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​BLOOD THE GIRL
by Carlton Herzog
Self-Indulgence
BETTER TO BE the butcher than the meat. Just ask the open-mouthed humans strung in rows along the walls. They hang stiff as boards. Or the butcher with that meaty smile, white apron stained with gore, and sawdust clogged shoes. I suspect he feels a certain pride as he arranges the little trays of fingers fat as sausages. And the jars of eyeballs like so many marbles floating in limpid syrup.
When the castle butcher would take his leave, I would haunt the abattoir with its rooms bathed in blood, myself a raven amongst the carcasses, strutting like a carrion king. In those glorious moments, I would snatch a caged boy or girl for my personal delectation. I remember one, a Romanian girl: She had dark hair, stringy, long, unkempt. The rest of her features were hard to distinguish because I had tied a thick, ratty white blindfold around her head. I had clubbed her once or twice for obedience’s sake. Thick black blood streamed down her face. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, her teeth were outlined in blood.
Normally, I would simply sink my fangs into her neck and suck her dry. But on a whim, I separated the head from the neck and drank my fill from the jetting stump. The red tide overflowed my mouth and poured down the twitching body like brooks down a hill. A crimson pond formed around us. As the slanting sun played upon it and sent back its reflection, the walls glowed red, her dead arms hung like withered garlands, her veins empty and wilted.
After I had drunk my fill, I carved up the body. For a human child, once broiled and judiciously buttered and salted, is a wonderful treat. Given the taste, I never understood the modern human’s disdain for his own flesh. Human meat, like blood, is rife with mystical vibrations that are hard to dismiss. Early men celebrated the sumptuousness of their own flesh with finger-paintings on the ceilings of caves and engravings on the walls of temples. What few cannibals remain today in the Pacific adorn their abodes with monstrous ivory saws and scythes still clogged with human hair and clotted blood from the last harvest.
Human Husbandry
THE VAMPARE VULGATE (Vampire Bible) teaches that we vampires are the children of Lilith—Adam’s first wife and primordial she demon. She made us the deadliest of creatures and decreed that we should assert dominion over the world. The Book of Azazel recounts how Lilith protected her progeny against the warmbloods through disinformation. She spread the Great Myth of lethal sunlight, blistering holy water, and toxic silver. A stroll on a sunny day, a sip from a blessed flask or a contact with a silver chalice became the metric for determining who was and was not a vampire. In antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and up to the modern age, the vampire remained nothing more than a fairy tale to frighten wayward children. Today, we are the inexhaustible source of empty entertainment in the form of books and movies. What fun it would be to encounter a real vampire hunter and tear off his arms the way humans pull the wings off flies, and then beat him roundly with the wet ends.
To be sure, I am a throwback to the brutal, blood-soaked killing fields of pre-history. Those hearty vampires took great pleasure in the pain and destruction they purposefully inflicted on human populations. It was they who foolishly exterminated the Neanderthals, rather than taming and breeding them for blood and meat. A moment’s consideration will teach that one ought not hunt any creature to extinction that one relies on for sustenance. As warmblood society evolved, vampires did too. Rather than feeding like wild animals, the Egyptian vampires wore the mask of civilized intellectual gentility. They founded their own hermit kingdom—Vladistan—and practiced human husbandry.
The Vladistanis took great pride in being able to ape the mannerisms and customs of warmbloods even as they kept them as slaves and livestock. When it came to trade, the masquerade proved doubly useful. On the one hand it allowed the acquisition of amenities, commodities, and raw materials only obtainable through commerce. On the other, it permitted the sale of live humans without the sellers becoming squeamish. After all, it is much easier to condemn a person to a living death over tea and civilized conversation than it is to do so with slavering fiends who might add you to the dinner menu.
The vampire patriarchy went to great lengths to ensure what few offspring it produced could pass for warmbloods under all conditions. Conformity, modest behaviour, and manners, were regarded as essential to the future of the nation. The few of us who rebelled were looked upon with disfavour by the elders. My father, for example, would often remark that I was a torment. He referred to me as a curly-headed good-for-nothing mischief-making monkey. His consternation was understandable, for his peers’ children assumed an air of unctuous innocence with their pure unclouded brows and dreaming eyes of wonder. Such was the level of their theatrical talent.
I knew better. My peers tormented their human slaves as ferociously as I did ours.
My fastidious father would upbraid me for my cruelties toward our herd. I was, he said, ‘As vicious and mean-spirited as any human factory farmer.’ Then, as was my headstrong wont, I would retort, attempting to justify on moral grounds what was pure ancient bloodlust and wilfulness:
‘Father, know that I live to torment our human cattle. Why shouldn’t I? We drink their blood, and when it begins to sour, we carve them up and throw them on the grill. What then is the harm in heaping a bit of cruelty onto their short and miserable lives? To my mind, it requires no more thought than that reserved for killing an insect.’
That always got me the spurious lecture about human dignity
‘You take it for granted that blood is cheap. What you don’t understand is that a happy human is a healthy human, and a healthy human produces higher quality blood? Mind you, human dignity is not the same as vampire dignity, so we should avoid the puppy eyed Disneyfication of humans. But we don’t need to be cruel for cruelty’s sake. Farmed humans are entitled to a decent life, one where we dangle the hope that we won’t drink them dry and perhaps, one day, in a fit of spontaneous largesse turn them into one of us. As a young boy, I had a pet human who loved to sit on the sofa with us, eat chips, and even taste our wine. When the time came, I drank and ate him down to the bone. But he never suffered.’
This only exasperated me: ‘Nonconsensual execution can never be humane execution. We cut the throat of a child and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death. Why? To fill our goblets and make our veal cutlets white. We nail babies to a board and cram them with food because we like the taste of baby blubber. The Council bandies words like ‘compassionate’ or ‘certified humane’. But it’s all torture. Weasel words are just gimmicks designed to make us feel better about exploiting humans. I don’t buy the propaganda of ‘happy’ exploitation.’
He would storm off, righteously indignant. I would smirk as I sauntered back to the dismemberment room for another go at the human cattle.
As you can see, life in Vladistan was not all rainbows and smiles. The four great Houses—Judogi, Pricolici, Strigoi, and Urias constantly vied for supremacy. Vampire society looked with favour on honour killings. Most took place in the Field of Skulls. But a few did happen at the dinner table or in the chapel. I remember one occasion when an elder had taken offense at another elder’s wife for nursing her baby during the sacrament. The indignant elder plucked her nipple from the infant’s boneless gums, dashed its brains out and drank the child dry. Then he proceeded to beat her with the child’s husk, proclaiming that ‘Only blood may be consumed in our sanctum sanctorum. Remember that or the next time I will rebaptize you with your own blood.’
Arena of Blood
WHEN MY FIFTEENTH birthday arrived, my mother prepared me for my Sanguinaria. It the vampire version of the Spanish Quinceanera. It marks the female vampire’s transition from childhood to young womanhood. In the human world, in the years prior to their fifteenth birthdays, girls are taught cooking, weaving, and childbearing in preparation for their future roles as wives. During the celebration the girl’s father would present her to potential suitors.
We vampires do things differently. We blood our young to prepare them for a life of violence and savagery against humans and other vampire clans. The Sanguinaria is a battle to the death of two vampire candidates. They are summarily deposited into a major city. They are expected to blood hunt their adversary and kill her. The logic undergirding this brutal practice is to ensure that only the fittest birth the vampire bloodlines. Those parents whose daughter does not survive are expected to purge themselves of any sentiment. The need to mourn their loss is considered a chemical aberration found on the losing side.
When the time for my Sanguinaria came, I was flown to a private airfield outside New York City, then driven by limousine to the Hilton Hotel, Similar arrangements were made for my adversary, but I was not privy to their particulars. I did not waste my time trying to hunt her. Instead, I roamed the city, leaving a trail of bodies in my wake. I did so for two reasons. To make myself as strong as possible for my fated encounter, and to leave her a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.
That stratagem had an unanticipated consequence. The blood of free-range city dwellers is far richer in existential content than that of farmed warmbloods kept in regimented housing and denied access to any experience that might make them obdurate. Free range blood speaks with a million voices. It soliloquizes the great plans of little men. It bewails tragic love and terrible betrayal. It laughs, it chuckles, it weeps. It tells of winter thaws, summer’s rains, the prevailing winds, and the frequency of clouds. It is a red wine that has the bitter taste of tears. Blood is the ultimate distillation of the human experience, a poetic expression of individuality itself. The best blood has the bitter taste of tears. For the unenhanced human is a member of a pitiable species: scaleless, fangless, clawless, nearly furless, wingless, venom-less, and above all witless. I almost felt pity for them as I drained the life from their bodies.
At first, I thought I would just Svengali people to do my bidding. That seemed soulless. Then I considered appearing as the girl next door—sweet, kind, and down to earth. But dressing conservatively with modest fashion choices seemed outré for me. I wanted to have a bit of fun. So, I wore Daisy Dukes, cut-off denim jeans fashioned into shorts to show off my well-toned legs and display my natural curves. They let me project a provocative blend of farmer’s daughter naivete and sexuality. With my blouse tied just below my perky bosom, I had no problem in luring victims into dark alleys.
My first city kill was a young man. He had tawny hair, its tousled edges casually framing the clean, commanding lines of his face. I remember the slight sweet smile touching his lips, its curve softening the straight strong lines of his nose and brow. His eyes were the darkest blue, and as impenetrable as glaciers. My heart thumped, my blood sang, my legs shook, as I sucked every drop from his withering frame. I remember saying, ‘God, you are the most delicious thing I have ever tasted.’
My second kill was no more than seventeen years of age. I craved her blood, and the craving was like a toothache that wouldn’t stop throbbing. Exuding an aura of pristine grace, she looked like a vision from the Greek tragedies. And the picture of a tasty meal. I will never forget those plaited coils of dark luscious hair, lips like the petals of a rose, and large, deep eyes. When she spoke, her voice had a flute-like quality, sliding through my mind like honey warmed by the sun. My wicked thirst undid all that, leaving her half-naked and bleeding.
I found my familiar serendipitously. He was in a street fight with three burly fellows and giving them the worst of it. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and lean-hipped. He had an air of confidence and authority that was almost tangible. He wore black jeans and black boots. His black silk shirt had been torn to shreds, revealing multiple dragon tattoos on his arms and chest. He had inky black hair and eyes like deep pools of ebony. His face was scarred, as were his shoulders. When the crowd and the combatants heard the police sirens, they began to disperse. Before my prospect could get away, I sank my psychic hooks into him then offered a kerchief to wipe the blood from his face.
‘You’re a very good fighter. Got a name?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Are you a professional fighter or just a pugnacious street goombah?’
‘I fight for the WFC promotion here in New York. Daniel “The Reaper” Whitaker.’
‘The Reaper? That’s a bold moniker for a mortal. Are you any good? It’s one thing to beat up street hoodlums and another to excel as a professional among professionals.’
‘I’m damn good—undefeated in seven pro fights—all by knock-out—but not ranked. So, I’m not making the big pay cheques yet. I drive for Uber to make ends meet. But I’m patient.’
‘I can make you a champion. Just hear me out. I’ll buy you lunch.’
I could tell he felt uncomfortable around me because I looked so young. But he was falling under my sway. I hopped inside his mind and fiddled with the gears and levers of his libido. We walked to Ray’s Pizza where we ate, and I made my offer.
I showed him my fangs and claws by first extending and then retracting them.
‘Vampires are real. Obviously, I am one. Small amounts of my blood will enhance your speed, strength, and cognition. With my blood inside you, you’ll be turbo-charged. There would not be a fighter you could not lick. In return, I would ask that you serve me on the rare occasions when I need you. The position will naturally come with a stipend.’
He laughed.
‘Okay. Do something that is superhuman to prove to me that you are what you say you are.’
‘Arm wrestle me.’
‘Seriously?’
‘You said you wanted proof. I mean to give it to you.’
Being somewhat annoyed at his lack of faith, I made it a point to slam his over-sized muscular arm into the wood table with a smack and squeeze his oversized man hand until I nearly broke all his fingers.
‘Jesus Christ, you’re like the Incredible Hulk inside the body of a kid. But I have no doubt you are what you say you are. When do I start?’
I pulled out a flask of my blood.
‘Now. Drink it all down. You’ll feel the effects immediately.’
‘It tastes like liquid fire. I can feel it working already. Holy shit, I’ve got a boner. All right. Now what?’
The vampire I am doesn’t stop at my fangs. I burned my gaze into his with my fathomless black eyes. I gave him a predatory smile and let my darkness swallow his soul. In the moment and for all eternity, he was mine to command. I ran my tiny fingers over his massive hands. He let out a low groan as he gave in to the sensual euphoria. He closed his eyes, drifting, falling into velvet blackness that threatened to sweep him away into oblivion. Now that he was in my thrall, the time was ripe to enlighten him as to his role in my sock puppet theatre.
‘A young girl my age is coming to kill me. She will probably have somebody like you with her as back-up. So, we walk around the city trying to find her. When we do, I will fight her to the death. Your job will be to make sure her own familiar does not jump in to help her.’
‘That’s it?’
‘He or she will probably be enhanced like you. I’m counting on your fighting skill and determination to carry the day should that happen.’
We left Ray’s Pizza and walked up 42nd Street toward the Hilton. As we stood on the corner waiting to cross, we saw a taxi speeding toward us at breakneck speed. Since it was in the second of four southbound lanes, I gave it no thought. But when it was nearly parallel, it swerved into us. It drove me through the large plate glass window of Sephora. My familiar jumped clear. Once inside Sephora, the cab didn’t stop. It slammed me through the racks of clothing into the far wall. I was pinned. I could see there were four people inside. A young girl behind the wheel, a bearded man in the front, and two more in the back.
The girl kept her foot on the accelerator, keeping me pinned. Her cohorts bolted from the taxi and came toward me wielding axes. They meant to chop me to pieces. I was trapped and presumably an easy kill. But my familiar lived up to his billing. He ran up behind one of my prospective attackers and smashed his head with a strut from a broken metal clothing rack. He kept on smashing until the man dropped to his knee then smashed him some more until nothing was left of his head. Then Daniel snatched the axe from the familiar he had killed and began a three way with the other familiars.
I was able to push the taxi away from me long enough to leap onto its roof. From there, I bounded to the rear.
I recognized the girl. It was Albizu Urias. Urias kicked open her door and hopped out of the cab. The moment of truth had arrived.
My ravenous gaze devoured every inch of Urias’s frame and visage. She had gentle branching lines that sprang from her mouth, sunken eyes, and a paltry splattering of freckles that mottled her bottom lip. I felt myself attracted to her even as I contemplated my battle tactics. For some arcane reason, I said, ‘I am aching to bite into your perfect, soft skin. To penetrate you, to sink my teeth deep into your flesh and suck, and suck, and suck.’
She bore her claws and fangs and sprang at me like a nimble jungle cat. She was quicker than I and landed square on my chest. Her claws slashed into my alabaster skin. I tried to strike back but she eluded me. Thus began a game of cat and mouse where she would leap in, slash me, then leap away before I could strike back. I took my punishment silently and never flagged in my pursuit. But Urias kept her distance, whirling and turning, dancing and dodging here and there and all about. In the moment, it was apparent to me, she had had many a fight in her day.
She tore up my face and both sides of my head. I bled freely but continued my plodding pursuit. She had expended considerable energy and was showing signs of fatigue. My early strikes had missed by just a hair. I knew that if I stayed the course, my claws or my fangs would find a home. The only question was whether I would not flag as she danced and dodged, leaping in and out, while my own blood poured onto the dirt like water streaming from a fountain.
My chance came when Urias tried one of her quick doublings and counter circlings. I caught her as she turned away. Her shoulder was exposed, and I drove in upon it. But I struck with such force that my momentum carried me over her body. I lost my footing. My body turned a somersault in the air, and I fell heavily on my side. In that instant, her teeth closed on me just below my throat. It was not a good grip, because it was low toward my chest. But she held on. I sprang to my feet and tore wildly around, trying to beat and shake her off. We claw fought, trying to tear into each other’s body, but our sheer proximity made our strikes awkward and ineffective. We were caught in a mutual trap that bound our movements. Round and round I went, whirling and turning and reversing, trying to shake the asshole off. I made one gyration after another. Urias held on, and I could sense in her a thrill of blissful satisfaction. She would close her eyes and let her body be hurled hither and thither, careless of any hurt. The grip was the thing and the grip she kept.
She tried to get me to the ground. When I resisted, I could feel her jaws shifting their grip. Relaxing and coming together in a chewing movement, she was inching her way closer to my jugular. In desperation, I shifted my focus. I tried to reach the back of her neck with my foreclaws. I began digging into her back. I sank my claws in and tried to pry her back open. Then I let myself fall backwards. As we dropped, I raised my rear legs and got my back claws hooked into her belly. I meant to disembowel her. I raked her gut again and again. Finally, I got through. The blood poured out. I wanted to dig deeper and take out her liver and kidneys. But my claws and her belly were so slick with blood, I couldn’t latch onto anything. My claws would slap against her and then slide away with nothing to show for the effort. But my main goal had been achieved. She had ceased struggling. Now and again, she resisted spasmodically. Then she went limp, and as her jaws relaxed, I shook her off me.
I was exhausted, but there was still the matter of her two remaining familiars. My familiar was holding his own but had taken heavy damage from their axes. I jumped on the back of the one and pulled his head off, a great arc of blood spewing into the air from his carotid artery. When the other saw how quickly his comrade had been dispatched, he dropped his axe and ran.
By now, a large crowd had gathered outside Sephora. It was just a matter of time before the police arrived. I didn’t care if they found the dead familiars. But I was honour bound not to let Urias’ body fall into warmblood hands. I told my familiar to pick her up and follow me. I punched our way through two walls, and into a back alley. Night had fallen so we had the cover of darkness to make our way back to my hotel. When we arrived there, I knew I could not bring Urias through the lobby. I sent Daniel up to my room and told him to wait.
I carried Urias up the side of the building to the third floor where I was staying. Daniel opened the patio door and I laid her on the bed.
‘I thought you were going to fight her to the death.’
‘As did I, but to kill her now would be cheap and dishonourable. I’m going to feed her some of my blood and bring her around. Turn on the news and see if we’re celebrities.’
Sure enough, the battle in Sephora was all the rage. The security footage showed everything from the taxi crashing through the window with me as its hood ornament, through the Battle Royale in the store, to our escape. I knew that Urias and I could not be identified by the criminal database, since we were from an off the grid nation. But Daniel and Urias’s minions could be.
‘I’m sorry, Daniel, but you can’t stay in America. They’ll be looking for you. After all, you brained a man to death on camera.’
‘I know. Will you take me with you?’
‘Of course. We just need to get to the private landing field outside the city. There’s a plane waiting for me there.’
When Urias came around, she seemed confused. We had cleaned her up and bandaged her with bedsheet strips.
‘Why did you let me live? The Code dictates only one can survive.’
‘Yes, but honour dictates I kill you in open combat, not prostrate and helpless at my mercy. Besides, the Code is bullshit. I find it repugnant that we sisters are expected to kill one another for the greater glory of a withered patriarchy. What would you say to not returning and staying here with me? We can start our own House. Breed with these humans to make more than vampire.’
‘Wait, you said you were going to get me out of the country.’
‘I can. But there are ways around law enforcement. I have access to enough wealth to cosmetically alter your appearance. As for DNA, my blood mingling with your blood has already made you genetically distinguishable from your old self.’
‘What of me?’
‘You must have sensed that I want you.’
With those words, my heart pounded in my throat. I dipped my head and brushed my lips across hers. Heat exploded in my belly at that chaste kiss, every nerve ending singing with pleasure. My head spinning with dizziness, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her chest to mine. In that moment our hearts were grafted for all eternity. We spent the night wrapped in each other’s cool limbs, savouring sordid and delightful affections, coating each other in our auras, relishing the wonder and the magic of our mutual touch, the intoxication of our kisses, the sting of our fangs, and the abundance of sensual pleasure.
But that moment was fleeting and soon lost. Urias yearned for the old country. Given that I wanted to stay, and she wanted to leave, we decided that she would play the part of returning victor. She would tell the Elders that she had killed me in fair combat and burned my body. That way no one would come to the new world to drag me back against my will.
After she left, Daniel and I did our thing. I became a child prodigy, offering financial advice to wealthy investors and mesmerizing them into giving me their wealth. I used that money to give Daniel a new face. With a new identity, and enhanced physical abilities, he kept winning fights and collecting larger and larger purses. He went on to win the WFC championship and a cornucopia of endorsements.
When I turned eighteen in human years, I decided I wanted more from him than just servile loyalty. I was a woman in the eyes of the world and in my heart. I found that I could not resist his piercing dark eyes, broad shoulders, massive chest, long legs, and large hands. I would shiver in his presence and long to feel his hands on my skin and hair, and his tongue ravaging my mouth. He must have sensed my new attitude because one day, his eyes blazing with desire, he said, ‘Tell me. Tell me what you want.’
‘You know what I want.’
‘Say it.’
‘I want you to make love to me. Here, now.’
He growled low in his throat. His hands made short work of my clothing and then his own. I ran my hands over him. He was very beautiful, each muscle sharply defined as though sculpted by an artist’s hand. His skin was cool beneath my questing fingertips as I explored the width of his shoulders, his six-pack abs, the long, ridged scar that ran the length of his back.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. He carried me to the bed. We fit together well, my lithe body moulding to his. As he gave me free rein to let him feel the sweet sting of my fangs. I whispered in his ear, ‘Mine!’
He gasped when he felt the faint sting of my fangs at his neck. My mouth was incredibly hot against his skin. I felt a delicious warmth spread through my whole body, pooling deep within me, culminating in a rush of unexpected sensual pleasure that stole the breath from my body. He grabbed a handful of my hair to hold me in place, afraid I would take my mouth away.
He moaned softly, then said, ‘Oksana, I am yours forever.’
Over the months that followed, he could smell the tempting scent of my blood and I could smell his. We would come home at night and with hands faster than his eyes could follow I removed his clothing. I would gather my body to his, hungry for his blood, longing for his body, all merging in a maelstrom of desire as I writhed beneath him.
When I became pregnant, we revelled in the mystical beauty of life and the magic it held for our new family. Nine months later, I gave birth to a bouncing baby hybrid girl. Or as the more orthodox minded would say, a Nephilim. A creature, as described by our lore, more than vampire. We named her Miranda.
The Old Order Unsettled
HOWEVER, CLOUDS WERE forming on the horizon, clouds I did not see until it was too late. A Vladistani vampire, who was in New York for business, had recognized me on the street and felt a psychic connection, not just with me but with Miranda and Daniel. It was inevitable that he would report me to the Council of Elders back home. For I had committed heresy by procreating with a warmblood. Offspring produced by such unions were considered abominations. Once the home guard got wind of my blasphemy, it was only a matter of time before a liquidation squad was sent to kill us.
To have greater privacy, we bought a remote estate in the Hamptons. I made sure it had all the bells and whistles of the great houses of Vladistan, from a milking station to a security force. I had the finest tutor attend Miranda. I could do no less since her cognitive skills and physical abilities were superhuman. I believed her to be the Lilith of a new order of hybrid offspring. What I didn’t realize was that her increased psychic abilities were acting like a beacon that would eventually lead our pursuers to us. It was simply a matter of using necromancers and soothsayers to triangulate the signal.
Thus, on Miranda’s tenth birthday I woke with a sick feeling in my stomach and a buzzing in my ears. At first, I thought I might have had some fouled blood. But as images of home flooded into my mind, and a general feeling of incipient menace consumed my every nerve, I knew the day I had dreaded for so long had finally come.
When I ran into the kitchen, Daniel and Miranda were already at breakfast. I frantically explained what was about to happen. Daniel bolted upright and ran to the arsenal. He punched the main alarm to alert our security team, which had already been disposed of by the assassins surrounding our home.
Miranda, however, was unfazed by this horrible turn of events.
‘I sensed them coming when they were a few miles from here.’
‘Why didn’t you do something?’ We need to lock ourselves in the panic room.’
‘I didn’t want them to sense a disturbance in whatever psychic energy they are tracking. I wanted to keep the element of surprise.’
‘What are you talking about?’
I grabbed her arm and tried to drag her from the table. I would have had more success trying to move a mountain.
‘Why aren’t you coming?’
‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world. God is coming to rain fire on them. It’s going to be a slaughter, and who doesn’t like a good slaughter?’
I thought she had lost her mind. God? Coming to our defence? It was the contorted logic of a paradox that I could not wrap my mind around.
Daniel came back into the kitchen. He handed me an automatic rifle and a handgun. He had two rocket launchers slung over his shoulders.
‘I think the guards are dead. Or captured. If we can get to the panic room, we can escape through the tunnel I had dug.’
‘Relax, Dad. God is coming to save us. Everything will be fine.’
Daniel and I looked at one another, and then both tried to move her. Again, she had the mass of a mountain and would not budge.
‘You two need to have faith in your Maker.’ Then she quoted from the Vampire Vulgate:
We are mere puppets who come and go/Sometimes fast and sometimes slow/Our motley drama matters not, for horror is the point of plot/So even vampires die and rot/but today—I think not.
No sooner had she uttered those cryptic words than we three were surrounded by a small army of sword wielding vampires, whose order of the day was decapitation. I didn’t think we would make it out alive, but I took comfort that we would take some with us to the Great Crypt.
But it was not to be. It began slowly, imperceptibly, but enough that both we and our attackers sensed it at the same time and stopped short of surely what would have been a massacre. A moment later, the kitchen, then the entire house began to hum and vibrate with an eldritch energy that froze all the potential combatants in place. I looked over at Miranda and she was glowing like a miniature sun with a pulsing light. She was the epicentre.
Our attackers began screaming and shrieking. Their heads bloated as if they were being pumped full of fluid. They exploded in a starburst of blood, hair, skull, teeth, and gore. Thirty headless vampires acting as fountains for their over-pressurized jugular veins. Once they extruded all their fluid, they collapsed simultaneously in heaps around us. Suits filled with nothing more than shrivelled bodies oozing the last of their blood.
Daniel and I were thunderstruck. Miranda just smiled.
‘Honey, how did you do that?’
‘Ask him.’
A shimmering green portal materialized before us. A man of sorts with horns and a reptilian cast stepped through and spoke.
‘Who in the rainbow can draw the line where violet tint ends, and the orange begins? In places, we can see the distinct differences of the colours. But in others, where exactly do they blend? So, it is with right and wrong, good and evil. Here, the question was which was the greater evil—allowing this precious young girl to be the vanguard of a new creation or killing her to permit the continuance of a disappointing pedigree. Lilith who even now watches us asked me to intervene and make a choice. I chose Miranda and enhanced her already considerable powers. For not only must she defend her kind against the warmblood but against the provincial thinking of a morally exhausted patriarchy.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Azazel, Lilith’s husband and prince of Hell. We made the vampires in our image and now the time has come to revise the picture. Give it more colour, depth, and nuance. Our wish is that Miranda beget children as Lilith did, and they will in time beget children with other familiars and vampires. Such is the will of Lucifer, our Father Below.’
Epilogue
IN THE YEARS that followed, our home became an embassy for Hell’s dignitaries. Demons thick as autumn leaves on flowing brooks would often come to stay with us for the human experience. I lost count of the Princes, Potentates, Warriors, and the Flowers of Hell who graced our humble abode. Moloch, Ramiel, Asmodeus, Baal, Thammuz, and Belial to name but a few. On two occasions, Lucifer, our great Commander, and his crescent horned wife Astarte, deigned to visit in all their regal dignity. All to see the wunderkind who would birth the New Men.
Mother Miranda outlined her vision of the coming world: ‘I might call it divine, for it will be the noblest thing the earth has ever seen. A brave new world peopled with my wonderful offspring, all obedient to the precepts of Hell. And all the humans obedient to them.’
I could not be prouder. The fruit had not fallen far from the tree. And I could not wait to taste the apple. |
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