Death's Favorite Soldier

The call of the night is simply irresistible when you are what I happen to be. Seriously. My name is Jefferson Dean and I am a Proto-Vampire. As far as I know, I'm the only Proto-Vampire who still walks the planet Earth. I've seen vampires and other supernatural creatures but I've never encountered another one like myself. It makes for a boring existence but I've made the best of it. It's a living, after all, even if you're undead.

Currently, I'm on the run. You see, there's this thing after me. It calls itself the Death Dealer. It first approached me in the few months after I first acquired my powers. It claimed to be an emissary of Thanatos, God of Death. Apparently, Thanatos was at war with the Lords of Hell and was building an army to take them down. If that sounds like fascinating reading, you should try living it. I didn't ask for this. Seriously. It's hard to believe that eight months ago, I was just an ordinary guy.

Just a twenty-year-old sophomore at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. I was a bio-engineering major and hoped to get my doctorate's someday before tackling on work for one of the top research companies in North America. I've always been really into science. It's my thing. Most people would never guess that when they meet me, though. They see a six-foot-three, heavyset black male in his early twenties with a shaved head and tattoos and all they assume is gangster. That just makes me laugh. The tattoos are a memory from a wild night in Las Vegas, during a trip I took with friends in the summer after I graduated from Brockton High School.

So I settled into the dormitories at Northeastern University and went to class. My parents were really counting on me. My father, Elroy Dean got his bachelor's in business from Boston College back in 1979 and went on to start his own business. My mother, Katharine Mimosa was the first Latin-American Female Class President at Suffolk University, from which she earned her doctorate in engineering in 1983. I come from a family of accomplished individuals. So, yeah, I was under a lot of pressure to succeed. Which is why I took only advanced classes during my freshman year and started working for bio-engineering department head Josh Stanwick. A really odd guy if there ever was one.

Thanks to an accident in the lab, I got taken to the hospital where I lost a lot of blood. I had a very rare blood type so the doctors weren't optimistic about finding a donor in time. Fortunately, the fates smiled upon me and a mysterious donor gave the blood that saved my life. I was on my feet the next day. At first, I was thrilled. It was a miracle. My parents couldn't be happier. I even forgave professor Josh Stanwick for being such an asshole. Of course, three days later, I began to feel funny. I don't know if funny is the right word but it's one that comes to mind. I simply wasn't myself. I felt really sluggish all day, but when night came, I felt great. Better than great, in fact. I felt super. Little did I know how much I had changed.

A whole new world suddenly became visible to me. You see, there are all kinds of creatures walking around in our world. They look like ordinary men and women. They are black and white, straight and gay, rich and poor. Yet they're far from human. I'm talking about all kinds of monsters and creatures who look human but aren't. Vampires. Werewolves. Zombies. Ghouls. Demons. Fallen Angels. Genetically enhanced super-humans. They're all real. That's the scary thing. These things are all real. And nobody else seems to know it. Whenever I looked at them, I could see them for what they are. It's like I had super-vision or something. I didn't know what to make of it at first. I made the mistake of pointing them out to people. The thing is that those things, you see them and they see you. And if you're making a habit out of revealing them to ordinary folks, they don't like that.

Most of these beings were peaceful enough, they were just leading their lives. Some of them were very dangerous. And they didn't exactly have a lot of fondness for humanity. Not that humanity showed much fondness for these so-called monsters in the past. These things are powerful, and many of them live forever or something close to it. And they like to hold grudges. At first, most of them thought I was a vampire. I certainly fit the profile. I could walk in bright sunlight, but it wasn't exactly my favorite thing in the world. Just like most people can trek through a blizzard but it's not something they enjoy. Unlike ordinary vampires, I did not need to drink blood. At least not exclusively.

I found myself hungering for raw meat during the early stages of my transformation. I was kind of freaked out but I accomodated my urges as best as I could. Simply put, I bought a lot of raw meat from Shaw's and discreetly wolfed it down. I decided not to let this thing affect my life too much. I went to class. I worked hard. I went to Football and Men's and Women's Ice Hockey games, supporting my fellow Northeastern Huskies when they took on the likes of Boston College and MIT. Hockey is really big at Northeastern and every Husky worth his or her salt shows support for the team. Yeah, I was going through a period of adjustment and for the most part, I was okay.

Aside from the need to eat raw meat and the slight discomfort in bright sunlight, I was doing alright. I couldn't do half the stuff vampires were supposed to be able to do. To the best of my knowledge, I couldn't fly, display superhuman strength or turn into a bat. I couldn't turn into smoke or hypnotize people either. If I could hypnotize anyone into doing my bidding, I'd take a crack at those bastards and bitches on the faculty. Seriously, some of them just like to give students hell just because they can. They're such fascists. I hate their guts. Still, there wasn't much I could do about it.

I tried to lead as normal a life as possible. My parents didn't suspect a thing. I kept my urges under control. Unfortunately, I had a bull's eye painted on my back and I didn't even know it. From my discomfort in daylight and my urge to consume flesh and blood, I gathered that I was a vampire. However, I didn't know which type of vampire until I ran into some. The first vampire I met was this tall, gorgeous black chick named Rhonda who approached me while I was studying at the Boston Public Library.

Man, I hadn't seen a chick this fine in ages. Seriously. She wore an Emerson College letterman jacket and looked absolutely, positively hot. When she came calling, I definitely hollered. She had sensed what I was across a great distance and came to find out what exactly I was. When I asked her what she was, she smiled and showed me a mouthful of curving fangs which had looked like normal teeth moments before. Her eyes were also bright red, I should probably mention that. I was kind of afraid, to tell you the truth. But I didn't show it. Especially since something inside told me I could take Rhonda. Even though she hadn't come alone.

From behind the book stacks came several people. A tall, burly Latino guy in a red shirt and blue jeans. He wore a bandana and looked at me rather cruelly. He was accompanied by a tall, skinny Asian chick in a leather outfit and a stocky black man in urban gear. Rhonda introduced the Latino guy as Emilio, and his Asian girlfriend Amy, along with their pal Jamal, the black dude. I've heard the term motley crew but this is the first time I've seen it thus embodied. I had to laugh. Bad idea.

In a flash the trio of vampires were ready to move on me but Rhonda stopped them with a simple hand gesture. Apparently, she wasn't done with me. The broad had a lot of questions. Where did I come from. How come I was the way I was. I tried my best to answer them, since my life depended on it. I could take Rhonda if I had to, but I knew I wouldn't survive a full assault from her buddies. I didn't know much about my condition. I told them the truth. A blood transfusion at the hospital turned me into one of the undead.

Upon hearing that, Rhonda and company laughed. They said no human could become a vampire or vice versa. We were two completely different species. I mused that over. Rhonda asked me to come with them. I declined the offer, and with speed which surprised even me, I took off. The vampires raced after me, moving at superhuman speed. Somehow, I ran even faster than they could. I returned to my dorm and didn't leave it until the next morning.

I didn't know what to make of Rhonda and her vampire friends, but I definitely didn't want to run into them again. Unfortunately, Boston-area colleges and universities are filled with supernatural creatures masquerading as students and teachers. Avoiding them was easier said than done. Little did I know that they were the least of my worries. For something else had caught my scent. It approached me in the form of a tall, dark-skinend young man, calling itself Erebus. It claimed to be an envoy of Thanatos, God of Death. It wanted my help in a coming conflict between Death and the Devil. I told him to go to Hell. Wrong answer.

Now, Erebus is hunting me. And I don't know why. So I went to the only source of information I knew. I had to risk it. I had seen vampires, werewolves and demons, along with fallen angels. Erebus scared me more than all of them put together. He was something beyond all of them. A decidedly older and more powerful order of being. So I went to Emerson College, and found Rhonda. She was playing soccer with some of her lady friends. She wasn't surprised to see me. Apparently, she and her friends had a bet going on that I'd return to them sooner or later. I apologized for taking off earlier. She laughed, and said newbies had a tendency to act without thinking. We strode through the halls of Emerson, talking.

I asked her about the vampire community. She said there were millions of vampires worldwide. All of them walked in daylight. They were normal people with families, hobbies and careers. They paid taxes. They played the lottery. They were everywhere. And most of them didn't prey on humanity. That was a relief. When I asked her about me, she told me her friends had uncovered much about what I was supposed to be in the Archives of the Vampire Nation. Apparently, I was something which wasn't supposed to exist. A living myth. Proto-Vampires had been extinct for millions of years. They were the ancestors of modern vampires. Supposedly, they were the link between humanity and the vampire species.

I took all that in. Wow. I was a walking dinosaur. Who knew? According to Rhonda, Proto-Vampires were the true immortals. Impervious to the things modern vampires feared such as stakes through the heart and beheading. Proto-Vampires could regenerate any body part, and heal from fatal wounds. Although vampires could supposedly live forever, most of them didn't make it past a few centuries or a millennium or two. Proto-Vampires were creatures of forever. They ruled the world at a time when the ancestors of humans were hairy beasts still learning to walk upright. They were invincible, challenging the ancient breeds of demons for supremacy of the world and holding dominion over it for millions of years. No one knew why they disappeared. Rhonda had a theory that the Proto-Vampires went to another dimension. I thought that possible. Where else could invincible immortal super-vampires go? That still didn't explain why Erebus was after me.

The name Erebus seemed to scare Rhonda. Apparently, Erebus was one of the ancient gods of the Greek Underworld. A former emissary of Hades, Lord of the Underworld and the subsequent emissary of Thanatos, God of Death, once he took over after Hades demise during the Twilight of the Gods. All this Rhonda had obtained from the Archives. The gal was something else. She was quite ecstatic about me and told me that the rulers of the vampire community would very much like to see the living embodiment of their revered ancestors. I wish I could take her up on her offer. But I don't think a cabale of vampires could do much against Erebus, a dark god. Besides, I didn't believe in letting anyone else fight my battles for me. So I parted from Rhonda's company. Reluctantly, she let me go.

I returned to my dormitory. I did a lot of thinking. The Lords of the Underworld wanted my help against the Crown Prince of Hell. Wow. Kinda makes me feel important, you know? As soon as I got to my dorm, I knew I wasn't alone. A tall, dark-skinned man clad in a black cloak was waiting for me. Erebus, the dark one. Emissary of Thanatos, Lord of Death. Once more he made his offer. This time, he sweetened the deal. He told me that the powers I was developing were nothing compared to what his Master could give me should I agree to join his army. On the other hand, if I refused, he promised me that even though I couldn't die, he'd make me suffer for all eternity. I thought about it. I chose the former option. Smiling, Erebus shook my hand. He said I made the right choice. Oh, well. Gotta die of something, you know? Besides, a little adventure never hurts anyone.