Chronicles of the Twelve: Vampire Redemption
Aaron Marcusson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2009 Aaron Marcusson
All rights reserved.
Cover photograph by Melissa Creamer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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This book is dedicated to the two women I love most in this world: My dear, sweet wife, Melissa, and my sainted mother, Claudia. If I did not have one of them I would not be alive; if I did not have the other I would not be alive. I always told Mom that I would dedicate my first book to her – I think that was when I was about seven years old. I got married since then, and I appreciate Melissa more and more every day. Without the support of both of these strong women, I would be much, much less than I am.
Melissa, I love you.
Mom, I love you.
I am one of twelve. I am a vampire. I am an outcast from my clan. This is my story.
Chapter 1: The Beginning of Time
I am ancient. My brothers and I very nearly predate humans. Our fathers predate the creation of the universe. We are very nearly gods. Our fathers were even closer to God. We have been written about in the Bible. Our original name is Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans. What many think is just a legend in a book is absolutely true.
Lucifer, the angel of light and one of God’s highest-ranking seraphim, wanted to replace God as the ruler of all. He gathered an army of angels loyal to his cause and stormed the heavenly temple of God. The battle raged for what would be centuries here on earth. Finally, the archangel Michael wrestled the powerful Lucifer to the ground and bound him. God sentenced Lucifer and his acolytes to eternal damnation, but before that sentence would be carried out they were cast to earth.
As they fell, four of the six wings on their backs burned off from the friction of entering Earth’s atmosphere; the long white feathers that reflected the light like sun-drenched crystals tore out or singed off, leaving only the bony, veinous membranes of the middle set of wings, cracked, burned, and bleeding. Over time Lucifer, now called Satan, and his minions healed, their powers returning to some extent. They could now hide their charred, twisted visages with deception. Satan is the father of lies—he and his demons are still deceiving humankind.
Back at the dawn of human history, our fathers smooth-talked their way into our mother’s tribes, looking like the most handsome, virile male specimens on the planet. They were trying to raise an army of superhumans to rise against God and sow seeds of dissent among their fellow man. We were the first, all born at the same time on the same day among the twelve tribes of Jerusalem. Hundreds were born after us throughout the world, bigger, stronger, and smarter than their human brethren. Their lust for war and killing coupled with their increased strength and skill brought fear to all who ventured through their lands. But they were nothing compared to the twelve of us.
We were not brutal killing machines like the others. No, we were much more. We were the elite; princes of our tribes. We were killers, no doubt, but we were precise instruments, laser beams among sledgehammers. We did our work behind the tapestry of the world. We were assassins, spies, and the quiet voice of rebellion. We did our jobs very well. And while the lesser Nephilim died out, we lived on. Throughout the millennia, we adapted and thrived.
We didn’t necessarily hide, either. Sure, we would start over every twenty years or so as we didn’t age past our late twenties and couldn’t explain why we never looked any older. Or we would kill those closest to us when they began asking too many questions. This course of action would buy us a few more years in the life we were currently living. I don’t think any of us ever felt remorse or sadness at doing this. I know I didn’t. To us, humans were cattle to be used as food and pets; they were necessary for us to live, but could also serve as diversions to offset the doldrums of eternal life. Overall, they were disposable: use them for sustenance or use them for fun, then throw them away. It was quite a life.
Fast forward five thousand years to modern day. The twelve of us control the governments of the United States, Israel, India, Great Britain, France, Spain, Japan, and several small European and African nations. We have been dubbed several different names: Illuminati, Freemasons, Prieure de Sion, Merovingians, Elders. We are simply brothers to each other. We are the puppeteers of the world. We pull the strings and the world goes to war. It is a game for us. We are spoiled princes; our wealth cannot be defined, we have lived more than fifty lifetimes, and entire countries dance and die for our amusement. But this is not enough for some of us.
Truth be told, we have all looked for new ways to enjoy our never-ending lives since we first discovered what we were. Women, men for some of us, fighting on the front lines, fast cars, and drugs were all regular vices. Yes, we can use drugs (who do you think created most of the more powerful and addictive ones?) and certain ones have very intense effects on our unique physiologies, and in some cases, our anatomies.
As I said, our fathers were once beautiful angels unlike anything you can imagine. Now they are something less—hideously deformed, burned, and maimed, literally shadows of their former selves. They can change their appearance and they are extremely adept at convincing people that they look much better than they really do. Of course, we see right through the smoke and mirrors. We know when someone is trying to lie to us. We know our fathers and we see other Fallen. There are thousands of them. They are everywhere. They are powerful. They populate the shadows and congregate in places of power. Since they fell, they scattered and set up shop in several places—New Orleans, Las Vegas, Sturgis, Baghdad and several other lesser-known locales. All places of great evil. The Fallen’s existence and mere presence just bleeds darkness and cold. My brothers and I can feel the presence of demons in these barren places. We can find them. We can move among them, but we are so much more than they are.
We are much more than humans, too. Our strength is nearly limitless, as is our speed and agility. We can see in the dark, which was a great gift in the beginning, when we had to hunt humans at night. Our hearing and sense of smell is much better than any dog’s. We heal nearly immediately, if we even get injured in the first place. Our skin is very thick and exceedingly tough. I’ve had bullets of various calibers bounce off of me. I actually had one bounce off of my chest and enter the shooter’s skull via his left eye. That doesn’t happen often, though.
Our weaknesses are few. We are…not big fans of sunlight. When God cast the rebellious angels out of heaven, he followed them with fire of such intense light that our fathers’ souls, their very essence, were scorched by the holy light. This is why they skulk in shadows. This aversion to light was passed on through whatever we have for genetics. We won’t burst into flames like in the movies, at least not immediately. But it does no favors for our perfect complexions. I suppose a stake through my heart may kill me—but who wouldn’t die with a big bloody stake through his chest? Of course, you would need to find an awfully sharp stake and a way to push it through my bullet-proof skin and through my unbreakable ribs before I ripped your head off. We don’t like garlic, but none of us likes onions or really hot peppers, either. None of the twelve of us have ever been killed, so I am not sure if we can actually be killed. But I intend to find out.
The trouble started quite recently, at least in our terms. Nineteen-forty-five was a great year for me and three of my brothers. We had just won the Second World War, beating two of our brothers in what had started out as a game between bored immortals. Six of us had not participated, preferring to watch from the sidelines. I control the United States, and I have since the foundation of the Roanoke colony. I went with them to colonize the New World. I stayed below decks during the voyage. Several would-be colonists succumbed to consumption on the way over… Anyway, when we landed, I stayed behind in the shadows and pretended to be sickly until the main contingent left. They were going to return to England for more supplies and more colonists to populate this new country. I was determined to leave some humans alive to actually colonize Roanoke, but the damn ship took so long to come back that I…well, I got hungry. No one ever found remains or clues about what happened to those original colonists. Speculation has suggested Indians killed them or assimilated them into their tribes. Other theories exist—maybe they all just wandered off in search of food. Perhaps other colonists from other countries killed them. Maybe aliens swooped down in shiny spaceships and beamed them up. With all of the outlandish theories I have heard, never have I heard anyone blame a vampire who not only drained the bodies of blood, but ate every last scrap of flesh from them. I had to hide them from the other colonists; I wasn’t worried about what history would say, but I had to eat and raise as few questions as possible.
The Americans that predated us plucky colonists were quick to label me a force of nature. To them, I was sent by the Great Spirit to cleanse the tribes of the immoral and evil. The shamans feared me and worshipped me at the same time. I was dubbed the Death Raven by the holy men and became a legend. I was what parents told their children waited just beyond the light of the campfire, ready to sweep them away if they wandered off. They were right.
Eventually new colonists arrived and decided they no longer wanted to be British. It wasn’t hard to ignite that powder keg when the time came. Printers were more than happy to let me set the type on my own treatises all night long for a few extra shillings. While I see myself as a great writer, I am nothing compared to the eloquence of wordsmith Benjamin Franklin. He is the man who truly rallied the American colonists to play David to Britain’s Goliath. But the idea to have the colonists secede from the Crown was mine. Franklin and I would sit up all night discussing science and politics. He was unlike anyone I had met before or have met since. I am one of twelve, but he was one of a kind. He could almost keep up with me as far as drinking goes. A rather squatty little man that could keep up with a vampire…I actually miss him sometimes, more than I have ever missed anyone, including past lovers. Speaking of which, Old Ben’s appetite for women also mirrored mine. He was quite the ladies’ man. He wasn’t much to look at but his mind was so fascinating. He was a student of many things, not the least of which was what women want in love. He was a guarded and sedate man at times, but when it came to making a woman happy, he would do all that was in his power to satisfy them. He was ready to incite war, and the people were ready to fight it—if they hadn’t been, my job would have been so much harder.
My brother Marnok ruled Britain. Oh yes, there was a monarchy that had been in place for hundreds of years, but Marnok had put that in place personally. He bet me that I couldn’t get the colonies to unite and fight their motherland. I accepted his wager and upped the ante. I bet him my fledgling country would win.
It was a hard-fought battle. My troops were battered and bloody and the tide was turning in favor of the Redcoats. That is until my hand-picked general took my advice and ravaged Trenton the day after Christmas. No one in their right mind would have expected the soldiers of a country founded on Christianity to risk their lives on the night of the celebration of the Lord’s birth to wage war. But we did. I rode over with Washington. The bitter cold didn’t affect me and I knew I could get us across and keep us going if necessary. Washington truly shined that night and the next day and I didn’t need to come to the forefront. But I was getting desperate by that point and would have slaughtered the British garrison myself if Washington hadn’t stepped up and squashed them. I was able to feed and hide in the woods before the sun got too high. I still remember licking the blood from my lips as I headed deep into the woods thinking, “I got you, Marnok, you son of a bitch!” I also remember thinking about how powerful my newly-risen nation would become.
Years passed, as did two World Wars. The second one was just a continuance of the first. Marnok still smarted from my victory one-hundred-fifty years earlier, but I rallied my country, which had become more powerful than any of us could have imagined in such a remarkably short time, to his side. We were fighting against more of our brothers, Variel and Udo.
I had always liked my brother Udo, who is to this day a very quiet man, exuding charisma despite his lack of words. My brother Variel is a total bastard, even among us. Much more charismatic than Udo, he convinced one short, black-haired house painter from Austria that he could lead a country of tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed supersoldiers.
Variel is as smarmy as a used car salesman, but he can read people’s hopes and dreams better than any of us. We are all telepathic to some degree, but his ability is well beyond that. Variel seems to be able to see a person’s soul. Most of us don’t trust him around us. We can all communicate clairvoyantly, but only the thoughts we want to share. We can lock our brothers out of our minds—if we couldn’t, our little war games and intrigues would be no fun at all. But none of us are sure about Variel. He has never disclosed the extent of his telepathy to us (not that I would were I in his five thousand dollar a pair Italian shoes, either) but a few of us are sure that our mental blocks may be more like road bumps than brick walls to him.
It seems he can impose his will on others, as well. The holocaust of the Jews was purely Variel’s idea. He hated the chosen people of God when we lived among them and witnessed the miracles; that hatred has had five thousand years to grow and fester. They were not a threat in Biblical times, too involved in their own sin and iniquity to be more than slaves or cattle, but their God was. We watched in awe and revulsion as he struck down Babylon and razed Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground. But I think Variel took it personally—he was revered as a god in those cities. He swore to eradicate everyone of Hebrew descent, but they were a blessed people, not the least of which was their ability to multiply on the earth.
In the late nineteen-thirties Variel saw his chance to exact revenge on the Beloved. The atrocities he had carried out were not that far removed from what any of us have done throughout history, but the motivation was pure unadulterated hatred. While we eleven brothers had gotten past what created us and waged war as a release, as a game, Variel fought for revenge. Udo joined him on a lark, his control of the historically honorable Japanese nation an asset to be sure, but a rather disjointed one. For a nation who had been ruled for thousands of years by the Samurai class, joining a battle was a welcome and technologically updated embracing of its heritage. But Udo harbored no ill will toward any nation—they were all pastures full of cattle to him. He was just having a bit of fun, as were we. That is why we dropped the A-bombs.
Atomic power was a new technology for the world, and for us. The fact that a scruffy little man could hold so much power in his own disjointed mind fascinated us. It was also a bit terrifying that our meals had devised such effective weapons as to vaporize each other. That just wouldn’t do, having humans wipe themselves off the face of the earth. What would we eat when everyone was not just dead or poisoned to the point of lethality even to us, but actually erased from the planet, broken down to just atoms? We cannot feed on atoms. However, we did want to see just how advanced Homo sapiens had become as a species. Plus, none of us ever really liked Variel, so we dropped the bombs.
Why did we drop them on Japan, Udo’s land, instead of Germany if we hated Variel so much? Fewer casualties. Again, we didn’t want to poison the well, so to speak. We were not sure how widespread the fallout would be. We could not drop atomic bombs on Europe—that could very well have been suicide. So we hit Japan and targeted relatively sparsely-populated areas—we could have vaporized Tokyo, but we didn’t for the same reason that we didn’t irradiate Europe. In the end, we saw what the technology could do without killing or mutating too many people, and Marnok, Warren, Jahain, and I had won the war. Udo congratulated us heartily and it was Variel’s turn to be the silent one of the pair. He killed Hitler himself although by all reports it was a suicide. He withdrew farther into the shadows, fraternizing more and more with the demons and Fallen than his own brothers. He began to believe their lies, I think. They may have even begun possessing his body—it is hard to say. Just a few of my brothers ever saw him the first few years after the war—after that none of us saw him for decades.
I have gone into semi-hermitage several times in my life and so have my brothers. But Variel went more than fifty years unseen by us. The shadows saw him and may have had some inkling of what he was up to. We didn’t think much of it as we had all needed time away before, and while fifty years was a long time to be underground, it was not that long to us. Life went on, getting better in my country and Udo’s as well as several others we controlled. Times of relative peace were the norm as my brothers and I were bored after the Great War. We needed to find something else to amuse ourselves and so we let our livestock breed and get fat. Life went on day to day, and it was fine with me. After five thousand years, even the most avid thrill-seeker can find time to rest and appreciate the finer things in life.
We all settled down for the most part for several years. Time went by, and I even got married. She was a blonde stripper by the name of Starlight, at least on stage. Her real name was the more mundane Stephanie. I met her in Vegas; we hit it off and got married by Elvis a week later. I had never really been married before. I had always had mistresses, some developing into more than that, but I had never officially been married. I figured “Why not?” when Steph (as I called her) asked one night after she had gotten off work. Even though I was lying relatively low, I still looked for uncharted territory every now and then. So, we got married, me under a fake name and birthdate, and lived pretty happily for five years. Starlight continued to strip, but Steph always came home to me. It was the perfect life as we could sleep during the day and she never questioned what I did while she was at work. I had told her I was a casino manager who worked third shift, and she was fine with that. As long as I had a steady and luxurious place for her to stay, she was happy.
We didn’t need the money she made; I think she just liked the job. She was an absolute freak when it came to sex, and I know she just wanted everyone to see her perfect breasts, flat stomach, and nice ass before she got old. I never asked what she wanted to do when she got older—it really didn’t matter to me. I could support her until the day she died. She may have had hopes and dreams, aspirations to something better, but she never vocalized them, and I honestly would not have cared. I never knew her greatest dream, but I knew her greatest fear. She feared growing old and unattractive. That is why she continued to go to the club every night and show strangers what she was blessed with. Because in a few more years, she wouldn’t be a headliner anymore. Then she may as well be dead, at least in her own mind. I wasn’t sure if I would oblige her and let her die young and in her prime, but I didn’t get the chance to decide. Because one night, Starlight bumped and grinded on the stage, but Steph never came home.
I realized she had not come home as I dozed in the darkened bedroom, but it was no big thing. She was a sweet girl but she could be a bit of a drama queen at times. One time we had had a fight and she didn’t come home for a week. She had stayed with a stripper friend of hers. But we hadn’t so much as argued for a long while, and still she didn’t come home. I wasn’t concerned. I figured she would be home sometime during the day.
As it got dark late that night, I awoke to an empty house. I called her cell and immediately got her voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. It wasn’t like her to have her phone turned off, even when she was working. She typically left it turned on in her purse so she could see if I had called while she was dancing. I decided to get dressed and head to the Pink Cheetah to see what was up with her. As I pulled my black Ferrari 360 Modena out of the garage, I had a feeling wash over me. It wasn’t a feeling of dread, because I don’t get those. It wasn’t a feeling of sorrow, really, either. But I knew without a doubt that Stephanie was dead. I was sorry about it, but not really sad. She had made me happy, and I knew that I had done the same for her. But I was not broken up by the feeling. I decided to go to the club anyway and see if anyone knew anything.
When I pulled into the parking lot of the Cheetah, I could see five police cruisers at the far end, around the back of the building. They had a section of the parking lot cordoned off and I knew they were working the crime scene of Steph’s murder. I shifted the car back into first and pulled out of the lot. I didn’t want the police to see me. They would ask too many questions that I would only be able to answer with their deaths. The advent of the internet made it a bit more difficult to blend in and lose ourselves. A nation-wide manhunt for a mass-murderer of cops would not be an easy thing to evade. I headed to the Bellagio and stayed the night and the next day. My house and my Corvette were a loss—I couldn’t go back there. I would need to ditch the Ferrari—I was more upset about that than the death of my wife—and get out of Vegas. But I was curious about who or what had killed Steph. I knew it would be easier to just skip town, but when have I ever done things the easy way?
As darkness fell the night after Steph’s death, I arose and dressed. I had stowed a satchel in the Ferrari’s boot, something I have always done. I squirrel clothing, money, and a new identification everywhere as a precaution. You just never know when you will need them. And you never know how little the humans you can kill will be carrying.
I checked out of the Bellagio and claimed the car from the valet. I pulled out of the underground parking garage, cruised down the strip to the edge of town, headed out into the desert, and opened it up. I put the hammer down and popped the convertible top. At one-hundred-fifty miles per hour, the canvas didn’t even resist-it tore free like a cheesecloth rag. I saw it crumple on the edge of the road like a homeless man under a bus. I shifted into sixth and got the Italian missile to one-seventy-five. I saw a narrow ravine about a mile ahead, something most humans could never do, and none could react to. I twisted the wheel to the right and sprang from the car. It flipped three times before hitting the far side of the ravine. I would have been pulverized had I remained in the Ferrari when it crashed. It tore in half, the gas tank exploding and the front of the car flying over the ravine to the desert floor. It rolled and bounced, splintering off pieces as it went. The trail of debris was nearly a mile long when the dust settled. I watched everything from the air. As I began to fall, I unfolded my wings and glided across the sand.
Yes, we twelve inherited our fathers’ wings. We each only received two, as that is all our fathers still possessed when we were conceived. Again, Fallen genetics are different than that of humans. It seems to be more soul-based than physical—it is hard to explain. Our fathers’ souls had been…reduced by God’s fire. So we inherited two wings. We can absorb them into our backs when not in use. We have extra bones that extend and retract at will. When retracted, the bones are folded underneath the muscles and the skin is smooth. When fully extended, my wingspan is nearly eight feet. My wings are strong and can easily lift me and a large human. Every time I have tested this, my “passenger” has been purely dead weight. I can rise, glide, and dive silently. I deeply enjoy flying, but I never do it often enough. But that night I flew high enough to be mistaken for a bird, or hmmp, a bat. I landed just outside of town and folded my wings. They slipped inside the special gussets in my shirt without a sound. I walked into town, enjoying the last of the day’s heat as it slowly died in the cool of the night.
The Pink Cheetah was about a twenty minute walk from the city limits. I walked with a leisurely pace, enjoying the nightlife. As a card-carrying member of it, I get a kick out of the vast array of humans that claim the night as their territory. I especially love the Goth kids, pretending to be sensual and ancient, sometimes even drinking blood to be more like their mythical idols. None of the twelve of us ever dressed like that and drew attention to ourselves. If they only knew how far off the mark they are… I do wear a lot of black, and I very much enjoy leather. But the purple hair, eye make-up, straps, and spikes? What are they thinking?
I was actually pondering this question as I reached the chalk outline of my wife near the backdoor of the Pink Cheetah. It was nearly 3 am by this point and the last of the patrons and dancing girls were on their way out through the front doors to party until dawn. I knelt down and scraped at the bloodstain that the medical examiners had not been able to remove. I tasted the powder—it was definitely Steph’s blood. But there was something else…vampire saliva. Just a little bit, not more than a molecule or two, but I picked it up. So she was murdered and fed upon by one of my brothers. This was out of line. It may have been just a mistake, though…But what was the likelihood of one of my brothers being in the same city I was in at the same time? Of course, Las Vegas is a den of depravity and evil, so it wasn’t that unbelievable. But who? And where was he? I needed to find out.
I walked back to the edge of town and checked into a crappy little no-tell motel just before dawn. I slept some and watched TV for a while at noon. Steph’s face greeted me on the thirteen inch television that was chained to the dresser. It didn’t really bother me to see her picture. She was my wife, but in reality she was just another human, no different than all of the ones I had lost or killed myself over the long years of my existence. Hers wasn’t the only murder in Vegas, but it was the most sensational at the time. Her throat had been ripped out and her blood had been completely drained. The police had no idea what kind of animal could do that kind of damage. They theorized it may have been a mountain lion or a bobcat that had wandered into town from the desert or that had escaped from a private collection. They had also tossed my house and were trying to track me down for questioning. My picture was put up next to Steph’s as was my old name. The police had also found what was left of my Ferrari and seemed stumped as to my whereabouts. That was fine with me. I didn’t need to mess with questions or temporary incarceration right then.
I slept a bit more and headed out at dusk. I needed to find my brother and I figured I may as well look at the first place I would go if I was visiting Vegas. I skipped the cab and walked to the Hard Rock Casino. All twelve of us are eccentric in our own ways, but we have a few things in common. Any one of us who would come to Vegas would be looking to party, and the Hard Rock was the place to see and be seen. I could see the marquee from a block away—Rebellion was headlining that night. Rebellion is a heavy metal band made up of a Norwegian bassist, a Scottish drummer, a British guitarist, and a vampire lead singer…my brother Blauge.
Blauge was a bit more of an exhibitionist than the rest of us. He had been a traveling minstrel and bard in the dark ages, and a poet and artist during the Renaissance. He loved being in the public eye and performing for humans. Oh, he was a cold-blooded killer like the rest of us, but he was more likely to write a sonnet about it or paint an abstract based on his feelings during feeding. And he was a good candidate for a late-night visitor to a strip club. A visitor who would tear a woman’s throat out.
The hunt for Blauge was a short one; as I said, he is larger than life. He was backstage in his private quarters having sex with three women at the same time. I let myself in quietly, but as occupied as my brother was, he still became aware of my presence almost instantly. “Brother! How the hell are you?” he asked as he stood up, knocking all three whores to the ground. I could see one was dead. Blauge had drained her in the throes of passion. She had likely not felt it, and the other two women were unaware of her demise. Of course, they were so doped that the fact they had just been dropped on their bare asses hardly registered in their glazed eyes. This was good as these fine ladies were about to bear witness to something their tiny minds would not be able to process had they been sober.
I shot across the room and grabbed Blauge by the throat, lifting him above my head with one hand. “Why did you kill her, Blauge?!”
“Oh come on, Bro, she was just a groupie!” he squeaked out through his choked windpipe.
“Not her, my…the girl from the Pink Cheetah!” I demanded.
“What? I didn’t kill any strippers. Lately, anyway. Why do you ask?” This last came out like a fart through crushed glass as I squeezed his throat nearly completely shut.
“No reason,” I spat as I threw him across the room like a used Kleenex. I believed him, but I didn’t want to let him know that. I figured I could still pump him for information. “Put some clothes on.” My assault didn’t seem to make his arousal flag at all. Just my luck—my brother liked it rough.
“Alright, alright. But I should kick your ass for breaking up my party, dear Brother.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Blauge.”
He pulled a black t-shirt over his head, and slid into a pair of black leather pants. No underwear. How nice.
“So who was this dead girl, and why do you think I killed her?”
“You are homicidal. Do I really need a reason?”
“You better have a better one than that. Fag?”
He stuck a cigarette between his lips and offered me the pack. I declined. He had been hanging out with his European band mates too long. I was waiting for him to offer me tea and crumpets next, and I told him so.
“Nice, Bro. Anyway, I’m getting tired of asking questions. Who was this tramp?”
“She was my wife for the past couple of years.” Saying it like that made me realize Steph was dead and just how much I missed her. I just hoped she would be as easy to forget as all of the other people I had known and lost over the years. Somehow I doubted she would.
“No way! You got married? To a woman?”
“Don’t push your luck, Blauge. I am not in the mood for your pathetic sense of humor.”
There must have been a certain timbre to my voice because Blauge’s always-jovial mood became more serious in the span of a heartbeat. “Sorry, Bro. I’ve never been married, you know, but I’ve been pretty serious a few times over the years. Sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks.” Blauge was typically a loudmouth asshole, but he could also be the most empathetic of us all. I had never been particularly close to any of my brothers, but I would have liked to have been closer to Blauge. I would have had a lot more fun I think.
“So, I take it one of us killed her. You wouldn’t be here without a reason. But I swear to you, I didn’t kill her. We just got into town early this afternoon.”
“You haven’t heard from our brothers lately, Blauge? Anyone else in Vegas right now?”
“Man, I don’t know. I didn’t know you were here until two minutes ago. You know how we are. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of us were in Sin City at any one time, ya know?”
He had a point. Sin City is a more truthful name than Las Vegas, and it is a haven for our kind as well as the Fallen. I have heard tell of even mere humans being able to feel the evil like a tangible wave of sewage-laced water. Of course, we can feel each other and approximate location, but I guess it would be rather disturbing for a human mind and soul to deal with. Perhaps those gifted humans were descendants of other Fallen, but I believe the presence of evil can simply be felt when it is powerful enough.
“Anyone you can reach out to for me?” I asked.
“Look Bro, I will try, but we are only here for tonight. We’ll be playing in San Diego tomorrow night, then we head to Japan for a month. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t guarantee anything. I am sorry, though.”
“Alright. Here is my cell number. Call me if you hear anything.”
“I will. You wanna stay for the show? You can sing backup if you want.”
“No thanks,” I said with a smile. It was the first one my face had allowed since I found out about Steph’s murder. “Just rock the house down.”
“Always.”
With that, Blauge grabbed my hand, pulled me to him, and hugged me quickly. It was an odd act as far as I was concerned, but he always was the most “feeling” of us.
“Watch your back, Brother,” he whispered in my ear in the split-second we were embraced. He let me go, his right eyebrow raised and a gleam in his eye as if he was asking if I understood. I nodded my head imperceptibly to anyone but one of us, turned, and strode out of the dressing room.
Blauge had opened his mind to me in that hurried embrace—no, more than that. He shouted at me with his thoughts even as he whispered with his mouth. What he was feeling was fear. True, it was vampiric fear which was much more jumbled and confused than human fear. For a being that has never felt fear the articulation of such a feeling is difficult. It was a black swirling smog in the pit of his stomach and the back of his mind. Blauge knew something big was going down in our realm, but he didn’t know what. He had some suspicions but nothing concrete, at least nothing he could form into a coherent thought. He was apologetic for that. The one name that came swimming to the forefront was Variel, though. This name came spiraling out of Blauge’s subconscious—he had not knowingly thought it. When he spilled his mind’s contents into my mind, everything came with it. I plucked the Variel tidbit out on my own. Blauge had sent everything, I think in an attempt to let me sift through the thoughts he couldn’t form. He’s a good brother; as good as a bloodsucking cold-blooded killer can be, anyway.
Chapter 2: When in Rome
The next night I woke up in another no-tell mo-tel just after dusk. This place was a true dump with roaches the size of puppies, but it had wi-fi internet access. I guess wireless internet is considered the way to go for downloading fetish porn by the frequenters of such classy establishments. I had bought a new laptop with cash the night before and logged onto the World Wide Web, the information superhighway, good ol’ cyberspace. I wasn’t sure exactly what to look for, but I knew I would know it when I saw it. The night went by fast, me hitting dead ends with every Google search. Finally, about 6 am with the sunlight filtering through the stained sheers, I caught a lead. I saved it to my favorites and decided to get some sleep. I knew I would need all the energy I could muster over the next few days. I was going to be traveling, and I was going to be in more danger than I had ever been in during all my years on this earth.
The following night I was on an evening flight to Rome. I lost an entire day in the air considering the seventeen hour flight and several time zones we had passed through. I had plenty of time to rest and think, though. The one final link I had followed on the internet had taken me to an apocalyptic cult’s website. They were touting the coming of the lord of the world. They seemed giddy as a schoolgirl getting her skirt blown up for the first time. The most recent blog entry was cryptic but it dealt with “the infernal machine” being “set into motion.” It hyped the upcoming Armageddon and the arrival of the Antichrist. “Soon will follow the prophet and the reign of our lord Satan” was splashed across the top of the “News” page. I don’t know if these guys had a sense of humor, but that was kinda funny. The website was in Latin, and judging by the written dialect and what few grainy pictures were posted, the cult was headquartered in Rome. Quite possibly the Vatican. The cradle of the greatest amount of evil energy on the planet. The very spot Satan and his minions landed when they fell to earth.
The Catholic Church was founded by my brother Cathos immediately after the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus. He started it quietly to see if it would catch on, and it did in a big way. He is also responsible for the crusades, the relic worship, and the monetary basis of the Catholic religion. Cathos is not as much a hater of Jews as Variel; rather he hates all people who would believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Cathos perverted His teachings over the centuries little by little until the Church we are familiar with today holds true to very few of the tenets of Jesus. He is good at what he does, I will give him that. The Templar treasure does exist, and he controls it. One of the nails used to crucify Jesus serves as a paperweight on his desk. The Ark of the Covenant is the true casualty, though. It is now a stand for his large saltwater aquarium. It is beautiful, and I would bet even a human could feel the power it contains. It almost hums with the power of God’s word. It actually shot the first three full fish tanks across the room, but that was over fifty years ago. It seems to have quieted down for now, or perhaps it is just waiting like a giant golden saber-toothed cat to leap upon its prey and tear him limb from limb.
Cathos placed the Vatican on the spot where our fathers landed, broken, bloody, and writhing. Cursing God. Their blood and curses seeped into the ground, poisoning it. Their still burning bodies created a cloud of smoke and angelic ash that eventually settled upon everything. There they lay for nearly one hundred years, their pure, unadulterated evil leaching into every part of the environment. The seat of Catholicism is the most evil place in all the universe. Only the word of God Himself can cleanse the area, and He has not yet arrived. And this is where I was heading.
When our plane landed I hailed a taxi and went to a nicer hotel. I checked in as Antonio Campisi, the Italian equivalent of John Smith. I needed to feed so I walked a few blocks to the loudest discotheque I could find. It would have been a smorgasbord had I felt like it—I could have slaughtered all of the gyrating cattle and turned red from the blood I had ingested, but I didn’t feel like it, lucky for them. I only needed one meal to go, but I needed information as well. The young people of Rome would have most of the info I needed and since most of them were tranced by the deep house music, drugs, or drink, they would be easy enough to pump for answers.
I found one petite girl that reminded me a little of Steph, but much less endowed. She was still cute though, and healthy. She was wearing a tight black t-shirt, cropped so it showed all of her midriff. Her abs and the tops of her curvy hips were visible, and perspiration was running over them in glistening rivulets. I thought to myself that I may need to have a little fun with her before I fed on her. I could smell her scent even among all of the other people’s sweat and the smoke. My vision was focusing only on her, darkening around the edges, becoming a tunnel linking her and me. I was hungry, hungrier than I had thought, and my hunting instinct was kicking into high gear. I could hear her heartbeat over the thumping rhythm and I was gliding toward her through the smoke-filled light beams and the sea of dancing humans. I would need to relax my senses and my reflexes, or I would likely drain her as soon as I reached her. Something about the way she moved made it hard to ramp my mental and physical processes down, but I was able to keep them in check as I slid up behind her. She never even realized I was there until I was whispering in her ear. She looked at me with a start, her dark brown eyes large and uncomprehending. She was definitely high—I could tell by her trip-hammering heartbeat and her dilated pupils.
“Hey baby,” she cooed in Italian, “would you like a hit?” She reached for a small vial of black powder that was tied with a thin leather cord around her neck. “It’s called diabolus.” She whispered the word, letting it slide past her pearly teeth and her moist tongue. It was the sexiest word ever uttered by a human. She offered me the vial and I took it, puzzled at the black powder inside. I didn’t think she was tripping off of gunpowder, but humans do some crazy stuff at times. Lots of GIs returned home after the war I had waged on Variel and Udo drinking anything they could get their hands on. Many drank gasoline and were struck blind instantly. Some hot little Italian girl snorting gunpowder was not the strangest thing I had ever seen.
I could smell it through the glass, though, and the smell was oozing ever so slightly out of the girl’s pores. It definitely wasn’t gunpowder, but it did have an acrid tang to it. I was getting hornier than I had ever been watching her and smelling her…and the drug. I pulled the cap off to take a good whiff of the powder. That was when the girl’s knuckle-dragger boyfriend showed up and shoved me hard from behind. The vial, slick with the girl’s sweat slipped out of my hand, the powder landing on her perspiration-soaked neck and chest.
I had been so focused on her pulse and the pulse of the deep house music that I hadn’t heard the big Italian stallion come up behind me. He shoved me hard, meaning to put me on the floor, but hitting one of us is like hitting a brick wall. We stand our ground and our anatomies are very resistant, as I have said. His full-on shove was enough to jolt me forward and spill the vial, though, so I knew he would be a fighter. That was fine by me, as the scent of the girl and her drug-laced sweat was driving me mad. I spun before the guy could even blink, catching him under his chin with my left hand. He was big, probably 250 or 260, and really tall, but I picked him up as I caught him, leaving a good foot of air under his feet. His eyes went wide as I began to choke him. I was barely squeezing his windpipe with the base of my thumb and forefinger. He was tough, but his eyes began to water as he made coughing sounds from the back of his throat. He grabbed my left hand with both of his, trying to pry my fingers away. He was kicking, trying to get me or get free, but I never so much as rocked on my feet. He was trying to plead with me when I noticed the girlfriend had quit dancing and stared at me, her rational mind trying to come out of its drug-induced coma and reconcile what was happening in front of her. It wasn’t doing a very good job judging by the glassiness of her big brown eyes.
The needle scratched across one of the records the DJ was spinning, a big, comical WRRROOOP! like you would hear in a movie or sitcom when the stuffing was about to hit the fan, then silence. The entire club quit moving and all eyes were either on me or the big mook I was holding over my head like a fine glass of port, as if I was swirling it and assessing its legs. No one breathed for what seemed like forever, and then the girl I had been targeting looked from me to her giant of a boyfriend and back to me. She sidled closer to me, and stood on her tiptoes to whisper into my ear. “Break his neck,” she said in the same way she had pronounced the drug’s name just seconds before. “He’s a bad man. He treats me bad.”
The boyfriend’s eyes were swimming, trying to look down past his purple cheeks to see the face of his girlfriend, but she was looking at me with stone sober eyes. I wanted to tweak my wrist just a little, but I knew it would be hard to escape arrest when four hundred eyes were trained on my every move. So I dropped him flat on his ass. Hard. I grabbed the girl’s wrist and pulled her out through the crowd. I move fast, even through an ocean of stoned teenagers, and we were out the door and into the cool, quiet night before the “bad man” even realized he had been dropped.
“Bad man, eh?” I thought to myself. “If only she knew…” I fought back a sniggle as I whisked her through the streets to my hotel.
When we arrived at the hotel, the doorman gave me a little wink, the Italian version of “Thumbs up, Champ!” as he opened the door for me. I’m sure he thought I was some tourist out sampling the local fare. Whatever. I took the girl up to my room via the elevator. We didn’t talk. She hadn’t said a word since our exchange while I was still holding her now ex-boyfriend up like a prized Christmas goose. She had come along amicably enough; I suppose she just wanted to get away from Prince Charming. We got to my room and I keyed in. I opened the door for her, slipped the “Do Not Disturb” sign (printed in both Italian and English) on the doorknob, and closed the door. I clicked the lock home and entered the living room.
The girl was already sprawled on one of the loveseats in the room. She must have flipped on a few lights when she entered the room, because there was a soft glow from several spots throughout the suite. When I am alone I never turn lights on. I don’t need to. But this girl looked very nice in the light, her light olive skin now dry but still glowing at the blades of her hipbones and across her clavicles. She was a true beauty, very classic. Our dash through the streets of Rome had curbed my horniness while increasing my appetite, which was not good for this girl’s sake. Looking at her lying across the arm of the loveseat was definitely helping her chances of living at least a little longer, though.
I walked across the room and sat down across from her in an overstuffed leather armchair. Her eyes followed me and stayed on me as I sat. She was not afraid, though. Her heartbeat was slower and more relaxed, almost sleepy. We sat and stared at each other for five minutes, then ten. Finally she spoke. “What’s your name? Or should I just call you Baby?”
I told her my name was Antonio. She seemed to buy it, but not prefer it. “So, Baby, you here on business or pleasure?”
“Both, I suppose. Just business, until I met you.”
Her dark brown eyes twinkled, and she lowered them as she smiled. She blushed a little, which made her all the sexier. No woman had ever had this much control over the goings-on in my nethers.
“Ah, that is sweet. So, you want to get started or do you want to keep talking?” She slid off the loveseat and crawled over to me. She was slinky as a black cat, and she knew it. She was an odd mix of sweet and beguiling, and erotic and tempting. I saw a lot of Helen in her suddenly, the girl who caused the fall of the great walled city of Troy. She had had the same qualities as this doe-eyed beauty, and I could almost see why Paris had taken her from her husband back to his land, damning his line completely. Almost. Regardless, I was going to have a memorable night with this particular Helen.
She reached me, putting her small hands on my inner thighs and her head in my lap. She crawled on up my body, until she was straddling me in the chair. We kissed. Her lips were sweet, and I could taste her hot blood through them. We started out slow, me holding her hips, my fingertips in the small of her back. She arched her back, her carotid arteries thrumming beneath the muscles in her soft neck. I was hungry, but that hunger had taken a backseat at this point. I wanted to make this last. This girl moved like Steph had always tried to, but she was so much smoother than Steph had been. The movements came naturally to this girl. They seemed to be a part of her. Steph was sensual, but it was learned. I leaned forward and massaged the left side of her neck with my lips and the front of my teeth. I did not bite her, but I could feel her blood rushing through her arteries and veins. I struggled with the urge to bite her, but she slipped a hand down my pants and the urge to bite her disappeared.
We made love all night long and both fell asleep just before dawn. As I drifted off I realized I still didn’t even know her name. Not that it really mattered. At least that is what I thought as my consciousness spiraled down into the darkness that daybreak brings.
I awoke with a start as the lock on the door clicked open. The sun was shining around the drawn curtains, making a giant glowing rectangle along the wall and carpet. “Room service!” called a voice in Italian. The voice sounded like it was trying too hard to sound like an elderly Italian housekeeper. Nothing about that voice or the scent of the human entering my room was right—she sounded younger and more virile than her voice and shuffling steps indicated. I rolled out of bed and pulled the girl from the night before off with me. She stirred a little as we landed, and I pushed her under the bed just as gunfire erupted from the doorway. The shots sounded like they were coming from a Tec-9 or an uzi, and goose feathers were being thrown into the air as the bed was shredded by bullets. The girl screamed, fully awake now, and I clamped my hand over her mouth. The gunfire and her screams were playing hell on my sensitive ears. The large brown eyes stared at me hysterically as I raised a finger to my own lips in the classic “Shhh!” gesture. Her eyes, though swimming with liquid fear, registered her understanding and she quit screaming. The gunfire stopped for a second as I heard the well-oiled “Chiiish” of the clip sliding out. I made my move.