by D L Blade
Maurice turned to exit the room, but I needed him to know I was going to be the worst prisoner he had ever had. I wasn’t afraid, I was angry.
“What are you waiting for? Just drink from me, you demon.”
His laugher came out over the top as if mocking my defiance. “The first time I take a drink from you, my love, I do it as part of a ceremony. It will bind you to me. I will feed from you and then you feed from me.”
The hell I will!
“I have a loyal witch that performs a ritual while I drink from you. This is what binds us. I will always know where you are and what you’re feeling, and you will feel the same way about me. You’ll want me to feed on you. Tonight, we do the ritual. And to make sure you don’t fight it, Noah is bringing me some leverage.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. “What kind of leverage?” I gulped.
“A little human friend seems like a nice appetizer for me, don’t you think?”
No. This can’t be happening.
“Maurice, I swear I will kill you if you touch her.” My hands balled into fists. “I promise you, I will make you ash before dawn, and I don’t need my magic to do it.”
“I would love a little sparring match with you.” His sinister laugh made my blood run cold.
My fingers dug deep into my palms.
He leaned in toward me, no longer grinning. “I’m going to bathe you in her blood.”
Without thinking, I leaped out of my chair and lunged toward Maurice. I knew I may not have my super witch powers with the bracelet on, but I knew a little bit of kickboxing from the short training sessions I’d had with Caleb, Lily, and Joel. I used all the strength I could to knock him to the ground. Once we stumbled to the floor, I kicked him in the face, causing him to fall back. He was up on his feet before I could kick him again. His hands were on my wrist, twisting it back, and his other arm wrapped around my neck in a chokehold. He used his knee to slam into the back of my legs, bringing my knees to the ground. My knee caps slammed against the hard tile floor and I winced.
“You are no match for me, witch. I am eight hundred years old.” He let go of me and left me in my defeat. While my body repaired itself, Maurice stomped out and signaled for Noah and Kyoko to follow, but Dorian was still standing by the wall. He slowly walked toward me.
“Here,” Dorian said as he reached out his hand.
“Um, thanks.” I grabbed his hand and stood to my feet.
He let go of my hand and turned to walk out, but I grabbed his hand again. He turned around but wouldn’t look up at me.
“Look at me, Dorian.”
His head tilted up, only slightly, and he looked ashamed.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
“You’re Akasha.” He wiggled his hand from mine, releasing my hold.
“Why are you pretending to not know who I am? I’ve seen visions of my life before this one. My face is the same.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
His tortured stare that followed was familiar. It was the same way he had looked at me when the crowd took me away to be hanged. The look that told me he loved me but couldn’t stop what was to come. He tried to turn away, but I grabbed his wrist, halting him.
“Stop. Please, talk to me,” I begged. He turned back around but didn’t speak. “Dorian.”
“We can’t talk about it. Not here. There are cameras everywhere,” he whispered.
I looked up toward the ceiling near the corner of the room. He was right, we were being watched.
Kyoko entered the room again. I quickly dropped Dorian’s wrist.
“I’m supposed to brief you on today’s activities and the rules of the house, but we need to get you cleaned up. I can still smell your blood from across the house.” She looked over at Dorian. “What are you still doing in here? Get back to your assignment.”
Dorian didn’t look at me again. He turned to Kyoko and bowed his head. “Of course. Sorry. I was just making sure we didn’t miss any blood on the floor.” He turned around and walked out.
I sat down at the table next to the kitchen and my eyes spotted a painting on a wall I hadn’t noticed before. The painting was of a demon whose skin was dark red. He was naked with black, bat-like feathered wings. He looked like the devil I had always imagined. He was holding a beautiful woman in his arms who was wearing a long white dress. The demon’s mouth was open, showing vampire fangs, and he was staring down at her neck. He didn’t look anything like the vampires I had met. These vampires here were all beautiful, pale, and humanlike. The creature in the picture looked like something straight out of the depths of hell. I looked away from the painting as Kyoko walked toward me and placed a knitted bag on the kitchen table.
“Do you like that painting?” She gestured toward it.
“It’s terrifying,” I admitted.
Kyoko sat down and stared at the painting with me. “His name was Misha. The devil himself had a plan for him that would forever change this world. He was only a baby when he was sent here and a couple living in a small village that couldn’t have children took him in as their own. As terrifying as he looked, they loved him.
“His parents tried to feed him milk from the mother’s breast and food from their farm, but he threw everything up. One night, they found him feeding off their sheep. It was the only thing he wanted. Blood. His instincts took him to blood, unknowing and unforgiving as those instincts were. It was the only way for him to survive. He also grew at an abnormal rate. Within a year, he was a grown man.”
As disturbing as this story was, the more I knew about vampires and their original creator, the easier it would be for me to fight them. Kylan may have been the first vampire, but this was the demon that created him in the first place. I wanted to know more, so I stared at her intently. My gesture caused her to perk up, eager to share more of their dark history.
“Then one night,” she continued, “while Misha was sleeping, he had a dream. In the dream, the devil appeared and told him why he was sent here in the first place. He told him he was to create an army and humans were to be their slaves and food supply. Misha was filled with so much evil, he obeyed without question, the devil’s instructions. It was Misha who gave us the name ‘vampire’. He only had to feed a human his blood and then kill them. Once they woke, they had to feed on human blood. After that, the transition would be complete, or so he thought.”
She continued, “The vampires he turned had transformed into what Misha looked like, not like the vampires you see today. Their outsides were red, demonic, and frightening to humans. He knew this would be a problem. It’s much easier to charm someone to be their victim when their appearance was beautiful and approachable. He also had no control over these vampires. They were like rabid beasts with no intellect or humanity to control. He knew he had no choice but to kill all that he had created and start over.”
She stood up and walked toward the painting. My eyes followed her around the table and she stopped in front of it, placing her hand on the white dress the angel wore. “It was then that Misha had another dream, where the devil told him there would be an angel sent to Earth to stop him.” She removed her hand from the painting and looked over at me. “The devil told him to destroy her.
“One day, he was tracking the forest by his house when he saw this beautiful woman. Her name was Tatyana.”
Kylan’s mother.
“She was wearing all white and her hair was golden blonde that fell straight down to her waistline. Misha was taken aback by her elegant beauty and was determined to have her, even though he knew this was the angel the devil had told him to kill.”
She joined me back at the table. “We don’t know if Tatyana was forced to lie with him, or if she wanted to be with him, but together they made a child. He wasn’t going to destroy the angel that was sent to stop him, but he would use her to create his army.
“They created a half-breed. His son would be the one to create the vampires. He’d make them demonic on th
e inside, like himself, but beautiful on the outside, like Tatyana. They would also have half of their humanity inside of them, but they lost their soul.” Kyoko smiled. “Tatyana named her son Kylan.”
I cringed at the sound of his name.
“When Kylan was born, Tatyana was relieved to see that he did not look like Misha; red and demonic. He was beautiful and perfect, just like her. Kylan was not able to eat human food, either, so Misha fed him only blood. Misha would fetch the blood first, then serve it to Kylan because he didn’t have fangs yet to drain victims. Tatyana was hoping he wasn’t a blood drinker, like Misha. Kylan took a few years to grow into a man, but then, like Misha, he stopped growing.
“One day Tatyana was cooking supper when Kylan came into the room covered in blood. As she looked closer, she could see Kylan’s fangs were out and in his hand was the head of his father.”
It was such an unsettling thought. He was so evil, that he would so willingly cut off the head of his own father.
Kyoko’s face hardened. “Tatyana knew Misha would not be the first victim. It was in that moment she placed an angelic curse on Kylan. According to the curse, he could never take a life with his own hands. Unfortunately for her, he had the gift to possess others and make them do what he wanted. He turned one vampire, who finished her transition on her own by taking her own life, and his persuasion allowed him to spread the vampire race throughout the world.”
“Angelic curse? Wouldn’t that be a gift? To make someone not able to kill another person?”
She shook her head, appearing annoyed by my question. “Tatyana abandoned her son after what he had done. She could no longer stop him once the vampires started to spread all over the world. The vampire race grew so big, witches and werewolves were no longer able to defend themselves.
“Tatyana knew she needed help after she had failed, so she created the Chosen Ones. She chose five families in Salem that carried incredible gifts. She told them they would each conceive a special witch that would come to Earth to help stop what she started. Fortunately for us, we stopped her plan by capturing the key element needed to make that happen. You.” She smiled, full of pride. “I hope you meet Kylan someday, Akasha. He is a great man.”
Oh, I met him, all right.
“Why did Kylan kill his father?”
She smirked. “I love this part of the story. Kylan was hiding in the stables when he saw the devil from the underworld demanding Misha kill his wife. The devil knew she would try to stop their plan. Kylan could never kill his own mother, even if she tried to turn on him.”
Caleb never told me this much in detail about the origin of what brought us here. I was strangely thankful Kyoko was telling me about their origin. I was now discovering more of who I was and how important I was to this world.
“This painting was created by Kylan himself, to remind him of where he came from.” Kyoko looked at the clock. “I’d better start explaining the rules of the house. But first …” Kyoko grabbed a silver bracelet from the knitted bag. She walked over to me and exchanged it for the one I already had around my wrist and snapped it tightly shut, before removing the first one. “There you go. It fits perfectly.”
“Why did you change them?”
“Like the other one, it blocks your magic. But this one also has a mechanism that will send an electric current through your body, completely paralyzing you, should you try to escape. There’s a cord that runs around the property boundaries that will trigger it if you pass over it.” She giggled to herself like a little child. “It’s like one of those invisible fences humans use for their dogs.”
I grabbed my wrist and lowered my head as tears started to form again. I wanted to be brave. I was angry and there was no doubt I would fight for my life at every possible chance. But in this moment of exhaustion and fear that they’d hurt the ones I loved, I could not stop the tears that now rolled down my face.
“Please don’t cry.” She placed her hand on my back. “Maurice is very charming, and he will be gentle with you when he drinks your blood.” Kyoko scooted closer to me. “There are only a few rules here in our home. Obey your master. Don’t try to run. And you need to eat plenty of human food so you have your strength. The only light sources you will have are the lamps and candles that are always on during the day and night. The shutters are locked shut during the day hours, so we will provide you with vitamin D supplements.”
I lifted my head. “You don’t sleep in coffins during the day?” I asked innocently.
She laughed. “No, we don’t need to sleep. We just make sure all the light from outside is shielded from entering the home during the day.”
I looked at her with pitiful eyes. “I would rather die!”
“I know. I have been in your shoes before, remember?”
I kept my voice to a near whisper. “Then take this off my wrist. I will spare your life. Help me escape,” I begged.
Kyoko’s face became angry and she snapped. “Don’t confuse my kindness with me liking you. You are still a witch and I am a vampire. You are only food to me.” She sat up, straightened her clothes, and grabbed her bag. “Follow me upstairs. You look terrible.”
I was a bit taken back by how quickly her tone had changed. I thought maybe because of how kind she had been with me, she was someone I could trust, but I was wrong. Perhaps Dorian was the same as her. Showing me a little bit of kindness, but still loyal to the clan.
Back in my room, I pulled my hair over my right shoulder and traced my fingers over where Roland had bitten me. I felt completely violated.
Tonight, I was going to be drained of blood and fear was starting to take over me. I also knew it was only a matter of time before Shannon would be brought in by these creatures as “leverage”.
I decided to make the most out of the day and learn everything I could about this clan, hoping it would in some way help me.
I spoke with several humans and witch slaves that were held here against their will. When the vampires were not feeding on their slaves or donors, they allowed them to wander the house and interact with each other. They had books for them to read, several different televisions, and plenty of food to keep them healthy. They had specific foods for the prisoners to eat. They said the healthier the food, the better the blood tasted. There was always a vampire watching them. The vampire that was assigned to me when Maurice was away was his brother Colin.
Colin was turned after he noticed Maurice wasn’t aging. Maurice knew he would have to leave his family and wanted company along the way, so he had turned his own brother. Colin looked to be in his mid-twenties, and wasn’t as good looking as Maurice, but still had some of the same features. He didn’t have a lot of power with the clan. Maurice was the master and Colin abided by his brother’s commands. The way Colin watched me was unnerving.
It was a relief for me to meet other witches and learn about the different powers they held. They all talked about having the same kind of experience I had with being bitten. If you relaxed, it didn’t hurt. Fortunately for me, I was able to regain my strength right away after being bitten, unlike the rest.
While I was talking to the other witches, I gravitated toward Sarah. She was one of the first witches I talked to. We had to do our best to speak quietly whenever we were around Colin or Sarah’s vampire, Troy. Vampires had a strong sense of hearing and they were always nearby.
It was hard, though, to keep quiet when Sarah first mentioned her power.
“You can do what?!” I lowered my voice by the last word as Sarah gave me a sharp look. Troy wasn’t far away, and we didn’t want him interfering.
“I can make people see things that aren’t there or manipulate someone’s face to look like someone else,” she explained patiently. I hadn’t even heard of powers like that before. “If I could use magic right now, I could make you see flowers blooming in my hands or trees growing in through the windows, or I could make Troy look like Steve Buscemi.”
I giggled at the mental image, sneaking a glance at
Troy out of the corner of my eye.
Right as I looked, a vampire on the other side of the room called out for Troy, waving him over and out of the hall. Finally! We can speak normally again!
“That’s so interesting.”
“You should ask around later, hear what some of the others can do. Like, you see April over there?” Sarah pointed at a blonde woman, slim and a bit older than both of us. “She can manipulate light and camouflage her body to blend in with her surroundings. And Rachel can make plants grow a lot faster, better. I don’t remember what else she can do, but she used to have a lovely flower shop before … before she was brought here.”
My excitement dulled again as I looked at the witch Sarah was talking about and imagined how much happier her life had been back then.
“She must miss it,” I muttered, watching Rachel stare out a window.
“Everyone misses their old lives,” Sarah shrugged. “Everyone lost something.”
Something in her tone struck me.
“What about you?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Dammit, that was not appropriate.
Sarah sighed, looking away.
“Almost everyone, then.”
What does that mean? Did she lose her family?
As if she could see the questions on my face, she frowned and continued,“Things aren’t black and white, Mercy. Maybe my life wasn’t exactly ideal before I was taken here. It’s not like I wanted this, but I’d been running from someone else, and my vampire’s not a bad one.” I had no idea how to respond. Her vampire wasn’t a bad one?
April hesitated as she walked past, on her way out the door.
“You okay, hun?” she checked, looking concerned at the expression on Sarah’s face. Not angry, but certainly not happy.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sarah reassured her. “Have you met Mercy yet?”
I let Sarah change the subject and smiled at April.
“Not yet!” she chirped. “Heard about you, of course. I could feel your Awakening yesterday. We all did. Like there was this sudden strength we’d been missing our entire lives, you know?”
