The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Chapter One:

Staring at the face in front of me, I could feel the cold seep into my belly. The weapon in my hand stayed steady despite the shake I could feel wracking my body. I stood before a magnificently huge and beautiful mirror. Just the kind of mirrored sheen one would expect either in the movies or in a dream glistening under the grim sunlight filtering from the grimy windows high over my head.

I stared intently into the mirror’s reflection, staring into my own eyes. But they were not my eyes I was staring into. I was staring into the eyes of my enemy. The mirror just stared back, the gun it held in its hand level with the one I held in my hand.

I looked myself over; might as well assess the damage while we were in this stalemate.

I had been running and battling so many days now I was shocked at the state of the person standing in front of me. My enemy might have been in my sights, but that didn’t mean that this wasn’t still just a mirror.

I looked at my feet. My feet were bare, scraped up from the rough ground. There were several cuts and a few gashes up my legs from the broken glass littering the passageway. None of them looked too serious to worry about at the moment, though.

The small shorts I wore looked rather dingy and almost frail, they were so dirty. The shirt looked no better. The only thing that worried me was the growing red in the middle of the dirt. I couldn’t recall at that moment just what it was that signified so I let it go for the moment.

My freshly shorn hair hung ragged and filthy about my face, wet with my own sweat and blood. Where once it had run down the length of my back towards my thighs, it now barely reached my chin; it’s soft, golden brown bleached with grime.

My face looked just as dirty, if not worse. I just kept staring into my eyes, still not used to the gaze staring back at me. It had been a few years since the attack, but I’d never get used to that gaze. My right eye shown like a pale greenish-blue flame, the same as any other of my kind; but my left was a yellowish no-color.

I still didn’t know the name of the man who had done this to my eye; neither had anyone known where he was. But I was now staring him in the face, so to speak.

Suddenly the mirror began to shift images. I kept the gun leveled where it was. When the mirror stopped shifting, I could only stare in disbelief at the image before me.

It was a bedroom I did not recognize. But somehow it seemed familiar, as if somehow I should know this room from somewhere.

There was a bed that took up most of the room in the far corner, a huge chest of drawers with another mirror above it in the adjacent corner to the bed. But what gave the room its familiarity was what was in the center of the room. The last thing I would have expected to see…

Then I could hear his cruel laugh echoing from beyond the mirror I was trapped in. I tightened my grip on the gun. The image before me began to morph and bubble as I watched him slowly make his way through the mirror.

I could only look at him in revulsion and through him at the image placed before me on the reflective textured surface of the mirror.

Was this some sort of joke? Was this for real? I knew he was just trying to throw me off, keep me focused on something else while he slipped off once again. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to put a stop to him once and for all…

But for that image, it was so real-like. Like some forgotten memory, sitting in the back of the mind. Just begging to be remembered…

Before I could think of reacting… before I even knew what was happening… I was there inside the image and he was gone. I slowly began to lower the gun in shock. There was that One before me, just like in the image. I was waiting for everything to go back, but everything stayed the way it was. I could hear words, but I could not understand them. All I could do was gape at the One; looking over those smooth, firm arms. I could feel myself fall into the deep black of His eyes…

Then just as suddenly it was all gone. I knew then the ruse had worked and I could only shake the fuzziness out of my head. I began to wonder at myself.

“What was that all about?” I asked myself. It didn’t make any sense. What was I running into? Every corridor, every path, every passage ended in a mirror. But what were these mirrors? What lie on the other side of the mirrors?

I shook the questions out of the way. I had more important things I needed to worry about, like where he had taken off to this time.

I began wandering the long corridors that surrounded me.





Walking around in an almost daze, I felt weak and tired but I couldn’t stop. Not now, not when he was out there somewhere, begging to be brought down. I had determined to bring him down, to end the suffering he brought in his wake. I could not let myself worry about anything else. I could not let him hurt my family I had found. I could not let him get to me or others and continue his reign of terror over everyone he had crossed over the long years of his life. I would stop him at all costs. Even at my own peril; especially at the cost of myself. He had to be brought down, no matter what.

Finally I had to give in to the exhaustion and allowed myself to sink to the floor. I could feel tears threatening to sting at the back of my eyelids. Frustration ran through my veins and I cursed out loud. With a loud cry, I screamed and began beating my fists uselessly against the floor.

I could not fail; not this time. Not when there was so much as stake. I had to think of my family; of everyone who I had to protect. Somehow, I could not recall their names. Nor could I picture their faces anymore within my mind. Shaking my head, I let out a sigh and push myself back up onto my feet. Forcing myself forward, I set a slow pace.

I had to keep going.

Allowing my mind to wander somewhat as I kept walking, I began to wonder at myself. What was the image I had seen in the mirror? What where these images hiding behind them all? What significance did they have to me? What did it matter anyway?

Telling me it was just trickery perhaps on his part, some sort of distraction to keep from focusing on finding him. My heart kept a steady pace in my chest, but a growing ache began to build. I felt some loss at those thoughts. So I let my mind go over the last image I had seen in the last mirror…

The black of those eyes… the smell of that skin… the feeling that somehow I knew this…

I blocked the thoughts out of my head. It was dangerous to follow such fancies at a time like this. It was nothing, just a pretty dream. What did someone like me know about dreams? All there was is here and now.