Shawn Black: Vampire Hunter
Ardy
Published by Ardybooks at Smashwords
Copyright 2012

This story takes place ten years before the events in Akeldama: The Field of Blood.

Chapter One

Shawn Black was just a typical teenage boy before that knock on the door changed everything. It was a dark night, just a few days after his fifteenth birthday, and he was at home watching television with his mother. He would never forget that night. Ironically, they had been watching a rerun of Buffy, a show his mother hated but Shawn loved. 
Sitting on the table next to couch was the birthday card that Shawn's uncle Kirk had sent him. He missed his uncle. Kirk Black was a Baptist minister, but he had no church. He would travel from place to place, speaking at revivals and tent meetings, often leaving his home in Rochester, New York for weeks at a time. Though he didn't live with Shawn and his mother, he frequented the house quite often. Shawn had never met his father. His mother referred to him only as "that bastard." Shawn never even knew his name. He had run off shortly after Shawn's mother had gotten pregnant and she had never heard from him again. Uncle Kirk was the only father he had ever known.
Kirk had written a little note in the card, which had come with a silver crucifix on a leather cord. "Hate to miss your birthday, Kiddo," it read. "Be home soon. God Bless, Uncle Kirk." Shawn had placed the card on the end table so he could look at it every time he missed his uncle, and he wore the cross necklace. The gift had upset his mother for some reason. Shawn knew that Chrissy Black wasn’t as religious as her reverend older brother, but she did go to church and she had raised Shawn as a Christian. He couldn’t figure out why the gift of a cross necklace should anger her so. Maybe it was because it was a crucifix. Baptists didn’t usually wear a cross that had an image of the crucified Christ on it. Kirk always wore one though, and as Shawn fingered the cross while watching Buffy turn a Vampire to dust, he felt close to his uncle.
Uncle Kirk was off on what his mother had called a business trip. He had told Shawn that he had to preach at a church meeting in Chicago and would be gone for a week and a half. That had been three weeks ago. Kirk had called a few days earlier to tell them he would be late coming home. He hadn’t told Shawn why, but when Chrissy talked to him on the phone after he apologized to Shawn for missing his birthday, the boy overheard his mother’s side of the ensuing argument.
Chrissy and Kirk didn’t know that Shawn often eavesdropped on these fights. They spoke in hushed tones and the boy couldn’t always hear everything, but what he did hear usually left him confused. He knew that adults often used code words when discussing things that they didn’t want the children to know about. Uncle Kirk and his mom apparently had one of these codes, but for some reason it involved words like monster, hunter, and Vampire. He never asked the grownups what they were really talking about. To do so would have revealed that he had been spying on them. But ever since he was a little kid he had heard those words used in quiet arguments between his mother and his uncle. It was a weird code to use, but so far Shawn hadn’t been able to determine what they were really fighting about.
This last fight had been similar, but two things Shawn heard near the end before his mother slammed the phone back onto the receiver had actually frightened him. His mother had told Uncle Kirk that he was going to get himself killed. The last thing she said before hanging up was, “Don’t piss them off, Kirk. That’s the last thing we need!”
Shawn had been wondering for days how his uncle’s preaching could get him killed. He wasn’t in some Arab or communist country. He was in Chicago, and the last Shawn knew, Chicago was tolerant enough of Baptist ministers. Who was he supposed to be pissing off? He had almost asked his mother these questions when she came back into the living room with tears streaming down her prematurely wrinkled face, but he didn’t. He would ask Uncle Kirk when he got back home. Shawn had long suspected that there was something more going on than just tent meetings and revivals. He was fifteen years old now. He was old enough to know what was really going on and he intended to confront his uncle and find out what it was.
He was about to see first hand what had so worried his mother.
It was getting dark outside. Chrissy had locked the door as she always did after sunset. Rochester wasn’t exactly Mayberry. While their neighborhood was safe enough, it was still in a large city where anything could happen. 
Shawn wasn’t in the living room when the knock came at seven twenty-five on the evening of April fifteenth. He had gotten up during the commercial break to go to the bathroom. He heard the knocking as he walked back down the hall of their little apartment to the living room. Chrissy was at the door when he got there. The door was still closed and locked and she was opening the curtain to see a police officer standing on the stoop in the darkness. Shawn’s heart skipped a beat and he suddenly felt scared. There was no reason to be. He hadn’t done anything wrong and neither had his mother. Cops showed up in the neighborhood all the time, sometimes coming to ask questions about recent criminal activity or to warn them about it. But something seemed wrong here.
“Miss Black?” the cop asked. “May I come in? I have some news about your brother Kirk.”
“Oh my God, Kirk,” Chrissy gasped as she unlocked the door. Shawn was at her side in an instant. She opened the door. “Come in, officer. Is he al…”
That was as far as she got. The policeman had entered the house so quickly that Shawn hadn’t even seem him move. All he knew was that at one moment his mother was inviting the cop in and less than a second later he had her by the shoulders, his teeth buried in her neck. She didn’t even had time to cry out as the cop appeared to suck her blood out through the jugular. Shawn screamed and backed away, not believing what he was seeing. He was vaguely aware that on the old thirteen inch television a few feet away another woman was being killed in a similar way.
“Help!” Shawn cried as loud as he could. “Somebody help me please! He’s killing my mom!”
By the time he finished the sentence, Chrissy Black was already dead. The cop dropped her lifeless body to the floor where what little blood she had left was trickling out of her now mutilated neck onto the green shag carpet. He turned to look at Shawn. That was when he knew that he wasn’t looking at a policeman. In fact, he wasn’t looking at a human at all.
The thing in the RPD uniform glared at him with glowing red eyes. His skin was almost snow white and he opened his mouth in a grin that revealed four razor sharp fangs, two on top and two on bottom. These fangs were dripping with his mother’s blood. 
Shawn continued to scream, though he found himself unable to form words anymore. The cop closed the door behind him and took a step towards the boy. Shawn wanted to run, but his legs were frozen. He looked down at his mother’s body, then back up at the Vampire. Though Shawn had never witnessed anything supernatural in his entire life, let alone a creature that appeared to have escaped from a horror movie, he found himself strangely able to accept the existence of the thing that was now walking slowly towards him, his eyes crimson and his mouth dripping blood. The thing was a Vampire and it was going to kill him.
“What’s your name, boy?” the monster asked.
“Sh-Shawn,” he managed with a shaking voice. “You… Vampire?”
“Very good, Shawn,” the Vampire replied. He was now so close that Shawn could smell his cold breath. He knew that that putrid stench was mostly caused by his mother’s blood and he began to cry. “Was this your mother?”
Shawn nodded, sobbing as his tears clouded his vision. All he could see now was a blurry dark figure with startling red eyes merely inches from him.
“Kirk Black is your uncle, then.” It wasn’t a question and Shawn didn’t reply. “Good. I have a message for your uncle, boy.”
Shawn wiped at his eyes, trying to get a clearer look at the monster. Maybe he would survive the night after all. If the Vampire wanted him to deliver a message to Uncle Kirk, maybe he would be spared.
“I’ll tell him,” Shawn whimpered. “Whatever it is, I’ll tell him as soon as I see him.”
“No,” the Vampire said. “You are the message, boy!”
That was when Shawn remembered the cross necklace he was wearing. He had tucked it under his T-shirt and he pulled it out as the Vampire closed the gap between them just in time. He held the crucifix out in front of him, eyes clinched shut, and felt the impact less than a second later. The Vampire had been going for his neck and somehow Shawn had gotten the cross between the monster’s mouth and his throat. His shaking hand was suddenly slammed into his neck by what felt like a solid gust of wind and he actually felt the sharp Vampire teeth make contact with his sweaty skin before he heard the scream. He opened his eyes to see that instead of his neck, the Vampire had gotten a mouth full of silver crucifix. 
The monster was against the wall, smoke and blood, this time his own, pouring from his screaming mouth. Shawn fell to floor in shock, staring in terrified awe at the wounded monster. For a brief moment he thought he had won, fighting off the Vampire with his uncle’s timely birthday gift. Then the monster wiped the blood from his mouth with the arm of his uniform and glared down at the boy.
“That was very brave kid,” he said. “And very stupid. I was gonna make it quick. You would have died like your mother, barely feeling a thing. Now you’re gonna scream!”
As the Vampire came back at him, Shawn did scream. He held the cross up again, but the Vampire took no notice of it. Before he even knew what was happening, the monster had lifted him off the floor and slammed him against the wall. His eyes were redder than ever and he looked the boy up and down as if deciding exactly where to sink those bloodstained teeth of his first. Shawn kicked and flailed, trying to loosen the Vampire’s preternaturally strong grip, but it was no use. He was going to die. The monster would take his time and the last thing Shawn would hear would be his own screams.
Just as the Vampire was about to strike the apartment door that he had closed and locked was kicked open. It fell off the hinges and flew across the front room and Kirk Black ran into the apartment with a silver dagger in one hand and a sharpened wooden stake in the other. The Vampire turned, dropping the boy just as Kirk tackled him. Shawn fell back to floor in a heap and he watched as his uncle and the Vampire fought. It was a quick fight, and not just because the monster had superhuman speed. Kirk was good and he looked like he knew what he was doing. A moment later he was on top of the Vampire, driving the silver dagger into its heart. There was a hissing sound as the Vampire’s body disintegrated, leaving nothing but a foul smelling dust and a tattered and bloody policeman’s uniform.
Kirk Black stood up and brushed himself off, checking for wounds. He appeared unharmed. He turned and looked at the body of his baby sister for a moment. Then, with tears in his eyes, he turned to Shawn who was crouched by the wall sobbing like a frightened child.
“Uncle Kirk?”
“Are you okay, Kiddo?” Kirk asked him. He wasn’t sure that he was, but he nodded. “Good.” He reached out to the boy who took his hand. Kirk helped him to his feet and pulled him close. Shawn wrapped his arms around his uncle and the two of them stood there for a few minutes, crying together.

CHAPTER TWO

“I tried to get here on time,” Kirk said a few minutes later as they sat together on the couch in the living room. Shawn had turned off the television. There was still about a half hour left in the Buffy episode, but Shawn had had his fill of Vampires for one night. He clung to his uncle’s arm, still crying as Kirk tried to explain to him what had just happened. “I knew they would come here. I also knew that they would wait until I was almost here before making their move. They wanted me to find you two freshly killed, still warm, still bleeding.”
“Vampires.” This was the fifth time Shawn had said the word since Kirk had killed the cop. He didn’t seem to be able to say anything else. It was as if his mind had just grasped onto one thing and couldn’t get past it.
“Vampires,” Kirk confirmed. “We killed most of them, but three got away. They knew who I was and they knew where I lived. I knew that they would want revenge.”
“Revenge?” Shawn asked. “For what?”
“I’m a hunter, Kiddo.”
“A hunter?” Shawn asked. “You mean like a Vampire slayer?”
“Not exactly,” Kirk said, glancing at the TV screen which before being turned off had shown a shot of a Vampire slayer getting hot and heavy with a Vampire. “But I guess you could call me that. As you saw tonight, Vampires are real. There are people like myself who have devoted our lives to hunting them down and killing them.”
“So you aren’t a preacher,” Shawn said. “These business trips aren’t really tent meetings and stuff. You’re really off killing Vampires?”
“No, I’m a preacher,” Kirk told him. “In fact, this last trip wasn’t supposed to involve Vampires at all. It was a youth revival and they wanted me to preach a message for two nights. But sometimes we stumble across Vampires when we aren’t even looking for them. I found a rather large coven in Chicago and I had no choice but to fight them. There were dozens of them. By the time I was through, there were three. You met one of them tonight.”
Shawn looked at the crumpled cops uniform.
“Where are the other two?” he asked.
“Out there,” Kirk said, pointing at the window. “All three of them came here looking for my family. Vampires don’t like hunters and if they can get revenge, they do. They planned on killing you and your mother in order to get back at me. It’s a miracle you survived. I’ve been racing here since the three escaped. I knew right where they would come.”
Shawn sat in silence for a while, sniffling back tears, trying to process all that he had heard. All of the arguments he had overheard suddenly made perfect sense. His mother had known what her brother was really doing and she was worried, not only about Kirk, but about what would happen to her and Shawn if the Vampires sought vengeance. It seemed she was right to worry. She was dead now, and Shawn was an orphan.
As he gazed at his mother’s body, which had been covered with a sheet from her own bed, he felt a rage growing inside of him. How dare those demonic bastards murder his mother, an innocent woman, and try to murder him as a sick message to his uncle? It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. Chrissy Black had never harmed anybody in her life and now she lay dead in her own front hall. He wanted to do something about it, but the only thing he could think of was completely insane.
“I want to kill them.”
Kirk looked at his nephew, shocked. “Shawn, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do, Uncle Kirk,” he replied. “I want to kill the bastards. They murdered my mom! I want to make them pay for that.”
“Shawn…”
“You said that there are two more out there,” Shawn went on. “Members of this coven? Let’s go get them!”
“Shawn, you aren’t ready!” Kirk said. “It takes years for someone to learn how to fight these things. I’ve been doing it since before you were born and I’m barely a match for them. It takes a lot of training.”
Shawn stood up and walked to the front doorway. A cool night breeze was blowing through the now doorless frame. 
“Train me,” he said. “Teach me how to kill them. If you can do it, I can do it.”
Kirk stood and went to him. He grabbed the boy by the shoulders and turned him around. He looked down at the boy, fresh tears in his dark eyes. Shawn glared back defiantly. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Uncle Kirk was all he had left. He knew for a fact that if his mother were to die he would be placed in the reverend’s custody.
“I mean it, Uncle Kirk,” he said. “Let’s go find those bastards.”
“Not tonight, Kiddo,” Kirk told him. “You aren’t ready. But if this is what you want…”
Shawn was about to reply that it most definitely was what he wanted when he was interrupted by the most wicked sounding voice he had ever heard. 
“Come on out, preacher man!”
It sounded like a very old woman possessed by a very evil demon. Shawn spun back around to see two figures standing on the stoop outside the building. One was male, Hispanic looking, maybe twenty years old. He was huge, muscular, and his fangs and red eyes told Shawn exactly what he was looking at. The other was far more frightening. The old woman’s voice had come from what looked to be a girl about his own age. She had startling red hair, a slim body, and wore what looked like a fancy red prom dress. She hissed at the two humans standing safely behind the threshold.
“Stay back, Shawn,” Kirk said, stepping forward. “I’ll handle this.”
“But Uncle Kirk!”
“Stay back!” Kirk barked. He went to take a step outside when Shawn reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him back.
“What if they kill you?” he asked. “I’ll be alone. I won’t even be able to defend myself!”
Kirk looked at the boy as the Vampires outside continued to taunt and beckon to him. Kirk had been wearing a backpack when he had stormed through the door. It was laying against the wall a few feet away, torn from his back during his fight with the cop and tossed aside. With a resigned look in his eyes, Kirk walked over to where the bag laid. He unzipped the main compartment and pulled out two objects: a stake and a small silver dagger very much like his own.
“I hadn’t meant to give these to you for a few years,” he told the boy as he handed the weapons over. “It’s way too soon. But these are yours. Only for defense! By no means are you to go out there tonight!”
Shawn glanced at the female Vampire, who was mere inches from the door frame, eyes glowing crimson, fangs bared. Then he looked back at his uncle and nodded. He was suddenly not so sure he was ready to face these things. Kirk turned back around and faced the Vampires.
“Alright, you bitch!” he shouted and ran at the door. He jumped at them, tackling them both and the two Vampires and one human went rolling down the porch steps in a tangled heap. Shawn stood at the doorway and watched as his uncle faced off against the two bloodsuckers.

CHAPTER THREE

As Shawn would soon learn, Vampire fights were very hard to watch. The creatures moved so quickly that most of their movements were little more than blurs, and any human trained to fight them had to move faster than most humans were capable of just to keep up. He couldn’t tell what was going on out there but he knew that his uncle was doing well simply because he was still alive. 
But it didn’t take long for the boy to see that Kirk Black was in trouble. He may have killed dozens on his own a few days earlier, but these ones had proven too strong or too powerful in Chicago and they were no less so that night. After about a minute of insanely fast combat, Kirk was lying on the street, unmoving, unarmed, and about to become a meal for the female Vampire.
“Uncle Kirk!” Shawn cried. There was no response. Kirk only moaned and tried to push himself up. The female put her foot on his back, pressing her six inch black heal into his spine, and pushed him back down. “Uncle Kirk!”
The male Vampire stood by watching in triumph as the female bent down to take a bite. 
Without even thinking about it, Shawn Black left the safety of the apartment and went out into the night. The female saw him coming and hissed at him as she dropped Kirk back onto the asphalt. Looking very much like his uncle, Shawn jumped mid-run, diving through the air and tackling the female. The only thing that saved him was her complete surprise at his actions. He soon found himself on top of her, straddling her and holding her down, his newly acquired dagger held above his head. She hissed again, struggling to free herself from his grip. She was strong and he knew he had to act fast or he would be flung across the street by those scrawny looking arms.
“This is for my mother, you bitch!” he screamed as he brought the knife down. He caught the creature in her throat and by the time he had finished his thrust, there was nothing between him and the pavement but an empty dress and that foul smelling dust. 
He was momentarily stunned by his own success. He didn’t see the male Vampire coming up behind him and would have been killed had it not been for his uncle. Kirk had regained a little strength while Shawn was fighting the female and was able to pull his crossbow from under his jacket and fire off one arrow. It caught the Vampire right in the heart and he fell dead, nothing more than a rotted skeleton in black clothes which broke into peaces when it hit the blacktop. 
Shawn turned around just in time to see the Vampire die. He couldn’t believe how close it had gotten to him. It was eerily quiet on the street for a few seconds as Kirk struggled to stand and Shawn stared in awe at the remains of the monsters he had just fought. By the time Kirk had stood and came over to his nephew sirens could be heard in the distance. The fight with the Vampires had attracted some attention.
“Shawn,” Kirk said gently, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Shawn was starting to cry again and his whole body was shaking with the sobs. “Shawn. Are you alright?”
The boy looked up at his uncle. He couldn’t speak. Half an hour earlier he had been watching TV with his mother and all was right in the world. Now his mother was dead and he had just killed a Vampire, a creature he had never dreamed could be real.
“Shawn.” Kirk extended his right hand and Shawn took it. Once the boy was standing Kirk told him, “We need to get out of here. The cops are coming. The real ones this time, and we won’t be able to explain this to them. We have to go now.”
Shawn nodded and Kirk led him to his car, a black Sentra that had been new ten years earlier. Thirty seconds later they were driving away from the scene, and from the life that Shawn had known, into a future he could barely imagine.

CHAPTER FOUR

The next four or five months were a blur for Shawn. It was only about an hour after he and Uncle Kirk had got back to Kirk’s house that the cops came knocking. Kirk told the police that he had arrived in town a couple of hours earlier and had picked up Shawn to take him out to dinner for his birthday. Both he and Shawn acted shocked at the news that Chrissy had been found murdered in the apartment and claimed to know nothing about it. This wasn’t Kirk’s first run in with police after a Vampire fight and he knew exactly the right things to say to convince the authorities that he knew nothing about the scene and was not involved. 
Within a few weeks, after a cursory investigation by the police and social workers, Kirk was given full custody of Shawn. He was able to stay with his uncle during this time, and while they mourned together, Kirk began to train the boy in the art of Vampire killing. Shawn learned quickly and after about a month he was accompanying his uncle on his nightly Vampire hunts. Most nights they found nothing but every once in a while they would come across a Vampire, sometimes even a small coven, and Shawn was forced to put his newly learned skills to use. 
Kirk told him that usually a hunter had to train for years before ever coming face to face with a bloodsucker in combat, but Shawn had proven himself twice on that first night, first with the cop and that trick he pulled with the crucifix, and then with the female Vampire. Though Shawn admitted that it was mostly luck that got him through that first battle Kirk told him that luck or not, he did more than most novice hunters did after years of practice. He had survived and he had even killed a Vampire.
Then the call came. It was about six months after that horrible night and Shawn’s life was returning to some semblance of normal, if a life of hunting bloodsucking monsters from beyond the grave can be called normal. He was doing well in school, active in his church, and his Vampire kills now numbered an impressive thirty three. That was still about thirty less than the number that Kirk Black had killed during the same period, but well above average for someone who had been hunting less than a year. 
There had been very little activity in the area lately. Kirk had told Shawn that when there were hunters in the area Vampires did little to attract attention to themselves. This was especially true when the hunters proved exceptionally dangerous to the bloodsuckers. He and Kirk had done a lot of killing over the past few months and the Vampires had gone into hiding. They were still out there, but they weren’t nearly as active. That was how Kirk liked it. 
They hadn’t left Rochester since the night Chrissy was killed. Kirk had actually been called upon a couple of times and he had told whoever was calling that he was busy taking care of his nephew. He was taking a break. It wasn’t exactly true, but he had told Shawn that though he was learning quickly and was proving himself more than adequate, he wasn’t ready to go on one of the hunting expeditions. There was enough to do in Rochester. He had referred those calling for help to another hunter named Dimitri and apparently he had helped because the callers never called back.
But this new call was one that Kirk couldn’t ignore or pass off on another hunter. The man who called the reverend at his home that October morning was Dimitri himself. Shawn answered the phone.
“Black residence.”
“Is Kirk there?” the male voice on the other end asked.
“Yeah,” Shawn said. “Who’s calling.”
“Dimitri Milton. I need to talk to him immediately.”
Shawn recognized the name immediately and called to his uncle. After a brief conversation Kirk hung up the phone and turned to Shawn.
“Ready for a road trip, Kiddo?”
“You’re serious?”
“Yep,” Kirk said. “We have to leave in about an hour. Pack your things.”
“Where are we going?”
“New Mexico,” Kirk told him. “A small town called Hidden Valley. Dimitri says he needs my help. I told him I was busy training you and he said to bring you along. He and Dave are having a hell of a time dealing with the threat there.”
“Dave?”
“Dave Reilly,” Kirk said. “An old friend. He’s been hunting Vampires since he was your age. He and Dimitri are the best hunters I’ve ever known. If they need help, it must be bad. If I had time, I’d find a place for you to stay while I was gone, but I don’t. They need me yesterday. You think you’re ready?”
“Honestly?” Shawn asked. “I’m not sure. Do you think I’m ready?”
Kirk looked at his nephew for a long moment. Shawn had aged so much during the past six months. He had been forced to grow up faster than any kid should. And he had learned a lot in his training. From what Dimitri had told him, the Vampire threat in Hidden Valley was more than anything he had ever seen before. They needed every man they could get. Shawn was a good hunter, especially for a novice. This could be exactly what he needed to push him to the next level.
If he survived.
“Pack your stuff, Kiddo,” Kirk told the boy. “We’ll see how ready you are tomorrow night.”
An hour later Kirk was driving his old black Sentra west towards New Mexico. Shawn sat in the passenger seat eating a piece of beef jerky and singing along to the rock song playing on the radio. The car had FM radio, but no CD or cassette. Kirk had told Shawn that when he turned sixteen the Sentra would be his. Installing a new sound system would be the first thing he would do. He stared out the window as Rochester’s skyline faded behind them. He had never left the state of New York before. He was excited, both about the trip and about what awaited them after the thirty hour drive.

CHAPTER FIVE

They pulled into Hidden Valley, New Mexico just before sunset the next evening. Kirk had driven the whole way, only stopping to fill up the tank and grab food from the convenient stores. Their speed topped eighty miles an hour for most of the trip. Shawn thought that whatever was going on Hidden Valley must have been bad if Kirk was in that much of a hurry.
Though it was called a city, Hidden Valley was nothing compared to Rochester. The tallest building was the hospital, which had a whopping five stories. There was only one mall, a few fast food restaurants, and not much else. Coming from a thriving metropolis, Shawn found it hard to believe that anybody could live in such a place. It seemed nice, but it was so small. How could such a tiny, out of the way place have a Vampire problem so bad that he and Uncle Kirk had to travel all the way across the country at a moment’s notice just to help out?
“Keep your eyes open, Kiddo,” Kirk said as he drove through the town. “This place is no joke.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Couple times,” Kirk replied. “Barely made it out alive the last time. This place crawls with Vampires. They are strong here. Dave says there’s some sort of evil energy underneath the surface here. I’ve felt it, though I’ve never been able to put my finger on just what it was.”
Kirk drove all the way through the small city, which only took about fifteen minutes. Driving through Rochester could take hours, depending on traffic. Soon, they were headed up a county road, something Shawn had never even heard of. It was little more than a dirt road, not even lit by street lights. Shawn could see few houses out there and more than a few blue signs that were the only indication of other county roads that were so insignificant that had he not been looking for them, he would have missed them completely.
Kirk seemed to know where he was going and he turned at one of the blue signs that read County Road 3432. A few minutes later the Sentra pulled into the driveway of a small house surrounded by ash and aspen trees. There were two other cars in the driveway. One was a sedan about as beat up as the Sentra, and one was a dark blue VW bug that was probably older than Kirk.
“We’re here,” Kirk said, killing the engine. “Let’s get inside. And watch yourself. This place is well protected, but you never know.”
“Where are we?” Shawn asked.
“Dave’s house. Dimitri’s car is still here. That’s good. I was hoping we’d catch them before they went back out.”
  Kirk got out of the car and pulled his crossbow from its hiding place in his jacket. Shawn got out and reached for his silver dagger. It was an old routine by now. When entering a Vampire infested area a hunter never got out into the dark without a weapon ready. Sometimes the weapons were hidden if there were unaware humans around, but they were always easily accessible. 
The walkway to Dave’s house was little more than a dirt path bordered by grass and weeds. Kirk went up first and Shawn took the rear. When they reached the door Kirk knocked and a few seconds later the front door opened.
A little girl about six years old opened it. She looked up at the two hunters and when she saw Kirk her little brown eyes lit up with recognition. 
“Uncle Kirk!” she squealed. “Dimitri, Dave, Uncle Kirk is here!”
“Hi, LaCai,” Kirk said, smiling at the child. “Can we come in?”
“I don’t know,” the kid said with a knowing smile. “Can you?”
Kirk looked at Shawn and nodded. He stepped through the doorway and Shawn followed. Kirk ruffled the little girl’s light brown hair and she giggled.
“Good girl, LaCai,” he said. 
Two men were coming towards the front door from a nearby room. Both were young men with a look Shawn found familiar. They were hunters. He could see it in their eyes and in the way that even though the older of the two was only twenty-five years at old at the most, they looked far more mature, seasoned, and hardened than most people their age. The older one had reddish brown hair, green eyes, and a freckled face. He looked to be of Irish descent and Shawn assumed that he was Dave Reilly. The other man was about twenty years old. He wore his long brown hair in a pony tail and had the beginnings of a goatee, though it looked like it might take almost a year for it to grow in properly. Both men went right to Kirk and embraced him. Then they stood looking at Shawn for a while, sizing him up.
“This is the kid?” the younger man asked. This had to be Dimitri Milton. At only twenty years old he had already gained quite a reputation among his fellow hunters and his Vampire enemies. Kirk talked about him often, and about his legendary hunter family. Shawn very much wanted to earn his respect.
“This is Shawn,” Kirk said.
“Kind of scrawny, don’t you think?” Dimitri asked.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Shawn said. He was annoyed. He had always been a skinny kid, but he was also fast, smart, and a lot tougher than he looked. He knew that he didn’t look like much compared to the other three hunters in the room, but he had proven himself in battle against the bloodsuckers multiple times since that first night. Even though he was still technically a novice, he had a kill list that was probably longer than Dimitri’s had been at fifteen. “Lot’s of Vampires thought the same thing. They’re dust now.”
Dimitri looked at the kid for a long moment, staring him down and Shawn found his irritation quickly turning to fear. There was something about the young hunter that frightened him. You didn’t mess with Dimitri. You didn’t piss him off. From what Kirk had told him, Dimitri had been fighting Vampires since puberty. Shawn hadn’t meant to disrespect or offend the man. Then, Dimitri’s hard face broke into a grin and he slapped Shawn on his shoulder. It was a hard slap that almost took him off his feet, but it was a friendly one.
“I like this kid!” he said laughing. “He’s got balls. Come on, you two. We were about to go out and get some work done, but I think we’d better get the two of you up to date first.”
The four hunters went into Dave’s living room. LaCai followed them in and crawled into Dimitri’s lap. At first she was watching the others and listening with rapt interest, but before long she was yawning. Shawn was sure she would be asleep soon.
The room was decorated with crosses. Lot’s of them. The whole house was filled with crosses, crucifixes, paintings of the crucifixion, and there were even crosses embroidered into the fabric of the couch he and Kirk sat on. It was also lit almost entirely by candles. Kirk had said the house was well protected, and Shawn had noticed the plants growing outside, including aspen and ash trees, hawthorn, and even a small garden he had glimpsed on the way in that looked to be growing nothing but garlic. Inside was filled with religious icons and fire. Apparently, Dave Reilly felt that he needed all the protection he could get. Kirk had told Shawn some of Dave’s history on the way to Hidden Valley and Shawn could see why. If the bloodsuckers had a vendetta against anyone in the area, it was the Reilly family.
“I was hoping you’d get here tonight,” Dave told Kirk. “It’s been bad lately.”
“Worse than usual?” Kirk asked.
“Much worse,” Dimitri said. “That’s why we’re here. We were traveling with the gypsies. We were up near Durango when Isabella sensed that Dave was in danger down here. Turns out Maria Brown called to her in that special way she has.”
“Maria,” Kirk said with a smile. But there was something strange behind that smile, almost as if Shawn’s uncle felt both a great amount of affection for the woman he was talking about, and a great amount of fear. “How is she?”
“She’s fine,” Dave told him. “The B.S. don’t bother her much. They can’t, after what the gypsies did for her when Peter was born. But she’s still active in her own way, and she knows what’s going on.”
“Yeah,” Dimitri said. “We were on our way north when Isabella got the ‘call’ and came down here.”
“Are the gypsies still here?” Shawn asked.
“No,” Dimitri said. He suddenly looked sad, staring out the window with a distant expression on his young, hard face. “They stayed a while, helped us out, but they were needed back up north. We… parted ways.”
“Dimitri stayed with me to help me,” Dave said. “He and LaCai have been staying with me for the past couple of weeks.”
“So,” Kirk started, “what’s been happening?”
“The usual,” Dave said. “Missing bodies, grave robbing, unexplained deaths, ritualistic murders. All the usual signs.”
“The cops are baffled,” Dimitri went on. “This kind of stuff has been happening in the area since before Hidden Valley was even here, but things have gotten much worse.”
“As far as I can tell,” Dave said, “there are three main covens. Or were. We managed to destroy most of the one that was hiding out in the forest near the lake. One’s based under the cemetery, but they aren’t our main threat. They never do much more than the usual snag and suck. But there’s a new group in town. We don’t know where they’re based, but they’re bold. Even the other Vampires are wary of them. They’re the main threat.”
“Any leads?” Kirk asked.
“Nothing solid,” Dave told him. “But they tend to show up at large gatherings, especially ones involving kids and teens.”
“And there’s a big Halloween party planned for next week at the mall,” Dimitri added. “We have no doubt that they’re planning on crashing that party and we intend to stop them, preferably before then.”
“Any gatherings tonight?” Kirk asked.
“A couple,” Dave said. “There’s the homecoming game at Hidden Valley High School in about an hour and a concert at the civic center.”
“How big can these gatherings be in this town?” Shawn asked.
“You’d be surprised, kid,” Dave replied. “There isn’t much to do in this town. There are a lot of bored teenagers around here and events like that could see attendance in the hundreds. Dimitri and I were planning on going to the high school and making sure no B.S. showed up. If they did, we would fight them, maybe even be able to track them back to their base. Now that we have four instead of two…”
Shawn liked the way he said this. Dave had just included him as one of the hunters, no questions asked. Hopefully he could prove himself tonight as a Vampire hunter. 
“We can split up and hit both events,” Dimitri finished. 
“Sounds like a plan,” Kirk said. “When do we leave?”
“Now’s good for me,” Dave said. “Since Dimitri and I know the city better, we’ll each take one of you with us. Kirk, you come with me. We’ll hit the civic center. Dimitri and Shawn will fit in better at the high school.”
“Stick me with the newbie?” Dimitri said with a sly smile. “Great.”
“Trust me, Dimitri,” Kirk said, though everyone there knew that Dimitri was joking. “He’s more than ready.”
“What about the kid?” Shawn asked, indicating LaCai. She had fallen asleep on Dimitri’s lap.
“Maria agreed to watch her for us,” Dimitri told him. “That’s our first stop. Her house is on the way to the school anyway.”
“The sun’s been down almost an hour,” Dave said. “We’d better head out. You guys ready?”
Shawn and Kirk had only just arrived at Hidden Valley and hadn’t received much of a briefing. Less than an hour after getting to town they were already on their way out to fight Vampires, and Shawn was teamed up with a man he barely knew. He didn’t know if he was ready, but he had actually gotten more preparation for this fight than for most of those in which he had participated. He was the first to stand.
“Let’s kill us some Vampires,” he said.
“Shawn Black,” Kirk said with a proud smile. “Vampire hunter.”

CHAPTER SIX

Shawn and Dimitri had gotten into the old VW and LaCai was placed, still sleeping, into the backseat. A little black kitten was laying on the seat when Dimitri put her back there and he curled up next to the sleeping child, purring contentedly.
“Cute cat,” Shawn commented as they drove towards town.
“His name is Midnight,” Dimitri said. “We got him from the gypsies. They seem to think that cats have some protective powers against the undead. I don’t know about all that, but my sister loves him.”
“So you’ve spent a lot of time with gypsies?”
“Quite a bit,” Dimitri told him. “My parents were killed a few years back. LaCai was just a baby. My family has fought alongside the gypsies for centuries and my brothers and I sought them out after that battle. I was about your age. They took us, completed our training, even taught us some trade secrets that only gypsies know.”
“Is it true that they think pumpkins and watermelons can become Vampires?” Shawn asked him.
“Some do,” Dimitri replied. “The older ones never let a melon sit out for more than a day. A lot of what they believe about the mullo…”
“Mullo?”
“Their word for Vampire,” Dimitri said. “A lot of what they believe is superstition, but a lot isn’t. Nobody knows more about killing those bastards. Anyway, my brothers and I were trained in the art of hunting and raised with the other gypsy kids. I’d still be with them now if I didn’t feel the need to hunt so badly.”
“It’s in your blood,” Shawn said with complete understanding.
“The Miltons have been fighting Vampires so long that nobody knows when it started. I’ve already begun training LaCai, though she’s barely old enough to hold a stake. We’re the last of the line. We have a legacy to uphold.”
“What happened to your brothers?” Shawn asked him. He could tell from the way Dimitri was talking that he and LaCai were the only surviving members of the family. He didn’t know if Dimitri felt comfortable enough to talk to him about his brothers, but apparently he did.
“Killed in a battle with Vampires about a year ago,” he said. “We’ve been on our own ever since. I wanted to leave LaCai with the gypsies but she insisted on coming with me.”
“She insisted?” Shawn glanced back at the sleeping little girl. “She’s barely six!”
“You don’t know my sister,” Dimitri said smiling.
They had driven into the town proper and into a nice neighborhood. Dimitri pulled up in front of a modest looking house. There was a large crucifix hanging on the front door and a garden in a side yard filled with rosebushes, sage plants, and holly. Vampire protections.
“We’re here,” Dimitri told him. “Get ready, Shawn. You’re about to meet the most interesting person you’ll ever know.”
He stopped the car and got out. Shawn noticed that he didn’t draw a weapon. While he reached in to get his sleeping sister Shawn got out too. He did pull out a stake and Dimitri looked at him and chuckled.
“You won’t need that here,” he said. “I like your instincts, but Maria’s house is even more protected than Dave’s. Once we pulled into the driveway, we entered a Vampire-free zone.”
Shawn nodded, but didn’t put his weapon away. 
“Grab Midnight,” Dimitri told him. He reached into the car and picked up the black kitten, who purred happily in his hand.
The two of them went up to the front door. Dimitri knocked twice and a moment later an old woman dressed in a yellow sundress and house slippers answered.
“Come in,” she said.
Shawn looked at her shocked as Dimitri carried his sister past the threshold. How could anyone who even knew about Vampires invited someone into their home after dark, especially someone they had never before met? He almost confronted her on it but she just smiled at him as if she knew what he was thinking.
“You’re no Vampire, boy,” she said. “Get your scrawny ass in my house.”
Dimitri laughed as Shawn took a step inside. It was a nice house. An old woman’s house. There were a few toys strewn about, telling Shawn that a child either lived there or spent a lot of time there. Maybe a grandchild. But most of the decorations were nice antiques, and most of them were Catholic. Crucifixes, statues of saints and the Virgin, and rosaries were everywhere. 
Dimitri laid the child on the old woman’s couch. She hadn’t woken. Shawn put Midnight down next to her and soon the two were cuddled on the couch together, fast asleep.
“Thanks again, Maria,” he told her. “Peter’s already in bed?”
“Oh, he’s across the street at the Cross house,” she said. “He’s spending the night with a friend. It’s just me and the precious little one here tonight.”
“Oh, this is Shawn Black,” Dimitri said. “Kirk’s nephew.”
Maria Brown looked at the boy. She scrutinized him. There was something in her eyes that told Shawn that she knew more about Vampires than any person alive. She had dealt with bloodsuckers that few hunters could even dream of. Her expression wasn’t judgmental, but somehow motherly. Finally, she smiled at him as she came across the room. Standing inches away from Shawn, she took his hands in her old wrinkled ones. Her skin felt like tissue paper but her grip was strong.
“Shawn Black,” she said. “There is power in this one. There’s a passion that’s rare, even among hunters. Keep him safe Dimitri. He’s no great hunter yet, but he will be. And his kind will be needed against the Vampires in the coming years.”
Shawn gazed into her dark eyes for a long moment. There was a lot of pain there. There was also a lot of love. He knew that Dimitri was right. She was an incredible woman. He never saw her again after that night, but he never forgot her. 
“Thanks,” he finally said. 
“God be with you, child,” Maria told him, patting his cheek and turning to Dimitri. “The High School?”
“Yeah,” the hunter said.
“Watch yourself,” she said. “The new ones are very powerful, and their leader is pure darkness. You may not encounter him tonight. Consider that a good thing. I met him.”
“You’ve seen their Master?” Shawn asked.
“He attacked me last week,” Maria said. “I wasn’t sure until later that he was the Master. I tried to ward him off, but he seemed immune to my… ability. I barely made it home that night.”
“What can you tell me about him?” Dimitri asked.
“I never got a good look at him,” she said. “But he was there. He is old. He is angry. And the only piece of advice I can give you is that looks can be deceiving. Don’t let his size fool you.”
“His size?” Shawn asked. “What do you mean.”
“I’m not sure,” Maria said. “But that’s what I know. Do not let his size fool you. He is deceptively strong and more evil than any Vampire I have seen since…”
“Vladimir?” Dimitri asked.
Maria suddenly turned pale. She glared at Dimitri for a brief moment and Shawn sensed a lot of power behind that look, and the pain he had seen earlier intensified. Then it was gone and she turned to the sleeping child on the couch.
“Such a precious child,” she said, more to herself than to the hunters. 
Dimitri looked at Shawn and nodded. It was time to go.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The high school parking lot was packed. The school itself wasn’t very big and from what Shawn could see of the football stadium it probably held no more than five hundred people. Shawn’s high school in Rochester had a sports complex that rivaled most minor league baseball stadiums in size. But Dave was right. The place was packed. Hundreds of people were there, dressed in green and black, the school colors, and excited about the game. 
“There are Vampires here,” Dimitri said as they looked for a parking spot. 
“I know,” Shawn replied. He could see them. Though they were doing their best to blend in with the rest of the crowd, some of the bloodsuckers stood out. Either they hadn’t gotten the clothes just right, or they weren’t showing the same exuberance and school spirit as the other students. There was group of what looked like teenagers standing off the side of a concession stand looking at a couple of cheerleaders with undisguised hunger and a man in a suit that could have been a teacher was sitting on a bench alone, his eyes glowing red.
“They’ll start taking victims soon,” Dimitri said as he finally found a place to park the VW. “If they haven’t already.”
“Uncle Kirk told me that this town had a history,” Shawn said.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Dimitri told him. “Vampires have been here longer than humans. That’s rare in any place. Strange occurrences have been reported here as long back as the early Spanish settlers. And the Indian’s have their own legends. They tried to warn the Europeans not to build a city here. But lately things have gotten much worse.”
“And this new coven?”
“There is evil here,” Dimitri said. “Vampires feed on it. They always have. They’ve been attracted to this area by that dark power. Dave’s been fighting them here for seven years. I’ve been here more than a few times, as have the gypsies and other hunters. Dave’s father was fighting Vampires in Hidden Valley decades ago. No matter how many we kill, there are always more. This is a stronghold. There aren’t many places like it in the world.”
“It’s a wonder any people stayed here at all,” Shawn remarked as they got out of the car. He could smell something burning from the engine but since Dimitri didn’t seem concerned by it, he didn’t say anything.
“There’s good here too,” Dimitri said. “Most strongholds are just hotspots of evil and they are overrun by that evil before too long. The reason that Hidden Valley has survived so long is because there is also a good presence at work here. There’s sort of a balance, and the Vampires are aware of it. That’s why they fight so hard to hold onto this place.”
Then Shawn heard a scream coming from their left. There was a lot of noise in the parking lot and the game was about to start so there was quite a racket growing in the stadium, but his well trained ears could pick out a terrified scream above all the din. Someone was in trouble.
“You heard it too?” Dimitri asked. Shawn nodded. The screaming was coming from a dark area on the other side of the parking lot. It was a young female. The two hunters raced in that direction, their hands on their concealed weapons ready to draw them the moment they encountered a Vampire. No one noticed them run by, just as no one seemed to have heard the terrified girl as she cried out. There were two buildings close together at the end of the parking lot and in the dark ally between them Dimitri and Shawn found their prey.
One of the cheerleaders had been dragged into the ally by the three Vampires who had been watching her. She was backed against a wall by a window, her black and green uniform torn and her face bloodied. She was screaming for help as the three bloodsuckers surrounded her. Their eyes were crimson and their fangs were bared. One of them moved closer, opening its mouth wide to take a bite out of her. In a flash, Dimitri pulled out his crossbow and fired. He shot the thing in the chest and dusted it. All that remained was a green letter jacket and a faded pair of blue jeans.
“Nice shot,” Shawn said. He pulled out his silver dagger and his stake and Dimitri once again concealed his crossbow and pulled out two stakes of his own.
“Hunters!” one of the remaining two Vampires hissed and the battle was on. Forgetting the cheerleader, they came at the hunters so quickly that Shawn had barely gotten his knife out before he had plunged it into the chest of a large bloodsucker. He pulled the blade out of the skeleton that remained and saw that Dimitri had staked the other one. The cheerleader was still screaming hysterically. They would have gone to her aid had it not been for the six Vampires that suddenly appeared from behind.
Dimitri turned first, hearing the rush of wind as the air was disturbed by their lightning-fast arrival. He had killed two of the attacking bloodsuckers before Shawn even knew what was happening. By the time Shawn had engaged the enemy, Dimitri had staked another of them, this one so freshly turned that the blood on her neck was barely dry. Shawn took out the other three with slightly less ease. But, as Dimitri had commented on before, no sooner had these six been dispatched than another dozen arrived.
“Damn!” Shawn grunted as he slashed away at the Vampires. Dimitri was hit so hard by a Vampire that looked like a twelve year old Native American boy that he went flying across the ally and landed in a heap next to the screaming cheerleader. Both of his stakes lay on the ground next to him as he struggled to get up. Shawn was alone against a dozen bloodsuckers. 
Feeling no need to hurry, the Vampires circled around him. Their glowing red eyes lit the place up like an unholy fire and they were so close to him that he could smell their putrid, bloody breath. He knew that he was done for. He had fought well, but in the end there were just to many Vampires to face. Preparing himself for death, he held his weapons high.
“Come on, then!” he cried. “Let’s see how many of you bastards I can take with me!”
“Foolish boy,” the Vampire who had looked like a teacher said. “We’ll suck you dry before you can even raise that shiny little knife of yours.”
“Try me!” Shawn shouted. The teacher was the first to go. He sped at the boy with his preternatural speed and got a heart full of silver for his trouble. A Vampire grabbed him from behind and he spun around, staking her before she could sink her teeth in. The next few moments were a blur as he staked and stabbed and slashed. He was scratched and hit and one Vampire managed to get his fangs into Shawn’s left arm. He had barely broken the skin when Shawn got the silver dagger into his left eye. The monster screamed and ran off into the night, leaving a trail of cold blood behind him.
As good as he was doing, Shawn knew it was no use. There was no way he could fight them off forever and it seemed even more Vampires were arriving on the scene. He counted about twenty of them as he fought. He knew it was just an estimate, since his attention was more on killing that counting. But if there were more than a couple of dozen, then that made this coven one of the largest he had ever heard of. Death seemed immanent.
Then, just as he was struck from behind a Vampire he didn’t even see and went face first into the brick wall in front of him, Dimitri came back into the fray. He no longer carried stakes. He now held a gleaming silver bladed sword that he had somehow concealed so perfectly that Shawn hadn’t noticed it. Dazed and barely conscious, Shawn watched as Dimitri slashed away at the monsters with the magnificent weapon. He managed to decapitate or disembowel about a dozen of them. The others, sensing their defeat, ran off into the night. 
Still holding the sword in his right hand, Dimitri extended his left to Shawn. He helped the boy to his feet and the two of them stood there for a minute, catching their breath and watching for more Vampires to emerge. None did.
“You fought good, kid,” Dimitri told him. 
“Told you,” Shawn said, trying to laugh and only coughing instead. 
“Let’s check on the girl.”
They went down into the darkness of the ally where the cheerleader was sitting against the wall, her arms around her knees, whimpering like a wounded puppy. She looked up at the hunters with wide, horrified eyes.
“Don’t hurt me,” she sobbed. “Please. I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t hurt me.”
“We aren’t going to hurt you,” Dimitri said. “Are you okay?”
“They were… they were…” she stammered, and then her eyes rolled up into their sockets and she slumped against the wall. She had fainted.
“We have to get her out of here,” Shawn said. Dimitri nodded. He put his sword into a sheath that was fastened onto his back, under the black trench coat he wore. Then he bent to pick up the girl. He carried her towards the light at the end of the ally as Shawn followed, vigilant against any further attacks. Dimitri didn’t see it as the girl started to stir and he didn’t notice as she opened her eyes. They were no longer bright blue and frightened. They were bright red and ravenous. There wasn’t even time to warn the other hunter. Shawn just threw his knife at the cheerleader whose teeth were mere inches from Dimitri’s neck. He caught her in the throat, killing her instantly. Dimitri spun around, still holding the dead Vampire with the dagger in her neck.
“What the hell?”
“Vampire,” Shawn said. “They must have turned her while we were fighting. She was about to kill you.”
Sickened, Dimitri dropped the girl’s body onto the grass. He pulled the dagger from her neck and handed it to Shawn. It was covered with blood. 
“Nice shot, kid,” he said.
Shawn beamed. Here was a famed Vampire hunter, from a long line of legendary warriors, who had fought so well that Shawn would have thought he’d been doing this for decades rather than seven or eight years, and he was impressed. Shawn had done well. He was proud of himself.
Things were calm in the parking lot. All of the Vampires who had been there had probably gone after the hunters in the ally and about two thirds of those had been killed. Vampires weren’t stupid. They knew when they were beaten and they knew when to retreat. Dimitri and Shawn had a feeling that the high school was safe, at least for the night.
“They were from the new coven,” Dimitri said as the got back into the car. “The group at the cemetery wouldn’t have come out with that much force.”
“We put a dent in there numbers tonight,” Shawn said as Dimitri started the car. They were heading to the civic center to see how Kirk and Dave had faired. 
“The question is how big of a dent?” Dimitri said. “By my count we killed over twenty-five Vampires tonight. At least a dozen got away.”
“That’s a hell of a coven,” Shawn remarked.
“One of the biggest I’ve ever seen,” Dimitri said. “And I know that wasn’t their whole number. No coven comes out en mass to hunt. They always leave behind a group to guard their base, and the Master rarely goes to hunt with his minions. If there were Vampires at the civic center too, I’d estimate that there are over sixty of them in that coven.”
“Sixty?” Shawn was shocked. Vampires rarely congregated in numbers so large. Two or three dozen was usually the maximum, and even a group that large was almost unheard of. “Why so many?”
“I don’t know,” Dimitri told him. “But I don’t like it. Strange things have been happening all over the world lately. Vampires are acting differently. There seem to be more of them than ever before.”
The thing Maria told Dimitri about Shawn suddenly came back to him: “His kind will be needed against the Vampires in the coming years.” Did the old woman know something the other hunters did not? Did she somehow sense that things were changing? What was going to happen in the coming years?
About a minute later they pulled into the parking lot of the civic center. Things were quiet and calm and Kirk and Dave were leaning against the black Sentra under a bright street lamp at the end of the lot. They looked like they had had been through a battle of their own. Kirk had a gash on his left cheek and Dave had a black eye and his left arm hung limp at his side. With his right, he was smoking a cigarette. Dimitri parked next to them and he and Shawn got out.
“How’d it go?” Dave asked them.
“Killed over twenty-five Vampires at the high school,” Dimitri reported.
“We killed about thirty here,” Kirk said. “Dave thinks they were all from the new coven.”
“I agree,” Dimitri told him. “As were ours. That makes that coven downright huge.”
“It was huge,” Dave said. “But with over fifty of them dead, it’s not any longer. They may try to regroup or join up with the ones at the cemetery, but for now I think we took care of the main threat.”
“And the party next week?” Shawn asked.
“We’ll stick around till after Halloween,” Kirk replied. “We’ll make sure things have died down before we head home. And we’ll be at the mall on Halloween night. I doubt we’ll see the massacre we were fearing, but we’ll kill any bloodsucker who shows his pale face.”
The four of them got into the cars. This time Dave went with Dimitri and Shawn and his uncle rode together. They patrolled the town until dawn and saw no other Vampire activity. When the sun rose, Kirk drove back to Dave’s house to find him and Dimitri sitting on the front porch with four cups of coffee on a glass patio table. Both were smoking. Dave had another cigarette and Dimitri was puffing on a wood tipped cigar. LaCai was running around the front yard chasing after Midnight and giggling. When Shawn and Kirk sat down at the two open chairs Shawn was unsurprised to find that the patio table had a stained glass design of a cross.
“Nothing?” Dave asked them.
“Nothing,” Kirk confirmed. “Not another Vampire anywhere.”
“Maria says we pretty much destroyed the coven,” Dimitri said. “They are nothing but a fraction of what they once were.”
“And that leader she warned us about?” Shawn asked.
“Embarrassed and defeated,” Dave replied. “Whoever he is, he and his minions are in hiding. She says he may try to join with the graveyard coven or just leave Hidden Valley altogether, but it will be a long time before he leads another army like the one we faced last night.”
Kirk shuddered. “A Vampire army,” he said. “Can you imagine?”
“If they ever got organized enough to form a real army…” Dave trailed off. It was a terrifying thought. 

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kirk and Shawn Black stayed in Hidden Valley another week. They patrolled with the other two at night. They did find a Vampire now and then and killed them easily, but there was nothing like that first night. When Halloween came they all went to the mall to check out the party. They weren’t expecting much activity and even took LaCai with them. She dressed up like a white tiger and went trick-or-treating at the store fronts with the rest of the little kids. Dimitri said it was good for her to be a normal kid for a while. She got so little of an actual childhood.
One Vampire showed up at the party, but the hunters never noticed him. He looked like a little kid in a Yoda costume. In actuality, he was a dwarf, barely three feet high. He had been the Master of the new coven. His minions had left him and Hidden Valley after their defeat a week ago at the hands of the hunters. Now he wandered the city alone at night, trying to decide what to do. Should he join with the others, start a new coven, or simply slink away from the city like the other cowards? He wasn’t sure. 
He didn’t want to leave Hidden Valley. He had been drawn here by its great power and he wanted that power for himself. If he ran away, he would lose that opportunity. There wasn’t another stronghold like this on the entire continent. Would the other Vampires accept him? Would they banish him? Would he end up, like so many other failed Masters, just another reject Vampire lurking in the shadows, frightened of his own kind?
No, the Dwarf would not let that happen. He would stay in the city. He would seek out the other Vampires and prove himself to them. Maybe he would even become their Master one day. He was strong, he was powerful, and he was very evil. It wouldn’t take long. Maybe a year. Maybe ten. By the time of the prophesy, he could very well be ruling over the Hidden Valley coven. The Vampire who took this place for the Dark Messiah would be rewarded quite handsomely. 
But first he needed to feed. There was a woman walking towards the bathroom holding two little children by the hand. One of them was dressed as Yoda. As the Dwarf watched the little boy go into the men’s room by himself while she waited outside with her little princess daughter a wicked grin grew under the green rubber mask. Quicker than any human eye could see, the Dwarf went into the bathroom as well.

“Look’s like things have settled down here,” Dave told his friends as they walked the corridor between the stores. “Thanks for your help, Kirk. And you too, Shawn. I don’t think we can call you a novice any longer.”
“Thanks, Dave,” Shawn said. 
“Glad we could be of some help,” Kirk told him. “We’ll head back in the morning. Those Vampires in Rochester are probably having a field day with us gone.”
“LaCai and I should be moving on too,” Dimitri said. “Staying in one place too long makes me nervous.”
“That’s the gypsy in you,” Dave laughed. Dimitri laughed too, but it wasn’t a very genuine sound. Shawn got the feeling, as he often did when Dimitri spoke of his gypsy friends, that there was a connection there far deeper than he had let on. Already he had told the others about the “Blessing” and what the gypsies had told him it meant. From what Shawn could gather, they had somehow put a protection around him that would make him stronger, faster, more capable of fighting Vampires and incapable of ever becoming one. He had earned this blessing, which hadn’t been bestowed on anybody in over a century. But there was even more than that. Once time Dave had mentioned the name Katja and that was the closest Shawn saw Dimitri come to crying the entire week. Not even when he spoke of his fallen parents and dead brothers did he show such emotion.
“Since I’ll have an empty house tomorrow,” Dave said, “why don’t we make the most of tonight?”
The four hunters and cute little white tiger walked through the mall together trying, for one night, to forget that while all around them people were dressed as devils and monsters, their life was all about fighting the real thing. They left about an hour later to go back to Dave’s house. Dave’s guests would pack their things and they would get some rest before heading out. Dave would stay and protect Hidden Valley, calling them back to help if they were ever needed, and the others would go back on the road, seeking out the undead and taking them down.
As they left the mall they passed Maria Brown. She was taking two little kids, a pale dark haired boy about five years old and a pretty little girl who was around four, trick-or-treating. She waved at the hunters and they waved back.

CHAPTER NINE

Around midnight that night the Dwarf, his belly full of blood, approached Mount Hope Cemetery just outside of Hidden Valley. He had rid himself of his costume and came dressed in a silky black suit that he had kept with him since his days as a human. It was a fine outfit in its day, and even after centuries of repairs and restorations, it still looked beautiful.
Three Vampires stood watch at the gate. No human would have seen them, but the Dwarf knew they were there.
“What do you want, Dwarf?” one of them demanded. “Your coven was destroyed! Why do you come to ours?”
“I seek your Mistress!” the Dwarf replied. “Let me speak to Sophia!”
Just knowing the Mistress’s name was enough to earn the guards’ respect. The Dwarf entered the graveyard without another word. A Vampire that looked like a frail old woman stood under a tombstone that looked like an angel stood glaring at him.
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
The Dwarf went to her, lay prostrate before her and looked up at the Mistress with his glowing red eyes. His act of humility not only caused her to allow him to join the coven, but it probably saved his miserable little unlife. From that night on, the Dwarf began his quest to take control of the Hidden Valley coven.



This was a prequel to Akeldama: The Field of Blood, now available from Smashwords.com. Shawn Black appears in the sequel, This Dark World, coming soon from Ardybooks.