Chapter 32

William

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Feelings of fear, confusion and uncertainty were slowly slipping away. Second by second, the young fledgling felt new strength and confidence flow into him from some unknown source. His legs propelled with inhuman strength he leapt across the gaps between the rooftops with ease, landing with the grace and balance of a cat. At first he clumsily stumbled when he tried to land on sloping roofs but the more he kept at it, the greater his acrobatic skill became.

The air was still, without a single breath of wind to disturb or carry the scent he was tracking. The metallic smell was so pungent William could almost taste it. He came to a sudden stop at the edge of a roof top. Before him was central street were markets had once been held, the gap across to the buildings on the far side too far to jump to.

The street below was deserted devoid of movement in the twilight. A large statue of a man in armour holding a sword and shield stood upon a giant stone pedestal in the centre of the market square. William did not recognize the cross like symbol on the chest plate of the man's armour.

A soft gurgling sound reached William's ears and glancing down towards the street. The smell of blood seemed to intensify as he directed his attention that way. Sliding down the wall, using a stone overhang to break his fall halfway, the fledgling came to the street. His feet touched the ground with barely the lightest of footsteps.

Fresh red streaking the ground below him, zig zaging left and right until it arched around a corner into an alleyway. William instinctively put two fingers to the trail, feeling the minuscule warmth left within it. His trail had been made less than a minute ago by his best guess.

Following it around the corner, he saw it carried on for a short distance until it ended and where it did, he saw a body slumped against the side of the wall. It was a well build man with black rune like tattoos running all over his body and face. A bent iron mace lay at his side a mere couple of inches from were it had fallen from his hand.

William approached and kneeled down to get a better look. This man was dead that he could tell instantly. He couldn't hear a sound coming from between the lips, not a single breath. A deep cut had been made to his stomach. He had been cut and fatally wounded, crawled away before finally dying here.

Instinct took over and William pulled the head to the side and sank his fangs into the waiting neck. The body was still warm and the blood invigorated. This was his first feeding and for the most part he had been driven by urges beyond his control but when rational though came back he broke away and staggered back across the alley.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. The blood he had taken was not having the effect he anticipated it would have. The blood haze was vanished in a second and was quickly being replaced by something else, images surging so quickly William found himself intruding on his very thoughts. Hit hard by a wave of recall that slammed into him like a tidal wave the fledgling was thrown into the ether.

Memories he never knew he had blurred into being in an instant, throwing him back through time to a luxurious throne room. Laden with silks, fine ornaments of gold and silver and pictures of people he did not recognize upon the walls. The crest of some family was laid out on the floor in an exquisite carpet. The throne was the centre of the room, everything placed to honour it as it's apex. And upon that throne, William sat; content in a place he never knew existed.

An old man stood before him. Bald with a thin face and sharp nose, a looped figure eight tattoo placed directly in the centre of his forehead. His robes were plain brown yet ringed with gold and silver. His one hand he used as a walking stick a long staff with a large purl directly on it's top with a serpent twisting around it, the mouth open wide as it tried to swallow the stone at the apex.

"Yes, these weapons you have provided will see to that." William found himself saying in the distant recall of the memory. "Pray tell, Moebius. What game do you play?" He asked again giving the old man a glance.

"None, my lord." The old man replied with a short bow, his cold grey eyes never leaving William for a moment. "I only wish to aid you in vanquishing your foes. The weapons are but a token of my good will."

William did not understand, where were these images coming from?

"And the news you bring. A vampire sent to slay me." He asked as the memory continued. "Where did you come upon such knowledge?" The old man, Moebius, straightened his back and stood perfectly upright; his face alight with a thin smile.

"'Tis of no consequence, sire. 'Twas only out of concern for your Majesty's life." His tone did not sound all that sincere.

"Perhaps, perhaps . . ." William sighed leaning on the arm rest. "Very well, then. You may leave me, now." The old man nodded slowly once and turned to leave. "But should I wish to speak with you?" Moebius looked back and his smiled widened.

"I will know, your Majesty, and I shall be there in time." The next instant, William found himself back in the alleyway pressed up against the wall breathing hard. His eyes were wide in a potent mix of fear, confusion and utter astonishment. How long he sat there in that state he wasn't sure but when he glanced down he saw his hands covered in the nearby corpse's blood. Horrified instantly beyond all reason he desperately tried to wipe it off on anything he could find, even his own coat.

What was he doing? Taking the blood of others is wrong; a part of him shouted loudly within the confines of his own mind.

I need it to survive, argued another; I must have more! Crying out he purposely swung his head back against the side of the stone wall hard. The pain shooting through his skull and down his spine silenced the conflicting voices within as if they were a pair of children being told off by a parent.

What was happening? What was that memory and where had it come from?

Snapping his head to the left he looked up just in time to see a knife come flying at his neck. His hand lanced up at the last moment grabbing his attacker by the wrist and using their own momentum to carry them into a fling that shot them across the alleyway and into the wall on the far side. It was a sleek figured wrapped in concealing dark clothes, a thief; one of the many battling with the thugs for dominance of the city. Rebounding, she growled angrily before making another lunge at William.

The fledgling dodged the thrust before lashing out with his claws. Striking her across the middle he felt the fabric tear but he did not carve flesh. Stunned by the agility he displayed, the thief shot back to a safe distance. William prepared to launce after her when several volley of bolts shot out of the darkness and pinned the edges of his coat to the ground. Throwing back with his clothes he was strapping down, the surpassingly strong bolts keeping him from moving his arms to free himself.

Two more Thieves armed with cross bows quickly joined the one who had attacked him first. One of them drew a dagger from a concealed pocket within her clothing, the blade glinting bright silver in the moonlight.

"Kill him!" Another stated and quickly the dagger was readied into a strike. Panic, confusion, fear, anger; emotions of the strongest kind began surging through William like a wave that washed over everything else. The blood hunger that had consumed him before was gone, as if it had never been there.

Suddenly, William just went limp like a rag doll as if he felt something within him; some block snap and fall way. Then the pain came.

Crying out, he surged forward breaking the bolts that held him. The thieves all staggered back, looking on in alarm as the coat William wore began to swell as something from underneath began to push out. With one sudden thrust, two large feathered winged broke out and spread either side. As if he had sprouted raven wings, the feathers on these new limbs were all pitch black and outlined with a single streak of silver and royal blue. They beat twice, the sudden feeling passing through them causing them to shiver. Slowly, William raised his head; showing his eyes were darkening, changing from yellow to bright gold.

"Forget this!" One of the thieves carried dropping her knife in fright and making a break for the alleyway entrance. The other two lost their nerve soon after and made a break for it.

The one bringing up the rear barely got past the street and she was sweep up into the air in a swift arch of feathers, her cry of alarm silenced before it could leave her mouth.

The other two broke up, one running for the relative safety of another alley and the other making for a church hard behind a couple of buildings. The one that tried to escape through the alley did not reach the other end. Her scream carried on through the city, echoing off the many walls until it sounded like the yell of a demon from the abyss.

The surviving thief darted into the church hard as quickly as she could, sliding behind a large tomb stone as quickly as she could and pausing to catch her breath. Just what the heck was that monstrous…thing? Mist rolling in from the river that parted the city rolled freely around the tomb stones, grey shapes in the air highlighted only by the light of the full moon.

Risking a glance, the thief leaned forward and peered past the stone plague to the alleyway through which she had made her escape. It was empty, the far end completely concealed by the fog. Gripping her cross bow close to herself she slowly backed away. She could hear her heart beating a thousand times in her chest.

Boy, she and the girls certainly picked the wrong target for an evenings profit. It had looked like a easy meal but looks were clearly misleading. A loud rustle of feathers came from behind her and she shot around with a startled cry. Nothing by endless fog met her and her bolt as her itchy finger pulled the trigger.

Something struck her hard from behind, forcing her to fall forward onto her front; the cross bow flying from her hands. Before she could rise, a foot slammed down on her back pinning her to the grave topsoil. The gentle edges of feathers brushed past her eyes and suddenly there was hot breath by her neck.

She froze; eyes wide in utter fear.

This moment seemed to last for an eternity before finally the foot lifted from her back and there was a sudden gust of wind. The thief remained perfectly still for a good while after that, but after a moment she glance up to see there was nothing there. Instinctively she grabbed her cross bow and made a dash for the alleyways.

From the spire of the church above a winged figure watched her go. Perched on the edge of the balcony here an overhanging gargoyle, William crouched watching the city rooftops. His new wings spread out behind them, testing themselves by folding and unfolding, exercising themselves without his direct thought. His body was unused to the sensation of having an extra set of limbs so it was taxing the muscles to see how far they would stretch. Having already fed enough to satisfy his hunger, he had let this one go. Despite his moral objections to the hungry, his body had overridden his will and forced him to feed on two of the thieves anyway.

William himself was, quite reasonably, confused. But not as much as he supposed he should be. The physical mutation did not seem to both him that much. The moment the wings emerged from his back he knew that it was a normal part of his grow and this was not the end of it, there was more to come.

What ran circles around his head were the memories peeking through from behind a wall inside his mind. Locked away they were trying to break free, to return and those recalled events showed a life he had never known. A life of nobility and luxury, of great palaces standing aloft expansive cities and of servants waiting on him hand and foot. It was like he was thrown half the pieces of a jig saw puzzle and the picture they tried to form was completely unrecognizable.

But one thing was already very clear; he had known life far beyond the raising given to him by the Master.

"Who am I?" He asked himself glancing down at his clawed hands.

"One who does not deserve life." A voice replied. Glancing up sharply William watched as the long shadow cast by the moon light began changing, warping; twisting out of their places to surge up the wall around him. Acting on new instincts he beat his wings and they carried him into the air but being inexperienced in flight he found he couldn't co-ordinate his wings and he nearly crashed to the graveyard below. The shadows shot around him, coursing down the side of the church and slipping through the tombstones like water.

Quickly they formed a ring around him, keeping him surrounded. "You should have stayed in your grave vampire." One of the shadows twisted and bent, moving to adopt a physical shape; arms and legs molded out of darkness. After a moment it became a man, wrapped in a thick black cloak over gleaming, silver Sarafan armor. "While you are of a noble blood line and a saint to our order, we can not ignore what you are." He clicked his fingers and the hilt of a sword appeared between his fingers. "So I shall grant you mercy and release you from the abyss of the undead."