True Cross

The distant crackle of thunder and rolling clouds indicated a storm was descending on the town of Winchester, the occasional flash of lightning pulling back the veil of inky blackness that currently held the town in its grasp, allow only the briefest glimpse of the historical site and its former glory. Considered isolated from modern society, Winchester was famed for its historical roots and way of life; a peaceful community stuck to the old ways. Yet now, at first glance, it was deserted and void of all things living; only the faintest of groans being heard in the distant darkness. Corpses of men, women and even children now walked the streets as if they were alive, absentminded and aimlessly wandering in search of something to sate their endless hunger. The entire town had been turned into a specific type of ghoul known as Draugr; soulless husks of their former selves at the service of whatever vampiric being turned them. However, they were far from mindless. They held some intelligence from their former life, but any sense of morality had been stripped away; their only focus was getting their next meal.

These creatures that now haunted the streets had been roaming for hours, tearing at the remaining populace that didn't have a chance to flee, but such repulsive and pitiful savagery was about to come to an end. Dozens of crucifixion stakes, appearing as nothing more than silver streaks, shot out of the darkness in a tight cluster of steel before breaking away from one another in mid-flight, forming several groups of three, which each found their place embedded deep into rotted flesh; impacting with enough force to launch the several of the decaying bodies from their feet and into the side of nearby stores and vehicles; crucifying each of them to the surface as if it were some cruel, gory display. The dead no longer moved; each having the third stake of each group piercing their skulls, putting a sudden and abrupt end their current, miserable existence.  

A sudden explosive storm of gospel pages replaced the previous moaning as they rushed through the street from the direction the stakes flew froth from, the golden light radiating from their slender forms forcing the darkness to give way to a lone, female figure walking amongst the grisly scene. The modified habit she wore indicated that she was a Nun, though it was obvious she wasn't of the local church. She followed the pages at a steady pace, letting them hold the night at bay and illuminate a path toward the church at the end of town; crucifying any Draugr that dared cross her along the way. Very few were left by the time she reached this point in her purification of the place; when the sun would arise in the next hour the full extent of her work would be seen. The light would reveal corpses staked to nearly every structure that made up the entire village.

Eventually making her way across the town to the church, a final Draugr came into her view as it stumbled out of the church doors; the arm of the local priest locked between its jaws. A look of disgust replaced the originally blank slate that sat on the Nun's features as the mindless creature fell to its knees and began tearing at the flesh, otherwise ignoring the golden pages swirling above and woman standing before it. She pitied these lowly creatures to some degree, having lost their humanity and freedom of choice; forced to obey even after death the best thing to do was to put them out of their misery. Gripping three more of her stakes from the satchel on the back of her waist, the mindless husk looked up from its meal just in time to see the woman's arm swing forward in a blur, releasing three more silver streaks from her in between fingers; crucifying it to the door it had just emerged from before it could react.

The gospel pages that swirled above suddenly dropped down and sped toward the church, blowing the doors off of their hinges before swarming the inside in a large spiral. It disbanded, the pages nailing themselves to the walls as Veronica entered the defiled place of worship. The gruesome scene was to be expected. The torn apart bodies of the clerical staff once working here were strewn about as if it were the mess of a child, and satanic and otherwise unholy symbolism was painted on the walls using the very blood of those murdered. Luckily, any effect they might have caused were negated thanks to the barrier erected by her pages but the sight disturbed her. Even more unsettling was the large number of undead, but the odd lacking of the vampire who made them. Perhaps this one caught wind of her work in the town below and bailed while he had the chance, but from the looks of things he had been gone long before she ever arrived.

After taking in the surroundings with a scowl, the Nun made her way directly to the alter and faced the large cross on the wall behind it. A hidden compartment the cross was covering had been forced opened, the part of the cross covering it having literally been ripped off, whatever was inside having been taken by the vampire that fled. She had hoped otherwise. Immediately reaching into her satchel as her cellphone began to ring out with gospel music, she flipped it open.

"Sister Corvis, please tell me you have good news?" The voice over the phone asked, the tone being one of worry and slight distress.

"The Draugr have been dealt with, but from the looks of it the vampire skipped town long before I ever arrived. The staff didn't stand a chance either..."

"Regrettable, they were good people. What about that?"

"The compartment it was stored in was forced open. The blessings weren't strong enough to repel the vampire, or even slow it down from the looks of things." She paused a moment, glancing around the desecrated church with keen eyes. It wasn't guarded nor was it protected, it wasn't suited to defend against attacks from any kind of supernatural being, let alone something that could tear humans in half with its bare hands. "Matthew, you want to tell me what in Gods name your division was thinking when allowing "Muninn" to be placed here?"

A long silence fell over the line before the voice picked up again, replacing the voice of concern with a much more professional, serious tone. "The Muninn was found some time ago by the members of Winchester Church. Due to needing the authorization from the Pope to dispatch the Reliqua to recover it, we've had to hold off on collecting it until it was verified as authentic, so we insisted that the Priest hide the object in a safe place until such time authorization was granted. If it was truly forced open then we're dealing with a vampire that's not of ordinary standard. An unforeseeable incident."

"Once again your failure to take proper precautions discredit not only you, but the church itself. We've lost a goddamn relic, Matthew, to a vampire no less! This alone gives credit to its authentication. Do you have any idea what kind of an uproar this will cause? We can't have the church look as if its slipping because of your carelessness!"

"Watch your tone, sister. Situations like this are exactly why you and the True Cross exist. I plan on you doing your job by finding this abomination before he can figure out the use of Muninn. A person with Muninn has the capability, as the stories tell, to locate objects the holder most desires - regardless of their origin or make. If the vampire can utilize its ability, then this insect has grown from an annoying mosquito into a much more frightening beast. Do you understand?"

"Imo."

Veronica flipped the phone closed, placing it back into her satchel. God that man was arrogant, she was amazed as how he even rose to his current position in the church. They had worked together before, but it was only due to him being the overseer of that particular mission, as was the same with this one. The Nun turned, looking out the doorway into the night sky as the sun's rays began to break over the horizon. The bodies of the undead left in the town would burn to ash once the sun hit them, similar to their vampiric masters, leaving no hard evidence that they were ever there.

The challenge she had to face now was finding this mystery vampire before things got even more out of control than they already were, especially since it now held something that could grant it the location of anything it wanted, so long as it existed; weapons that could be used to overthrow even the church if they were allowed to be found.

She would not allow it.

A swing of her arm called forth the pages that were once latched onto the surrounding walls, now coming together around her in a violent swarm, obscuring her from view within their golden embrace before they all shot forward, exploding out of the doorway and into the early dawn in a large golden streak.