The Blood Born Tales (Book 1): Blood Collector

by T. C. Elofson

  As the wall came down and crumbled, it exposed an empty cavern that had been dug out. Dirt continued to cascade in huge clumps as the house shook. Soil rained down on me as I hid behind Fabiana. She was thinking about how many vampires it had taken to get her here, how many it had taken her to acquire the powers she now called on and possessed.

  The infusion of her blood alone had not been enough. Only after thousands of years had she been strong enough to even use the gifts she had taken from all of them. Fabiana wondered if such power, transferred from one immortal to another, could be gained without their destruction. But it couldn’t. She thought about how no one really knew what power was locked inside her until now. She was feeling it rage through her. Her veins were surging with her potential.

  In the darkened honeycombed cavern, the walls glowed red from the flames dancing around like frantic school children and the shadow of Cognatus appeared from behind a corner.

  “I couldn’t bear to listen to them. My darling children. You killed them,”

  Cognatus’ voiced echoed off of the cavern walls.

  “Yes, I killed them. Like you killed Cerci. Your favorite immortal, your own High Priest!”

  She said this with so much pure rage and unadulterated fury that her words could have melted the walls if she had directed them that way.

  Then Cognatus appeared around the face of one of the rock walls.

  “There will be no more darkness. No firelight, no point of reference. No immortal sensation except the pain of my loss after I take your life, Father. I am one with no limbs. No eyes. And no mouth to speak of my pain. For Cerci was that part of me, the part that walked and talked. I am nothing but anger and rage now. And I have come to unleash it on you!”

  Fabiana screamed those last words so loudly that they resonated in my mind. I closed my eyes tight as she ran forward at him. I simply stood there gasping for a moment, cringing from the brilliant fireball that erupted around the two attacking vampires.

  Then the light of the flames dwindled lower and lower around me as if the oxygen was being sucked out of our space and the fire was dying around us. It was a sign of Fabiana’s wavering power. She was getting weak.

  Then I noticed a distant flame through the dark, rosy haze. It grew tall; it climbed the walls in long swirls of black smoke. Fabiana was suddenly thrown backwards and she crashed into a large mound of soil inside the house. She was bleeding and badly hurt. Streaks of blood and dirt were in scrapes across her face as she tried to climb to her feet.

  The Origin stepped out of the cavern and over the broken foundation of the wall. He stood strong, a demon of authority like a father ready to punish his disobedient child. I could feel him collecting his powers. I could see the vigor in his body as if it were something tangible I could hold onto. He was tensing his chest, clenching his fists. His hands rose up as if to form an impressive blow. The house began to shake and quiver around me and then rubble and earth came down on top of Fabiana, but she moved with unexpected speed. His power was growing. A violent shock quaked throughout my body and I heard her voice in my head once more.

  “Tim, I need your help. Get behind him.”

  I was amazed by how fast my mind was working. Everything was clear in my thoughts and my body responded with impressive accuracy. I ran in a flood of light and I only reappeared every few seconds. Fabiana gathered up her remaining power and came at Cognatus with everything she had. The few vampires that had survived her violence then ran for their lives as their skin began to boil and burst. Fountains of blood were flowing around me as they dropped to their knees in pain, and screams filled the room like gunfire. I was untouched by Fabiana’s rage as I raced across the room.

  Cognatus shuddered. He felt pain in his lungs as she pushed her power onto him. I laughed for a split second. I heard Fabiana’s voice again, urging me forward like a rising tide. And then it faded into the blur of painful cries around me. Cries on the wind, cries from outside the house. Cries from inside the house. Everywhere, vampires were dying in agony.

  I was speechless and overwhelmed with sadness. How small my connection to the immortal life had been, but I felt their pain and fear as they bled around me. I knew that I needed to vanquish this mere handful of enemies for the greater good. I needed to kill The Origin to save my own life. I knew this destruction was necessary, but it was difficult for me. I felt the immortal call for help coming from Cognatus. He was calling all his children to stop Fabiana, but there was no one left. It seemed we stood outside of time. Outside my role as an officer of the law, we were capable of bringing him down with one action.

  “Tim, history does not matter,” Fabiana was saying to me. “Time and space do not matter. Only this moment, this defining moment, means something. You’re a man who fights against evil. He is nothing but evil. Do it now! Strike!”

  I looked down and could see a long, splintered piece of wood—about five feet long—lying on the floor of the house. I knelt down and grabbed it up in my white fingers. The wood felt cold and rough in my hands.

  Fabiana was being forced onto her back and pinned in a corner of the room. A large fire erupted around her. The power of Cognatus was reaching out for her. She would be dead soon if I didn’t react at that instant.

  In a flood of movements, I ran with all the might and power that I had in me. I held out the long piece of wood like a javelin as I thrust my body forward. With a sickening thud, all of my weight slammed into the back of The Origin and the piece of wood pierced the thick, hard flesh of Cognatus. The stake came out of his chest. Blood poured from his body in buckets of crimson that pooled around him like a giant lake. He spun around with a godlike blast of rage and blood and struck me with more power than I had ever thought would have been possible in any sentient being. I flew backwards and crashed into wood and earth. With a massive rumbling sound, the ground above came down on top of me.

  Fabiana climbed to her knees and gathered up her remaining strength. Her face was a picture of disdain; then it darkened in anger. Even in her rage, the attractiveness of her appearance remained.

  “So, Fabiana. You are the one that will bring an end to our kind and all that you’ve ever known. What will you do now?” Cognatus asked as he dropped down to one knee in agony.

  “I will live.”

  The night was suddenly quiet. The house seemed remarkably still and appeared to sigh against the earth. And there I was—the young new vampire—unable to move, imprisoned under a mound of dirt. I remained buried alone, looking not at the darkness but seeing everything with my mind, observing the small, glittering flames that danced and grew around The Origin and Fabiana as they fought. All the little triumphs and failures of my life meant nothing at that moment. Everything I was or had ever been had come down to this. I reached out and tried to touch her and tell her I loved her. Tried to tell Fabiana that I knew there was goodness in her and that she would triumph.

  Suddenly Fabiana’s eyes bled and she screamed with all her rage. The Origin’s skin began to boil and blister. He clenched his teeth down hard as he abruptly exploded into an immense blaze of blue and red flames. Cognatus dropped to his knees and contorted in pain. He screamed louder and louder and the ground shook violently. With an intoxicating blast of power, his demon form was ripped apart by a destructive flash of energy. Cognatus was gone into dust.

  The room mushroomed from the blast and sent everything and everyone hurtling backwards. The night turned to day and light flooded out of the house. The flames burned and scorched the trees around us in a spreading swarm of destruction.

  At that moment, vampires all over the world contorted and twitched in pain. I felt as if my stomach and brain were going to bleed out of every pore in my body. I closed my eyes tightly and tears rolled down my face as blood spilled out of my mouth. My head was pounding in unrelenting waves of pain. Then I lost consciousness.

  Chapter 55

  8:00 a.m., November 26th

  When I awoke it was quiet and the air was clean and w
arm with the smell of the sea misting around me. I opened my eyes, confused as to where and when I was, and I knew from my lightheadedness and the aches in my muscles that I was human once again. It had worked.

  Cognatus was indeed dead. I was no longer in any kind of protective enclosure. Most of the house was gone, swallowed by the earth. Only small chunks of wood and stone scattered over the floorboards could still be seen. The wet smell of dirt and concrete surrounded me and my eyes dashed from one corner of the house to the other, looking for Fabiana.

  I spotted her under a long, rotten board covered in earthworms and other kinds of insects. She looked grim but fantastic as she lay on the floor of the house. She reminded me of one of those antique porcelain dolls that my grandmother use to collect—perfectly shaped, with skin as smooth as glass. Her eyes were closed with her hair flung over her face and a small trickle of blood dripped from her mouth. She had thrown up just as I had. The soil around her was wet and red from her vomit. I surmised that all the vampires around the world had done the same thing. They had needed to get rid of the blood in their systems.

  I knelt down to her, brushed the hair off of her face with my fingers and resisted the urge to kiss her. I would never do such a thing without permission. Such an act would have been a violation against her beauty. When I picked her up she cried. Her mind spoke to me and I knew that she would reach out for me. Then she finally did speak silently to me, another rush of tears streamed down her face—not so much from sadness but from grief at what it had taken to get her to that moment. Her thoughts were disjointed by misery and anguish.

  My legs wobbled a bit as I held on to Fabiana, her thin arms wrapped around my neck. I could feel her breath on me in hot waves. She slipped into my mind for comfort once again.

  I was surprised to learn that even though I was no longer a vampire I could still hear others’ thoughts. I came to the conclusion that once the human mind has been opened to such possibilities, they don’t just disappear. Things such as telepathy and telekinesis just become a part of who you are.

  Faces flashed over my thoughts. I had never seen them before, but she was posting her victims in my head, sharing her pain with me. It wasn’t until that moment that it occurred to me that the guilt one would feel for killing over hundreds of lifetimes would drive someone crazy. I feared that was what was in store for her. Fabiana was suddenly facing mortal guilt and in her mind it was justice for everything that she had done. She was shaking and crying now, holding onto me as if that would make it better. It wouldn’t.

  I heard Zakk, the protective and faithful dog I knew would always be there. He was whining and whimpering in a darkened corner of the rubble. I followed the sound of him, like a lighthouse in the thick and daunting fog calling me home. I tried to move with self-assuredness through the blinding light of the sun in my face. I searched from room to room, knowing by feel and smell exactly where he was. Zakk was with Kenny, so they must have been close. The whole time, the sound of Zakk’s whimpering resonated around me and got louder and louder.

  Mounds of dirt and soil had come into the house in a massive landslide. I attempted to pick my nimble way from one section to the next. With the sun as bright as it was that day, maneuvering through the rubble was not easy. I prayed that Kenny would still be alive. I reached out with my thoughts and tried to find him but I could not. I only heard Fabiana.

  I walked towards where I thought they were, towards the stinking pile of soil on the far side of the room where Kenny had been thrown down on the rotten floorboards. I caught sight of Zakk, injured and favoring his left leg. He cowered next to Kenny, barking loudly as he saw me. I could see him beyond the shadows and blackness of the caved-in soil. I looked down at Kenny’s tan flesh, his doughy soulful skin covered in insects, blood around him on the floor. His eyes were closed but he was alive. He breathed rapidly in shallow gasps, his arms stretched back above his head. He had been injured only hours ago but now it seemed he would be fine. He lived. Due to his vampire healing or the transformation back into his human self, I was not really clear.

  I placed Fabiana on the ground next to me then touched his shoulder and his eyes opened.

  Zakk leaned close to me and covered my face with wet dog kisses. As his slobbering tongue worked over me, I began to smile. Kenny opened his eyes and stared up at me, confusion and utter fatigue painted over him. I couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten any sleep but I was sure it had been several days.

  “You okay, man?” I asked “Because you look like chicken-fried shit.”

  He gave me a weary smile as he struggled to pull himself from the wreckage.

  “I hurt like hell, but yeah, I’ll be alright,” he said as he extended his arm to me so I could pull him out. Fabiana was sitting up slowly, rocking herself as I pulled Kenny up from the dirt. He stood in front of me with a look on his face I hadn’t seen since his child died.

  “I’m sorry, man.”

  “It wasn’t you, Kenny. It was the vampire.” I felt like I could never reassure him enough.

  He then pulled me close and held me tight as he hugged me. My eyes watered and I fought tears back, refusing to give in to emotion. Then I realized that Kenny was crying. I had only known him to cry on two other occasions: the death of his child and when he had hit bottom in rehab.

  The air was thick and heavy on my face and sea spray misted over us as we climbed up the decrepit stairs, the only thing left standing in the house. The three of us walked out into the morning sun like conquering heroes from a battle that we had been destined to lose. The warm rays of the sun washed over Fabiana and she dropped to her knees, tears rolling down her face once more. Her emotions ran wild. She had thought that she would never see the sun again and it felt marvelous to her. Then her thoughts went to Cerci, her lover who would not be with her on the renewed journey through life, through humanity. What would she do now? How was she going to get by? She felt lost to me.

  I was locked into her mind, her thoughts. Suddenly I felt a presence in her—someone that was not Fabiana, but welcomed with open arms. She warmed to his familiarity.

  “Fabiana, my sweet.”

  The voice of Cerci filled my ears and I felt wrong for listening.

  “Your time in life now will be nothing compared to the time you walked hand in hand with me. I will be here waiting for you. Always remember that. I love you with all of my heart.”

  I knelt down and put my arms around her as she sobbed into me, the wetness of her emotions washing off on my shoulder. My heart broke for her.

  I looked up to Kenny. His face was glowing from the morning sunlight, and police sirens echoed in the distance. I too felt lost. I knew my life would never be the same. We would never be the same.

  252

  Chapter 56

  11:45 p.m., November 26th

  After the three of us had emerged from that nightmare, I was still shaky and disoriented. I was haunted by visions of the surreal atrocities I had witnessed. I had investigated some pretty horrible scenes throughout most of my professional life, but never before had one lodged itself in my mind so intensely, so disturbingly. The sensation of being inside such evil, of becoming one of those things, those creatures, was almost more than I could bear.

  I could still smell and feel what was left behind. What lingered in me. I could feel the dead blood that was still a part of me, and yet it was almost midnight by the time I pulled away from the Seattle Mental Hospital where I had left Fabiana. I could still hear her screaming down that long empty hallway with the flickering lights. I could still hear her mad ravings, hear her broken mind calling out to me for help.

  It had been an intensely long and difficult day with Fabiana at the hospital. First we arrived at Swedish Hospital in Ballard, where Kenny and Fabiana were admitted. She was admitted as Samantha Martina, the only name they had on file for her. She was more scared and panicked than I had ever seen her, but after some mental calming from me, I was able to get her relaxed enough for sedation. />
  There at Swedish they scanned her and did a complete work up of her blood. After many hours, I convinced Kenny to return home. Physically, he seemed to be completely unscathed by his terrifying experience and simply needed some rest.

  Then Fabiana was taken to the Seattle Mental Hospital in West Seattle. I had convinced her that this was the best thing for her. Her wrecked mind had completely taken over her, but luckily her supernatural abilities had not yet resurfaced. Her screams still come back to me every night and I’m sure that they always will.

  I couldn’t unlock my door fast enough. Inside my house, I turned the security alarm off, then back on again the instant I had the door shut behind me. I put Zakk in his bed to rest and he fell asleep immediately, exhausted. I looked around to make sure no one was there and that nothing was out of place.

  But something was out of place. Me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know what my life was going to be like now. I was a cop, but what did that still mean for me?

  Lighting a fire in my brick fireplace, I opened a draft beer and was glad Kenny was not with me. I always hated and felt guilty about having a drink around him now. I knew he wouldn’t want me to feel that way but I still did and might always.

  I missed Fabiana as I drank my draft. She was getting to be something of an addiction of mine. I turned on some music. I had always loved blues, found them soothing, so I put on “Glory Be” by the great blues singer Lightnin’ Hopkins. I needed to keep the monsters of my mind at bay, and for a short time I went into that little place in my thoughts when life wasn’t so confusing and I was just a cop—when I would be able to spend time with my daughter and I didn’t believe in such things as vampires.

  But life was not so simple and there were things that went bump in the night. Never again would I ever forget that.