by Liz Crowe
After a few moments, I asked, “And the third rule?”
Marlo smiled and continued pacing the hallway. “The third rule involves our diet.” She turned to see my reaction at her pronouncement. “We adhere to a very strict diet.”
“Yes, blood,” I stated matter of factly.
“Of course Allison, but it’s more than that. You see, our kind tries to limit the damage we inflict on mankind; another of Cain’s traditions, as you say, we carry on. We are what we are and of course need human blood to sustain ourselves. However, we do not need it all the time. We have a very strict regimen of what to eat and when. We pursue wild game and raid the occasional blood bank, and only prey on humans to sustain our energy level. And even then, we have very strict rules about who we hunt and where. It can be difficult to stick to, to fight against nature like that, but you do eventually grow accustomed to it.”
Marlo paused again for my benefit.
“I’ve heard ‘our kind’ more than once. What does that mean? Are there different races of vampires?”
Marlo let out a feathery giggle. “I just told you about our diet, and that’s the question you have?” She continued laughing. I felt a bit embarrassed.
Marlo continued after she calmed herself. “We don’t have different races per se, but there are others out there that don’t abide by our rules. Those vampires fully embrace what they were created to be and do not take pity on mankind. They are quite the opposite of us and only exist to destroy man, as the serpent had intended.”
“Why have rules at all?” I asked. “I mean, you said yourself, your diet is difficult to stick to, so why fight it? Why try to limit the damage to humans while making yourself suffer?”
“Good question. We hope that when the end of days – Armageddon, as you may know it – comes that the Lord will see our efforts and He will understand what we were created to be and see that we tried to inflict as little damage on man as possible, limiting the amount of souls we stole. You see, when we kill, we steal the victim’s soul, damning that person for eternity. Likewise, when we transform someone, their soul is lost, which is another reason why we give them the choice to transform. Our hope is that the Lord will be merciful and grant us our souls back for limiting the damage the serpent commanded us to do.”
“So you are good vampires?” I asked incredulously. “You are vampires with consciences who resist the natural order of things, withholding your desire, to limit the suffering you were created to inflict on mankind so that you might be saved in the end?”
“As good as can be expected,” Marlo replied matter of factly.
I scoffed at the concept and then another thought popped into mind. “Wait,” I stood up and froze in place. “What did you just say? About your victim’s souls?”
“When we kill mortals, we take their souls.”
“Why? Why would you do that?” I asked, fear overcoming me.
“We have no choice, Allison. It is what we were created to do. It just happens; there is no way to avoid it.”
“So no heaven for those souls? They go to…”
Marlo cut me off. “It is how the serpent designed us. If our kind could prevent it, we would. But we need human blood to survive. There is no other way.”
“You know what this means?” I shouted, my voice faltering.
Marlo stared at me.
“I really don’t have a choice! My ‘ultimatum,’ if you can call it that, is for me to give my consent to be transformed to the living dead and lose my soul, or go uncontrollably wild to the point that you have to kill me and I lose my soul – I’ll end up eternally damned either way!”
Marlo said nothing. I began to pace the small corridor wracking my brain for another solution.
“Or…” I started.
“Or, what?” Marlo asked.
“Or I can just wait, try to ride this out. There’s no guarantee that my symptoms will lead to anything. I don’t have fully fledged symptoms, just signs that you all think mean I’m transforming.”
“Allison, even if that’s true, that you think you won’t further transform, what’s one of our rules that we just discussed?”
I ran through the three rules in my head and threw myself back on the chaise. “Never reveal yourself to a mortal.”
“Right. And now you know what we are.”
My mind drifted back to that night at Whipps Ledges when Vincent told me my story, when he revealed that he was a vampire. Damn it, I thought to myself. He revealed himself to me and now I know. It’s only a matter of time before something is done with me. But I couldn’t help but feel that Vincent was somehow trapping me into a decision. “But I promise I won’t tell anyone,” I pleaded.
“But we already told you. Remember that I said there were punishments in place for those that don’t follow the rules?” Marlo asked.
“Yes,” I replied, my eyes closed.
“The punishments are in place and we enforce them – our kind enforces them. It’s the only way to ensure the rules are strictly followed.”
“What’s the punishment for breaking your laws?” I asked, focusing on Marlo’s lavender eyes.
Marlo cocked her head and simply stated, “Death.”
“Death?” I asked in disbelief. “But you are immortals, the very nature of the word means you can’t die.”
“We don’t die a natural death, like a mortal. But there is a way, only one way actually, to kill a vampire.”
“And how is that? Sunlight? Holy water? Garlic?” I asked sarcastically.
“No, none of that will kill us. Although sunlight is a bit pesky. It makes the venom in our blood boil if we’re exposed too long. But the others are just myths. To kill a vampire, you attack our only Achilles heel. The very place where we take a mortal’s life is the very place where our existence can be taken.”
I lifted my gloved left hand to my neck. “The jugular?”
“That’s right. To kill a vampire, you rip out its neck and…” Marlo continued talking but I didn’t hear anything else she said.
“Do you hear that?” I asked. I peered down the hall at a door maybe forty feet away, our original destination. I wasn’t sure how I could hear anything behind the thick wooden door. “It sounds like there’s a scuffle going on down there.”
Marlo listened then took off into a graceful sprint down the hall. I followed, not nearly as fast or as graceful.
Marlo flung open the door. The room appeared to be some sort of security center. There were numerous flat screen monitors mounted on the wall which scanned through quadrants of the property and numerous switchboards with blinking lights. Marlo directed me towards a chair.
“What is all of this?” I asked.
“Precautions,” Marlo replied. “Our kind can control ourselves, but with a house full of mortals and immortals, you just never know.”
“Felix, are you in here?”
“Right here, sis,” a man announced as he rolled his chair out from behind a wall of monitors.
“Felix, this is Ali…”
“I know Marlo, I saw Allison arrive.”
Felix was average height and build, but like his siblings, his looks were anything but ordinary. His face was accentuated with high cheekbones and an angular square jaw. His hair was a deep brown with blond highlights and was cut short in the back but long and strategically messy on top. He had thick eyebrows perched above eyes the same shade as his hair. Thirteen gold flecks surrounded each pupil.
Felix walked toward me and bent down to shake my hand. “How are you, Allison?”
“I’m well. Nice to meet you, Felix.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Felix responded in a soft voice. “She is boiling hot,” he said.
“I’m fine. Really. It’s just this gigantic costume and wig,” I said as I fluffed my skirt, revealing the many layers to my audience. “And I’m sure the wine didn’t help either.”
“Wine? What were you drinking?” questioned Marlo.
“I’m not sure. Vi
ncent ordered it. It was some sort of concoction, like nothing I’d ever tasted before. A mix of things including some of that red wine that Vincent is fond of.”
“Hmm,” she hummed to herself as she looked me up and down.
“What?” I asked, feeling self conscious.
Marlo looked at Felix who also looked at me and shook his head.
“It’s nothing.” Marlo stated, walking towards the window beyond the monitors. “But we are quite surprised to see you here tonight, Allison.”
“Really, why is that?”
“We’re surprised that Vincent was able to get you to forget about your husband so quickly.”
“It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Matt has been gone for three years. That’s enough time to mourn and move on.”
“Gone? For three years?” Marlo questioned. Felix pushed his chair from around the corner to look at me again.
“What are you…?” Felix started to ask as the door burst open. I didn’t see anyone enter as another person materialized in front of me.
“We have a problem,” the man announced.
Felix and Marlo rushed to the middle of the room.
“Max,” Marlo said, “this is Allison Carmichael,” she nodded her head towards me.
“Hi Allison, I’m Vincent’s other brother.” Just like the other siblings, Max was quite handsome. He wore his hair short, almost a buzz, and had the same chocolate colored eyes as his brother Felix. He was about the same height and build too, but his face had a much softer edge to it. Max and Felix could pass as biological brothers.
“What’s the problem?” Felix asked Max.
“Look.” Max moved in a flash behind the wall of monitors. I could hear him tapping a keyboard. “He’s coming and brought her with him.”
“Who’s coming?” I asked. My question was ignored.
“When did you find this out?” Marlo asked.
“I was just out running the perimeter, you know, to ensure no un-wanteds were going to pay us a surprise visit. I could smell their scent a hundred miles away,” Max stated.
“Who are they?” I asked again. But again, I was ignored.
“Does Vincent know?” Felix asked.
“No, but he will in a minute,” Max replied.
Felix sat down behind the wall of monitors and started tapping away on the keyboard. “There’s Vincent,” he said and pointed at one of the screens.
I got up from the chaise, my legs weak, stomach burning and my throat still haunted with dryness. I walked around the wall where Marlo and Max were hunched over Felix’s shoulder, their eyes glued to the monitors.
“Oh no,” Marlo said.
The camera panned down the long winding driveway. A black Rolls Royce was slowly making its way towards Castle Adena. “We need to warn Vincent,” Felix stated as he reached to grab a phone.
“Too late,” Max replied. All faces focused on the monitor that showed Vincent. One moment he was chatting with guests and in the next his demeanor changed, revealing that he could sense something was wrong.
I could see the image, but couldn’t hear what Vincent was saying. It appeared he was asking his company to forgive him for having to leave to attend to something else. Vincent looked around the room for someone or something. He stuck his nose in the air as if searching for a scent like a bloodhound.
“What’s going on?” I asked again.
Vincent flashed across the screen, too quick for the cameras to keep up with him, but he went unnoticed by the crowd. I saw Lorenzo materialize by his side and the two strode with purpose towards the front door.
“Can you get sound?” Marlo asked Felix.
“I’m trying,” Felix responded as he feverishly pounded the keyboard.
Vincent and Lorenzo flashed across the screen again, the cameras unable to keep up with their speed. Max started tapping on buttons to keep up with the visuals as Felix tried to reign in the audio.
The Rolls Royce approached the front of the castle and stopped. Nothing happened for several seconds and then the driver emerged. I squinted and focused on the screen. The driver was a tall, thin man, young with dirty blond hair, a pointy nose and his eyes were the deepest shade of blue I had ever seen.
“I know him,” I uttered, although I couldn’t place how we had met.
“I doubt you know him,” Max replied.
“No, I know him, I just don’t know how,” I insisted as I strained my mind. There was no mistaking his pointy nose or those eyes.
“Highly unlikely,” Max chimed in. “One doesn’t usually have long after a run in with Casper.”
“Casper?” I looked away from the monitors. “Like the friendly ghost?”
“There’s nothing friendly about Casper Devoe,” Max retorted. “He’s henchman, a scout.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For him.” Max pointed at the monitor.
Casper walked to the passenger door and opened it. A boot emerged before the immense body that followed it. It was a man, very tall and lean, but with broad shoulders. He was pale, his skin practically glowing against the night sky, and had long black hair that fell to the middle of his back. His eyes were black pits, devoid of all color. He wore a long, black trench coat that fell to his boots and covered the rest of his outfit.
He emerged from the vehicle and looked around, then held out his hand. A pale, white hand emerged from the vehicle, followed by an exotically beautiful woman. She was tall, maybe as tall as the male. Her hair was as long and as dark as his but her eyes glowed like emeralds against the dark night. They were vampires.
“What’s going on? Who are they?” I asked again.
“Lucious and Delilah,” Max responded.
“Who?”
“Shhhhh,” was the response I received from all three of my companions.
“I think I have audio,” Felix announced.
There was static but then the words became clear.
“Lucious, Delilah, what a pleasant surprise,” Vincent stated in a calm yet sarcastic voice.
“I hardly doubt it’s pleasant, but I am sure it is a surprise,” Lucious responded coolly in a deep, raspy voice. He coyly eyeballed the castle.
“What brings you here tonight?” Vincent asked.
“Well it is a party, isn’t it? We assumed we were invited.”
“Well you assumed wrong,” Lorenzo snapped.
“Now, now,” Vincent stated and placed his hand on Lorenzo’s shoulder. “Let’s show our guests a bit more graciousness than that.”
“So does that mean we can enter?” Delilah asked in a sly tone. She sniffed the air like an animal looking for its next meal.
“She can smell the mortals,” Max whispered to those of us in the security room.
“Not exactly,” replied Vincent. “What is your business here?”
“No business,” Lucious snarled. “Like I said, we assumed we were invited to the party.”
“You assumed you had access to an easy meal,” Lorenzo seethed.
“Hmm,” Lucious purred as he continued to leer at the castle. “I will never understand your kind. Why put yourself through so much suffering by sparing the mortals?”
“So they can be saved in the end,” Delilah responded sarcastically as both she and Lucious burst into laughter.
“I doubt the Lord will show sympathy to any of the devil’s offspring who steals any of His precious souls,” Lucious mockingly added.
I had a hard time seeing anything on the monitors over the three other heads. I walked over to the stained glass window and cracked it open, hoping for a better view of our unwanted guests. I slowly cranked the window open wider. A cool breeze rushed past me. It felt welcome against my hot flesh.
“No! What are you doing?” Marlo yelled at me as she hurried to crank the window shut. “Did they sense anything?” Marlo shouted to her brothers.
“No, I don’t…wait a minute,” Max replied.
The four of us drew closer to the monitors. Vincent
and Lucious were still engaged in the conversation, but Delilah’s attention was now on something else. The breeze blew past her, throwing her hair wildly into the air. She lifted her nose into the air then snapped her head in the direction of the window I had just opened.
“You have one of them here!” Delilah announced, cutting off the rest of the conversation. She continued to sniff the air and her eyes appeared to become more vibrant. “Smell it, Lucious.”
Lucious stuck his nose in the breeze and took a deep breath. “Ahh, it appears you have another treat for us this evening besides all of the mere mortals,” Lucious hissed, stepping closer to Vincent and Lorenzo. Casper stood in the background with a look of accomplishment on his face.
“We have nothing for you here,” Vincent responded his arms crossed over his chest.
“Oh come on Vincent, don’t play your games. There’s no mistaking that scent.”
I strained my neck to see the monitor. “What is he talking about?” I whispered. Max threw up a hand to silence me.
Delilah closed her eyes and took another deep breath. “It’s a female,” she snarled.
“Oh I see,” Lucious said, narrowing his eyes on Vincent. “Shacking up with one of the descendants, are we? Where did you find this one?”
“Oh God,” I whispered, “they’re talking about me.” I pulled myself away from the monitor and found my way back to the chaise. I could still hear the audio and see the scene on a small television near where I sat.
“There is nothing for you here,” Lorenzo interjected. “You need to leave.”
“Oh, but there is something for us here,” Delilah responded. “You think you can protect the mortal, but you can’t! Your own rules prevent you from doing that since you can’t tell her what you are. That means she doesn’t know we exist; she won’t even know we’re coming for her! What a pity – for her!” Her vicious bellow filled the room.
“I can protect her!” Vincent yelled at the top of his lungs.
Lorenzo stepped in front of Vincent and put a hand on Lucious as he stepped forward. “Leave. Now.” Lorenzo directed sternly.
