Chapter 1 and 2 released

Hey Fans!
I am releasing two chapters at once! 
ENJOY!

CHAPTER 1

BLOOD BECOMES ASH ONCE MORE

The sun dangled in the sky as if it were on a string attached to infinity. It gleamed in a blinding light that beamed down on the carefully maintained green grass that flourished throughout the park. The wind wafted in small spirits of compassionate whispers, its gentle hands tickling the foliage of oaks and maples that inhabited the park. The day was beautiful. Some would call this a perfect day.

Beneath a naturally constructed canopy of trees, people sat and picnicked, read from books or chatted amongst themselves. A young girl, no more than four, sat cross-legged in the grass beside her parents. She drew long strokes of blue and green crayon on a piece of paper while her parents gossiped about the simple glory of a good day. She was happy.

Nearby, a young man rested himself against the trunk of a large oak. He remained there, safely under the deep grey shade cast by its leaves. The young man was beautiful to behold. His face chiseled in the way Michelangelo had once done with marble—smooth but defined. Black garments clung fittingly to his slender but athletic build as he calmly waited for the day to sweep over him. His piercing blue eyes glowed beneath the dark umbrella almost like tiny cerulean lanterns. Although his skin had failed to retain more than a minor olive tint, he was handsome in a refined way. Built to be a heart breaker, but tender to the touch. His parents gave him the name Sebastiano De Luca but he had not used that name for many years. He instead went by his childhood nickname, Chance.

Suddenly, the wind picked up in a howl. With this gust went the picture, picking off the ground like a leaf and swirling away with the current. The picture curled and flapped as it was carried away from the girl. She pushed herself off the grass and took off after it. The wind died and the picture dropped out of the air effortlessly, landing by a pair of black boots with cracked rubber soles.

Taking notice of the artwork at his feet, Chance hunched over to retrieve it. As he did, a tiny hand grabbed for it. Chance looked up to see the little girl standing in front of him. She was shy but determined to retrieve her artwork. Before Chance had an opportunity to relinquish his grip on the drawing, the girl’s mother scooped her daughter up from behind.

“What did I tell you about running off like that? God forbid something was to happen to you,” the mother said. Before the girl could respond, the mother cradled her up and marched back over to their spot in the sun, leaving Chance holding the picture.

Chance brought it to his face to examine it. It was only of stick figures surrounding one central figure, but Chance found it soothing in an odd way. He folded it up and pocketed it. Then he looked over to see the girl staring at him from over her mother’s shoulder. He gently waved to her. Innocently, the little girl waved back.

Without warning, the scene blurred with a pulsing beat. Distorting and tangling until finally, everything went black.

~

Hollow eyes cut through a dark room. They were something to behold, a translucent and nocturnal glow swirling within them as they blinked serenely, like smoked glass that could see through to the soul. These were the eyes of a vampire. Little else could be seen through the thick, dark of the space. Black shapes and figures lurked in the background, frozen.

In the far corner, lying flat on a bed was the owner of the eyes. Although it was hard to make out his character, the figure was familiar: Chance. He rose to a sit, shaking off the stupor of a dreamer’s state. The scene from the park was a memory he was forced to re-live once more. Another memory he would carry for an immortal’s eternity. If only vampires didn’t dream, he thought. He looked around the room, easy for him in the dark. Suddenly, a knock hit the metal makings of his chamber door. Chance’s glowing eyes followed the sound. He rolled out of bed and made his way to the door, the dark failing to find him lost or blind.

The door opened with a metallic screech, the screaming iron hinges echoing into open space. With the widening of the room’s entrance, the flicker of candlelight from the hallway worked itself in. Chance and his surroundings became visible in an amber hue. The room was as lifeless as its inhabitant. Old wooden furniture rested randomly throughout the room. Aside from these things, the room was bare, naked and dreary. Chance himself had not changed since that sunny day. He couldn’t.

On the other end of the door was a young woman, who was not all that young. She had old world attractiveness to her. The kind a playwright in Elizabethan England would use as a muse to fashion a romance. In fact, she had been the source material of countless plays and sonnets of the early 1600s. Sabine Pruitt, born 1522. Her heavy auburn hair glinted off the crude light from the candles clinging to the walls behind her.

Sabine was the first Legend to be born. A countess by birth, Sabine was groomed to live a high society life in the lavished districts of London, though it was common knowledge she despised her inheritance. The thought of wearing a counterfeit smile around monotonous and arrogant aristocrats often found Sabine in somber moods and the culprit behind fits of rebellious behavior. She constantly dreamed of other lives she could lead if she surrendered her title and denounced her wealth. At seventeen she had been arranged to marry Lord Simon Harwood, a favorite advisor of the Royal Crown and a man she did not love. All of this might have been, had Sabine not been taken by the Collectors shortly after her eighteenth birthday.

She looked at Chance with affectionate eyes. It was Chance, after all, who had found her in London all those centuries ago and, during the final stage of her transformation, with the onset of the searing agonizing pain, Chance was the first Collector to surrender his blood to Sabine. The Book of Truths told of a method to ease this suffering using the blood from the Collectors. The human host needed to drink from a Collector every hour for twelve hours as the virus restructured the host’s body. Twelve Collectors were usually used, as excessive blood loss could be dangerous to one or few vampires.

Since that day, Chance and Sabine were as close as siblings. Their bond had, on more than one occasion, been questioned by others as favoritism on Sabine’s behalf. She never once denied these claims and it was notoriously known that if one was scorn, the other would strike.

“Damien sent me to retrieve you,” she said. Her voice was unruffled with a hint of a proper London accent to it. It matched her milky complexion and silencing eyes. Chance scratched the top of his head and yawned. He knew she was bored and had come to pester him to be her playmate.

“I guess I overslept,” he said carelessly.

Sabine sneered at the sound of this. She moved past Chance without permission and absorbed the basic layout of the room as she stalked it.

“You really should do something about this room,” she continued; “it’s bloody dispiriting.”

“I like it this way, Bean. It suits me,” responded Chance.

Sabine smiled softly and walked over to Chance. She put her cold hand on his cheek and then walked past him a second time, this time to exit. In the hall, she turned back.

“You know it wouldn’t kill you to live a little.”

Chance shook his head.

“Goodbye, Sabine,” he said affectionately. She whirled around and continued down the hall. The way she walked could set fires in the hearts of men, her hips swaying with genetic authority.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long, love,” she said without turning back. Her voice melted into the stone walls around her. Chance rolled his eyes and shut the door. He was immune to her charm and natural elegance, but he adored her all the same. Sabine, the angel with the still-beating heart.

The Collector’s Hall was a long, rectangular room held up with stone masonry. The floors were skinned with worn wooden planks that curled in the corners from years of damp air. Soda salt sprinkled along the floor made a crunching noise when stepped on, in place to kill the smell of dry blood that lingered from centuries of Collector’s Toasts gone by. It was a deep copper odor that stained into the wood of the floor.

At the center of the room was an imposing table from an older age. Stretching the length of the hall, the mahogany table was home to twenty matching chairs on each side and two extravagant armchairs at the ends. Elaborate trim in gold paint curled and swirled along the outline of it. It was both the most beautiful and sole object in the room.

Filling some of the chairs were pale people of various ages. They were the inhabitants of this hall, the Collectors. Each had his own guise and style, but all handled matching chalices made from crystal and silver. There were several chairs vacant around the table, but whether or not these seats had always been empty or time had taken away a few in passing had no effect on the Collectors. They laughed and chattered the way old friends at a dinner party would. The way humans would.

At the head of the table, in the only occupied armchair was Damien, the father of their kind. He was pushing twelve thousand years old but didn’t look a day over forty. The only indication of his age came in the form of grey patches in his beard and hair. Something he had acquired in his thirty-eighth and final year of his human life. Something he was glad to hold onto in his eternal existence; the appearance of age. It was fitting, then, that the father of all vampires would look weathered and aged like a father should.

His face was hardened and rough. Hidden behind the beard, his expressions came in the way of frumpy frowns or chomping teeth. With bushy eyebrows and cavernous amber eyes, he was unique as perhaps the most routinely out-of-date of all vampires. Something he was also proud of, but something he was often teased about. Damien was a man of good sport and wore his faults like a badge. If, after all, one could not laugh at himself, then there is no point in living at all, especially if that life is unending.

Directly to his left was Sabine, the only Legend in attendance. It was not practiced to have Legends present during the Collectors’ Toast. Sabine had first attended the toast out of curiosity. To her surprise, she found a kind of tranquility in the ceremony. She had been in attendance ever since and Damien never once inquired as to why. He welcomed Sabine always with a grin.

Damien sat back in his chair, observing his family as they conversed. Sounds of quick tongues and chortled chatter wafted about the hall. His eyes bounced from side to side, soaking in all the banter and gossip he could. This was his favorite thing to do; listen to his children talk. It was a daily routine.

The chamber door cracked and hissed as it opened. Most ignored it, having adapted to the moaning of the mature mansion. Chance entered the room as if he owned it. Without thought, he headed across the room toward Damien’s chair. As he passed by his brethren, he nodded and exchanged simple pleasantries. Damien smiled his furry smile and waited for Chance to approach him. Perhaps a bit more enthusiastic, Sabine waited as well.

“You’re late,” said Damien. His voice was scratchy but firm and never carried a hint of frustration. Chance stopped somewhere between Sabine and Damien.

“I didn’t miss the retelling of the time Roland helped Edgar Alan Poe write The Raven, did I? Do you think he’ll tell it again?” Chance spoke smartly. Sabine giggled at this and even Damien chuckled for a moment.

“He does tell that story quite frequently,” confessed Damien.

“Well, he has an eternity to make new stories,” replied Chance.

Damien could do nothing else but shake his head at Chance. Out of all of his children, Chance was Damien’s favorite. His ability to make light of any situation was reassuring, but his awareness of knowing when doing so was in bad taste set him apart. Damien knew Chance could be trusted to handle even the most grave situations as a critical, effective decision maker. If Damien’s time were to come to an end, the throne would turn over to Chance. Whether or not Chance wanted this responsibility would make no difference; he would accept it all the same.

“What news of my brother? Has he been up to any misdoings I should be aware of?” asked Damien, quickly switching over to business. Chance walked to an empty chair beside Sabine. Once seated, he leaned to one side of the chair.

“My scout returned just before sunrise. From what he’s told me, Vincent has been quiet,” Chance briefed. Out of the wide hall, it was Damien and Sabine alone who listened. “His people are careful to keep under our radar. I think it’s safe to say he is docile for now. Either that or he’s working very close to the shadows.”

“What are you suggesting then, Chance?” asked Sabine.

“I’m not suggesting anything. If Vincent has something in mind for us, we won’t know for a while. Waiting is really our only option.”

“My brother is a tenacious old man, but he is as smart as he is stubborn,” returned Damien. He paused, his eyes looking at the crystal cup in front of him. Crimson water cut through the bottom half of the challis in the form of blood. A glass half full. “When we know what his plan is, it will not be because of a slip-up or mistake, it will be because he wanted it so. We will wait.”

With that, Damien rose out of his chair. Almost instantly, the crowd of crows came to a quiet. Their glassy eyes turned to the head of the table. Damien grabbed his glass and lifted it high into the air. As he did, the Collectors all stood and boosted their chalices in unison.

“We are gathered tonight to pay homage,” spoke Damien in an authoritative voice. “The blood in our cups represents the symbol of our fraternal bond with our mother night and father moon. Though we will live forever, the darkness will carry on long after we are forgotten. To this, we hoist the Collectors’ Toast.”

With the final word, a whisk of wind lifted up from the table. The blood began to boil over, spitting specks like liquid crimson sparklers. All at once, the contents of the cups burst into searing sapphire flames. They burned for a few seconds before suffocating and dying out. The Collectors lowered their cups in fearsome confusion. Next came the ash, billowing from the heads of each challis like rolling smoke from the forgotten fire. The smoke rose into the air and formed a brewing cloud over the table of vampires. They had only seen this five times prior, but had no reason to expect it a sixth. One by one, the severity of the situation set in. It was then that the confusion mutated into widespread panic.

The Collectors rambled over one another with anxious voices, fusing together in a collective hum of syllables and vowels. Damien, caught off guard as the rest, tried furiously to talk over them, hoping to subdue their alarm. Sabine watched all of this from a stand. She knew it was pointless to speak and even more pointless to speak over the mob of mad hatters.

Chance was silent, too. He gazed into the bottom of his glass. All that remained was dust. He swirled it around the way a wine connoisseur would a chardonnay. He worried about how he would explain the situation to his brothers and sisters. Why the blood had gone to ash. Why their world was in pieces. Above all, one truth remained in the back of his head. It played over and over like a broken record, prodding at his conscience. How would he explain that he alone had known this day would come? The day the blood became dust.

 

CHAPTER 2

UNWANTED VISIONS

It was a dangerous red. The black space around the full moon filled with an inanimate fear, as if the blood color in the moon were spreading, bleeding into the dark firmament. He watched the sky with heavy eyes of concern, remembering what he had seen in a vision only a month prior. He knew it was not a sign of good things to come. Blood would always be something spilt, not spared. Suddenly, images of a newborn baby flashed wildly through his thoughts. They were brief, but startled the ageless man. A chill went through his bones, making him shudder. Chance closed his eyes to relive the vision he had had once more.

The moon shined in through a window by a bed where a woman drenched in sweat and screaming in agony was giving birth. The room was white under a hard surgical lamp. He made out the silhouette of a doctor who instructed the woman in garbled sounds to keep pushing. The woman begged and sobbed, but pushed. The sound of a baby’s cries broke through as the doctor lifted the baby up into the light. It was a beautiful baby girl.  Hanging over her, staring through the window was the moon now a deep red-stained eye in the sky.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” said a woman’s voice.

Chance returned to Earth. He looked over at Sabine who was perched on a large rock. They were alone in a small clearing at the center of a dense forest. Surrounding them, tall conifer trees swayed with each passing breeze, an endless green shrouded in shades and cast over in red. The blood eye watched over them.

“Doesn’t it?” Chance asked.

“Don’t be silly; Ethan is the last Legend. Besides, you didn’t have a vision, did you?”

Chance shook his head.

“There it is; probably an abundance of dust particles in the atmosphere.”

Chance examined Sabine with his eyes. He was hesitant to believe astronomy and science had a hand in the moon’s coloring that night. Finally, he decided to let moons be moons and lay overactive minds to rest.

“Where did you learn something like that?” he asked.

Sabine smiled and hopped off of the boulder. She brushed the back of her pants off and started walking.

“I’m more than just another pretty face, darling,” she replied proudly.

“You’re not that pretty,” joked Chance.

Sabine scowled and walked off past Chance. He remained behind to take in the red moon one more time. He felt its auburn glow looming over him seeping into his eternally cold skin. Suddenly, forced images of a newborn baby flashed wildly through his thoughts. They were brief, but startled the ageless man. He shook off a light-headed feeling as he regained his bearings.

Then a searing sound screeched into his head, splitting his mind wide open and flooding it with memories that belonged to another. His eyes watered until involuntarily, they closed entirely. They bounced back and forth under his eyelids and unstoppable tears trickled down his cheeks. These were the inevitable side effects to his dark gift.

Slices of scenes echoed in quick succession. First was that of the newborn child from before. The baby winced and whimpered at her own arrival. She curled herself in the arms of the woman, who cradled her back and forth. The woman’s smile could never be replicated again as she gazed down at her beautiful child. The scene suddenly began to

 sizzle and bubble over in his head like a reel of film in flames.

The final image was quiet.

A stunning young woman with light brunette curled locks stood still, staring. The image of the girl quaked with an eerie familiarity. Chance had met her in his dreams before. In those dreams, her face had always been hazy, but here, she was vivid and exquisite. Her eyes, a hollow hazel, began to ignite with a black fire. Soon, the fire overtook everything and left the figure of the girl standing in flames. Under it all, Chance could make out her mouth, which spoke his name in muffled tones. Her hand reached out, calling him with coiling fingers and a forgotten voice. Without warning, the screeching returned and the image of the girl dissolved into a blinding light.

Chance’s eyes opened to find himself back in the forest clearing. The precognition was now an afterthought in the wake of his ever-expanding disquiet. The fact that he would never fully adjust to his seer gifts was at the back of his mind. The pain associated with seeing the beyond was something the Collectors were meant to deal with, not master. Chance, however, cared little about the heavy migraine humming in his head. He had found other reasons to be concerned. He glanced down at his hand, which trembled with a winter worry, as if his body had processed the moving pictures of his premonition and they coursed through his blood stream. He waded up his fist, deciding to kill his nerves with a conviction.

Sabine had stopped several feet ahead of Chance on the trail. She was at the edge of the clearing, where moving forward would mean disappearing into the thick. Impatiently, she watched Chance, unaware that anything had happened.

“I know nature is enduring and all, Chance, but I must be home before my carriage turns back into a pumpkin,” she spoke sarcastically. It was not until she spoke that Chance remembered Sabine was still there. He shook himself of his chills and brought his eyes over to her. His look, a ghostly sight, sent up her own alarms. She knew him well enough to know when he was spooked. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Chance said after a long pause. He failed to look her in the eyes when he spoke. Quietly, he walked toward her. Still worried, she watched him. Without another word, they faded into the forest, leaving the clearing to the ailing eye of the bloody moon.