by David Paul
Splashes of blood adorned the walls randomly. The chateau’s stone floor was covered in deep red blood. The parents were beaten severely before they were drained. The tell tale sign was the fractured bones and bruises on their lifeless corpses. They must have fought valiantly against a far superior opponent in hopes of defending their young children. This monster murdered three children, two boys and a female infant. This was the monster that I created out of my own foolish ignorance.
“Chloe, what have you done?” She had a deranged scowl.
Blood was everywhere.
“I told them that I was lost and that I needed help,” she said. “They invited me inside, and I quenched my thirst.”
“You goddamn fiend!” I screamed. Her face had no remorse. I was so disappointed with her. “I thought we agreed to abstain from innocents.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything,” she said. Chloe smiled in a devious manner that angered me. “They are all sheep, ready to be slaughtered.” The evil curse had dug its black talons into her weak soul and poisoned her mind with putrid foulness.
“Put down the infant at once, you depraved bitch.” I willed her to release her grip on the dead infant. In disgust, Chloe threw the child into the lit fireplace with great force against the stone back wall. The impact maimed the child’s desecrated body further. An instantaneous stench of burning flesh filled up the chateau with sickening smoke. I was able to control Chloe with some success, but I didn’t quite have Regina’s command of the ability.
Being a rookie vampire, my skills were moderate at absolute best.
She was no longer the Chloe I had known. Her pretty face was all that was left of the woman that I had fallen for. Her black heart was empty and her mind jaded. Her eyes changed over from gentle to predatory. With Katerina gone, I must have let my emotions get the better of me.
The trauma of seeing my fiancé give birth to a demon must have warped my mind. Those visions will forever haunt my dreams. How could I have been so blind with Chloe? Was this just more of the prophecy unwinding its horrific tale before my sorry eyes? I couldn’t bear to have Chloe be the monster that she had become. Even as a vampire, the gruesome sight of the murdered family somehow almost made me ill. Inside, my blood boiled, and I wanted to rip her head clean off her body. I could see the reflection of my red eyes in her lifeless pupils.
“Davide, what is your problem?”
“My problem?” I asked sarcastically.
“We are finally free and no one can stop us,” she said. Chloe spoke in a frighteningly demonic, yet totally sincere manner. Her eyes were blazing red. “We can dine like kings on the pathetic and feeble humans.” Chloe really meant what she said. It was not the ramblings of a narcissistic poseur. That was when I truly knew that there was no redeeming her. I had lost Chloe to the evil, and I had damned her with my own actions.
“You sound like Regina now,” I said. She gave me a bitchy look. “A few days ago we escaped from her evil grasp, and now you are acting like her.”
“I am a vampire, not a humanitarian,” she said. Chloe laughed at her own humor. “How are we supposed to feed?” She deflected my statement with a question. Chloe wouldn’t give me any cooperation at all.
“There are plenty of people to feed on, Chloe.” I pointed to the corpses inside the room. “We don’t have to kill infants and families to feed.” She rolled her eyes in disgust. “We don’t have to be like Regina.” That was my last chance to reason with her. I didn’t want to have to destroy Chloe, but I would if she was going to be a vicious beast like the others that I had encountered.
“To hell with them all,” she screamed. She looked me dead in the eyes. “To hell with you too…” Chloe was serious, and she didn’t care what I had to say. “I will do as I please. You are not my keeper.”
“On the contrary, I am your master, and you will obey me.” She laughed and started to walk out of the chateau.
“You are not my master!” She said.
“Stop at once! Pay respect to your master, Chloe.” Chloe stopped dead in her tracks just outside the threshold of the door. My command had worked. Maybe, I was getting somewhere with this. If I could control her, then I could keep her from being a ruthless killer.
“Release me, Davide! You are the master of nothing!” Chloe didn’t even look like the same person who I had come to know. She had a beautiful outward appearance, but an ugly aura. She wasn’t the same. “You let your true love die a miserable death, and then you fucked me two days later,” Chloe said. She jabbed me below the belt. Chloe knew what I had been through.
She had crossed the line.
“You are a miserable piece of filth!” I said. My temper boiled over even further. A friend wouldn’t go there, and she had. “How could you say that to me? You are truly evil, Chloe.” I could tell that my words only egged her on.
“Your precious little Katerina,” she said. Jealousy took over. “You’ll always love her more than I.” Chloe spat at me. She tried to taunt me with asinine facial expressions like a teenage girl misbehaving. Chloe kept mocking me. Her actions pushed my temper past the boiling point, and I struggled with acting out on my aggression. I wiped the bloody spit from my face. Her belligerence pushed me to say things that I didn’t want to say.
“I liked you better when you were Regina’s filthy whore.” I had touched a nerve. Her face changed from surprise to anger. I had crossed the line. “At least I had some sympathy for you then,” I said. The curse prodded me as well. With glowing eyes and her fangs in full force, Chloe flew at me with the swiftness of a motivated jaguar.
She clawed my face with her razor-sharp fingernails.
“Stand down, Chloe!” I said. I was prepared to discipline her. Blood trickled down my face from four deep claw marks. She did not head my warning and responded by clawing my face again, adding four more fresh wounds. Chloe wrapped her hand around my throat tightly, and my blood dripped down from my wounds onto her hand. We tussled a bit, and I held back from doing what my first impulse told me repeatedly to do.
“Let go of me, or I will end your existence!” I said.
“You don’t have the stones for that, Davide!”
The deranged vampire bit my shoulder and squeezed my neck with more authority. Out of self-defense, I threw her off me. She went flying a good five yards and forcefully collided against an old broken-down tree that stood alone in the front of the chateau. Finally, she became docile and stopped with the insults and attacks. It took brute force to quell her rampage.
“Chloe, I didn’t want to put my hands on you,” I said apologetically. There was no response from her. “Why did you have to force my hand?”
She never answered my question.
David walked over to her, and she was pinned to the tree. I noticed a broken twisted branch through her back that pierced her heart. She looked up at me in amazement, and she appeared to be in her human form with no black evil eyes or exposed fangs. For a brief moment, she was the Chloe that I had fallen for. She was mortally wounded. We shared a tender moment that hurt my soul as I looked into her caring human eyes for one last time, and then she burst into flames.
There were no last words spoken, only a sad sorrowful stare on her pretty face, and she evaporated into the nighttime wind. Chloe was no more, and her remnants were that of charred black soot. The tree she was impaled on burst into roaring flames instantly and illuminated the dark night. Dense smoke billowed from her final resting place. I watched the withered tree burn for hours until it was reduced to smoldering embers at the bottom of the trunk.
Even with my anger on full tilt, my intentions were not to kill her. Even though I knew that in my own mind, I was still overcome with stinging guilt because she had become a monster by my hand. In an attempt to cure my own loneliness and longing, I had turned her and brought this curse upon her soul. Chloe’s soul will dance in limbo until I meet my end. I have her soul inside of me from when I turned her. That was selfish of me in retrospect, and I swore to myself
to be more responsible with my dark gifts. The first person that I turned in my short life as a vampire had turned on me. I was too inexperienced to control her.
The full potential of my powers had not been developed or realized. I could see that this learning process would take time, and only time could bring experience to me. I was alone in the world again, and I knew that was something that I would have to contend with. Vampires and love were two things that apparently didn’t mix well. How can evil share love? I was unable to shed a tear for my first love and still unable to weep for my Chloe. Everything that I felt was trapped inside a prison of my own mind with no key for a release.
I lit the chateau on fire to hide the grizzly murdered bodies of the family that Chloe had slain. I wandered the night aimlessly searching for answers. I decided to seek out Capello. He could help me. Capello was the only person that I could turn to. He would know what to do. I hoped that I was correct.
Not wanting to leave Vermeir’s book unattended, I stopped by Chloe’s chateau to retrieve it. Somberly, I looked at the bed that we had made love in and reminisced of more tender moments. Quickly, I snapped out of that thought because it would only bring more grief if I had dwelled upon it. With extreme concentration, I managed to take flight with the book in hand.
Flying was an amazing experience that I could only keep up with in brief spurts. Mental exhaustion was the cause. It was very strenuous to maintain concentration, and that worked like physical fatigue on the mind. In between, I ran as fast as I could down paths and through wooded areas. Using flight dramatically cut down on travel time. Instead of laboring to traverse hills, flight made short work of them. I felt like a bird that skimmed the treetops.
Before dawn, I had reached Capello’s place. At this time of night, I had figured him to be asleep. As I approached the door, it opened with Capello standing in the doorway.
“Come in my friend. I’ve been expecting you,” he said. I was covered in three murders worth of blood. I looked like a fiend. He had a slight hesitation that I sensed. Capello knew that he had openly invited a vampire into his abode.
“It has been a long while, and I assume you know what has happened to me,” I said. I looked him square in the eyes, and he could see that my eyes were full of blackness and death. He didn’t smell of fear.
“Yes Davide,’ he said, “I am aware of your condition.” Capello observed me. “The entire village owes you a debt of gratitude for defeating Zurelda. We haven’t had any missing persons in the village since her demise.”
“I wanted to thank you for your guidance and all that you had done for me as well. I would have been a slave in Regina’s castle if it weren’t for you.” The fortuneteller made a kind gesture toward me. Capello was still a friend. I knew that he had more to tell me. I couldn’t read his mind, but somehow I just knew.
“Now that all the formalities are done with, we need to talk,” he said. Capello’s look became serious. Without speaking, he once again broke out a chunk of the potent opium, and we chased the demonic serpent’s tail. Even as a vampire, the opium hit me like a ton of bricks, and a soothing calm came over my body. My mind drifted away, and it was cleared of all its thoughts.
Cautiously, Capello cut his finger again and let the blood drip into a bowl of olive oil that was already waiting on the table for this moment to transpire. I watched the blood closely, and it stirred something inside me. I counted each drop. Capello did not ask for a monetary offering, nor did I extend one. Capello watched the oil separate and spoke in a drug-induced trance.
‘Everything up to this point has been fated. Although, the time frames are unclear, the war between good and evil will happen as foretold. Sides will be chosen, and the battles will be fierce. Most of the battles will be spiritual, but blood will be shed as well at the war of the apocalypse.
Your role in this war is pivotal, but your duties are unclear. You must find your own way in this world, and when you are called upon, you must act.
There will be many clouded moments in your travels, and the right path may seem hidden to you. You will walk the path even though you do not know which path to follow. In the end, the road will be revealed, and your true destiny will show itself. You will find yourself at the crossroads of time.
For now, you must go out into the world and find your way. The curse of the vampire has been bestowed upon you for a reason. That reason is part of your destiny, and Fate holds the answers to the puzzle.
The redemption of your soul is not impossible. Even the blackest of hearts can be brought into the light. Stand true to your faith to the best of your ability and follow your instincts. I have nothing else to offer in regards to your destiny. Fate will continue to write itself every step of the way. I have told you everything that there is to tell.’
I thanked Capello for his words, even though I wasn’t quite sure what exactly what he meant. Somehow, I knew that I would find out.
A question had been on my mind for quite some time. “What is your role in all of this Capello?”
“I am simply the messenger, my friend,” he said. “I’ve waited years for our first meeting.”
“You waited all that time, just to meet me?”
“I had no choice, Davide.” He sighed. “It was fated.”
“Who else knows about this prophecy?” I asked.
“A select few have tapped into it on both sides,” he said. He spoke with bloodshot eyes.
“Do you think that Regina knows about this prophecy?” I asked.
“The only way she knows about it is if she called upon another prophet for insight.”
“Who has the power to see that far into the future?” I asked. There had to be someone else that could. “Regina knew that Zurelda would fall, so that means that it is possible that she was able to look further into the future than the witch.”
Capello raised an eyebrow.
“Only a select few in the world have that kind of power and reach,” he said. Capello pondered a bit. I didn’t think that the list would be that long. “I would imagine that a man named Ommen would possess those skills.”
“Should I seek him out?”
“That is at your discretion, Davide.” His body language closed up. It didn’t seem like meeting Ommen was such a great idea. Maybe there was a reason. “He is of pure evil just like Regina and Zurelda. I wouldn’t put it past him to be a false prophet for the higher purpose of serving evil.”
“And what is your purpose Capello?” I asked. “I trust you, but I sometimes wonder about you.”
‘My purpose is to monitor the activities of good and evil and compare them to what has been foreseen. I am a watcher of the balance. That has been my singular purpose since childhood. Every since I was a child, I would have visions that would somehow come true.
As a small child, I told a priest that I had a vision of Cardinal Anthony touching young girls and making them cry. I was ostracized from the church and called a heretic and even an antichrist. In early childhood, my intelligence was far superior to my young peers, and this made them believe I was a son of the Devil.
Shortly after my predictions, Father Anthony hung himself in the church. They found a written confession of all of his horrible sins, which included untold molestations of both young girls and boys. My family wasn’t originally from Sicily. We left the mainland to get away from the church. My father feared that they would hang or drown me.’
“So you have had a rough life as well,” I said. Capello nodded. “Your accent sounded slightly different, but I never picked up on it completely.”
“I’ve tried over the years to shed myself of the accent in an attempt to blend into this society,” he said. Capello could never be normal. He too had his cross to bear. “My gifts have been a blessing and a curse. It wasn’t until I was a man many years later that I revealed my powers to anyone else.” He put his head down briefly.
“You must have a lonely life,” I said.
“My parents forbid me to speak of anymore of m
y visions. In secrecy, I would keep all of my inner thoughts.” He smiled as if he shrugged off any ill feelings about the matter. “People only like fortune tellers when we tell them of monetary gains coming their way or that their wife is pregnant with a masculine child.”
“That must have been hard to know the future,” I said, “and not be able to tell anyone.” That must have been a tough path to follow; I thought to myself.
‘Indeed, it was. I tried to warn my father on the day of his death, and he would have no part in my blasphemy. My parents were always in denial over my abilities, and they were ashamed of me. When I was four, I had a vision of my father being struck by lightning. Three years later, he went out fishing, the skies changed color, and as he stepped foot onto land, my vision came true. He was struck dead by lightning. I begged him not to go fishing that day.
I tried to explain to my mother that I wanted to save him, but she called me cursed. She believed that I brought his death upon us. My own mother disowned me. I spent the rest of my days as an orphan on a farm. It was Tomassino’s farm, Davide, and your aunt and uncle were very kind to me. I lived there until I was roughly eighteen years of age.’
“Is that why you helped me?”
I was in shock over what he had told me.
“That was part of the reason. The other part was fate,” he said. Capello took on the look of a schoolteacher. “Every single event in both of our lives has happened for a reason. Each action and reaction has led us here to this table.” He started to sound very philosophical. “Would you be sitting here in front of me if Fate hadn’t twisted your life and plotted your course to direct you to me?” He asked. His question really required no answer.