by Nicole Marie
I turned my attention back to Erik as he grunted in response.
“We have no need of your help, woman,” he spat. “I have no interest in your services.”
She traced her hands along his thigh and when he swatted her away, she ran them down the front of her body and settled between her legs. “I promise you, Master Erik,” she whispered seductively. She practically purred as she spoke. “You’ve never experienced anything like me before. Turn me, and I will turn your world upside down.”
I’d heard of vampire junkies before. Men and women desperate to be turned to devote their lives to becoming a vampire’s prostitute, pretty much. The idea repulsed me, and I’d never seen it firsthand before. I didn’t know whether to hate her or pity her.
Erik looked like he was considering for a moment, and anger coursed through me.
“Turn me now, and I’ll let you fuck me right here in front of the other vampires.” She began rubbing between her legs and a seductive moan escaped her lips.
That was it. That was enough. I took a deep breath and mustered all the strength I could. My voice came out more of a growl than I had expected, but I think my point came across.
“Fuck off, bitch.” The amount of attitude that came out of me with that statement surprised even me.
Erik’s eyes snapped up to me and he looked wildly amused. The girl pushed herself up off the ground and glared angrily at me, but then turned back to Erik and reached her hand up towards him. He slapped her hand away angrily and stalked over to me without so much as a glance back at the half-naked woman.
He placed his hand down to my shoulder and after a long moment, turned back towards her. “You heard her, get lost.”
There was a finality in his voice that made her pause.
She then grunted and stormed out of the room, muttering angry words and curses the whole way.
I hadn’t meant for my voice to sound so angry and bitter, as what he did on his own time really wasn’t my business. But, for some reason, the idea of him with another woman bothered me more than I thought it would. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re dying.
Erik shook his head and looked down at me with eyes so bright and so sincere it felt as if he were peering right into my soul.
I smiled up at him, a newfound sense of strength coursing through my body. I laughed to myself at my outburst, and relished in the energy I felt as I reached up to brush a strand of Erik’s dark hair from his eyes.
Except, it didn’t last.
Before I could understand what was happening, my hand fell back onto the bed and I was consumed with blackness once again.
12
Just rest, Erik’s calm voice sounded in my mind. The sounds of his words echoed softly in my head and I relaxed my body in the bed near the fire.
My body shivered again as the fever set in, the warmth of the fire barely breaking the surface of my skin.
I focused on his words, and tried to speak to him in my mind, but even thinking felt difficult.
What’s happening to me? I finally managed to think. My body grew weaker by the second. At least, we still had traces of our mental connection, although, I could feel even that growing weaker. I could still feel his emotion, though, and I suspect that he could feel mine.
Communicating was difficult, and I realized just how weak I was.
Shh, Charlie. Don’t even think. Focus on relaxing your body and getting better. I’ll be here waiting next to you the whole time. I won’t go anywhere.
Fat chance of that happening, I thought. Tell me about the people who come to see you.
As head of the vampires in England, it’s my duty to take visitors. Most the time it’s people pleading to be turned, and I turn them away. He hesitated, and I offered him a mental nudge of encouragement. I wanted him to tell me about his life, about the world of the vampires that I thought I knew but was so wrong about before.
Everything I thought I learned had been proven false. Partially false, at least. I didn’t doubt the atrocities that his people had done throughout history, but I was convinced now that they held a special place in this world just as every other being.
I get a lot of people coming who are sick, dying. They plead to be turned, and it is my duty to either accept or turn them away
I laughed silently, but even the slight shake of my body ached. So, you’re like God, I mused mentally.
From my many years on this earth, I learned that there is no such thing.
His voice was sad and full of mourning. I thought back to the dreams I had and wondered how accurate they were to his life. I could feel it now, absorbing his energy as he sat next to me, that the dreams were his memories. I wondered if he knew what I’d seen.
My body began shivering violently, and he pushed the bed closer towards the fire. He stroked my hair and told me to relax, and I did everything I could to try and absorb the warmth of the bed and the fire beside me, but it was no use. I trembled uncontrollably and the cold set deep in my bones.
I felt myself grow weaker as I slowly drifted off again.
Hatred consumed me. I ran as fast as I could, not knowing where I was going. A newfound energy coursed through my body that felt foreign, unnatural.
I hated them for what they did to me. I hated them for what they did to my brother. I hated everything, and I ran for hours, my heart no longer beating in my chest.
The fire that fueled me came from some strange energy that I couldn’t trace.
Blood trickled down my neck as I ran, the last trace of my own humanity.
I spat on the ground as I ran, in hatred. I had to find a way to end this. I was not going to live my life like them. I refused to live as a vampire.
Not after I’d seen what they were. Not after I’d seen what they were capable of. Not after I’d seen what they had done to my brother.
The memory of my brother flooded into my mind, a deep agony piercing my heart.
I was devastated and there was nothing I could do. I failed him. I failed everybody.
Worst of all, I failed myself.
I ran forward and let the hatred consumed me.
My eyes slowly opened. I looked up into Erik’s eyes, and a sadness filled my heart. He looked down at me with concern and curiosity, and when my eyes focused, I recognized a flicker of doubt.
“I’m so sorry, Erik,” I whispered. I reached my hand up and stroked his face, fighting through the pain of the exertion.
He raised his eyebrow as he looked down at me and took my hand in his. “No, Charlie. I’m the one who is sorry.”
I shook my head softly back and forth as I looked up at him. “Not for this. For everything you’ve been through.”
He furrowed his eyebrows at me as he looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
I was exhausted, I tried to explain mentally to him, but by the continued confused expression across his face, I knew he couldn’t hear me. I was growing weaker, and our mental connection was becoming harder to grasp.
I closed my eyes and felt through my mind for that small thread that tied us together. When I found it I reached out to him in my mind and recalled the memories of my dreams. I’m so sorry for what happened to you.
I barely managed to open my eyes, but as soon as I did I regretted it.
Comprehension dawned on his face, and a flash of anger appeared in his eyes.
I wanted to apologize again, but blackness overtook me.
I’d never felt such anger in my life.
I was ready to kill, and I pitied the poor creature who crossed my path.
I sat up in the trees, listening to the dead of night. The sound of the leaves rustling in the wind boomed loudly like crashing rivers through my mind. I heard the hoot of a howl in the distance, and the flutter of its wings in the air in the night sky. I sat still and waited.
I would wait forever if I had to.
I’d been running for a week, and after several failed attempts at ending my own existence, I realized I was directing my hat
red towards the wrong person.
But with my newfound strength, I wouldn’t destroy myself. I would destroy them. All of them.
A twig broke in the distance, and my head snapped sideways as I peered through the darkness. They were coming, finally.
I closed my eyes and inhaled the distant scent of Wolf and death.
I clung to the branches as I crouched within the trees, waiting for them to arrive. The sound of feet padding through the crushed fall leaves on the forest floor grew louder, and just as they got near the clearing, I jumped down from the tree in front of them.
Their party stopped as they saw me, their leader stepping forward with a snarl across his face.
“Well, look, if it isn’t our newest recruit.”
I snarled through my teeth, exposing my newfound fangs that I was still getting used to in my mouth.
“Oh, he thinks he scary, does he?” The leader of their pack laughed as he stood in his human form in front of the rest of his wolves. His pack howled into the night, and a few of them changed to their human forms to join their pack leader in front of me.
“Did you wait for us to see your brother?”
My anger flared and my eyes widened. I glanced between the pack, and noticed five vampires following behind them standing off in the distance. They work together in some strange sort of vampire-wolf pack that I didn’t understand. The wolves found the prey, and the vampires either killed or turned them. It was a sick set up, and I knew they had to be destroyed.
“Bring him forward,” the pack leader shouted behind him.
I stood there, frozen. I wanted to attack, but they had said the one thing on this earth that would have held me back.
I stared angrily at them as bodies shifted around in their group. Their bodies parted as one of the vampires walked forward, carrying a limp form in his arms.
I hissed and stepped back.
The vampire, the one I recognized as the one that had turned me, walked forward with a smile on his face. He dumped the body on the floor before me, and I looked down at the broken small corpse of my older brother.
“What are you doing with him?” I growled angrily at them.
The pack leader looked amused and raised his eyebrow. “Couldn’t let good meat go to waste now, could we?”
I stepped forward, anger flaring in the core of my being. “Don’t you touch him.”
Now, it was the vampire’s turned to look amused. “Or else what? You’ll stop them?”
“Now, boys,” the pack leader commanded.
All at once, the entire pack of wolves pounced on my brother’s corpse. They tore his body to shreds, limb by limb as blood flew in the air and splattered across my face.
I watched in horror as they massacred and consumed my brother’s body.
After a moment of utter shock, I regained control of my body and lunged forward, consumed by the deepest hatred I’d ever felt in my life. I was on a rampage, determined to kill them all.
And I did.
Everything was a blur. Fur, blood, fangs and animal parts flew this way and that. I tasted the stringy texture of wolf meat between my teeth as I tore them to shreds one by one. My body was coated in blood as they attacked me as a group, but they were no match for my anger.
The torches that they had held had fallen to the ground, and were burning the bodies and leaves. Fire flared violently through the dry crackling fall foliage until the entire forest was ablaze. The acrid scent of burning flesh filled my nose, and fuelled my own inner fire as I tore through them, relishing in the savory taste of death.
I screamed as I tore through them, to the very last one. Four of the vampires had escaped, but the one that turned me stood frozen in shock.
It was just him and the pack leader left, and they both stood looking out at the carnage around them, expressions of shock and confusion across their faces.
Blood streamed down my throat as I looked back and forth between them, trying to decide which one to kill first. They both stood, poised ready to attack as the flames consumed the forest around them. The air was growing thick with black smoke, but my vision was sharp, and I could see through it without trouble.
When both lunged forward to attack me at once, and a grin spread across my face.
Good. I killed them together.
I felt the mental tug between myself and Erik flare violently, and I was pulled from the memory back into reality. I gasped and panted as my heart raced within my chest.
I looked up at Erik who was glaring down at me angrily.
“Those are not your memories,” he growled at me. I never saw him look so fierce, and it frightened me.
The anger I saw then in his eyes rivaled what I just felt in his mind through his memory. I tried to regain my breath, but it was no use. I couldn’t help but think of the destruction that I’d witnessed. The shear strength that he had demonstrated made me terrified. If one vampire was capable of destroying an entire pack of werewolves, what else was he capable of? I’d never witnessed such strength, or death and destruction before.
I shook my head and looked up at him confused. “I’m so sorry, Erik. I can’t control it.”
He pushed himself off the bed and began pacing the room back and forth. “My memories are of no concern to you.”
I tried to make myself forget it, but I couldn’t. The smell of burning flesh and the sight of the broken and dismembered bloodied bodies on the ground overtook my mind.
My body shook, whether from fear or from the fever I did not know. My skin grew clammy, and my face felt as if someone had dumped ice on me. My vision began fading again as the coldness set into my bones.
I fought it with every ounce of strength I had left. I didn’t want to revisit those memories. They were too much for me to handle.
The cold dampness from the stone walls around me penetrated my body, chilling me to the bone. The fire in the hearth and the many flickering torches around me did nothing to lessen the cold. I could barely feel the heat from the flame on my skin anymore as my body gave in.
My teeth chattered as an overwhelming pain coursed through my body. I could feel the fever consuming me. My body was so weak, I couldn’t even call out to Erik for help.
I closed my eyes and I let the darkness and cold consume me as I revisited the acrid smell of wolf and burning flesh.
13
I was forcibly pulled back into consciousness by the sound of fighting.
The sour smell of animal filled my nose and I cowered at the repulsive scent. It was never a smell I minded before, but being closer to Erik seemed to have an effect on my tastes. I could hear shouting and growling and the smell of blood was overwhelming. The sweet metallic smell was so strong I could nearly taste it.
My body ached as I dug my fingers into the soft satin of the bed sheets. My body was cold, and I shivered as I tried to focus on the flickering heat from the fire next to me.
The sounds of the dream haunted me; the screams of death and pain surrounding me.
Only, I could still hear it now. The sounds were all around me, but I was no longer dreaming.
When my bed jolted violently, my eyes flew open and I realized that the fighting was all around me. It wasn’t in my dream at all.
As my eyes focused, the scene of carnage and mayhem around me became apparent. Bodies were flying everywhere and blood spread slowly over the floor in thick, dark puddles as shadows of vampires and enormous animals blurred my vision as they flew passed.
“How did they get in here?” I heard someone yell from the next room.
Three people ran past my own room and down the hall in the other direction. They were followed by screams and shouting and more sounds of fighting and bloodshed.
“Lock the doors. Don’t let anyone else in,” another voice echoed from far away.
I looked down on the floor next to me and noticed a body. He lay still with a pool of blood growing beneath him. He faced the other direction and I couldn’t tell if it was anyone I knew. By the s
cent in the room, I suspected he was a werewolf and not one of the vampires from the coven. I tried to turn my head away, but the pain in my body grew so fierce I could no longer move.
“What’s going on?” My voice was weak and frail and barely audible. No one heard me as more bodies ran by, and I recognized Victor’s long hair as he ran past down the hall.
“Victor?” I asked, but no one answered. “Erik?”
My body began to shiver violently, and I began to lose consciousness. Pain filled me so deeply that I couldn’t help but close my eyes despite needing to know what was happening around me. All I could focus on was the scent of blood that filled my nose as I drifted off into sleep again.
Flames licked the trees around me as I ran.
The heat from the wildfire burned against my skin as I walked slowly through the bush. I looked around me to see if there was anyone left, but I knew that I got them all. They were all dead.
Serves them right, those cruel, murderous beasts.
Hatred and anger flooded my mind as I walked on, my skin burning in the fire, but not actually causing any harm.
My mind, despite being so filled with the need for vengeance, was calm and collected. My body was, too, and it was a strange sensation. I walked slowly, my body not shaking or reacting to the pain in anyway. I was still as stone and cool as water as I walked through the burning fire.
As I reached the edge of the forest, I looked back at the destruction.
The smell of burning flesh filled my nose, and I inhaled deeply, allowing the burning scent of wolf and decay to replace the memory of my brother’s dead body.
As I watched the forest burn, I couldn’t help but laugh. It started in my stomach and built until I was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable laughter.
I fell to my knees as I watched the forest burn and laughed myself into madness.
