by Jemma Chase
“Did you save anyone?”
“No, my saint. Infected blood makes us ill. Only healthy blood nourishes us.”
I looked at the thralls. “None of these are ill.”
“No, our village was spared one kind of death, but we embraced another. We have used these thralls for food for many months. Once we drank the master’s blood, we became demons, just as he was, so it seemed…right. He wanted us to make more in our image, to spread our kind across the land. He had done so before.” Alain looked up at the sky. “He will not do so ever again, my Lord.”
“Thanks to you.”
Alain looked back to me. “No, my saint. Thanks be to you. What will have us do with the thralls?”
Again my first desire was to say we should destroy them all. But the thralls weren’t attacking or defending, merely standing there, waiting to be told what to do. Sheep are not threatening and these vampire thralls were sheep.
But I was a warrior, not a shepherd.
Alain thought I was a saint.
“What do you suggest?” I asked, before my silence went on too long.
“We should see how many have become full demons,” he answered without hesitation. “Those who cannot be saved should be killed. Those who can should be spared.”
Spared for what? I didn’t ask aloud, but the reality of my position came through clearly. If I let them live, they could and probably would do their best to kill me. They would help to spread the vampiric plague throughout the world, until, in my time, it threatened to wipe out humanity for good.
But if I killed them, did that make me any better than they were? I’d spent too long wondering about the safety of my soul to take the risk. And how could I kill Alain? He didn’t register as a vampire any more, but he also wasn’t human. And he was helping me, willingly. He’d done something I didn’t know was possible – he’d overcome the vampiric bloodlust, overcome the demon, to fight against his maker and his clan, to kill them. For me.
I looked again at the thralls. They were men, women and children, no different from any we’d seen in this time. No different from people in my time. No different from my family. Only they still lived, at least in a sense.
A girl around Violet’s age stood nearby. I went to her and touched her hair, waiting for attack. There was none, she just stood there.
“Can thralls ever…act like people do?”
“If the master allows it, my saint, I believe they can. Would you like me to test?”
“Not yet. Have them come with me.” I turned and went into the Abbey.
Alain and the thralls followed me. I led them into the chapel. Alain sighed. “It has been so long since I have been allowed in this place, my saint.” He looked peaceful and filled with joy. “I thank you for saving my soul, and for giving me this moment.”
Most of the thralls looked the same as Alain, though some seemed uncomfortable.
“We’ll come back in here later.” If any of us, them or me, had a later. I’d made my decision.
I led them all to the Abbey’s interior yard. “We wait for sunrise. If any are truly not vampires, or demons, they won’t be harmed by the sun’s light.”
The vastness of my mission spread before me and, for the first time since David had died, I had hope. I looked at Alain. For the first time since Marcus had died I no longer felt lonely. “You should stay in the Abbey, though.”
Alain shook his head. “You are with me now, my saint. The sun’s light will no longer harm me.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do know it. The others were willing to follow the demon, but once I tasted his blood I knew I had committed a terrible crime against God. Every day I prayed for the strength to break away. Every night I prayed someone would come to help me, even if it was to kill me before I took the life of an innocent in the way the demon wanted.”
“How long?”
“Time is different now. Months, certainly. I had almost given up hope.” He took my hand. “And then you arrived, my saint. I knew from your scent, your dress, your weapons, that you were not a regular person, but that you were also not a demon. I saw you slay one of my brother monks and knew God had sent you to save our souls.”
“We killed them all.”
“We did. And if you had killed me, my saint, that would have been a just decision. But you did not, and God gave me the strength to help you, to destroy the demon. I know God sent you to me, just as I know I no longer need fear the sun’s light.”
Alain knelt on one knee, still holding my hand. “I am a monk no longer – I am your disciple. I pledge my life to your service, my saint. Where you go, I will go. Your enemies are mine, your mission is mine, and I will protect your life with my own now and forever.”
“I’ve been alone so long.” I didn’t mean to speak the words aloud.
Alain smiled. “No longer, my saint. No longer.”
He rose and led me to a bench. We sat and he told the thralls to sit as well. Then we told each other about our lives before we’d met while we waited for the sun to rise.
Dawn came, and with it the proof that Alain’s belief in God was justified.
He stood as sunlight filled the yard, his head turned to the sky, a look of rapture on his face. “Too long, my saint. For far too long I have not felt the touch of the sun.”
I did my best to hide my relief as I checked on the thralls. To my surprise, most were reacting as Alain was – they were smiling and looking at the sky.
Some, however, were not so lucky. The cries of pain started as their flesh began to burn. But they didn’t try to run – all the thralls smoldering in the sun stayed where they were.
I took a Nightstick and went to the thrall burning nearest to me – the girl who was Violet’s age. I didn’t rip her head off or club her with my weapon.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, go with God, your sins are forgiven,” I said as I made the sign of the cross and then touched her gently with the Nightstick. “I’ll see you in Heaven, if nowhere else.”
She looked at me. “Thank you,” she said, as she disintegrated.
One by one, I went to each burning thrall and did the same. They all thanked me. And after it was over, Alain held me and dried my tears.
I am no longer alone.
Any time I question my purpose now, Alain says the same thing. “We have overcome the demons, my saint. We have all passed the harshest test our Lord could send and survived, because of you. You are our savior, and we will never desert you.”
Alain considers my protection his highest goal. But it is his company that sustains me, helps me to go on. And his love.
We married a year after we met, a year after he says I saved his soul. I say he saved it himself, but he refuses to believe that. Neither one of us truly understands how he overcame the vampiric control, let alone how the majority of his village managed to do the same, but his faith was strong and perhaps God knew I would need help to continue on. Over time, I have stopped asking why or how and just allowed myself to be thankful.
Alain is aging, but more slowly than a human. Due to all the changes done to me before my journey back in time, I’m aging slowly as well. We’re both oddities, and yet, we make the perfect team.
He continues to control the thralls and leads them as our small army against the evil undead. But he still calls himself my disciple and takes his orders from me. We sustain losses, but Alain seems invulnerable. No weapons, including the Nightsticks, work against him. He only needs blood at the full moon and only feeds on animals. Otherwise, he eats as I do. The thralls need blood, but they do his bidding and he never allows them to feed from humans.
He creates new Nightsticks as we need them. Our army wields them without issue and to great effect. We are powerful, and righteous, and I can again believe we will wipe the vampire plague from the world.
But still, I wonder and I worry. The baby in my belly seems fine, but how we could conceive is a mystery Alain says we must leave to God.
&nb
sp; I don’t share my most important question with Alain – will our child be humanity’s savior or its curse? Have I found the cure in Alain and our small army of saved undeads, or have I unintentionally created the cause? And if so, will that mean I am the mother of all vampires to come?
I have written this history several times, closed each one into an empty holy water vial, and hidden them. This is the last copy, the last vial. Hopefully one or more will be found in the future. To ease my conscience, to send my apology to The Order – and to the future.
Some things we cannot change. And some things we may change for the worse. As for me, I have found my true family now, and I will protect them until the day I die.
Christabelle de Fondeeur, Year of our Lord 1512
About the Author
Jemma Chase loves writing about vampires, werewolves, ghosts and ghouls. If it’s paranormal, it’s her cuppa. She thinks the color black is the best color there is, followed by gray, white, and blood red. The only thing Jemma loves more than the paranormal is chocolate, because every girl’s got to have a legal vice.
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Gini Koch Writing As…
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A CUP OF JOE
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G.J. Koch
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Jemma Chase
THE DISCIPLE AND OTHER STORIES
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J.C. Koch
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