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  THE LAST HUNT

  A Vampire Sorceress Prequel Novella

  T.L. Cerepaka

  Published by Annulus Publishing.

  Copyright © T.L. Cerepaka 2017. All rights reserved.

  Contact: [email protected]

  Cover design by BZN Studio

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, send an email to the above contact.

  ***

  CHAPTER ONE

  I sat in the front pew of South Side First Baptist Church, watching my twenty-four-year-old daughter, Tara Lee, walk up the steps to the altar. She carried a microphone in her right hand and looked a little nervous, especially when she turned around to face the congregation, but I flashed a reassuring smile to her. She noticed it, because she flashed a grateful smile back and seemed to relax a little. Tara had been singing in the church ever since she was old enough to speak, but she still suffered from stage fright, especially whenever she was doing a new song like she was about to do this morning.

  Sometimes I thought her stage fright was a bit silly, given how everyone in our congregation—ranging from ninety-year-old James McCoy to six-year-old Reynold Jake—loved her and always loved hearing her sing. I always told Tara that she should focus on singing to God, not to whoever happened to be listening, though that was easier said than done, given how you could see the people but you couldn’t always see God.

  As the pianist shuffled through the pages of her hymnal to find the song that Tara would sing to, I could not help but be reminded of my vampire hunting days when I was young. Seeing Tara—all grown up and happy, if a bit shy and timid at times—was all the confirmation I needed that I had made the right choice to retire from vampire hunting years ago in order to raise her. It had been a difficult choice to make at the time, and sometimes I still missed it, but any time I doubted the wisdom of that decision, I always looked at Tara. I just wished that my wife and her mother, Jane, was still alive to see Tara today. She would have been just as proud as me, I was sure.

  But just because my vampire hunting days were long behind me did not mean I had given up my old ways entirely. I nonchalantly felt the gun with the silver bullet concealed under my shirt suit, where I could easily draw it if I needed to. I wasn’t the only member of the congregation to carry to church, but I was fairly certain I was the only one whose gun had silver bullets capable of killing a vampire in one hit.

  Killing a vampire in one hit … that sent my mind back to a day twenty-four years ago, when Tara wasn’t even six months yet and when I was still a young man in my prime, facing the last—and most dangerous—vampire I would ever fight in a battle that determined not just my own life, but the fate of the world itself …

  ***

  CHAPTER TWO

  Panting and sweating, I held my silver sword, Domination, at my side, staring at the beheaded vampire which lay on the ground before me. Like all vampires, it stank of death and decay, and not just because I had cut off its head, either. Its head lay a little off to the side, leaking the strange black blood that all vampires had, its face frozen in an expression of blood lust and confusion. Clearly, this particular vampire had not known who it was attacking when it jumped me when I entered this mansion a few minutes ago. If it had known who I was—Richard Lee, son of the Supreme Sorcerer, better known to vamps as the Hunter—it would have run away in terror.

  Frankly, however, I didn’t feel as badass as the title ‘Hunter’ would imply. I glanced at my shoulder, which had a bad gash from where the vampire’s claws had gotten in a lucky hit, and cringed. It was bloody and open, and if I didn’t close it soon, it would attract more of its friends. Vampires could smell fresh blood from a mile away, sometimes even farther away in the case of particularly strong vampires. While I wasn’t afraid of fighting multiple vamps at once, it was never wise to fight with an open wound.

  I raised my hand and passed it over the wound. As my hand passed over the wound, it slowly closed up, until soon my shoulder looked good as new. I wiped the blood away with a cloth, which I then tossed away, because the last thing I needed was something with my blood on it on my body. Vampires relied more on their scent of smell than humans did. If you had even just a little blood on you, they would smell it and you would never be able to sneak up on them. You couldn’t always avoid getting wounded by a vamp in battle, but there was a reason why most vampire hunters usually wore some kind of armor to protect themselves. I knew of many good hunters who got themselves killed because of paper cuts on their pinky finger. I would not let myself die in that same way.

  Of course, vampires were very good at sneaking up on people. Most vampires were cowards. Instead of fighting head on, they choose to sneak around in the shadows and strike only at the right moment, either to kill or convert their target.

  But most vampires couldn’t sneak up on me, like this one tried to do. My blood sense—a unique ability to sense the presence of nearby vampires even among sorcerers—meant I could sense vampires sneaking up on me from any direction, as this poor sap found out to his dismay.

  And right now, my blood sense was telling me that I was about to walk into a veritable nest of blood-thirsty vampires who would like nothing more than to suck my body dry of every last drop of blood. And I was going to kill every last one of these bastards before they could reproduce.

  I paused and looked at my surroundings. I stood in the entryway of an old, abandoned mansion on the outskirts of the small town of Paths in east Texas. This particular mansion dated back to the 1880s, according to some of the townsfolk I had spoken to when I arrived, but had only gained a reputation as haunted in the last sixty years or so, when the first young children started disappearing around it. Most of the older residents of Paths believed that the Devil or at least some of his demons lived in this place, dragging curious visitors into the bowels of hell itself as soon as they crossed the threshold. It didn’t help that the mansion was located next to a graveyard, which itself was called the Gateway to Hell by the people of Paths due to the rumors that it was also haunted, though whether by demons or by the tortured souls of the people buried there, no one could seem to agree.

  There was no doubt in my mind that the Devil and demons existed. Partly, that was because I was a Christian, which meant I had to believe in that stuff, but also because in my vampire hunting career, I’d seen more than a few things that hinted at the Devil’s existence. A few vampires I’d slain had even referred to themselves as servants of Satan, though funnily enough, that never stopped me from beheading them.

  But this time, I was sure that the people of Paths were wrong. This mansion was haunted, but not by demons, but by vampires. I guess there really wasn’t much of a difference between the two when you really drilled down to it, but either way, I was pretty sure that I hadn’t stepped into hell itself when I opened the door and entered the mansion a few minutes ago. I was still very much alive and on Earth. Good news for me, bad news for the vampires I had come to kill.

  Kneeling over the beheaded vampire, I checked its neck and saw two distinctive teeth marks, which looked a bit more like knife cuts than teeth marks. That the bite marks were still visible told me that this particular vampire must have been converted very recently, perhaps as recently as a day ago. That would explain the clumsy way in which it attacked me. It still wasn’t used to its new vampire form or powers. I found it odd that a Newborn vampire would be set to guard the front door, but that told me that the Vampire Lord I sough
t was either confident that the only intruders who might try to enter the mansion were the superstitious town residents who didn’t even know vampires existed or was so desperate for men that he was willing to conscript even Newborns in a desperate bid to ensure that his plans went off without a hitch.

  Of course, I was neither of those. I was the Hunter, and tonight, I was going to do what I did best: Kill vampires.

  Rising to my feet, I made my way down the hallway carefully and silently. My blood sense had not stopped going off ever since I came within a mile of this mansion. Right now, it was more of a general warning that there were a lot of vampires in this place rather than focusing on any individual vamps. While my blood sense was incredibly useful for hunting vampires, if I found myself in a particularly thick vampire area, it would never stop going off until they were all dead or I left the area. I could still focus it on individual vamps if I wanted, but for now, I would just have to trust that it would let me know if another vampire was going to get the drop on me like the Newborn I just killed.

  I remained highly aware of my surroundings. Every open doorway could hold a vampire waiting in the shadows, looking to strike me down as soon as I passed their hiding place. My blood sense may have warned me whenever a vampire was nearby, but it was up to my own reflexes and fighting skills to save myself and kill the vamps. I had known another vampire hunter with blood sense even stronger than mine, but who got too careless and was killed because he didn’t bother to train his fighting skills. There was no way I would let myself end up that way, especially because I had a one month old daughter who would need her daddy to protect her as she grew up.

  I paused at the foot of a set of rickety stairs leading up to the second floor. My blood sense was telling me that there were vampires everywhere, which didn’t help me decide if I should go up the stairs or stay on the first floor. I focused my blood sense, trying to hone in on the presence of the Vampire Lord I sought.

  Bingo. My blood sense told me that the Vampire Lord—Lady Hisaria, who had been on my radar for a long time—was in the mansion’s basement. That didn’t surprise me. Vamps loved dark places. In particular, they loved caves and underground places. More than once, I’d had to head into a basement or cavern to kill a vampire. It made it easier to corner them, but at the same time, it also made them more likely to fight back, because they had nowhere to run.

  I turned to head down the steps to the basement, but then I heard floorboards creaking behind me. I looked over my shoulder, but did not see anyone behind me. Perhaps I’d just heard nothing. Even without vampires or demons, old, abandoned mansions like this had a tendency to make strange, creepy noises that would make the hair stand on your arms anyway.

  So I turned my head back just in time to find myself standing face to face with a vampire.

  Without thinking, I raised my sword, but the vampire was faster. He grabbed my wrist and twisted it, making me drop my sword as I cried out in pain. Then he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall, causing a nearby picture to fall off its nail onto the floor with a dull thud.

  I paid little attention to that, however, because my eyes were focused on the vampire before me. In particular, I was looking into its red eyes, which were focused on mine with such powerful intensity that I was almost literally paralyzed. I could barely breathe.

  “Tell me, sorcerer,” said the vampire in a low voice, “tell me why I shouldn’t kill you. And tell me quickly, because my time is important and I would rather not waste it killing arrogant sorcerers like yourself when I have more important things to do.”

  ***

  CHAPTER THREE

  Instead of answering his question, I channeled my magic through my left hand, which exploded into a brilliant burst of white light all of sudden. The light didn’t cause any real damage, but it did make the vampire close his eyes in an attempt to protect his vision. I slammed my fist into the side of his face and he let go of my throat, staggering backwards across the floor as he covered his eyes with his hands to protect his vision.

  I bent over, grabbed my sword off the floor, and then slashed at the vampire. But he melted into the shadows, causing my sword to slash empty air harmlessly.

  Pulling my sword back close to my body, I rotated on the spot, searching for the vampire. My blood sense was firing on all four cylinders, but for some reason, I couldn’t sense him at all. That alarmed me far more than the fact that he had nearly choked me to death. My blood sense could sense all kinds of vampires, from the weakest Newborns to the strongest Vampire Lords, just as long as they were within my general vicinity. It was possible that this particular vampire may have fled via the shadows, but he didn’t strike me as the kind who would run away, not even from a vampire hunter as strong as me. Either he was using some kind of magical talisman to mask his presence or he was a half-vampire. I hoped he wasn’t the latter, because if he was, this battle was going to be a lot harder than I hoped.

  A hissing sound above made me look up. The vampire was clinging to the ceiling, but as soon as I looked up, he dropped toward me. He fell fast, landing on top of me with enough weight to knock me to the ground and knock the air out of my lungs. He immediately grabbed my neck with both hands, but before he could squeeze, I put the tip of Domination against his neck and he froze, as vampires always did at the touch of silver. I would have jammed it into his throat, but he took me by surprise and I was trying to get my breath back rather than kill him.

  “Just try and choke me to death, you disgusting bloodsucker,” I said in a low, dangerous voice. “Vampires don’t handle having their throats slit any better than humans do, especially when their throat is slit with silver. I’m not afraid to meet my maker. Are you?”

  The vampire was very still. He didn’t breathe, but then, vampires didn’t need to. That was one of the tricky things about them. If you buried a vampire alive, it might inconvenience them for a few days or weeks, but sooner or later they’d dig themselves out and come after you. That’s why I always beheaded my targets. That was about the only way to ensure a vampire would die and never come back.

  “It would appear we are at a stalemate,” said the vampire. There was no fear in his voice, but vampires were very good at hiding their emotions. “I thought you were just another vampire hunter with dreams of getting glory by killing a Vampire Lord, but I see you’re much more competent than most of the vampire hunters I’ve known.”

  “Yes, I am,” I said. I knew that was bragging, but I also knew that vampires only respected blatant displays of strength, which was why I bragged a lot around them. “I’m Richard Lee, but perhaps you might know me better as the Hunter. I’ve killed a lot of your brothers.”

  The vampire’s eyes widened in surprise. “You mean you are the Hunter? Interesting. I’ve heard many rumors about you, but have never actually seen you myself, either in person or in pictures. Many Vampire Lords consider you a thorn in their side.”

  “I try to be,” I said. “So now that you know who I am, are you going to kill me? I’m sure you’ll get a lot of praise from your fellow vamps if you do that. Maybe you’ll even get your own followers and become a Vampire Lord. I understand that a lot of small fry like yourself want to join the big leagues.”

  Without warning, the vampire let go of my throat and rolled off me. I immediately jumped to my feet and looked in his direction, but he had already retreated to the top of the stairs, well outside of my reach. I could shoot a spell at him, but he’d probably dodge it, so I settled for holding my sword before me and my glowing hand high.

  “You should have told me who you are earlier, Richard,” said the vampire, leaning against the staircase’s banister on one elbow. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have attacked you.”

  “Why?” I said. “Are you afraid of me? You had me there for a moment. You could have killed me and gone down in vampire legend as the slayer of the Hunter. You could have become a Vampire Lord.”

  The vampire shrugged. “I don’t want to become a Vampire Lor
d. Nor do I care that you’ve killed a lot of my brothers. Truthfully, I don’t even hate sorcerers. I only attacked you because I thought you might get in the way of my plans, but it’s obvious to me now that you and I could be potential allies instead of enemies.”

  “Allies?” I repeated. I spat on the floor. “I don’t ally with vampires. Ever. And what’s up with not wanting to become a Vampire Lord and not caring that I’ve killed your fellow vamps? Do you have a death wish or something?”

  “Hard to have a death wish when I can’t die save by beheading,” said the vampire. “But there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m simply a Pure. Have you heard of us?”

  I gritted my teeth. I knew what a Pure was. They were vampires who supposedly had their blood lust under control, drinking blood only from animals rather than humans, and wanted to live in peace with humans and sorcerers rather than try to kill us. There weren’t very many of them, however, because most vamps liked drinking human blood and didn’t care about living in peace with us.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of your kind,” I said. “I don’t think you’re any better than your bloodsucking brothers, though.”

  “Oh? And why is that?” asked the vampire.

  “I’ve known vampires who have identified as Pure before,” I said. “One, in particular, tried to infiltrate the sorcerer community, pretending to want to help us, only for us to discover that he just wanted to get close enough to us to have a fresh supply of humans on hand to feast on. I killed the bastard myself.”

  “I take it you don’t believe vampires can be Pure, then.”

  “I don’t believe they can’t be Pure. I know they can’t be. From experience.”

  The vampire shrugged. “The path of the Pure doesn’t require belief from others. It is an internal journey, one for a vampire’s own moral and spiritual development rather than for getting praise from humans. Similar to the religious and spiritual practices you humans have.”