by Brandon Hill
“That serious, huh?”
“I’ll leave that up to you,” I said, making myself comfortable upon the edge of the bed. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Atlantis?”
“The Atlantis? As in the lost city?”
“The same.”
“So, let me guess. You’re from there?”
“Yes.” My answer was swift and immediate, and without any trace of jest.
“So that would make you, what? About nine thousand years old?
“Ten thousand, actually.”
“Look, I’m not much of a history buff,” Amelia said, “but I do know that that’s older than most of the civilizations on this planet.”
“You’re a teacher, and yet you don’t enjoy history?”
“How’d you know I was a teacher?” Amelia said, surprised.
“Your scent. Beneath your perfume, you smell of pencils, paper, glue, crayons, pens, and cafeteria food.” I afforded myself a grin. “And remember that I can read your thoughts.”
“Oh,” Amelia said, deflated. “Right. So what was it like?”
“Different from anything you’re familiar with,” I said, recalling that faraway time despite how much I dreaded retelling the story. “We were an anomaly: a people more advanced than any others. We were so advanced, in fact, that even your civilization would have thought us sorcerers, rather than scientists.”
“Wow, it must’ve been wonderful,” Amelia said in awe.
“Wonderful for the elite,” I replied. “Among my people, save our slaves, everyone was a scientist: intelligent, creative, and skillful, but without a soul. Any and all concepts of good, evil, morality, and ethics were discarded. Our culture was founded upon the zeal to pursue knowledge completely unfettered. Even emotion, in my time, was repressed.”
“Now that’s just disturbing,” Amelia said. Her tone was almost sympathetic. “It’s like you chose only to exist. You made toys, but refused to enjoy them.”
“That’s as good an analogy as any I’ve heard,” I said. “And that was the world I was born into. Free of moral constraints, we built marvels that often baffled ourselves, but through means that would have disgusted even the most barbaric of tribes.”
I felt a tear leave my eye as those horrible memories of my mortal life haunted me, still so clear after so very long. The atrocities I was a party to had been the stuff of nightmares, and often tormented my sleep. Still, I was driven to tell it to whomever would listen. Like the Ancient Mariner of the Rime, it was my curse.
“We should have known our days were numbered,” I said. “Had we believed in any kind of god, we would’ve known that we were pending for divine retribution. Ultimately, it came to us.”
I felt a hand touch my shoulder as I shuddered. “Talante?” Amelia’s strength had returned enough for her to sit upright and lean upon me. It was then that I realized that I had not said anything for several moments.
“Sorry,” I said, “I was collecting my thoughts. It happened so long ago, after all.”
“You were telling it well, so far.”
I smiled. She was as perceptive as she was beautiful. “You’re right,” I admitted. “I can never forget it. After all,” I made a vast sweeping motion with my arm, “this is all my fault.”
“What is?” Amelia said, not understanding my gesture.
“Me, my clan, vampires in general,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for me, we wouldn’t exist.”
“I think I understand,” Amelia said.
“No, you don’t.” I frowned. “Not yet at least. My people believed we had reached the peak of our achievements, and made plans to spread our influence to the outside world. We believed that we had perfected ourselves as far as we could go, but it wasn’t enough. There remained one last frontier to explore, the ultimate experiment: the key to eternal life.”
My thoughts went on a slight tangent as I digressed, but I was subconsciously aware of the point my story was trying to make. “I was unique among my people, in that I found their methods of attaining knowledge distasteful. And so I cherished my position in the cabal of researchers commissioned to find the answer to this mystery, since our experiments didn’t require human lives.”
“Human…lives?” Amelia had hung onto my every word, but once she had interpreted what I had said, it appeared to make her feel slightly ill.
“I told you that we had eschewed any belief in morality,” I reminded her. “If I described even half the things my people did for knowledge, then addicted or not, you would leave this place and brave the withdrawal just to stay away from me.
“But for the sake of brevity, I assure you that this experiment did not have such things. Even in the final stages, we were too covetous of our discovery to test it on anyone unworthy, and so, we became the test subjects. The six of us in the cabal partook of the newly-made elixir, and of those, only I and Lothos, my closest colleague, survived.”
“Only you two?” Amelia said, unbelieving. “Everyone else died? Why?”
“We never could find out why,” I said. “We ran endless tests on ourselves, even before the experiment. They said that there was nothing abnormal about us. It just seemed to work that way, as if someone or something had protected us from death. Call it divine intervention, if you wish.”
“So how long did it take you to find out that it worked?”
“Not long,” I said. “A couple of days, actually. Blemishes began to disappear; wrinkles and sags vanished, as did wounds and old scars. As a matter of fact, both Lothos and I were physically much older then than we now appear to be. But we didn’t know for certain if the elixir had completely worked until we…tested each other.”
“What kind of test?” Amelia asked. Her eyes were alive with mixed dread and intrigue. When I said nothing, she made the connection. “You...killed each other?”
I only nodded, squeezing my eyes shut at the memory of my first “death.” Distantly, I shuddered. “After those ‘tests,’ there was no doubt that we were immortal. But then came the side effects.”
“The thirst for blood.”
“Among other things,” I replied. “Our bodies had also changed drastically. The need for blood was all-consuming. It drove us to decimate our stock of slaves, as well as the slaves of others. Fortunately, we learned that our saliva healed the wounds that our fangs made, and so my countrymen were none the wiser, attributing the deaths to an unknown disease that was researched to no avail.
“Then came the aversion to sunlight. It grew in severity over the course of several days, until we could no longer remain in the sun for any length of time without massive tissue damage. Our natural rhythms were soon to change. We found that we were unable to stay awake during the day, no matter how hard we tried. Sleep simply overcame us, and we slept as ones who were dead, in a deep trance until the sun rose.”
“And no one noticed this?” Amelia asked. “You had to report to someone about your discoveries, right?”
“Cabals were given complete autonomy,” I told her. “Our findings were reported directly to the head council, but as long as we had no conclusive results, we could work as long as we wanted, and without interference. And so no one knew of the deaths, or the elixir’s side effects on us. It was Lothos, however, who discovered the advantages, specifically our inhuman strength, speed, and heightened senses.”
“You say Lothos learned this,” Amelia said. “Until a moment ago, you mentioned how you learned these things together. What happened to you?”
“I was just getting to that,” I said, again impressed with her keen eye. “But before I continue, you must understand the fundamental difference between myself and Lothos.”
“What kind of a difference?”
“Though my people sacrificed our humanity, such as it was,” I explained, “we did keep records of our past. This is where I and Lothos differed, in that I studied that past. During my youth, I spent hours in the most ancient books of our libraries. There, my eyes were opened to the truth of our decadence.”
“So that’s why your work made you uncomfortable,” Amelia said.
“I had no idea just how profoundly my studies had affected me until then,” I said. “And as much as our newfound state fascinated and excited Lothos, it terrified me. What was so glorious about losing our ability to walk in the daylight, and being possessed of a thirst that drove us to kill for sustenance? For me, the thought of spending eternity this way became unbearable, and so I shut myself away from the world for a time. But I soon learned the severity of my error in doing this.
“During my absence, Lothos had learned more and more about what we had become, and began to set his own plans in motion. These I discovered when I finally managed to cope with my new existence and came out of my self-imposed seclusion.
“I’d kept Lothos unaware of my troubles, and he had been just as oblivious to my return. This, however, proved to my advantage. He was absent when I returned to the lab. I figured he had gone to feed, and so I read through the reports on his desk. They were extensive, and contained little that I did not already know, save one thing: his findings on the ability to transfer our condition to others.
“Terrified at what this discovery meant, I set out to find Lothos, and did not have far to go. I heard the voice of my former colleague, along with the voices of others coming from an unused wing of the lab.
“At first, I thought that he had decided to inform the council of our discovery and they had arrived for an inquiry, and so I hurried to present myself to them. Instead, I stumbled upon a secret meeting headed by Lothos. He and several other men, not of the council, were present. By scent alone, I knew that there was something not right about them. It took a moment, but I soon realized that their smell was exactly the same as Lothos. He had managed to transfer this curse to others, just as his notes described.”
I felt my claws dig into my palms. The wounds released streams of blood down my arms. I opened my hands and allowed the wounds to heal, and then licked up the blood that remained to prevent a waste. It must have been a bizarre sight to Amelia, but the effects of my drink had prevented any strong reactions from her. She only waited patiently.
“I apologize,” I said. “The memories are not pleasant for me. And I think I’ve bored you enough for one night.”
“What are you talking about?” Amelia said, genuinely interested. “You aren’t boring in the least; I want to know more!”
“You’re too kind,” I said, “but to be honest, I’m torturing myself in allowing this tale to drag any farther.” I swallowed hard, and then exhaled, determined. “Allow me to conclude it.
“I learned of Lothos’ plans to use his newly-turned “generals” to seduce other loyal, but controllable individuals to the lure of immortality, and thus amass an army to seize Atlantis for his own. Hearing this, I fled to the council to warn them of his treachery.
“Naïve fool that I was, I didn’t think to bring evidence of our discoveries, and so I was forced to present myself to them as evidence that we had succeeded in our experiment. Afterwards, the council recessed briefly, and then returned. I was certain that they had been thoroughly convinced, but I was oblivious to the possibility that they would fall into the lure of their own greed.
“I learned too late that they had secretly been discussing the best way to subdue me. Upon their return, I was felled by snipers hidden in the audience chambers’ upper tiers.
“The arrows did not kill me, but I was dormant long enough for the council to hide me away. I found myself in a dungeon when I came to, weakened, thirsty, and shackled to the walls with bands that even my strength could not break. The council was present, all writhing in the painful throes of their transformation. I saw that their blood had been spilled upon the ground by their slaves. The bloodstained knives were still in their hands. The council members, as per the process I described to them, suffused themselves with my own blood. It had been spilled as well, mixing with theirs upon the floor.
“This was the council’s true nature: the nature of every single one of my people, which foiled them all. The fools, in their greed for the thing I possessed, stole it from me, and damned us all. When the transformation was complete, they killed the slaves, and then drank from me, draining me nearly dry. The thirst I had endured from the blood loss of the arrows was nothing compared to what I suffered after their gorge. The pain was indescribable, rendering me mad.
“After that my memories are fuzzy: a haze of madness and pain. When that haze finally lifted, I discovered that I had somehow freed myself. Maddened by thirst, I supposed that adrenaline had increased my strength beyond even its unnatural limits. My clothes were torn into rags, and the bodies of several guards upon whom I’d slaked my thirst lay before me. But what I saw after escaping from that dungeon made me wish that I had never recovered.
“The city was in ruins. Bodies were strewn about the streets, all drained of blood and some burned beyond recognition by sunlight. Those few that were left were possessed by my curse and had been starved for blood to a feral state with the absence of any living source. Lothos and I had learned long beforehand that our own blood would not satisfy us, but maddened with thirst, those who had been turned only smelled a fresh source and came out to attack. I subdued them as best I could, but they were, like me, immortal, and as I then understood my condition, would die of nothing, save sunlight or, as I soon learned, beheading.
“The city had begun to quake violently, and after this had happened about six times in a row, with increasing severity, I realized that someone had at least had the wisdom to start the fail-safe: our final solution, in the event of an experiment’s catastrophic failure, or a successful outside attack, however unlikely. The valves beneath the city were opened to the volcanic fissures it was built on top of. The pressure, upon its release, would destroy Atlantis and all evidence of our existence.
“I hurried towards the docks to escape, but was waylaid by Lothos. Somehow, he had managed to stave off the insanity, but I also learned from him that during my time of starved madness and the city’s slow descent into chaos, he discovered that it had been I who had set his plans awry, and was consumed with fury. We fought bitterly, but were too evenly matched in skill, and nigh incapable of death. We could do little else but fight each other to a standstill.
“The quakes became worse, and rather than fight until the city’s destruction claimed us, Lothos escaped. But first he made a vow to continue with his plans.
“‘Look at me well, Talante, and see the future,’ he said. ‘The world will belong to my kind, and we will be gods.’ Those were his last words to me before he fled. I pursued him out to sea, but when the city sank, the ensuing tidal wave separated us. And there, upon that distant shore where I had landed, alone for the first time in my life, I made a vow of my own: I would make any and every effort to stop Lothos and his plans, and somehow destroy him…even if it took until the end of time.”
I breathed in deeply, feeling a swell of relief at completing the tale once more. “And so now, you understand,” I said to Amelia.
“So essentially, you’re telling me that you and your clan are…good vampires, and Lothos and his cronies are…evil vampires?” Amelia said with trepidation. Though she did believe me, her voice was still on the edge of laughter. Indeed, for the uninitiated, it was a strange, even humorous concept.
“It's not too far from the truth,” I said.
“Then you’re not going to make a slave out of me after all,” Amelia said, more to herself than to me.
“You were never a slave,” I assured her for the third time, my voice weary with its repetition. “You are not, nor will you ever be a slave, Amelia. You are free to leave us here and now. You may be ill for a few days as your body purges our toxins, but you will be free. You will be watched for a time by my clan for your own safety, but you will live a happy life, free from us. But even if you choose to remain with us, you would still be free to come and go as you please, but you will be bonded to us by blood and biology. Stil
l, the choice is yours to make.”
“But you do want me, don’t you?” Amelia asked. I wanted so badly to lie in answer to her question, but the truth found its way to my lips and burst forth before I could stop it.
“No. I need you.”
“You…need me?” she said, inadvertently allowing her beauty to assert itself.
“Why else would I have told you about us?” I said. “Surely you didn’t think that you were let in on our world for nothing?”
“But I’m only a teacher!” she protested, “And not a very good one, if my evaluations are any proof. I mean why me? What do you want of me?”
I suppressed my reaction of shock. Did she truly not know? Had she not guessed how much I wanted and needed her, even though I said so in no uncertain terms?
“It is not for your skills as a teacher that I need you,” I said, but went no further than this. “Tell me, would be able to identify the person you saw at the club if you saw him again?”
“I think so,” Amelia said after some thought. “I…I’ve always been so bad with faces. Wait a minute; I think I know what you’re getting at. You want me to go back to that club and find out who ratted on you, don’t you?”
“That’s the long and the short of it, yes.”
“But what if they were working for this Lothos person?” she said, fear for the first time, encroaching upon her thoughts, despite my efforts to subdue it. “I don’t want to get mixed up in your little war.”
“But you already are, Amelia,” I said, sternly but gently. “You’ve been involved ever since we caught you spying on us.”
“But this isn’t my war,” Amelia said, emphatically. “I was only curious; that's all. It’s human nature.”
“Curiosity can often be a fatal flaw,” I said, my own heart breaking at the tears that now formed at the edges of her beautiful eyes. “And yes, Amelia; before you ask, I could still take it away, but not without residual fragments. It wouldn’t be good for you. I would have to erase so much that you’d spend a great deal of your own life trying to find out what happened in those lost hours. And again, your search would probably lead you back to us.