"Eternity sucks when you don't have any friends," Salomon Clayborn said aloud, and the solitary vampire looked at the City of Accra, Ghana, from the promontory. Four million people called metropolitan Accra home prior to the nuclear war which engulfed North America, and the African city was largely unscathed. The United States of America and Canada had fallen, Europe was barely hanging on, and not much was known about the situation in Asia, but Africa was thriving.
While humans from the West reacted harshly to the revelation of vampires in their midst, Africans had always known that there were unnatural things disguised as ordinary people living among them. Salomon sometimes wished he'd been born in a different time, but what good is wishing anyways? Six feet two inches tall, dark-skinned, lean and athletic, Salomon was born on the island of Jamaica circa 1892. He became a vampire in 1925 and existence had been a thrill ride ever since.
Like all of the Undead, Salomon stopped aging upon becoming a vampire and would always look like a tall black man in his mid-thirties. Such are the blessings of seemingly eternal life. In the 128 years since he'd first seen the light of day, Salomon had journeyed the earth and seen much of the world. For a vampire, the world is a playground full of adventure. The nuclear war which nearly destroyed North America and pitted human against vampire could have been avoided, if cooler heads had prevailed on both sides.
Salomon had come to the City of Accra, Ghana, with one mission. He intended to kill the Elders. This wasn't an easy proposition, since the immortal female vampire triad, consisting of Lilac, Amore and Rama, was more than capable of dispatching with Salomon on his best day. The Elders are the queens of the vampire underworld. They'd been around since the time of the Pyramids. They'd been old when Julius Caesar and his Roman legions walked the earth. They'd seen empires rise and fall. The power of the Elders was redoubtable.
There are many vampire factions vying for power in North America, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and probably Asia and Oceania. With the humans rising against them, the Undead should unite but nope, they continued to look after their fiefdoms rather than mount a collective effort against the humans. Salomon knew that some vampires wanted to unite against the humans, and knew this wouldn't be possible during the current state of the affairs. The Elders were the problem.
In the human world, certain entities such as the Vatican, the CIA and the FBI, along with Interpol, are great gatherings of knowledge and power. The Elders fulfill that function for the vampire world. They have fabulous wealth, power and influence. They live in an underground city, with legions of blood suckers serving them. The Elders should direct the vampires to unite against humanity. The fact that the Elders were willing to let the vampire race go extinct pissed Salomon off royally. For this reason, the Elders had to be removed.
"What troubles you?" asked Tamara Amponsah, and Salomon looked at the young Ghanaian beauty and smiled, for she was something to behold. According to Ghanaian lore, there are women and men born with the ability to control supernatural forces, and such people are referred to as the Mistresses and Masters of the Sunsum, or witchcraft. Tall and curvy, with dark skin and long, neatly braided black hair, Tamara resembled Tennis icon Serena Williams, one of Salomon's favorite celebrities, back in the days before the nuclear fallout. One look into Tamara's eyes and Salomon knew that she was no ordinary mortal, and her beauty had nothing to do with it.
Vampires aren't the only unnatural creatures that walk the earth. There are demons, spirits, werewolves, and monsters of various lore and origin. Salomon was convinced that a lot of humans born with special abilities have at least some unnatural blood in their veins. Lots of monsters have had offspring with humans, and those half-human, half-monster entities tended to be extremely powerful, while looking perfectly human most of the time. A lot of vampires distrusted the half-breeds, and with good reason. Salomon found a kindred spirit in Tamara the witch.
"I've got the world on my shoulders," Salomon replied with a sigh, and Tamara pressed her curvy body against his while looking into the vampire's eyes. A proud son of Jamaica, and an experienced vampire warrior, Salomon is a serious player in the post apocalyptic world. The Jamaican vampire wants to see the vampire community and the other supernatural creatures unite against the humans. The planet earth is ripe for the taking. Of course, the various breeds of unnatural, human-like monsters have never seen the big picture and they've never united against their common foes.
Salomon feared that the day would come when the human legions would exterminate the vampires, and then the others would be next. Why couldn't anyone else see his damned logic? Tamara gently laid her hand against Salomon's forehead, and the vampire tensed, sensing the witch's attempt at entering his mind. Salomon briefly resisted but Tamara pressed on. Even by Sunsum ( witch ) standards, Tamara was powerful.
"Salomon, I believe in you, but you must stop with the doubt and the fear," Tamara said, only he heard her voice in his mind rather than in his ears. Salomon blinked, and Tamara smiled, removing her hand from his forehead, but not necessarily breaking her telepathic link with him. Across the nation of Ghana, and much of West Africa, women and men with Sunsum powers were feared and admired at the same time. They could read minds, or move objects with their minds. They could induce a heart attack, or heal grievous injuries with a simple touch. Salomon respected Tamara's powers. The lovely Ghanaian gal wasn't just a good friend and lover, she was also one of Salomon's greatest allies. Thanks to Tamara, Salomon finally had a chance to achieve his almighty objective. While Americans, Canadians and Europeans are at war with the Undead, in Africa, things continue on as before.
