Heiress of Lies (19 page)

     “Why is that?” Angeline asked.

     “It recognizes us as creatures like itself. And you are consorting with us, if you will, so it has relaxed. It is not uncommon for creatures like us to freely share our thoughts. In fact, in the vampire wars we fully used the ability to mentally communicate as an advantage on the field.”

     Angeline sat back down and pondered this. “It’s amazing we won at all,” she said quietly. The vampires seemed to have all the advantages—strength, speed, cunning, special abilities. The only thing that slowed them down was their inability to be out in the sunlight.

     “Interesting that you mention that, Princess,” Caspian said as he went to the bookshelf and pulled down another book. Then he turned to her with a wry grin. “Who said the humans won?”

     “Surely you’re joking.” Angeline felt disjointed and out of sorts. The time away from her people was starting to have an effect on her. She had been in the company of vampires too long. “We won because we extinguished the vampire race. We built cities and have created a whole society that is human only. No vampires.”

     “And yet here you sit in the company of two vampires. One of whom lived lifetimes before your ancestor came along,” Caspian said, shaking his head as he returned to his chair. “Things may make better sense to you if we go back to the beginning and start with your original question.”

     “Where did we all come from,” Angeline said. The older vampire seemed to be jumping all over the place and she was having a difficult time keeping up. Connor had pulled another volume off the shelf and settled back onto the floor. “You have no interest in history?” she asked him.

     “When Caspian starts telling stories I don’t already know, I’ll start paying attention,” he said.

     “Well!” Caspian seemed annoyed that Connor was going to ignore him. “That’s the problem with the young these days. Always so wrapped up in their own personal interests that they forget to appreciate their ancestry.” He wiggled around in the chair as if trying to get comfortable. “So the histories begin thousands of years ago, with the story of Mamette and her brother Arduro.”

     “I’ve never heard of these people,” Angeline said.

     “Of course not,” Caspian said. “There is no way that your ancestors would have let such a fundamental truth survive.”

     “And what is that truth?” Angeline asked with a roll of her eyes.

     “That the first beings on Altera were the vampires. We were here first.” Caspian saw her shocked expression and he started to laugh.

     “That’s preposterous!” Angeline said as she leapt to her feet and started to pace again. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

     “Why?” Caspian said. “In almost every way, the vampire is a superior creature to the human. You are frail and weak. You die easily. You are prone to illogical irrational thinking. And you only live but a brief flash in time. Oh, dear Princess, the gods did not set out to create humans. They created vampires.”

     “I won’t listen to any more of this nonsense!” Angeline said as she started back toward the entrance.

     Connor was blocking her way before she could even register that he had moved. “Princess, I know this is difficult to hear. But Caspian speaks the truth.”

     Angeline felt her anger catch like a spark in a dry field, and then it swept through her. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating, and in that instant she felt the thing inside her detach from its hidey hole inside her mind and shoot to the surface. It was like her body was propelled up, and she felt the vise grip as it scratched and clawed at her. She grabbed her head and fell heavily forward into Connor’s arms.

    
Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!
the voice raged.

    
I WILL NOT,
Angeline shouted back at it.

     She blanked for just a second, and then came back. It snarled, but she held it back. Then it slid down back into the blackness.

     “Princess, perhaps you’d like to go sit down,” she heard Connor say. His voice was strained.

     As she pulled her hands away from her head she realized that she was bleeding again, this time from her nose. She turned away and saw a wash bin over in the far corner of the room. She quickly went to it and used some water to wash the blood away. She felt Connor next to her, and then watched as he carefully washed his hands as well.

     “Does my blood tempt you?” she asked. She knew the thought should repulse her, but it didn’t. She was curious what kind of effect she had on this man, if at all.

     “All blood is tempting,” he said tersely.

     “And yet you can resist it,” she said. Neither Connor nor Caspian seemed to be like any vampire that she had ever read about. The blood rages and unholy hunger didn’t seem to apply to them.

     “Just because I can resist it doesn’t mean that I want to,” he said quietly. He turned his face away.

     He was so pained by who he was; she could see it. She wondered how he had managed to endure all this time.

     “Princess!” Caspian called from across the room. He pointed at her chair. “As fascinating as it is for me to watch this interplay, it is time you heard Mamette and Arduro’s story.”

     Was it possible that all the history books she had ever known had been wrong? Angeline’s world was being turned on its head. But she had no choice. She sighed and left Connor staring at the bloody red water in the basin. She sat back down across from Caspian and smoothed her skirt.

     “I’m not going to believe anything that you say, but if you insist,” she said, leaning back in the chair and crossing her arms.

     “Oh I insist, yes, I do.”

     “Mamette and Arduro were the firsts,” Caspian said. “A sister and brother who came into being with no knowledge of how they were brought into this world. They only knew that they were two and that they were alone.”

     Try as she might to seem disinterested, Angeline soon found herself completely caught up in the tale.

     “Of the two, Mamette was the eldest so therefore she was the one who decided where they would make their home, where they would hunt, and decide on general guiding principles on how they should behave. Although Mamette had no memory of where they had come from, she knew that they had to have come from somewhere. So she and Arduro set about exploring the world around them, looking for any sign of life and telltale signs of their origins.

     They traveled far and wide across the vast land that would eventually become Altera. They lived off the beasts of the forest and various varieties of vegetation that they found along the way.”

     Caspian saw Angeline’s raised eyebrows. “To clarify in case you don’t understand yet, Mamette and Arduro were not hampered by the blood thirst.”

     “How could they be vampires and not need blood to survive?” Angeline asked.

     “Shhh, we’ll get there,” Caspian said, and he returned to the story.

     “Mamette loved Arduro with all of her heart, and she would have done anything to protect him. But they both grew more and more discouraged as years passed and they found no one. They began to believe that they were truly alone in this world.

     Then the day came that in the furthest heights of the mountains of Gilnor, they found signs of life, or unlife, if you are looking at it through today’s jaded eyes. Mamette and Arduro found a small clan of vampires who made their home in this remote place to worship the gods of creation.

     The head of the order took Mamette off to the side after feeding them and hearing their tales, and told her about the prophesy of their clan. You see, they had been hidden away in the mountains for many years. They had no idea what was below. They were as lost as Mamette and Arduro, but they had their prophesy to comfort them. They were waiting for The One. The One would bring about a new golden age for the clan, a time of great prosperity and wealth for everyone. And they believed that Mamette was “The One.”

     Perhaps it was because Mamette had been alone for so long that she wanted desperately to feel like she belonged somewhere that she believed him. She agreed to take part in an ancient ceremony that was supposed to herald the beginning of the golden age. Mamette allowed the clan to separate her and Arduro for many days and promised her that she would see him again once she had fulfilled her obligations in the ceremony.

     What Mamette didn’t know was that the head of the clan was feeding her a very special dish every night for supper, a dish that Mamette thought was supposed to help prepare her and give her strength for the ceremony.

     The night of the ceremony finally arrived. Mamette was dressed in a lovely white gown and escorted into the temple. And there bound on the altar she found her brother Arduro, who was bleeding from multiple superficial cuts all over his body. Mamette demanded his release immediately, but then suddenly she felt something very wrong start to happen inside of her. She could smell Arduro’s blood as it seeped from his skin, and the smell was intoxicating and strong, and familiar. You see, the clan had been spiking Mamette’s food with her brother’s blood.

     The clan started to chant and then the magic took over. Mamette tried to resist, but her blood thirst had been awakened and madness took over. She slaughtered her beloved brother right there on the altar, and the holy shrine was bathed in blood. Mamette became the first blood-drinking vampire.

     The ceremony was completed, the prophesy fulfilled, and the gods were forced to adhere to a promise they never expected to grant: they had to give the clan total control over Altera for the rest of time. But they added some conditions that bespoke of their anger with the clan and with Mamette, who had killed an innocent in the pursuit of blood.

     The gods created humans, the perfect food source for the vampires, and one that would ensure the vampires would prosper. But they also cursed the vampires for their blood lust, and took away their ability to move about during the day. Really, the gods were showing favor to the humans and setting the stage for the eventual battle of human and vampire. A battle that rages on to this day.”

     Angeline didn’t say anything for a few moments after Caspian’s story concluded. “You said that this story told the beginnings of all three creatures. What of the wraith?”

     “I would have thought you would have guessed,” Caspian said. “Arduro became the first wraith. Drained of all of his blood, he died, but not before being tainted with Mamette’s venom. The worst part was that the ceremony itself poisoned his soul. Arduro went insane and murdered many humans before Mamette was able to find him. Worse yet, he created more of him that the clan needed to deal with so that the wraiths wouldn’t kill off their new food source.”

     “What happened to Arduro?” Angeline said.

     “When Mamette finally tracked him down she was forced to kill him. Again.”

     “That’s horrible,” Angeline said.

     “Mamette considered what had been done to her brother to be the worst act of nature. She left the clan and started the first vampire coven, although she kept her coven well away from the humans and the clan. She declared that no wraith should ever be created or allowed to live. The law was turn or kill, nothing in between. And that law has been passed down from generation to generation. Wraiths are too dangerous and unpredictable,” Caspian said.

     “So why are you so interested in wraiths?” Angeline said. “Why would you risk your own neck for this, no matter how academic you are?”