“He continued to speak to me like I was a dull child. “Did you smell the garlic? The humans know we are there, even if they didn’t see us hunt, they can sense there is something strange about the neighbors. They are currently too afraid to do anything more than cross themselves and say prayers. It will be abandoned soon. There’s little choice.”
“I should like to find someplace else to rest, if we could.” I said.
“Where?”
“My house in Florence.”
“Gregori regarded me quietly, a look of mild disgust on his face, “That wouldn’t be wise,” he said shaking his head, “You are known there. People you know would be curious about you. They would notice changes in you. We could try some other city or travel until we found someplace we could agree on.”
“I might agree to that.”
“How magnanimous of you.” Gregori crawled into the other niche with padding. “Don’t be too hasty, you have yet to feed for the first time. If you don’t feed tomorrow or soon for that matter, you will be driven to kill.” Gregori shut his eyes. “I should have sounded you out more thoroughly before giving you this precious gift. Rest now. See how you feel tonight. The hunger may change your mind.” In a moment he was asleep.
“I felt a wave of profound weariness surge through me as if I’d never slept before. I quickly crawled into the padded niche and lost consciousness.
“I awoke mysteriously at dusk. Like a switch being flipped in my brain I was suddenly aware. Immediately I felt a burning in my mind and stomach. It was difficult to think. Pain clouded my brain as I rolled out of the niche and looked around. Were I mortal I would have needed light to see, but my new eyes worked quite well in the primordial darkness. I stood up but pitched forward as my hunger squeezed like a coiling snake extending from my brain to my bowels. I desperately needed blood but my morals rebelled at the thought of killing.
“Gregori stood before me shaking his head. “Do you see how it is? There are drawbacks to immortality. The pain you are experiencing is easily vanquished, though only temporarily. Come with me. Let’s hunt together.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m a Catholic. It’s a sin to kill.”
“Very well, Catholic, I shall leave you to starve.” He pulled the stone block into the chamber and began to crawl through the opening.
“Please!” I gasped, laying on the floor prostrate. “Help me, the pain!”
“I thought I had helped you. Two nights ago you said you wanted more out of life. I gave you forever. I now see you are not worthy of this dark gift. You know how to conquer the pain, Catholic.” He exited the chamber leaving the egress available to me.
“His last word cut me like a knife. I was Catholic, born and raised, but now I was an unholy creature. I lay on the dusty floor for an eternity. My mind tortured by the thing growing in the shadows. In my agony I became something different. The surprisingly thin veneer of civilization was shed leaving a hungry animal. I reverted, like all vampires do after a prolonged fasting, to a hungry beast, a sly animal, beyond morality, religion, or Judgment. I was a transcendental creature with the intelligence of a man, the craftiness and guiles of a powerful beast.
“I flew out of the chamber and ran down the tunnels out into the night, a spirit driven by hunger. Outside the very catacomb which was now my home I found a lone human, a man, and attacked mercilessly. He was young and strong but no match for me. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and in a big city he was attacked by a human shaped wolf. In the dark I gorged on the lifeblood pumping, driven by the frightened heart. I watched the light fade from their eyes. And with my senses returned to me, I was repulsed by my actions. I was so distraught I wanted to die. I knew I was going to Hell for what I had done; for what I had become. I dragged myself and my victim back into the catacombs. I placed the cooling corpse in Gregori’s niche and waited, tormented by my deeds. I replayed it over and over again in my head. Despite my horror, some part of me had enjoyed it. Rejoiced in the thing I had become. I pondered my life, my fate. How was I to survive? I would need to kill every night or two. I had been indoctrinated by my religion; killing was against the laws of God and man. I stared at the body in the niche. Did he have a family; a wife and children? Would they starve without him? They would never know the cruel ending that befell him, he simply vanished. I stopped hypothesizing as Gregori entered the chamber.
“He crawled through the hole before dawn and pushed the stone to block the entrance. Gregori turned and saw the body; an amused expression crossed his face. “Has the kitten brought its first mouse home for its master?”
“Look what I've done because of you!” I lashed out angrily. “I killed him, and what’s worse, I enjoyed it.”
“Death is a glaring part of this life. If it upsets you so much I can kill you or you can kill yourself. Before morning comes lay out where the sun will burn you,” he said coldly. There seemed to be no emotion in him. A mere shell of the man I met two days prior.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.” I said.
“He shrugged, slumped shouldered, and pulled the body from his resting place letting it fall like trash to the ground. He crawled into the space and lay on his back. “I wish you wouldn’t go,” he said. “I need a companion.”
“I looked at him for a long moment before answering, “No.”
“He sighed deeply, “I am sorry. If I could take it from you...” His words drifted off. He shut his eyes and fell silent.
“I crawled into my niche and sleep overtook me.
As soon as I woke the next day I left, never seeing my maker again. I made arrangements to go to Florence and finish business there before I began to travel. I tried to live as normally as I could. I was a slave to my hunger but eventually learned to cope. Sheer willpower was useless against the beast chained inside my breast. I loathed killing but I couldn’t deny my existence. I may have considered exposing myself to the sun at the beginning, but as I learned more that pathway was less and less of an option. As I grew strong in my nature, my weaknesses diminished.
“I settled my affairs in Florence, telling everyone I was moving to Rome. I gave no reason to the few people I saw. I tried to steer clear of those who knew me for my skin was often a frightful white pallor. I only fed when I had to so the times my skin was flush with blood was not often enough to truly pass as human.
“Before I left Florence I went to the Santa Maria del Flore Cathedral to give confession. The killings weighed on my conscious and even though I was a murderer some part of me sought forgiveness. I stood outside the green and white marble walls fearing God would strike me down for daring to enter His house. I screwed my courage up and entered the doorway. I paused waiting for a bolt of lightning, none came. I stepped further in; at the basin of holy water I stopped. It was all a part of the ritual. I dipped my fingers in the holy water tentatively. I didn’t burn. I crossed myself. Nothing.
“The line to confession had a few people. I patiently waited, though my anxiety grew. Would they notice my skin, my cold presence? Earlier in the evening I had begrudgingly fed so I did not look out of place. Would they rise up against the unholy creature amongst them and kill me? I stood with the mortals; their sweat and blood were a thick heady perfume to my nostrils. Their hearts beat wild rhythms like birds fluttering in a cage. It was intoxicating to me.
“When it was my turn to give confession I crossed myself and entered the booth. I looked through the latticed window at the shadow of the priest. I could hear his beating heart and smell his blood. I swallowed once and began. I told the truth about killing innocent people but did not tell how. As a priest he couldn’t break the covenant of the confessional. I was anonymous. I could hear his heart beat faster as he fear grew. He had no penance to give for my crimes. He couldn't absolve me. He told me to stop. I lied and said I would. But it wasn’t me doing the killing it was the beast inside of me. I had little control over it back then. I was no longer Catholic though my brain still thought that way. When I could I con
tinued to give confession for the first five years of my new life. I held a vague hope it might help, make some difference when all of this came to some unforseen end. I finally broke the habit and never stepped foot into a confessional ever again.
“As I traveled throughout the wide world, surviving as I was forced to survive, I noticed a gradual transformation coming over me. No longer did I feed only when I was forced to, I fed voluntarily, deriving carnal pleasure from the act I was so ashamed of at the beginning. During my first fifty years I must have left fifteen to twenty thousand dead in my wake, all of them faceless and nameless. Eventually I lost the shame I felt after killing my victims. I had learned to live with the fact people would die so I could continue to live. They were going to die anyway. I sped up the time table.
“My travels took me over the Alps, through central Europe, through the Black Forest, over the Balkan mountains, down into Persia and the near East, and after a time into the Far East. Everywhere I went I learned more about life than if I had stayed in behind the walls in my well-manicured garden.
“I learned languages and spent time in the local schools of thought. I studied religion, fascinated at the way other cultures created gods to worship. Their gods were usually as blood thirsty as the Christian God, or myself.
Father Bryant bristled at the comment, he stirred. He was no longer content to listen.
Malcolm noticed the priest's agitation and allowed a small smile to appear on his lips.
“In China I learned from an Asian vampire that I didn’t need to kill to sustain my life. Gregori was wrong. He made me think I needed to kill my victims. I didn’t figure out on my own it was unnecessary to kill. Maybe he didn’t know any better or he didn’t have a wiser vampire to tutor him. It was my practice to feed off of a couple people a night and make them forget their encounter with me. I thought I was enchanting them with magic, but I was merely hypnotizing them.
“I returned to Rome several lifetimes later. I lived as I did off the blood and money of my victims. I was reluctant to make any vampires like me, preferring my own company or that of ephemeral mortals to others of my kind. I lived in Rome, not taking a life, and marveled at the changes the passage of time had wrought. The completed Vatican amazed me most. It was my first vampiric sight and burned into my memory.
“I looked, though not too hard, for any sign of Gregori or any of those from the house so many years prior. I saw no sign of them. They may have been avoiding me or they may have perished long ago. I had no clue. Nor did I really care. I was different from them in ways they would not understand if I were to talk to them. When I was in the Far East I absorbed their views and meshed those I agreed with into my own beliefs. It was a religion, if you will pardon the word, Father, with a practitioner of one. Me.
Chapter 26
Life or Death
“How can you call it a religion!” Father Bryant finally spoke, unable to let Malcolm’s comments pass unchallenged. He was captivated by the vampire’s story but this was a grievous affront to his vocation.
“What is a religion but a set of beliefs which help the individual cope with the chaos of the universe? When something hideous happens Christians say ‘It is the will of God.’ That’s how they coped with bad situations.” Malcolm moved forward. “It’s nature. Nature is far more cruel and heartless than any deity. It doesn’t care.”
“You’re saying there is no God, correct?”
Malcolm nodded slightly. This confrontation was what he was waiting for. “Show me your cross, Father. If I am an unholy thing, cursed by God, I should shrink away in pain.” Malcolm was close enough to strike at both of them.
John lifted the silver cross and held it before him. Malcolm stood unaffected. Father Bryant mumbled a prayer in Latin all the while staring at the vampire. Nothing. No hint of pain. Was everything he believed a sham? He remembered the beautiful vampire in the parking lot of the police station laughing as he held the cross. She too was unharmed by the holy symbol. She would have killed him if Maggie hadn’t stopped her. Sean had laughed at the cross too. Was religion all a big show to contain the masses and keep them docile? Did God exist? His own doubt started his career as a vampire killer when Sean gave him a quest; one which required faith in himself more than a faith in God. Does God exist? He couldn't say for certain.
“I believe. I believe he’s real.” Father Bryant said resolutely even if he had his doubts.
“If he is real, he doesn’t affect me.” Malcolm stated confidently.
“Of course he’s real!” Father Bryant protested though his own doubts and lost faith led him to this confrontation with a vampire. “God can’t be put under a microscope. He’s God! But if you look under an electron microscope at, say, a DNA molecule you have to believe there is some guiding hand. Something so complex cannot just happen by accident. There has to be some purpose, a guiding intelligence behind all this.” Father Bryant got to his feet and gestured sweepingly to indicate the universe.
“You indicate all this,” Malcolm made the same grand sweeping gesture. “But you give me no proof. DNA could have happened entirely by accident. No one knows for certain. All people have to go on is their beliefs and convictions. Your belief was strong enough for you to become a priest. Your belief could be wrong. Who knows, the televangelists could be right, then you would take all your convictions to a Hell of their design. If they are right, I never want to die!” Malcolm laughed loudly.
Father Bryant stood quietly. He could try to refute the argument but it would do him no good. Malcolm wouldn't budge from his beliefs and neither would he. If he gave up his beliefs it would make his whole life a lie. “I understand your belief, your religion is steeped in oriental mysticism, but you were blaspheming when you were preaching.” Father Bryant said in precise, measured tones.
“I based my beliefs in many philosophies, many ways of thinking. There is no mysticism involved. I have no magic. As for what I preached,” he smiled coyly, “well, that was bunk. I freely admit it. I gave people what they wanted to hear. I gave them a show. I gave them something to worship and fear. I never said anything someone who was intelligent would believe.”
“I saw part of a sermon. You hypnotized the crowd with your supernatural abilities.”
“Bullshit. I can’t hypnotize a crowd. One person, yes, a crowd, a congregation, no. I’m a skilled speaker, I’ve had years of practice, and I had a gullible audience.” Malcolm said. “I’m different, maybe more evolved, than normal humans. I can't explain why I am this way, but I'm not evil.”
“You are not the next step in human evolution.”
“That’s pretty certain. If everyone evolved into vampires, what would we eat?” Malcolm smiled at his joke. He could see it angered the priest. “Because I was changed physically I had to adapt mentally to survive. I don’t want to wage war against humanity. I have no animosity against humans. Except for yourself, Father. You’re different. You hurt me, destroyed my world.”
“Why did you destroy the police station?”
“A simple and stupid reason really; my rage at you overwhelmed me. You’ve wrested so much from me I needed revenge. I wanted you. And I couldn’t allow you to reveal what you know to the authorities. If they believed you, it would put me and my kind at risk. They might have seriously considered the possibility of vampires. A priest and a cop are generally believed to be solid witnesses. They wouldn’t share a common delusion. The raid was to kill you and destroy all traces of you or this operation. I failed to kill you there. If you went to the police now, they wouldn’t know anything about you. You would be some crackpot.” Malcolm said evenly.
Father Bryant sat speechless. Malcolm was right. No official would believe a story about vampires. There would be a search for a more ordinary villain in the destruction of the police station. He sat back down and looked around the dark chapel silently. The structure had no spirit. It was brick and mortar. He broke his contemplative silence. “You seduced good people away from true religion. You made
a mockery of what you preached.”
“The people who came to me were already lost to you. They sought something I could provide. Though what it was I haven’t got a clue. Show business, maybe. Why should you be so concerned? No one in my congregation died because of us. We gave them joy, they gave us blood. They just weren’t aware of the arrangement.”
There was the sound of a door opening in the darkness. Out of the gloom an attractive short haired woman dressed in black approached the stage. Malcolm turned and spoke ignoring the two humans. “Yes, Dionysus?”
She glared at the priest, hatred in her eyes. She shifted her attention to Malcolm. “Everything is ready. Truck’s loaded. We’re just waiting on you.”
“I'll be with you in five minutes,” he said. “Oh, Di, could you get me some clean clothes? I don’t want to travel like this. ”
John and Maggie stiffened. Five minutes? Would they be dead in four?
“Sure. We’ll be waiting,” Dionysus turned and exited the chapel.
The humans watched her go. Some of his vampires survived. “She looked at me like she wanted to kill me,” John said.
“She does want to kill you.” Malcolm replied, his voice cold. “You hurt her creator, Ice. They are... close. But she doesn’t get to kill you. I do.” Moving with blinding speed he grabbed the priest roughly and yanked him off of the pew. Malcolm sandwiched the priest’s head between his hands and pressed. He stared into the petrified eyes of the mortal. A malign smile twisted his lips. “I can crush your head like an egg. It wouldn’t take much more pressure than I am exerting right now.” Malcolm whispered, his voice and evil hiss.
John felt as if his skull were in a vice. His head ached dully; he could barely hear the words through the sound of the sea crashing in his ears. “What are you going to do?” John asked.
Malcolm relaxed his grip, with ages of practice he expertly shifted his left hand behind Father Bryant’s neck, and his right arm encircled the priest’s waist. Malcolm looked at Maggie, addressing her for the first time. “Interfere and I’ll tear off his fucking head, then I will kill you.”
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