by Jeff Gunhus
So I had both Hunter and Creach blood beating through my heart. I could live with that. My grandfather was the evil overlord of all the Creach, and he wanted to kill me. Got it. The Lord of the Vampires was my mother’s twin sister. Check.
My brain slowly settled into accepting this new order of things. I would need time later to sort through all the weird emotions I felt from this news, but I didn’t have that luxury right now. I suddenly realized I was hunched over like someone had punched me in the stomach. I didn’t know how long I had been like this. One minute? Five? Ten? I took a deep breath, stood up straight and squared my shoulders. I looked Shakra right in the eye. I didn’t need to say anything. She knew the news hadn’t broken me.
“You are strong,” she said. “I’ll have you know that comes from our side of the family.”
“Can you tell me about my mother?” I asked. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Shakra shrugged. “I can tell you what I know, but in exchange for what you said earlier. About Gregor.”
I felt the side of my face where she had slapped me earlier. It still stung to the touch. “You promise not to hit me again?”
“Do we have an agreement or not?” she demanded.
I nodded.
“Good. I will tell you what I know. Only the broadest strokes, mind you. How else to tell a story that takes place over a thousand years?”
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “But first, will my friend be all right out there?” I nodded toward the tunnel.
Shakra thought about it. “They obey me on pain of death, but some are so far gone even that doesn’t keep them at bay. Pahvi will let me know if things get unruly. Sit and hear the story of your family.”
I chose a chair as far from Shakra as possible, my skin crawling from her use of the term family. Still, I desperately wanted to know what she was about to tell me. As worried as I was about Eva, I forced myself to sit and listen. Shakra placed the Veritas dagger on the table in front of her and began her story.
“My father was a good man, a noble in the south of France in a time when that meant something special. This was the end of the tenth century, the year 999 to be exact. Just as would happen later in your modern world in 1999, the world was caught up in foolish paranoia that the world was about to end. But in my time, superstitions ran more deeply than now.
“Common people still believed in witchcraft, in demons, in dark shadows that came in the night to steal their children from their beds. And not only the common people. The clergy predicted the Biblical apocalypse was upon us, scaring people even more.
“This created great instability in the social order. If men do not fear punishment, they do not obey. Before long, roving hordes of thieves and bandits ranged across the land with no allegiance to Lord or God. The world was building toward chaos.
“Many nobles, even princes and kings, fled their lands for safety. My father, your grandfather, refused to do so. He was proud and brave, but that wasn’t why he stayed. My mother was pregnant and due in less than a month. He had only daughters, and he hoped for a son. Travel was dangerous for her, so we stayed in our castle and prepared as best we could.
“But unknown to any of us, my father turned to the dark arts to arm himself against the changing world. My mother never would have allowed it if she had known. She was devoutly religious and would have preferred to die rather than be involved in the darkness my father brought into our lives.
“Aquinas told me part of this story,” I said. “He put up a massive reward for the capture of a live vampire.”
Shakra nodded. “One was not captured, but one came nonetheless. VitasVitus, an ancient devil, older than I am now. He had seen the Roman Empire rise and fall. Seen the Library of Alexandria in Egypt burn to the ground. Witnessed the Dark Ages as Man slithered back into his cloak of ignorance and superstition. It was VitasVitus who came to kill the mad French nobleman, Ren Lucre, who had a price on the head of a live vampire. But your grandfather was no fool–”
“Don’t call him that,” I interrupted, giving away more emotion that I meant to. I had just given Shakra a gift by revealing how much it bothered me, but I couldn’t stand the sound of the words.
She grinned but nodded her acquiescence. “My father,” she restated, “was no fool. He drew VitasVitus into a conversation about all that the vampire had seen and learned over his centuries of existence. Over three days and nights, the old vampire shared his tale. Your mother and I snuck into our secret spot in the main hall where they spoke and listened for hours. Horrified but mesmerized.
“You see, your mother and I were unique twins. Somehow, in the womb, emotion and logic had separated between us. Your mother felt everything in fierce waves of emotion, both her own and for others. Listening to VitasVitus’s story was excruciating for her because she felt every tragedy he described, every heartbreak, every joy. Over and over, she was brought to tears by the story.”
“But not you,” I said.
“No, logic and reasoning were my strengths. I analyzed his journey through history. Used it to make inferences about the nature of Man. Calculated how my father would respond at the end of the story. But my calculations proved to be wrong. To me, there was no challenge to the logic of immortality. How could death ever be a better option than living forever? But both your mother and your grandfather…” She let the word hang in the air just long enough for me to know it wasn’t an accident. “I mean, my father, they both ended up absolutely horrified by the high price of immortality.”
“You mean the damnation of your soul?” I asked.
“No, that idea is subjective, depending on your beliefs. What they saw was the undeniable price of outliving your entire family. Seeing every friend, every lover, every acquaintance you ever made, die before you. Then there was the utter detachment from the regular human world, living in a never-ending lie. Finally, there was the burden and guilt of feeding on humans. By the end of it, my father wanted nothing to do with it.
“But he had made too deep a bargain with the devil. When he asked VitasVitus to leave, the old vampire roared with laughter. My father fought him, but he was no match. Your mother and I watched as VitasVitus forced the gift on him and turned him into a vampire using his ancient blood. This is why under my rule as Lord, none may give the gift unless I agree to it. Forcing it on another is unnatural and ugly.”
“Two days later, our father was ravenous with blood-thirst. He made an excuse that the family had decided to leave for our summer home and so invited the nobles in the area for a final dinner party to use the food stores before we left. Dozens came, and none left. My father and Vitus drank their fill.
“My mother had been confined to her bed this entire time because of her pregnancy. Father had told her not to come down to the party and made her promise. But she wanted to surprise him and see their friends one last time. She walked into the end of the slaughter and saw her husband covered in blood, feasting hungrily. Screaming, she ran from the room. Father chased after her as she scrambled up the stairs to her room. They struggled and somehow she fell down the stairs.
“The fall caused the baby to come, but it was too early. There were…problems. In today’s world, he would have lived. Back then, he had no chance. I watched as father held my little baby brother in his hands, sobbing, knowing that his blood could save him if he chose. To me, the only logical thing to do was to make him a vampire. But my father could not bring himself to do it. He told my mother everything, and she made him swear not to bring the evil further into the family. As painful as it was, he kept his word to her. A few hours later, we buried my brother in the family lot.
“After that, my mother took a turn for the worse. We gathered around her bed as she barely clung to life, and together we made a plan to save her. Working together, with your mother leading the way, we captured Vitus and forced the gift from him. We went against what was meant to be our mother’s dying wish that she not be part of this dark life. None of us could bear the idea of
seeing her die. So we saved her. And then, at our father’s urging, your mother and I took the gift ourselves. We were now a family of vampires.”
Once again, I felt the world shift around me. Her story had spun me violently in tight circles and now, with her last statement, suddenly stopped, leaving me so dizzy I could barely stay on my feet. My mother was a vampire? It didn’t make any sense. I’d seen her with my own eyes. I remembered something from Shakra’s tale, an inconsistency, and I clung to it in the hopes it was enough to unravel the story around her.
“But you and my mother were just children,” I said. “If you were turned into vampires, wouldn’t you still look like children today?”
Shakra heard the hope in my voice and shook her head. “You know so little about your own kind, Jack,” she said. “We vampires can choose to let our bodies age whenever we wish. It is sometimes advantageous for us to do so. A child cannot hide forever. It becomes too noticeable.”
“I can’t believe it,” I mumbled. “This can’t be true.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Shakra said, “Your mother did not stay a vampire forever. After nearly a thousand years, she threw away her immortality for the worst of all possible reasons. A man.”
“My father?” I said hopefully.
“Yes, John Templar. A monster hunter, no less,” Shakra spat. “She had him cornered and could have killed him with a flick of her hand, but she did not. Instead, he fooled her, his deceit wrapped in the trickery of soft words and kindness. After only one thing. The same thing his son is after.” Shakra crossed the room and opened a small gold chest encrusted with white, red, and green gemstones. The light from the fire caught their facets and cast reflections around the room. She tilted the chest forward to show me a plain-looking smooth river rock from the case, small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. But she made no move to touch it.
“The Jerusalem Stone,” I whispered.
I stood up from my chair to get a better look, but Shakra hissed and snapped the chest shut. She turned a small key in the center and slid it into a hidden pocket in her clothes. I remained standing. When Shakra had crossed the room, she left the Veritas dagger on the table. I knew if I stood any chance, I somehow had to get my hands on it.
“Yes, one of the five discovered under Temple Mount by the original Templar Grand Master, the vile Hugh de Payens and his band of bloodthirsty mercenaries. Each Stone held its own power, but combined together, they have the power to defeat any darkness. Or become the strongest darkness of them all. Such is the dual nature of great power. It can be used for both good and evil. This is why each Creach Lord possesses one, so my father would not have absolute rule over us.”
“But how…I mean, if my mother was a vampire?” I asked.
“As I told you, logic and emotion separated in our mother’s womb. The emotions she felt were of unimaginable depth and intensity. Seeing a bird fly into a window and lie dying on the ground could send her into tears for days because of the empathy she felt for the dying creature. It was something I could never understand. When she fell in love with your father, or what she thought was love, she abandoned everything. She chose to become human again to be with him.”
I remembered that the Stones together had that power. I had only thought of it as a weapon against a powerful vampire. It hadn’t occurred to me that a vampire might choose to return to human form. I tried to imagine my mother making that decision. Giving up her immortality to be with my father. To love someone so deeply to be willing to give up eternal life. But another thought occurred to me.
“That means she needed to have all the Stones together, right? How did she do that?”
Shakra waved the question away. “That is another story, too complicated to retell now. It is enough to say that she did it, that your father tricked and betrayed her, and that, as she died, she regretted her actions. All of them. Especially having you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.” I was surprised at the confidence in my voice and in my heart as I said the words. “You are lying.”
“A fool believes only what he wants,” she said. “It’s what makes him a fool.”
I pressed forward. “You once knew how it felt to love someone, didn’t you?” I asked. “I spoke to Gregor. He told me the story of how you came to destroy him in the desert only to save him and then fall in love with him.” Shakra remained expressionless, but there was something new in her eyes. A softness that wasn’t there before. “And then, when you thought you would lose him, you murdered his people.”
She looked at the wall behind me, eyes darting back and forth as if watching a scene playing our before her eyes. I wondered if she was witnessing the slaughter of Gregor’s tribe once again. “It was to protect him,” she whispered. “They would have turned on him eventually. It was the only logical thing to do. I did it for him.”
I stood and faced her, using her distraction to move my hand toward the Veritas dagger on the table near me. “No, you did it for yourself. That’s why you couldn’t stand what my mother did. Her sacrifice was real love. It just makes your selfish act seem that much more barbaric.”
I didn’t even see her move from across the room. I only felt the air swirl around me and suddenly she was standing face-to-face, a small knife at the base of my throat and a hand holding the back of my head. Her blank expression was more terrifying than any snarl could have been. I wondered if her logical mind had made a decision to kill me and end the conversation. Involuntarily, I swallowed and felt the knife break the skin.
“B…but…he forgave you…in the end,” I struggled to say. “He understood.”
The pinprick of pain at my throat disappeared, and Shakra removed her hand from my head. “What did you say?”
“I spoke to Gregor before I came here,” I said, cautious because I knew a single misstep here could result in her plunging the knife into me. “He gave me a message.”
Shakra stepped back, waiting.
“He said he understood, that he knew what you did was, in your own way, a show of love.” I steadied myself in case she attacked. “In the end, he forgave you. In the end, he never stopped loving you either.”
Shakra stood motionless, her face remaining a mask. But her eyes. They clouded over in a deep sadness. It was the first emotion I’d seen in her. In that second of hesitation, I lunged for the Veritas dagger and grasped it.
Suddenly, as if a dam had burst, she exploded in anger. “You lie!” she roared, her teeth bared, crouching low to attack.
But I was ready for her this time. She rushed to me, blindingly fast. I raised my hand and braced myself.
She stopped suddenly, pressed up against the weapon I held in front of me. Slowly, she looked down and saw what I held to her body.
It wasn’t the Veritas dagger. It was the Revealer.
I could have raised either when Shakra charged me. In her blind rage, I knew she would be careless. If I’d chosen the Veritas dagger, she would be writhing on the ground, dying a slow death. I could have taken the key to the chest, walked casually to the fireplace mantle, and claimed the Jerusalem Stone.
Instead, I’d raised the Revealer. Even though I knew the importance of my quest, I also felt the weight of my pledge to Gregor. He had given me the Veritas dagger and the power to destroy, but he had also armed me with the power of the truth with the Revealer. He had trusted his story to me so that I might make this one decision when it was most important.
Besides, whether I liked it or not, Shakra was still Caroline, my mother’s sister. If there was a chance to get through to her, I had to try.
I spoke quickly, worried that once her shock wore off that she would simply slit my throat. “Let me prove that I’m telling the truth,” I said, holding up the Revealer. “Let me prove that after all those centuries, Gregor forgave you and loved you once again.”
Shakra looked at the Revealer. I could tell she knew what it was, perhaps had even seen this particular one before. Her eyes darted to the Ve
ritas dagger in my other hand. She took a few quick steps back. She knew what that was too.
I leaned out and held the Revealer to her. She hesitated and then took it from me, stepping back quickly after she did so. She slid her hands over the Revealer before looking up at me and giving me a barely perceptible nod of her head.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Ask what you most want to know.”
Shakra gave me a dark look, then looked down at the Revealer. “Did Gregor…” her voice caught as she said the name. “Did Ahmed el-Tayeb…” she looked up, Gregor’s real name lingering in the air. I nodded for her to continue. “Did he…forgive me?”
She finished the question but did not look down at the Revealer to see the answer there. She locked eyes with me. Unwilling or unable to look down.
I realized with sudden clarity that there was no answer there that wouldn’t bring her pain. Falsum would simply mean that her lifetime of loss would remain the same, but the small hope I’d given her would be torn from her. Veritas would be harder still. Knowing that her one true love had forgiven her, but only minutes before his death, would be a cruel revelation. Centuries of regret would be a burden almost too terrible to imagine.
But even without looking down, she could see the answer in my eyes. I had told her the truth.
With a scream that pierced my ears, she threw the Revealer with all her might into the fire. It smashed into the back wall and shattered.
A torrent of flame gushed into the room. I held my hands to the sides of my head as Shakra’s scream grew louder and louder.
Vases shattered. Mirrors on the wall cracked. I dropped to my knees from the sound of it – the pain almost too much to bear. It felt like shards of glass cutting through my skull and that my head would be the next thing to explode from the sound.
The carpets and the tapestries were on fire now. Everything was so old and dry that it all went up like kindling. In seconds, fire climbed all four walls. In the center of it, her world burning down around her, Shakra continued to scream.
