––––––––
Staggering back inside the crypt, I pushed the door shut and leaned back against it with my eyes closed. I’d sprinted most of the stoned feeling away but a slight amount of weed remained in my system.
“What have we here?” a voice said and my eyes snapped open.
A stranger stood at the far end of the crypt. He was about six feet tall, leanly built and had black hair that was short and expensively cut. Wearing a pricy pair of black slacks, leather shoes and a black cashmere sweater, he was overdressed for the cemetery. My mouth dropped open when I took in his face. With high cheekbones, full lips and burning black eyes, he looked like a model for a cologne ad.
“Who are you?” I asked then followed up with a more pointed question. “What are you doing in my crypt?” Maybe he’s from a ghost tour and got separated from the crowd.
Dark eyebrows rose as he swept his gaze from my face down to my feet then back up again. The sardonic twist to his mouth indicated he wasn’t particularly impressed with what he saw. “I am Lucentio,” he replied. I detected a European accent and frowned. The last European man I’d met had killed me. What horrors would this one have in store?
Examining him further, I took in more details I’d missed on my first inspection. Lucentio’s skin was pale. Unnaturally pale. His eyes were so dark they didn’t appear to have irises. Most importantly, his chest didn’t rise and fall. My theory that he was from a ghost tour evaporated.
“Great.” I threw up my hands in disgust as I came to the only conclusion possible. “Another vampire. You should have brought all your vampire friends and we could have had a full moon, undead cemetery party.” My sarcasm was thick enough to walk on.
“I do not have friends,” Lucentio responded. Glancing at the empty clothing nearly covering the nasty smear on the ground, he pointed at them gracefully. “Who was this?”
“That was Silvius. My, uh, maker.” I winced as the intruder’s sharp gaze bored into me. Killing your maker probably wasn’t a good thing. I was betting it went against vampire etiquette. “I’m sure that if he was still alive, he’d be very pleased to meet you,” I finished lamely.
Switching his stare from me to the mark on the ground, the intruder hunkered down for a closer look. “I doubt that as we were already well acquainted. We were not what you could call close.” Studying the empty clothing intently, Lucentio asked the worst possible questions. “What happened to him? How did he die, exactly?” His gaze skittered away from the cross lying in the middle of the mess.
Walking over to the nearest stone coffin, I leaned back against it. “This is probably going to sound bad,” I said reluctantly. Touching the tarnished silver cross in the centre of the much larger iron one, I tried to pry it free but it was stuck fast.
Luc, as I’d automatically nicknamed him, glanced up and went absolutely still. After a few seconds, he rose slowly and took a step back. I didn’t know much about fighting but from the way he was balanced on the balls of his feet, he looked like he was readying himself to attack.
“Look, in my defence, I did just find out he was a vampire and that he’d made me into his servant,” I said a bit desperately. “What was I supposed to do? Become his unholy slave for all time?”
Rocking back on his heels, Luc pondered the question. “Yes,” was his eventual answer.
“For the love of G-G-G. Shit!” I wiped a hand over my face in exasperation at my inability to say the Lord’s name and gripped the cross tightly. It bent slightly and I eased up on the pressure. The metal must be worn from age to bend so easily. “Just because some decrepit old man took a bite out of me, I’m expected to serve as his slave for the rest of my unnatural life?”
My question was followed by another short pause. “Yes,” my strange visitor said again. He now seemed wary and on the verge of fleeing rather than attacking. I’d always had a particular way with men. Luc wouldn’t be the first man to flee from me and he definitely wouldn’t be the last. “Would you mind,” he ventured, “telling me the circumstances of how you were turned?”
Since the question was polite and I had nothing better to do anyway, I filled him in on my capture and subsequent re-birth. “And then I finally figured out he was a vampire,” I finished up.
“So you decided to kill him?” Luc asked.
“It was more of an impulse than an actual decision,” I explained. “He was laughing like a crazy man and before I knew it, I’d snapped off the cross and was throwing it at him.” Without really meaning to, I snapped off the second cross and held it in a throwing position, aimed at my unexpected visitor.
Luc cringed away, holding his hands over his heart protectively. “A further demonstration will not be necessary,” he said hurriedly.
“Oops. Sorry.” I very carefully put the cross down on the sarcophagus. Way to make an impression, Nat. My usual lack of charm was in full force once more.
Straightening, Luc warily eyed the snapped off cross. “Does that not hurt?”
I stared at him blankly. “Does what not hurt?”
“When you touch the holy object?” he indicated the cross with a nod.
“Nope. Should it?” I asked. It dawned on me then that Silvius had burst into flames when he’d touched the cross. Of course vampires couldn’t touch crosses without dying horribly. So how come I can touch them? Unfortunately, I was about to find out why.
“The prophecy has come true,” Luc whispered and his face filled with despair. I’d seen that expression on men before. Usually it was when they were trying to break up with me and I was having difficulty grasping the concept.
“Prophecy? What prophecy?”
“What is your name?” he asked me instead of answering my question.
“Nat.”
“Gnat? You are named after an insect?” His surprise was comical but laughter was the last thing I was capable of right at that moment.
“Nat-a-lie,” I enunciated carefully. “Natalie Pierce.”
“Well, Natalie,” Luc said grimly, “I regret to inform you that your birth might very well herald a dark age for vampirekind.”
“What? Why?” I heard the whine in my tone and tried to notch it back a little. “What could I possibly have to do with a dark age? I didn’t even believe in vampires until I woke up as one.”
“The ancient Prophet speaks of you, Natalie Pierce. You bear one of the signs of Mortis.” The words were spoken portentously with the weight of thousands of years of superstitious dread behind them.
I nodded thoughtfully as my feet automatically shifted towards the door. “Mortis, huh? I’m not familiar with that word.” Although it did ring a bell somewhere deep down. Maybe I‘d heard it in a movie or read it in a book. “What exactly does it mean?”
“It is Latin for death,” was his heavy answer.
All was still for several seconds then I was moving for the door. I do not need this right now. Meeting one crazy vampire in one lifetime is more than enough to deal with, thank you very much.
Luc caught me with a hand on my shoulder before the door was even halfway open. “No one can run from their destiny, Natalie. Not even a creature such as you.”
Clearly he was faster than me and that meant I wouldn’t be able to outrun him. Conceding defeat, I glumly trudged back to the dog blanket, trying to come to terms with the fact that I was now a creature. Taking a seat, I stared across the crypt at my new best friend as he moved back to his original position. Luc hunkered down into a crouch and stared back at me. He might be faster than me but I was apparently the legendary Mortis. We were at a stalemate.
“So,” I said with false brightness, “tell me about the prophecy. I’m dying to hear all about it.” Technically, I was already dead but I didn’t want to quibble.
Lacing his hands together, Luc grimaced at the dirty floor, leaned back against the sarcophagus and slid to the ground. I’d heard that sitting on cold concrete could give you piles. Could vampires even get haemorrhoids? Why was I grossing myself out like this?
“Over two thousand years ago, the Prophet had a vision that sent him into a coma for three months. When he woke, he spoke in a language that no one could understand.” Luc studied me broodingly in the dimness before continuing. “Occasionally he would revert to his native language and his servants would jot down his ramblings.”
When the silence dragged out for more than a few seconds, I circled a hand in the air for him to continue. “And?”
“It is said that Mortis will defy the natural order by being able to touch holy objects.” He gestured at the cross I was idly playing with. I couldn’t even remember picking the thing up again. I dropped it and it hit the floor with a metallic clang. “‘When she rises, the damned shall fall.’”
I still wasn’t sold on the idea that I could really be this Mortis creature. “Alright, so I can touch crosses,” I conceded. “Surely others have been able to do that.” I wondered briefly why I couldn’t say God out loud if I could still touch crosses. No doubt Luc would say it was part of the prophecy.
Luc shook his head grimly in the negative. “None of our kind has ever been able to touch holy objects and survive. We have the disturbing tendency of bursting into flames.”
“Yeah, I caught some of that action already. The flames were pretty,” I said absently. “They were bright blue, like a gas fire.”
My unwelcome and unwanted companion shuddered and clasped his hands more tightly together. “Not one of us has ever been able to survive the death of our maker at our hands. That was not spoken of in the prophecy but it is surely another sign.”
We both examined the remains that used to be Silvius. “So that’s it then?” I asked glumly. “I’m definitely Mortis, huh?” He nodded back just as glumly. “What does that mean, exactly? Who am I supposed to bring death to?”
For a long moment, Luc didn’t speak. His answer, when it came, was completely unsurprising. “Us.”
Of course it was. If any creature on earth could be considered damned, it would have to be vampires.
·~·