by E. M. Knight
My vampirism is still extremely weakened.
A gag is thrown over my mouth so that I cannot scream. Rebecca leads the procession out of the room. We enter a dark hallway. It stinks of rotting flesh.
My eyes rip around the space as I try to take everything in. I see a pile of decomposing white bodies lying near one wall. That is where the stench comes from.
Not halfway down the hall one of the vile creatures starts to scream. The call is doubled when another joins in, then more and more, until I am assaulted by the sound waves from all sides.
My mind starts to splinter. I try to fight it, but I cannot. A great dizziness, an absolute disorientation, takes me. The screams pound into me, taking away my senses, obstructing my thoughts, obstructing my sight, obstructing literally everything until that sound is all I know.
I drift, lost in the abyss just before unconsciousness.
My sense of time and place is gone. I cannot even muster the memory of who or what I am. What’s happening—I don’t know.
Abruptly, I feel a great drop. The hands—what hands, I don’t feel any hands—release me. I hit an unforgiving stone surface very hard.
Without warning the sound cuts off. I groan, trying to collect myself. My mind very slowly starts to come back to me. I have a horrible, blistering headache, but at least I can think.
After an indefinite amount of time I manage to roll over. I am surprised to find I am no longer chained.
I push myself up. I am very, very weak. I blink a few times, trying to get a sense of my surroundings.
But my vision remains fractured for a few more minutes.
When it finally returns, I fully understand the horror of my situation.
I am lying on a stone slab the size of a large dining table. Cruel carvings of gargoyles are mounted on the sides. They box me in as if they’re a fence.
I crane my neck up. Above me, the ceiling extends past visibility. I cannot see where it ends.
Rebecca is in the room with me.
She is bent over a clay bowl, using a mortar and pestle to crush some sort of dried leaf into a fine powder. She mutters things in a language I do not understand.
There is no trace of the white, soulless creatures.
I look at my body again. I cannot believe I am unbound. Maybe I have a chance of escape, maybe I have an opportunity…
I try to leap up, but the moment I do my body hits a solid, impenetrable barrier.
Rebecca chuckles from her spot. She does not look up. “The statues seal you in,” she says absently, gesturing at the gargoyles. “They are torrials activated quite simply by the correct placement relative to each other.”
A sinking feeling comes over me.
“Don’t worry,” she continues. “This won’t take long. And I’m feeling generous, so I promise you that you won’t feel a thing.” This time, she does look up at me and grins. “If I wanted to, I could make this whole experience very painful for you.”
Panic takes me. All the instincts that were developed in me before the vampire essence are screaming at me to get away, warning me of great danger.
But that much is obvious. I would feel it even as a human.
I open my mouth to protest, to speak, to try to wriggle my way out of this. But before I get a single word out, Rebecca raises one hand.
“Don’t interrupt what I am doing here,” she says. “Lest you want me to change my mind about sparing you the pain.”
My mouth clamps shut of its own accord.
“Done!” Rebecca announces, just a moment later. She dips one hand into the amber bowl and takes out a handful of powder. She lets it fall from her fingers back into the rest. She walks over to me, looking springier than I’ve ever seen her. She takes another handful of powder out and tosses it in the air above me.
It lands on top of the invisible barrier that locks me in. A few of the filaments start to glow blue.
Their effect is faint yet undeniable. I feel a sort of pressure descend onto me. Rebecca repeats the procedure, doing it again and again, coating the entirety of the barrier with the powder. With every handful she tosses my way the pressure increases, until it is so strong I cannot move.
Then, she turns back, goes into a darkened corner, and throws off her robe.
She turns back to me. Her body is hideous, but I cannot look away. Her skin is ruined, saggy, lined and thin. Her bones jut out at awkward angles, bits and pieces of her ribs show.
Her breasts hang all the way down to her waist.
She looks at me with cruel eyes. “Do you see what my coven did to me?” she demands. “Do you see why I have been plotting for this day, from the very moment I awoke in this prison?”
She walks toward me. With a supreme effort I rip my eyes away. I aim them at the barrier, trembling with apprehension.
She reaches out and places a hand on that barrier above me. The instant she does it retracts. The powder coating it falls onto me.
As soon as it lands on my body I scream. Each tiny particle feels as hot as the sun. It absolutely burns my skin, worse than rays of sunlight ever would.
Rebecca climbs in beside me. Above her, the barrier seals shut.
I am locked on the stone slab with her.
Some last reserve of strength takes me. A rage erupts, and I manage to snarl and lunge at her, aiming to kill.
But despite her frail appearance the woman is quick. She brushes me aside with nary any effort.
When our skins touch I feel a suction take me. The pain of the particles intensifies. And the vampire essence starts to leave me.
I panic. Not knowing what else to do, I rip away. But Rebecca catches my wrist and holds me tight.
“You will not deny me this,” she hisses.
Her eyes sear into me with a horrible intensity. Through the new link between us at my wrist, more and more of the essence is drawn out. I don’t know what’s happening, don’t know how to stop it, don’t know what to do.
Rebecca begins to transform before my eyes. At first her hair grows back, full and thick and luscious and dark. I feel myself being drained. Her skin constricts, tightening around her muscles. The damage evident in it fades away. Her flesh fills out, giving her a womanly shape, and her face races back against the clock through time.
All I can do is stare in horror. I feel my own body being lost, feel her stealing my muscle tone, my strength, my youth, my vitality.
Finally, she releases me. When the bond is broken I gasp. Such weakness, such frailty pervades my body that it’s a wonder I am still alive. My thoughts come slow, my whole being aches… but somehow, I am still alive.
Rebecca stands gracefully. I marvel at her beauty. Her form is perfect, womanly and pure. Her skin is flawless, her back is straight, and nothing at all is left of the woman I first met.
Gracefully, she steps off the table. The barrier seals shut above me.
I am imprisoned again.
I watch as she looks over her new body, as she runs her hands over her limbs, as she giggles in pure joy. She does all this facing away from me.
And then she turns and looks at me. When her eyes find my pathetic shape, she recoils in disgust.
“Oh, my dear,” she says, her voice pure and beautiful and sweet. “How you would hate to see yourself now.”
I try to reach an arm out toward her, but even for that, I lack the strength.
She smiles at me, flashing her perfect teeth. “Surprise,” she announces. “You’re still alive.”
My thoughts are too sluggish to understand the implications.
“You gave me a second chance. But this form I inhabit now is only temporary. Slowly, it will ebb away, and be restored to you.” The smile turns absolutely reprehensible. “From time to time I will return here, and we will conduct this precious ceremony again.”
Slowly the awful truth sinks into me. She didn’t kill me… only plans to leave me prisoner in this awful cage for eternity.
My gut churns. My mind is swallowed by an absolute
pit of despair.
“Now,” she taps her lips and looks up. “You say this girl Eleira is named Queen? No, no,” she shakes her head. “That will not do. The Haven must be ruled by one who possesses Royal Blood.”
She spreads her arms and raises her voice. “Come to me, my children!”
From out the shadows, hundreds upon hundreds of those white creatures storm around her like a wave.
She points a finger up.
“It is time for us to retake what is ours!” she proclaims. “It is time for us to claim The Haven.” She casts her head from side to side taking them all in. “You will storm their sanctuaries, you will overrun their homes, and you will bring me their Queen.” The creatures stare at her, showing no emotion, held in trance by every word. “You will rise out of the ground through the sealed passages that have been weakened by time. Show them no mercy. Bring me their Queen!”
And on her command, the mass of evil creatures storm to the nearby wall and start prowling over it with incredible speed and dexterity.
Rebecca glances over her shoulder at me. “In a few short hours,” she promises. “I will have the crown in one hand… and Eleira’s head in the other.”
**THE END**
~ The End ~
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Welcome!
The Vampire Gift 7: Prophecies of Light
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The End
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