The Vampire, Altair

The night of my immortality’s first breath came at the life of my master; the one who turned me. Dumac De Dalorne. He was an ancient soul. A vampire from the old world and a time before my family line had ever started. Most of us who recall our masters and our turning never fail to mention how those who transformed us found us to be magnificent human beings.

Both beautiful in elegance and appearance. Yet, in my case I was not of noble birth, and nor was I granted the handle of any divine facial features that attracted any creature of the night to meet my gaze. I simply sought eternal life and groveled at the feet of a god until he saw fit to give me the same thing he had.

That was, life without end. In that old life of mine I was a drunkard. A fiend who had spent any cent I had ever made on wine and wine alone. My origins were simple. Born an orphan and thrown into the streets of London to rot and die, alone. I had no siblings or friends. Only the rats that scampered past the sewer drains lingered to remind me of my isolation.

In those days life wasn't worth living. Which makes me wonder why I even longed for eternal life at all. I suppose my first exposure to the concept of the absence of death came in the few books I had cared to read in the local libraries where I used to live. That was, catching whatever glimpse I could of the picture books and legendary myths before being grabbed by my hair and chased out of the literary institutions for my foul stench and poor demeanor. 

It was that looming knowledge that everyone, back then, could tell I was a child of the streets. Just as they probably assumed that if I was left out in the rain long enough I would die and cause the common man no further unrest with the mere existence of my being. Those were cruel days. It was during the deepest fall of a sunken stupor in which I came to meet the man who would change me.

He was tall, fair skinned and elegant in how he spoke and acted. Calm on all sides, Dumac was a noble from the East and the last in a long line of scholars. Just as I was the last in a long line of drunkards. I suppose. Our first encounter came as he passed from his carriage to a bakery shop amidst the streets of London.

I would come to learn that he would make public appearances every now and again, to keep up his title and appearance among the people. Dumac was a foreigner. A man of miles who paid the dull city, of little legend, a visit from time to time. As he passed on the street, between the door of his transporter and the door of the shop, I reached out and grasped his leg, begging for coins.

At this point I had expected a kick to the throat or the end of a cane to be thrust on my head, cracking my skull with a hard wooden strike. But not this time. Dumac looked down on me, an average man in an average world and reached into his breast pocket. He leaned down and placed a bundle of coins in my left hand.

Without a word he smiled, stood up and continued onward into the bakery, leaving me in shock, laying still in the street. The carriage handler looked down and sneered at me. I took my coins and scurried to the bar, fixed on growing the rest of the day in red liquid and alcoholic splendor. And that was all I could remember of that day.

When I had finally awoke again I was in the street, near a puddle that smelt of piss. I checked my pocket but all the coins had been spent. I returned to begging for the duration of that afternoon. This carried on for a week or so. Life held no joy after some time. I was getting lower and lower on myself. I could not make money at a quick enough rate as to kill my self from alcohol poisoning.

And so it was to be on the fifth of November, seventeen-eleven, that I dragged myself to the docks and harbor of London, to swim under the front lower half of a ship, ready to depart, and be torn apart or drowned by the force of the vessel. It was a suicide attempt. I passed the workers and dockhands, making my way into the sea and placing myself near the very front of the ship where the boat met water.

I sank low and covered my head as to not be seen by any onlookers. And wouldn’t you know it, that very ship that was departing happened to be holding the dear Dumac De Dalorne. It was a vessel bound for his home country. He had bordered it a mere hour before I had arrived and, as I would come to learn, I probably would have been crushed underneath the force of that ship had Dumac not smelt my presence.

He told me later that he recognized my scent, seeking me out and listening to my heart beat. Understanding. Knowing I was in distress. He said my heart beat worse than a drum. It beat as fast as a man looking to end it all and thumped with a force so close to concluding a man’s mission of finding ones own final destination.

Perhaps it if was not for Dumac’s highly functioning senses, I might have died there and not have been pulled up by the strength of a being that was more than human. So it was a vampire that saved my life. A vampire that couldn't handle to see a mortal throw it all away. For it was this beast of legend who coveted life and saw nothing else as being more precious or equal.

After witnessing his strength, and his attempt to save me, I longed for what he had. The power of it all intrigued me. It wasn’t until the night of my transformation that I learned of what he truly was. Before then I merely knew he was more than human. A god, perhaps. And I clung to his side like a servant.

The ship departed and I was welcomed by Dumac to his private chambers. I cleaned my self up and he fitted me with new cloths and a shave. After looking back in the mirror he had given me, I almost forgot how young I was. Twenty-one at the time. Little did I know the man before me, who’s lack of a reflection I simply shrugged off, was over a hundred and still young. 

Weeks had passed on our voyage across the sea and every hour I begged Dumac for his power. Whatever it was, whatever diet I had to take, whatever faith I had to embrace, I’d of done it. His display of power haunted my dreams until it was all I could think about. Looking back, Dumac was always too generous for his own good.

One night, while I slept soundlessly, he appeared over my bed and sunk his teeth into my neck. At that very moment I felt as if I had struck up a deal with the devil. I remember the feeling quite well. It wasn’t painful, just shocking. I felt my body die, but there was no fear or pain. I merely stopped existing for a moment and then I was whole.

Immortal. Eternal. A vampire. That night Dumac told me the laws of our kind. He told me of how the legends of our species had become jumbled. Unclear. This made the mortal world weary and ignorant of our presence. A fact which allowed us to thrive. It could be said that the population of vampires could be compared to any other institution.

Good intentions existed at the source, but there always existed a few bad eggs to give the rest of the batch a bad name. Reasons to be feared, as it were. Dumac explained how, unlike in the legends, vampires were not effected by light. We did not have to drink blood. Only when we wanted to appear younger.

He said over time our looks would fade and we would be hideous. In that time all we would need to look young again would be a whole body’s worth of blood. To turn a human we drink from into a vampire, we need only think it. I would soon come to find that this was only true for the clan from which we had hailed from.

Our minds commanded the transformation of humans into vampire, but only after a bite. If we will our victim to be zombified, they will become so. As well, we cannot cross certain things, such as crosses, running water, blessed items or garlic. There was much about our race that even Dumac did not know.

Dumac told of how he met vampires that could walk past running water, could hold crosses and loved to collect holy items. It seemed to be smaller things like that which faded as a vampire aged. The more our vampiric lives advanced, the less these things would effect us. It was even supposed that one could reach an age in which the complete need for blood to remain looking young would be utterly nullified.

At that point all we need do is sit back and enjoy the fruits of immortality. As Dumac explained, we could not become mist, but we could summon up clouds of fog to hid ourselves or mask or appearance. We could become a bat or a wolf, but only for a short while. We were fast, strong, could hypnotize people, but only the weak-minded.

Usually. And finally, over time, our reflection could be seen. If a sword pierced our hearts, we could die. If we were to be shot in the head, we could die. We were merely walking sacks of petrified paper and rotten guts, covered by a golden silk of a most beautiful aroma. Death in a dress, if you will. Now, the time of my master’s demise came shortly after my transformation.

He turned me on the ship, traveling on the edge of the Atlantic. I was told I would need to get used to the taste of blood. This first taste was just a test to see how I would handle myself around it, when the time came in which I would finally have to preserve my appearance and take my first life. If I so chose.

Rather than feeding off the crew, Dumac suggested something odd. He told me to try his blood. Rather than stir a panic between the sailors, I would have my first tastes of life from him. A vampire. He warned me to cease after some time, as even vampires can be fed from, also telling me that I would gain extra power from his blood and that taking too much into myself could be harmful as I was so freshly turned.

The power of a vampire that has lived for over a hundred or so years could melt me if I had taken too much. I thanked him for all that he had done for me. I thanked him for his generosity and his kindness; and then I killed him. I didn’t mean to. That first rush of blood was too much for my newly thirsting tongue to handle.

I drank Dumac dry. He cried for me to stop and, believe me when I say, I tried my damnedest. My fangs would not retract and my hunger would not stop. Finally, he ripped my mouth from his arm and stumbled out onto the deck of the ship, kicking the door before him off it’s hinges and stumbling out, in front the crew, bleeding from his arm.

His eyes, fangs and claws were in full visibility. The crew witnessed this and panicked, seeing the being they had been transporting. They took to the far end of the ship to grab lanterns, torches and sharp objects. I stood back, hidden in the blackness of the room. Dumac cried out for me as the sailors came down on him with blades, fire and pointed wood.

They barraged him like a mob of mad bears until they moved away. Dumac stood, stumbling for the edge of the ship. I couldn’t recognize him anymore. I stood in the doorway, guilty and begging for forgiveness after the predicament I had put him in had reached it’s peak. He turned to me, looking past the darkness of the door that held my eyes, looking out at him and the crew.

He whispered to me and only spoke one word. A word spoken with a saddened look in his eyes. Why? He threw himself overboard, the pile of torn flesh and scattered bones that he was. It was then the sailors took note of where Dumac had looked before tossing himself into the sea. Their eyes met mine in the shadows of the room.

They advanced on me. The sailors moved in closer with their weapons in hand. The thirst for blood was still on my mind, even after seeing the demise of my most beloved acquaintance. A mistake, indeed, it was to turn me. My love for blood and my fury for the death of Dumac fueled me in my following actions.

I leapt for the sailors in their parade of blunt objects. I killed them all; too fast to be seen. When it was over I drained them all completely of their blood. When the last one was dead the ship was adrift in an unfamiliar part of the sea. I sat and counted the bodies, totaling in forty-four. Forty-five years of uninterrupted youth were to follow after that.

Forty-five years of not aging past my twenty-one year old appearance, that was. Immortality was starting off great. Forty-five years of no blood and no killing; as Dumac had said: One human’s life, measured in blood, is one year added to yours. That night forever stayed etched in my mind. I could see the pain in Dumac’s eyes as he threw himself into the ocean.

It was a look of utter hopelessness. Dumac knew his immortal life was over. I think his final thoughts on death were to peacefully bleed away into the depth of the ocean, rather than to be strung up and hung by the crew in the cold, nightly sea air. An end unfitting for a man of his generousness. I could never thank him enough for all that he had done for me.

I feared I never would. When the ship finally made harbor, it was back in London. I merely hid below the deck and let the current take me. I was lost at sea for an endless, uncounted amount of time. It was only by chance that the vessel had washed back to London after such a long journey. Almost by the hands of fate.

I snuck onto the land and let the officers and dockhands inspect the ship littered with bodies that following night. I had vanished and headed west. I could not stay in London. Now, I sought my own kind. My new kind. I was in search of more vampires, preferably those sharing in my mentality. Those who adored immortality for it’s joys and none of it’s plights.

I suppose that was the most logical thing for any vampire to do. To seek out their own kind. And especially after the death of their maker. As the sun came up that following morning, I looked up with new promise that the future would hold brighter days and the hope that I could one day redeem myself for all the carnage I had caused on the night of my turning.

Believe me when I say the taking of my master’s life filled me with much unparalleled guilt. I could never imagine a kinder man meeting so terrible an end. It was the first thirst that got him. The moment in which a newly born vampire sinks their teeth into their maker and takes the blessed phenomenon of vampirism into themselves, there comes a moment of realization; of self-discovery.

In this instant you see all the possibilities that lay before you, recall your past, question everything you have ever done and, once again, in an instance resist that which you have been given, reject it, deny it and finally accept it as truth. The final truth. The whole truth. The truth that after you've been turned… that there is no going back.

At the start of my immortal life I traveled until coming upon a resting place of sorts. This sanctum came in the form of an abandoned ruin just over the boarder of Germany. Here I found a den, lost to the outside world. A stone paradise trapped within a dark forest. A place no superstitious mortal would venture, for fear of meeting a creature of the night.

This lair of mine would serve as my headquarters and abode for the better half of a year. Being so far from the nearest town, I doubted ever getting discovered out there. It was of utmost importance that I attempted not to blend into mortal society too quickly. I feared I would become too comfortable and, in some small way, give my existence away and reveal what I truly was.

Now, having finally gained eternal life, I feared death more than I ever had before. Despite my situation. I did stick around London for a short time, just to catch the echoes and speculations that followed the deathly ship’s return to the British harbor. Some believed the ship to be cursed. It was dismantle after not too long.

The death of that ship marked my departure from London. With every step I thought of the dozens I killed in my rage and thirst. I thought to myself. If the effects of drinking blood were anything like Dumac had explained them to be, I wouldn't have to worry about growing old and horrid for a very long time.

It was during my venture unto my new home that I had decided to halt my consumption of blood for as long as my looks could allow it. Even when I was old and grey, I swore to only drink from humans if completely necessary to my survival. Something I, as I said before, would not have to worry about for another forty-five years, or so.

I was fully ready to begin anew on the boarder of Germany. My thirst for wine had died down and I had never felt more alive. When I came to find the old ruins in which I wished to inhabit, I was startled to discover a blackened coffin within the lowest floor of the structure. In a room beneath the dirt.

Shaped like an underground passage and closed with a wooden door, bolted sideways into the leaning nearby hill, this coffin sat at the far back corner of a subterranean shelter that was filled to the brim with candles; flickering from the underground’s lack of oxygen. I stopped for a moment, worrying about what I might uncover if I were to lift the cover of the casket.

I swiftly shook away the fear, remembering that I was no mere human now and then proceeded to investigate the coffin and open the lid with a slow, but creeping, curiosity. It was empty. The inside was lined with red velvet cushioning. Perhaps it was the old stories of the vampires that compelled me to climb inside.

To try it out. I wasn't exhausted, but I attempted to remember what that old feeling was like and tried to doze off to sleep. I woke to a noise approaching the ruins. There were footsteps through the forest, getting closer and without a heartbeat. I knew this because I could hear it. I flew from the casket and hid myself away behind some bushes near the entrance to the underground room, containing the coffin.

It was then I saw a bald, white, elderly, lumbering man in rags make his way through the wooden door on the dirt hill within the ruin. He didn't look human at first glance and I took a few more looks to make sure, just as he was entering the tomb. Now it was clear. The coffin belonged to him. Whatever he was.

I fled and attempted to find the local town. No sense sleeping out in the woods, waiting for some hungry animal to stumble upon me, just for me to break it’s neck and feel guilty afterwards. I decided to spend the night at an inn. To test the waters of my mingling amongst the humans. It was to be the first of many experiments that would shape how I was to be perceived by the mortal race.

That was, if the truth about my identity and what I really was were to ever come to light. I traveled for a while in hopes of stumbling upon a village or some other kind of hamlet where I could stay until morning. That time where I may move freely and not be bothered by the beasties of the forest or the eyes of monster hunters prowling around in the night, looking for blood to spill, didn’t come quickly.

I smelt humans in the air, so I knew they were near. But, no matter which direction I found myself in, I was all turned around and their scent seemed to be changing direction. I followed my nose the best I could, until finally coming across a small cabin with a light on. I made my way slowly up to the entrance.

I knocked on the door, expecting perhaps a farmer and his family to greet me. I was surprised, when the door finally did open, to see an elderly man with a long grey beard and a wooden staff, looking up at me. He welcomed me and addressed me as a stranger of the night. I told him my name and my predicament.

About the casket I had found a few miles back and of my travel over from London. Leaving out the vampiric transformation part of my story, of course. He urged me inside for fish and wine. Two things, he said, that were in abundance in his home. He was an old hermit. Had been for a very long time and that night he was overjoyed to have me as a visitor.

As he had said. I must say, my first interaction after days of turning immortal had gone rather well. I was the perfect listener. I only spoke when spoken to, shook my head and replied so politely to the old man. He loved to speak of the past. Of all that he knew. And I was keen to listen. The only part of this entire interaction that weakened me was the long bulbs of garlic the hermit had hanging in his windows.

I was bent over in pain, but keeping my composure. I simply told him it was the weakness of the journey that had me crippled over in discomfort. He believed this and fed me well with fish and tea. I forgot vampires could not eat as humans did. The food, no matter how good it looked, was human food and therefore un-filling, dry, dull, bland and tasteless.

All things that pure mortal blood could be and were. I tried to fight off the pain of the garlic and swallowed the fish and tea to please the old hermit. We got to talking about the area around his cabin and he mentioned something that very much peaked my interest. The old hermit spoke of how there was once an old village nearby and how a vampire, lurking somewhere on the boarder of Germany, had killed everyone in it.

That was, except for the old hermit, who was just a boy at the time. The old man told of how he lived his whole life in these woods, hunting and warding off the old vampiric creature. Every now and again hoping he could capture and kill it. Immediately then, I felt something stir in me. A chance to meet another creature of my kind and a chance to perhaps help this kind old man, since any creature willing to kill an entire village must be evil to some extremely high degree.

So I decided upon it. To head into the forest and confront the other vampire. I knew exactly where to look. I thanked the old hermit for the fish and bid him farewell, for now. Before leaving he remarked something almost comical. He thanked me for choking down the fish and tea in an attempt to please him, all the while coming off human.

He knew. I thought it strange at first. Had I not been hiding my vampiric nature good enough? Or was the old man really just that intuitive? He almost read my mind, responding by saying he knew what I was, even before I had walked in. Yet, I showed him no threatening nature, giving him no reason to fear me.

I smiled at the cunningness of the old man and told him that I assume our entire conversation was like a waltz of sorts, just leading me to the point when he could tell me what the vampire in the woods had done and what it was like. I bid him adieu and went on my way. I couldn't be sure of everything the old man had said.

That is, of whether the vampire in the woods was truly evil. So I was to decide upon confronting it and from there I would either gain further knowledge about the origins of what I am or kill a devil and be on my way. I hadn’t feared the vampire in the woods. I could sense his power was weak. Like he hadn’t drank blood in years.

He was nowhere near the height of my power and, if a conflict did ensue, I was positive I would emerge the victor. I returned to the ruins on the boarder of Germany, made my way down to the tomb where the black coffin sat and knocked three times on it’s top. I backed up to give the creature time to open the lid and step out.

I could tell what was going through his mind. At first he must have thought I was a human. He told me this with a look of strangeness that had shot across his face. When he finally felt my power, then he knew what I was and all feelings of his self-empowerment faded. He was an ugly shriveled thing.

Bald, sunken-in eyes and green wrinkly skin made up most of his face. His eyes were piss-yellow, his teeth were almost black and it looked has if his nose had collapsed off, into his face, giving the center of his complexion the appearance of a rotting human skull. His name was Grando. Many words were exchanged between us in that short afternoon beneath the earth.

He asked if I had killed the old man. I replied by shaking my head. No. I asked him about the village and he confirmed he had drank the place clean. He then begged me to take him to the old man. This bald, sniveling creature begged me to let him have blood. He was fading fast. It wasn’t until after speaking to him that I truly felt his mind’s state.

He was weeks away from dust. This confused me greatly. I though our kind didn’t fade away from lack of blood. I brought this point up to him and he replied by saying that not all vampires are alike. More simply put, there are three types of vampirism. Each one, different from the last. He told me of Aztec vampirism, Egyptian vampirism and Sumerian vampirism.

Since then I have learned I carry Sumerian vampire blood within me. That is, the oldest and strongest of the three. He had Aztec, if I’m remembering correctly. This branch required him to constantly consume blood. We talked a little while longer and he begged me for the old man again.

It was in this moment I saw the essence of a true monstrosity. A being begging for blood. This man, this thing before me, was the absolute picture of beastly torment. I wasn’t proud of what I had done next. I took the vampire’s life with much ease and invited into myself the blood of the Aztec vampires. I felt my own strength increase.

I could only hope, at the time, that the effects which plagued him did not transfer to me. Then again, I should have thought about that before drinking him. However, in time I came to find my vampirism was not effected by the limitations of his blood and the power of my blood only enhanced.

I returned to the cabin where the old man was, but he was gone. I left a note. I had grown bored of the area, had learned a little more about myself, I suppose, and went on further into Germany. From there I went on to Poland, founded a small kingdom of my own and lost it just as fast. Sitting alone, I think back on how this state of mind came to be.

I turned my memories back and reflected upon the nature of my being. Was I a monster? Something divine, perhaps? I had always justified my existence by saying that it was the actions of a beast that defines whether that beast may choose to be seen as a man. Yet, I had all the trappings of a mongrel, horrid monstrosity.

And one that was losing his love of humanity. The passing time seemed to prove worthless for my wishes to grow as one who had planned to give something back to the world. Sixty-one years on this earth and all I could contribute was the presence of an idling immortal; and a horrid one at that. Yes, my years were up and my body had aged.

I was no longer my once beautiful, average, youthful self. I was a horrid old man, twisted and shrunken in an old wooden rocking chair and seated at the tallest window of my new abode. Unknown, unheard and uninterrupted in solitude, I sat. Unable to take another life to sustain myself. A wise man once told me there is no such as having too much wine.

As these years linger I am inclined to believe him. I spent those days drinking away, trying to get the old taste back. Yet, nothing came to me. My immortal life was over, or should I say, the part spent in beauty, not killing innocents for their blood, had come to a close. My extra forty-five years had served me well past the age of one-hundred.

Turns out a vampire born of Sumerian blood can sustain himself up until the age of one-hundred. Add to that the forty-five others I drank and now I have a subtotal of One-hundred and forty five immortal years under my belt. However, the blood has left me and my youth has vanished. I am a crippled old man, sitting alone in a tower in Poland and reflecting on the mistakes of my life.

Few as they are. I think back on my mortal past and how I have not been too fair with you, my reader. True, at my lowest point I was a beggar, but it is untrue that I stayed ignorant as to the existence of vampires up unto my transformation. For a short time I knew nobility, on my mother’s father’s side.

I never much cared for it. The money or the strutting about like you were better than everyone else. That way of life sickened me, and so I ran away and became lost in London. I could only imagine what my family thought of what became of me. I tend to stand indifferent to them. For all I know, I could be the last of my bloodline.

Who knows? I tend not to think back too much on my time, there, in Poland. It was a dark period. After a while I had become selfish. In Germany I kept out of the way of people. Here and there folks noticed what I was. They started their mobs and ran me all over the country. But in all that time I never took a life.

I spent only a decade, or so, in Germany. Then, came Poland and there I found bliss. I travelled North and settled into an old castle that had been abandoned by nobility a mere few months before I had arrived. The king had been killed, as was his heir. His youngest son, so I heard, had fled the country.

It was time for a new man to step forward. For a new king to take his place and bring the people of that dying land together, in prosperity. This forgotten state was Itchvalc. My own personal kingdom. I preformed miracles. It took some time, but as the years went on I came to gain the people’s trust.

After a while I felt comfortable enough to show them pieces of what I was. Levitation. Regeneration. Intangibility. My flock rarely dipped into the belief of the vampire, and so they thought I was a god of sorts. It was the first time I had been viewed as something harmonious. And as all good times, it was not to last.

I took a wife, born of commoner blood, for a decade before the winter came and she had passed; just like so many others. Judith. Sometimes I think it best that she passed when she did. Rather than see me become the beast those following years would make me. The loss of one’s love is no excuse to go mad, and looking back I was, indeed, horrible for it.

I must say, again, I have not been entirely faithful with you, my reader. There did come a time, before I turned one-hundred, in which I drank blood. But it was only once. I had began to notice my vampiric powers growing. When my wife died I cursed god and everything that made him up. I secluded myself within my castle, neglected my followers and allowed my land to fall into ruin.

What few invaders came to take what I had, I dealt with once they’d venture too close to home. This leadership turned my kingdom to ruin. My castle became a cursed place, where not even the most vile tyrant would dare to invade. My kingdom halted at the front doors of my castle and exceeded no further.

It was in the winter following my wife’s death that a boy came to the foot of my castle, begging for shelter. The child was followed by a hound, black and in the snow. By the time I had opened the door the hound was a man. A vampire with the ability to transform into an animal. It was my first time seeing this.

The vampire, Gabriel DeLonge, was the boy’s keeper. The boy, Tomas’ McCree, was a vampire, apparently turned by Gabriel. Or so the vampire said. Though mourning the death of my first beloved, meeting new vampires filled my mind with curiosities and suddenly my obsession with the man and boy replaced all the sadness I had built up for Judith.

Gabriel was a bastard from Russia who picked up the boy at a circus, turned him and used the poor thing as a blood replenisher, since the immortal child would never run out. Quite cruel, looking back on it now. Yet, efficient. Gabriel was turned a year before me, but I was wiser. He looked younger and carried the attitude of a self-entitled brat.

Sure, I shared my home with the man and his servant child for a few years, but it was only for my benefit. At the time I was only worried about what I could gain from them. In time I grew tired of Gabriel. He was ignorant. He would steal things from around the castle. Silver and whatnot. He’d go off and venture to towns miles away to sell off my trinkets.

Then, spend his money on women, from which he would just drink further. Oh, he must of had a century or two’s worth of blood running through him. Damn me for not drinking him sooner. Somehow the bastard had found a way to make alcohol work. He’d get drunk and beat on Tomas’ any chance he could.

Especially when he believed me to not be around. I turned my back on the things he sold out of my home and the boy whom he abused. I did it all in the hope that he could one day tell me something about our kind. About the origins of our species. It was useless. Years passed and I could tell, Gabriel knew nothing.

So, one night, after he had delivered an especially terrible beating upon Tomas’, I planned to drink the bastard dry. I carried myself up the stairs where he was asleep, drunk, in the chambers I had given him. When I turned to make my way up the second staircase I saw him, at the very top, awake and on a rampage.

Something about me mistreating him, or speculating things behind his back. It was the words of a drunkard vampire with possibly mind-reading abilities, as I had not done or said anything to indicate any ill will toward him. Nothing more. To tell you the truth, I can’t very much remember what he was raving about.

All I could recall was his drunken stumbling, falling and cracking his skull on the bottom of the foyer floor. Two flights he fell. Must have broken damn-near every bone in his body. When his head hit the floor there was great crack and his skull split. I saw the blood run and I panicked. I had so longed to drink him and now that chance was passed.

Tomas’ came running when he heard the noise. The boy looked toward the bottom of the stairs. He ran back to his room in horror, having gazed at the mess at the bottom of the steps. I thought he assumed I had done it; that I had done-in Gabriel. I made my way up to Gabriel’s chambers where Tomas’ was curled up, crying in the corner.

I calmed him and assured him Gabriel’s death was his own doing. An accident. I think he believed me. I wasn’t quite sure why Tomas’ felt so bad for a man who used and abused him so horribly. As it turned out, Tomas’ was the true carrier of knowledge. As Tomas’ put it, confiding in me, Gabriel was not the vampire that turned him.

In fact, it was another fellow. Apparently done to save the boy’s life. Sweet, yes. It was when Tomas’ revealed to me the strand of his vampiric blood during which I could no longer hear his voice and the gears in my head began turning. Tomas’ carried within him Egyptian vampire’s blood. As did the mysterious vampire that turned him, before Gabriel stole the boy away. 

Now, this was interesting and finally I felt as if the good lord was smiling down on me. He took from me my wife and gave me Tomas’ in return. Not a son. Not a companion. A gift. That night I drank little Tomas’. I drank the Egyptian vampire blood that I had longed for, for so very agonizingly long.

In a way I felt complete. At peace with myself. I told myself not to be sorry. I never spoke of it before, but the idea of consuming all three strains of vampire blood struck me after my meeting with  Grando. I’m somewhat ashamed to say, the thought grew even more obsessive after drinking him. If Tomas’ had never revealed to me that he had been transformed by Egyptian blood, I probably would have never killed him.

What else was I to do? At the time he was just a weak child. He was not meant for this world. If I hadn’t taken him, someone else would have. I can’t say I regret my choices, even now that I know it was a monstrous thing to do. However, I was at the peak of my vampiric power. I had all three forms of blood pumping through me and I was at the pinnacle of my prowess.

Still, with another seventy years of youth on my side, rounded up, immortality was looking up again. At last I had the vampiric power of the Sumerians, the Aztecs and the Egyptians, and it was only a matter of time before I learned to harness all the power I had obtained. What was funny about it all, I think, was that most vampires never drank from other blood breeds.

It is considered vile and wrong. At least, it became more frowned upon as the centuries rolled by. I didn’t care though. All these years just furthered my longing for eternity. My craving for everlasting life grew and I sought any and all ways to extend my existence. But living can only satisfy a man so long.