During the whole of a dull, dark, and rainy day in the winter of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the sky, he had been riding alone, on horseback (well not horseback, but a ’67 Mustang Fastback, so close enough), through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found himself within view of the remains of the House of Usher. His lights illuminated the path before him as he drove through the night, the rain swept to the side by the wiper blades on his windshield. His eyes scanned the ruins of the house in front of him, what had once been a grand house belonging to the family of Usher.

It hadn’t taken long for word to reach his ears of the house’s story, of a man who returned to this place to visit friends from his childhood, only to bear witness as they both died in front of his eyes. But that wasn’t what interested Micah in that moment. He was more interested in the story that came after the house collapsed. According to the sole surviving eyewitness, Madeline Usher had risen from her grave, breaking down a thick door and draining the life of her brother. Sounded right up his alley.

He slowed the car down to a stop, his hand falling to the weapon by his side. Even though nothing moved in his high-beams, he knew something was out there. Every instinct he had told him that something was out there, and in twenty years, he had learned to trust his instincts. Opening the door, he stepped out of the car, but left it running with the lights on, and flicked the collar of his jacket up, trying to ward off as much of the rain as he could, though that wouldn’t be much. He reached into his car and withdrew his weapon, his favorite weapon, and held it tightly in his hand. The polished wood of the handle was smooth and familiar in the palm of his hand and served to reassure him that he had the advantage; that he would be victorious in the coming battle.

The rain continued to pelt at him, plastering his dark and shaggy hair to his skull as he stepped over the ruined threshold of the house, and despite the water in his eyes, he continued to search for the girl he knew was there. As his steps lead him through what would have been the grand hall, he found his thumb unconsciously twitching for the hammer on the weapon in his hand, his finger itching to pull the trigger. His patience was rewarded, however, when he saw what many would not believe, but was, in his line of work, a rather normal sight.

It was a young woman, no older than thirty, looking up at the clouds and ignoring the rain as she sat in a large open coffin. If she knew that Micah was there, which he suspected she did, she didn’t pay him any attention. She just continued to stare up into the pelting rain, barely bothering to blink.

“I’ve never seen a vampire in the rain!” he shouted over the rain to be heard. Madeline Usher turned her head to look at him, blinking a couple times as she looked him up and down.

“I’m not exactly a normal vampire, am I?” she asked, and while her voice was softer than Micah’s, it was still heard clearly over the storm. “It was not because my blood was drained by another vampire. I was not visited by Dracula in the night. Instead, my brother would drain and drink my blood, though he himself was only human.” She shifted her gaze back up to the rain pouring down on her. “I was a child when he began. I had cut myself in the garden on a rose thorn. Like a good big brother, he kissed it to make it better. From that small part, though, he apparently got a taste for it.”

Micah stood silently, his finger idly tapping against the trigger guard of his weapon, not out of boredom, but out of his ingrained desire to attack. This was a vampire, and she had killed innocents in order to feed herself. She couldn’t be allowed to live. And yet, he couldn’t help but find himself drawn to hearing her story. He didn’t know if it was because of her circumstances, or because she was one of the few female vampires he had come across, but something kept him glued to his spot, listening intently.

“He took only small amounts at first. He would slip and cut me with something, then he would lick the wound clean. I thought it was strange, yes, but he was my brother. I thought he was just trying to help me…” She lowered her gaze from the sky to the dark horizon, to gaze at what Micah couldn’t tell, but it didn’t really matter. “He started to take more and more. By the time I realized what he was doing, how it was hurting me, and driving him to madness, it was already too late. He was beyond addicted, and he began to take more and more of my blood each night. Soon, my body could no longer produce enough to sustain me, and I died.” She turned her head to look at Micah, who was beyond soaked at this point, even his leather jacket doing very little to keep his shirt dry. Her eyes drifted down to his gun, the silver body shining in the light of his car’s headlights. “He sealed me in a coffin, but a part of him wondered if I might not come back in some manner. He shut a heavy iron door in front of me, but it didn’t do any good.” She lifted her hand up to eye level. “I still do not know exactly how I became a vampire. I made no pact, I drank no blood of my own. Perhaps the Devil simply took pity on me and gave me the power to take my revenge.” She turned and looked up into the eyes of the Hunter. “And I most certainly did. I drained him of every single drop of his blood. Just as he did mine.” A small smile graced her lips as she ran her tongue over them, her fangs showing in that brief moment.

“What will you do now, little Hunter?” she asked him. “Will you kill me? Will that make you feel better?”

“It’s not about what will make me feel better, Draculina,” he says, his voice carrying over the storm. “It’s about the job.”
“Awww… Can’t you let one little vampire slip away? I kill one, maybe two in a month?” She gestured to the town in the distance that neither of them could see. “Is that so wrong? I don’t gorge myself, I don’t drink to my heart’s content.” She leans forward, giving him a smile. “Please… I won’t cause a fuss.”
“I’m sorry. Truly, I am. But you know I can’t do that. Even if you were turned into this by your brother, and not by your choice. It doesn’t change what you are or what you’ve done.” He lifted his arm to take aim, his silhouette taking on a much darker form as the headlights shone on his back. “If you really don’t want people to suffer, then stay still.” He pulled the hammer back on the gun, the cylinder rotating and clicking into place, ready to fire. One shot is all it needed, one shot and the vampire would die.

Unfortunately, she didn’t stay still. With the speed that is typical of their kind, she lunged forward from her coffin, screaming out a battle cry. Micah dodged, but barely, her nail-like claws nearly slashing his coat. His many years of training, of experience, allowed him to side-step her strike, but she swung back again, intending to stab him in the back with her nails.

However, as her claws raked against his back, cutting into his jacket and skin, she found her nails sliced off by the blade of something, something that hurt. She jumped back, holding her hand as she looked at her fingertips, which smoked painfully. “How… what?!”

Micah chuckled despite the pain he felt on his back. He turned and reached behind him and withdrew a dagger with three edges that twisted around a central point until they reached the tip and joined. “Celestial Silver. Stings like a mother, don’t it?!” The smirk on his lips said it all. This wasn’t even a fight to him. He had killed more powerful than she, had seen and done things she could never dream of. This was all nothing more than a game of cat and mouse to him.

As she came to this realization, she didn’t realize that he had taken aim once again. “May the angels who steady the heavens steady my hand,” he intoned, holding the weapon out at arm’s length. “May the Spirit who guides my steps guide my aim. And may the God who makes true the paths of my feet make true the path of my bullet.”
Madeline Usher looked up at the gun made of Celestial Silver, unable to move or dodge as the bullet traveled through the barrel and through her head. Her last thoughts were not of anger or revenge but of wonder. Would the darkness accept her, as it had accepted the Hunter? She didn’t get the chance to ponder any further as her body burst into flames.

As her ashes flaked away in the stormy winds, Micah lowered his weapon, a stray tear falling from his eye to be mixed in with the rain. He did not mourn the death of the Draculina, he mourned the death of Madeline Usher, the girl who had been sealed in the coffin.

“And you, my father, there on the sad height,” he quoted softly, though there was no one to hear him amidst the rainy night. “Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”