(12) Trevor Wallace – Dhampir

Rage. Anger, despair, grief, guilt. Especially guilt.

But you know that. I told you.

I didn’t tell you what guilt does. It eats at you, consuming you.

I thought I’d free myself of it by killing my enemies. Each one slain a bit of redemption. A lessening of my blame in Nora’s death. Our baby’s death.

No.

I cross the country. Finding the Vampyres. Butchering them. No easy death for them now. Every cut bleeds them, slowly. I find some where they rest. Capture them. Subject them to every horror I can imagine for them.

I do it for her. For our child.

Yet every pain I inflict on the bastards I feel myself. In my gut. In my mind. In my soul. It’s me I’m killing for abandoning them.

Nights of penance. Days of remorse. Sleep a dreaded thing that brings no peace.

I wander the streets. Gaunt. Hollow-eyed. Grim featured. Even those that live and work in the hidden corners, the dealers, the punks, the street people, turn away when I approach. I am the leper, the anathema, more feared now than those I hunt.

Finally I am back in the Big Easy. The city of sin that I once embraced whole heartedly. I find a flophouse. Populated by the worst of the worst. Pimps and hookers. Druggies. Petty thieves. And I am lower than any of them.

All I have left are memories of one night, one day.

And my sword. The symbol of what I am.

Killer incarnate.