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A building was burning across the settlement, and many bodies were in the street. Men, children, and women alike. The ones who were dead already were the lucky ones. He’d left some half-mangled and flayed. They held their long-gone loved ones and sobbed. Women clutched their children, evidence of the liberties he’d taken with them still showing. They held onto their babies and wailed.
Screamed.
Cried.
Cursed a God that wasn’t listening.
The first face I truly saw was that of kindly Mrs. Goodwin. Her dress was tattered, her breasts exposed, and blood dripped down her neck as she held her poor six-year-old son. My stomach lurched, for the poor child was not only dead but brutally mutilated. His innards spilled out of him, and scrapes and marks lined his back like he had been dragged. I could only assume what his assaulter had held onto while he was tugged across the rocks and dirt.
She couldn’t even look at us.
Oswald tried to go to her, to help her home, to help her cover herself. It was like she couldn’t see us. She only had eyes for her poor son.
The town held more screams, more sounds of terror and despair the further we made our way in. We could tell by the punctures in the necks of our friends that it was a vampire. In my stupidity and denial, I had picturedanothervampire, not Emerson. I imagined my son lying dead, having tried to defend his people.
Not Oswald.
His shoulders were tense, back taut, and jaw clenched.
I think he knew.
At least had an inkling that something wasn’t right with Emerson, that this had been his doing. If he knew it before that day, he had never spoken of it to me.
Further down, we could hear the sounds of an active assault taking place. A woman screaming and crying, a man grunting.
I knew what that sound was.
I was enraged.
I was vengeful.
I was filled with a righteous fury to end the monster who dared attack my home.
When I discovered it was my son who ravaged and raped his way across Roanoke, I went cold.
He turned to face me, his blond hair falling loose from his queue. Scratches on his face from the poor woman beneath him were already healing. A girl of twenty-one. Her neck wounds wept freely, his mouth covered in her blood. Bite marks covered her upper torso, and tears made lines through the blood on her face. Emerson stopped raping her for all of three seconds to acknowledge us.
“Brother, Father! Join me!” He sounded joyous over the whimpers of his victim as he resumed his violent assault. “She’s got two more holes you can fill!”
I snarled and wrenched my despicable son from her. My claws dug into his neck as I flung him away. Oswald was immediately at the girl’s side. I heard his compulsion, filled with compassion. He told her not to think about what happened, to go outside, cover herself, and wait for us to find her. He told her she was safe now.
Lunging for Emerson again, he danced out of my grasp.
“What the hell have you done here? What is wrong with you!” I moved my feet, and he moved in sync with me. He wanted to run. He didn’t want to fight me because he knew he would lose. I wasn’t about to just let him go. “What kind of monster are you?”
The bastard fuckinggrinnedat me.
“I’m the monster that goes bump in the night, Father, right into their tight little cunts.” He laughed, mocking the pain he caused. “Come now, what is the point of having all this power if we can’t enjoy ourselves? I’ve tasted every woman in this village since you left. Not a virgin remains to be found.” I wanted to heave as he relished in his torment. “Their men tried their absolute best, I’m sure. I had to kill them. That would be them burning in the church right now.”
Still smiling.
“You’re twisted, demented, wretched. An evil that will be expunged from this Earth mark my words!”
“Oh, Father, I did try to compel them first. Some even gave themselves freely when I threatened their children. Unfortunately, I found fucking the willing to be a tad boring, so while I still had my cock inside them, I made good on my threats and shredded their babes before their very eyes. Their terror was so sweet, and I wish you could’ve seen it.”
I spat at his feet. Our dance of steps had him backed into a corner. In my peripheral vision, I could see Oswald standing with me, ready to help me take this demon down. The fireplace beside Emerson roared. One quick slice across the neck, then we could burn his fucking corpse.
“You’re disgusting. You have no honor, and you don’t deserve to live.” I could hear the calmness of my oldest son’s voice, and it was cold and unfeeling. It didn’t sound like Oswald at all. Good, I needed a knight who wouldn’t stand for this depravity, even if it came from his brother.
