"I need to know how come your island hasn't been discovered after all this time. There is no island called Muraii in the pacific, nor to my knowledge has there ever been one. Is it again hidden from view.
"As to why no one has seen our island, I cannot at this time comment on that"
"Yet you want me to accept your story at face value”
"Tracker" this from Major Hennings "The USOA knows about the Muraii and these creatures and have seen the proof. That is why my men and I have been assigned to assist the Muraii in any way we can. Our mission is to help track down these creatures and destroy them without alerting the population as to this threat. The scare from the plague is still strong in a lot of people and the thought of something like the Xantu could de-rail the whole country. Some of the other world governments are also aware and afraid of this threat”
I acknowledged Major Hennings statement and turned my attention back to the women.
"So to get to why we attacked you, first tell me, are you familiar with the legends of what powers vampires are supposed to have?"
"Somewhat. They are supposed to kill people by drinking their blood, cannot be killed except by a wooden stake in the heart, or sunlight, and they sleep in coffins"
"Although some of what you say is almost true, there are some untruths. I am now going to describe fully to you what abilities vampires truly do have. Please bear with me. First vampires are created by another vampire, but only by an older one around three hundred or more years old. They are not able to procreate like we do. Sunlight, or more accurately ultraviolet light is deadly to them, but only if they are exposed to it for a long period of time. A brief exposure will do no more to them then a sunburn does to humans. The older the vampire the more resistant they are to sunlight, although none of them so far has gotten fully resistant to it. They do suck the blood out of humans, or for that matter any animal. The blood of humans though is the blood of choice to them. They do not turn into bats or any other creature, and religious items is unsettling to them but does not kill them. They will leave if exposed to a religious item, instead of fighting against it. As to killing them, they can be killed by any weapon that will kill a human, but it takes a lot more damage to do so. Their heart does not beat as it does in any living animal or human, but it does contain a strong presence of the vampiric virus in the heart which uses the blood consumed by the vampire and this somehow sustains their life force. Any type of edged weapon will kill them if you can put it into their heart as the heart will bleed out the virus, thus their life force cannot be sustained and they will die. Be advised however that it will take a few hours for them to die this way, and they can still kill during this time. They can feel pain, so the more physical damage you can do to them, the greater the pain, but vampires are two to three times stronger than a human, so it will take a lot of damage to their bodies to put them down. A very old vampire can be four to five time stronger than a human. If shot by a firearm for example, twenty or more bullets delivered to the torso will kill them, especially the young ones. but again the older they are the more damage needed to kill them. If they are injured but not killed, they will feed and heal themselves at an alarming rate which is why damaging the heart is the most effective way of killing them except for beheading them. Now for the kicker. Vampires are fast. Very fast. So trying to inflict a lot of bodily damage to one is very difficult as they will not stand still long enough for you to do so. While you are trying to kill them they will move so fast, that seeing them clearly enough to shot or stab them is next to impossible. In the meantime they will kill you mostly by tearing out your throat with their claws and then feeding on you. Yes they do have claws where their fingernails are and they are about an inch long in the young ones to three inches long in the older ones. You will also have no problem identifying a vampire because the legend that they can assume a human persona and blend in is not true. They have hideous facial features, and are rail thin in appearance. Their fangs are always visible.
"Okay let's say for sake of this discussion that what you say is true. Why hasn't evidence of them or any other monsters existence been found or proven. I find it hard to believe that none hasn't yet been found"
"There is a very good reason why no proof has been found by humans. Primarily vampires or as we know them, The Vampu, are highly intelligent and instinctive survivalists. They know that knowledge of their existence by humans would result in their extermination, for humans would pull out all stops to hunt them down and kill them all. Secondly such knowledge mankind is not yet ready for, so we have also participated in keeping the knowledge of the existence of all earth's monsters a secret and no more than myths. Lastly your government leaders know the truth and agree that such knowledge must be contained, and also do what they must to keep this knowledge secret.
On that I looked at Major Hennings who nodded confirmation.
"How long has our government known?"
"Roughly around four years after the Antarctica Plague was eradicated” stated Serona
With the reduced population after the plague, we felt The Xantu might see this as an opportunity to come out of hiding and try to take control. It became readily apparent that the surviving governments must be informed of The Xantu threat, and hopefully have them join the battle to stop them. Amazingly they weren't as surprised as we thought they would be. The horrors that was released during the plague had made even monsters believable to earth's surviving governments"
"So are all of the monster's in earth's legends real?"
"No. Some are hysteria spread out of fear and mis-conceptions. Others are mis-directions we introduced to help confuse the issue. The main ones however are real"
"Okay, lets stop at this point. Let me recap the info you have revealed here. Your people are descendants of furry elves. Monsters are real created by the Atlantu who for descriptive purposes are descendants of goblins or trolls. Your people has tasked themselves with the job of destroying whats left of The Xantu. The world's governments know of them and have supplied troops to help in the hunt. So I can only surmise that I was attacked by you because of what, that you thought I was a monster of some type. Why?"
After my statement they all remained quiet, and Serona looked over to the older woman.
"Mr. Hutchins, my name is Tessia. Serona actions, although offensive to you were prudent under the circumstances. As has been explained, we have been in a constant battle to hunt down and kill The Xantu and it's monsters. The Vampu are one of the most dangerous of these monsters, and in battle are very fast. Throughout our history in battling them, we have not encountered any other creatures, monsters or human who can match the Vampu in speed. That is until today"
For a few seconds I mulled over what this woman Tessia had just said, before it hit me.
"Me, you are referring to me about being fast. I have always been fast, and I have encountered other humans almost as fast as I. Yet based on what you have told me I am nowhere near fast enough for you to think I am a vampire, not to mention I sure as hell don't look like one"
"Conrad, while we were talking, somehow you perceived that there was a threat at my back wall. A threat that my Muraiin senses did not detect. When the beast busted into my house, you drew your weapon, started shooting, while scooping me up and moving toward the window, burst through it, which is glassite and very tough to break, put me down and continued shooting the creature. All at an alarmingly fast speed. I am a Muraii Sakquain. The Muraiin are the only people capable of seeing a Vampu move at great speed. It is how we are able to fight them in battle. You were moving at a speed comparable to that of a Vampu. That alarmed me as well as the rest of the Ladies as we did not at the time know what you were. We did not know if you were some new type of creature from The Xantu sent to blend in and kill us from within. That is why you were attacked and rendered unconscious. We had to know what you were. Fortunately because of my association with your uncle I knew of Tessia and your past history, and called her here to determine if your fathe
r's dark side had manifested itself"
"Whoa, my father's dark side? What are you talking about?"
"During my time working with your uncle, I learned from him about a man your mother had met, and fell in love with. For some reason, the man disturbed your uncle, but he couldn't explain why. In any event the man treated your mother very nicely, and eventually she became pregnant with you. After that for no reason your mother or uncle could fathom, your father dissappeared without a trace. A few months after that, on one of the assignments your uncle and I was working on, your uncle was injured. I brought him home to recuperate, and met your mother. It was then that I felt the presence that greatly alarmed me. I felt the presence of someone I had never felt before. Yet I also felt the presence of The Xantu who had to be nearby. Alarmed, I summoned my Ladies and we searched the area intensely, but found nothing. Tessia here was summoned because The Xantu do not appear for no reason, and we felt that somehow your uncle and mother had been targeted, probably because of your uncle's help in tracking them down"
At this point the older woman Tessia took over.
"When I arrived, I was hit with a presence I have only heard about but never felt myself in person. That presence was your mother. You see your mother is a Umata. Every couple of thousand years or so a human is born of such clean and good spirit, that they are very special. Your mother had been somewhat aware of the work your uncle was doing, so when I explained to both of them about her nature, although somewhat surprised, they understood. What none of us knew at that time was why The Xantu had been around, and why they had not attacked or killed either of them. It was your mother to her horror who figured out that the man she was seeing must have been sent from The Xantu, and that the baby she was carrying was his. Unfortunately she was too far into her pregnancy to abort your birth, but we were going to try. To our amazement, she stated quite strongly that she was not going to abort your birth. Somehow she felt that you were not some monster she was carrying. It became apparent that the full history of whom and what The Xantu were be revealed to her. So we did. We explained about The Xantu and what they were. Your uncle out of his love for his sister wanted you aborted at any costs, but relented when your mother insisted you were okay. There was quite a bit of concern on our part about this. Our mandate states we can harm no innocent lives, unless there is no doubt that doing so would save lives. So a deal was struck between your mother, uncle and us. That deal was that upon your birth and every year after that I would visit and scan your inner nature to see if there was any darkness to your nature that could pose a threat to your family or to the public. If I found any traces of such darkness in you, well you know what the outcome would have been. It was during that first scan after your birth that all of us became really alarmed and afraid. You see during our war with the Atlantu, two of our emissaries imprinted the essences of The Xantu council unto themselves so that imprinting could be passed to the other Mages so that they all could identify any member of the council. These two mages also knew that the imprinting of the council essences would also kill them, but doing so was that important. Over the centuries all Muraiins as part of their training is given these imprinting, although to a vastly lesser degree. It would be just enough to help identify a member of the council if encountered. The reason we were so alarmed and afraid was that the essence of your father was not someone sent by The Xantu. Your father was none other then Dorekus himself, the leader of The Xantu.
Okay right about now I was sitting there looking and feeling astounded.
"To our knowledge Dorekus is the only Xantu to have never created any creatures or minions after itself. As to why after all these millennia, with a history of never creating any other creatures, he would procreate a baby with a human female really scared all of us. His appearance as a handsome human male was also alarming. So great was this fear that the Muraii Elders ordered the death of you and your mother. Yet during that first scan, I also found that your inner nature or spirit was clean, pure and unbelievably strong. The presence of your father was there, but very dormant. Your mother was still adamant that you were not a threat to humanity or any other beings. As a Umata, her belief and word is unquestioned by us Seers. As The Seer of The Muraii, I was able to overrule The Elders decision. Somehow I felt that you must be allowed to live, although under the previous arrangement, that I scan your spirit every year, preferably on your birthdays. That my decision caused a great deal of consternation among The Elders and the Muraii is an understatement, but my decisions are unquestioned. So over the years I would arrive and scan your spirit, and on each occasion I would find your spirit getting stronger, but still clean and pure. It became apparent to me that your spirit was too strong for whatever Dorekus was trying to do or create. Whatever it was he put in you had been thoroughly dominated and locked away by your spirit. Because of this I declared your spirit fully clear and clean on your nineteen birthday"
"How. I don't remember ever seeing you before. I definitely don't remember you ever doing any scans on me”
"I always arrived when you were sleeping. It was a small matter to keep you sleeping while I scanned your spirit"
Shocked and stunned by what I had just heard, I looked at Serona and asked,
"You knew my uncle well. Why didn't he or my mother ever tell me this. It seemed they went out of their way most times to keep from telling me the truth"
"Even though we did our best to show your mother she was at no fault, and would not have been able to stop him from taking her anyway, your mother was extremely ashamed that she had willingly given herself to a creature of such evil. She was very determined to prevent you from finding out about her shame at any cost. It was only later that your uncle was able to convince her that you needed to be told. In fact it was your uncle's intentions to bring you into the fight against The Xantu, a decision your mother was against at first, but that she later began to understand why it would be necessary for you to do so. Your uncle wanted you fully prepared first before joining the battle, hence all of the training he subjected you to. It was his plan to reveal all to you when he felt you had been taught all he could teach you in preparation for the upcoming battle. The last time I talked to him before he went on his last assignment, he told me upon his return, he was going to tell you everything. Only his last case must have been more than he was prepared for as he never returned. I only wished he had confided in me what his case was. I would have gone with him on it gladly. Unfortunately he didn't. Our first thoughts were that The Xantu had found him, but our investigations showed us he had found a lead to your father and was following it up alone. Why he would choose to do that made no sense to us. Your mother told us that without your uncle to back you up, she did not want you to join the fight against The Xantu. We honored her decision. We contacted her prior to contacting you for your help on this case to let her know we needed your help, and would like her blessing to ask for your help. Somehow she was expecting our call and stated it was alright to do so. She also asked us to have you contact her after you were finished. My thoughts is she is going to reveal the truth to you finally. So you see our need was to have you track down the beast, and we would then kill it. Your unexpected speed scared us because we did not know if your dark side had finally manifested itself. Tessia here tells us that is not the case. That you have found some way to draw on your father's dark side and enhance your own physical abilities"
Now all of them were just looking at me. They knew I had just been told a lot of what I would consider incredible, and figured I needed time to assimilate the information. Frankly, I still considered all of this somewhat too incredible to fully believe, yet I could not fully discount it all either.
"I am not going to lie to any of you. I find all of what you have just told me a little bit too much to fully believe. I do however acknowledge the possibility that it all may be true, as I have seen and fought a monster today. I will fulfill the contract because I cannot let the monster I saw today continue to kill and rape. Know this howev
er, witches or whatever, I would not advise anyone to attack me again"
"Sakquain. The Ladies are Sakquain as I am A Seer. We are not witches. We don't conjure or cast spells. Our powers come from the energy of the earth, and you have our word that none of us will attack you again. As The Seer, this I so decree"
When Tessia finished that statement, Serona and Sessa all bowed at the waist to her. I assume this was some official acknowledgement by them to her decree.
"Sessa will be your liaison to us and will supply you with any information or supplies you may need. Serona and I must return to Muraii to meet with The Elders"
Tessia approached me, took my arm and guided me to the side. The others quietly moved away to allow us to talk in private.
"Son, I have watched and followed your life since you were an infant. I am convinced your destiny is greater than either of us can imagine. Find this beast, and do it quickly. I can feel the danger is getting greater daily, and I am not just referring to the danger that is here"
With that she touched my forehead, turned and proceeded to leave the house with Serona and Hennings behind her. Sessa approached me and said,
"Well Tracker, where do we begin?"
Chapter Five: Initial Research
First I spent some time learning some more about Sessa and her people's incredible abilities. They were right about their power appearing to be magical. Basically most of their abilities had to do with nature and how they could get plants and flowers to grow in amazing ways. They had an affinity with animals, which was spooky to say the least. Most amazingly though was their ability to draw upon the hidden energies of the earth that modern science was to the most part not even aware of, to produce those amazing power beams from their hands. They could control them from a level of just gently moving something small, to knocking someone out, to blasting apart a small hill. Secondly I had a very busy night reading. Near the center of town, not far from the convention hall where the woman of the village now slept at night, was where Major Hennings had set up his Command Post and crew quarters. I was given a small hut near there, which was essentially a large room with a cooking area off to the left when you entered the hut, with the bedroom area off to the right. Between them, was the bathroom facilities. This was clearly made to accommodate one to two people, but no more. There was an ornate, but simply beautiful king size bed, which was build into the wall and floor of the hut. The hut was small but simply beautiful. Both inside and out. There were beautiful full bay windows to either side of the door, which allowed the outside sunlight in during the day, but prevented anyone from seeing inside. As the sun went down the windows would darken again preventing anyone outside the hut from seeing inside. This allowed the occupants complete privacy both during the day and night with no need for a curtain or shade outside of a personal decorative choice. It had a simple but beautiful kitchen and bathroom fixtures, which was all built together in such a manner that you felt you were in a fairy tale hut. Sessa and the sheriff had provided me with a data-comm with all the reports of the attacks on the woman of the village, where the victims were when attacked, what they were or may have been doing at the time of the attack and the times of day when each attack occurred which was significant. It also told me about the women in general. Who they were personally, what line of work they were in , etc. With what I had been told today, I re-read all the reports again to see if I could make a connection. It seems all the attacks took place late at night, between the hours of two to five am. This fact was noticed by Major Hennings and his men, yet no matter what precautions were taken, the beast still found a way pass the perimeter defenses. As a last resort, between ten pm to midnight each night, all the women were now escorted to the main central pavilion building located in the center of village for the night. This large building was a large hexagonal shaped building used for town meetings and celebratory purposes so it had a lot of space inside. Every other wall of the pavilion could be retracted leaving a three-walled building for outdoor events. The building was surrounded by a contingent of Major Hennings men both inside and out who patrolled the perimeter and inside of the building all night. So far this plan has proven effective as no attacks had taken place for almost two weeks now, although there had been sighting by some of the patrols. I went through all the reports looking for any common factors to link the women who were attacked, but there were none outside of the fact they were all women. What I did notice however was that the beast seemed to know which house had women in them, and when they were alone. All the follow-up reports from the attacks seem to indicate that each woman was alone either because they lived alone to begin with, or their spouse or family members was away for some reason or another and they were left alone. I then read the forensics reports from Major Hennings on the creature's DNA analysis which showed the creature may have been fully human at one time, but through some type of mutation process the science lab haven't yet been able to identify, has caused the former human male to mutate into what he is now. The fact he could not be tracked by any of the technology Hennings and his men had available has convinced the Muraii that the creature was not natural and had some unique way of avoiding detection they haven’t been able to figure out yet. Major Hennings science and tech guys however believed some type bio-cloaking mechanism inherent in the creature was being used to hide itself. As no other viable reason could be put forward, both theories was accepted for the time being. The Muraii Ladies were trying and find out if the earth energies was being used to hide the creature and if so how to counter it. There was no other useful information in the reports.
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