Bathory's Secret: When All The Time In The World Is Not Enough (Affliction Vampires Book 1) (19 page)

“It’s for your wellbeing my dear, so that you don’t fall out and hurt yourself. It’s only until the medicine wears off.”

“It’s worn off,” I lied.

“Don’t worry dear, you’ll just be here a few more days and then you’ll go back to your old lodgings. The discomfort won’t last long.”

“You mean back in the Keep? What about my baby? Where’s my baby?”

“I regret to inform you that your baby didn’t survive, dear.” I felt a sharp punch in my stomach at that casual announcement, followed by nausea, followed by denial.

“No, that’s a lie.”

“I’m afraid not.” Her previous kindness had begun melting away.

“And when were you going to tell me this?”

“We were only going to worry you if you asked, dear. Some girls don’t remember their experience due to the shock.”

“What on earth are you talking about, you insane bitch?” I lunged at her but my chains left little room for movement. “Not remember my experience? I've been confined to this bed for almost two years and I wouldn’t remember my experience? You’re all insane! Stop treating us like dogs, we deserve better than this!” My eyes filled with tears and I was spitting out the words without thinking. “Bring me my baby, bring me my baby!” I repeated again and again in hysterics. Suddenly another one of their members had made my fantasy hate list. If only I could've reached her throat… “You keep us in here for decades and decades and treat us worse than dirt, you’re disgusting, sad excuses for human beings and you can be certain that if I am ever within reach of your throat your blood is all mine, every last drop of it!” I felt as if my eyes would pop out of my head in rage. Calm as anything she approached my bunk and slapped me across the face with more strength than I imagined a person of her stature could muster.

“I’ll attribute this little outburst of yours to the disruption of your humors and the fact that your foetus didn’t survive, and you'd better consider yourself lucky that I won’t report this scene to the Father Superior or you’d be very sorry indeed. You’ll be returned to normal duties in the coming days, and you’d better keep your legs shut if you don’t want to see me again, because if you do, I promise your stay here will not be as
pleasant
the second time around.” She enunciated the word “pleasant” emphatically, without lifting her gaze from mine, before turning around and leaving the room.

I fell back into my pillow and cried for what seemed like hours until I fell asleep. I felt numb both emotionally and physically.

Two days later, after one last feeding on the farm boy, a guard came to get me. I was returned to the main part of the Keep and put straight to work as if nothing had ever happened. My new job was in the laundry. Even though I’d been in the Keep for two centuries I’d never worked here before. All slaves were kept on a rotational duty system to avoid working with each other for too long even though no talking was permitted during work. The laundry was set up in the deepest part of the cave system and took a long downwards climb to get to. I was greeted by the sight of large boiling cauldrons which slaves were stirring with vigor and from which emanated a pungent acidic odor. There were also several small streams that came from deep within the cave wall and disappeared through an opening on the opposite end. All along the sides of the streams slaves were hunched over, scrubbing red robes against the stones and I was instructed to do the same. The weeks that followed were quick and hazy. I felt no motivation to think or feel and I breathed only because it was automatic.

At night my cage felt like a coffin. It had housed me for so long and I hated every square inch of it. The memories it invoked were too intense. Shaq’ al, the rapist, the first time I’d made love with Vyktor: Most of the significant events of my life had taken place in this tiny nook on the cave wall and when I died they would simply replace me with some other unfortunate tenant, just like all the ones who had come before me and whose marks the wall silently bore. They were the only testaments to some other souls having existed in this squalid dent in the stone. Where was God in all of this? Not their small, vindictive and plastic God but the real God, my God. I would not be ruled by the same God as they, my God was greater and stronger.
She
was why we have been created to be better than humans. If theirs was the God of the day then mine would be the Goddess of the Night and She would give me the strength to put up with the small minds and earthly desires of these acrid men who lived solely for wealth and material goods. Our God had given us the ability to walk through the centuries, to mature and grow far more than these ‘demon’ fearing misanthropes ever would. My God had proven her existence and her love by making me better than they were; what had their God done? My God had taught me patience and that pain is an inextricable part of life. Maybe she wanted me to accept my fate, maybe if I let go I could join her in the darkness and be free…

One morning as I was gazing into the soapy mess of clothes I was holding I slipped and fell into the water. Surprisingly the stream was deeper than it appeared and it dragged me away with its force under the stone wall and down along its length. I struggled to breathe and was slowly suffocating for what seemed like several minutes of being dragged by the strength of the current in a constricted stone channel when I came to an opening and an abrupt stop. The water continued to flow but the ceiling was higher than the water allowing me to come up for air and catch my breath. As I soaked in the flowing water I realized that even though the stream went on there was some kind of barrier blocking the exit. I dove down to find that it was a cast iron grate intended to stop anyone swimming through the hole. The grate appeared to be centuries old and though sturdy, time had taken its toll on it. I pulled at it trying to see if it would come off but I was running out of air so I stopped investigating and went up.

When I surfaced two guards were standing on the edge and I was grabbed and pulled out of the water and dumped on the bank. They waited a few minutes so that I could catch my breath and then made me walk back to my post. Surprisingly I was not disciplined for my little adventure as the particular spot where I had been washing the clothes was known for being deceptive and slaves falling in was a more frequent event than they'd anticipated
.

The following morning a guard came to get me. I’d not been assigned a new Keeper yet and thus I hadn’t fed in several days. He escorted me to the Feeding Hall and delivered me to the hands of another mindless nun who took me to her Sister to feed off but I refused to eat. She smacked me in the face but I would not comply. She produced a sharp knife from her belt and cut the kneeling nun’s neck so I would be tempted by the blood. Its smell was unbelievably tempting but my desire to die was stronger that my need to eat. She grabbed me by the hair and pulled me out of the hall where she handed me back to the guard who proceeded to punch and kick me. It was time I left this place and if dead was the only way, so be it.

When I woke up I was on the floor of my cage. There was dried blood on the outside of my mouth but I still felt overwhelmingly hungry so I guessed they must have tried to force feed me and failed. I soaked a rag in some water and tried to wipe it away. My reflection in the water revealed someone I didn’t know. This woman was tired and thin and carcass-like. I was lost in my thoughts when I heard footsteps walking on the gravel and the smell told me that it was Vyktor! As soon as I saw him I was flooded with emotions of love and tenderness and realized how much I’d missed him. He came into my cage, knelt on the ground beside me and we embraced for a long time and then we began sobbing.

“I’m so sorry Theodora. I’m so sorry I let them take you. And I’m sorry for everything they’ve done to you.”

“It wasn’t your fault Vyktor.” I had missed his familiar face so much over the last two years and it felt so good to be in his arms again. He stood there for a long while just looking at me, with more love than I’d ever seen in his eyes. He was holding my face with his hard, callused hands and they were the only hands I wanted touching me. “They made me get you pregnant,” he said with angst in his voice and looking deep into my eyes, afraid of my reaction. Somehow the revelation did not astound me on their part, but I felt a fluster in my chest at his confession. When I said nothing he continued. “I loved you though, they had nothing to do with that. I love you still and I meant what I said to you about being free one day, just be patient a little longer," that part he whispered into my ear in case someone was eavesdropping as they tended to do.

Against my better efforts, my eyes filled with tears and they streamed uninterrupted down my face.

“Love cannot be faked, Vyktor. It is one of the few things they can’t control in this place. Our love was so strong that it created a baby, despite our cursed bodies!” Realizing he didn’t know, I told him what had happened to our baby and with that my stream of tears turned into a flood. Vyktor stood there holding me with his nose in my hair and together we sobbed, mourning what was never going to be.

Pulling himself away with difficulty he said, “I can’t stay long or else they’ll come get me but please drink this blood and stay alive, Theodora. I promise you this is not the end. I don’t know when we’ll see each other next but we just have to separate for the time being.” He pressed a small leather satchel of blood in my hand.

“Promise me you won’t give up.”

Reluctantly I agreed. After that Vyktor and I rarely saw each other. I was given a new Keeper, but he was old, mute and with only one functional eye. If I had to guess I would say losing his tongue and eye had been some form of punishment and he was now barely a shell of his former self. I too felt the full burden of this place and went about my duties in the laundry room trying to keep the thoughts out of my head. The pain of losing both my baby and Vyktor again was unbearable. We had agreed to stay away from each other both in defiance to the Order and out of realization that loving someone in here only made us weaker. Giving the priests an insight into our softer sides was something we’d all learned to instinctively avoid and thus no bonds were ever created. Knowing full well that we'd initially been manipulated into mating we gave them no more cause to think that what we had together had been anything more than physical.

The years continued to drag on. The only indication of time we had in this place were the smells of seasonal cooking flowing though the cave system, or the reduced water in the rivers in the laundry in the winter and summer as well as the rate of water droplets from the ancient stalagmites in the ceiling. During the spring and the autumn the drops came more frequently, whereas in the summer they stopped altogether. We could tell if it was a particularly harsh and dry summer if there was not a drop from the roof and the atmosphere inside was more stifled than usual. The heat did not come so much from outside but we felt it more from the ground. We would often joke that this was due to our proximity to hell as we were so far underground. Winters were stable but damp and a little cold. Snow was brought in from outside for our water needs as the river still flowed but at a reduced rate. Spring showed itself when the snow melted on the mountains and the water flowed freely and abundantly through the entrails of our cave. During these times I would close my eyes and remember the feeling of the warm sun on my skin and the smell of flowers in the air. The thick swarms of fruit flies, butterflies and bees of summers past made for fond memories.

About three years after I had returned from the Breedery we were struck by a particularly harsh summer. The atmosphere in the Keep was stifling, the drops from the ceiling hadn’t come in months and our river had dried up to almost nothing. The nuns and the priests were suffering considerably and even the guards had been allowed to drop their red robes for the thinner linen white chemises they wore underneath. We also began to notice a drop in their numbers as word got round that they had taken ill with some peculiar disease which was decimating their numbers both in here and up top. Even the Father Superior was rumored to have taken to his bed. The items that arrived for washing had also changed. Where they would normally comprise of red robes with the smell of sweat and mud they were replaced by more and more bed sheets and underclothes stained with sweat, blood and puss.

The guards appeared to be on edge, tired, distracted and afraid. I’d never before sensed anything like this in all my years in this place. The sadistic air of confidence they all carried seemed to have dissipated into self-pity and despair. One morning while I was crouched into my usual place, struggling with what little water was left for washing, I was approached silently from the back by someone who cupped my mouth to keep me from screaming.

“Shhh! It’s me Theodora, don’t be afraid.” I turned back to see Vyktor and instantly wrapped my arms around his neck in relief. It felt so good to see him and touch him.

“Vyktor what is happening here? Where are all the guards?”

“There’s some crippling disease out there, they call it the Pestilence and it’s killing humans in their thousands. Entire villages are dropping dead one after the other, with the dead filling their houses and no one left to tend to them or even bury them. Few seem to be immune to it and this time it’s also taken hold in here. Most of the guards missing are dead and the others are ill in their beds. Even Father Superior is exhibiting some signs but is putting up a good fight, most probably from all the Afflicted blood he's been drinking. There’s rumors of a shut-in tonight because they don’t have the numbers to guard us.”