David McAfee - 61 A.D.

“You are mine until I release you,” the stranger said. “Do you understand?”

Gregor nodded.

“You have information I want. I am going to release your throat. If you scream, the rats in this alley will feast tonight,” the stranger said. With that, he opened his hand, allowing Gregor to suck in air. When Gregor caught his breath, he looked up to see the man staring down at him with those odd red eyes. His toothy mouth was curled into a sadistic grin.

“What do you want from me?” Gregor asked.

“Tell me about the tall Roman with teeth like mine.”

Theron stepped out of the alley, checking both directions to make sure no one saw him, and walked down the street with a spring in his step. It wasn’t just Gregor’s blood that had him in a good mood. The news that his old friend was hiding in Londinium caused him to smile all the way back to his sanctum.

From Gregor’s description, the tall Roman could only be one Bachiyr, and Theron had been looking for him for almost thirty years.

Taras.

His hand itched, as it did whenever he thought of Jerusalem. He reached over and scratched the blackened flesh. It looked charred, as though someone had taken a torch to it. It still functioned, and it didn’t hurt. The skin had even healed without a visible scar, unless you counted the color. It reminded him of the story the Jews in Judea told of a man named Cain, who had killed his brother and was thus, according to legend, given a dark mark on his forehead so that all who saw him would know what he had done.

It wasn’t quite the same, of course. Cain had killed Abel, but Theron had killed the so-called Messiah. The Son of God, some people called him. Supposedly he was anointed to free the people of Israel and lead humanity back to the path of righteousness. Ha! Those fools in Jerusalem would believe anything if it meant they could oust the Romans. Being the Son of God hadnhe S7?t saved him from me, Theron mused.

Still, he looked at his black hand and had to admit there was more to the man than he’d first imagined. Almost thirty years had passed since he’d burned his hand on the rabbi’s skin, and it still retained the pigmentation of a vial of ink. He could no longer exact revenge on the dead rabbi, but Taras was another matter.

Ever since Jerusalem, Theron had dreamed of finding the wretched northerner again, and now thanks to a drunken Spaniard he knew exactly where the bastard was hiding. The time had come to repay an old debt. Tomorrow night he would head to the coast. There he would buy passage on a ship to Britannia. In less than a month he would be in Londinium, and shortly after that Taras would be little more than a bad memory.

He wiped the last of Gregor’s blood from his chin.

“I will see you soon, Roman,” he whispered.

Londinium, in the Roman province of Britannia 61 A.D.

Taras opened his eyes, awakened by the sound of a late street vendor trying to make a profit before the sun went down. He’d chosen a sanctum near the market district because of the large number of people who congregated there. The crowds milling through Londinium’s busy market provided Taras with two things he desperately needed: food and cover. There was never any shortage of brigands and thieves in the market, and even one such as Taras could blend in with the throng.

He rose from his straw pallet, the scent of hay mingling with the spicy, earthen smell of the market nearby, and picked tiny twigs from his wheat-colored hair. His hair and height marked him as a northerner, and even here people noticed him from time to time. During its short history, Londinium had suffered attacks from Vikings as well as several tribes in the northeast, most notably the Iceni, who took offense to Rome’s attitude shift after the death of their King Prasutagus. Taras could have been a Viking himself for all the people around him knew. His tall frame and pallor spoke the truth of his heritage, and even though he’d long since forsaken his homeland to join the Roman Empire, no one in Londinium could know that.

In fact, he reflected, there is probably no one left alive who knows that.

His best friend Marcus, a Centurion in Jerusalem, had been killed nearly thirty years ago by a vampire named Theron. The same vampire who’d somehow tricked Taras into aiding the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. Taras didn’t like to think about that, how he’d helped put an innocent man to the cross. But more than that, he tried to dodge the memory of the strange encounter by the Mount of Olives a few nights later.

Jesus had died on that cross. Taras had forced himself to watch the whole thing, so he knew it was true. Had he really seen the same rabbi, even spoke to him, outside of Mary’s tomb a few days later? It sounded impossible, but he knew it was true. Could the dead really come back?

Taras had only to look at himself for the answer to that question. The dead could indeed come back. Unfortunately.

Jesus wasn’t the only one to die on that spring night twenty-seven years ago. Theron had killed Taras that night, too. But unlike his friend Marcus, Taras hadn’t stayed dead. He didn’t understand why, but for some reason he awoke in a hasty grave and had to dig his way out. He’d been terrified. And hungry. Now, of course, he knew the truth. Theron had turned him into a Bachiyr.

Taras slipped into his tattered pants, sending small clouds of dust into the air, and thought about that first night. He didn’t know what the hunger was, then. He’d walked around trying to eat whatever scraps he could find in the street, but his stomach would have none of it. It wasn’t until several days had passed that he ran into Mary’s father, Abraham, at the entrance to her tomb and finally learned his hunger’s true nature.

He pulled on his rough, homespun shirt. He’d taken it from a tall bandit in the countryside a few weeks ago, and it was starting to show signs of wear. He would have to replace it soon, but it would have to wait until he found a tailor that stayed open late or came across another tall robber. He shrugged his arms through the sleeves and adjusted the front of the shirt to fit his chest, which was smaller than the bandit’s had been. It would have to do for now.

Bachiyr. That’s what the Jews at the Damascus Gate had called him. Taras spoke some Hebrew, the result of several years spent living and working in Jerusalem as a legionary for Rome, and he recognized the word. It meant “Chosen.”

He slipped the shirt over his shoulders as he pondered just what, exactly, he had been chosen for. For nearly thirty years, he had hunted robbers, thieves, bandits and worse, feeding only on those who deserved his ire. But that was a choice he made back in Antioch, not one that was made for him, so it couldn’t be that.

Maybe the name was just a coincidence, or an attempt by the Bachiyr to make themselves seem grander than they were. He would probably never know. He’d have liked to ask another of his kind, but every time he found one they tried to kill him. No questions, no talking, just an attack. He had no idea why. But he’d been running from them for nearly thirty years now, and he’d gotten pretty good at it.

In another life, he’d been trained to be stealthy, silent, and deadly. An elite assassin in the great Roman Legion. Now those skills seemed to have magnified a hundredfold, and he learned new abilities every night. He could silence the area around him for a dozen paces, grow claws from his fingertips, heal his wounds by willing blood to the injured area of his body, and many other skills that turned him from a mere assassin into one of the deadliest beings in the known world.

But not the deadliest.

He hadn’t bested Theron in combat. Nor had he beaten the other Bachiyr that night, a dark-skinned creature of indeterminate age that exuded power and strength beyond anything Taras had seen before or since. He never caught the other Bachiyr’s name, and he didn’t want to. He’d had enough of that one to last a thousand years.