by Allyson Bird
It was a dark night with no visible moon and young Jack, a young man so very far away from home, was on watch. Young-Jack-Slack-Jack. Without a brain-in-his-head-Jack. Jack who stared open mouthed at the siren vision of green who licked the salt from his neck, pressed her writhing hips against his and drew him closer to the waves as they crashed over the deck. Her mouth held his as they rolled in the black depth of the sea, until Jack was dead.
Lamia took Jack to feed to her children. She feared that they would be all dead by the time she returned but only one more had been lost leaving ten to take part in the meal. Jack’s body floated face down in the water and the offspring fought over him, plucking the eyes from their sockets then sinking their needlepoint teeth into his flesh; Lamiae with the faces of angels and the tiny teeth of piranha fish. The offspring who, in their feeding frenzy, ripped some of their own siblings apart until their mother put a halt to the bloody banquet and wrapped the little darlings back in their net.
Skylla and Cethos were the worst. They fought all the time and both were strong. Skylla had the advantage, for circled around her waist were six long-necked dog-fish heads. Each with a mouth and triple row of sharp teeth.
The snowstorm subsided and the ship left the harbour, sadly lacking Jack, and a week went by.
The six Lamiae that were left grew quickly and were soon the size of yearling seals. How they loved their underwater world, playing tag in the giant kelp and tormenting their mother.
Lamia never slept and was too afraid to do so in case the remainder of her brood became victims to the sea, or worse.
They took on all manner of creatures in their feeding frenzies. The six of them were growing very strong and ventured further each day. No creature was safe from them. They attacked dolphins, sea turtles, and even sharks. Soon their appetites turned, to take on a more bizarre nature. They had a distinct desire to mate with mankind. They swam up towards the fishermen’s boats and openly taunted the men as they hauled their catch on board.
They were the sirens of the sea and called humankind to the rocks on which they perished, and Lamia was proud of her children.
Then came a night when Lamia saw the ghost of her sister Dido, Queen of Carthage, amidst flames that melted into the green-grey depths, and she knew her sister was dead. In her madness Lamia thrashed her serpent’s tail and her screams could be heard on the decks of ships above as men put down anchor for the night.
Lamia craved revenge, and upon one ship in particular. It was the ship that sailed on proudly, guided by Jupiter. This ship did not put down its anchor. It was the ship that belonged to Aeneus, he who had deserted Dido and been the cause of her death. Lamia swam beneath the bow of his ship and shuddered her green scales with excitement and loathing.
Iulus heard an unearthly cry from the sea and joined his father on deck. The air grew cold and Iulus did not see a column of green sea mist rising from the sea, a phantom of shimmering green that swept across the surface and to the side of the boat, behind the bow.
“Father, what was that cry?” asked Iulus.
“Nothing, just some creature of the sea or the howling wind, no more,” replied his father Aeneas. “Get some sleep, Iulus. I will take this watch myself.”
“There is something out there, Father.”
“There is nothing, Iulus—get some rest!” Aeneus was irritable and exhausted, and yet they were only at the beginning of the long, sea voyage to Italy. Iulus, annoyed by his father’s tone, went to check on the crew.
As Aeneus peered through the silent mist out to sea he was not aware of the shadowy form of Lamia creeping up behind him. Something touched his arm and he turned to stare into a pair of piercing green eyes.
“Why did you desert my sister?” Lamia hissed. “She showed you devotion and pledged herself to no other man—why did you do this to Dido?”
Aeneus took one step back, horrified by her scaly body but was transfixed by the beauty of her face and the sound of her sweet voice.
“Out of obedience to Jupiter,” he proclaimed.
“You should die for leaving her.”
Lamia swayed from side to side and her slime-green tail ventured closer to Aeneus. He felt powerless to move. Lamia held out her arms to him and he took one step towards her.
Over Aeneus’ shoulder Lamia could see Iulus brandishing a sword in his hand and a look of astonishment on his face. With a shudder and a scream she threw herself back into the water.
“Father, Father—are you all right?” Iulus cried out.
Aeneus struggled to regain his senses and sadly nodded his head. He pushed Iulus to one side and headed below deck. Both the son and the father had little sleep that night as Lamia told her daughters of the great Phoenician Queen who once ruled Carthage and was dead because she had loved Aeneus.
The eldest of Lamia’s brood, Skylla had seen the handsome Iulus, son of Aeneus and she knew that she wanted him. The next day the Lamiae followed the wake, called to the crew and haunted the dreams of the young men until they no longer knew who they were, and yearned to throw themselves down to the strange women of the sea. By night their songs had become too much for them and five sailors threw themselves into the cold, dark depths and into the waiting arms, and needlepoint teeth of the Lamiae.
When their appetites were partially sated, Lamia called her children to her. She made a vow that angered them, especially Cethos.
“You did well my daughters—but we will leave them now. I forbid you take any more lives.”
Cethos railed the most. “But what of your sister, Dido? Why should Aeneus live?”
Lamia coiled her tale around her daughter’s waist and gently tightened her grip. “Jupiter has given Aeneus a mission to complete and if we stop him Jupiter will destroy us.”
The offspring convulsed as one, hissed and argued against their mother who insisted that they stop their slaughter. Lamia reared and spat words of caution and rebuke at her children. Her six daughters, now bolder in their bravery and drunk with the taste of human blood, cornered their mother, until their teeth were within an inch of her neck.
Skylla broke away before her siblings fell upon their mother. She did not see, nor did she care to look back over her shoulder as she headed to the ship which bore her prize, her Iulus. He would be hers and hers alone.
Skylla did not see her sisters drag their mother beyond the pink-stained coral and into the cold chasm, to the bitter depths where amongst the dead things they drank her blood until she lay half dead, a pale serpent woman who had once been the daughter of King Belus. At the point of her death they came to their senses, and were ashamed of what they had done. They carried her back to the cavern where they were spawned.
Skylla heard their cries, her sisters wailing and lamenting what they had done. She hesitated and considered whether or not she should go after them.
Skylla hissed through her teeth. “But why stop now?”
“Why indeed?” a voice echoed through the ocean. Skylla turned to seek out its source. The voice belonged to Juno, wife of Jupiter and protector of the city of Carthage.
“I have a mission for you alone. Kill Iulus, for one day his descendants will destroy my beloved Carthage. I will have no Roman General, no Scipius Aemilianus to scatter salt over the ruins of my levelled city.”
“And what then for me?”
“Your race shall forever feed upon the flesh of men, for it is what you desire most.”
“Not enough. Will you rid me of these?” Skylla revealed the savage dog-fish heads around her waist.
“I will.”
“And what for my mother?” Skylla was surprised she had even thought of her mother but she did not sanction the actions of her sisters.
“She will be restored to you.”
“Then I will take Iulus.”
As Juno melted into the depths of the sea Skylla smiled and the points of her teeth shone like needled pearls. Had she not wanted him anyway? She slithered in pleasure and then darted through the sea towards
her prize. Through the mist that hung low over the ship she could see him and she sang to him in the siren-sweet voice that did not betray the writhing of worms in her mouth and the dark glaze of death on her skin.
Iulus heard only the song of an angel and saw the body of a beautiful mermaid in the water. He leaned over the side of the ship to see more of the divine stranger whose hair was the colour of gold, green, and blue. Skylla took him quickly, making little sound. As she pulled him into the depths of the ocean he tried to fight her, but only briefly. Soon his struggles ceased and Skylla kissed him hungrily on his mouth until it bled.
She found her sisters skulking in the birthing cave. They slithered and wrapped their tails around one another and Cethos hissed a warning to Skylla as she approached. Skylla took no heed and dragged Iulus closer to Lamia, his limp body already bitten and ragged from the bites of the dog-fish around her waist. The dog-fish then began to wither one by one.
Without hesitation Skylla fed the heart of Iulus to Lamia. Little by little she fed her, until Lamia’s eyes opened and then she fed herself.
Iulus was dead. His descendants would never rule. There would be no Procas, no Numitor, no Amulius, no daughter of Numitor to couple with the God Mars, and no twins to be suckled by the she-wolf. No Rome, no Julius Caesar. Only Carthage for Juno, who hid in the shadows and feared her husband’s wrath.
Lamia was restored as Juno promised. The others recoiled as Skylla drank from her mother’s breast and the salt sea washed a trail of blood from her lips. Skylla, whose mind was losing the knowledge of the sea, then swam to the shores below the lighthouse at Carthage. She slithered out of the water and took her first footsteps on land.
And thus the first vampire to walk the earth was born out of the blood of Rome.
Dissolution
“So, in the secret of the shrine,
Night keeps them nestled, so the gloom
Laps them in waves as smooth as wine,
As glowing as the fiery womb
Of some young tigress, dark as doom,
And swift as sunrise. Love’s content
Builds its own monument,
And carves above its vaulted tomb
The Phoenix on her fiery plume,
To their own souls to testify
Their kisses’ immortality.”
From The Altar of Artemis by Aleister Crowley.
Copyright Ordo Templi Orientis. Used by kind permission.
There was a strange, half-light that emanated from the church. It was so far away but the mother, trying not to stumble as she went. By the moonlight everything could be seen with great clarity but there was no one to see her as she made her way towards the church. A crow flew high over the hillside and low over the fence towards the great gables of the church roof. It followed the struggling woman, swooping low, never veering from a straight path, never in danger of encountering any obstacle. On a gargoyle it landed and waited, eye bent, looking down at the young woman who trailed against the icy blast.
The gate was locked so she squeezed through the crooked bars of the iron railings. She tightly held her babe in her arms, and she slipped on the grey, batched cobbled path that led to the church entrance.
It was there on the coldest Sunday morning in the month of December, that they found her and the babe. Incredibly, the child was found alive in the arms of her dead mother. The child was only one day old. The mother’s face was frozen to the old oak door and the weight of her body had begun to rip the skin away from the bone.
Everyone vowed it was a miracle that the child had survived, but survive it did. Pinned to an old, blue and red striped blanket was a note and on the note were written the words: “Treat her kindly. Her name is Mary.”
The Chronicle reported that the woman was well dressed but had no personal belongings with her, except for her infant. It was not unusual to find a foundling on the steps of a church in Wisconsin. It was unusual, however, to find a baby that never cried from that first day. Who was this child? Who was her poor mother and why had no one come forwards to claim her body? No one seemed to have any inkling of the mother’s origin. The following, which is very little, I learnt about my grandmother, Mary:
The baby Mary was adopted by a lawyer’s family who had been unable to have children of their own. They wondered at the black-eyed, pallid child and in years to come they would regret their decision to adopt her. They were more confused and horrified when, at the age of ten, they found her naked in the frosty meadow below the house. Transfixed by the moon she stood there. A holly wreath encircled her head and her arms were held high, as if to the goddess of the night. Beads of blood ran down her forehead.
A few years passed and the child grew up to be an even more precocious and demanding girl. When she was fourteen she ran off to St. Joseph, Missouri and came back with a husband twelve years older than herself. As years went by it seemed that perhaps Mary would conform after all.
She gave birth to one child but soon after decided that she was bored with motherhood and she took to throwing wild parties. Deep into the night hideous laughter could be heard by the indignant neighbours across the parkland. Her husband was said to have finally had enough of his domineering child-bride. He left his wife and fled, leaving her to find a new husband which she did, to reside in the large dark mansion in Midland town.
When my family moved to Chicago I asked again about my grandmother, and why we didn’t see her anymore. Their silence greeted my questions. Not one was answered again. I railed against my parents and demanded answers to my enquiries. I asked why we didn’t go to see her at Christmas like normal families do.
One evening I said I wanted to know more about the family history.
“Don’t interrupt, Harlan, can’t you see I’m in my pace here—for what it is,”
“But, Father, I just want to say—”
“Well, say it somewhere else. Better still—to someone else.”
Comments could be heard around the dinner table. Then the conversation slowly faded away, time turning its weary hands backwards, and I was there at my grandfather’s funeral. Winter 1891.
My mind flashed back to the private service for him in the manse. The vicar could barely be heard. An elderly aunt looked flustered as my grandma overlapped his verse with her darker words, nay, almost incantations of her own. The vicar then uttered obscure Latin verses that had never been heard from a vicar’s mouth before.
But, now I will tell you a little of my formative years. I was a child genius, so everyone said; I am not hesitant to blow my own trumpet. From a very young age I acted on impulse (not unlike my grandmother when she was young), and was taught to converse as an adult and join in eloquent conversation with my elders…unless the topic under discussion was the family. It was of no surprise to anyone when I left on my fourteenth birthday. I decided to board a train from Chicago and go to see for myself who this mysterious woman was, and why no one would even speak of her.
Within two hours I was in Kenosha. The parkland of the great houses stood before me. Behind the sprawling elm, walnut, and beech I could sense every illicit rendevouz, every dark family secret except my own. Standing before that dreadful house I felt a piercing of my heart and I did not relish the encounter. No turning back now, and besides, my curiosity had got the better of me as it always had, and always would. I did not enter the abode of some doting grandmother who knitted by the cosy fire in the depth of winter. I was Hans Christian Andersen’s Kay, in the Snow Queen’s fortress; I was St. George before that dreadful dragon; I was Moses taking on the great wrath of Egypt. I would battle my grandmother and no good would come out of this, I believed…no good at all.
The towers of the great manse loomed above me. I imagined them threatening to hurl their gothic stones down upon me (like so many imaginary castles of my childhood had done before), and I envisaged dark servants with boiling pots of oil pouring the bubbling, black Beelzebub brew upon my head.
I shuddered, but quickly rang the doorbell. A servant
of no notable feature opened the giant worm-ridden door. I was inside the house before I knew what I was doing and around me I could smell its rancour and decay.
The scale of the old hall was impressive and it ached my neck to look up at the lurid bacchanal on the ceiling, with its mythical beasts that ate and caroused their way through a banquet fit for the devil himself. In her time, I had heard that grandmother had thrown a few wild parties.
I was shown into the circular library and everything in that room seemed larger than it should have been. Even the giant tomes in the circular bookcases appeared to have been made for a race of beings that had the physiques of some huge carnival freaks, rather than those of simple men and women. Nothing about this house was simple. The velvet armchairs were enormous and ostentatious. A vase containing a huge display of withered flowers overran with silver spiders. I would not put my hand in that vase for anything.
I walked over to the empty fireplace, bowed my head and stared up into the dark, vast chimney which, if reversed, would have found its way down to hell itself.
My attention was broken at that very moment by the creaking of a door. Here, was my grandmother, entering the great library in a floor-length red velvet ball gown, complete with walking stick, looking dwarfed by the grandeur of the hall.
“What do you want from me? Your father left as soon as he was able. Why do you come here? Why now?”
“Grandmother, I came out of respect for you. I came to see you, why else?”
“Liar,” she spat. “However, as you are here, you can speak with me for a short while. But you are not to expect to stay the night, even if the weather worsens. Understood?”
“I would not expect otherwise from you grandmother and I certainly do not want to stay the night.”
I dreaded entering the dining room and it did not let me down. There was dirt and dust everywhere, covering the rich brocades and materials of a long lost era. And there amid the lost grandeur of another age my grandmother took her seat at the immense, oak dining room table.