When Darkness Comes

by Wilbanks, G. Allen

  The pain caused Andi to momentarily lose conscious control of her actions. She released my throat and began to flail against me, throwing slaps and punches at my face and chest in her blind attempt to escape my hand buried in her body. The blows had significant power behind them and they definitely hurt, but they were unfocussed and did no serious injury to me. Before she had time to gather herself and think rationally again, I released my hold on her, pulled my gore-covered, blood-slicked arm from her body, and grabbed her shoulders. I spun her a quarter turn and stepped to my left, placing myself directly behind her. I grasped her head with both of my hands and wrenched it sideways with every bit of strength I had in me. Her neck broke with a wet popping noise, and her body collapsed to the floor.

  Though she fell onto her back, I could see only the back of her head surrounded by her silky gold hair atop her twisted neck. Her face pressed against the hardwood floor of the house entryway. I stopped to regard her fallen form for only a moment, but already her head had begun to turn and her neck creaked and snapped as the bones struggled to knit and reform. I lurched to the wall where my knife had lodged itself when Andi slapped it from my hand, and I pulled the blade free. Knowing I had no time to waste, I dropped down on my knees next to Andi. I clutched the handle of the weapon in both hands and, with a single thrust, I buried the blade in her chest, piercing the oily black heart within.

  I felt the point of the knife pass through her body and stick solidly into the hardwood floor beneath her.

  My fight for freedom ended that quickly. It was finished. Andi lay motionless, but I could see from the brightness in her eyes that she was watching me and she was aware what was happening. She was now merely a spectator, and I could do with her what I pleased.

  Blood seeped from around the edges of the blade, thick and black. I could not let the opportunity pass. I knelt over her and fed. The blood did not flow as it would from a wound on a human. There was no beating heart to push it through the body. Instead I was forced to suck noisily to draw it forth. Quickly giving up on the small trickle from her chest, I moved to her lovely pale throat and buried my teeth in her flesh, tearing an opening that allowed me to truly sample her essence. As I drank, energy and power filled me like electricity jolting into my body. I felt as if I were consuming liquid light; bright and limitless. My skin felt tight as if about to split from the pressure building inside me, pushing to escape. For the first time, I fully understood Andi’s desire for vampire blood. I felt powerful, untouchable. I forgave her for the previous years, but I remained determined to be free of her control forever. Forgiveness was one thing. Mercy was quite another.

  When I could not draw a single drop more from her throat, I rose to my feet, reveling in my newfound power and control. Andi still did not move, and would not unless I removed the blade. But I had no immediate plans to do so. I walked outside to my car, retrieved a small hand axe from my suitcase in the back seat, and returned to the house. Gazing down at Andi where she lay immobile at my feet, I raised the axe above my head, prepared to open her chest, remove her heart and destroy it.

  I paused.

  A flash of red caught my eye. The ruby pendant glittered where it rested on her chest, a tiny spark of brilliant crimson surrounded by the darker backdrop of Andi’s blood. I found myself recalling where I had seen the stone before. She had worn it the first day she had come home with me. I remembered noticing it in the bar. I also remembered the giddy joy I felt when I turned around on that barstool and saw her.

  Emotions I thought long gone flared to life within me; feelings I had no business feeling for the woman who had murdered me then continued to torture my animated corpse for over five years. But they were there just the same. I felt pity for her as she lay helpless before me. I felt guilt for destroying the person who had opened up this world to me and let me in. Despite all the pain she had caused me, I still remembered the desperation and passion of our lovemaking. I remembered how alive I felt when I was with her, and how lost when she left. There was even a tiny part of me that simply wondered who had this naïve little girl been before she became a monster. Had she loved the man who had made her into what she was today, or would she take it all back if she could?

  Despite my determination to end her dominion over me, when the axe blade fell, my target had changed. I severed her hands from her wrists with two separate blows. I decided to let her live, but my new plan required that she be absolutely helpless when she awoke.

  As each hand separated from her body, the tissues turned to dust and then the dust faded to nothing, leaving only skeletal remains just as Victor had claimed. There was no flesh, decomposed or otherwise on the bone. If the vampire hunter’s information was accurate – and at this point I had no reason to believe it wasn’t – I figured Andi must be at least ten years dead. Probably more. How long did a body take to break down to bare bones? And how long before the bones, too, decayed?

  I noticed her left hand was missing two fingers: the middle and ring fingers. I held up my own left hand speculatively. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps I was just the next generation of a pattern long established.

  I set down the axe. Trying not to think about the mistake I might be making, I pulled the dagger from her chest then stepped away to watch. Not wanting to waste any of Andi’s blood I ran each side of the dagger blade along my tongue to clean it. Ambrosia. When it was more or less clean, I wiped it dry on the leg of my pants and replaced it in its concealed sheath. Andi had begun to move as I put the weapon away. Her neck cracked and shifted as it finished healing itself. Her head turned until it sat properly straight once more on her shoulders. Levering herself up to a sitting position, she studied me. Her neck still appeared partially malformed where the bones had not yet completely repaired, and the wounds on her chest and wrists did not close immediately. Andi would need blood to finish healing. But as I looked at her face, I saw her deep brown, soulful eyes were wide open and alert.

  She raised her arms in front of her face and stared at the blunt stumps where the hands had been. Her eyes flicked back to meet mine. “Why?” she asked. The word came out raspy and tortured, but I understood the question.

  “Because I needed to be sure you would not try to fight me while we talked. Don’t worry, you will heal and your hands will grow back.”

  Andi nodded as though she already knew this fact. She lowered her arms and looked pointedly at me. I saw anger in her expression, and something else I never thought to see there. Fear. Andi was afraid of me.

  “Talk,” she said.

  “I want you to understand I am no longer your thrall. I owe you nothing and I expect nothing from you in return. I probably should have killed you, but I’m going to let you live. You don’t need to show any gratitude for that, I expect that you certainly don’t feel any. But I promise you if you ever summon me against my will again, I will finish what I started here today. It is your choice now to live or die, but I will be free of you from this day forward.”

  Andi shook her head. “You can’t….” Her voice failed her.

  “But I can, Andi. And I will. I don’t know if you have been lying to me or if you honestly did not know, but I can destroy you without sharing your fate.” I smiled for her, showing her my shiny new set of fangs. Her eyes widened as she noticed them. While she watched, I let them melt away revealing a more normal set of teeth. “I have learned a few things while I have been apart from you. Things that maybe you aren’t aware of. Most importantly I have discovered that a thrall does not die with his master.”

  Andi’s eyes grew darker with anger. I thought perhaps that the emotion might be directed at me, but then a small smile touched her lips. “How…?”

  “How do I know this?”

  She shook her head again and cleared her throat. “How … kill?”

  “You want to know how to kill a vampire?”

  Nod.

  “You are going to try and kill me?” I asked.

  Shake of the head. No.

  “
Someone else?”

  A slow determined nod.

  I didn’t know if it was safe to tell her. She might one day still come after me. But that was a risk I was taking anyway just by letting her live. Besides, maybe if she learned the information she wanted from me she might feel grateful. Or if not exactly grateful, maybe less inclined to hunt me down and execute me. I made my decision.

  “Stab him through the heart to paralyze him. That’s probably the most difficult part. Once he is immobilized you must then destroy the heart,” I said. “Burn it, or expose it to sunlight, but it must be completely destroyed.”

  Andi nodded to me once more. “Thank … you.”

  “Go out back. Whatever blood you stored in the basement for me, take it. Feed and heal. I wish you well, Andi. But never seek me out again.”

  There was something more I wanted to say. I hesitated, but decided there was no more risk in being honest. “I’m letting you live Andi, because I think I might still love you. But I think I might hate you a little bit, too. Enough to kill you if I have to.”

  I left her then. I walked out of that house, climbed into my car and drove away, completely free for the first time since I met that beautiful, dangerous woman. I have not seen her since that night, though I still think of her often. I wonder where she is and what she is doing. Did she succeed in gaining her own freedom? Is she even still alive?

  Maybe one day we will meet again. I think I would enjoy seeing her. To gaze into the endless depths of her eyes, and to hear her seductive siren’s voice. Perhaps more. Who knows?

  So, as I asked when I started this narrative, I now ask again: how is a vampire born? The answer in my case is simple. A vampire is born of love and death. A vampire is born of lust and bad decisions. A vampire is born when a beautiful woman with a deep dark secret comes to town, and a foolish young man doesn’t have the sense to run and hide when that darkness comes for him.

  About The Author

  G. Allen Wilbanks was born and raised in northern California, and he currently resides in Sacramento with his wife and two beautiful daughters. After working in law enforcement for many years, he decided in 2016 to retire from real life and live in a fantasy world of his own making full time. To learn more about G. Allen and find more of his publications, please visit www.gallenwilbanks.com.