Iron Maiden (Ravana Moon #1.5)

by S. L. Perrine

  Iron Maiden

  A Ravana Moon Short Story

  By S.L. PERRINE

  For a friend who was taken from this world too soon.

  She told me I should go for it, so I am.

  Chapter One

  When someone kicks you in the gut, the best thing to do is stab them. Preferably with iron or steel. So, when the next blow hit, Ravana used the force of it to propel herself in a turn. Her hand flew out, the sword ring on her middle finger slicing against the cool skin of her attacker. Blood sprayed her face, hair and upper body. Luckily for her, blood had always been her signature color. Crimson hair fell past her hips. Though, the spray also coated her chest where the crisscross of fabric hadn’t covered her skin from her breasts to her throat.

  The woman who’d attacked Ravana started to decay before her eyes. Ravana cleaned the blood from her ring and adjusted the buckle on her ankle high, red-bottomed boot. Her black leather pants sung as her thighs rubbed together all while listening to the screams of the girl slowly dying. A final death for a vampire. Decaying from the impact of the silver ring on Ravana’s hand. Bone and flesh turned to ash.

  “Why do you keep killing my best soldiers?” A tall male vampire asked her as he studied a watch hanging from an elaborate gold chain tucked in the pocket of his suit jacket.

  “Because you keep putting them between us. Now, either you tell me something useful, or I will kill you.”

  “Ravana, you wound me.”

  “I’m really trying to.”

  “I have nothing to tell. What is it you want from me, specifically?”

  “The truth. You know whom I seek. You also know why.”

  “He is not someone you want to get close to.”

  “No, but neither am I. I have a wicked temper laced with iron and a tongue coated in silver.”

  “You make the things that can kill me sound so sexy.”

  “Get these brutes outta my way and maybe I’ll show you how sexy they can be.”

  “Cock tease.”

  “You love it and you know it.” She pulled a long silver dagger from her hip holster.

  “Please, Ravana. Spare an old man. Go back to hunting newborns and leave me to my investments.”

  “Sébastien, I want nothing to do with your investments. Just tell me where I can find him.”

  “The Ancient One never stays idle. He could be anywhere. He’s not the type to announce his comings and goings.”

  “Ugh.” She turned her back on him in frustration. “When am I going to get answers? It’s been almost a hundred years. I tire of these games.” When she turned around she noticed Sébastien’s coat tails disappearing around the nearest corner down the alley. Since she had already taken out one of his best he hadn’t left another behind in his wake. Though normally he would have, just to slow her down from perusing him.

  Ravana allowed the invisible armor she wore to crack for a brief moment and she stomped her foot on the ground. “Damned vampire.” Clenching her fists, she turned away. Her glamour going up, allowing her to be nearly unseen. To the naked eye, she would appear as whatever each individual was comfortable seeing. Vampires and demons alone would see the five-foot-ten woman with blood red hair.

  A hunter born, and a vampire made, Ravana wasn’t natural even in the supernatural sense. She was created to be a superior being, by the man she sought out: The Ancient One. He had created her to solve his own problem with immortality. Not wanting to remain as a lowly vampire since he’d been captured and changed. No longer human or hunter. Ravana was now both. She could only assume he’d used the correct formula on himself to make him that way as well.

  Vampires were once human and then turned into supernatural beings who fed on blood to survive. They could be killed in a number of ways. The quickest is a wound inflicted by silver or iron. Beheading was best, and the sun would burn them to a crisp. However, even with vampire DNA in her system, Ravana was not affected.

  Iron and silver could break her skin, but she’d be healed before she could move a hand to retaliate. Sunlight was only as annoying to her as it had been when she was human, or so she thought. Of all the things being immortal had afforded her, she hated it all. She missed knowing who she was, where she came from, and whether or not there had been anyone waiting for her to return. All of which she’d forgotten once she was killed. This is why she hunted The Ancient One. She wanted those answers, or she was afraid her new life would not be a pleasant one.

  She moved idly about the world for no reason at all. Her existence relied on her finding one man. She was consumed with needing to know the answers that plagued her. When she was first turned, she thought of nothing else.

  Chapter Two

  Years after Ravana had been abandoned by her creator she started her search of the countryside for him. She had nothing to go on. No name. No identifiable characterization that made him stand out from every other man she’d met along the way. He was tall, brooding, and very handsome. His eyes were set like emeralds much as her own, but she couldn’t think of a single thing that set him apart from the rest.

  When she’d begun hunting him, she heard whispers of the Ancient One. The vampire who’d been created by Dracula himself, before his demise. It was unheard of; Dracula turning anyone other than his own family, so everyone was naturally curious about the Ancient One’s ties to the original vampire. Ravana couldn’t care less about the Count. Her only objective was to find the Ancient One and make him tell her who she was. Where she came from and why he’d done what he had, only to have abandoned her after.

  She couldn’t recall how long she was with him after she woke that fateful night. All she could recall was the unbearable burning; it traveled from her throat down to the pit of her stomach. It felt as if she were disintegrating from the inside out. She begged for release. Sobbed when it didn’t come. Then when she screamed, and no one was there to answer her, she lay cold and unmoving on the table she’d been strapped to. Only after her cries and screams turned to inconsolable sobs did anyone go to her.

  She was given animal blood to survive on. They tried to teach her how to fight, and use the abilities she had been granted, along with the ones she’d been born to. Though, she had no interest. She wanted death.

  When she would not do as instructed she’d been left alone, abandoned, to die…again. Other creatures of the night found her, and they tried as hard as they could to kill her, but she didn’t die. They all saw a meek vulnerable young girl without protection. Her long brown hair was thin and frail. Her body hadn’t taken to being dead very well. She was thin, much too thin to be healthy. She ate food, but nothing worked to make her stronger. Maybe that was why he’d abandoned her, she thought. Maybe that was why nobody had come back to get her. They’d figured it out sooner than she had. That she wasn’t going to last much longer.

  She remembered them trying to train her. To make her body respond faster, make her heal quicker, to get her to see things in the dark, and not be scared of them. It was no use. She couldn’t do any of those things.

  Once others tried and failed to end her misery she realized it may be harder to get rid of her than she thought. One vampire made a snide remark about how she’d probably be a better vampire if she’d fed.

  “I eat.”

  “People?”

  She grimaced. “I can’t do that.”

  “How did you feed when you were brought back?” A boy had asked.

  “My creator had his man bring me animals to feed on.”

  “No wonder you’re not stronger. You need to feed on human blood. It’s what gives us our abilities. What good is not being able to die, if you’re just going to end up at the pointy end of a blade?”

  “I�
��ll heal.” She said walking away. He turned her by grabbing her arm. The pressure in his grasp was enough to make her wince.

  “You’ll still feel the pain.”

  “Then I’ll learn to enjoy it.” She responded with a devilish smile.

  That was the day the weak, small, lanky girl became somebody different. She realized she needed to be okay with being in pain. Since everyone bigger and older than her would no doubt keep trying to disprove the rumor that she could not be killed.

  Much to her bemusement, the boy was right. She did need to feed on human blood to gain the full strength of her abilities. However, she spent the next year hiding away in sewers and in abandoned homes to fend off would-be attackers. After she could take it no longer, she decided to stop hiding.

  Chapter Three

  Ravana found a local blood bank and spent several days fighting the idea of breaking in and stealing as many bags of blood as she thought she would need. How much blood did a vampire consume from a human body? She had no idea how many bags would equal up to be that much.

  Finally, she broke down and snuck in after hours. She saw all the tubing for IVs, the needles used for infusions, and then the young nurse who was working late. The girl was slender, long blonde hair, and wore a long day dress instead of the nurse’s dress she may have adorned during open hours.

  The girl stammered. “Who are you? What do you want?” She held up several bags of blood in front of her to try and ward her off, but she got a good smell of the blood within the building and her fangs fell into view for the girl to see. She’d never had that happen before. When feeding on animals she’d had to coax them from hiding.

  “I am no one. I have no name.” She hadn’t been told what her name was before she died, and the Ancient One hadn’t given her a new one either.

  “Then what am I to call you? A monster?”

  She placed a finger on her teeth. “Yes.” She looked down to the floor, very much aware of the fact she could have grabbed the bags and ran. She had abilities, just not enough to be stronger or faster than the rest of the population that walked the night.

  “You’ve come to kill me?”

  She instantly moved to defensive mode. She didn’t want anyone afraid of her. She never thought to take a human life. She was told she had been a protector of the human’s while she lived. “No. No, never that. I only need the blood.”

  “I’ve heard the stories. Those who feed off people’s blood to survive. Is that what you are?”

  “I am like them, yes. Though I am not entirely like them. I’ve never killed anyone, and I don’t intend to. Not a human. Not you.”

  The girl’s eyes grew wide. She saw the satchel by the girl’s feet, filled to the brim with blood bags. When the girl saw her gaze she placed the blood she held in the bag as well. “My father is sick. The people here won’t treat him because they say his organs are dying. There’s nothing they can do.”

  “I- I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I got the job here, so I could help him myself. I take a few bags every week. They never notice.” She looked at the monster before her, and then to the supplies around the room. “I don’t suppose they’ll miss a few more.” The girl reached into the large white cooler and pulled out four more bags, but before she handed them over she got a look in her eyes. “I have an idea.”

  She was asked to sit on a long hard surface. It reminded her of the table she woke on when she came back to life. Strapped to the table, unable to move. The girl held out a small rubber band and motioned for her arm. The needle pierced her skin easily, and she felt a slight burn at the site. It was a silver needle. When the girl hooked the bag of blood to the other end, she understood what the girl was doing for her.

  The look in the girl’s eyes was that of bewilderment. When the bag was empty she looked at the young nurse, “more.” Was all she could say. The girl quickly added the second bag, then a third, and a fourth. By the end of the sixth bag, she was sated.

  “Wow.” The nurse stood back and looked her over as she moved from the hard table.

  She felt the color return to her cheeks, felt the blood pump through her body and made her look less like a half-starved human girl, and more like a full busted woman. Gone was the limp brown hair, the flat chest, and thin limbs. Her hair was bright red, her breasts felt like they were going to break through the top of her modest dress, and she could feel the strength in her bones and muscle.

  “Who are you?”

  “I don’t know.” She felt a tear escape her eye and let it slide down her cheek.

  “You’re a rebel. You can’t be like the monster’s others talk about. You’re different.”

  “Different I may be, but I don’t even know my own name.”

  “Ravana.”

  “What?”

  “Ravana. It was my mother’s name. She passed when I was little. What I remember of her is that she was different. She never went along with things just because someone better told her it was the right thing to do. She spoke her mind, didn’t back down from a fight and was always kind to those that mattered.” The girl looked down at her hands. “She was a barmaid, and when she wouldn’t pay the tax for having too many people in the pub, they shoved a sword in her for her troubles. She never backed down. She killed two men before she passed out.”

  “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you like it. Ravana.”

  She thought about it for a moment, looking out the small window of the medic building. The moon was full and high in the sky. “I like it. Ravana Moon.”

  The girl gave her regular infusions of blood. She continued to work at the medic building, even after her father passed. When the girl had changed in age, looks, and frailty Ravana wanted to change her. Her friend only looked at her and shook her head. She’d lived a long happy life and was ready to be reunited with her parents and a husband she’d lost years before.

  From that one act of kindness Ravana got her name, and with it came the rest of who she was after death.

  Chapter Four

  She’d felt the need to hunt the man that created her and then left her for dead. A death that would never come. A life, long-gone that she’d never known about. He could have at least given her that much, but no…he’d played his game and left her. If she were fed human blood while with him he would have seen what she could have become. Fearless. Ruthless. Untamed by anyone. No, she would not have been that way if he’d kept her. She would have been something broken, wasted, and used.

  As it was, she had moved about so much to keep away from those who liked to try to end her, that she couldn’t make head nor tales of where she’d started. She had no memory of the lands. She never paid much attention while she fled. She was utterly lost. So, all she could do was hunt.

  Ravana found gypsies in every town she moved through. They all spoke of the evil things that lurked in the night, feeding off humans to survive. They also spoke of the men and women born to the earth to protect humans from those creatures. Hunters.

  Hunters were born with heightened abilities, speed, agility, rapid healing, and strength. The same abilities vampires and demons used to their advantages to prey on the weak. That’s what she had been born to. She believed that was why she had been chosen for the experiment that made her who she was. So, that is what she focused on. Protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.

  Ravana took residence in villages across the continent, searching for those areas that had higher than average death tolls from suspicious activities. Deaths that were not easily explained. She hunted at night while the predators were out roaming the lands for their prey, hidden in the shadows.

  Amid hunting, she decided to find the Ancient One and answers to questions she’d longed for. Saving parents, children, and loved ones kept her wondering who she’d left behind. That’s all she wanted, but he’d never made himself known. Not once did he come out of his shell and tell her what she longed for. So, she hunted. She hunted the hunter, and somewh
ere between learning to be who she was and wanting to know where she came from she lost track of protecting the innocent.

  “Please. They say you’re the one to speak to about these things. We are being slaughtered like cattle.”

  Ravana looked at the man before her. He was old. Frail. Grey hair lined his forehead and around his ears, wrinkles marred his temples, upper lip, and forehead. He would die soon. If not by the hands of a nightwalker, then by age or sickness. Ravana turned her back on the man.

  “It’s no use. You’ll leave this earth eventually. This world is not meant for the weak to survive.”

  “Better to fight and live than become complacent.”

  “Better to lay down and accept your fate, than waste energy fighting a losing battle.”

  "When did you become so cynical?"

  "When I was killed and brought back, only to be abandoned."

  The man lowered his head and shook it. “I will pray for you to find peace,” he said with a turn.

  Ravana spoke low, so the man may not have even heard her, “don’t, I am already damned.”

  The world held no value. Ravana spent her time hidden in the shadows. Time corrupted her, loneliness condemned her, and solitude made her hard as stone. She pushed everyone to arm’s length. She thought it better to never have any relationships than to suffer the loss of them.

  The village she found herself in was filthy and poor. More and more suspicious deaths tolled. With little more to do then stalk those she once hunted, she found herself interviewing for a position in a brothel. She’d spent no time acquiring wealth, she only had what little belongings she needed on her. With the thoughts of an eternity without purpose, Ravana squandered herself to the lowest slums of the city. She stopped hunting at night and laid her back to any who would pay. She earned her coin and kept a place of her own, not wanting to live on the streets and in alleys any longer. Ravana was done trying to make sense of what she was.