Casey Donovan turned the horse down a rabbit path, with his men close behind. It was after midnight. He didn’t need to see where he was going, but his horse did, and slowed down considerably as the trees swallowed the light behind them.
He knew the ten slaves were on this path, he could see their remnants as they ran. Barefoot tracks, a piece of cloth on a thornbush, sounds of disturbed animals carried through the night air. Casey’s quiet cursing also carried back to the men, who knew that if the owner of the plantation was pissed, they’d get something for it.
He stopped, held his hand up meaning a universal stop. The men paused, the lantern light casting strange shadows in the woods, making trees seem like moving men. He heard something, and got a strange prickling on his neck. Someone…some thing was watching him like a hawk, waiting for his move.
“They’re here,” he said, and glanced back to his men. “I want–”
Something came flying out of the trees and tackled him, throwing him off the horse and into a nearby tree, hard enough for him to crack his head and momentarily see stars. Casey sensed it was human by its shape, and grabbed hold of what he thought was the man’s hair.
The man hissed at him, and yanked his head forward, as if to bite him. Casey yanked hard on the man’s hair, pulling him back enough so that he could punch the man in the kidney. It didn’t do anything; in fact, infuriated the man more. Using what he knew from wrestling when he was a boy, he got his legs under the man and threw him away from him.
Casey didn’t have time to register that the woods were now in chaos, as he watched the light bob in the distance and men shouting. Then he noticed, the man was already up and staring at him. Casey could see just fine in the dark, and started at this dark-haired man in black. Then the man, surprisingly enough said, “Casey.”
“Do I know you, sir,” Casey said. Although both of them spoke to each other, they were both looking for an opening.
“Not yet. You had slaves?”
“They are my property, sir, bought and paid for. I even fathered a bastard on one of them. I taught one how to read and write and was going to have him maybe be a foreman some day.”
The dark-haired man’s face twisted in disgust. Casey saw that as an opening and dashed for it, but the man was fast. Too fast. He held onto air and fell face down in the dirt. He scrambled up and the man was in his face. In fact, the man had not teeth, but fangs.
“Vampire,” Casey said. “You can try to drink my blood, but the Goddess will not help you.”
“I don’t care about any Goddess,” he said, and bit hard into Casey’s neck. Casey struggled, and the more the vampire drank, the angrier Casey got. He finally knocked the dark-haired man in the head hard enough to disengage him.
Casey got up, a hand at his neck, and he pulled it away as it seeped blood for a moment. The dark-haired man rose, slowly, as if processing the blood he had taken. Casey watched, waiting. He heard voices come back, voices in triumph. He still waited, even while he saw the light illuminate the area.
“We hadda shoot two of ’em,” said Horace, his manager. “We gots the rest.”
“Good.” Casey did not look over his shoulder to see which ones they got. “Head back, I’ll be with y’all shortly.”
They started back, and Casey overheard, “He’s gonna shoot ‘im.”
Finally, the vampire focused. Casey waited until he couldn’t hear anything, and then pulled a bowie knife out of his saddlebags. The vampire stared at him. “You–”
Casey dove at him. Again the vampire moved, grabbing Casey’s arm with the knife and twisting it savagely behind him. Casey grunted, fell forward but didn’t hit the ground, as the man was still holding his arm. Casey let go of the knife. The vampire took it, and stabbed Casey in between the shoulders, skirting the spine and would have pierced his heart if it wasn’t protected. Instead Casey felt the pain as it was punctured his lung and about two inches of its point stuck out of his chest.
The vampire let him go, and Casey thumped to the ground. He lay there, playing dead.
“I know you’re not dead, Casey,” the vampire said, then leaned forward. “We’ll meet again.”
Casey waited until the knife would be pushed out by the healing tissue. In the meantime, through his agonizing haze of pain, Casey burned the memory of the bastard into his brain.
Words: 804
Comments: Donovan Riovan has gone back and time and lived through the same amount of time as Casey, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the two crossed paths once or twice. First in a series.