The Vampire Executioner (A necromancer romance novel)

Esmeralda I was looking at myself in the mirror, miserably. I was a vampire and yes, we could see our reflections. I was almost as dark as an obsidian crystal or the night herself as my mother used to always say. She loved to romanticize words, she had a way with words that left you feeling beautiful and special, but I didn’t feel beautiful or special right now. My mother had been human, and it had been many years since I’d heard her voice. I was two hundred years old, very young for a vampire, but right now, I felt a million years old, I was tired and felt weak. Vampires lived off human blood, but we could live off human energy too, it was the blood that made us strong, gain abilities, beauty, etcetera. It was no wonder no vampires chose to feed on human energy, their emotions because it didn’t make you strong like blood did, it didn’t give you any abilities, it kept you from rotting, and it kept you alive…barely. Stupid me, I had been too much of an empath in my human life, and it stuck with me in my vampire life or was it unlife now? I couldn’t bear the thought of draining the life of a human, so I chose to feed on their emotions instead, it left them feeling weak and tired but otherwise unharmed. My face was starting to become more gaunt looking and pale, if that was even possible, and I was starting to worry that feeding on emotions alone wasn’t enough, that there would come a time when I would die. It wasn’t so much the dying I was afraid of, though. If we didn’t feed regularly, we would slowly start to rot and if we didn’t feed at all we would rot until eventually, we would be nothing but a pile of fleshy meat, and that was what I was afraid was going to happen to me soon. I looked at my hair, once beautiful tight black curls that ran down to my waist but now a frizzy and almost grayish tone, the length barely reaching down to my breasts as it had begun to fall out and didn’t seem to be growing back. I pushed the fear about my impending doom down and taking a deep breath, not that I needed to truly breathe anymore, I left the bathroom. Outside, I tried to hide in the shadows and avoid Sadie. She was around five hundred years old and a s******c b.itch. She hated me more than I hated myself, if that was possible. She couldn’t stand the thought that I refused to drink human blood, most of the clan couldn’t, but she always seemed particularly physically disgusted by it and never failed to try to make my life as miserable as possible. Unfortunately as always, she saw me. “Oh, here comes the ugly duckling, wonderful,” she laughed to her friends Judith and Paula, they weren’t much younger than Sadie and followed her around like lambs, if she said ‘jump’, I had no doubt they would literally ask her, ‘how high.’ I ducked my head low and walked past them as fast as I could. I could have retorted something back, but that would have only ended in physical pain for me and, well, there wasn’t really an insult I could give her, she was drop-dead gorgeous. She had long soft wavy locks of hair that ran like a river down to her perfect bottom. Her hair was a shade of all blonde, from white, dark, sandy and even a hint of gold in there. Her skin was as perfect as a porcelain doll, full lips, a big bust on a slim toned body and ice blue eyes with a ring of bright gold. She was unnaturally beautiful, like most of the vampires here, ok all of them, except for me, I was the only vampire here that still looked like the human I once was except for my obsidian skin that had turned a few shades darker since becoming a vampire. I was only tolerated by the other vampires because luckily, our queen Lillian was fearsome but fair. She ruled the city of Los Angeles and was nearly three thousand years old, making her one of the most powerful vampires in America. She believed fiercely in free will…to a point, and so if I wanted to feed only on the energy and emotions of humans then so be it, but the consequences were mine to face alone. So, the others mostly left me alone for fear of her wrath, only Sadie was physically abusive to me and I truly believed that it was because she was slightly insane and something had gone wrong during her change from human to vampire. She was by no means stupid though, she would only hurt me when the queen was away on business, she knew that no one would tell the queen because nobody cared about me. We were all in the queen’s home, a mansion basically, marble floors and walls, the whole deal, even the swirling staircase and Balcony I pictured in my head whenever someone said the word mansion to me, she had it all. We all gathered at the bottom of those swirling stairs and looked up at the balcony where the queen was standing. She was more beautiful than Sadie, her hair was done in ringlets and an up do that looked complicated but lovely, her hair was every shade of red, and it reminded me of the colors of a phoenix. Her eyes were a dark red, with a gold ring and the bloodred dress only made them stand out more strikingly. “Good evening everybody, I hope you find yourselves well this very night.” She spoke in a lilting and soft voice, but I knew she was anything but soft if angered. No one was really sure why we were here tonight, but there had been rumors, rumors of a vampire hunter in town. Feeding on human emotions didn’t give me any vampiric abilities, but there was one thing it did, it made me a strong empath. I didn’t mean just understanding people’s pain or joy or any of that, I meant I could literally feel it with them, if someone was crying, and I was nearby I would cry with them, for them, I wasn’t sure if it was a gift or a curse. Right now, I could feel the tension and anxiety in the air among the vampires, I didn’t feel vampires emotions as strongly as I did humans, but right now with so many of us gathered here I could feel the anxiety in the air. I shook off the shiver that ran through me and waited for Lillian to explain why we were here. “I know you may have heard some rumors about a hunter being in our city, and tonight I can confirm this is true.” She raised her hands up and motioned, “I know, I know, we’ve dealt with vampire hunters before and like all battles, we’ve lost some of our own but we have always won.” Her tone took on a deadly serious note at the next part. “This vampire hunter isn’t like any other we’ve come across before, he is not just a human hunter, he is the deadliest threat you will ever come across in your lifetime and I warn you now, do not give him a reason to so much as look in your direction. If you play with your food, if you leave any evidence, you will not be helped, you have been warned.” Someone whispered, “what is she talking about? It’s just another hunter I’ve killed more than ten in my lifetime.” Lillian gave him a scathing look and even though her words were for him, she made sure to raise her voice and address it to the whole room. “Do not be stupid! Do not expect a fair fight with this hunter, do not treat him like the hunters you have come across before. He is not simply a vampire hunter, you all know him, you’ve heard the stories, but we do not know what he looks like, who he is or if he is even a he at all, we only know him by two names.” She stormed off to her room leaving us all gaping and wide-eyed, because we knew now who she was talking about, rumors of a hunter who not only killed vampires, but he was also a necromancer, someone with the ability to control the dead, to raise the dead and even destroy the dead, the vampires knew him only by two names, the executioner or more simply…death.