It was while persecuting those earliest Humans that I realized, suddenly, that I could understand them. Having listened to their seemingly meaningless noises from the outskirts of their caves, their villages and their camps when they traveled, one day I simply made the mental leap that they were communicating, and I began to study them. After that it was only a matter of time. Then it was that I quit persecuting Humans. Suddenly I was more intrigued than angry.
They had begun to change as well by then. They had begun to look more like me, but I had not noticed. I had been living like an animal. I knew only the thoughts of the predator. Yet suddenly my mind had been awakened. Vast potentials opened before me. I began to study them and to learn. It was during this intense study of Humans that I first saw the Others. I heard them in my head before I actually saw them. I heard dozens of voices in my head all at once, wordless yet completely understandable. They heard me, as well. They were suddenly aware of me as I was aware of them. This was before I learned how to control myself. Learned how to control my thoughts.
“This is the modern era. Humans have put their superstitions behind them.” Sonafi said, but she wasn't really pushing the issue. The New World had been good to us. We have thrived here. I could think of nothing which would convince me to return to the land of my birth. I had ceased to hunt them, but the Humans of the Old World would never forget me. I had hunted them too long. Verbal histories had been passed down. The fear those earliest Humans had felt for me was still strong in the peoples of the Old World. We may have been forgotten here in the United States, but we were still remembered there.
My eyes shifted to and lingered momentarily on the detail and craftsmanship of the exquisite weapon under my hand. It was the finest blade I had ever seen and made by my friend. He had been the finest blade-smith who had ever lived. I had offered the gift of eternal life, but he was only one of the few who having been made the offer had declined. Hamaterara Cumosachi had been his name and a Human who had nothing to fear from the afterlife.
I well knew that Hamaterara would have nothing to fear in the afterlife, and he had assured me of my own goodness, even knowing how I fed, but I have always wondered how God will greet me when my day does arrive. Could those things I had done before the dawning of reason ever be forgiven? I returned my hand to my side, my attention to my wife.
“They will never put us behind them. We have done too much.” I said. Nor was it only what I had done personally. To add to my crimes I had unleashed a wave of Vampires I confusedly had thought would become my new family. I had been wrong.
“You are probably correct. I do not know that I would ever wish to return to those turbulent times.” Sonafi said. “We were never safe in those days. Always running and always looking over our shoulders.”
“It may not be good that we grow complacent, but it has been restful.” I soliloquized.
“I don't think you will ever really grow complacent.” Sonafi told me. “I do not believe you are capable of complacency.” Her eyes flickered to the Katana on its stand behind the sofa and then back to my own eyes. Amused, I could not help the smile which rose to my lips, or help noticing the fascination with which she beheld it, and the teeth my smile revealed. Even a Vampire could not resist her fascination with another Vampire's teeth; so white and milky, flawless and symmetrical, ideal and perfect, like everything else about a Vampire. If it weren't for our aversion to the sun, we would be the most perfectly crafted creatures on the face of this world.
“We don't need the superstitious peoples of the Old World to keep us vigilant.” I said. “We have the Others for that. I can remember every visitation as if they had only occurred yesterday. I would never be able to forget the Others. Not ever.”
“Nor I.” Sonafi said softly, vehemently, the memories flooding her mind. A mother does not soon forget the children she watched murdered right in front of her own eyes, no matter how long ago it had occurred.
Even if I were somehow ever able to become complacent, I would have Sonafi to remind me, to keep me vigilant. I had sometimes even to walk on eggshells around my own children. Sonafi became almost mindlessly ferocious directly after child-birth. I was sure to keep my distance during these times. Though I love her dearly, I cannot fail to notice the look of insanity, the pure primal madness, which comes into her eyes when she is guarding her newly -born.
Were it up to me entire, I would engender no more offspring, the entire Vampire race already sprung from my blood, my loins, to begin, but Vampires are not plagued with the same genetic deficiencies as Humans, the genetic influence we received from the Others much more complex, older, more evolved, there can be no problems with inbreeding, nor do I have control over Sonafi's reproductive cycle. Unlike Humans, a Vampire woman consciously controls her fertility. I wouldn't have a say in the matter even had I wanted. I did not attempt to dictate to Sonafi. It would do no good if I did and our relationship is one of mutual respect, so I don't. She makes these decisions and I abide them, for good or bad.
My part in the process is a brief one, relatively. Then I tend to steer a wide berth around her, especially right after she has birthed. She will look at me in a way, sometimes, that makes me think that it is a struggle to recognize me, her instincts rising and trying to take complete control of her. It was losing children to the Others that changed her. Something of her had been intrinsically altered.
“I see that you are determined that we should relocate somewhere else.” I said to steer the conversation away from the old hurts. Our offspring are born ready to fend for themselves. They are born ready and willing to fight. Ferocious. Independent. But no match, when they are young, for the Others. The only reason the Others had not eradicated us entirely was our too similar likeness to themselves. They can no more tolerate the sun than we. When they come, they must come in the night, and the night is the Vampire's friend. We are the night walkers. The night is our home as much as it belongs to the Others. The old legends are absolutely correct about that, at least.
“Will we never return?” Sonafi asked.
“Never is a long time.” I said. “I admit I miss the Old Country. The New World does not fulfill me the way the Old Country did, but here there is only one enemy.”
I was descended of the race of Humans who would later become the fierce nomadic Kurds. Black hair. Light brown skin. Dark blue eyes. Nowhere could I go in this new land without generating curious looks. I would never be fully at home here, but neither would I be persecuted or hunted by its Humans. Not unless I stirred them, and then like a swarm would they attempt to rise and engulf me.
“There are hundreds of us now in the U.S. How long can we remain unnoticed?” Sonafi asked. “And then what? Where will we go then? Imagine a television show 'Most Hunted' with us as the guests of honor; 'Root out the Night Walkers in your neighborhood!' We wouldn't stand a chance.”
“They have television in Europe and the East.” I pointed out. “Plus they remember us.”
“I guess you have a point.” Sonafi agreed reluctantly, a smile that revealed her own milky, predominant teeth warming her mobile face. I had successfully changed the subject. Diverted it from those old anguishes. It would never matter how many children had come before or after. My Sonafi would never forget those which had been lost to the Others. Once they left the nest, they were on their own and Sonafi divorced herself from them, but while within the nest, while still young and defenseless, they were Sonafi’s to guard, and she did so jealously.
CHAPTER 2
The night was our home and we walked within it fearlessly. St. Louis is a cosmopolitan city and our brown complexions did not mark us as different, as they had in some of the places we had lived. We were trapped indoors during the daylight hours. The hours I did not sleep I spent with book or pen in hand, but the night was our friend. We roamed it in its entirety.
The night life of St. Louis, the clubs, the social houses, the waterfront and the danger all had an allure for us that never seemed to wane. I was lucky
to have found in Sonafi a kindred spirit, someone who could appreciate the smaller things life had to offer and to be content with those things. Perpetual youth, or as close to unending as may be asked, may seem glamorous at first glance, but the blazing light of reality glared mercilessly through the transparency, the thin veneer of sanity separating an intelligent being from madness, as the unending parade of years march by. Few Vampires could live with themselves for truly extended periods of time.
Life could become tiresome when the same activities had been repeated more times than could be counted and when the days blurred one into the other. When life became barren and devoid of meaning and when there was no possibility of there ever being a change, any being could lose purpose. Most Vampires did. The will to continue and live simply slipped away. I have lost track of the number of times this has happened. I refuse to remember. I am, after all, the father of the Vampire species. It has often been left to me to handle these rogues. I do so begrudgingly but out of necessity. They threaten us all. Many have been my own children, and not just Vampires I have made, but of these latter the number is uncountable.
When a Vampire goes rogue it was usually within the first immediacy of life. The thousand year mark seemed to be one of the pivotal fulcrums of a Vampire's life. Still very immature yet faced with what might be called a midlife crisis. Sometimes simply unable to make the mental transition that this life could really last forever, the instincts of our Human part rebelling at what it couldn’t understand. Eternity was a huge concept to grasp and entirely alien to our Human halves. A Vampire either lived in the now, enjoying the little things that each day brought, or must face the yawning gulf of eternity with uncertainty.
Many of this the youngest generation has eagerly embraced the eternal. They pine for the glory of the technological society to come. Exploration of our galaxy and of the Universe. Manipulation of the complexities of the protein building blocks of life and the atom. Control of fusion and the forces that made the Universe. There was really no end to their aspirations. Those with such dreams would find the thousand year mark no more pivotal than any other year. It was against those who could not see this future that we had to guard.
When a Vampire goes rogue, it is not against Humans that it turns. Not any more than some Vampires do as normal routine. It is against their own kind that they turn. Something comes undone within them. Something becomes unhinged. They begin to hate their own kind. Turn against their kindred. It is against the Juveniles, the youngest, weaker Vampires that they turn, and you did not know they were going to turn until they actually began killing. Then it was too late. Too late for those killed, anyway.
The loss of an eternal life could not be quantified. The sum was far too great. The potential loss too vast. With every Vampire taken an eternity of promise vanished. I felt the loss of every individual personally, the more so because I am the father of my entire species. Thus it is often left to me to face these rogues. I am often the only Vampire capable or willing to do so.
Unpredictable, we are mostly by and large loners. Those not connected by the thread of direct lineage. Why few Vampires have children. We often make other Vampires, but could seldom tolerate one another long enough to procreate. A Vampire's strengths are not reserved to the male gender. It is age dependent, not gender oriented. For their sexual relations, most Vampires, both male and female, preferred their weaker Human counterparts, through which no procreation is possible. Most Vampires!
“I'm just naturally submissive.” Sonafi said as we walked arm in arm down the length of a scenic overlook facing the Mississippi River. She had peeked into my mind in my quietude to see what I was thinking. I turned to her with a smile of pure amusement.
“The night is beautiful.” I said, ignoring her preposterous statement. “I love the river. I love the city. We've been here so long.”
“You know they will never give up.” Sonafi answered my unspoken question. “They believe that once you are gone the rest of us will fall like dominoes. They may be right.”
“What happened to submissive?” I quipped, making light of her earlier statement due to the fact that she was still insisting we needed to move.
“Yeah right.” She said. “You only wish.”
“They'll accomplish nothing by killing me.” I said. “We've become too numerous. Too strong. They have created a race in Vampires both independent of themselves and humanity. Eventually we will be their undoing.”
“I don't believe that. I never have. I think the telepathic ties that bind us are far stronger than you believe. We are all, in the end, descended from you. What if the link is stronger than you believe?”
“I do not intend to sacrifice myself to find out.” I said. “I assure you of that. I have begun to wonder, in all honesty, if the Others have not decided to let us be. We are kin, in the end, after all.”
“They will never stop hunting you. Half is not enough for them. It will never be enough.” Sonafi said with conviction. “They can never make us entirely like them, so they cannot allow us to live. They are arrogant. The entire Universe is not large enough for both our species. For our three species! There is only one thing the Others respect, and we are not powerful enough to face them in that manner. So what happens when the entirety of the Human race has been bleached away?”
This was the dilemma with which we were faced. How far the genetic addition had already progressed. The signs of it were everywhere to be seen. Its progression was measured and sure. During the span of my life, albeit it has been a long one, I had seen man progress. I had seen them slink from the forests. Learn to cultivate the ground. Build cities. Take to the air. Leave their planet and even colonize other of Sol's celestial bodies. A monumental technological advancement that Humans believed had been entirely natural, an arrogance directly attributed to their alien influence. An arrogance directly attributed to the Others.
Many Humans still ridiculously believed that they were the only life in the Universe. This is what they thought when in reality they had been cultivated and nurtured like they themselves had cultivated and domesticated cattle wheat and corn. Not only genetically and domestically elevated from their existences within the forests and jungles within which they had dwelled, but their thoughts generated, their memories implanted, their ideals and concepts those of the Others. Yet Humans were completely ignorant of the process even as it was being applied to them- ignorant of their own coming demise. Too ignorant to see their cage, much less the laboratory in which their cage resided.
“Then why do we go on?” I asked. “The odds we face. The deck stacked so unevenly. You are right. What will happen when the Humans become so predominantly the Others that they reach their group consciousness? There will be no place to hide. Do you think that I do not consider this? I do not want to consider this, but I have no choice. I have been able to think of little else in recent years. How can I not look around myself and think these thoughts?”
Sonafi looked at me with an expression I seldom see- at least directed towards me. The look was that of calculation. Depression had always to be guarded against, watched for, and rooted out. There was always the danger of one of us going rogue. The peril that places us within, not only from the rogue himself, the threat he posed directly to us, but the added risk of exposure to the Human population that such actions generated. It was a delicate balancing act we played, with every single being a potential enemy and no safe haven anywhere we might turn. I smiled reassuringly.
“I'm not going rogue.” I said. “If that's what you're worried about. It just angers me that the Others have such power. The technological advantage they hold. The fact that we have to react to their pressures and cannot take the fight directly to them. That we have to run and hide. That I have become fond of this city and now have to leave it. I am not losing my sanity. Unfortunately, I have never been so sane. I have never been more sane.”
“A creature of habit can be predicted by his habits.” Sonafi said, giving my arm a squeeze that f
elt like a hydraulic press clamping down, despite my own supernatural strength. Her hands had always been exceptionally strong, due to her personalized training regimen. The finger exercises, specifically. Those of us who liked our lives, wished to continue living them, must actively participate in their perpetuation. To lie idle and unprepared meant certain death when we faced the Others. The Others had no such weak Human sentiments. All a Vampire possessed was his or her preparation. Sonafi and I both trained daily. The mettle of our resolve was the measure of our survival.
It was not as if our Human halves had brought nothing to the union, however. Plucked directly from their native habitats, my pre-Human ancestors had been little more evolved than the wild animals with which they had co-existed. Lifted genetically from the abyss of ignorance, both Humans and, at my inception, we Vampires, were a hybrid of both savage and civilized, so at my core, within my Human half, beat the heart of a savage animal, and to the basest of all instincts. That the will to survive at any cost.
As technologically advanced as the Others were, they may have manipulated their own genes to create their super strength, speed and agility, but they had been civilized for far too long. They did not have that which a Vampire had. A savage, primordial heart!
“I would almost welcome a visitation.” I said, twirling my cane. Hidden inside its length, a mere twist of the handle away, was the cold steel of a walking cane sword. If I were suddenly to have to use it, it would not be the first time, nor would I expect it to be the last. Sonafi was similarly though differently armed. She carried more weapons than I would care to count, every one of them hidden away, invisible in plain sight.
“I do not relish the thought. Nor will we continue always to be victorious.” Sonafi said, though there had been times when she would very much have relished the thought. When the savage glut of killing the Others was all she lived for. “The Others are far from ignorant. They are capable of evolution, as well, and nothing engenders evolution more rapidly than the threat of extinction. We are that threat!”
The Alien Agenda Page 2