Part 1 - Khalida’s Story

In this world, there are two kinds of people. Those who believe in destiny, and those who think god is laughing at them.

I am one of those. As to which one of those, I honestly have no idea, but this is my story. Well, sort of. This is really the story of one of those things that you wish had never happened, because you truly believe that ignorance is bliss, and you would sometimes rather not know some things.

But I digress. I was born in year 1400, to parents Alinia and Eago. My father was famous in his own right, and my mother was beautiful in her own way, but they didn’t like each other much. To be more specific, my mother was terrified of my father, and he couldn’t have cared less about either of us.

For me to tell this story, you have to swear secrecy, or I will kill you. Honestly. Laws don’t hold me, and rules cant stop me, and I know your deepest thoughts just by wanting to see them.

If you think to be protected by some sort of will of force, think again. I can make you come to me as easily as the snake can trap its prey. And do not liken me to a snake in any way but the enthralling, for a snake is not a compliment in our world.

Rather, it is a compliment in theirs.

When I was born to my mother, nine months after my father left her, I bit the midwife, and drew blood. How I remember this is not for you to know, but I can tell you she bled because I had teeth. Teeth for the new born. It is not a whole incomprehensible thought, because if you knew what I was, if you had any idea of what I was to become, you would take warning and flee before I catch your interest, or you catch mine.

The midwife did. She took one look at the blood dribbling down her limp wrist, and my feeble attempts to reach more of it, and screamed, abandoning my mother and I to the problems related to child birth and demons.

Folk were very superstitious in those days; they had to be, to survive all the demons that they thought were out there. They had no idea, in reality, of what really was. It is a good thing that, because if they did not know, they could not kill us.

My mother was caught by the people of our small village, and accused with spawning a demon child, threatened with death or exile. She was given a choice. Not many were.

She picked me up from my bed and ran, escaping on foot, for how else was she supposed to run? We had no horses, and the villagers would rather kill her than give her some of their own horses.

By nightfall, we had reached the middle of nowhere, a dry, empty, forlorn sort of place that had no recommendations, and no complaints. We were alone, finally, and it would have been hard for anyone to hurt, let alone find, us here.

She lay me down, thinking I was innocent in the newborn stature and would not know about it, and hurled herself down on the floor, crying her heart out.

You might think I felt a little sympathy then, but I did not. All I realised then was that she had bleeding feet, and scrapes on her arms and legs from the mad run, and I wanted to get closer, needed to taste the blood. I crawled, slowly, testing out my arms and legs, and crouched down beside her. She did not know I was there yet, and she got a fright when I started licking up the small drops of blood from her elbow.

She raised her head from the ground, eyes red and puffy, face dirtied with mud and dirt and tears, and stared at me. I did not notice the beginnings of fear in her eyes; rather, I noticed the way her heartbeat sped up, the way I could almost feel her fear. I sat back and smiled at her gleefully, trying to be friendly with her, the one who had given me life.

After a time, her face eased itself of the fear, and she smiled back at me tenderly, as a mother loves a son. She picked me up again, and cradled me to her bosom, before slowly standing up and starting to walk again. I did not know where we were going, nor did I care.

Scared yet? I think you should be, rather, because I find you somewhat intriguing. And I am not kind to those I enjoy being cruel to. Would you like to be one of those people? I think not. Maybe you should go. Or perhaps you would like to hear the tale? It begins on a dark starry night, much like the one I was birthed in…

As I had gotten older, so my fixation for blood and all things wounded had increased. I could not get enough of it, and I even began to frighten my mother, my one and only companion in those dark days. I had finally reached the age of sixteen. One is a man at sixteen, or so the world said, but I did not feel manly. Indeed I wasn’t a man at all.

I was something completely different.

Just how different, no one but myself suspected. They all knew I was strange, a ‘freak’ you say nowadays, but only I knew for certain just how peculiar I really was. I told no one of this, not even my mother, for we had grown strangely apart the last eight years of my life, and she was scared of me, and angry because of it. She knew she did not have a normal son, but she tried, I think, to hide this from everyone, including herself.

There was one slip up, where she screamed at me for a long time before sending me away, determined, as I was, never to see me again. A few days later I was back, not by choice, but because I was being hunted.

Do not ask me how I know this, it is too complicated a matter for me to explain and you to understand, but I could feel it, deep somewhere inside of me.

It was with difficulty to both myself and my pride that I returned, but she had forgiven me somewhat, and although we were tolerable of each other from then on, we did not like each other much, and our previous bond of mother and son was all but shattered.

One last event ensured the complete and utter hatred we shared.

In the village that we lived in, there was a girl. You raise your eyebrows at this, and I can feel the incredulity coming from you, but it is the truth. She was no ordinary girl, thus I have deemed her worthy of mention. Before I mention her though, let me explain my mother and myself.

My mother was suspicious of me now, longing for a respite that she knew not the arrival of. She had no idea of when it would come, what it would bring, and she could not have had any idea of the wreck it would make of our already out of place lives. I knew it was coming, I could feel it, and so I prepared for it, wondering further and further from home on endless walks that took days, and sometimes weeks to finish, all the while watching out for that thing that was hunting me. My ears strained for every movement and sound, my eyes strived to catch a glimpse of this thing, but to no avail. Nothing showed, and I remained alive and unhurt.

This girl, this special woman from the village, she suspected what I had known a long time ago. I was not normal, and never had been, but she had a vague idea of what I could be, and since my mother had never told me anything of what had happened before I was born, I was undoubtedly curious. I heard whisperings, rumours of what she might know but would not tell. I went to her to try and convince her to let me know, to reveal secrets I had long cherished the idea of disclosing, if only to myself. She would not tell, she promised me she wouldn’t, and threatened to tell the whole village what I did not do to her if I tried to make her tell. She was scared of me, scared of what I might and probably would do to her. She did not tell.

She was the first person I killed.

Being the first, I was also inexperienced, and I delayed my departure because of the gleeful disorientation that her blood had brought me. Long had I wished to do this to someone, long had I dreamed of what it might feel like, and that was what held me to her, staring down at her bloody body with a fascination that was only disturbed by the barking of dogs and the shouts of a mob.

I had not shut her up when she had screamed at the first mouthful of delightful blood. It made the kill all the more exciting. Nay, I encouraged her, coaxing her to scream louder, to my own folly and downfall.

I was caught ‘red handed’, as you might say, and the people, not willing but able to overlook my few minor slip ups, were angry enough to kill me, burn me at the pyre.

Long before this, I had noticed that not only did I crave things I shouldn’t, but that I also had the skills and talents to enable me to see further, hear more and listen closer, to run faster and move more quickly than my fellow people.

I used this knowledge to my advantage that night, and fled, fearing the fire that came with punishment of unconventional murders.

I wandered far and wide for a week, before returning in the dead of the night, returning to tell my mother with no small pleasure that I was leaving. I was going, and I was never coming back. It was the eve of my seventeenth birthday.

It was quiet when I reached our front door, and my eyes picked out scratches and marks that the people of the village had left when they couldn’t find me. My sensitive ears could not pick out my mother’s breathing, but they heard a more subtle kind, a soft inhale and exhale that I almost missed even with my improved hearing.

I pushed open the door.

My mother was sprawled out in front of the fireplace, bleeding profusely from the hollow of her neck, dead and dying and gone from this world. Instead of sadness, I felt hungry, the blood making my stomach complain. I had eaten nought but animals for days, and I thirsted for human blood.

It would have to wait. On the chair by her head, calmly staring at me as if expecting me to know who and what he was, a man sat, his legs stretched out with feet crossed a little way away from my mother’s dark head.

His hair was silver, like mine, and his gaze was significant. He was Death, plain and simple, and extremely deadly. Something told me to beware, but I was not afraid. How could I be afraid for when I had recognised myself for one of his kind many years ago?

Before I go on, please understand that I am real. I was alive once, although I was never human. And do not pity me, for that would be annoying for me and fatal for yourself. What you see and hear now is what I am, all that I am and could ever possibly be.

I watched him silently, wondering if I could outwait him, but it turned out that it could not be so, and I lowered my eyes first in a gesture of respect. I felt him nod slightly in acknowledgement, and I raised my eyes again to continue my silent appraisal.

He seemed somewhat amused by this, and gestured to my dead mother. “Do you know who she is?” His voice was soft, sultry, like velvet over bare skin, almost soothing. It was dangerous too, the silken quality, and it was ancient.

“She was my mother.” I replied carefully, and stared at the reddening floor.

He nodded again. “Do you know who I am?” There was a hint of warning in his voice now.

I stared at him, entranced, trying to find a reason for what I was suddenly so sure was the truth. “You are my sire.”

His lips curled up in a smile that would have scared anyone else but one of his own. “Correct. I am your sire, and you are my son. Is there something you would like?”

I stared at him, half disbelieving my good fortune, and half doubting that he meant it. What he was offering was safety from the hunters, the ability to protect myself even more keenly than before, the chance to live forever.

In his glowing eyes I read truth, so seldom a virtue that we use that it never occurred to me to mistrust it, and I gave one sharp nod in approval. “I’d like to become one with you.”

He stood up and purred his affirmative reply. “So be it. You know what you are doing?”

“I have known since the moment I was born, and will realise it the moment I die.”

His eyes lit up, flaring amber before settling back into golden again. “She was right then. You do know what you are, who you are.”

I inclined my head. “Sire, please.”

He gave a low chuckle and motioned me closer to him. I went eagerly, for how could I not? It was a solution I had not thought to search for, an end to a problem I didn’t know had begun. It was all I wanted without knowing, and it was being offered to me freely! I ask you, what would you have done? Would you have sacrificed your life to give in to something more powerful than you could ever hope to imagine?

We are not one with the earth, my kind. We are rejected, cursed beings for being alive when we are dead. It is wrong for us to enjoy life, and I had had no enjoyment for years now, if I ever did. The only thing keeping me alive was being able to die.

He forcefully tilted my head to the side and kissed my neck before I felt the prick of teeth, sliding into my flesh, his mouth working to suck out as much blood as he could get. I had the sudden feeling that this was who had been hunting me my life, not hunting, but watching silently, maybe even guarding.

Then the incessant tugging at my throat affected me, and I lost all strength in my legs. I would have collapsed if he had not been holding me up, and as it was, he lowered us both to the floor next to my dead mother, the only person witnessing the act.

The world grew dim, even to my special eyesight, and he pulled back, watching me breath in fast, shallow gasps for air that did not aid my lungs in providing my body.

Then his wrist was on my mouth, and he whispered “Drink,” and I did, and it was wonderful. I gained years through his blood, seeing vague image after image course through my mind, my body, my heart, and the deep red haze was beginning to overtake all, oversee all, and the rush of the hot, slightly metallic blood in my mouth was thrilling, entrancing and incredible.

He pulled his wrist away then, and I reached for it, stretching my fingertips in an effort to catch hold of it again, but he denied me and stood up, panting a little. The gash on his wrist healed, and he regained his composure and stared down at me, looking a little confused.

“What?” My voice sounded almost like his.

“Aren’t you in pain?” He sounded merely curious.

“No… Should I be?”

He shook his head a little. “I don’t know. I’ve never converted a half vampire to full one before.”

“Oh…” I replied idly, sitting up and looking around.

It was a whole new world for me. I had seen many of the things before, but never with such clarity, such understanding. The red of my mother’s blood wasn’t just that rust coloured half drying, sticky mess that it had been before, it was all shades of red, darkest most where it was dry. And whereas before it smelt good, now it smelt foul. I blinked at it, a little confused.

My father was at the door already. “You will notice that the blood smells bad. Never drink dead blood, my son, for it will only end in excruciating pain and death for you. Also, always be discreet in your killings, because you will be hunted once people know for sure what you are. You will learn many tricks of the trade, my boy, and you will gain talents you never thought possible before. Remember though, that this takes time, and you will only be really strong when you are several hundred years old.”

I stared at him. “Where are you going?”

He smiled slightly, a little more friendly, but no less dangerous. “My son, you must learn alone, as I did. I am the oldest vampire left, three thousand years old, and there are not many who can kill me, although they try. It would be best for both of us if we stayed apart. Maybe we will see each other again, maybe not. Use your best sense at all times, and try to gain perception as you grow. It will aid you much in your long life.”

And with that, he was gone.

I will not bore you with the next six thousand or so years of my existence, because it bears no reason to this tale, no connection at all. I travelled to many places, and I gained many lessons, and with each lesson, I gained a new name. Some I gave myself, and some I got from others. I made a few vampires, and I killed a few vampires, but always I remained alone. Mortals interested me occasionally, and when they did, I made them join our ranks. Usually it was not their choice, but they were happy enough afterwards. I gave them a few parting words of mostly uncharacteristic wisdom and insight, and then I left them to fend for themselves, for the best way to be taught is to teach yourself.

I say uncharacteristic wisdom, because although I learnt much in my long life, I rarely used it or put forth the effort required. I had no wish to become pompous and snobby. If I could be accused of anything, it would be of an impulsive nature, mean and sometimes cruel, with mostly sarcastic remarks and no care for what other people or things thought of me.

I could enthral any I wished, and I did, for fun. Never had a human caught my attention long enough to stay with after I changed them, even if they did hold it that long. I intrigued humans, fascinated them, but none of them returned the gesture. None of them, at least, until I met Kieren.

I will let him tell you that story, cherie. Good night. Sleep well, for you know not what plagues you in the dark.