by K.L. Coones
be so rude,” scolded Lupia. Absolom put down his cup.
“It appears my welcome already grows thin. I should retire.”
“Very well,” replied Lupina. “I’ll go and prepare a room for you.”
“Lupina, this may seem a strange request, but could you prepare a place no light can touch? I have a skin ailment. It’s the reason I must travel at night.” She cocked her head in that peculiar dog-like manner.
“I am afraid all I have to fit such needs is the wine cellar, far from the fire.”
“It will suffice. I will need to rest until nightfall.” Lupina left the room, and the three men eyed each other. Absolom did not need his gift to feel the tension in the room, as thick as the deepened snow outside.
“So, Anticus. Are you from Rome?” asked Lucius as he took a sip from his clay cup. There was something strange about these men. Thought they had the appearance of rustic, but civilized Romans; a feral air was about them, and something deeper ran in the veins of these brothers. He sensed it in Lupina also; a history, something born through the ages on the shoulders of their fathers before them. Something, noble.
“I am from many places, but hail from Pompeii.” As soon as he spoke it, he saw his error. Lucius and Arius glanced at one another.
“Took you this long to dig yourself out from under the ash, did it?” Arius chuckled at his brother’s comment. Pompeii had been destroyed by the fire and destruction of an angry mountain over a hundred years before. “You mistake my meaning. I meant that my family was from that city.” Though he had effectively dodged the momentary suspicions of Lucius and Arius, he still thought a change of subject in order. “Have either of you been to Rome?”
“That den of vipers! I would leave that place to the hordes that pound at its gate,” spat Lucius.
“But that horde will be preceded by the fanged wrath of its father,” growled Arius. The animosity toward Rome held by these two was obvious. The reason for such hatred burning behind those eyes, however, remained elusive.
“Your resting place is prepared, Anticus,” stated Lupina, reentering from an anteroom. “If you would follow me?” Absolom nodded. The day would dawn very soon; even now he felt the strength fleeing from his body. Lupina led him down a flight of stone steps to a thick wooden door. “I have laid some linen down for you inside,” she explained as she raised the door’s latch. The little used hinges screeched as the door moved inward. She handed him an oil lamp as he proceeded inside, and she closed the portal behind him, as shadows from the small flame danced about the room like dark fairies at play. He had no need of the lamp to find the place she had prepared, a clean linen sheet laid over a thin straw mat. It was more than he was accustomed to. Absolom lay down on his back, pulled the drape of his clothing over his face and crossed his hands over his chest, just before the death-like sleep overcame him.
The hunger woke him as night fell. He listened to his surroundings for a moment as the last paralysis of death melted from his limbs. All was quiet. He couldn’t hear or smell anything from the chambers above him, so he rose and quietly slipped out the cellar door. The domus was as dark as it was silent, and, except for the moan of the wind through the cracks in the walls and the scratch of the branches of a tree from without, the place was very like a tomb. Outside was just as quiet, and only a soft and chill winter wind moved. Hunger leading him on, Absolom traveled east, drawn on by the scent of goats and blood until he stood upon a hilltop, gazing across a small valley at the darkened windows of another small farm.
The door opened silently, and like the whisper of a soft breeze, Absolom followed the sound of the hearts beating and the blood coursing. He found a family of four, asleep on straw mats. Next to them the dying embers of a small fire clung to life against the cold. The hearts beat softly but strongly, promising a rich taste of blood to come. The man was too dangerous to feed upon. Should he try, the others could awaken and attempt to flee as the man fought for his life. A swift twist of the neck made that eventuality ever more unlikely. He moved to the man’s wife. A homely woman with a body chiseled hard from her daily toil. Slowly, he ran the tip of his finger down the side of her cheek and down behind her neck, causing her eyes to flutter open. Her skin burned beneath the frigid touch of his fingers. He lifted her body toward him as she fought through the disorientation of being awakened from her dreams, and before her mouth could form words, his fangs sank into the warm flesh of her neck, stifling any cry struggling its spring forth. With all her mortal strength she thrashed, but only for seconds. Her blood rushed into Absolom’s mouth, strengthening his hands to a titan’s grip. He released his grip on her neck and body as he felt her muscles go slack and quietly replaced her in her bed, her eyes staring sightlessly at her husband’s body beside her. The older daughter he fed upon with equal efficiency. It was the youngest daughter he savored for last. How he relished the nectar of that sweet, youthful blood, so full of life and endless expectation!
He scooped the still sleeping child into his arms and exited the domus. Though it was cold in the house, the snap of the outside air would make the stinging heat of the blood felt that much more keenly. It wasn’t until he made the edge of the evergreen trees that Absolom realized he was not alone in the white wilderness around him. He was being followed, nay, stalked by something that would only barely materialize at the edge of his vision. What was it that could avoid his gaze so deftly? There was no animal on earth he could not run to ground or slay in ambush, yet whatever this was, seemed to be hunting him. He quickened his pace through the trees, forging deeper into the canopy where only small shafts of moonlight speared their way through the foliage to pool on the ground. Absolom waited for a moment, straining his all hearing ears against the darkness around him, but heard nothing. Slowly, he pulled back the blanketing that covered the still slumbering child and began to raise the warm body to his lips. A howl like the one heard the night before ripped through the inky blackness around him, shaking the snow from the upper boughs of the trees with its force. The cry was menacing, almost enraged. Only his immortal reflexes saved him from the mass of fangs and claws that flew from the darkness to tear at his throat. It landed in a pool of moonlight. There, Absolom saw a monstrous and slavering red pelted wolf, but it did not remain a wolf. Before his night seeing eyes the thing began to change. Its limbs began to elongate, wrenching snarls from its maw. Its jaws cracked and shrank till it resembled something between a wolf and a man that ran on all fours. Another snarl of defiance from behind caused him to whirl as a second equally large black wolf melted in and out of the shadow. Absolom spun back to the half creature with the red hair, and it spoke.
“Release the child, or die where you stand,” it rasped. Absolom was entranced. He had never seen the like of such a creature. It was a versipellis, a creature that could change form at will, often between a beast and a man. Something out of the nightmares of the world, something like himself!
“Who are you?” asked Absolom.
“I will not entreat you again, unhand the child!” In unison, the two creatures roared their rage into the crisp night air where it echoed without end.
“Anticus, do as they demand,” implored the voice of Lupina from the darkness. “If you do not, whatever you are, you will be ripped limb from limb.” Absolom had no fear of one versipelli; they were mortal creatures even if given the strength and ferocity of a beast. Two, however, could pose a problem. Immortal as he was, he could still be destroyed if torn to shreds. Lupina approached him, slowly extending her arms to receive the child.
“Who are you?” he asked again as he placed the bundled child in Lupina’s outstretched arms.
“We are the descendants of those raised by the she wolf,” replied Lupina without boast.
“Romulus?” Every Roman knew the legend of the founding of Rome. How two infant twins, abandoned in an effort to protect them from death, were found and nursed by a she wolf. Romulus, the stronger b
rother went on to create the beginnings of the Roman Republic until he disappeared mysteriously. Many thought him murdered.
“Yes. He and his brother hid their condition from others. As he aged, Romulus was less and less able to control the condition, so he left Rome to live out his life here. We are of his lineage. I only tell you now because we sense you have your own secret to protect and would not risk ours.”
“Why do you live out here, in the wilderness, if you are able to control your shifting form?” asked Absolom.
“To protect the Roman people from monsters like you!” growled Lucius. Arius snarled behind him. “For generations we have protected the Roman people from northern marauders, only to see them eaten alive and enslaved by their own nobility! By Patricians like you!”
“I am no Patrician!” countered Absolom.
“No. You are lamia. An immortal thing, damned to live off the blood of the living,” stated Lupina. “And you are dangerous, even to ones such as us; but you do not rule here. It is our vow to protect this valley and its people, even at the risk of our lives. Do you dare risk yours against the three of us?”
“You could not slay me. Even the three of you stand no
