Valhalla

"'All under him will be cast to his aspersions, and as he rises his might, none above him shall triumph.'

Van Pyre looked down at the parchment. It was an old writing, but it made sense. 'A prophecy. That's clear. But who's the person being referenced?' Van muttered rapidly, as if clearing himself of the words.

'Random garbage.' Alina rolled her eyes playfully at him.

The two were inside a study, an ancient rock cavern, torn out of the Earth long ago to make way for a vampire cult. Long storied and elite, the cavern stood about two-hundred-feet-tall. It was torch-lit and connected to an ancient manor, underneath the prestigious dwelling.

Alina stood five-foot-seven, an alacritous and catty female vampire, with dark swaying hair and a uniquely perfect face. Her flirty features bounced off the cavern walls, glowing with the esteemed quality of an elite woman in her early thirties. Young and joyful, she believed in Van's ability to complete the mission.

Van towered over her; his six-foot-eleven frame occupying most of the desk he was hunched over. More remarkable than hers, but slightly aghast, Van's face seemed to emanate a powerful, God-like being crouched over the prey that was his life. Bulging biceps revealed from a tight black tee shirt with a white logo on it, and a scowl of admiration was escaping his sneering lips.

Van set the parchment down with a slight clink and referenced the tattered writing. 'A god's choice. Whoever he is.'

He motioned to the study exit, as Alina laughed and nodded at him. They had much to do and looking up scraps from the past to prove something to the elders of Valhalla, the vampire cult that secretly governed Earth, made his blood boil slightly. Van was to report back to them and tell them what he had learned. Another errand. Something that he had been getting fed up with for a very long time. He licked his lips complainingly, as he scowled at the door and started going towards it.

'They have a lot to learn.'

Alina's footsteps clacked behind him on the stone floor as they walked briskly towards the room full of fourteen waiting Valhalla council elders.

Alina was done screaming. The return to the elders had not gone quite well. For the elders, at least. Shaking and covered in blood, Alina stared down at the mutilated corpses of the formerly living elder leaders of the vampire cult. 'W...Why d...did you do it so bad? They were j... just telling you what to do!'

Van licked his bloody fangs playfully. 'O, well you know how that goes. They had it coming, anyway.'

Van set down a blood-stained killing axe and calmly surveyed his work. Bloody body parts were everywhere, a few chunks of recently living vampire leaders still jiggling slightly in strange protest. Blood was on the room like flowing wine, and Van himself was chuckling as the dripping blood smacked on the stone floor beneath him.

His wild, fire-lit eyes looked into Alina's. 'It's mine now. Everything is. You don't need to be concerned like that anymore.'

Alina took his hand and gasped again, tears still streaming down her face from seeing the council of leader vampires ripped apart by Van Pyre's rage. No one could do that to them. Except him. And no one would get away with it, either. Another certain skill of Van's during his rise up the vampire hierarchy...

'They're dead.' Alina sobbed into his chest. Old mentors and wise leaders departed from her life in front of her eyes, their last dying breaths fading away as she remembered her younger days learning under them and playing with their children.

'It had to happen. It was always coming.' Van straightened up and eyed her reassuringly, his bulging chest cradling his perfect features in the twilight gleaming in from the ornate windows above.

His eyes shifted to the moon beyond, a haunting menace taking over his handsome features as a sense of accomplishment swept over his powerful body.

The parchment occurred to him one more time, as he shrugged to himself and laughed wryly at the ancient line. 'Might rises, after all,' he quipped dryly.

Glinting over the scene, Van's eyes locked on the elders' console taking up the far wall, infinite power pulsing from its vast screens.

There was much to do."