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Chapter 11: Early Morning Hunt
Shortly after the first rays of the morning sun filter threw the dingy window of the destitute apartment that Van Rossin is renting mostly do to its proximity to the places he feels he is most likely to find what he is looking for a loud buzzing erupts from his alarm clock. He stirs quickly and shuts the alarm off. 6:30 am, A good time to prepare. He looks out the window, the sun is shining threw a clear sky. Not even a cloud seems to mar the perfect blue of the day. The perfect weather for what he has planned for the day. He glances about the room and notices that the young woman who had come hear the night before has already left. This does concern him some what as he is certain that had she left his place at any time before sun rise she would be in rather serious danger. Hopefully she is all right, however, conceding the information she gave him the previous evening. Thanks to his chance meeting with the rather enchanting, if a bit under educated, young woman he has found the first break in his new vocation.
It was less then a year ago that his dear sister had become enthralled with a strange young man. He was possessive and everything about the individual sent chills down Van Rosin's spine. The bizarre man had pail skin, black hair and brown eyes that had a washed out quality to them. One evening his sister had come to him with the most bizarre story he had ever hurdle. It sounded as if it was out of a horror movie. His first thought was that the man his sister had been seeing had given her some sort of hallucinogen. He calmed her down and listened to her tell him that he male companion had biotin out someone's thought and drank there blood. He calmly told her that if she saw her friend slit someone's thought they would inform the police nit the morning. She became hysterical again, insisting that he grew fangs and bit the person. She also clamed that his eyes had glowed red.
Of course Van Rossin didn't actually believe his sister at that time. He was certain that the individual was a dragger and that he had gotten his sitter to use LSD or something smaller. They would portly go to the police and the police would portly find the 'victim' to be perfectly okay the next morning. His sisters boyfriend had clamed to be with a performance company of sorts that performed what they called "grave yard shift productions of the classics" . She portly witnessed a rehearsal while under the influence of some sort of drug. He was planing on having her checked into a rehab program when her 'friend' and his performance company showed up.
She was right. They had fangs and there eyes glowed red. They were cleaning up after ether hunt and wanted no witnesses. In his terror he was barley able to get a call threw 911. By the time the police and ambulances arrived the troop was gone. He required a compliant transfusion and then some for his life to be saved. It had been too late for his sister. It was while he was in the hospital that he vowed to learn all he could about the monsters that attacked him and his sister., and destroy as many of there can as he could. The police and other authorities assumed that his account of events was the by-product of the trauma. The performance troop couldn't be found. They had moved on to another city during the night.
Ever sense that night Van Rossen has wondered just how long the members of that troop have been together. Were it possible to trap one of there kind it might be interesting to find out. There is the subtle possibility that they might have actually know the man who wrote as Shakespeare. Might have the answered to one of literature's biggest arguments. Did the man from Straiford on Avon woos name was Shakespeare write the plays accredited to him, or were they written by another. However, such creature are far to dangerous for such whimsical interviews. Such creatures are mass murderess by there nature and should simply be destroyed. Having confronted there kind in the night Van Rossin is not about to confront them after dark again. Best to attack at a time when they are, by all accounts, vulnerable. Today Van Rossin intends to find out just how accurate past accounts truly are.
He locates a rather new and fairly sturdy gray canvass back pack and opens it up. He bout the backpack at a surplice star and took it to a specialty shop were he had verbose symbols from a variety of different religions embroidered on to it. He tried to utilizes any symbol from any religion he could think of or look up that was associated with protection. Always better safe then sorry. He unlocks a deep roar on his desk and opens it. Staked and arranged neatly are a variety of carved wooden stakes and sharp wooden crosses, many of which are tepid or in some cases specked with silver. He begird to carefully remove them and places the point up into his backpack. After he has placed most of the contents of the drawer into the pack he shuts and locks it once again. He walks over to the counter and pulls out a strong box which contains a small pistil and several boxes of silver tepid bluets he had made specially. He told the Clark that he was going to be making appearances as the Loon Ranger. He then walks over to the bed and pulls out a black case and opens it to check the contents. Inside is a basic cross bow and several arrows, made of wood rather then the newer, lighter weight plastics most sporting men use these days. He has owned this cross bow seance long before he learned the offal truth about these demands that stalk the night. He has participated in cruse bow competitions seance he was a small child. For once a hobby is likely to prove fairly usefully.
He pauses to think for what must be the hundredth time if he might, perhaps, be overly prepared. The thought passes as it is quickly replaced by his memory of that night not so long ago. Better over prepared then under prepared. He puts the gun into the pack and then loads it onto his back. Picking up the bow case he heads out and down the street. No one pays any head to his passing.
He walks for what seems like an eternity before he comes to the unassuming brownstone that the young woman told him was a den of the undid. He stops and stands outside for some time as the thought that this could be some strange sort of joke crosses his troubled mind. But he remembers how hysterical the young woman had been. Just as his sister was when she told him of her danger and he steals himself against the possibility that he is about to make a fool of himself. He goes up to the door and rings the bell. After ringing the bell and knocking several times he locates the key in just the spot the young woman told him it would be and lets himself in.
His fear that the entire thing is some sort of sick joke begins to disparate quickly as he enter the building. The first thing he notices aside from the teary calm is that every single window in the place has been sealed up in some way or another. Most seem to have been bricked up ages ago but a few appear to be brooded. He pauses to pry the boards of from a few of the windows allowing the bright light of the day into the place. As he walks down the hall he realizes that the building has never been wired for electricity. Must be difficult, if not impossible to get an electrician to come at night, he thinks quietly to him self. He opens the first door he comes to to find the library. He looks around at what he realizes must be a fortune in antique books. And looks carefully around to make certain there is nothing in the room he has missed. Well, nothing of any real importance.
He exists the library and begird a systematic search of the rest of the house. He finds a clean, yet obviously mostly untouched kitchen and a dinning room that is so unused that dust has clogged the fixtures and an oily dusty film covers the candles. The more he seas of the house, the more he is certain that the young woman was being honest with him. The more he sees the tenser he begins to feel as the fear that he has known all along he would have to face crease up on his So. He tells himself that he has nothing to fear by day light to the point that it becomes like a mantra in his head. To help steadily his nerves as he moves threw the house he removes boards from windows and, after realizing that the mortar is little better then dust, bricks. It's not long before the dank drab interior begins to seem less dismal as the dim rooms become light with the bright cherry light of day.
After searching every room in the down stairs he makes a quiet division to look up stairs first, before searching the wine celery. It not that he feels that he can avoid the cleave, he simply wishes to take out anything that may be lurking in the main house first. Besides, the simple act of opening up the windows may be sufficing in the main parts of the residence to destroy the beast located within the rooms. Cautiously he heads up the stairs, pausing at a landing to remove the obstructions from a window there before moving on. At the top of the stairs he notices only five doors. Two on either side of the hall and one at the far end. Taking a deep breath he enters the room on the right first.
Laying on a bed in a white gown that was once rather lovely is the body of a young woman. Her armies are crossed over her chest which does not move in the least. The is a pail look of sadness in her cheeks and a very slight, nearly minuet rose glow in her cheeks. Her remarkable long blond hair flows over the bed with a certain peace. He walks over to the body and puts the pack down. As he checks her for a pulse, to be safe, her eyes open with a look of surprise. Even as he notices that she has no pulse she speaks in a voice that is a soft whisper "Donut tell me your his new trophy?" Van Rossin steps back quickly and plus out a silver tepid cross with a very sharp end to it from his bag. The young woman smiles and moves her armies to her sides whispers in a quiet voice "Good. I had thought your kind extant." Van Rossin is a bit taken aback. He came prepared for a fight and is expecting a trap. Stalling for time he replies "We are for the most part. Not that you will get a chance to check that out." She sits up and looks him in the eyes "Do as you must. Accost the hall is Storn. Make certain you get him as well. He collects us as one might a few old coins. This has not been my choice." Van Rossin is taken aback by such a revelation and watches as the woman lays back down. Taking a deep breath he walks over to her and plunges the sharp end into her body. Her smile broods and he could almost swear that he hears her whisper thank you. He looks threw the closets and find no one else in the room. Before leaving he preys the shutters from the window and watches as the woman's body fads to dust.
Accost the hall he finds that the room to the left contains three such corpses. An older looking man, a young child and a portly woman. The child is laying against the wall at a bazaar angle and he decides with a sick realization that the little one was portly the other twos dinner. Van Rossin cant help but feel sick and saddened. The young woman in the other room placed emphasis on the man so he walks over to that body as it lays on silk sheets and removing a silver barbed stake, plunges it ruthlessly into the body.
Storn Sits up abruptly as the device plunges into his chest and dives for the man who has inflicted such damage. There is a string inhuman growl coming from the beast as he attempts to destroy the man who is trying to destroy him. Van Rossin dives out of the way and pulls out another stake, one that has a cross carved onto the surface. He waits for a return assault but the vampire doesn't move, his body roasting on that of the woman who is now awake and struggling to free herself of his weight. Van Rossin walks over to her and gets his cross bow out, thinking that he should have done that first upon entering the residence. He fires several shafts into bathe the man and the woman and then one into the girl. He sighs deeply and, finding no windows, moves on to the other rooms.
He finds the other two room \s to be empty, though the one looked as if someone had made an attempt to make it look as if the bed was currently inhabited. He looks around both rooms carefully. The one must belong, from its appearance to the woman he killed in the room with that man. The other he amuses may belong to the young woman who came seeking his help. Which is why it would be made up to look as if she were sleeping in the bed. As he glances around the room looking for indications of any inhabitants he comes across a news paper from several days ago and seeing the headline and the picture that goes with it realizes that the woman who net him here in no more one of the living then those he is currently destroying. He almost feels as though he has been used. He would feel more angered by the situation if it wasn't for the fact that she lead him to so many of her kind. He smiles to him self realizing that everything he saw of her was mostly an act, but it provided him with vital information. No wonder she was gone when he woke up. Maybe she will return come evening.
He leaves the room and opens the door in the back of the hall to find that it is sealed up completely. There appears to be no way for him to get at what ever may have been behind the door. Weather it was a room or the attack he will never know. If there were vampires hiding beyond the barrier he was not going to be able to get at them. He close the door and heads back down the stairs. He moves along the hall and into the kitchen. He open the door to the cellar carefully, his cross bow drawn and ready to be fired as he slips slowly down the stairs were he finds wine. He searches carefully and locating a hidden door enters a room in the back that contains several coffins. When he looks inside he discovers that there inhabitants seem to be elsewhere. It occurs to him that the young vampire who came to him must have warned those she wished to be safe from destruction. With no way of knowing were they might be at currently he decides to leave and return again in a day or two. He pocks the key and heads back to the apartment he's been renting.
When he's about half way to that hell hole he changes his mind and decides to find a different place to spend the night. It is only the smart action to take. After all, a vampire has that address and his name. She could easily come with a very large number of friends to take him out.