Port Royal, 1657

“That is… quite the grand scéal,” I told the Captain after he’d finished his story. “And I suppose I am just to believe the whole of it on its merit alone?”

By way of answer, he flicked one of the silver pistol balls with a forefinger, sending it rolling me way. Fair enough, I thought. Who was I to be denouncing the stories of a fellow in me own business?

“And this… ship,” I asked carefully. “This magical ship bade ye look me up?”

“Not quite,” the Captain allowed. “The Caleuche sent me to Port Royal. I did not know that I was looking for you until I had found you.” He paused for the briefest of moments before glancing down and sweeping a hand in a motion to indicate the pile of displaced ash on the filthy cobbles. “And your friend here.”

Very well, then, I decided. If aid he was offering, aid I would accept. Even as the thought settled home in me brain, I was up from the stool and moving off.

“Follow me, then, if ye would,” I told him. "But have a care. The creature we seek is wicked strong, and so dangerous as an army of what you beheld here.

He chuckled as he took his feet to follow. Well, he’d learn soon enough.

“Is not inland in the other direction?” he asked as he caught me up.

“Aye,” I agreed. “It is. Me room, however, is off in this direction, and we will be needing more than a few of the things I left there before ever we broach the jungle.”

Without pausing me stride, I turned to him, me hand out. “Your pistol, if ye please?”

He hesitated only a moment before reaching into his sash and withdrawing the weapon, arching an eyebrow in question.

“Close enough, I think,” I nodded, examining the bore before handing the piece back to him. “Ye shall have to triple patch the balls, and their speed will be the less, but they should do the work.”

We had reached the sty of an inn where I’d been staying since me arrival, and I turned abruptly, sweeping through the common room. The boy guarding me door nodded, proudly, his large white teeth exposed in a wide smile. I tossed a half shilling piece, which disappeared as though by magic.

Once in me room, I moved directly to me trunk, fishing the key out from me tunic.

“Ye shall have to unload your pistol,” I informed me companion. “And reload it with these,” I turned and tossed a small leather bag his way.

“They are undersized by a small measure, as me own pistols boast a smaller bore, but the triple patch will seal them adequately.”

Fishing around within the depths of the trunk, me hand found the sword.

* * *

Connacht, Ireland, 1652

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They were dead men, reeking of the grave, their eyes the black of oil in a drum. They stank something awful, and their nearness turned me stomach like eating rancid meat.

Nothing like the bestial caricatures of me family I’d fought outside, they wore the clothing of tradesmen and bore belted swords and daggers. From the black pits of their eyes shone a cold intelligence.

From beyond them, nana called to me, her voice strange and echoing. “Garmhac!” she called. “find your mother’s silver service and fetch a knife! Only silver will harm them! Swiftly, garmhac!”

I could see the grins on their faces, and hear the gibbering laughter that emanated from them. No doubt, they felt assured of being able to stop me ere I so much as turned to flee. I suppressed me own smile. They moved to the sides of the hall, heads lowered. Neither made a move to draw its weapon, and I wondered would they? Or would they rely on tooth and claw, as had the specters of me family?

I twitched me right shoulder back, twisting me upper torso as though to turn. The feint worked, and the nearest one vaulted down the hall at me with such speed that it nearly succeeded in its attack in spite of me fine plan. Nearly, for I’d been expecting the charge, and had already begun me own thrust, hard upon the drawing back of the feint.

The silvered dandy’s blade struck true as I thrust it straight on, following through in the strike with the whole of me body, going down nearly to me knee with the extension of the attack. The creature hurled itself the whole of the way onto the blade, its momentum running the blade through and out its back, bisecting the foulness of its unbeating heart.

I’d barely the forethought to close me eyes and mouth, and good for that, as the thing exploded into a cloud of ash as its chest struck the silvered basket. Snorting ash from me nose, I gave me head a sharp shake, dislodging yet more from hair and face.

I opened me eyes a crack, not daring to take the time to wipe me face clear. The remaining creature was frozen in place, halfway between meself and nana’s door, eyes blazing with a glow like to make me bowels loose.

There came a buzzing into me head, like hornets disturbed in their nest, and I felt a tugging at me mind. The buzzing grew louder by the instant, and almost could I understand it, the hornets singing harmony that me brain struggled to form into words. I took an unsteady step toward the thing, not meaning to, but unable to stop meself.

And then Nana was screeching out a harsh litany of what me brain took as nonsense, but which drove the buzzing from me ears.

“You shall not have him!” she roared in a voice three times too large for her small, frail body.

The creature turned from me to address her denial, and all at once I was free. I took a great, lunging step forward, and ran the silver blade up and into its kidney, slashing it clear in a billow of greenish smoke.

“The heart, garmhac,” Nana shouted as she retreated. “Thrust to its heart!”

The creature turned back to me so quick it might never have turned away to begin, and now it made to draw blade, but I was already in too close, and the sword clattered to the ground amidst the fresh ash pile.

I collapsed, exhausted in body and spirit.

Nana moved to me side, and she smelled near as awful as the creatures we’d destroyed, and by her odor I surmised they’d had her holed up in that room for some great span of time.

She took me in her arms, and I hugged her back, tears of grief once more staining me face.

“I knew you would come,” she told me softly. “I warned them.”

“Who, Nana?” I asked into the brocade of her gown. “Ye warned who?”

“Not who, garmhac,” she corrected. “What.”

I drew me head back and looked up into her tired old eyes. “What?”

“Vampyr,” she said matter-of-factly. Demons. Undead, of a sort, who prey on the living for sustenance and amusement. Cruel, evil creatures from the depths of Hell.

“I warned them that you would come, and that you would destroy them. It is in your blood. They did not listen, and now you will hunt them, and you will make them pay.”

And so began me education in the particulars and history of the creatures of the night, and me own place in it. I learned that me nana wasn’t who I’d always thought her to be, that me family had been more than mere landholders, and that the world was a much darker place than even Cromwell and his army could make it into.

I learned the runes and the spells that the old folk used against them. The keepers of the druids from which one of the lines of me family descended, and whose blood coursed through me veins. I learned to craft the tools, and the value of purity, both of metal and of purpose. I learned to imbue those tools with the qualities of purity and the power of me will through the runes.

It was only much later, and well into me training that nana let slip that Mary Kate hadn’t been among those we’d buried in the holy ground of the family cemetery. That the creatures had carried her off.