by Hunter Blain
I nodded at PS, who began loosening his grip on the wheel, releasing control back to— A blast of white, blue, and red fire enveloped me like a tidal wave. PS shoved me off the wheel as I stood frozen in flaming agony. My hair flared and disintegrated in an instant as the flames ate at my unprotected head, melting my skin with alarming efficiency.
With PS in full control of my body, I dove headfirst into the murky water, extinguishing the flames. My body was wracked with pain, as if every nerve in my exposed skin had been attached to a generator powerful enough to run all of Houston.
Heal! I cried out to PS as I writhed in anguish inside my mind. I forced myself to look at PS as he concentrated on healing the burns that brought about impossible amounts of pain. Turning to me, he shook his head frantically, signaling he couldn’t heal the wounds from the flames. Heavenfire! I screamed through gritted teeth as the realization struck. PS nodded determinedly and looked back at the windows that were my eyes, falling back into consciousness. I looked through the control room’s eyes and became a passenger in my own body, wracked with burning anguish. Somehow, I was always the only one who experienced the pain—though we both received the elation when feeding. Explain to me how that’s fair; I’ll wait.
I moved underwater until my feet touched the bottom and sent my senses out all around me. I felt my eyes shift and fangs elongate in reaction to PS taking control. Within seconds, I’d found my attacker. The heat signature stood out even through the silt-filled water because I was seeing it through my preternatural senses, not simply my eyes.
While still underwater, I positioned myself facing my target, extended my arms to either side, and brought my hands together in a wide clap that created a sonic boom. A tsunami of brown water fifteen feet tall rushed from the river and up the bank, with me running right behind it.
Through the massive wave, I could see the red outline of my attacker move his hands in front of him, one hand circling the other clockwise. As the wall approached, he brought his hands into his stomach and then shot them out in front of his body.
Jump! I yelled in my head, which PS obliged to. A wedge of invisible force cut through the water, creating a space wide enough for the skilled man to pass unharmed. The water fell around my attacker as his head swiveled to search for me. I was vaguely aware that trees across the river were crashing to the ground from where they had been decimated by the spell. At the crest of my leap, I willed a bloodlongsword out of my palm and held it with both hands, ready to bring it down on my target’s head.
As I came within spitting distance, I brought the manifestation down in a vicious strike that would have cleaved entire city busses in half with ease. I pulled my lips back in a shark’s grin and realized my skin was still melting off my skull, exposing muscle and bone. This didn’t faze PS, who was in complete control at the moment; and right now, I wasn’t complaining. I wanted him to have a clear head while attacking.
The mage, paladin, or warlock—or whatever the fuck he was that could use holy magic—simply lifted his arm and uttered a quick word. Blinding white light shot down the length of his arm, intercepting my blade and shattering it like the ice sculpture that had been knocked to the ground at the wedding of that friend whom you were no longer allowed to see again because his wife was mad you had ruined her day—or something like that.
As the energy I had used to create the blade was destroyed, PS and I were both hit with white-hot sheets of pain that completely stunned us. Physical pain was one thing, but not even PS could ignore the devastation that was the loss of the life energy that was put into the manifestations. I fell limply to the ground, muscles frozen in shock as our attacker looked down on us. He was a priest, complete with black robes and the white collar thingy that told everyone how much better than you they were. I liked him immediately for some reason.
He kicked me onto my back and extended an open hand toward my chest. An unseen elephant sat on my torso, pinning my arms and legs to the ground. Struggle as I might, I couldn’t free myself. I was vaguely aware that the skin on my skull had stopped melting. Win!
The priest began chanting, and I looked up to fully see his face. He was in his midforties and had salt-and-pepper hair that teased receding and sat above a worn face. He had both smile and frown lines etched into his features. Brown eyes scowled from beneath bushy eyebrows, regarding me with professional disdain.
Oh fuck! He’s gonna exorcise us! I screeched on the precipice of losing my shit. Does that even work on vampires?! PS slapped my face and pointed at his temple forcefully. Right, I started, willing myself to calm the fuck down. Think. Use my big ol’ sexy brain. Um…what about if we— Without warning, my skin started to heat up all over my body, to the point of becoming extremely alarming. The sensation sped past “uncomfortable” at relativistic speeds and landed on “excruciating” without even the tiniest bit of foreplay. PS did something then I had rarely seen in all our time together: he began squirming with pain plastered on his face. The cords on his neck stood out as his eyes bulged. It was my body being exorcised, but both of our immortal essences, which were permanently intertwined, were being attacked.
I tried to scream, but I couldn’t get any air into my lungs with the invisible aircraft carrier sitting on my chest. Luckily, I didn’t need to breathe in order to live. BUT, like most things, I did need to not conflagrate in order to survive.
PS slapped me again and aggressively tapped his temple in pained agitation. Through a clenched jaw, I screamed, I know, I know! Think! I let my mind flow free and latched on to the first thought that came to me, like a kung fu master snatching a fly out of the air with chopsticks. If I was being honest with myself, it had been more like reaching into a raging river made entirely of salmon, missing every grab, falling in, and then climbing back out to see that one of the fishes had landed on the bank in sheer luck.
PS took one hand off the wheel and I took hold, throwing my consciousness back into the driver’s seat with PS sitting next to me.
As my skin began to bubble, I concentrated on the hand closest to the priest. A bloodsnake slithered out and inched forward low to the ground. Once it reached his feet, it began circling the priest’s perimeter until it had wrapped around in a circle a few times. I willed the bloodsnake to jump up, coil around the priest’s legs, and tighten with preternatural speed.
My attacker lost his balance as his legs were slammed together, forcing his concentration and chanting to drop as well. The invisible moon that had sat on me was lifted, and I slammed my elbows into the ground, springing myself to my feet in a blur. I grabbed the priest’s elbow and sent out another bloodsnake to wrap around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. My skin stopped bubbling, and I took a brief moment to assess my injuries before dealing with this holy do-gooder.
As I looked down at my body, searching for any additional damage, the priest started whispering. Warmth spread over my skin again and started growing in intensity. My eyes shot from my blistered body to the priest’s eyes. I tsk-tsked at him like a parent who had caught his kid’s hand in the cookie jar. To shut him up, I willed one of the snakes’ head to slither up his chest and into his mouth. Relief washed over me when his jaw stopped moving. Not only because I was annoyed by him but also for the fact that he had nearly boiled me alive in my own skin using his stupid holy magic.
“Who…the fuck…are you?” I asked between heaving breaths of anger interlaced with exhaustion.
The priest answered with a mumble.
“Oh, right,” I said as I willed the snake’s head to retreat just outside of his mouth. “Try anything and I’ll make this snake go all the way through until it hits moonlight. Do. You. Understand. Me?” I enunciated each word in the last sentence aggressively, letting my red eyes glow brighter in warning.
“I understand, my son,” the priest said all too calmly, prompting an eyebrow to climb up my face.
“Dude, I’m over five hundred years old. Don’t call me son,” I instructed, annoyed.
�
�Simply a term of endearment, Jonathan.”
“It’s just John, and I don’t give a fuc— wait, how the hell do you know my name, holy man?” My face contorted into a scowl as a seed of unease planted itself in my chest.
PS attempted to nudge me off the wheel and began squeezing the snakes still wrapped around the mortal priest. The human groaned in protest as I looked at PS inside my mind and said, Dude. What are you doing? He’s not a threat anymore.
Predatory Self ignored the question and leaned forward, baring my teeth in a sneer of unbridled rage.
PS! He is an innocent! He’s a fucking priest, for Lilith’s sake! I yelled at him. Then, I changed tactics. He can’t hurt us anymore, man. Ease up and let’s get some answers, okay? PS gave me a cursory glance before yanking his hands off the wheel in frustration and walking away to sulk in a dark corner of my mind.
Grabbing the wheel, I took full control of my body and loosened my grip on the priest. “Sorry about that,” I said, slightly embarrassed. I found it odd that I remotely cared what this mortal thought. Maybe it was my Irish-Catholic upbringing that instilled a sense of respect for priests.
The priest stared at me in wonder before he said, “I had heard there was a vampire that wrestled with his infernal tendencies, and here you are.”
“Who told?” I asked. I didn’t mind others knowing I tried my darndest to use my special set of skills to hurt bad guys, but how the hell had a priest caught wind? Was it that big of a deal?
“All it takes is an open mind and the right…contacts,” the priest said all too calmly and with emphasis on the last word.
“Who are you?” I asked, pulling him closer and peering at him, using all my preternatural senses. He was just a mortal that had an aura of—what I assumed to be—holy essence.
“My name is Father Thomes Philseep, and I’m a warrior for the Light.” His steady heartbeat tugged at my attention like a child pulling on his parent’s pant leg. Flies that were stuck in my web usually weren’t this calm. It was unnerving.
Peering closer at the man, I hesitantly asked, “You could get out of this if you wanted to, couldn’t you, Father?”
“Would it make you feel better if I did not answer the question?” His tranquil heartbeat told me all I needed to know. With a sigh of weariness, I released the bloodsnakes and let them retract back into my palms. If he could escape from my manifestations and had not yet done so, then there was a purpose for his visit. Father Thomes casually brushed his black robes before straightening his collar, then he looked me straight in the eye. He smiled, extended his hand, and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, my son. I’ve been looking for someone like you for many years.”
I hesitantly extended my hand, grabbing his firmly without being overbearing, and shook. It had bothered me less that he had referred to me as his son, like I was already a part of his flock.
“Cook. John Cook.”
“So I’ve been told,” Father Thomes said while maintaining his smile and returning the firmness of the handshake. The hint was subtle.
“Yeah, so, purely out of curiosity, who flapped their jaws and spilled the beans?” I asked, releasing my grip and dropping my hand to my side.
“You will find that I am resourceful, John Cook.”
“Okay then,” I said, somewhat annoyed. “What did you mean by looking for someone like me?”
“I was told there was a vampire that wanted to perform good deeds with his unholy powers. Though I attacked you first, I am still here, alive and well. For all I knew, you could have ended my life once defeated. Why didn’t you?” He tilted his head as he spoke, curious as to my answer.
“Oh, ah…because I didn’t want to hurt an innocent,” I stammered.
“You’ll find that honesty is the key to opening the door of trust, my son,” Father Thomes said patiently before asking again, “Why do you want to fight your vampiric nature and do righteous deeds?”
I looked at the ground and thought about what he had said. Honesty is the key…maybe I should start by being honest with myself. “I…I don’t want to go to Hell, Father,” I said just above a whisper while keeping my unfocused gaze on the ground, unable to look him in the eyes. The words were heavy as they came out, leaving behind a lump in my throat. I had answered a tremendous question that I had never truly asked myself before.
“You think doing good deeds will erase your past transgressions against God’s children?” Though the words themselves were harsh, there was no judgment in the question, only legitimate curiosity.
My mind flashed with countless vivid memories, like a flip-book that was a mile long. Each page of the thick, flowing tome showed inexcusable horrors I had personally committed over the centuries. As the years had gone by, I had begun disguising each deed as an excuse to protect the innocent. If I were to look into a mirror, would I be able to convince the man looking back at me that I wasn’t a monster who killed for sport as much as for saving the innocent?
I struggled to raise my gaze, which was weighed down with all my accumulated indiscretions over the last five hundred years, and looked the holy man before me in the eyes. “I don’t know.” Tears blurred my vision with the sudden realization that my soiled soul had probably been submerged deeper into the sludge of my misguided actions. Faced with the literal embodiment of God’s judgment, I could no longer fool myself. I felt vulnerable for the first time in ages; it felt oddly freeing, like breaking a fractured bone after it had healed the wrong way. It was painful to expose my fractured heart to this mortal—and myself—but I knew it would allow me the opportunity to set my broken soul right, and heal. It was time to take responsibility for my actions.
“Can you help me?” I asked as the tears freed themselves, running down my cheeks to disappear into the thickness of my reddish beard. It felt amazing to have this weight lifted off my chest. I couldn’t explain why, but I felt like this man before me was of significant importance for my eternal soul.
“Perhaps,” Father Thomes said contemplatively. “I am not sure how others in the Church would feel about an alliance with a vampire.”
I could feel my only chance at salvation slipping away like sand between my fingers.
“What if we didn’t tell them?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question to ask a man of God.
“Are you suggesting that I lie via omission to the Church?” Father Thomes asked with squinting eyes.
Honesty, honesty, honesty. I set my jaw and doubled down as I said, “Yes, I am, Father.”
Father Thomes responded by grunting, looking away, and placing a hand on his chin in thought.
“Think of all we could accomplish,” I said with building excitement. Without telling my hand to do so, I instinctively wiped the tear tracks under both of my eyes. The time for self-loathing was over. “You have your…connections,” I said with emphasis on the last word, just as he had done, “and I have my abilities.” I stuck out my chest and raised my chin. “I want to help you defeat evil.”
Father Thomes looked at me now, letting his hand drop from his chin. “Even if it means killing others of your kind? Not just vampires, mind you, but anyone I deem a threat to the Light?”
“First, I’m pretty damn sure there aren’t any vampires left; and second, if you can help cleanse my soul and get me into Heaven, then hell yes I’m in!”
A single eyebrow lifted on Father Thomes’ aging face.
“Sorry! Heck. I meant heck yes, not that other thing I said.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” he prompted, “why does an immortal fear what happens in the afterlife?”
That question hit hard, and I was slightly rocked back, as if struck by a surprising rogue wind. I knew the answer in my heart, but had never told a mortal about what had happened to me that night. Heck, I could count on one hand how many of my closest friends I had told and still have enough fingers left to flip someone off with the added thumb.
Inhaling deeply, I said, “I’ve seen the afterlife, Padre.” His fa
ce remained expressionless, signaling me to continue. “I was in my early twenties and living on the farm with my family. Long story short, they were executed and I was next. My maker found me in a prison and offered me the chance to avenge them. In my grief and rage, I agreed. He killed me then, and my soul shot out into the universe, toward a bright light. That’s when my maker spilled his blood into my all-but-lifeless mouth and delivered to me my dark gift. I watched as my soul was changed into what I am today, and it hurt, Father. It hurt more than words can ever possibly convey, so I know the soul can feel pain. So forgive me if I don’t want to spend an eternity in Hell, where pain is prevalent. I’ve come close enough to death to know I won’t live forever. A solar flare will fry the Earth, or man will turn this world into cinders over whose God is the best. It doesn’t matter how the end will come, but I know it will come someday, and I would like to see my family again when I take the big sleep.” I was breathing heavily as I told my story. The worry that was always a tingle in the back of my mind had sprung forth to deliver lightning bolts of crippling anxiety and existential fear.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Father Thomes said with warmth in his eyes before they instantly dropped back to a pure businesslike demeanor, “But know this: Hell isn’t all physical tortures. Oh no, my child. Hell is an abattoir of punishments, a screaming din of inequity brought forth by increasingly creative demons, including those of your mind. The halls of Hell reverberate with the cacophony of agony and anguish from souls that have no hope for redemption. No, John, Hell is more than pain of the body.”
“Neat,” I said, defeated. “All the more reason to not book a permanent vacation down there.” Lilith, he really knew how to paint a freaking picture! I would do anything to not spend even a second in Hell, much less an eternity.
