I woke thinking I had finally found the peace and meaning of my existence. I now had love, something that had alluded me for over five hundred years. If I were to die today, I couldn’t have been happier in these few weeks with Zoey.
Today I will look for a home where we can live together in peace. I have made up my mind that when she dies, I will submit myself to my father and ask for death, too. But now I have to protect her from an untimely death because there is so much I need to show her. I want to show her the world and give her a life that was taken from her at an early age.
Although it was unusually quiet, I didn’t question anything. Zoey had been through a lot with me and if she needed to sleep when I wanted to make love to her, I decided to let her rest. There will be time for that. I dressed and drifted down the stairs only to see someone climbing the outside stairs to ring the doorbell.
It was Robert, and I readily opened the door. He stepped in with pain in his eyes that were etched in a stone face. He had no expression on his face but his eyes spoke volumes and I knew something had happened to Ann. At that moment I felt a sense of relief that it hadn’t been Zoey.
“What is it, Robert?”
“Ann said she and Zoey were going to Seattle to shop.” My hands clenched into a fist. Hadn’t I warned her against going out without my permission and protection?
“What?” I turned and hit a marble table and shattered it. I saw Robert’s expression as if he wanted to turn and flee. “Don’t go. Tell me what happened. I promise you I’ll get this under control,” I said my voice unsteady.
Robert knew once anyone made a vampire angry, a vampire was able to do all kinds of unspeakable damage. Therefore, I had to calm him. “Tell me what you know.”
“Ann was on television saying that werewolves kidnapped her friend. Of course the humans thought she was out of her mind and sent her to a hospital. Everyone thought so until Detective Cole interrogated her. He said he knew the case and he knew the woman. He called Zoey’s name.”
“Yes. Ryan Cole. I know his name. He flew to England to bring Zoey back and he has had and unnatural interest in the case ever since,” I said to Robert blowing out a hard breath and clenching my teeth.
“I know Ryan Cole also. He knows things about our world that everyone wants to deny. That we exist. That werewolves and vampires exist. He wrote his thesis on the existence of paranormal occurrences. He has been shouting about it to everyone who will listen. He devotes a podcast to the existence of werewolves, and vampires.”
“No one will believe him.”
“He has over ten million listeners.”
I looked at him. “Are you serious?” He didn’t have to answer because by the look on his face he was dead serious.
Detective Ryan Cole was the one who found your Land Rover and traced the registration back to you, Sebastian. The FBI wants to talk to you. Cole mentioned that he knew where you were and was getting a warrant for your arrest. They think you had something to do with Zoey’s kidnapping.”
Robert paced back and forth and stopped, then turned to me, “You can’t go in there. They will keep you all night and day and then they will discover what you are.” I placed my hand on his shoulder.
“I have no intention of going to see them. And as far as Detective Cole, I will deal with him later. He has only suspicions. He knows nothing about this world we travel in.” I tried to make Robert feel relaxed but I don’t think he believed me.
“But they will think that you are involved in the kidnapping and will hunt you down.”
“Let them,” I said. “I have to find Zoey and you need to have Ann released before they give her drugs to make her tell them what happened to Zoey.”
Robert looked over to me and said, “I need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“You’re a doctor. Have her released to you and send her home.”
“I can do that. What else do you need?” He glanced down on the ground.
“We need to get away from this town, but we don’t have the right kind of money.” He appeared ashamed that he wasn’t able to make a new life for him and Ann. I understood. I had been ashamed of my existence as this unholy creature, but I could now make amends for that by doing something for a friend.
“Whatever you need to get you away from here, I’ll do it. I’m looking for a place to take Zoey.” And then I said to Robert. “I know who has her, but my father and mother will not harm her. They want me to change her so the family can be complete. I took her from them and now they finally have her back and I know who’s behind Zoey’s abduction.”
“Who was it?”
“My brother and that witch Samantha.” When I glanced at the glass door, Samantha and Aare were standing in front of my door. It surprised me and Robert. The last thing I thought would be those two making an alliance.
Robert stepped back. He wasn’t afraid because I was there, but he knew his limitations with a witch and a vampire, and he didn’t want that fight unless it became absolutely necessary.
I glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, “I got this,” I said as I opened the door. Samantha stood looking youthful, but she and I knew that her young look was due to the years of serum she made from young women and their fetuses. She would find a two month pregnant female and snatch the unborn from the wound, and then make her serum in her lab.
She was once a respected doctor until she decided that she wanted to follow me into the world of mortality. Over the years she became proficient at making potions to stay young and beautiful.
“Come in Samantha. You look as beautiful as ever,” I said. She liked the fawning over her beauty. She took one step into the foyer. But she wouldn’t go any further. I left my brother standing at the open door.
“Where is that child?” she asked me with a jealous mix in her harsh tone.
“She’s where you can’t touch her.”
“There’s nowhere I can’t touch her,” she said. “You are the only one standing in my way and that won’t be for long.”
“Then come all the way in,” I said backing up and holding my hand out to her. She knew better. I could lock her in this house and she would never get out. And she knew there was a werewolf standing nearby. It wasn’t Robert she was afraid of, but he was afraid of her and she knew it. Even if she won the fight with Robert, she wouldn’t be beautiful after it was over. She would probably avoid that at any cost.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in, brother,” Aare questioned.
“Only to kill you.”
“Very well. I came with Samantha to bring you a message. Father needs to see you tonight.”
“I can’t come tonight. I have something to take care of. Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”
“You know how he doesn’t like to wait,” Aare said his voice deep his tone commanding.
“He has waited this long to see me, then he will have to wait longer.”
“Father said for me to bring you.”
“What about mother?”
“She doesn’t make any demands on father anymore.” I didn’t know how to interpret his words. He appeared to take delight in that about mother, and he sound somewhat gleeful.
“I can bring myself. No need to wait for me. Now please leave before it gets more complicated than I want it to be.”
“Do you think that dog of yours,” he gestured to Robert, “will keep you from the inevitable. Dying at my hands.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about. You could never anticipate what I would do next. You haven’t lived long enough,” I said to him hoping he didn’t know the truth.
“I may have a few tricks you haven’t seen,” Aare said with an agitated smile. His lips quaking from anger.
“Enough of your talk and of Samantha. I don’t want to waste any more time than I have to,” I said.
When I turned to Samantha she and Robert were eyeing each other and they appeared to be at a dead heat. Both knew that the wrong move would end this soon for all. But nether wanted to see this end just yet.
Robert no doubt wanted a life with Ann, and Samantha couldn’t feel vindicated unless Zoey was dead, and I had to be dead as well in order not to prevent that from happening. She wanted the best revenge she could assemble.
Samantha turned with a whirl of her cape and marched to the door. When she stepped out she disappeared and all I saw was a beautiful bird swirling through the trees. She had learned through her five hundred years to conjure up spells of illusions. She could be a beautiful bird or a creature of the forest, or come to me as a beautiful seductive woman.
She had done that many times until it didn’t work any longer on me. When they left I turned to Robert, “I’ll get Ann. Prepare to leave and never come back here. Go somewhere where you think my brother and Samantha can’t find you. Stay in the forest if you have to, but get away and stay away.”
I made arrangement to transfer money into his account and left to bring Ann back to him safely.
Arriving at the hospital proved easy. This time I traveled alone and I traveled at the speed of light. I managed to get Ann out of the hospital in an hour. They were eager for me to take her. It appeared she had been insistent that Zoey had been kidnapped by a pack of werewolves. I took Ann by the hand and looked at her, and she knew to stay quiet until we got out of the hospital.
Pulling Ann to the side as we stepped outside the hospital, I notice Ryan Cole entering the hospital. I knew he was headed to the nineteenth floor to see Ann. I watched as he entered the elevator. Before he entered, he looked around as if he thought he was being followed. A suspicious and careful man, I thought. Someone to watch.
I handed Ann some money and instructions. “I’ve charted a plane for you to Vancouver. Robert will meet you there.”
“What about Zoey?” Ann said somewhat sad.
“I’m going to get her now.”
“Where will you two go?” She asked. I glanced at her. I knew, but I couldn’t tell her just because Samantha might find her one day and make her tell.
“Will you be alright?” I asked her. She looked up at me and shook her head yes. And I left walking down the street. I turned to see her climb into a cab. I didn’t have time for goodbyes. I had to make it to my father’s castle.
When I reached Sorrento, Italy, I rented a car because I would have to figure out how to get Zoey out or that place. I drove up to my father’s estate. It was two hours from daylight. I knew no one would harm Zoey because of my mother.
She saw Zoey as her baby and felt contempt for me when I took her away. She forbid anyone to change her until she reached eighteen, but after I disappeared with Zoey, I became an outsider to my mother. She sent word that I would no longer be welcomed. I was no longer her son, and I would be like all the other vampires serving the Vespers who hadn’t been turned by them.
I would have to carry my first name because I couldn’t say I was a Vesper. Vespers were a noble name and revered throughout the world of vampires. Now I’m Sebastian a vampire whose family disowned him and is trying to kill him.
Driving up the cobblestone road to the castle, I watched around at the guards. Times had changed, but it would come late to my family. The castle overlooked the Mediterranean. It looked barbaric with its design of towers extending upward many floors into the clouds. I knew what went on behind those doors and inside.
Humans, men and women and young children were kept for the newly changed vampires to feed on. Cannibalism served to keep the humans alive. Too many humans had been caught to feed them, and like garbage, they were scattered around after being drained of their blood, waiting for the hungry to consume them. The children were the first to be eaten because they were tender. Then the women who were pregnant.
It occurred to me that this was one reason Samantha made an alliance with Aare.
The barbaric things that occurred behind those walls were all too present in my mind. I had nightmares of the killings and the draining of blood to bottle it for times of vampire famine. The feeding on young virgins and then turning them into slaves.
Vampires weren’t supposed to have dreams after they transferred into the other life, but I had constant nightmares of this happening to Zoey after I set her free.
I trudged up the concrete walk passed the garden and up numerous steps to the double iron doors. My hand cautiously picked up the knocker, and the sound it made, earsplitting as it came into contact with the door.
Two zombie like men, dressed in long robes with hoods opened the door. Their faces pale, their eyes black with dark circles underneath. They were the ones who couldn’t wait to be changed. But for some reason, this became a slow death for them. “What do you want here?”
“I’m Sabastian.”
“The master isn’t expecting anyone by the name of Sabastian.”
“I’m his son.”
“He has no son by the name of Sabastian there is only Aare.”
“What happened to the others?”
“They no longer reside behind these walls. It’s only for the heirs.”
“Where is my mother?”
“Who is your mother?”
“Elizabeth Vesper,” I said to him. Exasperated at this point with all the questions and answers.
“She’s no longer here.”
“I demand to see my father. Tell him Sabastian Vesper is here.” He turned, and as the other walking human zombie stood guard watching me, I could have overpowered him with one hand and drained him completely of all the few ounces of blood left in his body.
I was hungry, but not for human blood. I had become accustomed to animal blood and developed a healthy taste for vegetarian hoofed animals, like deer and cows. There was no way I would go back to that medieval diet we vampires had cultivated because of our own inhuman choices.
It was a choice made long ago and I stepped away from that when I fell in love with Zoey. It was because of her that I will meet my father. It’s because of her that I will beg for her life and give mine, such as it is, to whatever punishment he desires.
When I saw the zombie walking down the long corridor, I felt weak. In my rush to find Zoey, I forgot I needed to feed. The animal blood wasn’t as nourishing as human blood and because of that I had to feed often.
Not knowing whether the forest had any animals and unable to hunt because I wouldn’t have the time, and the day was breaking, and I had to sleep, I suspected that the zombies would care for all the vampires here, but not me.
I would have to find a safe place to rest until daylight. Then I remembered a hiding place I had kept secret from everyone. It was where I hid Zoey when I planned our escape. It was near my mother and father’s chambers. It was a wall no one knew existed but me. There I would rest away from those who would try to kill me. And that was perhaps everyone in this castle.
Walking behind the young zombie, I passed humans waiting to become vampires. They stood in a line waiting to get into the large room. More like a reception room for visitors, where my father held court to dignitaries and kings who readily traded their mere lives for immortality.
Some did it for the riches they could amass, the others had more carnal desires where they could spend their lives with different women over the ages.
My only desire was to spend my life with only one woman, Zoey.
After meeting with my father and he determining who would receive the ultimate wish, the vampires would feed on them, and finally they would pass into the world of the undead.
The humans who had been caught and brought here against their will, accepted their fate gladly. The other humans who couldn’t accept it, asked for a quick death, and every vampire behind these walls were more than willing to give them what they wanted.
We had to travel down a long passageway. We trod up the stairs and down stairs and then more corridors and doors. The zombies never looked behind them because they knew there wasn’t a way to escape.
But what they didn’t realize, I had been here over five hundred years, behind these walls. And I knew every corner and opening of this dark medieval monstrosity of a castle.
When I saw my chance, I disappeared down a dim lit corridor which led to my mother’s chambers. As I passed each door, leading downward, I couldn’t help but wonder about the statement from the zombie. I ducked into the catacomb and hurried down to where my mother slept. She was early to her bed and early to rise.
I had never noticed the smell before—dirt and rotting flesh filled my nose and lungs. Perhaps the blood of animals, I had been consuming, made me more sensitive to decay.
Walking to where she lay, there were two vaults, she had a glass cover over her crypt, and I was eager to see her face. But when I approached her vault, and leaned to look at her beautiful youthful face of eighteen, she lay there with her hands crossed resting, with a wooden stake plunged into her heart. I stood riveted to that spot unable to breath.
The only one who could influence my father and she is gone with all her lost beauty. I blew out a sad breath. However, I couldn’t bring myself to cry because of all the pain my mother had caused with her selfish desire to have children.
Someone had killed my mother and no one knew about her except maybe my father and Aare. “Why would father kill mother? He was in love with her,” I murmured. Then I remembered that I had to find Zoey, but first I had to sleep, and ultimately search for food. I didn’t know what would lie in wait for me once I woke.
Now I feared for Zoey’s life. I couldn’t do anything without rest. I found my hiding place between the walls where my mother took her last breath. I lay back, and closed my eyes. My dreams of Zoey made for a restless sleep.
I woke to the setting of the sun, I pushed open the wall and stepped out. My pace feeble, my legs trembled as I took each step, and I knew why it had been that way. With failing strength, I pushed the wall back to where it faded into the scenery.
Walking over to my mother’s resting place, I leaned over to kiss the cover and bid her soul peace. When I strode to where my father lay, it was then I heard a strong voice.