Page 9 of Paying The Vampire

It didn’t take us long to reach the armory. It was a wide chamber and the walls were adorned with all kinds of weapons, most old, medieval weapons like crossbows, swords, and maces. Cassius walked up to one of the cabinets and rested his hand upon the glass.

“I have not been in here for some time,” he said.

“Why would vampires need to have weapons anyway?”

“Weapons are always necessary in war.”

“You’d never hear wolves saying that. They claim the moon gave them all the weapons they need.”

“I find it interesting that you refer to your pack as ‘them’ rather than ‘us’.”

I scowled. “It would have been different had I known what it was like to be a wolf. Even if I had just shifted for one moment then perhaps I could consider myself to be one of them, but I have always been separate. I have never been given the same gifts as them,” I said, looking down at my hands. There were no claws protruding from the skin.

“That would be one of the reasons why they lost.”

“They lost?” I asked, swinging my head towards him.

“Yes, why do you seem so surprised?”

“Because that wasn’t the story I was told. I had always heard the wolves won. The stories and the songs have been passed down for generations. People boast of their ancestors who fought in the great war, claiming those triumphs as their own.”

“Then it seems that vampires are not the only ones who lie. We drove them off eventually. I would not say that we won the war, however. I do not believe that anyone can win a war.”

“I guess not,” I said. I walked around the room, peering into the cabinets until I found a weapon that I thought would suit me.

“How skilled are you in the art of war?”

“I had some training when I was younger. And then, when it became clear that I wasn’t going to shift into a wolf I knew that I was going to have to make an effort to learn something else. It was another reason why people shunned me, but I wanted to learn to fight. I wanted to contribute in case we were ever attacked.”

“Your resolve is impressive,” he said. Eventually I came upon a sword that was inlaid with rubies. The blade was etched with a pattern of strange symbols running along the middle, and the edge gleamed with sharpness. I pointed to it and told Cassius that I wanted this one. He came beside me and arched his eyebrows as he looked at the blade I had chosen.

“And why this one in particular?”

“I’m not sure, but there’s something about it that speaks to me. It also looks to be the right weight for me. Can I test it?”

“Of course, but you do realize this will mean that you have to fight with your prey in close quarters?”

“I know, but I’m a hunter. I can do this,” I said. He waved his hand over the cabinet and a lock snapped open. His slender fingers danced through the air in a mesmerizing manner and I couldn’t help but be entranced by them. I pulled open the cabinet and then curled my fingers around the sword. The blade was cold, the hilt was wrapped in leather and felt comfortable in my hand as I pulled it out of the cabinet. I swung it through the air, getting used to the weight, and it did indeed feel like an extension of my arm. I nodded towards him, and then he guided me to the hunter’s outfits. There were leather suits that offered protection in all the vital areas. They were much heavier than the dress I was wearing, and far less flattering to my figure, but I could always wear this again later. It had not escaped my attention the way he cast a gaze towards me. It shouldn’t have surprised me considering he had been a lonely man for many years, and I did find it pleasing to know I was so attractive to him. I had always been ugly to my pack.

But that kind of thing wasn’t on my mind at the moment. He left me alone so that I could change, and told me he would meet me at the front of the castle.

*

After getting changed I wasn’t entirely sure where to leave the dress, so I carried it back with me to the main chamber. On my way to the front of the castle I did find it easier to navigate since the signs were holding there. I noticed signs towards the kitchens and the music room and the atrium, all places I wanted to see. This castle was huge and I had not yet grasped the scope of it. It seemed far too big for just one man, but I suppose with it being so large it meant that he had a great deal of rooms to explore, and so did not have to become bored with his surroundings. I made haste to the front of the castle and walked through the huge opening. The wooden doors had been pulled open, and the portcullis had been raised. Its metal prongs looked as though they could plummet at any moment. I wondered how many death traps this place had. My mind turned towards the war between vampires and wolves. How many of my people had charged towards this castle in the hope of breaching its defenses? How many had died on the way; their bodies cast down the rocky sides of the mountain, into the abyss from which there was no return.

Cassius cut a solitary figure as he waited for me on the winding path down to the forest. I peered over the walls. The wind whipped around us and I was glad of the thick leather armor as it helped to protect me from the cold. I did have a sense of vertigo though, as though the void was seeking to pull me down, tempting me with some kind of innate feeling from which I could not escape.

“Shall we proceed?” he asked, shaking my mind from its thoughts. I stepped back and placed a hand on my sword, checking that it was still there. As I gazed down at the bleak world with its foreboding mist and the black trees, I began to reconsider my decision. I turned back to gaze at the castle in all its glory. It was hard to tell where the mountain ended and the castle began. The rock was hewn and smooth, with it rising into carved elegance. Towers jutted out from the main body of the castle, and brooding windows stared at us in silent judgment. I could almost imagine vampires prowling around the parapet and it seemed impossible that Cassius was the only inhabitant of the castle.

I suppose that was not the case any longer. I was there as well. The gargoyles stared at me and I was afraid that the longer I looked at them the more chance there was that one of them would come to life, as silly as that sounded. I turned away, shaking the thoughts from my mind. Perhaps I just needed some more sleep, but first I needed to prove myself to Cassius and show him that I was a hunter.

Maybe I needed to prove something to myself as well.

Chapter Seven

Cassius

I walked with my hands clasped behind my back. My cloak billowed behind me as I walked beside Willow. She seemed oddly preoccupied with the castle, but then again I suppose it was an imposing sight to someone who had not seen it before. It didn’t seem as though there was anything like it in her world. I hoped it was not the last thing I possessed that she was impressed by.