Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires)

  Standing Before Monsters

  By

  Donald Wigboldy Jr.

  Copywrite June, 2014

  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

  Battle Mage: The Dark Mage

  Battle Mage: A Hero’s Welcome (Fall 2014)

  The High King: A Tale of Alus

  The Emperor’s Shadow War

  Modern Tales:

  Voran the Night Guardian

  The Mermaid’s Chest

  Chapter 1- Strangers

  It was early spring in Chicago and a rare warm up had brought out the partygoers in large numbers. Known as a popular bar and pub spot for what seemed to be forever, the Rush and Division area was alive as much as it had been in months after the city had suffered through another long, punishing winter. The lights along the streets made things seem safe and it had been a long time since crime had been worried over for one of the city’s most popular spots for night life.

  Few reports of crime in the area made it out to the public ensuring good business continued, and even if the occasional disappearance was noted, that could happen anywhere and did more than most people knew. It wasn’t generally known since there were those who did their best to keep it hidden.

  For the brown haired man and his pretty, blond haired companion; the truth of what hid within the night of the city was no surprise. For them, the danger was well known and even sought after most nights. This was no casual night out on the town despite the girl’s best attempt to look excited for their walk through the most popular clubs and bars in the city.

  Nick looked to be only in his twenties, but his face held a certain grim cast that made the girl half dance in front of him to stop him in place. “Nicky, you are looking way too serious tonight. I am dressed to party and unless you find something to actually worry about, we are going to have fun even if it kills you.”

  She reached up with her hands squishing his cheeks and attempted to pull his lips into a semblance of a smile.

  Putting up with the attention from the girl, who appeared to be a twenty one year old, a little pale perhaps, but wearing short shorts revealing long graceful, dancer’s legs ending in high heeled leather boots that came to the lowest end of the curve of her calves; Nick put his hands on the girl’s hips even as his attention was drawn to her gray eyes. While his eyes could look at Nicola and enjoy the view of a very attractive young woman, the man let his senses expand well beyond what he could see from the sidewalk at ground level. Nicholas Steel wasn’t what he appeared to be anymore than the girl before him.

  Nick was a voran, nature’s answer to the unnatural. Some might argue it was God rather than nature that helped create the man, who was almost magical in nature. He had been bitten by a fledgling vampire over one hundred years ago, but the man had both survived and found that he held a rare condition inside of him that was triggered by the vampire’s bite. There was no conversion to vampirism by the bite. Marek, the vampire, was too new to have known how to sire another at that point anyway; in fact, it was almost as if the reverse had happened. His blood had returned both the vampire’s sanity and humanity back to him in just that small taste.

  While the vampire had found the small amount of drops of Nick’s blood held back the hunger and restored his mind to what it was before his sire had attacked him, it wasn’t long before the man would discover that he had his own talents.

  A small pat on his cheek brought him out of his reverie even as he looked on the exquisite features of a porcelain goddess. Nicola was blond and would have been likely to be pale anyway, but her features looked untouched by the sun for most of her life. Her porcelain skin nearly glowed and her gray eyes seemed to want to entice his will away from him in that gaze. “Don’t lose focus on me now, Nicky, I want to try and have some fun, before I have to return home again.”

  He smiled politely as he considered her words. “Which kind of fun?” asked the man who found Nicola’s sudden choice to join him tonight a bit of odd timing, though very welcome.

  Her eyes turned a little, more wicked as she asked, “Are you proposing something more interesting, Nicholas? I didn’t think your old fashioned morals would ever bring us to that question.”

  Grunting at her attempt at humor, Nick shook his head and turned the conversation back on her. “No, I was more suggesting that you might have decided to come help search for vampires with me, because you were having problems at the Lair. Someone who co-owns a night club doesn’t usually bother to come here for the same kind of fun they could have at home, or at least that’s how I think.

  “You rarely went on patrols for rogue vampires in the past, so I doubt that is your real motivation tonight.”

  Letting out a sigh, the pretty blond revealed, “Lenora and Vicki are really beginning to get on my nerves.”

  Until a couple months ago, Marek, the vampire who also sired Nicola, had led a small coven of ten vampires. All of them had known each other for decades, some close to a century in fact, but then a brutal battle between their faction and an elder vampire not only killed four of their members, but left a handful of fledgling vampires lost and confused in his absence. The elder, Cyrus, had been able to mind control those he turned, and when Nick and his allies slew the vampire his remaining creations came out of his control confused and lost.

  Nick hadn’t had the heart to kill those who had surrendered and they were a mere handful of vampires. They were victims of Cyrus’ lust for power and disregard for the need for secrecy those of the night usually strove to maintain. Killing them for his sins just didn’t sit right for a man who resisted the belief that he was only made for killing vampires and their like.

  Looking at Nicola and her frustration, the voran knew that she was just one of several exceptions he had made to killing the monsters of the night.

  “What did they do now?” he asked returning her sigh with one of his own. The other people walking the sidewalk continued to give the couple space walking around them as they held each other close. Nicola’s arms had slid under his to let her place her hands on his lower shoulder blades as she seemed to seek comfort in her companion.

  “It isn’t so much what they do, but their attitude when they do it,” the girl complained. “I know Marek hoped to replace our numbers with them, but they aren’t products of his line, so maybe that is what continues to make them so willful. They are the new vampires. They are new to living with us in the Lair and yet they are beginning to act like we owe them everything.

  “Did you know that those two actually asked if they would be able to become partners with us at the club? They’ve even been offering Marek suggestions on what to do to make it ‘cooler’. We’re nearly full every weekend and have lines at the door, but those two children think they know what makes a club successful.

  “I just want to bite them most of the time,” Nicola finished letting her fangs grow as she bit down with a click of her teeth. Letting them recess quickly before attracting notice, the lovely vampire settled her mood back and let her lower lip stick out slightly in a pout.

  She had switched from complaining to playing him in an instant, the man thought.

  “And how are the others?” he asked.

  Shrugging in his hold, the girl didn’t quite smile, but she was no longer frowning either as Nicola answered, “The boys are all right. They were mostly all soldiers though so being cooped up in the club gets to them. Marek and Jake take them out on patrols looking
for the ones who escaped as well as rogues, so the exercise helps, I think.”

  Five young vampires had joined the clan on a probationary basis after the battle had left both sides decimated. With four decades long friends dead among his vampires and most of close to a hundred of Cyrus’s brood slain in a late night, foggy attack on his stronghold, both sides had needed to find security with one another; but there was a generational gap of multiple decades to deal with between them. All the new vampires were in their early twenties and while most of the elder ones of Marek’s camp looked to be of a similar age, even the youngest remaining was more than three decades older. There were the usual growing pains of getting to know one another mixed with the less common problems of vampires thrown in as well.

  Stepping on tiptoe, Nicola leaned in to kiss his neck and whispered in his ear, “Now if you were offering a little fun back at your place, you know that you wouldn’t have to twist my arm.”

  He chuckled at her advances. They had been dating for only a couple months, but Nick had known her for nearly eighty years. While he had always had a bit of a weakness for the vampiress, the relationship had only recently blossomed. Still for all her ability to manipulate him at times, the voran did have the ability to resist also.

  Using his hands to move her back to arm’s length in front of him; Nick gave the pretty blonde a gentle kiss on the lips. “I still have house guests, so getting a room for that would be a little difficult at my apartment right now. Unfortunately that means we should probably stay focused on our search here for now.”

  Another groaning sigh of exasperation left the pretty girl as she spun on her toes to move to his right. Her fingers had expertly laced with his as Nicola started them walking forward, but the conversation wasn’t finished. “You still have the two dogs staying with you, Nicky?”

  “You know I do, and calling them dogs isn’t exactly appropriate, do you think?” he questioned looking at the vampiress from the side.

  Her top appeared to have loosened another button and the flash of cleavage as she moved was expertly timed. He didn’t know how she did it, but somehow he knew that she had planned the show. Being a very sexual being, as many vampires were, Nicola would have been an expert predator if not for the tempering of the voran blood in her system.

  “Charlotte and Logan may be neat and clean compared to the rest of their pack, but I can always smell the fur around the full moon.” Her gray eyes noticed a couple kissing as they walked by before looking at Nick a bit wistfully.

  He wanted to sigh. Her appetites were still voracious despite her decades, though some of that was simply the way she had always been. “I’ve taken them to the forest on the full moon to run. You know that they can’t completely control themselves that day. Once they’ve run, even with a shower I can smell it a bit too, but Charlotte especially would be appalled if you pointed it out.”

  After a falling out involving their pack over a new voran, Nick had needed to take the two werewolves into his home. Perhaps some would say that he had no responsibility to help werewolves after that night, since a voran could fight and kill those monsters as well. Maybe that was the way nature had intended, but werewolves or not, they were people too. Logan had been studying to be a doctor before a patient had infected him in the emergency room causing his curse. Charlotte and her parents had been the casualties of her brother’s first uncontrolled change into a werewolf caused by the full moon. While Charlotte had lived through it, their parents hadn’t and the college student’s life had been irrevocably changed along with her brother’s.

  “You know I like them, Nicky, but seriously you need to get your apartment back so we can spend some time together,” the girl managed to complain even as she agreed.

  “We’re spending time together now,” he replied.

  “Chasing down strays from Cyrus and other rogues is hardly a standard date. Can we at least go inside one of the clubs and dance for awhile? Surely your radar, or whatever, can do your work while I try to have some fun.”

  “While you have fun? Do I get any part of this?” questioned the man with a laugh.

  Smiling one of her charming smiles with her perfect, white teeth, Nicola nodded retorting, “Well you’ll be there too, but it’s up to you to take advantage of me to have some fun.”

  They were approaching one of the clubs she had mentioned when the voran felt a presence that didn’t fit in with the revelers. Like Nicola had called it, a voran seemed to have a built in radar for finding supernatural creatures. At this point, his radar was picking up the vampiress like a cool blue point of light, and an echo was making itself known less than a block away.

  “I sense a vampire nearby. This’ll have to wait a moment,” the voran stated sounding a bit disappointed. Dancing with Nicola was certainly worth the time, but duty called.

  Shaking her head and complaining, “Man, every time I get you to myself; there’s always something else.”

  They hurried towards the source, but as they did Nick had another strange feeling. Among the gray haze of humanity that clogged his senses, a warmer source seemed to pop to life only to have two more exceptional auras appear similarly. They were all closer to the blue light of a vampire, more of a blue green though; and not the warm red of werewolves.

  All four began to move and Nick was forced to warn Nicola, “It’s on the move and I think he’s being chased.”

  “Go,” the girl waved him on as she stopped to begin removing her boots. Stone and pavement couldn’t hurt her skin, but the heels could easily twist an ankle slowing the vampire. “I’ll catch up. So much for the idea of cute shoes,” she finished as he moved at a run.

  There were those who would view the voran running on the sidewalk as strange, but it was rush street and late enough to see many strange things happening on the right night.

  His senses told him that the vampire was running and gaining altitude at the same time. Nick breathed out in annoyance knowing this was going to be more difficult to maintain discretion and could only hope that no one would look out a window to see a man or woman leaping up the side of a building.

  Turning into an alley way, the voran summoned his strength and leaped high up the wall on his right. The buildings weren’t as high here, only a few stories tall and close enough for him to cross from one side to the other moving to the roof in a series of bounds. Each leap would have made a normal man gape in awe, but for the voran it was simple. A man designed by nature to combat vampires had to be able to match them in such maneuvers.

  It was a slight distraction, however, and Nick had to concentrate a moment to reassess where his quarry was in relation to him now. He could feel Nicola hurrying after him, but the second vampire was already moving east and seemed to be followed by the three strange readings as well. Could a new vampire hunter or type of werewolf be chasing him? Nick knew how werewolves felt to his mind after being in contact with them over the last couple months, and these definitely weren’t the same.

  He gave chase moving in strides that carried him quickly across the roof before launching in a massive leap to the far building. If the vampire was moving east, he was going to have trouble hiding his movements and eventually there would be nowhere to run as he reached Lake Shore drive and the lake. If he was panicked or lost, this could quickly turn into a hunt that Nick would have to give up. He couldn’t risk discovery, but if this vampire were discovered it would do little good for anyone either.

  Luckily, the runner led him to a possible place to deal with the vampire and his pursuers in reasonable peace. Taking another leap, Nick landed on the middle floor of a parking garage. The blue presence was still running, but appeared to be trying to lose his pursuers by dodging them within the large building. There were still cars around to hide behind, if he believed that such minor obstacles could aid him.

  Nick cursed as he realized that he needed to move up a floor as they ran above him. They were close, but the voran couldn’t see them through concrete and steel. Moving to the out
er wall, the voran leaped up using his speed and hands to help pull him up to the next level in a difficult maneuver. The attempt paid off as the man spotted movement in the distance. Though dimly lit as the garage conserved energy at the cost of lighting, his eyes could make out the movement of the vampire and his pursuers.

  Charging towards the fight, the voran knew that he would be too late before taking more than a few steps. A flash of metal let him know that at least one of them had a sword, but then a moment later a flare of flame signaled the death of the vampire.

  He cursed under his breath and felt the three strange pursuers pause, perhaps sensing him or simply to catch their breath after the chase and fight. There was a surge of energy in each of them before they ran. Nick hurried but as he found the burned out body of a vampire the three simply vanished from his mind. Stopping in stunned silence, the voran wondered at what could escape him so easily.

  Maintaining his vigil, Nick looked at the dead vampire. Removed of the source of his energy, the creature should turn to dust. Some vampires exploded in flame, some simply cracked and turned to ash. Examining this body, he wondered what had actually happened.

  Scorch marks appeared around him centering on three burnt pieces of concrete. The dead vampire also appeared more solidly collected than usual. In the several minutes of searching the area, where he found signs of the fight, the corpse was unusually slow in disappearing into dust. Cars and even a nearby support pillar also revealed cuts. Single slashes cut cleanly through metal and concrete. The speed and strength to cut stone without breaking the blade had to be supernatural, but there was no sword left with the body.

  The cuts that surprised him were those that were ragged and grouped in three to four tears. A swipe at the concrete pillar had scratched the stone without penetrating, but left four of the marks.

  “What happened?” Nicola asked as she walked up and leaned against a damaged car to replace her boots.