4. Hello Mongrel

I was blocks away from the dilapidated cathedral. I stood there and cracked my neck looking around it was super dark there were few streetlights that were still on. It had been weird when the human's world fell apart with the war. The infrastructure for most things crumbled. Still, they had been inventive and before all the carnage that came, a lot of things had been able to be converted to renewable energy, several years prior to the war.

It was why sometimes when I jumped to places all the lights were still on, that power was solar most likely. Just like the few lights that lingered on this block. My storm earlier had probably depleted a lot of that energy, and it was probably why only a few remained illuminated. They had not received as much sun as they needed to be powered. I looked up at the stars that hung in the sky.

I felt a cool breeze on my cheek. It was peaceful here, maybe I should take up resistance in one of these now abandoned town homes. Vanguard would miss me, but I would finally be really alone, just as everyone had been making me feel. I chewed on my bottom lip as I looked at the townhome closest to me. I tried to picture myself living in it. Hiding from the war, and my friends who thought I had pushed them away. Hiding away from all the people that counted on me to find these dark artifacts for them.

Maybe, maybe I could do it. For a little while at least, until someone won the war. If it was Vanguard, they would find me and punish me for abandoning them. If it was someone form Malachar’s Order I would be killed, maybe tortured some, they were sadistic from what I had witnessed. Either way I would be dead. No, I had to go about my duty, try to save myself and win this war. I turned from the townhouse and began my walk toward the cathedral. I raised one of my hands and felt clouds fill all the empty space in the air.

I kept my pace and kept the blanket of fog up as I approached the building. No one, Vampire or human would see me. At least until I got into the cathedral. I could make the windows burst with hail or lightning and a storm could fill the building, but I didn’t think it was necessary, I heard nothing, smelt nothing, and felt that no one was there. Just like I predicted, whomever this stone man was he was long gone, and it was just me. I found the cathedral open and slipped in the front door.

The place was massive and pitch black. No light filtered in. My eyes quickly adjusted. That was what being a vampire was, we could see better than humans. Most third generation, like me, didn’t have the skill as well as the rest of us, but that is where I was different. I had the best traits of an average vampire and then some, weather control being one of them. I could see the pews flipped over; blood stained the ground. Malachar had been a savage and that was clear. The corps where long ago removed but the blood that stained the stone remained.

The blood artifact had to be hidden here. I walked over the turned over pews and came to the front of the large hall. There was an altar. I looked for anything out of the ordinary. I went to the podium that was off to the side and looked in the inside where the small shelves were. I found a crucifix standing up. It was black, they were never that color. The ones I had seen where made of gold, silver, maybe even bronze. But this one was black, black as obsidian. I left it there to find matches. There where candles here somewhere it was a church after all, and I needed to light them to examine the thing.

Once everything was ready, I went to the crucifix again. I bent down to look at it again. It was standing up, this one had to be the one that was supposed to be on the alter in the front of the hall. I reached out and grabbed it. Power flooded me, my hand felt like it was being burnt, and I could hear the screams of the people who died here. I quickly released the thing. This was it; this was the blood relic. I looked down at my hand and found it blistered. The dam thing burned me.

I knew it was an evil thing, how was it made again? Or better yet how could I destroy it. I needed to do it quickly. Who knew if touching it would alert Malachar that I found his talisman, if I could call it that. I needed the book on it, I needed to figure out how to destroy it. But there was no way I could bring it back into the headquarters with me. If Malachar could track it, he would know where one of Vanguard’s bases was. But I had no idea if he could track it, or if touching it alerted him or anything.

I had read the book that mentioned it over a year ago and I had been so busy I had not had time to look through the other books I acquired from Darkwood. I wanted to scream. Information was always the key and books held that, so why had no one helped me look for it, why had no one but me started to catalog the books I rescued from Darkwood. They were stupid, they wanted me in the field because of my gift, but the best gift I had was my mind and they had let it rot.

I was angry with myself; I was angry with Vanguard. I didn’t know what to do. I could leave it here, obviously it was safe here, it hadn’t been touched in four years, that I knew of. I could leave it here go research and then come back and destroy it. I could tell Varin I had been right and that we were one step closer to the end of the war. He would give me help to find out what we needed to destroy it. He would help now that my suspicious were confirmed. Yes, that was a good plan.

My hand was sore and burning, I could do a little healing on it, but blood would close it up right away. I glanced at the stone floor, that blood was dry, but it was still blood. I walked down the few steps to get to the floor. I went rubbed my burnt hand on it and my hand burned once more and I pulled it away. The burn was gone leaving soft skin, but it had hurt. I didn’t have much time to think on it because as I stood back up, I felt I was no longer alone.

My eyes found grey ones, staring at me. The Stone Man, he had haunted my dream, destroyed people like they were nothing and now he was looking at me. His black hood of his peacoat was up. I couldn’t see his hair just those grey eyes breathe a mask that made him look like stone. I could make out his frame, it was tall. I wanted to examine him more, but I knew it was time to go, I needed to jump, I needed to go back to headquarters and come back another time.

This stone man had not seen where I was standing before, he had no clue that I found the altar's crucifix that had turned black, he didn’t know that I had found the blood relic. I decided to jump, but when I went my mind flashed back to the halls in Blackwood. Me running being chased by the masked man in front of me. I was not asleep, I couldn’t be, could I? No, I was here and he, whomever he was, was here too. I ripped from the halls and was now back in the cathedral and then I was looking at the stone face again.

I went to jump again but my mind changed and again I was in my nightmare. What was happening? It was harder this time but again my mind focused and I was in the crumbling cathedral. Only this time, the stone mask was not across the room it was close to my face. So, close I could feel the heat from the person, whomever it was beneath it. Whomever it was way to close, but I knew he was a vampire, and he had recently fed and from a live source, he was radiating to much heat to have been feeding from blood bags. His grey eyes were locked on me, and I was frozen.

He was too close to let me jump now. I tried to back away but my legs where locked in place. I tried my hardest to move but couldn’t. I knew this gift; he had mind manipulation. He had shown me my nightmares; he wanted me distracted so I couldn’t just jump and return to safety. He wanted me locked in my current position and so I was. Whomever he was he was powerful, his grip in my head was firm.

I couldn’t read his expression with his mask on. Then I saw large black bat like wings appeared from behind him.  Vampires who had wings were only from seven family bloodlines, all purists. Whomever the stone man was he was from one of them. My mind raced through the purist families that had wings. Grey eyes, grey eyes and wings, I knew of only one family. The man in front of me removed the mask and I was looking at Theodore Astor. “Hello Mongrel.”