A shadow is cast over the moon-blanketed rooftops of a village wrapped in sleep. Then a small shadow is cast by the jerkily swooping from a liquid midnight bat. And this particular bat is, itself, the shadow of impurity, of stark depravity, of the vampire.
The vampire, a nocturnal predator who perverts the very night with his un-holy presence, steals forth to gorge himself upon the very blood of the living so that his won unnatural existence will not cease. But as the vampire sweeps a livid, questing gaze over the silent doors and windows, he realizes that he has tasted the blood of this village once too often.
“The Cross,” he mutters. “The filthy Cross. Every shabby door, every worm infested window shutter, marked with the sigh of the Cross. All of them...but one.”
The vampire has found his opportunity. With pallid fingers trembling in anticipation, he flies up and opens the defenseless shutters. He enters stealthily, in smooth gliding movements. The craving for blood seethes within him. Now, he cares little whether the vessel for his feast is an ale-fatted merchant or a maiden, ripe with desirable beauty. For a moment, he hovers over her sleeping form, savorint the promise of a quenched thirst.
Then he reaches for the gossamer nightgown, which covers a faintly pulsing throat and draws it back. It uncovers...a Cross! He recoils, uttering a sound which draws a fine line between agony and fury.
Once again, the shadow of a bat skims the villages’ rooftops. But the vampire knows it shall be the last time. He has very nearly exhausted the viallge’s supply of blood and what little remains is now shielded from him by the burning emblem of sanctity. And yet, the vampire's thirst is insatiable and must be appeased. Perhaps a deer in the forest beyond the farmland below.
But wait, why the foul blood of an animal, when the lonve figure of a man stands so foolishly below? A man who doesn’t hear the soft descent of a bat in to a nearby tree, not the supernatural transformation of tat bat into a ravening vampire. He does not hear, either, a soft, rush of air as the vampire strikes. The vampire is satisfied.