A four year old child was playing at the park.
Small, innocent, and with a wide smile; purity in human form. Untouched by the world and unaware of the darkness that lurked therein.
Short white hair, blue shirt, overalls and red running shoes. The kind of outfit you would see on a toddler. Chasing after a bouncing ball, the child giggled, their parents not paying much attention as they talked to some of the other parents at the park.
The parents of the child were a young couple, maybe in their early 20s. Fresh out of high school and having the time of their lives. They had a child because they loved each other, and while they were new to this whole parent thing, it was worth a shot.
The child loved their parents.
The child loved them more than they loved the world!
Some times their parents would argue.
Some times their parents would make funny noises to make them laugh.
Some times they would play hide and seek, and their parents wouldn't find them for a few minutes.
Some times their parents would give them gross mushy peas—bleurgh, gross. They hated mushy peas. But they forgave their parents. Because why wouldn't they?
Some times their parents would be gone for most of the day, so they had to be with another woman. A woman who the child had taken to call baba.
But the child also liked baba as well, so it was fine.
Now, they had taken the child to the park to run around and so they could talk to their friends! The child did not mind. It gave them a chance to play with their new toy ball!
The child continued to chase after the ball as it bounced toward the edge of the woods. The child was about to pick it up to resume chasing it. That was until a hand reached down and picked it up. The hand had long pointed fingers, and as the child looked up, they saw that the hand belonged to someone with a smile that stretched across their face.
It was a little spooky….
The hand belonged to an adult dressed in all black with a hood.
The child gulped. Maybe it was more than a little spooky….
"Heya kiddo. You want your ball back, right?"
"Yeah! Give it back!"
The hooded man hummed, tapping his chin with his sharp pointer finger. "Hmm… How about this? Why don't you come with me. I've got a buncha candy at my house, and it's only a few minutes away. I'll have you back with your mama and papa real quick! So, whaddya say?"
"Candy…?"
"Uh huh! I've got chocolate, I've got ice cream, and I even have lollipops!"
"Oh! Ice cream? You have ice cream? I love ice cream!"
"Well, why don't you come get some! I promise it won't be long," the hooded man said. His voice was nice. He sounded nice. He even was offering the child treats! And the child really liked treats. More than anything in the world. Even more than their parents, but don't tell them that. They might get upset.
"Yeah! I'll come!"
"Great…. Follow me."
The child was never seen by their parents again.
Not alive, at least.
At 1:05 pm, Nathan Rogers was found dead on the side of the road. Needle-like bite marks were found on his neck, and his fingers, knees, and lower arms were bloodied, showing signs of being dragged across concrete.
He was missing five pints of blood, just like Gregory Hart.
It was the same Modis operandi.
It was the same wounds.
And they were found in the same way as Gregory Hart.
It was official. After 54 years, Creston now had its first Serial Killer since the 1970s.
***
Of all the classes that Jolyne disliked the most, it was Mr. Spencer's wood work class. It had nothing to do with Mr. Spencer himself, but it more had to do with Jolyne's dislike of the people in the class; aside from Eric, of course. Who, as luck would have it, was skipping again.
Jolyne would have switched the class out, but she missed the opportunity two weeks back. She honestly didn't realize just how much of a pain in the ass the other students would be. All of them were dickheads, and a lot of them were sexist pieces of trash. Some of them even had the balls to hit on her.
There was one kid, Alexander, who actually had the nerve to give her a love tap on the ass a few weeks ago.
Needless to say he ate concrete after that one. Mr. Spencer had laughed at his expense and sent him to the principals office for harassment.
And while Jolyne had wished that was the last time people tried stupid crap like that, it hadn't stopped anything at all. Some of the kids still made comments, and while Eric had stepped in a few times and got some of them to knock it off it was only every once and a while that it worked.
Not to say it was all bad. Mr. Spencer was funny and he liked to talk to the students, including her. And not all of the other kids were total jerk offs. A few of them, like Sydney Rhodes, were nice. And yes, despite the name, Sydney was a guy. She was also fairly certain that Sydney was a closeted gay man, but she wasn't completely sure.
There was another kid, Max, aka Dustin's girlfriend. Max was a bit of an airhead, and it reflected in the way she dressed and acted. Max typically only ever wore what she needed to wear, and she took it quite literally.
Half the time, she would show up in a shirt that went down to her thighs and a pair of short shorts. In the winter. And nothing else. Maybe a jacket if it was especially cold, but aside from that? Nothing.
The other half of the time… well, that was when she was home, and the only other times that Jolyne saw Max was when she was at Dustin's house.
And usually when she was there, she was running around in a sports bra and panties, and not much else.
Dustin says its because she prefers having the sun on her skin.
Max said it was because she was an exhibitionist, and that the only reason why she didn't run around naked was because of Dustin's little five year old sister existed.
Max had short, dyed vermillion red hair done up in a pixie cut. Her eyes were the same colour as tree leaves in the summer, and she had freckles on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Max tended to be a little on the quiet side. She only spoke to you if she liked you or if she had to.
And lately, Max had been starting to talk to her. So that had to mean something, right?
According to Max, she was turning 19 on Christmas, and during that day she made it clear that no one was going to hear from Dustin for a while. Jolyne felt bad for Dustin in that regard. But, Max was a keeper, so for his sake she hoped that he didn't screw up.
Probably because screwing up most likely meant being beaten within an inch of his life by the same woman he proclaimed to love with all of his heart. But that was neither here nor there.
As Jolyne sat her table, sanding down a table leg for the bedside table she was working on for her bedroom as her semester project, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone sit down in front of her. Glancing over in that direction, she immediately scowled.
Golden eyes met green, as a smirk took up Viktor Van Helsing's expression. "So. It appears that we finally meet."
"We've met. The church, remember?"
"Bah, I was trying to be dramatic. You've gone and ruined it," Viktor remarked as Jolyne kept her focus on the table leg she was sanding down. "You seem rather committed to this whole "staying human" bit you've got going on."
"So what? Does that bother you, hunter?" Jolyne spat as Viktor scoffed.
"Not in the least. All the same, you will die by my hand one of these days. If not today then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow so-on and so forth," Viktor jabbed. Jolyne did not respond after that, she just continued to work.
Viktor, on the other hand, seemed perturbed that she didn't respond. "You aren't going to say anything witty?"
"What do I have to say to you?" Jolyne asked, sarcasm dripping in her voice. "You've already made up your mind. To you I'm nothing but someone to kill, and I know that I'll have to retaliate at some point. Why should I bother speaking with a would-be corpse. It's a waste of time."
"Oh? Are you threatening me?"
"Comme si, comme ça. Look, Viktor, was it? You're wasting your time. You vampire hunters are all about wanting to save humanity from our monstrous selves? Why not go find someone who's actually causing harm to the community instead of being a weirdo and stalking me and my friends," Jolyne remarked, adjusting the table leg to get a better angle.
"You existing at all is a threat to the community," Viktor retorted. Jolyne narrowed her eyes.
"That's racist."
"What?"
"Racist. You know, being prejudiced against another race. Vampires are a race of beings, you know. How would you like it if I started saying you were racist loud and clear for everyone in the class to hear?"
"That doesn't apply to you! You're not human!"
"That's racist. Are you a racist, Viktor? Jeez, I never knew you hated people based on their race!" Jolyne said a little bit louder than needed, garnering the attention of a few people near the back. "I mean, jeez, Viktor, you don't have to be so open about your racism! No one here wants to hear that garbage!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Viktor hissed, as a few darker skinned people from the class started gathering around Viktor.
"Something going on here?" One of the guys, Richard, asked. Richard was a tall, African American, with slicked back brown hair, and was dressed in a blue tracksuit from gym class. Probably. He was a bit of a light skin compared to his friends, but all the same, the anger in his voice made it clear that he had heard what Jolyne had said.
"What's that about hating someone for their race?" A Hispanic student, Marco, asked, eyebrow raised with a toothpick between the left side of his lips. He was born and raised in Creston, but his accent made it seem like was new to the town. He was dressed in a brown hoodie and black jeans.
"Oi, teach! Mind if we teach this punk some manners?" Gerald, another African American, asked as he cracked his knuckles. He was wearing a bright red compression shirt and black sport shorts and runners.
All three of them were Gym Bros, and all of them went to the Rec Center after school. As a result, they were as close to beef cakes as you could get at that age. They were all imposing, and they all looked very mean when angry.
"Huh? Why?" Mr. Spencer called out from his office.
"We got a racist over here," Jolyne answered as Mr. Spencer cackled.
"By all means! But ya didn't hear that from me!"
"W-Wait, this has been some big misunderstand—"
"How can telling someone that they're a threat to the community just by existing be interrupted as anything else?" Jolyne asked as Gerald huffed.
"Oh? And who was he saying that to?"
"Richard, I think. He just pointed in your general direction," Jolyne said, lying through her teeth with a shit eating grin that made Viktor near want to burst a vein in fury.
"Oh-ho! Is that so," Richard said, grabbing Viktor by the back of his expensive white button-up and lifting him harmlessly off the ground.
"Let go of me you cur!"
"Oh yeah, you just settled your fate, hombre. Straight to the bathrooms it is," Marco said, cackling as the three dragged Viktor off as Viktor started yelling obscenities, but by the time he got dragged out of the wood room, Jolyne couldn't hear a thing.
And just like that, it was peaceful once again.
"Damn, Jo. That was just rude," Eric said, laughing as he walked into the wood room, a smirk on his face as Jolyne scowled at him.
"You're late by half an hour, class is almost over. Where the hell were you?" Jolyne demanded as Eric raised his hands in mock surrender.
"Hey, easy now. I went to Blackstone Café and I lost track of time. Was chatting it up with some coworkers from the mill," Eric said, sitting across from her, arms crossed on the table. "So, who was that you had dragged out by the Buffalo Trio?"
"Some jackass who harassed me at church the other day," Jolyne said as Eric's eyes widened.
"Hold up, pause. You went to church?" Eric said in total disbelief as Jolyne rolled her eyes.
"Oh please. It was the one time, and my parents were practically begging me to. That's why my hair isn't dyed. I have to bleach it again…"
"Why? It's lost most of its natural colour. Like, yeah, it's brown, but it's not nearly as dark as before," Eric pointed out as Jolyne frowned.
"The bright pink half. I could technically dye my hair completely black, and this would be fine, but…"
"Why not just get perma-dye?"
"I…. Never thought of that," Jolyne said, smiling. "Holy shit, how have I never thought of that?!"
"Lapse of ideas? It is pretty expensive though. For both black and pink dye?"
"I'm looking it up now, give me a second…" Jolyne said, typing in what she was looking for on Amazon. When she had added it to her cart, her jaw nearly dropped. "$114.47?! What the fuck?!"
"Yeesh…. Talk about a blow to the wallet. Almost isn't worth it."
"Nah, fuck that. I can just ask my Dad. He'll bend the knee. He's a sucker for his "baby girl". God I wish he would stop calling me that…" Jolyne whined, her hands in her face.
"That is kinda embarrassing…"
"Eric Smith, get your ass over here, you class skipping jerk off!" Mr. Spencer shouted, storming out from his office. Eric smiled faintly, standing up.
"And that's my queue to leave, see ya later, Jojo!" Eric said, hauling ass out of the classroom as Mr. Spencer, all 300 pounds of pure muscle and adrenaline, chased after him like a hawk after a rabbit. All the while Jolyne cackled, getting back to her sanding.
***
"Lord preserve this child and may thou carry him up into thy kingdom. May this child be reunited with his family at thou's leisure, and be it so that Gregory Hart is remembered for all time to come. Praise be The Lord, amen," Theodore Higgins said, his tone solemn, praying over a covered body at the morgue, as per the request of the Hart family. Turning to face Jeremy and Louis, both of whom looked deeply saddened, Higgins nodded silently.
"Thank you, Bishop," Jeremy said, his voice quiet. Jeremy was a short man with a rather thin appearance. He was dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans, kept in place by a leather belt. Louis was a tad taller, dressed in a long-sleeve summer dress that covered just about everything save for her neckline. It had a nice floral pattern, and it contrasted with the pale pink hue the majority of the dress had going for it.
Both of them were in their late 30s—37 and 38 to be exact. They were high school sweethearts, and Theodore had personally wedded them 18 years ago, around the same time that Louis was pregnant with Julliette.
The Harts were good folk. They might have had immense wealth, being considered multi-millionaires, but they never looked down on the town. They were constantly funding smaller projects to improve Creston, and were currently helping to lobby for road companies to fill the few potholes around the town.
It made them semi-popular with the truckers, and it made them really popular with the rednecks. While they weren't farm folk, they did help nearby farmers by giving them money for repairing farm equipment when reached out to.
They were extremely generous people, much to the shock of a lot of the townsfolk. When the Harts moved to Creston, the populous were worried they were going to try and bring too much modernization to the town. But that wasn't what happened. They simply minded their own business and helped out where they could.
Overall, Theodore saw it as a net positive. They had even helped the church with bills they were having issues paying, and also helped Theodore a few times with paying taxes to the government. Even if they could apply to being tax exempt, Theodore did not want to. If his congregation had to pay tithes to The Lord, it only made sense that he paid taxes.
As Theodore looked over at the Harts, he smiled. "It is the least I can do," Theodore replied in earnest, following them out of the morgue and into the parking lot.
"I hope that when they catch that sonuvabitch, that I get to look him or her in the eye when they do it," Jeremy said, venom in his voice as Louis nodded.
"They ought to burn in hell for what they did to Gregory…"
"And I am sure they will," Theodore answered them, hands at his sides. He could feel the fury wafting off of the couple, and they had every reason to be as furious as they were. He couldn't imagine their suffering. To have lost a child in such a gruesome manner must have been torturous.
It was part of the reason why Theodore refused to hunt in the traditional sense. Not anymore, at least.
And while Theodore knew what it was like to lose family, it had happened over a century ago. Since then, he and Jessabelle had been content the way things were. They did not need any children.
"I will say… It is strange. My daughter was telling me that in the photos we acquired from the police, she saw a man. But there was no man. Curious, yes?" Louis asked as Theodore raised an eyebrow.
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, you see. I was able to pull some strings and get copies of the evidence that is being used to track the killer. My daughter said that she saw a man in a black hood take Gregory away. But I looked at the photos, and I saw no such thing," Jeremy explained as Theodore frowned.
"Vampire…" Theodore thought. Vampires could conceal themselves from photographs and video footage if they willed it so. The myth's state that vampires have no reflection. The truth was that it was an ability they can use on and off. It was part of the basic set of abilities that vampires had.
Vampires had inhuman strength, speed, and durability. They were super human, essentially. But on top of that they were immune to man-made poisons and naturally occurring ones. Only poison's generated by other vampires could effect them, and they had general disease immunity. Vampires could not get sick, which made it hard to blend in fully.
As previously mentioned, they could turn their reflection on and off, or prevent themselves from being recorded or have their photo taken. But at that point, only those who were tuned into the supernatural, like vampires, The Helsing Organization, and… The Lilim… could see a vampire at that rate.
And last he checked, Julliette was none of those.
Unless…
"I do not mean to pry, but… Has your daughter had any issues lately?" Theodore asked as Jeremy looked at him funny.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, I was worried when she didn't show up to church on Sunday. Julliette usually has a perfect attendance… You can see why I would worry."
"Oh! Well, she did have a really bad head cold on Sunday, and she had a splitting headache. The poor girl couldn't get out of bed… I was almost tempted to take her to the hospital. But she recovered miraculously this morning! I'm sure it was The Lord taking pity on her for being such a faithful servant," Louis said as Theodore hummed.
"I see…"
"Well, we must be off. We have a funeral to plan for. Would the church be willing to host it?" Jeremy asked as Theodore nodded.
"Of course. I see no reason as to why not," Theodore said, bowing as they made their way over to their car—a Silver Ghost Rolls Royce.
"Thank you once again, Bishop!" Louis called out, entering the vehicle before it pulled out of the parking lot. Once they were gone, Theodore narrowed his eyes and scowled.
Julliette was more than likely connected to the supernatural, which was why she could see the vampire in the photos. To what extent, Theodore did not know. But what he did know was that she was not a vampire.
Which left the option of her possibly having accidentally made a vow to God like The Helsing Organization tended to do in order for them to acquire their powers.
Or…
"No. She cannot be a Lilim. She is fair to calm to be one of them…" Theodore thought, annoyance quickly overtaking his thoughts.
Over the years, this town had gotten progressively more and more active. More and more people were coming from the cities and it was causing problems. At first, Theodore did not mind. The more people there were, the more people would attend his blood drive and donate. He had over 30 Liters of blood stored in his mansions basement, so he would never go hungry again, neither would Jessabelle.
It also allowed him to donate blood to other struggling vampires without a worry in the world. But his usuals weren't showing up to his door. He assumed that it was due to the presence of The Helsing Organization. But now he was beginning to think that the two murders might be connected to it.
Call it a hunch, but he suspected that the killer of Gregory Hart and Nathan Rogers was more than just a serial killer.
But for the moment, he was going to wait before he assumed anything. If there was one thing he hated doing, it was assuming. However, he did notice that the winds had changed.
Fun fact about vampires; they could sense one another. It made things easier to stay out of each others territory. Prior to two days ago, there were six in Creston—himself, Jessabelle, Jolyne, and a few others. Now, however, there seven. Meaning that either someone was turned recently, or in the recent batch of people who had moved to Creston, one of them was a city-dwelling vampire.
"Maybe I ought to pick up the blade once more…" Theodore muttered to himself, his hands gripping non-existence sword hilts. It had been a long time since he saw himself needing to enact his wrath.
And wherever he raged, the very earth beneath his feet would give way. That was just how things were. No busy invader dared step into his territory without his approval. Every vampire here either alerted him to their presence, or they avoided the Kootenays all together.
In the Kootenays, there were 50 vampires. Technically 51 now, but he digressed. Seven in Creston, eight in Trail, nine in Castlegar, four in Golden, twelve in Cranbrook, six in Fernie, and five in Kimberley.
Of that 51, Theodore was the strongest in the region, and while he wasn't the oldest, he didn't need to be. His sheer presence was enough to put most into submission, and so out of courtesy, he would usually get a letter from each new comer announcing their presence. It was the polite thing to do, after all….
…But this new vampire….
Theodore wasn't exactly sure where they were, but he knew their general location; near Millennium Park.
Mayhaps it was time he paid them a visit?
"No. Curb your anger. You are not the man you were a hundred years ago…" Theodore told himself, inhaling slowly before exhaling. His wife had asked him to refrain from doing anything drastic, and he would keep that promise, but only if the others would remain cordial.
But if this new arrival did not meet the demands of the area, of which they had no doubt been informed, then he would have no choice but to lay down the law of the land.
And when Theodore got to doing that…
Not much would be left in his wake.