Voran, The Night Guardian
By
Donald L Wigboldy, Jr
Copyright 2011
Cover art by Jeanette Foshee
https://www.facebook.com/BattleMageATaleOfAlus
Other books by Donald L. Wigboldy Jr.
From the Tales of Alus series:
Battle Mage: A Tale of Alus
Battle Mage: Winter’s Edge
Battle Mage: The Lost King
Battle Mage: Dragon Mage
The High King: A Tale of Alus
The Emperor’s Shadow War
Modern Tales:
The Mermaid’s Chest
Voran the Night Guardian
Chapter 1- Guardian
The city, never fully asleep, always imbued with its own sound, quiets momentarily and only the sound of the wind whistling through metal and brick ways stands out. A sliver of the moon gives light in places, but doesn’t penetrate the alleys where monsters prey on the innocent. Stories of wild dogs and coyotes made the news, but it was often a different predator that would not come into the light that was most dangerous.
A woman’s voice cries out weakly.
A green bulb changes and the sounds of nearby cars drown out another sound, the sound of flesh tearing and blood dripping to the ground where it escapes the mouth of the predator.
The woman’s voice continues to call for help, but her strength is fading and her sounds seem to go unheard. The creature continues to draw out her blood, feasting. It has done this before, though he is still young and new to the feeding to sate his hunger. The predator that was once a man is now merely a vessel of desire for the only food that will stop his hunger, if only for awhile. The woman’s head lolls to the side, her energy spent as her life begins to fade.
The scuff from the roof top above draws the predator’s attention, though human ears could not have heard the faint sounds from nearly thirty feet away. The creature no longer needs to hunt, but he will not leave a witness to his deed. Still dripping blood from his chin, the creature leaps high upon the near wall and bounds from it across the alley to the far wall. A third leap brings it to the lip of the building and the creature searches for the source of the sound.
Night vision picking out heat sources, the creature quickly finds the man. The voyeur is calm. The murder and the monster which created it bring no fear or seemingly any emotion from the man. The creature should have wondered at such a thing, but its bloodlust clouded judgment. The man must die, it thinks and no other option presents itself.
Leaping forward to attack, the predator’s claws search for the man’s throat. It will rip the life from his body, or so it thinks, but as its claws slice the air before its target, the man moves with amazing speed side stepping the killing blow.
The predator feels pain from the side of its chest.
Glancing down, the creature sees blood dripping and bands of flesh and cloth swaying as it turns to face the man. Confusion etches it features. The mouth opens revealing extended incisors. The eyes are all white save its irises. Ears, nearly pointed, are oversized and acute of hearing. It hears the man’s heartbeat thrumming steadily.
It looks at the man more closely. Reason begins to override bloodlust and the creature notes four ivory claws dripping with his blood. Virtually gleaming white even in the wane moonlight, the claws extend unnaturally from the man’s right hand. There is a glint of steel from the man’s side. A sword rests upon his hip where the moon catches the metal hilt revealing the blade still sheathed.
Arrogance in the predator’s strengths, well beyond human now, convince it to attack again. It is a mistake. The clawed hand swipes across its chest tearing through bone and flesh alike. A back swing, as the predator stumbles back in shock, removes the head at the neck.
The heart is bared. It thumps, even as the body falls to its knees. The man calmly stabs the claws through a black diseased looking heart. Pierced, the heart stops and begins to burn. As the man steps back withdrawing his claws, the torso catches flame and soon the whole body is afire.
Knowing the creature is dead, the man steps to the edge of the building above the site of the kill. With a vampire’s corpse behind him, the man knows that the story may not be over. He jumps over the edge, but instead of injuring himself thirty feet below; the man seems to slow his fall. At half the speed he should be falling, the man touches down without harm.
He checks the woman and finds a ragged pulse. Taking a dagger from another sheath, the man cuts his hand and places it over the wound in the woman’s neck. His blood enters her wound. With a cry of pain, the woman wrenches her body from the pavement with a quick jolt. The wound seems to burn, though not the way of the vampire. The torn skin cauterizes and heals as if there has been no attack.
Falling back towards the alleyway floor, the woman fades back towards unconsciousness. The man catches the woman as she collapses backward. Checking her pulse again, he finds her heart strengthening. Apparently out of danger, the man pulls out his cell phone.
“Marek,” he states, “there’s a little clean up for you.”
It is not long before they come. The man, with his claws now hidden, waits for them on the roof. The vampire’s head sits on a furnace cap near the body’s remains. Burned near to ash, there is little left of the body and even much of its clothes are reduced to char. The man had found a wallet mostly intact. As the quartet leaps onto the building from the darkness, the man’s wallet is thrown to the leader.
“Recognize him?” the first man asks before the others can barely slow themselves in front of the ash.
“Leonard Newton? No, I can’t say that I do,” the man’s English holds the trace of something eastern European, but it is only slight. Years of practice have removed much of it since the two had met so long ago.
The monster slayer points to the head. “Someone in your clan may recognize him. He seems only recently changed, maybe someone didn’t finish a kill? You know your people can call me so we can avoid this sort of thing, Marek?”
“Of course they do, Nicholas,” he pauses, “if that is the name you still go by today.”
The man addressed as Nicholas smiles a half hearted glance in recognition of the attempted joke. “It is for now, yes.” Quickly returning to the matter at hand, he adds, “Do you think we have someone new moving into the territory? Maybe he’s just some loaner wandering in off the train or something?”
Marek shakes his head as he offers the wallet as evidence. “Chicago. He lives less than half a mile from here. If there’s someone new converting people, my crew hasn’t brought them to my attention.”
Nodding in answer, Nicholas responds, “Alert them to keep watch. We can’t afford to have someone creating feral spawn and leaving them to cause a mess we can’t hide. We’ve worked too long to keep your people out of the media to have some careless vampire exposing us now.”
The others nod.
A moment’s thought brings a new question from the vampire slayer. “How is your stores of the blood holding up?”
“The clan should be fine with what we have for a month.”
“Good. I part with it to avoid this sort of thing.
“Did you bring a car or just fly over? There’s a woman down below that can be brought to a hospital.”
Marek nods. “Of course, we did. You said there was clean up. Jake parked a street north just in case. We can get her and the remains removed. I assume that you treated her in time?”
Sniffing in mock arrogance, Nick replies, “Don’t I always?”
A slight chuckle from the group precedes Marek’s friendly retort, “Well, you ar
e getting older, voran. If you were just a human, you would be dust, so it’s understandable that you might start to forget things.”
“Humph, you better hope that I don’t get so old that I forget we’re friends, you silly old bat. I still remember the day I decided to spare the scrawny yearling hiding from its sire. As long as I am around, we can maintain the peace. If I were getting too old, we’d have to find someone else willing to prolong it.”
Marek sighs, “You are entirely too serious, my friend. We know your mentor still lives and she’s centuries older than you. Must you always head for the doom and gloom when we talk?
“Come, Nicholas, the night is still young and beautiful. Smile and join us later for a run across the rooftops. We can even keep an eye out for more trouble, peace keeper. That way you can even feel that you’re making a serious attempt at remaining serious,” the man finishes with a chuckle.
“Running with this lot will make me old before my time. You and your clan can play without me this time. Just make sure the woman gets to a hospital and make sure her memory is properly adjusted. There’s no sense sending the poor woman to an asylum on top of this.”
The quartet laughs. “You’re almost showing a sense of humor, my friend, but we will accept your refusal this time. Soon we must get you out here with us. It’s fun. You might actually like fun.”
Again the others laugh, but Nick is already cinching his long jacket tighter with his belt. It is getting colder even as winter was supposed to be relinquishing its hold. Some years Chicago just refused to let spring come and then it would skip to the heat of summer.
With a last parting farewell, the man, known as a voran, moves off into the darkness.
Chapter 2-Dream Girl
The dream came, so vivid that perhaps it should be called a vision, though Nick had never thought of himself as some sort of prophet. First, he saw the wolf pack running wild. Trees and brush were around as they moved as one. A deer sprang away in surprise, but it was ignored.
Then he spied a dark haired girl. Big eyes of dark brown peered at him beneath wavy, dark brown hair. High cheeks bones and perky nose were all lightly bronzed and still the dark eyes remained riveting. Her body was long and lithe and obscured as if by smoke. Whether she was clothed or simply clothed in smoke, he could not tell and he knew that it didn’t matter.
He feared the pack would attack the girl, but they didn’t and she actually seemed to join them for their run. She turned back to look at him as if inviting him to run with her. Her hand waved and it was then he noticed that they trailed silver. A voran? He vaguely wondered even as the dream tossed him away leaving him longing to try and return to learn more, but it was over.
Standing alone in his apartment, the man stood contemplating his phone. Through the window, he could see the sun was well up in the morning sky. Sleeping was rare enough for the voran, dreams such as the one the night before were even more rare. Again he considered the phone and the call Nick felt he must make.
“Vivian?” Nick spoke into his cell phone. He had not used this number in years despite programming it into three phones before and never had the man become desperate enough to use it.
The phone was quiet a moment before a woman’s voice answered. “Nicholas? It’s been… a long time.”
Never one to waste time, Nick moved straight to the point. “I think I’ve had a vision. There may be a new voran nearby.”
“Just business then? I was sort of hoping you called me because you missed me, Nicholas. Let me guess. You decided to call me to see how I had found you all that time ago.
“I don’t know if I want you finding some new friend. I hate competition and I hear from you so rarely already, Nicholas.”
Rolling his eyes, Nick chose his words carefully and knew they would still not be what Vivian wanted to hear. “You know I have responsibilities here.”
“How hard was it to call me on that phone?” she asked cutting him off, but the woman didn’t sound angry, just a bit sad.
“Harder than you might think,” he admitted.
“At least you cared enough to keep the number, dear Nicholas. I guess that is something.”
“Did you get a vision of me before you found me, Vivian?” he asked cutting through her typical emotional guilt chat. The woman had been using that tactic for more than a hundred years. She was good at it, but he was used to it despite the time away from Vivian.
“Yes, that’s usually how we find one another. Mates especially need a way of finding one another in this big world filled with humans. We voran are too rare to leave it to chance I guess.
“Too bad you weren’t my destined mate, Nicholas,” she added wistfully. “Perhaps this new voran will love you back.”
“Don’t be that way, Vivian,” Nick replied suppressing the need to sigh. His former mentor was all too skilled at guilt trips. It had been why he had stayed with her as many years as he had. That and she was beautiful and charming. She was also a bit of a recluse and Nick had needed to get back into the world when he had left her. “You know I will always love you. It just wasn’t our time and I was needed in the world.”
“The world? My aren’t you the important man. So much time for the world and none for your old friend, Vivian?”
Refusing to step deeper into the sticky morass, Nick stopped engaging in her intended delay tactics and got back to topic. “I saw a wolf pack in a forest that came across her. The girl seemed unafraid and joined them for a run. What do you make of that?”
A sigh.
“Well, you hang out with Marek and his clan, perhaps this girl runs with wolves? I am no dream analyst, but that would be my thoughts.”
“What did you see when you came for me?”
“Came for you? I simply met you when fate brought us together,” she started trying to sound innocent. After a pause while he waited, Vivian added, “I saw you, and then I saw the boat you and that vampire came over on with its name across the prow.
“Like I said, you came to me.”
“Thanks, Vivian.”
“Perhaps you can come and have dinner with me to show your appreciation, Nicholas,” the woman’s voice offered wistfully. “It really has been too long, even for creatures like us.”
“Soon, Vivian. You now have this number on your caller ID. It’s ok to use it, if there’s an emergency.”
“What if I find myself especially lonely for my old friend?”
“Some might consider that an emergency,” he smiled though she could not see it. “Talk to you soon, Vivian.”
The sound of the news broadcasting from the television, while Nick searched through the refrigerator for a midday meal, tried to alleviate the silence that otherwise beset the apartment. He listened for word of the woman’s attack or potentially similar assaults that he didn’t know about. The problem with one stray vampire was that they could so quickly multiply. Without proper mentoring, the young vampires could quickly get out of control. They were careless and would leave victims near death and infected with the virus, which would in turn create more of their kind unless treated with voran blood.
The news played on and the woman’s attack never came to light. Marek and his crew must have managed to keep the woman’s plight down played enough to avoid being news worthy. No word of the woman or her attacker was made mention.
No word of a girl running with wolves either, he thought off handedly.
That was another matter of thought, however. How would he figure out how to find her? Nick determined that such a strong vision must require some sort of investigation. The questions left from such a dream left him wondering how he could possibly find her.
There were woods and wolves. How to narrow down a search like that? There were dozens of forest preserve areas nearby and beyond the city and suburbs there would be more. How close would they be to the city? Lastly, did he have to go to her or was she coming to him like Vivian said of their meeting?
Nick was inclined to believe that it was he who w
ould have to go to the girl. The city was an unlikely place to find a pack of wolves, at least without them becoming quite obvious to authorities and that would make the news. Of that, Nick could be sure.
The sound of a key fumbling in the lock brought the man’s eyes to the door. Opening with a slight creak, the door soon revealed a young woman. Her eyes noticed him watching her entry with a start that quickly turned into a smile. “Hi, Nicky!” the girl greeted happily.
“Good morning, Geni. I see you’re in a good mood,” Nick greeted his maid. Geni, short for Genevieve Spencer, a college girl from a family that had money enough to send her to a top school, but didn’t want to spoil her with a large monthly allowance. She had responded to his ad in the fall and quickly the girl had gotten more familiar with his name. No longer Mr. Steel or Nick, he had somehow become ‘Nicky’.
“Of course, why not, right? It’s a sunny winter day in Chicago. My boss is cool. My job is good. What’s not to like?”
Nick chuckled. “Is this your way of buttering me up for a raise?”
The girl’s step halted and she feigned hurt. “Why, Mr. Steel, I would never do such a thing!” Her eyes turned mischievous as she added, “Though if it is working and you’d like to give me a raise, I wouldn’t want to stop you.”
Releasing a brief laugh, the man replied, “We’ll see how well it’s working after you’ve cleaned the place again.”
Geni let out a fake groan even as she couldn’t stop a smile from taking her lips. The girl grabbed her cleaning supplies from the closet where they were kept. She noted the dishes and pans from his latest attempt at breakfast. Clothes strewn on the floor and couch after his night out added to a new sigh that was real. “Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about job security with you around. Have a nice night out, Nick?”
He grunted non-commitally. “It was eventful.”
Nodding, she replied, “Ah. So are we looking for you to show up on the news then?” The girl laughed, even as Nick glanced to her in surprise. “Just kidding. I doubt a guy like you would ever make it on the news.”
Vorans and Vampires (Book 1): Voran the Night Guardian Page 1