Enid tugged the hood of her cloak over her head, and she sunk deeper into its folds. Her fiery red hair marked her an obvious outsider. She was crouched on the corner of a building, she could feel the cold marble beneath her fingers, rough with age.

Rome. A millennia later and I still see the touch of my father. The marble still holds the soul of its founders, but it’s older, rougher as am I.

Her gaze fell upon the fortified manner at the end of the street. She could see silhouettes moving back and forth in front of the lanterns.

Nine, maybe ten, Vitus must have been warned I would be coming. The fool sends them to their deaths as if it will change his fate. Not that he was ever a smart man. Even a thousand years cannot fix that.

She leapt off the building and landed on the cobbled street silently. She closed her eyes and willed the power of her blood to draw the shadows to her and vanished from site.

Silent, or loud, hmm. If there are pugmentia amongst them, they should be given a chance to live, and the chattel can be allowed to survive on their word.

She covered the distance to the iron gate, unseen and unheard by prying eyes. The guards at the gate were chattel to the vampire within. She could hear the blood pounding through their veins, even within a stone’s throw. They were expecting an attack.

Best not get them jumpy.

Enid dropped her shroud of shadows and appeared out of a nearby alleyway. Her deliberate boot steps echoed in the silence of the early morning streets. The guards placed their hands on blades.

“Halt. Right there, be about your business elsewhere!”

The guard on the left drew his blade. Enid looked at the hand that gripped the sword.

He looks like he knows a thing or two about how to use that. Perhaps silent would have been best.

Enid pulled her hood down, keeping her own blade hidden in the folds of her heavy cloak.

“Be away girl.” The guard waved his sword then slid it into its sheath.

“Now don’t be too hasty let’s hear the girl out, Giano”

I hate that look they get in their eyes; All men are the same lustful idiots.

“I come seeking an audience with Master Vitus, he has requested my services.”

Giano sheathed his sword at his side and his companion removed his hand from the hilt of his.

“We weren’t informed, its not safe tonight girl, be gone and come tomorrow eve.”

“Not safe? Why? I was just sent a missive to come as fast as I could.”

“I’ve never seen you here lass.”

“Nor have I, Giano.”

“I usually enter a differen-“

Enid was cut off when a shout arose from behind the gate.

“She’s here the reaper is here!”

Giano and his partner didn’t hesitate to draw their swords.

Oh well, loud it is.

As chattel the two guards didn’t stand a chance as they lunged at Enid, she drew Bloodseeker and with a fluid spin, their heads rolled past her feet. The blood that rushed out of the headless bodies flowed into Bloodseeker and the runes on his blade began to cast a red glow over the glistening now wet cobblestone.

She heard the rush of footsteps behind the gate and saw an array of twelve men lined up behind it armed with swords and pikes. Enid half closed her eyes and smelled the air, she could pick up the scent of Blood slaves, chattel and pugmentia.

Fools, they rush to their deaths like so many others.

“Our glorious Lord and Master Vitus bids us to parlay before we kill you.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The man who spoke was pale, with blond hair and dark eyes.

Too attractive to be a mortal, must be the pugmentia I smell.

“Before you waste your undead breath, let me be clear. You all have one chance to live and save your master’s life, disperse and end this foolish resistance or die and I take your master’s blood as payment for his crimes.”

“Girl, you are hardly in any position to demand such a thing, we have fortifications between us and even a vampire cannot hope to get past so many with five of us on this side and several blood enhanced mortals. Leave while you still can.”

Idiots, see a woman and assume she’s weak, ineffectual.

“Usually, the smart ones beg for mercy, not death. Your sire has breached the Covenants and he is refusing to stand trial as is his right, he and all his progeny and chattel’s lives are forfeit as Sextus has laid down our law. As the Seer in this crime, I have the right to allow you to take his chattel and leave and be absolved of his crimes. I suggest you do so.”

“I think not child. Who do you think you are? Vitus is an ancient you cannot hope to destroy him and amongst us is seven hundred years of vampiric power you cannot hope to stop us.”

“I saw Vitus presented to the emperor after his second birth. I am the First Seer, Daughter of Sextus, wife to Lucius, heir to the Empire and you will die now.”

The pugmentia’s expression changed, his eyes widening, his grip loosening on his sword, he didn’t have long to ponder his fate.

As she finished speaking Enid threw her sword through the holes in the gate pinning the disrespectful vampire and one of the chattel to the wooden door of the manor. He screamed and his skin started to shrivel, smoke rose from the edges of the blade. Bloodseeker’s red glow lit up the battlefield as it feasted on him.

Enid leapt over the wall with ease and reached out her hand. Bloodseeker flew to her outstretched hand with a stroke of the blade the closest pugmentia’s head fell off his body. Enid’s fist punched through the skull of the nearest blood slave.

She kicked a fallen sword into her hand and flung it at one of the humans piercing his skull. With her next stroke she cut the end of a pike that came at her from the left. She called on the blood again and she became a blur. Striking down four more of the defenders. A blade pierced her back and she twisted ripping it out of its wielder’s hand.

Too an outside observer it was a blur of two black shadows dancing like a tornado all over the small courtyard. Inside the two vampires were clashing blades.

He’s good.

She brought bloodseeker up to block a strong over hand blow. Her hands rung. Her opponent was the taller of the two and by all accounts a mountain of a man. He had wrapped both hands around his hilt. And was trying to overwhelm her with brute strength. She willed blood into her muscles and pushed back. Sweeping low her blade cut into her opponent’s thigh, as she pulled Bloodseeker away there was a gush of blood running from the wound to the blade. He swung his sword down again and even with her blood-enhanced strength Enid stumbled backwards.

“You can’t keep this up forever girl! You can’t have much blood left, how long before you lose it and I behead you?”

He swung his sword in another wide arc and Enid did her best to deflect the blow, and the sword sent a shower of sparks as it hit the stone beside her. While Enid was off balance he grabbed the blade that was still sticking through her midsection and pulled it towards him, the hilt-guard found purchase on her back and she stumbled towards him. He then brought the pommel of his sword down on her face. Enid fell backwards.

“All those flashy imperial powers and you still got brought low by, what do you call us? Trash?”

He’s not wrong, I used too much blood being flashy.

Enid reached out with her mind and asked Bloodseeker to grant her a share of the blood it had drunk. The glowing sword dimmed and was again lifeless silver.

“Even your glowy sword is broken now.”

He made a grunting sound and brought his sword down in an overhead swing. Enid closed her eyes and willed blood to her muscles once again. And she flitted away from the blow and appeared behind the giant man and cleaved his spine in two with a blow from Bloodseeker which began to glow as it drank deeply the mountain of a man’s skin shriveled as the blood granting him unlife drained from him. She brought the sword down cutting off his head as he fell. Enid straightened. Her skin became flush as she was renewed with the new influx of blood. She bent her head to the side and spun to look at the last few guards. They had dropped their weapons and were struggling to unlock the gate. She shoved the sword back through her with her palm until it clattered on the ground behind her.

Can’t leave any witnesses or survivors, the law is the law.

She cut the closest one’s head off with another sweep of her blade. The second she slammed into the bars compressing his chest so much she burst his internal organs and the last she broke the neck.

She let Bloodseeker drink it’s due and took her share of blood. She turned to the barred wooden doors and with renewed strength burst through them. Vitus who had been listening at them sprawled backwards. He was as Enid remembered him dark skinned, blue eyes and chestnut hair. He was always a handsome man. The finery he wore sported yellow and blue silks.

“You fool. You knew I would be sent, and you convinced those idiots to defend you. Do you care so little for your children?”

Vitus scrambled backwards, and then crawled further away.

“Trial! I declare the right of trial!”

“It is too late now, blood has been spilled in resistance to a Seer, the penalty is a second death. Don’t make your last moments pathetic. Die with honor, like your children did, resist further and I’ll make sure you meet the dawn while chained with silver.”

Vitus reached the banister of a set of wide stairs and had pulled himself up. He walked towards Enid, his hand behind his back.

“Good choice.”

Vitus moved with vampiric speed and strength, and brought a wooden stake down on Enid’s chest, but it splintered against her armor.

“You were never very smart.”

Enid pulled a stake from a quiver that was secreted behind her cloak. She pierced Vitus’s unarmored heart. Vitus fell to the ground paralyzed. Enid knelt down and whispered into his ear.

“Now you will burn in the sun, not the death I would have chosen.”