The Vampire Sorceress Omnibus

Chapter Four

“What?” I said in confusion. “You hunted … vampires? For a living?”

Dad nodded. He took his glasses off his eyes and wiped them with his shirt. “Yes. Before I became a pastor, I hunted vampires for five years. I was so well-known for hunting vampires that I became known as the Hunter. In fact, that’s how Lucius and I first met. We were hunting the same vamp and ended up having to work together to stop her. That was about twenty-four years ago, back when you were just a teeny tiny baby.”

I looked at Lucius again. “So Lucius is older than me, but he doesn’t look it.”

“Vampires don’t age the same way that humans do,” said Lucius. “Usually, we’re stuck looking like whatever age we were when we were first transformed. I’m actually over three hundred years old.”

I gaped. “No way. You don’t look or sound three hundred years old.”

“I’ve learned to change with the times,” said Lucius. “It would be hard to fit into modern society if I still spoke with sixteenth century slang, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah … yeah, I guess it would,” I said. “Although the fact that you’re apparently a vampire is a bit more incongruent with modern society than speaking in centuries old slang.”

“Can we get back to the topic at hand?” said Dad. “You wanted to know about vampires and magic, which I’m trying to explain to you.”

I looked back at Dad again, but I couldn’t get my mind off the revelation that Lucius was over three centuries old. It reminded me of how, in the book of Genesis, some people lived for centuries longer than ordinary people, but we weren’t in the Bible and Lucius certainly was no Methuselah. Either Lucius was pulling my leg or he really was that old. And if he was that old, I wondered how that would affect my chances with him.

“So, vampires,” I said, trying not to show how freaked out I was by all of this. “How long have they been around?”

“Since the dawn of time, more or less,” said Dad, leaning back in his chair and draping his arms over the back of the chair. “They came into existence when an evil spirit known as the Darkness corrupted some early humans, giving them amazing power in exchange for their souls.”

“The Darkness?” I said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It also goes by the name of Satan,” said Dad. “At least, I think it’s Satan. It’s either that or it works for him, but either way, it’s evil and is the reason vamps exist in the first place.”

“Richard is correct,” said Lucius. “Though I disagree with him about the Darkness being Satan, it is the creator of the vampire race. Not that all vampires worship it, however. I certainly don’t, being a Pure and all.”

“Right,” said Dad, though the way he looked at Lucius told me that he wasn’t entirely convinced of that. “Anyway, vampires have existed all throughout human history and in every culture and country on the planet. Their exact forms and powers have changed from culture to culture and there are a lot of variations, but one thing they’ve all had in common is the desire to kill or convert humans. They see us as food at best and enemies at worst that need to be outright exterminated or converted to their cause.”

I put a hand over my mouth. “If vampires have been around for so long and hate us so much, how come no one knows about them?”

“For one, there aren’t a whole lot of vamps,” Dad said. “Last I heard, there are about a million of them worldwide, scattered all across the globe, and could be wiped out by humanity if everyone knew about them. And secondly, vampires tend to prefer to work in the shadows. Vamps usually don’t operate in the day because the light can kill the weakest of them and outright cripple the strongest. And thirdly, vamps have been opposed by a group of humans known as sorcerers.”

“Sorcerers?” I said. “Who are they?”

“Me,” said Dad. “I mean, I’m one. Sorcerers are humans who can use magic. We’ve extremely similar to normal humans—similar enough that we can blend into wider human society and marry and reproduce with normal humans with no trouble—but we’re stronger, faster, and capable of using magic. While sorcerers deal with more threats than just vamps, vamps have been our biggest enemy and we’ve been theirs for pretty much the entirety of human existence. And, like vamps, sorcerers exist all over the world, though there are less of us than there are vampires.”

“Magic,” I repeated. I frowned. “Do you mean like Harry Potter? Wave a wand, say a few pseudo-Latin phrases, and shoot magical energy bolts?”

Dad snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Sorcerers do pass magic onto their children via blood, of course, but it’s very different from Harry Potter. For one, we don’t need wands to channel our magic, though I’ve known some sorcerers who have used them. Generally, we prefer a wide range of weapons, from swords to staffs to guns and everything in between.”

“Is that why you were carrying a gun in church?” I said. “Because it helps to channel your magic?”

“Not necessarily,” said Dad, shaking his head. “My gun had silver bullets in it, which is how they were able to kill that Bloodseeker. Silver is one of the many weaknesses that vampires have. Normal bullets can only slow down or injure vamps, but silver bullets can actually kill them.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, if you’re a ‘sorcerer,’ then how come I’ve never seen you use magic? How do I know you’re still not pulling my leg?”

“Let me demonstrate a spell for you,” said Dad. “It’s been a while since I’ve cast one, but I still know how to do it. Observe.”

Dad held up a hand. All of a sudden, a bright ball of light appeared in his hand from nowhere. Lucius looked away, covering his eyes with his hands, and even I had to raise my hands over my eyes to protect my vision. Still, I tried to look for a possible source for the light, but as far as I could tell, the light ball had just spontaneously and, dare I say it, magically appeared in Dad’s hand on his command.

The light suddenly went out and Dad lowered his hand. “See? And that’s just one of the simpler spells. I could do more, but like I said, I’ve been out of practice for years and I’d need to put in more practice before I could conjure spells of the same level that I could when I was a young man.”

I tried to think of a rational explanation for how Dad could do that, but my mind was unable to dispute what my eyes saw, so I said, “So magic is real and you can use it.”

“Right,” said Dad, nodding again. “But magic is like muscles. Although magic is natural and hereditary, it can atrophy if you don’t regularly practice and study. Just like how your muscles can atrophy if you don’t work out at the gym regularly.”

“Then I guess you better hit the magical gym, eh?” I said, which was my rather lame attempt at a joke.

But to my surprise, Dad tapped his chin and said, “You know, that may not be such a bad idea. Depending on how things go, I may have to get back to the magical gym.”

I had no idea if Dad was actually serious about the ‘magical gym’ or if that was just another Dad joke, and honestly I was afraid to ask. “So if you’re a sorcerer, was Mom a sorcerer, too?”

“Sorceress,” Dad corrected. “And no, she wasn’t. She was just an ordinary human, a Powerless, as we sorcerers call them. She knew I was a sorcerer, however, and was fully supportive of my efforts to hunt vampires, even though she thought it was extremely dangerous. But most Powerless humans don’t know about us or about vampires.”

“Why not?” I said. “Wouldn’t it be better if the world was more aware of this magical stuff so people could help take down the vampires?”

“Nope,” said Dad, shaking his head. “Early on, sorcerers and vampires were well-known in human civilization—which is where all of the myths and stories about vampires and wizards come from—but it soon became apparent to us that common knowledge about our powers was more of a liability than a help.”

“How so?”

Dad readjusted his glasses, a serious look in his eyes. “Some humans wanted to use our power not to defeat vampires or keep people safe, but to oppress others. Others wanted to profit off our powers for business reasons and still others wanted to wipe us out because they considered our mere existence a threat to their power. And don’t get me started on the dictators and tyrants who thought they could control vampires. Thus, sorcerers the world over have sworn an oath to the Secrecy Pact, which dictates that we will never reveal our existence to the ordinary human world except under the most extreme circumstances.”

“But you revealed your true nature to Mom,” I said. “Right?”

“Right, but we can make exceptions for certain Powerless allies,” said Dad. “We simply require that these allies swear by the Pact as well. And anyone who refuses to swear by it—or worse, outright breaks it—is killed, whether magical or Powerless.”

I bit my lower lip. “Killed? You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” said Dad. “We sorcerers take the Pact very seriously. We have no intention of being exploited, wiped out, or profited off of. We use our powers for the common good, even if the Powerless will never know.”

I could tell that Dad was being one hundred percent serious this time. He was perfectly willing to kill anyone who might break the Pact, a thought that disturbed me, because it contrasted pretty sharply with the kindly middle-aged pastor I used to know. I wondered if that was the same expression Dad wore whenever he fought vampires back in his youth.

Then another thought occurred to me and I said, “So, if magic is passed down via blood, does that mean that I am a sorcerer? Can I use magic, since you’re my dad and everything?”

Dad and Lucius exchanged quick looks that I didn’t like. It seemed as if they had just had a brief, but intense, conversation between themselves without saying a word.

“Yes and no,” said Dad slowly. “Prior to being bitten by that vamp, I would have said yes. Even though you’ve never used magic, you probably still had the potential to use it, given proper training, but afterward …”

“It’s complicated,” said Lucius. “Vampires usually target normal humans, the ones you call Powerless, for conversion, because sorcerers are usually too strong for us to turn. Plus, we hate sorcerers and want them dead, so we usually try to kill them instead of converting them. That you were bitten and have undergone some minor transformation of some sort is evident, but your lucid awareness is more human than vampire.”

“You mean you’ve never heard of a sorcerer being turned into a vampire before?” I said, putting my hands on my chest. “I still feel alive, but I also feel … thirsty. For blood.”

I hated to admit it aloud, but I had to. Dad looked stricken when I said that, while Lucius was stroking his chin thoughtfully, as if considering what I said.

“Like I said, it’s very rare for vampires to even attempt to convert sorcerers,” said Lucius. “But I believe there is a vampire legend regarding such a person. It’s an obscure legend, one that even many vampires don’t know, but I read about it once in a book.”

“Then tell me about it,” I said. I leaned forward. “Tell me what I am.”

“All right,” said Lucius. He pointed at me. “You’re neither vampire nor sorcerer. You are a half-vampire … and you shouldn’t even exist.”