The Village-Part Two:
The Three Apprentices
by David Crerand
For over two hundred years now they had hunted
together, becoming familiar with each other’s preferences
regarding the nature of the victim and the structure of the
kill. Nathan fancied himself a lady’s man while Elliot
preferred the taste of wine intermingled with the blood
and Julian, he just liked them young. There was also
another similarity which bound them together. Even after
countless childhood admonishments from their respective
mother’s, they still relished playing with their food.
They had all come from the same small village which, in
the time of the plagues had dissolved into nothingness.
Each had been in their late teens and had been apprenticed
into various trades when they had been forever changed by
the dark gift of the blood and its immortality. Nathan,
having always exhibited skills with knives, was to be a
butcher. Elliot, with a fondness for the hearth and an
understanding of the almost apothecary nature of mixing
ingredients, was to be a baker. Julian, the last to receive the
gift, formed the tallows that lit the darkness which would
forever more be their home.
He who had made them had envisioned a life of
knowledge, fine art and exploration surrounded by a smart
collection of appreciative novitiates. He pictured
wondrous strolls through the magnificence of the galleries,
enlightened conversations with the members of the courts
5