Children of Dionysus

by JN Moon

So, she did. She watched him walk away in what I thought was intrigue and disappointment. At least she let him go for now.

  “So, Anthony, are you ready to become what you were born to be?” she asked me smoothly.

  “And what is that? A damned creature?” I asked.

  “Oh, you're not damned. Not now. And Rachel? You want to see her again. A shame Nathaniel lost his mind though. I liked him, once. But it is often the way with vampires; their minds don't cope so well with immortality.”

  “Do you know if Rachel's OK? I need to find her.”

  “But first, I need to help you. Drink from me.” She offered her wrist towards me.

  I was shocked, I knew she was some sort of demi-God and drinking her blood was not what I had in mind. I had heard that she cured Alexander and I had not heard anything about blood drinking.

  “You expect another kind of magic?” her voice raised in pitch.

  Captivated by her unusual eyes, so inhuman, not soulless, but definitely not human. They were incandescent.

  I took her wrist to my mouth and I bit. Jamie's blood had electrified me but this, this was a potent, wild force of nature. As I drank, it felt like a torrent swirling around inside me, a dam ready to burst. She touched my face and then ran her fingers through my messy curly hair. I felt exhilarated by her blood, her touch. She smiled and watched me with anticipation. Finally, I fell back against the rock exhausted with sensation, with intensity. I felt, I felt brazen, wild like nature herself. Like a storm gathering, like the seas crashing against the rocks, like lightning. I wanted her like I had wanted no other. Within a few minutes, my thoughts of Rachel seemed insignificant compared to the power that now raged inside me. I would take Emidius and then I would find Rachel and we would live wild and free like Gods.

  Emidius laughed. “No, you will not. You shall rest here awhile, and I am not asking you. Then you will find Rachel. You may give her some of your blood, but know this, if you abuse your power I shall hunt you both and I will destroy you both.”

  As she finished speaking I tried to move, to confront her but I could not. “Why can't I move?”

  “Because I command it. Now I have to go and get Jamie. Tyrell, Sigurd, they cannot harm you now. You will obey the law; however, you may drink from the wicked, from the deranged, from the evil, but you will not take from the innocent. Even those who debauch themselves; only the evil-doers. Do you understand me, Anthony? You will rarely need blood, though. Rarely.”

  “Am I like you?”

  “No, you are not. But you have strength now unrivalled to most. Remember what I have told you. If you cross me, you shall regret it.”

  I nodded. She sighed heavily and drifted slowly and gracefully out of the cavern to find her vampire lover.

  I sat there unable to move, knowing that soon I would find my Rachel. I felt exalted. Nathaniel was gone and my emotions swooned at his loss. But being with Rachel, just her and me, no Tyrell, no war, this seemed surreal. It was like, like the life I had before all this happened. I did not want to wait for a second longer, but conflictingly I was also content knowing that in these moments right now I had perfect balance.

  I could see what was to come; I now had the strength to wield my power wisely. To keep us safe, to stay out of the circus that Tyrell had created, the politics, the games.

  And as I breathed deeply and took in that intoxicating sweet earthy smell, I smiled. I felt at peace. And as soon as I felt that peace I was able to move, and so I left to find her. And I knew in my soul just where she was.

  God or Immortal

  Jamie

  Emidius pissed me off. Of course, she was all powerful but I mistakenly thought she wasn’t conceited. I was finished with that shit; this supernatural world was full of power hungry antiquated creatures who hadn’t evolved with the times. At all.

  “Jamie, come back. You are obstinate,” She rushed in front of me, I went to keep walking but she placed her hand on my chest so lightly, I was surprised I could not move.

  “I am not your toy, Emidius. I am sick of all this drama,” I snapped.

  “I know, but right now I have to go and clear up Tyrell's mistakes. And you can help me. Then Jamie, then I want us to be together as equals. I will show you the world, as you have never seen it. You will not need blood to sustain you, but any trace of human in your vampire self will be gone, and once gone I cannot undo it. But these things will not concern you; you will exist on a different level. Do you want to be with me?”

  I knew instinctively that it was what I wanted. I hated this blood-forsaken life but fear, fear of losing my identity, though vampire and partly human held me back for a few seconds.

  She sensed this and spoke gently, “Yes, fear. Fear of change. But consider what path lies before you as this. You have seen for yourself the selfish cruel ways of the vampire, however alluring they seem. In the end, they are all the children of blood, wild, crazy, and without shame. I at least can offer you peace. And companionship.” She stepped back to wait for my answer.

  I was only torn for a few minutes, after all, what choice did I have? If I stayed a vampire my life would be forever getting embroiled into petty wars. She offered me power, a different existence.

  “Yes, yes, I want it.” Gently she reached for my neck and bit, but I interrupted, “What's this? Blood?”

  “Shhh, it's the ancient way, Jamie.” With that, I allowed her to bite me and drink my blood until I was too weak to stand. She helped me to the ground as my knees gave way and her face was cold as I started slipping out of consciousness.

  And I heard her whisper, “Poor Jamie.”

  Lovers

  Anthony

  The drive back to Bath where I knew I would find Rachel was oddly calming. I felt no haste now, knowing our future could be whatever I wanted it to be. Emidius had saved me and I would not feel the fear of the Elite or their underdogs.

  Sigurd perturbed me, but not enough to break my calm mood, if he lived, which I suspected he did. She would deal with them as she saw fit and so I drove leisurely and serenely. And as I had expected, there on some wasteland high above Bath I drove up knowing, sensing Rachel’s presence over the charred body of my psychotic vampire friend whom I had briefly loved as a brother.

  Rachel, crouched on the ground beside him as his body smoked; the air thick with the smell of burnt flesh and petrol. However, his body had not burnt to a cinder. My instincts told me some devilry was afoot with Nathaniel. No body made of flesh could withstand burning from petrol and flames.

  Without speaking, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her up into me, holding her close.

  She went to speak, but I shook my head, words were not important now.

  I needed to get her away from here, from Bath at least for the time being. I wanted to speak to Emidius about his body, and as I stood holding Rachel close, her back to Nathaniel, I watched him, wondering why he had not burnt to a crisp.

  I was so spellbound in these emotions that at first, I did not notice them, those in the tree line, shadows watching us attentively.

  I did not move once I spied them, but even with the blood of Emidius, I didn't know what I was looking at. Not human, nor vampire but immortal and very, very powerful. Fear engulfed me, the hairs on my arms standing, my sixth sense kicking in. Anxiety rushed disrupting my peace, that now, I am the hunted.

  “We must go, now,” I whispered urgently and before she knew it, I had whisked her into the car and I was in the driving seat, turning the key.

  The figures, whatever they were, were moving and I could sense there were many, many of them. Much more than I could see.

  Then, just before I pulled away, I had one last glance in the rear-view window and amongst these things stood a mortal woman. And in my mind a name appeared, a name I did not know—Lauren.

  The End.

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  Prologue

  They crouched on top of the Georgian buildings, their massive wings beating slowly. Looking down as the mortals passed unawares, these magnificent and terrifying creatures were watching, waiting. Waiting for blood; their once milky skin, now shining obsidian, crimson tinged. Red from the blood they stole, blood that they were not designed to take. Crimson that glistened under the slight moonlight in that picturesque city. Like something from a macabre Gothic tale, hair flowing in the wind and their hands gripping the ledges, their movements animalistic. But then they’d never been human.

  Watching them from my hiding place, they jumped down one by one and blended effortlessly into society. Their wings remained hidden from mortal eyes by some trick, but I didn’t know how. I stayed hidden otherwise they’d take my blood for sure. They’d smell it and they would bleed me dry. But not all my kin were so fortunate to escape their grasp.

  These creatures were muscular, unnaturally tall with the confidence of a hundred kings. Each of them were forbidden by nature and answerable to no-one. They searched for my kind who they’d spent thousands of years killing remorselessly as they viewed us as an abomination, a plague upon the land. And now they sought us to devour our blood, our souls. It had driven them into a frenzy, the taste of blood, that swoon, hungry and savage.

  These creatures changed the design of their nature from killing my kin, to feeding off of us. We, the hunters, became the hunted, and we had to hide and out-manoeuvre these dark nephilim that were once divine power, now evil.

  My heart pounded at high speed and I tensed as I watched them. I wished I had my friends with me. But I was alone.

  Death would fill the streets tonight. Vampire blood would be spilled as the gates of Hell had been opened. All the damned were crawling through, feasting on the souls of men and vampires and destroying their hearts.

  I wanted time to heal after that genocide, after fighting in the conflict. For a while, at least I gained some kind of peace...I’d forgotten I was sleeping whilst I was dreaming; surreal images and feelings flooded my mind. But now I realised that in the realm of the supernatural, nothing rests for long...

  The Crypt.

  Anthony

  I gasped in shock, the cold air jolting me into consciousness.

  Open your eyes. Open them! But I could not. It took several pain-staking minutes, and then even longer for my vision to adjust.

  As my eyes strained in that dark place, I found myself lying on an earthen floor in a dusty, mildewed crypt. I shuddered as cold from the frozen floor penetrated through my clothes into my body. My stiff frame was reluctant to move so I started by moving my hands and feet. Pain seized my body.

  Short and rasping breaths, my lungs were chilled. I thought my body was stronger than this, but as my memory returned I realised I had gone to ground during autumn and it now felt like deep winter.

  Ice encrusted the ivy growing over the sarcophagus in the crypt and a trickle of fear crept inside my stomach as my mind made sense of the situation that I had fled from. And now my mind pulled together the past events that had led me to hiding out here in the first place.

  I remembered my not too distant past when I had been happy, mortal, and living an ordinary life. I’d had a job that I liked, and a girlfriend who loved me, introverted and introspective as I was. I glanced over to her. She looked so peaceful sleeping at my side that you could be forgiven for thinking she was dead. I’d had all the normal trappings of human existence and had been ignorantly happy.

  My body jolted involuntary as the memory of the night that changed my life flooded back.

  The thugs, the vampires that drained me to near death, then forced me to drink their fetid blood. They were not dashing and bold, they were vile, demonic, and without language. Their stench alone was repulsive. But my instinct, my will to survive kicked in, and I had gulped their blood fast. Things went to Hell in a matter of months.

  As I lay there thinking, body rigid from the cold in that grey crumbling grave, slowly able to digest the changes that had been thrust at me. I had killed innocent humans in the beginning. My body thrust the mercy of the lashing torrent of blood lust. My soul severed from my consciousness.

  Before being vampire, I wouldn’t harm a thing. And the memory of that innocent woman still haunted me. Little had I known at the beginning that killing innocents was forbidden. Little had I realized that my past evils would torment me forever.

  Then I’d joined with other vampires succumbing to debauchery, preying on criminals...I was an unstoppable force. The hunger drove me with an urgency that I was incapable of controlling. Then I was dragged into the crazy ideology of a despot Elite vampire war. Their mission to rid the world of the lower orders of vampires, creating an army of vampires genetically enhanced with the Elite genes to rule and govern the underworld.

  I had found myself locked up, chained up, and bled and beaten before being altered further by my vampire friend. I was lucky to escape with my life.

  As these memories streamed into my mind, my body tensed and breathing quickened. I took a slow deep breath. I was glad to have time to realise how much I’d survived and how much I’d changed.

  But what am I now? A killer. A drinker of human blood. I drank the blood of a demi-god, by her choosing, to save my life. I had been infected by a creature made by the Elite. An experimental. Neither vampire nor human, he’d undergone the gene therapy to turn it into an Elite soldier. It didn’t work on everyone, and those whose physiology rejected the genes were mutated into something hideous into a state of limbo, unable to take blood or food. The demi-god, Emidius, saved me with her blood after I was bitten trying to kill the crazed beasts. She told me that she saw potential in me.

  What that is I have no idea, unless it is my charming personality and my extensive DVD collection. She who everyone feared, what was she really? I have no idea.

  My name is Anthony and I have been a vampire for a few years and now I want nothing more than to live as I did before I was a vampire. I cannot, I know. But I want to return to life and blend effortlessly into the background. I want to live with Rachel, my lover who was turned by my vampire friend. Selfish, yes. But she came willingly, her choice made mostly by the danger of the growing number of vampires prowling in the city.

  So after all that, I went to ground with her. I had no clue actually that I could do this, it was instinct. And fear. Even though I knew I had more power than most thanks to Emidius for sharing her blood. I had wanted to get away from the fall out of the Elite’s failed eugenics programme and war.

  And Rachel. She thought she had killed her maker and my friend, Nathaniel. But he was old and strong and I knew he still lived. Though God knows how as he was doused in petrol and set on-fire after she drove a fire poker into him.

  Closing my eyes for a second, I rested whilst images of that night flooded my mind with a million other thoughts. My thoughts chattered at me like birds greeting the dawn. My body started to revive and I could feel my limbs willing to be moved. Slight warmth moved gently through my body and breathing was less laboured.

  Hiding in crypts in 2017. I spat a laugh at the irony of it. Who knew! And I was dressed in black. I must have been born to it!

  My eyes opened slightly wider now and I looked again over at my lover. She was like an effigy, pale and c
old to touch. Like death. Fitting for this timeworn place. Inside the crypt lay a few crumbling sarcophagi and frosty creepers twisted around them mixed with moss. Like something from a macabre tale.

  Slowly, I sat up and felt my back ease as I moved it. I was rigid from lying still for so long and the freezing cold. Looking at my hands, they shimmered as frost had covered them and my body. On Rachel it gave the illusion of an ice queen. Gradually I stood up, blood rushing through my legs, heat reviving them.

  As I stepped outside, a surge of energy rose in my body, rousing my senses. Everything was so acute—the air sweet with the scent with rotting leaves and the crisp chill of the wind on my face. Stronger than before and connected to this earth like no other. This sensation was new to me. My feet were ground to the floor as if I truly were a part of this wild nature, herself.

  The cold air made my breath look like the smoke from a dragon’s mouth and a small stream of light peaked through to the back of this dank place where we lay hidden, forgotten. Dreaming.

  I stretched and saw that day was parting now, just as winter had left the surrounding woods bare of their thick autumn greenery. Scents and colours, warm and vivid, it was bliss.

  I remembered a sensation then, such an unusual feeling as I had left Nathaniel’s charred remains. The sense of being watched by something that I did not know or understand. But something that told my instincts to fear and to remember. A shiver ran over me, and I blinked quickly. Yes, something powerful and deadly. I slumped a bit at the thought. No, we would remain low key.

  Nathaniel. I could feel him. I had drunk his blood. His genes had been mixed with mine. He was part of me and I knew he lived. I closed my eyes to breath in his memory, his passion for life.

  Though he had terrified Rachel, wicked and evil as he is, I was excited to know he was out there. My desire to see him was strong and I found myself thinking how heartless I must be, to long for the creature who could have killed my lover. But no more, as I had more strength than him.