The Beginning of It All
“Enter.”
As always, the air in the study was damp. She could feel it cling to her, a prickling coolness that settled darkly on her uniform and skin.
It was a quiet enclosure, small. There was nothing more than an aged map, its leather curling at its sides, resting upon the near entirety of the back wall; an oak desk that seemed to have survived for centuries; a mysterious closet that was locked, but never quite closed.
Its hinges would creak when a draft rustled into the room, allowing the faintest gap between the door hinges, which ate away at the soft lamplight cast to its domain.
A heavy curtain covered the window, blocking out the sun. A brief thought occurred to Amelia, that she had not seen the sun in a long time.
“Lieutenant, sir,” she said, addressing the man who sat before her.
He was reading a letter, plucked from the many piles strewn across his desk. Not until he finished the last line of it, did he lift his head. “Where is Jackson?” he asked.
“Tending to the horses,” Amelia said, wishing their stations switched. “Should I send for him?”
“No.” Though obviously disgruntled, he leaned back from the desk. “It may be just as well. Your horse will need to be ready for departure by next moonfall. The little rest she can get, the better.”
Without concern for airs, he pushed forward the newly signed letter. A summons.
“Word from the South,” the Lieutenant announced. Even while Amelia’s body still ached from her last mission, she stood at attention. “They have been battling a ghost fang. People in the villages are living in fear, one disappearing when he goes into the woods, another pulled through the window of his very home. The progress report was sent to me.” He tapped his finger. “I’ve never seen such a poor excuse for incompetence in all my life.”
The Lieutenant of the Nadi Guild wasn’t often pleased. To him, the entire cloud-filled world was incompetent, save for one little corner closet he called his study.
Amelia would much have rather’d tend the horses and nap behind the stall, as she was sure Jackson was doing at that moment.
“They’ve requested you,” he said.
Amelia nodded. “I will inform Jackson and prepare the last mission report, then depart.”
“Jackson will write the report, and join himself to the fifth watch. You will go straight to the ward.”
“Should he not also prepare?” she asked slowly, a hand flinching to her wrist at the word ward. He eyed the movement.
“There are no hunters more capable than both of you, in all the realms of Qat’rann,” the Lieutenant said. “They will know of you in the south. And they will know also that by the northern oath, sworn partners are only separated by death…or retirement from other means.” The wisp of flame within the oil lamp blinked. “While our brothers do not swear the oath— for some evitable folly—they must believe that I will follow it without discretion. But I would not foolishly send you and Jackson from our lands, nor would I deny them their relief. What they have asked they will receive, and damn them for seeking any more than that.”
Falling silent, he rolled the long letter up and tied it, beckoning Amelia closer. She reached out a hand to take it.
When her fingers touched the rough parchment, the Lieutenant grabbed her wrist tightly. Amelia fought to quiet every instinct that told her to pull back. He turned her wrist, and she let him.
Her blood did indeed quiver, testily. Yet the veins crawling up her wrist were normal and unextraordinary, as a human’s should be.
“Head to the ward,” he said, releasing her. “Have Gerald see to you.”
Dismissed, Amelia clutched the letter and bowed.
The Lieutenant had not welcomed her back, or wished her safe travels.
Waltz of the Damned, the nearly chronological adventures of one Amelia van Reichter, vampyre hunter.
The-Bleu-Bivouac 