The Vampire Kiss Chapter One: Night Falls

The Vampire’s Kiss
Chapter 1: Night Falls
by mypenname3000
Copyright 2015

Abigail D’Angelo controlled her fear as she pushed open the doors of Neil Armstrong High School. She hadn’t expected to be on the hunt when she came back to town to visit her sick mother. She stared into the dark school. It had been fourteen years since she strolled the hallways.

The last time had been to kill a vampire, too.

In some ways, the school looked unchanged since that bloody night, in others it was radically different. The same lockers marched down the hallway only painted a lighter blue instead of the puke green of her youth. The fliers on the walls proclaimed the upcoming Halloween Dance, still a staple of the school. The drinking fountains were different, made of white porcelain instead of stainless steel. Through the small, rectangular windows in the doors, she spotted the same lines of desks.

Memories flashed through Abigail’s mind of that terrible night fourteen years ago when she helped kill her first vampire. She had been Abigail Talbot then. Her, Damien D’Angelo, Frank Smythe, and Nora Wendle had entered the school in a mix of bravado and fear to kill the monster that had put two of their friends into the grave and turned a third. Only Abigail and Damien had walked out. Vincent had torn poor Nora’s head off and ripped out Frank’s throat before Abigail managed to hit the vampire with holy water.

Burned by the holy water, Vincent lay stunned as Damien had beat the vampire’s head to pulp with a silver cross the youths had stolen from St. Marks up the road from the school.

Abigail shook the memories away as her hands gripped her crossbow. I need to keep my focus. A white oak bolt was cradled in the weapon. Abigail had tracked the vampire to the school. They were often attracted to youthful vigor. Abigail’s own best friend, Lynette, had been Vincent’s first victim, transformed into a vampiress.

To this day, Abigail had not learned what happened to Lynette after Vincent died. Had another Knight Venator put her down, or was she still out there lurking in the shadows.

The hunter’s ears were tuned for any sound. She walked on the rubber soles of her combat boots. Her red hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail and she wore black fatigues, the pockets full of the tricks and weapons of the vampire hunting trade.

The coppery tinge of blood tickled her nose. The vampire had recently fed.

Where are you hiding? Abigail entered the cafeteria. The scent of blood grew stronger and stronger, stirring memories of fourteen years ago. Abigail fought to keep herself from staring at the spot where poor Nora’s head had been ripped off.

Stay focused. Abigail cast her eyes about the dark cafeteria for the vampire. He could be lurking under any of the tables that ran in neat rows across the large room.

It was stupid to hunt a vampire alone, but Abigail had killed over thirty in the last fourteen years. She had been trained and outfitted by the Jesuits and inducted into the Knights Venator. Every Knight knew on simple truth—sometimes you had no choice but to enter the lion’s den alone. Her partner was in Albuquerque on a hunt while she had been forced to come back home and care for her sick mother the last two weeks.

Sound rustled behind her.

Abigail spun. Shadows moved. Her crossbow bolt fired.
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Damien D’Angelo tried not to worry about his wife as he stalked through the abandoned warehouse. Abigail was a capable hunter, and the vampire plaguing their hometown sounded young. Abigail believed it was a newly changed undead that had slipped off the leash of its dam or sire.

Just like the vampire Damien hunted.

Heavy metal music thudded through the warehouse, booming from below. This vampire had no class or style. Damien gripped the sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun in his hands. It was loaded with rock salt. Vampires couldn’t stand the touch of purity. Rock salt, blessed silver, holy water, and white oak could all cause the monsters pain.

Decapitation and sunlight were the only sure ways to kill one.

Damien found a set of stairs at the far end of the ruined building, half covered by a piece of plywood. It was a pathetic attempt to conceal the entrance to the basement and the vampire’s lair. The entire warehouse was covered in a layer of dust, and sliding the plywood over the stairs had left behind drag marks. Of course, the footprints coming and going were an even clearer sign.

Why had you even bothered? Or are you just that stupid? Damien settled on the latter option.

This was the tenth day of the hunt. The vampire had killed two since Damien arrived, both young, pretty girls. This vampire was fast. Security footage at one of the attacks only showed the creature moving as a blur.

Each vampire would have a gift. It was always random if they would get mesmerizing gaze, enhanced speed, shapechanging, illusions, shadow walk, or one of the others. Damien had fought vampires displaying one of ten abilities and there were always rumors of new ones.

You never knew quite what you were getting when fighting a vampire. That was why Damien and Abigail had been trained by the Jesuit priests, inducted into the Knights Venator and outfitted with relics and weapons. Outside the warehouse, Father Augustine waited, providing Damien with support.

“Found the entrance,” Damien reported over his Bluetooth as he kicked aside the plywood. “Communications might get spotty.”

“Because of being underground,” Father Augustine asked, his voice crystal clear. Once, they had used radios, but cell phone technology was far more practical.

“No, because the vamp’s blaring heavy metal.” Damien winced. “Pretty terrible shit. Not the good stuff I listened to.”

“Yes, because rock in the Nineties made such a wonderful cavalcade of sounds.”

Damien smiled at the priest’s dry tone.

The vampire hunter descended down the stairs. It led to a dark hallway. Damien switched on his flashlight, holding it his left hand as we walked forward, shotgun held out before him. In the movies, vampire hunters always used UV lights to fight the undead. It wasn’t ultraviolet spectrum of sunlight that harmed vampires. It was the purity of the sun’s rays and what the fiery disc in the sky represented.

His eyes noticed the dark alcove. It could be a spot for an ambush, or merely was a branching tunnel. The thudding music came from straight ahead. There was a door with light flooding through it. Vampires could see in the dark, but the young ones were still too accustomed to their mortal lives and attached to what was familiar.

Damien kept his shotgun pointed right at the alcove as he advanced. He wasn’t surprised when the female vampire leaped out. She was naked, her breasts lovely and firm with youth, her blonde hair streaming behind her. She probably had been sired by the vampire Damien hunted, under her sire’s control.

Damien pulled both triggers of the shotgun. The explosion was deafening in the tunnels. His ears rang as the vampiress fell to the ground, her naked stomach and perfect breasts blackened by the purity rock salt. Her mouth opened but Damien couldn’t hear her screams over the deafening ringing in his ears.

Calmly, Damien sheathed his shotgun in a holster dangling off his belt and drew a silver plated machete inscribed with prayers, the knuckle bone of a saint set in the pommel. He seized the vampiress’s blonde hair and pulled, exposing her neck as she thrashed in pain. With a single swipe, he decapitated her. The body shriveled and grew black, decaying in a heartbeat. Before Damien could let go of her hair, she was dust swirling about his feet.

The lights were still on in the room at the hallway’s end. Damien’s hearing began to return as he reloaded his shotgun. The music still thudded. Damien wasn’t even sure the vampire had heard the shotgun blast over the blaring music and realized his new whore was dead.

Next time, pay better attention. Damien smiled at the thought. Of course, there won’t be a next time.

Damien pulled a hand crossbow from beneath the leather duster he wore. His wife always teased him for the affectation, but Damien enjoyed dressing like a badass out of a western. Of course, the jacket was woven with prayers and could give him a moments of protection against a vampire’s attack.

“One dead,” Damien reported as he reached the door. “About to breach.”

Augustine didn’t answer. The call probably dropped with all the concrete over his head.

Damien put away his flashlight and tested the doorknob. Unlocked. What a trusting vampire.

Damien twisted the handle and shouldered open the door. He burst through it and he brought up his crossbow. A vampiress lounged on a bean bag, her thighs spread open and her fingers playing with her pink pussy.

She screeched as the white oak bolt took her in the heart, paralyzing her entire body. Damien swept his gaze around as he furiously cranked back the crossbow’s windlass. A male vampire with a blonde goatee and dressed in torn, black clothing stood up. A silver skull earing dangled from the vampire’s right ear. Fangs flashed as he growled.

“Do you know who’s territory you are treading on, Mortal?” the vampire demanded with exaggerated bombastity.

He’s watched too many bad movies. “Nope.”

Damien pulled out a white oak bolt and dropped it into the crossbow’s cradle.

“I am Spike, the slayer of—”

Damien snorted with laughter. “Did you say your name is Spike? Like from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” That show had been big when Damien was a teenager. It helped Damien and his future wife realize a vampire haunted their school, feeding off their friends.

“No,” hissed the vampire, indignation crossing his pale face. The vampires lips were dark black, almost a pair of shadows compared to the corpse-white of the his skin.

Was he wearing makeup to make himself look that pale?

“Spyke with a Y.”

“And that makes it better?” Damien snorted and raised the crossbow.

The vampire attacked in a blur of speed. Damien fired the crossbow bolt straight in front of him. Like Damien expected, the vampire charged headlong towards him. The bolt took the monster in the chest. Paralysis crashed into Spyke a moment before he slammed into Damien. Damien twisted and let Spyke crash to the floor.

“Why does your kind always give speeches before they attack?” Damien demanded to the paralyzed vampire as he drew his machete. “Even the best of you is given over to speeches. You gave me all the time I needed to reload.”

“Wait,” Spyke groaned, struggling to move his body, “he promised…it would be…different.”

“Vampires lie.” Damien beheaded the vampire.

Behind him, the vampiress let out a wheezing gasp.

“I’ll attend to you in a moment,” Damien nodded and looked around the room. There was a young woman naked in the corner, blood dribbling from her neck and thighs. She had been fed upon. Most vampires could spend days drinking from a victim before they died, keeping them in a state of euphoria. Vampire venom was a potent drug.

Damien knelt beside the victim and touched her throat. Her pulse was thready.

“You’re a survivor,” he told the wounded girl. “You’ll make it through. He didn’t ruin you.”

Damien attended to the vampiress with his machete.
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The Angel watched Damien behead the female vampire before attending to the wounded, young woman. Her white wings flapped as she floated in the Ether. “What are my odds for success, Gideon?”

“9%,” Gideon answered her. The second angel drifted towards her in the Ether, the immaterial realm between Life and Beyond. “His psyche profile indicates he will be hard to manipulate, Aurora.”

Aurora nodded, her wings beating faster as she studied Damien. He was a handsome mortal, tall and athletic, with dark hair and the shadow of stubble across his squared jaw.