Because every good story needs an ominous prologue.
Enjoy.
Chapter 1, Prologue
He inhaled deeply, that monster that needed no breath, savoring the rotted copper stench of old blood. And so much of it. He absently ran his tongue along his lips, already sticky and half-dried. Something about Romanian blood…
"Sir?"
He opened his eyes and realized that his head had rolled back. He lowered his gaze from the ceiling and settled it on the soldier beside him.
"Is it clear, sir?"
His lips parted slightly as he turned his face up again and closed his eyes. Deep, animalistic breaths sounded from him as his chest swelled over and over. He did this for almost half a minute, and it took every shred of self-control that the soldier had to keep himself from trembling as he listened. The chest swelled one last time, and no shuddering exhale followed. A fine rivulet of sweat stung the soldier's eye as the monster spoke:
"Clear."
The soldier watched him leave, watched his heavy boots make no sound as he picked his way through the vampire corpses and disappeared up the crypt steps into the night above.
Deep below the crypt, in a room hidden from eyes and black magic alike by holy seals, Magnus stirred in his bath of blood. The presence was gone now, the presence that Magnus had never dreamed still existed. Slipping down further into the ancient sarcophagus, he let the blood cover him completely once more, let it run into his nose and mouth and eyes. A dull splash sounded, and he felt a rush of heat on his chest; his remaining servants were pouring fresh blood in for him.
His powers were growing, surely, but to consume the blood of The First, The True Immortal, The No-Life King... Magnus needed to sleep again, he knew, but he couldn't. Under the pool of red, he opened his mouth impossibly wide and began draining the sarcophagus.
He imagined it was The Prince's blood.