A Moonlit Night - The Complete Saga (26 page)

“Very well,” Lady Amata said, “I think I’ve
made my point.”

“If that’s what you want to believe.”

“Good, then it’s settled,” Lady Amata happily
agreed, “And to show you that I’m not the cold-hearted ruler, like
you so spiritedly proclaimed… I’ll even grant your dying wish. I
have
my
victory, Horace… and you… well, you can have
your
victory, too. Congratulations, you’re the hero you
always wanted to be.”

The vampire queen ripped the ghoul’s heart
out with such ferocity that Horace had time to stare upon it with
his own eyes before finally giving into the darkness he’s avoided
for so long.

He might’ve looked no older than a
middle-aged man, but he had lived much longer than that. The
vampire blood kept him young and strong, but the price he paid
unleashed the floodgates of the netherworld into his mind and stole
his very sanity out from under him. It was the blood he craved now.
He’d do just about anything for another drop of blood and another
year of life. It never once scared him— until now. He died, but
before he did so, he regained a small piece of the life that was
stolen away from him.

The horde went crazy as Horace’s screams came
to a sudden stop and his lifeless body dropped to the ground. Amata
still held his heart in the air, above the ghoul’s mangled corpse.
She pulled it back towards her and let her fangs sink deep into the
organ.

After she took her fill of the
vampire-infused blood, as tossed the heart into the crowd and let
the dogs fight for the scraps. They went wild for the queen’s
offering, and it passed hands several times before being devoured
by a ravenous werewolf.

“My brethren,” Lady Amata began with Horace’s
blood still streaming down her chin, “I would like to make a
very
special announcement to you all. Our enemies have fled…
no doubt they were in awe of our power and feared for their lives.
Who can blame them? Not I… no, if I was in the traitor’s shoes, I
would’ve done the same thing.”

“We’ll never meet them in open combat, I’m
afraid,” Lady Amata continued, “No… they plan to continue running
until they reach their precious little temple. They believe to have
the upper hand, their temple kept a secret and forever out of our
reach. At that point… it’s the end of the road for us. We can’t
follow them and their free to carry out their blasphemous ritual.
They believe that they’ve won… and Horace bet his life on it.”

Each monster in the horde looked to one
another for support, but found nothing but the same terror-stricken
look, stretched across every face in the crowd.

“Fear not, my loyal subjects,” Lady Amata
said, “Your queen doesn’t disappoint. My poor friend, Horace, has
unknowingly divulged the location of the temple to me through the
blood passed onto him from his traitorous master. Now, there’s
nowhere upon this earth that they can hide!”

The horde chanted for their vampire queen and
beat on their chests in union to show proper respect. They wanted
blood. They needed destruction. Soon, they would find cravings
satisfied and have both within their grasp.

“Get angry, my legion,” Lady Amata said with
eyes afire, “Let that hatred you’re feeling right now burn deep in
your chest… let it permeate and build in pressure… until we finally
reach the temple’s walls and unleash all our aggression in one
fiery blaze of unstoppable destruction. Soon, we’ll be at the
cradle of
our
civilization… and then, my children… then…
we’ll kill them all.”

The End

Temple of
Prometheus

Chapter One

Far across the Atlantic, traveling back
towards the Americas they had left behind only a few short months
ago, the summoner and her companions traveled the open seas on
their way towards the illusive Temple of Prometheus.

It was the place where the solution to all
their problems could be solved, only Emily had no reason to believe
that had ever really been the case. She had been guided, coerced
and threatened into the actions she’s undertaken. Whatever her
reasons, it had become a matter of life and death, and when thrust
together with the undead vampires that lent a hand in the war
effort, she would choose
life
every time.

She hadn’t even known of the paranormal
realm’s existence until that fateful night when two ghouls attacked
her, but now she had been asked to commit the genocide of an entire
race of people, no matter how bloodthirsty and cold-hearted they
might’ve been. How could she really be asked to do such a thing?
And if it was a choice between her family and those that threatened
them, how could she not?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a woman’s voice
asked.

“Indeed,” Emily said as she turned from her
perch and looked back to see the Celt, Fiona, who stood behind her,
“I’ve never seen the moon so radiant… it’s like a completely new
experience. I was starting to think that I was in another world…
far removed from the problems that plague my existence.”

“It’s the pollution from the cities,” Fiona
said as she joined Emily against the railing, “You don’t really get
to appreciate the night sky until you get far, far away.”

“It’s breathtaking,” Emily replied, “I can’t
believe that I’ve never stopped and taken notice before.”

“Every night used to be like this,” Fiona
said, “A long time ago when things where a lot simpler. It was easy
to believe, back then, that it was a gift from the gods, meant to
light our path in the dark.”

“And now, what do you believe?” Emily
asked.

“The gods abandoned us a long time ago,”
Fiona said, “And we’re just scraping and clawing as hard as we can
to stay above the water that threatens to drown us all.”

Emily’s heart went out to wounded vampire,
who lost her sister a few days ago when the blood demon attacked
the castle. Fiona had every right to hate her, and even voiced
those intentions several times after the incident. Yet here she
was, trying to offer what little consolation she could to the woman
she so instinctually hated.

“You’re wondering what brought you here,
aren’t you?” Fiona asked.

“Among other things,” Emily said coyly,
“Things have been happening so fast lately. Less than a year ago, I
was at home considering my options for university. Now, I’m running
for my life, fleeing from an army based on creatures that I
believed fictional up until the moment they had their hands around
my neck.”

“Yes,” said Fiona, who knew all too well the
feeling of being threatened, “Our gifts are a blessing and a curse.
I am stronger than any human… faster, more agile, and even more
intelligent. I shouldn’t have a care in the world… and most of the
time, I don’t. That’s what scares me the most… the feeling of
losing the humanity that you once held so dear.”

“At first, you don’t think it’s going to
change you,” Fiona continued, “But it does… it always does. You
think you’ve got control over your new abilities, your new
cravings… but you don’t. You feel that if you can keep just a small
piece of that humanity you still cling to, it will make it all
better… but it won’t. No matter what you say or do… you’re not
human anymore. Whether you’re a vampire in the dark, or a summoner
in the light, you’re not one of them, and you’ll never be while
you’re still one of us… a paranormal, cast from society and forced
to live a life in secret.”

“What is it about vampires?” Emily asked with
a smile, “That makes you all so dreary and macabre?”

The two laughed under the pale moon and let
their animosity for one another go with the water that wrapped
around the large vessel. It wasn’t friendship, but it was a start;
and right now, Emily welcomed the company of anyone not trying to
stab her in the back.

“How’s your brother?” Fiona asked, “I haven’t
seen him much, and it’s not like there’s many places to hide on
this boat. He’s avoiding me, isn’t he?”

“Humans tend to avoid those that wished them
dead,” Emily quipped, “Don’t take it personally… it’s a
people
thing, although I’m not sure that I can relate as
well as I used to.”

“I could start to like you, summoner,” Fiona
said proudly, “But
don’t
go around thinking we’re
friends.”

“Don’t worry,” Emily replied, “I wouldn’t
dare be so bold.”

“Your brother’s lucky to be alive,” Fiona
added, “Things could’ve turned out much, much worse.”

“I know,” Emily said with regret, “All
too
well, I’m afraid.”

“I know he thinks that I hate him,” Fiona
continued, “And yes, yes… I
know
that I threatened to kill
him a couple times, but I really do envy him.”

“Oh?” Emily asked with eyes wide open, “My
brother’s always been quite the charmer, but he’s never gotten
under the skin of an older woman before.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Fiona, her
expression deadly serious and filled with sorrow, “I miss life, and
all the wonder it had to offer. I miss the warmth against my skin
and the hot sand beneath my toes. I miss my humanity, Emily, and
I’d do anything just to have it back… if even just for a brief
moment in time.”

“You speak of it like it’s still within your
grasp,” Emily noted, “Surely you’d go mad with such thoughts
stirring around in your head for an eternity.”

“It’s what my sister wanted,” Fiona said as
she leaned over the railing, “She wanted it so badly that she
chased down a goddamn blood demon. The stupid girl… had to just go
throw her life away… a life I would’ve surely followed had Xander
not pulled me back. So I stay… fighting for what my sister believed
enough to die for. I fight to be human.”

Suddenly, Emily’s reason for being here
became all the more clear. She wasn’t going to eradicate an entire
race of people— she was going to turn them back into the people
they once were before. Though, perhaps for many it would’ve been a
fate far worse than death.

“Is this what the Temple of Prometheus is
for?” Emily asked.

“It’s what the great sage, Mitra, once said,”
Fiona explained, “Written in ancient scrolls that predate any other
vampire codex on record. It speaks of the temple, although its
location was never mentioned within the text. It’s one of the few
gospels among our people. This one, in particular, chronicles what
our people call Armageddon… the end of our way of life.”

Emily tried to form a coherent sentence, but
was completely taken aback by Fiona’s revelation. How could Xander
not have told her about these scrolls? Was there a reason for his
deception, or was this another one of his calculated moves to
shield her from enemies not yet clued in to her path? Whatever the
reason, she was going to make sure that she found out for
herself.

“Don’t you know of the scrolls?” Fiona asked
with a look of shock, “You’re the summoner… how could you not have
know?”

“I never had anyone to guide me,” Emily
replied with thoughts going to her mother, long since absent and
knowledgeable of the summoner ways.

“Surely Xander has shown you the scrolls,”
Fiona said, “I mean, how could he not?”

“Yeah,” Emily said with a timid nod of her
head, “Sure, he’s shown me them… of course he’s shown me.”

She was lying, but if these scrolls truly
existed, then someone had gone to great lengths to make sure she
hadn’t uncovered them. Nothing has added up since they arrived at
House Franson, and now things seemed to make even less sense.
Perhaps worse than the thought of being hunted by a paranormal
horde, was that of being used by those closest to her.

Chapter Two

“C’mon, it’s
got
to be here,
somewhere,” Emily said out loud as she rummaged through Xander’s
belongings. “If I was a sacred and ancient scroll… where would I
hide?”

She had been searching through Xander’s
personal artifacts for almost an hour now, yet still hadn’t come
close to uncovering anything of value. With enthusiasm waning,
Emily was starting to gather that it would be easier to just reveal
her findings to Xander.

Their crude and outdated ocean liner docked
an hour or so ago and Xander had left with a small detachment of
troops to secure what he called their second mode of
transportation. Leave it to Xander, Emily thought, to make going
out to steal a couple minivans sound all mysterious.

“Where the hell are we?” Emily asked herself
as she glanced out the window, “Never been
here
before.”

When Xander had said they were returning to
the Americas, she had always just assumed that meant going back to
the good ol’ U.S.A. Heck, even Canada would’ve been acceptable; but
what Emily saw she wasn’t in the least prepared for.

Lush jungle that stretched as far as the eye
could see was mixed with pearly white sand and sparkling blue
oceans. Her first thought was that it could’ve doubled for the
summoner shores where she first met the image of her deceased
mother, but it was impossible. Or at least it should’ve been.

She stared out the window for nearly ten
minutes before someone opened the door and roused her from her
trance. It was Xander, arms crossed and impatiently tapping his
foot on the steel grated floor.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Xander asked as he took a step forward.

“How do you know I was looking for
something?” Emily returned with a question of her own, trying to by
herself another moment as she searched for a plausible excuse.

“Usually, that’s what someone’s doing when
they search a room unannounced.”

“Yeah,” Emily grumbled, “I guess that’s
true.”

She wanted to confront him right then and
there, but Emily knew she was on weak footing, having just been
caught red-handed and unable to mount proper offense. No, Emily was
going to have to play this differently if she wanted the truth— the
real
, incorruptible truth. She would need to coerce the
information from him. That was the only way to get the truth, if
she would be so willing to hear it.