Nocturnal

by David Paul

  She was making an example out me in front of her underlings. There were several of her work force that I had yet to meet, and they all fit the same profile as the rest of the staff. There were three more humans, and I knew that they were mortal because I could smell their blood. Five more unknown, but attractive female vampires completed her work force.

  “This mortal had the audacity to defy me,” Regina said, “and he will redeem himself by killing his fiancé as a newly turned vampire.” Regina announced this loudly in grandiose fashion as if she were addressing an entire nation as her audience. The group of onlookers watched with their utmost attention. All of the vampires were grinning.

  Regina had Svetlana open Katerina’s door, and I saw for the first time with her own eyes that Katerina was obviously pregnant. Katerina was writhing in pain while lying on her back.

  A huge bulbous stomach protruded from her body, but it looked extremely unhealthy. It didn’t look like the stomach of a normal mother-to-be. There was something so very wrong with the black and red discoloration under her skin and the violent movement going on inside.

  “What is this?” She asked. Regina sounded puzzled for the first time since I met her. “She wasn’t pregnant before I left. She looks as if she is in the latter stages of the birthing process.” The vampire looked at me. “Davide, I hope that you don’t think that you are off the hook now because she is pregnant.” She was merciless. “This is an unnatural pregnancy.”

  “Regina, will you show mercy?” I asked.

  “Mercy is for weak-minded fools, and those who cannot fend for themselves. There will be no mercy here tonight, Davide.”

  She assured me where she stood in regards to showing mercy. Katerina was mumbling random things on the bed. It was crowded with so many people in her cell watching.

  “The Antichrist is inside my womb and eating me alive,” Katerina rambled. Katerina spoke prophetically with a different voice. “My life is the price of his birth, but he will spare my soul.”

  “Another fragile mind shattered,” Regina said.

  I was dying inside watching Katerina in so much pain, and I needed to buy time before my next move. Suddenly it hit me. Zurelda put this spell on Katerina before she was even held captive. With everything that had been predicted, maybe Zurelda was able to see her own demise somehow and wanted to get revenge on Regina. Maybe she knew Regina would betray her.

  “Is it possible that you’ve been out-witted by Zurelda?” I asked. I tried to stall.

  “The same Zurelda that is headless and dead? I think not.”

  “Maybe, she knew that you would betray her, Regina.”

  “She was as foolish as you are. I highly doubt that she could see that far into the future.” She became more agitated with my comments. It started to make sense a little better to me.

  Katerina spoke in an insane tongue.

  “He’s coming to take over the world…let there be light…let there be light.”

  As Regina turned to look over at Katerina, it happened.

  “Davide!”

  Katerina screamed the loudest and most blood-curdling scream. Katerina convulsed and contorted, then her stomach ripped open from the inside out. Blood poured out of every open orifice in her body. A clawed hand that could have only belonged to a vile demon emerged from her bleeding stomach followed by another claw. These demon hands opened up Katerina’s belly and tore it open until all of her insides were exposed.

  A hideous winged demon poked its devious snout out of the bloody mess of her innards. The demon had reddish black skin. Katerina was still alive, but in systemic shock. Her convulsing body spewed stomach bile and blood in all directions. Regina herself watched on in amazement as this unfolded inside the chamber on the bed. Katerina’s eyes told a tale of despair as she focused on me. She was alive, but barely.

  “It is alright. My soul will be spared,” Katerina said in a bloody haze.

  “Katerina!” I screamed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t assist her. The demon grew at an exponential rate, and this was the bloody end of my poor Katerina. The demon shed her skin like a banana peel. Her body shredded almost completely in half, covering everyone in her bloody entrails.

  Regina ordered everyone out of the cell, slammed the heavy wooden door, and locked it. For the first time, I saw Regina disheveled. From the hole in the cell door, I could see that this beast’s body appeared to be roughly twelve or so feet. A coiled tail that was twice as long as its body twisted and writhed all around the room like a giant anaconda. For a few moments, there was a calm silence in the castle.

  “That headless witch is tormenting me from beyond the grave,” she said. Regina laughs to herself. Perhaps, my assumption was correct.

  “Shall I dismiss the staff?” Svetlana asked.

  “Shut your goddamn mouth, or you will be the recipient of my wrath.” The furious master vampire warned Svetlana. The servant realized that she had acted foolishly. Svetlana immediately cowered back into a respectful position on her knees. I could see Regina fuming with her red eyes locked on me.

  The wheels were turning inside of her brain, and I imagined that she was thinking of a way to torment and punish me. A moment later, all hell broke loose.

  The outside retaining wall of Katerina’s cell exploded, and stone chard flew into the room like a hand grenade went off. The blast was powerful. Chloe and If were standing near the cell door, and we luckily avoided the deadly flying debris. Instantly, two of the humans died in gruesome fashion. Their bodies were pelted by sharp stone fragments. Several of the vampires were battered severely and thrown backwards.

  The beast immersed from the demolished cell. The winged demon took flight and attacked everyone randomly. It grabbed its prey with large muscular arms and a deadly coiled tail. The high ceilings in the corridor allowed the demon to take flight freely like some kind of a satanic parakeet flying adeptly in its cage.

  Morena was the first to go at the hands of this beast. The demon snatched her up mid-air with its claws and bit off her head like the end of a cigar. The creature’s massive powerful jaws made short work of her. The grotesque crunching noise of her skull being crushed echoed loudly throughout the corridor. Morena’s headless, brutalized body was thrown like a bloody rag doll onto the floor.

  Everything happened so lightning fast, and people were dead before they could even react. Even the vampires were no match for this demon as they scattered helplessly to avoid being torn to pieces. This otherworldly beast moved swiftly and disposed of Regina’s staff with ease.

  The hell-spawn had black emotionless eyes like that of a great white shark and a loud shrill screech that filled the room with fear. Regina turned to mist form and vacated the bloodbath seemingly unharmed. Almost all of her servants and followers were slaughtered effortlessly by the hell-spawn. I also fled with Chloe close behind me. As I ran, I could hear screams of terror coming from the corridor.

  I had to take out the map that Chloe provided me with to navigate through the castle because of its sheer size and wild design. Full speed, I ran down the majestic stairs leading to the dining ballroom. From the map, it appeared that I was on the second tier of the Ravenwood Castle’s west wing. In the craziness, I lost Chloe and realized that she was no longer behind me. The castle was very empty, and for the first time I saw the layout. Chloe was nowhere to be found.

  Temporarily, I had forgotten that I was a vampire. I didn’t run out of breath for a full on non-stop sprint. I must have run faster than her, and now I couldn’t find her. She was the one who was going to assist me to escape from this place, and I refused to leave Chloe here to perish.

  The castle gates and the drawbridge were very close, but I turned around to find Chloe. She deserved to get out of this madhouse of terror. Quickly, I made my way back towards the dining hall. My new-found agility was amazing. I felt in total control of my body as I was able to almost leap the staircase towards the second level corridor. As I rounded the corner, there was Chloe or so I thought. I stop
ped dead in my tracks.

  Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my side and realized that I had been fooled by yet more vampire black magic. It was a bloodied Svetlana that had stabbed me with a silver dagger close to my gut. There was pain, but the fear of dying was gone. It had caught me off guard nevertheless. All of my new-found powers were unknown to me. I wasn’t quite sure what would kill me.

  In Vermeir’s book, a wooden stake to the heart would prove fatal for a vamp, but would a silver dagger do it? I didn’t want to find out the hard way to say the least. The demon disposed of most of the vampires rather easily, but it literally bit off their heads and ate them. That would be pretty hard to come back from.

  Svetlana grabbed my throat, knocked me down, and repeatedly smashed my head on the stone floor near the stairs. I tried to fight back, but Svetlana had me overpowered and in a compromising position because I was on my back. There was no leverage to be had with her on top of me.

  “I’m going to end your miserable existence for good,” she screamed.

  Her right hand became free, and I saw the silver dagger go up for the death strike, which I actually welcomed with open arms. The killing blow never came. I watched Svetlana’s facial expression change, and then her chest exploded with dark blood all over me.

  “Get away from him, you goddamn wicked bitch!” A phantom voice said. Chloe had rammed an intricately carved, wooden candlestick holder into her back and through her black heart. Chloe had wanted to do that for quite some time now, and she got her chance. Svetlana turned to dust, and the silver dagger fell from her hand. Blade first, into my shoulder, it dug in about two inches deep.

  “Chloe, it is you! I thought I had lost you.”

  “We need to leave at once,” she said. “The demon has killed almost everyone. Regina had been bitten on her upper arm, but she still is in the castle.” I was surprised that Regina was injured. “I unlocked every cell that I could to help out the prisoners on the way here, and I brought you your book.”

  “What book?” I asked.

  “The big heavy one that I left with you in your chambers…”

  “I didn’t realize that it was you who left it there for me to see.”

  Chloe helped me up from the floor and mercifully removed the dagger quickly. I winced. “I had a dream,” she said, “and a man named Capello had asked me to help you.”

  “Capello?” I asked. I armed myself with the bloody silver dagger.

  “He came to me more than once in dreams just before you were brought to the castle.”

  “I can’t believe all of this,” I said.

  “Capello claimed to be your friend,” she explained. “He rambled on and on about Fate and prophecies. The man made me swear in my dream that I would help you. That is what made me decide to help you escape. I figured the book might have helped you as well. I’ve actually read that book, and it helped me learn a great deal about the vampires. The book almost drove me to insanity. Supposedly, it reads different for a human as compared to a vampire. I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

  “Let’s continue our conversation elsewhere, Chloe.”

  She nodded in agreement, and I followed her back towards the front gates without any further resistance from any castle inhabitants. She had the book wrapped in my sheet, and I took the cumbersome book to carry for myself. Screams echoed throughout the castle, but their origins were unknown. The stone tiles and marble surfaces made every sound seemingly bounce off of the walls and carry. We were very close to the inner castle gates, and I decided to scout the area first.

  Damien wasn’t in plain view, and we didn’t know where he was. At five hundred pounds, the gatekeeper shouldn’t have been too hard to spot. No one was in sight at all. The controls to the inner gates were left unmanned. An iron wheel connected to a primitive gear and a counterbalance was the only way to open the gates. I couldn’t budge the goddamn thing. A strong feeling of weakness came over me along with a hunger.

  “Take her…drink her blood,” the voice in my head instigated. The smell of Chloe’s blood was intoxicating to me. A little nagging voice inside me kept telling me to kill her. I turned to her, and I was fighting the urge to attack. Her perfectly smooth neck spoke to me and invited me to come closer. Every heartbeat of Chloe’s was pronounced and clearly audible from two yards away. I could hear her lifeblood pumping through her veins like a beautiful monotonous symphony begging for me to listen… calling me to kill.

  “Your eyes are red,” she said. Chloe recognized my symptoms immediately because she had been around vampires for at least six years. “You need blood, Davide.”

  “I’m going fucking crazy,” I said to Chloe. My body felt so weak and everything hurt all over.

  “Let me help you!” She yelled.

  “I can’t control what I’m feeling,” I said. I needed her to leave me. “Run now, Chloe.” She stood there puzzled. “Goddamn it, Chloe! Run from me!”

  She just stood there. I couldn’t stress enough the urgency of my request. Just as I had screamed at Chloe, Damien entered the castle main foyer with his double-sided battle-axe in hand. Honestly, I almost attacked Chloe out of weakness, and his arrival was timely to say the least.

  His appearance was way more menacing than Chloe’s brief description of him. An executioner’s black hood partially covered a twisted and scarred face, and soiled clothes were hidden under thick studded-leather armor. His dark beady eyes made him look untrustworthy and cold.

  Two rows of sharpened jagged teeth gave him the appearance of having a smile of broken glass. He took deep heavy breaths and drooled like a rabid dog. Each footstep almost shook the ground like an earthquake as he approached us slowly, but steadily. Damien got within five or six feet from us before he spoke. The guardian smelled like a dung pile.

  “Da gates are mine area. You no belong,” he said.

  His frighteningly deep, nasal voice was barely able to be comprehended. Inside my mind, I was having a meltdown of major proportions. This behemoth stood between freedom and a lifetime of slavery. While planning our escape, I had envisioned somehow outsmarting the slow-witted Damien, but the fierce hunger inside me caused me to absolutely fly into a frenzied mindless rage.

  All the pain, frustration, rage, and deep sorrow mixed with hunger culminated inside my mind. I exploded outward like a mindless beast. Even in my weakened state, the hunger for blood pushed my body past its limits. I charged Damien, and he was not expecting my fury.

  Before he could even flinch, I had stabbed him numerous times with little affect. Because of my close proximity to him, he was crossed up and unable to use his battle-axe for offensive purposes. His teeth were an entirely different story as his painful jagged bite clamped down hard on my arm, and I bled profusely.

  I stabbed him over and over, and his blood smelled deliciously inviting. He seemed unaffected by my attacks with the dagger with the exception of the visible flowing blood from his wounds. Damien released his bite and picked me up easily over his head one-handed. He tried to smash my body on a stone wall in the foyer. My dagger was still lodged in his chest.

  A minor miscue allowed me to slip behind him almost as if riding him piggyback. I tried to strangle him, but I couldn’t. I was in a weakened state. Damien’s massive neck was the size of a tree trunk and probably just as difficult to break. Evil instinct took place, and I felt my fangs grow inside my mouth.

  Chloe watched the battle in shock as she saw me look like a vampire for the first time. The smell of the blood in the air excited me like a frenzied shark in the water. Voices in my head kept telling me to indulge in the blood. Drink the blood. Without further hesitation, I bit down hard into his neck. Damien howled in pain.

  The sweet taste of his blood satisfied my dark desires. The more I drank, the more it made the hunger sensations subside. He fought valiantly to pry me off of him and struck me several times, but I never let go of his neck like a wild animal. The need for his blood became overwhelming. Uncontrollably, I gave into the bloodlust. Ea
ch drop of blood that I ingested filled the large empty void inside me. I drew blood from his neck, and he fought back until he finally collapsed from the blood loss.

  The mammoth guardian fell face-forward and lifeless with a thunderous boom that cracked the stone floor. The silver dagger pushed deeper inside him, and I retrieved it. Having some kind of a weapon for defense comforted me. A thought then hit me. I had drunk from the blood of a human being and completed the cycle of the curse.

  A moral dilemma was strangely not even on my mind. Maybe, he deserved what he got, and maybe he didn’t. I didn’t feel guilty over Damien because I was being held captive against my will. I didn’t feel guilty at all. Feelings of invigoration came over me in a way that was indescribable. All of the weakness and mental anguish that I felt earlier from the hunger was gone.

  Being reborn as a superhero was the closest description of what I felt. Damien was my first kill, and I had officially become a full-fledged vampire by the way legend had it. The quickening of my senses and the augmentation of my physical attributes completed my transformation. For the first time, I partially understood how vampires could enjoy being what they are because I felt wonderful. I was in perfect tune with my surroundings, and I felt like I could do anything. Sadly, I wondered when this drug-like euphoria would wear off.