Immortal Envy

by Justice, A. D.

  The last few times I’ve been out on my spy missions, I’ve noticed a distinct change in their behavior. One that’s more concerning to me for our overall survival. They’re taking humans off the street—snatching them and flying away with the human in their grasp. Their lair must be nearby, at least close enough to take their captives without raising alarms from screams and protests.

  So I’ve waited and watched. I’ve spent hours of my time awaiting the perfect opportunity. Finally, tonight, it happened. One of the young vampires grabbed a woman, but he hadn’t yet gained enough strength to fly away at full speed, and I was close enough to follow him back to their hiding place without being detected. Novice move on his part, really. There’s no way Ramses or I would’ve made such foolish mistakes when we were young vampires, which concerns me even more that Ramses is allowing it to happen with his clan now. I followed the young one inside the three-story building, moving through the corridors with ease.

  It was there I realized how badly the madness has claimed my brother and how far he was willing to take it.

  Locked in cages in the cold, damp dungeon was one human after the other. The missing posters that littered the city held the faces of most of the people living in the deplorable conditions of Ramses’s hideout. A deep, dark basement underneath a house that sat barely outside the city held the power to reveal all vampires, putting our entire race in jeopardy, and bringing the wrath of all humans down on top of us. These humans weren’t being turned. They weren’t given the option of immortality. They were all so young. Many of them were much too young to be vampires. But they were all held as prisoners and repeatedly fed upon.

  If any other vampire found out about this, we’d all be killed. All the vampires in the city would be eliminated on principle and an abundance of caution.

  “What are you doing, brother?” I asked aloud as I strode through the rows upon rows of caged humans.

  “I’m doing what you never had the foresight to do,” he replied from behind me. “Or the balls.”

  When I turned to face him, his smug grin disappeared as I retorted. “My balls are bigger than yours. Always have been. Always will be.”

  Our eyes connected and a stare-down ensued, neither of us willing to be the first to yield. The vision of his fangs in Alea’s neck sprang to my mind, and my rage increased tenfold, filling me up inside. The longer I stood there, the more it built inside me until it erupted like a raging volcano that would consume everything in its path. Swift determination guided my feet, and shameless reprisal directed my hands. My fingers curled into tight fists, and I took pleasure in repeatedly smashing them into his face. Though I knew my blows could cause him no long-term damage, I took great pleasure from every second of it.

  Then the volcano erupted, and I felt my control slipping.

  The beast that has been trapped inside me became free, and I felt his power surge within me. Power unlike anything I’ve ever known pumped in my veins, fortifying my resolve to end this once and for all. To end Ramses. My fist moved toward his face even faster than my normal speed, connecting with his tough vampire skin and leaving increasingly worse marks with each relentless blow. Soon, his blood ran down his face because the swelling and bruising split the skin on his cheek. In the dark recesses of my mind, I knew it would heal within minutes, but that didn’t stop me from savoring the sight of his battered face and swollen eyes while I could.

  The frightened screams from the caged prisoners brought other members of his clan to the basement. In their rush to determine the origin of the commotion, they didn’t take the time to assess their surroundings before charging headlong into the battle. The addition of incensed vampires only further ignited my ferocity and my momentum. To everyone else in the room, Ramses appeared to be flailing about unaided.

  “Ramses, what’s happening to you?” The horrified expression on one of the younger one’s faces almost elicited a laugh from me.

  “Tell us what to do!” another yelled, a young boy who had no business being turned.

  “Grab him!” Ramses yelled between blows.

  “Grab who? There’s no one here,” the young boy replied. His eyes were wide open, his head shook from side to side in slow motion, and his steps carried him backward, toward the steps and away from the action.

  I felt Ramses’s blood splash across my face as it sprayed through the air, droplets falling like rain on the floor, but I continued my unremitting assault.

  “My brother.” He doubled over as my fist connected with his ribs on his reply. The crack of his bones breaking echoed throughout the enormous room.

  My hand wrapped around the handle of my knife hidden just under my jacket. I moved like the wind, invisible and quick, when I plunged the knife deep into his chest. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would burn like the devil. I stopped moving and held the knife in place, stood eye-to-eye with my brother, and read his thoughts that tore through his mind.

  Why are his eyes red?

  Is that how he’s able to move so fast?

  What does he have that I don’t?

  Why did our maker give him the best gifts instead of me?

  His clan members stood as still as statues. Bewilderment masked their faces, and fear of the unknown gripped their wits. When I slid my gaze over to meet theirs, my eyes emblazoned with a blood-red hue, they dropped to their knees and cowered. “Please spare us, Master.”

  Master?

  “Leave. Now.” My deeper voice turned my words into a growl that rattled the metal bars on the cages. Within seconds, they disappeared up the steps, leaving me alone with my brother.

  “Slade, you can’t do this. We’re brothers.”

  His pleas fell on deaf ears.

  “You killed Alea’s parents. You invaded my house. You killed members of my clan. But worst of all, you fed on my wife.” I could see the reflection of my glowing red eyes in his as I twisted the silver blade in his chest. “You are not my brother. You are my enemy, and I obliterate my enemies.”

  His face was twisted with pain. He grimaced with every slight movement of the blade. The mere touch of it burned him like a sizzling branding iron. “Give me an opportunity to apologize.”

  “Apologize? Do you honestly think a mere ‘I’m sorry I killed your wife’ will assuage me? That your promise never to betray me again will appease my thirst for your life?” I lowered my chin and looked at him from under my drawn brows. “After all these years, you must know me better than to believe that.”

  I withdrew the knife from his chest with controlled movements, taking my time to subject him to as much pain as possible, and held it to his throat. His skin sizzled from the searing quality of pure silver. “I do know you, Slade. You could never do this to me.”

  I pressed the knife farther into his skin. “You’re right,” I nodded. Relief and hope filled his eyes. “I couldn’t cut your head off and mount it above my fireplace…before you killed my wife. She’s my immortal love. When you attacked her, you changed everything. You changed me.”

  “She was your immortal love?”

  “She is,” I stressed the present tense to correct him.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, and the gravity of his situation hit him with full force. “What have I done?” he whispered, more to himself than to me.

  “You’ve woken the monster that lives inside me, that’s what you’ve done.”

  “If there were anything I could do to bring her back, I would do it, Slade. I would give anything to make amends for what I’ve done…”

  “Oh, you will,” I assured him. “You will give your immortal life to pay for what you’ve done.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Slade,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

  When I turned, I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Castel? Why are you here?”

  “You have to let your brother go, Slade.”

  “Are you helping him with this?”

  He chuckled without a bit of humor. “No, I have no part in any of this,” Caste
l replied. “When I felt the murderous mayhem between you two, I knew I’d have to show up to stop you.”

  “How did you know what was happening between us if you’re not part of his plan?”

  “I made both of you.” He shrugged, as if that explained everything. “Release him, Slade. Now.”

  Though the incredible power inside me still burned strong, I had no choice but to obey him. He’s my maker, and he passed on the ability to control others to me. The same gift I use against others was used against me to force my hands to release Ramses.

  “Go home, Slade,” Castel ordered. “We’ll talk soon.”

  I stormed into our home, the red still burning in my eyes, the monster barely contained from taking out his wrath on anyone and anything around me. As I paced back and forth, Alea’s thoughts ranged from confusion to concern for me to disbelief about the whole situation. One of her thoughts I heard loud and clear was how she felt completely disconnected from me.

  And she was right.

  When the monster was loosed, I wasn’t me.

  It was only after I returned home and began recounting the events of the night I realized…I had been able to read their minds.

  I’ve never had that gift before, and I don’t have it now that my eyes are blue again.

  Chapter 12

  Ramses Barnett, 1790

  “Castel?” I repeated Slade’s question after he’d left. I still couldn’t believe our immortal father stood before me. He saved me from certain death at Slade’s hands. I knew I’d met my end when Slade’s physical strength caused bodily harm to my thick vampire skin. When my blood spattered across his face and the floor, I imagined his smile while slitting my throat before decapitating me. After my traitorous actions, I couldn’t blame him for taking his revenge. As brothers, I at last understood the magnitude of my betrayal.

  Castel kept his eyes fixed on mine as he walked toward me. He shook his head from side to side, making a tsking noise to convey his deep disappointment in me.

  “Ramses, what you did to Slade’s wife and his home is not forgiven in our world. You know this. You knew it when you did it.”

  “I did.” I couldn’t lie to him. There was no point in trying anyway. “I knew. But I couldn’t resist Alea. There’s something in her blood that makes me crazy.”

  Castel raised one eyebrow in a wordless challenge.

  “Crazier,” I amended.

  “She’s Slade’s immortal love. It’s only natural you would have a strong connection to her, too.”

  “It’s more than that, Castel. Her blood made me feel alive and out of control. When I tasted it, I thought about keeping her here so I could taste it every day. But my envy and my obsession with her took control of me, and I decided she had to die. Slade will never forgive me for killing Alea, for taking her from him for all eternity.”

  “You didn’t. But there’s more to the hold she has on you than simple blood lust.”

  “Wait. What do you mean I didn’t?”

  “He found a way to get his vampire blood in her and changed her before it was too late. You’re very fortunate he did, too, because I would have to destroy you otherwise. You seem to have found somewhat of a loophole in the laws. Though, if we were to put it to a vote, you’d still lose. Slade would be awarded the right to relieve you of your head.

  “However, what you’re doing here in this basement is beyond the reach I possess to protect you should others find this. Your prisoners can’t be released because there are too many of them. Their stories would be too similar and would prompt a door-to-door manhunt for the lunatic who took them. Most of them are too young to be changed—that would bring more scrutiny from powerful vampires you’d rather not meet.

  “You’ll have to change the ones you can and kill the ones you can’t. Get rid of this and never do this again, Ramses. Don’t make me have to come back here again.”

  With that directive, Castel disappeared before my eyes. Right before my eyes. No vampire has ever done that before. Even with Slade’s red-eyed speed, I could feel his presence in the room. Castel was just gone, like a puff of smoke dissipates into the air.

  I sank into the nearest chair and digested his words. The revelation that Alea was still around, even as a vampire, was shocking, to say the least. A little fact Slade neglected to mention when he used my face as his personal punching bag and my chest as a carving board. He still has her, mostly intact, yet he intended to kill me over her anyway.

  Castel left before I could address the other revelation he dropped on me like a ton of lead. If it’s not her blood I crave, regardless of how sweet and tempting it is, then what is it? What does she have that I so desperately need?

  I called to my army of changelings to dispose of the feeders we’d amassed. At that one particular location anyway. I diversified my business when Slade and I first parted ways. Just in case of emergencies such as this one. The older captives made a nice addition to our clan numbers, while the younger ones made nice meals for the changelings.

  “Send extra soldiers to the other locations to ensure there are no problems. No escapees, no suspicious activity, no reason for anyone to give them a second glance,” I ordered my next in command. He assembled dozens of vampires and left to get them into place at my other houses. Business has been good, and I plan to keep it that way for as long as possible.

  When night fell again, I chanced a trip to Slade’s house. If Alea was still there, I had to see it for myself. I had to feel it for myself. If the madness reappeared, if the obsession returned, I’d have my answer. It was she who made me lose control.

  If the obsession was quiet with her being a vampire now, I had no worries.

  I watched through the window where I first saw them together. I waited for them to retire to the privacy of their large master bedroom. My fingers gripped the brick window ledge when I heard voices approaching.

  There she was. Even more beautiful now than when she was alive. Even more vibrant than before. Infinitely more irresistible. Castel’s warning echoed in my mind, almost as loudly as if he’d spoken the command directly into my ear.

  Don’t make me have to destroy you.

  The warning was clear enough I couldn’t question it—or how serious he was that he’d do exactly as he threatened to do.

  She had more than a hold on me. It was more than I simply wanted to drink her blood. She was turned, and I wanted her more than ever before. She was immortal, but that in no way lessened my obsession with her. She was a vampire, but what I felt was a physical need for her.

  Leave. Right. Now.

  I had no choice but to obey Castel’s command. Besides knowing it was my final warning, I was wholly incapable of disobeying him. As hard and painful as it was, I left their house and my perch on their window before it was too late for any of us.

  How I can find the strength to stay away is up for debate.

  One thing I know for sure is I must learn why this is happening. What is it about her that I can’t resist, that I’d essentially risk my immortal life to have? I have a strong instinct Castel knows exactly why. I also believe he is keeping the information from me in a deliberate move. It must be a means to keep me away from Alea and Slade.

  What he doesn’t seem to understand is my body needs her.

  I need her.

  * * *

  Alea Barnett, January 1791

  I’ve felt a strange presence following me the last few nights when I’ve gone out to feed. I’ve stopped and kept my own thoughts silent so I could focus on hearing what my persistent follower had to say. Though I heard nothing, the power I felt emanating from whoever followed me was potent. The strength exuded no doubt came from an old, powerful being, though for some reason, I couldn’t say with any certainty that it was a vampire. I know how other vampires feel when they’re close. That wasn’t the same feeling I felt.

  “I know you’re there. Following me. Watching me. But I don’t know why. Come out and talk to me.”

  My words floa
ted across the air in the dark of the night, and I waited patiently for a response. Any response would suffice—a thought, a movement, a spoken word. But there was nothing at all, not even the normal sounds of the city. Everything around me became completely silent, proving my powerful companion was still there.

  But for what purpose?

  The next time I felt the presence was in the middle of a blustering, winter day. While Slade was at work, I decided to go for a walk through the park. With the events of the last few months, the continual skirmishes between members of our rival clans, and the resulting stress of it all, having a few minutes of solace in the park had become my only getaway. As I walked along and watched the children play in the snow, I felt the weight of his eyes on me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a tingle ran down my spine. They were odd human sensations for a vampire to experience after the amount of blood I’ve drunk without a second thought, but they were there nonetheless.

  The presence had a distinctly masculine quality, so I’d taken to referring to it as “him.” Since he followed me religiously but didn’t want to reveal himself, I decided to try waiting him out. An empty park bench caught my eye, so I took a seat at the end and waited, forcing him to wait with me or finally make himself known.

  Hours I sat there in the cold with the wind whipping all around me. I never caught the slightest hint of his scent, but I could feel his energy near me. When he started feeling aggravated and restless, my determination renewed. The more impatient he became, the more likely he was to reveal himself and what he wanted with me.