“Just headed to town for some supplies.” Elijah smiled awkwardly, quickly shifting his eyes away from the man’s menacing stare.
“Are you alone, boy?” As the man spoke, he looked around, as if to see for himself.
“Yes, I am.” Elijah knew they were dangerous, but he didn’t have many options, and his anguish over all that had happened made him feel like he had little to lose.
“Well, go ahead, empty your pockets. Hand over your silver.” The man stepped closer and the others circled around Elijah. The leader was about Elijah’s height and was wearing all leather, except for a wool tunic.
His speech revealed a nasty set of teeth, some yellow, mostly black. He was perhaps the ugliest man Elijah had ever seen. His fat nose bulged inches from his face, and his long, greasy hair was knotted into patches. His men weren’t as ugly, but shared the same putrid stench.
“I don’t think I will.” Elijah’s voice was nearly a whisper. He had no silver, but his anger and frustration had reached a boiling point, driving him to taunt the small drove of bandits. Elijah carried no bag, and his clothes were nearly rags. What could they possibly expect to find?
“You are on your way to get supplies, so you must have some silver. Now give it to me, boy!” He hauled out a knife as the two men behind Elijah grabbed him by the arms and pressed firmly against his shoulders. Elijah didn’t resist. “I’ll just gut you and take it myself.” Spittle flew into Elijah’s eyes and mouth as the man bawled out his threats.
The men surrounding him now smelled even worse than their leader looked. Elijah could barely force himself to breathe. He thought he might be killed if he struggled, and worried what would become of Sara if he did. Still, his hate drove him on, and he decided to fight anyway. It was selfish and baneful men like these who had just ruined his life. As the man in front thrust his knife forward, Elijah instinctively jerked his right arm free. The man who had been holding it was flung into a tree rooted a few feet from the path.
Elijah’s power still surprised him and, what was even more surprising, these men now seemed to be moving in slow motion. It took little effort to quickly redirect the thug’s knife and shove it straight through his throat. The two men standing beside the knifed man drew swords.
Elijah grabbed the man to his left by the throat and crushed it with ease. Then, as Elijah threw him forward, his flailing body knocked over the man who still stood before him. That man fell hard on his back as the dead man crashed against his chest.
Elijah remembered there was a fifth man behind him and turned quickly, but was met with a sword. The bandit thrust hard, and the sword sank deep into Elijah’s abdomen. The other two men had risen to their feet and stood proudly above the seemingly defeated Elijah.
The three men watched and laughed as Elijah fell to his knees groaning. The men stood there jeering as one man spat on him and another kicked him in the side. Elijah was sure he was dead, but then, after the initial shock wore off, he began to feel strong again and struggled back up onto his knees. What have I become? he thought.
Their faces immediately turned to shock as they watched Elijah clasp the sword by its blade and pull it slowly out from beneath his sternum. Throwing the sword to the ground, Elijah climbed to his feet and glared at the wide-eyed trio. He began walking towards them, his only goal to crush them utterly. After seeing his power and the look in his eyes, the three men turned and ran away as fast as they could. Elijah thought about letting them go, but the anger burning within him overruled the impulse.
He was at their backs in a flash, snapping the first man’s neck midflight. He hammered his palms into the other two from the back and they both fell headfirst onto the path before them. Without hesitation, Elijah walked over and smashed in one man’s head with his heel. He watched as the last man crawled backwards. He enjoyed seeing him wriggle like a worm on a hook as he begged for his life.
“You would have me give to you the life you were so eagerly and callously going to steal from me?” Elijah was furious. He knelt down beside the man, who was now crying and begging.
“Shhh.” Elijah’s calm voice and demeanor quieted the man while Elijah gently held his head still, framing his face with both hands. He looked deep into the man’s eyes. He didn’t know what he’d hoped to find there, perhaps a reason for all this, for evil, something he could recognize and put his finger on. He found nothing, no reasons, just the desperate eyes of a man who wanted nothing more than to see another day.
People are just evil; it pervades us all, he decided. He snapped the man’s neck and gently lowered him back to the ground. Even me. He looked back, examining the carnage left in his wake, and a guilty satisfaction broke across his chest. The entire experience had been bittersweet, but mostly bitter.
He suddenly noticed one of the bodies lying on the ground was still moving. As he quickly moved closer, he saw it was Sara! Elijah blinked and rubbed his eyes. His mind was reeling. When he left her, she was barely breathing. How could she have dragged her nearly lifeless body from under the tree and all the way to the road? And why?
She was now lying atop one of the men Elijah had just killed. Elijah was baffled, and he walked closer, only to be frozen with shock and disgust at what he saw. The girl was sucking at the dead man’s neck, at first gently, but then more and more vigorously as her strength seemed to grow. Soon she was viciously rending the man’s dead flesh, spitting out tissue and bone as she went.
Confused and appalled, Elijah decided to pry her away from the nearly-decapitated body. He bent down to pull her off, but, as he placed a hand on her shoulder, she threw her head up and hissed like one possessed. This creature resembled Sara, but was crucially different.
The whites of her eyes were a dark crimson, and the veins around them were pulsating and bloated with life. Long, sharp, bloody teeth tore through the edges of her widely parted lips. Startled, Elijah jumped to his feet and tripped backwards over a corpse. Pouncing like a cat, the Sara-creature was on top of him before his back hit the ground.
Unlike the men now lying dead around him, she was not moving in slow motion. Her tired, lifeless body had been transformed; her strength was superhuman. Grabbing him by the wrists, she forced his arms outwards and pinned them hard against the ground before she sank her teeth deep into his jugular.
Elijah was taken completely by surprise. Just moments ago she had barely been able move!
What is happening? What is wrong with her? Gathering his wits, he slowly pushed his hands from the ground to her shoulders. Thrusting his arms forward with all of his might, he pried her head away from his neck. When he looked into her eyes, he could no longer see Sara at all; this thing attacking him was a monster, void of all its former humanity.
Launching her into the air and across the path, he knew what he needed to do, but also knew, without any doubt, he could never do it. Killing had become easier than he ever imagined. He even enjoyed it, but, despite the ghoulish vision before him, he believed somewhere inside this monster was the woman he had loved his entire life. He decided to subdue her.
He shoved to his feet and hurried over to where she had landed hard against a large rock. She lay unconscious, but she was still breathing. He was relieved, since it might buy him enough time to figure out how to help her.
He moved closer, checking carefully to be sure she was truly unconscious, a bit worried that this was a ploy. But as he stood over her bloody mess of a body, he noticed her face once again looked human. She had been restored to the beautiful girl he had known and loved for as long as he could remember. Cradling her in his arms, he was blanketed with the love he had always held for her, and full of joy to have her back. Perhaps there might still be hope for the wonderful girl he had known, as well as the monster she had become.
Chapter 6
“Elijah?” A soft, familiar voice vibrated against his chest as he trudged along the road toward civilization. He stopped immediately, worried about what might happen now that Sara had regained consciousness,
about what she might do. He walked over to a tree not far from the path.
Her face and clothes were still covered in blood, but her expression was now soft and heavy as Elijah knelt down and gently leaned her back against the tree. She seemed weak once again, broken, as if she were conscious but wished she weren’t. She just stared up at him blankly; he thought she must be in pain.
“Yes, it’s me, Sara. I’m here.” Elijah broke her stare and shifted his eyes to the ground. He was utterly confused; he had no idea what to do or say.
“Thank you.” She sobbed and then burst into tears as she pulled Elijah close and laid her head on his shoulder. “I have missed you so much,” she sobbed, as she wiped her tears on his shoulder. “Why did you leave me? I’ve waited for so long.” She was squeezing him tighter and tighter. “I’m so sorry.” She spoke between sobs. Though it was mostly healed, she could see the mark where she had bitten and sucked at his neck. She squeezed him tighter and clenched his tunic firmly in her fists.
“I’m sorry, too, but I didn’t think I had a choice. I couldn’t have borne seeing you with him. I couldn’t.” Elijah was also in tears, holding her close, realizing what a terrible mistake he had made.
“Of course there was a choice. I loved you, Elijah, and I would never have married your brother. If you had talked to me even once, you would have known that. I was yours; I wouldn’t even speak to Solomon for the first two years after I found out. I was waiting for you, but you never came; you never came.” She was still weeping, but her tone was sharper.
“Shhhh, I’m here now. Tell me, what happened to you, Sara?” He gently pushed her away and looked into her eyes. “Why were you trying to eat me?” Narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brow, he swallowed hard; he was afraid of what she might say.
“I don’t know.” Releasing Elijah from her tight grip, she sniffled and wiped the corners of her eyes with her knuckle. “The last thing I remember from before I blacked out is William chewing on my neck. Chewing! Like some animal.” She squinted and lowered her head. “Solomon just stood there watching,” Sara mumbled with teary eyes. “Your father must have sucked out nearly all of my blood before I fainted. That’s all I remember.” Her eyes were soft and apologetic as she looked up again at Elijah.
“What about your family?” he asked.
A deep sorrow eclipsed her face, and immediately he was sorry he had asked. He could almost see the painful memories rushing through her mind. She squinted against the horrors until her eyes closed completely.
“I remember all of it, even the smell of my parents’ burning flesh.” She just dropped forward and cried out.
Elijah couldn’t bring himself to press any further. He stared into space, baffled. What was going on? What awful thing happened to spur this madness?
“After that,” she continued after a while, “all I remember is the smell of blood. The dead men on the road, the smell of their blood stirred something inside of me, a hunger… I couldn’t stop myself. Blood was all I could think about, and once I started I couldn’t stop, I just wanted more and more.” She had stopped crying now and was speaking more quickly, with enthusiasm, as if it had been terrible and wonderful all at the same time.
Strangely, Elijah could relate. He had experienced something similar when he took the lives of the thieves on the road. Still, this seemed different; it was so strange. He didn’t want to be a bigot, but Sara’s actions just seemed more perverse than his straightforward killing. Still, how could he judge her after what he had done?
“How did you kill all those men on your own Elijah?” Her thoughts mirrored his own.
“This dreadful experience has changed us somehow, Sara. Like you, I am much stronger and faster, but I have no desire for blood.” Elijah looked up and saw her embarrassment and remorse. “No, I wasn’t trying to say you are bad, or I’m better than you, only that I haven’t experienced that, at least not yet.” Elijah was worried, not just for Sara, but for himself as well. There were too many similarities between their circumstances. How long before he experienced the urge to tear through someone’s flesh?
“Anyway, when I saw you on the road, I could hear your heart beating beneath your chest and the fresh blood pulsing through your veins. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn’t; I lost control. It was like something else took over and was driving me on, forcing me. Nothing else mattered; I just wanted your blood.” Her eyes seemed to glaze; the excitement faded from her voice, changing to remorse and embarrassment.
“What have they done to me, Elijah?” She was weeping uncontrollably as she pulled Elijah into another tight embrace. “If you hadn’t left me, this might never have happened.” She sighed as she spoke, and her voice lost its fervor, as though her admission had released something.
Elijah had never looked at his actions in that way before, that he had left her, but now it seemed obvious, and his heart seemed to sink into his stomach.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, resting her head gently against his shoulder again. It seemed she was at least as concerned and perplexed as he was by their current situation.
“I don’t understand what’s going on, Sara,” he whispered in her ear as he held her. What had they done to her? What had they done to him? He placed his hand on the back of her head and gently stroked her hair. Maybe her madness was over. He knew he could never kill her, but wasn’t so sure about what she might do to him.
“But I know who does know.” His resolve hardened and his vision focused back to the beginning, back to William. “We have to find Solomon and my father,” he declared, glaring into the distance. They were out there somewhere, and he was determined to find them.
“What? What are you going to do when you find them?” Her voice sharpened with fear as she tugged at a lock of his hair.
“I’m going to get answers. I’ll find a way to help you, and then I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all—Solomon, Father, and that ugly bastard who was with them.” The fire and strength in his voice seemed to quiet her fears.
“I guess you will always be my prince.” The words danced from her lips in a lovely melody and flooded him with new strength as he met her gaze. After a moment she smiled and shifted her eyes down to her stained garments.
Elijah shook his head and tried to focus on what needed to be done right now. “First, we need to clean you up. We are almost to town, and you shouldn’t be seen like this.” Elijah opened the large satchel he had retrieved from one of the dead men on the road, figuring the thief no longer had need of it. He had filled the satchel with everything he thought might be of use, including a few garments and a leather sack of water.
Ripping off a scrap of his tunic, he poured the water over it and dabbed at her face and neck. The blood rubbed off to reveal the beautiful and innocent girl he had dreamed about so many times.
Though he’d never had the courage to officially make his affections known, she knew he had been in love with her then, but did she know he still was?
She giggled as he poured the water over her head and hands and rubbed until she was spotless. Rubbing the last speck of blood from around her mouth, he recalled how she had always captivated him, and he knew he was comforted to have her with him now, in the midst of this madness. He suddenly realized he had lost himself in his imagination and had been gently rubbing her face for far too long.
“That’s got it.” Blushing, he quickly pulled away and looked at the ground. After a moment he looked back up toward the soft curves of her face and saw she was still gazing back at him. His embarrassment at showing affection didn’t seem to have bothered her; she just smiled, warming his heart. Maybe she was simply happy to have him here, or perhaps she too still had some measure of feelings for him.
“You’d better put this on.” His eyes were shifting from embarrassment as he handed her the freshest tunic he could find. Taking it from his hand, she waited for a moment and then smiled again, perhaps glad that this strong man now seemed more like the nervous boy she remembered.
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“Would you care to turn around?” she asked.
“Oh, of course.” His face burned with even more embarrassment at his ineptness, and he quickly turned his back to her.
Chapter 7
Sara and Elijah hid in the forest just outside of town. They had decided to wait until nightfall to enter, hoping the darkness would help conceal their presence. They were no longer covered in blood, but Elijah’s guilt over the events of the previous night wasn’t as easy to wash off. It was as if the world would be able to see right through his façade of youth and beauty to the monster he had become.
Darkness, he had decided, would be his ally. This is where he would live, away from the piercing light that would expose him for what he really was. Besides, if his father and Solomon were there, it would be much better if Elijah spotted them first.
“Elijah, I am starving. I’m beginning to feel weak.” He looked over to see her eyes were closed. Her voice was cracking as if she were scared.
He didn’t understand her problem. “Don’t worry Sara. I lifted quite a bit of silver from the rogues I killed last night. We will be able to buy enough supplies to last us quite a while.” Lying beside her on the ground, he rolled over and brushed her cheek gently.
“You don’t understand, Elijah. I can hear the blood pumping through your veins like a drum. I can smell it. It’s not regular supplies I am hungry for.” She rolled away from Elijah as she spoke, and he saw her wipe away a tear.
“Everything will be okay.” For Sara’s sake, Elijah hid his discouragement. He’d been almost convinced the incident from the night before had been a one-time occurrence, triggered by her closeness to death.
“It’s going to be all right, Sara; we will figure this out. Let’s try you on some real food and see if that helps. Just please be strong and don’t hurt anyone.” He pulled at her shoulder as he spoke. She lifted her face and he was horrified to see blood beginning to pool in the veins around her eyes; even the whites of her eyes were beginning to turn red.
Apotheosis of the Immortal Page 3
