Major Story Arcs
The Devil’s Apprentice
Aaron’s father, John Crow, is one of the best warriors of his time, a Grendel clan leader. His clan is attacked by vampires, however, and nearly wiped out. John is pregnant at the time, using the technology of the day, and when he realizes he is mortally wounded, he asks his mother-in-law, Lydia Garcia, to cut the baby out of him so it won’t turn into a vampire like he is about to do.
Lydia cuts the baby out and hides him away. The only unusual thing about him is that he had red eyes, like a vampire; otherwise he is entirely human. She raises him and trains him to be a great warrior like his father. One day, she hopes, he will kill John Crow. She is not, however, an emotional parent; for instance she names him Aaron because it is the first name in the database of boy names.
After 18 years of training (and almost nothing else in his life), the vampires finally come back to attack again. Aaron slaughters his way through them like he was born to it, but is finally caught by his father, who doesn’t recognize him.
Lydia saves Aaron, but John kills her before he runs off. Aaron tracks his movements across the desert. He kills several more vampires along the way, and gets help from another vampire, who trades John information on his father’s whereabouts for small samples of Aaron’s blood.
Finally he finds John’s lair: a cave with train tracks leading inside. He goes in and battles more of John’s vampire army. Finally John comes out and scratches out one of Aaron’s eyes in his crow form. Aaron tells John that he’s his father. They battle each other, but John’s vampiric strength and speed are too much for Aaron to beat. They get on the train, which has a nuclear missile on it. They continue to fight as the train moves out of the cave into the sunlight. John is distracted by the sun, and Aaron manages to kill him.
Aaron walks away and sits on a river bank, where he looks at his destroyed eye. The scratch makes it look like a classic Grendel eye-symbol, but his other eye is still red like a vampire’s. He looks like he is half of one and half of the other of the two age-old enemies. Seeing some wild cranes on the river, and remarking that he is the first of his kind, he takes on a new name, Aaron Crane.