Death's Favorite Soldier Ch. 02

Hello, there. Jefferson Dean here. A big and tall young black man who became a Proto-Vampire and a worker for Thanatos, the God of Death shortly after I began my education at Northeastern University in the city of Boston. Yeah, that's my story in a nutshell. A lot has happened to me since then. For starters, I've discovered much about the world and about myself. Vampires. Werewolves. Demons. Fallen angels. Monsters. Genetically enhanced superhumans. They're all real. Living right here among us. It's eerie, but true.

It all began when I was taken to the hospital for a blood transfusion after I nearly died during a lab accident in the bio-engineering laboratories at Northeastern University. Thanks to that lame-ass professor Stanwick, I nearly died. Fortunately, they took good care of me at the hospital. A transfusion of blood from a mysterious source cured all my ills. I was fine once more. Hell, I was better than fine. I was amazing. I had become a being of superhuman strength, speed and resilience. An immortal creature the likes of which this planet hadn't seen in millions of years. The ancestor of modern vampires. I had become a Proto-Vampire.

Shortly after that, I attracted the attention of various powerful forces. A beautiful black female vampire named Rhonda approached me while I was studying at the Boston Public Library. And she wasn't alone. She and her fellow vampires were curious about me. They sensed that I was like them, yet different. It was Rhonda who showed me the world of the vampires. Modern vampires lived right here among humans and humanity never suspected them. They were college students, athletes, doctors, lawyers, cab drivers, cops, firefighters, politicians, writers, entertainers, etc. You name it, they were it.

I was shocked by all this, but it soon made a lot of sense to me. According to Rhonda, I was a severe anomaly. Unlike what's shown in movies and television shows, humans couldn't become vampires. And vampires couldn't become humans. Humans and vampires were two completely different species genetically. They simply happened to look a lot alike. She very much wanted to know how in hell I became a vampire, and not just any vampire. A Proto-Vampire. One of the legendary ancient ones.

I very much wanted to know who could have given me the Proto-Vampire blood at the hospital. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to figure it out. You see, a dark force by the name of Erebus, one of the ancient gods of the Greek Underworld, had come calling. He approached me in the guise of a tall, dark-skinned young man who looked so much more innocent than the dark entity which I knew him to be. The dark god Erebus claimed to be an Emissary of Thanatos, God of Death. Apparently, the God of Death was at war with the Lords of Hell, led by none other than the fallen archangel Lucifer Morningstar, the Crown Prince of Hell himself. When Thanatos refused to join Lucifer's crusade to tear down Heaven, the Devil declared war on him. These days, Thanatos was recruiting powerful allies in his war against Lucifer. I guess that's why he called for me.

Erebus took me to the dark Underworld, where I met Thanatos, the god of Death himself. The Underworld was definitely not what I expected. I expected a dark, gloomy place where the souls of the dead wandered aimlessly, taunted and tortured by demons and monsters. Instead the Underworld looked just like any other major western city in the twenty first century. The sky was blood-red but whatever. It was just a gigantic metropolis. Bigger than any city I had ever seen. In this mega urban area, men and women went about their business, as did various monsters and creatures. They all seemed pretty busy. I saw troops of people and non-people marching in the streets. Yes, it appeared that the denizens of his magnificent city were going to war. In the skies, I saw winged demons and dragons soaring, along with creatures I did not recognize.

Erebus told me to get ready. Then, he gripped my shoulders and we were flying into the sky. I gasped as I beheld the city below. It was much bigger than I thought, especially seen from such a great height. Magnificent, and scary. I asked Erebus where he was taking me. He told me he was taking me to the heart of Thanatopolis, the City of Death. We flew for hours, though how time moved in such a strange dimension was beyond me. Finally, we arrived at a tall office building. Demons, monsters and other strange creatures guarded the gates, as did dead men and dead women bearing strange weapons. They let Erebus and I get inside. We were taken to the Office of Thanatos immediately.

The Office was vast, but it was the being who occupied it which fascinated me the most. Simply put, Thanatos was not what I expected. A tall, good-looking man in his early forties with alabaster skin, long black hair and pale green eyes. He wore a black leather outfit, long black boots and a lightweight black cape. He looked quite good, and was dressed in an almost theatrical way. Yet his face was grim and his eyes shone with a cold intelligence. Thanatos's eyes bore into me and at once I knew him to be a terrible and powerful being. He seemed to scan me. Whatever he discovered seemed to please him, for he smiled.

Thanatos walked up to me and shook my hand. He smiled at Erebus, and said he was right. I was indeed one of the Proto-Vampires. My curiosity was piqued. Gathering my courage, I asked the Lord of Death what he knew about Proto-Vampires. Thanatos eyes lit up, and he said the ancient vampires were the most dedicated Death Dealers he ever knew. Magnificent beings they were. A race of immortals who were beyond life and death. They could have rivaled the gods in time, if they hadn't vanished to an unknown dimension before they reached the apex of their evolution. The modern vampires were pale shadows of their ancestors. I felt my shoulders slump. I had heard this before. No one knew where the Proto-Vampires had gone, not even the God of Death.

Thanatos answered my other questions eagerly. He told me about Lucifer, and the terrible things the Devil had done. Lucifer planned to conquer Heaven, destroy Yahweh and take the souls of every living human to Hell. He wanted to rule the universe. Thanatos opposed him. He believed in a balance of power. He couldn't let Lucifer take out Yahweh and His Angels because that would upset the balance of power in the cosmos. I considered that. Sounds true enough. Thanatos smiled. He said he was happy to have me on his team. I shrugged. I didn't know too much about Thanatos and Erebus, but I knew anyone who was opposed to letting the Devil take down Heaven and conquer the world of humans couldn't be all bad. I shook Thanatos hand. He welcomed me into his army. He promised to help me develop my powers to their full extent and a permanent post on Earth's power structure after we took out Lucifer and his armies. I could live with that. And that's how my adventures began.