? Wha—there’s kids in there?” the man asked, looking down at Mysie and his eyes growing wide. “Bloo—no. I didn’t know there were kids in th—”

His last word was cut off by an explosion. Turning, Mysie saw that the southern wing of the manor had burst into flames. She felt sure her father was either dead or dying now. It was too much now. Far far far too much. She started sobbing and lost track of anything else that happened.

She found herself placed in the back of the van, on top of an empty duffel bag. She curled up there, crying until sleep took her.

Though the nightmares it brought were no reprieve from the pain of the day.