For my family,

The long line of storytellers to which I belong,

And most especially,

For my Mum and Dad,

Without your help I wouldn’t be

 Writing this dedication page,

I could not be self-publishing,

I would not be who I am today.

Thank you for your unconditional love and support.

Chapter .1. Berangaria

Chapter .2. Shadow

Chapter .3. The Venerati Elders

Chapter .4. The Prophecy

Chapter .5. Decisive Manoeuvres

Chapter .6. Capture & Flight

Chapter .7. Untitled (Make a suggestion and yours could make the final cut!)

Chapter .8. [Coming Soon!]

In the past months Clair’s dreams had become more and more vivid, or rather her dream. Tonight it was to take a sinister turn, nothing could prepare her for the deluge of change it would bring to her small, quiet life.

It started as it always did, benevolent almost comforting, she was walking through a forest behind a kind beckoning stranger cloaked in silvery grey robes, but as it had countless times before it turned malevolent though this time it was fast and waking up was out of her control. The kindly man in the forest turned into a foreboding young woman, where the forest was light with sunshine streaming through the trees, it changed turning pitch black with a sense of foreboding as the cloaked man, then holding a lantern in the darkness, dissipated into the forest. Then out of the black nothingness before her reached two pale alabaster hands, which stretched out and wrapped around her neck, engulfed in fear she felt the hands strengthen the hold around her neck.

Clair woke with a start, she grabbed at her neck, there was still pressure there, she could hardly breathe, she had to stop herself at the verge of panic, the hands had transcended the dream, but it wasn’t a dream at all and this wasn’t the first time she’d woken scared and vulnerable, it was however the first time she’d remembered this sinister encounter.

Clair protected herself the only way she knew how, light against darkness.

She imagined an iridescent ball of white light growing inside her chest; it expanded within her, spreading through her every limb, down her arms and hands, up her neck to her head and all the way down her torso, to her legs and feet. Then she imagined the light collectively bursting forth from her skin like pure white rays of sunshine. Then quickly it was over, the terrifying creature that had Clair in its grasp had released.

For a split second she saw a face staring back at her through the mix of light and darkness. It was a female with shoulder length silky hair, bright orange at the roots fading to white blonde at the tips. She was very fair but there was a starkly contradictory feature to her face, menacing black eyes flecked with red veins, they looked furious, demon like, especially with the hungry, angry scowl that revealed her long vampire fangs. Just as the face started to fade with the light she heard a man’s voice say ‘Berangaria, enough’, and then as the vision disappeared through the light she felt a sharp pain on the nape of her neck “Aah!” Clair cried out in shock, finally her focus came to the room, she was safe.

Was it real? The sensations had stopped after she protected herself, and this was not the first dream from which she’d woken with a start, trying to get away from this menacing stranger. She could not stop thinking of the hands that had strangled her when she woke, how could that be possible? She grabbed at her neck trying to calm her breathing, but what she found there made her more fearful than before, her neck was wet, when she pulled her hand back expecting to see sweat she as shocked and terrified to find her own blood. The wound burned slightly, indicating that whatever had strangled her had the power to do so and had the power to rip into her skin. Somehow that seemed even more disturbing, she could’ve rationalized away the pressure on her neck and what she saw as a night terror, but the physical wound left by the encounter was enough to make her realize, it was real.

She could not forget the dream, nor that face, which reached into her soul and tried to replace her light with darkness. She recalled the dream in her thoughts a few times so she would not forget; she felt a need to store this memory, every last detail.

Clair would get no more sleep tonight, so haunted by the dream that reached out and touched her physical body and in such a violent way. She lay in bed exhausted, staring at the ceiling over her. Just enough energy left to reach for her crystal box. They were the only way she knew how to draw back her strength.

Clair craved answers. She knew very little of the spiritual forces that governed the universe, yet she was blessed with many psychic skills to discern them. She was constantly having de ja vu, premonitions and many other spiritual episodes that were so in their infancy that she could hardly tell what was her imagination and what was reality, or was she just losing her mind?

There was a small mystical shop not far from her home. She went there often, buying books, crystals and instruments. Yet still she had more questions to ask, than had been answered by her research. Was she a psychic? A witch? Some people certainly thought so. Or maybe something worse? Those closest to Clair couldn’t understand.

Recently she’d been having a knowing feeling, that gave her a compulsion that she had to go to New York–she knew people would be waiting for her, waiting to help her.

Clair had planned to leave home when she turned 21, that never happened, her chance to leave her old caged life was near and this time she would not miss her chance to escape. She was ready to leave not long after her 27th birthday, that was only weeks away now, she had to get away from the life she knew. It was the 1st of April; she had until the mid-May to be ready to leave on a flight to New York, on the 24th.

Clair was going to New York. She did not know who would be waiting, all she knew for certain, is that someone would be waiting for her, someone just & venerable and she would know them from first glace.

*****

Scarlett’s psychic visions often came to her in her dreams. Tonight was no exception. Tonight a human girl was connecting to Scarlett and it was not the first time the girl had reached her in her sleep. She was powerful; the energy was pouring off of her, permeating the air around her and making it electric.

Scarlett’s psychic gifts were sparse, she was not the most spiritually gifted vampire, her strength lyed elsewhere. Her keenest ability to access the spirit world was through her dreams, this skill was her most primary of psychic abilities next to moments of intuition, the strength she possessed was physical, the only person who had ever dared to go toe to toe with Scarlett was Bear, otherwise known as Elder Niore. He reflected his nickname and was indeed a bear in every sense of the word; warm, fierce, strong, protective of those he loved and most notably, colossal in both stature and pure muscle. Bear was one of the few capable of matching her, unafraid of Scarlett’s vicious nature and sheer brute strength.

Sometimes she was just a spectator, often they were violent dreams, like this one.

An entity reached out from the darkness and wrapped it’s cold hands around a girls neck. She was a small framed girl, ivory skinned and had a gentle curl through her natural blonde hair that framed her defined petite face and blue-green eyes.

At first Scarlett was just a spectator, a third party to the dream, but the moment the hands touched the girls neck, they became her own. Scarlett could feel the energy being sucked out of the girl into her own body, the feeling of draining this girl’s energy took over Scarlett and she became crazed, drunk on the energy. So much energy within this weak human girl and no protection to hold it in, it was Scarlett’s for the taking.

The girl’s awareness changed as did the scene behind her once darkness, there was what looked like a porthole and the girl was lying head on a pillow, a look of shock washed over her face, Scarlett’s hands still wrapped around her neck. Then after a few moments pure white light burst forth from the girl. It radiated out like laser rays of sunshine from her skin, the light hit Scarlett, pushing her from the girl. She could see the indentations of her fingers on the girl’s neck, furious and drunk on the energy screaming in a rage, she fought the light pushing her back scratching a clawing for something to take her back to that girl, but to no avail.

She woke violently, livid and disorientated. The energy she had gained from the girl was euphoric. Scarlett reached for her bedside lamp in the dark. It switched on without her touch. She banished her hand towards a candle on her mantel; it flew off and hit the ground.

Scarlett could feel more life-force energies moving within her than she had experienced in a very long time. She’d taken life-force from people before, both energetic and physical blood, after all she was a vampyre but this girl had so much esoteric energy and it was so potent.

Scarlett tried to concentrate the power surging through her. She concentrated on a crystal next to the bed, held out her hand and called with her inner voice for it. It flew into her hand.

As Scarlett looked down at the crystal in her hand she noticed blood beneath her fingernails and a few droplets dripping down her fingertips, she inhaled the scent and tasted the blood, her pupils’ dilated and she became more frenzied than before. This blood was thick, not in texture, thick with energy, layers of it, she could see glimpses of this girl, her life and her potential to be more powerful than she was at this moment, “You will be mine girl, every bit of you, I will have your blood again” Scarlett breathed, scowling, thinking of the day she would finally have a powder source that was unlimited, one she could draw upon for even more strength than she’d ever known.

Scarlett had drained an Elder, in fact she’d had the privilege of draining more than one, but then they didn’t relinquish their energy or blood by choice, it was not the day of their final ceremony, their dying day –the day they chose to leave the mortal coil at the hands of their most beloved vampyres, no, Scarlett took from them what she wanted and damned herself in the process.

She had a hunger for the kind of energy this girl possessed, but she was a primal sanguine vampire and she would never reach the same level of strength and power as her enlightened psychic vampyre peers. Not even if she hadn’t drained and murdered High Elder Absolon, not even if she hadn’t been expelled from the Venerati Academy of Vampirism, not even if she’d had the years of training necessary to develop from a Primal to a budding Enlightened, she’d still never be the vampire she felt she was.

It was the fucking Venefi, the first of her kind, their line was thousands of years old, it was the blood of their descendants that held the power of enlightenment and evolution, the kind of power Scarlett would never possess.

“New” vampires were always more likely to be like the first Venefi, the vampires of old were hungry for energy, blood, power and money, it was true they needed more vital energies to sustain themselves than the average human, but like Scarlett they lacked the control to stop when they had what they needed, it was not enough, they ever craved more.

The Venefi, known to history as the Oracles of Delphi, were gifted with energy from the gods and over time their DNA changed and they became something new, something terrifying that the world could not predict nor control.

Scarlett like many new vampires, not born to the Ancient Line of Venefi, once created went one of two ways; Primal or Enlightened. Primal vampires were often sanguine (blood drinkers) and enlightened vampyres were often psychic (energy takers), the spelling of “Vampire” signified the Sanguine and the spelling “Vampyre” signified the Psychic. –Not all Vampyres fit into these stereotypes, some Primals are Psychic Vampyres and some Enlightened are Sanguine Vampires, it is true these exceptions are rare, but they do exist.

Psychic Vampyres were almost always accepted and welcomed openly, but Sanguine Vampires on the other hand were often shunned, misunderstood and mistrusted, even in the Vampyre world blood drinking was a taboo; outside of rituals and events held by the Venerati governing Clan of all vampyres and the direct descendants of the Venefi, it was very difficult to come by a willing and healthy donor, adhering to the Venerati Code of Ethical Vampyrism was very difficult, except for the privileged elite and those vampires like Scarlett willing to break Vampyre Lore to get their fill of blood.

These Vampires whom broke the Vampyre Lore would become outcasts known as Rogues. They were mostly Primal Rogues, but there were amongst them Enlightened ones.

Scarlett was tired, it was 11am and she’d only had 3 hrs sleep, a huge party had been held the night before for High Elder Leviathaans vampyre birthday, it was a big to-do from dusk until dawn.

Scarlett had to tell Zoraea of Clan Neviditsin the morning’s events, her best friend, she was the only one she could trust and she had to decipher what had happened. She also desperately wanted to find the girl from her dreams and Zoraea happened to be the best seer she knew, conveniently she also lived in the apartment across the hall.