Manhunter Revelations (13 page)

With that Serona stopped and looked at me
intensely. I could tell she was about to reveal something to me of
upmost importance. As a manhunter one of our most valuable tools is
information. The more you know about your target, the better your
chances of apprehending them. So listening to Serona as she related
this story was information gathering. Still what she had told me so
far although fantastic was stretching my realm of believability.
Yet I felt there was something to what she was telling me so I
continued to listen.

"So how do all of what you have just told me
tie in with me and your attack on me?"

"Mr. Hutchins, do you believe in the
supernatural?"

"What? You mean like ghosts and boogeymen?.
No. No I don't”

"How about other supernatural creatures like
vampires, werewolves and the such?"

This was from the unknown old woman next to
Serona. Okay right about now I was starting to believe Serona was
yanking my chain. My disbelief must have been showing on my face
because again the older woman spoke.

"For centuries mankind has had myths about
monstrous creatures which has plagued mankind throughout its
history. Some of the myths come from many different parts of the
world, yet they are strangely somewhat the same. So much so that
hasn't it ever occurred to you that there may be some truth to
those myths”

"If my knowledge of these myths are correct,
no proof has ever been found to prove the existence of such
creatures. Are you now trying to tell me they do exist?”

Serona said, "Yes Mr. Hutchins we are telling
you just that. The monsters of human myths are real”

"Wait. First please stop calling me Mr.
Hutchins. Just call me Conrad okay. Secondly it seems to me that
you all are still skirting the reason for your attack on me.
Although I am not injured, I take the client-manhunter contract
seriously. Your attack has violated that contract. However I do
want to know why and I want to know now”

"Believe me I am getting to that point. Yet
you have to let me fully explain, otherwise

none of this will make sense. So let's accept
for now that monsters are real. The most obvious question is, where
did they come from, where did they go and where are they Now?

"Hold on. All of you believe that the
creature attacking your village here is one of the monsters out of
those legends?"

"We do not know. That is one of the questions
we hope to answer once we have killed it and can examine it to find
out. What we do know however is how the monsters of humanity's
legends came about. Let's take one of humanity's most infamous and
feared monsters, Vampires. They were all reportedly created from
one Master Vampire. Yet our question is this, who made him?

Right about now all of my gears was in full
rotation, and the obvious link to this discussion fell in
place.

"Are you saying that the first vampire, or
master vampire is a result of the Atlantu genetic experiments"

"Good guess, but not quite accurate. You see
the Master Vampire was the first made vampire by a member of The
Xantu called Vaclru. Vaclru genetic mutation turned him into the
ultimate vampiric creature. All the legends of the Master Vampire's
power and his creations are nothing compared to those of his
creator, Vaclru.

"You said your people fought The Xantu over
twenty six thousand years ago. The vampire legends has only been
around for a few hundred years. Are you saying someone of The Xantu
has survived all of those years"

"Not just someone. All of the original senior
members and some of their most powerful minions has survived”

"Survived how? Are they immortal, and how
many of them are there?"

"We do not have an exact number, but based on
what the emissaries found out while on Atlantus there were around a
hundred members of The Xantu. We believe about half or more of them
survived the destruction of their island. The monsters of
humanity's legends were all created by members of The Xantu. We
know this to be true for our people have been hunting down their
creations and killing them over these past millennia. And to answer
your next question, no. None of us here or any of my people are
that old. Although our lifespan is a lot longer than humanity's, it
is nowhere even close to that. Even The Xantu do not live for that
long. They have survived throughout time by placing themselves in a
state of suspended animation and sleeping for centuries”

"Hunting them?"

"Yes. You see after my people destroyed
Atlantus and it's people, they punished themselves, not for what we
had done, but for what we had not done. Over the years prior to the
war, my people had developed vast powers. Powers, which you would
call magical, but these powers allowed my people to have a lot of
control over the living forces of nature, earth's life force. They
were responsible for caring over all living things. When they
turned their backs on the Atlantu they allowed the horror that
developed there to grow and fester to the point where their
destruction was the only answer. My people had failed in their most
sacred duty, even though such duties had not been laid out to them.
The development of their powers should have given them that
insight. My people were so mentally and emotional destroyed by what
they had to do to stop the Atlantu, that most of them stopped
utilizing their powers, believing it will cause them to use their
power to destroy again. In a few hundred years my people fell from
the graceful beings they were to a society that was one step from
becoming extinct. By this time there were only a few dozen babies
being born yearly to a population of 69,000 Muraiins. Their
population prior to the war was roughly 90,000. We would have died
out in another few centuries at the rate things were going. Then
something changed. A group of ships was discovered in the ocean off
the coast of our island. It was apparent they had been drifting for
some time and there was at least a couple of hundred humans on
board them, most dead from starvation and no water. What was more
disturbing though was the wounds a lot the bodies had on them. The
fact that the human ships was able to get that close to our island
was a shock. It was also a sign of how far our people had fallen.
Previously our mages had kept our island hidden from the humans who
roved the oceans. Any ship that came close was diverted away in a
manner the human would not recognize as being unnatural. Our veil
had fallen and we weren't even cognizant of that fact. Realizing
how far we had fallen, our Elders ordered a small group to see what
could be done to help the surviving humans on the ships. As it was
forbidden to bring humans to Muraii, the few survivors were
discreetly healed of their wounds and were taken back to the
mainland and left in an area where there were peaceful villages of
humans who would take care of them. They were found and nursed back
to health by other tribes of humans. Upon being nursed them back to
health, they told stories of how their villages and those of their
neighbors were attacked by vicious monsters of different types.
These attacks were so vicious they were forced to leave their home
by ships with very few provisions, hence the condition we found
them. These tales were so familiar to my people as they sounded
like the tales of horrors that lead to the Atlantu war hundred of
years before. This fear galvanized my people and a consensus was
reached to investigate these horror stories. A large party of
Muraiins was sent to where Atlantus had existed to see if somehow
The Xantu has resurrected their destroyed island, but that was
found to not be the case. It was then suspected The Xantu has set
up a base of some type on one of the mainlands. Over the next few
months the stories of the monster attacks were found to be true as
well as new attacks occurring. One such attack killed a party of
Muraiins who were hunting for the monsters. Yet their worse fears
were confirmed, The escaped Xantu were back and back with a
vengeance. A major council meeting was convened and a consensus was
reached that we Muraiins had failed in our duty with the Atlantu
hundreds of years before. We would not do so with the humans. The
decision was made that my people would be tasked with tracking down
and fully destroying The Xantu and it's created minions and to
protect the humans at all costs, although this had to be done
secretly as we were sure our appearance would also upset the
humans. So over the millennia we have been doing just that. To date
after all these millennia we have only been able to kill a few of
The Xantu and a few hundred of their minions and creations”

"I need to know how come your island hasn't
been discovered after all this time. There is no island called
Muraii in the pacific, nor to my knowledge has there ever been one.
Is it again hidden from view.

"As to why no one has seen our island, I
cannot at this time comment on that"

"Yet you want me to accept your story at face
value”

"Tracker" this from Major Hennings "The USOA
knows about the Muraii and these creatures and have seen the proof.
That is why my men and I have been assigned to assist the Muraii in
any way we can. Our mission is to help track down these creatures
and destroy them without alerting the population as to this threat.
The scare from the plague is still strong in a lot of people and
the thought of something like the Xantu could de-rail the whole
country. Some of the other world governments are also aware and
afraid of this threat”

I acknowledged Major Hennings statement and
turned my attention back to the women.

"So to get to why we attacked you, first tell
me, are you familiar with the legends of what powers vampires are
supposed to have?"

"Somewhat. They are supposed to kill people
by drinking their blood, cannot be killed except by a wooden stake
in the heart, or sunlight, and they sleep in coffins"

"Although some of what you say is almost
true, there are some untruths. I am now going to describe fully to
you what abilities vampires truly do have. Please bear with me.
First vampires are created by another vampire, but only by an older
one around three hundred or more years old. They are not able to
procreate like we do. Sunlight, or more accurately ultraviolet
light is deadly to them, but only if they are exposed to it for a
long period of time. A brief exposure will do no more to them then
a sunburn does to humans. The older the vampire the more resistant
they are to sunlight, although none of them so far has gotten fully
resistant to it. They do suck the blood out of humans, or for that
matter any animal. The blood of humans though is the blood of
choice to them. They do not turn into bats or any other creature,
and religious items is unsettling to them but does not kill them.
They will leave if exposed to a religious item, instead of fighting
against it. As to killing them, they can be killed by any weapon
that will kill a human, but it takes a lot more damage to do so.
Their heart does not beat as it does in any living animal or human,
but it does contain a strong presence of the vampiric virus in the
heart which uses the blood consumed by the vampire and this somehow
sustains their life force. Any type of edged weapon will kill them
if you can put it into their heart as the heart will bleed out the
virus, thus their life force cannot be sustained and they will die.
Be advised however that it will take a few hours for them to die
this way, and they can still kill during this time. They can feel
pain, so the more physical damage you can do to them, the greater
the pain, but vampires are two to three times stronger than a
human, so it will take a lot of damage to their bodies to put them
down. A very old vampire can be four to five time stronger than a
human. If shot by a firearm for example, twenty or more bullets
delivered to the torso will kill them, especially the young ones.
but again the older they are the more damage needed to kill them.
If they are injured but not killed, they will feed and heal
themselves at an alarming rate which is why damaging the heart is
the most effective way of killing them except for beheading them.
Now for the kicker. Vampires are fast. Very fast. So trying to
inflict a lot of bodily damage to one is very difficult as they
will not stand still long enough for you to do so. While you are
trying to kill them they will move so fast, that seeing them
clearly enough to shot or stab them is next to impossible. In the
meantime they will kill you mostly by tearing out your throat with
their claws and then feeding on you. Yes they do have claws where
their fingernails are and they are about an inch long in the young
ones to three inches long in the older ones. You will also have no
problem identifying a vampire because the legend that they can
assume a human persona and blend in is not true. They have hideous
facial features, and are rail thin in appearance. Their fangs are
always visible.

"Okay let's say for sake of this discussion
that what you say is true. Why hasn't evidence of them or any other
monsters existence been found or proven. I find it hard to believe
that none hasn't yet been found"

"There is a very good reason why no proof has
been found by humans. Primarily vampires or as we know them, The
Vampu, are highly intelligent and instinctive survivalists. They
know that knowledge of their existence by humans would result in
their extermination, for humans would pull out all stops to hunt
them down and kill them all. Secondly such knowledge mankind is not
yet ready for, so we have also participated in keeping the
knowledge of the existence of all earth's monsters a secret and no
more than myths. Lastly your government leaders know the truth and
agree that such knowledge must be contained, and also do what they
must to keep this knowledge secret.

On that I looked at Major Hennings who nodded
confirmation.