by David McAfee
That was what hurt most; no one had even bothered to ask. No one cared.
“Yes,” I told him, “Yes, I do.” My last words as a living man.
“Then you shall have it,” he said, and he pulled me to my feet and brought my face to his. I was far too weak to have stopped him. His face moved to my shoulder, and I felt a tearing pain in my throat. I did not know what it was, only that it hurt. I tried to pull away, but I was weak from exposure and lack of food, and getting weaker. Soon I no longer even wished to break free; my goal had become sleep. I was tired, so very tired. I only wished to close my eyes and never wake up again.
Then he let go and I fell to the ground, not having enough strength in my legs to hold myself up, and no longer caring anyway. Something wet and warm dripped down the side of my neck, and it reminded my bleary mind of how thirsty I was. It would be nice to have one last sip of cool water before I died. I began to drift off, my mouth as dry as the sand around me.
Then he said something to me that I understood, even in my delirium.
“Now, Drink,” he said, and held his wrist out to me.
I saw that he’d cut it open, and it ran red with blood. Knowing I was dying anyway, and all thoughts of my promised vengeance forgotten, I did as he bade; barely conscious of the fact it was blood in my mouth. To my mind, it was a drink. A precious, wet drink. Anything else was irrelevant.
It was wonderful. I wanted to drink and drink and drink until I filled every part of my body and burst from it. He would not let me, though. He stopped me all too soon, and I laid my head back on the earth. I once again drifted off to sleep. The last thing I remember is the Father covering me with sand.
When I awoke it was still night, and he stood in the sand next to me. I sat up, wincing in anticipation of the pain, but it never came. The burns on my skin were gone. My body no longer hurt, and nowhere on my person was there a blister to be seen. I was as fit as the day I’d gone hunting after striking my mother. Moreso, even, for I felt strong. Much stronger than I’d ever been. I felt like I could run from one side of the Wastes to the other. I thought if I tried I might be able to jump high enough to grab the moon and see what made her hang in the sky. Looking at the moon brought to me a sense of beauty I’d never experienced before, and I felt cool and refreshed. The night was not cold, as it had been earlier, and my spirits soared with the stars.
Then he began to speak. He told me that he had saved me. He had given me life, and had given me the ability to achieve the vengeance I had desired. Furthermore, the life he had given me would last forever, and I need not see the darkness of death ever again, nor feel the ravages of time.
I asked him what he wanted for such a wonderful gift. His reply was to point behind me. He told me to stay true to the direction he was pointing, and to run. He said in about two hours, if I ran swiftly, I would come to the same break in the stones my people had pushed me through when they banished me. He told me to hurry. That the sun was now my enemy. After having spent so much time burning in the Eastern Wastes, I was only too happy to comply.
He told me his price for my gift was my own vengeance, and bade me to take it so fiercely that he would feel it from where he stood. It never occurred to me to decline, for by then the hate had built inside me and I considered it a price easily paid, if not enjoyable.
I ran in the direction he indicated, and just as he said, I came to the circle of stones that marked my village in about two hours. The anger and excitement welled up inside me as I approached the wall in the darkness. Our people had never posted sentries; we had never felt the need. And so I marched through the walls unchallenged, silent as death. I wanted to be near the hut where our weapons were stored when the fight started. That way I could prevent anyone from gaining access to them.
It occurred to me that setting it alight would accomplish the same thing and leave me free to go about my task without having to guard the weapons. So I walked to the very center of the village, where the Great Fire burned, and grabbed a flaming branch from the middle. I carried it to the Weapons Hut, and set the building alight. The straw roof went up almost instantly, and the sky blazed with light from the fire as glowing sparks flew up to the ceiling of black sky, red stars to contrast with the white twinkling ones.
Watching the hut burn gave me another idea, and I ran back to the Great Fire to get more burning logs. I hefted them easily and tossed them onto the roofs of the other huts in the village, watching with a dark glee as they, too, started to burn. Soon the skyline of my old home was awash in flames, and the screaming began.
Men yelled out in surprise and pain. Some managed to flee their burning huts in time. Some did not, and the screams sounded like music. I reveled in them. I only regretted I’d not had enough time to light all the rooftops. No matter, my vengeance had begun, and woe to the villagers who’d cast me out.
I dropped the torch in my hand and raced toward a group of men who had gathered near one of the burning huts. When they saw me, some braced for my attack while others ran for the Spear Hut. They needn’t have bothered, of course, for the roof of the Spear Hut had long since caved, and taken with it any chance of recovering any of the weapons within.
Those who stood their ground died in seconds. I tore into them with a ferocity I never knew I possessed. I ripped off limbs and pulled heads from shoulders, sending gouts of blood and viscera into the night. The blood was so thick in the air it seemed like a red mist had sprung up around the village. If I opened my mouth I could literally taste it. The smell of it drove me into a frenzy, and before I knew it I was chasing down those that ran and killing them with neither mercy nor pity, laughing as I tore them to pieces. It did not matter if my victim was man, woman, or even child. All fell to me. The world was a reddish haze populated by people running madly for their lives.
But running did them no good. I was faster, stronger, and much more vicious. Somewhere along the way I discovered a new weapon; a set of sharp teeth that had sprung from my upper jaw, and I put them to use whenever possible. I bit deeply into throats and legs and torsos, anything I found in front of my face. I felt the hunger and the rage building inside me, but I did not drink. I knew I would have to drink soon, but in my red-eyed anger I was saving it for one person.
It was all over very quickly. Two hours of running, seven blistering days of exile, and several years of being in love with a woman I could not marry had culminated in this one event. My whole life to that point added up to about five minutes of blood. My time as Houlo, leader and protector, was over. My time of Shadow had begun.
I looked up from the last body, and saw it was a child. The youngest girl-child of Harik, who had taken my place as Houlo. Her name was Akele, and she was only five seasons when I killed her. I knelt over her body and looked at her wounds. A large portion of her tiny neck had been ripped away by my own teeth. I could hear her heart beating faintly as her breathing slowed, and then it stopped altogether. Her last breath gurgled in her small chest as her lungs discovered they could not breathe blood.
I knew I should feel something. Remorse or guilt. Perhaps sorrow for the death of one so young, or even to hate myself for causing such a death. I knew it was right that I should feel such things, but in looking at her torn and broken body, I could not feel any of them.
I looked from the miniature corpse in front of me and gazed around at the rest of the village. Bodies lay everywhere, some recognizable, some no more than pieces of torn flesh. All around me the ruin of my once happy village lay strewn about like so much rubble, and already the carrion eaters were massing to erase the traces of my heinous deed. I gazed at the bodies of friends, neighbors, and people who had looked to me for leadership. Much as they had looked at my father before me, and to his father, and many other fathers down my family line for generations. I had betrayed them all; killed them without conscience or qualm, and I knew I should feel something.
Shame? Remorse? I felt neither. The only thing I felt was a burning hunger such as I’d never experie
nced. It ate through me and turned my insides to fire. I could barely stand with the pain of it. I thought back to the Man in the Desert, and how he had bade me to drink of his blood, and knew I would need to do so again. The Hunger roared into my head like a great fall of water. I needed to drink. The Father help me, I desperately needed to drink.
But I did not. The Man in the Desert had bade me to seek my vengeance, to take it so fiercely that he would feel it from where he stood untold miles into the Eastern Wastes. And so I would. There was one person I’d not yet seen. My first drink of human blood would come from her, and I would have her scream my name to the sky at the end of her life so that the Man in the Desert would know I had paid his price for my gift. He would know that I had taken my vengeance and more. The Moon would bear witness to my triumph, and I would be avenged.
As soon as I found my mother.
***
At this point, Ramah’s gaze dropped to the floor. He let out a deep sigh and shook his head. The light from the single candle flickered, causing the shadows on his face to move and shift. Suddenly I didn’t want to hear the rest of his story, but I couldn’t stop him from telling it.
***
I do not wish to tell you of my mother, Vincent. True, I felt nothing then. But now, sixty centuries later, it fills me with shame. I imagine my father looking down on me from his place in the sky, alongside my grandfather, and his father, and generations of my ancestors. I can see them watching with shamed and saddened faces in memory of what I did to my own mother. Suffice it to say I found her, and the Man in the Desert got his payment. In the end the deed was done, and I was born into my darkness. There I have lived long and long again into the centuries like the Muses of old.
I never regretted my decision. I have spent the better part of the last six thousand years embracing the night in all its glory. Chasing the prey, allowing the darkness to fall over me like a shroud, and running with the wolves through the midnight forests. I have seen the reflection of moonlight in the snow bathe the world in a silvery brightness, and I have seen the moon hide in the earth’s shadow and bear no light at all. I have brought death to countless men and women, and tasted the last of their lives as they slipped away. I killed even when I didn’t need to, draining blood away with abandon. In ancient times, I came to be known as the Bloodletter for my many heinous deeds. A mantle I wore proudly for millennia.
Yet I always wondered what had happened to my beloved Neelie. The Father would not answer me when I asked, and it became obvious to me that my relationship to him was nothing more than servant to master. That was well enough with me, for all he wanted of me was to keep seeking revenge, and my thirst for it was far from satiated.
The Human Race spread over the world like a plague, from a few handfuls of scattered nomads to the teeming masses you know today. They were everywhere, and I hated them all. They were the reason I had been banished. All of them living their little lives with their little beliefs, persecuting those who thought differently, or burning ‘witches’ at the stake. I took my vengeance on all I could, and the more I killed, the greater my lust for it became.
Soon, the Father made more like me. He had made one other before me, and eleven more behind. After he had created thirteen of us he decreed that we must now begin the task of perpetuating our race ourselves. Headcouncil Herris asked him why, and he told us he was leaving this world, and would watch us from his own. He told Herris we had been selected to lead his chosen people. It is from this statement that we derive the name of our race. Bachyir translates roughly to The Chosen in ancient Hebrew. Over the last few thousand years, the word has been bastardized to its current pronunciation of vampire.
The Father christened us the Council of Thirteen, then left the world of the Living for the world of the Dead. From there he communicates his wishes, and we faithfully carry them out in this world.
For centuries upon centuries I have done his will without question, killing when it was necessary, and even when it was not. The one thing I never did was create children. I knew the Father wished us to do so, and I dearly enjoyed pleasing him, but I did not wish to bring others like myself into the world. Partly because I did not wish to share, but mostly because, without children to lead, I was free to go about my business as I chose. For many centuries I was the preferred assassin for the Council. Though I sat on the Council myself, I was not above being sent on assignments by Herris, who shared the father’s desire that I create more Bachyir.
This, too, suited me quite well. For more often than not, the Council sent me to kill. And kill I did. Gleefully. It suited me that they should so disdain my lack of progeny that they would send me away, often for years at a time. I was far from content, but I was surviving, and that was all I needed. I knew I would never be content. Not until I discovered what had happened to my long lost Neelie.
How I wished for her during the long nights when there was no blood to be shed and no lives to drain. I thought of the one time we had been together as man and woman, and I would often find myself shaking. Those were the nights that I truly hated. I hated all, even my fellow Councilors. I would gladly have killed any of them had the Father not forbade us from fighting one another. So I stored my anger, loss, and frustration inside me and released it upon others when I could. And in so doing I would for a time drown out the lonely cries of a love that was killed seven days before I was.
***
Ramah paused to reflect, and his head drooped further toward the stone floor. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Although he’d just confessed to being one of the foulest, most ruthless killers the world had ever seen, I could only feel pity as he sat upon the bed with his eyes on his feet, and related to me the tale of how he’d lost his love. I could relate to that part pretty well, having just lost Raine in a similar manner. I could not yet fully comprehend the depths the Hunger could go, but I did have some appreciation of the gravity of it. I knew what it could do, hadn’t I done some awful things myself recently?
So was I any better than Ramah? The answer was no, I was not. There is a saying amomng the Bachyir: Sooner or later, the Hunger always wins. When the hunger beat me, I knew I would kill, as he had killed. Would I also come to enjoy it, as had so many others before me?
There was only one thing to do, I had to find Raine, and soon. I had to see if she could take it back.
His moment of reflection finished, Ramah returned to his sad story, which grew sadder still the longer I listened.
***
All that changed one hundred and thirty two years ago, when I met Raine for the first time. Raine was a schoolteacher in Boston back in 1854. I met her one night after I’d finished with my business. It had left me spattered with blood, and as I walked through the lamp-lit streets, the other pedestrians gave me a wide berth. Some even crossed the street before they came within ten feet of me. A wise decision on their part, actually. For although I’d had my fill of blood, I still longed to kill. Back then I always longed to kill.
Eventually, I came to a bench somewhere deep in the city’s innards. I thought it would be a good place to sit and watch for another victim, and so I did. I was only there for a short time when I heard a woman’s voice urgently asking me if I was ok, and did she need to call for a doctor? Not that the doctors of the era were very skilled, little more than witchdoctors by today’s standards, but they did know how to stitch wounds, which is perhaps what she thought I needed.
I had my next victim. I would allow her to lead me toward the hospital, and when we passed a nice, dark alley – which is something Boston was full of even then – I would pull her in and feast.
I looked up, and was just about to ask if she could help me to the hospital. The words died on my lips, however, and I never made it to the dark alley. I did not take any more lives that night, either. In fact, I did not kill again for nearly a month, and then only because the Hunger took my mind from me and forced me to do so. Since then I have fed only as often as necessary to keep myself sane. I am no
w much weaker than I was, for the blood keeps us strong. Once I disdained it, my strength began to dwindle.
It is not only the blood, however. When I looked into Raine’s face, the thirst for vengeance I had borne for centuries died in an instant. For a minute I could say nothing as six thousand years of anger and hatred washed away like sand in the river. My past rose to accuse me of my misdeeds, and I simply could not defeat it. I could not even fight it.
It was not Raine that I saw when I looked up, but my beloved Neelie! Can you imagine my shock? Neelie, still of dark hair and haunting blue eyes. It was easy then to see why some villagers had taken her for Chalika, for her eyes could bewitch anyone with their depths. I had forgotten how blue they were. As blue as my daylight memories of the Big Water. I could not believe it. My Neelie, who had been lost to me so many centuries before, somehow returned.
It was not her, of course, but Raine so resembles my beloved that even now I sometimes think Neelie has returned to this world when I look upon her. She is beautiful, my Raine. Well, our Raine now, I suppose.
Once the initial shock wore off and I could see that Neelie had not, in fact, returned from the dead, I began to think of her openly for the first time in eons. I wondered what she would think of me now. Even though the rest of the village had thought her an evil witch woman, I had known her to be something quite different. She would not approve of what I had become. She would never do the things I had done, would never have made the deal with The Father all those centuries ago. I could imagine her looking down upon me from the Heavens, and I knew she would feel neither hatred nor loathing, but pity. And that thought – that Neelie would pity me more than anything else – drove into my heart like a railroad spike. I felt the weight of thousands of years of guilt for the first time, and I knew my soul was as black and dead as the wastes into which I had been banished over sixty centuries before.