Perpetual Creatures, Volumes 1-3: A Vampire and Ghost Thriller Series

by Gabriel Beyers

  All three vampires were women. One had skin so dark she seemed to be formed from onyx. Her hair was cropped short, like a man’s. She was tall, with long, thin arms and legs, moving with the nimbleness of a gazelle. The second woman was shorter, with long, red hair and skin the color of milk. The third woman had olive skin, much like Silvanus did, but her shoulder length hair was as white as snow.

  All three women looked young and were seductively beautiful in their own way, yet they seemed somewhat out of place in the faded and tattered tunics they wore.

  They crept from the hole in silence, searching the night with their preternatural senses. The woman with the white hair went to the massive stone slab, sliding it back into place with hardly a grunt. They didn’t speak, but seemed to communicate with mere facial expressions. They left their daylight den, moving down the hill and through the tall grass, like three apparitions bent on mischief.

  Silvanus watched undetected, wondering how best to proceed. He was sure these were the three vampires described to him by Shufah. She had warned him they would not be easy to approach. If he jumped down and started after them, they would likely disperse when they realized they were being followed. According to Shufah, the three spoke as one or not at all.

  Perhaps he should just let them feed and wait for their return. He didn’t feel much like watching them glut themselves on human blood, but what if they chose not to take refuge from the sun in the same spot? Considering how difficult it had been to track them down, the odds were good that they wouldn’t. He couldn’t risk losing them again. It had taken him months to find their trail. He had stumbled upon them in a moment of serendipity and had followed them back to their lair beneath the boulders. He couldn’t count on such luck again.

  Silvanus vanished from the cleft in the boulder and reappeared in the tall grass. He couldn’t see the three women, but he could hear their light footfalls several yards ahead of him. They stopped for just a moment, as if they sensed his presence. They didn’t speak their concerns aloud. Instead they continued on in widening paths, fanning out from one another.

  Silvanus knew they wouldn’t stray far from each other so he decided to follow the woman with the white hair. He listened until her footfalls were almost too distant for even his powerful ears to detect, then he would “skip” over and appear just a bit behind her. Eventually they left the tall grass of the hilly ground and entered into the open plains.

  Silvanus spotted a fire off in the distance. It was a large campfire used to ward off the predators hunting the land. Unfortunately for the men sleeping nearby, the predators that were approaching would not be spooked so easily.

  Silvanus moved as close to the fire as he could without being detected by either the men or the vampires. He thought of warning the men. He didn’t want them to die, least of all at the hands of blood drinkers, but the three women might have some of the answers he desired. If he interrupted their feeding, he doubted they would be in the mood for a chat. Besides, even if he saved these men today, eventually, in one way or another, death would find them. It was a mortal’s inheritance, was it not?

  There were five men in total around the fire. Three were asleep while two manned the fire and watched for danger. The three women circled around the men, staying just outside of the firelight. There was something odd about their movements, not exactly synchronized, but orchestrated as though each had been carefully thought out ahead of time.

  The three women continued to swim the darkness in silence, yet Silvanus sensed it was only silent to the outside world. The trio was communicating every bit as fluently as a shoal of fish or a flock of birds. He could hear the thoughts of mortals as easily as he could hear his own, but the blood drinkers’ minds were closed to him.

  The three women stopped just outside the ring of firelight, standing in a triangle formation. The two men that were awake seemed to pick up on some subtle clue that they were not alone. They stood with their backs to the fire, scanning the inky world beyond their fire. Without any warning or signal, the attack began.

  The dark-skinned woman was the first to strike. She sprang from the shadows with a speed that spoke volumes about her true age and power. She caught one of the men in the chest, knocking the wind from him and preventing him from screaming. The pale redhead moved mere seconds later, taking the other man much in the same way, snatching him up and carrying him off like an owl with a rabbit. The olive-skinned vampire with the white hair remained as a statue, her back to Silvanus, just beyond the rim of firelight.

  Silvanus had come across many blood drinkers since his awakening. Some sought out victims of the lowest dregs of humanity: the child molester, the murderer, the terrorist. They channeled the guilt of their own murderous thirsts into a sort of vigilante justice. They were the predators that thinned the mortal herd of the sick, weak and undesirable. Other vampires yielded to their own nature, deeming themselves the top of the food chain and saw no need to discriminate one victim from the next. Mortals were born to die. The vampire was simply a tool of a greater order. Some vampires relished the hunt. They took great pleasure in stalking their prey and when caught, indulged in all manner of physical and psychological torment before allowing their victims to die.

  The three vampire women seemed to be none of the above. They killed with speed and mercy and fed with the rapid binging of an animal that feared it may be caught while its head was down. With the men now dead, the two vampires joined their white-haired counterpart within the circle of firelight.

  The vampires fell upon the three remaining men without hesitation. The men woke with a start, but died before they could sort out whether or not their terror was real or just a nightmare. The women rose from the corpses of the men, nearly swooning from the fresh blood.

  The three women came together near the fire and stood in a tight huddle. Without a word they each extended their left arm to the woman beside them. In another synchronized movement they grasped each other’s arms with their right hands, pulled it up to their mouth and sank their fangs into the soft flesh of the other’s wrist.

  Silvanus watched with amazement. He had witnessed coupling between two before, but only as a means to change a mortal into a vampire. In fact, this was how he had turned Jerusa. It was a called being born of the blood and ensured that the fledgling would inherit a great deal of their creator’s strength. But these women were already vampires and powerful ones at that.

  The three women continued their circuit of giving and taking for a few minutes, then broke off all at once. Again, as if in one mind, they turned their attention to the dead. In a ghastly scene they decapitated each corpse with their bare hands, making sure to crush the skulls before tossing them, along with the bodies, into the fire.

  The air filled with the reek of burning flesh. The women left the fire to its business, striking out across the land in the direction opposite their boulder sanctuary. They crossed the land at a rapid pace. They were running from something. Hiding from someone. Only fugitives kept patterns like these.

  Near to dawn and close to a hundred miles away from where they started, the women approached a series of caves. The musk of animal fur told that the caves were currently occupied by a pride of lions. Whether the women meant to displace the lions or bunk with them, Silvanus couldn’t say. He didn’t have time to wait and find out, either. The vampires were fed and the sun would not better their mood. He had to make his move now.

  Silvanus appeared in the doorway of the cave. The women topped the hill, saw him standing there and bristled like a trio of startled cats. Without a word to him or each other, the trio attacked.

  Their speed and power was matched only by the wordless synchronization of their ferocious assault. At first, they came at him hands outstretched, fangs exposed, perhaps thinking he was a mere human. Silvanus evaded their attack, leaping back with a blast of tremendous speed.

  “I mean you no harm,” he said.

  “Peddle your lies elsewhere, Hunter,” the red headed vampire said
.

  Silvanus took this moment to assess the vampires before him. This was the first time he had been face to face with them. There was something odd about the trio that he couldn’t quite grasp. The red head and the tall dark skinned vampires both clenched their eyes shut; only the olive skinned vampire looked upon him. Also, only the red headed vampire spoke, yet to Silvanus it felt as if the words were being spoken by all three.

  “I am no Hunter. I seek your wisdom.”

  “You are a lapdog of the Stewards,” the red-haired woman screamed.

  The blood drinkers came at him again, their attack more brutal than ever. It was all Silvanus could do to dodge and parry the barrage of punches and kicks coming at him from all directions. Once again, he couldn’t shake the overwhelming sense that the three were moving and thinking as one.

  Their battle raged in a wide circle, kicking up a great cloud of dust and shattering the rocks on the face of the caves. The lions observed the struggle from the shadow of their den, at one point roaring in warning, but never coming out to challenge the raucous invaders.

  Silvanus tried, several times, to explain his case, but the sound of his voice seemed to only antagonize the women more. They continued to attack him, the red-head cursing him, the other two silent; their eyes clenched shut. They were growing frustrated with their inability to land a solid strike and the fact that Silvanus refused to fight back only served to fuel their rage, as though he were mocking them.

  He was getting nowhere. He needed their help, but he would never get it unless he could speak. Silvanus vanished from their midst, reappearing twenty yards away.

  A look of shock passed over their faces‌—‌even the two with their eyes clenched shut. Silvanus stood his ground, expecting another attack, but instead the three women backed away from him.

  “You are One Who Has Regained the Sun.” The red-head’s voice was awestruck and hushed. “Be gone. Trouble us no more. Have we not paid enough?” They turned to go.

  “Wait,” he called after them, but they continued to walk away, slowly, heads bowed, as though in prayer. “Are you the Erinyes? The Furies?” The women stopped.

  “Only one has called us that and not for many centuries,” the red-head said. The three kept their backs to him.

  A rush of hope flowed through him. “I am Silvanus, sent by the vampire Shufah to seek the wisdom of the Erinyes.”

  The women turned to face him. The vampire with the white hair stood in the middle of the other two. She searched his eyes.

  “We are known by many names,” said the vampire with red hair. “Shufah called us the Erinyes, after the mythical Furies of old. We call her friend. Ask what you will. We will give you all that we have.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jerusa didn’t sleep at all during the daylight hours. Vampires can sleep if they wish, to aid in healing, but it isn’t a requirement, as it is with mortals.

  She spent the whole day reading books and scouring the internet for any bit of trivia she could find about Rome. She tried to focus on the exotic locales and rich history, but her mind always rolled back to the Stewards.

  It made sense that they would use Rome as their home. Shufah described the Stewards as a group of elitist, hypocritical, corrupt serpents who cared not for justice or peace or any of the more nobler pursuits, but instead hoarded power, craved authority and wielded some skewed standard of beauty as a scale for who lived and who died. It all sounded so Roman to Jerusa and gave her very little hope for the future.

  But then again, Jerusa wasn’t sure she should take Shufah’s opinion too much to heart. Something had happened between her and the Stewards, some act of betrayal that lingered with her, even after thousands of years. Shufah wouldn’t talk about it, but whatever had occurred, it had not only driven a schism between her and the Stewards, and eventually between her and her twin brother, as well.

  Taos stepped up behind her and peered over her shoulder at the computer screen. “I’ve been to Rome, several times, but never as a human. I wonder if it’s as beautiful in the sunlight as the pictures make it out to be.”

  Jerusa flashed him a small smile. “I guess we’ll never know.”

  “Are you excited?”

  “Yes. And no.” She turned in her seat to better see his face. “It’ll be nice to finally get out of this town, but‌—‌”

  “You fear the Stewards’ judgment.”

  Jerusa nodded. She knew that she was beautiful, though the awkwardness of growing up as both a “sick kid” and one that sees ghosts had made that fact very hard to admit sometimes. And she was powerful. Silvanus’s blood had seen to that. But would it be enough to trump the scar on her chest? If the stories were true, the Stewards had condemned other vampires for less.

  Taos reached out and touched the top of her scar sticking out over the V-neck collar of her shirt. “Try not to worry,” he said in a soft voice so unlike his usual gruff tenor. “Shufah knows the Stewards well. She won her case with Foster, remember?”

  Foster appeared beside them. He smiled down at her, but sadness filled his eyes. Foster had been one of Jerusa’s only true friends in the world. She had confided in him about being able to see lingering spirits and he had believed her without question. Shufah and Foster had fallen in love and she had been determined to make him an immortal, though he didn’t rise to the standards of the Stewards. Somehow, she had won her case and made Foster a vampire on the same night that Jerusa had been turned. Foster had only lived two nights as a vampire. He sacrificed his life to save Jerusa’s, taking on the savage Kole, all alone.

  Jerusa glanced over at Shufah, who was deep in some secret research on her laptop. Her bright, bronze eyes flitted side to side as she quickly read the text on the screen. Her fingers flashed in a series of blurs across the keyboard and Jerusa wondered how many computers she had broken that way. Shufah was searching for something important, but her business was her own and no one asked.

  Jerusa thought about the timeless grudge Shufah held against the Stewards. How could she not harbor the same feelings for Jerusa? If only Jerusa hadn’t been throwing a tantrum at her mother’s overbearing hand, had she only stayed home that night, then Shufah wouldn’t have lost Foster or her twin brother.

  “Are you all right?” Taos asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine.” But she wasn’t. She wasn’t fine at all. The cancer of guilt was devouring her from the inside out. Not just for the pain she had caused Shufah, but Thad, and her mother as well.

  She stood from her desk, brushed past Taos and approached Shufah, who looked up at Jerusa with a tiny smile. She had been only fourteen when she had been made a vampire and though she had weathered nearly six millennia, her dark face remained as youthful as ever. Only her eyes hinted at the ancient mind within.

  “You look upset.”

  If there was any spite or hatred dwelling within her, she hid it well. “I’m sorry to bother you. I just wanted you to know that Foster is here. Just in case, y’know, you’d like to see him.”

  Shufah retained her smile, but her eyes glazed over with the promise of tears. “I would like that very much.”

  Jerusa outstretched her hand and Shufah took it. Foster’s spiritual form took on a dim luminescence, a slight blue aura. Shufah searched the room and after a few seconds located him. Her smile broadened, as did the pain in her eyes. Foster came closer, stood before her and caressed her cheek. Shufah closed her eyes and tilted her head as though she could feel his touch, though in truth she couldn’t. She couldn’t feel him or hear him. She could only see him with Jerusa’s aid and even then it was not much more than a gossamer image.

  Shufah opened her eyes and stared up into Foster’s face. “My love,” she said, then slid her hand out of Jerusa’s. She swallowed hard, as though her heart was making an escape, then turned back to her laptop.

  “I’m sorry,” Jerusa said. “Maybe I shouldn’t do that anymore.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “All it does is cause you
pain.”

  Shufah’s fingers paused on her keyboard. “Yes. Yes it does. But it also brings me comfort to know he is so near. That he is watching over us. My pain is not of your doing. I wish you would believe that. Your apology is unnecessary.”

  Jerusa didn’t know what to say. Shufah had told her the same thing several times, but it didn’t ease the guilt. She glanced around, hoping to find something to talk about, but there was nothing. Finally she pointed at Shufah’s laptop.

  “You’ve been on this thing day and night for the past two weeks. You gonna fill the rest of us in on what you’re looking for?”

  Shufah kept her eyes on the screen and continued to type. “I’m looking for help,” she said after a moment.

  “Help for what? The Stewards? Who could help us against them?”

  “You’re not thinking of searching out the Zealots, are you?” Taos asked. “They’re too unpredictable to trust.”

  “Not the Zealots,” Shufah said. “They would do us more damage than good. If you must know, I’m searching for someone to help us with Alicia.”

  At the sound of her name Alicia materialized within the room. She stood with her arms folded over her chest and a scowl on her face.

  “Alicia? What do you mean? Why do we need someone to help us with her?”

  Shufah turned to face Jerusa. “You can’t go on like this. It is imperative that you feed and soon, even if it is only animal blood. It’s not just that your thirst is growing, making you more prone to uninhibited attacks. We have the Stewards to worry about. If they learn you are unable or unwilling to feed, they will destroy you without even a moment’s hesitation to consider why. And even if they don’t destroy you, The Gargoyle’s Scales will.”

  “The Gargoyle’s Scales. The Gray Death. The Gray Cloak. The Obsidian Curse. That’s all you people seem to want to talk about. Alicia wouldn’t do anything to harm me,” Jerusa assured Shufah. “Whatever her reason is for stopping me, I’m sure it’s a good one.”