Blood Feud

Let me begin by saying a few words about the work you have just opened. Whether you believe the events described here in to be fact or fiction is immaterial. I have learned, in my immeasurably short life, that there are millions of events, just like these, that take place everyday, while the rest of the world sleeps. People are killed in foreign countries by the hundreds of thousands and most of the world barely registers the loss. Why should America be any different? If you dislike the idea that humanity is not in control of it’s own destiny, that something dark haunts the alley you walk past on your way home from work every night, then by all means, please, lay this book aside and return to your life none the wiser.

For those of you still reading, allow me to introduce myself: My name is Joshua Caine, and I am thirty-three years old, at the time of this writing, and it is the year two thousand-four, and I am far more than I seem. I am five feet and ten inches tall, and my deep brown hair falls just below my chin. I have been told I am not unhandsome, though my nose and lips are slightly larger than I think they ought to be. My build is what could be described as lean, though I’m even just on the scrawny side of that, not exactly what you could call intimidating. Very little about me is exceptional, except perhaps my eyes which are a vibrant royal blue and have a habit of glowing brightly when shadowed, and flaring brilliantly when I am angry.

Anyone who has looked inside a bookstore in the last ten years has seen, or heard of, books of this nature. Unbelievable flights of fiction seemingly written from a first-person perspective by a creature sane people encounter only in movies and literature. I ask no more of you than the authors of those novels. Read, be entertained for a while, and move on. Go on believing in only what you see and hear. That is the way it ought to be.

For those of you who have not yet skipped ahead to chapter one, let me elaborate on my condition. I am what Eastern Lore defines as a Dhampir. In short, I am the mortal offspring of a human mother and a vampire father. There are animated movies and major motion pictures detailing the specifics of this condition, but they all merely scratch the surface.

“How could this happen?!” you may ask yourselves, and in essence, the very notion is impossible. The chances of something like this taking place, much less carrying to term, and nevermind living to adulthood, are astronomical to say the least. Every once in a while though, lightning does strike twice.

In the interest of artistic integrity, I have changed nothing; not names, not places, not the events that occurred. I recount only what I witnessed, and what I could convince others to contribute. As will become obvious, very few contributions could be collected, though the story is complete none-the-less.

J. C.