A Moonlit Night - The Complete Saga (19 page)

It was too late. Xander had already exited
the medical bay and retreated to his chambers where he would await
the inevitable. To him, the battle had already been lost.

For Emily, giving up wouldn’t be an option.
The coming battle not only threatened her existence, but that of
the entire world. With nothing left to stop them, they would be a
plague upon the world like no one had ever seen. Countries would
crumble and alliances would shatter. The world would be plunged
into death and decay with no end in sight. Xander may have given up
on his humanity, but that was a choice that didn’t exist for the
summoner, last of her kind and the only hope the world had for
salvation.

“I don’t understand, Samuel,” said Emily as
she turned from her brother’s side and towards the hunter, “Why
would the Hunter’s Guild align themselves with the monsters they’ve
fought so vigilantly over the centuries?”

Samuel still clutched at his throat, in
visible pain from the pressure Xander had applied. He might not
have been as strong as the ageless vampire, but quick wits allowed
him to continue breathing, at least for the foreseeable future.

“Change isn’t always welcomed with open
arms,” Samuel croaked, “I can only imagine that with an end to the
paranormal races… my elders believe they’ll lose themselves in the
process.”

“B-but you’re human!” Emily stuttered in
disbelief, “I can’t believe that they would turn away from their
own kind like this.”

“Evil lives in everyone,” Samuel choked, “It
doesn’t take the embrace of a vampire to turn someone from the
light. No, we do that to ourselves… the vampires just know how to
take advantage of our weaknesses.”

“We’re humans that exist to combat the forces
in this world that aren’t human,” Samuel continued as his throat
finally cleared up, “With nothing left to fight, I worry that my
people will cease to find their place in this world… and I would
seem that my elders agree.”

“Isn’t this what the Hunter’s Guild has been
fighting for?” Emily asked, “…A world free from persecution from
the paranormal… a world where there’s no need to fight
anymore?”

“I believed so,” Samuel responded, “Now, I
fear that I might’ve been the only one.”

Emily turned from Samuel and once again took
up station beside her brother. The world was changing so rapidly
that she feared it, too, would smother her to the point of no
return. “Then I fear for all of us—.”

All of a sudden, Steven’s eyes opened after
days of near catatonia. However, what used to be beautiful hazel
eyes were now replaced with a blackness that seemed to draw Emily
inwards, as if sucked into a black hole from which there was no
escape. Several symbols burned into his forehead, as black as the
very soul that tried to escape from his eyes.

Her brother might’ve collapsed a man, but
what awoke was
not
her brother. No, as Emily desperately
tried to free herself from his side, she become conscious of the
fact that whatever this monster was, there wasn’t any trace of her
brother inside. It was a demon reborn, and it threatened everything
they had worked so hard for. The prophet had awoken.

Chapter Three

“Everyone get outside!” Xander shouted as the
very walls of his ancient castle began to come apart. Everywhere he
looked, his undead children scrambled in panic under the prophet’s
tremendous power. “I want everyone out alive… we leave no one
behind!”

The last two that arrived to the front were
Samuel and Emily, who barely made it through the door as the
archway above them came down with thunderous force. They left the
castle’s grounds and were ushered towards the front courtyard where
the rest of Xander’s clan lay in wait of their unholy leader.

“Keep your distance!” Xander commanded his
steadfast followers, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with and I’m
not about to go losing half my goddamn army!”

“You can’t hurt him,” Emily begged, “C’mon,
there
must
be another way.”

“My dear,” Xander replied with a grave
earnestness, “I fear that
we
may be the ones that are going
to get hurt. I’ve dealt with a demon before… and it didn’t turn out
well.”

“Then we must allow Steven to fight this
battle,” Samuel interjected, “His strength alone can exorcise the
demon that inhabits his body.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t warm up
to any information that you divulge,” Xander said snidely, “We’re
in this mess because
your
people were too scared to stand up
to
mine
.”

“And you’re a fool if you send any of your
men into battle with hopes of slaying him,” Samuel added, “If
anything happens to the man inside… I’ll see to it personally that
you’re put down like the dog you are.”

“Big talk,” Xander scoffed, “For such a
little man.”

“Stop it!” Emily bellowed as she once again
stood between them, “The last thing we need right now is both of
you at each other’s throats. If my brother is going to make it
through this, he’ll need us to stand together—.”

“I say we storm him the moment he exits the
castle,” Ava said confidently as she approached from the rear,
“We’re a hundred strong… and he’s just one single man. I can
do
this, master, please allow me to try.”

“You don’t understand what you’re dealing
with,” Xander replied.

“Oh, I think I’ve got a very good idea what
I’m dealing with,” Ava said, “…And if I had of been allowed to
carry out my plan before he awoke… none of this would’ve
happened.”

“It wasn’t your call to make, Ava,” said
Emily, standing tall in the face of the much stronger vampire, “It
wasn’t then… and it certainly isn’t now.”

Ava raised a fist in anger, but those
feelings were quickly dismissed when Emily’s eyes burst forth with
the flames of a supernova, radiant and coursing with a blaze
similar to an exploding white dwarf. In that moment, the Celt
realized that nothing she could do would save herself from the
summoner’s wrath. No longer was Emily a fledgling among true
kindred, she was a goddess among immortals— the type that Fiona and
her always hoped to one day become.

“Master!” signaled Horace, brandishing a
silver sword and running towards the group with the rest of his
ghoul companions in tow, “You must protect your coven. My men and I
will rush the castle and attempt to subdue the attacker.”

“Of what castle do you speak?” Samuel asked
as he pointed to the rapidly decaying fortress.

Just then, several explosions shook the
foundation, and one after the other, all of Xander’s ammunition
storages began to tear away at the ancient stone as they collided
with the falling stone debris. Fires raged across every parapet,
every watchtower, and even the central keep couldn’t hold back the
inferno’s path.

For over four hundred years, Xander had
managed to keep this castle out of the reach of the council’s eyes
and in one blaze of atrocity, all his work withered with the embers
that fell to the ground. He dropped to his knees and cursed to the
Heavens for abandoning him, only the second time in his undead
existence; the last being after first discovering his newfound
vampire heritage.

“Look!” several of the vampires shouted in
unison.

“It’s him!” bellowed the others.

They were all bloodthirsty and looking to
exact vengeance on the person responsible. They licked their fangs
and savored the thought of being the one to deliver the final blow,
the reward being blood unspoiled by the impurities of human— that
of a real, live blood demon.

Steven emerged from the castle’s entrance,
sheathed in a fiery blaze and levitating over the very ground that
was quaking from his supremacy. The only thing that remained of
Steven was his frame, a lifeless shell that the demon was given
control over. Suppressed both physically and mentally, Steven could
all but watch as his body was used for ominous devices— constructed
by the very men that took him aboard as a young vampire hunter.

“I said to stay back!” Xander yelled out to
the rest of his clan as he saw the hunger in their eyes, “We don’t
know what we’re dealing with here… and I won’t have your sacrifices
be in vain!”

That did little to calm his vampires down,
and Xander felt control slip from his grasp. He was losing them to
the bloodlust.

“I disagree, Lord Franson,” Ava said with a
sadistic smile, “We know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

“Unite my brethren!” Ava trumpeted to the
rest of the pack, “For far too long, vampires had to sit back and
take it from Hell’s minions! I say that we prove to our unholy god
that we, too, belong among their upper echelon of frightful beasts!
Tonight, we dine on demon!”

With only his firstborn’s words of
foolishness, Xander lost his clan; not to another, but to their own
hunger for justice unduly delivered unto them. Almost every vampire
under Xander’s clan leapt forward and took up Ava’s challenge.
After all these years away, Xander may have controlled the stone
beneath their feet, but
she
had become the unnamed master of
their will— the one they would follow into battle.

Few stayed back in accordance to their true
master’s wishes, the youngest of their pack still loyal to the one
that made them; and then there was Esther, maybe the only one who
truly understood their master’s heart.

Fiona tried to spring into action with her
sister, but was forced to watch as Xander grabbed onto her arm,
refusing her right to join in the battle of her sister’s life.

“No! Let me go!” Fiona screamed as she tried
to distance herself from the master she wished to leave behind. She
scraped and clawed, but it did little good against the strength
Xander possessed and Fiona was forced to watch as the battle
commenced.

“Watch,” Xander whispered into her ear as he
directed Fiona’s eyes towards the coming assault, “Watch the path
foolish actions and bloodlust would have led you down. Watch… as
your sister dies for the sins of our kind.”

Chapter Four

“Steven, please don’t do this!” Samuel
clamored overtop of the cries of pain, “You mustn’t give into his
accursed demands!”

One after the other, vampires dropped to the
ground under the weight of Steven’s power. Some were strewn about
the ground as mangled corpses, others charred to the bone from
hellfire unleashed, and the really unlucky ones were those that had
to see the carnage unfold before taking their turn on the offensive
front.

Each of their fates ended up at the same
precibus, death by honor. They were too proud to stand by and watch
their home turned to ash; and they paid accordingly for such a
foolish venture.

There was no honor among the undead, an
emotional response that they clung to from their previous lives.
There were only those that accepted their unholy fate, and those
that were crushed beneath the weight of their own humanity; a fact
these untimely vampires were finally starting to grasp.

Ava was the first to approach and also the
first to fall, but as she lay amongst her dead brethren, she
realized that the only reason she yet lived was for the bemusement
of the blood demon. He was toying with her, relishing in her defeat
and self-doubt, sucking all the despair from what little soul she
had left.

“I’ll see you in Hell, you foul demon!” Ava
screamed as she jumped to her feet and launched another attack. She
moved like water, fluid and intricate with her motions while she
cut a path straight towards the blood demon that possessed the
young Steven Johansson. Ava was good, but she wasn’t good
enough.

“No, you’ll see me reigning in Hell,” the
blood demon scoffed as he grabbed Ava by the throat and lifted her
high into the air, “You vampires and your silly, little games… come
now, did you really hope to defeat me?”

Ava struggled for her life, but in the end
she just wasn’t strong enough. The demon was a member of Hell’s
highest order, created by the dark lord himself and impervious to
the attacks of a lesser being.

“Ava!” shrieked Fiona as she clawed out for
her helpless sister.

The blood demon turned his head slowly until
he stared down Fiona, still wrapped up in Xander’s arms. A smile
was stretched across his wicked face; enjoying the agony he was
putting them through, like killing two birds with one blasphemous
stone. Without little care for the life of another, he snapped the
neck of Ava and reveled in Fiona’s misfortune.

“Please, you’re better than this!” Samuel
shouted. He started to walk towards the blood demon with little
thought to his own wellbeing. Likely, he was going to die here
tonight, but if he could walk Steven away from the abyss’ edge,
then his death would carry meaning. “I know you, Steven. I know the
man you are… and I know the man you’ll yet become. Don’t give up
fighting… never give up!”

“The
boy
remembers you well, Samuel
Anderson,” the blood demon said with a smirk, “He remembers you
giving him a chance… and then promptly stabbing him in the back. He
remembers lies and betrayal… disingenuous words of wisdom and false
promises that lingered on grandeur. You’re barking up the wrong
tree if you think he’ll listen to you… he’s got no love for you in
his heart.”

“Lies, you’re not Steven talking!” Samuel
fired back as he stared down what remained of his former student,
“Fight it! I know you can defeat this monster—!”

Samuel’s speech was cut short, a boot to the
sternum delivered from the blood demon, powerful and beyond
anything he could withstand. He was shot up into the air and dozens
of yards away. He narrowly avoided the edge of a cliff, through no
control of his own. He landed to the ground with a thud, barely
able to keep conscious as the searing pain coursed through every
battered bone in his body.

“Pitiful humans,” the blood demon squawked,
“…So damn squishy. At least these vampires put up a fight… well,
sort of.”