Kai Drakon's Arc

Chapter 3 of 30

Kai left the tavern at first light. Azure walked him to the edge of her pasture and pointed to a patch of trampled grass near the fence line. "Last one was here," she said. "Two nights ago." She stayed at the gate. He went in alone. The goat was still where it fell. Kai crouched beside it. He expected scorched ground. He expected claw marks wide as his hand. He found neither. The grass under the carcass was green. No burn. No drag trail. The animal lay on its side like it had folded down to sleep. He lifted the goat's head. Two clean holes punched through the throat, set close together. No tearing. No feeding wound in the belly. The hide was intact. He pressed a thumb to the chest and got nothing back. The body was light. He turned it over and found no blood on the grass beneath it. None on the fence. None anywhere. Kai sat back on his heels. A predator that drained and left the meat was not a wolf. Not a big cat. Not a bear. He had tracked all three. He ran through what he knew and stopped on the one answer that fit. He did not want it to be that answer. He walked back to town and found Kael at the tavern's side door, sharpening a short blade on the step. Kael was his oldest friend in Mosswood, half-lynx, quiet in the way that made people underestimate him. Ire leaned in the doorway behind him with her arms folded, tail flicking once against the frame. She did not say hello. She watched Kai's face and her eyes narrowed. "Two holes in the throat," Kai said. "No blood. Meat left." Kael stopped the blade mid-stroke. "Say the word." "Vampire." Ire pushed off the doorframe. "On Azure's fence line?" "Yes." Kael slid the blade home. "You were going out tonight thinking it was a wolf." "I was." "You'd be dead by moonset." Kael's voice dropped, careful. "Silver on the point. Stake in the pack. Don't let it speak first. You know the rest." "I know the rest." Ire stepped closer. "They hunt where they've fed. It'll come back to that pasture." Kai nodded. That was what he had been afraid of. Azure lived a hundred paces from that fence. He found her by the well behind the tavern. She was drawing water and looked up when his boots hit the flagstones. He did not soften it. "It's a vampire," he said. "Not a beast. It'll come back for you before it comes back for the goats." Azure set the bucket down slowly. Her hand stayed on the rope. She did not speak. "You're not sleeping at the farm tonight," Kai said. "You're staying in the loft. I'm sitting the pasture." She looked at him a long moment. Then she nodded once. He had his creature. Now he had to keep her alive through the dark.