The Sorcerer's Scourge by Brock Deskins

the crowd.
    “Time to start the real party!” Eldon shouted, his face covered in blood and flashing his fangs with a hiss.
    It took a full two seconds for the shock of what was happening to register in the minds of the mortals. The ballroom erupted in shrieks of terror as the men and women scrambled for the exits. Most people headed for the entrance from where they had entered only to find Filip and Jacinth blocking their egress.
    The two vampires cast aside their masks and tore into the press of living flesh with their fangs and unnaturally sharp claws. It was chaos as the terrified mob tried to backpedal against those pressing at them from behind. Many of the men wore slender swords more for decoration than defense, but brought them out anyway.
    One man managed to slip his blade between the press of bodies and stabbed Filip deeply in his chest near his right shoulder. With a hiss born more of anger than injury, Filip grabbed the wrist attached to the offending, weapon-bearing hand and snapped it with contemptuous ease. He then pulled the man close and tore out his throat with his fangs before flinging him aside and tearing into a woman who could do nothing but scream until his claws silenced her forever.
    Seeing only death in that direction, the horrified crowd shifted like a school of fish and made for the glass doors that emptied into the gardens only to find Karla and Celina waiting and blocking their escape. The two vampiresses tore into the crowd with gales of sadistic laughter, reveling in the smell of blood and fear permeating the room.
    Landrin could only watch the slaughter unfold as he battled his own nature. The smell of blood spiked an almost irresistible desire to feed and take part in the carnage. A body slammed into him and someone clung to the front of his doublet. He looked down and saw the woman he had tried to warn away looking up at him.
    “Please help me!” she begged with eyes wide in terror.
    Landrin started to shake his head helplessly, but with a force of will, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards a servant’s door obscured in a shallow alcove. Several people saw Landrin open the near-hidden passage and piled in behind him in hopes of escaping the nightmare come alive.
    Landrin pulled his small group through narrow passages that eventually emptied into a large kitchen. He did not know whether to yell at the frightened staff to run or if they would be safer staying where they were. Seeing the terrified look on the faces of the nobles, most chose to run despite being oblivious as to the cause of the screams coming from the ballroom.
    Landrin picked passages at random, guessing where a door might lead them outside. His efforts were finally rewarded as they burst out of a small side door into an herb garden. An ornate, wrought iron fence with a small gate leading to the streets lay just a dozen yards away. Just before the group reached the gate, Eldon seemed to drop out of the black sky and landed in front of Landrin, blocking their escape.
     “Delivering me a treat personally are you, Landrin?” the elder vampire asked mockingly.
    Eldon grabbed the woman’s free hand, pulled her closely, and buried his fangs into her neck. Landrin could only watch helplessly as her eyes looked to him beseechingly until they closed, never to open again. The other men and women screamed in horror and retreated in different directions. Some ran alongside the outside of the mansion while others fled back inside the way they had come.
    Eldon casually dropped the woman’s lifeless body to the ground. “Come, it is time to return home.”
    Landrin looked at the dead woman for a moment then followed his master home.
     
    ***
     
    Having received a magical summons by Prelate Howarth, Paladin Samone and her arm of Solarian’s Light rode through the night and arrived in Brightridge early in the morning of the terrible attack. Prelate Howarth personally led her and her companions into the cold, underground