Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) (90 page)

“How dare you interfere now!” Salas was enraged. Yugo had broken the rhythm to his symphony. He wanted retribution.

Salas took a hold of Yugo's leg at the severed knee. It oozed as he squeezed it. Salas picked up Yugo, and threw him more than a hundred feet to the far outer border of the torches. Yugo crashed into the jagged rocks that littered the surface. Salas vanished out of sight, reappearing above Yugo. Salas knelt down on top of Yugo, straddling him with both legs. “This is what you get for interrupting me.” Salas swung at Yugo's face gouging out a pound of skin, muscle, and fat from Yugo's left cheek.

Yugo laughed as he bled.

Salas's second swing stopped the laughter. A piece of Yugo's scalp was skinned from the right side of his face. His right temple crushed, closing his eye socket on that side.

Yugo laughed again.

Salas stopped that by scrapping his fist across Yugo's face. His swing drug from Yugo's lower right, to his upper left. Skinning his face, removing his nose, completely disfiguring him.

Yugo chuckled best he could. The blood gurgled in the back of his throat.

Salas was about to hit Yugo again in the face, but waited. He wanted to see why Yugo was laughing. Salas turned around. Damien was still in the same place he was. There was no one else coming. No help around. Yugo was simply losing it. Salas leaned back, freeing him up to attack the rest of Yugo's body.

Yugo closed his eyes. He was concentrating on using his alteration ability.

Salas could hear Yugo's internal incantation. He quickly acted to snap both of Yugo's arms at the shoulders.

Yugo's arms fell to the sides, limp and motionless.

Salas retaliated. Ripping at Yugo's skin as if it were a scratching post. He shredded what was left of Yugo's young skin, excoriating his face. Leaving him a blood soaked mess.

A faint sound bubbled from the pool of Yugo's facial region.

“What are you so damn happy about!?” Salas yelled out.

“This.” Damien's hand pierced through Salas's left ribs. He had a tight hold on his heart.

Salas immediately grabbed at Damien's sides behind him, trying to sink his fingers into his flesh again. He couldn't.

Salas's hands crumbled to thick chunks of ash. “What did you do to me?” Salas demanded an answer from Damien.

Damien squeezed Salas' heart, snuffing the life from it. “Nothing.”

Salas looked down at the disfigured pulp that remained of Yugo. “But when?”

“First, as he reached for me.” Damien said as Salas recalled the moment in time. “Second, as you were killing him.”

Blood poured out of Salas's mouth. He was having trouble speaking. “He was never able to put his hands on me. How?”

Damien stared at what was left of Salas' hands. He had little more than wrists. “Through his skin.” Damien retracted his hand from Salas' chest. The heart tightly in grasp. “Every time you touched him, every time you beat him, he was able to alter you more. Bit by bit, he transformed your flesh and bones. Finally, just after you took his last precious moments from him, it activated and your hands crumbled. He defeated you in death when I couldn't in life.”

Salas slumped down to his knees. He looked at Damien's chest. “You were dead.”

Damien lowered his gaze to Yugo's corpse. “He revived me. I owe him more than my life.” Damien crushed Salas' heart.

“You can only delay me. I will have my revenge.” Salas coughed, the blood was blocking his airway. He gurgled as Love's body began to die.

“I know.” Damien stood up, walking in front of Salas. “I know you will return. You will have another host. You will continue what you have started tonight.” Damien's posture relaxed slightly. “Death may mean nothing to you. But life means more to me. I know that you can never die, Salas. But you will never truly live either.”

Salas tipped back, cracking Love's head on the stone ground. His eyes were staring off at the stars in the sky.

“The next time you come, I will be ready. I will have an army ready to confront you Salas. In your next incarnation,
we
will be prepared to prevent everything you were able to do in this life.” Damien sat next to Love's body. Salas' soul had departed before hearing the last of his message. Damien leaned in to Love's left ear. “This was not your fault young child. You were tempted by a masterful artisan of lies. Keeping ones sanity with such company as long as you did is surely commendable. I am sorry your life was swindled by this demon vampire.”

Damien proceeded to dig two graves, having to bury Love and Yugo. He said the lord's prayer and wished her soul to heaven in spite of what she had chosen in life. He spoke of Yugo's help against the travelers of the roads they walked on. Of how he saved many from the knives of thugs and bandits. Damien knew that being a vampire, his very existence was in contrary to his faith. He didn't care. He had transcended upon a new path. He made himself a new vow to help others with his strength. He pondered as he buried Love. He thought of all the years during his living life, and his time as a vampire, the companionship he had lost. He would miss Yugo's conversations. Yugo, as slipping as his morality was, had become a good friend to him. Damien shed many silent tears as he placed the grave stone above Yugo's tomb.

The sun was soon to rise. Damien had to leave his dead friend behind. He pondered why it had to end as it did. As he wiped his cheeks clean, Damien noticed the abandoned house in the distance. The dwelling was where Salas came out of earlier that night. There were two hours before the break of dawn. He decided to investigate, to search for any traces of what Salas was planning.

Damien took his time shambling over to the shed. It began to snow as he approached the broken doorway. It had been cracked on the right side by Salas on his way out. He stepped in, the bland, aged gray wooden structure casted a calm shroud on his mind. There was movement in a second room in back. Damien went forth to see a depressing sight. A girl was strapped to a bed made of furs. Her limbs were bound together with rope soaked with fresh blood. She was naked, her neck lashed to a post in the wall. Her head was covered with a fur tarp. Her body was untouched. No wounds, bruises, scars or other signs of mistreatment were visible. Damien could see this girl was alive, but Damien knew there was something much more to why she was there.

Damien attempted to speak, stopping short because of the sudden wailing coming from the girl. He could see her tears, wetting the rope binding her throat. Damien couldn't help himself, he burst into action, cutting her free with his hands. He lifted her off of the bed and into his arms. She screamed in pain, not knowing what was going on, or who was doing it. Damien held her as his eyes shifted to her back. He felt it on his skin before he saw what was going on. There were thousands of bite marks on her backside. They were all bleeding, oozing into a large bucket that had been placed under her back and into the middle of the bed. There were spikes keeping the wound open. Salas had been draining her through the day and night, then feeding off the pooled blood below.

The girl screamed again, wriggling in Damien's arms, out of desperation.

Damien softly spoke into the girl's ear. “He will never do that to you again. You are safe now. He can't harm you anymore. I promise.”

The girl instantly stopped screaming. She recognized Damien's voice. She pulled back, wanting to hear his voice, the words of safety, again.

“He will never hurt you again.” Damien began to take the fur tarp off of her head. “I promise.” He said as he saw a familiar face before him.

“I knew you'd come, Damien. You were always there for me. Thank you.” The short red hair, the pale skin, the deep blue eyes. It was Rebekkah's voice, she was thanking him.

Damien took his time cleaning Rebekkah, washing her soiled skin. They were the only two survivors of the horrors that had transpired, he felt a special duty to her. Damien told her everything. Rebekkah absorbed it all as she sewed up a tight fitting fur dress with a sewing needle she made from an animal bone she always kept with her. A night later, with some well deserved sleep they were ready to move on. Damien sat next to Rebekkah, near the roaring fire. The light was dancing on their eyes like mirrors.

“What will you do now?” Damien asked Rebekkah.

“Aren't you supposed to be the one getting asked that? You lost your friend, your life because of me. I still don't know how you can forgive me after all that's happened.” Rebekkah was blaming herself.

“I will find others like Yugo. People in bad situations that are willing to do a great service to others by leading a life of complete selflessness. With others, I will ensure this pain will not be revisited for the rest of my life and beyond. I will leave a legacy that will protect us all from the demons that wish to murder and enslave us.” Damien had been tempered by the revelation of the fight. He was ready to recruit. “What will you do with Fear confined to the shadows?”

“I'll slip into history as well. I never liked being in the foreground of society. It would be good for a change to live as a normal girl for a few hundred years. Maybe have a few children.” Rebekkah smiled.

Confused, Damien responded. “I thought Fear said you enjoyed the companionship of women to men?”

“Girls my age, actually. But I'm willing to lay with a man to have a human baby that I can raise as my own.” Rebekkah rubbed her stomach. “I think it's about time I tried.”

“But isn't that impossible? You are a vampire after all.” Damien had never come across any literature about vampires reproducing, ever. This was uncharted ground to him.

“Yes, we all can. But I'm a little different. I can bare a fully human child, when you can only sire vampires or vampeals at best chance.” Rebekkah explained as she saw that Damien didn't even know what a vampeal was. “Full or half vampires, Damien. It means that you can still father children if you wanted to. They just won't be human. You didn't know that?”

Damien was flush, he was embarrassed. “At my age? I'm an old man.”

“Not by my count.” Rebekkah grinned. She was hiding something she didn't want to mention, but it was tempting to her. “You stopped aging at fifty seven Damien. It's been eighty years since you were human. We sit outside of time as bystanders to the events of the world. Eventually you will find that simply existing isn't enough. You will want a family, you will come to want that level of progeny. To have a life to shape under your own ideals. To know that when you choose to leave it all behind, there will be someone carrying the torch of thought you ignited.”

Damien let out a smile. “You are my progeny. The affect I've made on your life will set me apart. My organization will give me the company I seek. It has been good to know you Rebekkah. May you build a strong family as I form a united brotherhood.”

The fire began to die out. Rebekkah got up, then Damien. Half of the night had passed. In their last moments together, they sighed. Damien was headed back west to start his brotherhood. Rebekkah was headed into the Nordic region of Europe alone. It was time to say their goodbyes.

Damien opened his arms.

Rebekkah leaped in to give him a full, heartfelt hug.

“Until we meet again.” Damien whispered as he kissed the top of Rebekkah's red hair.

“Until our families unite.” Rebekkah jumped up to kiss Damien on the right cheek.

“Have you thought of a name? Is there anything you've come to like?” Damien was curious.

Rebekkah thought about it. She grinned, she had found an answer long ago to that question. “It's a name my mother used to call me before I turned.”

“What is it?” Damien asked.

“Cherry.” Rebekkah said.

Damien set Rebekkah down and walked off, out of the small house. Rebekkah would never see him again.

* * * *

Two days later. The snow solidified into ice. As hail descended upon the ground, thunderous clouds claimed most of the sky. The atmosphere had changed. The wet soil above Yugo's grave rumbled as the lightning streaked through the heavens. It was dawn, the sun crept surely in the east. Rays filled the landscape, illuminating the once dark grounds of the two unknown graves.

The earth shook. The stones placed on Yugo's grave exploded in a torrent of pebbles and debris. It reached more than a hundred feet into the air. It burst out, both covering and piercing the icy shell that had laid the area. A cloud of dust and mud obscured the scene. The splash of material fell, giving way to a single figure, standing alone. His feet were upon the grave of the dead vampire Yugo.

The man was coated in blood and dirt. The detail of his image was hidden by all the filth. What was left of an animal head lay, torn on his left shoulder. Half ripped off, it was barely recognizable as a fox pelt. The red and white fur were dyed brown from the soil.

A crackle sounded from above. The sky opened, shedding a mountain of water down upon the region. The mud and rock washed away. The man's face quickly became clear. He had heavy scaring on his aging skin. He was in his late forties. Three significant scars traced the contours of his face. Two vertical and one from his left cheek to his right upper forehead. He had been through a lot. He placed his left hand on his chest.

“Nothing.” He was unsettled by the voice he exuded. It was alien to him. He surveyed his arms and legs. The rain was removing the caked mess speckled to his skin. The flesh on his arms were also littered with scars that had healed. His legs were in the same condition. His clothing was torn to shreds, he stood with only flaps of leather to cover him. “My name, it's-” He wasn't able to recall his own name for a moment. The sound seemed to escape him.