Rotter World by Scott R. Baker Read Free Book Online Page A

their feeding under the guise of the pandemic. Whereas most vampires do not go more than a few hundred years before hunters tracked them down, Dravko possessed a natural instinct for survival, and lived long enough to hone his skills for hunting, fighting, and evasion until he grew to be a powerful and fearful vampire in his own right. Elena had discovered him in 1689 as a rogue prowling the countryside on the outskirts of Budapest, living off the local gypsy tribes, and had welcomed him into the fold. Dravko rewarded her generosity with unfettered loyalty, and soon became the coven keeper and her right hand man.
    Tibor’s loyalty was also secure, albeit to Dravko, who sired him back in 1812. When Napoleon had marched on Moscow, Elena’s coven followed close behind, assured that the most violent war to date would allow the best opportunities for feeding. Dravko had stumbled across Tibor hidden in a grove of trees, bleeding out from a gunshot wound to the stomach and left for dead by the retreating Russian army. Dravko had offered him a chance of salvation and immortality, and the opportunity for revenge, which Tibor readily accepted. Tibor came into his own right as a vampire during Napoleon’s winter retreat from Moscow when scores of French soldiers succumbed to his bloodlust. By the time they reached Poland, he had become the fiercest fighter in Elena’s coven.
    Less reliable was Sultanic. Elena had found him in London in 1888 after he had butchered five prostitutes in the East End, giving rise to the Jack the Ripper legend. She spent weeks tracking him down before his slaughtering brought the weight of the city’s police down on the coven. Her and Dravko had captured Sultanic shortly after the mutilation of Mary Kelly and moved him to the country. Common sense had dictated that Elena should have disposed of Sultanic to prevent any future killing sprees, but something stayed her hand. Maybe she connected with Sultanic’s Polish heritage. Maybe she understood that he directed his rage at prostitutes because he had been sired by a vampire posing as a street whore. Or maybe she empathized with the confusion of the newly-turned trying to find his way in a strange world. In any case, she had taken Sultanic under her guidance and tutored him in the ways of the vampire. In return for giving him a second chance, Sultanic devoted himself to Elena, loyally sticking with her through good times and bad. It did not get much worse than this.
    Elena had a similar situation with Tatyana, the youngest member of the coven, both in physical and vampiric age. A nineteen-year-old student from St. Petersburg, Russia, Tatyana had emigrated to America to start a better life for herself. Instead, like so many other naïve and vulnerable girls before her, she got sucked into a culture of physical and psychological abuse, first being forcibly addicted to meth, and then sent out to turn tricks to pay for her habit. One of those tricks happened to be Sultanic. Taken with her beauty, he had sired Tatyana rather than feed off her, bringing her into the coven.
    Tatyana had encountered extraordinary difficulties adjusting to her siring. Most vampires underwent incredible hardship transitioning to their new lives, often taking decades to become comfortable with their vampiric form, enhanced strength, sense of immortality, and loss of inhibitions. For Tatyana, this displacement had been intensified by the abuse she had endured. Her adjustment from human to vampire, strained enough to begin with, had been crippled by her hatred and distrust of others as well as her own sense of self loathing. Tatyana drew inward. She rarely explored her vampiric side. She preferred the company of humans over her own kind, and one human in particular. Normally such regression could be compensated for over time; however, these were far from normal times.
    Elena knew that fact better than anyone. She wondered what the Vampire Council would say, if any of them were still