Free The Queen of Wolves by Douglas Clegg

some trickery at work?
    I heard a human moan that was nearly a whistling sound—I will never forget it, for it chilled my blood just to hear it. I had still not gotten used to the worst of killing—when the death was slow and painful. I did not think then I would get used to it in a thousand years, for it reminded me too much of the sorrows of mortal existence.
    I followed the sound of the strange noise, and as I did, I began to get a vague sense in the stream of at least one vampyre feeding. I moved swiftly through the warren of rooms beneath the deck, following the stream, tuning my ears to the sound of the man who seemed to be dying.
    As I turned a corner, there was the victim of the vampyre—a man whose face had been obliterated by the attack, and blood everywhere around him. The strange sound from him had come because of the damage to his face and throat. Feeling pity for him, I closed off his breathing, and quickly sent him to the threshold of death.
    I felt a tug in the stream, and turned to the left, and saw a brief flash of movement.
    “Wait!” I called, but the creature moved swiftly along the low, narrow corridor that twisted suddenly to the right. All I saw of him was a cape and hood, and in his arms, he carried what seemed to be a boy—perhaps a kitchen servant on board, for the boy had left his handprints on the wall, the dust of flour upon them. By the size of the hands, the boy was not yet thirteen, and I knew what the vampyre meant to do with him once he had him in some quiet place.
    I rose to my height and bounded after him, following his scent all the way to the upper decks. There, I saw a ship’s boy whose head had been shaved as if to ward off lice, and whose flour-dusted tunic had been torn at the throat as if the vampyre had just begun feeding upon him when I caught up to him.
    The boy glanced at me, wide-eyed.
    “Do not be afraid,” I whispered. “I will not hurt you.”
    I reached for the shredding of skin at his shoulder, but the vampyre had not had time to bleed him much.
    The boy tried to speak, but instead took deep gulps of air, one after the other. His face was pale, and the terror in his eyes did not diminish as I tried to comfort him.
    I felt at his throat the too-quick beat of his pulse. His mouth opened as if in a scream, and then his jaw went slack.
    Dead, from the fright of it.
    I felt a cold wave of nausea go through me. Movement in the stream.
    The creature that had terrified the boy stood behind me.
    Without turning around, I knew that the vampyre leaned over me—as I crouched by the boy—and nearly tapped me on the shoulder. Challenging me to turn and fight him, probably for the boy’s blood.
    I slowly twisted my head to the left. For a quarter second, I saw a vampyre as if in the mirror—a skull with long dagger fangs and the white of bone where his lips and chin should have been, yet with leathered skin held tight to the skull, and strands of thin hair dangling over his sunken eyes which were red and soulless.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
    ________________

    T HE C ORPSE- V AMPYRE

    1

    I could not move as I beheld him, though it was a mere second or two of time—and the creature seemed also to react as I did, as if seeing me at all was a shock to him.
    His hood fell down over his eyes. He moved like a wriggling worm upon a hook, a blur of motion as he leapt from a crouching position into the air. His cape billowed out from him, and I heard a screech like an owl’s as he shot up through the mist.
    After I laid the dead boy down upon planking and covered him with a torn bit of the sail’s matting, I looked up into the mist. No trace remained of this vampyre—nor did the stream reveal his presence to me.

    2

    The ship had been mostly abandoned, but a dozen or so men and boys had remained behind. The vampyre had worked quickly. I had not known any vampyre—except perhaps Pythia—to slaughter so well, so indiscriminately. One vampyre could not possibly have drunk