Born Of Sin

by Deanna Richmond

  As the others took leave, Stacey remained at his side, in case he needed her, like he always had, but especially today with this new threat. “Are you sure you are all right, sir?” Stacey asked again. She was not an unattractive woman, but Victor had never felt an attraction towards her. She dressed plainly, always wearing gray suits, her hair twisted into a tight bun, and he found her neediness repellent.

  Years ago, she had been Victor’s personal assistant, until she’d approached him with more than just work. She cared for him. He would have completely gotten rid of her if her skill set was not so valuable; moreover, she had given her word to stay professional. Now twelve years later, she had kept her promise.

  “Yes, of course. You can leave for the day,” Victor advised her while she fidgeted with folders on the conference table.

  “But it’s only six, and we still have not gone over the numbers.” Stacey looked forward to their time together. They were friends. At least, she thought they were, but no matter, she excelled in numbers and wanted to remind him of her value, especially today. In her mind, one day he would come to realize her value, and see how far he had gotten because of her.

  “I insist. Go home,” he said, now more in control of himself, standing across the table from her. When she did not budge, he walked over to her, removing the books she held securely in her arms. “I work you too hard. Go out, have some fun. Take the company car if you’d like and have a girls’ night. Please. Besides, I need to talk to Brayden about an important matter.” Brayden, his trusted comrade, suddenly appeared. He stood off in the background by the door, both hands tucked away in his pockets, waiting for Victor’s biggest devotee to leave.

  Stacey scrunched her pencil thin lips as her pupils quickly dilated. Victor was all business, all the time. For him to drop work was not the norm. Victor saw her unsettled response but ignored it. As he hoped, she didn’t push the issue. “As you wish.” She forced a pleased smile and with a slight nod, walked off, cutting Brayden a vile look. They cared not for each other.

  Brayden waited until Stacey was a safe enough distance away before confronting the man about his odd behavior. “Victor, would you like to explain what just transpired?” He was referring to the woman in the lobby. “She’s human,” he said as the two men took leave of the business center that housed the offices of the hospital. The structure of the hospital forked in the back, one side medical, and the other filled with corporate offices. The men silently walked together. They politely nodded to those they passed. Victor believed in a pleasant working environment.

  “I know,” he responded. He graciously acknowledged the women who glanced his way, pretending to not take note of their persistent, longing stares. He held the door open for the ladies, letting them pass first.

  “Victor, that was quite noticeable and very unlike you,” Brayden continued, concerned for his longtime companion.

  Victor was not the type to be moved or swayed easily. Even though he might not have reacted in the conventional sense, the fact that he was distracted was most unusual for him. He was known for his calm, diplomatic demeanor, sharp business sense, and tough character. He was a man of great importance. He was the creator of the hospital. His present name was Victor Logan Marchette, but he was born Nikolai Von Mort, owner of Le Château Rouge, The Red Castle.

  “I don’t know what came over me, but you have to admit that she is most unusual,” Victor answered as they walked down the corridor leading to his corner office. “I need you to find out everything about her.”

  “Victor…”

  “I’m aware of the consequences, Brayden, but I want everything.” Victor said in front of his red mahogany desk, one that had been passed down for six centuries.

  “Need I remind you of our history?” Brayden snarled, standing off to the side. His eyes dug into Victor. He was concerned about his present conduct. “Since the beginning of time, we’ve developed and perfected a society far better and more disciplined than that of the humans, with laws and rules governed under the Cabalistis. You very well know that our organization rules with no leniency. The two most sacred decrees are: Do not let the humans know of our existence unless approved by the council, and do not cohort with a human. Humans are not to be trusted.”

  Victor looked up from the profile. His left eyebrow was raised. “Why thank you, Brayden, I had almost forgotten the law. Almost. What would I ever do without you?” Victor scoffed, keeping a straight face at his dear friend, who seemed to always be uptight. “It’s but a simple request.” Victor walked over to the amber colored bookshelf filled with leather bound books, some so old they predated even him.

  “You mock, but most humans are not aware of our presence for a reason, and we would like to keep it that way. They are inferior in all abilities, including their minds, so they cannot begin to grasp our existence. Remember, anything they cannot comprehend, they fear. Any beings stronger, smarter or more powerful than their own race, gives them just cause for war. Very few have the privilege of knowing of us, very few, and they need to be approved by the council first, and are to be watched closely,” Brayden spoke with such conviction.

  “I understand your concern, brother, I do. But Alex comprehends well enough. Every time I cut him a check, I remind him of his duty.” Victor removed a book from the shelf and walked back to his desk. “We would not quite be who we are without him.”

  Alexander Cagen was Victor's lawyer. He was a cut-throat, low-moral snake and not even his family, or his plentiful mistresses, knew of the role he played for Victor. He only cared for wealth and power, which made him an asset to Victor. His lawyer was well-educated, but his mind excelled when it came to less scrupulous matters, and Victor paid him a king’s salary for his immorality. He kept all of Victor’s paperwork in order and was relied upon to keep Victor's picture out of the public domain. Victor needed to reinvent himself with a new identity and location every century, and lawyers such as Alex were good for that. The other half of the era, he would go into hibernation, so to speak. People would notice when you didn't age.

  Brayden’s voice began to falter when he saw resolve on Victor’s face. He was already fixated on the strange woman. It had been a very long while since anything fascinated Victor, and no matter how much it vexed Brayden, he would not back down.

  “I implore you, Victor, let this go. We vampires have future plans, ones that do not involve humans.” He paused for a reaction but received none from Victor. “You know, most vampires, other than self-involved rebels, seek the Cabalistis approval. However, I swear, at times you try to purposely provoke them.” Brayden gripped his hand tightly, staring at Victor, who did not waver. “You may live to regret it.”

  “If I do, then I’m sure you will gladly remind me of this conversation,” Victor said as they both settled into his office. The office was a duplicate to the one in his home. It was a large room with brown leather couches representing the Old English period. Midnight blue drapes hung along château doors, leading out into a colorful east-facing garden. There, a marble water fountain sat in the middle of the orchard. An array of unique flowers bloomed throughout the grounds.

  Victor Logan Marchette was over six hundred years old, give or take a few years. Vampires didn't age, but instead became more attractive over the years, precisely the reason both women and men, were attracted to them—their human faces, to be clear. Their true form, on the other hand, gets more grotesque the longer they roam this land.

  Brayden was only a few centuries older than Victor. He had always been Victor’s educator and protector from when he had been assigned to Victor by the Cabalistis so very long ago. Over the years, and with Victor’s refined behavior, he had done little to no worrying, aside from the occasional threats. But that had not always been the case. There had been a time when Victor was not so cultured, a time Brayden never wanted to relive.

  His kind had been around since the beginning of time. There were two kinds of vampires. Victor came from a long line of kings, and when they
died, they were reborn as masters. He, like many aristocratic vampires, was a true-born vampire, one who had awoken as an adult in his birthplace of Romania.

  There were others, birthed from Hell. Romania was a place known for its tainted soil, rich with the magnetic field attractive to the Supernatural underworld. This poisonous earth called to the damned souls who refused to cross onto their predestined paths of the Afterlife. Instead, these souls, turned savagely rotten from years of wandering the underworld, find passageways to long deceased loved ones. In these decayed bones, they take refuge and awaken to a new world as vampires.

  From the blackened muck they’d clawed their way to freedom and were instinctively drawn to their kind once arisen. They instinctively felt more content around their kin.

  Both kinds sustain life in one of two ways: drinking the liquid of vitality, blood; or sucking the energy of the healthy to render them weak. But most needed and craved the red molten liquid.

  From day one of their raised births, they were taught to speak Latin, a most scholarly language, to unify them. Not all dead souls were from Romania, even though they awakened there, so a unified language was needed for solidarity.

  ***

  With the moon high, Victor jogged at full speed on his grounds, passing the high shrubbery, garden maze. At one point, it had been the highlight of parties. Two aliases ago, Victor had held grand gatherings here.

  The functions had been held on a grand scale. Several activities had transpired at once: the maze run, acrobatics, dancing, life-size chess, orgies in the pool and sometimes the water fountains, and large amounts of freely acquired blood taken from eager volunteers. But there were those few that had been captured and forced through the maze, only to be hunted. No human ever made it out alive.

  As he made his way toward the woods, Victor remembered that feeling of freedom. The night had always been his, to do what he wanted. Throughout the years, he’d missed being pure animal, but he had mostly missed the pursuit of a victim.

  The chase—hearing the hurried pounding of staggering feet when a prey learns, in those last seconds, that vampires do exist. At that moment, nothing mattered but the sound of that beating heart as he'd zoned in on what would inevitably be a kill.

  He’d let them run in the belief that they’d escape this living nightmare, but it was a false hope Victor had bestowed upon them. Cruel as it was, it had been most exhilarating to listen to them scamper from afar.

  Once captured, the victim’s fear, reflected in their horror-stricken eyes, had caused a rush of fire to soar through Victor’s icy veins. Their pupils dilated. Their lips quivered. Their raspy breaths escaped. Some managed to scream, others choked on the lavish feast they had ingested. The more they feared, the more adrenaline filled their bodies, making the kill so much more exquisite. At the moment right before death, Victor always found it to be breathtakingly beautiful. Victor always had a way of picking the best hunts. His were always the ghastliest. The bloodiest. Young women were always his favorite to stalk and torture.

  There was never a time when he hadn’t had a different woman in his bed several nights a week. There were many women, and they were all at his disposal.

  But the parties had halted one treacherous night, so very long ago. That was the night Le château rouge was named “The Red Castle”. He'd changed it to remind himself of that horrid night — a night when Victor had lost himself in the thirst. The bloodlust beast within him had overtaken over his civilized facade. It was a night he cared not to remember, and he truly did not remember—not all of it.

  Afterward, he thought that he'd been drugged. At least he’d hoped that, but it was him. Flashes of frenzied feeding, screaming, and blood. So much blood. He'd fed too greedily. His thirst had been unappeasable. Unquenchable. A dark secret he'd kept to himself. It was then he’d realized, to truly free himself, to give into his appetite, meant death to too many.

  Since then, there had been no more balls. He became a recluse, vowing to never lose control like that again. He'd killed so many that even to this day, their screams haunted him. Even as a vampire, killing without control was toxic to not only the body, but also the mind. Too much blood at once, taking on so many personalities, could cause one to lose their sanity.

  But that had been a different time and here he was, back at the very place it had happened. It was something he'd never done before. In the past centuries, he’d never returned to a dwelling where he’d had an alias, but a few decades ago this place had called to him. It was as if this place beckoned him, and the pull was so profoundly he could not refuse it. It was all so troubling.

  Even more so lately, he'd started questioning the sanity of his actions. He continued to feel a tug from the obscure. From whence it came, he was unsure, but there it was again, stirring within him. He’d tried to ignore it, but in the past month, it had become irrefutable. Victor was struggling to contain his carnal nature.

  This human had somehow struck a nerve within him. A deadened pulse had awakened, one that even Brayden had noticed. Brayden would be sure to keep a closer eye on him now, more so than he’d done for as long as Victor could remember. Strangely, that memory only went as far back as four centuries and not his full six. He’d inexplicably lost the memories of his first two hundred years.

  Victor shook off the burning memories and cleared his mind as he jogged deeper into the woods. Midnight and Snow, his wolves, even joined in the outing. Their fur coats dictated their names. They had to run full speed to match his pace. He was quick, as were all vampires; their senses were sharp and their strength was ten times that of a mere man. Every moment around humans, vampires had to be careful. It grew tiresome at times, living in a world where you could not be yourself. At least, that was the excuse the Cabalistis gave for the genocide they were about to unleash onto the human population.

  Victor stopped in the woods to rest by the trees, his breath in clear view in the cold night air. He slid to the ground with his faithful two at his side. As he petted his pups crouched beside him, he admired his castle and thought of how easy it would be to flee, to leave it all behind. As much as this was his world—the money, the power, and the women—it was not fully him.

  He cherished giving back to the sick. It gave him purpose. The reason he did it was possibly to make amends for the many he’d killed. Even though he had no full memory of all his wrongdoings, he knew it had been malevolent. So, he’d found those who could formulate a mixture of vampire and human blood to help with the ill. It was a risky process, but in his mind, it was worth it.

  Under the supervision of the council, he was allowed to bring in humans to work alongside vampires in formulating the blood mixture and a synthetic agent to allow the coexistence of the vampire and human blood union. It would not turn a human into one of them, as vampires are not made that way. They could only be true-born or birthed from Hell. The blood formulation aided a human’s immunity, the superior healing abilities of vampire blood ridding most patients of blood diseases, ranging from anemia to leukemia. Although it could not cure cancer, it helped put most patients in remission.

  After years of such formulation, he should have known that it would come at a price — that the Cabalistis had an ulterior motive. After years of working to manipulate human blood, the Cabalistis showed their hand. They wanted to control the human population. The only way to do so would be by killing most of them. In all honesty, Victor saw it as a righteous endeavor. It would be a chance for him to feel free again. As much as he loved giving back, he yearned for a world where his kind could be themselves.

  Savagely killing the humans would be foolish. They would still need a certain amount of humans for breeding and for vampires to feed off of. But it wasn’t so easy manipulating human blood either, to where it coagulated or dispersed enough to kill a human undetected by any autopsy. Contaminating their blood was another possibility. They needed a virus that either made their body’s die of natural causes or one so severe it would take humans a lifetime to fin
d a cure, but by then, it would be too late for their race. The human population would decrease profoundly. The Cabalistis wanted to kill as many of them as possible before exposing themselves. Humans would need to know that they could be taken out easily, that they did not stand a chance against vampires. It was just a matter of putting it in motion. The Cabalistis already had test subjects, but Victor had no clue who they were. The Cabalistis never disclosed everything.

  Putting the thought of leaving this world behind, especially after the intriguing woman had appeared today, he jogged back to his home—the place that had started to feel more like a prison.

  Before reaching his bedroom, he could hear his most gifted lovers. As he walked in, he saw none other than Andreea and Gabriela, both naked and sprawled across his bed. It appeared that they'd started without him. The ladies were wrapped up in his black satin sheets, entangled in each other’s limbs and playfully licking each other sensually.

  “Who let you in?” he asked, sitting down in a chair across from the bed to remove his shoes.

  When the women stopped kissing, their eyes glued to him from the second he had walked in, they answered in unison, “Brayden.” Gabriela seductively crawled off the bed towards him. She was the epitome of sexy. Her skin was alabaster, her lips a natural dusky rose, and her stare was deadly. “He said that you needed us,” Gabriela purred, stopping in between his legs to grope his crotch.

  Brayden was trying to get his mind off of that strange woman. It was tempting, especially sending over Andreea, Victor's most favorite dessert. Her skin was fair, her hair was wild and curly, and her lips were plump with lust. Crawling on her knees, like Gabriela, was never a necessity; men came to her.

  As Gabriela unzipped his pants, Victor's fangs elongated as he watched Andreea fondle her breasts. It was an erotic sight, one he’d enjoyed countless days and nights.

  Gabriela took her time undressing him, her sinful green eyes devouring him as she rubbed her breasts up against him, while Andreea stayed on the bed, watching Victor as she touched herself. Her moans were of her own doing, while Gabriela licked her lips as she eyed Victor’s erection. Before Gabriela could wrap her lips around him, Victor unconsciously stopped her. As much as he wanted them, he fought back his animal instincts and rejected them both. All he could imagine was that entrancing woman from earlier and how she would look in his bed. A woman he didn’t even know, had never even touched.