“Yes, I do.”
Jonathan looked at his friend. “Your son and his boy … what they do to them,” he shuddered. “How can one person make that much of a difference? Why?”
Robert scratched at his arm. “Look. Clotho sacrificed herself. Fate is … off kilter. Free will means more than it ever has before. Of course a single person’s actions have that much impact. Each of us has that power now. It manifests even more strongly when one of us, a supernatural, acts upon free will.”
“So. When you asked me to help … I change everything. But what we saw … it can’t be right. If we are acting, others are acting as well. So the supposed patterns, the supposed outcomes, those are false, too.”
Robert interrupted the thought. “I know. But it is still the best chance my family has to survive this. Will you help?”
Jonathan gulped. “I’ve been selfish. I didn’t know.”
Robert grinned, despite the pain they had just witnessed. “You haven’t been selfish Jonathan. You’ve been hurting. I can understand that.” He pulled out a chair and sat at the table, finally done pacing. “Look, you went through a lot. It’s just time to come out of your shell. I understand man.”
Jonathan timidly reached forward and placed a hand on Robert’s forearm. “Thank you. I can’t say no now. I’ll help.”
The talisman pulsed with warmth against Robert’s chest as the words left Jonathan’s mouth.
***
2011
***
Lilith
Lilith pushed through the door of the truck ethereally and stroked the young man’s arm. “Feel the night rising in you. The power of creation. The power of eternity. Feel what infinite darkness is really like.”
He shuddered in his heroin induced sleep.
“Feel the soul of eternity within you. Hunt. Stalk. Know that the whole of creation is only half of what you are. Find her, Travis. Find her. Hunt the hunt, hunt our own soul, but find her instead. Find the one that will give you true power.”
***
Robert Crowley Sr. & Peter Criss
The spring morning was crisp, but the sun shone on the streets of New York, warming Robert. The city smelled of spring, though his nose had to fight past the olfactory deluge of car fumes and humanity to find the scent. Robert toyed with the talisman. This meeting with Peter Criss was his last errand before giving it up. Events around Robert were finally drawing to a close, and it was time to pass the thread to his grandson.
A smile crossed his features. His grandson, Robert Crowley the 3rd, Bobby, was so like Robert himself as a child. With the notable exception of sexual orientation. Bobby was only 14, and hadn’t figured it out yet, but Robert was sure the boy would be coming out of the closet soon. All he could do was try and give his grandson a safe and nurturing environment so that Bobby didn’t feel like he had to hide who he was.
The social stigmas concerned Robert. Bobby was going to inherit a millennia long war, and the boy needed security in who he was—and strength enough to make decisions that would shape the world. Feeling like a social pariah was not acceptable, even if Bobby wasn’t the next generation of combatant in this war.
Robert double checked the address. This was the place. He walked up a short flight of stairs and knocked on the brownstone’s door.
There was a shadow behind the glass paneling and then the door swung open. The man that answered the door was in his mid-sixties, lanky, and had an unruly mop of black hair. He reached a hand forward. “Bob Crowley, I assume? You’re late.”
Robert felt incredible power in the other man’s handshake. “Sorry. It took me a few to figure out the streets. Not used to the East Coast.”
“I admit, I was surprised when the church reached out to me to organize a meeting with you. I’d always heard you didn’t travel from the Midwest much.” Peter stepped to the side. “Come on in.”
Robert walked in and the two headed to the living room. It was a spacious house with relics of a lifetime in Jazz and Rock covering the walls.
They sat and Robert leaned forward. “Peter. I need to know where the werewolf child you adopted out in nineteen seventy-seven is.”
***
Elizabeth Bathory
Music thrummed through the club. The overpowered beats of Lady Gaga reverberated through the jungle beat the DJ was spinning, guiding the sweating and undulating bodies of dozens of dancers. Greens, blues, and yellows flashed, spearing the fog and heat haze, bright lances slicing through the heady air.
“This room is young,” Travis whispered to himself as he navigated through the press of bodies filling the club. He inhaled the warmth. Jumping bodies popped sweat into the air, the droplets evaporating before hitting the floor. “It smells like seventeen,” he said with a malicious smile.
Women at the bar checked out his style and liked what they saw. He felt their eyes on him, and a few even motioned, with subtly raised eyebrows or crooked fingers, to come have a drink. He rolled his shoulders, flexing his arms, and walked on, ignoring the come-hither.
The guys catching his look puffed up their chests. Some, Travis could tell, were overanxious to throw down for any cause. He smiled and ignored them, too. Tonight was a night to unleash himself. Not a night for fighting.
Been there and done that, he thought.
Tonight was for a reckoning, a place of darkness, where the real him could hunt for his tigress. A time to let loose the dogs of war, the beast within, and lose his mind to the beat.
The music swung into his mind. It greeted him like trouble and he welcomed it. The bright pulses harmonized with his intention like a devious soundtrack. He stepped deeper into the room.
Travis felt the primal rhythm slide into his muscles as he stalked the dance floor. People moved out of his way, unconsciously reacting to the predatory tones in Travis’ movements. Blood pumped through his veins, pulsing with the beat and spiking his adrenaline. Red tinted the edges of his vision.
A dancing Goth kid fell as he pushed his way through the people. He smiled, running his tongue over his teeth. Travis could feel the hunter rising in his mind, a bloodlust thrumming through his soul. Bodies slid around him and he broke free of the dance floor, moving towards the bar.
Grabbing a bottle of water off the bar, he slapped down a five and turned back towards the dance floor, leaning against the bar, and watched the dancers.
The more he watched, the more frustrated he became. The crowd was like one big tramp-stamp of conformity. Goth, punk, prep, emo, poser. Even the combination of cliques was proving to be non-provocative. He opened and sipped his water, pointlessly hydrating.
Once upon a time this scene was a world of sin and depravity, one of true self-expression for the dark. Once, it had been entertaining. Now it was distilled, like his beverage, with all the impurities and uniqueness filtered out. Travis thought about where his next hunting ground might be.
Then, out of the corner of his vision, an ethereal form floated, barely catching his eye—a woman. She clung to the shadows, hinting mysteriously at a beauty and form far different from the rest of the club. Bright whites flirted with the edges of shadows as she stalked along the dance floor’s perimeter, the untouched purity of her suit teasing his vision.
She hadn’t noticed him. At least, it appeared she hadn’t. Travis took his time while watching her. She was beyond the music. In a way, she slowed it, making headier rhythms that coiled tightly around his gut, grabbing him tightly. Her strides were those of a lioness, strokes of female that brandished movements long forgotten by her counterparts prancing on the dance floor.
Her hair flawlessly matched her style of walk. The flow and length of both took years to master. Travis couldn’t make out the color of her hair, but that wasn’t important. He wanted a ride of those locks. In fact, he wanted more than that. This was a woman worth forsaking his night’s plan for something more.
The woman headed towards the back door, sensuously flirting with the shadows all the while. A vibration seemed to re
sonate through Travis’s blood as he watched her. She stopped, hand almost brushing the exit. Standing motionless at the door, she slowly turned and looked right at Travis.
A sledgehammer hit him in his guts and lightning shot between them as their eyes connected. Electricity grounded itself from the gaze, coursing through his body and jerking his feet forward. Grinding his teeth together, Travis slowly let his lips curl up, until they were halfway between a smile and a snarl.
His knuckles popped as he squeezed his fingers together into fists, fighting the draw of the mysterious woman. The music faded out, then in, then out again, trailing along with the background lights and dancers until all he could experience was the depth of her eyes getting closer and closer.
And still he fought. She would not conquer his will that easily. He was Travis, and the primal might of the gods was coursing through his veins, granting him the strength of the hunter, and no woman would lure him without begging. Not with just a glance. Even one like this, as voluptuous and alluring as the night itself, able to reach into his soul and howl alongside his inner predator.
No. She would still have to come to him. He grinned as he approached her, took one step into her personal space, and then walked right past her and out of the club. Without glancing back, he could feel her following him, and he turned into the mouth of the alley next to the Viper’s Den, lighting a cigarette and leaning against the wall.
One moment he was alone in the alley, the next she was standing before him. She had an ageless quality about her, a beauty that couldn’t be pinned down to any particular era.
“Hello, Handsome.” Her voice was the silk of the Night with touches of fire in it, like stars lazily brightening the sky.
Travis blinked and took a drag of his cigarette, smiling lazily. “Took you long enough.”
She laughed, and there was a jagged edge hiding behind the chuckle that made him think, for the first time since he spotted her, that she may be more than he could handle. But that had never stopped him in the past, and it wouldn’t tonight either.
He raised an eyebrow to her, but kept silent, taking a long pull of his smoke.
The woman angled her body slightly into the streetlight, revealing the edges of her form to him. Travis saw wide white lapels, every line of the white suit jacket cutting perfectly across her body to reveal as much as it hid. This was a woman of taste.
“You want as I do. I feel it in you, food.”
“Oh?” said Travis, not knowing how to respond. He looked down the length of her form and then back up to her face. To be true to himself, he would have to admit that he hadn’t come here looking for a woman. He had come to kiss the night, and let his dark side loose a little bit. But something about her spoke to his dark side, bypassing his conscious mind.
“Mmm,” she said, “That pulse at your neck speaks to me. It’s a direct translator of Travis. And it says you want to taste the night. Fledgling predator, it says … but ready to be more.”
“How did you—”
“Shhh.” The woman said as she gently laid a finger across his lips. “Don’t talk, food. The pulse is enough. It tells me all about the want. It says, ‘I want everything.’”
With a slow and gentle caress, he ran a finger along the edge of her jaw, feeling the smoothness of her skin. Sliding his hand behind her head, through her lush hair, he cupped the nape of her neck and pulled her forward for a kiss. The evil sparkle in her eyes was the last thing he saw before her fangs sank into his throat.
Travis jerked against her mouth, his cigarette spinning to the concrete. Horrid pain pulled itself through his heart and would not stop. He blacked out and collapsed into her embrace as she drained his body of blood and replaced it with her own.
Travis floated through a murky fog, unable to formulate thoughts. Ideas shifted inside his mind, but none were catching. His body wasn’t cold. His neck wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t blind. He wasn’t much of anything. He was hollow, only a growing ache made itself known. As he floated on, he suddenly knew—something was there with him.
A voice drifted to him from the fog.
Boy, you are MINE.
Travis gritted his teeth. “I’m no one’s but my own.”
The voice laughed, and he felt like someone was running their fingernails down a chalkboard.
You pride yourself on being a predator, on the hunt, the kill. I AM the hunt. I AM the predator. I am the lust for the dark side.
The voice pounded at his mental walls, forcing him to his knees as he felt what few barriers he had in his mind slowly stripped away. Travis shuddered, feeling himself slip further down into nothingness as this voice pushed him out of his own mind. Finally, he succumbed, utterly defeated, until he was no more.
He heard one last thing as the darkness claimed his soul.
And now … I AM you!
***
Andrew Magyari
Across 13th Avenue, in the opposite alley, a wolf sat in the shadow of a Dumpster. He scratched at the bottom of his jaw with his hind foot.
His name was Drew, and he had been tracking the woman Travis met, and with whom he also met his end, for weeks. He had enough control to know that her name was Elizabeth Bathory without attracting her psychic attention. She was the enemy. The killer of his kind. But he couldn’t confront her.
Confrontation would end in his death—that he knew. There was no way a lone werewolf could take on a vampire without the support of his pack. He always tried to bump back against the evils of the Night, but not to the point of suicide. But he could watch, and watch he did.
He watched as a young man, just a pup in his early twenties, came out of the club. The Vampire, Evil Disco Bitch of the Night, followed him out and into the alley. The little fool tried to kiss her, and the wolf was forced to watch as she drained him. Then she returned the demented kiss, blood spilling from between their mouths.
Not good, he thought, she’s turning him.
Sure enough, just a moment later, the boy stood back up. His face was twisted into a snarl, and what stood at her side was definitely not human any longer.
Hells. Drew watched the unfolding scene while subconsciously pushing himself back further into the shadows. The beast won. She’s made a bloody feral vampire.
Ferals were everyone’s problem but the Vampire’s. Lore said that when the blood invaded them, they lost the fight for control, erasing all traces of their human personality. All that was left was a hunger to feed. And they were nastier.
Faster.
Stronger.
The only thing they didn’t have was the set of psychic powers that defined a lord vampire.
The thoughts ran through his mind, quickly outpacing his capability to problem solve. The elder vampire across the street watched the newly turned Travis flee into the night, then turned towards Drew and smiled. Her expression flickered momentarily and she shook her head. With a casual wave she walked out of the alley onto 13th Avenue and strolled off into the night.
Drew sat frozen for a moment, shocked at the revelation that she had spotted him. Why had she let him live? Finally, he got his wits together and fled, sprinting back to his pack to warn them that an elder vampire had just unleashed a mindless killer onto the streets of Denver. A feral vampire was on the loose, and things were about to get ugly.
***
Skid
As Drew sprinted off into the night, a shadow slowly unfolded itself from the roof above. It was only a one-story building, but still impressive looking as the shadow hopped the fifteen feet down from the roof to land solidly on the sidewalk. Light glinted off a wicked looking sword grasped in the figure’s right hand, and as soon as he landed he slid the sword into its scabbard.
The light seemed to soak into the boy’s unruly black hair, and his wiry form quickly darted back a couple steps out of the circle of light cast by the streetlamp. He wiped sweat from his brow. Turning the Vampire’s will hadn’t been easy, even with his mind amplified through the sword’s power. Had he not
done so, though, the wolf would have been killed.
He watched as a bouncer stuck his head out of the club and walked to the mouth of the alley next to the front door. When the man looked in the alley he gagged and ran back into the club.
The watching figure nodded to himself and muttered, “Cor! That stinks something fierce!” Almost like he was talking to himself, he replied with, “That would be the stench of Evil. Looks like our hunt is finally beginning. You are about to taste your first real combat.” His voice was that of a teenager, and clipped with a British accent. With a swish of his coat he turned and stalked toward downtown Denver.
***
Tabitha Magyari
“Rob, are you kidding me?” Tabitha pushed at Robert’s arm, softly, as the two walked through Washington Park, enjoying the warm day. The park had a flower garden that stretched a quarter of a mile in each direction, with a maze-like walkway that wound through it.
He grinned, overacting a loss of balance and catching his footing with his cane. He held out the envelope containing the information he had dug up about Travis. “I don’t joke. Seriously though, yeah, you need to bring in the P.I.”
The two walked on for a few moments, moving from the reds section of the garden to the yellows. Scents filled the air, subtly shifting as they walked. Tabby thought, then finally spoke. “I respect you. You know I always have. But I have a family to protect and you are asking me to bring in an outsider. This is highly unusual.”
“I understand.” Robert replied. “But you need fresh eyes. Your pack is so scared of drawing notice that they miss opportunity. There is also the fact that a nose can’t track someone over the internet. A private eye can. My man is discreet, and very good. Trust me on this.”
She sighed, stopping as a bee landed on her hand. Kneeling, she gently reached forward to a flower and watched as the fuzzy little flyer climbed off her finger onto the petal. “I do. This transcends trust, though.”
Robert watched her, torn. Over a decade ago, he had pulled Jonathan Harker to reweave the patterns of Fate. Since that time, everything had changed. While he still had his own thread, woven into the Talisman he wore around his neck, his ability to access the Web of Fate shrunk every year. Perhaps it was the changing shape of the web of humanity, though he suspected that Clotho’s death had more to do with the shrinking power of the talisman.
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