It wasn't the first time. And it won't be the last. Isabella rose from sleep. It was dark, she was in the woods covered in leaves, and the moon peaked through the naked limbs providing her with a lonely hunger. How long this time, were her first thoughts. How long did I lay here without a soul to car for me? Rising, she took in the jet-black hills, the shadows of the trees, the mice scampering in the nearby meadow. How many worlds had given her a moment of shock?

There were at least half-a-dozen instances when she went to sleep only to wake up in a different location, in a different time. Yes, this was Britannia, just as it always had been before, but the feeling was off, not right, out of the old loop.

When morning dawned, she was already dreading it, holed up in a quiet inn with just her and a sleeping tavern wench over in the corner. She was able to pilfer a few coins from the till, helped herself to some cheap brandy, and hoped the wench didn't call the law on her for her theft. The wench's throat quivered in a dream, and Isabella had the fantasy of ripping the woman's throat open with her recessed fangs. However, to do so, to give in to temptation would end up in the same old fashion: Men with torches would come for her, lead by a few disgusting looking knights and one sweaty cleric who secretly wished to molest her instead of question her.

Such was life. "New here," a tall, scruffy-headed man asked, as he drank on the wrong side of the bar.

"You must be Jaffrey," Isabella said. "Word is your a wonder with the bow."

"Has Mattie been lying again," Jaffrey laughed, throwing a hardened roll at the sleeping wench.

"She thinks you're a god." Isabella smirked.

"That's better," he smiled, sinking his teeth into a moldy peach. "What? New in town? Want me to show you the ropes? "

"Any dungeon is a good dungeon," Isabella smiled, keeping her lips partially closed.

"We'll see about that one. You any good at killing lizard-men?"

"My favorite. You got a direction, just point." "Let me get dressed first. We'll go up north country, see what you are made of."

"Just the usual," she smiled again, drawing a curved dagger. "Save the bravado, we'll see how good you are."

So Isabella waited, thinking of Mattie.

After seeing the lay of the land, Isabella was darned sure that this parallel universe was closest to the first that she called home. But the ache was there. For example, go on over to Sorcerer’s Dungeon, and yes, vampires existed, but they were not the same progeny that begat her that November night so many twisted years ago. And that’s where the existential ache began. Vax was not tending bar. Alkozar was not mixing potion after potion, seeking for a cure; and Gabriel was not brooding over his necromancy by the fire.

But Drux and his female ghoul, Jarra were there.

“By the books, but you are one Isabella Volgotti,” Drux said, his long nails singling Isabella out in the dark. Problem, she thought she was stealthed; problem, she had no idea Drux was nearby in the shadows, nor his annoying little ghoul, Jarra.

“Yup,” Jarra laughed, her emaciated body naturally clinging to her sire. “Not welcome here, says Drux.”

“Have we met,” Isabella asked, forcing a smile.

“No, but you’re in the Book of the Damned. You’re really old, you know? Least by human terms.”

“I still don’t know what you’re even talking about.” Isabella held up her hands as if to say, “Hey, mistakes are made.”

“You know. Your lover, Gabriel began it decades ago, took it into the underworld. That’s where we found it. I know you’re not local. You’re Other.”

“That’s right,” Isabella’s eyes narrowed on Drux. Purple hair, black nails. A vampire dandy. Her left hand strayed to her dagger.

“You can’t kill me, you know that.” He laughed. Jarra cackled along.

“No, but the poison can make wish you were dead. I’d say for a week at least.”

“Look, we get it. You’re here reliving your own stomping ground, or something like that. It’s not the same as the dimension that spawned you, but close enough. All we ask is that you join us. Become a protector of sorts. So many people come here to test out their dragon. It’s really annoying. You could dissuade them in one or two ways, I’m sure.” He looked over Isabella’s natural curves, lifted an eyebrow.

“Here’s a deal,” Isabella returned, “show me that book, and I’ll consider it.”

“Or,” Drux began, “you go kill a tribe of annoying orcs who have our scent, bring back a couple of heads, and then we’ll talk about the book. Remember, there’s more of us in the shadows here than what you can sense, my dear.”

“Map?”

“Jarra!” And Jarra stumbled weakly to a nearby alchemist’s closet. She was starving for blood. Drux ruled her by keeping her addiction under “control.” What a bastard.

“Here, doll,” Jarra said, her runny make-up ghastly in the candlelight. “He wants them all dead.”

“What did I tell you about cutting in, darling,” Drux smiled, taking her arm around her back until she squealed.

Orc dungeon, Isabella thought. Not too hard. That’s a relief.

“I’ll be back,” Isabella nodded, tipping the rolled up map at Drux. “And if I were you, I’d feed that ghoul before you find a stake in your chest.”

Laughing, Isabella departed.

The Cull
“Traaaaiiiitorrrr!” the vampire said, falling like his ghoul only moments before. Too bad Isabella didn’t trust them. Sure, they gave her the bag of coins, but it was the stab in the back that she avoided. To be truthful, she had nothing in common with the vampires of Sorcerers dungeon. Non in the slightest. True, in the parallel rift just on the other side of this one, she had once had a home. But just because it all looked the same didn’t mean it was.

Isabella weighed the bag in her hand, shrugged, and turned her back on the grievous wounds of the kindred from another dimension. If it lived, it was because its hate for her was stronger than Death itself; if it succumbed like its ghoul did moments earlier, it was weak and so deserved the cull.

In the marketplace, she bought a new bracelet marked with runes of favorable combat. And in the Pirates Den, she shopped and haggled for earrings that would give her a plus in her agility, or the speed of combat. Altogether she came out ahead on both deals, still hoisting a sack half full of gold coins around.

Overall, she long to buy a tower, a place where she could place her earth in the depths, and perhaps a small stone vault for other goods best left unwritten about least they call her “blood drinker” if she was was ever invaded by well-meaning clerics looking to do what she did today: cull.

She paused on the wharf down in Britain just down from the bank to watch the moon rise in all her glory. It reminded Isabella of days previous when she ran with a crew of vampires. They felt invincible when they hunted together because the glue that held them together was something called trust.

Isabella plucked a coin from her dwindling bag and thumbed it into the water, disrupting the moon’s reflection, making it quiver and waver. With that toss she asked Dark Fate to deliver, eventually, others like her comrades. There was so much to do in this new land, a land barely aware of the vampire presence, a land waiting to be raided dungeon by dungeon.

And wasn’t as if Isabel had never heard of honor, it just wasn’t applicable between enemy factions, vampire to vampire.

Throat by throat she cut, listening to the promised syllables as they rattled from blood frothed mouths: Throgmar.

So this was the villain war-lord in charge of the vampire hoard.

She mulled over her wine in the back of the Three Swallows dive in the Pirates Den, back in the thick shadows where

the lantern light never gleamed. She had a name, but she did not have a location…yet. That would come in time, and if

it did not, well then, all the more blood she would spill until the lord and master woke up from their blood induced

coma.

The axe at her side gleamed hot silver in the twilight of the tavern. She’d picked it up from a fallen enemy, and it was

intended to be used to hack her to pieces, but it was hers now. She had sent her mind into it, but the only thing it

would tell her was, possibilities.

She went to Destard after her untouched beverage had run its course as reason to be in the inn. Easily did the axe slice

through thick dragon hide. Left and right, up and down she swung, and death by death, the axe grew in power until

felt it change its purpose under her will.

“It evolves,” she whispered in the darkness. “Just like me.”

Isabella found the stories of the Knights of Valor leader, Raisa, to be inspirational, and perhaps an answer to her wish in the yearning to find others who shared her interest. But what were those besides murdering vampires because she herself was a vampire? It had to be conquest, winning, celebration. These were the themes that emitted from the KOV guild house on any random night. And oh, what a guild house. Here were the magical training beings, Isabella was sure they were elemental spirits, that accepted punishment on a daily basis to hone the skills of warriors and magi; here was the thriving marketplace with vendors selling all manner of powerful items, and there were the trunks of precious cargo stashed here and there, protected by the knights at all cost.

Lingering outside the guild house, she heard an animated discussion taking shape. Something about a challenger to the guild who sought to bring it down. Raisa laughed. “Bring it on, I love a good challenge. Why the very gods themselves said this guild would be nothing, but look at us now.” Raisa lifted her hands in exultation.

“Do you wish to enter our guild house?” a voice asked from behind.

Isabella turned in surprise. A woman, just as comely as Raisa, stared at here. She wore a fine raiment of blue, and tall stag horns on her head, giving Isabella the feeling she had been caught red-handed by a shaman.

“No need to say anything right away,” the knight said, “but take this book to study. Inside it live our rules of conduct, our outlook, and our mission. You can send word to me, Nova, if you wish to know more.”

“Yes,” said Isabella, “this is what I was looking for. Thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Nova smiled gently.

And Isabella took the book back to her tower on the outskirts of Vesper. By flickering firelight she studied the words, the mood, the context. There was nothing here that would bring her doom. If anything, it was her own ignorance of the new land that would bring that about even quicker than KOV. She made her mind up. The next evening, upon the setting of the sun, she would go, find this Nova, and pledge herself to the guild and Raisa’s cause.

It would be sane compared to the crazier stunts she has pulled.

Far saner for sure, and maybe that’s what frightened her.

Confrontation

In my sleep, my old mistress sought me out, spirit-projection at its best, in order to harass me for my recent kills of our kindred. I did my best to shut her out of my mind, even in the sleep of the undead, but her powers won out, and suddenly, we were linked mind to mind.

“What have you done, you hussy?” Ilyana hissed at me.

“What?” I feinted.

“You have turned vampire killer. Where will you sleep at dawn? Where will it be safe for you?”

“Vampire do not hunt in the day,” I said. It was the obvious, and it would infuriate her.

“No, but their ghouls don’t have to do so. So where will you sleep now that you have killed more of your kindred than I could shake a stake at?”

“Let them try. I am more powerful than any ghoul.” I was beginning to get pissed.

“True, but think it throw. If they could get to me with this message, what makes you think I couldn’t find you and kill you myself, childling?”

“Give a try, mistress. You’ll find me full of tiny surprises.”

“Do you think I would stoop so low as to take orders from a weepy-faced ghoul?” Ilyana yelled.

“What is it that you want from me?”

“I want you back with me. I want you at my side. We let pride split us from each other, but now it’s time to make amends. It’s time you come home.”

“I shall do as you command, but only under Covenant Order.”

“You evoke the old tradition? You do not trust me?”

“Long has it been since we have connived together. I would think it wise to invoke the Keepers of Order and Chaos before we too hot-headed hussies meet up.”

“Verily well. The invocation shall be made. What the time?”

“Tomorrow night when the moon rides the sky its peak.” I said.

“Verily well, and then the veil shall be lifted between us, and we shall make plans.”

“Deal,” I said, and with that, she released me, and closed my eyes to oblivion, thinking of all I must do to prepare.