The House on Blackstone Moor (The Blackstone Vampires) (22 page)

“They are changing!”

“Rose, come to us!”

So discordant were their voices, their heartfelt pleas. Yet I was greatly moved. I was moved to obey for how could I possibly do otherwise?

“I am coming!” I cried.

As I hurried toward them the mass began to change into a cocoon from which a butterfly would emerge.

I waited. But then instead of a butterfly I did see them, as the dead things they were, floating just above the floor, sad looking bloodied things, gray with death but stained red with the awful carnage of their fatal butchery. Their throats were gaping black crevices from which maggots danced. I covered my eyes, unable to look. They moved toward me then and I felt their presence, like icy mist they began to engulf me, freeze me—envelop me in a stench-filled fog.

“No!”

Louis tried to pull them off, but they only re-formed some distance away.

Suddenly, my mother revealed herself as she always looked—golden-haired and sweet faced.

“Mother!”

She drifted closer, “Daughter, daughter!” But then she stopped. “Demon! Demon!” she hissed.

“No Mother, please, I am not a demon. I’m not!”

Louis understood. “It is because you have changed, Rose.”

I flew at him and pummeled him with my fists, “And it is you who have changed me, you monster! I don’t wish to be changed, I want to be human again. I want to go to my family!”

The mist was coming for Louis then. I watched as he pulled it away. “I have some power against them but not much. The dead have much strength.”

It was laughing and hissing at him and calling him names… demon, devil and evil incarnate.

But still he protested. “I am not evil, damned is not evil. You are both! For you have become too hate-filled. If you do not alter, you will remain in the realm of the lost!”

At last they finally vanished, fading ever more, until nothing remained of them but a cold dampness to prove they were ever there.

*

“You rest now, Rose.”

Dr. Antor’s gentle voice urged me yet again to sleep. I tried to fight it but could not. My eyelids were too heavy to raise. “But I don’t wish to sleep.”

“It is best if you do, Rose. It has taken much of your strength. They thrive on strength, that is how they exist and when they have taken all of yours they will vanish.”

It seemed not to make any sense. “But they wish me to come…”

Even before I fell asleep I knew that was no longer what they wished. For now I was a demon and they did not wish me with them.

I wanted them, they did not want me. I was rejected for being a demon
. Yet I did pray! Louis knew and continued to try and reason with me, but I shut myself off despite the horrific and ever increasing urge I had to feed.

“I know what you do.”

He’d come in to see me. He and Dr. Antor were the only ones who did now. The children were not permitted to see me because of how I was fighting it.

“Go away and leave me alone!”

But he wouldn’t. “No Rose, I cannot bear to see you suffer,” he begged me once. “What will make you understand all I have told you?”

“Nothing!” I cried. “Nothing at all, now go.”

He would go sadly, moving in that brooding and thoughtful way of his. I was then left in the peace I craved but did not have.

And then there was Antor, the neutral party who tried to make me understand.  It was always the same—just his head poking in asking the same question. “May I have a word, Rose?”

Certainly, why not? Do come in Dr. Antor and watch a freak who lusts for blood yet wishes to pray.

And yet, that was no longer so, for I had stopped. Not because they wanted me to, but because I was ashamed before God. I felt it was sinful to pray and not be worthy to do so.

“You’ve stopped praying, haven’t you?”

I nodded.

“Yes, I thought so. You see Rose, your soul is still with you even though you are nearly transformed—soon it will be gone altogether.”

Indeed, I thought. It is pointless to pray when heaven is too far to hear one word, and even if the angels could hear anything, the prayers would have been sacrilege.

So what did he want? Clearly he was in my room for a reason. I tried to gauge his face but Dr. Antor was more difficult to read than Louis. 

Now, looking at him, I thought he was going to ask me to do something. I think I guessed it before he suggested it.

“Rose, I need to speak with you. It is about feeding.”

This wasn’t the first time he said that. Mostly I cried when he did, but not now. Now I chuckled, mirthlessly. “Shall I fly onto the moors and capture my prey? Would that be to your liking?”

“No, Rose.” He ignored the sarcasm and sought to address the question seriously. “I do not think you could fly. Your spirit is not strong enough for all of the attributes to—”

I cut him off.
“Attributes?
Surely that is the saddest joke of all
.
A
ttributes, indeed.
I suppose I shall look forward to it.”

“For the additional strengths you will have, the extra things you will be able to do.”

“Like what?”

“You will be physically stronger and your senses will be sharpened.”

I understood that for I had already experienced it when I was receiving Eve’s blood regularly. “I remember.”

“The blood will be brought to you and soon.”

“Will it be Louis’ blood?”

“Very little. It will mainly be a mixture of other blood.”

“But there is nothing in the larder—the cellar larder that is, or have there been newcomers, perhaps other vampire killers?”

Dr. Antor shook his head. “No, they are not yet here…it is not something to jest about, Rose. They could destroy all of us, even the children.”

I know I blanched but I did say, “Yes, all but not Louis, for Louis endures.”

He nodded. “Yes he does, but it is not of his own choosing.” I looked at him sadly as he went on. “It is a curse more than a blessing, Rose—to continue to endure forever,”

“Many would wish such a thing…”

Dr. Antor shook his head. “I don’t really think so, and I think in time you will not think so either. As for the blood it will be from wildlife.” He moved toward the door. “I will bring you something you must have later. I shall come myself.” He implored me to understand, I could see it in his eyes. Yet I said nothing, for there was nothing I could say.

I suppose if superficially I was accepting of it, I was still horrified by the entire thing.

Was a person ever so torn? Torn by love… for I still loved the children and Louis.

*

I fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed of death and life that was one, like two ill-matched things woven together. A crazy quilt of dreams and evil foreboding.

I woke to find Louis sitting near me. His head bent, he looked as though he had been crying.

He must have felt my eyes upon him. “Oh, Rose.” His voice cracked with emotion. “You do understand now… don’t you?”

Did I? I wasn’t sure and said so. “I am confused. I feel dammed and I feel love also, your love and my own for you.”

His lips moved as though to say something, but he shook his head. “I cannot, I am so sorry.” He began to cry then.

“Louis.” I grabbed his hand and kissed it passionately for I did love this being, this demi-demon that was and would always be Louis and my dearest love.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine, lingering there, then pulled back to look into my eyes. “Rose, I came because I wished to speak to you before Dr. Antor comes in.”

Yes, I remembered. Dr. Antor was to return to me with a special beverage—not of something holy but something opposite, yet it was not done to further evil. That was what made it all the more horrible.

But lying there and watching him, looking into his eyes and feeling the love he had for me, I could but say these words, “I am ready.”

“I will get him!” He stood fast, for once his eyes dancing, and left

He returned soon after with Dr. Antor. “You are ready then?”

I nodded and held out my hand to receive my destiny and then brought it to my lips, tasted its thick, salty sweetness.

I did not see much of Louis’ life, hardly anything at all. Instead I saw the moors. I saw birds and rabbits and field mice, overlooked by the night and day skies. I heard things too, the owl’s cry, and the shrieks and calls of all that dwelled within that moorland.

“What was it from?  A harmless rabbit or bird that thought the fox its worst enemy? Is that the source of this, my sustenance?”

Antor didn’t answer; it was Louis who did. “It does not matter. Animals are killed for food, are they not?”

I nodded, thinking Louis far cleverer than I had thought him before. “Yes, I suppose that is a good enough answer.”

“So you will not feel revulsion then?”

“No Louis, I suppose I will not.”

If there was with this acceptance a brief peace, it was soon gone for it wasn’t long before the spirits returned.

*

They appeared suddenly, between one day and the next, grey swirls of icy mist that ebbed and flowed, yet moved toward me, ever closer.

“Mother?”

Oh, where was my acceptance now, for I did wish her to answer.

The mass began to change then, becoming more dense as the room grew unbearably cold, despite the fire.

“Mother, please.”

Why I said that I do not know; I think I wished to reassure myself that I was not hated—or regarded as something demonic.

I think I wanted her forgiveness. “Mother?”

But there was no sign or answer either, just a shifting of the mass into something else, into the image of my mother as she looked in life.

I began to weep for I so wished to feel her embrace. She came closer, but just before she reached me she stopped and began to hover.

I begged her to come to me, but I saw it was no use, for I could see her features. Her expression was hostile, her eyes even worse. “You are a demon, an evil creature from hell!”

“No!” I screamed, “I did not wish it. I did not! It was not my idea
.
”

“Demon!”

The door opened just then and Louis came in. My mother’s spirit railed at him. “Monster! Monster!”

I began to run toward my mother but Louis cried out,  “No Rose! You are not as she remembers you.”

“But she is my mother.”

“She is only a shell; her hatred has tainted her soul. She will not reach heaven as she is now.” He pointed toward the spirit. “Why don’t you admit it? The hatred you took with you has consumed you and made you an evil vengeful spirit!”

She began to change then, increasing in size until she seemed to fill the room.

“It is her anger,” Louis said.

And so it was for I could feel it.

The others appeared then, my brother and sisters—and they joined the larger mass which was our mother.  “You sought it, you wished it to happen. You became his!”

So was their unanimous verdict.

I began to scream for this was the truth I did not wish to hear. Despite my praying, I did in fact love Louis and knew I always would. “Yes, I love him.”

There was after that an odd sound like the cry of baying wolves. Another spirit had materialized.

“It is
your
father,” Louis cried out. “Rose, he is there!”

I turned and sure enough, I saw him clearly, moving slowly but steadily in my direction, holding out his arms to me like a lovesick suitor.

Suddenly the other spirits rushed to trap him within their own freezing mass. “Get away from me!” he cried.

Now they were warring, a war of the dead—as they spat and hissed and gave off an even deadlier stench.

“They might do this for days. I have seen such things!”

I began to think so too, for it seemed to be an unending battle, this merging and splitting apart.

“Shout your hatred for it will weaken their strength.”

At first I was too horrified to understand his words but then I did. “Leave, leave now—you are evil corruptions! You are fake!” This I shouted at my family, but my father only laughed.

“I am not a corruption. I love you!”

“Love?
You call what you did love; you are the worst monster here!”

I screamed and raged, and as I did my father’s spirit began to fade.

When I next looked they were all gone, leaving peace in their wake at least for now.

We enjoyed peace at least from the spirits
. We did not see them for a while
. T
here were other problems looming though, we just did not know it yet.

However, there was also some peace for me, for I felt myself adjusting to this new existence.