Chapter 6

A man wearing all black strolled in the moonlight of the Franklin woods. Tall body, sharp eyes, and red irises circling as if searching for something hidden. His long feet stepped on the banks of the Gordon r; silt immediately covered her dark brown boots. The sharp, slightly crooked nose sniffed, filtering out the scents of blood it had been looking for, but the result was still the same. Nothing. Not one day or two, but for years, he explored this place until he heard the news of a dead body coming back to life with unusual irises.

His head was looking up at the moon's reflection, which was dashing among the twinkling stars as if they were greeting each other, even though there was an invisible star between them. It's like him who has been hiding among human associations and living side by side. And think that this world is the safest place after the world war and colonialism that hit the country decades ago.

He tries to regroup the survivors after the Blood Moon fight in 1866 to prepare for the big war again, even though he doesn't know when the half-blood will appear. It's not new, either, that the myth of the incomparable power of half-blood has become the target of several vampire clans.

"How long are you going to stand here?" the voice of a woman with a thin body and an oval face, standing not far from the figure of a man still faithfully gazing at the river's flow. "Are you going to dredge up this whole river and hope that someone is still alive like him? We don't even know what he looks like."

The man with curly hair that reached the nape of his neck turned around, looking at his little brother intently. The robust and stinky smell indicated that his sister had eaten humans for the umpteenth time.

"If you keep killing humans, they'll only get more suspicious, Cassie," Blake hissed. "Our agreement with them is still valid."

Cassie spat on the ground, refusing to accept the sentence that her brother had filled with rules. "We are the strongest clan, Blake. How can you be so scared as a mouse, huh!"

Cassie's words made Blake ignite with emotion; his right hand gripped his sister's neck and cornered the thin body so that it hit a pine branch. The jet black-haired girl coughed, feeling the air around her getting thinner. Both irises of his red eyes lit up; he did not accept the treatment of his older brother.

"Can't you just shut up and do what your brother says, Cassie? We're the strongest clan, but let's not let our guard down. I'm sure there are hordes of clans ready to attack us, especially looking for Daddy's body!" Releasing his grip on Cassie's neck, leaving a red trail that was so obvious there.

Tasmania Island, 1834

Since then, many new immigrants have arrived, and convicts with lousy behavior have been moved to Tasmania. Many things happened, starting from anarchist acts against criminals, rape of women, and eviction of indigenous people to changes in government during the British colonial period.

The acts of violence that most perpetrators experienced prompted them to run away and hide in the forests and mountains outside settlements to become bushrangers—rebels. Meanwhile, the indigenous people, who are Aborigines, suffer from various diseases brought by white people to mass killings by the invaders.

At the same time, immigrants who came from England introduced dogs and foxes to help with hunting, such as kangaroos, whose results would be traded. Besides the arrival of animals, unwittingly, several human vampires hide behind the immigrant population and prisoners to form their community.

The dark community prefers to pit criminals against each other to receive a whip or hang sentence, drunk by the victim's blood. Some who managed to escape from the Port Arthur prison building hid in the small town of Strahan or the jungle around Franklin, Gordon, and the mountains.

However, conflict re-occurred among the human vampires when they were driven out by the red fox clan that had previously occupied the land. The vampires didn't expect that this new island discovered by the British colony would have many unexpected mysteries.

"We just divide the territory so that there is no killing. We are here to balance the ecosystem; let the humans kill each other as long as our population can last forever," said the oldest red fox. He was named Jake Rogers, whom his employer first brought in the early 1830s.

A vampire named Matthias Bennett had curly hair and shoulder-length blonde with pale bluish skin and sparkling red eyes.

He just smiled even though he wanted to rip Jake's neck inside.

"But I have one condition," Matthias begged, causing Jake to look at the vampire with a confused look. "As long as the blood moon appears, we search for food unhindered by territory."

"No!" a voice with a hiss appeared behind the bushes. She then appeared a black, half-snake woman with emerald green eyes and skin of scales glistening in the moonlight.

"Aaliyah!" Jake exclaimed, surprised by the appearance of the Queen of the snake clan.

"I disapprove of vampires looking for food when the blood moon appears without looking at the territory. It will be detrimental to us," said Aaliyah while occasionally sticking out her snake tongue. "Look for prey but not from clans like other clans or us. If necessary, you will kill that greedy human!"

Matthias was silent for a moment; in his mind, he was very curious why the queen of the snake clan, who looked arrogant, seemed so afraid of the blood moon event, which only happens once every 100 years. After all, what would they lose if they lost a few clan members, Matthias thought?

"I know what you're thinking, Bennett!" Aaliyah exclaimed, looking hard at Matthias. "Don't expect you to know why we made the territorial regulations when the blood moon appeared. If you violate it, we will not hesitate to slaughter your clan."

"I know," Jake said. "We uphold the balance of population and ecosystem, Aaliyah; you don't worry about my clan."

The beautiful and scaly woman only nodded. However, he had to keep his distance from Matthias Bennett; he had a feeling something would happen. But Aaliyah couldn't see clearly.

Without a word from Matthias's thin lips, the vampire left as fast as lightning without even saying goodbye. His arrogant attitude made Aaliyah and Jake squeal with distaste. Jake had heard rumors that many humans had died due to mass killings. He suspected that the murders resulted from an attack by a vampire.

"You have to take care of your clan too, Jake," Aaliyah ordered, reading the frantic thoughts of the red fox clan's eldest.

Jake nodded his head while wagging his tail. He looked at Aaliyah and then said,

"Humans started slaughtering our clan for what we didn't do, Aaliyah. Our population is growing fast, but that doesn't stop us from killing that many humans. You know that we also don't like weird-tasting human flesh. "

Aaliyah's body shrank back into a snake with black-green scales. Her green irises met Jake's and hissed. "You have to be careful when the blood moon appears, Jake. My vision tells me something big is going to happen."

Once again, the fox head just nodded. Then Aaliyah left Jake alone by the river Gordon. Jake's eyes now stared at the very bright full moon. Faintly, he heard the barking of a wolf at the far end of the forest; he more or less knew that each clan had its peak times of strength and weakness.

Jake thought as he looked at his reflection in Gordon's river. "What will happen if the blood moon appears?"