The Dhampir Dimension

by Viktoria Alukard

  CH. 11

  THE SENTINELS OF DECAY

  Red brocades, velvet chairs, incense, cherry scented candles burning away their wicks, and even dating the prodigal daughter of the prodigal son himself, even still with all this material wealth, Leilani sulked within herself. She lay on her side in a skinny lump enveloped in a red kimono and heels, lips glossy blood red, and hair silky, stringy black that was absurdly too straight but voluminous. She was already regretting immortality, because that meant the end of the life she once knew in Hawaii, of surfing, the beach, and being one with the spirits of the sea turtles in the warm, turquoise Pacific Ocean.

  On the inside, she was the same lovely person she displayed outwardly, always an elegant, flowery woman, too poetic for the somber life ahead of her. Back in her human days, Leilani enjoyed her surfer life in Oahu, but after a horrific breakup with her Navy boyfriend who pinned the blame on her after she was sexually assaulted on a beach by another service member, the demons of post traumatic disorder began to eat her from the inside. She took to drugs, risqué sex, unsuccessfully slitting her wrists the wrong way, and even sleeping pills and vodka to make the cocktail of death. None of these answered her call as much as she invited death in to no longer must face the shame, the blame, the slut-shaming, the harassment in forms of emails and nasty rumors on social media. Oh, how she did come to despise social media and the exaggerations of trivialities, and how young adults spent countless time and money to live up to the lie they themselves fabricated.

  None of these things killed her, and after the sleeping pill incident that landed her in the psychiatric ward for a week, she knew that she was damned dead or alive. She had gotten some food and drinks from a 7/11 before she was going to drive back home at night, when she noticed a strange, too frail and pale blonde woman vulgarly smoking and leaning on the frame of her blue Mitsubishi Eclipse.

  “Hey, what the fuck are you doing by my car?” she confronted the blonde woman.

  The other one said nothing, but glance at her underneath her lashes, with deadened blue eyes so full of the fact that she didn’t seem to give a fuck. She looked like a frazzled coke addict, rail thin, and dressed head to toe in black, like those scene girls that hung out after midnight in downtown Oahu. It was history after Leilani gave the frazzled blonde girl a ride back to her hotel, against her own advice from her gut feeling. The girl, who introduced herself as “Aurelia” in the strangest, European-sounding accent, seduced Leilani to dance and to be held under the moonlight cast over the dark blue waters crashing on the beach, where palms and plumeria blossoms decorated for miles and miles. Aurelia was a traveler from Romania, which now made sense as to why she was so unrealistically white, the color of a freshwater pearl. Leilani had the habit of telling people her life story to cope with everything and Aurelia of course took advantage of the vulnerable, frail but beautiful Hawaiian girl with straight black hair, pink lips, and always in a sundress of a different color. Since mid-2017, Leilani had accepted immortality in the week that Aurelia showed her the secret bars in Oahu she never even knew about despite her 24-year residency since she was born here.

  She learnt that Aurelia was the adopted daughter of an attractive black-haired man named Narciso Tepes, an elder vampire, those very same kinds of vampires she’d read about in books and watched in modern films. Those same kinds that emulated the extravagance of Bela Lugosi, in their velvets and overpriced designer clothing and shiny exotic cars. Of course, this exuberant lifestyle was her dream come true and she saw it as an escape from her former, tragedy-streaked mortal life, and she went back to Romania where they hailed from. Every summer season, they would head to Norway and do nothing with their lives except sleep all day beneath wooden floorboards of their summer house, and then head back to Romania in the colder months. Aurelia’s father figure kept the whole family behind, well, the family that consisted of her, her girlfriend she sired, Narciso’s lover named Nikita, and their human servant, Ioana.

  Here, they lingered like sexy, scanty dead flies among the convivial banquets of blood, sex, and pulsating bass of industrial music and the dark luminosity of red and black fixtures, and illicit siring. But even this grew monotonic after some time, and even in the undead realm, for Leilani, life was not enough. The delicious flow of blood that enlivened her was becoming nauseatingly repetitive, and she craved more risk, more lust, and she went on a string of promiscuity and murder that clueless, entitled little Aurelia would never suspect. No, the bubbly headed brat who lacquered her nails on their bed they shared never even knew that Leilani. Sometimes, not even Leilani knew Leilani, for she recollected doing things recently that she would have never had the gall nor heart to do.

  She acted and looked so innocent, like a K-pop animated doll come to life. It was strange for him at first, so used to the decadent classical beauty of other female Romanian vampires, but he began to become so curious because Leilani was the cherry bubblegum he’d never yet chewed. Until he did, and her sweet flavor was one he desired to never spit out. Narciso began to fuck Leilani hard on the counter and they’d drink each other to climaxing satisfaction, and in exchange, she had accumulated a large share of wealth in Swiss funds electronically wired to her. Too bad Narciso didn’t know she’d run away and never be seen in such a long time. Even that last night that she had to pretend to love the dumb blonde brat upstairs, she chuckled to herself as Aurelia tasted her from the deepest abyss of her soul. How’s your daddy taste, bitch?

  This was the worst thing she could have thought to do to a vampire that she knew didn’t love her from the start and only used her as a plaything, much like Narciso did except that the latter paid off. Shit, she’d almost forgot that he wasn’t even Aurelia’s real father. Hmm. I bet your real parents knew you were a piece of shit before you were even born.

  Her long cherry nails of gel enamel wrapped around the snow-white throat of Aurelia from behind, and she sunk her little Hawaiian fangs into her throat, like she was a delectable piece of lau lau. Aloha Au Ia ‘Oe. Lolo Haole. Aurelia surrendered and dumbly allowed herself to be drained of almost all her blood, too much in trance with the vampiric euphoria. Leilani pushed her face into the pillow, where the blonde girl maniacally laughed herself to sleep like a psychopathic masochist. The anti-daylight shutters were flung open, and then she jumped off the ledge of the eighteenth story of the apartment building in Lipscani District, to find freedom, fresh victims, and maybe even a plane ticket back to the alma mater of koa wood, hibiscuses, and her beloved Ohana, who perceived her dead after an unresolved cold case in which she was reported missing.

  Under the flickering street lamps…

  Dalton’s face was red and streaked with falling tears as suddenly, Mommy was pulled away from him from their happy place in his heavenly garden with blooms of all the colors of spring in the day, and autumn at night. It hurt Regina so much to see her son cry like this, and she wanted to hug him and feel his tender warm cheeks pressed against hers one more time. She knew it was too blissful to be true, to be in elation and inhaling the sweet, warm powdery smell of babies that brought back long-lost innocence. Regina gave him his favorite stuffed animal of a grey cat, and the baby held the cat to his chest as he wept in the fetal position, watching Mommy disappear into the stars. It was heart wrenching, to witness the abandonment of a vulnerable little baby boy who had been so happy to be again with his mother. He needed and longed for her, after suffering along in his own heaven from her absence. He was resilient though, and an old soul trapped in a toddler’s body, who was a musical savant as well. Regina’s falling tears touched the cheek of the baby, and he looked up. The tear rolled into his little cupid mouth and it was made of liquid light. I will never abandon you because you’ll always be in my heart. You will always be Mommy’s little man. I love you Dalton, my precious beautiful little boy.

  Faces and bones crashed against pavement, and ribbons of blood flew out with chunks of teeth onto the ground. And then in a coun
ter-attack, a light post was knocked over and almost toppled over and caved into the roof of a private residence until Enttu caught it and laid it carefully on the sidewalk. An exposed wire licked his skin and sent a jolt of full on 600 Volts and plenty of heart-stopping current through his heart so much that it fucked with his pulse. He cursed and gritted his teeth in pain, but lucky for him, the undead prince now turned vigilante, it wasn’t fatal. Yet it still hurt like hell. Before fully recovering, his doppelganger grabbed him by the back of the neck and sent him flying in the air. He landed on his back next to Regina, who moaned in dull pain as her astral body was figuring out a way to crawl back in her shell. Until the time she awoke, she was left exposed to great peril that he fought in fisticuffs.

  The silver-haired evil twin sneered at him as it escaped the punch to the face and was now standing on top of the car.

  “You killed your little baby!” the monstrosity sang in mockery. Enttu stood in an attack stance, with his katana in hand, and the silver blade bounced off the moonlight. He was confused and furious at this demonic imposter.

  “What baby?” he thought out loud to himself.

  Too slow to react, the imposter unleashed a swarm of the mutant, lustrous roaches with a hard, spiny noir exoskeleton. But the insects kissed the circle of flames thrown out of the palm of the dhampir. One by one, shiny hard carcasses fell in a pile of roasted insects, and then they dissolved into black dust. The doppelganger lunged with claws out and mouth open to bite a succulent chunk from the dhampir’s pretty, young, petal-white neck, but he dashed up in the sky, too fast for the demon who was an evil entity who wasn’t very intelligent just because he oozed oppressive black decay that smelt of foul necrosis and formaldehyde. Enttu dragged down the blade of the katana from the hilt, and forced it to slice downwards, tearing flesh, muscle and bone, ambushing the demon from behind. It was a little bit unnerving to murder his look-alike in such a gore of a death he only employed on the dregs of society. Guts spilled from the back, and the thing’s spinal cord was severed vertically as the blade pushed through bone. A beating black heart, organs, spleens, entrails, darkened liver, and black bile dumped onto the ground in a wet, slapping splat.

  The doppelganger then split open to either side, and the brains landed among the pile of rotting mush. Then they transubstantiated to an effervescent pool of tiny black bubbles. It kept ebbing back into the liquid state of dark matter from whence it came, and got pulled underneath the pavement, underneath the dimension of Earth back down the Lower Astral Planes.

  Loud distant booms from the signal towers looming on the mountainside flashed with lightning, and then the blackened stratus around it was lit up by neon orange, licking fire that engulfed the towers faster than he could blink. By the time he made it back to Regina whom he dragged to the sidewalk next to the glossy BMW, he fell back and cursed the earth when he found that she was no longer around. Where could she have gone to? She was too weak to fight! Let alone move, with no blood to course her veins! What if she needed to feed? What if she killed an innocent?!

  A gargling scream not human in nature sounded off behind him, the next few houses down, where the mechanical, dancing female figure of someone who really looked like Regina was thrown down hard on the asphalt. Bones were heard cracking, and then followed the bloody sound of blood filling the mouth as a stake was driven through breast and bone.

  “You’re going down too, you cunt!” a triple-voice emanated from the female lying on the ground with her arms and legs splayed open.

  Besides her, Enttu noticed the waif figure of a tall Asian woman in a red satin dress, and she wore cherry blossoms in her long black hair, that fell straight into hell. She cursed the kicking flailing demon and held her in place with the stake between the sole of her stilettos and the demon girl’s breast.

  “Back to hell you go!” the Asian woman commanded to the air.

  She focused the energy in her palm towards the street, until a swirling, pulsing black portal opened and it made a low, vibrating noise. She kicked the demon into the hole, and then from her palms, sent forth a wave of bloody flowers that sealed off the portal. She looked dead ahead when she realized she was being watched by the likewise waifish blonde entity she at first thought was an angel. But in three steps she took, she caught the metallic reek of blood lingering in the corner of his mouth and noticed the pulsating blue circle of dim light around him. He looks an awful lot like my dumb ass girlfriend, except as a man, and taller. He’s gravely beautiful, like a fresh rose adorning a coffin at a funeral.

  “She went that way, now mind your business, dead man,” she commandeered, with a low, husky, yet melodic voice.

  Her finger pointed at the street behind him, to where the sky set ablaze with orange dancing thunder and fire against the black canvas of the night. She was sexy, bold and tigress of a woman, and Enttu absorbed her image in his mind, like a stamp of fresh black, red, and hot pink ink. He hadn’t seen women like that since Thailand. Since Nayeru. Since Regina. He dashed past the aggressive rain pelting against his skin, on his way to see how well she was fairing with having her blood drained and still being able to function. Even in death, she blew his mind.

  Power Plant

  Behind her was the dark tunnel she ran desperately from where a macabre woman who strikingly resembled her chased after her with drawn out claws, and razor blades cutting deep into the bleeding gums of her mouth. An unknown amount of time had passed, and she kept running eternally toward a blood red moon looming over a hill of black tree trunks where the glowing white bassinet awaited, and she rushed with her heart leaping out her chest to get to sleeping baby Dalton, who was curled up and peacefully asleep. She reached the crib to grab and cradle the toddler in her arms, and she fell to her knees, sobbing for him, and pressing his warm cheek against her chest, only engulfed in his sweet smell and the red moonlight. It was too funereal for a small innocent child to linger here, but always in her dreams, he always chose to be near or under the moonlight. When she nestled the little baby on her lap, her heart broke and she screamed in tears out loud to the night when his warm body was now a bouquet of bloody red roses on her lap, adorned with fresh sprigs of fragrant baby’s breath. Her eyes closed, accepting the tragedy that her son was forever gone, at least while she remained alive on Earth. How badly she craved death!

  Gentle but freezing icy rain washed away her sadness only right now, and when she opened her eyes, she gasped in consternation that this was only but another illusion that she’d been suffering ever since getting here. It was probably the metaphysical, psychic influence of the Vampire Enttu, who she was, mystically attracted to, and now intimately entwined with. She pounded her fist against the wet concrete, splitting her knuckles open with the strike. Hot tears of rage ran down her cheeks. When she opened her fist, she held a singular, precious ruby red blooming rose, perfuming the air in front of her. The long sleeves on her wrist indicated that during a loss of time, she or someone else had changed her clothes.

  When she scanned her surroundings, she suddenly noticed that she was in the parking lot of the power plant, and that a black smoke emerged from a crack in the roof from the uptakes. Something was gravely wrong, because the signal towers were arcing and sparking with blue and yellow erratic bolts of electricity. This was in no way normal, and she had to mitigate the situation. The sky was all black, and the rain wouldn’t cease and fell harder, soaking through her black pants, boots, and black jacket. She was fascinated by the blue electricity running naked and exposed up and down the tower’s steel frame. It was lethal beauty she admired from her old days as an Electrician’s Mate in the Navy. Involuntarily, her left eye twitched and began to focus on a blinking red orb floating just right behind the towers. What frightened her was not that she saw it, but that she could hear the low mechanical hum over the cackling current dancing from exposed, torn insulation. When the hum became louder in her head, and her vision sharpened, the red orb suddenly flew o
ff into the distance and was seen no more.

  “What the fuck is happening,” she thought out loud.

  She sprung to her feet and had the urge to hawk a lump of spit onto the asphalt, expelling the residual taste of blood in her mouth. Speaking of, her mouth was so dry, and the skin on her cheeks felt stretched tightly. She kicked down the door to the entrance lobby without much thought, out of second nature, and it came clean off the hinges in one punt of her heel.

  The lobby’s blue lighting was flickering, and dragging handprints repainted the walls with what she suspected was dried blood. Light fixture covers above had been broken and cracked open, and exposed wiring hung out to shock a potential victim. Spores of the smell of blood floated in the rankness. This was foreign to her, not because she hadn’t smelt blood before, she could taste the smell. No, never did it occur to her nor had she recalled a damn thing yet. It was always so cold as balls here, and tonight was no different, soaking wet clothes not helping her case. She wasn’t wearing a bra beneath the black top, and her nipples gave away just how cold she was. The elevator seemed to work, surprisingly, and even though she was scared to death to go down to the scene by herself, the face of Cassandra couldn’t be erased from her mind, along with the hopeful comfort of maybe finding her here troubleshooting the issue. But with the blood on the walls, how could she have known. An epiphany of “oh shit” came to her several seconds too late when the elevator descended into the generator decks.