Requiem of Humanity

by Catherine Stovall

  Let me tell you how I came to know Belle. I was traveling through Louisiana in search of a young vampire girl. Reports came to me that she was stronger than her maker and causing quite a stir. She fed from the human population without masking her kills and could pry open the mind of any living creature and read its secrets.

  The rumors said the maker feared this girl and the Dracul were hunting her so they could put a stop to her madness. I was sure this girl would be the Daughter of Darkness I sought out. Her strength and complete disregard for the safety of her own kind could be signs of the evil inside her. I felt only someone who was mad from darkness could be as reckless as I’d heard.

  When I finally found the girl, I was shocked. I didn’t understand how she had escaped the Dracul’s attention for so long. My third night in Louisiana, I found her sitting at the edge of a swamp drinking from a slave she’d captured from one of the large plantations. She looked up from her kill and hissed with wild abandon, and I realized she was no longer anything more than an animal. This was not the one I sought.

  The change broke her mind, and the maker, instead of killing her, let her run wild like a rabid dog amongst the population. I pulled a machete from its sheath on my belt and prepared for the fight. I could not leave her alive for fear her actions would expose my kind even more.

  The girl did not run from me as I expected. She leaped at me with rage. I did not know at the time that fledglings who have lost their minds often gain extraordinary physical strength and speed. The girl quickly overpowered me and I fought for my life. Every lunge brought her powerful jaws closer to my throat and sent her razor sharp nails sailing through my flesh.

  In the last moments of the fight, I knew I would not survive. I struggled, but it was futile against the mutant fledgling. She pinned me to the ground, and seconds before her fangs punctured an artery, her head was detached from her body. The spray of blood blinded me. I wiped madly at my eyes while trying to regain my footing. When I could finally see again, Belle was there.

  She saved my life and helped me to safety before the sunrise. You must understand I was lonely. You cannot know how it feels to wander the earth without companionship. Watching the humans you know wilt like flowers in the sun and die is a hard thing to do. I rarely sought out the company of immortals. When I did, I was careful not to get to close. I could not afford attachments. My focus was always on the prophecy and I couldn’t risk distraction.

  Belle offered to take me with her and to open up a world I could only imagine. I told her of this loneliness and despair, and she told me it was because I had turned my back on what I had become. I let her convince me we were designed to be the ultimate predator and that humans were no more than prey. My severe depression overwhelmed my sense of humanity and I allowed myself to be manipulated by her promises. She swore if I helped her, she would give me the secret to becoming a day walker and I would never be alone again.

  I did not stop looking for the girls from the prophecy, and I never shared my quest with Belle. Some part of me always felt I would be betraying Celeste if I did. I traveled at Belle’s side for a long time. Her psychosis wore on me. Her story unnerved me. I was coming to the point where I wanted to leave her. I was giving up the dream of seeing the sun and I no longer wanted a companion.

  I took one last trip with her. We followed your family while you were on vacation. That was the first time I saw you, Jenda. I knew immediately that you were something more than a mere human girl. At the time, I mistook it for something else entirely. I felt lonely again and I became so intrigued by you. At this time, Belle had already marked you as hers. To me, this meant your death or your immortality was imminent.

  She would have you or kill you. Your pure beauty poisoned my mind, so I saw no other possible outcome. I wanted you for myself, but I could never have stolen your humanity. I told myself that, if it were not for Belle, I would have adored you from afar for the rest of your life. I would have watched you grow old and live a full life without ever interfering.

  I cannot say now whether I would have been able to resist you forever, but it was what I said to make it right. I helped her because she would have done it without me, I did it because I wanted to protect you from her, and I did it out of pure selfishness. I was a slave to the irresistible pull I felt towards you. I had not felt so strongly in all my hundreds of years.

  I wonder now if it wasn’t the prophecy all along. Perhaps God or his angels brought me to you. Perhaps it was the demons. Perhaps fate brought me to Belle and she brought me to you. Maybe it was all out of our hands from the very beginning. No matter if it were, I know I will never forgive myself for the part I played. I have you now forever, but it is inexcusable just the same.

  I see the look in your eyes, dear. I don’t want you to worry. If the initial magnetism was fate, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t make me love you. The prophecy would never have accounted for such a union. No magical spell or demon’s bindings have bonded me to you. I love you because you are beautiful, intelligent, funny, kind, and naïve. I love you for everything you are and for everything you are not, and I will continue to do so until the end of time.

  He let the words hang in the air. He let them sink in as the girls sat dumbstruck. Finally, unable to help herself, Jenda burst out, “I love you too, and I don’t care what brought us together as long as you promise to forgive yourself.” After a quick kiss to his cheek, she continued, “Are you sure we are the girls from the prophecy? Are you saying we will destroy the entire human race and bring down God? The God?”

  Soborgne looked skeptical yet intrigued, and perhaps a little bored with the confessions of love, which were never her thing. Something was churning inside her, something that screamed the truth. She was a Child of the Darkness. She didn’t want to be the end of humans and vampires alike. She did not want to be some poisonous and vile thing. Yet, she knew she was destined to be the one.

  4

  Matteo spent hours speaking to them, trying to make them understand the prophecy when he could barely grasp it himself. He’d spent centuries pondering its meaning and never found the knowledge to unlock its secrets. He knew, when he followed Jenda to Ireland and England years before, an irresistible pull was connecting him to her. He thought it an emotional need. He never considered she might be the Daughter of Light he had searched for throughout the world. He’d always thought the Child of Light would be a human and the Child of Darkness would be a vampire.

  He did see the flaw. Soborgne was no Daughter of Darkness, not in the true sense. She was a vampire, but not a born vampire. No record existed of a vampire being born since the time of Lilith and Cain’s rule. Soborgne’s connection with Jenda was a possible link. Since Jenda was the only female vampire who could walk in the light after Belle was gone, did that make her best friend the counterpart by default? So many questions without answers were leaving them very frustrated. They went over and over the possibilities. Switching from why the girls were the ones in the prophecy, they dove into other aspects of the poem.

  Matteo explained that Etz Chayim was Hebrew and literally meant “the Tree of Life.” “No one knows if it even exists or where it may be. Some say Jerusalem, others say Israel. Some say it was merely a mythological symbol for human heritage and life.”

  Soborgne had that look on her face. Jenda recognized it, as she recognized all of Soborgne’s quirks. Soborgne knew something and she wanted to share, but didn’t want to open her big mouth up and spit it out. Jenda nodded encouragement, but just as Soborgne’s lips began to move, a knock at the door interrupted her.

  Matteo jumped up so fast he was a blur. Striding to the door, he motioned for the girls to stay back. If Imre decided to fight after all, he didn’t want them in the way. Glancing back once more to ensure they were a safe distance away, Matteo pulled open the door. To his relief, it was the Chosen One. Matteo let the door go wider and stepped back so, if he chose, the young man could enter the room.

  “The Chosen One,” Jenda whisp
ered to Soborgne, and Matteo could hear their stifled laughter.

  The two men spoke to each other in Hungarian for a few moments and Matteo urged the girls to follow him and the young man out of the room. Matteo spoke quietly as they followed their escort through the halls of the castle. “The Lady has granted us an audience. Please stay close to me, do not speak until spoken to, and do not do anything rash.”

  The girls nodded, not wanting their voices to echo off the marble if they dared to speak. They walked on in silence as they took in the opulence of their surroundings. Everything sparkled and shown with fine elegance—even the cobwebs in the high vaulted ceilings seem to glitter, almost as if the lowly spiders did not dare to tarnish this place. The castle seemed to swallow everything up and turn it into beautiful.

  At last, they reached the correct hall. The Chosen One stood aside and spread his arm out, indicating they should continue on their own. They hesitated for a moment, the girls staring openly at the tall marble statues lining the way and Matteo looking towards the door with barely suppressed angst. The Chosen One cleared his throat and they started their progress in steady procession past the gleaming white statues of Greek gods and goddesses.

  Two statues of Medusa stood near the end of the hall. With heavy lidded eyes and wild curling snakes for hair, the statues seemed to glare directly at the visitors as they approached. Soborgne’s mind worked at full speed. Her years of art education and trips to faraway places caused her to compare the figures to others. Exquisite in their design, they looked much like the female figures guarding the Acropolis. Only those women seemed gentle and strong. The statues of Medusa, though their faces lacked the menace usually demonstrated in her design, seemed to be hostile at their intrusion.

  The hallway possessed no other doors except the one they entered and the large black double doors standing beyond them. The passage began as a shimmering tribute to the wonders of Greece but ended in something akin to Dante’s Inferno. The massive doors loomed up above them. Obviously built of onyx, the light shone into the deep blackness. Positioned in the center of each door, two crystalline lion’s heads posed with their mouths opened in mid-snarl, and their yellow gemstone eyes stared in ruthless warning.

  The trio approached the doors cautiously. As they passed between the Medusas, they watched them carefully, certain some doom waited between the two. Escaping harm, they ended their advancement a foot before the massive and foreboding entrance. Before Matteo could raise his hand to knock, both doors slowly and soundlessly opened inward. The only sounds were the sharp intakes of breath from Jenda and Soborgne as they peered through the opening at what Jenda was sure would be the Ninth Circle of Hell.

  Instead of the devil, Imre stood glaring out at them in pure disdain. After a tense moment, he stepped aside and bowed without removing his eyes from Matteo’s face. As the trio entered the room, the finery and stateliness of their surroundings engulfed them. The Greek theme continued. Statues of Adonis, Aphrodite, centaurs, warriors, and goddesses stood about in splendor. Their gleaming white bodies, half-lidded empty eyes, and expressionless faces tempted the onlooker to touch the stone to feel its smoothness.

  The pièce de résistance sat in the center of a large pool of water, amarble statue of a young Dionysus lying on a cushion. The God was represented topless with a sheet haphazardly covering his lower regions. In one hand, he held a basket of fruit, while the other rested upon a spilling decanter of water. Modern technology pumped the water into the decanter, where it flowed back into the pool in the form of a small waterfall.

  As if she were one of the statues in the room, a woman stood watching them with sharp and clever eyes. As soon as Matteo’s eyes fell upon her face, he immediately went to her. A wide smile of genuine happiness broke the woman’s careful pose. She opened her arms to him and encased him in a warm embrace. Jenda watched with jealousy searing into her very soul.

  She’d pictured “The Lady” as old, wise, and a little frightening. She never expected her to be this full-figured, gorgeous woman who shown with confidence and beauty. She wanted to snatch Matteo away from her. She did not like the happiness blossoming before her eyes at their apparent reunion. Her mind reeled at the sight of him wrapping his arms around the woman in a warm embrace.

  As if sensing Jenda’s disapproval, Matteo turned away from the woman and presented her to Soborgne and Jenda. “This, my darlings, is the great Lady Celeste, whom we have passed the last hours speaking so kindly of.”

  Jenda’s surprise registered, and then it all fell into place. She remembered Matteo’s voice as he sadly recalled his history. Celeste was to be the Watcher and Matteo the Guardian. Jenda felt dizzy, the weight of the knowledge falling on her. This was real. She had known Matteo was not lying before, but somehow seeing Celeste made it all absolute. Either they would find a way to stop the rising of the demons, or Jenda must slay her best friend.

  The room was a blur, she could no longer feel the floor beneath her feet, and suddenly the ground rose to meet her, face first. The hard impact barely registered and the voices of Matteo, Soborgne, Imre, and Celeste were only shushed mumblings to her.

  The cold marble felt good. She wanted to lie there and die. Her entire body felt as if it were on fire. She did not want to move from the chilly embrace of the smooth stone. Her eyes were open, but unfocused. She could not see anything clearly except a statue sitting in the far recess of the room. Something about the statue made it different from the others.

  She felt gentle hands touching her body. They were lifting her from the floor. She tried to resist but she didn’t have the strength. As they moved her, she craned her head so as not to lose sight of the strange form. The others carefully lowered her onto a lounge chair near the pool. The agitating voices all around her were breaking through, but the fire was ascending. Her body no longer burned. A deadened feeling crept through her limbs.

  She didn’t want to come back, she like it there where she was numb. In the place where she lingered there was no fear and no pain. Celeste’s musical voice was the first to filter through the haze with any clarity. “You mean she has not fed from her first human? Matteo, you know how dangerous that could be.” The voice was stern and admonishing.

  “She has been doing well on the stored blood. I thought only to get her here and then to worry about the rest. I fear I was gravely wrong.” Matteo was scaring her. Why was he talking about her as if she wasn’t there?

  Then she could hear Soborgne’s strong voice. Jenda was no longer afraid. Soborgne would care for her. She could slip back into the haze and not have to worry. The words were not important. She wouldn’t hear them; she would just stay away for a while where it would be safe.

  She closed her eyes and relaxed her body into the lounge chair. The overstuffed cushions hugged her closely. In her mind, she still saw the statue. No, it wasn’t like any other in the room. Obviously not marble, Jenda wondered if it were bronze. Obviously an ancient piece, it was much older than the marble statues were.

  The sculpture was of a man and woman. The man held the woman to him in a firm and loving embrace, one arm encircling her waist and the other holding the woman’s hand. Her naked bosom was pressed tightly to his equally bare chest, her chin rested in the crook of his neck, and her fingers rested beside her cheek. He held his face pressed close to hers, his lips brushing the lobe of her ear, and his eyes cast upon the beautiful curve of her neck.

  On the top half, they looked like lovers embracing passionately, but something tainted the image. Below their waists, they lacked human limbs. Their entwining bodies resembled the trunk of an ancient tree instead. The twisted and gnarled shape trapped the lovers together for eternity. The man’s face held a hint of sadness. The tension in the woman’s body was real. Welded together and rooted deep into the earth, they would remain forever. Their only comfort was being together in this torturous marriage of human flesh and spirit wood.

  She opened her eyes and the statue remained the same as she saw it in her
mind. She could see every line, every nook so clearly. The pain and beauty reverberated through her very soul. She wondered to herself who they were. She wanted to know why. She longed to know them. She wished to enable them to embrace each other at will instead of as a punishment forced upon them by some masterful artisan.

  As if the thought awakened the bodies beneath the bronze, the woman’s head slowly began to move. She turned her face from her lover’s shoulder towards Jenda. The bronze began to melt away, streaking from her hair and face. Her hair was raven black beneath the lingering weight of the metal, her skin olive in tone, and her eyes were so familiar. The thought shot through Jenda like a bullet from a gun. The woman’s eyes were exactly the shape and color of Soborgne’s. The statue smiled at Jenda and turned back to her lover. The bronze snaked up and reclaimed her beautiful face. A shame to watch it harden over the soft flesh, to see it silence those full lips and seal shut those entrancing eyes.

  Jenda startled. She sat up in the chair, panting, reaching out to her friend. The woman in the statue was Soborgne. She saw it with such convincing clarity. She knew in her heart that it was true. Matteo tried to comfort her and Celeste insisted someone bring a donor immediately. Soborgne stood to the side, her face contorted in concern.

  5

  “Bring the donor immediately.” Celeste’s voice showed her agitation. She continued to cast disapproving glances towards Matteo.

  “Really, I am fine.” Jenda tried desperately to recover herself. “If you have any bags, I could just have a glass full and I promise I will be okay.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You are so new to this life. Has he not taught you anything?” Celeste grasped Jenda’s shoulders. “You and Soborgne are our future, Jenda. We must take very good care of you.”