I could no longer hear the sounds that filled the city at night. I only heard the sound of water and the rustling of trees. When our feet found earth, I was utterly amazed at the sight that filled my eyes.
The high hills of green grass and tall cypress trees made the backdrop for the land of Italy. Many rolling fields and mountainsides of yellow! Orange and red trees added brilliant colors to the large acres of green grass that ran through the hills of Rome. Even though they were inked in black, the colors were shining through with an amazing influence on my senses. With a running brook and a gentle cooling breeze, this place gave off a feeling of harmony and serenity. I was reminded of my favorite playwright, William Shakespeare.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it.
I stood there utterly amazed by the beauty and wonder of the night sky. It was so clear! I took a step forward. My legs were weak and unable to hold me and I crashed to the ground. I looked back at Fabiana. She was lovely, sexy and alluring, and I thought about the photograph again. Thought of her leaning over the man, her breasts close to his face. I felt the stirring between my legs again. How curiously local the stiffening of my organ was. My blood pumped and she knew it. It consumed my thoughts. I stared at her as she did at me. Finally, I lowered my gaze as she stepped forward.
“The Origin of Blood was coming for you, human,” she said. “They will continue to come for you, but you will be safe here. For a while, at any rate.”
“Where is here?” I asked. “And what is The Origin of Blood?”
“Italia, in the Seven Hills of Roma. And The Origin of Blood is an order of vampires who serve the first vampire, Cognatus. The Origin. We are linked by blood. His blood.”
I climbed slowly to my feet and looked down to the city below. Then I spun around and asked the question that had been plaguing my thoughts.
“You kill vampires, your own kind. Why?”
“Let me just say that the same great miracle of light that gives life to you takes it from me. I want the life of light back that I once had. My thoughts in the last few hundred years have been filled with despair and pain. I don’t want this anymore, if I ever really did.
“I have but one driving force now in me—to kill The Origin and stop the vampire line. Doing so will cure the blood disease that runs in all of our veins. I take the lives of my Family, my brethren, to harness their strength and power for my own needs and desires. I am becoming strong enough to destroy The Origin of Blood. I can feel how close I am. And so can they.”
She paused, grabbed me by my arm, and before I knew it we were moving down the hill at a great speed. Trees were flashing past me; the vegetation was a blur of streaked color. Then suddenly I realized we were standing in the center of Rome.
A cool, calming wind blew over the red tiled rooftop of a small building that sat on the corner of the street. Ivy grew up a tall, old stone building as a clothesline draped across the street. Pretty and busy little roads were decorated with wooden tables donned with candles fluttering in the breeze. Blooms of flowers of wondrous colors sat under an awning as moonlight painted its glow around them. Behind the glass windows of a tavern, people took their drinks of wine and ale. Some even lingered, wrapped up in one another’s arms. Several waited with empty wine glasses as a girl made her way with a bottle.
“Welcome to today’s Roma,” Fabiana told me. Large modern structures of buildings and homes of glass and steel crowded the city. They looked strange next to the few ancient buildings that remained. Small houses with red and orange rooftops peaked into the skyline as thin, tall stucco houses colored the alleyways. Modern Rome painted the space around the ancient architecture like wisps of pastel.
“This landscape tells the history of this city, a history told in beauty and poetry,” she continued. “Roma was built on brutal ruthlessness and conquest. I know this only too well for I was there to witness it. Little has changed in the last few thousand years.”
“Why do they want to kill me?” I questioned her.
“Because of me. The killings, my killings, have been made public. You’re the human that is leading the investigation for your city, so an order for your death has been made. I have the ability to read the thoughts of immortals around the world, so when Alastar drew close to you, I moved in to stop him.”
“How is it that we are on the other side of the world?” I asked as I looked at my watch and was stunned by the time.
“No time has passed! Only moments ago I was standing in downtown Seattle.”
“I willed us here in an instant. Some have called it folding time.”
“Going back in time?”
“No, not back in time, exactly. We just traveled so quickly that only a moment or two has passed for you and me. Think of time as a straight line—point A to point B.
“Now if time was a flat piece of paper and point A was on the top edge and point B was on the bottom, and you folded the piece of paper, the distance between the two points would be greatly decreased. You see, I simply willed the points closer together,” Fabiana said.
That last remark stunned me before I could conceal it. I was shocked for a silent instant and then I regained my control. We hurried along the pavement. I was too confused and excited to risk another word. It would be a dreadful mistake to offend her. Really it would. She had protected me, of course, but for what reason…? I did not know.
“I am the vampire Fabiana,” she began. “But you already knew that. I like little introductions. It makes me feel that I’m important. And I am important to you.
“I have read your mind—and that is only one of the talents that I have learned in my time on this planet. I’m a perfect mix of Spanish and Roman blood lines that date as far back as the glory days of the Roman Empire, when they controlled most everything. I am a true blood drinker, or blood collector, as we tend to call each other. You already know that I’m incredibly powerful and strong, even more than most of my kind. Recently I have put that to the test and I think it’s safe to say that even I don’t know my full potential yet.
“I can take to the skies with just the will of my mind. I can control fire and direct it onto anything or anyone I wish. I can read minds from all over the world, even the thoughts of immortals that are resisting me. I am old. Very old. I no longer need blood to sustain myself. I only drink the blood of immortals now and only for its power and the secrets that are locked away in it.
“You don’t need to fear me. I won’t take your life. If I had wanted to, you would have been dead days ago. I know more about suffering and pain than most people could ever dream up. I have gone through rapid cycles of cruelty and fits of utter kindness. Insight and suicidal rage. I was mad for a good many years and then sane once more. The last few thousand years have not been easy for me. And now I just want it to end.”
She had a provocative intelligence lurking behind her flawless beauty. Her expression made me realize how unnerved I had become through all of this. She watched me with wonderful delight, as if she were the one that was fascinated by me. She held my gaze steadily, calmly. She found it easier to muster a casual stare than I did. Her gaze was as still as a statue’s as I looked at her.
“Fabiana, how is this happening? How did you become like you are? Is it really like in the movies? Is that what you are, really?” I asked, unsure if I was crossing some kind of line.
She studied me for a moment. How would she answer? Would she even try to answer? Or was it one of those immortal secrets only told in death? She was silent for a long uncomfortable pause, but I could see that she was calculating fiercely. And then I realized how much she was savoring all of this, playing the teacher and I was the dutiful student.
She smiled at me then, softly moved in closer to me, lifted up her right hand and carefully laid her fingers on my head. And without speaking a word, she told
it to me. She laid out everything for my mind to see.
I learned of the birth of the first vampire and how it all began millions of years ago. Fabiana told me of her childhood and playing in the fields of her home with a friend of her father’s. And then of her birth into The Origin of Blood. She looked me up and down for a brief moment as if she were debating to reveal something that was difficult for her and I thought her composure might snap. But then she retreated into a more protected and calm manner. She stepped back from me and we took a seat at the small tavern as if we were normal people having a drink.
“Why am I alive? Why not let them kill me? What difference would it make to you?”
“My need for power and supremacy has already developed beyond my need for blood. But I will not dwell on that now. There is heroism in you. Like the Parthian and Median cavalry, you dug in hard on our gates. If I had been so inclined, I would have made you an immortal. You would have made a fine blood collector. But I told myself a long time ago that no more innocent blood would be taken. You, human, are an innocent.”
Now a cold despair did come over me, obliterating my confusion and anger quite completely. I stared listlessly at the wine in my hand, a finger slowly rubbing the lip of the glass. I felt the surroundings melt away from us as if we were not in a half-empty tavern in the heart of Rome. I looked beyond the muted lights of the tavern’s lobby with its wonderful breads laid out on a hand-carved table of oak. Fabiana gazed at me for a long moment; it seemed minutes of silence passed between us.
“I can help you,” I said. “Take me back. Take me to The Origin of Blood.”
252
Chapter 48
6:00 p.m., November 25
Within moments of leaving the alleyway, Jack was in handcuffs and Kenny was escorting him down a darkly lit street in Freemont. The great chill of the evening crept across the city and no matter how desperately Kenny wanted it to stop, the rain would not halt its downward assault on him as he walked. A gust of cold wind startled him suddenly. Kenny could hear the dull rasping music from the tavern of The Dubliner a block behind him and the people walking the streets around them were unaware of what had just occurred.
Kenny had no words for what he had just witnessed in the darkness. He wasn’t even sure what he should do with Jack. And what was that woman that Jack killed? Not human, he was sure of that. She had turned to dust right before his eyes. Was it like in the movies that he had seen so often as a child? Was she really a vampire? They always turned to dust, right? He had no answers.
Jack began to talk to Kenny even if Kenny didn’t want to hear his words.
“You think I’m a killer, don’t you? Well, Detective Johnson, I know you. You’re no different than me.”
“You know me, huh? How is that?”
“I’ve seen your file. You think I partner up with just anyone without knowing every little detail about who they are? You joined the Army and you joined the police force. Do you see the common element in those choices? It’s violence, Detective,” Jack said.
“Or the love of my country. You ever think of that?”
“The violence that you suffered in childhood has followed you into adulthood.”
Kenny did not like the direction that the conversation was taking.
Kenny sternly replied to him with low, carefully stated words pointed at the back of Jack’s head.
“Agent Mitchell, I’ve killed, but I’ve never murdered. Look up the difference. You’re the murderer. Not me. Now enough of your psychology shit.”
But Jack was far from done.
“Few people looking at you would know what you’ve been through,” Jack said.
“Come again, Jack?”
“You were adopted, and the people who adopted you were an older couple. You were too old for standard adoption. Meaning you weren’t an infant, right? What age? Four?”
“Six,” Kenny answer uncomfortably.
“Yes. Six. A ‘special needs’ child. A child who had been through some sort of hell. A damaged child. But these were loving folks, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
More discomfort built up in Kenny. He would have given anything for the conversation to stop right there.
“They saved you. Now they are gone and once more you’re an orphan again. The wound is still fresh, but they had time to save you. They gave you a good life and that’s why you believe that people can be saved and why you joined the Army and the police force. That gives you a deeper calling that I do not share.”
With that, Kenny and Jack fell silent and walked on. That was the first time Jack had shown any sign of compassion for him, but Kenny was uncertain if it was just a ploy. Jack could have been feigning sympathy instead of showing genuine concern for him.
Kenny knew that he and Tim were heading into an area of investigation outside of their usual thought patterns, but this was a whole new level of weird. This was Buffy the Vampire Slayer weird. He wanted answers. He needed answers.
“You’ve never seen one before, have you?” Jack asked. “It’s shocking at first, the acceptance of the idea you thought only children and fools believed in. You need to widen your beliefs, yourself, and the world. But then, and only then, you come to understand.”
“Understand what?” Kenny asked.
“Well, the responsibility that this knowledge demands by the people who have it. The great sacrifice made by great men like my grandfather,” Jack told him.
“What sacrifice?”
“Happiness. For there are true horrors in life. If you can open your eyes to see them and finally know what the world is truly like, there is no going back.”
There was a long silence between them. Then Jack spoke again.
“She killed my father, you know.”
“Who? That young girl you just murdered back in that alley?”
“She was no young girl. She was Aglaia, which in basic Greek means splendor or beauty. That was the name she had been given at birth, but some time afterward she took on the name of Atrox, which in Latin means…”
“Let me guess. ‘Dark side’?” Kenny said with a sarcastic snort.
“No, Detective. It means terribly cruel or horrific.”
Kenny fell silent and let Jack continue.
“I have been searching for her most of my life. And when the killing began to climb up the coastline, I knew she would be here. She had always been drawn to the fight. I had to get her before your vampire did. She was one of the most deadly creatures this world has ever known. Don’t you see that yet? I had to kill her.”
Kenny stared at Jack but would not dignify this maniac with a response any longer. He was done.
Kenny walked behind Jack with his eyes fixed on the back of his head. Kenny was sure there were many secrets that Jack knew and would never tell him, but he needed to find out what they were. Could Kenny believe anything that Jack said? He was an FBI agent and telling the truth was not part of the deal. Kenny was just a cop and below the ‘high standards’ of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“I want the details,” Kenny said, his voice wavering a bit. “How or what just happened back there?”
Jack walked several more steps without answering him and the silence was upsetting to him. Jack knew this question would come at some point but he still was unprepared to answer it. Jack stopped, turned and faced Kenny. He gave him an intense look and whispered to him, “Is this off the record?”
“I think we left the record some time ago, Jack.”
Jack gave him a slight nod and turned around and continued to walk back to the car.
“Are you really sure, Detective, that you’re ready to hear it?” Jack spoke, suddenly full of confidence. “This is a great place to walk in the evening. You can hear the birds sing as you will never hear them in D.C. The twilight lasts forever over the roofs of the warehouses along the waterfront. It glows through the thick branches of the trees planted along the walkways and bike trails around your city. I truly do love Seattle.”
Kenny listened to him talk and knew that he was leading up to something but didn’t know what. Things were getting stranger by the minute and Kenny knew this absurdity was not even close to over. Only days ago his life was what it always had been—normal. But now vampires and monsters had entered his world and Kenny really didn’t know where that left him. He was just a down-to-earth cop who believed in right and wrong, truth and lies, good and evil. But that was no longer an easy thing to see for him. Life had changed and he no longer knew where to stand.
Tim was not answering his cell phone no matter how many times Kenny called. Kenny pulled his phone out of his back pocket and checked it. There were no messages. He checked the call log. There were no calls. Tim hadn’t called him. No one had called him and he began to have a sinking sensation that there was something wrong. Where was Tim?
“I think she’s messing with us,” Kenny stated suddenly.
“No, I have to disagree. Her pathology is consistent. This is all a game to her. She won the first round, so now she is upping the stakes by challenging us to catch her,” Jack told him. “What do you plan to do?” Jack asked.
But Kenny held back. He didn’t say a word. His attention was fixed straight ahead, his profile sharp in the low illumination of the streetlights. This was the way it was with them. They stepped around confidential and privileged information. They danced around secrets. At times, lying. In the beginning, they hated one another.
A car passed them on the street. Kenny turned to look but couldn’t see any features clearly through the windshield with the car moving down the road relatively quickly. A woman was driving but her back blocked his view of the passenger. It seemed as if they were interested in Kenny and Jack. The woman then leaned back in her seat and for a brief moment, Kenny got a look at the passenger.
The man was backlit, his face in shadows, and he must have been looking directly at Kenny because his face was still in the darkness. He could not make out any features. Then Kenny caught a hint of the man’s eyes—and they seemed to turn yellow. From the way the figure was slouching, he seemed young to Kenny. Maybe in his twenties or early thirties, though Kenny really was not sure—it was only a glimpse in the shadows. Then the car was gone. It turned down a side street, accelerating into the darkness.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 1): Blood Collector Page 21