Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter 24

Victor's Lament

"I had been in this new world for over a century and seen many things. Vampires were a new species I was just learning about. When I learned of their weaknesses I thought it would grant me a sense of security in case they turned out to be the opposite of what they claimed. But learning there are different classes of vampires... of what the elders can do... was a brand new territory of fear and I wanted more answers; I needed more answers. Victor provided just that with what he knew from their world."

Victor: I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Celeste: Again with the lies. (She says as she turns around from Victor) And you're terrible at it.

Victor: I understand that things you have been dealing with are a bit much but you can't lose focus of what is in front of you, the vamp... (cutting off)

Celeste: And yet you haven’t denied it (saying as she turns around quickly and throws several daggers, knives, and throwing stars with almost inhuman speed.)

Victor catches and dodges every sharp object with even faster speed before he stops and catches the last dagger.

Victor: Now that was a little dramatic was it not?

Celeste stares boldly at Victor.

Celeste: You missed one... (Saying as she points at the side of his stomach which show a large cut to his clothing but no blood and barely a scratch)

Victor looks then grows a small smirk across his face.

Victor: You are a clever woman indeed. I have to ask... how?

Celeste: How did I figure it out? Or how did I trick you into showing me?

Victor: Both... humor me.

Celeste: A illusion spell... most of the daggers and knives were fake and only meant to make you think there were dozens but in fact there were only about four.

Victor: And?

Celeste: I didn't think anything of it other than you were possibly some new form of a creature I had not come into contact with like the vampires... but an interesting conversation with a friend brought to light some details about what vampires can do. Like their speed, healing or how some can fly and even day walk like the elders of all the clans.

Victor: I see.

Celeste Tell me what you are... I need to hear you say it.

Victor: My name is Buadhach. It is Gaelic for Victor. You see my original back ground I told of you was not a lie. I was born in what's now Ireland... but over 1100 years ago.

Victor: The year was 256 A.D., and it seemed like Rome was at constant war, and with each war came not only the slaughter of soldiers but innocent people as well, which of course then gave way to more slavery. I was born into slavery; at least it was what I was lead to believe most of my life. You see when you become a vampire or more so when you ascend, you see your past flash in front of your eyes… like it’s happening all over.

Celeste: Ascend? What do you mean?

Victor: Will get to that later. But yes, as I was saying I was born into slavery. At a young age I was forced to do everything for a roman family that took me in. Clean, feed them hold their cup, even wipe their asses on occasion. When my former owners wife bore children she became fascinated by my singing voice, which she heard one evening while I bathing with other slaves. As the children grew, I grew as well and my duties evolved with age. Not only did she have me singing to her children to calm them for rest but I soon was put into courting the entire family around, on foot mostly. I remember the children were more humble than their parents. They would play, sing, dance, and enjoy all the pleasures of childhood. I was forced to into a sense of blind devotion to them. Demeaning but it did give me a sense of purpose… a mask over what I actually was, but in time I grew to love them like they were my own siblings, but was countlessly reminded of my place. One night, long after the dark settled we found ourselves wandering home and were met by a pack of wolves. But they weren’t normal wolves… there was something different about them. Some stood up straight on their hind legs, walking like men; while others were on all fours as if they were dogs.

Celeste: Lycans...

Victor: No something more beastly…monstrous… completely void of humanity… the first cousin of the lycans…

Celeste: Wendigos.

(Victor nods yes)

Victor: They slaughtered them…relentlessly. They started with the parents then made their way to the children and slaves such as myself. Most ran and were slaughtered; I fought with my life for their lives. I manage to fend off their attack against the kids… but I was small and frail… not strong enough. My effort was noble but pointless; I was fatally wounded and their attention turned to the kid. They killed and ate each of them. They were going to finish me off until he arrived. He fought each of them until they ran off in fear. He then turned his attention to me… came to me and had me drink from his wrist as I lay near death. I awoke the next day in a unfamiliar house by the sea… alive but sick. I couldn’t eat nor sleep and that’s when he came from the shadows of the day.

Young Victor: Who are you?

Elder Vampire: I am many things and have been in my life time but since my passing to the public…then and even now I prefer Alexander. I was once known as a great man my human life until my untimely death, only to rise to what I am.

Young Victor: And what are you?

Alexander: Your new beginning. You see I draw near a great moment in my life and it’s come to my attention I have never taken on a child of my own; a progeny. One to teach everything I know and to become all that I am. I watched you from a distance fighting off those beasts. You fought with strength…pride…passion and extraordinary skill. It was weakness at its finest but artistic; and there is beauty in art.

Celeste: Wait… Alexander the great? I heard about him. They said he almost conquered the world, that’s until he died that is. He was you maker?

Victor: Yes, and he was an amazing vampire as he was human; may I continue please?

Celeste: Sorry. So you were saying he turned you?

Victor: Not at first. You see Alexander was not yet an elder but he was close. I was tainted from the venom of the wendigo. So he wasn’t able to turn me at the time. His blood saved me from dying, but the venom from the wounds still coursed through my blood like an infection.

Celeste: I don’t understand, why not?

Victor: The venom of a wendigo…or lycan pours from their claws and teeth. So a bite or even a scratch from either can be poisonous to vampires. To humans…well…you know what happens if humans survive. Well, with vampires it doesn’t kill them but it can weaken them greatly making them more susceptible to being killed. Their strength and speed is diminished as well as other senses. Depending on the vampires durability from its age it could render them weak for months, weeks or even years which of course can then lead to desiccation or even death if they aren’t careful. And so… Alexander bled me out. Cut my wrist open, bleed me out, and then heal me. Over and over for three days. From the outside in it would be considered torture; hurt each time. But he gave me food and water in between. So I guess you can call that some sort of love or pity…I never knew…still don’t. When it came time to turn me... it was overwhelming. I was overcome with fear but a hint of excitement as well. He drained me to the point of death. Most think such a feeling is absentminded or scary…it’s actually both but at the same time a kind of numbing sensation comes with it. You feel each limb go cold and you grow in shortness of breath. I felt every moment of this, time slowed down and it felt like hours before he had me drink from him.

Celeste: So then what happened?

Victor: I slept. For an entire day and into the night. The change varies on person. Some it’s instant, they feel every second of the change. I have heard from some that their body was dying. Others, like myself, it felt as if I fainted instantly and fell into a deep sleep. But regardless of the sensation one feels during the change, when you awake you feel only one thing… the hunger. Yes…there’s this faint headache, your mouth goes dry and you feel a shed of weakness as if you haven’t eaten or drank in days. Then once you get your first taste of blood… it is as if your entire world opens up. Your strength is intensified by ten, your hearing can hear the smallest water drop from miles away, and you can feel the air touch you with great sensation as if you were naked and running through a field of flowers. You can taste every smell, can see very star in the sky and past that in such colors you would not have believed possible… powerful….all you feel… power. I am sure you understand.

Celeste: No… actually I don’t. Never actually drank human blood before… just vampire.

Victor: And?

Celeste: Was like my senses and strength grew many times over… But I didn’t feel anything you just described.

Victor: I see… Well the first feed he gave me was one of his servants, a young slave boy. The second, was a little different, he took me hunting; said it was essential that a vampire knew how to do so. He explained how as vampires you seek in those that mirror what you were and could have been… as if it was some way for a creature of the night to hold on to some part of their humanity… maybe even their own sanity.

Celeste: What was your first kill? Your real one?

Victor: Alexander had a knack for young men so he took me to a pub. It was no regular pub, however, you see the men would join in the center and fight bareknuckle to knuckle, inside and outside said ring. Whores, both female and male, would take the stage and dance or court men up to their rooms or just some place nearby for a fuck and men would pay for it. I swear it was the only place I came across where the rich and poor converged. The fighting…oh Alexander loved the fights. Some had tendency to end in death and he was turned on by it a great deal. We watched and we learned from the humans as the frolicked and played for entertainment. When things began to settle, and the locals began to disperse to their daily lives we followed two men to their carriage. I couldn’t find my first kill so Alexander did it for me; a father and son, out for a little bonding it seemed. Alexander took the boy who was no older than fifteen, and left me the father who was almost twice my size, but I had ten times his own strength. He put up a fight where the boy was unable. We drained both and left their bodies for dead… sold their horses for coin. For years that’s how it was. He would find them and we would kill them together. Or I would point out his ideals and he would approve or not.

Celeste: Sounds like you traded one slave life for another.

Victor: You can say that, yes. But as my maker the leash wasn’t as short as it seemed. We were connected, this is true. He could sense me and I him. It was amazing.

Celeste: You were in love with him.

Victor: Very much. But, I was his child, his lover, his brother and friend…devoted and he to me. There is a bond between progeny and maker that no one can break…which is why it broke my heart to see him fall.

Celeste: Fall?

Victor: For over sixty years I followed him, learned from him and loved him, and then he ascended.

Celeste: You mentioned that before, care to explain now?

Victor: Vampire ascend twice in their life time if they are lucky. The first time is within the first couple hundred years, it ranges on age but they learn to fly. It helps increase their survival capabilities. They become keen faster and more agile hunters. Able to travel up to miles a night covering vast amounts of distances, which can make them hard to track as well. The second is a holy grail few vampires even make it to… day walking where we no longer are slaves to the night sky.

Celeste: Why so few?

Victor: The laws…rules… fact we are subdued by the night…the guilt… discretion from humans; it all brings a kind of loneliness. Some can’t take it so they end it. It’s how vampires keep their numbers so. You have o find ways to cope with your own immortality like I did. Singing, art, music…the occasional battle; all coping strategies. But when you’re an elder… the world’s your oyster. You get a little bit of that piece of human life you lost for over hundreds of years. So on the anniversary of his making my maker, Alexander the Great, ascended. I saw it with my own eyes. The sky was as if was falling with fury, the wind blew with the strength of a thousand storms, and the earth shook. I thought nothing of it until I saw him coming in from a daylight flight just before sunset. After that he uh…changed. He started going out more at daytime rather than night; leaving me alone to hunt mostly. When he did hunt with me it wouldn’t be for days after he did himself, then he would sleep. Until one day I woke up from a day of rest and he was just gone. I waited… I searched… weeks, months, years…decades; and nothing. My maker had left me with the hardest teaching I had to endure, that vampires can only look out for themselves; alone. I was either to survive or die or die trying to survive.

Celeste: Well you clearly survived cause’ you’re standing here.

Victor: Well yes, I am. But it wasn’t without hardship. You see before he vanished I always knew even if he left he would return, but this time was different. When I realized he wasn’t coming back I found a least likely coping strategy.

Celeste: And what was that?

Victor: The same thing anyone does when they are feeling lost, abandoned or alone… sex… alcohol… opium… and blood in vampire case. It helped at first but the thing about it is you lose yourself to the addiction, and in my down and lowest time I became something I didn’t recognize… a monster. I slaughtered people by the dozen…women …men…children…when I wanted more I got it however I could. Compulsion…manipulation…guilt…sorrow. No one was above my hunger, which for a vampire is insatiable. I’m not proud of what I did… the covens weren’t either.

Celeste: The Laws?

Victor: (Nodding yes) that and more. It was one thing to kill indiscriminately as a vampire we thrive on it. But to do it without control and carelessly brings unwanted attention to our kind. A law all must follow.

Celeste: Discretion.

Victor: First Law. Mortals can never know about us…a law I was continuously breaking in massacres and I crossed the line when I slaughtered an entire family.

Celeste: (With a disgusted look on her face) you slaughtered a family?

Victor: A man…his wife…two daughters…a..a…baby (saying as he chokes up slightly) They uh… apparently were under protection from the local coven. The husband was a chief minor. Had hundreds of slave workers digging for any and everything of value. Seems like nothing but he was known for finding rare diamonds…gold… you name it. He was wealthy and for vampires to maintain their own wealth and power they need to maintain such protection for particular humans in return.

Celeste: The vampires…they took part in his business?

Victor: Not part of it… most of it in exchange for protection against all bad elements that can do them harm. Sickness, crime…you name it…everything. You’d be surprised what a man will do when his family is on the line of a disease that could kill them all one by one or a crime lord who wants nothing more than a cut of what they are capable of….a long and healthy life, safe…that’s what vampires offer.

Celeste: So you killed them?

Victor: Yes. In a kind of blood lust. I lost all control of myself. Couldn’t handle the pain in my heart…my mind… the isolation…the loneliness.

Celeste: Bullshit. You had others like you. Limited human interaction but still interaction. You chose to kill them! (Saying angrily)

Victor: Perhaps you are right. We all choose what we become by living and embracing what or who we are; but as I said…I lost myself to the hunger and every instinct, every sense I had. It was this that allowed the local covens the motivation to track me down and end me. Was only a matter of time until they found me, and they did.

Celeste: But they didn’t?

Victor: Oh no they did. I just proved too much of a difficult capture for them. They would get close… I’d sleep. They would get closer, I would sleep. For days, months, years at a time; I would just sleep. It seemed I cared not of living or anything else but I still fought to survive, and so I did, for over fifty years.

Celeste: You evaded capture for over five decades? They must have been shit trackers looking for you.

Victor: Quite the opposite actually because…

Celeste: They had wendigos and lycans on their side.

Victor: Slaves, yes as I have mentioned. They got closer and closer each time until one time they got me. It wasn’t easy…but they did. Baited me like a lost rabbit seeking food with a family gathering of vampires, or vampire posing as a family I should say. They chased me with their wolves. Hunted me to a dead end. I would have perished right there that full moon night, diminished strength, weakened from not feeding and the chase. I saw no other means but to fall to the jagged rocks below me. It alone would knock me unconscious for hours the sun needed to rise on the horizon. I would have welcomed death at that moment but as I jumped and fell with speed it was as if time slowed down all around. The wind rushed my body fast like passing cloud and then a blow like a gentle feather.

Celeste: You flew?

Victor: Like a bat in the night. You can imagine when I saw you do something similar the other night how it brought these memories back.

Celeste: But I was informed that vampires take hundreds of years to fly…two or three at the least.

Victor: Yes if they survived that long.

Celeste: But you were barely two hundred…

Victor: Oh I am sure it was a shock to them as well, which is why they tried many other measures later. You see once I began to fly I became even harder to track and catch. I must say, the thrill curved the hunger while at the same time making it stronger.

Celeste: So you became even more predatorily monstrous you’re saying…

Victor: Like a lion living for the hunt. Until one day just randomly, Alexander just returned. He was still beautiful as I remembered but this time with a sun like glow it seemed. He sensed I needed his help and apologized for leaving me. I wanted to crush him beneath me, I hated him so much for his abandonment but loved him still… as I did always. SO much I gave into him again when he promised to take care of me. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…shame on me.

Celeste: Take it his return was bullshit…

Victor: He did help me. Made me the obedient vampire he first made all over again. It was almost instant, he commanded, I obeyed. Anyway, morning came and went into evening…he was still there. Every night, he taught me how to fly, take off, land…he helped me get control of my hunger. For months we were like ourselves again. I was happy. So happy I had lost sight of the fact the covens had stopped hunting me. My guard was completely down so I didn’t see it coming when I found myself poisoned with wolf venom after a hunt.

Celeste: So he poisoned you?

Victor: A plague was ravishing a town. He knew if I knew this I would not be able to resist the feed of the blood of innocent families…dying by an unseen force of nature. I looked at such things for them as a merciful killing. I walked into a house, found a little girl among her lifeless parents, she was sick herself…had maybe days to live, I could smell it on her. I bit into her, and as I felt her life drain in my hands that’s when the feeling hit me. The sting in my lungs as if I swallowed fire. My throat closed up and my skin felt as if it were boiling. It brought me to horror when I looked up and all around me to discover the local sheriff of the coven with his men made up of other coven leaders locally, informing me that I was to stand trial for breaking the vampyric laws.

Celeste: They found your maker and forced him to bring you in…

Victor: Was much worse than that.

Young Victor sits in a rock walled cell with dirt lining the floor, waking up, weak from his ingestion of the wolf venom to find Alexander standing out his cell talking to him.

Alexander: Try not to exert yourself too much. The more you do the weaker you become.

Young Victor: Alexander? Wh…What’s happening?

Alexander: Oh, I think you know.

Young Victor: Listen, I didn’t do whatever this is.

Alexander: Really? So you didn’t slaughter livestock, slaves, families and workers under the protection covens or feed in on view of the public?

Young Victor: Feed? I didn’t…

Alexander: Do no hurt your case by lying to me. I’m your make. I’ve always known where you are, how to find you, what you are doing…ALWAYS!

Young Victor: The covens…they asked you to bring me in?

Alexander: Asked me? Dear boy, I volunteered. You’ve almost cost me everything. Do you know what happens to a maker who doesn’t keep their progeny under control and restraint? The same fate as their progeny and I will certainly not be put in your position this time nor any other in the future.

Young Victor: If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in this position!

Alexander: Me? You think I did this to you?

Young Victor: You left me all alone! Abandoned me like I was a runt to a litter you could just throw away so you can go and play nice with all the other kids!

Alexander: I left to make you stronger! (Saying as he grabs Victor by the throat) I left you to fulfill a legacy and you failed me! Threw it all away because of petty inner human weakness for need and wanting! (Letting him go and calming down) There is strength in our isolation…power…and you squandered it away for shit. (Saying as he leaves Victor’s cell area)

Celeste: He turned you in on purpose?!

Victor: Said I squandered his gift on petty passions and emotions that only humans required such as love.

Celeste: So what then? I mean it’s not bad to feel those things…he left you alone… I just don’t.., why turn you in?

Victor: Because I lacked…yearned and was refused the one thing I had lost but never known…nor could have in my immortality…a family.

Celeste: …. (showing interesting look toward Victor’s compassion)

Victor: You see when a vampire turns…everything’s heightened. Not just in the body but the mind and spirit as well and emotions become unquenchable. The covens and my maker had come to the believe the reasons of me killing families was to cope with my need of love and want of my own family for one of my own; which was impossible; and they were right. I never knew my first family and my second was taken from me. I never mourned them and grief of losing them was….eternal.

Celeste: I see… so how did you get free of their grasp? I mean you must’ve escaped?

Victor: Not at first. They kept me in their dungeon cells to rot for almost a year. Starving. I would watch my skin begin to desiccate and then recover. I would cough and spit up blood from my lungs that acted as acid when it hit the surface. Soon the very fangs of my mouth began to loosen.

Celeste: They left you to lay in wait of a slow death?

Victor: Yes. But I was too stubborn to die…yet alone fully desiccate. Even attempted to bleed myself out to get better from the venom or die trying, but it didn’t work. Without blood I couldn’t get better fully and even as I started to slowly desiccate….the venoms pain wouldn’t let me. I prayed for death. So much that one morning before the sun raised I got it. The elders had made a decision to finally end my immortality. They sent two familiars to retrieve me, thinking they could handle it in my weakened state, and I was too weak. As they dragged me through the halls I remember thinking this was it… my prayer answered by the gods. I had grown to accept it in my time stuck in prison; but fate it seems had other plans. As we ascended the stairs to the council’s chambers, one of the humans dragging me lost his footing and stumbled up the steps. In that moment it was as if time stopped in pure motion, and I was over thrown with the urge to survive my execution. I pushed the one holding me off my hands, and spit my acid like blood into the others face blinding him, as the other one stepped to restrain me…so I bit into him with all the strength I had so hard that even fangless I drew blood… enough to heal a few wounds. So I drained more and more from his neck, until he was no more and attacked the blinded one. The screaming alerted more guards and soon the coven leaders nearby were chasing me through the halls. I had never been there and had no way how to get out. Still weak, poisoned and loosing strength the more I fought, I ran and closer and closer they all got. Until I could run no more. They had chased me outside the tower where the elders could see everything as the dawn began to loom in the back of me. Seeing death was emanate regardless of what I did at this moment I once again leaped out the window…I could not fly… and such a fall would incapacitate me long enough for the sun roast the flesh from my bones. But death did not come for me that day…instead I was washed ashore…barely alive and woke up days later in an unfamiliar bed and unfamiliar land. Somewhere in the Norse lands.

Celeste: Norse lands? How the hell did you end up there?

Victor: Somehow; until this very day I still do not know, but it was the nice peasant family who found me and took me in one night. Half dead and nursed my wounds. The wife said I was really sick and was coughing up blood when her family found me. Not knowing what I was she had offered food and water for me. Still weak and being what I am I refused and begged they let me go, which she would not have. She had two children, a boy, a girl and a husband who had gone off to war. They had nothing but a small flock of land and small livestock…and still took me in, they were kind to me. Months went by and soon my strength began to return and I was able to feed; though the woman and children were tempting at first.. I had come to care for them as they me. The woman would show me how to fight as her husband and father taught her as part of her lessons to the children. She was marvelous with a sword and shield, where us three were barely novices, but got better on a daily. We farmed during the day, practiced medicine, played games, fished and hunted for meat together. It was with them I realized I didn’t need human blood to survive…just blood. I learned how to control my hunger like flexing a muscle.

Celeste: How? That makes no sense…

Victor: Was simple…they knew what I was and accepted me for it…

Celeste: How? I think you may have skipped that…

Victor: The wife drew suspicion when the blood of animals I was returning with at night was without… also…I would only play with the children when the son was in its sun setting time…and farm only just before the sun fully raised into the clouds. She knew if I were going to kill them I would have done so months prior… Maybe she also thought I could protect them from passersby when they arrived. She was fully capable of fighting and protecting herself but somehow knew there would be a time she would need a hand when her husband wasn’t around. There were plenty of encounters too but when I think back on it… I think that it was just we needed each other… we were both lonely I guess.

Celeste: So while the husband was at war you moved in on his wife?

Victor: Yes…I mean yes he was at war…but I did not move in on his wife as you state. I did not want to break up their happy home at all. I guess part of me was hoping I could just be a part of it. But the husband did come back from war eventually and was not too keen on my presence there. He did not like me at all, even though his wife had made reason of my attendance at their home was to simply help maintain their land in exchange for food and work, he was still weary of me. One night after the two had made passionate love, I found myself hunting in the night to control my own…urges.

Celeste: You’re not talking about hunger are you?

Victor: Sex is also a thirst any living being must part take in…not just vampires…it is within out nature. Feeding…can subside for time being but I must be fed as well. So after my hunt I came home to find the husband drinking outside at night by a warm fire, alone. Wondering what I was doing coming out the woods like some sort night terror I showed him by dropping a two hundred pound wild boar I had just hunted and drained of blood. He admired my strength even though I was so skinny and puny as he put. After that we drank drink for drink and I do believe that was why what won him over…my tolerance for alcohol. Every night for a week after that we would drink at local taverns where he would make wages on me to drink and make tons of money, he believed me to be good fortune. I also noticed that when drinking… the craving for blood is numbed quite a bit for I would go days without actually drinking blood, and when I did…it wasn’t to get full.

Celeste: He had no idea what you were either?

Victor: Not at all. I was actually the wife and children who decided to keep it from him…even after I got closer to both of them.

Celeste: You slept with her?

Victor: Not just her…

Celeste: Oh… ooh! Ok….

Victor: I told you sex is significant to all things…. even vampires. So one night after a few drinks among adults and the kids were in bed….

Celeste: Getting distracted…. So you got closer to the family.

Victor: (chuckles) yes, and it was them I eventually started to feel more human and myself than ever felt with Alexander. I became Uncle Victor to the kids and special friend to the husband and wife on that little farm…for years… we were happy and I came to see them as my family. I had finally gotten what I was denied in my life. But not all things came to be well off as time there turned…one night before dinner I sat with them as always, with food and drink. I had already fed and would just eat for show to the husband and that’s when they came.

Celeste: Who?

Victor: A crowd…a mob with torches and many man made weapons. Somehow what I am had been made known to the local towns people, perhaps it was my strength, my pale skin… the fact I only came out at night I don’t know. My family came to my aid to defend me… but to protect them I came forward hoping everything would fall on me…even pleaded with them “leave them out of this”…but out of fear... the locals saw them as being infected and tainted by a monster. The husband was beheaded for theft due to swindling local tavern tenants to gambling their money away. The others… killed.. defending me… for loving me…. (Victor says as he tears up after recalling the memory watching his surrogate family die in front of him).

Celeste: So I guess like all things…vampires can cry too….

Victor: Once…maybe twice in their own immortality… but I saw to quench those tears forever as I took revenge for them. I waited for the axe that took my family to come down on me and with a split second moved and used it to kill everyone in my sight without remorse…then I burned their town to the ground and gave my family what they deserved… a pyre funeral fit for the warriors they were; the way it was done in their culture. I was going to leave but I stayed on that land long as I could. Waiting, hoping the covens were coming just so I could join my family in death. Years I waited…but they never came…so I flew home, back to Ireland. Once back I expected to be taken by the local covens for my past crimes, but I wasn’t. I stayed to myself… in isolation. Fed on human, animal, insects but still maintaining my self-control in said isolation that lead to a small realization… I didn’t feed to kill… I just fed to survive, like any other creature. My maker was right, isolation and desecration was powerful…powerful in bringing self-awareness. So when he randomly showed up in my presence during a hunt and feed, I was surprised to see him…without the covens.

Alexander: My young progeny… I have missed you.

Young Victor: I knew you would turn up eventually… here to turn me in finally?

Alexander: Turn you in? Oh that… water under the bridge my child. I see you have learned some tricks in your time alone.

Young Victor: Wouldn’t call it tricks…more like survival.

Alexander: Yes, I see that; and you have become stronger for it. More beautiful than the day you were made.

Young Victor: Cut the horseshit, Alexander! If you’re not hear to turn me in or kill me then why are you hear? Make amends? You made it pretty clear how you felt last time we spoke. (Saying as he stops feeding from a mountain lion outside his small cave like lair and walks away)

Alexander: (chasing after him into the lair) I broke your heart…I know I did … But I did it because I love you… I always have. (Stopping him) And I know you still love me…I can feel it in your heart.

Young Victor: You know shit Alexander! Nothing! Least of all me! (saying as he storms off further to the lair where Alexander sees all of Victors belongings, including the ax he salvaged from his families execution)

Alexander: I know you’re grieving still…so I will let that go for now…

Young Victor: Really? What do you know?

Alexander: Your little adoptive family in the north? I’ve always known where you are… I made you remember? After you fled I convinced the elders to lenient to an exile charge rather than death. But you almost fucked everything up your little slaughter of that town…but torching it to cover it up…very good…very clever. (Saying as he looks at the ax) You know when this ax came down I almost thought you were going to let the human’s takes you…but last minute…wow!

Young Victor: Right (saying with a curious look)

Alexander: Let’s start over, please? Do things right this time…

Young Victor: Last time I saw you tried to have me killed for breaking vampire laws…hell you practically turned me in…what reason should I trust you now?

Alexander: I was hard on you but there was and is love by what I’ve done…Just as you… we can be great…together again…what do you say?

Young Victor: (Looking at Alexander curiously) Sure…. Why not?

Celeste: SO just like that you let him back in?

Victor: I gave him a chance, and for decades hell even centuries we were great again… but something was still... off. I didn’t know what at the time. He taught me, I learned…everything. We would separate for a few days. He would come back…I guess he needed me more than even he knew. One night, exactly fifty years before my ascension we met on the eve of my making. He even brought me a fresh young girl to feed off of, which I refused but instead counter offered with his favorite delight, a young virginal boy. Kid must have been sixteen or so if I recall right; died from drowning but still ripe with blood for a vampire to feed off of. A thank you to Alexander it was to be, I told him. He didn’t think twice about drinking and draining the corpse dry.

Alexander: Mmm.. my boy…you certainly out did yourself. (saying as he coughed lightly) Been a while since I had this…taste..a little different from what I recall in my centuries. (saying as he gets dizzy) You know, it was a long fly here, so hate to cut this evening short but… we can pick this up tomorrow night.

Young Victor: Whatever you say… my love.

Victor: The next morning my master found himself chained to his own bed. You see, Alexander loved to talk. Loved to hear himself speak, brag and boast… and in his self-righteous rant upon our first getting back together he told on himself. You see progenies are connected on metaphysical level with their makers. Makers can feel them and we are makers. Can sense each other’s presence…sometimes even see through the others eyes, like a dream while awake. This is discovered if a progeny stays in isolation and controls their blood lust…their sense to their maker can become stronger. He had described every detail of my family’s demise…even stuff I didn’t see or remember in our years back together.

Celeste: He was there?

Victor: He was more than there…he orchestrated the entire thing. He fingered my family had been housing a monster and outted me to what I had been doing with them as well as what I was… their treason…their execution…all done by Alexander. So I played nice for years, learned all he could teach me…waited patiently. Gained his trust and waited more. Once I got the opportunity, I took it.

Celeste: Lycan venom… you fed him lycan venom.

Victor: A small but subtle mixture into the boy’s blood, who didn’t drown…but starved to death on the street, allowing the blood to stay warm and mask the vemon. The boy was already dying…the venom just put him out of his misery. I thought he did what he did to my family as a punishment for running for not being the vampire he wanted and fleeing my execution, but it was because I got what I wanted in my eternity… a family. Vampires can live forever but it’s rare they actually get what they yearn for in their immortality. Something h never had nor wanted but I achieved… a family; and he had them killed to spite me out of jealousy. The venom poisoned him enough that I was able to severe his head with the same ax that killed them. I killed my maker… got revenge for my family; and in that moment I felt more powerful than I could ever imagine. However with that came consequences…

Celeste: You had to spend the remaining of your life running from the elders and their covens…

Victor: Yes. I would sleep underground many years at a time and wake to see how the world would change… making it harder for them to track me. It was hard.. But I managed for decades and on the eve of my ascension it became impossible for them to track me even slightly. I stepped into the dawn of light for the first time in one thousand years and doing so learned so much more of my past self and into my present to shape my future. Everything from my birth and seeing my mother pass… to my father selling me into slavery… to my families I lost… and it not only made me strong enough to stand in the sun but enough to fuck the vampire race and anything they are capable of. But I couldn’t do it alone… I needed the lycans to revolt and helped them do so… rallied them to become an army and free of their vampire slave masters. Doing so left them vulnerable without daytime protection and kept them on their toes in the night. Now I need you for whatever next.

Celeste: Why me? Of all the people in the world why me? I mean you have an army of wolves and wendigos you can take them on yourself.

Victor: The lycans are strong this is true, but in small number. Even now they are being hunted to extinction. I need you to stop the vampires at the root…from within.

Celeste: And again I ask, why me?

Victor: Because it is the only way to bring peace to yourself… and what happen to your people.

Celeste: I know, we were slaughtered for being abominations to the vampire race… Inkil told me..it still hurts to know that…

Victor: Not dhampirs, Celeste… witches.

Celeste: Witches…wait what?

Victor: You never wondered how vampires managed to prosper and flourish for years even after a wide spread genocide of pagan practitioners, mages, witches and other magic users during the crusades?

Celeste: No…No…NO! Fuck you! I lived through that…I was there! It was the clergy’s influence of Christianity that did that! NOT vampires! (angry)

Victor: The vampires use people as their instruments at times to flush out and destroy enemies if they need to. Use them like pawns or even coffin fodder at times because they are so subjective to manipulation. Like how the Mondragon’s are using you to dispatch Lycans and other creatures they see as a threat to their rule of existence.

Celeste: (weak doubt in her voice) No…that’s not possible… the clergy…

Victor: Are just one of the many tools of the vampire race. They spout about sin, hell and how this and that will lead to damnation if you embrace anything other than a martyr and if you do you have to repent to be saved and forgiven by a benevolent creator? Yea…sure while on the other side of the curtain they imbue; incest, sex, orgies, opium, illegitimate children… everything they teach against while spawning hysteria and genocide in the process…

Celeste: No… It’s not true…

Victor: Search your heart… you’ve known something was not right about the Mondragon’s…the vampires…all of it for some time…in your heart you know this is true. Bishops, cardinals, deacons all within and outside the church; rather they know it or not are in the vampires control. Search your heart…trust it.

“In that moment I could only think of what I had seen in my days with Anabel and the others. How she spoke about the human race, the secrets behind closed doors, the magic’s they wielded; the deaths of innocent people… everything I had felt but ignored made sense now… and brought me to a calmly stature.”

Celeste: (calmly after a deep breath) so you’re an elder vampire bent on crippling your own people out of revenge?

Victor: No… justice for all who they have wronged. Your family… my family… Jorge’s family (saying as a shadowy figure appears removing his hood attached to his cloak revealing a light skin Spanish male with long hair and fuzzy facial hair). I believe you two are already acquainted from the other night?

Celeste: That was him? The one controlling the lycans, how?

Victor: As I told you…he is the last first born son of the lycans…

Celeste: But you told me he died years ago…

Victor: A lie, I admit, but one I needed to tell before I knew I could trust you.

Celeste: And so you trust me now?

Victor: In my thousand years I have learned many things… to always be prepared for the unexpected… and that the enemy of my enemy is my ally.

Celeste: Then tell me… (saying as she looks at him boldly) where do we start?

Victor grins.