YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE Prologue

Prologue

Claire

and

Sakurapu

Oct 19, 2024

Music from: In the Hall of the Mountain King by Gledden and Loy (and Grieg), goth version

"Mottknight!"

The single word echoed in the depths of the Baltic vault known only as the Onyx Crypt.

"Mottknight! Again you disgrace your family name and the immortal realm!"

The youth kneeling before Sir Normander decided he'd played the remorseful student long enough. He rose to his feet, keeping his elder's stare. It was a lethal stare, one that had brought many a young and brash vampire to trembling. Not him.

Normander was old, even by vampire lifespans, and the flicker of amber torchlight didn't help his features. He sat on the throne of bones that had been shellacked by enamel so many times that the contours of skulls blended together, making any individual skull indiscernible. It was a relic, belonging to another, more traditionally vampiric time, but a throne even so.

"How many times must you come here after failure?" Normander demanded of the youth. His black cloak was wrapped bat-like around him, giving him the appearance of a hanging bat sitting down, right-side-up.

"I don't consider embracing my heritage—your heritage," the youth dared to add, "—a failure." He grinned, a charming grin by most standards in the Human world where he'd used it to get close to a slender, pale neck; several necks, in fact. "And since when is acting on tradition such a crime? When did we decide to neuter our heritage?"

Normander leaned forward, leering at the youth until the smaller figure lost some of his grin and began to tremble slightly. Normander's own grin was a frightful skull-tight smile that showed every tooth in his lean face, his well-developed fangs glinting in the dancing torchlight. "That decision was made centuries ago by minds far brighter than yours, boy. In seven hundred years of being hunted, slain, hiding, and begging for a drip of blood-morsel, wiser Ravens of the clans have decided what is best for all of the vampire realm."

The youth stood straighter, feeling the eyes at the back of his head—those who sat in judgment of him—silently screaming his doom. He clutched his ebony cloak, hiding his now dwindling trembling as he tried to bolster his nerves. He gave Normander's pointy smile a weak grin. He shrugged, chuckling. "It was just a little bite, on a little neck."

Normander dropped his smile, a grim look crossing his austerely thin face. "She was just a little nun. You've sufficiently undone centuries of work, Young Mottknight. Do you know why Bone follows your birth year?"

Barely had the youth opened his mouth when Normander leaped to his feet.

"Because fools like you are born and make us prey again! Always the Year of the Bone follows Vampire on the zodiac!" Normander boomed. "Always smartasses like you take privileges during their final exam and break our trust with the Human world!"

"But it's so natural—"

"Your Uncle Mortifal Mottknight set us back hundreds of years!" Normander shouted. "We had to start over from nearly the fifteenth century!"

The youth felt the eyes of his elders burning into his dark hair from the back of his skull, but he ignored the pain. "Maybe it should be that way again! Let Humans live in fear of us again! Make—!"

"Silent! Remarks like that got you sent back to Limbo for a decade," Normander said, lips curling so that his fangs were prominent. "Do you want to follow your uncle into Neverfall?"

Now the youth felt his confidence slip. He shook his head, pale complexion appearing even more bloodless in the wrath of the Lord Vampire. "It was just one neck, Sir—"

"One neck of the Church!" Normander seemed to grow larger, his cloak bristling in the chill breeze that suddenly howled through the catacombs. "You know the significance of that!"

The youth shook his head, feeling the Baltic salt air cut into him like the stinging of a hundred pinpricks.

"Yes, you do!"

"But, I only—"

"Another decade in Limbo, Young Mottknight!"

The words sank into the youth's mind like the death knell of a hammer. He shook his head as the judgment rang into the chamber. A few snickers came from the onlookers behind him.

"Sentence passed!" Normander's stony look pressed into the youth.

"No . . . No, not another decade." The young vampire shook his head, dropping back down to one knee, both edges of his cloak pulled to his bent knee in contrite apology, looking much like a bat folding up. "Not that. Please . . ."

"This will be your last chance. Next time you fail to reach your final exam years," Normander declared, "you will join your uncle in Neverfall."

He shook his head, feeling his senses drop, and then his body fall. For a moment the flickering torchlight swirled, closing in on him, and the whispers of his elders rushed like rattling reeds. The cold Baltic air grew frigid, and he closed his eyes as his body went limp.

The onyx floor resounded with the thud of the vampire youth's fall. He struggled to rise to his knees, but his muscles and bones wouldn't respond.

"Oh, my child . . ." a woman's warm tone reached him.

"Let him rise by his own power," he heard Normander say.

He could imagine his mother's face, her displeasure at his summons, her concern at his fall.

His shaky hands unclenched, losing his grip on his cloak edges, as he felt his senses abandon him.

Again.