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

by Gabriel Beyers

  “I’ll admit that many vampires are unpleasant, but not all of them are. They’re just like any other living creature on this planet. They’re just trying to get by the best they can in the situation given to them.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Do you agree with Laura? About me, I mean.”

  Hector continued to observe the mausoleums as though he were a connoisseur of homes for corpses. He moved from one to another, his hands clasped behind his back. Silvanus was about to repeat the question when Hector turned and looked at him. He ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. The gesture was so relaxed and so human that, in that moment, Silvanus marveled at the almost perfect camouflage the Divines had achieved.

  “I don’t blame you for what you did,” he said. “The cruelest part of never dying is watching everyone you love slip from your grasp. One by one, they wither before your eyes, until you come to the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “There is no place for love in immortality. And I can see that you loved her, the one that you turned. And I could never begrudge you that. But your love has done her no favors.”

  “She had been bitten by a savage,” Silvanus said, his face flushing hot. “What was I supposed to do, let her turn into a flesh-eating monster?”

  “Of course not. I’d not wish that fate on anyone.”

  “Then you see that I didn’t have a choice?”

  “There is always a choice. You should have killed her.” Hector winced at the pain he read on Silvanus’s face. His dark, brilliant eyes welled with sympathy. “You didn’t save her. You only prolonged her death. The blood drinkers aren’t immortal as we are. They can, and do, die. They may exist for millennia, but sooner or later, they all end, either by their own hand, or another’s.”

  Silvanus moved toward Hector, but stopped just short of touching him. Hector didn’t flinch, but Silvanus knew the other Divine was prepared to throttle him, rather than chance letting Silvanus drain some life from him.

  “We were all blood drinkers once,” Silvanus said. “You all admit as much, even if none can remember those days. Why is it such a trespass for Jerusa to be a blood drinker? If we can evolve, so can she. Help me finish what I started in her. Help me make her a Divine Vampire. Please.”

  Hector’s face pinched tight in frustration. “If I knew how to do that, do you think that any of those I once loved would’ve tasted death? Millions of blood drinkers have been covered in the Stone Cloak, and only we eleven have ever cast its obsidian grasp from us.” His voice grew loud, shaky. “Do you know how you broke free? If you have the secret, tell me, and we’ll people the world with Divine Vampires.” His body trembled, and his eyes grew wide and wild. “There is no secret. There is no reason. We evolved because nature demanded we do so. And now, because of what we have tried to do to you, we know the fullness of our curse. We can never die. We will outlast the Earth and stars, until we become nothing more than drifting dust in an empty universe. Is this what you wish for your love? If you truly loved her, you’d grant her peace.”

  “That’s enough, Hector,” Laura said. She had appeared in the midst of them, as fast and silent as a flicker of light. Hector and Silvanus both flinched, bringing a smile to her face. “Go feed,” she said to Hector. “I have him. Take your time, if you like. Just be back by dawn.” Hector nodded, then vanished.

  “He’s crazy,” Silvanus said.

  “It happens now and then. Give it time. It will happen to you, too.” She held a neatly folded stack of clothes, with a pair of shoes perched on top. She laid them on the ground, then backed away.

  “Did you kill someone and take their clothes?”

  “Would it bother you if I had? The blood drinkers do it all the time.” She sighed. “No, I didn’t kill anyone. We only take life if we must. I bought them, and they weren’t cheap.”

  Silvanus approached the pile of clothes and began to strip away his tattered rags. “Thank you.”

  “It isn’t a gift. You look disgusting and you’re beginning to draw attention to us.” She didn’t look away when he pulled off the last of Foster’s clothing and stood naked in the moonlight. Her eyes didn’t hold even the hint of physical attraction toward him. It was more as if she were studying a captive animal.

  Silvanus brushed away the dirt and grime from his flesh before dressing in the clean clothes. Laura had purchased him a sleek, white button down shirt, a pair of black dress pants, matching socks, and a shiny set of black shoes. Everything fit so well, he might have believed they were tailor-made to fit. They were durable, yet comfortable, and every stitch spoke of the price Laura had paid. She circled around him, nodding in approval.

  “That’ll do. Are you ready for your meal?”

  At first, after the Divines had stopped trying to kill him, and decided to cart him around the world, Silvanus had refused any transfusions of life force. It was insulting and demeaning to be fed just enough to keep him from going into a frenzy. There was part of him that still wanted to refuse her offer. Resisting the Divines had proven fruitless. Perhaps, if he could win their trust. Silvanus held out his hand.

  Laura brushed the tips of her fingers across the back of his hand, one, two, three times. With each pass, her fingers sent a jolt of life into him. That tingling sensation, like a powerful cloud of static electricity, washed up his arm, settling in his chest. Silvanus gasped with exhilaration, his knees nearly buckling. Laura snatched her hand away, and the depth of his starvation cascaded over top of him. His whole body flushed hot with sudden rage. His first instinct was to rush her, knot his fingers around her throat, and drain every bit of life from her, even though he knew it wasn’t possible. Instead, he swallowed hard, forced a smile and said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Laura backed further away, reading his true feeling on his face. “I think maybe we should—”

  Something shuffled in the distance. It was a noise too quiet for humans to hear, or to make, for that matter. It was the sound of feet gliding with preternatural speed between the mausoleums. Silvanus and Laura turned to see a group of three vampires run into the clearing. The blood drinkers slid to a stop, panting and wild-eyed with fright.

  It wasn’t Silvanus or Laura that had frightened them, however. Something deeper in the cemetery had sent the blood drinkers fleeing. Whatever that thing was, though, no longer concerned them. The three, mistaking Silvanus and Laura for mere humans, spread out, their panic quickly turning to blood lust.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The vampires were fledglings, no more than a couple years from being turned.

  The blood drinker to the left had been a young girl—late teens, early twenties—when she had been turned. She was a plump girl, with clothes that didn’t quite fit, and enough hardware pierced into her face to set off metal detectors a half a block away. She let out a ridiculous hiss while making claws with her hands.

  The blood drinker on the right had long grayish hair knotted into dreadlocks, and the only visible flesh on him that wasn’t tattooed was his face. He lifted his head and howled at the moon. Silvanus wasn’t sure if he was trying to be scary or if he believed he was a wolf.

  The blood drinker in the center was a thin and frail looking old man, or had been in life. He watched Silvanus and Laura with suspicion. He opened his mouth to say something (there were no teeth except for his fangs) but decided to remain silent.

  Laura laughed. It started off as a giggle, but quickly rolled into a full on roar. It lent her a soft humanity that Silvanus had never seen in her before. It illuminated her features, turning her from beautiful to majestic, and when she began to snort at the end of each bellowing laugh, her uncontainable joviality bled into Silvanus. He had never laughed so hard, and by the end, his sides cramped, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

  The vampires stopped their threatening display, looking to each other, confused by their prey’s apparent lack of fear. Laura stood up straight, uttered one last snort of laughter, then vanished fro
m their sight, only to reappear behind them.

  The plump vampire and the tattooed vampire both jumped, shouting with a start. They fell to their knees, backing away from Laura, but stopped when they remembered that Silvanus was behind them.

  The elderly vampire, however, stood his ground, a look of awe fixed on his face. Laura vanished once more, this time appearing between the elderly vampire and the other two. This visibly shook him, yet he refused to cower like the other two vampires.

  “Laura,” Silvanus said. “Leave them be.”

  Her smile wilted, her face twisting into a sour scowl. Thunder echoed through the clear night sky, and the vampires looked up in surprise. The hair on the back of Silvanus’s neck prickled, and he clenched his teeth, expecting a bolt of lightning to strike him at any moment. The world smelled of ozone, and the charged air crackled, but Laura didn’t release her wrath upon him. “They started it,” she said, rolling her eyes. The night returned to normal. “Had we been human, they would have drained us and chucked us in one of these tombs.”

  “We’re sorry about that,” the elderly vampire said.

  “Don’t talk to them,” the plump vampire hissed. “They’re Divine. Master warned us to avoid them.”

  “Who is your master?” Silvanus asked. “Who created you?”

  “He is no one,” the tattooed vampire spat. The colors were almost iridescent upon his pale skin. The intricate designs seemed almost living.

  “But where is he?” Silvanus asked, despite Laura’s look of boredom. “He just made you, then abandoned you to fend for yourself? Surely, he knew that the Stewards would send the Hunters for you.”

  “Unless they are blessed with powers the Stewards find useful,” Laura said. She was looking at her hands, adjusting the emerald ring on her right hand. “But from the look of them, I’d say they’ll be piles of ash in less than a month.”

  “We don’t fear the Hunters,” the plump vampire said. “The Master will protect us.”

  Laura made a small, unimpressed laugh. “Yeah, that’s why you’re on the run. Because you’re not afraid.”

  The elderly vampire looked to the ground when Laura turned her gaze upon him. “We are on our way to meet the Master. He is going to initiate more followers and we want to be present.”

  Silvanus watched as the trio of vampires kept stealing glances toward the direction they had come from. “You seem to be very anxious to leave this place. What has you so frightened?”

  The three vampires exchanged glances. Whatever they had seen, it had shaken them. The elderly vampire looked over his shoulder, back the way they had come. He pointed down the dark path, his thin, wiry hand trembling.

  “We came to this place just before dawn. We were looking for a place to wait out the sun. There’s a mausoleum toward the center of the cemetery. Large. Limestone. A gargoyle resting on top.” The elderly vampire looked to his companions, perhaps seeking their approval to continue. A sickly pallor washed over the faces of the other two blood drinkers. “It’s old. Deeper than it looks. It covers a stone pit, almost like a manmade cave. Very little water from the swamp gets in there. We went in just before sunrise. By then, it was too late to get back out.”

  Silvanus stepped forward and the two vampires still kneeling on the ground flinched. “What was in there with you?”

  “Savages,” the elderly vampire said, nearly choking on the word. “A lot of them.”

  “Liar,” Laura said.

  “He’s not lying,” the tattooed vampire said. “They were there. Savages. Nearly fifty of them.”

  “Look,” Laura said with disgust. “I’ve seen more savages that you’ve seen humans. Had it not been for us Divines, the Earth would be overrun with them. Just one savage would have slaughtered the three of you the moment you entered that pit, and yet, here you are. If there had been a savage hiding in the hole, it wouldn’t stay there. It would be out here, with us, killing and feeding and spreading its poison. And let’s not forget the Hunters, who are well trained to track and kill any savage born. Yet, you would have us believe that fifty savages are nestled together in an underground bunker, didn’t kill you, and are content to just huddle together until the swamp reclaims that hole?”

  “Go see for yourself,” the plump vampire said.

  “Don’t speak to me that way, you filthy blood drinker.” A roll of thunder followed Laura’s voice. “I know, all too well, the deceit that fills a blood drinker’s heart. Now, I suggest you three move along before I decide to stake you to the ground and watch you melt in the sunlight.”

  The two vampires on the ground jumped to their feet. They snatched the elderly vampire by his arms and pulled him away. Before the vampires vanished in the maze of mausoleums, he flashed a toothless smile populated by only his fangs. “It was an honor to meet you. I will treasure it always.” And with that, he was yanked out of sight.

  “Blood drinkers,” Laura said, throwing up her hands. “Now can you see why I can’t stand them?”

  “Should we go see if they were telling the truth?”

  “Of course not. You weren’t taken in by their story, were you?” Laura saw in his eyes that he believed them. She shook her head as she walked away. “They were mad. Savages don’t behave that way.”

  “Why would they lie to us?”

  “Because,” she said, spinning sharply toward him. “They were terrified. We’re myths to them. They’ve probably been told that we’d suck the life from them if they ever got too close. It was a lie of distraction. They merely wanted to escape.”

  “I think we should go have a look.”

  “No. Absolutely not. Did you see those pathetic creatures? Ugly. Weak. Their maker should have known better than to create such inferior fledglings. The Hunters will wash them away soon enough.”

  “You sound like them,” Silvanus said. The sadness in his voice hung in the air like a toxic fume. “You sound just like the Stewards. You hate them for their outer appearance, instead of their actions. That doesn’t sound divine to me.”

  Laura’s eyes flashed with anger. She opened her mouth to argue, or perhaps to curse him, but no words would come. Her face softened, contrition seeped into her beautiful eyes, and she stood there speechless.

  “What does it hurt us to look?” Silvanus questioned. “We have all of time to spend together. We might as well have a few adventures.”

  Laura’s mouth pressed tight, dissolving her full lips into a thin line. “Fine. Lead the way. But don’t cry to me when we don’t find anything.”

  They pressed toward the center of the cemetery. The darkness of night had fully come. Deep blue phantoms drifted in the sky above like derelict ships on the sea, occasionally blotting out the moonlight for a time. Silvanus listened to the living pulse of the great city nestled in the swamp. The scent of life was strong, even in this place of the dead. Laura kept close on his heels, as if she feared he might escape. Had he enough strength to vanish, he might have tried. There was a taste to this place that he couldn’t quite explain. It was mossy and bitter, ancient yet quickened. He wanted to be free of Laura, of the other Divine Vampires. If only he could share this place with Jerusa. The swamp, the great city, she would love them both.

  Silvanus stopped so suddenly that Laura nearly ran into the back of him.

  “What is it?” she asked, annoyed with him as always.

  “Don’t you feel it?” he answered in a hushed voice. “Something is different here.”

  “It is the same here as anywhere else,” she said, looking around. “You’ve let yourself be spooked by the blood drinkers’ tales.” But doubt crept into her eyes. She cocked her head as if hearing something strange. She turned in a tight circle, sniffing the air.

  At first, Silvanus couldn’t place what had changed. A sense of dread had overtaken him, which is saying a lot when you literally cannot die. Slowly, he came to realize what had stopped him. It was the silence.

  He had never seen a place more full of living creatures than the swamp
. Even so close to the city, out here in the cemetery, cicadas sang their solemn songs, crickets chirped, bats squeaked, dogs barked, mosquitoes buzzed. But not here. Here, there was nothing, as if living creatures, small and great, instinctively knew they were not welcome.

  It was strange, the heaviness in the air. As though a mountain had been cast upon his shoulders. He turned to ask Laura what she thought, but stopped, frozen, when he saw her staring at a weathered limestone mausoleum with a gargoyle perched upon the roof.

  They approached slowly, side by side, and had Laura offered her hand to him, he would have taken it. He wasn’t sure why his apprehension was so great. Even if this tiny stone building housed a million savages, they were no threat to him. Their venomous teeth couldn’t pierce his flesh. Their strength was no match for his own. And even the savages that had retained their vampiric gifts could not harm him. Long ago, ten Divine Vampires had saved the world from hundreds of thousands of savages. Yet, despite all of that, Silvanus regretted coming to this place. Not for fear of his own life, but fearing what it might mean for the world if the vampires’ tale was true.

  The mausoleum had been constructed to look like a miniature church house, long and narrow, with a steep slanting roof, except where a steeple should have been, a gargoyle had been placed. Intricate designs had been carved into the side walls, mimicking stained-glass windows. A thin layer of green mold grew upon the rough-cut limestone. The slate shingles of the roof were mostly intact, despite the age of the mausoleum.

  The gargoyle stared down at them with eyes nearly washed away by countless rainstorms. Its long, forked tongue fell from its open mouth, extending far away from its jagged, ferocious teeth as though tasting the air like a viper, searching out its next victim.

  There were three steps leading up to a large, heavy, wooden door. The door did not look original, but neither did it look new. It was oak, latticed in thick iron bands, like something that belonged in a medieval castle instead of a tomb on the edge of a swamp.