The Vampire's Apprentice

As soon as the sun finished setting, the three of them set off for the cemetery. Alain kept his head on a swivel the entire time, wary of anyone who would try to stop them. Frankly, he'd be surprised if there was nobody waiting for them at the cemetery.

Alain was tempted to pause and consider the fact that he'd just accepted a man who'd been torn limb from limb literally pulling himself back together and continuing to live afterwards, but at this point, that was very low on the list of oddities he'd encountered in just the past few hours. Having to accept that creatures such as vampires, ghosts, and undead were very real was still very much throwing him for a loop.

"Hey, so, I've got a question," Alain whispered as they walked. "About vampires, I mean."

"Go ahead," Sable said.

"How much of the folklore about them is true? I mean, I've heard some things, but I don't know what I can trust anymore."

"You want to know how to kill me?"

"Not necessarily, but I do want to know if you're actually fatally allergic to garlic."

Sable let out a tired sigh. "No, I am not. That's something made up by humans. Same with not being able to cross running water, not being able to see my reflection in a mirror, and having to be invited into someone's home before I can enter. The Veil would have been broken long ago if any of those were true."

"Then what is true?"

"We need to drink mortal blood to survive. We can turn other people into vampires by drinking their blood, but only if we will it to happen during the act. Sunlight won't kill us, but it is very painful. Fire, on the other hand, will kill us very quickly. The truest way to put us down fast with little collateral damage is to destroy our hearts, though. Traditionally, that was done with a wooden stake, but that had a lot less to do with the wood and a lot more to do with the fact that there was a sharp object penetrating the heart."

"Oh, so a gunshot would work just as well?"

"Provided it completely destroys the heart, because otherwise, we will regenerate," Sable warned. "I would know – I was staked several hundred years ago and only just finished regenerating a short while before arriving from Romania."

Alain stared at her, surprised. "That didn't kill you?"

"The vampire hunter did a shit job of it," she growled. "And that was almost worse than being killed. Imagine, if you will, being confined to a coffin six feet underground with a wooden stake through your chest, completely immobilized and yet also aware the whole time, while your body slowly regenerates over the course of several centuries. It was only the thought of my future conquests that kept me going."

"Future conquests…? So that taking-over-everything bit wasn't really a bit?"

"I have high aspirations for the future."

"No offense, but you might want to re-evaluate them, given what you've done so far."

Sable bristled. "It's a work-in-progress!"

"And what about Az?" Alain couldn't help but ask. "Is he a vampire, too?"

"No," Az replied.

Alain blinked. "...Then what are you?"

"Something far different. I am not at liberty to discuss anything further at this time."

"Uh…"

"I can't tell you," Az specified. "By which I mean I physically cannot tell you. I am bound by the terms of my contract with Sable to refrain from speaking about my true nature. Not even she truly knows what I am."

"Well, if that's not the most ominous thing I've heard yet…" Alain muttered.

"We're here," Sable suddenly announced as they stepped through the front gates of the cemetery.

Alain looked around, frowning as he did so. "It's quiet."

"Give her time, she usually starts crying around ten at night," Sable said. "That time must hold some significance to her as a spirit. It's most likely close to her time of death."

Alain couldn't help but shudder. "This shit is eerie… no offense to you both, but once this is over with, I hope I never see either of you two again. The less of this mystical bullshit in my life, the better."

"Hmph. Typical mortal – always so afraid of anything he doesn't understand and can't easily defend himself from. But very well – we will take care of this threat and then go our separate ways, if that is what you desire."

The conversation tapered off after that, all of them waiting and listening for the crying to start. And sure enough, once it got to around ten at night, Alain heard it – a few sniffles at first, but then some choked sobs, all of them coming through the darkness around one particular grave. Sable motioned for him to fall in alongside her, and they all approached the grave. His heart was pounding in his chest, and one hand fell to his holstered revolver, for all the good

it would do against a ghost.

"Spirit, take form for us," Sable demanded. "We wish to speak with you."

There was a pause in the crying, but it only lasted for a moment before the tears resumed. Sable scowled, then let out a tired sigh.

"We've attempted to speak with her in the past, to no avail," she informed him. "She seems to be quite obstinate."

"Maybe… you're just not asking the right way?" Alain considered.

"What do you mean?"

"Put yourself in her shoes – if you were her, would you manifest for someone just because they demanded it of you?"

"Hm… a good point. Az, any suggestions?"

"Try being more understanding of her perspective, my lady," Az urged. "Perhaps a bit more empathetic."

"Very well." Sable cleared her throat. "Spirit, we wish to assist you. Please manifest for us so we may speak face-to-face."

This time, there wasn't even a pause in the crying. Alain sighed tiredly, then gently pushed Sable aside.

"Let me try," he said. Sable glared at him for laying hands on her, but didn't argue. Alain approached the grave, then read the name and epitaph etched across the headstone. He cleared his throat, doing his best to try and calm his beating heart at the same time.

"Hello, Amanda," he said. The crying immediately stopped at that, and his breath caught in his throat at the knowledge that a ghost was listening to him talk, but he forced to continue on through his fear. "I'm so sorry for what happened to you. I wish we could've gotten here earlier and helped you. But maybe you can help us now – we wish to bring your killers to justice, as well as prevent more people from being killed. If you're interested in helping us do that, we would like to speak with you face-to-face."

For a moment, there was no reaction. But then, as Alain watched, a sudden mist rolled into the cemetery out of nowhere. He took an involuntary step back, one hand again falling to his holstered Colt, though he forced himself to refrain from drawing it, instead watching and waiting to see what happened.

The mist coiled seemed to suddenly coil around them for a moment before moving and surrounding the grave. The hairs on the back of Alain's neck stood up, and a chill went down his spine as the temperature dropped by several degrees. He began to shiver, his breath coming out in a fine mist in front of him, despite the heat from earlier.

Then, as he watched, the mist took on a human-like shape. Again, he took a step back, his heart reverberating against his ribcage as a figure in white manifested before them in the visage of a young woman. She was completely pale, dressed in a white shawl with a veil that completely covered her head. Alain stared at her, and swallowed the lump that formed in his throat as she took a step forward.

"Nobody has yet expressed interest in helping to catch my killers," she said, her voice coming out with an almost ethereal echo to it. Alain couldn't see her face thanks to the veil, but somehow he could tell she was staring right at him. "You are the first. What is your name?"

"Alain Smith," he said. "I regret that we couldn't meet under better circumstances, Amanda."

Amanda said nothing in response, instead turning her attention towards Sable and Az. "You two have visited my grave and attempted to call to me before."

"We have," Sable confirmed.

"Your arguments were not convincing."

"So we gathered. But you're here now, spirit – what can you tell us about the man who murdered you?"

Amanda tensed. "...It was the mayor," she said softly.

"The mayor?" Alain echoed. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know. All I recall are the circumstances behind my death. Him and several other men cornered me one night while I was walking through town. They took me at gunpoint, then led me to a chamber down in the new mine. I was chained to an altar of sorts, and the next thing I knew, they were driving a knife through my chest and spilling my blood."

Sable's eyes narrowed. "Az and I were correct, then – you were sacrificed as part of a ritual."

"There were other girls, too," Amanda specified. "The altar was stained with dried blood when I was chained to it. That means there had to have been others."

"I don't doubt that for a moment," Sable said. "Thank you, spirit – you have been a big help to us. We now know who our primary foe is."

Amanda nodded. "What do you plan to do to him?"

"Whatever it takes to get you your justice," Alain said. His hand was still perched over his revolver, but it wasn't shaking nearly as much as it had when the ghost had first appeared. "You have my word."

Amanda turned towards him, then slowly nodded. "Thank you, Alain Smith."

With that, the mist began to fade, and in a matter of seconds, Amanda was gone. Alain let out a slow exhale once she had dissipated, and his hand finally drifted away from his revolver.

"Alright," he said. "We know who we need to stop – the sheriff, his deputies, and the mayor. Question is, how do we do it?"

"That's going to be tricky," Az commented. "We can't just run into town, obviously. We're going to need to be more-"

Az was interrupted by, of all things, a sudden earthquake. All three of them stumbled as the earth began to shift beneath their feet. At first, Alain figured it was just a coincidence, but then he heard it – the far-off, inhuman screeches that echoed through the night. His eyes widened at the sound of it, but before he could do anything further, he heard something else – fingers clawing against wood, from beneath the earth underneath his feet.

The earthquake suddenly stopped, and there was silence for a few seconds before the night was split by the muffled sound of splintering wood. As Alain watched, the ground in the cemetery began to shift once more, and before his eyes, rotting bodies began to tear their way through the dirt, trying to claw their way up to the surface.

Alain scrambled to his feet, ripping his gun from its holster, but before he could do anything, Sable took his hand and began to run, far faster than any mortal would have been capable of. His arm felt like it was going to be ripped from its socket, but he bit back his cries of discomfort.

"Where are we going?!" he shouted over the window rushing past his ears.

"Back to town," Sable told him.

"What?! But Az just said-"

"I know what Az said. But we've got no choice. That earthquake just now was another ritual being completed. Those crazy fools just called every rotting corpse in the area to Los Banos. And they're going to be hungry."

That stunned Alain into silence for several seconds. He shook his head to clear his mind, then nodded in understanding as they continued to run towards town.

Off in the distance, the screams began to cut through the night.