and Beyland that is irritating because of the timing. I forbade her to have anything to do with Beyland in the near future—not that I had to go to that extreme, as Beyland would kill her as soon as look at her now.
The thing is…I need my sorcerer’s loyalty now more than ever. I have kept myself busy over the long years with my passion for experimentation. A new notion, something that has me obsessed and I know will require the darkest of magic, is all important to me now. Day-walking.
I will need Beyland to achieve my goal.
Allora is often careless. I warned her about Beyland. I told her when I realized she was going to ask a favor of him. I told her that if he granted a favor, he would ask her for the truth. He would want to know the ‘why’. Beyland always wants to know why.
He is, in his own odd way, highly principled. He follows his own set of rules. If one lies to him, Beyland, depending on the scale of the lie, will react.
I have seen him imprison a vampire in a hell of fire for the smallest of untruths.
Allora used him with a lie.
Beyland does not tolerate lies, especially from such as her. If I had not interceded on her behalf, there is no telling what he would have done with her. I am not even certain why he granted her a favor, as he seems to detest her. I suppose he did so to please me.
He will not allow her to use him again…even for me. That complicates my working plan and I shall have to revise Allora’s part in it.
I am on shaky ground with Beyland. Ah, yes, he is faithful to me…but no longer my friend. He doesn’t know that I know this, but I do.
We were once great friends, but I betrayed him in the past. Perhaps one of my more foolish acts, but it was expedient for me to do so at the time. Only our Blood Oath kept me alive, for Beyland is one of the few who is capable of killing an ancient vampire like myself.
He is an accomplished Dark Warlock, yes, and he could have ended my very precious life, perhaps not easily, but I would have forever had to look over my shoulder. That would not suit me. My lifestyle, my freedom, is precious to me. I have enjoyed my eight hundred years on this earth as a vampire. I enjoy killing humans, not only for their blood, but because I can. In the past, I rarely spared a human. I do now for expediency. I did, even in my worst time when I was first turned, spare a female.
I can remember her face. That memory crops up and into my mind from time to time. She was everything my mother had never been.
She had her baby in a basket and when I came towards her, she got on her knees and begged that I take her but spare her child.
I told her to take her babe and run and to never walk the Soho streets of London in the dark again.
I watched her run as she clutched the basket to her chest.
She had been no more than a babe herself.
Her memory made me turn to the long mirror and contemplate what I have become. I am who I am and I know what that is. I am more selfish and wicked as a vampire than I ever was as a man, but even as a man, I learned early never to care for anyone other than myself.
Sadly, my selfishness does lead me onto narrow roads. Now and then I take a calculated risk that backfires. It seems I have done just that very recently. My plan backfired grotesquely. I was so certain it would work on the Alpha Shifter’s sister, you see. I thought her alpha blood was all that was needed…but it all went to hell!
As I said, I have a passion for experimentation. One of my favorite experiments over the last three years is the one I call my hybrid trials. I have a great desire to create a hybrid group of creatures with the best of the wolf and the vampire.
Some months ago, I discovered a willing wolf shifter subject. I seduced and used her. I was so certain it would work. Apparently it was an unwise choice. She was too young. She had not reached her full majority and did not have the strength to get through the changes my serum produced.
I chose her unwisely.
She was the beloved sister of the Alpha Shifter, Hawkeye.
I knew this and was arrogant enough to think I might be successful and all would be forgiven, even applauded. I didn’t take the time to study Hawkeye and his pack.
My experiment went awry. She was, as I said, too young.
Hawkeye’s little sister did not take to my serum…and as so many other Shifters and werewolves before her, she succumbed to a terrible and agonizing death during the hybrid imposed changes.
Hawkeye has vowed to destroy me and all my clan if they attempt to protect me from him. He is the most powerful Alpha Shifter I have ever come across. I have challenged him to ‘bring it’, but he prefers to choose his time. It is unnerving.
It is rumored that his grandmother is an immortal witch. Thus, I have incurred the wrath of both. It is also rumored that he inherited her powers, as well as his original ancestor’s shifter might.
The situation has me worried. I need to find the day-walking potion and I need to create a hybrid to protect me from Hawkeye and his grandmother.
So, I won’t underestimate them. To do so would be foolish.