Sanguine Dreams
Prologue: Of Dreams
It had started with the odd vision of a moonlit path. All around him, he could hear the sounds of a forest at night, and of his horse's hooves on the old path beneath him. He sighed as the sweet scent of night-blooming flowers came to his nostrils; bringing a sense of peace that didn't often come in recent days. Then, as though it had been drifting on the wind, searching especially for him, a soft tune came to his sensitive ears.
"I haven't heard that song in years! Wonder where it's coming from?" he wondered, as he gently urged his horse into a canter, and followed the music to it's source. In short order, he arrived at what appeared to be a mansion that was cloaked in shadow, and bathed in the softest of moonlight. As he dismounted, he became aware of some ghostly servants moving around him; and one even politely took his horse to where it could graze and wait for his return. Within moments, he'd followed the tune into the ballroom of the mansion, where a fancy party was now in full swing.
"Great. I hate events like this! It always seems to have people who are too full of themselves in attendance!" he sourly mused, as he scanned the crowd for the host or hostess of the party. For a brief moment, he could have sworn he'd seen two people that he knew...but, before he could wonder what they were doing there, they had disappeared into the throng again.
"Did I imagine it?" he wondered, as he made his way towards a young woman, who appeared to be the one in charge of the gathering. She was dancing with a tall, dark-haired man that had his back to him as he approached, but she gave him a bittersweet smile when she noticed him. His confusion was only furthered when the crowd abruptly disappeared; leaving only him and the girl standing there.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice echoing strangely in the now empty ballroom. She turned a vaguely unhappy gaze onto him, and sighed.
"Find me. Please. Find me." the girl whispered, her gaze still downcast and her voice now very sad.
"Find you? Where can I find you?" he again asked, as some worry emerged for the sad-eyed girl.
"Soon you will know the way...But please...Please come." the girl begged, as she began to fade into a bluish mist that was quickly enveloping the mansion.
"Will I soon know your name, then?" he asked. The girl nodded.
"You will know all, soon. But you must come! Hurry!" the girl urged, before she disappeared completely.
"Awaken!"
vvvvvvvvvvvvvv(divider)
Dirk Lang bolted upright from sound sleep with a gasp, his body soaked in sweat. For a few, brief moments, he felt disoriented; had it only just been a dream? Or was it a premonition?
"I take it that you saw it too, Dirk?" a rusty voice asked, making the quarter-vampire look up at the speaker. There, already sitting astride his black cyborg horse, sat the nightmare of all Nobility himself, the Vampire Hunter known only as 'D'. His father.
"Yeah. But what was it about, though?" Dirk asked; with confusion appearing on his handsome face and darkening the color of his expressive grey eyes.
"We won't know till we find out. In any case, the next town is just up ahead. We'll be able to restock our supplies and get on the trail of our next bounty there." a young woman's voice stated, calmly, as the sun's first rays painted her coppery hair an almost crimson shade.
"You're right. Let's hurry and get on the trail before it gets too warm. I, for one, don't really want to experience another bout of Heat Syndrome like I had on the last hunt." Dirk muttered, as he quickly stood, stretched, and then briskly untied his mount's reins before getting astride and following his father's lead in the direction of the town in question.
"I'm afraid your body will have the last word on that, Dirk. It doesn't matter how much time passes, it is something you're never going to get used to." D murmured; hiding a smirk when his son gave him a deadpan look for that remark.
"Great. Give me something to look forward to, Dad. Sheesh." Dirk grumbled, as he irritably pulled the collar of his coat a little bit higher around his face, and his hat a bit lower over his eyes. This time, D did snicker a little bit, at his expense.
"What would you think if I sang outta tune, would you stand up and throw rancid tomatoes at meeee?" an off-key voice sang, getting a cringe out of the trio of Hunters for that.
"Yes Marv, we would." the woman (who happened to be Belladonna Collins, the so-called 'Terror of Collinsport'), and Dirk, muttered, exasperatedly.
"Where did you say the lake where you'd gotten that sword was again, Dirk? We might still be able to throw it back." D said, with only the faintest hint of irritation in his voice. Dirk only sighed.
"Doesn't matter. He'll just keep coming back, no matter how many times we throw 'im in." Dirk replied, yet, even then, his thoughts returned to the strange dream he, his father, and Belladonna had shared. What did it mean? And where would it lead them?
"And, if we do follow up on it, will we come out of it alive in the end?" Dirk wondered, as he gazed up at the crimson-hued sky above them, and felt a small hint of foreboding steal into his heart; was their future hunt going to be as bloody as the sky above them now looked?