Ted Smith checked the sun shining down from directly overhead before stepping into the shadows of the old building. He paused inside the room, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. Rays of light came through holes in windows and walls. Ted picked the stairway out of the darkness. He reached around and drew his sword from the sheath on his back. He held the sword in front of him, his ears tuned to an almost-preternatural sharpness.
At the foot of the steps, he lowered low-light goggles over his eyes. He picked the first zombie out of the gloom. He scanned around, picking out four more. The first one "saw" him. He moved quickly and decapitated it with a swift cut. The undead body fell bonelessly to the floor. Four more quick movements and four more of the zombie Servants lay still on the ground.
This brought the Hunter to a door. He could see dull light coming fro under the door. He removed his goggles and pushed open the door.
No zombies awaited him. He scanned the largely-empty room and was surprised to find nothing guarding the coffin inside. Swallowing his unease, he stepped to the side of the coffin and sheathed his sword. He pulled a wooden stake and hammer from his belt. Holding them both in his left hand, he gripped the edge of the lid with his right.
He lifted the lid, surely read for anything. Except for what he saw.
The face of Ashley Tillman looked asleep. She had been missing for only a couple of weeks, barely enough time to turn a human into a vampire. He looked over her naked figure, searching her soft flesh for the telltale signs of vampirism.
He gently turned her head from side to side, noting no marks on her throat. There were also no marks on her bare breasts with their stiff pink nipples, and none under her arms. He adjusted his stiffening member and continued his search. His hands moved over her stomach and past the soft blond hair of her pubic mound. He gently pushed her thighs apart and there they stared up at him like twin pinpricks, the seeming spider bites that were the marks of the vampire's bite. As he gazed at the first proof of Ashley Tillman's transformation, his nose wrinkled at the not unpleasant scent of arousal. His eyes spotted the glistening fluid that matched the smell. His eyes caught movement and he found himself looking into her sparkling green eyes. He was frozen, staring fixedly, into those eyes, when every alarm system in his body went off.
He couldn't pull himself out of the trance. Then something marble-hard struck the back of his neck and all was darkness.
Ted woke without opening his eyes, his head pounding. He felt his hands and feet tied down and a stack of blankets beneath his naked rear end and back.
The accented voice was thick with the flavor of the Balkans. "Go ahead, my darling. Open your eyes. I know you are awake."
Ted opened his eyes and peered up at the bright light in the dark ceiling. He could sense the presence of several figures gathered around him. His eyes were drawn to the foot of his makeshift bed, where a solitary figure stepped into the light.
She was short and petite, pale with jet black hair that hung straight to a slight flare at her hips. She stood calm and completely nude. Ted was immediately and obviously aroused. A still, small voice in his mind noticed that he had reached a size that he had never achieved. It would have been impossible not to touch himself had his hands not been tied. He could feel the pull of the ropes as he tried, just to relieve the pressure.
The black-haired woman smirked at him. "I am Christiana." She visibly thrilled at the recognition in his eyes. Christiana had been a Croatian princess in life, who had lived as a vampire since the ninth century. As her longevity suggested, she was exceedingly hard to kill, and had left a long and accomplished line of Dark Hunters dead in her wake.
Christiana waved another forward. "I believe you already know Ashley."