Episode 53: Infiltration
Written By Karl White
War doesn’t move in straight lines. It coils, doubles back, punishes those who think they’ve cornered their enemy. By the 1990s, the Great Vampire War had fractured, time and again. Three fronts, one ruled by vengeance, one by paranoia, and one by silence. Each side bent, but none broke.
In 1991, Bernard Watkins finally received a gift he’d chased his entire life, a tip from an increasingly trusted source, that Royce himself was hiding in a safe house outside of Texarkana. In the back of Bernard’s mind he knew it was probably another decoy, as Royce had spent half a century planting doubles, setting traps, muddying trails whenever trouble drew close.
But staking it out, this felt different. An expanded perimeter. A large contingent of daytime guards. Vampires patrolling at nightfall...more than Bernard had ever seen. For a Nightwarden, this passed the smell test.
Safe house surveillance - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Bernard and his daughter, Flora Mae, moved silently. They watched from a distance, studying windows, counting bodies, marking exits. Then, visual confirmation. Spotting Royce himself…This was it, Bernard's best chance to fulfill his father’s quest for revenge.
He for planned a daylight assault. It’d give him his best shot at a fair fight. Flora Mae begged to go with him, but Bernard never had any intention to take her along. Although she was training to become a Nightwarden…at only eleven-years-old, she wasn’t ready.
11-year-old Flora Mae - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Instead, he quietly prepared an escape plan for her, in case he never returned. He pulled all the money he had from his parent’s estate, hiding it for Flora Mae. He sent a coded message for allies in Dallas, in case things went south. He obsessively went over evacuation routes, rehearsing it with her until she could say it backwards.
They stayed awake through the night watching movies, Bernard pretending it was a father-daughter date night...when in truth, it was one last chance to spend with his daughter in case he didn’t make it. He was going to sneak out at daybreak and go through with his mission, alone.
But Bernard’s plan would never come to fruition, as one of Royce’s familiars spotted the father and daughter a day before the planned attack.
The power was cut, darkness flooded the motel. The door exploded inward. Fangs flashed. Bernard fought like a man built for one purpose, but even a legend couldn’t cut down ten vampires alone.
Bleeding out, spine pressed to peeling wallpaper, Bernard used his final breath not to scream for help...but to invoke the one prayer a Nightwarden saved for the threshold of death…
Bernard, about to recite the Hero Prayer - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
BERNARD: Mark my path and guide my light...stars bear witness overhead...Summon storm and hallowed fire, turn darkness blazing bright...Rise again, O Paladin, and save her from this night...
Vampires recoil as Kharos appears - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Thunder cracked the sky outside. The room trembled...Kharos appeared, but not in time to save Bernard. When the entity manifested in a blast of pale fire and glowing shadows, Bernard was already gone. But Kharos tore the vampires apart before they could lay a hand on Flora Mae, their bodies disintegrating in the flash of celestial wrath.
Silence...It was over as fast as it began. The Paladin was gone. The frightened child, alone in the room with her dead father, shaken at what she’d witnessed. But Bernard had taught her well, in crisis, time waits for no one. If vampires had come for them once, more were probably on the way. She went through the steps of the escape plan in her mind. Go-bag, car keys, and she was out the door.
Flora Mae wasn’t even a teenager yet, but Bernard had already taught her how to drive. A necessity in their line of work, in case of an emergency. She fled into the night, a child lost and aimless, without a father, family, or friends. The only home she knew was the 1967 Plymouth Fury Bernard drove them around the country in. And so, she turned on the interstate unsure of her final destination or what she’d do when she got there...but looking in the rearview mirror, there was nothing good behind her.
Flora Mae leaves the past behind - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
For Royce, being discovered, and the girl’s escape, forced him to abandon Texas entirely. For the first time in decades, he felt pressure. Finally having to look over his shoulder, with the Queen’s breath on his neck. One front of the war had suddenly shifted. The Ghost was no longer untouchable.
When news of what happened with Royce reached Victor in L.A., he felt a fragment of worry. For nearly a century he’d turned the city into his fortress, layered crime networks, loyal Underlings. He was insulated by corruption, fear, and power. As untouchable as he seemed, war can devour certainty.
Victor relied on a vast system, gang members to move drugs, beat cops to bury evidence, paramedics to deliver victims, then dispose of bodies for his Brood. For a long time, the machine worked flawlessly. What Victor never accounted for...was JoAnn Madden.
JoAnn’s life had been a long cruel existence, abused, sold for drugs by her junky mother, trafficked, exploited, enduring years in a brothel in Juárez. The long dark miles of survival carved a steel edge into her spirit. Part of that resilience came from her imagination. Enduring the horrible things she did, JoAnn shielded her innocence by retreating deep in her mind, telling herself stories. By nineteen she’d escaped her nightmare, finding her way to Detroit. But homeless and hungry she was arrested for trying to earn a meal.
In the holding cell, the soft-spoken JoAnn huddled in the corner, keeping to herself. But behind bars, even for women, there’s currency in strength. JoAnn’s quiet, drew the wrong kind of attention. Confronted by the other women in the cell, they wanted to know what someone so delicate as her would have done to land behind bars. And so, JoAnn did what she’d always done to stay alive -- she told a story, a good one.
In a holding cell, JoAnn tells a story - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
It was an alluring tale of how she was a vampire responsible for many murders in the city. Created hundreds of years ago by her fiery vampire lover, who perished at the hands of a hunter. And she was so convincing, the other inmates believed her. Including a mysterious detainee across the cell...a real life vampire, Nan, who just so happened to be one of Elizabeth’s most trusted soldiers.
Nan was so taken with JoAnn’s skills, she offered the girl a warm place to go to get her off the streets. At Elizabeth’s lavish estate she met the Queen, who had never seen another like JoAnn. She had a mind that could lie even under telepathic pressure, an imagination elastic enough to bend around mind-reading vampires. In her, Elizabeth saw a powerful weapon.
In 1997, JoAnn entered Los Angeles, playing the part of a star-struck girl, come to make her movie-star dreams come true. She positioned herself strategically, and within months was woven through Victor’s network of Underlings. And before the end of the year, was inside his mansion, vetted, fed on, dismissed, and underestimated.
Her mind never stopped spinning tales. Never let a single stray thought betray her. She mapped the estate on fast-food wrappers. Was privy to conversations about routes, and weaknesses in Victor's security. She stole names, locations, important communiques... filtering it all back to the Queen...and not one vampire sensed her treachery.
With all of the intel, it was time to escalate the battle. Elizabeth and her massive army quietly moved into position. Knowing Victor’s defenses exactly, every blind spot in his metropolis fortress of concrete and neon.
When the strike came, it fell like night collapsing on the city. Elizabeth and her Brood swept through L.A in silent, coordinated waves, choking off escape routes, overwhelming Victor’s lieutenants, and quickly unraveling the illusion of safety he had built around himself.
Victor never saw it coming, never imagined anyone could breach the labyrinth he’d crafted. But the ambush felt hauntingly familiar, almost karmic -- a mirror of the night he had once crept upon Rah under a shroud of false loyalty.
Elizabeth’s reprisal - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In the end, Elizabeth offered just one decree...
ELIZABETH: This is for Rah.
Before he could respond, she struck. A precise, brutal symmetry, justice returning full circle. The usurper who once betrayed his maker, was finally dragged into the dark by the very empire he tried to deny Elizabeth... One enemy down. One to go.
TO BE CONTINUED…