Clarissa laughed and spun in a circle on the roof. She looked up at the night sky and licked the blood from around her lips. Spread out beneath her, the city of Drisdak seemed asleep in darkness.
Four men! she thought. And I didn’t even have a sword!
She sat down and drew a long breath. She had always been a warrior, so killing was nothing new. In fact, she was extremely skilled with a sword in combat. As a woman, she often met dubious looks from the men she encountered on the field of battle. Many a man considered a woman too weak to be a warrior, and human men had often come at her half-heartedly and often with a smile. That changed as soon as the battle began in earnest, however. She possessed a deadly grace, a remarkable agility, and an unflagging constitution which had worn many a man to the ground. However, she had once seen a man cleave another nearly in twain with but a single blow. It had been an impressive feat and it was one she longed to replicate herself. Unfortunately, nature had chosen otherwise. Although strong for her sex, she was not that strong. She doubted if any woman could be. She made up for the lesser strength in her own way, of course, but she still felt cheated by life for that one goal beyond her grasp. Born in a woman’s body with far too little muscle to strike such a devastating blow, a part of her had always felt incomplete, lacking the ultimate gift of strength to realize her complete potential.
Until now.
She had snapped the large man’s neck with casual ease. He had wanted to play rough, slamming her against the alley wall while his three friends looked on and laughed. Angered, she had decided almost instantly that she was going to kill them right then, right there. The first two fell before the others even stopped laughing. The third drew his sword ... and died. The last turned to flee, but she ran him down before he’d taken his fourth step. That last one she drained. She sank her teeth deep into his throat, punctured a major bloodline, and drank her fill of the much desired blood. Sated now, her all-consuming bloodlust eased at last, she suddenly felt ... different.
She lay on her back and looked up at the sky, chuckling. For the first time since her transformation, she felt happy. She was ... refreshed, renewed, even validated. Her potential as a warrior had been expanded beyond her wildest dreams. And for once, Lucian had suggested something that suited her—to hunt the wicked. She had been quite tormented before, caught between her warrior’s code of honor and a vampire’s lust to drink human blood. She had thought she would surely go mad from the conflict until Lucian had given her a way out. Dark men deserve to die, she thought, smiling. I have a purpose now. I can hunt and feed and rid the world of evil. A noble quest, it struck the chord that harmonized her opposing halves. She was a vampire, there was no turning back from that. But the secret of survival was adaptation. She could change herself to fit the mold and in so doing change the mold to accept her ways.
She regained her feet and looked out across the darkened city. Only a few scattered lights shone from inns that were late in closing. An odd fit of noble grandiloquence seized her and she cried out, “Hear me now, oh Drisdak, City of the Sea of Sorrows. I have come to you as a servant, a humble tool for your noble hands. No longer will you walk in darkness and fear the minions of the night. For behold, I am here and I shall be your shield.”
She laughed as a light came on below. Someone had been awakened by her voice. No matter, she thought, then changed shaped and fled across the sky.
Drasmyr (Prequel: From the Ashes of Ruin) Page 22