SV02-06. Slave to a Vampire

by Katrina Kahler

  “I am the man who will free her from torment, or who will kill her,” the Master said, keeping his back towards Bastian and forcing his words to remain calm. “She should care a good deal about how much I am to her.”

  Bastian snarled and hissed, but the manacles held, and the Master smirked. His hand tightened even more until Haddie winced and struggled weakly to pull free. Her eyes were closed but he wanted her to look at him, needing to see the last of her fight vanish along with her hope of escaping her fate.

  “You assume I do this for all the wrong reasons,” the Master mused quietly. “You think I enjoy torturing you?”

  “You act as you do,” Bastian answered for her.

  “Torture can bring one pleasure, it is true,” the Master agreed. “However, I do not wish to bring pain to those who follow me willingly.”

  “You want us to become like you! Part of your mindless army!” Bastian roared. “We will never submit and you will die at my hands one way—”

  The Master snarled and was across the tent with his hand wrapped around Bastian’s throat before the threat could be finished. He squeezed until bones rubbed painfully together and he knew he could easily break Bastian’s neck with one more hard pulse of his hand.

  “You know nothing of why I do this,” he hissed, eyes level with Bastian’s. “You who have done nothing but hide since I granted you power, gave you immortal life! You squandered it away, too scared to face what you could be, what this world truly has to offer to those like us!”

  “I am not a monster,” he whispered and spat in the Master’s face.

  The Master grinned, not even bothering to wipe the spit away. “No, not yet, but if what I sense is coming arrives on these shores, you will do whatever you must to protect the ones you love.”

  Bastian’s brow wrinkled as the Master released him and stepped back. “When what comes?”

  “The end of us all,” he replied. “Join me willingly and I will show you how to use your abilities to survive.”

  “And if we do not?”

  He glared at Bastian. “Then you will suffer the same fate as I have—”

  “Master!” Antoinette yelled, but it was too late.

  A chain wrapped around his neck and growling filled his ears before his body was swung around and out of the tent. He struggled to regain his feet and he heard Antoinette scream before she too was thrown free. The Master watched as the canvas tore apart, and the very ground beneath his feet trembled before Haddie emerged, hands held low to the ground as she walked, eyes filled with a burning red fire and face contorted in rage and pain. Bastian remained chained to the post and watched wide-eyed as she moved closer.

  This was the Haddie he hoped to see, but he did not want her to fight against him. “Haddie, calm yourself,” he said sternly. He knew she held great power within her mind, but what she was truly capable of had remained hidden from his view during their time together. Until now. “Haddie, listen to me.”

  “No,” she snarled and a force shoved against him, almost sending him flying backwards, until he found his footing. “You killed my love. Murdered him before my eyes. You do not get to speak of protecting those you love when you carelessly murder others!”

  The Master hissed as another wave hit him and he planted his feet before pushing his mind back against hers. “You will lose this fight, Haddie.”

  “Or you will, and then your plans will be no more,” she challenged.

  “You wish to fight me when the true enemy lies out there, across the waters?” Clearing his mind, he smiled darkly. “As you wish, my sweet.”

  He stretched out his mind, reaching for Haddie’s and cringed at the chaotic state it was in. Her power writhed and coiled in on itself as she struggled to control it and use it against him. She may appear strong, but she was weak on the inside, so close to breaking. All he had to do was give her one final push to send her over the edge into oblivion, and then claim her as his own. He struck hard and quick and she cried out, forced to her knees as he replayed the death of her lover once more for her to see, only this time, he changed the killer.

  “No! That’s not possible!” she screamed and held her head. “No!”

  “You killed him,” he intoned, moving closer to her huddled and quaking form. “You tore him apart. His blood stains your hands, Haddie, and it will for all time.”

  She shook violently, holding her head, as the Master shifted the scene so she saw the broken body of her lover at her feet and his eyes opened in pain and shock at the betrayal. He let her see blood covering her hands and front and she scrambled backwards through the dirt, until she could go no further.

  “You destroyed everything you had,” he went on. “You are nothing more than a monster.”

  “Liar!” Bastian bellowed from the tent. “Haddie, do not listen to him! It’s only in your mind! Please, do not believe him!”

  The Master raised a hand towards Bastian and his lips clamped together. “Hold your tongue,” he snarled and turned back to Haddie. “Come to me, my child, and I will make certain you never remember the sins of your past.”

  Haddie lifted her gaze to his, the light fading with every step he took closer to her.

  “I will only let you remember who you truly are and what you are capable of. All you have to do,” he said when he reached her and knelt by her side, “is let me in.”

  She flinched away when he reached a hand out to her head, but the moment he rested it fully on her, she stilled and he closed his eyes, pushing himself deeper into the dark recesses of her mind. He brushed away all that remained of Haddie before she was turned, and afterwards when she wandered the earth searching for a purpose. He kept the few moments of when she realized what she could do while near another, how she could read their thoughts if she pressed her hand against their foreheads or absorbed their memories when she drained them dry.

  So much power at his fingertips and the Master pulled Haddie to her feet by her shoulders as he opened his eyes and latched them onto hers.

  “No more fear,” he growled and before she could react, bit down on her neck hard.

  Haddie screamed and struggled to be free of his grasp, but his iron clad hands clamped onto her shoulders and pinned her against his body. There was no escape as he drained her, nearly to the point of utterly destroying her. He pulled back, holding her limp body in his arms and licked the few remaining drops from his lips before he bit open his wrist and pressed it against her mouth.

  “Drink, pet, and be one with your new Master,” he soothed.

  Her lips fumbled before they closed around the wound and she sucked hard at his wrist, as a babe at its mother’s breast. The Master’s eyes rolled back into his head as another was added to his ever-growing force. There was hope that when they finally came for him, this time he would be ready. When Haddie had taken enough, he pulled his wrist free and stood her upright as she moaned for more, reaching out to him. Antoinette growled somewhere nearby and the Master smiled smugly at her possessive nature, knowing Bastian saw it too.

  “Another joins us,” he called out to the others, taking Haddie’s hand and turning her around to face the rest of those under his command. The vampires bowed their heads low at her in welcome and he called Desmond forward.

  The Master trailed his fingers lovingly down Haddie’s face and she leaned into his touch even as he pulled away and ordered Desmond to take her to be properly outfitted and fed for the night. She would be of much use to him when the time came and he needed her well prepared for the fight ahead of them all. Her blood coursed through his body and he rolled his shoulders, settling into the added power within him, letting it wash over his very being until it settled deep within his soul, as all the others had done throughout the years.

  “Everyone back to your duties,” he called out, and turned to find Bastian’s eyes narrowed in hatred, but his lips still sealed shut by the Master’s command. He chuckled darkly as he stepped over what remained of the tent, and snapped his fingers. Bastian’s
mouth opened and he cursed the man, snarling and snapping his jaws at him.

  “You bastard! I will kill you for this!”

  “For what? Haddie has come to me of her own free will,” he said innocently. “You saw for yourself.”

  “You tortured her,” he muttered. “How can you call that willingly?”

  The master leaned in, opening his jaws at Bastian’s neck, but did not bite down. “The first time I killed one of our own was when I realized what I could truly do in this form,” he mused and stepped back. “Learned I was able to absorb what others had deep within their souls.”

  He circled Bastian, reminiscing on that glorious moment of his undead life. Human blood was of course exquisite, as fine as any aged red wine, but vampire blood, that was a feast he could dine on every night and never be satisfied. The blood of their own was intoxicating and filled with more than just memories of their lives. It contained their essence, whatever was strong enough to survive the transformation from human to monster. The bits of their souls untouched by any, which was what he absorbed into himself.

  “I can do many things now, ones I had never imagined possible,” he went on, nearly forgetting Bastian was present. “The power that one mind can have over another is fascinating and never ending.”

  “If you wanted to build an army, why not simply ask those who you found, to join you,” Bastian asked, and for a moment the anger was absent from his voice.

  Intrigued, the Master faced Bastian and studied his face. Bastian was a man he had not meant to turn, but dark memories had plagued him that night. He had been out drinking his full, trying to drown the sorrows of his past, when he heard the sounds of a couple in love. The telltale laughter before it faded into more explicit sounds that would soon lead to ecstasy. He heard the racing of their hearts, and bitterness consumed him. He could not let another man be happy, not when he suffered so much at the hands of a monster.

  The Master opened his mouth, an apology on his lips, before he sighed and took another step away from Bastian. His mind was jumbled, filled with Haddie’s leftover memories. Eventually they would fade into the background, but for the moment, they threw him off balance. She was older than any other he had brought under his wing and though it did not make him physically weak, his mind was not in the state necessary for persuading Bastian to join him, and in turn, bring Catherine with him.

  “Desmond will move you to another tent before the sun rises,” the Master said quietly instead.

  “You’re leaving so soon?” Bastian asked. “Why?”

  “Take it as a blessing that I do not see fit to torture you this night,” he scoffed.

  “Who is coming?” he asked instead and pulled against his chains as they rattled. “Tell me, damn it! You at least owe me that much for all you’ve done to me!”

  The Master did not bother to turn or respond, but left Bastian to yell after him, needing to be away from prying eyes as memory after memory rose up and threatened to overwhelm him. Antoinette hurried to his side, but after a warning growl, she let him to walk into the darkness of the woods. Once safely out of sight, he held onto a tree and leaned against it, his nails digging deep into its bark until sap covered his fingers.

  Even the trees bleed at my touch, he mourned and sank low to the ground. Nothing is sacred, not anymore.

  He held fast to the tree and closed his eyes against the rush of the past returning to torture him once more. As the clouds moved in overhead and thunder rumbled in the distance, he knew he’d failed.

  ***

  Bastian was aware he should fight to escape when the two vampires undid the manacles from the post and led him from the ruined tent, but he was too overwhelmed with shock to think clearly. Watching Haddie break…shattered the little hope remaining in him to be free of this nightmare and make his way back to Catherine. But it was the way the Master had drunk her blood, taking her into him that had him questioning everything he thought he knew of their kind.

  When he asked about the army, had the Master’s eyes flared dark with guilt and remorse? Bastian could not be certain and it itched at him to not know what was running through the man’s mind. He sensed many things, but now that he knew what truly resided in the monster, there was no way Bastian could easily tell what emotions were the Master’s and which ones belonged to those trapped within his body, forever under his control until the Master was killed.

  As he was moved across the encampment, he glimpsed Antoinette staring into the darkness, though she did not turn to meet his gaze. Haddie was close by, but when he reached out, trying to feel her emotions, all he hit was a blank wall.

  “You will not be disturbed the rest of the evening,” one of the vampires told him as they chained him up in a new tent.

  “How long do we stay here?” he asked, but the vampires did not answer.

  They left him alone and Bastian closed his eyes against the urge to seek out Catherine, find her, and speak to her. Caress her face and brush his lips against hers. Too long he’d been away from her loving arms and he feared any longer he would begin to lose himself to the Master. He would not complain about one night of respite from being tortured, but he feared what would happen the next night and the next. Sooner or later he knew he would break as Haddie had done, and fall under the Master’s control.

  He could only hope Catherine would stay far away from all of this and not wind up right beside him, serving a man bent on burning the world to the ground.

  Chapter 5

  He held out his hand, watching the shadows dance across his pale skin, the light making it appear translucent even after all the blood he had drained that evening. The Master frowned and let his gaze drift, focusing on nothing as he sat with his back against the tree. Slowly his eyes slid closed and his mind wandered back into a time when he had no answers.

  A time when he was betrayed beyond measure of words.

  ***

  981 AD Holy Roman Empire

  The winter was hard, but Antony survived…not because of his skills as a hunter. He was a monster, a creature of the night, one of the many he once hunted for the Order. Drinking blood was the only way to live and that came easily when peasants lived so far away from the villages that might have offered them safety.

  The man in his arms twitched one final time as Antony drew the blood from the pulsing vein in his neck. He and the woman who turned him, Jocasta, had not fed for many nights, but when the fires from this small shack appeared on the horizon, she ordered him forward to knock on the door and ask for shelter from the cold night. Antony had wanted to refuse, but he possessed no strength against the voice in his mind and did as was bid.

  When the door opened and a woman appeared, a man behind her, Antony smiled wide and flashed his fangs. Jocasta was barely a step behind him and amidst the screams of the couple, they fed until there was nothing but silence.

  Antony let the man’s body thud to the floor, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Jocasta sat opposite him, caressing the dying woman’s face even as she continued to feed, slowly, languidly. She did not have to, but she drew it out slowly, as she always did, and Antony snarled, taking a step towards her.

  “You wish to put the woman out of her misery?” Jocasta snapped as she lifted her head.

  The woman, though weakened and near death, raised her eyes to Antony, begging for the end. Something else in her gaze made him pause and her eyes darted behind him. He turned slowly and when he spotted a small cradle set in the shadow of the room, he tried to move to block it from Jocasta’s sight, focusing on the dying woman in her arms.

  “Just finish so we may find shelter before the sun rises,” he said.

  Jocasta’s brow raised, but she did not return to her feeding. “No. What are you hiding from me?”

  “Nothing,” he replied quickly. “Nothing, I sense the sun’s presence. We traveled far this night.”

  “No farther than any other night.” She stood and the woman tumbled with a pathetic groan to the floor at her feet. She sucked
in a deep breath and her eyes fluttered closed as a dark smile flitted across her lips. “Oh Antony, you thought you could hide such a sweet morsel from me?”

  The woman tried to push herself up as tears filled her eyes. “No, please…no.”

  “Quiet, woman,” Jocasta snapped and backhanded her. The woman cried out, holding her face, but even still she pleaded and attempted to drag herself forward. “Pathetic humans, all of them. Antony, bring me the babe.”

  The woman screamed, but Jocasta snarled at her to be quiet and returned her piercing red gaze to Antony, who was struggling to ignore her command.

  “Antony, I said to bring me the babe,” she hissed and his head throbbed as her words echoed around his skull, consuming his body until he could no longer ignore them. His feet moved and he turned towards the cradle. The woman’s cries filled the home, but he could not stop his arms, no matter how badly they shook, from reaching down and picking up the sleeping babe. Slowly he took the child, its head full of thick black hair matching the mother’s, and returned to stand before Jocasta.

  “Here,” he said tightly. “Take it and be finished with this.”

  “Who said I wanted the babe for myself?” she asked quietly and her lips twitched in a wicked grin. “Finish it, Antony.”

  His hands tightened around the babe as his eyes widened in horror. “What?”

  “I said finish it. We cannot leave a poor babe behind,” she crooned and dragged the woman up by her hair. “Watch, woman, and maybe I will end you quickly.”

  “No,” Antony whispered and stepped back, clutching the babe to his chest. “I will not!”

  “You do not have a choice. Drink the babe! I assure you, no finer blood has ever passed your lips,” she said and licked her own as she pressed her mouth against the woman’s neck. Her fangs pierced the skin and the woman screamed, but Jocasta covered her mouth with a hand as she drank, gulping the woman’s blood in hard pulls. Her body shuddered and the woman’s eyes slid closed even as her lips mouthed NO repeatedly.