by P. Mattern
“BRAHTA FODJAN!” he shouted at them,”ANA AZWMUS!”
Immediately planks of meat and bread were set in front on her on the cavern floor. An additional plank contained some sort of roasted tubular which tasted like a wild potato of some sort. Leah ate like an animal, aware that she was wolfing down her food, afraid that the food might be removed before she’d eaten her fill.
The entire time she was eating the Leader never took his eyes from her. She supposed her was guarding her ,perhaps even protecting her from the others who seemed to be gathered around the fire some distance away. Occasionally she could see one or two of them craning their necks to surreptitiously check her out. The Leaders glare kept them from staring at her too long.
There was also a deep bowl containing a brown liquid. She raised her questioning eyes to those of her captor.
“Alew.” he replied in answer to her unspoken question,”Ale. You must drink it.” And she did.
When she was finished and could hold no more she ventured a question.
“What language is spoken here? I don’t recognize it.”
The Leader stared at her so long before answering that she began to fear reprisal ,but finally said, ”Goth is the language spoken among the hybrid tribes ,the cave dwellers. I speak English because I came to the tribe only after I was turned . My family was destroyed, as was yours. And I was taken-only one can be taken from a clan. You are fortunate to be the one.
“I am Balik.. But you may not call me by my name until you are turned.”
Leah began to gather up scraps and clean the space she’d eaten in ,but a small scurrying darkhaired woman with a long braid down her back ran up and pushed her hands away saying”Nim-a-m!!Nim-a-m!!” The woman gathered all the leftovers and planks and ran off quickly.
Balik was still looking at her intently, so she ventured another question.
“What do you mean ‘turned’?”
Balik seemed annoyed with her.”Think of what you’ve seen-or should have seen. I remember now that your eyes were closed. If you’d kept them open you would know what we are, and what you will become. At her blank look he sighed as if her were a teacher dealing with a dull witted student.
“Vampires, girl. We call ourselves the “Guda-la us”,the Godless.”
At once Leah was glad she’d had the ale, it seemed to take the harsh edge off of his arcane pronouncement. The daylight pouring down from the outside was failing quickly, and the torches caused grotesque shadows to appear on the walls-shadow beings, beings that were not quite animal and not quite human. Mentally and internally she was shaking her head. Surely she would awaken from this nightmare and find herself back at the camp with her adopted family any moment.
But she remained seated on the stone floor, which seemed to be getting colder and more uncomfortable. And Balik was doing his staring thing again. She wondered if he was more decent than the rest because he –and there were a few others like him-looked like an American Indian rather than a Neanderthal. Suddenly she had a horrible thought.
“The meat,” she said, looking up at the tall black eyed shirtless man standing over her.”It’s not… not my…..”
He seemed as if he might laugh but made no sound.
“No child” ,he replied, ”Dius-deer meat. Not your relatives.”
She realized that she needed to go to the bathroom.
“Where-“ she began, but before the words were out of her mouth another dark haired scurrying female came running and took her away behind a clump of stalagmites that shot unevenly up from the cavern floor like a small grove of palm trees and sheltered a small stream that seemed to disappear into a hole underneath the rock embankment. Awkwardly Leah stripped away her undergarments and hitched her tunic up to relieve herself. The stream carried her issue away quickly and she was even able to dip her bottom into the water to cleanse herself. To her immense surprise the water was warm rather than chilly ,and she surmised it must be a underground spring that carried some heat.
The woman that had taken her there and turned her back when Leah was going to the bathroom quickly herded her back to Balik. Not knowing what to do with herself, she sat down in the same spot so he could stare at her again. This time the look in his eyes was wary.
“I must take you to the Mavesla now.” he said. “ You must not raise your eyes to him unless he wants you to. He is ancient and quite powerful. He can end your life with one breath. “
Leah felt her heart beating in her temples.
“Does he speak? English I mean?”
Balik smiled wryly.”No. Not at all. But he will make himself understood. He is a mind-speaker. He will communicate quite clearly without speaking. You will experience this for yourself, and soon.”
Slowly they walked out of the cavernous room down into a tunnel that was low and poorly lit by smoking torches. It seemed to Leah that she was traveling downward into the bowels of the earth. It was warmer the farther down they went, and the air was full of earth smell. At intervals they passed men that looked like Balik ,bearing weapons, obviously guards of some sort. She noted that they showed deference to Balik, and did not raise their eyes to him unless he spoke to them first.
At a point where the tunnel turned sharply Balik stopped to consider her again. He felt somewhat drawn to this girl in a way he couldn’t really define. Maybe she reminded him of his former humanity. Quickly he chided himself for his attraction toward her. In a few hours, he knew, either she would be dead, or she would be transformed into a creature that had no past and couldn’t remotely be referred to as ‘human.’
“You must go ahead alone. The Mavesla is waiting in his cavern for you.”
Leah felt frozen in place by fear.”Is it much farther?” she asked in a low voice.
“No. Go child. You can’t get lost .Go.”
Leah held onto the wall as it turned,glinting even in the dim light with deposits of micah, and found to her surprise that the corridor widened at that point and was relatively well lit. She could see ahead of her the same golden glow of another cavern-this one lit more brightly than the main gathering area she’d been in all afternoon. Taking a deep breath ,she stepped inside.
It was bright inside the cavern, it took her eyes a moment to adjust. Then she realized with a sense of complete surprise that the cavern was lit with incandescent lighting involving electricity. There were at least three large chandeliers giving off prismatic light that reflected over and over on the glassy stalagmites descending from the cavern ceiling.
In the center of the large space there stood what appeared to be a man. He was tall and dressed in mideastern garb. He had a head covering held in place by a burnished golden headpiece that encircled his head and the lower half of his face beneath his eyes was covered by a veil.
Without speaking he motioned her forward. Remembering Balik’s instructions she moved toward him with downcast eyes. In her peripheral vision she noted that they were not alone-there were others in the room, standing at a respectful distance. She thought she saw both males and females ,all of them dressed similarly to the Mavesla.
The second surprise was that as soon as she was within 10 feet of him she could hear him speaking to her in her head. Without language. It was as though pure MEANING was being communicated to her without words.
She knew he wanted her to sit on a low divan that was set up several feet away-it was one of three but she knew she was to go to the one in the center. She knew he was slightly repulsed by her strong human smells, but pleased by the color of her hair and eyes. Without his uttering a word ,she knew he wanted her to remove her clothing and lay down on the low couch and wait for him. This she did ,as if in a dream. She noted that the lights seemed to be dimming and wondered how there came to be electricity in this underground place. She was infused with the knowledge that they had tapped into power lines above ground in order to facilitate it.
He stood at the end of the divan ,at her feet. He had shed his robes and wore only a short folded length of material ar
ound his lower torso. His body was marked with color-illustrated scenes , and also harsh black curious marks that seemed like ancient writing. She felt rather than saw ,him blow a breath at her, but yet something more than a breath ,as a reddish smoke settled over her entire being like a cloud blanket.
In her mind he commanded that she remain still, and she agreed with the infused thought. She felt slightly drugged and as though she were floating.
When she felt the heaviness of his body upon her she felt no fear. The thoughts in her head told her that she had been conceived for this hour ,that her destiny was about to become manifested ,that she had been chosen.
She could feel his face above her own, bidding her to look into his eyes.
The eyes that met hers were mesmerizing and beautiful , outlined in kohl like those of an Egyptian god. He smelled of strange spices, and stone dust, and something else she couldn’t place.
She was still looking into his eyes as he removed the veil that covered the lower portion of his face.
It was at that precise moment that she began screaming.
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Hundreds of miles away from the fair state of Indiana Byron Chance lay in a hospital bed at a sophisticated and specialized medical center in a induced coma. It was night time and he was scheduled for another extensive surgery in the morning. It would be his ninth since entering the Wetwear Transplant Facility. So far ,using tissue that had been regrown in the lab from bits of his own tissue from areas outside of the severely burned areas of his body, they had managed to replace all the bones on his left side, even down to his feet. The flesh was only replaced down to the ankle, and the entire portion of his body was kept floating in a amniotic saline solution to keep the replacement tissues alive and viable. On his opposite side the skilled surgeons had manages to cover his exposed hipbone with flesh again, made easier by the fact that both his buttocks ,his pubic area and even his sexual apparatus had been spared the ravages of the supernaturally hot flames that had caused his injuries. He’d been injured at Faquier Castle by Lord Earl Adrastos as punishment for his defection from Adrastos’ ranks several months previously.
If he’d been awake he would have been beyond pleased that his sexual apparatus was still intact.
Because he was a dhampir ,half human and half vampire,it took massive medical intervention in order for him to heal from his traumatic injuries. The regrown and transplanted tissue was doing well-his vampire half status was helping him to heal exponentially faster than a human would have been able to. But the recovery was time consuming and the doctors were counting on at least 5 or 6 more surgeries before physical therapy and rehabilitation could begin.
As he drifted in limbo, shadows from the past flitted through his mind. The face of his mother appeared from time to time ,as well as the faces of her many ‘boyfriends’ he had later recognized as paying customers. His first love Raven was there also,the young girl that had befriended him as a runaway ,leading him to shelter and an odd sort of stability as a teenaged prostitute. In his endless dreams he spoke with her ,thanked her over and over for coming to see him.
The faces of the many women that he’d made love to also came to him ,each of them beautiful in their own way, each of them filled with an unrequited yearning that he was determined to fulfill. He considered pleasing women his avocation as well as his destiny ,and in his dreams he threw all of his sensual energy into pleasing them-as he had in real life.
His more recent memories also surfaced in his dream world from time to time, including the faces of Adrastos’ soldiers, and he found himself engaging in swordplay over and over with the Captain of the Guard Royal Chavez. In his dream the battle raged on and on interminably ,neither one of them able to gain the upper hand for long.
His dreams included the many wetnurses that had nurtured him at Castle Faquier, and the faces of his new ‘family’ -Cass, Mitzi, Charley, Fress ,Lux ,Celeste, Ariel and the rest, each murmuring encouraging words and telling him to hurry back to them. Even in his nether state he willed to become whole and rejoin them.
As Byron slept, the Head Surgeon entered the room with a nurse to chart his progress. He seemed perturbed that the flesh drift had not grown sufficiently enough to enclose his foot on the bottom. He slipped a sterile probe into the solution and made a few measurements.
“Too slow”. He complained to the nurse. “ Only the heel of his foot should still be open at this point. And we still have the reconstruction on the other side to do. Increase his venom drip or he’ll be here another 6 months.”
The nurse didn’t verbally disagree but surprise shown on her face.
“Are you sure, Doctor Doro? If the level gets too high he may lose his half-humanity. He might become completely vampire.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“And that would be a problem-HOW?”
The nurse stammered a little.”Well you know how the V-Council is about preserving the different phyllums…he came into our care as a dhampir.”
The Doctor gave her a condescending look.”That doesn’t mean that he’ll leave as one. It is his half-humanity that is impeding his healing and making our job more difficult. My task as his physician is to heal him ,by whatever means. And at this point if we don’t increase the venom drip ,his living replacement tissues will start to atrophy and all of our extraordinary medical interventions on his behalf will be for naught.”
The nurse looked down into Byron’s sleeping, handsome face. He was absolutely the most gorgeous male entity that she’d ever come across. She was hoping to be the first face that he saw when he was awakened from his coma .She would be willing to date him however he turned out. If the room hadn’t contained camera surveillance she would have kissed him while he lay in a comatose state.
“Yes sir.” She said to the Doctor.”I suppose you have a point.”
The doctor also peered down into Byron’s face as he scribbled on his clipboard.
“There are far worse things than waking up as a vampire,”he joked.”After all, NOBODY really wants to be a dhampir!!”
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Cass came up behind Mitzi as she rinsed a few dishes. She was an efficient and organized kitchen goddess, cleaning up as she prepared the various recipes for a sumptuous meal. Tonight it would be a special dinner with a double entrée of duck a l’orange and prime rib because Mitzi and Cass had invited Lux and his new friend Pierre over to dinner.
Mitzi felt Cass embrace her from behind as she continued her domestic tasks. First his hands were around her waist ,then he moved them lower to lightly caress her growing baby bump. Finally she felt him slowly slide his hands upward and decided to cut him off at the pass.
“Hey!” she yelped, ”No reach arounds!!! I swear ALL male energies must have the same DNA code that prompts them to fondle a woman from behind when she’s washing dishes, no matter what phylum they belong to. My husband was human,and he used to do it! You are a vampire, and you do it-I bet werewolves, faeries and elves do it too! What is it with you males??”
Cass nuzzled her neck.”My darling your comment raises two questions in my mind-1)how many faeries and elves have you been with, and 2)I wonder if Pierre does it to Lux?”
“Oh no you didn’t!” Mitzi exclaimed, turning around to face him, her damp hands flinging iridescent bits of soapsuds through the air, ”Cass ,please ,they will be here in a little while and that was an extraordinarily douchey thing to say. Please knock it off! Please!!”
Cass feigned horror.
“Mitzi my love your speech is slipping-I can’t believe that you just described my comment as “douchey”!!! I am quite appalled! the mother of my child using such coarse language. tsk tsk i might add!”
Cass was trying hard not to laugh and mitzi started to giggle in spite of herself. Maybe because he had changed her into a twice-bitten ,she reflected, she usually
sensed his mood before he spoke Today she could sense two things going on in his fertile mind. she decided to take care of the most pressing one first.
“Cass I love you-but not before dinner, okay??I have a lot to do still.”
“I fully respect that,”Cass replied ,”But i feel that this might be negotiable. a great stress release for the hostess, and something to whet the appetite for the host-that would be me. And i can be vampire quick about it.”Suddenly, he had pulled her against him, and she realized that his closeness was making the decision for her. She relaxed into his arms and,sensing her acquiessence he picked her up and flew up the staircase with her.
Ten minutes later, as promised, she was much more relaxed and again standing in the kitchen checking out the various components to the meal she’d planned. Cass, looking immensely pleased with himself, was munching on some apple and celery cubes left over from the Waldorf salad Mitzi had made.
Mitzi remembered that she had sensed some concern in the background of Cass’s mind-something he was keeping from her perhaps so as not to worry her. suddenly she asked,”Cass-have you ever killed anyone?”
Cass took in a surprised half breath.
“Mitzi! You never fail to surprise me! Where did THAT come from? Seemingly out of left field but it deserves an answer so I’ll oblige-yes, my dearest love. I have killed. I know Lux told you about the campaign we were on several decades ago to counter an attempt to destroy the V-net. Both humans and vampires were destroyed during the resultant battles…some of them at mine own hand. I hope this doesn’t shock you too much.”
Mitzi shook her head.”I understand about war. And I’m not shocked, Cass. But what about outside of that-have you ever had a personal vendetta that ended in a murder? Or accidently killed a human when you were feeding on them?”
Just then the doorbell rang,the door opened and Lux called out”ANYBODY HOME?” into the foyer. Cass, looking greatly relieved at the reprieve,told her,”All questions duly noted and will be answered in order my love. As for now,our guests have arrived!”