Thirst

by Tapley, Travis

  Chapter 3

  “Another Child of the Moon”

  Lilith looked at Michael in disgust. Her dark black eyes dull yet shimmering with a hint of coal dust in them. She was the true meaning of immortal, She shared that distinction with the members of the Dark Council. She was the mother of them all, even if the radiant ones laid claim that their beginnings came to be in the rebirth of Seneca’s wretched mother, Caelina. What in Hades name had possessed her to try and find an ending in that thing the world now called the only way to heaven. She laughed at the thought. Why even worry about the place, use the wisdom and power the gift of the dark gave you and live forever. Was it not the same claim that the fisherman from Galilee promised? Eternal life? The only problem with that idea she thought was, you had to become dead to experience it, and that was no fun. And to try and live sinless was pointless to her, she had created sin. In some ways she was the reason all of this chaos existed. Maybe it was why she despised men so much, they were easy. Even that fool Adam had tried to resist her, but when he did and went crying to God about her refusal to bow down to him and lie underneath him during sex, she had gotten her revenge. Yes, she had been banned from the garden forever, but so had those two when Eve followed through with her plan and had Adam eat that delicious fruit. She smiled a wicked smile as she thought no wonder she was called the Devil, Satan, that old snake in the Bible.

  What exactly had happened to Caelina’s body after her sickening deed on that hill was anybody’s guess. But wasn’t that true of most things in life, death and eternity? The mixture of sinless, pure blood, with total blood of darkness had given a shred of light back into her soul. Not enough mind you to make her a human again, but enough to let her walk in the light of day. It had also given her the ability to be with child, had made her dead eggs alive again and able to create a mortal man and a vampire, depending on the species she would give her body to. It had enraged Lilith, she had ripped the testicles off of more than three hundred mortals and at least that many dark ones. She had proclaimed them all useless, it took her back to the Garden of Eden and Adam, she once again had felt that all men were totally useless. She knew she was fertile and the jealousy that scorched her cold heart and pumped though her veins toward Caelina was unquenchable. The male vampire’s sperm was useless, as dead as the sun light to her eyes. And the mortal man, he did not have the power in his to even get close to her evil ovaries. They lost the will to travel through the dark chamber of her wickedness to form a fetus in her wintry uterus.

  Seneca had always been her ultimate goal. In every battle she had long desired to catch his eyes, to draw him in to her. But he was a strong one. She needed his blood line, she knew his blood could give her what she wanted. A child. It had never been done. She knew that blood would make her fertile, a direct injection into her womb and her sleeping unearthly eggs wold be alive again. She wasn’t sure what would happen after that but she knew beyond a doubt she needed the blood of the only one who could give her the power she needed to finally take over the world. Caelina had gone from the dark to the light, and that was a totally different kind of blood mixture than what she had wanted to combine. Caelina was seeking something other than death, even though she insisted it was death. But in her foolishness, she had actually created a race of vampire that made all the dark ones jealous. The whole thing had been a process of trial and error after her recovery. Her wish of roaming the Roman country side had been granted, her skin had regained an alive tone. She had married Seneca’s mortal Father, Felix, and had hidden her nightly feedings from him the remainder of his life. She never shared with him her identity, and raised Seneca as a human child. It was only at thirty years of age she began telling Seneca of his lineage, and letting him decide on how he would live his life. To stay as he was and meet the fate of his Father or be bitten by her and become a child of forever. It was bad enough she had to play God on the nights she fed, she would spare her child the same fate if he so wished.

  Lilith detested the fact that the radiant ones were unable to be detected. Their cloaking abilities were far more advanced than even her own. She might not be able to recognize many of them, but she always recognized the one she wanted most. Michael would be a thing of the past if she could ever get the blood of Seneca She did not care how she got it, but she knew she wanted it and wanted it fresh from the vein, still warm and fragrant to her nostrils. In every fight she had convinced Michael that was worthy of fighting, it had been in an attempt to trap him and take from him what she desired the most. It was a shame she thought that such a well structured Roman man had to meet his demise one day at her hands. There was no lack of confidence that one day things would fall into place, just as they had with Amaranth. She believed it to be her right, her privilege and more importantly, her destiny. She needed that blood to create her new, stronger, dark race, one that even Seneca’s kind could not defeat. It had to be another new creature. She needed something on her side with the ability to pierce the mind of the radiant ones. To be able to find them and hope that it gained the ability to walk in the sunlight. And more important than anything it had to be a boy. She needed that son to grow and mate with her to create another, and then another. Until there were enough of them, they could blend in with the Seneca’s of the world and destroy them one by one. It was the only way to establish order and regain control of what her kind, her race should truly be. And to think they could all go back into the light. She had even thought so far ahead to risk having herself bitten by one from her womb if she could ever accomplish the plight she had sought for so many years.

  Lilith remembered the night Caelina had become a vampire at the hands of her daughter Alexandria. Alexandria had reminded her so much of herself. Long straight shining black hair, except her eyes had been a shimmering blue, a deep blue, deeper than the waters of the ocean blue. She had been a young girl of twenty one, and a prostitute. For whatever reason she felt the need to rescue this child from her plight of having men pay her for sex, to lay on top of her with their foul stench and their five minute fuckcapade degrading this human to the lowest of low. The mere thought of a man acting like he was superior blistered her blood. She had watched the young girl for months and on the night the old fat, smelly, blob of a drunken man came in, she would solve all of Alexandria’s problem and let her exact revenge on men any way she saw fit. She would be her personal protector. She liked the fact that she could claim one as her child. A little Lilith, she liked the thought of that.

  She had not known that Alexandria was going to be one of those rogue vampires, that the gift would cause her to spread her wings and fly in ways she never could as a mortal. Much like herself, Alexandria had a nasty temper and she not only refused to drink from the vile men, the only act she took pleasure from with them was to seduce them and work her way slowly down their stomachs and then with one nasty bite remove the parts that had caused her many nights of grief in her previous life. Lilith had tried to reason with her, and it was only because of her position with the council, that the girl had not been reprimanded for vampire tom foolery. She had caused quite a uproar in small towns by taking the men after she had parted them from their crown jewels, and leaving them at the doors of wives and children with said jewels stuffed in their mouths. Even though it was not acceptable vampire behavior, Lilith found it hard not to laugh at Alexandria’s total dislike for men.

  Then came the night she met Caelina. A Roman girl of thirty two. Alexandria had become smitten with her much in the same way she had. She tried to reason that she had not been of the royal blood long enough to create a creature on her own. She needed years more of training, but she knew it was futile. Alexandria’s mind like hers was very stubborn when it was convinced it was right and became hell bent on doing it anyway. She had played Caelina night after night. Lilith was quite impressed with her ability to seduce the young woman. It was a thing of beauty, effortless really, and before long she had Caelina sharing her bed. And then came the night she let Caelina kiss her cold ne
ck, she touched her chin with her fingers, tilted her head toward her as if to kiss her and then sank her teeth into the neck and thus was born another child of the moon.

  Caelina and Alexandria had been inseparable those first few years. Lilith had been wrong about her abilities and was somewhat pleased at the efforts the girl placed on teaching her pupil all of the vampire ways. Caelina had been disgusted with the act of feeding right from the start, she had refused to eat, and after almost three days of going without the crimson drink, she realized there was no other choice. The first kill reminded her of a young cat stalking its prey. She did not realize her power and struggled to subdue her victim. It was almost like she was afraid she was going to hurt it and chose to play with it for a little while, torturing it before finally bringing it to its death. As much as it pleased Lilith to watch Alexandria grow, it also made her jealous of the time she was losing with her. She had never been fond of this young girl, but to see Alexandria happy almost took away the resentment. Even in Caelina’s growth, there was always something about her hatred of feeding that bothered her much more than it should have. For the sake of her daughter, she had stopped herself many a night from ending the young vampires life.

  Lilith wished she could have pieced the puzzle together from the forty days and nights in the desert with the Christ. She had been to engulfed in trying to get him to sin to think about why Caelina had been there too. She had known she was there and never gave it a second thought really. She had known Caelina was spending night after night following the man, and thought of it more as cute than a danger. With the way she had hated the feedings, something should have clicked in her mind and told her Caelina was up to something. She just never thought the something would create a new species of vampire that would haunt here all this time.

  Chapter 4

  “Swords and Fairy Tales”

  Seneca had never divulged much of his past with Summer. She had been told the basics of who he was and how it all came to be, but the truth behind the battles with Lilith and Michael were known only to his mind. Lilith stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. So, why had she left him alone for exactly two hundred years? If his hunch was right, he would have his answer soon. But why him, why had her sights always been set directly on him? His only reasoning was the fact that she knew him, knew his face, knew one day she would run into him again. The other radiant ones were not so detectable. They mainly tried to live normal lives, working a job in the day, and sleeping at night except to feed. Anyone that thought this ability to walk in the sun was perfect had not realized, that because of this ability, it caused them more harm. They could only stay in towns for a short period of time. It was only so many years before someone would make the remark that they had not aged a bit. How can you work a job for twenty years and still look as young as the day you started? And the most important reason he could think of with Lilith’s desire to have him, was the fact he was the second radiant one to ever exist. She would conclude that he contained more of the original pure blood than any other of his race and would want the most potent seed she could acquire.

  It was two pm when they left Summer’s parents home. She had noticed as he drove, he was more quiet than usual. Whatever was on his mind was weighing heavy on his heart. She wanted to ask him, but thought it not the right time. As he had always done, he would tell her when he felt it was the right time to do so. She turned the radio to am 870 and listened to all the talk about tonight’s parades and how beautiful the weather was going to be. Even though she knew some of the things in his past, she couldn’t help but wonder what he had really seen. Two thousand and fourteen years old. It was still mind blowing to her that it was even possible.She felt a little jealous at the fact he had received the gift so early in the history of the earth. The things he had seen invented, to watch man kind advance and become more evolved. How she had argued that point about evolution. How her parents could not see that it was evolution was something she would never understand. Being the only child of Southern Baptist, she feared she would only get three maybe four hundred years if she was lucky. It was one of those things that no matter how educated you became, it was hard to shake. The teachings were always there and it seemed to all be true in some ways if his mother had been at the cross and drank of the blood that transformed even a vampire into something with a smidgen of light within.

  That was a part of his story even her parents would enjoy hearing, at least until it got to the part about his mother. She could see them sticking out their chest and running all over town shouting the Bible’s authenticity. Declaring its truths to anyone who would listen, or not. But what proof would they really have because when they tried to tell the part about a vampire, they would quickly be declared insane and nicely locked away. It almost made her feel guilty for wanting to turn the car around and head back to Slidell to tell them the truth. What a terrible daughter she must be to want to see them locked away. But it was not her fault they were a little overbearing at times. But in some ways she felt sorry for them to, to live in such an advanced world and yet to be so stuck, so primitive in your way of thinking.

  They had arrived at their second home, and actually it was another apartment in Covington around two forty. Seneca had taken his sword out of the trunk and placed it on the kitchen table. It was the first time Summer had ever seen it. She had heard him talk of using it when he shared his past, but was stunned at its beauty, its craftsmanship. It looked like stainless steel, it held a shine like no other metal she had ever seen. As beautiful as his sword was, she was about to see a second one of equal or more stunning beauty. He took the sword of his beloved Amaranth and placed it beside his. There was a reason he had not talked on the way here. He was trying to figure out how to share this part of his history he had so knowledgeably left out. How do you tell the woman you love there had been another? He felt a burden upon him that he had only felt one other time in his life, well maybe the two. There had been the time when Amaranth lost her life, and the death of his Mother. And dreadfully, both lives had been lost to the hand of Lilith.

  As much as one wanted to forget, the brain of a vampire remembered. The fear of alzheimers and sickness that plagued the mortal world were none existent to his kind. Things seen could not be unseen, things learned, never forgotten, and memories stored, never erased. He longed to remember Amaranth, he never wished to forget her, but the sight of her head falling to the ground was a scene he would love to cut from the movie in his mind. He had not been there when his was mother was killed, and he often wondered what was worse, the actual witnessing of the beheading of his beloved, or the vision his imagination gave him of Caelina’s passing. It was a visual placed there by Lilith. She had made sure to describe it in detail during one of their confrontations. Ah, the confrontations, would these cursed battles ever truly end? It had seemed throughout the years that they both were equal in strength and as much as they both wanted to be rid of the other, it seemed it would never happen. Was it to always be a timeless tale of good versus evil? A never ending fight that someday, he could turn into a book and have it read like a child’s bedtime story?

  Summer couldn’t remain silent any longer, and he could tell by the look on her face, it was time for her to learn of the sword of Amaranth. His thoughts on good versus evil could wait. It was time to confess what he had not shared with anyone. Time to tell of the burden he had carried with him for so long. How she would react was anyone’s guess. She was so strong willed, yet so tender, so caring. He had very rarely seen her mad, and even when she did blow a fuse, it was a controlled fuse. She knew exactly how long to keep it lit, and if it was to be a loud explosion or more like a firecracker going off.

  He took the sword and sat beside her on the couch. He placed the tip on the floor and held it upright with his two hands wrapped around the handle. It was the first time he had seen it since that day. He had wrapped it in fine linens and while he had moved it often, he had never uncovered it to see its beauty. He could tell Summer was l
ost in the exquisite craftsmanship, you did not have to be a lover of swords to be amazed at how carefully it had been put together. But she could marvel at its beauty later, right now a story had to be told, and one he knew the ending of, but did not know how it would affect the outcome of his current life chapter.

  He simply tried to start the tale with who Amaranth had been.

  “You know of my existence, some of where I have been and where I came from. And yet, you do not know truly all of the things I have seen and done. I know I have told you of my sword and now you can see it was everything I said it was. Just as I have tried to be everything to you. Sometimes I have wondered at you, how you never questioned if I had made other radiant ones, at how I could live two thousand years and never have another by my side.” He was thankful and could tell she would remain silent until his words were finished. “There are two in my life that have haunted me, hunted me since this all began. You have asked of my Mother, but remained patient with me over the years as I simply replied “Dead.” You never asked how and took my answer for what it was. I think in order for you to fully understand what you are about to become, you need to know the truth about the two things I have never talked about. And in those two things you will come to understand the two that hunt me. You will also learn that one of the two is the very definition of evil, full of darkness. As much as you think you know what a vampire is, this one is the holiest, the very beginning of us all. As you will learn, she has been there since the beginning of time. She was in the Garden of Eden and the originator of sin.”