“Were you bitten?” I ask, grasping the man to inspect for injury. None of the blood belongs to him.

“No, no, but someone was. A co-worker and I took a shortcut home through an alley and she came out of nowhere!” The man exclaims. Another scream bellows from the street he originated from.

“What did she look like? What direction did she go in?”

“Uh, I don’t know. It happened so fast, um, she… she had black hair, red eyes, and I think a plain black coat.”

“Thanks. Now get out of here,” I order, grasping the axe on my back.

Adrenaline courses through me. A sense of familiarity, of strength, of knowing what to do after all this time seemingly stuck in place. My body moves on instincts alone. Speeding around the corner, I discover a crowd hovering around an alleyway. Someone shouts from a shop nearby that an ambulance is already on the way.

“Make way!” I shout, pushing through the crowd that parts for me upon realizing what I am.

Faithful pray and wish me luck as I lean over the body sprawled out in the back of the alley. There’s no light here. A young man around my age lays motionless. His eyes grow dim. Blood stains his neck where his veins bulge out of his skin. He’s barely breathing. Someone else may have seen and spooked the vampire off from feeding on both her prey. She’s bold or mad to have done this so openly.

I press my fingers against his blood. Rubbing the warm substance between my fingers, I imagine myself chasing after this scent like wolves on a fresh kill. My senses amplify. Sounds, scents, and colors threaten to drown me. Then I see the vampire as if she were in front of me; a woman with black hair and red eyes in a black coat hurrying through a crowded street two blocks away.

“Paladin of the Holy Church,” someone whispers, approaching me. She wrings her hands together fearfully. “You will find the vampire who did this, won’t you?”

“Of course. Keep watch over him until the ambulance arrives,” I order, then hurry around the corner.

Lore waits, leaning against one of the buildings. He presses a hand to my chest when I try to pass him. Huffing, I smack the hand away, then guffaw when he has the audacity to ask, “Shouldn’t we let the officers handle this?”

“Shouldn’t you let them handle Ayden’s case?” I argue, impressed with myself for managing to silence Lore. “I don’t have time for this. She’s amped up on his blood and she’ll crave more, if she wasn’t already in a bloodlust prior to the attack. I’m not waiting for her to get away when I’m here to stop monsters like her.”

Lore holds up his hands in surrender. “Be on your way then, Paladin of the Holy Church.”

I do exactly that, pushing Lore out of the way to find my target. She’s three blocks away thanks to his interruption. Crowds move through the streets, oblivious to the monster among them. Creating a lasso of golden light in my grasp, I latch onto a nearby chimney and leap over the crowds. The cool evening air bites at my cheeks. The wind whistles through my hair. Blood rushes through my veins. The confusion of Lore and the mission fades to something simple, to something I’ve always known. There’s a monster and I have to get rid of it. That’s what I’m best at. It has been what I’ve done for almost a decade now, what I’ve trained to do for even longer. I’ve walked this path a thousand times.

The vampire glides through the crowded town square nonchalantly, like she hadn’t nearly killed a man. I can’t risk her catching me when she’s in the crowd. There’s no telling what she’ll do to those nearby in a desperate attempt to flee. I conceal myself among the rooftops, observing from a distance.

The sun sets. Crowds thin. I’ve followed her to a quiet side of town where small homes sit nestled together. If I attack, she could damage the homes and harm those inside. I need to get her somewhere in the open, a park or an abandoned home. But then a woman and her daughter come around the corner. The vampire approaches them, her eyes wild. When the vampire grabs the child. She bares her fangs, making them both scream. I’m left with no other options than to make my move.

The vampire spins in time to evade my lasso wrapping around her neck. Snarling, she digs her nails into the child’s abdomen. Grinning madly, she throws the girl at me and runs. I catch the child. Her blood stains my robes. She coughs, gagging on her own blood.

That vile beast hurt her on purpose knowing I’d value the girl’s life more than catching her. But she’s a fool to think so little of the Holy Church.

I swing my axe that casts a long sickle of golden light. The vampire’s shrill scream echoes through the night when the sickle cuts clean through her thighs. She drops to the sidewalk, howling.

“P-Paladin, my daughter, m-my baby!” The mother cries, clutching at my robes and her girl.

“It’ll be alright. I can stop the bleeding, but you need a priest to heal this wound,” I explain calmly. 

Resting the girl on the sidewalk, I cast what I can. My focus has always been on offensive and defensive attacks. That’s why we always had a Priest or Holy Knight skilled in healing divinity during our missions. Hopefully this will be enough.

“What happened? Is everything--Holy Mothers!” A man shouts from his doorstep nearby.

“Call an ambulance!” I order. Nodding, he hurries inside.

I rise to approach the vampire clawing pathetically at the sidewalk. Her low growls become loud when my footsteps grow near. She throws something at me. The gelatin-like liquid lands on a lamppost that melts on impact; acid.

She throws another and another, but the blood loss is too great. Heaving, she lays on her back, glaring at me the same way every other has. Her lips twist into an animalistic snarl, one I've seen play over and over again in my nightmares.

“What’s a Paladin doing in Silra? I thought you lot didn’t work well with Lord Seymour,” she hisses.

“That’s no concern of yours.” I point my axe at her throat. She laughs. Most do. Or they beg, throwing one apology after the other, promising to never hurt a soul again even while covered in the blood of those they killed.

“Just like this wasn’t a concern of yours!” She howls, attempting to throw more acid at me. It doesn’t make it out of her fist.

“Any assault upon humans is my concern.”

“Humans?” She giggles, blood gurlges in the back of her throat. She spits blood at me, glaring fiercely. “You’re sheep that have forgotten your place. The wolves have returned to hunt and we’ll retake our place, one way or the other.”

“Are those your final words?”

“Fuc--”

I slice her head clean off. She drops dead.

Grabbing my pendant, I press it to my forehead and whisper a prayer, “May you find peace in the Holy Mother’s light.”

A sense of relief washes over me. Another monster gone from the world. This is what I’m meant to be doing, not stumbling around Lore’s every move. What am I doing here? I should be out in the field.

Light from the street lamp glints off something in her jacket. I lean over to inspect the pin; a horizontal, red crescent moon impaled by a golden sword. The symbol of the Red Moon group. I place the peculiar pin into my pocket.

The ambulance and officers arrive moments later. I ride with the girl and her mother to the hospital where we’re told some time later that she’ll be alright. Unfortunately, the man attacked earlier didn’t survive. More instances I’ll have to make note of when I contact the church. They’ll want to hear about this attack, especially when it’s much more rare to happen in Silra.

“I’m glad you’re here,” an officer says outside the hospital. I recognize him from the precinct, though I’m unsure about his name.

He tips his hat like he’s trying to hide when he says, “I’ve heard there have been more and more vampire attacks all over the place. I didn’t think Silra would be hit, but you don’t suppose anything’s about to happen, do you?”

I don’t know. We never do. Vampires often stay in Vexsis where they belong. Those on Earth either have ties to humans or illegal activities. Just like humans become addicted to blight. Vampires become addicted to nectar, what they call human blood. The taste is different than anything else, so they claim. Once they get a taste, a lot like blight, that’s all they crave. They’d sooner starve than give it up. We’ve seen it before--vampires waste away to skeletal remains rather than drink anything else. There’s no telling when their own king may finally call for an all out war, if only to procure our blood.

I won’t tell him that. It’s not something others like to hear.

“Don’t worry,” I say while patting his shoulder. “The Holy Church always keeps an eye on these incidents. If something’s happening, they will discover the truth.”

The officer smiles and offers to drive me back to Seymour Manor. I accept the offer gratefully.

It isn’t until I’m standing before the double doors that I realize; I’m covered in blood. The children should be asleep, but I don’t want to risk running into them. They’ll be terrified. I go around back to sneak my way in through my bedroom window.

“Holy--fuck!” I fall onto the floor, hard, after spotting a lone dark figure sitting in my room.

“Welcome back,” Lore says from where he’s seated in one of the chairs by the fireplace. He closes the book he was reading and sets it on the table. He scowls. “You look like bloody shit.”

“Thanks, I had no idea.”

“Have fun slaughtering a nasty vamp?”

“Don’t get snarky with me. She killed a man and nearly killed a child. Most of the blood belongs to that child, by the way. Even you should understand she had to be stopped.” I stomp towards my closet to grab sleeping attire. I hear Lore following me. “I handled the situation.”

“Congratulations on your grand achievement.”

“If you’re here to badger me--”

“I’m not.” Lore interrupts. I turn around to find him standing close. He looks me over once more, surprising me further by wiping blood from my cheek. “Did she say why she did it?”

“Because humans are sheep who have forgotten their place.” I push his hand away. His touch makes my stomach churn, and not in the disgusted sense.

“How unoriginal. She at least should have gone out with more flare.”

I roll my eyes, then recover the pin. “She was carrying this.”

“The Red Moon group,” he says. “I doubt one of them would be so sloppy. She was likely a fanatic.”

“A fanatic in your town that had a sudden vampire attack when there are rumors of more happening lately. Have you heard of those rumors too?” I watch him skeptically, but Lore never gives much away through his expressions.

“They’re only rumors,” he claims. “This is the first attack we’ve had in almost a month, which, as you know, is very rare in cities.”

I get the feeling he’s lying, but I’m not up to debate. Putting the pin on my bedside table, I gesture to the bathroom and ask, “Are you going to leave any time soon? I’d like to clean up and get some rest.”

Surprisingly, Lore doesn’t give me trouble. He wishes me goodnight, informs me that he did not give the children their candy, then takes his leave. After taking a long shower, I grab my bloody clothes to toss into the fire. I’ll make a request for new ones because there’s no way I’m risking the children seeing them. They'd be terrified and I wouldn't know what to say if they asked.