Reluctant Guardian

  Demon Bane: Book One

  Author: D. R. Rosier

  Copyright 2023. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Afterword:

  About the Author

  Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

  Non-erotic Fantasy titles:

  Book Description

  Chapter One

  The deep metallic clang of the ship’s docking clamps engaging rang like a bell through my whole ship.

  Claire said in a happy voice, “Docking clamps engaged, and our override codes supplied were accepted by the Emerald’s airlock door.”

  The Emerald was a Luminous class starship and an exclusive design of Princess Cruise Lines. It was a top-of-the-line cruise ship for tourists and commercial passengers wanting to get from settled world to world in style. The ship itself was over a mile long, and it catered to just about every vice imaginable, at least the legal ones, anyway.

  It was a lot bigger than my scout ship, Clarity. Though it was completely unarmed, and my scout ship couldn’t say the same. At fifty yards in length, the Clarity was built to be fast, maneuverable, and all but invisible when in stealth operations. It didn’t have much of a bite, but with a single bank of fourteen-inch lasers and two missile launchers it did have a sting.

  Claire was my ship’s A.I. and the ruler of my life. Or at least, the very enthusiastic organizer of it, and I could admit without her to direct me toward repairs and maintenance, as well as handle the ship’s provisioning, I’d have broken down, ran out of hydrogen fuel, or starved long ago.

  The Emerald had been drifting and refusing to answer hails since it’d entered the edge of Brione system. I was just on my way out of it, so was given the dubious pleasure of investigating by my bosses in the Fellowship. It was a paycheck, so I’d taken the job.

  The purse for salvage rights on a ship of its type was astronomical. Unfortunately I wasn’t that lucky, the government had sent me here and even if the ship’s crew and guests were all dead, that meant I couldn’t claim salvage rights. Salvage rights was only if I came upon something unknown in the dark of space.

  Perhaps I should introduce myself before we get too far along. Damien Bane. I was an independent agent with the Fellowship, a nineteen-member world interstellar theocracy ruled by a prelate. The prelate had full authority in both church and state matters, while the bishops and priests watched over the churches and souls, as well as judged people based on the laws, and the ordained dukes and duchesses ruled a world on the prelate’s behalf and enforced the laws and protected the people.

  I was a sometimes demon hunter, spy, bounty hunter, and on rare instances an assassin for the church. I had no rank, and there were no direct ties between us save money transactions. The supernatural races were still mostly a secret, though many in the government knew about us, so they had independent agents like me to deal with those types of problems.

  Technically I could refuse any offered mission, but that was a good way to get cut loose and never be called upon again, and it wasn’t a bad life. Exciting even at times, and a worthy endeavor. I’d never met a demon I hadn’t been happy to send straight back to hell.

  The Fellowship was surrounded by the Markham Alliance and the Keerain Confederacy, twelve and thirty-five worlds respectively. There were also independent government run planets, eight of them that we knew of in the Fellowship’s history books and star charts, but there could be a lot more of them further out, unknown colonies of humans. A lot of colony expeditions had disappeared into the black since humanity moved out into the galactic frontier, never to be heard from again.

  That’s probably enough on the introduction to get us started.

  I pulled on my leather armor that was tougher than steel, thanks to its internal carbon nano-fiber weave. I made sure my laser pistol was fully charged, as well as the spare power pack, and my rope dart device was ready to go. The dart itself ended in a sharp point, and it had three two-inch blades sharper than razors. Honestly, the ancient martial art to use the rope dart effectively had been a total pain in the ass to master. I’d mastered hand to hand techniques and the sword a lot faster, but it was worth it because of my particular magic skills.

  It was probably so hard for me because the brute force yang martial art approach wouldn’t work with the weapon at all, and I’d had trouble learning that single yin discipline in my martial arts repertoire

  Then I headed for the rear airlock. My ship was so small it only had two airlocks, and the one in the bow was for emergencies and not really a good docking choice. The rear airlock was positioned just below the main engines and was inside the minimally sized cargo area. It was also where the power, air, water, and hydrogen hookups were.

  I went through the outer airlock door, then once sealed I waited for it to equalize with the air pressure on the Emerald.

  “Open it up, Claire. Also, lock down the ship as soon as I exit until my return. If anyone on that ship tries to contact us tell me immediately.”

  Claire said cheerfully, “Acknowledged, Damien,” and the airlock door slid open.

  I wondered what I’d find inside as I entered their airlock, sealed the outer door, and waited for it to equalize with the inside of the ship. That didn’t take long, since the pressure was maintained at each step with two docked ships. No pumping up from no vacuum at all, just slight differentials of normal pressure range.

  I stepped into the corridor and frowned down at the dead bodies to my left. There was blood spray on the wall, and I got a bad feeling about what had happened here when I saw their throats were ripped out.

  Vampires.

  Vampire was the only other supernatural race besides full demons that got short-thrift and a swift death from me, no questions asked. Demons and vampires were all evil murderers at the least. The other supernatural races, witches, wizards, sorcerers, fairy, and even half-breed demons all got the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t kill one of those unless they’d proved themselves evil and had earned it.

  I’d barely made it ten feet down the corridor when I sensed swift movement behind me. It was a huge ship, so I could only assume they’d been close enough to the docking airlock to hear the clang of the ships docking. That, or I had the worst luck in the world.

  I sidestepped and turned into the wall, and my left arm came up to block a swift slash at my throat as the too quickly moving attacker skidded by. The dart popped out of my wrist sheath as it turned to lunge at me. Long eye teeth, hissing, blood red eyes, and a lack of sanity in its eyes told me it was extremely young. Days or weeks old at the most.

  Vampires were powerful cunning hunters, but only those that made it through the first year or two. Baby vampires were still incredibly fast, but then so was I, whatever the hell I was, anyway.

  I didn’t hesitate as my wrist flicked, and the dart sped across the intervening space and straight into its chest. The rope was nylon with both silver and a carbon nano-fiber weave threaded through it, and probably stronger than the blade. The dart itself was more of a three-pronged two-inch tungsten blade, with silver mixed into it as well, and a four-inch thin rod, the bottom two inches or the blade edges offering me a safe grip.

  It was a pain in the ass, but I’d gotten very good at wielding it, and as I said it gave me an advantage while I hunted. The strongest supernatural power I had was cleansing flames. A power most hadn’t even heard of. The problem was it was a power I couldn’t project through the air. Trust me when I say it was a good plan to be able to kill vampires and banish demons from a distance. Not needing to touch them directly was priceless, and worth all the trouble and hard work. That power was also what earned me the nickname demon bane among those that knew me, a terrible play on my own name, because cleansing fire was the easiest way to banish or destroy a demon. No ritual chanting, holy water, or fantastically hard spells to cast. Just magical cleansing fire and gone.

  My right hand gripping the thin rope lit up with a golden fire that raced down the rope, even as the clumsy vampire leapt at me. Or specifically, leapt at my throat, clawed hands extended and mouth opening to feed.

  I literally smirked as I sidestepped, shaking my head in amusement, because leaping was always the wrong thing to do in a fight. It fixed its trajectory. Before the vampire even passed me the golden flames raced down the rope and through the blade. As soon as it reached the vampire’s heart the red eyes went up in flames as did the heart and brain first, and the corrupted flesh quickly followed. The body landed and the fire completely consumed the body from where the dart hit it, a growing outward wave from center chest that dusted all its flesh, blood, and bone, but nothing else. It wasn’t even hot, and it didn’t deliver smoke, it just consumed in
a golden flame.

  Which was ultimately why it couldn’t be projected. Cleansing fire wasn’t like normal fire. It didn’t burn inanimate objects at all, nor did it consume air or wood, or anything else but corrupted flesh and the taint of evil. The air couldn’t fuel it, so it fizzled out as soon as it left my control. I couldn’t send my magic through the air to support it, but I could send my magic through silver as a conduit.

  I retracted the rope and dart into its sheath, there was no need to clean it, the blade would be pristine, any flesh or blood burned off of it from it entering the vampire’s body. The rope was twenty feet long at its furthest, but I tended to only use what I had to. It also saved on laser shots. A laser could kill a vampire, if I burned a hole through its heart or brain, but my rope dart would kill one if it embedded in their arm, hand, or even their big toe.

  “Shit.”

  I looked up and around, it was a very big ship, and that vampire had been ugly as sin. Both clues were more than enough to know what’d happened here. Vampires tended to be extremely attractive, it made it easier for them to hunt, and they were just that shallow and evil besides. An ugly one meant someone was making a point or playing a cruel game. A calling card of sorts, and a last chance at spreading more terror and death when the ship was found and boarded.

  The Malice vampire pirate band. It was one of my goals in life to hunt down that pirate band, a fleet of five ships at last count, two scouts and three light cruisers. They were ghosts, and never acted if an authority was in range, and I’d never been able to successfully track them down between or during other jobs. Malice herself, the ruler of the band, was a mid-level demon from the pit with psionic based powers.

  Malice was a bit tongue in cheek for a demon name, but of course it wasn’t her real name, so blame her for it. It was the one she’d chosen when clawing her way out of hell to the prime mortal plane. In the supernatural world names had power, and demons guarded their true names jealously lest they be summoned and bound by a wizard or witch.

  The reward to stop them was astronomical, and it’d go a long way to my eventual retirement if I managed to survive the workdays ahead. All known members already had a writ of execution, so there wouldn’t be an investigation if the person that found them killed them all.

  It would take a lot to retire, because as far as I could determine I hadn’t aged since reaching the appearance of twenty-one, five years ago. I could be killed no doubt, but old age wasn’t going to do it.

  Back to the point. I’ve cleaned up after Malice’s vampire pirate band however, more than a few times. This was their calling card, a way to claim responsibility for it and spread terror and gain infamy. Also for the simple sake of cruelty, Malice had named herself accurately, if nothing else. They took ships, stripped everything they wanted out of them, including people for blood stock, and the most attractive people would be damned as vampires to replace any killed vampires during the raid. Of course, their souls moved on to their destination at their body’s death, so only their flesh was damned, before it rose again as a corrupt mockery of life with no redeeming characteristics.

  Vampires were vulnerable to sunlight, but that didn’t help at all in space. Which is why most modern vampires hunted in ships, haunted space stations, or became pirates. The older ones had learned how to feed without killing, and used compulsion to make their victims forget. Not out of any morality, it was simply better to maintain the herd numbers that fed them and to stay hidden from their twisted and evil point of view.

  Simulated sunlight had been tried of course, but it never worked for some reason. Maybe the real stars had the touch of God in them, who was to say, but it was a mystical reason, not scientific.

  Regardless, once they’d stripped a ship down of everything useful, from items to people, they turned a few percent of the remaining crew at random and locked the bodies away during the transformation so any smart survivors couldn’t behead them before they woke up. They often chose at least one surviving crewmember, which made it easy to sequester them in an area the passengers couldn’t reach, and that one would allow all the vampires out as soon as they woke up completely lost in the blood thirst.

  Any survivors from the raid would be terrorized and hunted down and consumed, long before the automated FTL pilot got the ship to its next star system destination.

  Malice was a really twisted bitch, but then, demon said it all, didn’t it?

  “Alice, inform Killian what the deal here is, if I don’t survive the cleansing.”

  Killian was my sort of boss, the Fellowship government contact I dealt with most of the time, but there was one like him on every Fellowship world that dealt with the independent supernatural agents. His official rank was cardinal, and he worked directly for the Duchess as her spy master. I just tended to come back home after missions, which was Dione.

  Hunting baby vampires was just a bit dangerous, because they could be a threat to me in large numbers, and even one of them could get lucky if I slipped up at the wrong moment. Focus and awareness were paramount. They were stupid and sucked at fighting, but they were extremely fast and strong.

  They were also easy to hunt, despite the vast size of the ship. All I had to do was be both bait and hunter. Walk as loudly as possible through the ship’s corridors, whistling and tapping the walls, and they would all come running as soon as they heard me. It’d probably been weeks since they fed last, so they’d all be as ravenously insane as the first I’d taken down.

  Alice replied, “Acknowledged. Be careful, Damien.”

  “Yes, mom,” I teased back, which totally went over her head. A.I. had come a long way, and they did exhibit some humanlike emotion at times, but it was all programmed response.

  I started off down the corridor at a light jog, my augmented reality implant giving me the best route to the bridge. When I’d been sent on the mission, Killian had sent me the ship’s schematics as well as the government override controls to access all spaces and ship’s systems. All civilian spacecraft were required to conform to such rules, for situations like this and others did come up on occasion.

  It would speed things up if I could get the ship headed for a stable orbit during the hunt, and if I could bring the internal sensors back online. That way Alice could guide me to the lifeform readings, and also tell me how many vampires I was about to run into. It never hurt to be a little cautious in a situation like this, and knowledge and intelligence made a huge difference, even against baby vampires.

  The ship was also a mile long and a quarter mile wide, and half that in height. It had sixteen decks and over a hundred miles of corridors. So, it’d also be a lot faster if I knew at least approximately where the vampires were, and weren’t just wandering around waiting for them to attack. It was also realistically the only way I could be sure the job was done in a ship this big. Missing a vampire or two would ruin my reputation, and probably lead to more deaths when the ship was turned back over to Princess Cruise Lines for refit and redeployment with a new crew.

  If I couldn’t get the sensors online, I’d have to break out the search drones, and it’d take days to get it done. Something I was keen to avoid.

  My scout ship had an incredibly sophisticated sensor suite of course, it was arguably the most important system in a scout ship. But lifeform sensors were extremely short range, thirty feet at most, and were embedded in a ship’s walls for internal security only. I don’t know why it was so limited, ask a sensor technician or a scientist.

  If it was a rescue mission for living humans, my sensors would do fine, looking for hot spots. But vampires were technically dead, and even if having life signs due to fell magics, they were generally room temperature except for a few hours after feeding, so that wouldn’t work for this.

  I paused as I heard a scraping sound ahead, and sure enough two baby bloodsuckers ran around the corner and headed straight for me. At the last minute I faked right and tossed the dart into the vampire on the right side, then raced left as I sent cleansing fire down the cable, lighting it up. With a flick of my wrist the cable looped around the second vampire’s neck, and when I went down into a crouch to avoid it’s clawed hands, I lunged up and tossed it over my shoulder.