The Vampire's Harvest

57

You pull the pin from your robe and lay it across your palm. You close your eyes, unable to concentrate with the sight of ravenous monsters clawing their way toward you. You chant with the rapid beat of your heart, hopeful the tremor in your voice won't affect the strength of your spell. You feel the pin grow hot in your hand before it rises up and follows through on your command to bolster the ward. You pry your eyelids open, terrified of what awaits you, but also eager to find the consequences of your spell.

You marvel at the multitudes of pin hovering above your head, which enlarge at a rapid pace. You only have a second to observe their size before they make an arc through the air, piercing your ward, before stabbing themselves into the ground. For a moment, your heart leaps into your throat, mortified that the spell punctured your shield instead of supporting it. However, the quick rush of adrenaline dissipates with the wave of relief that washes over you, once you grasp the spell's intent.

Your magical ward was falling anyways, now in its place is a physical barrier of towering metal. Silver may not be the strongest mineral, but even as it warps against the onslaught of fists and swords, the drones make little progress. You don't know how long the silver fortress will hold and the tightly placed posts prevent you from looking out to see the scene that surrounds you. All you can do is wait and hope.

You take a seat, crossing your legs and breathing in deep as the relentless pounding continues outside your secured walls. You try to tune them out, to slip the growls and roars into the back of your mind and find solace in what may be your last moments of freedom.

To your surprise, it works fairly well. After only a couple meditative minutes, the sounds seemingly vanish and you wonder if they'd disappeared entirely. You rise on to your feet, placing a tentative hand against your barrier, curious if their silence is a trick to get you to drop the spell, but before you can determine a solution to the problem, the shield disappears beneath your fingertips and you find yourself standing in the middle of a ring of dead, decaying bodies.

"Micah, you're all right!" cheers Ferris, who stands some ways from you with the coven and the remaining humans waiting warily behind him. He then looks at the rotting corpses around you and gives you a half smile. "Sorry, but we had to release the drones from their imprisonment. Without their vampire's curse, their souls were released and their bodies have dissolved into the state they would have been in had the vampires never taken hold of them in the first place."

You hold your nose and fight back a wave of nausea. With a deep breath and your eyes turned to the ceiling, you dart through the bodies, trying hard not to think about what you may be stepping on. Once out, you look to the door.

"I need some air."

"We'll go with you," he says with a nod of his head. "Seems the vamps wised up to our scheme and fled. They may still be out there."

You blush, but tell yourself you'll admit to Ferris the truth of the vampire's knowledge of his plans later. For now, you both were alive and that's all that mattered.

You head for the door as Ferris tells his coven to prepare for a second casting of the spell. However, when you open the door and look out over the street, you find the vampires are far from a threat. Mangled corpses litter the town, their blood pooling around the cobblestones and leeching into the parched soil that borders the street. Standing amidst the carcasses are several large, burly wolves. Blood drips from their fangs and mars their thick coats. The largest wolf glances over you and then sends his head to the sky, calling out to the moon. The others follow his cry and sprint off towards the woods bordering the town. One wolf, a smaller, leaner wolf with a coat of blonde fur reminiscent of your sister's golden hair, waits for a moment, casting her gaze up to you before giving you a yip and racing off after the others.

With the werewolves surprise attack and with you distracting their drones so that they could not aid their masters out on the street, all the vampires were slain that night. All that is, but one.

The Marquis Francis Degaré Ellimond survived that night and eventually took claim of the town after the untimely death of the Duke Gagnier. However, unlike the duke, Ell lets the town do as it pleases. Under her protection no other vampires attempt to turn it back into a farm and Ell soon discovers she doesn't need to make it a farm to have it produce feeders. Though much of the town followed in Ferris's footsteps and embraced the simple human life, others, like Ailisa, still wished to be immortal. Ell helped them to find a proper master and soon vampires sought her out to play matchmaker since her feeders are some of the most dedicated and healthy feeders to join the vampire world. Soon other vampires followed her lead and created free range humans, finding quality, not quantity to be a far more valuable asset.

As for you, you have not decided what to do with your life. Ferris paints a rather compelling future of living a happy life out on the fields and growing old in town. However, that charming marquis always finds a reason to stop into town and makes time to speak with the spunky, loyal human that got away. Every time she defends her claim that she'll spend the rest of immortality trying to spend just one evening out with you. You think you may just accept her offer one of these days, but until then, you both enjoy the thrill of the chase.

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Congratulations, you found the successful ending for this branch of the story! Why not go back and see what happens when your ward fails to protect you...