Prologue

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water bled from a fractured pipeline, mixing with the blood of one desperate to survive. Human figures followed idly, their boots gleaming with the little light the dimming lampost gave them.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Like hyenas, they slowly circled the crawling, crying wounded woman, watching dispassionately as she pulled herself away from them, and towards the nearly dark, the deathly silent woods. One twitched and a bottle that was in her way smashed into the wall. They chuckled as she cried harder, pieces of the broken bottle digging into her ruined legs.

"Let's see if she makes it," One said as his boots crushed the remnants of the broken bottle. They all chortled as she crawled faster. "If she makes it she'll be dealing with the wolves," Another drawled. "Much worse than just a few bites."

They watched as she struggled, her blue jeans stained red with blood, her checkered red and black shirt in tatters, barely covering her brown bra straps. Some licked their lips at the sight. Others dipped their hands in the blood patches she left and licked their fingertips. They looked at each other and nodded, their pupils swirling before turning a mesmerizing blood red.

The girl cried out as slender fingers caressed her bleeding scalp for a few moments. "Such lovely hair she has," said one, the voice softer than all who've spoken before. "Mayhaps I'll wear it after I have my, little bite."

She sniffled as concrete turned to dirt, as the alleyway she just escaped from turned to an open forest. NIne pairs of red eyes watched as she crawled deeper and deeper into the forest. As one, they stepped away from the alleyway and into the forest after her.

"Let the hunt begin," One said, and they all laughed in twisted symphony.

She exhaled as she pulled herself up into a seating position, her eyes filled with agony. Her eyes flitted from left to right like a wary animal. Her breath was laboured as she trembled in the dirt, her heavy breaths coming out in the form of condensed water vapour. Her eyes would've been beautiful, had they not been red from the crying. Her lips, a beautiful pink, chapped, cracked and bleeding in multiple places. Her pale arms were a ruby red from all the dried blood on her, her purple fingernails chipped and bleeding from the crawl. Her legs were bleeding profusely from the lion-like claw marks on them.

Her chest raised and fell, her head drooping and raising as the snow slowly fell from the sky and laid on the horizon. Her head was slumped on the tree trunk as her pursuers slowly surround her lying place. One sniffed and peered at her. "She still lives,"

One stepped forward. "I don't know about you but I fancy my meals alive." His gigantic hands snaked around her arms and he pull her roughly to her feet. She barely managed to get her feet to support her before he threw her to the ground. Her cries echoed off the ever silent forest as he stomped on her leg. He snorted as his hand wrapped around her leg and tugged.

The white and brown soil was tainted red, and the girl's screams became the wood new tune as he severed her leg from her body. She clawed away, tears falling like a heavy downpour, mouth wide as a shark catching his prey as she crawled away, blood missing gushing from the open wound. The ground drank little drops of her blood. Her attacker salivated as he licked the blood oozing from her thigh.

"Just like wine," He said gleefully. They all took one step forward, nails elongating into claws, eyes alight with lust as they walked toward the petrified girl.

"She lets her blood spill on the clean floor! How dare she," One said as he grabbed her neck and yanked her from the floor. Another grabbed her still attached leg and she screamed as his teeth sank into her tender flesh. Soon enough, she was surrounded by most of them, their heads bent around her neck and limbs. One stood in the dark, its silver mask gleaming in the moonlight as they sucked the life out of her.

A branch broke.

Their heads snap to the source, bloody teeth bared and hands-free, their meal dropping lifeless to the floor.

Out of the silent forest emerged a beast. It stood like a man, but it was taller than any man. Its ears stood at the top of its forehead. It had a snout for a nose. Around its mass was brown fur and its animalistic brown eyes filled with rage and malice. Saliva dripped from its mouth as its muscles coiled, its claws outstretched. The beast howled. The vampires snarled.

The woods answered.

From the darkness of the woods wolves the size of grizzly bears emerged, eyes alight with rage, hairs on end, heads raised, teeth out for all to see. They surrounded the little band of bloodsuckers.

"Vampires of Kenneth. You have broken the terms of our agreement. You have hunted on our soil, killed in excess and feasted in our territory. You have tainted our forests with human blood. You have broken the one Law we all must adhere to; protect the secrecy of the supernatural. In your bloodlust and carelessness, you've left three humans alive with the knowledge that the supernatural exists. You have not disposed of the multiple carcasses you left scattered in our territory," The wolves advanced, muscles trembling in their usage. "The judgement is death,"

The one in the silver mask retreated into the shadows as the wolves tore into the vampires from all directions. After the massacre, they piled the bodies. The beast snapped his fingers and the bodies alighted. As it walked towards the still redhead's body, its body shrunk. Its claws receded, as did its fur. As it stooped and cradled her body, it was not a beast that held her, but a man.

"Oh Florie," He said, brown hair blocking the moonlight voice cracking as the water dropped on her deathly pale face."I'm so sorry,"

His head buried itself into her neck, teeth embedded into her flesh as her amputated limb reattached itself and the bodies burned on.