~~~
Alastair stalked down the path leading from one hut to the next in the hot, sticky, tropical heat. There were only six huts here. They were used by some of the males of a local tribe during fishing season, while the rest of the tribe remained at their regular village. He made no effort to quiet his steps or disguise his presence. In the weeks since leaving his Mouse while in the throes of childbirth with the witch Marceline and all her pathetic following of females, he’d slowly lost even more of his sanity. It was that way with those of his nature — vampires. If they were foolish enough to bond themselves to another, they had to be certain the one they chose, chose them as well. If they were ever separated, both would slowly lose themselves to insanity, any remembrance of themselves before their turning lost forever, along with any sense of humanity they may have managed to hold onto prior. And the one he’d bonded with, he’d never planned to keep as his own. He’d thought he could keep himself separate, while bonding her to him. He wanted her to suffer when he left her to birth his bastard alone, and himself to have the freedom to step away unscathed. But it hadn’t worked that way. In binding Mouse to him, he’d bound himself to her, and now he was paying the price for it. He’d known that he’d one day slip further into the darkness that eventually swallowed most of his kind — if the slayers didn’t get them first, but he’d never thought it would be over a mate that he willfully abandoned.
He’d long ago embraced his destiny of hunting those he needed to survive. But now, he’d taken to hunting just for the thrill of the hunt, not even needing to or wanting to feed from them. Hunting to survive was one thing, hunting for the thrill of the kill was another entirely. His nose wrinkled as he caught the scent of fear and raised his face into the air to better locate those who hid from him. He detested these worthless humans. They were nothing but a smelly, whiny pollution of parasites on the face of the earth. It physically pained him to have to depend on them for sustenance. He lifted his lip in disgust as he picked up the steady thumping rhythm of terrified heartbeats.
Alastair paused in his hunt as the many rapid heartbeats surrounding him, resonating in his ears, feeding his blood frenzy as it grew, told him his prey knew he was near. He giggled a high-pitched maniacal sound. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he singsonged. He waited a beat before beginning on his way again. “If you don’t come out, I’ll have to come in!” he promised, ending on a slow, evil laughter. “I do so love it when you try to outwit me. If you give in too easily, it’s just simply a bore,” Alastair said aloud to the darkness.
Alastair was pure evil. Even the monkeys and the cicadas in the trees sensed his presence and stopped their calls. He was surrounded by silence as he saw two figures step into his path about twenty feet up ahead. They held torches. One held a machete, the other a sharpened cane. “Well, well, well. Of all the men here, you are the best they have to offer? Shouldn’t take long, then I can be away to your families!” Alastair said excitedly as he launched himself in the air to land just behind them.
The men turned striking out at the red-eyed, deathly pale, demon blood-drinker — but it was hopeless.
By the time the first man raised his cane in an attempt to bring it down through Alastair’s chest, the vampire had already snatched his head from his shoulders and used the cane to impale the second man who held the machete.
As the first two men fell, another three men advanced out of the shadows of the jungle to attack as one. The sounds of battle, and the scent of death hung heavily in the air. Though the men fought bravely, there was never any doubt how this would end — at least not for Alastair.
The sunrise brought shock and disbelief to the sleepy, little fishing community as the few survivors that had run away in the night, flanked by the rest of the village and the wives of those that remained to fight, returned with the local shaman to face whatever evil had attacked them in the night. But that evil was no longer there, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, they found a pile of their dead friends. All who’d thought to attack the evil the previous night had been killed. Most had been drained of their blood and tossed carelessly in a heap.
An instant wail from the widows of the fishermen went up on the wind to be carried far and wide. And in a hastily dug trench beneath the floor of the farthest hut from the shore, buried in sand so deep the mourners would never find him and sunlight could never touch him, a blood-drenched, and now sand-encrusted fiend, who had no clue he’d ever been human, smiled a smile of satisfaction at the pain and heartbreak in the wails the wind carried to him. More to hunt tonight, his fractured mind whispered.
Chapter 3
Adrienne sat huddled in the corner of her bedroom, a gaunt, skeletal specter of her former self. It had been three weeks since she’d last seen Alastair. Three weeks since she’d given birth to their daughter, and three weeks since she’d fed. She was ravenous, and she was frightening — a threat to all who lived.
She’d attacked one of her coven-sisters, but the sister managed to get away. Now, though, she was locked in her bedroom, with none tending her except her grandmama, Pauline, and occasionally Marguerite. Her hearing, sharpened from her need to hunt and feed, picked up the soft coos and murmurs of a child, a baby, from time to time. And those coos and murmurs had become her focus. Now she waited, hunched in a corner, for whichever woman entered her rooms next. She was focused. She was starving. She was a predator.
Finally, the sound of a key in the lock signaled her chance. They were coming to offer her the meal they always did. A raw steak, thick and bloody on the plate, and beside it a regular meal. Regular in that it was something humans would eat, prepared and cooked as though it were being served to a proper woman at a proper dinner. Neither the proper meal, nor the proper woman was anything she had interest in. And the bloody steak — the steak was an insult to a predator such as herself. She needed the blood of the living, and she needed it now. But she was weak from hunger. So her target had to be as weak as she. She smiled as she heard the soft cooing of the babe carry to her from the floor below. Soon, she thought. Soon I shall be a bit stronger, then I’ll hunt the rest of them, but first… the babe. She grasped the ceramic pitcher in her hand, balancing it in her grip as she stepped just to the side of the door and hoisted it above her head. The woman stepped inside the door, shifting the serving platter to one hand to reach for the light switch with the other, and at the same time, Adrienne brought the pitcher down on her head. The woman screamed, dropped the serving platter to crash to the floor and made a blind grab for Adrienne in the darkness. But Adrienne evaded her, and slipped through the door.
Adrienne rushed past the woman and paused only briefly on the landing to get her bearings. She snarled at the colored ribbons of light flickering on the red-carpeted stairs as she gingerly side-stepped them while hurrying to the floor below, the coos of the infant guiding her to where the child lay.
She followed the sounds to a closed door where she paused. Her broken mind trying to send her images, a message of some sort about the child, but she shook her head scattering whatever it tried to tell her away. Adrienne opened the door and silently moved into the darkened room. She looked around, taking in the heavy drapes covering the windows, allowing only a tiny sliver of sunlight into the room at the far end, furthest away from the crib the child now lay in, cooing to herself, kicking her tiny feet and waving her hands in the way that babies did.
Slowly Adrienne approached the crib and leaned over, watching the baby lying helplessly there. Adrienne’s head canted to the side ever so slightly, taking in the movements of the child. Taking in the sweet, heady scent of a clean, freshly washed baby. She reached in, lifting the baby into her arms and bringing the child close to her face to inhale the sweet scent. She breathed it in deeply, pressing her nose to the child's stomach, then moving up to press her nose to the baby’s chest and neck.
The light switch behind her clicked on and the lights above them on the raised, ornate ceiling flared to life. Adrienne opened her eye
s and raised them to the decorative chandelier above her head. She held the baby up with both hands, her thumbs spread across the child’s chest and shoulders, her fingers spread out across the child’s back. She held the baby up so that she could see her face-to-face, as she canted her head side-to-side once more, looking wondrously at the tiny baby girl.
“Adrienne, my darling, put her down,” a familiar voice said softly, yet firmly from the doorway behind her.
A rumble sounded in Adrienne’s chest, more a warning to the owner of the voice behind her than anything else.
“She is your daughter. She is so much like your own mother. Look at her, do you see it?” the voice asked her.
Adrienne’s brow creased as she looked at the baby still held aloft by her own hands. The baby kicked her little feet and struggled to hold her head up to look back at Adrienne. Then she did see it. This baby was so familiar.
“Her name is Solange. Do you remember, Adrienne?”
Adrienne slowly brought the baby closer to her face. Her mouth fell opened as she pressed her nose to the baby’s chest once more, revealing the small pinpoints of her still developing fangs.
Solange reached out with both hands and gripped Adrienne’s greasy, dirty hair where it fell, plastered against her temples and her cheeks.
Adrienne tried to pull back a bit, but Solange held tight. When finally Adrienne pulled back enough to look into the baby’s face, Solange cooed at her, offering a slobbery, toothless grin.
Adrienne’s face crumpled into a grimace as bloodstained tears tracked their way down her face. This was her little girl. This baby knew her, trusted her.
“Solange,” Adrienne whispered.
“Yes. Solange. And she’s yours,” Marceline said, her own voice cracking, both with fear for the child, and heartbreak at what her granddaughter had become.
Slowly Adrienne laid Solange back in her crib, then covered her with the soft blanket as she sobbed and patted the baby’s leg before backing away from the crib and moving toward the window at the other end of the room that offered a sliver of sunlight between the heavy drapes covering the window.
“Adrienne?” Marceline said, warningly. Trying to caution Adrienne about moving too close to the windows, to the sunlight that would certainly cause her harm.
Adrienne turned and hurried the rest of the way to the window before she had time to consider her decision. She reached it and spun to face Marceline, pushing her back against the drapes. She raised her red-glowing eyes to her grandmother and whispered the only words she’d said other than the name of the male that had ruined her, since she’d been left in labor in the courtyard by that same cursed male. “Forgive me.”
“It is not your fault, my darling. We will find a way to reverse it.”
Adrienne shook her head frantically. “There is no other way.” Then her eyes went to the crib. “Love Solange. Prepare her. Make her strong.”
“Adrienne…” Marceline said, taking a step toward Adrienne and the window she stood with her back to.
“No!” Adrienne shouted. “Stay away!” she shrieked. Then she turned and faced the floor to ceiling, stained glass window shrouded in the heavy drapes Marceline had ordered to cover them. She knew what was hidden behind those dark drapes — she knew her salvation, and the safety of her child lay just on the other side. She grasped the drapes and threw them back to reveal the sunshine streaming through the colored glass, while at the same time she screamed in agony as that same beautifully tinted sunlight fell upon her flesh, causing sizzling and rancid smoke to spontaneously waft from her spindly arms and chest. Adrienne took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the last breath she’d ever take, then screamed a heart wrenching shriek as she stepped back then charged at the window and hurled herself through it. Her scream followed her down to the sunny, bright courtyard below, where her body combusted into flames before it even landed on the slate paving stones covering the courtyard.
Marceline shouted, begging her to stop. “Adrienne! No! We can find a way to save you!” But, it made no difference, her pleas fell on deaf ears. Her beloved granddaughter was gone. She’d thrown herself out of the stained glass window, plummeting to her death two stories below. Marceline rushed to the window, leaning out to better see the courtyard, repeatedly screaming Adrienne’s name every step of the way. She sobbed as she looked down into the courtyard Adrienne had once loved to play in. There was nothing left of Adrienne but a small scattering of ashes, a spark of flame still flickering here and there. Marceline dropped to her knees, sobbing and calling Adrienne’s name as what was left of her heart shattered.
Behind her, lying in her crib, Solange cried out, sobbing uncontrollably for the first time since her birth, feeling the loss of her mother in her tiny, brand-new soul. A mother that she’d never know, yet even as an infant was inexplicably connected to by a magic they both shared.
Marceline, urged to her feet by the screams of the baby in the crib across the room from her, rushed to her side. Using her body to block the shafts of sunlight from falling on Solange, thinking that the reason for the baby’s cries, she scooped her up into her arms. Marceline checked for burns, and anything to indicate the sunlight had harmed her. On seeing Solange unharmed, Marceline sank to her knees once again, cradling the baby to her chest. A smile on her face, mixed with the tears of grief streaming down her cheeks, she pressed her lips to Solange’s forehead. “ Your mother is gone, my little angel,” she sighed. “But you are blessed, the sunlight won’t hurt you, little one,” she murmured.
Solange cried still, though she calmed a bit as her great grandmother spoke to her.
“It’ll be okay,” she promised as the child continued to cry. “I’ll take care of you,” Marceline said, before she lost her ability to speak through her own tears of grief.
~~~
Somewhere on the other side of the world, a master vampire, having slipped totally into insanity, paused in his hunt and fell to his knees. A pain unlike any he’d ever experienced momentarily crippled him.
While he knelt there, panting, trying to breathe through the pain he knew would surely rip him in half, visions of a frightened, yet needy little female, kneeling before him with her belly large and swollen, smiling up at him as he tore into his own wrist and fed her from his vein, flooded his mind.
In the far reaches of his demented brain, he realized the pain he felt was her spirit leaving this world for the next, and he smiled through the pain. Another vision filled his mind. That of a female, her dark hair piled high on her head, jewels at her throat, her ruby red lips pursed in disgust as he knelt before her begging her to save him. To join her life to his, to use her magic to save his worthless soul before he was too far gone and beyond any chance at all. But she’d laughed at him. Refused him. Left him to waste into the soulless creature he was destined to become.
The picture in his mind shifted and the image of the beautiful young girl with the jewels decorating her body merged with the one of the elderly lady, grey hair swirled upon her head in much the same way as the young woman who scorned him in the gardens decades ago. Only now, she hurled insults and spells at him as he laughed at her attempt to keep him away from the granddaughter she so loved, as the granddaughter labored to bring a child into the world — his child.
The vampire, Alastair, plunged his clawed fist into the chest of his most recent victim, grasping the still beating heart and tearing it from the chest of the male before him. He brought it to his mouth, sinking his pointed teeth into it and sucking the blood from it. He grinned again, blood dripping from his chin as he raised his head, turning his face to the sky. “You are welcome, Marceline,” he said aloud to the night sky, and the desecrated bodies strewn about him. “You are most welcome.”
Seventeen Years Later
Chapter 4
Solange watched her reflection in the mirror as she brushed her thick hair into a manageable ponytail high on her head. She sighed as she slipped on her black leggings and her matching black sports b
ra. She was tired. But training still had to happen. It was nothing new. She’d been training all her life.
Her earliest memories were of training. Her Sensei squatting down behind her when she was little more than a toddler, patiently placing her arms and hands in the right position, then looking down to arrange her feet and legs, only to have to address her hands again. Her Sensei was a Sixth Degree Black Belt in Ishinru Karate, a Second Degree Black Belt in Japanese Jiu Jitsu, a First Degree Black Belt in Japanese Judo, a Second Degree Black Belt in Philippino Escrima. He was a Master in the Art of Bladed Warfare, the Escrima Sticks, the Long Bow, and Psi’s, as well as a Master in the use of Japanese Katana — the art of using the long sword. And these weapons, thanks to her Sensei, had become second nature to her. She had no idea where Grandmama had found him, or how she’d convinced him to agree to train a little girl, a toddler at that, but she had. And he had. And now, at seventeen years old, she was a Third Degree Black Belt herself, with honors and skill sets that far outshone many who were twice her age, and that would one day rival her Sensei’s.
She smiled thinking about her Sensei. He had become more than just a teacher to her. He’d become a role model. Someone to look up to, with gifts and beliefs to be emulated. Had she any goals other than murder and vengeance in mind, she’d have aspired to be just like him. But she wasn’t that good of a person — she never would be. It just wasn’t in her to be good, and she was okay with that. Some people were inherently good, others inherently bad, and still others never even figured out what they were. At least she was lucky enough to have been taught to harness her inner evil and use it for good. Solange paused to think about it. Vengeance was good, right? It was delivering justice for those who couldn’t seek it for themselves. That’s how it was in her case anyway. Solange reached for her boxing gloves, left untouched for the last few days. She’d even taken boxing when Sensei had to leave town from time-to-time. He’d leave his son in his stead to come by and work out with her. He was a professional boxer, and was never disappointed in the speed with which she picked up the drills and footwork he taught her.
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