The Soul of a Vampire #1

by Rachel E Rice

  Robert stepped back. He wasn’t afraid because I was there, but he knew his limitations with a witch and a vampire, and he didn’t want that fight unless it became absolutely necessary.

  I glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, “I got this,” I said as I opened the door. Samantha stood looking youthful, but she and I knew that her young look was due to the years of serum she made from young women and their fetuses. She would find a two month pregnant female and snatch the unborn from the wound, and then make her serum in her lab.

  She was once a respected doctor until she decided that she wanted to follow me into the world of mortality. Over the years she became proficient at making potions to stay young and beautiful.

  “Come in Samantha. You look as beautiful as ever,” I said. She liked the fawning over her beauty. She took one step into the foyer. But she wouldn’t go any further. I left my brother standing at the open door.

  “Where is that child?” she asked me with a jealous mix in her harsh tone.

  “She’s where you can’t touch her.”

  “There’s nowhere I can’t touch her,” she said. “You are the only one standing in my way and that won’t be for long.”

  “Then come all the way in,” I said backing up and holding my hand out to her. She knew better. I could lock her in this house and she would never get out. And she knew there was a werewolf standing nearby. It wasn’t Robert she was afraid of, but he was afraid of her and she knew it. Even if she won the fight with Robert, she wouldn’t be beautiful after it was over. She would probably avoid that at any cost.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in, brother,” Aare questioned.

  “Only to kill you.”

  “Very well. I came with Samantha to bring you a message. Father needs to see you tonight.”

  “I can’t come tonight. I have something to take care of. Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”

  “You know how he doesn’t like to wait,” Aare said his voice deep his tone commanding.

  “He has waited this long to see me, then he will have to wait longer.”

  “Father said for me to bring you.”

  “What about mother?”

  “She doesn’t make any demands on father anymore.” I didn’t know how to interpret his words. He appeared to take delight in that about mother, and he sound somewhat gleeful.

  “I can bring myself. No need to wait for me. Now please leave before it gets more complicated than I want it to be.”

  “Do you think that dog of yours,” he gestured to Robert, “will keep you from the inevitable. Dying at my hands.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about. You could never anticipate what I would do next. You haven’t lived long enough,” I said to him hoping he didn’t know the truth.

  “I may have a few tricks you haven’t seen,” Aare said with an agitated smile. His lips quaking from anger.

  “Enough of your talk and of Samantha. I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to,” I said.

  When I turned to Samantha she and Robert were eyeing each other and they appeared to be at a dead heat. Both knew that the wrong move would end this soon for all. But nether wanted to see this end just yet.

  Robert no doubt wanted a life with Ann, and Samantha couldn’t feel vindicated unless Zoey was dead, and I had to be dead as well in order not to prevent that from happening. She wanted the best revenge she could assemble.

  Samantha turned with a whirl of her cape and marched to the door. When she stepped out she disappeared and all I saw was a beautiful bird swirling through the trees. She had learned through her five hundred years to conjure up spells of illusions. She could be a beautiful bird or a creature of the forest, or come to me as a beautiful seductive woman.

  She had done that many times until it didn’t work any longer on me. When they left I turned to Robert, “I’ll get Ann. Prepare to leave and never come back here. Go somewhere where you think my brother and Samantha can’t find you. Stay in the forest if you have to, but get away and stay away.”

  I made arrangement to transfer money into his account and left to bring Ann back to him safely.

  Arriving at the hospital proved easy. This time I traveled alone and I traveled at the speed of light. I managed to get Ann out of the hospital in an hour. They were eager for me to take her. It appeared she had been insistent that Zoey had been kidnapped by a pack of werewolves. I took Ann by the hand and looked at her, and she knew to stay quiet until we got out of the hospital.

  Pulling Ann to the side as we stepped outside the hospital, I notice Ryan Cole entering the hospital. I knew he was headed to the nineteenth floor to see Ann. I watched as he entered the elevator. Before he entered, he looked around as if he thought he was being followed. A suspicious and careful man, I thought. Someone to watch.

  I handed Ann some money and instructions. “I’ve charted a plane for you to Vancouver. Robert will meet you there.”

  “What about Zoey?” Ann said somewhat sad.

  “I’m going to get her now.”

  “Where will you two go?” She asked. I glanced at her. I knew, but I couldn’t tell her just because Samantha might find her one day and make her tell.

  “Will you be alright?” I asked her. She looked up at me and shook her head yes. And I left walking down the street. I turned to see her climb into a cab. I didn’t have time for goodbyes. I had to make it to my father’s castle.

  When I reached Sorrento, Italy, I rented a car because I would have to figure out how to get Zoey out or that place. I drove up to my father’s estate. It was two hours from daylight. I knew no one would harm Zoey because of my mother.

  She saw Zoey as her baby and felt contempt for me when I took her away. She forbid anyone to change her until she reached eighteen, but after I disappeared with Zoey, I became an outsider to my mother. She sent word that I would no longer be welcomed. I was no longer her son, and I would be like all the other vampires serving the Vespers who hadn’t been turned by them.

  I would have to carry my first name because I couldn’t say I was a Vesper. Vespers were a noble name and revered throughout the world of vampires. Now I’m Sebastian a vampire whose family disowned him and is trying to kill him.

  Driving up the cobblestone road to the castle, I watched around at the guards. Times had changed, but it would come late to my family. The castle overlooked the Mediterranean. It looked barbaric with its design of towers extending upward many floors into the clouds. I knew what went on behind those doors and inside.

  Humans, men and women and young children were kept for the newly changed vampires to feed on. Cannibalism served to keep the humans alive. Too many humans had been caught to feed them, and like garbage, they were scattered around after being drained of their blood, waiting for the hungry to consume them. The children were the first to be eaten because they were tender. Then the women who were pregnant.

  It occurred to me that this was one reason Samantha made an alliance with Aare.

  The barbaric things that occurred behind those walls were all too present in my mind. I had nightmares of the killings and the draining of blood to bottle it for times of vampire famine. The feeding on young virgins and then turning them into slaves.

  Vampires weren’t supposed to have dreams after they transferred into the other life, but I had constant nightmares of this happening to Zoey after I set her free.

  I trudged up the concrete walk passed the garden and up numerous steps to the double iron doors. My hand cautiously picked up the knocker, and the sound it made, earsplitting as it came into contact with the door.

  Two zombie like men, dressed in long robes with hoods opened the door. Their faces pale, their eyes black with dark circles underneath. They were the ones who couldn’t wait to be changed. But for some reason, this became a slow death for them. “What do you want here?”

  “I’m Sabastian.”

  “The master isn’t expecting anyone by the name of Sabastian.”

  “I’m his son.” />
  “He has no son by the name of Sabastian there is only Aare.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “They no longer reside behind these walls. It’s only for the heirs.”

  “Where is my mother?”

  “Who is your mother?”

  “Elizabeth Vesper,” I said to him. Exasperated at this point with all the questions and answers.

  “She’s no longer here.”

  “I demand to see my father. Tell him Sabastian Vesper is here.” He turned, and as the other walking human zombie stood guard watching me, I could have overpowered him with one hand and drained him completely of all the few ounces of blood left in his body.

  I was hungry, but not for human blood. I had become accustomed to animal blood and developed a healthy taste for vegetarian hoofed animals, like deer and cows. There was no way I would go back to that medieval diet we vampires had cultivated because of our own inhuman choices.

  It was a choice made long ago and I stepped away from that when I fell in love with Zoey. It was because of her that I will meet my father. It’s because of her that I will beg for her life and give mine, such as it is, to whatever punishment he desires.

  When I saw the zombie walking down the long corridor, I felt weak. In my rush to find Zoey, I forgot I needed to feed. The animal blood wasn’t as nourishing as human blood and because of that I had to feed often.

  Not knowing whether the forest had any animals and unable to hunt because I wouldn’t have the time, and the day was breaking, and I had to sleep, I suspected that the zombies would care for all the vampires here, but not me.

  I would have to find a safe place to rest until daylight. Then I remembered a hiding place I had kept secret from everyone. It was where I hid Zoey when I planned our escape. It was near my mother and father’s chambers. It was a wall no one knew existed but me. There I would rest away from those who would try to kill me. And that was perhaps everyone in this castle.

  Walking behind the young zombie, I passed humans waiting to become vampires. They stood in a line waiting to get into the large room. More like a reception room for visitors, where my father held court to dignitaries and kings who readily traded their mere lives for immortality.

  Some did it for the riches they could amass, the others had more carnal desires where they could spend their lives with different women over the ages.

  My only desire was to spend my life with only one woman, Zoey.

  After meeting with my father and he determining who would receive the ultimate wish, the vampires would feed on them, and finally they would pass into the world of the undead.

  The humans who had been caught and brought here against their will, accepted their fate gladly. The other humans who couldn’t accept it, asked for a quick death, and every vampire behind these walls were more than willing to give them what they wanted.

  We had to travel down a long passageway. We trod up the stairs and down stairs and then more corridors and doors. The zombies never looked behind them because they knew there wasn’t a way to escape.

  But what they didn’t realize, I had been here over five hundred years, behind these walls. And I knew every corner and opening of this dark medieval monstrosity of a castle.

  When I saw my chance, I disappeared down a dim lit corridor which led to my mother’s chambers. As I passed each door, leading downward, I couldn’t help but wonder about the statement from the zombie. I ducked into the catacomb and hurried down to where my mother slept. She was early to her bed and early to rise.

  I had never noticed the smell before—dirt and rotting flesh filled my nose and lungs. Perhaps the blood of animals, I had been consuming, made me more sensitive to decay.

  Walking to where she lay, there were two vaults, she had a glass cover over her crypt, and I was eager to see her face. But when I approached her vault, and leaned to look at her beautiful youthful face of eighteen, she lay there with her hands crossed resting, with a wooden stake plunged into her heart. I stood riveted to that spot unable to breath.

  The only one who could influence my father and she is gone with all her lost beauty. I blew out a sad breath. However, I couldn’t bring myself to cry because of all the pain my mother had caused with her selfish desire to have children.

  Someone had killed my mother and no one knew about her except maybe my father and Aare. “Why would father kill mother? He was in love with her,” I murmured. Then I remembered that I had to find Zoey, but first I had to sleep, and ultimately search for food. I didn’t know what would lie in wait for me once I woke.

  Now I feared for Zoey’s life. I couldn’t do anything without rest. I found my hiding place between the walls where my mother took her last breath. I lay back, and closed my eyes. My dreams of Zoey made for a restless sleep.

  I woke to the setting of the sun, I pushed open the wall and stepped out. My pace feeble, my legs trembled as I took each step, and I knew why it had been that way. With failing strength, I pushed the wall back to where it faded into the scenery.

  Walking over to my mother’s resting place, I leaned over to kiss the cover and bid her soul peace. When I strode to where my father lay, it was then I heard a strong voice.

  Chapter Twenty-Three-Sebastian

  “So that’s where you’ve been all along.” He walked closer to me looking at me. His eyes roving about from my head to my feet. “I didn’t think to have my guards search mother’s grave. But then it’s so typical you. I should have known.”

  Aare stood before me with red eyes and pale skin. His skin white and almost translucent, but like the marble and granite statues decorating each floor of the castle.

  “What happen to mother?” I said. My voice breaking now that I realized that I will never see her or talk to her again.

  “What happens to all vampires when they’ve served their time in this world?” Aare said casually with icy abandonment. It was true we did have a coldness in us, but I had thrown away that bondage of indifference and brutality when I chose to feed on the blood of animals and not humans.

  “Be careful, you maybe next,” he said. And he let out a chilling laugh. It had a sound of pure evil as he watched at me with his glowing red eyes.”

  “Where is Zoey? And where is father?”

  “Father is indisposed. He sleeps more lately. After all, he is thousands of years old. I don’t exactly know how old.” He evaded the question of Zoey and didn’t answer me.

  “Where are the others?” I said looking around for vaults. “Our brothers and sisters. Where are they?” I demanded to know. Aare raised an eyebrow as if to say, how dare you ask me.

  “They have gone to establish their own covenants,” he said not because he feared me, but because he liked the game of making me ask questions, and he only giving me pieces of the answers I was seeking.

  “You haven’t mentioned Zoey.” I stumbled walking to him and Aare’s eyes opened wide and a smirk of satisfaction crossed his lips.

  “You need something to eat, brother. I didn’t ask you about your long trip. Come. Tell me about it as you feed. I’m a bit hungry, too.”

  He held out his pale hand. I reluctantly took it. If I had any chance of rescuing Zoey from wherever he had hidden her, I needed something to eat.

  “I don’t feed on humans anymore,” I said to him stumbling down the dark dank corridor, and up to the first floor, as I leaned on Aare wondering why he hadn’t taken his chance to end my life. Maybe he couldn’t be sure of how fragile I had become. But then he knew he would get only one chance.

  When we arrived in a large room where father and mother held court with visiting vampires, and humans, I remembered my father’s stately manner when he resided over all vampires and humans who came and who were brought to serve the vampire king. He sat in a large chair resembling a throne. He wore a colorful robe with the sun designed on the back to soften and contrast the black robes mother wore.

  Looking around for a place to lie down, I fell on the nearest large cushion.


  The chair which belonged to father, now Aare strutted to that chair and sat. The one mother sat in had been removed.

  Placed around the throne, to his right and left, and facing him were large silk black cushions at his feet. And on the cushions lay young men and women looking up at him. Now I lay helpless at his feet, too.

  Aare glanced over at me and said with a taunt, “We don’t have animal blood here. That’s for humans who can’t make the change and can’t take the pain. Those we turn into zombies. Half dead and half alive and they stay that way. And as you see, we no longer have humans. We have willing subjects who are passing through the change. They are between human and vampire. “Like the one over there,” he said licking his lips, and pointing his long white fingers at a young girl trembling at his feet, “they are the most delectable of humans.”

  “I don’t want to feed on them.”

  “Then you will die,” his voice filled with pleasure at the thought. He clapped his hand and the door opened and young women and men of every race and color, and every nationality filed into the room and stood before him.”

  “Make your choice. I’ve already chosen the ones I want to feed on. I’ll save the others for a morning snack before I retire.” He rubbed his hands together at the thought and smiled. His voice cheerful and light as if he was going to eat his favorite desert.

  I watched as he summoned two young men and three young women to kneel down beside him. They were all naked and their bodies were budding and maturing with the bloom of youth. The women’s breasts were hard, their nipples protruding and erect from the chill of the room.

  I watched as Aare’s fangs slid from his lips, and like trained dogs these young men and women went to their knees and bent low as they placed their necks for him to feed on. When he rose from one of his snacks, he made a groaning sound as if he wasn’t really satisfied and went on to the next victim.

  He glanced over at me as he taste one after the other leaving them writhing in pain and weak from his gorging on their once healthy young bodies. He had an enormous appetite for blood since he was a teen when he was changed, and because he lacked all amount of self-control.