by Raven Steele
A few anguished cries echoed across the room.
“But the time has come for humans to give back. A small token of gratefulness is all we ask for the many years we’ve had to suffer. We’ve had to sneak,” Aiden dramatically tip toed around the stage, “in the shadows to avoid being hunted. They rule us by numbers, but it is vampires who rule them by power and make no mistakes about it,” he emphasized each word carefully, “we will show them our power!”
The vampires returned to their fever-pitched cries and yells.
Lucien's stomach swam, and the room spun. He stumbled back and fell to the ground. The wall of concrete and steel he’d carefully layered over his memories cracked. Every hateful word that spewed from Aiden’s mouth created an imaginary hammer, smashing down the barrier in his mind; large pieces disappeared into oblivion. He covered his ears, trying to shut out the demon, but Aiden would not be stopped.
“What gift would we like from man?” Aiden continued. “What does man owe us for being so generous when we could break them with our fingertips if we so desired?”
Vampires cried out, demanding an answer.
Aiden yelled, “We want their blood!”
The warehouse exploded in agreement.
Aiden grew quiet; the crowd followed his lead. “But how? How can we take their blood without being hunted for doing that which is natural to us?”
The vampires waited anxiously for an answer.
Lucien’s body shook. The wall around his memories shattered, and his torment unleashed.
Aiden said carefully, “We do simply what has been done in the past. Many of you have heard of the plague, which destroyed half of Europe. In fact, some of you may have had the pleasure of being there.”
Lucien’s body shook like aftershocks of an earthquake.
Aiden spoke louder, his fist shaking in the air. “When the Black Death hit, the vampires feasted. We gathered from the four corners of the Earth. We fell from the sky and crawled out from beneath our rocks to finally take what was ours. Rivers of human blood, and no one was there to oppose us. We treated ourselves like the kings that we are!”
Shouts of approval rose again.
Lucien moaned in agony. His breathing quickened, and sweat broke out from every pour on his body.
Aiden pouted. “Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Humans recovered, and vampires were chased back into our holes, only to surface when our hunger proved too great. We would snatch a small morsel of food and retreat back to the shadows where they said we belonged.”
Aiden whirled in a full circle, searching the crowd, ensuring that all eyes were on him.
He whispered into the microphone, “But the time has come to feast again.”
Nobody moved or spoke as the words sunk in.
Finally someone yelled, “How?”
Aiden’s eyes turned cold. “You need to have the proper tools and the brains.” He drilled his forefinger into his temple. “Fortunately, I have both.”
Aiden reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass vial filled containing a purple liquid. He lifted it into full view of everyone.
“In my hand is the key to our happiness. I need strong vampires to take this key and unlock the door that has been closed to us for too many years! It will take a combined effort to accomplish this great feat. Who among you will make this happen?”
The majority of the vampires rushed the stage, begging to become his army while the guards pulled out a stack of papers and handed them out. The crowd was so unruly that they gave up after just a minute and tossed the flyers into the air for vampires to obtain for themselves. One of them fell near Lucien.
Lucien’s sanity hung by a thread. He had to leave this place if he was to keep it intact. Pushing himself to his feet, he grabbed one of the papers and shoved it deep into his pocket. It seemed to weigh him down more than a thousand boulders.
He stumbled toward the exit, knocking several vampires out of the way. They snarled in protest. Two bearded guards at the door barred his way. Using the last of his strength, he shoved them hard, sending them into the night air. Forgotten memories were flooding his mind, and they would not be stopped this time.
He moved like a drunken man through the streets, his thoughts unable to capture where he was supposed to be. His stupor led him away from the city and into a forest. He kept moving, stumbling through the trees until he finally collapsed, his body falling partway into a stream. And, as water trickled over his head, he breathed it in deeply, willing it to fill him entirely.
His last thoughts were of Eve, beautiful Eve. His mind called out to her. Over and over, he said her name, until there was only blackness.
Chapter 29
Ireland, 1665
Lying in tall grass, Lucien watched thick clouds move in and out of each other. He always struggled to understand how something as insubstantial as clouds could create something as glorious as rain. Even as a boy, storms held a magical mystery to him. And though he was much older now, despite his young vampire appearance, the rain continued to fascinate him.
He loved Ireland for no other reason than its storms. Actually, there was no other reason to love Ireland in 1665. It was ruled by England and had become a war-mongering country. At first, he enjoyed the bloodshed as much as Aiden. So much so, they often fought in many of the battles, but they didn’t always care what side they fought on. In some battles, they thought it humorous to fight against both sides.
Eventually, the fighting had grown tiresome and, it appeared, Aiden had grown to feel the same way. He was always disappearing to a different part of the world for days at a time, only to return in an even more somber mood.
Lucien’s thoughts were interrupted when Aiden called his name.
“Lucien!” Aiden’s footsteps approached him from his right.
Lucien did not sit up to reveal himself through the grass; he did not want to miss the rain.
“Lucien!”
“Over here, Aiden, near the Oak tree.”
Aiden bounded over, breathlessly. “I got one. I finally got one!”
Lucien scrunched his face as he tried to see past Aiden, who stood directly over him. “Can you move? I can’t see.”
Aiden looked up, and, finally realizing what Lucien was doing, stepped out of the way. “Did you hear what I said? I got one.”
“Got one what?” The clouds turned a deeper shade of black. Any second now.
“Remember, my experiment? The one that will make it possible for us to truly be who we are?”
Lucien knew Aiden had been traveling back and forth from Holland, but he couldn’t remember why. “So what did you get, and what are you doing?”
Aiden sighed. “I’m not going to explain it again. You can see the rats for yourself.”
Lucien sat up. “Rats?”
The sky cracked and rain poured down. Damn! He missed it.
“Come on,” Aiden encouraged.
Lucien reluctantly stood.
“Hurry!” Aiden ordered. He was already several yards in front of him.
Lucien followed him to the barn. He smelled death before Aiden opened the door. “What’s dead?”
Aiden giggled. He threw open the tall wooden doors; they creaked and groaned under the pressure.
Death’s bitter odor punched Lucien hard in the face. He turned away in revulsion. Aiden, on the other hand, inhaled deeply.
“Doesn’t it smell wonderful?” he asked.
Lucien covered his nose and mouth and stepped into the barn. Three dead humans, badly decomposed, lay in a heap in the middle of the straw-covered floor. He had never seen bodies so black. “What happened?”
“Do you remember how I told you Holland was having problems with people mysteriously dying?”
“Yes,” Lucien lied.
“Well, I’ve been over there trying to figure out why and what it was they all had in common. At first, I thought it was the water, but when I tested it on a human, nothing happened. Then I tried all kinds of their food, but tha
t too proved negative. I was about to give up when I saw a fat rat scurry into a home. I immediately came back to Ireland and, using one of our own rats, had it bite a human. Still nothing happened.”
Aiden walked over to one of the corpses, which resembled a woman. He lifted her stiff, black arm and studied it. “Anyway, I returned to Holland and brought back several of their rats. I locked these humans in with them for just one day. This is what I produced after a week.”
Aiden beamed.
Lucien laughed. “So you’re going to make the rats attack people?”
“Of course not. My plan is much simpler. All they have to do is live among humans. Whatever is on them, fleas most likely, will spread to other rats and eventually people will die.”
Lucien thought through Aiden’s plan. “Any idea how many?”
“Hundreds at least. Humans will be so consumed with trying to save themselves that they won’t notice us vampires coming in to pick off the weak ones. And we won’t have to worry about anyone coming to help, either. They will all be too afraid of contracting the disease themselves.”
Despite the whole thing being disgusting, using the rats and all, it sounded like a good idea. Lucien was tired of sneaking around, trying to find a human that could disappear without anyone noticing. And when he couldn’t find one of those, which was often, he resorted to hunting animals in the mountains. Animal’s blood was to vampires what insects were to humans — you only ate them if you were starving.
Throughout the rest of the day, Aiden talked up his plan until Lucien could find no reason not to do it. After all, it was his father who had taught him that survival was all that mattered, even if it meant you had to sacrifice one of your own. After Lucien had been turned into vampire, his father’s advice had saved his life. He’d killed his father in order to survive.
In preparing for their planned slaughter, which was set to take place in London in three weeks’ time, Lucien began to have doubts. Aiden’s behavior with the rats and the humans had gone beyond strange, even for a vampire. He spent every spare second in the barn with some new victim. Lucien asked him once where he was finding these pitiful looking humans, and they were sad-looking: all skin and bones and barely clothed. Aiden had replied, “From his collection.” Lucien tried to inquire further, but Aiden’s eyes glazed over and his mouth pressed tight. Lucien was all too familiar with this look and knew Aiden would not give him any more information.
A few days before their departure, he spied on Aiden through a crack in the barn wall. Aiden sat on the edge of a chair, holding a fat brown rat that squirmed against his grip. His sandy blond hair, which normally was slicked into a ponytail, hung loosely to his chin. Spatters of dark blood covered his bare chest. One of the red stains was in the shape of a smeared handprint.
Drenched in sweat, a naked, tied-up girl hunched over in a chair across from Aiden. Dark blue and purple bruises plagued the girl’s skin; her legs were almost entirely black. Small, open wounds oozed blood and puss across her arms. Her short, uneven hair lay matted to her scalp, and around her feet were several long, golden locks. Lucien couldn’t figure out how her hair had been cut until he saw a pair of scissors on a nearby table, a lock of hair stuck within its blades.
Occasionally, the girl would shake, as if in excruciating pain, and her eyes bulged in terror. If it weren’t for the rag stuffed into the girl’s mouth, Lucien would’ve heard the painful sounds her eyes expressed.
Aiden stared at the girl with what looked like curious indifference. After a minute, he lifted the struggling rat and peered into its beady eyes. Then, without warning, he shoved it into the girl’s face. She threw her head back and tried to avoid the rat’s snapping teeth.
Lucien had to look away. He couldn’t understand why Aiden hadn’t killed the girl already! The torture he was inflicting was beyond cruel, even for a vampire. Lucien had half a mind to charge in there and kill the girl himself.
The morning they were to leave for London, Aiden finally appeared after days of absence, looking clean and vibrant. He wore his nicest clothes and Lucien swore he was wearing new shoes. His dark eyes practically vibrated with excitement, and his smile reached his ears.
“You look happy,” Lucien mumbled.
“And why shouldn’t I be? All that I’ve worked for will finally be visible to the world.”
Lucien narrowed his eyes. “What does the world matter? I thought this was about an all-you-can-eat blood buffet.” He paused. “What are you doing, Aiden?”
Aiden was quick to answer. “Nothing. You’re right. This is about their blood. We’ll take their lives for all the years of making us cower for being who we are.”
Lucien nodded, but still felt Aiden had more sinister motives.
Traveling with Aiden toward London was miserable thanks to Aiden who couldn’t hold still. He was like a four-year-old before a vacation. He kept twitching and tapping every part of his body. At one point, Aiden literally bounced on the seat. He didn’t calm down until Lucien threatened to eat the caged rats sitting next to him.
As London drew closer, Lucien became uneasy. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what. He knew many humans would die, but so what? He was indifferent toward them. The nagging reached its peak when the coach finally stopped just outside the poorest part of the city.
When Aiden moved to jump out, Lucien grabbed his arm. “How many humans are going to die?”
“A lot, oh, so very many!” Aiden giggled, barely containing his glee.
Lucien tightened his grip. “We only need enough to scare people away from here, no more, no little.”
Aiden ripped free, anger flashing in his black eyes. “Sure, little brother, whatever you say.”
Lucien remained in the coach while Aiden carried four cages full of rats toward the inner city. The sky overhead was deathly black. A slight rain trickled down. Deep, uneven puddles of dirty water spread over the cobblestone road, evidence of a large downpour earlier that day. Lucien wished he’d been here to see it.
Aiden’s sudden whistling in the background made Lucien sit up. Aiden never whistled.
“It’s done,” Aiden said when he climbed into the coach.
“How long will we have to wait?” Lucien asked.
“Not long. Within a few weeks, the word will be out. And in a month, only those who don’t matter will be left behind. We’ll make our move then.”
“A month?” Lucien moaned. “Let’s go rent a room.”
“You go on. I’m going to stay.” Aiden looked wistfully back toward the city and his rats.
“Stay here? What for?”
“There are going to be a lot of deaths, and I don’t want to miss a single one.” Aiden darted away before Lucien could stop him.
Chapter 30
London reported strange deaths within days. Because the poor of the city were affected first, no one paid any attention until the weather turned warm. Then the disease spread at an alarming rate, and just as Aiden had predicted, anyone able fled.
The smell of blood in the air had become a part of the city, giving it new life that only a vampire could appreciate. Lucien restrained himself for as long as possible before seeking out Aiden, but he could wait no longer.
Night had fallen on London like a shroud covering the dead. The air was unnaturally warm. Sticky, heavy moisture clung to Lucien, weighing him down. He followed the coppery smell of blood through the dirty streets. As he drew closer to the inner city, the smell changed to something more pungent. The reek was vile and foul. Death smelled like roses compared to the horror he now inhaled.
Unaware and without warning, Lucien found himself in hell. Human bodies lay in piles on the street. Open wounds littered their blackened corpses, many of which still oozed. A man dressed in a long black cloak, face covered, loaded bodies into a wheelbarrow. He pushed them to the town square where he joined another man dressed in the same manner. Together they tossed the mangled corpses into a roaring fire.
“This area isn
’t safe, sir. Go back,” one of them advised as Lucien passed by.
More than the vile smells and the hellish bodies, it was the soul-wrenching cries of torment and misery that made his stomach turn. They were the songs of the dead, and the painful cries and tortured screams was the unrelenting chorus.
Lucien tracked Aiden to a small, simple home with one window where a candle burned low inside. After watching a particularly fat rat burrow its way into the thatched roof above the front door, he stepped inside.
“Hello, brother,” Aiden greeted without glancing over.
He was sitting on the edge of a bed in the corner of the darkened one-room house. Across from him, leaning against a plastered wall, were ten dead bodies with blood spilling from many of their open mouths. At least Lucien thought they were dead until one of them, a girl moved her finger. Lucien listened closer and realized they were just barely alive. Their hearts beat as slow as their shallow breaths.
“What are you doing?” Lucien said, appalled.
“Watching death. It’s quite fascinating, really.” Aiden’s eyes remained focused on the humans across from him.
“You’re a vampire, Aiden. Why not kill them and move on? There are enough dying in London to feed for months!”
Aiden didn’t answer. Instead, he sprang to his feet and rushed one of the dying men whose head had slumped over. Aiden grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head. “Look at me!”
The man’s eyes rolled back into their sunken sockets. He was dead.
“They’re useless!” Aiden said. “Every last one of them.”
Effortlessly, he tossed the body to the other side of the room and on top of the bed, which collapsed. Several of the others, who still had a little life left, cowered in fear.
“Aiden,” Lucien said, his voice calm, “Do you remember that greyhound we had when we were little? The only dog dad didn’t deliberately kill?”
“Great, the dead guy broke my bed,” he grumbled.
Lucien continued, “You remember the dog, don’t you? It could find a fox from miles away?”
