Children of Dionysus (Always Dark Angel Book 1)

by JN Moon

  I grabbed at the keys on his belt, my bloodied hands slipping, unable to grip them. Panting, shaking I finally grasped them and clumsily unlocked the chains from my wrists. Stumbling towards to Tom and Josephine, I clenched the keys tight trying to keep my grip to unlock them. Convulsions spasmed through me, from his foul blood that tore at my insides and it was all I could do to stop myself from hurling.

  Alexander writhed around, blood pouring from his stomach like a violent waterfall, overflowing. His groans grew fainter as the blood gushed onto the floor. I knew those vicious women would be in at any second. But the more I hurried, the more I fumbled. My hands were sticky and slippery with his blood. I could feel my heart pounding and my breathing was heavy. I had to get out, I had to get out.

  We hurried out, running as fast as we could until Tom found a car. He was desperate in his attempt and took ages to hot-wire it. It started, cut out. Panic grew inside me, dread fast and swift that we might be caught. Sweat poured from me as I watched in horror as Tom constantly failed at hot-wiring a car. Eventually, it started and then he slammed his foot down and we didn't stop until dawn. Then we collapsed.

  Head of the Elite

  Tyrell

  For three centuries, I have been Head of the Elite Coven of Vampires and in that time, I have watched in revulsion as our kind has become a useless, corrupt, inept species, and I shall tolerate it no more.

  Until now, I didn’t have the means to stop this over-spill of worthless creatures, breeding and out of control. There are too many. I shall return our species to the old order where only select vampires are granted permission to change mortals to vampires, as for the rest...They will either comply or die. Now I have genetics to aid this and the start of a new order.

  When I got news that my son had been attacked and left for dead, and the vicious bastards that did this got away! I had sent Alexander to detain some malcontents, Tom and Josephine and their new sidekick, a young deviant, Anthony. My steward informed me tentatively. Rage bellowed through me like wild-fire and the incompetence of everyone around me, their utter uselessness.

  “What do you mean they got away? Get Alexander, I don't care what’s happened, bring him here, now. He is my son and I will restore him if it takes the blood of a thousand vampires to do it. Go,” I roared. My anger erupted out, furiously.

  “And get Emidius! I want her here,” I thundered as I watched Nicolas, my steward, rushing off to fulfil my orders.

  Obstinately, Nicolas spun around and called out, his voice shaking, “Professor, we can't just summon her; it's not in her nature to be summoned. Remember last time?” Nicolas's voice was strangled in fear and anticipation of summoning Emidius, and this protest enraged me even more.

  “Nicolas, bring me Emidius. I do not employ you to think.” It was as if the world had gone mad, me, being questioned by my own servant! “Once you’ve completed these tasks, I want a full report progress on my project, is that clear?”

  Yes, now he trembled and so he should, with his head bowed.

  “How many have we lost this week?”

  “None, Professor, we are at last making progress, but it's not consistent.”

  Chains

  Jamie

  Locked in a cell and I didn't know why I was here. What crime had I committed? My maker never told me about this. I hadn't done anything wrong.

  I got up, screamed at the tiny gap through the door of the padded cell. I didn’t detect much human scent, so I reasoned I couldn’t be in a regular prison. Screaming for answers, for a reason why I was here, but it was all met with silence. My throat was sore and dry from shouting. High above me, a slight breeze whispered in revealing a barred window. I had been able to use the metal bed frame, placed upside down against the padded walls and scampered up to move the bars slightly, but not enough for even a cat to get though. Now my stomach spasmed, I was starving and my strength was disappearing fast. I drifted in and out of awareness.

  I’d been turned five years ago. Until finding myself here, I was happy all the time, hence my laughter lines.

  My past, I used to work in writing computer programmes and I enjoyed it. My weekends were all playing sports, rugby mainly and out with my friends chasing women. Just before I was changed, I’d met a woman who wowed me, and I thought, this is it! After years of dating, I’d finally met her.

  My life was similar to yours; I worked, looked forward to Fridays and enjoyed lazy Sundays.

  It was a Saturday night, I was meant to meet with Alice, the woman who made me quiver. Walking to the restaurant in the city, I met my maker.

  Cunning as she was, she appeared to need help with her car, bonnet up and whilst starting the engine it hissed and whirred. Obviously, I offered to help.

  As she spoke to me distressed and panicked, I was unable to look away from her. Transfixed, staring into her eyes, something compelled me to her, like an invisible cord was pulling me into her. Even now, in this place of hell, I remember her exact words as she moved close to me. Feeling her breath on my neck, her lips brushed my skin sending shivers through my body.

  “Jamie, delicious Jamie. I have been watching you for many months. You are beautiful, charming and mine. Come to me.” Opening her arms, I walked blindly into them, into her sensuality, desire driving through me.

  Smiling now, I was glad that we made love that night, before I was changed. To have that experience with her as a human, then a vampire. I was utterly and completely addicted to her. To being with her, and tasting her rich blood. Older blood smells stronger and tastes bitter. Just thinking of her now...but that was five years ago. When she left me, she just disappeared and I was at a loss.

  I stayed in her house, as a vampire I’d lost all my human friends, my family, my belongings. It took me a long time to get over her. I’m not sure I ever really did.

  I can’t contemplate my future right now. Just the present and how the fuck to get out. Why am I here? I’d heard the rumours, like everyone else, of some Elite group rounding up and killing vampires, but I also knew that most of the vampires that went missing had a reputation for viciousness. I did not. Bath is a small city and it’s impossible not to know your vampire neighbours.

  Either way, it didn't bode well. After the few days of my trying to reason, trying to get an answer or any response, my mind started to play tricks on me and my reason faltered. The screams I heard were terrifying, sounds of torture followed by the silence. That silence leaving me shivering with fear. And emptiness being isolated. Hunched in the corner on the floor I couldn’t stop shaking. Fear embraced me and my body ached in discomfort from it and from starvation. Crouching in the filth of the cell, with only that small, barred window high up on the wall allowed a meagre amount of light and air in. Soiled clothes, thirst, and uncertainty filled me with revulsion and panic. I was determined though that I would find a way out or die trying. I cried until I had no blood left to spill.

  As I sat in the filth and isolation of that place, getting out seemed more remote and starving to death appeared to be my punishment. As this realisation took hold, my hope plunged into blackness, an abyss of emptiness, dying alone and no one would know it. Not even my maker, if she cared.

  Something startled me, I imagined that the door was opening- it took me a few minutes to realise that I wasn’t dreaming as two guards, dressed all in black pulled me up by my shoulders. Too weak to stand from starvation, they dragged me out but it was hazy. Slipping in and out of a dream state, I saw a chubby older man with a high receding hairline. I remember thinking, I sense he’s vampire but it’s odd, vampires are usually chosen for their looks above all else, above character. It made me smile, he watched me intently. An incredulous stare, his gaze fixed on me. But I sensed no malice.

  Too weak even to ask where I was being taken, they carried me off up stone steps, through cold, grey corridors that in my state all looked the same until eventually I felt my body being lifted and relaxing on a bed of sorts. Then I just shut my eyes; let what will happen, happe
n. I don’t care anymore.

  Mutation

  Tyrell

  After my son was brutally injured, my passion for the elimination of the underclass became magnified. They deserve nothing less than annihilation.

  I knew that wiping out en masse of an entire species was impossible so using my skill and my connections, I had studied gene therapy and I was taught by the best.

  Science had always fascinated me, and I have seen it develop into a type of religion in human kind. Curious that anything they don’t understand in science, they dismiss. Idiots!

  The process we were instilling was gene therapy. As we, the Elite class have a purer strain of the bacterium, the infection that long ago made us vampires. This bacterium is ancient, some say as old as the Earth itself. I injected my subjects with a sample of the bacterium taken from some chosen few of the Elite and spliced it into their genes. Like Natural Selection, not all adapt, the weak die, or become the experimentals which I keep for study or donor use. Those that die, we burn.

  A purer class of immortals, stronger, more intelligent, faster. When the hosts' bodies accepted it, their muscle density increases along with their vision and hearing improves tenfold, resulting in their physiology becoming more powerful beyond human recognition.

  Lesser vampires are ill-bred and cannot sustain the purity and strength of the higher class, that is no concern of mine.

  In my day, the majority of vampires were carefully selected. And all but a very few stuck to the rules. I am, of course, of aristocratic blood, but even other higher vampires from less established human bloodlines could hold an untainted vampire lineage, if carefully chosen.

  Once the bacterium is injected into the host, it takes just thirty hours for it to infiltrate every gene, every cell, and either alter these beyond recognition, or the cells start to split and the body rejects it, starting a slow and painful death. However, as they were already a vampire and held a weaker version of the infection, their breakdown, both physical and mental, is extreme and prolonged.

  The Making of Gods

  Jamie

  Slowly opening my eyes, flickers of light danced before me. Swooping, bursting with trails, I thought I was hallucinating. Strength and virility pumped through my body, stronger than before, nothing felt the same or smelt the same. Even in my drowsy state, I was aware of men and vampires standing around me. Strapped down and yet I just knew the power I possessed, I could break the bonds, but for now, now I would just lie here. Drugged. Swimming in my mind.

  “All his signs are good. Nicolas, get him some blood,” the voice was sharp, authoritative. “This one, this one is exceptional,” the same voice said.

  Are they talking about me?

  Gasping, my body rose up slightly, involuntarily as a large needle plunged into my arm and I felt with precision as a hot liquid coursed through my veins.

  “We'll want to keep this one pure, Nicolas,” the voice said again. “He requires a good source of food, nothing dismal. See to it.” Then he bent over my face and I felt his warm breath over me as he whispered, “Perfection...”

  Again, the voice stated over me, loudly this time, “You! Take him to the east quarters. See that he's comfortable.”

  Later, I lay there in my plush quarters staring at the ceiling, incredulous sensations flowing through my body like electricity. At last, I sat up, with the power of a God.

  What the...?

  A force pumped through me, my body energised, charged to a new level. I felt like I could leap off a building. Invincible. The sensation of eyes boring into me. Somewhere in this room, someone was monitoring me.

  What have they done to me, and more worryingly, why? My attention drawn to the barred window. A big window in a beautiful room richly decorated, with 19th century furnishing, but it fitted the room. Heavy drapes fell on either side of the window and thick rugs, richly designed, carpeted the wooden floor.

  Getting off the bed, I gazed outside; the whole world looked different, more animated, more alive.

  I was aware of the ever-present life force pulsating in all living things. Of the sounds of nature.

  My hands, my skin. I gazed at myself. My blood pumped faster and looked luminescent through my tanned skin. I felt like Narcissus, spellbound by the magnificence of my new reflection. I couldn’t stop staring at myself.

  As I moved towards the mirror, I was transfixed by my eyes. God, what the... My eyes were almost completely black. But my vision... With that, I turned and before I knew it I was gazing outside, seeing everything, the likes of which I’d never seen before.

  I could sense a man called Nicolas. His name popped into my mind, and I knew he was coming to see me. Then I heard his footsteps, I felt his intention. I stood fascinated, staring at the door handle.

  Nicolas turned the handle to my room with trepidation. Although an old vampire and strong, all his instincts told him that he would be no match for me. I sensed his emotions, he feared and envied me. Wobbling a little as my mind tried to make sense that I could actually feel what another was feeling.

  Bound, gagged, and sedated beside Nicolas was a woman. She was young with short red hair and red-stained lips. A pale and shapely vampire, she looked quite noble in her dress.

  “Jamie.” Nicolas tried to sound commanding. “We thought you might be hungry.”

  “Oh, it was you in that room? I see. Thank you, I think.” I felt uneasy, like I was high on drugs. Nothing seemed real. Even the texture of the soft rug beneath my bare feet felt surreal, like walking on cotton wool, soft and bouncy. And I found that once I realised something, once I was aware of a sensation, I fixated upon it.

  “Human blood may not suffice your tastes now. You might want something more potent.” Nicolas handed the girl over to me and I took her with fascination. I could smell her blood so clearly, see it coursing through her veins and hear the thrumming of her heart beating. Gazing at her like a cat that looks upon its prey with excitement and infatuation.

  In seconds as I started to drink her, my libido raged inside me. I pushed her to my bed, our eyes locked, vampire to vampire, revelling in such a heightened sensation of lust. Every touch, every kiss seemed magnified in its feeling on my skin, tingling, like warm fizzy water filling every area of my body. Breath-taking. But wrapped in euphoria I was slow to realise that the girl was dead. I’d drained her completely and she fell out of my arms, rolled lifelessly off the bed, thudding to the floor.

  I jolted back shocked, horrifically and peculiarly I wasn't that upset. I knew I should be. Remorse ought to be consuming me. I'd never killed. That's who I was. And yet, and yet. An empty sensation of compassion fell over me, but was replaced but a stronger emotion of superiority; like this was my birth right, the natural order.

  “Nicolas!” I bellowed.

  And I knew, I sensed that Nicolas had been watching from the hidden camera. He arrived quickly, puffing slightly with his security staff and I detected a heightened emotion of fear; he expected me to create trouble regarding the loss of my humanity. I realised in that moment that I could smell the fear from him, and hear his racing heart as he approached my room. Before, as a vampire, without whatever they’d done to me, I could smell fear and malevolence in humans. But here, now this was stronger so that before he even entered the room my senses were keen, I gasped at the acknowledgement of that.

  “Nicolas,” I spoke softly, not in the least self-conscious about my being naked. “I need more. I am sorry, I drained her. I need another... Please.”

  Although I wasn’t sorry, and my desire outweighed my compassion right now.

  “That's alright, Jamie. Daniel, get another. Maybe an older vampire.” And turning to me he spoke in an almost fatherly way, “Those who have been vampire longer often have stronger blood, I shall keep this in mind.” Then turning to the guards, “Quickly now, bring one.” Then Nicolas gestured with his hand over the corpse and the guards carried away the dead vampire.

  The new woman was brought immediately and not sedated.
She thrashed and cursed, restrained in titanium handcuffs. She stopped once she saw me. My blonde hair, lean tanned body, waiting for her with blood running down my face and chest. I held out my hand to her, our eyes locked, and Nicolas shut the door.

  Summon the Goddess

  Emidius

  “Tyrell, your insolence has pushed me too far. How dare you summon me! I shall tear you into a thousand pieces if you ever summon me again! I hope for your sake that your reason is great,” I shrieked. The sound was deafening and to a mortal, their eardrums would shatter, and that effect wasn't dissimilar for a vampire. But I liked to keep Tyrell in his place, as he so delighted in doing this to all others.

  He feigned composure. Falling on his knees to mark his respect, knowing I could wipe them out in one easy swoop of my power; and though he despised kneeling to anyone or anything, he was desperate.

  “Great Emidius, forgive me, I beg your help. My son, my only son has been killed. I beg of you, please help me bring him back. I will pay any price.” His words, slow, loud, and deliberate. He was crying, his salty bloody tears mixed as he knelt on the stone floor at my feet, a proud man now distressed and humbled, made to beg for the life of his only beloved son. I almost felt compassion for him. He was obviously genuine, I had never known him to beg anyone, ever.

  He was a mad despot. He had been for many an age, but I had seen worse than him in my thousands of years. Though he is insignificant, it’s better to have him in charge than something far worse.

  My power is great, greater than any other being. There are a few others like me and together we are formidable. Not human and yet not god, but a demi-god. No other being knew what they were. Those few who knowingly encountered us knew we took human form, but they also knew we could take any shape.