Integral by Adam Thielen

Author:Adam Thielen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2017-11-20T05:00:00+00:00

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Hank Laudinour was an old vampire. Old in years, old in body, and to a lesser extent, old in mental faculties. He was turned at the age of fifty-five, which was a lot older for one to be in the eighteenth century. Cholera had taken his wife a decade earlier, and his children had moved on to their own lives.

He was just a boy when Louis annexed his home city of Strasbourg. The war that followed sent his father to an early grave. Hank’s grandfather taught him how to read and write, and at a young age, he secured appointment as a records clerk.

Later, as a matter of luck over all else, he found himself advisor to a large estate, traveling throughout France, though never to Paris, as well as to Munich and smaller cities in both Germany and Switzerland. He often found temporary companionship on the long trips, getting to know the people whom he shared a carriage with.

One evening a young woman entered his car halfway to Stuttgart. Unbeknownst to him, she was a nocturnal, a mythical creature that could not survive in daylight. At the time, no one believed in such things. At the end of their journey, she showed him to her residence, a humble but sturdy home. A large cellar is perhaps an odd place to put one’s bed, but Hank was too lustful to give it a second thought.

He knew something was wrong the next day, and his new mistress was forthright about the change coming over him. Hank was more ambivalent than anything, and the next evening he set out to find his place in the dark side of the world. He continued on to Mannheim, the vampire capital of Western Europe. There he became familiar with the council and adapted quickly to his new life.

Previously ravaged by aches and pains typical of older men, Laudinour regained his vitality over time and even became an enforcer for the vampire council. It was at this post that the incident occurred. A monster was attacking humans in a small town called Fulda. He traveled there with two cohorts.

During that period, routes had to be planned very carefully. Few risked traveling trapped inside a coffin. Maps contained locations of secret safe houses that any traveling vampire would have to know if he wanted to survive. All three arrived two days after the reports came in.

To their horror, bodies littered the streets of the small town, with its surviving population holed up in homes and other buildings. Everything was locked down. The team tracked blood to a nearby cave system, and deep inside they confronted a deranged, deformed vampire that, according to Hank Laudinour, was capable of using magic.

The fiend used its spells to confuse, maim, bludgeon, and burn the vampire enforcers. The three battled it fiercely, but only Hank survived, eventually overpowering the creature and removing its head. He brought it back to the council along with his wild tale. What he described fit with ancient vampire lore, but the council was still hesitant to believe.

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