The Last Banquet

Adam smiled as he swirled his wine, hundreds of conversations echoing up to his place above them all. Looking across his people, his kingdom, two hundred years of building and sacrifice. Whispers echoed amongst the crowd, mostly traded among the newer kindred.

“One of the others said it slew an elder.”

“Have you heard of the Walking Chains?”

“I hear that thing is the reason for this party.”

Watching them, reading their lips, Adam felt a shiver crawl up his spine. He forced his eyes away and stopped listening, even as a few of the elders—his own trusted hands—spoke of it with almost reverent fear.

The conversations grew louder as they waited. It was a banquet, after all.

“Milord,” Joey whispered from the shadows beside Adam.

“Yes?” Adam asked before taking a sip of blood wine.

“I have a new report,” Joey stated, stepping from the shadows. His grotesquely burned face made Adam look away. Something landed lightly onto the table. When Adam looked back, Joey’s form was already encased in shadow.

Taking the report and reading it, Adam felt a snarl distort his elegant features.

“When was this?” Adam asked, his red eyes glowing faintly.

“This morning. Witnesses claim it was a single hunter,” Joey answered, his voice as toneless as ever.

Adam read the report once more before looking out upon his kingdom. He had brought his people here because something kept striking at them. This time, it had struck one of his main blood stores. Not only struck it… Whatever it was had left nothing behind.

Save for one thing—consecrated ground.

Adam tossed the report behind him, where it joined the other two hundred. Six months, and this thing had gone from unknown to… to what? A boogeyman. It couldn’t be a single man or woman. No mortal possessed that kind of power.

Not even that newfangled…

What were they called again? Adam looked toward the shadow that contained Joey.

“What was the name of that new hunter group?”

“The Bureau of Demon Control and Exorcision,” Joey stated, his dark-red eyes holding Adam’s gaze.

“Why are there rumors of them hunting the Kin, then?” Adam asked, already suspecting the answer. “We are not demons.”

Joey waited a moment, blinking several times before answering. “I believe the name is not meant literally. ‘Demon’ is simply a general term blanketing everything supernatural.”

A large sip of wine filled Adam’s mouth as doors slammed open below, drawing his gaze. Servants carried out long wooden tables, and the guests parted to make room before taking their seats. Notepads appeared, orders were taken, and the hall filled with overlapping requests. Apologies followed—then, faintly, What was that?

Adam set down his wineglass and stood, admiring the woven banners bearing his heraldry. As he did, a faint scent reached him: a morgue and rusting steel. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Something thudded behind the curtain where the band had been preparing.

“Idiots,” Adam muttered.

Joey shifted within his shadow. “This banquet is still a bad idea… milord.”

“So you’ve told me,” Adam stated as servants began delivering the ordered meals. His own arrived beneath a metal cover, but he left it untouched. It could wait.

Taking a knife, Adam rapped it against his glass. The resulting chime silenced the crowd, and hundreds of eyes shifted toward him.

“Two hundred years of hard work have allowed our kingdom to thrive in this modern world,” Adam began, his voice echoing powerfully through the massive room. “Yet now I hear rumors of something tearing at us. Rumors that a single hunter can bring down all we’ve built.” He laughed at the idea.

“Whether it is the Vatican or this D.C.E…” Adam spoke the names with disdain befitting a king. “We will stand. We will outlast such mortal affairs. I have brought you here to feast and to reassure you that we will remain eternal.”

Adam gestured toward the curtain. “I have brought together my finest band for tonight’s entertainment. So eat and be merry!”

Cheers erupted as Adam set down his empty glass. The curtain opened—and the cheers died.

Adam’s gaze fell upon the stage—ash and blackened bones lay scattered among broken chairs and fallen instruments. His blackened heart felt as though it had beaten for the first time since his undeath.

“What is this?” someone in the crowd yelled.

“Is this some kind of horrid joke?” another added.

Then came the sound of running feet. A door slammed open at the far end of the hall, and a man in servant’s attire sprinted through it, panting but not slowing.

“Help! The cha—”

BOOM!

A thundering roar deafened Adam. The servant's body exploded into falling ash. Blackened bones hung in place for a moment before clattering to the ground.

The hall fell silent, save for the ringing in Adam’s ears. Another sound overcame the insistent whine.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Heavy bootfalls—and something worse.

A sound pierced the ears like holy thunder. It rattled and sang.

***

Laz’s boots thudded against the pavement as he made his slow, inexorable way toward the gatehouse.

A lone guard watched him approach, growing more impatient as every footfall seemed to take an eternity. His pallid skin and elongated canines told Laz everything he needed to know.

“Private property!” the guard yelled.

Laz continued forward. The pistols at his sides rattled in their holsters while the chains inside his backpack sang their holy tune. The guard seemed to flinch with every jingle.

Laz stopped before him, reached into his pocket, and produced a white envelope sealed with golden wax. The seal matched the crest painted on the guard shack.

“Oh, you must be late, sir. I apologize—”

The guard accepted the envelope—and began to scream without sound. Golden fire erupted from the paper, consuming the biter within moments.

Laz stepped over the pile of blackened bones, entered the shack, and pressed a button. The gate beeped before sliding open.

Continuing toward the manor, Laz retrieved his notebook. Each page contained a photograph, a name, and a number from one to four. He stopped on the image of a scar-faced vampire.

“Joey,” Laz muttered.

Remembering that day, he felt the deadened muscles of his face tighten into a half-smile. Beneath Joey’s name was the number Four.

Laz flipped through the elders, lingering on those marked Three or Four just long enough to reaffirm each face. As he began to close the notebook, he stopped at the back page. Beneath the DCE logo, Bedwyr had written:

You can cut the head off a hydra a hundred times. Destroy its body… you’ve only gotta do that once.

Laz’s half-smile briefly became a full one. The kid had a point.

He flipped back to the first page. A kingly portrait stared up at him, beneath the name Adam, and below that was the number one. Laz’s smile disappeared. That face represented two hundred years of ambition and pain.

At a side entrance, Laz knocked. A moment later, a metal slit slid open, and a pair of red eyes peered through.

“You don’t work here,” a woman stated.

Laz produced another envelope. “Front’s locked.”

“A guest?” She sounded almost appalled.

“Just a little late.” Laz gave her a slow wink, his yellow eyes never leaving her red ones.

The heavy door screeched open, revealing a blond-haired woman in a black dress and white apron. She held out her hand.

“Come with me. I’ll make sure they know you’ve arrived, Lord…” She hesitated. “What was your name?”

Laz answered by placing the envelope in her hand and walking past as holy fire consumed her. He sighed inwardly.

Should’ve made more.

***

Roaring thunder. A cacophony of screams. The wretched stink of formaldehyde and rusting steel.

Adam watched his people. Some charged; others fled.

A lone figure stepped through the shadowed doorway, two raised pistols belching divine hate. With every roar, another of the Kin erupted into golden light before collapsing into ash and blackened bone.

“I killed him,” Joey snarled from the shadows, his red eyes glowing hot. “How is he…”

His voice trailed off as he looked toward Adam, who continued watching the yellow-eyed stranger.

“Then kill him again,” Adam answered as the man reloaded.

Joey disappeared into the shadows, the red glow of his eyes vanishing with him. Adam reached inward and seized the power in his blood. The world slowed to a crawl. The slides of both pistols crept backward as the Kin around him blossomed into golden fire.

Something shifted.

The man’s left pistol stopped firing and turned toward a shadow just as Joey began to emerge.

“No!” Adam yelled, his voice stretching unnaturally through the slowed world. He watched Joey lunge. Watched the pistol belch flame. He could almost see the bullet strike Joey’s knee and explode out the other side.

Joey began to fall, his eyes widening in surprise. The stranger’s yellow eyes settled upon him, and his mouth twisted into a broken, lopsided smile. His second pistol leveled.

BANG.

Joey—Adam’s right hand and best friend—erupted into golden light. Blackened bones clattered to the ground.

Vision blurring with grief, Adam leaped from his place with claws bared. He charged along the top of a table as the man slowly turned and fired. The pistol locked open. Empty.

Adam swerved, and a metal platter cover exploded where his leg had been.

He’s out.

With a feral grin, Adam lunged and buried his right hand deep in the man’s shoulder. Blood splattered up his arm.

Adam froze.

Golden fire erupted across his hand. He screamed and fell backward as the flames consumed his arm. The wound in the stranger’s shoulder glowed faintly, its torn flesh stitching itself together.

Another of the Kin leaped into the fray. The man holstered his empty pistols and closed one hand around something protruding from his bag.

The painful song became a screaming wail. Adam’s head felt as if trapped in a vise as a massive chain spilled free. His concentration broke, and time snapped back into place.

A thunderous CRACK shook the hall.

The Kin burst into ash. Two halves of its blackened rib cage clattered to the floor.

No—it wasn’t a chain.

It was a damned whip.

The man turned, and his yellow eyes met Adam’s. Recognition struck with the force of another blow.

“Lazar—”

A second thunderous crack silenced him. The world became searing pain—and then nothing.

***

Adam’s eyes fluttered open, his mouth dry and tasting of ash. Shattered tables surrounded him. Blackened bones lay scattered across the hall, ash drifting through the gentle current stirred by the fans.

The man was gone.

Adam tried to push himself upright, but his left arm wouldn’t respond. He looked down and froze. Black, ichorous blood dripped slowly from the stump of his shoulder.

He focused on the wound and pulled at the power within his blood. Nothing answered.

Shifting his weight, Adam forced himself to stand. He looked around the main hall where his people had gathered only moments before. They had been laughing, telling stories…

What were they now?

He walked slowly through the wreckage, studying every set of bones and abandoned clothes. He committed each one to memory, trying to place a name with every corpse.

A cold realization settled over him. The kills hadn’t been random. Some of the dead were servants, but almost all the others were elders—the people who managed Adam’s territory from day to day.

He found a glass still filled with wine, lifted it, and took a sip.

“Cheers,” he muttered.

The blood wine cut through the dry ash coating his mouth. Adam tossed the glass behind him, where it shattered among hundreds of others.

As Adam approached a doorway, a servant peeked around the corner. Her red eyes met his.

“Milord, your arm.”

“I need…” Adam stopped. What did he need?

“Bandages?” the girl supplied.

“Yes. That.” His voice sounded far quieter than he was accustomed to.

“Sit. I’ll get some.”

She gestured toward one of the only unbroken chairs, its ebony wood gleaming amid the destruction. Adam sat and thought of Joey.

A tug against his shoulder snapped him from his thoughts. His face twisted into a snarl before he recognized the servant wrapping his wound.

When had she returned?

“Thank you,” Adam said.

He looked across the carnage of his hall, wanting to scream Lazarus’s name. Instead, he looked at the servant.

“What is your name?”

“Annette,” she answered, finishing the bandage around his stump.

“Are there others, Annette?”

“As far as I can tell, the rest fled when you fell.” She gave him a sad smile.

Adam looked at her, and a new resolve formed. He would find Lazarus and make certain he could never take his kingdom again—even if his kingdom was a single servant.