The Most Important Rule

Rule #1: In order to be a good vampire hunter, you cannot be bitten by a vampire.

Getting bitten would be very, very, very incredibly stupid. You can't hunt vampires if you are one.

I guess you could call me stupid, then.

I touched the wound at my neck, and brought my fingers back in front of my face. I saw that there wasn't much blood; the wound wasn't too deep, then. But nonetheless it was a vampire bite and that was bad in itself.

The offending vampire was now laying at me feet, dead. Three wooden stakes - made of blackthorn, hawthorn, and buckthorn - stuck out of its chest where I had stabbed it. The last dagger had hit its heart; that was the one that had killed it.

I kicked the corpse in frustration. I wish it wasn't dead, just so I could kill it again. I mean, the damn thing bit me!

Rule #2: In order to be a good vampire hunter, you must realize the danger you are putting yourself in.

I knew that when I took this job I was putting my life in jeopardy. By fighting vampires daily I risked being killed, tortured, stabbed, dismembered, beheaded, drowned, choked, suffocated, burned, shot at, disemboweled, or mutilated. Basically all of the forms of murder. But out of all of those things listed above, there was only one thing that was worse.

And that was getting bitten.

Rule #3: When a dangerous vampire is tracked down and located, a D.a.r.c. Agent must be immediately sent to destroy it.

Vampires are parasites, and they need to be exterminated. They couldn't actually be killed - they were never actually living in the first place. However, if you did it the right way, you could destroy them.

That was my job.

For the last two years, since I was seventeen, I worked for the Demon Abolition Regime Corporation - also known as D.a.r.c. It is an organization that saves millions of innocent people - by killing off vampires, of course. The more vampires that are terminated, the more humans we save.

I was a D.a.r.c. Agent – the best Agent, actually. Despite my young age, I proved to be very talented when it came to killing off these creatures. I was kind of like a vampire assassin.

Rule #4: The D.a.r.c. Organization specializes in the hunting of vampires, and all Agents must be rigorously trained and disciplined. The existence of humankind depends on it.

Let me give you a little background information: The year is 2018 and all Hell has broken loose onto Earth. Literally.

I don't know what happened, or why, or how. All I know - all anyone knows - is that five years ago, the gates to Hell were opened. Every demonic creature was free to roam the Earth as they pleased. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, that is bad. That is very, very bad.

Here's a brief summarization:
Vampires and werewolves are created from biting humans.
Vampires drink human blood.
Werewolves eat human flesh.
Do the math.

Now that there are thousands - maybe millions - of these creatures roaming the night, there are so many more people that are being killed or turned everyday. The human population is steadily declining.

In other words, humans are going extinct.

At least we will go extinct, unless someone stops the vampires and werewolves. If someone kills them all. That's why D.a.r.c. was formed. D.a.r.c. had two subsections: one was made especially to exterminate the vampires, and the other one took care of the werewolves.

Millions of innocent humans depend on D.a.r.c. Millions of humans depend on me. I'm going to help save the humans, to save us.

I'm here to kill these bastards. Each and every one of them.

Rule #5: D.a.r.c. Agents must be exceedingly careful when dealing with vampires.

That rule was just there to ensure that no one gets bitten. It was one thing having an agent get killed by a vampire, but it was a whole different story if the agent turns into a vampire. Once you turn into one of those nasty bloodsuckers, you turn evil. End of story. There were no exceptions, no excuses. There was no such thing as a good vampire.

If an agent got bitten, then D.a.r.c. was in a lot of trouble. The agent would know where the D.a.r.c. secret headquarters are located, and how to get in; D.a.r.c. was thus susceptible to an attack from the newly-turned vampire. And vampire attacks usually don't end very well.

But anyway, I didn't need to worry about rule number four. Getting bitten wasn't a concern for me.

I was immune to vampire bites.

I was the only one - possibly in the entire world - that had this ability. It was a freak gene or something. Maybe my parents messed up when they conceived me, I don't know. What I did know was that this "gift" was the main reason why I was the best agent. I would never turn evil.

The reason why I was freaking out about my bite now was because I was dreading the pain that was about to follow. I may have been immune to the venom of a vampire bite, but I still endured the agony that was included in the process of being turned.

I picked up my cell phone and hit speed dial.

"Thez, come get me immediately," I said curtly, not even waiting to hear a 'hello.'

Robert Thez was my boss at D.a.r.c. He was the one that told me about possible vampire suspects, where to find them, and how to kill them.

"You sound panicked," Thez replied through the phone. "I thought you said that this case was going to be a piece of cake."

"I had a little difficulty," I confessed. "We have a Code Yellow."

There was a silence on the other line.

"Hang in there, kid. We'll be right over."

There was a click.

Thez was going to be mad at me, I could tell. He hated it when I was clumsy or careless when I was hunting. But the lecture I would get from him would have to wait until later. Right now, D.a.r.c. backup was on its way over here to get me back to headquarters - not so I would be safe, but so everyone else could be. I was going to be in an incredible amount of pain soon - and that was never a pretty sight. Things tended to get...messy.

Well, Code Yellow wasn't that bad. There were two other things that were worse. There was Code Blue, which meant that I or another agent was dying. And then there was Code Red. Red was...bad. Red was really bad. We'll leave it at that.

I sighed, anxious for the pain that was about to hit me in only a few minutes. I ran a hand through my messy, silvery-blond hair.

I scanned the scene before me with my midnight blue eyes. There were weapons scattered everywhere, along with splashes of blood - my blood though, not the vampire's; vampires don't bleed. The vampire's corpse was now just a pile of ash - their bodies decompose in only a few seconds after death.

Something on the ground caught my eye - it shined in the moonlight, and it looked...silver? I definitely didn't bring it here; it wasn't mine. And there was no way it could have belonged to the vampire.... Silver is painful to the touch for them; it can kill them.

So what was this silver...thing...doing here?

I walked over and picked it up. It was lighter than I expected, and it felt cool despite the warm summer air. It looked like a badge, or a pin, or something. On the front, a delicate emblem was engraved: it was an unrecognizable symbol, or a word in some unknown language. It looked like it could be the icon of some group or organization. Other than that little detail, though, I couldn't tell what the hell it was.

What was more troubling, though, was where it could have come from.

Who brought it here? No one besides me or the vampire was here - and this old alleyway was all but abandoned completely, so there couldn't have been anyone else roaming around here. Not anyone normal, at least.

Unless there was...no. Impossible. There couldn't be any other vampires around. Vampires work alone - they're all independent, friendless, heartless creatures. It was unheard of for a couple of vampires to even be in the same room together without attacking one another.

Besides, what would a clan of vampires possibly do? What could be their motivation?

...Perhaps they were trying to take down D.a.r.c.

A chill went down my spine as that thought came to mind. D.a.r.c. was the number one cause of deaths for all vampires. If anyone was going to destroy D.a.r.c., their first task would be to take down the best D.a.r.c. Agent.

Me.

I shook my head. No, this is insane. I'm probably just suffering from some side effects from the vampire bite. My loss of blood must be causing me to be delusional. I'm throwing this whole thing out of proportion. I mean, it's just a badge, right?

This whole thing just wasn't possible. If it was, then that would mean that I was lured here. That the vampire I just killed was only bait in order to get me alone, in a desolate, empty alleyway.

It can't be. There was no way... There was no possible way in hell that this could be a...

"A trap?" said a deep voice from behind me, as if he had read my mind.

Rule #6: In order to be a good vampire hunter, you must never get caught.