“Malio, you have disgraced my wife and I in my own castle. I saw you as the token of my personal campaign to bring good and grace to these lands. You were the symbol in my mind that held me to that higher standard. Now you are tarnished, lamed. I will one day find a new visage, but you, you will never be forgiven of this treason. I demand you remove yourself from my lands and never return.” Martin was stern and upholding to his new wife's image. He could not let Malio's attack go unnoticed with so many guests watching.
Malio was being made an example of. In a sick twist of fate, Malio would be banished from the neighboring lands. The very people he had originally vowed to hate for the rest of his life, the same people that he was about to truly forgive in his mind. They were now demonizing him. They were accusing Malio of an act that he was provoked into. A right of vengeance that was due to him for Teresa slaughtering his companion Mathew. Teresa had honestly wronged him. Malio was right in his actions. His inability to speak at a critical moment had damned him, causing a chain of events that would alter the course of all their lives.
Malio was taken away by an armed guard. During the day he might have had a chance at resisting, but not then, not after midnight and before the dawn. Malio was just another half breed in those crucial hours.
Ifrin brought Malio to their great hall to discuss his punishment. “You should never have done this Malio.”
Malio said nothing. He was in mourning over Mathew.
“You will undergo the ritual of Redgold.” Ifrin commanded Malio. “On a solitary island west of the northern continent.”
Malio's face dropped.
“Malio, you are to be exiled.” Ifrin's words struck cold in Malio's now dead heart.
Malio didn't believe it. To him, he no longer had family.
“In six years, there will be another chance for you to complete the ritual. This time, you shall do it alone, the old way. You will hunt and kill a vampire on your own in single challenge.” Ifrin barked orders at Malio. His strength returning to him in this moment of fierceness. “You will learn to become a man on your own terms and one day you will earn this seat.”
Malio gathered his things and was escorted out of his own castle, off his own land.
Two months passed as Malio made the journey to western Europe. He had been exiled to a small island off the coast of England in the British Isles. His father bought the small island directly from the reigning king. The salty atmosphere was dry and new to Malio. He came to the conclusion that this was more of a prison than a trip to another country. Malio wasn't allowed to leave. His living meals were shipped to him daily from the main land. Malio took to settling into his hobby. He found the dry salty air was well suited to preserve the skins of the animals he would mount and stuff. More bears, and horses gave way to Malio hunting average game. His courtyard soon was littered with donkeys, mules, and pigeons. Malio was becoming bored by his forced solitude. He was beginning to think impetuously.
Malio had become morose one evening while sitting at his dinner table, overlooking the sunset and thinking about his lost companion Mathew. Malio said out loud. “I know! I know what I have to do.”
Malio's human servant responded to his call. “What is it my lordship? What do you require?” The human male was new to Malio. He was far older than most of the men at his father's castle. Malio supposed he was one of his father's former messengers from long ago. The man appeared to be in his mid forties with light brown hair, touched with bits of gray. He was of average height at five foot ten. Still far taller than Malio, he consciously kept mind to not physically look down on Malio. Always standing a few more feet away than the other servants for that reason alone. He dressed in a dark brown tunic and the shape of his face allowed for little to be seen of his eyes. Malio saw him as a rather odd servant.
“I want someone to be brought to me from the main land.” Malio stated triumphantly, as if he'd figured out the secret to some great mystery.
“A meal?” The servant said.
“No.” Malio replied with a pondering. He was still deciding on something in his mind.
“A loose button?” The servant suggested with a dirty intonation.
“No, I do not require a girl tonight.” Malio dismissed the idea immediately. Returning to mauling over the same concept he had.
“Then what do you want me to bring to you?” The servant said with a hint of frustration.
“A vampeal.” Malio said with a sinister smile.
“Why?” The servant asked, confused as to what Malio would want another vampeal for.
“That is not your business. Simply get me one as soon as you can.” Malio commanded. “And if you can't find anyone, I have another way of accomplishing what I desire.”
The servant returned to the interior of the estate, set on gathering a local group of bounty hunters to search for a vampeal. The tales of monsters and vampires were plenty around the isles. Due most in fact to Malio's own reckless behavior. On occasion he would be seen dragging off the corpse of a wandering visitor to the isles from the shore. A vampeal would be an easy target for the human bounty hunters, since they would believe that they would have captured a real vampire. The servant sent out instructions to the maids and other servants that attended to the grounds for the time that he would be gone. The man figured about five days, but he knew that these things are not always done with ease.
Malio waited patiently as his head servant left. As the days came and went until finally he returned with the prize at the feet of a dozen half injured men, Malio had not fed. For the entire duration, believing that he should not eat until he gained satisfaction over his request. Malio watched the sunsets and dawns pass as he waited without thought for himself. His obsession kept him company and kept his mind fully enthralled.
“Well, that didn't take too long, is this my treasure?” Malio asked the crowd of men that had assembled.
The largest, most wounded one of them, stepped forward. His left arm was gone and recently bandaged with a heavy wrap. He was bleeding on the stone walkway, but remained standing out of sheer pride. “Yes, my lord. We have retrieved what you have asked for. At the cost of thirty men and the damage done to the rest, we have obtained a real vampire for you. But we wish to ask one thing.”
Malio smiled, knowing that what they had caught was only a vampeal. A creature that appeared to have slaughtered their group. Granted, Malio was offset by the bounty hunters seemingly random request. “Yes?”
“Kill it.” The large man said with conviction. “It has wronged us and we have tried but failed many times to end its life. He have stabbed it, burned it, beaten it, and drowned it. It won't die, not by our hands. Our only request is that whatever you do to this creature, you finish by killing it.”
“Do you have any idea how long I have waited to see this very creature you speak of?” Malio asked the lead hunter.
“Yes, I do my lord. You have waited two years, one month and ten days.” The hunter replied.
Malio stepped back. He knew it had been many days, and his servant did appear to be slightly older, but to think that two years had passed without a drop of blood to his tongue was preposterous. Malio himself would have aged, but he did not. He would have felt weak, but he was not. “Servant, is this true? Has it been as long as he says?”
Unknowing of Malio's reaction, the servant answered earnestly. “Yes, I have been away for two years, one month and ten days.”
Malio's chest sank, the toll from the lack of blood in his system caused him to become lightheaded. The dizziness was setting in. Malio stumbled forward as he stood in front of his chair. He had been in a state of near hibernation over the loss of his kingdom and the treachery of the new queen Teresa. Malio leaned over, peering at the large potato sack the hunters had brought the vampeal in. Malio smelled the blood on it, it was sweet and it wet his palate. Malio knelt down on his knees as the hunters gasped. Malio bore his teeth, thinking nothing for himself. He was hungry and the vampeal was utterly defenseless
before him. Malio bent down. He smiled as he looked at the squirming bag before him.
The hunters stepped back, they had been through hell attempting to take down the one vampeal that now lay at their feet. They feared what Malio was capable of. They however, did not know what the servant knew, that Malio was presently weak and could be easily slain at the moment. It was a fact that he hid out of pure loyalty.
Malio laid his hands on the bag with care not to disturb the occupant. The sack shook violently. Malio leaned down and quickly tore into the person with his teeth. More than half the hunters were jolted by his sudden change in demeanor.
Everyone except for the servant stood in disgust. The man watched as if this event was just another in a long line of horrors that he had seen while in Malio's employ. To him this was nothing new.
Malio sank his fangs deep in to the skin of the vampeal captive. Blood poured down his face, and was smearing all over his hair and forehead. This was Malio at his most needy. He was feeding, all of the hunters had their chance in those fleeting minutes as he filled his gut with blood. They had their chance to kill Malio, but hesitated out of fear. All they could see was a monster before them, not a man, not a boy, not a person. They had time to encounter the vampeal they had captured. They had time to meet him and understand the humanity in him. That he was a monster and a man in one body and with a soul. They saw Malio as something different, as something that had no humanity. With all the trouble they had shed over the captive vampeal, Malio was the greater monster. The lone vampeal never killed humans, he fed only on livestock and blood given to him as payment for simple tasks. He lived a humble life and defended himself with respect and honor as they hunted him.
Malio ripped the bag and the flesh of the vampeal open. Pieces of the bag began to fly off, as if on their own, it was being shredded by some unknown force. Malio stopped, taking a moment to breath. His eyes had become a dark blue, his iris' was black as night. Malio's face was gaunt and stretched, his body frail looking and lean. Slowly Malio's eyes looked around. He settled on the hunters and smiled.
Without saying a word, everyone of the hunters dove at Malio. At first out of fear and then out of anger. They did not want this thing to ransack their village and eat their families after Malio was done with them. They let out a ferocious scream all at once as they charged.
It had little effect on Malio. He was about to swipe at them, but he jumped backwards instead. At first he didn't know why. There was a feeling inside Malio's veins, it was new. He didn't know what it was. He had never developed a vampiric gift and thought it was due to his over consumption of blood to keep him young. However, this period of latency would have corrected that. This was different, separate from his own abilities, and from his strengths. He was channeling a power, a presence from someone. Malio looked down at the bloody sack in front of him.
The hunters gave the vampeal no mind, treading over it with ease and fearlessness as they advanced towards Malio.
This was Malio's chance as he thought to himself. This was the moment that he had in his power to slay a large group of men that feared him, that had turned on him. A moment of partial revenge. Something inside Malio was urging him to kill these hunters. Malio didn't know why he would he feel so much hatred for such strangers. Words that were not his own came to mind as he let them find voice through his tongue. “You who have hunted and pecked at me until I eventually fell. You who have slaughtered my friends, my family. You, who have brought grief to so many in the name of money. You will all die, each of you in the same horrid way as the rest of them. I will pull you part by part until you are no longer flesh, no longer bone. Tonight the predators of the wood will dine well.” Malio didn't understand what was happening. He felt an overwhelming desire to kill these men. The message before him was not his. Malio felt that he knew exactly how to kill these men in the way the words had described. All he needed to do was intend it.
The larger man with the missing arm, spoke up. “Those words, we know those words! We all know those words! You have a different voice, but those words, he said nearly the same thing to all of us. The same damned things to each of the men who died hunting him!”
Malio raised his right hand towards the large man. With one definite action Malio closed his fist tight. The man seemed to instantly grow shorter, his legs retracted, and retreated up into his body. His shoulders narrowed, his neck compressed. The large man fell over, dead. Three of the men near him dashed at Malio. They were thrown back the instant Malio leered at them.
This was a power new to Malio, something he had never known before now. Malio looked down to the writhing bloody sack on the ground. “What is this? What are you to have such a commanding gift as this? The power to flex and constrain matter itself, this is a gift of kings, not peasants.”
The sack twitched. A faint sound emanated from it, directly solely at Malio. “I am a-” His voice cut out.
Malio leaned in and concentrated. The men stood, waiting to see what Malio would do next.
“I am a freak. Just a freak, a normal freak.” The vampeal in the sack coughed and a large blood stain formed on the side of the bag. “A freak. Just like you!” The vampeal coughed uncontrollably. More blood spilled out from the sack and onto the stone floor.
Malio was angry, but was beginning to understand what was actually going on. His body had somehow temporarily absorbed this other vampeal's gift when he took in his blood. Malio felt the gift slowly fleeing his body as he was processing the fluid. The power of the gift was reducing, Malio knew that he didn't have that much time left to use it. Malio sneered at the vampeal in the sack. “I am not like you. I have no gift with power beyond my skin. You have a life that wasn't eroded slowly as the years went on. But I will tell you something. We are alike, but there is a difference.” Malio knelt down beside the bag and whispered towards what appeared to be the head. “In a few years you will be dead and your gift will be mine.” Malio quickly swept his left arm in the direction of the remaining men, knocking everyone off their back and off the edge of the cliff down to the shore. The servant was not among them, he had fled while Malio wasn't paying attention to him.
“Kill me.” The fading voice cried from beneath the sack cloth.
Malio took a hold of one end of the bag and physically slung him over his shoulder with ease and only one hand. “Don't worry little vampeal, I will kill you. I just won't kill you until the next solar eclipse. I want to try something, an experiment to see what will happen. Then I will grant you the death you seek. Until then, you are mine.”
Malio walked back into his castle of expulsion with a smile and blood trailing behind him on the stone floor. This was Malio's moment of epiphany. If he was right, it would mean that it was possible to rewrite the balance of power in the world. It meant that Malio could undo the social hierarchy that he belonged to and hated.
* * * *
Years passed as Malio truly enslaved the nameless vampeal. Malio had seen the vampeal craft many ingenuitive ways of obtaining freedom. He had cut his thumbs off in an attempt to escape and slip his manacles off. Not having the reckless reasoning to break his own ankles in order to run faster, the vampeal was still found on the edge of the castle grounds with drops of blood leading right to him. Malio retaliated with a creative solution. He saw it as inspiration, severing all his digits, and all of his toes for good measure. He then inserted a single metal spike into each of the vampeal's limbs. Then he closed the shackles and cemented them in place. Not only would the vampeal not be able to open the castle doors easily, he would have an increasingly hard time balancing without toes. A fact that Malio took full advantage of by placing long catwalks that lead to his only cell door. A short distance to long spikes ensured that if the vampeal fell, he wouldn't get very far. Malio's plan was to keep him indefinitely until he was ready to sacrifice him for use with the next solar eclipse. Until he could make Redgold from him.
Malio had the idea that if he could temporarily transfer the gift of a vampea
l by drinking its blood, there would be a stark difference when that vampeal was used to create Redgold. For all Malio knew, it might kill him. It would certainly kill the vampeal, which Malio didn't care for. The chance of obtaining his gift was so tempting it caused Malio to hyperventilate with excitement. Malio had been secluded on the island for more than seven years now. He had only known the pain of his childhood. There was a lust of feeding on random villagers from the mainland. It was a joy keeping the vampeal alive with improvised methods of torture learned from taxidermy. Malio was becoming self sufficient, he was becoming cruel. Often he would cut off pieces of skin from the vampeal as a sadistic form of punishment, just to see him squirm. He would take from the arms, the legs, the scalp, Malio didn't care. They were all fair regions to him.
Malio saw the vampeal as a way to regain what was taken from him. Keeping him alive and waiting for him to escape was part of Malio's attempt at preventing the vampeal from committing suicide. Malio paid great attention to talking with the vampeal. He spent days and nights learning about his life and family. Malio found that his name was Will Leechman. He had worked as a grave digger in his youth. His mother had a tryst with a local roaming vampire and he had been born nine months later. Will was actually far older than Malio. He appeared to be in his early twenties and was just approaching his nineties. Will was eighty eight years old. He had survived off of the blood of neighbors and livestock for payment of good deeds rendered. He had been married four times, producing ten human children. Will had lived a long life and was quite happy before Malio's whim of vampeal blood ruined everything.
Will sat in a small pool of his own blood. He was lacerated from the many cuts and slices Malio had inflicted upon him, Will was exhausted. He coughed with a dry wind, clearing his throat in order to speak up. He looked into Malio's eyes as he sat a few feet away on the stone floor. “Why me?”
Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) Page 47
