5.a, A Good Time to Die
It was as if Billy did not want to give me the time to reason, playing with my mind again. Refuse the third infusion of his blood and I knew I would have felt the real power of that throwing axe across my throat or plunged into my heart through my breastbone as if it were butter. Many who'd been here in the past had lost their nerve (and stomachs) after glimpsing their future as Billy had shown me mine; even with death on the line, they had chosen the merciless edge of that impossibly sharp blade.
Thus, the choice facing me now was twofold: accept his gift and live a life eternal, albeit bound by night and the lore of the vampire, or reject him now and die forever.
On this occasion, there were no hints of horrific scenes, satiating flavours or unparalleled beauty transferred between our minds through the blood. Even without those incentives, I doubted I would face an easier choice: life at all costs, even if it was the half-life of the undead, won hands down.
Thus, the choice facing me now was twofold: accept his gift and live a life eternal, albeit bound by night and the lore of the vampire, or reject him now and die forever.
On this occasion, there were no hints of horrific scenes, satiating flavours or unparalleled beauty transferred between our minds through the blood. Even without those incentives, I doubted I would face an easier choice: life at all costs, even if it was the half-life of the undead, won hands down.
To set this account straight, I would have done his bidding, anyway. Even if he had not called upon me again to complete my transformation, I would have rushed out onto the streets in search of the powerful buffoon. He still made my flesh crawl. His eyes still led the way to madness. But my yearning for the gift he could bestow upon me, rooted so deeply in every receptive part of my being, overwhelmed those short periods of lucidity between each different stage of my conversion.
As it was, the light from the huge window frontage was fading fast, casting impossible, nubile shadows into the room. That of my brother, propped up in the doorway betwen Bily's cohorts, was writhing like a maggot on a hook, despite his inanimate physical state.
On some level, he knew what was coming. As was I, Billy and the two mute creatures in the doorway. As if reading my thoughts, they released my brother, who dropped in a typical 50's B Movie swoon. His left hand laded in my lap, as if he willed me to get the task over and done with.
I so fought against the urge to feed, but there was more than satiating my own blood lust at stake. It wasn't what could happen to me that worried me. It was what they'd do to my brother if I didn't drink from him. I dropped the barriers and stopped resisting; from that moment, everything else dissipated from my mind, as if a domestic cleaner had gone on the rampage with a min-hoover.
Through the cranial chaos, I tried to mimic Billy's kiss on my wrist on my brother's. Those little bristles I'd had since that first night (was it really only 24 hours ago?) were now encased in enamel; fully fledged vampire fangs sprang from my mouth, much longer than Billy's.
As my brother's blood gushed at the back of my throat and began to run through my veins, I felt my mortal self die. There was no glory, no pomp, no Eureka! moment. The whole process was perfunctory, matter of fact.
I was alive. And then I was dead. No wracking pain, no uplifting light to head towards. It was as if life had been controlled by a dimmer switch that had been deliberately dialled down to off; from full power to extinction in a matter of moments.
As my brother's blood charged my new life, that luminescence that surrounded the new world returned, only a hundred times brighter than before. Did I think my senses were enhanced after my first taste of blood? Those levels were nothing to what I could see, hear and feel, now.
I don't know what the cohorts saw in me, but their already pale faces turned ashen. They looked on disbelieving, petrified as I glared at them from beyond my brother's wrist, blood spattered around my mouth and running down my chin, nostrils flared to inhale all the new scents, eyes popping to see my new world.
They looked as one to Billy, seeking instruction. I could smell their fear, and it incensed me. Billy struggled to pull me off my brother; when I resisted, he held something in front of my eyes. I couldn't make out what it was, just an explosion of magnesium-bright light in the palm of his hand that seared into every nerve in my brain.
As soon as I retreated far enough back, the cohorts stepped into the room take my brother's listless body away. He was not dead, and my fear for his wellbeing somewhat ironically returned. Through the pain Billy was causing my mind, I managed to issue them a warning not to harm him further. He was mine to take.
I caught the cohorts' answer on the breeze, which flooded into the stuffy room as they jumped the balustraded corridor, down into the reception and, dragging my brother between them, out through the huge front doors. It wasn't an answer I heard as words, but an image that represented, "You'll have to take that up with The Master."
Who was this Master? Why was he not here to welcome me to his brood, to face me in my infancy, my initiation into the Brotherhood of the Night? I felt short-changed.
This new strength coarsing through me made me feel invincible, the cohorts' reaction to me drinking my brother's blood feeding that sensation. Even Billy seemed apprehensive around me. Once we were left alone, he kept the powerful light aloft so that I could get no nearer to him. But I was no longer interested in him.
After a while, he sensed he was safe and tenuously lowered the light, placing it into his front trouser pocket where he could get it easily again, if needed. Once behind the cloth, the light died and I could make out the shape: a crucifix, about 4" x 1½". From the metallic tang in the air, I guessed made of silver. So, that was another myth based in fact.
But I did wonder. Did the crucifix cause me pain because of its properties or because of what it represented? Or even, neither. Did I perceive it harmful because, somewhere in the long chain of blood that now flowed around my veins, plus the memories Billy had imparted, I was psychologically programmed to react like that against a cross?
Fear of the thing, rather than what it represented would make sense. After all, what other protection did the creatures like Billy have against new vampires they'd 'made'? Some element of that thought based itself in fact and anchored into my mind like a #16 fish hook.
My psyche urged me to grab the crucifix, rip it right through the fabric of Billy's trousers, just to test the theory. But a bigger percentage of my being was feeling the weight of what had transpired. Every inch of my body ached as if my body had been sent over Niagra Falls in a wooden barrel. Sleep was beckoning in a wave of fatigue that was all-consuming.
Like my brother a short time ago, I flopped where I stood as my body felt the aftershock of what had transpired, what had transformed it. I reached out to Billy to give me a hand, to help me stop from hitting the cold, granite floor. He turned towards the doorway, but stayed just long enough to watch me swoon, just like my brother earlier. I swear I saw his thick, cracked lips pull up at the edge into a half-smile before I lost consciousness again.
5.b, Fledgling flights of fancy
A breeze from the open skylight woke me, as if it was bade to do so. I rose to look out of the window; for a split second, I didn't remember where or who I was. It only struck me when I literally 'rose to look out of the window', floating up towards it. It was a skylight. In the ceiling. Fifteen feet above the cot in which I'd awoken in a room I didn't remember seeing before.
I didn't consciously decide to float up there. I just thought it, and my body obeyed. It wasn't a feeling of weightlessness, exactly. It was more like I was encased in a bubble from another realm, being raised aloft on an invisible hand.
The view from the roof was astonishing. It looked like someone had spilled a huge pot of Indian ink over the world. The ground below, the horizon, where the land ended and the sky began: it all melded into a tapestry of textures of black. The stars were mere pin pricks on a black velvet throw, a backdrop possessing of an hereto unseen depth.
Staring into the sky, it felt like I was peering into eternity: billions of years of light hurtling through the depth of night towards us here on Earth. Even with my newfound sense of invincibility and longevity, I felt small in the context of the drama playing out in the heavens. Had I not infinity to discover it all, the sheer frustration would have ripped me in twain. Seeing what I could now see, knowing that mankind could never conceive it all in their blinkeredness and slip of a lifetime, would drive a mere mortal to momentary madness.
But enough of the universe, at least for now. I had to turn my attention to my current predicament. How had I come to be here, alone, in the upper reaches of the mansion?
Yes, it was a mansion; I'd seen as much either in the minds of the cohorts or imparted by Billy, I didn't know which. The sprawling 'manor house' sat at the heart of an old English estate. Woods and lakes furnished the grounds; fields sat at the outer reaches. Many were rented to farmers, who housed their cattle and flocks on the bounteous lulls and gentle valleys of rolling countryside.
But it wasn't all idyllic. Billy had made me virtual witness to the damage that had been wrought upon the odd cow or sheep, over time. Attributed to some wildcat that prowled the hills and moors by the local community, the livestock had actually been mauled by 'rogue' vampires. To alay suspicion on the manor house and its estate, Billy and a small army of cohorts had taken the guilty rogue vampires, leashed on silver chains, out to many farms and smallholdings in a pattern that would suggest a roaming wild creature. It worked and those leasing the fields accepted their losses as acts of pure nature.
There was no room for complacency, even with my newfound strength and awareness. I had many things still to learn, not least about others of my kind. There were creatures waiting to teach me about my new life. I had a huge learning curve and would take counsel from anyone who could prevent me going rogue, too. One could only imagine the mind-snapping horrors that had sent the cattle-ravaging vampires over the precipices of their sanity.
One creature in particular awaited my arrival more than anyone. For the first time, I had the sense that not only had I been doing Billy's bidding, but that he was also the ambassador for a greater master. As if summoned by thinking of him, Billy entered the room. His eyes went first to the cot, then up to skylight where I sat on the sill, torso in the breeze, legs dangling back down towards where Billy watched.
Without warning, he unleashed his axe; for a fleeting second, I thought he was here for revenge. Had I guessed some truth that offended him?
He launched himself up to the sill, axe first like Thor flying through the air behind his hammer. He landed beside me with the skill and accuracy of a ballerina. As he sat, I noticed a sliver of my flesh slipping down the blade of his axe. It glistened in the moonlight before disappearing down his gaping jaw. The axe had incised my flesh in almost the same place from where he'd taken his 'pound of flesh' before. As grey and dead as my body was, I didn't feel (nor see) him make that cut, even though it was deeper than the first.
I should have felt revolt, or at least anger; instead, his darned cheek filled me with the pride of a victor. In his silence, it seemed that he was revering me, or at least pleased that I had handled the changeling process with such aplomb.
Together, we smelled the air. It was clean, rife with answers to my raised expectations and charged with anticipation. Something in his mannerisms told me this was our farewell, or at least adieu. All those years of our intangible connection for the sake of an acquaintance whose meaningful moments boiled down to little more than twenty-four hours.
But now was not the time to let a lifetime that 'could have been', lived out in Regretsville, bring me down. I had left that path. The eternal night that stretched ahead instead promised so, so much more. Billy would take me to the point where I could become a deserving pupil for the creatures that awaited me.
I would not have to wait long to find out who they were, the world they inhabited or what they would expect. Although Billy was urging caution before rising out the window to taste the night, the call of others of my kind had me on edge. Without warning, Billy leapt into the night; I followed in a split second and into the hurricane that would be my new, eternal life.
I didn't consciously decide to float up there. I just thought it, and my body obeyed. It wasn't a feeling of weightlessness, exactly. It was more like I was encased in a bubble from another realm, being raised aloft on an invisible hand.
The view from the roof was astonishing. It looked like someone had spilled a huge pot of Indian ink over the world. The ground below, the horizon, where the land ended and the sky began: it all melded into a tapestry of textures of black. The stars were mere pin pricks on a black velvet throw, a backdrop possessing of an hereto unseen depth.
Staring into the sky, it felt like I was peering into eternity: billions of years of light hurtling through the depth of night towards us here on Earth. Even with my newfound sense of invincibility and longevity, I felt small in the context of the drama playing out in the heavens. Had I not infinity to discover it all, the sheer frustration would have ripped me in twain. Seeing what I could now see, knowing that mankind could never conceive it all in their blinkeredness and slip of a lifetime, would drive a mere mortal to momentary madness.
But enough of the universe, at least for now. I had to turn my attention to my current predicament. How had I come to be here, alone, in the upper reaches of the mansion?
Yes, it was a mansion; I'd seen as much either in the minds of the cohorts or imparted by Billy, I didn't know which. The sprawling 'manor house' sat at the heart of an old English estate. Woods and lakes furnished the grounds; fields sat at the outer reaches. Many were rented to farmers, who housed their cattle and flocks on the bounteous lulls and gentle valleys of rolling countryside.
But it wasn't all idyllic. Billy had made me virtual witness to the damage that had been wrought upon the odd cow or sheep, over time. Attributed to some wildcat that prowled the hills and moors by the local community, the livestock had actually been mauled by 'rogue' vampires. To alay suspicion on the manor house and its estate, Billy and a small army of cohorts had taken the guilty rogue vampires, leashed on silver chains, out to many farms and smallholdings in a pattern that would suggest a roaming wild creature. It worked and those leasing the fields accepted their losses as acts of pure nature.
There was no room for complacency, even with my newfound strength and awareness. I had many things still to learn, not least about others of my kind. There were creatures waiting to teach me about my new life. I had a huge learning curve and would take counsel from anyone who could prevent me going rogue, too. One could only imagine the mind-snapping horrors that had sent the cattle-ravaging vampires over the precipices of their sanity.
One creature in particular awaited my arrival more than anyone. For the first time, I had the sense that not only had I been doing Billy's bidding, but that he was also the ambassador for a greater master. As if summoned by thinking of him, Billy entered the room. His eyes went first to the cot, then up to skylight where I sat on the sill, torso in the breeze, legs dangling back down towards where Billy watched.
Without warning, he unleashed his axe; for a fleeting second, I thought he was here for revenge. Had I guessed some truth that offended him?
He launched himself up to the sill, axe first like Thor flying through the air behind his hammer. He landed beside me with the skill and accuracy of a ballerina. As he sat, I noticed a sliver of my flesh slipping down the blade of his axe. It glistened in the moonlight before disappearing down his gaping jaw. The axe had incised my flesh in almost the same place from where he'd taken his 'pound of flesh' before. As grey and dead as my body was, I didn't feel (nor see) him make that cut, even though it was deeper than the first.
I should have felt revolt, or at least anger; instead, his darned cheek filled me with the pride of a victor. In his silence, it seemed that he was revering me, or at least pleased that I had handled the changeling process with such aplomb.
Together, we smelled the air. It was clean, rife with answers to my raised expectations and charged with anticipation. Something in his mannerisms told me this was our farewell, or at least adieu. All those years of our intangible connection for the sake of an acquaintance whose meaningful moments boiled down to little more than twenty-four hours.
But now was not the time to let a lifetime that 'could have been', lived out in Regretsville, bring me down. I had left that path. The eternal night that stretched ahead instead promised so, so much more. Billy would take me to the point where I could become a deserving pupil for the creatures that awaited me.
I would not have to wait long to find out who they were, the world they inhabited or what they would expect. Although Billy was urging caution before rising out the window to taste the night, the call of others of my kind had me on edge. Without warning, Billy leapt into the night; I followed in a split second and into the hurricane that would be my new, eternal life.
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Edited and republished 3rd May, 2020
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