Blood Reign

Book One: Someone To Save You

Preface

In the dead of winter, the icy wind was brutal and unrelenting, peppering the travelers with sleet. They were used to a warm extravagant apartment and the streets weren’t so warm. Especially when it’s December and there is a snowstorm raging above.

The cobbled streets of the town were bare of humans but filled with snow and ice. The whole town-square was dark except a few dim candlelit lamps.

“Darling.” Tanya told her daughter Sophia, “Take my coat. Wear it, never take it off.” She handed her daughter her heavy fur coat, the only possession of hers that was valuable.

“Mommy, your lips are purple.”

She just shivered and shielded Sophia’s quivering body from the cold.

Tanya kept comforting her, whispering to her that she will be all right but Tanya was only hoping so.

Tanya was a good mother but was always so stubborn. If she didn’t agree with something then she wouldn’t comply. That was why they were always on the run.

Sophia on the other hand had a good heart, one of gold. She was the one who could be taken advantage of. But Sophia was smart and, even at her young age, wouldn’t be taken as a fool.

She and her mother had settled in a small, hidden town thinking that they lost their pursuers. To their luck, they had. Tanya’s thirst for knowledge was neglected, so her first decision was to go back to magic school to start over her old life, or at least a part of it.

Her teacher, Dr. Harvey, was a good man and helped Tanya through her first few weeks of school. Tanya and Dr. Harvey come from a long line of magicians. Sophia wasn’t going to be taught magic until she was six.

Soon Tanya was tutoring three young men, Alex Murphy, Kazuki Sato, and Jona Evanheart in her spare time.

Alex was sometimes looked for trouble and loved playing music more than paying attention to his studies. Kazuki fell for Tanya when the years past but never said much for he wasn’t sure when was the right time. Jona was their ‘leader’ so to speak, he was the smartest, and the strongest, clearly prince charming, but he never found any woman who caught his eye.

Sophie, nearing the age of two, was shockingly beginning to show the signs of a true magician. This trilled Tanya but worried her at the same time. Her daughter was growing more and more powerful by the months and if she grew more powerful, they could be back where they started: running from village to village.

One morning when Tanya came to Dr. Harvey’s classroom early she found him pacing in front of his radio very worried.

“What is it Doctor?” she asked him. She was allowed to call him just ‘Doctor’ instead of ‘Dr. Harvey’.

“Oh, Tanya!” he gasped, she had startled him. He walked up to her a she was beginning to notice the shiny beads of sweat forming on his brow.

“Doctor, you must tell me what’s wrong.” She held him by the arms and settled him in a chair beside her.

Now, Dr. Harvey wasn’t an old man. In fact he was quite young, 29, making him ten years older then Tanya. “Oh, Tanya.” He repeated calmly.

“What Stephen? What’s wrong?” she was beginning to become as worried as he looked.

“Tanya, Tanya dear.” Dr. Harvey was starting to go back to his old self. “I never though I’d say this but it has began.”

She swallowed, has her past caught up with her? Had she done all this running only to endanger more innocent blood? “The Blood Reign?”

He nodded gravely which made her shut her eyes containing her tears. “The attacks started Monday,” he paused, “on our first full moon.”

She nodded pressing her hands over her plain navy colored skirt. She had been worrying about this from the start and she knew it would have to happen sometime.

He stood, bending down as if bowing. “Would you like me to arrange for your departure?” he asked gravely. He had grown fond of her little quips and late night visits. There wasn’t anything romantic between them, not at all. He would miss her if she left, dumping him and his village just like any other and that made him feel not so special.

She shook her head. “No.” she nodded standing up and he did too. “Not this time.”

Tanya felt she did enough running, and decided there was no need to leave her new home.

Tanya and Dr. Harvey knew the danger of the Blood Reign and decided to take actions into their own hands. The three young men Tanya tutored introduced her to a younger vampire who was in need for some extreme rehabilitation.

This was Peter, he had been in his home in another village when he heard the screams of a young woman. He ran to the window to look down on her and a pack of vampires cornering their prey.

He rushed out into the cold to aid the distressed woman, “Hey!” he shouted.

The snarling beasts turned to him. “Yeah,” Peter started to feel unsure about his decision. “Why don’t you take me?”

Peter had nothing to live for, he was ill and there was nothing he wanted to do more then die right then and there.

Most of the pack slowly advanced toward him but two of them held back and feasted on the woman, she was found later by Alex, Jona, and Kazuki pale and white.

“They never said a word those sick beasts.” Snarled Peter to Tanya. Usually his eyes were green, now they were red. “They never stopped to think!” his pale fists came down on the table hard, braking it in pieces under the strength.

“I’m here to help you Peter.” Tanya looked into his eyes.

“Lady,” he looked up at her with much anger he could relish which was a lot. “If you want to help me, throw me into the fiery pits of hell!” and he sobbed in her arms.

So Tanya promised to make Peter a controlled vampire, feeding him only pig’s blood in plastic pouches.

He was very dedicated, making Tanya’s job easier and if this was what she was going to do take young vampires and turning them to the right side of the war then that was what she was going to do. She owed it to the village.

Vampires were now forming Mafia like gangs and terrorized neighboring towns and villages. The blood reign grew, and some humans and older vampires hid from the gangs who were labeled, “blood thieves”. This clearly worried Dr. Harvey who studied vampires since he was young.

“It’s very odd that vampires are hunting with other’s,” Dr. Harvey remarked scratching his hair confused. His hair was starting to gray early. Tanya couldn’t stand the sight so she dyed his hair with black shoe polish. “They normally hunt alone, especially when they’re young, less to share that way.”

Vampires have short tempers and if they get angry the outcome could become deadly. They are known to fight over human women, dead animals, and drunken men for obvious reasons.

“They will fight each other with out a second thought.” Dr. Harvey told Peter and the other hunters. “If blood is spilt then it’s the end for them.”

“I’ve seen it happen.” Peter replied, “They were fighting for so long the venom was able to work through my system, that’s how I survived. Because of their ignorance.” He added bitterly.

“I would like you four to end this.” Dr. Harvey prepared them for the worst. “Keep them under control.”

But it was just like the 300 Spartans against the Persians. There were just too many vampires to fight.

The Blood Reign was reaching its height when Sophia reached the age of three. Several blood thieves made their way to Tanya’s village and were taking over for good. The Hunters did their best killing most of them, but there was already a dominating gang that was difficult to get rid of.

“You call your selves hunters?” Peter was beginning to get very irritated at the others who were only human.

“Next time you be the bait.” Kazuki snapped back, tired of Peter’s complaints.

Their job was getting more and more difficult as the days went by. Vampires were recruiting humans who wanted ‘eternal life’. They were changing members of the village and other villages to make their gangs larger.

“Why would they do that?” Tanya had once asked.

Kazuki offered his reply, “Maybe to continue the Blood Hunts.” Blood Hunts were battles between rival gangs.

“That’s a possibility...” Tanya paced.

“That’s a foolish possibility Tanya!” Peter argued. “The reason why the Blood Thieves are expanding is that they want to take over the village to crate a city with vampires and humans as their slaves.”

Tanya started to violently cough, “Oh Peter,” she paused to cough into Kazuki’s handkerchief. “This is what we shouldn’t be doing, fighting with each other.”

“I was just saying...”

“Yes,” her coughing continued. “But we can’t spend our time arguing with each other. We need to be controlling the enemy.”

“It’s just a matter of time...” Peter said as Tanya excused herself from the room, still coughing. “Before things so wrong.”

Unfortunately, Peter was right, soon the law enforcement was tainted with vampires and the Hunters were arrested.

Dr. Harvey and Tanya found that Peter was again right. The towns around them were no longer effected by the gangs, that all the gangs wanted was to pick a town and take it over, scaring other towns to not get involved. The Blood Reign ended and the gangs took over one side of the town, occasionally haunting the other.

But for Tanya it was too late, she had lost too many jobs and her home was ruined by wars between rival gangs. She had lost money which lead to her not able to buy medicine.

Now she and Sophia were exiled to the streets and the only thing left for Tanya to do was to give into the illness that plagued her with and try to save her daughter. “Be a good girl for Mommy,” she sighed. And Sophia never heard her mother’s voice again.

“Mommy!” she screamed. “Mommy, wake up! Wake up Mommy! Mommy I need you!” she started to cry, wetting her face, making her even colder.

Tanya was the only one Sophia was close to, given that she was her mother, but Tanya never had anyone else look after Sophia. It was almost like her daughter was Rapunzel; locked away in her own home, for her mother feared that some one would recognize her.

Sophia pulled the coat tighter around her small frame. She was beginning to miss her mother’s calming voice and wished that they were never forced to the streets.

It wasn’t fair, she was only a young child and her mother was terribly sick. Now Sophia’s life was in jeopardy.

“Hello?” a man’s voice came from ahead. “Hello? Is someone there?”

Sophia took in a quiet breath, “Mommy?”

“Oh my…Tanya…” the man rushed to Sophia and her mother’s corpse. “Are you alright?”

“Mommy’s not waking up!” she pointed to her mother, purple and pale from the cold and her illness. “She said to get help.” She looked at the worried man.

He looked kind, gentle, and slightly familiar.

“Are you…a magician?” she asked him. Yes he was, she could feel it.

This was Dr. Harvey; he took one look at Tanya’s lifeless body then at the young girl. He had no idea his student had a daughter. “I’ll get you some warm clothes.” He reached in his bag and pulled out a blanket that was much too big for his satchel.

He wrapped her in the woolen blanket and picked her up in his arms. “What’s your name little one?” For the first time since her mother died, she felt safe and cared for.

“Sophia. Will Mommy be alright?”

He looked at her small face that resembled a china doll. “Yes darling, she’s fine.”

He took one last look at Tanya, a woman he knew for a short time before tonight. Dr. Harvey adopted little Sophia so he could teach her magic like her mother would have.

They took good care of each other and both lived happily ever after...

For a while…