Free The Violet Hour by C.K. Farrell Page A

a long, long, long time before him.
    Like all draconian societies and oligarchies, the laws, both physical and metaphysical, that existed within The Dominion of the Vampyre, The World of the Werwülf, and all the realms of the other various dæmon clans in between were harsh rather than just, and categorically needed to be so in order to keep civility between all factions. To keep an ongoing healthful coalition of courtesy was a thorny task. But senseless bedlam was not the way of the vampyre—not on the Eastern Seaboard anyway, and especially not under the watchful gaze of the stolidly, calm Nathaniel Valour, who took great pride in maintaining the longest period of peacetime in written record. Too many years before his supervision had been lost to withering internecine strife and warfare that had plagued all sides equally. They were indeed fruitless times for all walks.
    The way of the vampyre was largely an ideological construct wrapped up in authoritarianism, and there was no one better to lead and enforce its principles and leathery dogma with grit than Nathaniel. Dealing with disrespectful vampyres and rowdy werwülfs and their puerile nature should have been a mere bagatelle for a vampyre of his position, but in truth he wanted nothing more than to smash their fanged faces off the bar counter to teach them all a lesson about how things work in his territory, which generally comprised of the region commonly known as New England. It just so happened that Nathaniel additionally had his own unwritten laws, besides the ones that were already scrawled into the hide of record. And he made sure that those within his enclave were aware of his ordinance, and more importantly, they conscientiously abided by it.
    From personal experience, the phlegmatic leader knew that a mystical tavern filled with recently turned vampyres (that had no regard at all for the rules of conduct, never mind their elders) and drunken werwülfs (that had an ungodly amount of testosterone spewing through their veins and had a great love for fist-pumping) could turn a generally peaceful and cordial environment where all have agreed by way of a blood oath to lower their weapons and retract their hooked and pointy claws for the evening, into a powder keg of carnage, mayhem, and incivility.
    The very fact that the blood of a werwülf tasted awfully similar to that of a human only made the situation for potential violence more enticing for the wide-eyed vamps that were drooling uncontrollably for a fresh kill. Indecent and gauchely dressed mongrels were the best kind of pub-grub to be had.
    But to kill within the walls of The Dungeon was an offense—a misdemeanour of great magnitude that was only payable by death itself. To enter inside the premises was to enter into a caveat of peace and concord that held no grey areas to seek exception within.
    Being somewhat of a crossbreed—a vampyre with a soul intact—Nathaniel Valour had the weakness of fear and frugality existing within him. They were like bookends to the minute traces of humanity that he still possessed after spending over two hundred years lurking within the shadowy backwoods of everlasting life. With his vampyric abnormality he was able to smell violence before it erupted, along with the knack to resist the urge to participate in beastly acts of bloodshed if he so wished. That specific facet of his behaviour had only come into play in recent years. Before that, he would have wallowed gleefully in all forms of bloodletting. Nowadays, however, Nathaniel felt like he was a canary down a coalmine, but instead of a mine it was a world of untold horrors that he felt caged within. He was the unknown contradiction to the paradigm.
    It would be fair to say that he lacked a sense of place within his dreary and cheerless environment. As a matter of fact, Nathaniel had given up the slaughter. His soul was weighed down by too many sins from times of yore. His person was frankly strung out and he was