Episode 55: Eye of the Storm
Written By Karl White
Some wars end in fire. Others in silence. The Great Vampire War unfolded in fragments, from blood spilled long ago. But the long night tightened.
Elizabeth and Royce, had exhausted every proxy, every deception, every shield of distance. What remained was inevitability. Two powers converging....The when and where was all that remained to be seen.
Two powers converging - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
With the Nightwardens finding Flora Mae, the past had finally caught up to the present. Oaths were renewed, and hunters long divided stood whole again, just as the war itself moved towards its final shape.
In August of 2005, the Nightwardens began to feel a vibration in the dark. Scouts scattered across the Deep South reported movement -- Houston. Mobile. Memphis. Elizabeth’s Brood was mobilizing. An army slipping quietly into position. The Great Vampire War, once stretched across the continent, now pointed to New Orleans.
Royce had remained veiled for a long time. But Elizabeth learned of his haven the old way, by capturing and breaking one of his spies in the field.
With intel of the vampire Queen’s movements, Flora Mae and the Nightwardens arrived in the Crescent City. Watching without being seen. Within days, they confirmed Royce’s Underlings were operating openly, confidently. A fortified safe house in the Garden District was identified. Royce was there. And he had no idea the Queen was coming.
The call was put out to ‘Wardens worldwide, get to New Orleans by any means necessary. If the final battle was coming, this was their chance to end the vampire threat by mounting their own surprise attack.
Then, the news broke...the Gulf Coast braced for catastrophe. Hurricane Katrina churned towards land, a vast engine of wind and water aimed directly at New Orleans. As evacuation orders spread and the living fled inland. Royce and his Brood hunkered down, knowing hurricanes provided cover to kidnap, feed, and kill at will. They did not know Elizabeth’s three-front assault was also moving under the cover of disaster.
Katrina heading for New Orleans - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
On August 29th, Katrina made landfall, and with it came the first strike. Elizabeth’s vanguard slammed into Royce’s outer defenses. Vampires tore into one another through flooded streets and wind-shattered alleys. The chaotic night exploded with violence.
Caught off-guard, Royce sent Victor Monfret’s surviving Brood forward, sacrificial shields meant to buy him time to escape. But Elizabeth’s second wave cut off his exodus. His Brood splintered, it was every vampire for themselves. Any that tried to flee were intercepted and annihilated. Escape routes collapsed. His network began to bleed out.
Then, the city itself turned. Katrina’s winds screamed through the streets at over a hundred miles an hour. Levees failed. Water surged in. Entire neighborhoods vanished beneath black floodwaters. Royce’s stronghold was torn apart, his tunnels drowned, his sanctuaries exposed. The Ghost was flushed into the open.
As the storm raged, Elizabeth arrived from the north. She moved through the ruins like judgment given form, hunting Royce, erasing what remained of his army. The Queen had waited centuries for this moment.
On the Hammond Highway Bridge, one of the last structures still standing above the flood, Royce and Elizabeth met. Standing on opposite sides of the bridge. Between them, bodies littered the roadway. Her wounded legions. His shattered Brood. The war had burned itself down to its final figures.
Showdown on the bridge to N.O. - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
But before they could battle, the Nightwardens, lying in wait, attacked...Royce did not hesitate. He cut through them with ruthless precision, moving faster than any human eye could follow. One-by-one they fell, blood splashing across rain-slick concrete. Until only one remained -- Flora Mae.
Royce lunged for her, but the sky answered. Thunder split the heavens. Lightning struck the bridge like a spear. From the eye of the storm, Kharos descended, riding a blazing bolt, celestial fire raging against the dark. The Paladin had come, once again.
Royce, distracted, turned just long enough. Flora Mae didn’t wait. She drove a stake into his chest with everything she had...Royce gasped, his power unraveling. And Kharos was there to finish it. Royce collapsed, lifeless on the bridge. Before Kharos vanished, he leaned close and whispered something to Flora Mae.
Kharos whispers to Flora Mae - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
At the far end of the bridge, Elizabeth stood alone, Nightwardens dead at her feet. She saw Royce fall and believed the war was won. But as she turned to flee, a figure stepped from the shadows -- Renmaru Okayama. The samurai vampire had answered the Nightwardens’ call.
Ren steps from the shadows - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Unfamiliar with her foe, Elizabeth attacked, but was surprised to find Ren’s strength, power, and speed matched hers. She felt Anu’s blood in him...and the weight of countless vampires he had fed upon over centuries. The samurai was something different. An aberration. A weapon.
For every blow Elizabeth delivered, Ren answered in kind. His katana cut shimmering arcs through the rain. Then blazed a path, finding the ancient one’s heart, separating it from her body. Elizabeth fell. Her reign ended in silence.
As her final breath left her, the air grew a sudden chill. Death appeared. With Elizabeth...Ezath dead, the second Procession was complete. And Death knew...
DEATH: “The sun of the East will spill the ancient blood on the bridge to nowhere.”
It was the Procession Orem Black and the Dark could never interpret. And Ren, for all the good he wanted to do in protecting mankind, had aided the Dark by following Fate’s cruel path.
The war ended in the patter of rain. With Royce and Elizabeth destroyed, the Nightwardens hunted down the remnants of their Broods. By 2009, the last of Elizabeth’s bloodline fell in Miami. The vampire age had ended.
Ren carrying the weight of the Procession - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Ren, being the last of the parasites, didn’t celebrate the victory. Instead carrying the weight of what he’d done. He returned east, to the monastery, to the Eternal Monk Heng Shao. Together, they sought out the others who had already stood against the Dark, strengthening the forces of Light...as the clock inched closer towards Armageddon.
Flora Mae returned to California, trying to live in the open at last. But destiny did not forget her. In 2014, the dreams began. A man standing in a field, blood raining from the sky. One night, she woke to find Death standing over her.
Waking to Death - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
FLORA MAE: (gasps) Are you here to take me?
DEATH: The Seraphblade whispered eternity into your ear. Your life is unending.
FLORA MAE: Why’s he saved me over and over?
DEATH: Because you are necessary. An important piece in a much larger fight. But the wheel has not completed its turn. A reckoning with the Children of Nature approaches...and a terrible plague waits beyond the horizon.
FLORA MAE: I don’t understand.
DEATH: You will. Prepare yourself. Another war is coming.
And in the small hours, Death spun the tale of what was to come, of Flora Mae’s destiny to stand with others and help lead mankind against the Dark -- And as the Fight for Blood had ended, the Fight for Nature would be next.
TO BE CONTINUED…