Chapter One: One Night in September

When he had successfully assassinated the leading warlord in Inderhall, Mikhail’s last idea of a reward was a vacation to the southern city of Canton in North Calgary. However, his sire had deemed it appropriate, and Mikhail knew better than to argue with the elder vampire.

He’d never liked the big cities after darkness had fallen—in fact, he’d never much liked big cities to begin with. Being a creature of solitude, he much preferred the ancient feel of a dark, quiet forest without the artificial lights and bustling men and women out to indulge in activities not meant for the daytime hours. Their debauchery disgusted him, not in the least because he was felt very little inclination towards emotions such as desire and greed. His baser instincts more so involved bloodlust and the need to be in control, to be feared. In his rather unique position, these needs were easily and often fulfilled.

Humans had no idea how truly dangerous the nighttime hours were for them. Most of them remained unaware of the untimely death those like him represented because of strict statutes their corrupt governments had secretly placed on them. They were ignorant, which was certainly the best course of action to prevent a widespread panic, but also to their detriment. It was this ignorance that made hunting a much easier endeavor, and while Mikhail would never complain about that, the self-serving acts of the government—obtain power, retain power—were never something he could respect. It was all the better that he didn’t and would never answer to them.

He had little regard for human life outside of the necessity of feeding, but even someone as inherently ‘evil’ as he could understand that offering up the lives of those meant to be protected just to maintain control wasn’t the most ethical approach.

It was a shame his sire had sent him to a city like this, though, despite the vulnerability of its people. He would have much rather preferred to be in the wilderness, where his appearance and actions weren’t dictated by the masses, and he could truly enjoy the freedom his lifestyle had attained him. The air there was clean, which mattered to him although breathing wasn’t strictly necessary; any forms of life left him well enough alone; there were no trifling interruptions to his day. Instead, he had been forced to visit a polluted city where the air smelled constantly like smoke and gasoline, he was pressed on all sides by lesser beings, and even something as simple as entering and leaving his hotel room garnered curious looks, mostly likely because of the hours he kept.

In fairness to his sire, the city of Canton was ripe with the blood of nobles and the wealthy. While the homeless and poor were easier prey, their blood was often unsatisfying and dirty, although it would do if he was desperate. He would have to be very desperate for blood indeed if he fed on a homeless man—the taste was disgusting, especially when infused with drugs and alcohol, as it often was. It was for this reason he usually chose those who could at least take care of themselves. But even more importantly, those who were privileged, who had much to live for and were full of the desire to survive, provided a much more thrilling hunt. Instilling fear within them was an experience he lived for, and the adrenaline that flowed through their veins made the result of his chase so much sweeter. With that in mind, his sire had probably thought sending him here would be a treat. And Mikhail supposed it was, in that regard, even with his previous complaints in mind.

Unfortunately for his hunting preferences, his looks did not appeal to the upper class—at least not without modification, and he rarely felt the desire to change himself to fit the needs of others. If he was so inclined, he could blend in well enough with the throngs of humans going out to their posh restaurants and VIP clubs reserved for the elite, but he found little use for that in a liberal place such as Canton, where ‘different’ was easily accepted by most.

And he did indeed look different than the average human if he chose not to hide himself. Upon turning, his previously dark eyes had become the color of freshly spilled blood and his fingernails had blackened and narrowed into tips, mirroring the appearance of claws. His skin had paled far more than was the norm to the sun-loving southerners of Canton, and he had untamable black hair that had the classic look of ‘rebel’ that so many human teenagers attempted to achieve with copious amounts of gel and hairspray. All in all, he was not what his preferred food group would find aesthetically attractive.

However, it seemed the trend these days was for the progeny of the rich to rebel against their parents, and so occasionally he could find a human who liked how he looked, had pleasing blood, and who could also be convinced into a dark alley for a deadly tête-à-tête. These were usually found at highly sexualized nightclubs, often where kink parties and a great deal of partial nudity took place. Although he detested such whims, they served his purposes and he would not protest.

It was at one of these places—a BDSM club with a twist of gothic culture ironically titled ‘The Virgin Saint’—that he had decided to make his hunting ground for the night. It hadn’t been difficult to procure attire appropriate for the occasion—form-fitting black jeans, a sleeveless black shirt, and a dark leather jacket, with cliché combat boots completing his ensemble. He cared little for his appearance, but it was necessary to ‘fit in’ when hunting in a place like this.

The bouncer at the door gave Mikhail little trouble, barely glancing at him before returning the ID with a fake name. Because of the burly man’s inattention, Mikhail was easily able to cast a small glamour to trick the bouncer into believing he had paid for his entry. Money had never been a concern, but where one could avoid spending it, one should. If he spent money every time he had to eat like a human did, he would drain resources much faster than necessary.

The Virgin Saint was dimly lit, like most nightclubs, but he could see just fine with the vampiric gift of perfect night vision. The club had two bars on opposite sides of the large room, one by the stage where an electronica band was setting up for their performance and the other near the entrance to the patio. Purple and red strobe lights flashed erratically on the dance floor, but the main source of light was from the electric candelabras attached seemingly without rhyme or reason to the walls around the room. The floor and walls were black, with the only tinge of color coming from the white trimming lining the ceiling, yellowed with age.

The scent of cigarette smoke was pungent, even from the distance he was from the patio, and it was only barely masked by the stagnant, humid air inside the bar. Admittedly, the smell of sweat and emotion around the room was strong, but he could handle it well enough. If he had been a fledgling, the thick, tempting smell of blood from so many humans and the thrumming of loud music would have been overwhelming, but he had not been a fledgling in a very long time and was accustomed to his heightened senses. It was now easy to assimilate into the crowd seamlessly without succumbing to bloodlust, even though the club was packed to capacity, and as he pushed his way through the crowd, he decided he could not have chosen a better place to hunt on a Saturday night.

He took a seat at the bar near the patio, simply observing the gaudily-dressed patrons with mild interest. He had to choose a target carefully, preferably one that was desiring attention from a handsome stranger and who had either come alone or with a large group of friends—either way, they had to be someone who wouldn’t be missed for a while. He was eyeing a woman in her mid-thirties sitting across from him down the bar when he was suddenly assaulted with a scent that sent a surge of craving through his body, as though his hunger had at once tripled in intensity, and this hunger would only be sated by the blood from whoever the scent belonged to.

He was immediately alert. Throughout the din of laughing, chattering, and boisterous exclamations, the scent of whomever this human was called out to him. It was the sweetest, most delectable scent that he had ever had the joy of inhaling. He’d never felt blood call out to him like this before, not in all his three-hundred and forty-six years. It was an overwhelming temptation to immediately find this person and drain them of all their blood—this was something he had never felt before and didn’t rightly imagine he’d ever find again.

The bartender arrived with the gin and tonic he had ordered, only to call out angrily when Mikhail abruptly got off his stool and left without accepting the drink or paying. Eyes almost glazed over in his sudden bloodlust, he could only focus on finding the source of the scent.

He pushed through the crowd in a daze. More than once he vaguely registered someone sending him a dirty look for his rudeness or grumbling at him to watch where he was going, but he ignored them all. There was nothing more important to him in that moment than finding whoever possessed the blood he smelled.

A head of pale blonde hair appeared in his line of vision; it was a young woman standing outside on the patio, talking to a black-haired young man. Red eyes narrowed and full of hunger, he was unable to tear his gaze from her.

The scent was most certainly coming from her, of that he had no doubt, and he had to restrain himself from attacking her right upon this realization. The young woman turned around, eyes meeting his momentarily through the crowd. He felt a mild jolt of something unidentifiable run through his body before her eyes then moved away without any form of acknowledgment and continued to scan her surroundings before she waved to someone behind him. The spell was broken, but he knew then who his prey was for that night. He would settle for no other.

“Kenneth! Get over here!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” the brunet called. For a moment he was obscured from their sight by a tall man who refused to move out of his way, but soon enough he met up with his friends.

Sophie Hart was not a happy camper.

“Kenneth!” she chided angrily when he finally reached her and their group. “How could you even suggest we come to a place like this? This place is horrible!” She motioned to the half-naked girls to their left, who had invested in very realistic but fake vampire fangs and eerily colored contacts.

“It’s probably just a roleplay night or something,” her friend Dean said, albeit a little bit grumpily. It seemed he was in agreement with her. “Who knows why people choose to act like they’ve been recently released from an insane asylum?”

Sophie nodded once emphatically, but she couldn’t help but crack a small smile at Dean’s choice of wording. “I totally understand people wanting to, um, stand out, but…” She followed Kenneth’s gaze and then frowned severely.

“Don’t be such a prude,” Kenneth said nonchalantly, his eyes focused on a topless woman wearing only a miniskirt with long lime-green hair and purple contacts. He quickly turned back to the group when Sophie snapped her fingers in front of his face, and then he shrugged as if his attention hadn’t strayed. “All I know is Leah said this place had the best prices on drinks in Canton,” he explained casually.

Sophie crossed her arms, pressing her full breasts upwards teasingly. She wasn’t completely unaware of the wayward lecherous stares this action attracted, but she graciously chose to ignore them. “And why are we taking her advice on where to drink? They’ve been doing nothing but going to strip clubs and places like…like this!

“Sophie, just chill,” Kenneth said, raising his arms and motioning to their surroundings. “You don’t even have work tomorrow, right? What’s wrong with a little fun?” Kenneth gave her an easy grin.

“Ugh, I’m sorry, but this place just really freaks me out. I don’t like it here. It feels like so many things could go wrong so easily…” She trailed off when she noticed a bald man dressed in skin-tight black leather and an absurd amount of buckles blatantly staring at her. She opted to take the high road and ignore it, but chills still swept down her spine.

Dean noticed her discomfort and draped his arm over her shoulders teasingly. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll protect you, no problem.” He flexed his other arm, showing off an impressively-muscled bicep, and the cheesy grin on his face made Sophie roll her eyes.

Her discomfort was temporarily forgotten. “Oh my god, stop it,” she said, pushing him away and laughing. Both Kenneth and Dean laughed along with her, and any sour mood was displaced. She then asked, “Is anybody else coming, or is it just us?”

“Vikki’s not coming,” Kenneth said. “She said, and I quote, ‘Drinking is unhealthy and a recipe for disaster. I won’t partake in it.’” He imitated her words in a falsetto voice, sticking his nose up in the air to mock their friend’s superiority complex. “As for anyone else, I don’t know.”

Dean chimed in, “Neither are Greg or Holden. Apparently they’re at a strip club for Holden’s birthday.”

“Great. Just great,” Sophie said with an exasperated sigh. “I’m alone with two boys who haven’t aged past preschool.”

“You wound me,” Dean said as he slapped a hand over his heart dramatically, quickly proving her point. “My soul bleeds.”

Sophie sighed and nudged him with her elbow, perhaps using just a little too much force because he grunted. “Cut it out, ‘Introduction to Theatre 101.’”

“That’s cold,” Kenneth said, crossing his arms and pouting playfully. “At least I can hold my liquor better than a preschooler.” Sophie only barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes yet again. While Dean might have had a smidgeon of maturity in him, Kenneth’s allure was based in his fun, party-going ways rather than intellectual conversation.

Against her will, Sophie soon found herself laughing and smacking him on the shoulder when he didn’t stop pouting. “Don’t be dumb, Kenneth.”

“Whatever,” he grouched before getting back to business. “Well, since we’re here, we might as well see about those prices, right?”

Despite her better judgment—even though her friends were enthusiastic, her feelings on the bar overall were still firm—Sophie agreed and the trio made their way to the nearest bar. The Virgin Saint was jam-packed with people and thankfully, not all of them were dressed to look like vampires. At the same time, she found that more of them than she would have imagined had fake fangs that were fitted to their mouths, and if that wasn’t a waste of money, she didn’t know what was.

Beneath her attempt at a confident façade, however, was fear. Even if vampires were mythical creatures at best, she couldn’t help but be frightened of them. After her mother’s bloody, gruesome death at the hands of a vicious serial killer, she found all thoughts of blood and by extension, blood-drinking vampires, unwelcome thoughts in her mind. Even vampire bats could rile her fear. She knew that at the age of twenty-two she shouldn’t be frightened of such things anymore, but it wasn’t something she found she had a choice in.

Unlike her friends, who were roughly pushing past people without a care in the world, Sophie prided herself on the good manners her parents had instilled in her. She took the role of apologizing to those that Kenneth and Dean had offended, repeating apology after apology.

At some point during her attempts to placate her friends’ rudeness, Sophie found that she had lost track of them in the throng of people.

“Oh, crap,” she muttered under her breath upon realizing she had no idea where they were. She had made it to the bar, but they were nowhere in sight.

Simply not wanting to be at the nightclub turned into an active desire to go home. This place made her very uncomfortable for many reasons—some she could place, some she couldn’t.

It didn’t help that she stuck out like a sore thumb in a room full of people dressed in all black—even those not dressed up as vampires still wore mostly dark colors if they wore much of anything at all. With her light green tank top, faded blue jeans, and red heels, she looked very much the part of someone who had wandered into the wrong place—and the occasional odd look she got from those she passed by only made it more obvious. She could only ignore the stares and search for Kenneth’s bright yellow t-shirt, the only distinctive color that would reveal her friends.

In her search, she wasn’t exactly paying attention to what was right in front of her and suddenly, she ran headlong into someone who hadn’t had the courtesy to step out of her way, even though he was facing her.

Instinctively, she mumbled an apology and tried to move around him, but on either side of him were large, tightly-knit groups.

“It’s quite alright,” came the smooth, velvety tenor from whoever she’d run into. She looked up, surprised that the man was speaking to her and interrupting her search. Even more surprising was that he hadn’t moved to get out of her way when she was obviously trying to pass through.

Sophie glanced up at the taller individual, who was still standing there resolutely, and immediately had her breath taken away. She tried to attribute that to anything other than fear, but nothing else fit.

The man in front of her was incredibly intimidating. He was tall and lean, but even though his figure was slim he seemed to radiate something unidentifiable that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. He had dressed the part to come to The Virgin Saint, but it was a tamer version of what others were wearing, which she thought was probably a good thing. Something about him made her feel uncomfortable, though. It wasn’t his translucent pallor, which was strange to see in Canton, nor was it the unfriendly look on his face or the red-colored contacts, although those were outright startling.

Their eyes met and yet he still didn’t move.

“Um…excuse me?” she said at last, slightly louder than usual to ensure he heard her. She had a feeling he wanted to hit on her or something, but she had no interest in such activities. “I need to get by.” She motioned vaguely with her hands for him to let her pass, trying to make her expression as blank and disinterested as possible.

He was looking at her intently and didn’t seem to hear what she’d said. The look in his eyes was a little disturbing, she decided—it was like he was sizing her up, inspecting her. Sophie decided she didn’t like it; most girls didn’t appreciate being looked at like they were cattle.

Excuse me,” she repeated, a little more forcefully. With all the people around, it would be just as difficult to go around him as it would be to simply go through him. However, she was starting to consider being as rude as her friends and simply shoving him out of the way.

The man shook his head, as though suddenly alert again, and then smiled pleasantly.

She stiffened, seeing the fake fangs that so many people seemed to have here, but had little time to focus on her discomfort when he said, “Care for a drink?”

No,” Sophie ground out. She futilely turned around, looking for any sign of bright yellow. She turned back to him, irritation getting the best of her, and said forcefully, “I’m not interested.”

He raised an eyebrow and then smirked. It was a very different expression than the smile he had been wearing before, and it seemed to match his face much better—it made him look dark, threatening. A shiver ran down her spine.

“Your friends are at the other bar,” he told her abruptly, pointing towards the bar across the room.

Sophie instinctively followed his finger and sure enough, she saw Kenneth’s reassuring bright yellow t-shirt, along with the boy himself.

She turned back to him, blinking in surprise. “How did you-?”

The strange man had apparently slipped away in the split second she wasn’t looking at him.

The blonde sighed. “Creepy,” she muttered, but nonetheless made her way over to her friends. After much less politely shoving her way through the crowd—annoyance and fear made for good motivators—she finally met up with Kenneth and Dean. She was in a considerably worse mood than she had been before. What kind of guy even acted like that?

“Where were you? We lost you,” Dean asked when she finally arrived.

“Yeah, I noticed,” she replied sharply. She glanced wearily the empty shot glass Kenneth was holding. “Are you guys going to be a while? Because I kind of feel like going home.” She couldn’t help but be little afraid after meeting that strange man, even though it was most likely unjustified. Asking her if she wanted a drink, and then pointing her toward her friends when she declined? The fact that he had even known she was looking for them and what they looked like was frightening enough in and of itself. At least the others just stared.

“Oh, come on, Soph. Just a little longer?”

Finding a surprisingly empty barstool, Sophie took a seat and tried to force the weird thoughts about the stranger from her mind. As long as she stayed with Kenneth and Dean, she’d be safe. “Fine. But you’re not getting so drunk you can’t walk home on your own, okay?”

“Of course not,” Dean replied with a haughty sniff. Kenneth had the decency to not say something that would likely be a lie, and Sophie knew she’d be helping them walk home. In a way, that was a little reassuring.

“Bet I can drink more than you!” Kenneth challenged Dean out of nowhere, although Sophie had been expecting something of the sort since the moment she had been invited out.

“In your dreams!”

Sophie sighed, cradling her head in her hands. It was going to be a long night.

Then, as Kenneth and Dean continued to drink and drink for the sake of their impromptu contest, she felt eyes on her. It was a disconcerting feeling, knowing that she was being watched, even though she supposed she should be used to it because of her body type. She assumed it was just the kind of thing that happened to girls who frequented these types of places, but the feeling still sent shivers down her spine. It was when she was escorting her completely-plastered friends home that she actually became afraid.

The feeling was not going away, and somehow she knew she wasn’t being paranoid this time, unlike other times, usually when she was walking around at night by herself. She was being followed and with her friends in their current state, they would be of no help—in fact, they would be a liability. She had been stupid to let her friends get this drunk.

Regretting having ever left home on a Saturday night in the first place, Sophie steeled herself and hoped that she was truly just imagining the feeling of being followed.

Next Chapter: Chapter Two: Sweet Blood