The Dead of Sanguine Night
Copyright © March, 2016 by Travis Simmons
House Vantasyl Vampire Hunter Series Intro:
The Dead of Sanguine Night
Published by:
Wyrding Ways Press
Cover Design by:
Najla Qamber Designs
Formatting by:
Wyrding Ways Press
Editing by:
Wyrding Ways Press
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means—by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either are the product of the authors imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual places, events, and people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
It was foolish to be out at night, Amaranth knew this; there were dangers both rumored and unknown. She quailed at the memory of the reports of vampires and ghouls. The ghosts didn’t bother her much. She’d been told there wasn’t a lot that ghosts could do to a person. Still, the thought of seeing a disembodied spirit was enough to send shivers up her spine. The vampires and the ghouls, along with werewolves and other terrors that lurked in the darkness was enough to keep everyone in Danthea locked behind their blessed doors, their windows locked with silver inlaid shutters.
No one went out at night, unless they were foolish, or a hunter…if those even existed. If she’d been smarter, she would have spent the night with her boyfriend, Jeremy.
Amaranth turned, looking the way she’d come, wondering if maybe it was best to head back to her boyfriend’s home and sleep the night there. The problem was, she didn’t recognize any of the buildings or the roads in the darkness. It had to be the fact that she’d never been out at night that she didn’t recognize her surroundings.
Amaranth had to press on, keep going and she would find her way out of this haze of doubt and terror and she would make it home in one piece.
Far in the distance, she heard the bay of a wolf and stopped in her tracks. This was no ordinary wolf. Not in Danthea. In Danthea, that was the call of a werewolf that had gotten separated from its pack. To her right, startlingly close by, she heard the answering call of the pack locating one another for a hunt.
Her heart hammered hard enough that it deafened her to nearly all other noises. She fled down the cobbled walk until she was sure she’d made her way far enough from the hunting wolves that they wouldn’t find her.
But they can find my scent,
she told herself.
Amaranth pressed herself into the shadowy depths of a stone doorway, hoping that if the wolves came her way, they would not see her, or by some miracle of the Goddess, they wouldn’t smell her either.
She peered out around her. The full moon shone silvery red on the empty streets. On the corner across the way, a lamppost stood, casting its flickering flame into the night as if the paltry fire might offer some hope of protection. She knew there was no hope though, not on sanguine night, not when the blood moon rose high and those damnable beasts that haunted the streets by night gained power from the crimson rays of the moon.
Amaranth closed her eyes and tried not to think about what might be coming for her. Again, she wondered if it was too late to turn back, to go to Jeremy’s and whether the night.
She knew it was useless. At this point she was likely closer to home than to Jeremy’s, even if none of the surroundings looked familiar to her. She considered knocking on the door where she hid, hoping that someone inside might not confuse her for a ghoul or a hag, and let her in to stay the night. She shook her head to clear the thought. No one would ever be foolish enough to open their home to a stranger at night. Even her family might not open the door for her…who knew what could be taking her appearance to gain entry to their house?
Amaranth peered around her, wondering where the werewolves were. It was dead silent once more, the only noise she could hear was the distant whisper of the ocean, far off in West Shore.
In the ghetto of City Center,
she thought. That was another danger. In the ghetto there had been a string of deaths. They hadn’t been confirmed as murders yet, and Amaranth wasn’t sure they could ever be confirmed either. People had gone missing from their homes, reportedly gone out into the night only to be found devoured by ghouls in some abandoned house.
At the memory of the reports, Amaranth crept away from the doorway she hid in. What if this was an abandoned home? What if she accidentally pressed too hard against the doorway and fell inside, only to be devoured by ghouls?
A side street, that’s what she needed…a side street.
A couple paces down the road, Amaranth found what she was looking for.
Boulva Street was just the shadowed side street she needed. There were few lights, and plenty of places to hide. She tried not to think that some of the beasts in the night could see better in the dark than in the light. Instead, she made her way down the street, avoiding puddles of light from the few lampposts that were actually lit. She hoped there was a corner of an overgrown yard she could hide in until the sun ruled Danthea.
The cobbles of Boulva Street were cracked with the occasional missing stone , making walking dangerous if she wasn’t paying attention to where she placed her feet. The houses slanted toward one another on rotting foundations, like drunken neighbors seeking support. The yards were small and overgrown. For that, she was thankful.
In the ghetto,
she thought,
where people go missing and wind up
—
“Are you lost?” a voice asked behind her.
Amaranth jumped, barely keeping the scream behind her teeth from bursting out and shattering the stillness of the night.
Amaranth spun around to see the woman behind her. She was a short woman, clad in a long white dressing gown as if she’d been readying herself for bed. Her hair was blond and shined in the light of the blood moon. She was a pretty woman with a small nose and full lips the color of blood. Her eyes were ghostly blue.
“Are you lost?” the woman asked again, and smiled.
Amaranth nodded her head fervently. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Come with me,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “You can stay the night with me.”
“How do I know you’re not a ghoul or some other night terror?” Amaranth asked.
“How do I know you’re not the same?” the woman asked.
Amaranth didn’t have a good answer.
“My name is Lauren,” the woman told her. “What’s yours’?”
“Amaranth,” she said, slipping her hand into Lauren’s delicate grasp. Her hand was warm and welcoming. Amaranth was at once at ease.
“Well, Amaranth, come and sup with my family and me. We were just getting ready to eat,” Lauren said, turning back to the main street.
“It’s awful late to eat,” Amaranth said, at peace and emboldened to talk now that she was with Lauren. If this woman ventured out at night to save her, she must not fear the evil of Danthea. If she didn’t fear the evil, she must have some kind of control over it, or at least some way to ward it off.
“What can I say? We eat late,” Lauren said. She led Amaranth back down Boulva Street and around the corner to the house where Amaranth had hidden only moments before.
Lauren opened the door onto an inviting living room. Candles illuminated the inside. She rushed Amaranth inside. She took her cloak and hung it on a peg beside the door. A fireplace snapped and popped cheerily from the other side of the living space, and the security and safety it offered filled her with happiness.
A couch sat against the same wall as the door, and chairs filled the side walls. To the right of the fireplace was a doorway that led deeper into the well-lit house. To the left of the fireplace stairs ascended to the second floor.
“I would have knocked,” Amaranth said, turning to Lauren. “But I didn’t think anyone would have let a stranger in at night.”
“Most wouldn’t have, but my mother has the sense to know when a person is evil and when they aren’t. She saw terror in you, and sent me after you.”
“You’re brave to face the night alone,” Amaranth said.
Lauren smiled. “Follow me,” she said, motioning to the doorway to the right of the fireplace. “We’re just about to eat, and you are welcome to join us.”
Amaranth followed Lauren deeper into the house. The doorway opened up onto a small kitchen with tile counters on the left and right walls. Over the table hung a silver chandelier lit with multiple white candles. The rectangular table took up half the kitchen and sat close to the wall with just enough room for two people to sit behind it.
Around the table were various adults in the late stages of life. A grandfather, Amaranth suspected by his balding white hair and withered face, sat at the head of the table. A portly woman and a thin man sat close to the wall. They looked of the age to be Lauren’s parents.