The Progeny

by Shelley Crowley

  Prologue

  It was the year 1934. Ominous figures gathered in the graveyard behind a looming church, shrouded in fog and darkness. They were nightwalkers. The winter air was dry and crisp, the wind sharp as cut glass.

  One man crouched on a wall, eyeing the scene. He had an air of grandeur about him. He was old but far older than he looked. Hundreds of years older than his sixty-year-old body. The crowd below him hissed, sniggered and bared their teeth at the lowly man in the centre of them.

  The man had his hands tightly entwined together in front of his chest to try and contain his shaking. The huge fresh bloodstain that covered almost the entirety of his shirtfront was forgotten.

  He was pale with a body of a man in his early thirties. His short, dark hair was slicked back with a side parting and glistened in the moonlight. His striking, pale blue eyes were smeared red with tears. The crowd hunched over gravestones and inspected him mockingly.

  The old man looming over them lifted his palm into the sky. The sniggering and snapping of fangs stopped. The only sound left was the rustling of leaves.

  __________#__________

  “Caius.” The elder man’s voice made the dark-haired man hold back a cringe.

  “Yes, Guardian,” he replied in the strongest voice he could muster.

  The old man stood and leaped from the wall, clearing the ten feet between him and the ground with ease. He inspected himself and straightened his tailored suit before his dark eyes fixed on Caius.

  “You stand before the Vampire Court today-” The old man began to make his way over to him with slow, measured strides. The light of the moon bounced off his perfectly bald head. “Because, I have reason to believe that you have put our kind in danger.”

  Caius’ skin prickled with fear as he stood before the smartly dressed man. He too was wearing a tailored three-piece suit. He was quaking in his once shining shoes. Now, the old man stood before him, so close that Caius could count the wrinkles that pooled round his eyes.

  “You fell in love with a breather. You shared a house. A life. Our secrets. With a breather.”

  Caius’ jaw set and he straightened his back in an attempt to look defiant. He didn’t regret any of that. He loved Catherine with all his un-beating heart because she accepted him for who he was.

  The old man sniggered, inspecting Caius’ sharp features. “It’s a good thing I heard about it when I did. So I could put a stop to it.”

  Caius’ eyes flickered as tears threatened to make themselves known. But he stayed quiet. His jaw set, looking off into the distance, past Guardian’s steely eyes.

  “But I don’t think you have been punished enough.”

  Caius’ eyes widened for a fraction of a second as he felt his gut twist. How could he have not been punished enough? He had just lost the woman he loved. He has just lost everything.

  Guardian looked to the crowd. “Belle, Cosette, if you don’t mind.”

  Two women straightened and flashed the old man a fanged smile before disappearing behind a tomb. Caius watched uncertainly then started at a scream. The two vampire women returned with another body between them, held up by her upper arms. Her feet scrambled across the ground to keep up with the vampire women’s pace. The frail young woman’s auburn hair fell over her tear-stained face and her pale body was quaking uncontrollably. With a sharp nod from Guardian, the two nightwalkers released their grip on her. She slumped to the ground with a whimper in front of Guardian. Slowly, she picked herself up to a sitting position and pushed her hair from her face. Her hazel eyes were wide as she scoped her audience. Hugging her tattered, white night dress closer to her body, she curled up on herself and found the man in charge.

  “P-please, let me go. Don’t kill me... please...” she begged. Her voice was broken with sobs. Tears poured down her cheeks leaving pale trails down her dirty skin. “W-why did you take me? I-I’ve done nothing wrong... If I did then... I’m sorry...”

  “Shhh...” crooned Guardian, pressing his bony finger against his lips. “This has nothing to do with your mistakes.” He turned to Caius. “This is all his doing.”

  Caius gulped heavily and looked to the girl. Her eyes found his. They were wide and pleading. His gut twisted tighter.

  “You will Turn her.”

  Caius turned to Guardian. If his heart could beat, it would be thumping against his slender chest. Guardian showed him a malicious grin. “Did you really think you could live your whole immortal life never becoming a Maker?”

  “She shouldn’t have to pay,” Caius said mournfully, bowing his head, feeling even more empty inside than usual.

  “Well, how else are you going to learn?” asked Guardian, tilting his head.

  “This was my mistake, not hers.”

  The girl whimpered.

  “Ah, yes,” said Guardian. His voice carried a hiss. “But the only way you will know what it truly means to be a vampire is to you teach it to your progeny. I guarantee that you will learn from this experience.”

  Caius lifted his head and opened his mouth to protest but was interrupted by a blood curdling wail. He watched as the crowd of vampires lunged at the defenceless girl and started to bite, claw and pull at her like a pack of wild dogs. He winced at the sight of her blood being spilled. He couldn’t even see her as the vampires huddled around her. She shrieked, cried and begged for the first several seconds then the only sound was claws against flesh and the snapping of jaws.

  “Enough!” barked Guardian and they all stood, wiping their blood covered faces with the backs of their hands. Caius’ eyebrows furrowed with pity as the young girl lay limply across the floor. Her dainty white dress was now torn to shreds and red with her blood. Caius winced as the scene caused flashes of his worst memory to invade his mind. How similar she looked to Catherine when he found her on their bed, bite marks covering every inch of her. But this girl was different to Catherine. This girl was still alive. Her chest rose and fell ever so slightly. Without vampire sight, he wouldn’t have noticed. The weak beat of her heart travelled through the air.

  “Turn her.”

  Caius gulped and pulled his eyes away from the body. The smell of her blood painted the wind. It attacked his senses and awakened the beast that was at rest within him. Guardian noticed his unwillingness and sighed. “For every second of my time you waste, I will kill a breather.”

  “Don’t believe me?” Guardian asked when Caius made no effort to move. He snapped his fingers and the same two female vampires disappeared and returned with a sluggish human in each arm. Two men and two women. They were frozen with fear as they studied the nightwalkers.

  Guardian gripped one of the men’s arm, making him hiss with pain, and yanked him to his side. The other hand wavered at the human’s chest, his fingers waggling impatiently.

  “Turn the girl.” Guardian narrowed his eyes.

  Caius reluctantly walked to the half-dead girl and knelt beside her. He gulped and brushed her hair from her face, taking in her beauty.

  “Turn her,” Guardian seethed but Caius didn’t move. A strangled gasp and the crunch of flesh and bones raised his head. His jaw set in anguish as the male human dropped to the floor. Guardian raised an eyebrow and inspected the bloody heart in his hand. His eyes flickered to Caius. “Waver any longer and I’ll have quite the collection.”

  More screams and cries followed from the humans that were still alive. Caius looked down at the girl before him and smoothed her hair again, listening to her slow heartbeat. It would stop soon. And he would be the one to stop it.

  He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit into his flesh then pressed the oozing wound to her lips. Fearing that she couldn’t swallow, he also dabbed his fingers into his own blood and rubbed it into her bites and scratches, hoping it would se
ep into her bloodstream.

  In the corner of his eye, Caius could see Guardian grinning as he watched.

  He pressed his wrist to her lips once more with a new desire to keep her alive. Well... half alive. Then, swallowing a thick lump and attempting to bite back tears, he pressed his hands to her throat and squeezed until he cut off her air. She didn’t fight against him. She didn’t have the energy. She just lay there, allowing him to starve her of oxygen.

  “It will work, Caius,” eased Guardian. He settled his bloody hand on Caius’ shoulder, making him flinch. His body sagged and he withdrew his hands when her heartbeat ceased and looked down at the girl in defeat. “It will work.”

  The crowd huddled closer, their eyes trained on the girl and sniffing her scent. Minutes passed. Caius waited, anxiety swelling in his chest. Then her wounds start closing, sealing shut and leaving her skin pale and perfect once more.

  The girl jerked up and inhaled deeply but then coughed and wheezed. The air must have felt foreign to her, like it had for Caius when he had first Turned. She wasn't experiencing her lungs inflating. She would be feeling nothing. Nothing but numbness and hunger.

  Her hazel eyes blinked up at her Maker and a faint smile lifted on Caius' lips. Despite being forced to do something that he had tried to avoid all his immortal life, Caius couldn’t help but be in awe of what sat before him.

  His progeny was born.

  PART I – The Change

  Chapter 1

  Evie bunched up her shoulders and shivers, pretending to be affected by the cold. She always welcomed winter, with its early setting sun, but a part of her did get irritated by this charade. By her side, Eric noticed her discomfort.

  “It’s a bit chilly out today, what do you reckon?” he asked.

  Evie gulped and forced a shiver. “Yeah, it is a bit.”

  It was hard to go on day after day pretending to be human, but Evie decided years ago that it was much better than coming out as a vampire. Sure, the humans put on a brave face and tried to treat the bloodsuckers as ‘equals’ but it was hard to miss the fear and hatred in their eyes.

  Eric was a good man Evie had always thought. She’d been working with him for just over a year now as a bouncer at the club Sourz. It was a human club. Evie thought it would be best. There was much less blood. Although, every now and again a drunk would stumble out after being bottled over the head with blood dripping down from their scalp and smeared over their hands. That was when Eric would step in and Evie would slip into the alleyway beside the club to cool down. She had mentioned to Eric the first day they manned the door together that she had a thing about blood, couldn’t stand the sight of it. Eric was very understanding and would always usher her away when any of the red stuff was around.

  The night was still young, only nine o’clock. The youth didn’t start lining up until around ten. Evie noticed that was now cold enough for Eric’s breath to come out in white puffs of mist so she made a conscious effort to match his breathing pattern before he caught onto the fact that the air around her was completely untarnished.

  “So, how’s things with Clarissa?” Evie asked.

  Eric frowned a little, looking ahead. “Not so great.”

  “Oh? How many dates has it been now?”

  “Three.”

  “You said it was going well.”

  He sighed. “It was, until the last time we met up.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “She likes to go to those vampire bars…” his voice trailed off with a disgusted scrunch of his nose.

  Evie’s stomach cramped. “Oh.”

  Eric puffed out a heavy breath. “She’s into the whole… biting thing.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, I have nothing against vampires as long as they keep themselves to themselves. They have blood rations and those blood whores, no need to go around biting others, too.”

  “But they do go into those places willingly,” said Evie, hoping to not sound too defensive.

  Eric scowled. “That’s what they make us believe. It’s that compelling that creeps me out. I mean, you could go to one of those bars and they could do whatever they want to you and make you forget the whole thing. For all we know, those blood whores have vampire pimps doing exactly the same thing to them.”

  Evie pushed her tongue against her teeth to force herself to stay quiet. She knew he was wrong because vampires can tell when a human has been compelled and she knew the Dial-a-bite system didn’t work like that. But obviously, she couldn’t tell him that.

  “Anyway,” Eric sighed after a short silence. “It has put a strain on things.”

  “It might still work out…” replied Evie, squinting into the breeze.

  Another silence followed but Eric quickly broke it. “You think they’ll be any fights tonight?”

  She shrugged. “Probably. There always is.”

  He laughed, his large, round belly jiggling a little. “Gotta love this job.”

  “You sure do.”

  Whenever a fight did break out, the drunks always wanted Evie to be the one to step in and sort them out because of how mean and intimidating Eric looked. She couldn’t blame them really. She always thought that if the tables were turned, she’d want the young, pretty faced red head to throw her out rather than the six-foot three body-builder built like a truck. But little did they know that Evie could run rings around Eric and shred him to pieces if she wanted to.

  They made a good team, Evie and Eric.

  “Oh, looks like the night has finally started,” Eric inclined his head over to a group of lads heading towards the club.

  They both asked for their ID’s and all four of them lined up in front of Evie, giving her the eye as she checked out their driving licenses.

  “Like what you see?” One of them grinned.

  She arched her eyebrow and shoved the ID into his chest. He winced and clutched the card before following his friends inside.

  Eric chuckled. “You really do attract them.”

  “The perks of the job, I guess.”

  The last dregs of drunken misfits started making their way home at around three in the morning and Evie called it a night soon after, watching the sky turn from black to a murky blue. She shoved her hands into her leather jacket pockets and tilted her head down from the wind as it whipped her auburn hair across her face. She may not feel the cold but the wind still irritated her.

  Even though there were no fights tonight and no blood was spilled, she hadn’t drunk anything fresh in the past two nights and if she wanted her plan to work, she needed to keep breaking the rules. She needed to do something to bring him home and this was all she could think of doing.

  Her fangs lengthened.

  Heading down another dark alleyway, she spotted her victim.

  Homeless people were easy targets. Known vampires were constantly watched by the human authorities and simple interactions between vampires and humans often came with a not-so- concealed stake held in a sweaty grip. Evie was always thankful that she had been able to keep a low profile for so long. Sure, she was watched every now and again. Everyone was to some extent. But it was nothing compared to the scrutiny that outed vampires faced on a nightly basis. It irked her to a point that she sometimes wanted to scream but then she’d calm herself and submit. This was just how the world worked now.

  She bit into the subdued man’s neck, drinking next to nothing. She then pricked her finger with her fang and pressed it to the bite marks, soothing them and closing them up with her blood.

  Two drunks stumbled out of a bar, laughing and slapping each other playfully on their backs. She eyed them up but regressed into the shadows. She was already putting herself in enough danger as it was. And all for him.

  Checking her phone, her gut twisted. No new messages. No new voicemails. She chewed her lip and called Caius again. Just as she had expected, there was no answer. She was starting to worry. It had been a week since she’d seen him. He had left to go to the hospital and never came back. Su
re, Caius was a big boy. He’d been around for ten centuries for God’s sake, he could look after himself. But she just couldn’t shake the prickly feeling at the back of her neck telling her that something didn’t quite add up.

  Evie and Caius had been side by side for just short of a hundred years now and yes, it could drag on sometimes. This was never the life she had planned for herself.

  Sometimes they went their separate ways because the Maker-progeny link got a little overwhelming sometimes and distance was needed. So when Caius didn’t come home for the first two nights, Evie lied to herself that he had gone on a last-minute trip. But he would have called. He would know she would be worried. Something wasn’t right.

  Rain started to clatter to the ground so Evie hugged her jacket close but had intention of carrying on through this weather so she vampire-sprinted her way home. Even though she made it to her porch in less than thirty seconds, her hair was stuck to her face.

  “Caius!” she called, slamming the front door behind her. Her boots squelched as she walked across the laminate. They used to have carpet but blood stains were right bitch to clean. Her stomach knotted. No answer. Where the hell is he?!

  She headed upstairs, stripped off her wet clothes and jumped into the shower to try and scrub away the disgusting feeling that crawled over her skin after she fed off a homeless person.

  Caius won’t approve.

  But Caius isn’t here.

  Caius come back and fix me.

  Lathering up the shower gel on her body, she felt hot tears running down her cheek. She rubbed her face, annoyed by her own emotions and focused on the hot spray on her body. She missed how her old body would flush under the heat of the water. Now she felt it hit her the same way the rain did. Just... water on flesh.

  It was about an hour before dawn when she dried off and redressed into her pyjamas. She brushed her teeth to get all of the hobo taste out of her mouth and inspected her reflection. She sighed at the bags under her eyes. In human years, she was only twenty-two but her worry about Caius had made her age significantly.