Page 28 of Sleeping With the Vampire

“Send the message to Lord Ferney, right away! We leave at sunset!”

My mobile was still not working and I couldn’t contact Izzy.

I thought about what she had told me the previous evening. It made me think about the last weeks of the Great War, when it seemed like the entire world was going up in smoke. Millions of humans had been killed and what remained of them hid in caves under the mountains, trying to keep out demons and vampires. Vampires fought against each other while growing weaker as blood supply was running out and it became more precious. Strange alliances formed between werewolves and faeries, elves and brogs, to try and ensure the survival of their species.

I did not want to return to those days of anarchy and chaos. We had worked so hard to establish this peace and my family had flourished, but it seemed our success was a threat.

In the late afternoon, Lord Ferney from the nearby Fort Ferney arrived with his army of men. Jock had been one of the men from my original army and when I arrived in the West and was proclaimed king, I awarded him some land on the far end of the valley. He was in charge of some blood outlets and also guarded the roads to the north. We sometimes had incursions from roaming tribes and these had to be cut down before they infiltrated our lands.

“Jock!” I was relieved to see my old friend with a good number of fighters.

“Lucca, good to see you,” his face was grave as we walked towards the guardhouse.

“I was glad to get your call for help,” he said. “I think we may have a problem on our hands.”

Jock told me there had been a number of refugees coming in from the north. The stories seemed to be the same, of looting and pillaging and roaming bandits setting fire to villages as well as the cities.

“But the news from Ginnerlong is really what worries me,” he said.

Ginnerlong was the main city in the north. It fell under council rule but had no local leader. “A fair number of vampires have been killed,” Jock said.

“How is that possible?”

“There was a shipment of toxic blood last month. Apparently hundreds of them of them collapsed and died.”

“Toxic blood?” I had never heard of it.

Jock’s voice dropped even lower. “It was tested. The blood contained radionuclides. High doses of radioactivity.”

“Who supplied it?” I immediately wanted to know.

“I don’t know. Not you, not from the Capital either. It may have been intercepted.”

“Why didn’t you contact me immediately?” I wanted to know.

“I’ve tried calling you but I’ve been struggling to get through. The signal is so messed up lately. I came by last week but you weren’t in. I’ve left messages!”

This was true. I had seen the messages and had not gotten back to him. The developments with Izzy had taken up so much of my time and attention, I had lost focus on other things. Before that, I had been obsessed with finding Tanata’s killer. Jock’s problems had seemed unimportant. Now, I could see that I had made a mistake. Whatever was happening in the north was key to understanding what was happening in the rest of the land.

“Who is in charge of Ginnerlong now?” I asked.

“The Council have sent someone to keep the order and have posted Guards all over to prevent more violence. But the refugees don’t like him. They fear him. He is called the Servant. His guards have dogs that are exceptionally violent and cruel. They rip people’s throats out and leave them to die on the streets.”

“He is called the Servant?”

Here it was again, mention of a person I knew only in the darkest sense.

“Do you know him?” Jock asked, seeing my concern.

“As far as I know, he is loyal to the underworld, a medium and a wizard. Not a friend of our cause.”

A man arrived with news that there had been reports of fighting near Mill Creek.

We had to get there, fast.

In the early evening as the last of the light was dying, we got into trucks and cars and drove down to find Ragnar and Layrr, who were waiting at a farm near the creek. They were armed with all kinds of weapons as well as fire sticks, to burn the bodies. Ragnar was excited, thrilled at the prospect of thelooming clash but Layrr seemed troubled. I asked him why and he said the thugs who had fought back had seemed completely unprepared to fight. But despite their lack of skill and weapons, they were ferocious, with an energy that must have come from another source.

We split up in to three different groups and approached the creek from all sides. There was a clearing beside the river where there were some ruins and we thought the men were hiding here. When Ragnar’s group arrived at the ruins, however, there was nobody there. Layer’s men found nothing on their way to the same destination. I started to get a bad feeling, perhaps this was a trap.

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