The Anatomy of Vampires: Volume 1 (8 page)

I could finally see the details of her face, then. The crystalline color of her eyes. The angles of her cheekbones like rolling hills of pearl. Her lips full and parted. I could breathe her scent—gardenia. Or jasmine. Or some haunting combination of the two. It made me dizzy. She was only inches from my face, and though I knew she was a deadly and dangerous predator. I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed her with my fingers knotting in the locks of her alabaster hair. I crushed my mortal lips to her dead ones, but they were intoxicating and inviting all the same. They moved against mine. In fact, the feel of their chill caused an arousal within me that felt dastardly and brand new, and I reveled in it for its wrongness. My hands trailed over the dip of her waist and her breasts and her shoulders.

Before I gasped at the feeling of her icy fangs piercing my throat.

I cried out with the immense pressure of my blood being pulled from me, my knees buckling beneath my weight, but somehow this frail woman held me up. Her mouth locked to my flesh, suckling at my life, which poured from me. I groaned, and something within me spoke and told me to relinquish myself to her completely—to just give in.

I wasn’t quite sure of what happened then. There was only the feeling of my back hitting the ground, and the gelatinous feeling of my limbs. I sighed with both exhaustion and elation. Who knew being fed on would be such a glorious feeling? Sensual. Sexual. Lethal. Gritty. Nasty. Lovely. My eyes fluttered, my vision weak and hazy until I could only see the sprinkled stars scattered along the black blanket above twinkling at me. I heard a roaring and a gnashing and what sounded like the scrape of a fang through the trunk of a tree. I gasped, realizing we were no longer alone. There was a brawl, and my Andela was most certainly involved.

Even leaning up on my elbows proved to be difficult, and I fought my way to see what was happening in the dirt and the mist before me. “Andela,” I groaned, my voice nothing more than a feeble murmur.

Her back was turned to me, her claws tearing deep into the fur of something jet black and shadow-like, but I could not quite tell what it was. It was not wolf-shaped. In fact, I did not at all recognize the sort of animal it might have been. It made a fearsome and lowly sound that I suspected was a growl.

“Stay down!” She ordered, throwing the creature high over her head.

I gasped. Did she always have these abilities? Super-human strength? I watched in awe and disbelief as she dug her claws deep within the creature’s flesh. Hideous wails and cries permeated the forest, paired with the sounds of bones breaking and flesh tearing until I saw my
wife
rip the thing clear in half. The blood and carnage rained down over her head, soaking her hair and dress in wine-colored ichor. I covered my mouth, biting down lightly over my flesh to keep from screaming. She turned slowly to face me.

“Sorry, my love,” she whispered in the night, dropping the two heaps of body next to her with a resounding thump in the dirt. “You should leave.”

My lips quivered. My whole body quivered. But I shook my head and tried my best to stand over my shivering knees. “No. I won’t leave you again.”

“You must,” she began tearfully. Her chest expanded and she withdrew a tall breath and held it. I suspected she was fighting not to cry. “You cannot stay. It is far too dangerous.”

“But…you….”

“We live in different worlds now, Alistair,” she said. Her voice broke, finally revealing her true emotions. “It’s time to say good-bye.”

I blinked back the memories of a time not so long ago. A time when we were young and wildly in love. A time when I had no idea these things could possibly exist.

“Andela, one last thing.” I took a step toward her, reaching out for her to keep her from disintegrating in the shadows—to keep her from leaving me forever.

“Your entrapment will not be in vain. You will be free again. I have been—”

“I know what you have been doing,” she interjected. “So many of us know. It is very valiant of you, but amazingly dangerous.” A drop of anger colored her tone. “I don’t want you putting yourself in danger for me.”

“But I could make an enormous difference in your world and in mine,” I argued. “No.” I shook my head. “I won’t stop. These secrets must be revealed.” I reached into my coat pocket and held out the parchment letter, which was still sealed. “And I have this now.”

Her phantasmal gaze flickered down to the document and then fiercely back up to my face. “Where did you get that?”

“It was given to me. In London. By a strange man who didn’t reveal his name.”

Her mouth fell open and took a step back. “You must heed everything in this letter. You must devour every word. Do you understand?”

I nodded. Her words weighed a ton, and so I stuffed the document back into my coat.

“Something to ponder for your studies,” she began again. “I have never felt more powerful until I drank from you. I have experienced amazing abilities, but never were they as potent before tonight.”

I nodded, but remained silent.

“Something to consider.”

“I will.” And it was true. I found it very interesting.

“I love you forever.”

“Always,” I said.

And with another gust of wind, she was gone. Disappeared into the night, back to a world where I would never belong. But she bestowed upon me a gift that would live within me forever. And I had no idea what was coming for me.

I didn’t know it then, but the scar she’d left at my throat was the best clue she could have given me. After that night, I encountered many more Vampires who wanted to speak with me—to divulge information for my effort. They wished to discuss many things. Mostly the Regime, and their personal stories of their deaths by sunrise, members of their covens being captured for crossing borders, and attacks by Lycans and various followers of the light.

I understood the Elves and, most importantly, the Wizards of the Regime were the Vampires’ natural enemies. I understood their leader, Vladislov, was hell-bent on the destruction of the night—suffocating the Vampires by keeping them locked in their secret cities. Starving them. Banishing them. Misunderstanding them. Perhaps he was afraid. Perhaps it was because he knew of a secret I’d only just discovered….

It was very rare I came across a Vampire who shared a relationship with a mortal. Most of them felt very differently—we are just livestock and our only purpose is for feeding. But those who lived more open-mindedly knew different. There was more to the living than just keeping the dead alive. The Witch was right. There was something special about the single line running through my right palm. I guess I’d never noticed the matching line living in my wife’s palm as well. We were eternally linked to one another. “Fate lines,” they were called. And even though we could not be together, our fate would never truly separate. And there was comfort in knowing that.

But something even more curious, was what the other cursed people expressed to me; the same notion of feeling more
powerful
once they’d fed from their mortal counterpart—the one they were eternally linked to. It was the same idea expressed to me by my wife. What could it have been? Was it something living within the blood? Was it something Vladislov feared most entirely—the Vampires would be unbeatable if they discovered this? Was that why he kept them so far away from what they needed most? Mortal blood. Interaction with people. Perhaps there was something special about a Vampire who learned to love their prey. Or something else.

Perhaps…there was something special about a human being who could learn to love a monster….

Dark History

“When one sun sets, a new one is reborn. And so the reign of perpetual day illuminates our world of magic, intrigue, and knowledge….”

~Valdiver of Russia: the first ruler of the Regime

It took a long while to return to my studies after leaving Andela forever. It took a long while to regain the passion and the gumption to pursue anything. I knew she’d become the undead, but saying
good-bye
one final time was all too finite for me to deal with, and it left me with a heavy amount of grieving. But the things she said, and the things I’d noticed and seen, left me with more questions I often pondered late into the night. I lay in the bed of the inn where I stayed, tossing over the biggest question that gestated in my mind until I was ready to pop.

Who was responsible for all of this?

Certainly, it wasn’t God. Or was it?
Who
had placed all of this magic and complete and utter secrecy here among us? Perhaps it was the devil, or some other divine source also existing in secret. Whatever or whoever it was, was the reason my life had been turned on its head. It was the reason that now, in all ways but one, my wife was dead to me.

It was the question of the origin of the Occult, which inspired me to reach the first theological library I could find. It would be a mortal establishment, but it was the only place where I knew to begin. And just like any little dingy town with a whorehouse and a tavern, there would inevitably be a church just down the street.

I don’t recall what time of night it was. The only thing I can remember was the overwhelming blanket of clouds completely encasing the moon and stars. There was absolutely no light that night and I didn’t wait, dashing from the inn to the empty streets. It seemed most heathens in this world sought retribution when it was darkest and bleakest—when no one would be watching. I knew the church would have its doors open. I ran, the sound of my soles slapping the wet cobblestones, my briefcase heavy in my hand. I ran until I reached the part of the town center that snaked off into various, outlying alleyways and side streets—where the buildings seemed more crooked and worn and the streetlamp lighting just a little dimmer.

I found the brothel, wedged between a bank and a sterile-looking office building—the church I’d been looking for. There were chinks missing in the stone walls, the steeple needed painting and looked like it might tumble and fall with the next breeze, but it was standing, and the front door was cracked as if the very place awaited my arrival.

I entered quietly, slipping easily through the crack in the door without shifting it, and blessed myself with the pool of holy water waiting in a stone basin just off to the side. After all I’d learned of what truly did exist in the world, it was mostly out of respect and less out of belief.

There were monsters in the world.

Demons were real and they took the life of my beloved and made her what they are. Bloodthirsty things. Things that are wicked and wondrous and crave our flesh in the night. These are the things I believed in now and impassioned me to search for the real truth. And maybe I would find some of those answers inside the decaying walls of Catholicism and ancient spirituality.

The church was modest—only room enough for less than one hundred people in the pews and a choir adorned with the images of Jesus Christ, but not in the opulent, golden way he was depicted in the famous basilicas of London, Paris, or Prague. These were simpler walls, with a few pieces of stained glass, crude murals, and a short nun who emerged to me through another doorway.

I stopped, my briefcase still clutched tightly in my hand, and regarded her with a wide-eyed, childlike question. As I observed her kindly disposition about her cracked spectacles and rosy cheeks, and I knew she would not turn me away. She approached me with both hands folded delicately in front of her, the color of her hair hidden from sight. Her feet were covered in nothing more than white socks and patched-up sandals.

“Good evening, son.” She smiled and nodded, her voice delicate. It reminded me of the twinkling of a wind chime.

“Evening.” I hesitated, flipping through choices in my head of how to word my request. “I’m aware of the late hour, but—”

“I know why you have come,” she nearly whispered.

I snapped my mouth shut and simply frowned at her. Impossible. Was she mistaken? How could she possibly know?

“You do?” I asked and waited for her to say something about repenting for my sins, learning about the trinity, or something similar. But she didn’t. She didn’t say anything at all. With a twinkle in her eye and a tightly wound grin, she turned.

“Follow me,” she murmured and retreated back in the direction she entered from. I followed. There was something in the way she looked at me that told me she really
did
have a true understanding about why I was there. It was something which was more present in the words she did
not
say, rather than in the ones she did.

I had to ask, “How do you know?”

She peered at me whimsically over her round shoulder. “They are watching. There’s not a lot I can say other than you must heed the words concealed in the letter given to you. You
must
find your answers, word them carefully, and go.”

“Might I remove texts from this library?”