The Crimson Z

by Robert Cloud, Lee Rush, Richard Savage

  Then one day he had stumbled upon proof that there was nothing that Lilith had ever told him that he could believe was true. He found out that when she came forth upon the night of the magic she would feed.

  He had lain awake for months in torment wondering how many people he had helped her to kill, how many innocent souls were upon his head and believing he was as guilty as she was for their bloodless bones lying perhaps never found. He made up his mind to walk away from the stone and never return.

  Three days later he had heard the chimes and bells of the churches, an announcement was being read at the Papal Palace. Pope Lucius III had made a discovery of a device of greatest heresy.

  Zachariah had pushed his way through the throng of people and upon a wagon being pulled toward the palace was his table. He knew immediately that for the Pope to get his hands upon it would be disastrous. The carving upon the stone was not something that the Pope would see as Holy but as vile and obscene. To him it would have been seen as a remnant of some form of pagan worship and would be judged as unholy in the eyes of God. Zachariah feared that if the Pope tried to destroy the stone some catastrophe would occur. His mind returned to the scene of Pompeii and the tremendous loss of life there.

  He followed the wagon and when it stopped along the road still about twelve miles outside of the city of Rome Zachariah took a chance and jumped into the seat. Whether it was the magic of the stone, or his luck or some other divine guide watching him he was far away from the small tavern and no one had seen him. However, his sin of leaving the stone did not go unpunished. Pope Lucius III started blaming a witch for having secreted the stone away from his couriers. He began a massive search for witches to try to find the stone. It was that one night that led to the instigation of the Spanish Inquisition.

  He sighed, no matter what he wanted to do his fate was tied to that stone, he could not leave it, nor could he stop the magic once it had begun. Whether the magic was truly of God, which he believed with all his heart and soul; he was bound to it as a slave was to their master.

  He walked to the stone and sat the tray down upon the table. From the dresser under the table he took a glass jar and set it on a tray. Then from the basin he ladled out two cups full of rain water. Carefully lifting the measuring instrument he took a small wooden rod and pushed the flesh and hair out of the scoop so that it fell into the jar, and lastly he dropped the cloth that was soaked with Melanie's blood into the jar as well.

  Slowly he stirred the contents of the jar until the water began to take on a pink hue, then he placed a screened lid upon it and screwed it down. As he poured the blood water mixture onto the table and it filled the etching of the tree of Life the engraving began to glow brilliantly. The crimson gold hue filled the room as the blood flowed into the last lines of the etching. Zachariah nearly stumbled as he fell back into the chair behind him for the glow did not dissipate but grew even brighter until above the stone table stood a three dimensional image of the tree as if it were alive and living growing out of the stone. The branches swayed as if caught within the wind, and the roots drank deeply of the blood.

  Slowly the tree turned into a webbing of silken golden fiber. In the hundreds of times that Zachariah had performed this ritual only once had the webbing been more than a two dimensional form just an inch above the stone table. Even then it was nothing compared to this, this was far beyond anything he had even imagined was possible. His heart pounded like thunder reverberating within his chest. He could hear Lilith calling to him from the other room, wanting to know what had happened. She had to have seen the flash of light, it was so brilliant it had to have shown through thin openings around the hidden door to the room but he did not dare answer her. How would he explain this? Zachariah shuddered. He couldn't bear to imagine what Lilith would do with this much power.

  What are you trying to hide from me? By the Light and Dark! Is that the Tree of Life?

  Zachariah shook, “Lilith, I thought you could only speak and see from the mirror in the main room?"

  That was all I could do, but something happened. Suddenly I found myself here.

  "How? If you are bound to that mirror, how could you get here?"

  I do not know. Are you questioning my honesty, Zachariah?

  "No, my Love,” but something told him that she was lying, and he began to wonder how many other things she had lied about. Yes this was extraordinary, but she had told him that she was bound to that one mirror and he had to protect it with his life for if it ever broke she would perish. Now here she was in another mirror. Perhaps it was this magic, but somehow he suspected it was not.

  Is that the Tree of Life, Zachariah?

  "I think so. It happened as soon as I put Melanie's blood on the stone."

  Oh!

  Zachariah could almost feel her thoughts; he could sense her mind weaving together the import of this monumental moment. This much magic must mean something so powerful that it would change things forever between him and Lilith, his only prayer was that it would leave Melanie unharmed.

  Do you know what this means, Zachariah?

  "No, Lilith. I have not a clue, yet I can tell you do so inform me."

  It means that the girl is the One! She is the One that will allow me to live again, to walk on the Earth again and to finally leave this mirror realm I have been bound to.

  "How? The body that is created from the magic is only a shadow; it fades in but one day."

  No! Zachariah, it means Melanie and I can share the same body. She is pure, untainted. She has caused no one any harm, and she has never been touched by passion. She is a virgin.

  "There have been other virgins, Lilith."

  Zachariah! Yes, but not one that has never had an impure thought. This girl has not even thought of impure sex, but she has also never even thought of causing someone to be hurt. She has never hated someone, never thought ill of someone. She has always done her best to do the right thing. This girl in every sense of the word would be considered a saint.

  Zachariah looked at the mirror oddly, “First what do you mean about impure sex? Kinky sex? I know there is no way that this girl has thought about that. She is too traditional."

  He could feel her laughter in his head, No you old fool. Impure sex is sex without love. Even if she thinks of sex with love she must still think of it as happening only after they have committed to being together forever.

  He nodded, that was something he could understand and it definitely fit with what he knew about Melanie. She was that type. He looked into the mist of the mirror and asked, “And until now we have never met another like her?"

  No never.

  Zachariah did not like the idea of Lilith sharing Melanie's body. He knew that Lilith would taint her. Lilith would turn that saintliness into a demonic and diabolical monster in a very short time. There was no blinding light of insight just a deep painful acceptance that what he had known since shortly after Lilith's death was indeed true. The woman he had fallen in love with had never truly existed. From the very day Lilith had entered into his life she had been hiding her true nature from him. She was a liar and a monster and now she wanted him to trust her with Melanie?

  How could he trust her when the last several times she had formed she'd had to feed and she had been very cruel and evil about it? She had even made him watch, delighting in his revulsion of her hunger. If she were to share Melanie's body would Melanie become the Wampyr that Lilith was.

  "How would you share her body? How would it affect her?"

  She could have the body during the day, since your love can no longer protect me from the sun, and I will take it at night.

  "But won't your nature affect her? Won't she become an undead like you were?"

  Zachariah! I know you care for her! Once you are young, maybe you will love her enough to protect her. Besides, we do not know she will become as I am.

  "We do not know she will not either!"

  You are correct! We do not! However you have no choice! You know the
contract of the commission and the ritual. Once you begin it you must follow it through. The stone is the one that decides what happens. The fact that the full Tree of Life is there is the sign that she is the One! You must offer her the option. Only she can decide to accept or deny it.

  "And if she denies it?"

  We both die.

  "Then I pray for death."

  I knew you had lied to me. You do love her, you old fool.

  With a scream the mirror in the room shattered and Lilith screeched out of the room back to the mirror in the main room. Zachariah knew she was right. He had no option he had to complete the commissioned piece. The distant smoke of Vesuvius rose into his memory as with a trembling hand he reached toward the Tree of Life and pulled a fine wire of golden filament from the tree. Slowly he began to weave it into the form of the tiara. As he worked the tree unraveled and the tiara took its shape.

  * * * *

  The mirror trembled as Lilith broiled in fury. Yet she waited. She waited until she was certain that Zachariah was deep in his trance and weaving the gold for once he had started he would not awaken from his trance until the framework of the piece was finished. As she waited her hatred for Melanie grew deeper.

  She thought back to the days before her death, when she had learned that Zachariah's love had protected her from the sun and ended her need for blood. For a long while she basked in the new found freedom his love had given her, but then something else had begun to eat at her.

  Over the centuries of feeding upon humans she had come to enjoy the hunt. To watch their eyes when they knew they had come face to face with a monster of legend and were about to die had filled her with such wondrous power that she had felt invincible. Soon the bloodlust had come back, not because she had the need to feed, but because she had the need to kill, to taste again the power she could hold over someone's life.

  She began to sneak out at night. Many of her powers had dimmed but not all, she could still transform. She could still command the creatures of the night, and she could still hypnotize with a single thought. Yet she was careful. She did not kill too many. She did not want Zachariah to know. She relished in the fact that she had taken the lives of twenty two people before she found out she was with child. Her only regret was that she had not taken more, but then she found out that that number twenty two had an important effect on the rest of her existence.

  She found out that every twenty two days she was able to rise out of her prison in the form of a mist and hunt. She had often wondered if she had killed fewer people if the number of days would have been less, she did not understand the connection but knew there was one. It was only after her death that she began to be thankful she had not taken more lives because she thought if she had killed fifty then she may have been stuck in her prison for fifty days before being released to kill. Her hell would have been even a greater torment.

  This had remained her secret. In the nearly six thousand years since she had died she had never told Zachariah about this ability, and she had left hundreds of thousands dead without him ever suspecting. How fortunate for her that tonight was the 22nd night for if it had not been she would have brewed until the 22nd night and she might have spilled her secret to Zachariah. Of course soon it would not matter. Once she was reborn as a Wampyr she would turn him into her slave and he would regret ever having betrayed his love with that little girl. It was only a shame she could not take her anger out on the girl.

  As soon as she was certain that Zachariah was lost in his trance the red mist began to seep from the edges of the mirror. It floated quietly to the center of the room and began swirling about like a cyclone of blood. There was no sound, yet it seemed like a silent thunder filled the room and the form of a woman stood where the cyclone had been. She was little more than a vapor but she was startlingly beautiful. As she gazed at her own blood colored reflection in the mirror she smiled at herself vainly. She had known that Zachariah had no choice but to fall in love with her the moment he had seen her. There was no woman that had ever walked the earth as lovely as she was.

  She took one last glance at herself and then screamed in rage. How could he not still love her? Then she shot straight upward and the mist exploded through the little cracks and crevices that were invisible to the eye and came out through the roof. She reformed above the roof as a large red hawk and flew in circles to get her bearings.

  Her ears picked up sounds of laughter and screams of terror many miles away, yet the screams were not true terror. It was more like those screams that are then turned into fun. She flew towards them. Soon her eyes saw all the lights of a larger commercial area and a mall but what was pulling her was a little further to the north. Yes. A park. An amusement park, it was open and there were a lot of people in costume but it was too much out in the open. Yet the idea of feeding on someone on the roller coaster while the person sitting next to them watched tempted her. It was an amusing thought but she had to be careful, she needed that bitch, Melanie's body and if she were to kill someone openly like that then it would be more difficult for her to kill later.

  There was a building next to the park that had a lot of activity. She remembered now, the amusement park had opened an all year around indoor water park, but that would also have no privacy, no place where she could find someone alone that would not be discovered quickly. However she recalled that Zachariah had told her that they were near a tourist resort. Even further north of the amusement park there was a village called Lake George. He had laughed about them having a Haunted House that was open all summer long. Actually two, one called the House of Frankenstein and the other Dr. Macabre's Haunted Mansion, and with Halloween just around the corner she bet both of them were packed with visitors.

  Perfect! She flew in that direction and finally saw Dr. Macabre's. Slowly she spiraled down and entered into a window that was open in the back. Once inside she allowed herself to become a cloud of red mist and drift along the ceiling.

  From one room to the next she drifted looking for a suitable victim. Then she spied a young man, about seventeen, the same age as Melanie. He was dressed in an outfit like a prisoner from a penitentiary. There were fake holes that looked like bullet wounds and he had a chainsaw in his hands to scare people as they walked by. The chainsaw was a fake. It roared but there was no chain on it.

  Slowly Lilith drifted down behind the kid and as he stepped out and took a deep breath to scream at two girls that were walking past the spot where he was hiding, Lilith allowed him to breathe her into his lungs. Immediately she began to feed upon him from the inside out.

  Lilith watched through the eyes of her victim as the girls saw him stumble forward. Her victim struggled against her but there was nothing he could do. He dropped the chainsaw and grasped at his neck. There was a large mirror on the far wall and Lilith was particularly enjoying seeing his eyes begin to protrude from his face, one even popped out of its socket and hung from the nerve. The girls screamed and ran.

  Oh how sad, Lilith thought, they are going to miss the best part. Then she laughed and the hideous laugh came strangled from the mouth of her victim.

  She continued to look through the one remaining eye of her victim as his face began to turn ashen. He dropped to his knees reaching out toward the fleeing girls but they never saw him. From his finger tips his flesh began to fall away as ash and the outer layers fell away leaving muscle tissue then it too began to become ash. Finally the skeleton fell into a heap and the last thing to dissolve was the eye that Lilith had used to watch.

  Slowly the red mist rose to the ceiling as the next couple entered into the room and found a prisoner suit filled with nothing but a skeleton. She had read the boy's mind while she fed upon him and knew that Billy was prone to days of drinking and drugs. As he had died he himself had thought no one would miss him until he did not show to pick up his paycheck. Lilith laughed to herself for the one thing she always loved was when she picked a real winner for a victim and this one was a real peach. Before he had left
for work he had punched his girlfriend in the face. As far as Lilith was concerned this boy deserved to die.

  When Lilith had finished watching a few more couples enter and noticed that none of them even paid any attention to Billy's bones. She headed back to the window. Her hunger was satisfied but her anger was not. She had to kill again, she had to kill a female, someone that reminded her of Melanie, but she had also learned not to commit two murders too close together, and not to make them too similar in nature. She had almost gotten her only hope of release, Zachariah, killed by making that mistake.

  She flew south, following the highway that ran alongside of Lake George. She decided she would follow it for as far as she dared so that she would still have time to get back before the sun rose. In her form when she stayed high she could fly at a pretty good speed. So in about thirty minutes she was upon a really large city. Her eyes caught the signs above the highway just before going into the city. Albany.

  She followed a main road that was labeled Central into the city and there she found a large arena like structure. Some event was going on and there were people on the streets. There were some alleys too and she continued to circle about. Looking in the alleys, Lilith was hoping to spot someone that reminded her of Melanie. She had no idea how much time had passed in her journey but she was certain that the sun would not be waiting too much longer before it rose above the horizon. If she were not in the mirror before it did then she would die, yet she was having no luck in finding anyone that paid even the slightest resemblance to Melanie. Finally she saw a blond haired girl covered in tattoos walk into an alley on the tottering heels of stilettos. She was followed closely by a man with a red Mohawk. He was covered in even more tattoos, so many in fact that Lilith had trouble seeing skin that was not marked with a tattoo. The girl stopped and leaned against the wall. The man looked around him furtively making certain they were alone, then he looked at the woman and Lilith could see the smile cross his face as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. After fishing out some bills he handed them to her and watched while she stuffed them into her bra.