INDIGO (RISE OF CRIMSON)

CHAPTER 1

The year 1301.

The noise of the growing mob outside swelled louder. A muted roar made by hundreds of angry voices chanting for the death of he and his kind.

Death to his kind.

This was the day his kind had dreaded for centuries, A day mankind would discover their existence and stand against them to wipe them from the face of the Earth.

It was not only his kind that were endangered, the other species were endangered too.

The shapeshifters, the ones who had soul ties with different animals, enabling them to be half animal, half man.

They were called after any animal they shared soul ties with, they always rose up against his kind for centuries with endless bloody battles ensuring between them, out of all the shapeshifters, the werewolves had been the most friendly to his kind, all the other shapeshifters hated his kind, they never wanted to have anything doing with the undead or as they were popularly called, The vampires.

Damon looked over at the young girl by his side as she shivered again, she had been injured badly, he checked her wounds as his cold heart raced,they were fatal, beads of sweat filled her face as she looked at him weakly.

He struggled to hold the tears in his eyes as he turned his focus to her wounds,they were healing slowly this time. 

He turned in a crouch to face the six other men now trapped with him in the burning sayan building. 

Three of his best men, including his werewolf bodyguard, two other werebears from the pack and three other lower ranked vampires. 

who were scared out of their fucking minds and visibly struggling to hold it together.

The sound of more breaking glass shattered the tension in the room. Another fire alarm blared to life from down one of the hallways, signaling that the flames were spreading fast. Already the smoke was thick enough to make their eyes sting, everything was starting to have an effect on him, he was  badly injured. “We’ve got a minute or two, max, before they scale the wall,” he said to the shapeshifter on his right.

Nathan, the pack leader and Damon’s best friend, scanned their darkened surroundings, but they both knew there was only one way out. “Try to call the pack again for back up we would need an emergency exfil,” he ordered Nathan. “Tell them we’ll stay in the building as long as possible.”

"I'll try to see if I can summon Amon." 

It was their only option, since the place was completely surrounded by angry humans who had teamed up with the sayans.

 Trying to escape out any of the emergency exits would result in them being burnt to death, and whatever was left of their bodies dragged through the streets by the enraged humans.

“Fire’s spreading from the north side,” Jim, the werebear, second in command to Nathan reminded him as Damon tried to summon Amon to stress the urgency of their situation. “All exits and staircases on that side are out.”

“We’ll have to get to the roof and wait there,” Nathan answered.

“What’s the story on the birds?” Damon demanded to the man on the other end of the pack, shoving his finger into his other ear to hear the response over the chaos.

“Working on it, sir.”

Not good enough. “We’ve got three mortally wounded vampires with us, and we’ve only got a few more minutes before that humans and the sayans gets inside.”

 He and the pack had already spent the last thirty minutes fighting their way through the rabble to get inside the place and secure the girl and the surviving Vampires. Getting out was going to be way harder.

Rounds of silver bullets started slamming into the window above them. The kind of silver bullets that could send any shapeshifter to oblivion. Spider webs formed around the impact sites. Dozens of them. He ducked instinctively when the so-called bullet resistant glass finally splintered. They all hit the deck and covered their heads with their arms as chunks of it rained down. A split second later a hail of silver bullets peppered the far wall behind them, a few feet over their heads.

The roar outside intensified instantly. Two firebombs flew through the shattered window, hit the floor and exploded into a wall of flame. Damon didn’t get a chance to hear what the man was saying to him over the noise. From the sudden rise in volume of that terrible roar, he knew the crowd had finally cleared the wall and were about to storm the building.

Fucking hell. His canine elongated as he transformed into half demon form to reduce any scalds from the fire, he moved back into a crouch and pushed her behind him using his left hand to lift and place her gently on his hard shoulders.

Fighting while injured was hard enough but fighting while protecting her was going to be harder.

he waited as the wall of noise pulsed against his eardrums. 

They were about to be overrun, and wiped from the face of the Earth, all because his maniacal, bloodlust, brother. Ellish had betrayed their race.

His brother had found out that Amon, their father. The most powerful living dead vampire on the surface of the Earth had picked Damon as his heir and the one to rule their race when he passes on to meet his ancient fathers after his successful thousand year reign as the leader of the race. 

With bitterness and a vengeful heart, Ellish breaks the vampire race in half, taking his loyal servants with him to join the sayans who were gifted protectors of humans, they used silver bullets to kill shapeshifters and their ritual swords to kill Vampires.

Using his powers,Ellish manipulates the sayans into a deal.

Ellish had taken the secret of the race to the sayans who immediately told the humans, and together they had set out hunting down every vampire that lived.

  It had already cost the lives of more than a hundred innocent vampires and shapeshifters caught in the bloody war and now the girl, his bride. 

“Go,” Damon shouted over the confusion, grabbing the white-faced injured girl  by the upper arm. He hauled the girl toward the closest hallway, filled with hellish orange light from the fires while the other two pack members took charge of the other injured vamps.

In a running crouch Damon followed behind, covering their six. A few yards into the hallway the smoke was already noticeably thicker, making them cough as they raced to find a stairwell that would take them to the roof. They turned right and stopped short at the sheet of flame licking the walls and ceiling ahead of them, blocking their exit. Veering left, they ran blindly down another hallway just as the enraged sayans breached the building.

Damon could hear the shouts and pounding footsteps closing in on them, moving closer with every heartbeat. Shots rang out behind them, way too close. Whirling, he moved at the speed of light, running towards the shadowed passageway and tearing the men into pieces, he couldn't take them all at once, he was too weak.

 He shredded three of them into bloody dismembered parts before he jumped to his feet and raced after his men’ hazy silhouettes as they disappeared into the smoke down the corridor in front of him.

“Over here! Hurry!”

He spun and followed Nathan’s shout, staying low to keep out of the worst of the choking, toxic smoke. Thirty yards in, the air began to clear slightly. He could just make out the doorway at the end of the hall and ran straight for it. But he wasn’t fast enough.

More sayans spilled into the corridor behind them and opened fire. A burst of rounds plowed into the wall next to Damon’s head. He snarled angrily. he quickly whipped around, moving at the speed of light, dodging the bullets as he tore them to bloody shreds, their screams rang through the dark passageway, he looked to his right and slightly above him he could hear his men's thudding footsteps as they rushed the injured vamps toward the roof. He chased after them, turning every few seconds to bloodily shred down  the sayans pursuing them.

The dim emergency lighting in the stairwell flickered on and off, casting eerie shadows everywhere. His lungs burned from the smoke, his heart slammed as he raced up the concrete steps. Two floors. Three. And the sayans was still coming after them.

At the fourth—and top—floor he turned the corner on the stairs and came to a skidding stop when he saw his team gathered next to a steel exit door. Nathan was staggering back from it, swearing and sweating, he clenched his fists as he hit the steel door again, he was too weak to transform.

 Someone had already put a round through the lock mechanism, which was still holding somehow. When Nathan moved aside the huge shapeshifter backed up a step then slammed his boot repeatedly into the ruined lock. Even with the bullet hole and the considerable large amount of muscle, the goddamn door didn’t budge.

Nathan looked back at him, his expression tense. “Get down to the third floor and try another stairwell.”

There was nowhere else to go. “They’re right behind us,” Damon warned.

“Go,” Nathan bellowed. “I’ll watch our six this time.”

Not wasting another second, Damon turned and moved quickly but at a human pace,while the others followed him back down the stairs. He careened around the corner, through a door, and tore down another hallway that led to the opposite side of the building. Distant shouts echoed up from below. His men were a few strides behind him. In the thinning smoke his gaze locked on the steel door at the end of the hall. Only steps away, he heard the horde coming.

He dropped to his knees in an attacking position, gently placing the girl beside him, he had promised to keep her safe, he elongated his canines, fury in his eyes as the pack escorting the wounded vampires rushed passed, he waited patiently. The moment the first sayan cleared the corner he moved at lightning speen, hitting him in the head and running his hand through the chest in quick succession. The guy flew at the impact, arms outstretched, knocking back the man behind him as his body hit the ground, a hole the size of a basketball was left in his chest, the place his heart had once been. Damon shredded the second sayan, running his hand through his head and didn’t pause to watch him hit the floor.

He sprang to the darkness of the passageway taking the girl along with him and made a desperate charge for the door. Nathan saw him coming and stepped aside in time for Damon to smash the lock with the sole of his boot. As the punishing impact traveled up his leg he felt the door gave way. One more well placed kick and the heavy door flew open to crash into the concrete wall. The stairwell to the fourth floor—and hopefully the roof—was clear.

The stairwell below them was going to be full of enraged sayans any moment now.

As the clean air rushed past him Damon put the girl down, steadying her.

He moved aside and glanced over his shoulder at the rest of his pack with a nod. Two of them shoved the wounded vampires through the doorway and followed up the stairs, Nathan directly behind them to provide protection while Damon and the girl guarded the doorway.

The girl was already gaining her strength again, she was one of the most powerful of his kind, but she was of no good when she was injured.

She stayed on one knee beside him, her whole body had transformed halfway.

 She was too weak to transform fully, her gaze trained down the hallway where the enemy were about to rush them when a door suddenly clanged against the wall somewhere below them. More sayans were coming up the stairs at them from the second floor.

"Leave this to me." She whispered.

Shit. “Let’s go,” Damon shouted over the blare of the alarms, the rising shouts from behind and beneath them. The rest of the pack were already up the stairs.

 Damon started ascending. He could hear someone kicking at the door to the roof up there. Please open. “Come on!”

The girl was too busy to respond. She grabbed the door of its hinges with inhuman strength, breaking it in half, she threw the bigger part  in one direction, then swiveled and threw the other part to the stairwell that led to the second floor.

Damon cursed and turned back. He was halfway to the girl when she looked back at him with a pissed off glower. “Go! You’ve got the strength to lead the pack and the race. Get everyone on the roof and get them to safety.”

“Fuck that.” No way in hell Damon was leaving her here to fend off the attackers alone.

The girl ended Damon’s descent with an upraised fist that commanded him to stop. Her voice was calm, his eyes intense as he stared up at him. “I can't follow your others here Damon. Get your ass up there.”

Everything in him rebelled at the sight of his bride , but he knew she was right. His first duty was to the vampires they’d voluntarily come to save. He’d get everyone to the roof and direct the birds in, then come back for her if necessary. “I'm coming back for you.”

Suddenly the girl’s head snapped around to face the corridor and she snarled as she lashed out at two sayans, tearing them in half mid-air. 

Damon turned, moving at inhuman speed, taking the whole stair at once. Four strides up, he heard the girl grunt. Damon whirled in time to see her struggling to her knees, blood pouring out from beneath her huge chest as she got rammed with another load of silver bullets.

Without hesitation he lunged down the stairs toward his bride.

“I said go!” the girl’s annoyed gaze bored into his, filled with resolve. Damon read the unspoken message there. The girl was prepared to give her life to save the rest of them.

 She’d stay and protect them all, fight off the sayans until her last breath. That’s what all hybrids were trained to do, and that training never went away, even after they left the packs.

The thought of the girl making that ultimate sacrifice turned his blood to ice. He hesitated.

Torn between duty and the need to protect his bride, years of training and discipline kicked in. Swearing, Damon turned and raced for the fourth floor, running with them close behind him. 

At the turn he was greeted by another pair of angry sayans, Damon elongated his canines, blinded by anger he rushed into battle lashing out at the men at the upfront of the mob, once they had an eye contact, they always failed to react to the intrusion in time. the rush of fangs placing precise wounds into their unarmored bodies, spilling their organs and blood upon the crude stone floor. 

More of them came running in blindly like zombies, running to join their fallen comrades.

Blood flew through the air and scarring the walls of the cavern in the narrow passageway leading deeper into the much larger areas of the complex.

 These were allegedly faithful soldiers of the sayans,the gifted humans who had made it their life goal to hunt down vampires.

 their troops had been testing his body armor, and his resolve.

Taking a slash of their ritual swords to his left forearm and another to his right thigh, Damon roared in pain and rage as another of the sayans and drove his sword through his back .

He turned around swiftly, lashed out at the sayan who had stabbed him, he tore the man's head away, throwing the bloody mess against the wall.

 Fighting through the searing wounds, a dozen more bodies lay on the floor, their heads blown through by his inhuman strength.

 They began to retreat from the animal they had awakened in him, realizing the fatal mistake they had made not to put him down when they had the chance.

Some of the uninjured sayans began to get picked off by his group as they tried to escape, the rest of them all ran for their lives,maybe they were running so they could go and regroup,  he could only assume the others would soon find their way here into the fray. 

Limping and growling, he continued to crush out the brains of any of them his fangs could take down, blowing it out like a farmer in harvest season.

 Each of his hands felling, and dismembering them, hungrily exploding into their soft tissues and shattering their bones.

 the sound of their boots making the familiar sick slapping as they tread through blood, organs, and other bodily fluids.

The last enemy sayan fell to the floor with a dull wet thud from the skull, his eyes wide as his last breath hissed from his lungs and the lights left his eyes.

The others standing at his back were ready to get the little vampire captives out of here at Damon's command.he gave the command and listened to them as they proceeded in locating the cell blocks where they all hid awaiting the rescue helicopter. 

he set off down another route to where he had left her , a pair of boots at his rear. he didn't know who was following him, but at least they were on his side.The stench of death was a sick irony, as the death dealing enemies lay mutilated all over the half burnt and scattered stairway. Tributaries of their blood slowly wind across the gray stone underfoot, making sticky tracks to a drain in the floor.

He heard another roar of angry sayans, they were coming towards where he was, he was already wounded beyond mortal comprehension, he slumped, using the wall to relax his head, his vision became blurry as the noise grew louder.

In the blink of an eye he was surrounded by angry sayans.

His time had come.

He closed his eyes awaiting the last blow from the sayans, he knew they would probably decapitate him and burn his ancient flesh, for centuries he had awaited this day.

The smell was faint, the room smelt of all kinds of blood, blood of the innocent, blood of liars, blood of killers but this one was a rare scent, he had never come across it.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked through the angry sayans as they dragged his raggedy body down the stairs, then he saw it.

It was dressed in black, with Long black hair. It had a sword, a sword capable of decapitating anyone from his race.

The figure jumped down from where it hid, silently landing on the floor, the angry sayans still hadn't noticed the figure.

 Damon watched through blurry eyes and a sick smile as the figure unsheathed the long dark sword waiting for the sayans to turn around.

One of the sayans noticed Damon's sick stare, slowly tracing the stare, as he turned around. In the blink of an eye the sayan's body fell into two parts.

The figure assumed a pose, quickly blending into the darkness of the room.

The noise of the angry mob increased as they noticed what had been done to one of them.

Damon drifted in and out of consciousness as the fight ensued, all he knew was that the sound of angry sayans were reducing by the second and at long last the room was as quiet as a graveyard.

Damon's eyes slowly opened, his vision still blurry, he looked around the room, only to catch the back view of the figure as it quietly left the room, from the scent he knew it wasn't just any kind of vampire.

It was a mixed vampire.

A Sinsayan.

****

Damon's eyes shot open.

The sun had already set, leaving behind a nice view.

it had all been a dream, but it wasn't just any dream, it was a reoccurring dream.

One that had given him nightmares for centuries.

Damon blinked and sucked in a calming breath. It took him a moment to come back to the present and remember he was in his own house.

Pulling out of the painful memory the dream had caused, he raised the A.C remote and increased the output, the cold was good for him.

 His throat was dry, his heart pounding like he was still in the dream rather than lying on his luxurious bed at home. He swore he could smell the acrid tang of smoke and blood, taste the sweetness of it in his mouth.

He couldn't sense Nathan so he guessed he must have gone out for a quick hunt.

His head hurt, he was still getting random flashes of the high definition dream that had kept recurring over the centuries. 

 Damon wanted answers. He’d dreamt this same dream countless times over the past centuries and he'd been torturing himself with what he could have done differently. Maybe if he’d stayed in that stairwell he could have saved the girl. 

He had spent centuries searching for the girl, he didn't know if she died or she survived, the feeling he always felt in that dream, he had never felt it in reality, he'd thought about asking his father,Amon. but decided against it, his father hated the fact that he had contact with the human world.

That awful moment in the dream was permanently burned into his memory without another visual reminder.

Willing his pulse to slow down, Damon hit the power button and turned off the A.C. Hoping the recorded image of the dream would vanish.

 In the empty silence the roar of the sayans slowly faded from his ears. He leaned back into the soft bed with a sigh and stared at the darkened window. Though the images were gone, in his mind he was still back in that dimly lit stairwell watching her bleed all over the floor as she struggled to transform back.

 He shook the image from his head as he slowly stood up and walked to his giant sized wardrobe, he and Nathan had a place to be this evening.