“Well, if it isn’t the King of The Dead becoming acquainted with his native lands?” Tiamat hissed, as her split tongue flagged out again. She slithered over towards and already-irritated Enttu and the red-headed young woman.
“What do you want, Tiamat?”
“I thought you’d accept my token of appreciation towards you. It’s the least I can do for the revered, infamous, most dangerous vampire to roam the Earth. I noticed you’re weak from your condition. You’ve been letting girls suck you off in more ways than one, so you should recover your strength. And better yet, she’s a virgin,” Tiamat taunted.
Enttu looked down at the woman who begged to him to not kill her, and indeed he felt his hunger pangs torturing him, and he could taste the sweet smell of her blood when he licked his fangs. Involuntarily, his eyes glowed red and fangs grew long from the triggered bloodlust. The woman was also on her cycle, and he could smell the fresh metallic scent emanating from her. It was driving him crazy. But he withdrew his katana and pointed it towards Tiamat’s chest.
“You didn’t answer my question, what the fuck do you want from me? And don’t try to bullshit me,” Enttu cursed at the serpent goddess. The tip of his blade scathed the surface of her breast and a single drop of blue blood dripped down.
Tiamat was not amused or pleased by this behavior from him. More and more, the call and courtship of Basilisk swayed her away from divinity, which is why she had permanently been banished to the Lower Astral Planes. Basilisk had already betrayed Tiamat once, but forgiving Selene made a pact to bring her out of here had she served as a guardian for two millennia to prevent anyone from entering or leaving. It looked like Tiamat had epically failed her duties.
“You dare draw your sword at me after it is I who have guarded you for centuries?” she spoke, in a robust triple female voice.
“Lies. You have never guarded me, nor have we ever met, witch. And I don’t need your guard for any matter,” Enttu defensively told her back.
“But of course, it is easy to tell what you are, you don’t fool anyone. You reek of vampire,” Tiamat said, with the tip of her split tongue that stuck out of her reptilian lips.
“You reek of Basilisk, contemptuous snake. You don’t think Selene knows the lies you tell? She would have brought you back to form immediately if she had trust in you. She only spared your life, so the blood wouldn’t be on her hands,”
“The blood is already in yours, stupid vampire. You think you’re someone special because you’ve been appointed by the Sisters? They’ve forsaken you and you know it! Nothing but blood can fulfill your petulant existence anymore! You’re a pity and your heart only beats from the lives you steal So go ahead and drain that little cunt at your feet. After all, it’s not like you haven’t hurt her before!”
The woman at his feet, looking gaunt in the white diaphanous gown that covered her frail, tender body, sobbed with her face buried in her knees. She trembled, as the dhampir took a step toward her, and she anticipated to soon be attacked. He looked down at her, examining her well, to see if he’d recognize her from somewhere.
“You don’t remember Camille? She was your first love shortly after you went on your personal vendetta for your beloved Nicolae, that scum. You are no better than he is! Defiling young women, promise them the universe, and then you make them forget. It was just so convenient for you to walk out of her life. You chose not to know, and you chose not to care, did you? Your little precious Vanya wasn’t your first born, Enttu. Face it, you ran away from your problems. The worst thing is that Camille was exiled by her own family to a convent, where that little would-be dhampir baby was born as dead as you are. You killed her. Just like you brought death to your coven! If you drink her blood, you will put her right out of her misery, and I will absolve you out of this place. However, with her passing, as well as with the passing of any entity here, the damage will be dealt as above, so below,”
So now, Enttu was conflicted deeply with the catch-22 situation at hand, as well as shocked by the news of this woman. Never in his eternal youth did he remember a Camille, because his first love was Nayeru, and then Raluca, and then now, Regina. During the timeframe shortly before Nicolae’s passing, he had been training nonstop with the samurai, Master Hideki, in katana fighting and hand-to-hand combat. Additionally, he’d been working with Marion the Witch to harness and enhance his naturally metaphysical abilities that were his birthright, along with his younger sister Vibekka. Only once had he fooled around with a girl whose father was a politician, named Silvana. This was a one-time occurrence that ended without consequence because he made her forget him after she wasn’t who he hoped she’d be. Then in this moment, is when he remembered losing his father inside of the temple underneath their castle, and his encounter with Alucard.
Alucard had told him that a substantial portion of the planes could have been a result of the figment of his imagination, and it made perfect sense, because he didn’t ever know any woman named Camille, unless she came from a past life. Also, if he had any other children, wouldn’t have they already come out to confront their father? Vampire descendants had a psychic ability to sense one another. 154 years seemed far too long to not know. His thirst was overwhelming, and Tiamat rambling on was beginning to bore him. So, what if she was telling the truth or a lie? The prospect of roaming in the plane of a great big lie toyed with his thoughts and curled his lips into a Machiavellian smile. Maniacal laughter ensued, as Camille then materialized into Nayeru when she was still a virgin, and she too wept at his feet.
“Change your mind yet, or shall I make this nearly impossible for you to kill someone for me?” Tiamat mockingly cackled.
“You don’t know me, Tiamat. You slithering idiot. There’s no such thing as absolution for vampires. We’re already damned!”
He attacked whoever the woman at his feet was supposed to be and drained her dry, letting her bleed out of her neck right into his lips. Her corpse slumped back in his arms as she died. Tiamat truly never expected for him to attack even a doppelganger of his own beloved wife. What she underestimated was how greatly Enttu did not care anymore, and how the disdainful pass of time broke and poisoned him beyond recovery. He threw the body of the Nayeru replica to one side, and then his bewildered, red eyes bore into Tiamat, and she was ready to counter attack him as he came after her. He was too fast for her, and he jumped on her back as he staked her through the heart from behind. She managed to shake him off and he went flying forward, landing on the sand with a few somersaults. He spit out sand that got into his teeth. Tiamat was doubling over in pain, and she cursed the blood red sky and the moon.
“You will never make it out of here. You are a murderer! And all murderers belong in the Lower Astral Planes!” she screeched, as blue blood sprayed out of her chest wound. She tried to hurl poison arrows at him, but he dodged them. Tiamat attempted once more to recover, before being shot down by a bright blue lightning bolt that pierced the sky and right through her flesh and bone. It sizzled and cooked her alive like a grilled eel.
Behind Tiamat emerged a victorious Regina, all clad in form-fitting black on black, wearing a corset over her lace body suit that accentuated her waist. She was pearlescent under the moonlight, and her lips were liquid scarlet. Her eyes glowed burning amber and her hair seemed to have grown a couple inches longer. Blue sparks collected in her gloved hands as she hovered above Tiamat’s body, wearing a satin black cape with a royal blue inner lining. He didn’t know what kind of transformation she’d just gone through, but Enttu couldn’t stop salivating over her stunning beauty. As Tiamat began to dissolve into a liquid pool of black fluid, Regina stomped her head to smears of brains and broken bone underneath her patent leather boots. The ground began to consume Tiamat and swallow her into a black hole.
Regina then shoved the dead and bled out body of an austere-looking brown haired male in black outerwear and khaki trousers into the black hole, and she ensured to disembo
wel him before he went inside. It was the cadaver of her ex-husband, Jedediah, whom she was conflicted with having to kill at first. However, after she remembered the abuse, the stolen money, the miscarriage of Dalton that he provoked, and the aftermath and slander that ultimately ended her naval career, she had no problem sucking the last bit of life he had left in him, spitting the dregs of his blood back in his face. She was truly, unapologetically a vampire, now.
She motioned to Enttu to dump Nayeru’s corpse into the black hole, before she sealed it off, and once they were all gone forever, they faced each other alone, among the white sand dunes. A single tear fell down her cheek, and she took his hands in hers, relieved to see him again but also saddened by her vision of the two Daltons. He could sense it in her.
“What troubles you besides the fact that we are here?” he asked her in his soothing voice, husky from battle.
“The unborn baby that died along with your wife, is the same baby I miscarried,” she said through tears. His hand rested on her shoulders, and then he pulled her close to him, so his arms safeguarded her.
“I know,” he whispered tenderly. They only embraced for a moment when the ground shook again. Not too far off, on their left, were the black obelisks in a circle, and yet another one sank to the floor. They ran this way, predictably, when suddenly, they were suspended in the air and flailed about, watching what they knew as the Lower Astral Planes dissolve into nothingness right before their eyes.
“What’s happening?!” exclaimed Regina. She couldn’t move from the spot she floated in.
The blackness swallowed the sky, only for a short while, until a gold sphinx against black space and time materialized before them as new scenery, and then they were gently allowed to descend on their feet. From the sphinx, came a woman with cat-like ears, and solid black eyes. She wore a lilac gown with a black cape, and behind her, came a parade that consisted of Alucard, and Selene. There were two flat beds on either side of the sphinx that had the strapped down bodies of none other than the doppelgangers of Regina and Enttu being bled out by little tubes that spilled out into a fountain where it all came together. They were cut and lacerated all over their bodies, and excess blood dripped messily over the side of the gold bed slabs.
Alucard, Selene, and this cat like vampiric woman each slit their wrists and let the blood spill into the base of the fountain. Then they drank it by making a bowl by cupping their hands together. Everything was still dark save for the golden temple that came from nowhere, and the cat creature walked towards the two young vampires, blonde and black haired, and she greeted them.
“Welcome Prince Enttu and Princess Regina. You embraced the darkness. Only by embracing the darkness will you be able to defeat Basilisk, as you need darkness to fight darkness. You’ve embraced your true nature as the vampires you are and need to be. Have no regrets for what you’ve ever done, for the Universe has already spelt it out many dimensions before and after this one. Congratulations on passing my simulation. I am the Goddess of all vampires on Planet Earth. My name is Sekhmet,”
“What do you mean by simulation? You mean the lower planes I saw were not real?” Enttu asked the Goddess.
“No, Voivode Tepes. It was a test. And a test you both passed, as holy killers.”
Sekhmet handed the two vampires two copper chalices full of the blood of the fountain and instructed them to drink from it. Enttu and Regina looked at each other, both questioning the decision silently before doing it, and they nodded at each other before doing so. They gulped the crimson brine down and then set the chalices down at Sekhmet’s feet. The Goddess smiled gently at them both, and they held each other’s hand when the Goddess touched both of their heads simultaneously.
“You will be absolved for now,” the Goddess said in a low, soothing voice.
“What do you mean for now?” Regina asked with her lips curled up in displeasure, bearing her fangs.
“You’ve both absolved yourselves,” Sekhmet replied.
Alucard came to them, and spread open his bat-like shadow wings, and engulfed them both, completely wrapping them in the darkness of his plumage. Somehow, the smooth feathers against their skin became lavender blooms they laid in again, dawn was now dusk, and the Lower Astral Planes or the supposed simulation of them were thankfully once more, Bucharest, Romania.
CH 13
A SHOT IN THE DARK
Somewhere near the Hudson, New York City outskirts.…
The beautiful, dark skin of Mawu glistened by the bonfire she lit for herself. Betrayal, by both her brother and by now, Enttu Stefan Tepes, who she wanted dead after the embarrassment he put her through lingered in her mind. Malakae swore to never let Anubis come forth to attack vampires, as now, this could cause both clans to know that they toyed and formed alliances with canines and werewolves. Mawu wasn’t about to be in direct association with him anymore, and she disappeared back to the United States where she had once resided.
Cicadas performed their overpowering symphony in the branches of the trees that loomed over the roof of the wooden house in the woods she was at. Surely, no one would find her here, and then too, in such a big city like the Big Apple. There were plenty of victims to choose from had she ever felt the desire to drink a human every now and then, and there was no telling what she truly was. She blended perfectly into the black-clad metropolis, and victims were in abundance, especially in the subway stations. It cost about two grand to fly back from Cairo after she had poisoned Malakae with nightshade, which seemed to be a poison of the pick when it came to vampire against vampire. New York City was the perfect place for a vampire to be, and, here was where she could stop by Bennett Buchanan’s tomb. She even kept his last name unbeknownst to Malakae. Her fake state I.D listed her as Mawu Marie Buchanan, age 31, and she had been in possession of it since the dawn of the millennium. Her truthful age was close to four centuries old, a middle-aged vampire.
The warm water falling from the shower head inside the little wooden cottage washed away her dirt and jet lag, as well as the dried-up blood on her hands. Mawu enjoyed the contrasting warmth falling upon her cold, brown skin that shone with its own blue gleam. Her head of curls absorbed the lavender shampoo and water, and she soaked in here for a minute or so longer. When it was midnight, she left the Lincoln Continental parked in front of her house and decided to head down to the city by flight, wearing a long teal dress and a duster trench coat, with gold strappy heels. She decided to explore the ruins of Ground Zero, where she had witnessed for herself the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Even for the violent nature of her vampiric disease she was born with, after her mother was attacked by Dracula himself allegedly, making Mawu also a dhampir, she never comprehended the violent competitions and volatile ideals of humans. In her own mind, humans were the real monsters. She put people out of misery who wanted her to answer their call of death, she drank blood indiscriminately of whether someone was innocent or not, but never without a burial or transfiguration. New York City teemed with a small coven of vampires that she and Bennett began on their own, and they were thriving well until word got around, and a self-founded militia of vampire slayers killed off so many of them, including Bennett. Mawu was in peril from everyone, and she knew it, but didn’t care for the dawn on consequences.
Bennett wouldn’t have wanted her to live on in fear, and he always reminded her that she was a queen of the night, and to own it. Had word gotten to Enttu, she’d be in very grave trouble, and though right now she was the least of his worries, he’d likely murder her and justify her death because she turned about twenty young adults into vampires, and who knows if and how many people they went and turned. The vampire slayers too still dwelt here, though they seemed to have gone dormant since the 90’s. Then there was the Dragul, who had destroyed the temple of Sekhmet, the only Goddess she acknowledged. Mawu was on the kill list of Malakae, of the Dragul, of the last Selenian Enttu Tepes, the weak and
modern vampires, and ran the risk of alerting the slayers. Even still, right now she had the philosophy that if it was her time to go, then so be it. She perused Ground Zero by herself, and the cacophony of spirits frazzled the silence of her thoughts for a bit, but she was able to tune them out by humming some tune of some ancient vampire that Bennett had taught her when he was still a human and living under refuge of the Selenians. As a matter of fact, the Selenians were the first ones to call themselves that during the 18th century to avoid further persecution from the Dragul, who referred to them as the Alucardians.
The ground trembled here, and she brushed it off initially as the passing subways. Her heels delicately pitter-pattered, and she found her soon to be victim, a young and beautiful Asian male with glossy skin, who was drugged out of his mind. After her fangs broke the tender skin of his delicate neck, she left him to die, and strolled along, before being knocked on her bum from a sudden tremble. From a block away in the piles of melted steel beams, cement, and rubble, appeared a black obelisk that she hadn’t ever seen before, except in occasional nightmares centuries ago. She flew away as fast as she could when she sensed the very presence of none other than Narciso Tepes hanging around the spire, with his annoying adoptive daughter Aurelia, who resembled Enttu Tepes way too much to not assume that maybe they could have been related. Before fully disappearing, Mawu noticed a crowd of drunken Sailors in white jumper uniforms and black dress shoes approaching the ruins. One of them had noticed the obelisk, and then they all decided to go together as a pack and run to it.
The Dhampir Dimension Page 33
