BLOODLUST

Women of the Night

Chapter 1: Women of the Night

No one knows how it started. No one knows when, where or who exactly was the first. Though there's one thing we all know, it's that once in our long running history, they existed. Our kind existed.

They say they were plenty during the 1200's. They lived in peace, concord and abstinence. Quietly lurking in the shadows, they await for dawn to hunt the meadows. On blood of wolves, deers and foxes they feed, knowing not even of greed.

All was well until some had to witness and tell.

They were discovered because of one mistaken member of the circle. 1230, Ingrid Witt

Partly it was the elders fault for letting Ingrid go, but they trusted her. Decades of experience and exposure to people has made 19 year old Ingrid versatile. They knew she could resist the scent of fresh blood running beneath his skin, the urge of the bite and the thirst for a kill. Ingrid wasn't a greedy one after all, so without hesitation they watched her run to the corn fields with the promise of seeing her lover for the last time.

She promised to be back before sunrise. But she didn't.

The elders sent another member to search for her in the field.

Beatrice found beautiful Ingrid wailing for her dead lover's body. Ingrid failed to resist. Partly clothed and drenched in his blood. She tried hauling Ingrid away as she heard someone coming. Ingrid wouldn't leave. A farmer saw them and ran away. Beatrice had no choice but to chase the farmer and keep him quiet.

Chases wasn't even a problem for her, but it's nearly sunrise and her situation is critical. The chase lasted for a minute or two but Beatrice was already starting to get dehydrated as she was able to get hold of the man and make the kill. Too bad it happened at the corner of the cornfield where many villagers where there to witness.

Stunned by the whole situation that she got into, she was unable to think clearly. Instead of running away to lure the people, Beatrice ran to the shed where the circle was hiding. She was burning, exhausted, terrified but safe in the arms of her sisters.

As she reached the shed, fire started in the cornfield as all of them began to weep. The sun was already up and they knew it was their precious Ingrid's death that caused it.

And all of a sudden, they saw people with torches, machetes and pitchforks came running towards their shed. They knew by then what was going to happen. They will die burning if they come out in the open, and still they will if they stay inside.

The raging villagers burned the shed. They staked them, decapitated their limbs, cut of their heads, tied them in the ground and let them burn to death. Those who managed to run and reach the forest without smoldering where darted and arrowed down. All of them died. All except one.

It was the 21 year old Maria de Beauvoir. She traveled to northern Europe in Bergen Norway the very next year; the year when Pope Gregory IX established the Holy Inquisition to root them out.

Within 1231 she managed to look for surviving sisters and create a circle of less than ten members. As time passes, Maria's circle grew to having 20 to 30 members.

She travels to England every year to visit the grave of the man she loved. But in one visit in England in 1326 she again fell in love.

Maria visited England more often to see him as he did so too in Norway. He said he wanted to marry her. He asked permission from the entire circle as they gladly accepted him as husband of their only elder. They treated him appropriately. They treated him like their father as he treated them fairly as well.