Reading Update: June 2023

@oopsprompts

You’ll understand when you’re older.

I am twice your age.

Life is a fickle thing.

One day, you’re a ten-year-old boy, playing in a park. It’s near dark, sure. You shouldn’t be there, sure. But your house is across the street, and anyone could hear you shout. Playing on rusted swings and waiting for the call from your mother to come home and have dinner, bathe, and head to bed.

But destiny, it seems, has other plans for you. Destiny, it seems, plans for the man… no, the creature… dressed in black and hiding its face to attack you. To rip open your throat and drink deep of your blood and leave your body – little more than a lifeless corpse – behind for your mother to find not long later.

Without a chance to scream, or cry, or do little more than gasp as you die.

But destiny is not finished with you; for within your fragile husk of a form a few drops of blood remain, and your heart beats still. Weak, but enough to allow a strange change to occur. The change, of course, kills you first, so as when you’re found, your ears are death to your mother’s screams, to the ambulance, to the morgue. A closed-casket funeral in a funeral home barely worth remembering.

Indeed, your body sleeps for a long while, before the curse goes to work, knitting flesh and repairing bone. Within time, you awaken, coughing up the dust that had settled into your lungs, opening your eyes in the dark, six feet underground. Screaming and crying, beating your way into the lid of your coffin until it breaks with your unholy strength.

Crawling your way through the dirt, until you find yourself in the darkened night, a ghoulish sight. A gravedigger spots you on your way, runs over to you, trying to assess the situation. His death is quick and decisive, his neck broken and his blood drained as you come to terms with the situation.

Leaving his corpse behind, you flee into the night. For thirty years, you hide from your former life, learning as you go, learning to drink as you need to survive, and finding kinship with small clans – groups of interrelated vampires who have learned to survive on the bare minimum in the modern world.

I survive.

I watched. I watched as my mother and father came to terms with their grief; indeed their love perhaps kept them both sane. Ten years later, they have another child, a daughter this time. For nineteen years I watched, kept an eye on my sister, first out of jealousy, but soon for a sense of the life I could have had. From a distance I watched as she played in the same parks, this time with my father nearby at nearly all times. I watched as she went to school, all the way from elementary to high school.

She was nineteen, and I watched from the shadows as something from a nightmare I once had returned.

She was walking alone at night, from the community college she had been going to – an easy way to save money that she could use when transferring later on. I saw it then – a creature whose form seemed a distant memory. I was a distance off, shrouded from view with both shadow and a mild illusion.

The creature to whom I owed my existence.

I had learned in my time, of the different types of vampires.

The wandering clans of vampires were the most common – survival works best in groups, after all. They fed as necessary, typically, and murdered rarely if at all. Their desire for blood was tempered with a sentiment that could probably be called humanity.

Then there are the sedentary vampires – usually loners, and in big cities, these creatures feed as sparingly as possible – but are more often killers.

Then, there are those who vampires call ghouls. They are vampires who murder with each feeding, who travel from place to place and kill as they please. Though one only needs a couple pints of blood every couple of weeks to keep going, these creatures feast and over time, become more bestial. Their fangs – which every vampire possesses, one of the few actually true legends – become elongated and larger, their other teeth fall out and are replaced with pointed hooks. Their skin becomes more and more pallid, and hair begins to fall out. They regenerate health at a rate that makes death through typical injury next to impossible, but their weaknesses are more pronounced as well.

An average vampire can go out in sunlight, but it causes weakness with overexposure, akin to heatstroke but can only be cured with blood. One who goes out for eight hours a day, sometimes called Lifers, would have to drink a pint of blood every couple of days to maintain their charade of normalcy. Lifers are notorious for turning into ghouls, because of their tendency to overfeed.

A ghoul cannot go out in sunlight for more than a couple minutes without their cells degrading and the resultant failings resulting in death.

An average vampire is capable of entering the dwellings of whomever they please – they aren’t bound by the superstitions of men, and do not require invitations.

Ghouls were cursed in ancient days to never be able to enter a home without an invitation. To do so results in madness and death.

Vampires can use their limited magical abilities to remove recent memories from the mind of a mortal, knock them unconscious, and even heal wounds to a limited degree. Making one go unnoticed by mortals took little will.

Ghouls’ magical abilities bleed from them like a noxious gas. Mortals in their presence are often paralyzed with fear.

This was clearly a ghoul, and a familiar one at that. After the initial trauma of the transformation, I had done my research. I found others like me, learned the basics of my abilities, and learned self-control. But I sought my sire – for knowledge or revenge, I had known naught. I found his trail – of a sort – after almost a half-decade.

Called by some tabloids as ‘New Jack’ – for his brutal methods of murder – he went randomly across the US killing as he pleased. I was among his casualties. I regretted my first kill – but I learned to live with it. But Jack exulted in his murders. He wandered far and wide in his kills, far enough that few even believed his existence.

But here he was.

I watched him stalking my sister, at a safe distance of almost a block and a half. But he was nearby, and I knew a vampire with his abilities would be able to cross that distance in less than a second.

I watched, as she was listening to music on her phone. I don’t think she had noticed. Then, he stopped. He lifted his head and sniffed the air like a hound. He did this for a few seconds, then darted out of sight. I couldn’t see him, so I kept an eye on my sister until she had gotten a distance away. I was about to follow at length, when I heard the guttural growl in my ear.

“Hail, kinsman…” I felt my heart stop – or rather, the illusion of it stopping in terror, because it hadn’t beaten in nearly two decades. I turned quickly, trying to bring my arm down into his neck, sever his throat quickly. Maybe it would have been enough to get away.

He caught my arm in a crossblock near-instantly, and I heard a repetitive growling noise. He was laughing. “Well met, child. It has been too long since I have had the thrill of meeting another of my kind.”

He paused for a second, “I think they try to avoid me! It’s rather disappointing, to be frank.”

He sniffed closely at me. Though I was immune to whatever magical effects the ghoul possessed, I was still paralyzed in fear. I could barely move into an almost defensive stance.

“You smell… familiar. Have we met before?”

I was at a loss for words. Perhaps it should have occurred to me that even if my life had been so thoroughly altered by his presence, he may not even be aware I existed. He had, by my count, almost four hundred kills, perhaps more, in the past two decades.

“Or perhaps I met your sire? Tell me boy, who made you? Was it a clan? Or perhaps a wanderer – or maybe a ghoul like me?”

“I – I don’t-“ I was stuttering, trying for an answer that wouldn’t reek of suspicion, but was coming up blank.

“Ah, well. What does it matter?” The ghoul chuckled. “What were you doing here, stalking my prey, boy? Or perhaps this one is yours?”

“She’s….” I composed myself. If he didn’t recognize me, this could very well be an excellent opportunity. “Yes, she’s mine. I’ve been hunting her for a long while now, and I don’t take very well to ghouls attempting to horn in on my targets.”

The ghoul raised his hands in front of his torso as if in surrender. His hands were weatherworn and long-fingernailed. “I meant no offense, child. After all, one such as I can understand and enjoy the thrill of the hunt, and know what it’s like to lose your prey to another.”

He lowered one hand and closed the other, save for the pointer finger. “But if I may… suggest a mutually beneficial decision?”

I decided to raise an eyebrow as if in skepticism. It’d work better than outright hostility. I knew it was only by chance he hadn’t already killed me. “Go on.”

“I am… hamstrung… it seems, by my state. I cannot follow her, though together, we could lure her out and feed together. After all, your vengeance would normally put you at risk of becoming like me, and we couldn’t have that. So if you draw her out, you could drink your fill, and I’ll finish the job. We both have our prey, and we both leave in peace, never to see one another again. I’ll avoid this city, for I know it is your… territory.”

My mind was racing. If I took his offer, my odds of being able to protect my sister were greater, than if I said no, and he killed me as well. But all the same there were little odds of being able to put him down without her death. And that was truly unacceptable. My family had already lost one member to this monster. I wouldn’t let them lose another, even at the cost of my own life.

“By all means, I can wait. I’ll give you two days to decide, but after that I expect an answer. After all, I can wait to feed, but an ally… those take time to make. You can find me at night in the old railcar. Don’t disappoint me.”

And with that, he was gone.

Looking around for any sign of him, I turned quickly and then fell into a kneeling position. I was hyperventilating, an odd vestige of a mortal habit, as I didn’t normally breathe.

I had very few options. So I had to decide.

My odds were slim, of being able to defeat Jack, at least not without help. The wandering clans wouldn’t help me, even if they were near enough to get within two days. While killing a ghoul is permitted, direct interference was bad form, especially if he hadn’t broken one of their laws. Speaking of magical laws, there are a couple I should probably make you aware of.

Rule the first:

No mortal can know of a magical creature, be they fae, undead, or construct. To do so is to break the veil, and is punishable by death.

Rule the second:

While mortal death is permitted, slaying another immortal outside of your niche – a fancy term for species, or specifically clan, if you are a vampire or werewolf – is punishable by death.

The second rule wasn’t much of an issue, but the first… there were only a couple was around it.

-

The next day, I dressed in a grey hoodie and sunglasses, simple garb meant to disguise my appearance and protect me – somewhat – from the sun as I followed my sister into the city. She had the day off, and was stopping in where she worked to pick up her paycheck. I had her schedule memorized, and had no intention of letting her slip away.

I followed her, listening carefully to her conversation with her friend on the phone. She was discussing a soon-to-be arriving movie. Something to do with scifi. I don’t particularly know. When she had hung up, and was in a secluded enough part of town, I swept up close to her and dropped my illusion – she would be able to notice me. I moved faster than the human eye could process to be a few feet in front of her and facing her. She stopped suddenly, as one would, I suppose, if another were to appear in front of you, and began to speak. “Are you lost, kid? Where are your parents-“

I lowered my hood and took off the cheap plastic sunglasses I was wearing underneath. I looked up at her. She gasped a little.

Though I figured my parents didn’t talk much about it, I had figured she’d known who I was. Maybe seen a few pictures of me, and had asked my parents. I had even broken into their house a couple times to see what changes they had made. For a while, they hid my existence, but eventually, they displayed my pictures openly. They had learned to cope in a way that didn’t require blocking me out. I suppose that meant I was truly dead to them.

I put a finger to my lips as if to gesture silence, but then I layered my voice with magic and said a single word. “Sleep.”

She fell unconscious and I caught her before she hit the ground. Moving quickly, I took her to a nearby place where I’d often hidden. A darkened, abandoned motel. I had figured a way in long ago, and continued to be a very capable lockpicker. Laying her on a sofa that I had once-upon-a-time rescued from a curb, I waited for her to awaken.

I lit some candles, trying to be considerate of her mortal senses. After all, most weren’t as acute as mine.

My plan was simple – I would explain the situation, that a ghoul was hunting after her and that I could only beat him with her help, or rather, her cooperation – and there was only one way I could do that.

My only option was to make her a member of the vampire race – of a sort. While the only way to become a vampire was much the same as mine – drink blood until the target is near death, and let the transformation take hold. The creation of thralls, on the other hand, was something of a different sort. Feeding a target a few drops of your blood ushers in a different transformation – making the target bonded to you, and making it so that you can ‘break the veil’ as it were.

I watched her as she slept. It was strange, but as a creature that didn’t really require sleep, save for maybe the occasional hibernation of sorts, it was cathartic. She looked like mother, dirty blonde hair, similar facial features. I looked more like father, but I was young. My hair was darker, a brown.

After a few hours, she finally stirred.

She stirred slowly, stretched, and raised herself into an upright position. She yawned, then looked around. “Where am I-?”

She looked over and saw me, sitting across from her. “So… I suppose I owe you a bit of an explanation.”

She got up and started backing away from me.

“Amelie, please, let me explain.”

“No, you’re – Richard – you’re supposed to be dead – how do you look exactly like when – I saw the pictures – I even tracked down the paper with your obituary. How are you here? Are you a… ghost?”

She almost whispered the last word as if it was the weirdest idea.

“No, I’m not a ghost. For a start, they’re kind of a bunch of assholes.”

“But you’re not… you’re not?”

“I haven’t been alive since June fourth, 1987. It’s true, I am undead.”

She seemed confused by this.

“I’m a vampire, Amelie.”

“What? But that’s impossible. Vampires don’t exist.”

“Yes, well, you were the one who was willing to assume I was a ghost. So, please, keep up and treat all breaks in reality equally.”

“So are you… gonna kill me?”

She was whispering the last bit, and I shook my head in response.

“Actually, quite the opposite. I’m but to go into details, I’m going to need you do something that you aren’t going to really like, but believe me, it’s necessary.”

I bit into my own wrist and offered it to her. She stared blankly. I shook my wrist. “Drink, girl.”

“But, won’t I become a vampire?”

“For g-“ I cough a little bit, being incapable of saying any variation on the name of… well… whatever it is,” ‘s sake, if it were that easy, I’d be dead instead right about now. Once you drink the blood, you’re going to be a part of my world, it’s true, but you’ll still age. You’ll still be able to live your life. Trust me when I say it’s better than the alternative.”

She looked into my eyes. We had the same eyes, I now realized. “If you’re lying to me, kid, and I turn into a vampire, I’m going to use whatever superpowers I get to tear you a new asshole.”

“Yes, well, if I were lying, I’d admit I’d deserve it.”

She leaned over and put her lips to the wound on my wrist and drank a couple drops. I willed the wound shut.

Wiping her lips, she looked back at me and began – “So what happens n-ah!”

She stopped gripping her head. I suppose it hurts, to have your world change like that. The transformation isn’t as extreme as one of a vampire, but she was changing. Her senses a little more acute. Her mind a little sharper.

It only took about a half an hour before she was done gripping her head and crying, which I do feel guilty for, but it was the only way to keep her alive, I told myself. When she awoke again, she ran over to the empty kitchen area, with a sink and a mirror. Looking at her reflection, she opened her mouth and looked at her teeth.

“For the love of…” I stopped, looked up, and then looked back at my sister, “Amelie, what on earth are you doing?”

“Checking for fangs, asshole.”

“I told you that I wouldn’t turn you into a vampire!”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t tell me that it would hurt like a bitch, whatever you did!”

“We didn’t have time.”

She turned back to me, apparently satisfied. “So, why did you do this now? You know my name, so I guess you’ve been following me for a while.”

“Well, yes and no…”

“Bullshit.”

I stopped and looked at her. She had pulled out a pack of gum and was unwrapping a piece.

“What – what do you mean?”

“You do the same thing my – our dad does, when he lies, I mean. You both look off into the middle-distance and fidget your hands.”

“Well… um… I,” this was awkward.

“Well, apart from you stalking us, what else have you done with your time? What’s being a vampire like, I guess?”

I shrugged. “It kinda sucks, but then again, I was only like ten when I was turned, so…”

“You don’t really look ten. I mean, sure, you look pretty close to the photos, but you’ve definitely aged a bit. You look… maybe thirteen?”

I laughed a little. “Oh, thank god, I look like I’m on the cusp of puberty. That’s a relief.”

“Vampires do age slowly until they look somewhere between late twenties, early thirties. But judging by this rate, I’m going to look like I need an adult until I’m in my eighties. Great. Just fucking great.”

“Hey, watch your fucking mouth, you little shit.”

“I’m the older brother, I should be lecturing you, little shit.”

“Yeah, well, who’s the one who’s actually been to high school?”

“Low blow.”

She continued chewing her gum and shrugged.

“All’s fair in war.”

She came back to the couch and sat down. “So, why’d you do all this? I’m guessing you had your own little weird non-interference policy until now.”

“Well, it’s the person who… who killed me. He’s back. And I need your help to kill him.”

“Why my help?”

“Well… it’s kind of because he’s after you now.”

She bolted upright. “Wait, what the fuck? Why is he after me? Is it something you did?”

I thought for a second. Maybe he had misunderstood why I was following her in the first right, and thought it would be fun to interfere.

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, well, this is great. I have finals in a couple weeks, you know. I can’t just go around killing all my little –“

“- older,” I chimed in

“-brother’s enemies.”

At this juncture, her phone began to ring. She drew it from her jacket pocket and looked at the ID. I got a glimpse. It was David.

“Now isn’t the time to answer calls from your boyfr-“

She had already answered the phone. “Oh, hi, Davy. How’s it going?”

I could hear the other end too, but I blocked it out for the sake of her privacy.

I waited out the remainder of their conversation, listening to them talk about going to a movie on the weekend, you know, typical couple-ish stuff. Needless to say, I was sickened. After she hung up, I began again.

“Yeesh, what was that about?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older.” She winked knowingly.

“I am literally twice your age.”

“Well, all’s the same. No more interruptions.”

“I’m going to need your help to take out Jack –“

“Jack’s the one after me?”

“Well, I’ve taken to calling him Jack. He’s a ghoul, kind of like a vampire serial killer.”

“So what’s his actual name?”

“Well, I don’t know. None of the clans I’ve talked to know who he is.”

“Clans?”

“Wandering vampire families. If I could’ve gotten one of them to help, I wouldn’t have dragged you into all this. But anyway, the problem is that Jack is… well… not going to be easy to kill.”

“Well, how can you kill a vampire? Stakes?”

“Well, shoving a piece of wood would definitely hurt, but ghouls are made of stronger stuff. We’d need a couple things. A silver dagger consecrated by a priest, a holy book once owned by a saint, and probably enough ashwood stakes to shish-kebab a small army.”

“Okay, where do we get that?”

“Meet me at 1211 Harker street tonight. I don’t think that Jack is following me, but if he is, we shouldn’t stay together long.”

“1211 Harker street… isn’t that the one place belonging to that crazy old lady?”

“Well, she’s actually a nature spirit, a member of the fae. Kind of lucky to have her around, really.”

“Any other surprising revelations for me?”

“Yeah, the president is a moleperson.”

“What? Really?”

“No, I just don’t like him.”

The sky cried its own tears that night when the police went to work. The dark was deep as pooled ink, and the voices terse and strict. None took pleasure that night, the nature of their business sapping them of all joy. I suppose that’s why I was called.

I arrived at the scene from the shadows, appearing (as I tend) from the shadows. For what I am is not quite human – but not quite beyond human, either. Magic is my knowledge and my trade; and my magic is very particular.

Dressed as I was in a black trenchcoat and dark gray hood, I supposed I made an enigmatic and rather ludicrous figure crossing the wet grass. I reached the edge of the cordoned-off area, when I was waylaid by one of the officers. “Sir, this is a crime scene,” he said, him being a rather burly white man with fairly obvious anger issues.

“Step aside,” I began, impatient as I was to begin. I do not appreciate being treated as such, especially when I am summoned.

“Raphael, it’s him. He’s my consultant,” came a voice from behind him.

“This guy is your consultant? He looks like an extra from one of those bad superhero movies. What? Couldn’t get in on the Blade series and decided to fight crime instead?”

Bored of his banter, I pushed the man aside as gently as I cared (which was not very much) and continued to the detective. She was young, I suppose, for the role of detective, but I am not a good judge of such things. Brown hair, green eyes. Hispanic. She was probably quite attractive, to people like Raphael, but I am not concerned with such earthly matters.

I looked down at the scene. Three dead. Two adults, a man and a woman. The man, white and in his early thirties. The cause of death was, in all likelihood, the fact that his chest had been eviscerated by perhaps an animal. The woman, also white, was likewise aged and damaged. They were dressed in day-to-day clothing – jeans and t-shirts. Lying between them, as though they had died trying to save her, was a young girl. Going by her features, she was these two’s child. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth opened in a scream that probably ended when she did.

I was looking down at them when the detective spoke. “What do you see, Miyeteth?”

I looked at her, before speaking. My voice sounded like a rasp even to my ears, unaccustomed as I am to the utterances of English. “I see a girl and her parents. The three were killed by something… malicious. Perhaps even evil. Perhaps even… inhuman.”

“Quit playing around. There are no tracks leading to or away from here. Whatever did this could only have been human.”

I stared at her for a couple seconds. “I know why you called me here, Camila. I do not raise the dead on a whim. Violating the laws of nature is not a careless act.”

“Miyeteth, you owe my family a great debt. The number of times we’ve turned a blind eye to your very existence is proof of that enough.  Do it.”

I crouched next to the father’s body. “Send your men away. This is not for the eyes of mortals. You may stay, but I ask that you do not interrupt me.”

She went over to the police officers, and said something to them. They all went, organized, down the hill to investigate other areas further. I put my hand onto the father’s head, and began the words. I began the acclamation.

“In the names of Akraziel, Azrael, and Uriel, I command thee to return to this form. I command thee to return alone. I command thee to follow my voice and return.”

The body spasmed as the soul returned. His eyes opened. “Where am I ? What happened? Eliza? Rachel?”

I put one of my fingers to his mouth. “Silence, son of Adam. Who attacked you?”

“I don’t… where’s my wife? My daughter? Eliza? Rachel?”

He tried to move, but I uttered a single phrase in Enochian. “Noasmi Teloc.”

He lay still, and moved no more.

I went over to the mother. I repeated the acclamation. Her eyes fluttered as she tried to draw in breath. It didn’t work – nothing can restore such life to the dead. “Speak to me, Eliza. Who did this to you.”

“I knew him – he was our friend – but he wasn’t – he was something – he killed me. I died. Where’s Rachel? What happened to Rachel?”

I repeated the phrase. “Noasmi Teloc. Be at peace, Eliza.”

I moved to the third. As I placed my hand over the young girl’s face, I found myself taking a deep breath. I was steeling myself to do this, for this was a line even I do not like to cross. “In the names of –“

“Wait!” said Camila. She looked scared. Maybe even… saddened? She took her time to draw breath, and calmed herself. “Do it.”

I finished the acclamation. The girl awakened with a gasp. “Where’s mommy? Where’s daddy?”

I held her close as I spoke to her. “Do not worry, Rachel. Tell me who did this to you, so that I can see it done right.”

“It was Uncle James. But it wasn’t him – he changed. He was like a big dog – but angry. So angry. He took daddy first, then mommy… then me. Am I…?”

I looked into her eyes. Blue, like sapphire. “Noasmi Teloc.”

She went limp in my arms. “I don’t think this is your case anymore, Camila. This is not a human killer. Honor the agreement I made with your grandfather. Give it to me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have the power to sweep this under the rug. We have to investigate.”

“Very well. Delay your people as much as you can. I’ll find the killer, but I warn you he will not be alive when you come to claim him.”

I headed off into the night, fading into shadow. Within moments I had returned to my erstwhile, earthly abode. Which is to say, a crowded apartment filled with books. The bedroom had been converted into a study – after all, I don’t sleep – and I began to search my books. I knew that I had to find the killer – and that there were two basic ways I could do this.

One is to summon the spirit of the deceased into a pendant so that they could lead me to their killer. Think of it like a homing beacon – the act of murder inherently links the deceased to their victim, to the extent that it can be magically quantified, and traced.

The second was a bit less direct. The description the girl had given described a Werewolf, which, strictly speaking, do not exist. They are a Hollywood invention, like about everything else. But, their myth came from somewhere. Demons bound to flesh can have all sorts of effects, and shapechanging – both partially and fully – can be a result. And specific demons have specific modes of operation.

Desperate as I was to avoid calling upon the dead more than I absolutely had to, I began to plunge into my books for information on demons who used a wolf-motif. Within a couple hours I found four. Two were obviously not the case, as they had been expelled rather recently. They couldn’t have returned. But of the two, one worried me. Because it wasn’t really a ‘demon’, it was a fallen angel. Ulnniel, child of Lucifer and one of his concubines, was a being of death and depravity – whose hatred for family was only outstripped by his hatred of children.

I had found our killer. But now I needed to track him. I read deeper onto the subject of Ulnniel. His true name was polysyllabic and difficult to pronounce, as they tend to be, I suppose, and committing it to this paper is foolhardy as it would just set fire to itself anyway.

But I managed to devise a method of tracking. I would not summon those poor spirits again – for they had earned whatever blessings may come to them or whatever punishment awaits them. I had learned the hard way not to delay, and had for centuries been focusing on keeping the knowledge I found hoarded away from mortals.

The tracking method involved the true name written onto a map and then with acetone poured onto it, with an incantation spoken. It would destroy basically all the map except the point where he would be.

I did it, chanted the incantation, and there it was. Easy as a peach. I left to head to the location.

But when I got there, something was… amiss. I was atop a building, looking down at a patch of land that had been turned into a garden of sorts. In the center stood a man dressed in a hoodie, leather jacket and jeans. “I can hear you, brother,” he shouted. “Come out, Miyeteth. Face your death with some dignity.”

I could see his face even from here. His face had once been a human’s – probably similar to the male victim. But his face was twisted, wolf-like. A permanent snarl. The beginnings of horns had begun to emerge through the skin on his forehead. “Miyeteth – It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. I thought you were dead. I’d like to make that the truth.”

I jumped down, using my abilities to slow my descent so that I landed thirty or so feet behind him. Ulnniel laughed at my appearance. “Why so human, brother? What, didn’t feel like changing the appearance? So unlike you-“

“Malpirg Ipamis Ne.”

Fire burst from my open palm to try and claim Ulnniel. He jumped out of the way, and I merely left a scorched patch of grass.

Ulnniel growled. “You aren’t Miyeteth – you are something else. Who are you? You are not a mortal – nor an angel.”

He raised one hand and spoke an incantation. A sword appeared in his hand, a twisted thing of black steel and blood, an evil thing, capable of doing much harm.

He charged at me. I spoke an incantation. My weapon appeared likewise – a golden spear tipped with platinum. I dodged out of the way and readied myself for combat.

“Who are you? What are you? An abomination, perhaps? No… my brother is part of you – both within and without. Hmmm…”

Ulnniel clapped his hands. “A conjurer you are! You fused my brother’s body with yours in some damned ritual. Clever. But it ends now.”

He charged and I tried to roll to the side, but he knew my trick and adjusted his blow. Driving his sword triumphantly through my side, he laughed. “Die, fool. Let your blood drip away for eternity.”

But he was close now. Too close for him to dodge as I spoke the words again, this time with my hand on his chest. “Malpirg Ipamis Ne.”

He screamed as he was blasted backwards by grey fire. I pulled his sword out, its metal hissing as it touched angelic flesh. He was immobilized. I walked to his form, and drove my spear into his chest. He screamed louder, as his very being was eradicated by the angelic weapon. The child of hell breathed no more.

I waved a hand over the body, and spoke a simple incantation. Its formed returned to human proportions, and I searched its pockets. I found a piece of paper, on which a few words had been written around a pentagram. This was how Ulnniel had been summoned. The humans sought to do what none other had – truly bind an angel.

I looked down at my form. I suppose I am not truly Miyeteth – I was born, in some form, on the twentieth of July, 1592. A rich child of a noble family, I had sought unholy knowledge. I found love – my wife died shortly after our marriage, and I sought to use my research to bring her back. I failed. I bound a son of Azrael to myself – Miyeteth. His knowledge and entity subsumed my mortal entity, and I became this. Perhaps an abomination. Perhaps something else.

I picked up the body and dropped it on the stairs of the precinct of a certain detective I knew. I had some people to track down – and some knowledge to claim.

You’re a necromancer who secretly helps the police by bringing back murder victims and interviewing them.

Prompt: Hemoglobin

@basement-boy

He drew the blade across his wrist with a small gasp of pain. He was young, and he was new to this. Perhaps he’d hide his youth behind stubble, the beginnings of a beard, but I have spent too long in this universe to be fooled by such a simple trick.

The room was in disarray, with tomes of daemonic names, magic spells and rituals lying open or even with pages ripped out. On the north side of the room, there was a desk covered in notes, with a single candle dripping wax to provide some meager light in the beginnings of twilight outside the window. The center of the room, carved into the wood floor and then traced with chalk was a hexagram, encircled by runes and the names of angels in Enochian. Anabiel. Gabriel. Sammiel. Names to guard against the thing he was summoning. Me.

He began the ritual as his blood dripped into a bowl on the southern side of the pentagram, and his whisperings caused the room to go cold and the wind to pick up through the window on the eastern side of the room, scattering papers and blowing out the candle. The room filled with shadow, despite the sun merely beginning to set.

“I summon thee, Okiabec, in the name of angels and by the six-pointed star. I summon thee, Okiabec, in the names of the Lord and the name of the Devil. El, Jah, Lucifer, Shaitan, I summon thee in these names. Appear and be bound, Okiabec, I command thee in the names of Metatron, Mikhael, Uriel, the watchers of the gate. I command thee in the name of the fallen; the many names of the Grigori, and the names of the Seraphs. Appear, Okiabec.”

When the words were completed, I appeared, as he said. Not that I had ability to avoid the summons. For his youth, the boy was skilled. I took the form of a draconian humanoid, naked, with black scales and a crown of horns growing in a ring around his forehead. In my right hand I held a curved khopesh blade, and in my left I held a net. Not that this form was corporeal.

Pointing the blade at the boy, I growled out a response to his summons in guttural, unearthly tones. “I am Okiabec, the spirit of disease. I fought besides the Morningstar when he stormed heaven, I was at his side when he forged Hell from the nether. I was there when man stepped from the light and left the garden, I was there when Moshe plagued Egypt; I have wrought destruction in my wake for untold Aeons. What makes you think you can summon me and control me?”

The boy was shivering in his monk robes, and I could tell he was not truly prepared for this. But, he would not relent his control. Which was good for him, I suppose, but his weakness was allowing me to gain ground in the battle of wills that was my tether to this mortal plane.

“I command thee to destroy the house of Osha, the worm who has dishonored me,” he barked, or rather, squeaked.

I laughed, a haughty, raucous sound that sounded less human and more like the squawking of a murder of crows. “And in return for this, what will you give me, boy? For such a task, an exchange of great value must be made.”

“I will give you the riches of the house of Ibrahim!”

I laughed anew, this time with more sincerity. “Mortal riches have no sway over me, boy of house Ibrahim. And this you should know.”

“I will give you the lives of our herds! Ten by ten cows, fifteen by fifteen chickens, four by four hounds!”

I growled. I grew bored of this game. “No riches will please me. No number of wretched beasts will sate my desires. You know but one thing you possess and can give me will make me obey you.”

The winds die, and the candle lights anew. “Give me your soul, boy of Ibrahim. Give me your immortal soul and I will serve you for twelve times twelve years, and raise the house of Ibrahim to the heights of greatness. Bring your foes to heel. End your enemies, not by honorable combat, but through the darkness. Disease will eat their pale humours and reduce them to beasts who grovel in your wake; give me your soul, and their riches will be yours. Nothing more and nothing less will satisfy me.”

xfhwnRN1ՙ�q

Gah help I wrote shitty protest poetry

I don’t know how much longer I’ve got

Life has fucked us over a lot

 It may be a minute, it may be a millennium

All we’ve got left is alcohol and bottles of valium

 And the feeling we’re wasting away

Nothing left to do but decay

We’ve got something to do, something to say

Everything to lose, no reason to stay

 We may speak like we know a lot

But in the end we know our wit’s all we’ve got

 We fight for our future, with all that we’ve got

We fight our future, because like it or not

 We haven’t got much time and we haven’t got much money

We haven’t got much food and we don’t think that’s funny

 We laugh away our lives to hide the pain

We live and we die, afraid to fade

Away into the nothingness or the afterlife

We use what we have left as a way to fight

 We may get some shit wrong, it’s inevitable

Since birth we’ve been told we’re inimitable

 But the world we live in tells us otherwise

Rich waging war while we slowly die

Dying takes forever for those afraid to die

I don’t care enough anymore to continue to lie

Pretend I have plans for a future so bright

When all that’s ahead is fire and knives

Gunpowder, teargas and broken minds

 As we watch on the news as people like us die

When people who raised us tell us not to fight

 To give up is a quiet death;

To fight for our future

When it’s a hopeless mess

 They say I’m a pessimist but maybe I see

Something more than apathy

 I look at people my age and see something inside

Something worth living for, for something to die

 Fight for that future ‘til my final breath

Because I’ll be damned if I have a quiet death.

I don’t know how I got there.

Or, rather, I’m not sure.

Last I’d remembered, I was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by my family. My husband, my daughter, and a couple doctors were standing by. I held my husband’s hand tight as I had gone into a seizure, side effect of an inoperable brain tumor. I’m fairly certain I died.

Yet here I was. On a rain-soaked street in what appeared to be any town in the Midwest, a bar in front of me, with two neon signs – a pretty typical ‘open’ sign, and a glowing white, cursive word – Purgatorio.

Not knowing what else to do, I went up to the door, tried to push it open, and the door held fast. I looked down, saw the sign that said ‘pull’, and obeyed. The door opened with ease, and I found myself in an empty bar – well, mostly. A man stood behind the counter, wearing a white dress-shirt, black jeans, a tie, and a black apron. He was wiping down the bar with a grey rag, and music – some folk rock band – played quietly from the speakers. As I walked in, a bell rang, and the man looked up.

He was a young man on the cusp of middle age, with black hair, pale green eyes, and a pierced right ear. He seemed unsurprised, and he called me forward. “Well,” he said, “Come in, have a drink.”

He pulled a bottle of whiskey from beneath the counter, and a tumbler glass. Getting ice from an old-fashioned machine behind him and putting some into the glass, he gestured me towards him again. “Come on, boy. You haven’t got much time until someone comes to collect you. It’s good to have a guest.”

I moved forward, and sat down in a leather stool at the bar. He poured whiskey into the glass and handed it to me. I looked at it, and then at his expectant face. “I don’t have any money,” I said, patting my clothing to look for a wallet I was pretty sure I lacked. I was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt under a simple grey hoodie. And no, I did not have a wallet, much less my own.

“I don’t want money,” he laughed. “I’m not in this for cash.”

He leaned in, and said in a voice alight with childish glee, “I do this for the stories. I’d like to hear yours, or as much of it as you want to share.”

I looked at him, and saw his nametag. It read, “Hello, my name is: Dante A.”

“What is this place? Why am I here?”

He poured another couple fingers of whiskey into the tumbler and gestured for me to drink. I took a sip. It was a good whiskey.

“Well, kid, you’re dead. Sorry to have to break it to you like this.”

Caught in the middle of another sip of whiskey, I gagged a little. “I can’t be dead – I’m here.”

He nodded. “Logical. But answer me this – where is here?”

Looking me up and down, he continued. “Because last you remember, you were somewhere else. It may have been a hospital bed, or in a car, or at home going to bed – but you woke up here, right outside my bar.”

He stepped away a couple steps and wiped down another part of the table. “As to your family, who are they? Tell me about them.”

I looked at him as suspiciously as I could, but it made a weird kind of sense. I began to speak, and the words poured out. He listened intently, nodding along as he cleaned up the bar. I told him how I’d met my husband – at a pride rally, in 2003. We’d fought tooth and nail for what we had – all the way up until our marriage was legalized and we could get married in our home state of Virginia. We settled down, opened up a book shop, and adopted our daughter.

All the while, while I droned on and on about my family, Dante looked like he was having the time of his life. He didn’t speak, only prodding me for more details. My daughter’s school teachers, what were they like? My husband, what was he like? He seemed insatiable in his lust for more information.

I drank as I spoke, and Dante refilled my glass each time I emptied it, and I found myself laughing at my own retelling, as I finished story after story. It felt like hours had passed.

Finally, I stopped. “Is this it?” I asked him, not feeling particularly drunk at the moment.

He looked at me, a twinkle in his eyes, and said, “Not even close.”

He leaned against the bar which he had finished cleaning, and looked out the rain-beaten windows at the front of the establishment. He seemed to fade off a little bit. I got his attention again, “I mean, is this all there is for the rest of eternity? Just sitting here and talking to you?”

He laughed. “Is that such a bad thing?”

Shrugging, I began again. “I mean – what about heaven? What about hell?”

He poured himself a glass and refilled mine. “What about heaven? What about hell?”

“Do they exist?”

Taking a sip, he spoke. “Yes, they do. I’ve seen them both.”

“And what’s this place?”

“A halfway point, sort of. For souls to wait for their guides.”

“Guides?”

“Angels, for the good. Devils for the bad. I get what I can out of those who come through. I remember your mother, when she came through. She said a lot about you.”

My mother had died some fifteen years ago. She was probably the most supportive person I’d ever known, and the first person I came out to. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had sat here, talking for hours to the same person I was, sharing stories of her life.

“Who came for her? Angel or devil?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know who comes for who, only that they do.”

“And what about you? Did anyone come for you? Will anyone come for you?”

He shrugged again. “I’m happy here, I built this place. I listen to stories. I guess that’s always been my job and my dream.”

“Do you ever want to move on?”

He paused, shrugged a final time, and then he perked up. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you, your story, your life? We’re nearing the end of your time here.”

“Where do you think I’ll go?”

He grabbed my hands, and looked me in the eye. “Look at me. Listen. You are the only judge of your life. Where do you think you deserve to go?”

I was a little dumbstruck. “I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I’m going to hell.”

Dante looked up at the ceiling, muttered something in what sounded Italian, and looked back at me. “Well, in the words of the great Lewis Black, fuck them.”

“I’ve seen good people, I’ve seen bad. I’m not a judge, but most I can tell plain as day. And you, my friend, are not a bad-“

I heard a rapping at the door. Outside was standing a plain-looking man, dressed in a suit and tie, with steel-grey hair and an unyielding disposition. I looked at Dante. “What do you think?”

“Go,” he said, waving me on. “Go to where you belong.”

I walked back out through the door, and the man looked at me.

“You the new arrival?”

Looking back, at Dante, now thoroughly wiping the table again. “I suppose,” I said.

“Good. Would you step into the vehicle, please?”

I looked at the car behind the man. Black and simply-built, it looked solid enough. He opened the door, and I sat inside. He went around to the other side, got into the driver’s seat, and began to drive.

“Where are we going?”

He looked at me in the mirror, a stern expression on his face. Cracking a smile, he began to speak.

“On,” he said.

After you die, you expected an afterlife or either Heaven, or Hell. Instead you find yourself standing in front of a pub named ‘Purgatorio.’

Ash watched the target closely as he went into the bar. She stood on the roof of the four-story office-building across the street, hidden in the dark of the night. She was dressed practically, in simple clothing – black jeans, a dark grey t-shirt, a leather jacket – her purple hair tied back behind her head. At her feet was a black biker’s helmet. At her right ear was a Bluetooth earpiece.

She needed neither binoculars nor night-vision to see clearly in the night; she was Damphyr, the child of one afflicted with vampirism. Beings without most of their progenitors’ strengths, but the few gifts they possess by comparison makes them far greater than humans. Durability, speed and enhanced senses are their hallmark, but the gifts come at a cost. The cost of human blood. A Damphyr can survive on the blood of animals for a time, but they are required to drink the blood of a living human with disturbing and increasing frequency.

For now, she needed only once a month or so. But as her years of life wore on into centuries she would need to feed weekly or even daily. She pondered this as she watched the bar.

“Ash!” buzzed her earpiece. Focusing back in to the present, she barked an answer to the microphone on her lapel. “What, Vesh?”

Vesh responded, “I can see you from here. Stop zoning out! We need you to watch the door. If the target is meeting one of the nine, we’ll need to be able to act at a moment’s notice. You’re our surveillance.”

“If you wanted surveillance, you should have gotten a van,” Ash cracked.

“Who needs a van when you have the sharpest eyes this side of the globe?”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Ash quipped, as she noticed something off with the bar. The sounds of violence were emanating from within, which would not have troubled her unduly were it not for the scent. Her sense of smell was arguably her weakest, but there are some scents she could never miss. The scent of blood, the scent of a damphyr, and, strongest of all, the scent of a vampire.

Vampires are rare creatures; few in number and rare to reproduce. They make up for it in unholy might; a single vampire could lay waste to a small city in a single night. But they tend to occupy their time with petty power struggles between each other and attempts to control large swathes of territory. Their servants, known as Revenants, were humans vested with some of their power. Weaker still than even damphyr, Revenants were slow to age and stronger than mortals.

But the scent of a vampire was what Ash smelled now. How she had missed it for so long was beyond her, but it was clear now. The smell was difficult to define – somewhere between a rotting corpse and a rose, soaked in blood. A smell of beautiful decay.

“Vesh, we need to move. Now.”

“Got it. I’ll get the back entrance. You cover the front.”

“Got it.”

Ash jumped from her perch, flipping from headfirst to a pencil dive and landing on the pavement, cracking it. She was unharmed by the tumble, she got up and charged the door as a man was thrown bodily from the window. Or rather, a corpse. Its head was twisted and nearly torn off, a look of agony on its face. Its limbs were twisted as if it had been tortured, but knowing what lay inside, she understood that it had happened within seconds.

She took a second to spit on the corpse. A fool who had been bargaining with a vampire for extended life. But the artifact that he had found was too powerful. His contact with it made him a liability, not an ally.

She charged the door, knocking it off of its hinges. Inside, an unwelcome sight greeted her. Revenants, a dozen of them, were feasting on the corpses of the erstwhile bar-goers. A couple were holding onto the bouncer by the arms, one drinking from his carotid and another on the opposite side, who had chewed through to his aorta.

They all looked up at her, with bestial glares. Damphyr blood was poison to them, but they were bound to their master’s will, and would be more than happy to kill her.

She reached into her coat and pulled out a long dagger – something caught between shortsword and knife in size, but finely wrought all the same, of some strange, silvery metal. She whispered the invocation. “Carnwennan, feoht for mec, innan thone ciegnes Arthorius.”

The blade sheathed itself in shadow, its magic enhancing her accuracy, speed and strength.

Moving faster than the creatures could even fathom, she had already drove the dagger through three of the creatures’ chests, piercing their hearts before they could even draw breath. “Eallgrene sealt adfyr.”

Green flame ripped its way through the creatures anew, burning their flesh and reducing them to ash faster than should have been physically faster. Continuing, she made quick work of the others, and had destroyed the bodies of those who had died. Little evidence remained, and the magical fire did not burn the objects in the room. She breathed, for the first time since entering the place. “You alright?” asked Vesh, through the earpiece.

“…Yes.”

“Good. Nothing on my end. I’ll meet up with you at the basement doors.”

They had gone through the blueprints for the building before the strike. There was a basement, prohibition era, that led down into the sewer. They had guessed the vampire would use this route to escape after putting down the ‘livestock’.

She went over to behind the bar, went into the backroom, and took the short hallway to the back room, where she Vesh was waiting.

Vesh wasn’t damphyr, nor was she human. She was a Nephilim, the long-lost bloodline of angels. Moreover, her bloodline was the (in)direct descent from King (well, queen, but that’s another story) Arthur. She wasn’t all that much stronger than a normal human, until the bloodline was used in conjunction with an Arthurian one. Ash’s weapon was one, the bloodline only enhancing the weapon’s traits, not granting ones on their own.

But Vesh was more powerful in her own way. For she wielded two weapons – Rhongomiant, an ancient spear, and Clarent, the coward’s blade. With their power, she could take down many opponents with little effort – but at a cost. The two could only be wielded in conjunction for a short time, or she would burn up.

Vesh was breathing heavily, her sword sheathed and her spear at her back. “You okay?” asked the (suitably) concerned Ash.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“There’s no shame in turning back,” warned Ash.

“Yes, there is.”

“Okay, only a little,” conceded Ash.

“I’m not going to sit back and let you hog all the glory. Here,” said Vesh, holding out a thermos.

“I’m not thirsty,” protested Ash.

“Yeah, you are.” Said Vesh, gesturing with the thermos. “You didn’t’ have any blood at breakfast, and I’ve been keeping eye on your little freezer down in the basement. You haven’t touched it in going on a week and a half. Drink.”

Ash could smell the blood, and hunger snarled deep within her stomach. But at the same time, a foul disgust was creeping through her. “No.”

“You’ve got to drink sometime. Please. You need it.”

Vesh hold the thermos close to Ash’s face.

“I said no, damn it!” Ash shouted, batting the thermos out of Vesh’s hand and to the ground. Warmed blood spilled across the ground.

Vesh became more concerned. “Ash…”

Ash was stumbling away from the spilled blood, retching at the smell, reaching a corner and throwing up blackened bile. “We need to follow the vampire.” She coughed out, between dry heaves.

“You’re in no condition to fight a vampire. We can turn back – we can get more…”

Ash shook her head. “Don’t say it.”

“Damn it, Ash. You need to drink. You don’t think I’ve noticed you? You don’t sleep anymore. You can barely get down food, and blood… you barely touch it unless you’re desperate. This isn’t healthy. I’m here for you.”

Ash shook her head. “We have to go on. I know… I know this vampire.”

“What? You can differentiate between vampiric bloodlines now? Are… are you certain?”

“I know this one well. This one is…” she trailed off, and began to make her way down the stairs.

--- A Year and a Half Prior ---

Ash was chained to the floor of the cell, her interrogator standing above her. Throwing down a lukewarm blood transfusion bag, he kicked her in the stomach. “Drink, half-blood.”

“F… fuck you…”

He kneeled down, grabbing her by the back of the head, and held her mouth open. Kicking the bloodbag aside, causing it to leak across the ground towards the drain in the center of the room, he gestured to the door. A man stepped in, carrying with him a bound and gagged teenage boy. The boy kicked and screamed as he was dragged into the room. The man carrying him drew a wicked-looking hunting knife, and drew it across the boy’s throat in a swift, decisive motion. The boy was gurgling his last breaths as blood poured from the wound. The interrogator turned Ash’s face up as the other man put the boy’s throat to her open lips, blood pouring into her mouth, her nose, most spilling but some she felt going down her throat.

--- Present Day ---

They were making their way down the stairs in sullen silence when they heard it. The scratching, the skittering, the sound of rats, moving around them in the dark. Ash closed her eyes, her breathing becoming ragged. Vesh took the lead, and motioned for Ash to sit down for a moment. She whispered in her ear. “I’ll be back in just a few seconds. Wait.”

The sounds of blades being drawn and of the screeching of rats. Finally, Ash heard the words, “Eallgrene sealt adfyr.” A bright flash of green, and nothing else. “You can open your eyes now.”

They continued on their way.

--- A Year and a Half Prior ---

Ash was blindfolded as she was led into the room and tied to the chair. It was a cold, study thing of wood. Chained at the ankles and the wrists, weakened from blood deprivation, she struggled against the chains until she was exhausted. She heard him, chuckling and chiding. “Is the little girl tired? Poor little girl…”

“Maybe the girl needs some friends. Yes, maybe some furry friends.”

She heard the sound of blade against sheath as he drew a knife, and felt it as he drew thick lines every few inches down her wrist and thigh. Blood slicked her skin as he stepped back, and whistled.

It was then she heard them. Skittering across the rafters, across the floor. Ash felt it as they fell onto her body, and tried to throw them off, but they kept piling on. She screamed as they bit into her flesh. She screamed and the man laughed.

--- Present Day ---

The hallway was sparsely lit with dangling, electric lights as they continued on their way. The form of the hallway was made of brick and wood, with a floor of cement. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?” asked Vesh.

“I’m fine,” responded Ash, a little too quickly, having been waiting for the question.

“Ash… for gods’ sakes…”

Ash drew Carnwennan, and began the invocation again. The blade sheathed itself in shadow. “I’m fine.”

They reached the end of the hallway, and they saw it.

Sitting in the center of the room was a finely-wrought silver casket, surrounded on all sides by human bodies, blood splattered against the walls. Not catching her breath in time, Ash smelled the blood, assailing from all sides. Gagging, she began the purification invocation to cleanse the room with fire. “Eallgrene sealt adfyr.”

The room flashed green as fire consumed the corpses, leaving ash behind.

“What is this thing?” said Vesh, looking at the coffin.

“An artifact of great power, so they say. The coffin of the progenitors. Capable of bringing a vampire to an almost godlike state.”

“And capable of purifying the blood of a damphyr, my pet,” came a voice from the shadows.

They turned. Ash gasped. “You… you’re dead. I killed you…”

The interrogator stepped forward. “Only a spear of ash and silver can kill a vampire, as you well know.”

Gesturing to a stitched-shut scar around his throat, he laughed. “All you did was offend my vanity.”

He walked forward, touching the coffin with an outstretched arm. “You hurt me, running away like you did. All I wanted was what’s best for you, after all, little cousin.”

He held out his open arms to Ash. “Come to me, pet, I will take you with me and make you my immortal lover.”

Ash held Carnwennan at the ready, taking a step back. Her stance was nearly broken by her shaking.

“Come here, girl, I will hurt you no longer.”

Vesh stepped forward. “Enough.”

Drawing spear and sword, spear at the ready stance, sword ready to guard against blows, Vesh charged, speed and strength enhanced by the magic. The man just jumped out of the way.

“You’ll have to try harder than that to kill me, child. I am a vampire, not some weak-blooded mockery or halfblood pretender.”

Vesh struck with speed and strength, with each strike gaining more momentum and hitting faster. She felt her muscles burn as she fought him, but he dodged each blow with almost nonchalant ease. Growing tired of this, he grabbed the spear by the shaft and struck quickly, knocking the sword aside and biting deeply into her forearm. Vesh let out a cry of pain, as he threw her backwards.

Ash couldn’t stand still anymore. Half frozen in fear while Vesh struck, she steeled herself and struck. The interrogator laughed. “You can’t harm me any more now than you could then, girl.”

Before she could strike his flesh he dodged under the blow and slammed into her, sending her flying across the room, landing next to Vesh.

He crossed the room to where Ash lay, and grabbed her by the throat. “Your blood will fuel my power,” he said, biting into her throat. She felt herself being drained. After a couple moments, he pulled away, lips slick with blood.

“Watch, now, as I ascend to godhood,” he stated, wiping off his lips, opening the coffin. Inside was black velvet. Ripping off his shirt, he lied back into the coffin as the lid closed automatically.

A hissing sound like hydraulic sealing could be heard as the coffin closed.

“Ash,” said Vesh, trying to get closer to her, coughing up blood from broken ribs, unable to move her legs. Ash lay unconscious. Vesh took her wounded arm and put it over Ash’s lips, letting blood drip into her mouth. Still not conscious, Ash’s mouth instinctively bit into Vesh’s arm, draining blood. Vesh grimaced against the pain, but it was not in vain.

Ash awoke, her body repairing itself faster for the blood. She felt a surge of power from her blood, from Vesh’s blood, as Vesh faded out of consciousness.

The coffin opened just as Ash arose, holding Carnwennan and Clarent at the ready. The blood of Arthur she had drunk felt like fire rising in her veins as she spoke in the old tongue. “Cier asprungennes, Vampire.”

Her enemy had changed. Like some monstrous bat, his features had twisted into a vile mockery of the living. His fangs had grown and his teeth grown sharp. He growled.

They did battle, moving faster than sound, booms echoing off the halls. She dodged blow after blow, dealing small wounds bit by bit. Eventually, he failed – mis-stepping, he was impaled on the blades.

“This cannot kill me, whelp. I will return to hunt you. I will return to end you.”

“I know,” said Ash. “But next time, I will not hesitate. In the meantime, let’s see how well you can reform from my namesake. Eallgrene sealt adfyr.”

Flames engulfed him as he screamed in agony, burning as Ash gathered the weapons, picked up Vesh, and began to return up the stairs.

Story Shard 543

You know what I want? I want a Bad Ass Female Super Hero who is afraid of something small and cliche, like bugs or mice, but whose compatriots don’t make fun of her for it. They just step up and take care of the things she can’t. And her fear does not make her any less bad ass it just makes her human.

Look, we all make mistakes. Some, more than a few. Some, pretty bad ones in particular.

He was mine.

I was young, foolish, and met him at a cosplay convention. I assumed the short, nub-like horns were practical effects, and assumed he just didn’t want to break character. So, I asked him out, and we went out for drinks.

That’s when things got weird. It was still during the convention, and we both sat in the diner at the end of the street eating soul food and drinking chardonnay. When I asked him what his real name was, he laughed. It was a beautiful sound, like tinkling glass.

“I told you,” he said, “I’m the devil.”

When I laughed in turn, he seemed to pause. Looking pensive, he took out a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen and wrote on it. I can’t read upside down, and after he wrote it he covered it with his right hand. Grabbing his wineglass with his left and taking a sip, he stated matter-of-factly, “If I let you read this, you will see me as I truly am. No glamers, no illusions. But…” he stopped, again thinking.

“Read it at your own peril.”

He flipped the sheet over, and slid it across the table. I picked it up, and began to read.

There were five words written on the paper in Latin. “Ego sum, et videbitis me.”

“I don’t see why this –“ I looked at him, and stopped. He hadn’t really changed in form – he was still a young man, still beautiful, but the horns had shifted, turned into curling ram’s horns, and his eyes glowed red.

“Don’t shout, if you would,” He said calmly, “I prefer to not have to charm an entire room full of people, and I did just do you the service of putting your questions to rest.”

I was speechless, as one would be, given the circumstances. He put a finger to my lips, “I’ve had a fun time tonight, darling. Call me.” At this, he waved his hand over the paper, winked, and got up and strolled out, leaving a hundred-dollar bill on the table. I looked down on the paper. “Luci Morningstar – (666)-DAMNED1”.

Since then, I haven’t been able to rid myself of the cheeky bastard. He showed up at my house a couple weeks later – I came home from work and he was sitting on my sofa, drinking my beer, watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians on MY television!

Before I could even speak, he spoke, “You know, when I traded getting O.J. off for Robert’s soul, I didn’t think his family would make it this far. Maybe I should let him know the next time I visit his cage – I’m not sure he’d be glad or ashamed.”

“What are you doing here? How did you get into my house?”

He scoffed. “I am the devil, you know. Picking one lock isn’t exactly what one would imagine beyond me.”

I put my keys on the rack by the door. He began to speak again, “I’m still a little unhappy you never called me back. I thought we had a spark.”

I walked over and stood in front of the T.V. “Get out.”

He sighed, “I would, doll, but I seem to have made a few enemies. So, I decided to stop in, say hello. Maybe we can go on a second date? While I hide out from a few… less savory individuals.”

It was my turn to scoff. “Less savory than the devil?”

His expression turned from a smile to a stony stare. “Holy shit, you’re serious.”

He nodded. “You ever heard of the Archangels?”

I was raised catholic. Broke ties with my family over the whole ‘gay’ thing. “A little.”

“Well, don’t listen to everything you read. Michael is a brute who’s out for my blood, and Raphael’s the one nice enough to dress it up as procedure.” He sipped the beer again.

I took the beer away from him. “Hey!”

I downed the rest of his beer. “So,” I said, trying like hell to be resolute, “What do we do?”

Luci looked up at me. “Dinner?”

I went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. “How about shots instead?”

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“This is ridiculous. You date the devil *one* time and next thing you know he thinks you’re his girlfriend!”

He stood on the lip of the platform, ready to jump down onto the tracks. His backpack lay beside him, and tears flowed down his face.

It was true. A fortnight ago he would not have believed – much less suspected – the truth, and now, looking back, he wondered what had gone so wrong that he deserved this. He looked down in his hand at the opened locket, and read again what was on the sheet of paper his mother had left in it, as if the rereading would make the words change their meaning or disappear.

Daelyn

You are too young now to know the truth, for the sooner you know the sooner the men who I have entrusted you to will turn on you.

The truth of your father is that he is not of this world; he is the Blue Flame, the spirit of the east, known to the church as Lucifer.

I have sealed this locket, in the hopes when you are old enough, you can read this and escape.

I know not what Father Lye has told you over the years about me or your father, but know he is your enemy, and will kill you if you know the truth. He could barely be restrained from killing you as a newborn, and now that I am dying – for that is what is happening – this could be the only chance for you to know the truth and be able to escape.

Trust no one, question everything.

Yours in eternity,

Mom

Where was he supposed to go? If this was true, and he was the son of Lucifer (the de- the dev-, he could not think the words), what could he do? He was the antichrist, a being meant to bring destruction and end the world. What could he do but try to subvert that fate?

And what better way to subvert that fate than to die?

He stared down at the tracks, as he heard the train approaching. Closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, and he put his right foot out and –

Was dragged backwards, rather than falling forward. The train passed by, loudly and quickly, until he was left with his erstwhile and relatively unwanted savior.

“What? Who?”

He turned around and saw an old lady, dressed in a brown overcoat and large, ludicrously decorated floral hat. With gray hair and green eyes, she was the perfect caricature of what an old lady should look like. “You looked like you needed some help. Those tracks are dangerous, you know.” She spoke with a curious accent. Greek, maybe?

“Thank you,” he stated, and began to walk away.

“Oh come back, dear boy. I want a word with you.”

He paused, turned on his heel, and walked back to her. She walked up to him, and embraced him in a hug.

“There, there boy. It will be alright.”

She patted his back and then whispered the final words.

“Your father is watching over you.”

She leaned back, and he looked into her eyes. Except now, they were not eyes, but rather black circles dancing with flames. She smiled again, this time an unnerving sight.

“My name is Alecto, child of the blue flame.”

She handed him a letter, written on thick parchment and sealed with wax in the image of a goat’s head.

“His advice for you, and a couple tips on who to go to, to help control your powers. Good luck, little cousin.”

You’ve spent your whole life despising your very existence, until finally you decide to end it. You stand at the edge of a train platform and prepare to step of when and old woman pulls you back and says…

It was a Thursday evening, near twilight when they brought them in. A large, burly man with tattoos, and a skinny man whose skin was clear of mark or blemish – he was, indeed, remarkably attractive to the inobservant outsider, who did not know why they were sent here.

Dressed in orange jumpsuits, they were escorted from the prison bus to the building – a fancy modernist apartment building, surrounded on all sides by desert, and at a nearer radius, a barbed-wire fence. They were brought to the fence-gate – a sturdy, steel affair – where a guard station stood. The guard inside was chewing nicotine gum as the two approached, and he pushed a single button to open the gate. As it opened, he stepped outside the box, to speak to them.

Chained at the hands behind their back and at their ankles, the prisoners were flanked by guards dressed in full riot gear. The man from the guard station raised a hand when they were a  couple meters away, and they stopped.

“Hello, prisoners 22998 and 22999. Pardon the cliché, but welcome to hell.”

The prisoners both looked at the finely-made but arguably poorly maintained apartment building, looked at the guard, but remained silent.

“You see, back a few years, we decided to switch up the usual ‘executioner’ method.”

Gesturing grandly at the building behind him by spreading his arms.

“This is the grand Hotel Del Gran Inferno; jewel of Great Basin. Or at least, that was the plan.”

He looked up at the sky and laughed.

“Here, four hundred years ago, a band of Spanish conquistadors slaughtered a group of native americans that fled here. They say that it’s that blood that created the great evil that stays here.”

He looked back at his prisoners, and crossed his arms at his chest.

“But, I doubt that. I think what’s here is older – something of blood, something that draws tragedy to it, not the other way around. Either way,” he said, “The hotel never saw a single customer, and every worker on it – some four hundred men and women, not to mention their children – has died of some accident working on it. As such, it is partly unfinished. But it still stands.”

He pointed at his prisoners. “You’ll spend the rest of your days here, prey for whatever devil haunts these halls. Don’t worry,” he laughs again, this time a somewhat manic sound, “It won’t be many days. None have lasted the night. Running only ever gets you so far.”

The prisoners remained silent. No one had told them about this transfer, but they handled their surprise well. After all, they’d been on death row for quite some time.

The man from the guardhouse gestured on, and the guards flanking them walked them to the inside of the gate, unshackled them, threw them forward, and shut the gate behind them, locking it with a thick padlock.

“Good luck,” said the guard, blowing the pair a kiss. “We’ll be by in the morning to collect your corpses.”

With that, they all climbed into the bus and left. The skinny prisoner walked to the gates and heard the buzzing. Looking at it, he could tell that touching it would probably blast him back a few feet. Looking at his newfound prisonmate, he hatched a plan within seconds. Waving the man forward, he seized the man by the throat and bodily pushed him back-first into the fence. The larger man screamed as the electricity coursed through him and blackened the flesh it touched. The skinny man then jumped, clambered up the man, and jumped over the top of the fence. Landing with a roll, he looked back and laughed at the larger man, now collapsed on the ground, as he turned and ran towards the sunset.

By the middle of the night, he had made good progress forward and had found enough wood lying around to build a simple fire. Lighting it with flint, he sat at it and looked at the stars. Soon he’d be free again. Licking his lips, he laughed. Demons, he laughed. What nonsense. Soon he’d be free to be the only demon the world ever needed – soon he could kill again.

Closing his eyes, thinking he needed sleep, he turned away from the fire. Then, he heard it. Bolting upright and smiling, he recognized the sound. It was a young girl singing, singing a nursery rhyme he knew well.

“London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…”

He looked and saw the source. A girl with her back turned to him. No older than nine, with blonde hair, she was his preferred prey. Wetting his teeth with his tongue, he growled, a low, bestial sound. He snuck up behind her as she finished the tune.

“My fair lady…”

As he got close behind her, she turned, and he saw her face.

It was a face he recognized. One of his… a child he had taken and done away with as he pleased. Her screams were still fresh in his mind. But she was different now. Her throat he had cut, and the mark she bore – dried blood, at first unseen to him, was prevalent across her front. Her skin was bloated, from the bog in which he had left her, and maggots crawled visibly through her face.

Her eyes were white, with no visible iris or pupil.

Too late to avoid, she gripped him by the throat with one rotting hand and threw him back towards his impromptu encampment. She laughed, a childish noise undercut by something much deeper and darker. The very night seemed to shroud her as she approached, and she walked towards him.

He got up, looking for a way out, and tried to run away, for he was a simple creature – fighting or fleeing was all that came naturally to him. But he was unaccustomed to being prey – and what he was fighting was a far better predator than him.

With unnatural speed she bowled him over, and had him again by his throat. Her form seemed to stretch to unnatural proportions as she lifted him by the throat, off the ground. She laughed, “Why did you do it? Why did you kill me?”

He struggled at her grasp, trying to rip his way free, but her grip was solid. Far more solid than any young girl’s should be. The wind stirred around them into a near whirlwind, as she continued to speak.

“Why did you kill me, to sate the beast inside you? The truth is there, no matter how you pretend. You aren’t a demon. You aren’t even a man. You are… scum.”

She lifted her head up, revealing her neck to be not slit like he had done to the girl, but a ravenous maw.

“Burn,” she said simply, and threw him onto his fire. Screaming as he was set alight, he felt his limbs stretched out as if being drawn and quartered, and spiked pieces of ashwood pierced has hands and feet. He could not move as he felt his body burn, and the last sight he had was of the creature’s maw opening wider and wider, as if to consume all he was, body and soul.

Meanwhile, back at the Hotel, his betrayed fellow inmate was waking up, feeling like his head had been split in two. Looking at the fence and remembering what had happened, he found himself cursing the man who had left him there under his breath. “Damned little slippery bastard.”

Looking around, he saw nothing, but the abandoned building, and felt the cold. He decided it was probably best to go into the hotel, regardless of what the guards had said to him. If the place was haunted, it would hardly be a better end to freeze to death. If he was going to die, he was going to die inside.

Opening the door, he found himself in a spacious atrium, with a finely-made wooden staircase with red carpet. The place looked to have been fit for a king. He wandered down a darkened hallway, and tried the light switch. Nothing turned on. Sighing, he wandered still, into what he thought was a kitchen. Finding his way around in the dark, he found a couple full bottles, probably hidden there by one of the deceased workers. Wandering back to the atrium, and by the light of the moon, saw it was a bottle of orange Absolute and a bottle of Captain Morgan. Fit for a king. Taking a swig of the Absolute, he wiped his face, and sat on the staircase. What was he going to do now? He couldn’t run the same way the other had. Even if he did, he’d die of dehydration before he made it there. The liquor wouldn’t help, after all. He took another swig.

And what if the guard had been honest? What if this place was going to kill him? Why else would they put death-row prisoners here?

He sat there for a few minutes before he heard it. Footsteps, from upstairs. Knowing he full well was alone, and recognizing the cliché despite the onset of inebriation, he decided to go up the stairs towards it.

Walking down the upstairs hallway, he heard the footsteps still, and still he followed, still holding the bottles between the fingers of his right hand. Seeing a light beneath the door on his left, he opened it and stepped inside. It was a different scene.

It was the house he and his wife had lived in, when she was alive. He could see himself, holding a bottle of beer, sitting at a table in the corner. He could see her, with her brown hair and eyes, shouting at him and brandishing a knife. He watched as he stood up, he watched as she charged him, and he responded in the only way he could at that point, by hitting her with the empty bottle. She hit the ground like a ragdoll, and he watched as he kneeled down and checked her pulse before getting up and calling 911.

He took another drink from the bottle of Absolute, hoping it would chase away the memory playing out in front of him.

He watched himself go back to his wife and start begging her and praying for her to return to him. It was his fault. He watched as the police arrived, he did not respond, and they beat down the door. He watched himself being led away numbly by the police.

It was then that he felt her. Standing behind him, with a hand on one shoulder and her head on the other. “You did this.”

As he quickly turned, dropping his bottles, she bounced backwards. He saw her, the right side of her head caved partly in from the blow dealt years earlier, blood leaking from her ear. He ran past her, down the hallway, and she followed, jumping rather than running. Keeping a couple feet behind. He ran and turned down the hallway, finding a dead end – an unfinished ledge above a pile of rusted steel beams.

Turning back, he saw her leap and grab his throat. She held him aloft, as he struggled with her grip. “You did this,” she said again, her voice a menacing growl.

“I know,” he said, barely able to breathe, closing his eyes, “I know.”

“You killed me. You deserve death.”

“I did. I deserve death. Kill me. It’s been eating me alive. All these years, Therese. Maybe this is fate. Take my life, like I did yours. It’s… fair.”

She stopped. She seemed shocked. She looked down, and then dropped him. He landed on his feet, not falling over the ledge.

“You… deserve...,” she stopped.

He moved towards her. “Please. I deserve it. Therese…”

“I… can’t…,” she stepped back.

“The guilty must be punished…,” she said, “The guilty… not… you…?”

She sat down, shifting between forms. Therese, a child, a Hispanic woman, a tall man, a thin man, a twisted, shadowy mess. Finally, she settled into a form somewhere between the three most recent – a young girl, perhaps thirteen, with brown hair and eyes, with darker skin.

“You…” she stopped, and looked over the horizon. The sun was rising on the horizon. Turning into a floating ball of shadow, she disappeared.

Running down the stairs, he saw that the bus was arriving again. He saw the guards leave, the one from earlier laughing. He felt the hand again. Turning, he saw the girl again. She pointed at the guard from the guardhouse. “Guilty.”

He looked at her, suddenly understanding. “You… can’t go out into the daylight, can you?”

She shook her head. She began in a different language, then stopped. Beginning again in English, she spoke, “I am cursed to reap vengeance for as long as the sun shines not. Bring him here, to face his judgement.”

“Face his…? Is that what you call this? Judgement? You’ve murdered people.”

She shook her head. “I… am not the only curse this place bears. This is a place of death, to be a place of death for all eternity after.”

“If he’s so guilty, why don’t you get him whenever he comes into the compound?”

She shook her head. “He never comes in. He knows. He’s smart.”

“What has he done?”

“I won’t know until he faces my judgement.”

Watching, he saw the man from the guardhouse send in two guards, to check for bodies. Thinking quickly, as they entered, he grabbed a chunk of brick and threw it down the darkened hallway to the right. Looking at each other, then looking down the hallway, they moved cautiously towards it. When they had moved a safe distance down the hall, he ran out towards the open gate.

“Hey!” he shouted.

The man from the guardhouse turned towards him. “What in the hells-“

He began to draw a taser from his waist, but it was too late. Knocking the weapon from his grasp, the former prisoner pinned his arms behind his back and used his own handcuffs against him. “What the fuck – let me go!”

Dragging him backwards into the hotel, kicking and screaming, the former prisoner looked around. “Where the hell are you?”

Emerging from the shadows game Her.

Taking the form of a prisoner, she walked towards the handcuffed guard.

The prisoner had taser marks on his face and neck, and smelled of burnt flesh. “You did this.”

The guard screamed. “Get away!”

Another prisoner appeared, different person, same marks. “You did this.”

“Go away!”

Another appeared. Then another. Emerging from the shadows, materializing from nothing. The same mantra. “You did this. You did this. You did this.”

He screamed as loud as he could as he was surrounded by the prisoners. Screaming like a banshee as he was enveloped, screaming as ripping and crunching of flesh began. Screaming as blood poured across the floor. Screaming that stopped all too suddenly as he did.

When it was over, nothing remained of the guard but blood and scraps. Only the girl and the former prisoner stood in the room. She handed him a key. “Go,” she said, simply, then vanished, fading into shadow.

Not needing a second chance, he left, got into the empty prisoner bus, and drove. Where he was going, he did not know. Only that he’d never see that hotel again – and never wanted to.

Story Shard 536

A death row prison where the you are killed by what you killed the most in life.