The Vampires' Birthright (15 page)

He seemed to grow sad as he reminisced, and I started to tell him that he didn’t need to delve into painful memories. But, he raised his hand to stop me.

“Truly, it’s okay. I’ve long since healed from my human regrets,” he said. “Back then, any alchemist worth his salt could shape shift, and I could do that easily for as long as I can remember, long before I was orphaned and taken to Persia as a Greek slave. Once I was accepted for my talents, we used to hold contests in Xerxes’ court, and the biggest challenge was to try and become something so minuscule that the naked eye could not see it. It is the most amazing thing, Txema, when you consider that we humans and once humans, seem to be the middle of universe when it comes to scale, if nothing else. You would be most surprised at the other direction the universe travels. Not everything is part of the ever-expanding energy movement beyond our planet. It’s as unending and magical in the other direction.”

“What, sort of like reverse infinity?”

“Yes, I guess that’s an excellent term for this phenomena,” he said, nodding thoughtfully before going on. “To become a magician for the great King Xerxes, one had to master both directions of the energy flux. It’s the only way a magician could effectively cloak the king’s assassins. It also enabled us to be effective spies for his Highness, either invisible or disguised as a domestic pet, like a bird, dog, or cat.”

“It sounds really cool; I don’t suppose you can teach someone like me to do some of that?” I saw endless possibilities, and not all bad. It could actually provide the means for me to return to America with my baby to visit my family, friends, and Peter, and then return to wherever our latest hideout was without anyone being the wiser for it.

“I’m not sure if that’s possible, yet,” he said, offering me a wry smile. “I believe you have the talent and most other spiritual qualities. My main concern is your level of control and maturity. Having the ability to perform such magical spells also means knowing exactly when to employ them and when to hold back. It sounds easier than it is, especially if you must allow someone you deeply care about to perish for the greater good.”

He grew quiet for a moment and peered through the banyan leaves.

“This is a volatile period, Txema, and it is not just that you should be completely unprepared, obviously there are times when even a second is too long to wait for aid. I will think upon this… but for now, it appears the sun is moving below the mountains to our west. Once dusk arrives, I’ll need to bring you to Suddhodana and his village. They already know we’re coming, since Xuanxang convinced them to take you in.”

Hearing about Xuanxang’s connection to them made me wary. “Are these more vampires, then?”

“Only Suddhodana is a vampire, and he was turned by Xuanxang long ago,” he said. “Most of the village’s population are males, with only a few females for the men selected to propagate.”

“That sounds really old fashioned,” I said, thinking maybe we should continue on until we found a more suitable place to stay. “Isn’t Kathmandu in Nepal? I’ll bet there’s a hotel there that would be safe.”

“Have you already forgotten what happened to your friends in Tennessee?” Kazikli’s tone became stern again. “Ralu is gaining support for his cause throughout the world. I assure you that at least one vampire sympathetic to Ralu is waiting in Kathmandu. This is the case in any city large enough to be called one. You’ll be safest right here.”

“So, it’s true that vampires exist everywhere, huh?”

Not a question asked from a hopeful perspective. I felt so surrounded by enemies, and yet I’m quite sure this is the way it’s always been for me. The difference is that when I’d get a creepy feeling back in high school, as if someone were watching me from a nearby rooftop or in the taller trees back in Richmond, I assumed it was some odd paranoia brought on by too much partying and too little sleep or just a straight up perv creeper. I never in a million years considered it to be a vampire―or vampires―watching and lusting after my unique blood.

But, this
is
my reality. No matter where I go―or where my child and I try to hide―we
will
be hunted. Always. Like a pair of filet mignons trying to tiptoe past a pack of ravenous Dobermans.

“It’s not only vampires,” he said, after deliberating in silence while these kinds of thoughts raced through my head. “There are many different kinds of immortals. Some fit in easily with society to where no one would ever suspect they are different in any way. Others, including dozens of different breeds, could never blend in with mankind even if they tried. Many of these have been forced underground, and only come up for… sustenance every few centuries. That’s why folklore changes from time to time, and things like trolls, fairies, and goblins disappeared from literature and reported sightings for hundreds of years. But such creatures have recently risen again.”

“I…” I wasn’t sure what to say. “So you are saying the Three Billy Goats Gruff are real?”

“Why don’t you ask me one last
real
question, and then I think you should rest a while. I might turn into a seagull and see if I can catch some fish for supper, and afterward it’s on to the village.” He laughed.

“How about three questions, and I swear that will be it,” I said. “Just three, and then I’ll be more than happy to shut the hell up for the rest of the night.”

“Okay… as long as it’s only three.”

“Why are you protected from the sunlight when you shape shift?”

This question had been gnawing at me since my first encounter with the dragon vampire, and seeing Xuanxang and now Kazikli both smoking in their human form the curiosity was as likely to kill me a vampire at this point.

“Good question—really it is.” His wry smile grew wide enough for me to notice his double fangs. That was another question for another day, since I wanted to hear his take on something more pressing for me personally. “I learned early on in my vampire life that as long as I shifted into a creature that was comfortable in daylight, I would be too. The imitation of life is far closer than it is in our human form. I am not sure why. I have a theory but it is esoteric and boring. Suffice to say it involves humanity’s soul versus the more primal nature of the beast. I do so miss Martin Luther. He could be something of a loudmouthed firebrand, but he was a great thinker on the nature of the soul. Anyway, when I am a beast my heart beats; I must breathe. I have to admit, there are times I shift for those simple pleasures lost to so many of my kind.”

“Luckily for me your body is warm as well,” I added. “Or I think I would have frozen to death on our flight from Dadi’s palace.”

“Indeed. At the very least I should have been forced to seek shelter sooner and the trip would have taken far longer. The main drawback to shifting is that I’m always famished when I switch back to vampire form. So, it’s critical for me to eat something when in the altered state.”

“It must’ve been very difficult not to take a bite out of me on the way here,” I said playfully.

“Yes, it was,” he said, evenly. A rush of tingles surged up and down my spine. “But I knew it would be, so I fed on one of the kitchen staff members this morning.” My face must have reflected my horror. “Don’t worry, Txema, I took only enough blood to get by.” “What is your next question, then?” He gently prodded, when I stared into the blaze in the fire pit. I felt a lot less flippant as I pictured him eating his fill, knowing he’d need it to save my sorry ass.

“Okay. You mentioned that you were once an alchemist, right? Did you ever come across Racco and his brother? Chanson said they were also over two-thousand years old.”

“What an interesting question, Txema,” he said, with a strange tone in his voice. There was an unasked question there, as well as the kind of admiration a teacher has when a student asks an unexpected question oblique to the subject at hand. He grew silent, as if collecting his thoughts. He opened his mouth once as if he were going to answer me, but then closed it again.

“Well?”

“Let me respond to that first with another question.”

“That’s not fair―” I started to complain, but he held up his finger, calling for silence.

“Do you honestly think a human being can stumble upon the exact alchemical recipe for immortality in a single human lifetime?” he said. “Assuming sixty to eighty years perhaps of which, what do you think, maybe forty to fifty of that if the researcher is exceptional really can be devoted to such an endeavor?”

I nodded.

“Well, here’s the short version of a long answer to your question,” he continued. “After I was turned into a vampire, during Xerxes’ return from the Battle of Thermopylae, I was quite despondent. I wanted to continue my growth as an alchemist and master magician. But, the miracles performed by a human alchemist are far more glorious and appreciated among the mortal nations of the world, and not so much among immortals. That meant I needed someone to take my place.”

“And the brothers St. Germaine were whom you chose for this?”

“Yes,” he said. “And without going too far into detail, I found two orphaned brothers left to die by Alexander’s army in a pillaged town near Persepolis. Since the original names I gave them are not easy to pronounce and remember, we’ll stick with who they are now. Comte was the more gifted wizard between them, as Racco has always been more interested in the finer things that life has to offer. I made sure they lacked for nothing in terms of luxury and comfort, and as my dedicated researchers into man-made immortality, they were considered very wealthy within Greek/Persian society.

“They had a huge head start on their peers by means of my own research conducted nightly over the course of the previous century. It still took them nearly twenty years of painstaking experiments―some with disastrous results―until they made the most monumental achievement in the history of mankind.”

“And, how long ago was that?” I was trying to get the full picture of this in my mind.

“Less than a decade after Alexander’s death. Somewhere around twenty-three hundred years ago, mankind had the secret to true eternal life. At least life on Earth, which as any immortal will tell you can be terribly lonely at times,” said Kazikli. It looked as if he might pause to reminisce some more, but glanced at the darkening sky and pushed onward. “My lads…
lost
the recipe, I am sorry to say. So, like all of us who can’t experience the magic of normal eating, sleeping, and even really loving anything beyond what we crave and need, these two are alone for eternity. Through my vanity, I condemned them much in the same way as we have been condemned. No one else can join them.”

“That’s so sad,” I said. My heart again was pulled to thoughts of Racco. My body ached to feel his skilled touch again. I felt bad for him, to be alone in that way, even more than the vampires were. They had the shared experiences of their hunger and their transformation. I couldn’t always understand them, but at least they had their own kind to provide some kind of cold comfort. “I never imagined they were schooled by a vampire. You’re sort of their dad, huh?”

“I have long felt that way,” he said. “And as their ‘father,’ I have words of advice for you, Txema. Never let your guard down around Racco. My boy has always been self-serving, and a never-ending scoundrel to women. I warned Chanson about him many times while she was still human nearly three hundred years ago, and like you, she was loathe to listen.”

He paused to study my expression, which I managed to keep blank. But, his widening smile told me that he had gathered something. I’d hate to play poker with him.

“I hope you will at least think about what I’ve told you tonight,” he said. “Garvan would be a better match for you, because he does love you, Txema. Racco, I am afraid, can only ever truly love Racco.”

My mouth dropped open in surprise, as this was the exact thing I was thinking about when he studied me.

“But, lasting happiness with a vampire is an impossibility… unless you become one, too,” he said. “You may well decide to do that, in order to oversee your bloodline’s survival, as Chanson chose to do when it was only her and the two baby girls she had with Racco.”

“What?”
I gasped in surprise. “Neither one ever told me that!”

“I imagine they haven’t,” said Kazikli. He smiled compassionately. “That’s why you need to be careful about who you choose to be with. One cannot be an immortal without amassing innumerable dark and terrible secrets. And before you ask, yes, I include myself in that as well. You would do best not to trust any of us, for we are selfish creatures concerned with our own survival above all else.” He smiled at me and lightened his tone.

“Now, what about that Worley kid? He seems all right, and is a good-looking boy. Not to mention, he must love you dearly to have gone through the five days of torture in Racco’s dungeon and then still have enough mental fortitude to have sex with you in front of a nation of vampires. You may not have seen it at the time, but I tipped my hat to him that night for coming through when we so desperately needed it.”

All I could do was shake my head in wonder. So many new facts to sort through.

“Think about it, Txema,” he said, coming over to my side. I was too numb to even care about his instantaneous change of location. “Think about it all, and make the best decisions for you and your child.”

“I will. And that leads into my final question perfectly. I don’t understand why so many of you hate me. I’m your meal ticket. Without me, you’ll all become like Ralu.”

He took a deep breath. “Another very good question, and that one, I’m afraid harkens back more to our human side than our vampiric. There are those who despise weakness. Who see that admitting that we need someone as a reminder of the limitations of our personal power. For many, just being reliant on another is enough to make them resentful. When your line was larger, and please forgive the bluntness, we could just include one of your cousins in the normal cycle of the hunt and pretend the yoke of your bloodline wasn’t upon us so tight. Limited as it is now to just you, the façade of our independence has been revealed and not all of us are handling it as gracefully. There are those who would like nothing more than to see you strapped to a table with tap set in your throat and an annual breeding partner.”