Chapter 1
Selene ducked behind a pillar, dropping her spent clips and reloading her guns with more silver bullets.
She quickly assessed her situation. Two lycans – one significantly stronger than the other. Most likely a lieutenant at least. My partner's dead. She concentrated on her hearing. She heard a set of footsteps fleeing the area. Take out the weaker first.
The Death Dealer came out from her cover, weapons drawn and ready to fire. Only humans could be seen. She cursed mentally.
She ignored the lowlifes around her and walked towards the tracks. Movement caught her eye, so she turned and aimed at its source.
A mere human, she realized and dropped her guns to her side. The man smelled…different than most humans did, but she accounted that to the rancid scent of wet dog in the air. "Get out of here," she ordered him.
She did not care to confirm if he listened to her. Selene jumped down onto the rail tracks and began running after her prey.
After a brief moment of running, Selene came upon a passageway that forked away from the main tracks. She spied a small red patch on the ground and walked to it.
It pulled the bullet out itself, she noticed. She sniffed the air. The blood is fresh. Not three minutes old. It's close.
A loud screech came from behind her. She turned only to see that it was a subway passing. The train's bright lights burned her eyes as it passed.
She turned back around and investigated the blood pattern again. Looking at the freshly spilled lifeblood roused her hunger, but she contained the instinct for the moment. I shall feed once I return, she promised herself.
She raised her vision and spotted a few drops of blood three meters down the hall. Realizing it was a trail, she followed it to a grate in the floor. Selene pulled the cast iron cover off with one hand and dropped down.
The vampire landed in the catacombs beneath the subway; she immediately held her guns out and scanned every opening near her for the lycan. Finding nor smelling anything, she dropped her weapons but remained ready.
She heard the faint 'click' of a firearm's hammer behind her. With speed and agility beyond even most of her species, Selene ducked beneath the fired bullet and turned to face her opponent.
Her face as cold as her heart, Selene fired thrice. Three pure silver bullets were forcefully injected into the beast's torso. The disguised lycan fell to the ground, writhing in agony.
Its body smoked from its new wounds as she prowled after it. She stomped her heel on its chest, keeping it still with her might.
She raised her weapon again. She counted the shots, feeling a sadistic vindication with each one.
Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Five. Six.
She pulled the trigger a seventh time, but the gun's chamber no longer had anything to fire. The only emotion she felt was contempt.
Recalling the damage its bullets had done to her partner earlier, Selene picked up its firearm. She dropped its magazine and surprise filled her. The bullets were glowing with a strange, blue light.
Interesting, she thought, curious. Never have I encountered such a weapon before. As she looked at the ammunition, her instincts warned her of the bullets' danger. A disconcerting theory entered her mind. Have they managed to weaponize Ultraviolet radiation? We need to know if this is true.
A powerful, animalistic roar tore her from her thoughts. Her ears told her that the other, more powerful, lycan was rapidly approaching.
She reached into her jacket's pockets and pulled out her favorite weapons. Erika had called them her 'little silver frisbies' because 'she loved to play with her dogs with them'. Selene suppressed a rare smile at the memory.
Selene depressed the disks' trigger buttons when she felt the lycan near the grate down. She turned on her heel and tossed her weapons at the beast as it entered.
All four found their target, burrowing into the creature's hide. The lycan howled in agony. Selene, however, wished the beast silenced for good.
Knowing she had no silver bullets left, she pulled her twin silver daggers from her boots. She rushed the werewolf then, stabbing one and leaving it in the beast's left shoulder. She leapt away from its clumsy slash.
She gave no quarter. With her lone dagger and enhanced speed, she dashed around the pained dog and continued to cut into it. The beast weathered the storm without letting so much as a whimper out.
Selene took a brief moment to admire her work. Dozens of slash wounds covered the beast's torso and arms, and the silver still embedded in its body slowed its natural regeneration ability tremendously.
Impressive, she calculated. Even with those wounds, the beast still persists. It's almost respectable. Almost.
She sprinted at the slowed lycan one last time. This time, she aimed for its neck to put it out of its pathetic misery. Her eyes showed her the exact spot to strike in order to put an end to the lycan's existence.
She slashed one last time, but the lycan managed to react in time to preserve its feeble life; it leaned to the side. Selene's slice, aimed for the jugular, cut into the side of its neck.
Blood spurted from its neck as she passed; some of it landed on her face. Instinctively, she licked it from her lips. She realized too late what she had just done.
No!
A lycan's blood, when drank by a vampire, was toxic. While those most powerful, such as the three Elders, were strong enough to overpower the toxin, lesser vampires had perished from feeding on a lycan.
Selene was more than capable of surviving such a small amount of a werewolf's blood, but she knew from past experience that it would affect her harshly.
I must leave before it is too late! Selene turned, ready to end the beast if need be, but the lycan had fallen to its back. She clicked her tongue in disappointment. Even knowing the pressing need to leave, she still desired more. "Count yourself lucky, beast. I do not have the time to end you tonight."
It growled angrily at her, glaring with pure loathing in its yellow eyes.
Pushing her own rage to the side, she stepped over the beast. She quickly went over the catacomb blueprints in her head and ran towards the closest exit.
She halted when a loud clamor reached her ears. She smelled the air. Lycans, she recognized. Many of them. There is at least fifty; possibly near a full hundred!
A sudden roar echoed through the cavers behind her. Selene silently cursed. The lycan she'd left alive had recovered enough to move and hunt.
Selene made a mental note of where the lycan coven was. She then turned and fled the caverns, wincing as the headaches began.
Selene kept her face neutral as she left the mansion's armory. The lycans' ultraviolet bullets had both worried and intrigued Kahn; which one was greater Selene could not tell.
She winced as another head pain met her, but that was all that she allowed other to see. This will be no short bester, she thought, annoyed.
She passed the other Death Dealers and normal vampires of the mansion, paying no attention to all of Kraven's turned thralls. She had done her duty by telling Kraven of what she discovered; whatever inaction he deemed to choose was not hers.
She looked forward, steel in her gaze as she walked the opulent mansion's halls. My instincts have never once led me astray, and I trust myself far more than Kraven.
Viktor's coven had been abuzz with news of the coming ceremony. Amelia would be arriving two nights from now to awaken Markus, as well as the joining between Amelia's and Viktor's covens. Selene had heard through Erika that it was rumored that Kraven would be taking one of Amelia's Second's daughters as one of his concubines to seal the arrangement.
Perhaps she will keep his attention from me, Selene thought, hopeful. Kraven's incessant infatuation with me has long since worn my patience. Why he does not simply accept Erika eludes me.
Selene at last arrived at her room. She never bothered to lock her door, as every vampire in the world knew the wrath she wrought on any unwanted intrusion into her private quarters. She opened her door and closed it behind her, not caring to lock it.
Her room was extravagant, as Viktor himself had instructed his thralls to ensure when he rested a century ago. It irked Selene to have such extraneous details as the monstrous bed when she no longer required sleep, but she always accepted Viktor's gifts with equal measures of gratitude and grace.
She sat at her computer, the only addition she found even remotely useful. She quickly logged on and began researching everything that she had discovered that night.
She used one of Kraven's thrall's access codes to access the city's C.C.T.V. cameras. Selene quickly located the ones that showed the area surrounding the earlier subway. She rewound the time to just before she had located the two lycans.
Her eyes scanned the faces in the crowd. She soon found the lycans she'd encountered earlier. There you are. She then allowed the scene to play and discovered something. She narrowed her eyes. Are they following this man? She zoomed the screen in on the man's face; she let the screen render the new image into focus.
Her room's door creaked open without a knock. "There you are!" Erika nearly exclaimed as she entered.
Selene looked up from her task for a moment. "Erika," she greeted neutrally. She'd come to see the younger woman almost as a friend, so the intrusion was no longer an issue to her.
Erika had the thought to close the door behind her. "I went to find you at Viktor's bed but you weren't there." She crossed her arms. "I thought it strange. You always go see Viktor whenever you and Kraven disagree like that."
Selene stopped typing. Erika was right. Why didn't I? Another ache made itself known. She grimaced. That's why. She told the other girl, "Kraven may be in charge, but that does not make his word absolute. I know what Viktor would do when I told him about the lycan stronghold."
The blonde rolled her eyes. "You do realize," she walked to Selene's side, "that you sound like a whining child when you talk like that."
Selene looked at her. She disagreed, "I do not."
"Point," Erika grinned, "proven. Regardless of your thoughts about what Viktor might have done, Kraven was the one he chose to rule in his absence. It is up to Viktor to maybe discipline Kraven if he saw that he ruled ineffectively."
The Death Dealer reluctantly conceded her point. "True," she agreed through clenched teeth, "but I cannot sit idle and be a porcelain figurine for him to admire. I am a warrior. I can't be like you, Erika."
For an instant, a flash of hurt was in Erika's green eyes. "No," she said. "If you were then he surely would not pine after another that clearly doesn't want him."
Selene's heart thawed. She had not meant to hurt Erika that way. "Erika…you know I did not mean it like that. I despise his desire even more than you."
Erika sighed tiredly. "I know. It's just…so frustrating. But," she changed the subject," that's not why I came. We need to start getting you ready."
One of Selene's dark eyebrows rose, curious. "For what?" she asked.
Erika once more rolled her eyes. "For the party of course," she chided, exasperated. "Amelia's envoy will be—Selene!"
The most powerful migraine yet tore through Selene's mind. Her hands grabbed her head, and she opened her mouth in a silent scream. Pure agony galloped through her entire being.
She began to spasm, her legs kicking randomly. She vaguely heard Erika shouting but couldn't make out what she was saying. She fell out of her chair, landing hard on the ground.
Her eyes opened, but they were no longer the sapphire-blue that everyone compared to ice. They were now glazed over and a milky white.
A memory that wasn't hers played before her eyes.
She was looking through the eyes of another. This person, male by her guess, stood much taller than her.
This person was not alone. There was another male present. This one was shorter than the one she saw through, but he was still taller than most.
The other one said, "This is where it will happen, Raze." He gestured to a familiar train station below. "She will arrive on our strongest night. Plan the attack and choose twenty of our best."
Her skin then spoke, its voice the deepest she'd ever heard, "And what of you, Lucian? Do you not want to take part?"
Lucian looked away, up into the nearly-full moon. "No," he denied. His eyes grew soft. "I hold no ill will for Amelia personally; she is merely the sacrifice that is required." He reached up and his hand closed over a golden, jeweled locket around his neck. His grip tightened. "Viktor is the one I will see dead personally."
Selene awoke with a strangled gasp. Her lungs begged for air, and she tried desperately to obtain that oxygen.
Hands gripped the side of her face. "Selene! Selene!" a worried voice cried. "Selene!"
She caught her breath with one last gasp. She finally noticed the person over her had a concerned look on her face. She grabbed Erika's cold hands and removed them. "I am fine, Erika."
Erika gave her a disbelieving look. "You just had a seizure in front of me, yet you expect me to believe that you are fine?"
Selene loosed a few coughs as she sat up. She held out her hand. "Truly, Erika," she insisted, "I will be fine. I simply need to feed. I haven't in near a week anyway."
"Hunger pains don't do that to us," the other woman pointed out shrewdly. "What. Happened. Selene?"
Erika took her hand and they both stood upright from the ground. The dark-haired one looked around and asked, "Did you tell anyone of what just happened?"
Erika crossed her arms, dissatisfied, but she recognized when Selene would not explain something she didn't want to. She sighed tiredly and replied, "No one yet. I was too worried you'd been poisoned. I was close to biting you myself to rid you of it."
Worry wormed into Selene's mind. She warned her, "Don't do that. You don't have the strength to survive even a dosage as small as I was exposed to."
"So you were poisoned." Erika threw her hands in the air. "Damn it, Selene! You always do this! When will you trust us enough to tell us you've been hurt!?"
Selene quickly interjected, "I was poisoned, but not in the way you think." Erika gave her a strange look, so she further explained, "I accidentally ingested a small amount of lycan blood."
"And it did that to you?" Erika sounded both impressed and disgusted. "I'm glad I'm no Death Dealer then. I'll leave the dog-killing to the people with a death wish like you."
Selene's eyes widened, remembering the scene in the memory that played earlier. "No…" she breathed. "Please no…" She dashed to her computer to confirm or, hopefully, disprove her suspicions.
The blonde blinked, surprised at the sudden movement. "What is it?" she asked. "Was it something I said?"
Selene paid her no mind. She was instead thinking about and piecing together just what she had seen. "'Our strongest night' most likely refers to the full moon," she murmured. "That train station looked local too…" Please let me be wrong just this once.
Erika walked over to her. "Hello? Are you here, Selene?"
"In a minute, Erika. This could be important if I'm right."
She looked at Selene expectantly. "So… What is it then?"
Selene found a photograph and a chill set in her spine. She enlarged the picture and asked Erika, "Does this look familiar to you?"
She leaned over and looked at the screen, scrutinizing. "It is," she nodded. "It's where Amelia and the Council will arrive in two days."
"And the full moon is in two days as well," Selene finished her thought. That secures it. Her eyes turned to ice. There is a traitor in our midst.
A/N: I want to state this for my readers: This was just an idea I was toying with. I make no promises about possibly returning to this story in the future.
That said, please let me know your thoughts about the premise of this idea. Who knows? If I like it enough, I may write a bit more with this.