Summary: Vampire Hunter D/Little Vampire crossover. D finds himself of particular use to a wandering group of dhampires in search of a way to become human. But there are many who are intent on seeing their mission end in failure...or worse.
Disclaimer: Neither Vampire Hunter D nor The Little Vampire belong to me. I am making no money from this fanfiction, and all recognizable characters, events, and locations belong to their respective copyright holders. All original characters, etc. belong to ISJ, and are not to be used without my permission.
Caveats: Rating is PG-13 for violence, romance, and adult themes. Also, be aware that this is a sequel to a work I haven't even written, let alone published. Yes, I know, bad ISJ (slaps wrists). However, you won't be missing anything by not having seen that story--or by not having seen The Little Vampire, for that matter. Ninety-eight percent of this fic is good ol' VHD, with just a kind of vague reference to Little Vampire.
Slainte, and enjoy!
ISJ
The Overcomers
by ISJ
Chapter 1
Time is an unstoppable force. Such is the rule of existence on this earth. Other, many other, rules may be cheated, bent, even broken. But time is unchangeable.
Time is the thing that eats and decays and wearies. Never does it renew or replenish; rather, it is bent on spending itself and destroying those who are chained by it. Rarely is it a friend to those who need it, and even more seldom does it happen to flow in the way they want. Its utter indifference to the beings it controls and its imperviousness to their whims and pleas makes it the worst of all foes. It is the herald of change, the keeper of circumstance, and the advent of death.
And yet, despite the infinite uniformity of time and the impossibility of its alteration, a few there are who seem not to play by its rules. They appear to hoodwink the hands of time by holding them still in their courses. These are the most envied, though not the most enviable, of all creatures. Human, they are not, for humans are irrevocably bound by the passage of the years and aren't usually strong or smart enough to throw off these bonds. The few who have apparently overcome time are greater, indeed.
They are the vampires.
Their birth was human, but their legacy is nothing less than demonic. They rule the night and lesser beings cower at the whispers of their name. They are fierce and cunning and irresistible. And their thirsts are insatiable.
The thirst for blood.
The thirst for revenge.
The thirst for love.
Not love in its true sense. Lust. Impassioned, evil desires, unsanctioned, unblessed, unworthy, and unclean. Humans are those usually sought out, for they are weak and easy to obtain. The very touch of a vampire is a violation to a human, and those who fall under their spell are thence forever lost to humanity.
But such unions, sadly, have existed, and will continue to exist until the last vampire is gone.
Thus, it is not just the vampires who cheat time. Their children do, as well. The children of the cursed and their prey.
The damned, pathetic creatures called dhampires.
These are the saddest and most feared of all who roam the earth. They are caught between two completely different worlds and torn asunder amidst the rages of such a life. Many are as unpredictable as they are confused, not knowing which way to turn and never deciding the way that it is expected they will. Some choose the path of their fathers, and slake the bloodlust with abandon. Some try their utmost to live the lesser status but purer life of their human parent, a few even turning violently against their blood-crazed brethren in a futile search for purpose. And the rest stand in the grey shadow betwixt the two, as dangerous to the vampires as to the humans.
These two monstrous breeds do not subscribe to the same rules that bind human souls. They stretch existence and time to limitless extremes.
But such disregard for rules is not, in this world of checks and balances, without retribution and consequence. Hell is the only destiny for these beings, should they be killed, and the loneliness of a life under the stigma of blood is indescribable in the mortal tongue.
For even those vampires who take for themselves a mate are never satisfied for companionship. Lust soon becomes boredom and the hapless victim of a vampire's foolish desire usually becomes that same creature's fodder.
Love lasts forever, but love cannot be experienced by creatures who aren't truly alive. Some humans have loved their vampire partners, but vampires can feel nothing more than a possessive attachment to anything, even to another being. They sometimes think they are in love, may even mourn the loss of their partner, but their attentions are quickly occupied elsewhere.
And, while dhampires are less fickle, they, too, aren't easily capable of love, though some have fallen into it, owing to their human halves. But, as dhampires have become an extreme minority, few even realize anymore that there are others like them in existence. Those that do have fellows that share their plight are so consumed by a search for meaning and purpose in their monotonous existence that they don't expend the energy to make another dhampire love them. That task is almost insurmountable; humans are still easier to acquire. But half-breeds are so feared that precious few humans will accept them. Even in the off-chance a human falls in love with a dhampire, the fact remains that love lasts forever, but human flesh does not. Any human loved by an immortal lives for only a second in the reckoning of vampiric time, and then is gone.
That is why the hell-bound lords and ladies of the night should not be envied. They cannot love, and cannot slake their passions. They cannot die, and cannot hope for heaven. They cannot stop time, and cannot submit themselves to its final destruction.
Humans are constrained by the knells of the clock.
Vampires can only laugh bitterly when those tones chime.
Dhampires lurk in the shadows of each generation, struggling to define the meaning of time to both their conflicting halves.
And then...there are the Wraiths.
There are only two alive now. One man and one woman who do not die but do not own a drop of vampiric blood. Truly wraiths, they are not, but humans who have managed to rewrite the rules on time, or at least bought themselves more of it. How they succeeded in this is not known by many, and their existence, so shadowed and uncertain, has become a myth. Vampires whisper of them amongst themselves, humans murmur tales of them to their children, dhampires have been known to spend millennia seeking them out.
For the Wraiths know the secrets, the rules and the loopholes, of time.
And it is they, alone, who can unshackle the willing of their curse and show the damned of the earth the way to heaven.
