Voices of the Damned

by Barbie Wilde

  Eventually—as the Plague years faded into history, the weather improved and the famine receded—the Sanguine wound down the process of cannibalizing their victims (not such an uncommon practice during this troubled time), but they could not cease the taking of the blood. Their bodies had become too dependent on it and they saw no reason to stop.

  * * *

  The next step in the evolution of the Sanguines came in a way that they could not have anticipated. They were aware of the myths of vampires and laughed at them. They didn’t believe in the undead, or crosses, or fangs. They were thoroughly grounded in the here and now, in reality, in scientific inevitability, not legends. They knew that to survive, they had to be strong and ruthless, and so they were. But they took precautions to make sure that they were never noticed or picked out as unusual or unique, because that would mean discovery and most certainly, death. They hid their books and writings, they pretended to do menial jobs, and they kept underground and on the fringes of society as much as they could.

  The event that changed things was a rape of a young Sanguine girl called Patrizia one day in 1692. The girl refused to say what her attacker looked like or what the circumstances were of the crime against her, which was unusual, as most Sanguines were of a vengeful nature when it came to their own kind. The Elders of her group were concerned when she fell pregnant, because they didn’t want a stranger to dilute the precious Sanguine bloodline, but Patrizia refused to abort the fetus. When the child was born, the Elders examined it closely and saw to their alarm and admiration, that the baby was exceptional: healthy, strong, almost unnaturally powerful and aware. The child was so unique that the Elders insisted that Patrizia tell them about the father.

  * * *

  Patrizia was walking by herself one warm autumn’s day, through a field of ripe wheat near her home. She felt no anxiety. Most girls her age wouldn’t think of going out unaccompanied in the remote area where her people lived, but she was a Sanguine, strong and fearless, so it didn’t even enter her mind that she was doing something foolish. Virgin though she was, she had been trained to see off any normal human man and she had nothing to fear from her own kind.

  She continued her walk, her mind occupied by her studies, when she stopped, abruptly aware that she was no longer alone. The birds were no longer singing, insects were quiet and the wind had died down. In the far distance, she could hear the shouts of some Sanguine children playing and there was a capricious breeze playing with the treetops in the nearby forest, but here, in the field, all had stopped dead.

  She glanced to her right and that’s when she saw a man standing at the edge of the woods. He was dressed in black and wore a large wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face, but she knew that he was looking at her and this terrified her. Now Patrizia was not a fanciful girl: she didn’t believe in monsters and demons, and she was not easily frightened, but she knew that she was facing something unknown here. Although it wasn’t that hot, it was as if she was looking at the man through a heat haze. The air couldn’t hold still around him.

  Fear trickled down her groin to her thighs like ice water and her legs felt weak. She had to get out of here, every instinct told her to run, but she knew that if she took her eyes off him for a second, he would be at her side. Of course, this was impossible; he was far away from her. She had a good head start, but although her mind screamed at her to run, she could not instruct her legs to action.

  The distant figure in black moved slightly and raised his hand, as if to wave at her. It took every effort on Patrizia’s part not to urinate with panic. She turned away from the man and tried to run, but her legs would not cooperate and she fell to the ground, helpless. Up until that moment, Patrizia did not believe in magic or witchcraft, but she knew that something was toying with her, playing with her as if she was a doll and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Determined to meet her fate face to face, she turned over so she could see her attacker. She lay on her back and looked up at the blue sky and the white clouds. She shut her eyes for a second and then she knew he was there with her. The fear filled her with ice again and she had to force her eyes open.

  He was standing above her. Just looking. Patrizia’s heart almost stopped. She knew he was not an ordinary man, but he wasn’t Sanguine either. He was handsome in a cruel, wolf-like way. He smiled hungrily and that’s when she saw that his canine teeth were filed into sharp points.

  He knelt down beside her. He said, “My name is Varazlo. I’ve been watching you. You are different. Quite exceptional. That’s why you are still alive.”

  Patrizia tried to speak, but he gently put two fingers on her lips. Then he lay down beside her and slowly unbuttoned her dress, exposing her young, tender breasts to the light. She nearly passed out as he bent over her and began to tenderly suck her nipples. Patrizia was shocked at her body’s violent reaction to his touches. It was almost agonizingly pleasurable. She felt that her body was a traitor: she was terrified, but her body was aroused beyond measure.

  Patrizia’s legs shuddered and opened wide of their own accord. He placed his hand between her legs. There was no pretense of surrender on her part. Patrizia knew she was lost and she didn’t care. Her hands became her own again and she grabbed her skirts and hoicked them above her waist. Varazlo chuckled with delight at her enthusiasm. He casually ripped off her underwear and placed his cold fingers inside her. These were sensations that she had never experienced before. And she was sure that there was something otherworldly about them.

  Varazlo whispered, “You’re untouched. You are perfect for me. Tell me you want me. Say it now.” She obeyed him, “I want you. Take me. Do what thou wilt.” He smiled that wolf-like grin and licked his lips. The movements of his fingers became more urgent. Patrizia’s head fell back, her mouth open. He leaned over and kissed her. Her groin bounced up and down frantically and then she came for the first time in her young life. The wave of water flowed through her again, but this time it was deliciously scalding hot. Her legs pummeled the ground and she thought she was going to die. How long could these sensations last?

  Varazlo stood up and pulled off his clothes, looking around him to make sure they were still alone. His body was thin, pale-skinned and muscular. He stood between her legs and looked down at her again. Patrizia now knew how the rabbit felt before the wolf pounced. She saw the stranger’s manhood standing at attention and spread her arms and her legs out as wide as they could go in total surrender. She looked up at the sky and the clouds again. She didn’t know how this was going to end, but she was past caring. He had done something to her. Her passivity amazed her, but she wanted him inside her now, she knew that. And he knew it too.

  Varazlo lay down on top of her and he gently pushed himself inside. It hurt, but the pain was different somehow. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He began to move rhythmically inside her. His face hovered over hers, smiling his big hungry wolf smile. Then he dove down on her breast again and this time he bit her with those sharpened teeth of his. Oh, the beautiful agony. His groin movements became more urgent while he sucked her blood.

  It was then that Patrizia realized what this creature was. He was Sanguine, but not any kind of Sanguine she knew of. He had some kind of infernal power over her.

  His head came up, his mouth smeared with her blood and she tried to scream but she was too weak. All was pain and pleasure inside her.

  She tried to tell him to stop, tried to tell him that she was a blood drinker too, but it was impossible, this event was too immense for her mind to take in. Varazlo dove down on her neck and bit her again. She cried out and tried to push him away, but it was hopeless. He was taking her blood and for a moment, she saw the irony of being killed in the same manner as so many of her people’s victims. But to go in this way, while he was taking her virginity along with her life, was almost too poignant.

  She came again and her cries alerted him. He stopp
ed and concentrated on his own pleasure. He came spectacularly—his face contorted and almost terrifying in its ferocity. His orgasm lasted a long time and with every thrust, she seemed to lose more energy.

  Finally, Varazlo stopped. She lay there, breathing shallowly, barely conscious, thinking that this was it; he was going to kill her now. He reached over to a leather satchel and pulled out a knife. The thought of being stabbed to death terrified Patrizia, but there was nothing she could do to stop this powerful, crazed being. If he wanted her life, he could have it.

  Varazlo turned to her and showed her the knife. It was beautiful: shiny, engraved with strange runic signs, long and thin. It was a fine blade to end a young girl’s life with. He smiled again, leaned over her face and then slowly, sensually cut his wrist for her. Blood seeped out of the wound. He had cut across the vein rather than along it, so the blood wasn’t coming out too quickly. He tenderly placed his wrist to her mouth and she greedily drank from him. When the blood coagulated, he made another cut and she fed again. Then he bit her other breast and drank from her. Then he gave his penis to her, stained with her own blood and she sucked it clean, arousing him to orgasm. She drank his seminal fluid and found a new kind of energy flowing through her veins.

  They fed on each other until he called a stop. He lay next to her as before, on his side, caressing her body. Varazlo placed an elegant pale hand on her belly.

  “I’ve given you a child today. A girl. All things begin with the female.”

  In spite of her ordeal, Patrizia laughed. “How could you know?”

  Varazlo looked at her intently, “That’s what I do. I travel the world and spread my seed.”

  * * *

  Hours later, Patrizia staggered back to her village. She kept her secret until she was forced to reveal what happened to her. And now the Elders had to decide what to do with her child, Valhavia, who was obviously the spawn of some kind of super Sanguine no one had ever heard of. Patrizia was adamant. She would leave her people and take her child with her, if the decision was death. But the Elders were intrigued and decided to let the child live. Perhaps this was a sign, a new direction for their people. An injection of a different kind of gene pool, one that would strengthen them and give them more purpose.

  Valhavia, her children and their descendants eventually evolved to become a new kind of vampire, one that sucked energy and potency from human males only. The Seminals thrived throughout the centuries, although there were the occasional skirmishes with their cousins. They kept their distance from Sanguines except to mate—a violent ritual that both parties enjoyed, even though surviving the experience could be tricky. All male children were immediately handed over to be brought up by the Sanguines, while all females were kept and raised exclusively by Seminals. Although Seminals were superior in every way, the Sanquines looked down on them for reasons that were just as illogical as most of the human motivations for racism and misogyny.

  * * *

  Valeska was lying in the center of a spotlight at the bottom of a shadowy abyss. She roused herself and slowly crawled to a pathway at the edge, pulling herself up the sides of the cliff to the surface, where she could see a faint glimpse of light.

  Then there was a sound: the roar of a thousand voices in her ears. All those souls that she had consumed over the years. They were coming for her. The noise manifested itself as flocks of vicious white ravens, which flew up from the abyss and attacked her, pecking her. Trying to grab her and drag her back down to oblivion. She fought hard against the ravens, trying to ignore the sighs of disappointment: the regret of being ripped out of existence before their time. Valeska had sucked the essence out so many humans and now they wanted justice. Not to mention the millions of pre-humans-as-semen that had been ingested by her voracious appetite. But her will was stronger and she forced her way out of the flocks of screaming ghostly ravens and climbed to the surface. She broke through the barrier of unconsciousness and awoke with an unaccustomed grogginess and an aching head. Her eyes opened slowly, while her brain tried to figure out what had gone wrong with her evening, which had started out so promisingly.

  Valeska was lying on top of a large, luxuriant bed, in a dimly lit, extravagantly furnished room. Something bad had happened to her, she knew it. There was a feeling of violation and an unmistakable signs of a quickening of life in her womb. She had been raped while she’d been unconscious, which was an unpardonable contravention of the rules and regulations of her kind. No matter how foul the disagreements had been over the years, rape was unheard of between Sanguines and Seminals.

  She got up slowly and cautiously—first going over to the door to check it out, discovering that it was powerfully built and securely locked. Then Valeska walked over to the window, drew back the heavy velvet curtains and discovered that the window had been bricked in.

  She heard a chuckle and whirled around to see the door had been opened and a man dressed from head to toe in black was standing in the doorway staring at her. Her anger instantly flared, then flatlined into cold dread. As far as she could tell, he was no human, but he gave no indication that he was one of her kind either. He seemed vaguely familiar to her and she realized with a start that he looked like the legendary Varazlo, the stranger who had impregnated Patrizia, the mother of the Seminals. He had been immortalized in countless portraits by the more artistic of their kind.

  The man in black chuckled again: “I see that you recognize me. Very perceptive of you.”

  Valeska was frozen to the spot. She tried to speak, but was unable to. Varazlo was exerting some kind of paralyzing power over her. The sense that he was the one responsible for her violation was overwhelming.

  “To answer the question in your eyes, yes, I took you while you slept. You are perfect for me,” he said.

  Valeska’s rage returned. No man took her without her permission, even the supposed father of her kind. With enormous effort, she whispered, “How dare you. You know our laws.”

  Varazlo threw his head back and laughed. “Laws are not made for the likes of me, my dear. Your ancestor Patrizia found out the same thing on that warm autumn’s afternoon all those centuries ago. I sought you out as I did her. Unfortunately, my time here is limited, otherwise I would have waited until you had awakened, so you could have enjoyed yourself as much as I did.”

  “Your arrogance is astonishing,” Valeska replied.

  “Yes, but so well-deserved. I am arrogant because I am the Father of the Seminals. These ridiculous spats between Seminals and Sanguines bore me, so it is time to create a new race of vampires that will destroy the ones that came before it. Your child will be the first of this new race. You must protect him before he comes into the era of his power.”

  “How am I supposed to protect him if there is another war?”

  “Oh, that was just a ruse to distract you while my men brought you to me. There is no war. Not now. But there will be soon, so you must prepare yourself.”

  “How on earth will I do that?”

  “I will give you the means. You will be taken to a place of safety in the Old World, near Nitra, where the Sanguines originated. There is a castle there, riches, slaves and henchmen who will protect you and help you raise our son.”

  “The stories say that everything begins with the female. Why a son this time?”

  “It had to be this way. This will change everything.”

  Varazlo turned to shut the door and the spell was briefly broken. Valeska realized that this would be her only break for freedom; to shatter the sentence he had placed on her. Not for Valeska imprisonment in some faraway castle, like a demented fairy tale. “Your fate is what you make ...” and she took her chance.

  Valeska launched herself through the air, colliding with Varazlo and knocking him against the fortified door. He slumped to the ground, half-unconscious. She dragged him by his feet into the room, checked the empty corridor, a
nd then shut the door. Going through his pockets, she found the key to the room amongst other talismans and ancient runic amulets, along with a long, silver, thin-bladed knife, a set of hefty old keys, and a wallet full of cash and stolen credit cards.

  Valeska undid his belt, pulling his pants down, exposing his penis. Varazlo was still groggy and tried to push her away, but she jumped up, grabbed a silver candlestick from a nearby table and brutally hit him on side of the head. Blood seeped from his mouth and he stopped moving. Valeska listened for his heartbeat. It was still going strong.

  She took Varazlo’s penis into her mouth and sucked with all her Seminal strength. He stirred. Even unconscious, he must have sensed that things were not going to plan. Valeska, the strongest of her kind, the angriest of her kind, tongued and sucked and drank up Varazlo’s very essence and power. His penis stiffened in spite of himself and he groaned. She mounted him—on top and in control. Her Seminal vagina took over and just as he was awakening, Varazlo came and Valeska took enormous joy from slowly draining him of his life.

  Varazlo howled and his limbs thrummed and vibrated as if he was being electrocuted—experiencing the extremes of ecstasy as he expired.

  Valeska looked into Varazlo’s icy blue eyes and he whispered: “You fool. You’ve killed us both. You cannot protect our child alone.”

  Valeska leaned over and panted into his ear: “What child? He will not survive this night.”

  Varazlo spat out: “Bitch!”, but she saw the fear in his eyes and she laughed with her first orgasm as he died during his last—gurgling curses at her. She rode him into death and the final darkness of the void. She continued to enjoy herself, feeling more alive and stronger than she’d ever experienced, knowing that by taking Varazlo’s life, she had made herself just as powerful as he was.