Back to the Shadows

Ontwaken

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                The town was infested with us. A few of us arrived here, long ago, and we thrived and prospered. It was such a pleasant place to be, long, warm nights, young folk with the hot blood flowing – flowing all too often. The song of death was strong there. And so many heeded the call…

Even though we selected very few to join us – the rest, other mortals died, gladly, with a joy no one who has not experienced it shall ever understand – we slowly grew in number. Most new members arrived from other places, hearing the call of this friendly haven. Our group eventually became the largest concentration in the whole country – indeed, in the whole continent. We frightened people. We frightened the Inquisition. The Inquisition, in turn, didn’t frighten us in the least. They knew of our existence, of course they did, but there was nothing they could do about us! And in the town, frightened children cried at night, people went to bed wondering whether they would be alive to see the next day, or whether their loved ones would… 

It wasn’t as bad as all that. But stories grew, and people have a vivid imagination – especially when this was fed by their priests, and the inquisition. Most of the things they told about us were lies, but they believed in them, for their own comfort. Their followers believed the lies as well. At nightly services, some of us sat right side by side with those mortals, those believers, in the church.

None ever realized who or what we were. They know so little of us, so little of what we do. How we played Gods ourselves, choosing to let this one live, to let that one die, to protect this mortals life and to take another one in return…

Most of the time passed innocently. The city was remarkably free of crimes as thievery and such. People were rarely robbed of money and jewelry. Not that it was not tried – our town was a rich one – but usually it was the robbers who were robbed – of their life, and incidentally of their possessions. Ah, those early years… When we were few, when we silently hunted, stalking a prey, all to often a mortal thinking himself to be a hunter, too, a hunter of bounty, stalking a ponderous, rich prey. Dreaming his puny mortal dreams…One more this night… Looks like a rich one. A few more like this, and then, AWAY! New life, in Paradis, perhaps. Always dreamed of going there… An image of the stalker’s mind: the man himself, dressed in rich mortals clothes, playing the rich man, all the time while looking down on his fellow companions, thinking How much more am I than them... These fascinating mortal dreams. So enjoyable to see these end…

The hunted, hunter in his imagination, readies himself for the kill. A dagger slides softly out of its sheath, the whisper of velvet over steel… He tenses, his heart thumps so loud he’s afraid the whole world will hear this, he fears this moment yet lives for the thrill…

Will I ever be able to give this up? he wonders briefly. Ah, the sweet sound of his heart in my ears, the most beautiful sound in the world, so alive. He jumps, two swift steps take him within reach of his victim, he readies himself for the kill – and is suddenly swept upward in the wind of the night, surrounded by velvet and silk, and chilly hands. He sees the lights of the city growing smaller under him, he floats, stiffens with fear and excitement and incomprehension, What the hell-

An astute description, even though he doesn’t know it. The last minutes of the mortals’ life pass in ecstasy. For an eternity our hearts beat together, his growing slowly weaker, mine stronger, the taste of his blood strong in my veins. With a final sigh his life floats up and his body drifts down… Far under me, a splash in the river is lost in the sounds of the city nightlife.

We lived our lives – this word used in the broadest sense – in luxury. We went out often, frequently mingled with the mortal inhabitants of the town, visited theaters and opera’s, taverns and parties. We mingled with the rich and the poor, were welcomed by all, those who never knew who we were.

But many of those mortals were never found after such nights. As we grew in number, it was impossible merely to feed on thieves and drunkards – not to mention the fact some of us had no taste for them. One of us had a liking for children, but it takes a lot of children to meet the needs of even one night. The city was remarkably free of beggars, too. It enhanced the image of a rich and wealthy town.

So time passed, like the stream by which the town was build, years passed by like days. We were the Lords of the Night, we passed amongst mortals, we talked with them, fed on them, even, on occasion, befriended some of them. A few of them, very few, we embraced, to become our companions and friends forever. One of those was Roberto.

Roberto Pedro Alonzo da Gracia was the youngest son of a merchant. His family had lived here for generations and I must have looked upon young Roberto many times before I noticed him. Before that, I suppose, he was simply background scenery for me, one more mere mortal and potential prey.

He was in one of the better taverns of the town, “The Sword and Rose”. It was an inn frequently visited by travelers, merchants and adventurers alike, and for that reason extremely popular by the locals. Especially by the richer youths, those who still had dreams and – they hoped – the money to sustain them. I could see the dreams in their heads: dreams of adventures, brave deeds, travelling around, seeing the world and all the magic countries they had heard about, dreams of making money and becoming richer than their fathers, of settling down – eventually – maybe come back here one day and sit in the very same inn, dressed in exotic clothes and telling stories of their adventures themselves.

Roberto I noticed because his dreams were so unusual. Not for him the dreams of travelling, of becoming rich. Nor the dream of settling down, marrying, building a little family all his own – the nauseatingly sweet thoughts of most young women and men. His dreams were complex abstractions of great beauty, of an intricate simplicity, brightly colored, so much more vivid than the dreary thoughts of those around him. Studying him, I slowly nodded. Yes, this young man had potential.

He must have had at least a notion of what we were, for while I watched him, watched the simple, complex images in his mind, suddenly he looked straight at me. I could see the longing in his eyes. And just as sudden the images in his head flowed together and formed one picture of such a clear radiance I almost turned away. He saw me, almost as one of my kind would see me, unnaturally beautiful – and a picture of himself, transformed with the same pure beauty. In his heart he was already one of us!

Many a time I’ve seen them wandering through the streets, romantic young men and women who longed for the embrace of death – or so they thought, for when at last my death embraced them, they shied away, shocked by what they thought was a dream but turned out to be a nightmare, the ultimate end. But this man didn’t just long for death-

He came over and joined me, gliding in his chair with a gracious, natural movement. Ah, I could see what he was, and what he could be. He would be so beautiful…

Again he looked directly at me. If I had been a mortal I could have lost myself in those eyes. He said softly: “I want to die, then live again.” He paused, looking at me intently. My face remained expressionless. After awhile, when it became obvious I would not answer, he added: “Do you understand what I mean?”

“Get yourself a drink”, I said.

Immediately the young man jumped up, walked past his friends to the bar, ordered a bottle of wine. His friends didn’t notice him, nor did he seem to notice them. Even as he paused to pick up a glass from the table on which his friends were sitting, none looked up. He walked past them as if, by the mere action of looking at me, he had already become a ghost. He glided down on his seat and poured his glass. He held the bottle up. “You want some?”

I merely looked.

It was the first and only time he slipped up - if it had been a slip, indeed. He smiled as he put the bottle down again. “Not nearly nourishing enough, for you.” He leaned back in his chair and raised his glass. In the light of the candles the wine was red as blood. I continued to look at him.

At last I said: “What can I do for you?”

“You know what I want!” he said intently. “Make me one of you.”

“Why should I?” I asked. I could read the answer in his mind before he spoke. You didn’t need to be a telepath for this.

“Because I am already one of you. In my heart, in my soul. Only my body still lives. I need you for the final step.”

I smiled slightly. “You know who we are?”

“Yes.”

“What we are? What we do?’

“Yes.”

“Not many mortals know this. Tell me what you know. What you think you know, anyway.”

His eyes, dark and intent, bore into mine. “I’ve watched you. For as long as I could remember. I listened to all the stories I could find. Most of these are nonsense. They don’t know what they are talking about. I’ve seen you feed, twice. I’ve heard them, heard your victims die. I want that, too.”

My smile widened – just enough to let the points of my teeth show. “The dying?”

“No! To take!” He nearly screamed the last word. He looked up, to see if people had heard. Again no one reacted. Roberto relaxed.

His voice softened, the intensity didn’t diminish. “I want to be one of you,”

“You’re not the first to say this, nor will you be the last.” A lie. “Even so, we rarely embrace those. Most we simply kill. Why should you be different?”

“How can I prove what I say? You know! Just look at me. You don’t need my words to convince you. My thoughts speak for me.”

How could a mere mortal know so much about us? No one of us had ever talked to him, I was sure. We rarely talked to mortals, most certainly not about what we are. He came so close to the dark secrets of our souls…

But he was right. The only thing what separated him from us was the final step. I looked up, into the dark eyes riveted to my face. “When?” I merely asked.

“Now!”

We got up, walked though the tavern and past his friends, past merchants, adventurers and the usual inhabitants of the Sword and Rose, walked by like ghosts. The night was warm and alive. I took him in my arms and we floated up, up and away. Let sweet darkness fall…

            So began our time together. Like a dream, a dream for all eternity. He was mine and I was his. From the beginning, from the very moment I made him, gave him his unlife, we were together. Ours was a unity you rarely find, even amongst us. We did everything together. We hunted together. He was bolder than I was, his hunger was greater and his creativity topped any I’ve ever seen before. He made an art of killing. The terror of the town began.

Even so, we lived freely for many years. But as the number of vampires grew, the mortals began to dwindle. The living inhabitants of the town were more frightened than ever. Now, when we sat in the taverns, we could hear how the laughter was muted and shrill, almost hysterical. People told each other stories in a whispering voice of horrors unseen and horrors guessed at. People rarely traveled alone through the night these days. In churches the priests preached and they all prayed for deliverance of the unnatural. Sometimes we visited these services and fed while these mortals prayed and sang. And more and more died…

One night Roberto and I hovered up to one of the older buildings in the middle of the city. A single window was alight, high up. We slipped in through the window – a window so small a mortal child would be unable to pass through – and entered the chamber. It was small and round, lighted by a single candle that flickered in the sudden wind. In the room, lying on the furs that was the bed, a young woman looked up and shivered. “It’s cold,” she whispered, pressing her body closer to that of the boy. The boy smiled in response. He was not pretty, but the tender smile lit his face. “Let me take care of that,” he said. Gently he covered the girl with one of the furs, used another one to cover the window and laid himself down again. Twice he walked right past us without noticing us.

Roberto and I knew each other so well, so well… While the man walked to the window and back, more time had passed for him than he knew. Time enough for both of us to taste of the girl – young women were Roberto’s favorite. She was still alive when the man came back – barely. We watched while she died in his arms. Sometimes emotions are so beautiful to see…
I felt Robertito’s thoughts: Shall we take him, too?

No. Not much fun. Later, perhaps… When despair has fully hit him… We drank, but didn’t kill him. Then we left, leaving him, drowsy with despair and loss of blood. The curtain never moved. Nor did the boy.

            What happened next I only later knew. But it was the turning of the tide. It was the first spark of what would become an immense fire of anger, a fire that would eventually destroy the city and all living creatures in it. The young man whose lover we had taken – we never learned her name, not that we were particularly interested in that – learned almost as much about us as Roberto had known before I gave him the gift. But he learned the hard way. He talked a lot – talked to other mortals, talked to the priests, talked about what happened to him, what happened to others. With other victims he formed groups - groups of vampire killers!
Before long, a complete war raged between the mortals and us. Dead fell on both sides. On our side mostly through carelessness – vampires who weren’t careful enough in hiding at day, who were overconfident in stalking, attacking their prey. Prey suddenly fought back, weak mortals showed their teeth at last. Roberto was exhilarated. He merely thought this new-found war a challenge, not something which might seriously affect us. And he was right, would have been right, if not-

            And here begin the nightmares. I remember something that began like a dream, a young man in a circle of others. Candles were burning, the smell of incense was strong. A cross hung prominently above something that looked like an altar, but for the rest the room little resembled a church. All the others were on their knees, the young man alone was standing. I recognized him: the young man we had decided to let live. I don’t know where they were, but it was day, I felt it. They were holding a ritual. It had very little to do with God.

I couldn’t hear the words, could only see what they were doing. But somehow I knew what it was what they did, I knew what the man asked. The goal of this ritual was to find who had murdered the woman he loved. And in the middle of the circle they formed, I could see a ghostly shimmer… the room where we slept.

I tried to wake up, oh Gods, how I tried to wake up. I know I’m an early riser. By the time I opened my eyes, I was ready for them. They were all still here when I woke, all of the men I’d dreamed about. I could feel them all. And the sharp pain of loss stung me: I was too late. They had already killed Roberto. But I woke earlier than the killers had expected: they were still here!

I rose, moving swifter than a mortal’s eye could see, killing all but three before they could leave. Of the three who left, two were wounded: one in his shoulder and the other slashed in his face, nearly blinded. I threw my dagger as they ran. It landed in the back of the third, who stumbled as he fled. Then I turned to Roberto.

He was dead, truly dead. They had been thorough, alright. The horrible truth before my eyes, the stake in his heart, his head cut off. The radiance dimmed forever, the intense dark eyes now closed-

I kissed him gently, one last time. Then I went out. In the courtyard outside the house I build a funeral pyre. Around it I drew a circle, scribbled symbols. From deep inside welled the knowledge, each step dictating the next. When all was done, I went inside for the last time.

I lifted Roberto as one would lift a sleeping child, carried him outside, laid him on the pyre. “Now sleep well, my love, ”I whispered. “You shall be avenged.” With my mind I lit the pyre. With my blood I called the Gods, the dark Gods of the night. I called upon them, crying my avenge: “To all ye Gods I call, I summon ye, by blood and night, by death and might, destroy these mortals destroy this town for all they have destroyed let them pay in blood and more, let fire and ash consume this place, let the light they love so much be their end, I call to you in Roberto’s name, let this end let them end LET THEM END!!!” And from the pyre a fire sprang and grew and grew and grew…

I know nothing more. A night has passed, and a day, and another night began. How I survived the day, out here in the open, I do not know. All I know, the next thing I remember, is looking up. The town was gone. The fire had died. In my hands I held a little box. Without having to open it I knew it contained the ashes of Roberto. A last gift from the Gods on which I’d called.

I looked around. How many died that night I’d never know. Only later I learned one mortal, just one, had survived. The town was gone. Quite literally gone. A great black spot was all that marked the place. Not one house, not even a single stone, was left. Only the place where Roberto had been was unmarked.

Under the cover of the night I got up and walked away.