Carpathian 08 - Dark Legend

Chapter One
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    Disoriented, he woke deep within the ground. The first sensation he felt was hunger. It was no ordinary hunger, but one of gut-wrenching, skin-crawling necessity. He was starving. Every cell in his body demanded nourishment. He lay there in silence while the hunger gnawed at him like a rat. It attacked not only his body, but also his mind so that he feared for all others, humans and Carpathians alike. Feared for himself. Feared for his soul. This time the darkness was spreading fast and his soul was in jeopardy.
    What dared to disturb his sleep? More importantly, had it disturbed Lucian's sleep? Gabriel had locked Lucian into the earth, centuries ago, longer than he cared to think about. If Lucian had awakened when he had, if he had been disturbed by the same movements above ground, then there was every chance he would rise before Gabriel could find the strength to stop him.
    It was intensely difficult to think with this terrible hunger gripping him. How long had he been in the earth? Above him, he sensed the sun setting. After all the long centuries, his internal clock could still feel the setting of the sun and the beginning of their time: Creatures of the night. The ground suddenly shifted. Gabriel felt his heart slam hard in his chest. He had waited too long, spent too much time trying to get his bearings, trying to clear his clouded mind. Lucian was rising. Lucian's need for prey would be as great as his own; his appetite would be voracious. There would be no way to stop him, not while Gabriel was so weak himself.
    Because he had no choice, Gabriel burst through the layers of earth where he had lain buried for so long, where he had deliberately slumbered, choosing to bury himself in the ground as he locked Lucian to him. The fight in the Paris cemetery had been a long, horrendous battle. Both Lucian and Gabriel had sustained grave wounds, wounds that should have killed them. Lucian had gone to ground just outside the sanctified burial ground of the ancient cemetery while Gabriel had sought sanctuary within it. Gabriel had been tired of the long centuries of bleak darkness, the black empty void of his existence.
    He did not have the luxury of choosing to walk into the dawn as most of his kind did. There was Lucian. His twin. Lucian was strong and brilliant, always the leader. There was no one else skilled enough, powerful enough to hunt and destroy Lucian. There was only Gabriel. He had spent several lifetimes following where Lucian led, hunting the vampire, the undead with him, relying on his battle sense. There had been no other like Lucian, none as brilliant at hunting the vampire, the scourge of their race. Lucian had a gift. Yet Lucian had finally succumbed to the dark whisper of power, the insidious call of blood lust. Lucian had given up his soul, choosing the way of the damned, turning into the very monster he had pursued for centuries. The vampire.
    Gabriel had spent two centuries hunting his beloved brother, but he had never fully recovered from the shock of Lucian's turning. Finally after countless battles in which neither was victorious, he made the decision to lock his twin in the earth for all time. Gabriel had chased Lucian throughout Europe; their final confrontation took place in Paris, a city rampant with vampires and debauchery. After the terrible battle in the cemetery, where both of them suffered horrendous wounds and loss of blood, he waited until Lucian was lying unsuspectingly in the earth, and then he bound his twin to him, forcing him to remain there. The struggle was not over, yet it was the only solution Gabriel could devise. He was tired and alone and without comfort of any kind. He wanted rest, yet he could not seek the dawn until Lucian was fully destroyed. It was a terrible fate he had chosen, dead, yet not dead, buried for all eternity, but Gabriel could think of no other way. Nothing should have disturbed them, yet something had. Something had moved the earth above their heads.
    Gabriel had no idea how much time had passed while he had rested in the earth, yet his body was starved for blood. He knew his skin was gray and drawn tight over his skeleton like that of an old man. At once, as he burst into the air, he clothed himself, adding a long, hooded cape to hide his appearance while he hunted through the city. Just that small action drained the energy from his wizened body. He needed blood desperately. He was so weak he nearly fell from the sky.
    As