by J. R. Rain
The dark masters were experts in the blackest of magic. In many ways, they paralleled the devil and his demons. In many ways, they were more powerful than the devil and his demons. In others ways, not so much. The devil had dominion over death; they did not. And so they fled the devil, and they do so until this day. I have heard rumors that a great plan is in place to destroy the devil and his demons. But I am not willing to believe it possible, although I have been wrong before. Truth be known, the devil is one of the few entities who keep the dark masters in check. He, and the Alchemists, those brave warriors of the light.
Yes, the magic was taken from you, Sam. But you are so much more than magic. You have always been inquisitive. You have always been a helper, a healer, a voice for the weak. After your murder and subsequent loss of magic, you often worked in the fields of medicine. And, although the magic had been taken from you, no one could take from you your inherent knowledge of the earth and its natural remedies. You healed the sick, and they often came to you from miles—and countries—away. In this life, you chose another path. You chose to fight crime, and that is admirable indeed. Now, I see you work independently as a private investigator, and I could not be more proud of you. Surely, you could have gone down the darkest of paths, but you are fighting it, fighting the natural inclinations of the evil that resides within you.
And, Sam, make no mistake. She is the evilest, and most vile of them all. Be careful there.
How did I become who I am—a vampire—and how did I come to find you in yet another incarnation?
To answer each, I must take you back to the life in which you were taken from me and destroyed by the Red Rider, the life in which I had been blessed to be your father.
But first, let me clarify... for I sense your confusion even now as I write these words, years before you will read them, if at all. I say ‘if at all,’ because, well, who knows? Perhaps I will survive the hunter’s attack. Perhaps I will keep on living as I have lived. If so, then I will find another way to reach you. After all, I never planned on leaving you this note. No, I had planned on sitting with you and holding your hands and gazing into your eyes—my daughter’s eyes—and telling you all of this in person, if you would have me.
Why haven’t I, then? Your wounds are too fresh, I suspect. You are too new to this way of life. You are, quite, frankly, too green and inexperienced to understand all that I am going to lay upon you now. You need to experience what you are. You need to be open to the truth. I was—and am—willing to wait. After all, we now have eternity to reconnect.
Yes, I am chuckling over here. I say an eternity, but really, I am just a silver arrow away from losing everything, including you.
And so here I am, writing this letter, hoping beyond hope that you will be ready to read it when the time comes. If that time comes, I will be long gone, and so this letter is all I have. Now, I need to clear the air, for I sense your confusion and, possibly, your anger... even if only in my imagination.
No, Sam. It was not I who attacked you that night six years ago. It was another, one whom I destroyed, one who had the vilest of intentions for you. The attack was already under way when I arrived... and you were dying in my arms, your throat torn open. I had only one option to save you...
But, alas, I am getting ahead of myself.
Let me backtrack.
Let’s go back to that cave, when I found your partially-consumed body. Yes, Sam. The monster feasted on you as an animal would. But he had taken more than the flesh from your bones. He had stolen from you your heritage, your birthright, your soul-right. He had stolen from you your magic, and discarded you with the others.
And he had moved on to his next victims.
I had been forced to move on, too.
Gone was my need to find you.
Only to be replaced with a need to avenge your death.
No, I did not yet know what monster I faced yet, but over the years, decades and centuries, I would learn more about this foul beast. And the more I knew, the more I wanted to hunt him. Needed to hunt. The more I knew, the more I knew he had to die.
But with time, comes age... yes, Sam, I would spend the rest of my natural life looking for this devil. And I was dying.
And I couldn’t have that.
No, not at all.
Chapter Twelve
The life I had known is long gone. So far away now that sometimes I wonder if it was ever real. But you are real, and so I know it had to be true.
Imagine thinking back to your earliest days in school, Sam. Only a few decades ago, if I am correct. Now, imagine going back ten decades. Twenty. Thirty. Fifty. Sometimes I think humans are given only seven or eight decades or so because the memories are too numerous. But they are all in here, Sam. Sometimes I confuse them. Sometimes I need prompting, and sometimes I don’t remember at all. I am certain I have forgotten whole decades, let alone years.
But I remember what I need to remember, and I remember you, and I remember my first wife. Yes, I say first. There would be more, some mortal, and some immortal. There would be many close acquaintances, and many friends, too, although these days, I am friendless, which is fine by me. These days, I am not of a mood to connect, to entertain, to pretend. These days, I know my time is short, and I have business to do. This letter is such business.
Besides, do I not have Robert and Mae? Perhaps you have met them by now? I suspect so, since they were instructed to give you this note... or scroll. What can I say, I’m old-fashioned. Yes, Robert and Mae... who are they? I haven’t a clue, Sam. They came with the house. They are immortal, I think. They might also be ghosts. Living ghosts, if that’s possible. They don’t say much and their minds are nothing but light, but they are all the company I need. The red-eyed shadow men, not so much. They, too, came with the house. I could do without them, which is where the enchanted candles come in.
I was in my late thirties when I lost you, Sam. Forty futile years of searching later, I found myself in my late seventies—and no closer to finding your killer. My time, quite frankly, was running out.
By this point, I was weak of body and mind. Years of hunting your killer had stolen my health. My body was broken and sickly and I had “the cough,” which is what we called it back in the day. Tuberculosis is what it is called today. My time was running short, and I knew I would die, not only never having avenged your murder, but never having really seen the Red Rider again. Sure, I had gotten close. I had seen evidence of his presence—the missing girls, mostly. And five or six other times I had come across his kill caves, as I’ve come to call them.
Knowing your killer was still out there, feeding on the innocent and destroying families, was a tough pill to swallow. I nearly said, stone to pass, but that was a saying from another time, another place, although undoubtedly still relevant today.
But my spirit was strong, even if my body was weak and dying, and so, when I found myself in a familiar city—indeed, my search for the Red Rider often took me in meandering circles, an idea occurred to me.
You see, Sam, by this time, I had spoken to many mystics and witches and warlocks, and those of indefinable lineage. I had spoken to dozens, if not hundreds, of those who fled—and would later die—at the hands of the Red Rider. And I had spoken to those who would later burn at the stake. Sam, I had seen and interacted with the undead. I was sure of it, although few would give me straight answers. Indeed, upon my travels, I had heard the whisperings of werewolves, merfolk and vampires. Of elves and imps and fairies. But it was that first grouping who held my attention; in particular, the vampire.
I was very, very interested in living forever. In the least, a few dozen more years... however long it took for me to track down the Red Rider. Indeed, I would have welcomed death the next week, if it meant that I had banished the earth of this fucking monster. Pardon, my language.
And so, weakened and dying, and wondering if I would ever get close to the creature who had proven shockingly elusive (one who could vanish into thin air), I sought ou
t a man I had seen years earlier feeding upon the broken body of an alley cat. And not just feeding, but drinking deeply from a gaping wound in the animal’s neck.
Drinking, Sam. Nay, gulping.
Never will I forget the image. Nor had I forgotten the way he had wiped his lips and licked the ichor from his fingers. Interestingly, he’d exited the alley with the dead cat, all while I’d been sleeping nearby in a darkened nook of the alley; well, that is, until the sounds of slurping and drinking had awoken me.
Fascinated and repulsed, I had wondered if this man—if he was a man—was one of the undead I’d often heard whispered of. I both believed it, but didn’t believe it, either. If I hadn’t seen evidence of another man having disappeared before my own eyes—with you, no less—I would have been less inclined to believe such tales. Then again, had I been hunting a mortal man, I would have surely found him by now... and killed him.
From near the opening into the alley, I had watched the man cross a cobbled street, and then cut through a nearby park. Weak and dying, I had done my best to follow him. At one point, I spotted him bending down. I paused, not daring to get any closer. When he’d finally moved off, I waited some more, then inched out from the tree I’d been using for cover. A hundred stumbling paces later, I spotted a small, fresh mound, where, I was certain, he’d buried the cat.
I blinked, confused. Never had I suspected ghouls to be... sympathetic?
Was it possible?
I didn’t know, but footprints led further into the woods and, against my better judgment, I followed the prints. They led out of the park, into the surrounding woods, and continued on for some time until I spotted a stone building high above, alive with candlelight in its many windows. It sat alone upon a hill, and, with the very last of my strength, I followed a well-worn path all the way to the vampire’s lair above...
Chapter Thirteen
Whoever lived there had, undoubtedly, heard me from many hundreds of yards away, if not a half mile or more, with all of my coughing and clamoring.
At one point I stumbled and fell and lay there in the mud and rain, wondering if I could ever find the will to move again, wondering if I should just give it up and let go. After all, the Red Rider had proven frustratingly elusive. Who was I to think I could find him? Besides, wasn’t I at the end anyway? And what choice did I have in the matter? None, of course. Death was staring me in the face. Hell, if I didn’t turn away from this muddy puddle, I would drown right here. A lifetime spent on revenge... only to be extinguished by a two-inch puddle.
The water before me sizzled and bubbled with the driving rain. Despite my warnings, I inhaled some of it and coughed—only to inhale more of it. For the life of me, I couldn’t turn away from this damned stupid death.
I tried pushing myself up, but couldn’t.
I sucked in more water. Coughed again; inhaled still more.
My feet kicked and I knew I was suffocating.
Terrible, my mind raged. I search all these years only to die... like this. Whether I drowned now, or somehow turned away from the puddle, I was going to die on this night. Of that, I had no doubt.
It was then, Sam, that I heard the words. Words that I was certain I had hallucinated. After all, I had not breathed in over a minute, nor could I find the strength to push myself up... let alone roll over away from this damnable puddle. My body, quite frankly, was sick, old, worn down, and diseased. Death was welcome. But not like this. No, never like this.
This was my frame of mind when the words came, and they came incessantly:
Come to me, and I will help you.
The words had seemed foreign to me. Then again, dying was foreign to me, too. Perhaps my mind was spinning out of control, losing it completely. Perhaps even Jesus himself was calling to me to heaven, although I doubted it. One could not be as filled with hate and rage as I, and be received with open arms by the Son of God.
The devil, I had thought next.
It was the devil calling to me.
Yes, that made more sense. I had neglected my body my mind, my life, my health, my sanity, in search of your killer. I had neglected my faith, too. I had renounced it all for one single act of revenge that had been denied to me.
Come to me, and I will help you.
The words came again, and again.
I coughed more, and now my lungs were full of the stuff, so full that I couldn’t find the air to cough again.
By sheer coincidence—perhaps the wind shifted, perhaps the blasted puddle water shifted, too, or perhaps I found it within—I found my head above the water. In that instant, lightning flashed, illuminating the night sky, and, remarkably, I caught a glimpse of the stone manor silhouetted against trees and stars. My eyes also found a small, dimly-lit window, where stood a dark figure watching me.
No, not standing. He was leaning out, bracing his hands on a ledge, watching me intently.
And not just watching, I would realize later. But reaching out to me with his own mind.
My lungs seized as I searched for breath, too weak was I to even cough up the water. My too-heavy head splashed down again, and bubbles appeared before me. And a light, too. A bright light.
Who are you? I asked the light.
The one you seek.
The man in the window?
You think me a man?
Are you not?
Come to me, and you will know.
I’m dying.
I know.
He killed my daughter.
I know that, too.
And you will help me?
Yes.
How?
What is it you seek?
The Red Rider.
What else?
My body convulsed, and the white light grew brighter, surrounding me. Lightning? No, not quite. This was a slow-building light, one that seemed to spread over me like the rising sun. There were figures in the light, beckoning, beckoning...
I seek time, I thought, feeling myself being pulled to the light.
I can give you time, my friend. I can give you time in spades. Now, will you go to the light, or come to me?
Chapter Fourteen
It is with no regret that I found it within me to push myself up with both hands. It is with no regret that the golden light above me faded into the distance. And it is with no regret that I understand—nay, that I know—I will never, ever see that light again.
And, yes. I did say nay.
I am, after all, over five hundred years old.
How I found my feet, I do not know. How I placed one foot in front of the other, I do not know that either. But somehow, some way, I forged ahead, through the rain, up a muddy trail, and finally along a winding, exterior stairway with, undoubtedly, glorious views of the vale below. But it was night, and it was raining, and I dared not look at anything other than the next stone step before me.
Up I went, up and around and through the driving wind and lashing rain, moving steadily, inexorably toward my own salvation. This was my heaven. This was my hell. My eternity awaited me at the top of these stairs... along with the man I had seen feasting upon the cat...
And so I climbed...
And climbed...
***
He was waiting for me at the open door, but never did offer me a hand.
I’d asked him why later, and he had told me it was because he had to know I wanted this, that, beyond his offer for help, it had been me who pushed for this. I had asked why he cared, and he had opened his hands and smiled and said, “Because I have to live with myself forever, after all.”
I would learn later that he was not like the others. Indeed, he was one who fought the entity within, who had gained dominion over the darkness within.
But then I had collapsed at his feet, and reached my arms out and said to him, “Help me. Please.”
He had nodded, and his movement had been swift and terrible, and I found myself in his clutches, a searing pain in my neck, and my body completely immobile. Whether he had stunned me or whe
ther or I was in shock, I do not know. But I lay there on my side, my arms still reaching out, his face pressed into the crook of my neck, his hot breath on my skin, and felt what the alley cat must have felt. The sensation of being consumed.
But unlike the cat, I did not meet my demise.
There are those who think we die, Samantha Moon, when we become what we become. But they are mistaken, are they not? Are you not more alive than ever? Are you not stronger, and more powerful than you could ever imagine? The physical body certainly goes through a major shift, but it does not die, as you well know. Although the physical body now must accommodate something darker and often evil, it also must accommodate something else. Something that gives us our true immortality, something not often written about, or even known to most of our kind. But I will tell you now, although this might be information you have gleaned yourself. After all, I have seen firsthand how inquisitive you can be.
The body, in fact, becomes a receptacle for the soul itself, Sam. That is why there is no heaven for us. And if the “no heaven” part is news to you, then I am sorry to break it to you now, in this manner. But it is the truth. The soul is drawn from the energetic realm and summoned into these physical bodies, which, sadly, are still susceptible to physical death, under certain conditions, despite our kinds’ ability to live forever. The forever part comes with a caveat. We cannot be burned alive, suffer silver to the heart, or survive a beheading, although I know of one such man who had. A horseman, in fact. There was, as you might recall, a famous book written about him. Truth disguised as fiction.
But I digress...
Indeed, it is the full power of the soul, contained in these clumsy bodies, that gives us our immortality, Sam. Not the dark masters who worm their way in. True, these so-called masters have developed the magic necessary to draw the soul from heaven, but that is the extent of their power. Every good thing you do, every bit of joy you feel, is from your inner self, Sam. The darkness within you would lead you to believe otherwise. They would even lead you to believe that you must drink blood. No, Sam. It is they who crave the blood. Not you. Never believe their lies. Ever. Someday... yes, someday you will learn how to control even this craving; that is, if you desire it to be so. It is really dependent on how much of the darkness within has taken control. Alas, this is talk for another time.