Lord of Origins

Chp 7 - A Little Help Wouldn't Hurt

A knock sounded on the office door and one of the elders close to the door stood up to enquire who was there so he could know if he should send them on their way if it was not something important. He wondered who it was as it was common knowledge that no one was supposed to disturb the leader when he was in session with the elders.

“Yes?” he said as he opened the door to a young lady standing outside the door with her hands raised to knock on the door again.

She wiped her hands nervously on her apron when the elder glared at her.

“Oh, I am sorry for the interruption, elder. The leader said I should inform him when we are done so I…”

“What about?” the man cut her off.

“It's okay, Aaron” Michael called from his seat “I told her to knock when they are through. Let her come in ” Aaron nodded and went back to his seat “Is it ready then, Solara?”

“Yes, leader,” the lady said with a slight bow.

“Excellent,” he said with a smile then looked over at Damianus “My leader, refreshments are ready. I am sorry that we couldn’t entertain you as lavishly as you deserved as we were not expecting you. We would rectify that in no time though but for now, our humble fare is ready for you” 

“I have learnt in the past minutes that I got here that you are the king of understatement, Michael. I am sure that what you call humble fare would be fit for the finest of kings”

The elders laughed and even the lady smiled.

“It was as if the strange leader could read minds,” she thought. They have prepared quite a grand banquet indeed.

Damianus smiled to himself as he heard her thoughts clearly in his mind. He almost replied to her in her mind but he didn’t want to scare her so he looked at Michael “Let’s hold off on that first”

Michael nodded and dismissed the lady.

“So, about this Big Chaos…” he let his words trail off.

“Yes, the greatest plague that ever befell our people” Michael readjusted in his seat and explained their situation to him.

With the elders adding some tidbits once in a while, they painted for Damianus a season in the Vampires’ history that was the worst. How they were staked, ashed and obliterated from one end of the world to the other.

“Everywhere the moon shone, everywhere our type thrived was turned to hell for them,” Aaron said with a dejected sigh.

Even though they have all heard the stories many times and told them many times over, there was no time when the mention of that period had never thrown a gloomy mood over them.

The elders were all older than Michael, the capability was the criteria for the appointment of a clan leader in the New Order clan and they were all there to support him and help him out with all they could.

They explained to Damianus how much damage the Big Chaos caused to them.

“Even after it was all over, a lot of the elders had been impacted so much with that dreadful spell that most of them got ashed and died in droves in no time” Gregory added, “Isn’t that so, Bo?”

Bo, the man with the scraggly goatee nodded solemnly “That is true. I remembered that my ma couldn’t talk about that time without crying. All of her siblings were ashed in no time, my father included. Vampires were dropping off like fleas. It was so degrading. And it all started with that dratted wizard and his blasted spell”

“No, it started with his woman and those idiots who wronged her. It was so dreadful to learn that many of us were wasted just like that because some idiots couldn’t curb their impulses”

“What woman?” Damianus asked and they told him about the legend story of Ashra, the woman whose death spelt doom for the supernaturals.

Damianus was amazed after their explanation. He wondered how one person could be responsible for the deaths of millions of his people.

Anger surged in him and he wished he could lay his hand on the wizard right then. He knew how powerful the Niorco spell could be. Atomic bombs that he had read of in the book were nothing compared to what Niorco could wreak in any universe.

He was more saddened when he traced back the time that the havoc happened and he remembered it was the time before his awakening.

“So, relationship had turned sour between you and others?” he asked referring to the witches, werewolves and demons.

Michael nodded.

“That was wrong. It was not supposed to be so” Damianus thought and he vowed to himself he would make sure that the situation was rectified.

“I am happy to meet you, Michael, leader of the New Order clan and the elders of course,” he said in a serious tone. “I believe the blight was not so great that these people I have seen are all the vampires left in the world, could it be?”

"Not at all, leader" Michael replied "Because we mostly live in seclusion now, one of our rules was not to do anything that could attract attention to us. Another secluded clan lives in Britain. They are originally from Italy. Then another is currently in America"

"Hmm, it amazed me that our kind would agree to do such. We have always been known as headstrong with our lack of fear of any other entity. For everyone to fall in line like that is nothing short of a miracle" he contemplated then looked up when he felt the elders looking at each other.

Damianus frowned slightly "They all fell in line, didn't they?"

"Ah" Michael spread his hands, face up, on the table as if reading out the answers "You see, as time goes on and new leaders were chosen, some of us have forgotten the severity of what showing off caused ages ago. Some have gone rogue, mingling openly with the humans. No clan, no rules"

Damianus smiled as he rubbed his upper lip with his finger in thought "It would have been too good to be true if some had not strayed from the fold, of course" then he leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

"Enough of the business talks for now. I am here to stay and we will have ample time to dissect what to do for us. But for now…" he swivelled his chair around to face the elders then turned slightly to encompass everyone in the room.

"I will need a little help with navigating this world of yours. I have not done so well on my own so far" he said with a smile as he thought of the girl he had pissed off.

Yes, though it was not deliberate, it could be quite inconvenient if he went about pissing people off like that. He had to rectify that.

"So, how does this work?" He asked them in general.

They explained to him.