Immortal Part 17

Chapter Four (4)

            An unseen threat encompassed me. I ran but I couldn’t get away. It was everywhere. A thousand unsettling images assaulted me. A wide grinning mouth with no eyes, glowing red eyes with no faces, bloody body parts, heads on pikes, screaming. Somebody, somewhere was screaming a heart wrenching, piercing scream. And then I realized it was me.

            I opened my eyes to realize I was drenching with sweat. I was suffocating and I scratched wildly at the confining quarters I was trapped in. Then the lid opened and Tavian’s face was before me.

            “Chill,” Tavian said and he reached into the coffin and lifted me up and placed me gently on to my feet. He held me until he thought I was steady. “Are you okay?”

            “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

            “Well you did better than I thought you would.”

            “Thanks, I think.”

            “Yeah,” Tavian said awkwardly. “Whatever.”

            “Are your mom and Quintas still asleep?”

            “Heck no. They’ve been awake for ages. They’re getting us supplies. We’re supposed to stay here and wait.”

            “What kind of supplies?”

            “Weapons. Food for you… an idea of where to get food for us.”

            “You mean blood,” I said accusingly.

            “It wasn’t my choice,” Tavian exclaimed defensively, “I was born this way. And my mother didn’t choose it either. We can’t help what we are.”

            “So, what exactly does it mean to be half a vampire? How does that work?”

            “My mother wasn’t a vampire when I was conceived. My father… he was a vampire and he uh…” Tavian couldn’t seem to blush but he averted his eyes and he stared uncomfortably at the floor. “Forced her… you know? I wasn’t exactly wanted.”

            “Oh,” I mumbled sympathetically. “I see.”

            “Anyhow,” Tavian continued, “my mom said I was born with a full head of hair and a full set of teeth...”

            “You’re a Dhampir.” I said. “I read about them.”

            “Whatever you want to call it. At any rate… all it means is that I don’t really fit in either world. I’m about half as strong and half as fast as a normal vampire. I still have to eat a good amount of blood but I can tolerate some regular foods. Nothing with garlic or anything.”

            “So the garlic thing really works.”

            “It repels anybody with any sense of smell,” Tavian cried. “But yeah, I guess.”

            “Are you immortal?”

            “Yes.”

            “The sunlight thing?”

            “I’m okay in sunlight. Mom or Quintas wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t kill them. I mean they wouldn’t turn to dust or anything but it messes them up pretty good.”

            “So how did your mom get changed? I mean… how do you become a vampire?”

            “Like I said, my dad was a real upstanding fellow. He raped her and left her for dead. Which for most vampires is a normal deal, you know? That’s what they do. But something about my mom… I don’t know. So he changed her instead of letting her die. It’s a huge deal creating a new vampire and there’s more rules and laws about it then you might ever think. She was allowed to live… but they took care of him.”

            “Kind of like the Vultari in Twilight?”

            Tavian grunted, “Anyhow… my mom thinks they would have taken care of her too if they had known she was pregnant. I’m not allowed either. It complicates things too much. By the time they found out… Septimus and a couple of the other ancients had found out and they were intrigued and fought for us. They helped my mom have me and kind of took us under their wing, you know?”

            “So… if you’re immortal… how could you be a baby and…”

            “My mom says I’m still a growing boy. Septimus says that most of us half breeds… which there aren’t very many, grow to optimum age. About 25 or so and then we kind of level out. See, it sucks to be Septimus sometimes. He was changed when he was 17. He’s not even a legal adult… even though he’s like 4000 years old.”

            “Do you have supernatural abilities?” I asked curiously. I liked that he was answering my questions and since we were just waiting I didn’t see any harm in it.

            “You read too many stupid vampire books. I’m not Edward Cullin. I can’t read minds or tell the future or anything like that.”

            “What about your mom or Quintas? Maybe you can’t do any of that stuff because you’re a half vampire.”

            “Nope. They can’t do anything like that either. We’re fast and we’re strong but that’s about the extent of supernatural abilities. We don’t even turn in to bats or anything.”

            “Oh,” I said disappointedly.

            Tavian shrugged, “Sorry to disappoint you.”

            It wasn’t his fault really and I didn’t know why I was so bothered by the fact that he really couldn’t do anything but suck blood, but I was. I tried to dismiss it, “So what else?”

            “What do you mean what else?”

            “How old are you?”

            “I’m 18.”

            “And you’re mom?”

            “She’s technically 41. She was in college when that butt head took her. But really she’s only a couple months older than I am. For a vampire… life starts after you’re changed.”

            “Well how does that whole thing work? Not cursed one minute and then cursed and damned the next. It wasn’t even her fault! Or yours!” I cried angrily. The injustice of the whole situation was hitting me now.

            “I guess God will sort all that out.”

            “You believe in God?”

            “I try not to,” Tavian replied. “It’s kind of scary knowing that there’s no hope. It’s easier to believe that the whole idea of God and the Devil is made up by humans to help them decide right from wrong.

            But my mom believes and she’s always talking about it. She believes that if we do the best we can despite the obstacle we’ve been given that God will sort it out. She says that’s the true test. I think she kind of deludes herself.”

            It was kind of a dismal prospect and all of a sudden I was very angry. It didn’t seem right somehow. But I didn’t have much time to stew about it. Quintas and Zhivvah were suddenly back. They both looked a little rattled, which shocked me, and each of them had an armload of stuff.

            “We’ve been spotted,” Quintas said. “The protectors are always on the lookout for unusual activity. They’ll be there soon, to at least find out why we are here.” He dropped the various items he had gathered on the floor. Several leather bags, a couple of stick looking things that Tavian told me with exasperation were torches, and he reminded me that we were now in Spain in the year 1408. America hadn’t even been discovered yet. There was no electricity here. I picked up one of the torches and sighed. This whole thing was becoming very real.

            Quintas had also managed to find some weapons. He chose a cross bow with several arrows for himself, while he left a crude looking knife, a spear of sorts, and a couple of rusted poker looking things. They weren’t really swords, but when I picked one up I found it was pretty heavy and I could see that it might do some damage. Tavian picked up the knife and the spear. He tucked the knife into his pants pockets and leaned up against the spear as he examined the items that Zhivvah had gathered.

            Zhivvah really was a mother, I thought, as most of what she had retrieved were items for me. There was a crusty, somewhat moldy loaf of bread but Tavian once again reminded me that this was 1400 and that I shouldn’t expect Wonder bread quality bread. This was hand made from crude wheat and water mostly. It didn’t taste wonderful but I appreciated the thought. She also had some very moldy, green cheese. But I reminded myself that cheese was mostly mold anyhow and I could disregard the worst of the outside. I had to suppress a gag when I realized the whole thing was pretty green.

            She had also found me a blanket. It wasn’t soft like the cotton or fleece blankets I was accustomed to. It was hard and stiff and very furry. Tavian told me it was wool and that the hair was from the sheep. But again, it was very kind of Zhivvah to even think about that.

            “So what will we tell them?” Tavian asked. “Or are we just going to fight them?”

            “With her here?” Quintas scowled jutting his chin at me. “We’ll have no choice but to fight them. They’ll smell her from miles away. All we can do is hope we’re not too outnumbered and then we’ll have to move quickly.”

            “So Syd,” Tavian said turning to me now very quickly, “It’s true what they say about killing vampires. You have to strike them in the heart. Then you’ll have to decapitate them. We won’t have time to burn them… though that would be best. Go for the heart.”

            After that, everything happened so fast. I had barely the time to stash my bread and cheese in the leather bag I had thrown over my shoulder when suddenly seven strangers seemed to materialize before us. I heard them hiss something about “human” and then Tavian, Quintas and Zhivvah were attacking full force. It was a blur of activity and I couldn’t even process it all. I could hear grunting and screaming and yelling and I could hear an unpleasant squishing sound, and then cracking sounds.