A Moonlit Night - The Complete Saga (22 page)

The crowd before the vampire queen was
energetic and unruly, one needed to be tempered with a sharp wit
and slick words. Some cheered and others made jovial remarks, but
all stood at attention for their dark princess, the one from which
will deliver them into the eternal night.

“Boo! The summoner must burn!”

“Humans, the stronger their resolve, the
tastier they’ll be!”

“And so, the summoners died for their
transgressions against their children,” continued Lady Amata to the
sound of cheering, “And yet, not all of them are dead… no… one of
them survived… and she now threatens all that we’ve worked an
eternity for! She thinks of us as nothing but a plague on the
earth, and she’ll stop at no end to see us wiped from this
earth!”

“The stupid bitch, we should cut her tongue
out!”

“And make her watch while we eat her
eyes!”

“You bloody fool, how would that work—?”

“Enough!” shouted Lady Amata as she signaled
for her horde to cease their trivial discussions, “We’ve all tried
to defeat her on our own—.”

“We trolls haven’t made attempt yet!”
bellowed the largest of the troll pack, “Give us ten minutes alone
with ‘er, we’ll have ‘er screaming in no time!”

“Don’t test my patience, O’larg,” Lady Amata
fired back, “The summoner still lives, save for your failed excuse
of an attack that never happened. We must come together, my
brethren, or risk losing everything we’ve worked so damn hard for.
I’ve lived for three hundred years, that’s three hundred years of
fighting and clawing my way to the top. I don’t know about any of
you, but I haven’t come this far… just to see that damned
bitch
take it all away from us!”

“Set fire to the summoner… and serve up the
traitor on a pike!”

“Let’s eat her eyeballs… who the hell cares
if she can’t see it?”

“The choice is simple, if you ask me,” Lady
Amata continued, “It’s the choice you made when you walked into
this camp. The summoner’s reign over us must end… by the most
gruesome means available! I want rip out her throat… I want to
gouge out her eyeballs… and I want her to feed her entrails to my
bloodhounds! Take up arms, my brothers and sisters! Tonight, we
drink and pay sacrifice to the dark gods below... and tomorrow…
well, tomorrow we become those very gods!”

The hordes broke out into ovation for their
vampire queen, drinking and singing their native battle hymns to
one another and celebrating for their coming triumph. Amata stayed
for awhile and shared a drink with her new subordinates. She
listened to their stories and pretended to give a damn, but the
truth was that they were all pawns. If they didn’t fall upon
Xander’s blade, surely there would be another waiting in line to
finish what he couldn’t.

She retired some time later to her tent to
find a bewildered wood nymph cavorting around with one if her men.
She wanted to tear them apart, the very thought sickening her right
down to her rotted stomach, but doing so would show a weakness in
the unity she just proclaimed. No, this vampire had likely gotten
himself into more than he could chew, and his problems were now his
own.

“Come on, baby,” the vampire crooned, “You’ve
been giving me the
look
since the queen’s speech. I’m not
asking for much… just a quick little taste.”

They were a rough pair, likely both from the
northern clans. He was a biker, no doubt about it to the vampire
queen, with the clichéd denim jacket and tight leather pants. Even
the long and spindly rattail down the back of his next screamed
inbreeding, a trait not looked kindly upon in any culture, no
matter how tortured and depraved.

It was the dryad that interested Amata,
albeit a minor curiosity. She was radiating pure sex, her
pheromones flaring up until its prey was unable to defend itself
from any rational thought. Try as she might, there wasn’t a chance
of the vampire breaking off his advances. The real question, at
least to the vampire queen, was why she would be resisting at all
in the first place.

“Not today, tiger,” the dryad said as she
pushed back on him gently, “There’s nothing here for you.”

“Yeah?” the vampire asked with a fanged grin,
“And why’s that—?”

“Because her boyfriend’s right behind you,
you undead piece of shit,” a snarling figure barked as it
approached from the shadows, “You’ve got balls, vamp… I’ll give you
that.”

“What the fuck?” the vampire asked as he
turned around abruptly, “You’re giving
me
shit, pup? I’ve
been slaying your kind since your daddy’s daddy was sucking on his
mother’s tit.”

“Watch your mouth,” the werewolf growled,
still in human form but just as deadly. He was frothing at the
mouth, just waiting for the vampire to give him one more reason to
upset the balance of the gathering and tear his throat out for such
offensive words.

“Our what?” the vampire asked, still filled
with the euphoric high instilled by the beast’s girlfriend and
looking for a fight, “You know… you look familiar to me… yeah, you
know what? You
do
look familiar. Maybe I had to put down
your daddy… or your daddy’s daddy—.”

The werewolf leapt forward with unbridled
rage as he struck the vampire down with a clobbering backhand to
the chin. The vamp wasn’t going to allow something like that to go
unanswered and he sprang into action. Within mere seconds, these
two men had threatened to disrupt the peace Amata had carefully
constructed. No longer could she stand by and watch, she must
act... and punish accordingly.

“Stand down!” Lady Amata commanded as she
approached the two dissenters, “Both of you are acting like
children… filthy, petty, and short-fucking-sighted! Do you not
realize what your silly little fight would’ve started? If anyone
else would’ve caught the two of you brawling… we would’ve had a
goddamn race war on our hands.”

“Apologies, my vampire queen,” the vampire
said.

“Yes, Lady Amata,” the werewolf added, “We
didn’t think—.”

“You’re damn right, you didn’t think for a
fucking
second,” Lady Amata roared, “Get on your knees… both
of you.”

They looked hesitantly at one another, but
both warriors conceded to their master’s command and knelt down to
the muddy ground beneath them.

“You, too,” Lady Amata said to the confounded
wood nymph trying to slink back into the shadows, “Take your place
among the others. After all, my dear dryad… this whole thing was of
your construct.”

“Y-yes, my lady,” the dryad choked back, “It
shall be done… as your will commands.”

“My brethren… heed my command and come to me
at once!” Lady Amata shrieked out to the entirety of her legion.
Like the loyal servants the hordes were, they came to their dark
princess, and they came in massive numbers. Within minutes of her
beckoning, the forest surrounding them was packed tight with
warriors of the entire paranormal ilk. “I call you all here with
dire news… very dire, indeed… it would seem we have some dissidents
within our ranks.”

The monsters erupted into madness, spewing
hate and obscenities towards the unlucky few, caught in the middle
of the pack and to be made an example for the others to follow.
Their fate was affirmed, the eager crowd’s reaction all but sealing
the deal.

“Please, mistress,” the vampire choked, “I
beg of you—!”

“Enough!” Lady Amata said with a hand raised
into the air, “I think we can all agree, you’ve already done
enough.”

“Bash their brains in!”

“Cleave them to pieces!”

O’larg,” said Lady Amata said through pressed
lips, her whisper reaching out to the far corners of the camp,
“It’s time for the bloodletting to commence.”

A slow rumble crept over the crowd, the sound
of the largest troll in existence springing forth for his queen’s
protection. He carried his trusty bloodletting stick with him, ten
feet long, weighing at least a half ton, and as the old troll would
say, “Made for wallopin’.”

The already lively crowd was ratcheted up
another couple notches as the troll loomed forward. They had all
heard the stories of troll justice… but events like these almost
never took place in the presence of outsiders. Much like the trolls
themselves, their rituals were simplistic and crude, but for a
crowd such as this, it was the perfect ceremony to pay the gods
their due sacrifice.

The troll didn’t say a single word as he
emerged from the crowd into the center clearing, where Amata stood
in front of three kneeled dissenters.

“I thought I made it clear during the
festivities early,” Lady Amata began as O’larg took up position
behind the detainees, “We either stand together… or we die alone.
These three chose the latter, and now they’ll pay the ultimate
price—.”

“Please, my queen.”

“Don’t do this… please don’t
fucking
do this.”

“Lady Amata, you must show leniency!”

“I
must
do nothing of the sort, wood
nymph,” Lady Amata interrupted with her fist still high in the air,
“Now, O’larg. Do it now.”

When Amata’s hand came down, so too did the
war club of the mighty troll; impacted against the heads of the
vampire, werewolf and dryad, one after the other until nothing but
mangled stumps replaced what would’ve been their head. It was a
brutal and disgusting display of power, but it was
her
power— one to wield control over as she deems fit.

And she would soon show the world just the
kind of power she had at her disposal. All that stood in her way
was one trying summoner, now only a few days away from being
removed from this plane of existence. Amata had the paranormal
world wrapped around her little finger, but still it wasn’t enough
to keep her content. No, she wouldn’t stop until she had
everything
the world had to offer.

Chapter Three

While the vampire queen reigned over her
newfound army, Emily sat alone in a makeshift tent, watching over
her slumbering brother. There wasn’t a vampire or ghoul left that
wouldn’t have shred Steven at the first opportunity to do so, and
she could hardly blame them. Steven had been up a couple times
already, each time absorbing more of the story he so aggressively
denied recollection of. Still, he was weak, and whether he would
admit it or not, he needed help.

Emily loved her brother, but his return had
been nothing more than the harbinger of their demise. He
single-handedly destroyed their home, or rather, the blood hungry
demon that possessed his body did; but there wasn’t any use
explaining that to the vampires who’d just lost everything they
ever had. They never asked for any of this, yet they suffered all
the same.

His sleep was peaceful; the evil spirits that
once lingered now but a passing memory. Steven swore that he didn’t
remember anything about what happened the night before, but even if
he did, Emily knew that he’d never admit to it. He had been used,
against his will, a vessel in the diabolical designs of those he
once called friends. If it had been Emily, she’d want to forget it
all, too.

“May I have a moment?” Xander asked as he
opened a flap on his way into the tent. He trounced into the room,
boots covered in mud and stinking of shit. “It’ll just take a
minute.”

“Oh, don’t be such a Nancy,” said Emily, with
fingers raised to plug up her nose, “We’re still… we’re… we’ll
we’re something.”

“My thoughts, exactly.”

“You know what I mean,” Emily replied,
“Whatever we
are
… we’re friends. That’s not about to change,
is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well then good,” Emily said with a pompous
look upon her face, just waiting for Xander to make a joke about
her being a spoiled little summoner princess, “I wouldn’t want to
have to make you
walk the plank
.”

What a stupid line. From the moment it left
Emily’s lips, she wished she could’ve taken it back. There was
something about the way Xander spoke to her that seemed to give way
to rational thought and found a way to seep into her subconscious.
She hadn’t felt his mysterious pull in a long time, but when she
did, it was like it had never left in the first place.

“So now you’re a pirate?”

“H-huh?” Emily asked, prepared for every
response except the most obvious one.

“Princesses don’t make people walk the plank.
That’s pirates.”

“I-I… oh, shut up,” Emily replied with
exaggerated motions of death by humiliation.

Xander said nothing, only smiled softly as he
gazed into the eyes of his the woman he risked everything for. He
liked to think that his vampiric abilities allowed him to gain
foothold into the minds of others, to make them see the truths he
permitted them to see. The summoner wasn’t like the others,
however, and he feared that she may have been the one controlling
him.

They hadn’t ever really been close since
their second meeting, and they seemed to become more distance the
closer they came to their victory. Yet, he would go to the ends of
the earth for her, forsake his own kind, and see his own children
burn for the sins of a father. Too much for mere words alone, the
calm and collected Xander responded only with the solemn smile,
lest deeper concerns reveal themselves.

It was the same smile, slightly crooked and
all
too
cocking, bringing Emily back to the moment when they
first met. It was reassuring, calming, and carried with it an aura
of intrigue. For a brief moment, it was as if she’d been placed
back into that time, before her life was about to turn upside down.
She wanted him, and she wanted it badly.

Those selfish thoughts were exactly what her
mother warned of, all those months ago. She had more pressing
matters to attend to, and any thought of romance were to be flushed
right out the window with no hope of recovery.