Blood Reign
Book One: Someone To Save You
Preface
In the dead of winter, the icy wind was brutal and unrelenting, peppering the travelers with sleet.
The cobbled streets of the town were bare of humans but filled with snow and ice. The whole town-square was dark except a few candle lit lamps. It was December and it was not a time to be out.
“Darling.” Tanya told her daughter Sophia, “Take my coat, wear it, never take it off.” She handed her daughter her heavy fur coat, the only possession of hers that was valuable.
“Mommy, your lips are purple.”
She just shivered and shielded Sophia’s quivering body from the cold. Tanya kept comforting her, whispering to her that she will be all right.
Tanya was a good mother but was always so stubborn. If she didn’t agree with something then she wouldn’t comply. That was why they were always on the run.
Sophia on the other hand had a good heart, one of gold. She could be one to be taken advantage of. But Sophia was smart and, even at her young age, wouldn’t be taken as a fool.
She and her mother had settled in a small, hidden town thinking that they lost their pursuers. To their luck they did. Tanya’s thirst for knowledge was neglected, so her first decision was to go back to school, start over her old life.
Her teacher, Dr. Harvey, was a good man and helped Tanya through her first few weeks of school. Tanya and Dr. Harvey come from a long line of magicians. Sophia wasn’t going to be taught magic until she was six.
Soon Tanya was tutoring three young men and Sophia-not yet two at this time- was beginning to resemble her mother, smart and beautiful.
Then came the peak of the blood reign. Vampires formed Mafia like gangs and terrorized neighboring towns and villages. The blood reign grew and some humans and older vampires hid from the gangs who were labeled, “Blood thieves”. As if Tanya did enough running, she felt no need to leave her new home.
The three young men Tanya tutored introduced her to a younger vampire who need some extreme rehab. She of course helped him and the other men and they formed the first vampire hunter group.
Sophia was close to the age of three when the blood reign reached it’s height. Several Blood Gangs made their way to Tanya’s town and were taking over for good. The Hunters did their best killing most of them but there was already a dominating gang that was difficult to get rid of.
Soon the law enforcement was tainted with vampires and the Hunters were arrested.
Dr. Harvey and Tanya found that the towns around them were no longer effected by the gangs, all the gangs wanted was to pick a town and take it over, scaring other towns to not get involved. The blood reign ended and the gangs took over one side of the town, occasionally haunting the other.
But for Tanya it was too late, she had lost so many jobs and her home was ruined by wars between rival gangs.
Now she and Sophia were exiled to the streets and the only thing left for Tanya was to give into the illness that she was plagued with and try save her daughter. “Be a good girl for Mommy,” she sighed. And Sophia never heard her mother’s voice again after that.
“Mommy!” she screamed. “Mommy, wake up! Wake up Mommy! Mommy I need you!” she started to cry, wetting her face, making her even colder.
Tanya was the only one Sophia was close to, given that she was her mother, but Tanya never had anyone else look after Sophia. It was almost like her daughter was Rapunzel; locked away in her own home for her mother fear that some one would recognize her.
Sophia pulled the coat tighter around her small frame. She was beginning to miss her mother’s calming voice and wished that they were never forced to the streets.
It wasn’t fair, she was only a young child and her mother was terribly sick. Now Sophia’s life was in jeopardy.
“Hello?” a man’s voice came from ahead. “Hello? Is someone there?”
Sophia took in a quiet breath, “Mommy?”
“Oh my…Tanya…” the man rushed to Sophia and her mother’s corpse. “Are you alright?”
“Mommy’s not waking up!” she pointed to her mother, purple and pale from the cold and her illness. “She said to get help.” She looked at the worried man.
He looked kind, gentle, and slightly familiar.
“Are you…a magician?” she asked him. Yes he was, she could feel it.
This was Dr. Harvey; he took one look at Tanya’s lifeless body then at the young girl. He had no idea his student had a daughter. “I’ll get you some warm clothes.” He reached in his bag and pulled out a blanket that was much too big for his satchel.
He wrapped her in the woolen blanket and picked her up in his arms. “What’s your name little one?” For the first time since her mother died, she felt safe and cared for.
“Sophia. Will Mommy be alright?”
He looked at her small face that resembled a china doll. “Yes darling, she’s fine.”
He took one last look at Tanya, a woman he knew for a short time before tonight. Dr. Harvey adopted little Sophia so he could teach her magic like her mother would have.
They took good care of each other and both lived happily ever after...
For…a while….
