Eden (11 page)

“Come on,” I prompted, “you said that you would explain about your super strength and stuff.”

She sighed in defeat, it looked like I was about to get my answers.

“Ok,” she said, “if that is what you really want.”

“Of course that is what I really want,” I stressed.

Again Eden fell silent. I was getting sick of this mysterious act; I wanted answers, so I cut to the chase.

“What are you?” I whispered in bewilderment, wishing that she would stop stalling for time and just tell me.

“I’m a devil.”

12

“You’re a devil?” I asked in confusion.

I couldn’t have heard Eden correctly, she did just say that she was a devil, right?

“I’m not a devil, I said that I am a Deva,” she repeated smiling.

“Devil, Deva, what the heck is the difference?,” I flung the question at her like an accusation. “You’re certainly not human.”

She smiled at my outburst, “I assure you, that I am just as human as you, just a bit…different.”

“That’s an understatement,” I laughed sarcastically. “What are you like a mutant or something; the next evolution in mankind?”

“More like the first evolution,” she replied.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, “How can you do all the things that I witnessed? You’re certainly like no human that I’ve ever heard of.”

“I’ll get to that,” she assured me.

“What about the couple that kidnapped me?” I asked, “Were they Deva too?”

“No, they weren’t,” she replied, suddenly turning serious, “I’ll explain all about them later.”

“Fine, then I assume that it is your job to enlighten me,” I said, eager for Eden to begin her story.

“Let me start by saying no one really knows where my kind come from anymore than where humans came from; it’s all stories handed down from generation to generation,” she began.

“Like the Bible?” I offered.

“Yes,” she said in relief, “just like the Bible, some people believe in it without fault, while others question its authenticity. Actually, it is straight from the Bible that my story begins.”

I settled into Eden’s couch, reflecting on the fact that this was where the whole mess began. It seemed like Eden was about to begin a long story, so I figured that I might as well be comfortable while I listened.

Eden continued her story after I settled down, “In the Bible it states that God created the world in six days.” I nodded my head in agreement, familiar with the story. “On the sixth day God created Adam. Adam was perfect, he didn’t get sick, he wasn’t susceptible to disease and all the animals listened to him. When he was lonely God took a part of Adam, his rib, I believe and created Eve. I think you know what happened then.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Eve gave the apple to Adam, Adam ate it and God threw them out of Paradise.” It was a simple retelling of the story, but I was sure that I had gotten all the bullet-points correct.

“Threw them out of Eden, to be precise,” she smiled, “But let me continue,” she said, pacing around the room now. “As punishment to mankind, from then on God made men mortal. They would know death, sickness and disease. Adam, on the other hand, went on to live to be about nine hundred years old, I believe it says in the Bible; an infinite lifetime to humans, but just about normal to my kind. Obviously, Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, but they were not made mortal.”

“So, what you’re saying,” I interrupted, putting two and two together, “is that you are a direct descendant of Adam and that you, too, are not mortal?”

“Very observant,” she congratulated me, “That is exactly what I am saying; or rather, what the legends say.”

“So what you are saying is that your kind was here first,” I added after thinking about it, “Deva were the original man?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Eden admitted.

“Then why are both species still in existence today?” I questioned, “Wouldn’t one species have driven the other one into extinction? Like the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon men tens of thousands of years ago?”

“That would be due to the overwhelming number of humans as opposed to us,” she explained, “Plus, in the beginning humans didn’t react to us with violence or anger. It wasn’t until the human population was out of control that they forced us into hiding.”

“What happened?” I asked curiously.

“The name of our kind is Divya or Deva, which in ancient Sanskrit roughly translates to angelic,” Eden told me.

“That name sounds a little vain to call yourselves,” I pointed out, “although in your case it is correct.”

“We didn’t come up with it,” Eden said, “Early man worshipped our kind as gods. They came up with that name for us.”

Suddenly a thought crossed my mind.

“I know that this is impolite to ask a lady,” I began, “but how old are you anyway? I’m guessing that you aren’t sixteen years old.”

“You’d be correct in that assumption,” she agreed, “I was born in 1807.”

“That would make you around two hundred years old,” I said in shock.

“I hope you don’t mind older women,” she joked.

“My own personal Mrs. Robinson,” I said with a leer.

“You probably know more about that than I do,” she said shyly, “I haven’t had much interaction with humans in the past two hundred years.”

“Why are you here now, then?” I asked.

“I wanted to see what real life is like,” she said wistfully, “What is the point of living hundreds of years, when we never get to really live our lives?”

“What did you do during all of that time?” I asked.

“A lot of things,” she admitted, “Since we all age so slowly, we have to move around a lot.”

“What is your family like?” I asked, curious about her past.

“Do you want to know about my past, or about my kind?” she asked suddenly, “We won’t have time enough tonight for both stories tonight.”

I didn’t like the look that crossed Eden’s face; she looked depressed, thinking about her family. I wanted to quickly change the subject, so I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.

“So, if those guys after you before weren’t Deva,” I asked, “what were they?”

She smiled at my questions, mission accomplished.

“They were humans,” she revealed.

I was shocked by her statement.

“Humans?” I asked, thinking that I had misheard her.

She nodded her head in acknowledgement.

“Humans, at first, worshipped Deva as gods. At least the Greek and the Norse did and the names of those Deva are still remembered to this day. Odin, Zeus, Thor, Hera; they all really existed and they were all Deva,” she explained, beginning her story,“but like anything else, the admiration soon turned to jealousy and then, to hatred. Humans wanted ‘eternal life’ like us and they felt cheated that they didn’t have it. I am not sure who the first human that did it was; but it’s not important; the fact is that humans had found a way to share a Deva’s immortality.”

“How was that?” I asked, captivated with her story.

“If a human drinks the blood of a Deva, they can gain the powers and the long life spans that we have,” she told me, “but of course, that is only temporary. Usually a leech, our name for humans who drink Deva blood, has to renew its powers every hundred years, or so. The only way it can accomplish this is by tracking down and killing more of us. That is why we live in secrecy, in fear of being hunted by leeches.”

“Is that what those two were?” I asked, remembering the couple that had kidnapped me earlier, “leeches?”

“That’s correct,” she confirmed, “As you could see one-on-one a Deva could easily beat a leech or two, but unfortunately, they usually like to hunt in packs. One Deva holds enough blood to create or sustain many leeches.”

“They wanted to drink your blood?” I asked in disbelief, “They sound like vampires.”

“That’s funny,” she said with a face that didn’t look amused at all, “because for centuries that what humans have called our kind.”

“Why?” I asked innocently.

She looked pleased that I was asking so many questions, “I’m glad that you are taking this so well,” she commented, “Let me explain – early Christians seemed to know all about the existence of Deva. They knew all of our secrets and everything.”

“Well they do have that secret Vatican Library that has all kinds of crazy documents in it,” I pointed out, “maybe something had been written about your people and the Vatican got a hold of it.”

“That could be true,” she admitted, “maybe it was because of some ancient documents that the Church found out about us.”

“So what did they do?” I asked.

“They were the ones that spread the myths and rumors about my kind,” she said, “calling us vampires and portraying us as predators and killers; portraying us as evil and malicious. They killed two birds with one stone; not only did they make sure that no one would pay attention to any of our theories, not that we had any plans of spreading them; but they also made sure that they had the green light to hunt us with no repercussions.”

“Why would they want to hunt you?” I asked in amazement.

“Well,” she pointed out, “the thing that made the Church stand out from other religions at the time was the fact that it promised eternal life through Jesus. No other religion had made such a promise to its believers before. Some Deva actually accused Jesus of being the one who revealed the fact that drinking a Deva's blood would bestow eternal life to humans. They speculate that he thought it would bring the races of human and Deva back into one true race the way God has intended, thus saving humans from death. In other words, the path to salvation is through the drinking of Deva blood, not the blood of Christ, unless Jesus was really one of us, you get the idea."

“Yeah, I guess your kind would be accused of heresy because of that,” I agreed.

“That, plus the fact that all this started during the Middle Ages in Europe,” she began, “and the Black Plague was devastating the continent, killing tens of thousands, and humans began, desperately searching for immorality, any promise to live through those dark times. Certain, renegade members of the Church knowing of our existence, began hunting Deva, killing them and drinking their blood so that they could live.”

“But wouldn’t the peasants have questioned this behavior in the Church?” I asked, enraptured by her tale.

“Not if they hid their true intensions,” she replied quickly.

“How did they do that?” I asked.

“You’ve heard of the Inquisition?” Eden asked

“Yeah, we learned that in history class” I told her, “Wasn’t that when the Church went from town to town trying to convert the peasants to Christianity?”

“That was just a cover-up,” Eden revealed, “The true mission of the Inquisition was the hunting and killing of Deva. It was the darkest time in our history.”

“Everyone just blindly believed whatever they were told?” I asked in disbelief.

“Times were simpler back then; the peasants believed the Church officials with no question,” Eden repeated, “and as a result anyone displaying any type of strange abilities or behavior was reported to the Church as a witch or Satan worshiper. The Inquisition stormed through towns, slaughtering thousands, innocent and guilty alike; all in their search for Deva blood. Is it any surprise that the name of the ultimate evil – Devil comes from the root word Deva? The early Church launched a very successful smear campaign against our kind.”

“And there are still leeches alive today?” I asked.

“Of course,” Eden said, “Like I said, leeches live for about a century before they need to feast again on Deva blood; and one Deva can feed an army of dirty leeches.”

“Couldn’t there be good leeches?” I asked, not liking the tone of voice Eden used when addressing them; like even saying the word left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Not that I’ve ever heard of,” she replied as if it should have been obvious to me.

“Why is that?” I pressed wanting to find the answer.

“Because Deva blood was never meant for human veins,” she told me, “Ingesting the blood of a Deva drives a human crazy. Not all of them go insane, the insane ones are dealt with easily, but most of the sane ones transform into the creatures of pure evil that they accused us of being.”

“One more thing,” I declared just remembering something.

“What is it?” she asked unconcerned.

“What did you do with the bodies of the two leeches back at the warehouse?” I wanted to know.

“Nothing,” she stated plainly.

“Nothing?” I asked on the verge of hysteria, “but when I looked for their bodies, nothing was there.”

“What I meant to say was that I didn’t do anything to the bodies,” Eden pointed out.

“So then what happened to them?” I pressed.

“The Deva blood makes the leeches bodies very unstable,” she explained, “If the supply of Deva blood is all consumed by the body, or if the leech meets its end; the body sort of burns up.”

“Burns up?” I asked in amazement.

“Yes,” she agreed, “You could say that the borrowed time catches up to the body all at once and turns the body to ash.”

“How would that burn it up?” I asked.

“It depends on how old the leech is,” she said, “but think about what would happen to your body if you aged hundreds of years in a heartbeat.”

“So it turns to ash?” I asked.

Eden nodded in agreement.

“I guess that is where the myth comes from,” I pointed out, “The one that says vampires turn to ash when they die.”

She nodded again.