Sitting atop a substantial hill overlooking the small village of Medowdale was the mansion of Lord Tyrel.  It was a busy place where the windows shone with candlelight all night long and there was nary a night when one could not find himself the entertainment of a decadent ball or, if one was really connected, a personal audience with the Lord himself whom it was said could arrange any sort of pleasure a man might seek if he favored you well enough. Tonight was yet another grand party of Tyrel’s.  All the usual forms of vice had already been set out to please his guests and the help did their best to ignore some of the more unscrupulous goings on in the back corners as Tyrel lounged on silk pillows with his closest friends, drinking and laughing.  They each spoke words, but none of them really mattered.  All that they cared about here was throwing any sensation they could at the meaninglessness of their lives.  There was very little governing Tyrel felt needed to be done over his little village and that left him with no real choice but to pass his days in a blur of whatever he could throw at his empty life.  Weather it be booze or sex or narcotics, all had found their place for him and all made him even hungrier for more.

It was then that something delightfully out of the ordinary happened.  A servant, blushing at the acts his betters were committing out of the spotlight, came bearing news for his master that a noble who claimed he was from a distant village waited for him in his private waiting room.

“He seemed most insistent that you come to meet him at once, sire.”  Said the servant and paused before he left his master’s side, his eyes clouded with doubt as to how much he should say.  Though he had downed a good amount of wine, Tyrel had always been good with people.  
The look upon his servant’s face did not allude him, “What is it?  Did he tell you something else?  If you have forgotten something I will forgive you, James.”

The boy shook his head as something close to panic filled his eyes, “No, sire, its not that.  It’s just that…there is something strange about this man, sire.  He does not seem natural to me.  Not like your other friends at all.”

This Tyrel found very exciting indeed.  Not only was he being treated to a new visitor this night, but he was exotic enough to put the help on edge, what luck!  Eagarly, he waved his servant away and jumped up, straightening out his blue velvet outfit till he felt himself presentable.
“Well,” he said to his friends, “it seems I have a meeting to attend, then.  Goodnight all, be sure to enjoy yourselves.”

With that, he turned on his heel as best he could and walked out to find this unnatural man.  Quietly, he opened the door to his waiting room to find his visitor in one of his fine leather armchairs beside the fire, rolling some of Tyrel’s finest liquor around and around in his glass.  The man himself was stunning beyond anyone he had before seen.  His skin was alabaster in color and looked as if he had polished himself to become so smooth.  He had red lips that were turned down in a perpetual look of sorrow that to the young Lord was unbelievably appealing, but above all other features his stranger possessed, it was his eyes that drew Tyrel in.  His eyes seemed to be made of dancing hellfire that beckoned him closer, drawing him ever nearer with the most burning stare he had ever received from another human being.  Breathless, he stumbled forward till he stood right before the mystery man.  He had a sudden compultion to fall to his knees before the black figure that sat immobile before him.  

“Sit.  Down.”  Hissed his guest and Tyrel had no choice but to comply.  A wicked and thrilling smile split the man’s lips, causing Tyrel’s throat to tighten as he saw the menacing glint of his companion’s fangs in the firelight.

“How well,” the black clad figure asked, “do you know your history, young lord?”

“Very well indeed.  My family has been a loyal servant of our great Mozist empire since its inception.”

Cruel laughter floated across the room to slap Tyrel across the face, “Of course you have.  Oh, tell me a story, my young lord.  I simply must know the tale of how your family came to gain these holdings.”

Tyrel smiled at his visitor’s request.  For a time he had feared that this man was a servant of the Patriarch, come to scare him into making his village more productive or more devout or whatever it was that his emissaries were always demanding of him, “Very well then, my lord.  This tale is one I know quite well.  The origin of my family’s nobility is found in my own grandfather, the Lord Vercoth.  He was a doctor and an ardent supporter of the Prophet, Jeremiah Moz, even as he was rising to power amidst the great purge.  For his valiant acts of healing during the purge, Moz awarded my family with this manor, which had been abandoned by vampires, and a fief over the village it overlooks.  So now, I do my best to uphold my family’s legacy as my father did before me, even if this backwoods village is a terribly dreary post.”

It took Tobias a moment to recover from this abridged tale.  He laughed and shook his head, “That was a rather sorry telling of the story, my Lord Tyrel.” He leaned inward in a conspiratorial gesture and whispered, “Perhaps I can fill in some of the gory facts and improve your history a bit.  The beginning of your story is truth.  This tale of yours does indeed begin with your grandfather, but he was not the paragon of valor you pretend him to be.  He was not awarded this estate for serving as some glorified field medic, but for the simple fact that he had served as the family physician of a rather large family of vampires before the purge began.  Their money was good and if there is one thing that can be said about your family it is that you value your money almost as much as you value your sins.  Your beloved grandfather betrayed those vampires to their deaths in Mozist torture chambers.  It is on cowardice and back stabbing that your family has built their fortune, till there was you.  You, my putrid decaying noble.  You, who have died before living.  And even now, even as I sneer at you and insult you, you long for me to close the gap between the two of us so that you might caress my flesh and kiss my lips.”

Tobias rose from his chair, throwing his drink into the fire and taking measured steps forward till he loomed over his host, “You are a wretched thing, Tyrel.  Tell me, did your grandfather die well?”

“Yes,” Tyrel gasped,

“Pity.  He deserved far, far worse.”  The vampire slowly drew a wickedly curved dagger from his coat, “I suppose I will have to settle for the satisfaction of what I’m about to do to you.”
Tyrel knew that he should try to run from this monster that stood ready to snap up his life, but could not find the will to tear his gaze away from Tobias’ eyes.  Tobias moved painfully slow so as to draw out the fear of his victim, Tobias leaned down and inch by inch pressed his teeth into the young man’s neck.  As the piercing pain from his neck shot through his body, Tyrel felt memories invade his mind that were not his own; Memories of pain, of death, of broken dreams and sorrow.  He drank them in as they were forced into him.  There was such feeling in them, more than he had ever known.  Black waves of memories better forgotten swept over him again and again till it seemed that he had already fallen into hell without realizing it.

“Not just yet you haven’t,” Tobias whispered into his ear, his breath hot with the young Lord’s own blood, as he brought his dagger down again and again.  He split bone and carved through flesh till the body that sat before Tobias no longer resembled the vain foppish human whom he had begun with.  With one last great thrust, Tobias impaled the corpse with the dagger and casually tossed a letter he had written during the daylight hours onto his lap.  Inscribed upon it was this message:

Dearest Patriarch,
Your so called faith has committed acts of unspeakable cruelty upon nature, upon the vampire race whom you have forced the world to forget, and upon your own people.  Let it be known that it is my intention as one who remembers your atrocities to kill the nobles and priests of your order till every single last one of you are swept from this earth.  You would do the same for me.
Sincerely,
The Lord of the Night

Having heard some of the most unholy noises he could imagine coming from the waiting room, Tyrel’s servant, James finally worked up his courage to open the door that stood between him and the unnatural man he had left alone with his master.  He gaped in terror when he saw the remnants of his master’s body, the blood still cooling on its flesh. He turned to run, but nearly stumbled to his knees when the voice of his master’s murderer struck him over the back of his head, “Wait right there, boy.”

The sound of his words tore a great black hole through his heart, forcing his footfalls to a standstill. Slowly, he turned to face the monster as its eyes bore red hot holes through him.  Tears streaming and hands shaking, James somehow found the courage to face the creature before him.  Hatred and fury still rippled off Tobias in waves from his kill and the boy could not help but tremble.  He could not imagine that the next few moments could offer him anything but death.

“Tell everyone what you have seen here, boy.  Let them know this is the beginning.”
In one gesture, Tobias swung open the door and closed it again, leaving nothing more than a corpse and James’ furiously beating heart to mark his passage.  Though to any simple man that might have been watching it seemed as if Tobias had melted back into the night and passed back into nightmare, in truth he was no more than a few feet away and listened intently for the screams that he knew would come. A minute passed, then two and Tobias wondered for a moment if perhaps he should enter the room again to scare the poor lad properly when at last the servant’s cry did pierce the night.  The sound reminded Tobias faintly of a rabbit as it was snatched up in the jaws of a wolf.  It was a high pitched squeal that seemed as if by magic to light all the lanterns in the house and village.  Shortly thereafter, the bustle of heavy booted feet could be heard running here and there.  

Tobias delighted in peeking into their minds to see the panic that was spreading across the town like plague.  Already they were rounding up the small number of foreigners they could find, accusing each in turn.  He knew that many of them would most likely be killed for his actions, but it mattered little.  Such was clearly the cost of calling out the storm.  Eagar to reach a better vantage point of the subtle chaos he had wrought, Tobias gathered his will to him and rose through the air till he stood upon the manor’s roof, perched like some terrible gargoyle.  From there he could see everything.  Everywhere were peasants, howling with pure animal terror, who darted through the roads and the nearby woods with torches that cast the earth around them in a shifting orange and black web.  

Dancing merrily through the air, Tobias brought himself directly to the stained glass windows of the village church, which stood as a gilded monument to hubris amongst the squalor and poverty of the rest of the village.  There, he probed the interior, listening for peasant’s prayers.  This was a tactic he had long ago come to employ in his assassination days.  For hundreds of years he had known that in order to build and truly legendary and terrifying reputation, a killer had to make himself seem more than a man.  The best way to do this was to answer prayers, preferably ones that the priests had accepted.  Usually this answer was a bloody one.  If a wife asked for protection of her husband, then the moment the Mozist promised that the angel and the patriarch will watch over the poor sap, he would run off to kill him.  A demon who could kill those under the protection of gods was a terrible foe indeed.  
He played this game for quite sometime, running to the church to snatch up a prayer, and then running off to kill or destroy whatever was to be sanctified against him.  Eventually, this became quite tiresome, however.  When he cared little to keep adding to the flowering madness of Medowdale, Tobias would find a convenient shadow and watch with grim satisfaction, thinking back to days when it was his own people in the streets cowering and sobbing and begging for their children to be spared.  How easily humans were coaxed into such behavior.  It was no wonder they had driven away nearly all magic in the land, save for their own putrescent brand of “miracles”.  

It was nearly morning when the Mozist priest could no longer stand to listen to the panicked pleas of his lesser countrymen.  Even from half a block away, Tobias felt the despair that raged through the church when he demanded they return home.  It seemed the right time to finish the work he had begun by slaying the village’s lord.  Tobias waited only a moment for all the villagers to depart and leave the haggard priest open for attack.  Silently, he slipped in through the giant doors of the church as the last of the petitioners closed it behind them.  The interior was very close to what Tobias had imagined to find there.  The entire place was painted in the usual Mozist style, all purples, reds, and golds.  It seemed a building revoltingly self absorbed in its own divinity.  Everywhere were busts of “saints” and generals who had fought against the vampire menace in the great purge.  Holy icons peppered the walls and as he walked deeper into the cavernous tribute to Moz, he could almost feel all those symbols and marble eyes turning to watch him.

Nonchalantly, Tobias strolled passed the pews towards the alter where the priest stood, hastily returning whatever items he had needed to cast his protection spells that night and grumbling about the peasantry and the ridiculous demands.  He could not help but smile and shake his head at this, “Behold, the great saviors of the human race.” Tobias said, causing the priest to jump.  He turned in irritation to what he thought would be another of his countrymen and turned almost as white as Tobias when he saw him.  When he recovered himself, the priest pulled upright to appear more dignified, curling his lip in disgust.  

Tobias took no note of this, however.  He merely continued, “I never understood why you spent so much time trying to keep your citizens uneducated, but having seen this tonight it makes perfect sense.  There’s no way they would ever turn to your Moz with a good head on their shoulders.”

“Enough!” cried the priest, his pale green eyes flashing with fury at the vampire’s blasphemy, “You and your kind are creatures of the abyss.  Your words will not work their way into my heart, demon.”  A red glow began to rise from behind the alter, turning the Mozist’s hair from its straw color to that of blood.  Much to his dismay, Tobias could at the very edge of his senses detect the sound of panicky whispers and long forgotten screams.  When the priest rose his hands, he could see that a fist size globe of translucent light floated above the man’s palms.  The vampire readied himself to move very quickly.  Though he found Mozist magic to be abhorrent, he knew it had been nothing to scoff at and that was two hundred years ago.  
“Look upon that which heralds your return to hell, demon.” The priest said, holding the orbs higher, “see how the souls of this land come to aid me in my righteous cause.”  It was then that Tobias saw the faces in the globe.  

They were pain wracked and tormented in appearance, twisted beyond comprehension in an agony that the living could never understand. It looked as if each soul was struggling with the others to free themselves and the orb seemed to seethe and bubble with the force of their desperation.  Then, with a terrible sneer, the priest released the specters from their captivity.  A earth shattering howl shook the walls as the spirits leapt forth, their bony fingers groping at the air before them and they descended all around their master’s foe.  They screamed with demonic glee as they fell upon him, each calcifying his spiritual matter to etch long red gashes across Tobias’ flesh or to try to bind him by holding back his limbs, which were already flying with deadly precision.  He flung the solid spirits from his body into the pews and through the stained glass windows until he had a single moment’s reprieve from the onslaught.  

It was all he needed.  Leaping up and away, Tobias jumped to the choir loft, snarling at the souls that pursued him even as he did.  He knew they would come at him again, but hoped that here he could use the single minded fury of the specters to his advantage.  They came at him through the floor, tearing mighty hunks of wood away from them as they tried to rake his feet and pull him down.  He dove this way and that, waiting patiently for his opportunity to present itself. Finally it did just as the ghosts were beginning to rise up through the holes they had made to face him directly. During the struggle, a rather substantial and pointed hunk of wood had been torn away from the loft floor and had come to rest just inches from where Tobias was struggling to bat away another moaning soul.  He struck his opponent full in the face and it receded, once again reverting to its natural wispy form.  Without thought, Tobias dove on the wooden spike and flung it with all his strength at the priest, whose smug
expression immediately evaporated.  Shrieking in fear for their master, the specters who still waited about their master should the others fail flew up to place themselves between Tobias’ stake and the priest.  It mattered little.  The stake passed through the ghosts whether they were solid or not and struck the priest square in the shoulder, pinning him to the wall.  The priest cried out in agony and his spirits writhed with him, nearly vanishing without his will supporting them.

Laughter of the vampire coursed through the air between them, bringing tears to the eyes of the priest.  He could see Tobias looming over him, perched as he was on the loft’s banister.  He leered down at him with his eyes gleaming with malignant glee. As gracefully as a cat he dropped to the ground and stalked toward the immobile priest with his usual swagger, “I’m just going to go out on a limb here,” Tobias said as he reached the Mozist, lounging casually against the wall, “but I don’t think this is how you thought this was going to end.”

The priest swallowed hard, clearly sensing how close he was to the end, “Just kill me if you’re going to kill me, demon.  Honestly, I’d rather it were you than one of my own.”

The moment his words reached Tobias’ ears, all of his supernatural mannerisms vanished and he stared at the priest in open surprise, “I beg your pardon?”

The Mozist gave Tobias a steely eyed glare, “What, are we to have a nice little chat before you execute me?”

“If I so wish it, human, then it shall be so.  Don’t you dare forget that you are the one pinned to the wall.”  When his threats seemed to have no apparent effect on the priest’s resolve, Tobias sighed, “Fine then. If I told you that I will let you go if I like what you have to say, would you be any more eager to elaborate?”

“You would do that?  How do I know you are not tempting me?”

Tobias laughed at this, “Oh please. If I were trying to tempt you into doing anything you would already be doing it.  Now you have my attention for the moment being.  Do not ruin that for yourself.  Just tell me what you meant.”

The priest nodded slightly and grimaced at the pain the stake in his arm caused him, “I am not exactly the most popular of all the priests in my brotherhood, demon.  My views…differ from those of the Patriarch’s and for this I was cast out of Tansim and sent here to tend to fat and lazy lords and their panicky peasants.”

These words seemed to absorb Tobias in such a way that it seemed to the priest that he saw nothing but him.  He nodded gently to the man to continue, “What exactly is it that differs between the two of you?”

A look of rage and contempt filled the priest’s face that surpassed even the spiteful glares he had reserved for his unwelcome vampiric visitor, “Morality.”  He spat with all the venom his soul could muster.  He turned as best he could to look Tobias head on, “Do you have any idea what it’s like in Tansim?  Men, women and children go missing in the night, never to be seen again and it is no vampire that makes them vanish.  I’m sure the Patriarch has blamed these disappearances more than once on your kind even though you are the first of your race I have ever seen in my whole life.”

As much as he wanted to reject his feelings of compassion for the man before him, Tobias could not seem to shake the sorrow he felt for him.  It seemed that he had spent far too much time among humans. Gently, he dipped into the priest’s mind to find the source of this fury.  There, he saw the body of a woman so shattered that the priest could hardly recognize her.  She lay in the gutter, some godforsaken and long forgotten corner of the city that reminded Tobias so much of his first nights on the street, “So,” he whispered, a bloody tear falling across his cheek when he found the memory in the priest’s thoughts, “they killed her, did they?”

The priest clenched his teeth as he tried desperately to hide his weakness before his demonic adversary, “She was butchered.  All the love I had torn from me and for what?  Because the Patriarch had come to covet her?”

“And yet you still serve his religion, do you not?”

“It is my religion, you monster.” He snarled, wilting slightly with the effort, “now kill me and make my failure in this life complete.”

Tobias cast his darkened eyes to the floor and shook his head.  His hand reached up and the priest closed his eyes in anticipation of oblivion.  A gasp tore out of him as he felt Tobias’ fingers close around the wooden spike.  With a simple jerk, he tore it from the priest’s shoulder and he slumped to the floor, gasping for breath.

“I told you if what you said interested me I would let you live and so I hold to my word.  However, there is something that I must ask of you in return.  Leave this place.  Now.  Do not tell anyone that you are going.  Seek the answers in this life that you have yet to find.”

Cautiously, the priest rose, still unsure as to whether he would truly be allowed to leave the church alive, “Why would you help me?  If it had been you trapped against this wall, I would have killed you in a heartbeat.”

Tobias smiled at this, “You don’t deserve to die, Father.  Just take your leave of me and find your peace.”

Relief, astonishment and fascination all mixed together on the priest’s face.  He nodded respectfully as a foe that had been bested might to the victor, “Thank you for this.  I will not forget it.”  Hesitantly, he extended a hand that Tobias took, “My name is Jonathan Calvier.”

“Tobias,” was the vampire’s response, “Get out of here already.  You’ll be hunted from here till the ends of the earth if your peasants come in here and see you shaking hands with the devil.”
Without further word or acknowledgement, Calvier turned and strode out of his church never to be seen in Meadowdale again.  Something about injustice that had been done to Calvier caused Tobias to linger in the church after his passing.  He stared into the vacant eyes of the busts along the wall till at last he came to Moz.  A face matched in its slender lines only by the vampires he so despised, his statue wore an expression filled with distain and he wasn’t sure if it was the sculptor’s intent to make him look stern or if they had simply hoped that such an unimpressed look for their founder might fill their coffers up faster.  Regardless, the thing filled him with disgust and he threw it to the floor, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
From the folds of his jacket, Tobias drew another dagger, lashing out at the pillar that had once held Moz’s cruel gaze. Into the marble he carved the word, soon, and nothing more.  Leaving the meaning open to the interpretation of the finder was half the fun in his opinion.  Then he could feel sunrise coming and the infernal fires of day that could burn even one as old as he to a cinder.  Sparing no more time, he threw open the doors of the church with a mighty crash as soared away into the forest, making no attempt at all to hide his presence from the villagers in those first moments of light.  He knew that soon a second flood of madness would take the village when they saw Moz’s shattered head, the blood behind the alter and the wooden stake he had left for them.  As he slipped below the ground, and found his way to his bed, Tobias smiled.  He would have such wonderful dreams today.