Darko Cernovsek
Soul Of Vengeance
// Continuation of the story Challenge Submission - The Price of Power //
The library - A Month After The Incident, Late Evening
"Ave Satanas... Luciferi Excelsi." - Josh's hoarse, broken tone sounded out in the lobby. The young man was skin and bone, his jacket and T-shirt tattered and filthy, his jeans torn and muddy, yet his eyes carried a strange fire in them. Glazed over, yet intent on the top of the double-helix stairwell where he first met his benefactor.
"AVE SATANAS, LUCIFERI EXCELSI!!! WHERE ARE YOU, VIKRION?! I PROVED MYSELF! I KILLED THEM ALL! I SURVIVED! I SURVI--!" - suddenly he collapsed to his knees, shuddering, as his body simply failed him, despite his mind's fervour. He was beyond exhausted. Only the remembrance of the promise made to him, kept him going.
"I... k-kept... my part... of the... deal. VI-VIKRION--?!" - he wheezed under his breath, throwing up on the gleaming marble floor of the library, before he weakly crawled up the first few stairs.
He had been on the run, ever since his unspeakable deed. On the run from the police, from his own conscience screaming at him, from the nightmares of his butchered parents, most nights... but most of all... he was on the run from himself. He just kept running. Anywhere. Nowhere. But he kept running. He survived by sleeping in the suburban yards at first, before vanishing into the woods, and feeding off scraps found in dumpsters, wild mushrooms, berries, and an occassional rat or bird. By all rights, he should have died, if not from exhaustion, then from any number of carrion diseases and food poisonings from eating raw food like that. Yet death wouldn't come. It was as if his crime was such, that even nature itself refused to end his life. No easy way out.
He was burning with fever, to be sure. Half-delirious. But the feverish heat only served to empower him. The remnants of Vikrion's mental suggestions remained. His will, influenced by the vampire's Domination remained strong. And instinctively, Josh had to return. He was compelled to, by a force he didn't understand. He kept weakly crawling upwards... stair by stair, his passage painted by filth and blood.
Outside in the street, sounds of police sirens could be heard. His return had not gone unnoticed, and the search, while having died down a bit, over the month, was still very much active. They were already here.
***
"HANDS ON THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD! DON'T MOVE! DON'T FUCKING MOVE!" - the lead cop yelled atop of his lungs, as soon as his Glock's flashlight fell upon the emaciated crawling figure, now midway up the wide stairwell.
"I SAID DON'T FUCKING MOVE! YOU, CALL IT IN! GET SOME BACKUP OVER HERE! WE'VE GOT HIM!" - the cop continued, advancing with a pair of colleagues forward, yet all three of them remaining wary. Almost... afraid. What this teenager had done... was beyond monstruous. It was a massacre, the scope of which surpassed any of the shootings recorded in the entire country. Arson, mutilation... the works. And the means used, the planning involved to carry it out... the meticulous savagery and determination evident in it.
...they were terrified, even as all three index fingers were half-pressing the triggers.
"You are making too much noise, cattle." - a stately, clipped tone echoed from the top of the stairwell, as a lone robed figure came into view. Josh's bleary, bloodshot eyes widened in delight, even as the three cops reflexively shifted their aim to the shadowy figure. The beams illuminated the man's face for a briefest heartbeat - a nightmarishly pale, rotten cadaverous visage, and a pair of red eyes. One of them actually fired - nerves getting the better of him, which invariably caused the other two to follow suit, unloading their magazines in reaction.
The first couple of rounds impacted the figure, to no obvious effect, aside from a subdued hiss of anger... before it vanished, even as a hail of bullets sent wooden splinters flying off the railing where it stood a semisecond ago, turning the balustrade into a shower of chipped wood. Only a shadow seemed to flash upwards, across the vaulted, ornate ceiling of the lobby, even as the double doors behind them suddenly slammed shut. Their aim shifted, shaky, sweaty hands fumbling with another mag at the belt... before the Aspirant vampire's shadow-leap ended, the tall, lanky, nightmare-faced individual landing soundlessly behind them.
As Josh managed to turn his head around, to watch... it was a blur. A feverish, mind-addled blur. The sights, the sounds... the screams of the cops, sounds of bones splintering, dying, wet gurgles, mixed with vitrolic hissing that sounded like it might be coming straight from Father Satan himself...
...he cracked a smile.
"I... I knew-- you didn't... abandon me, Vikrion." - before passing out on the stairs.
***
The Last Day
When he awakened again, the first thing Josh felt, was heat. Stifling, almost unbearable heat, permeating every fibre of his being. It seemed to be originating from the side of his neck. Reaching a shaky hand to it, he could feel a pair of small, yet deep punctures, which felt like a pair of lava needles, delivering that... heat... into him. He felt like he was burning from within. Reflexively, he scratched at them until his nails began to peel. Yet they also felt different. Sharper.
~~"Try to calm yourself, Josh. You will burn, but not burn up. Consider this a sacrament you are undertaking. You won't fully Turn yet... not for a number of hours to come. Until you do, your body will resist the Gift. Last vestiges of human weakness have to be swept away, you know. But know this. I was once where you are now. Father Satan tested me... broke me... and remade me in his image. As I am doing to you, now."~~ - his benefactor's soothing tone seemed to echo from somewhere ahead and above. Vikrion was still maintaining the Satanist act. Try as hard as he might, Josh couldn't focus his eyes. Past the nerve-shattering heat, he could also feel slight tussling and bumping, as well as hear the sound of an engine.
Were they in a car? Where was Vikrion taking him? The teen wanted to mouth those questions out loud, but his throat only produced choked-off, pained hisses and moans, as the searing heat literally made him want to jump out of his skin.
***
Before too long, the heat subsided somewhat, replaced by a strange sense of... falling. Into infinity. In his mind's eye, Josh could see his own body, as if from far below, in the abyss. It looked so frail, and broken, the last afterimage of the state he was in, when he passed out on the library's stairs. In his own mucus, filth, and blood. The last afterimage of his Human self, before Vikrion bit him, delivering his cursed blood into him, and the process of Turning began. For Josh though... it seemed like a surrealistic nightmare mixed with a touch of elation - he'd always read how advanced Satanic meditation could allow him to have outer body experiences. This certainly qualified.
Then the heat within returned, as his mind was yanked back up from the comforting embrace of the abyss.
***
Two hours later...
Shapes... scents... and the ever-increasing, ever inexorably escalating... pressure... in his jaw.
"Aaagggg... ggghhhaaaaa..." - the teenager moaned uncontrollably, still unable to focus his eyes to make out what was around him. It seemed... dark. Yet the overtone of heat was permeating from somewhere beyond. From without, not within, this time. Yet at least the shuddering and the engine sounds were no longer there. They stopped. Where? He couldn't even begin to guess, or even have the presence of mind to contemplate. Then the darkness around him suddenly vanished, replaced by... searing... no... INCINERATING... heat, making his skin feel as if it was dipped in an acid bath and peeling away. He screamed atop of his lungs, yet he didn't even recognise his own voice anymore... so laced with that same vitriolic hissing he heard, back at the library. And his lungs... was it just the effect of pain... or did they feel more - constricted... then before?
~~"Be still... it will only last a minute - I could not leave you in the trunk, the sun is already high up... poison... for our Kind. And the heat will sap your energy... now... when you need it the most. Your Turning is... well on it's way to be complete. Here... bite down on this... and do NOT open your eyes. Until you no longer sense heat from without. The one from within will last a while longer I'm afraid. I have rubbed you up with sunscreen but it will not last. We must get indoors... and cool down."~~
Vikrion's voice was barely registering at the edge of Josh's increasingly pain-racked senses. But two words penetrated, as well as a wet rag, suddenly shoved into his mouth. For a moment, Josh though it would choke him... but for some reason, inability to breathe didn't... make him any more uncomfortable then he already was.
Our Kind.
Our.
Kind.
***
Hours passed...
The heat subsided, at last... but the dreams and nightmares returned, for what little remained of Josh, as he was. Yet these were clearly not his own, anymore. Like a fragment of a long forgotten soul, they impaled themselved through his veil of memories, like a blade through his withering heart. He saw bygone times, peoples of old, nobles and peasants, priests and potentates of the Old World... he saw Vikrion, lashed to a wheel of pain, tortured in an iron maiden by men in black robes. He saw him being lashed until an inch of death, then thrown into a dungeon to die. He saw the man crawl out despite all odds, and survive, before going after his torturers, one by one. He saw Vikrion disembowel the very priest who ordered his tortures, and his wife's execution. He saw his benefactor's lowest of the low, and was humbled by the realisation. That what he went through in school, paled in comparison to what this man endured, during his mortal lifetime. And the depths of vengeance he had fulfilled.
~~"Don't feel humbled, my Turned. Times were very different, back then. The world was smaller, the shadows were deeper. Your trials and tribulations are no less profound then mine were. And I had help, just like the help I gave you. My Master empowered me, made me join him in Undeath. Because I proved worthy. He was impressed by my desire for revenge. As I became impressed by yours. I have killed those who tormented me. As you have killed those who tormented you. Satanic philosophy does get one thing right. We are each our own gods, and our potential is unlimited. And to be of the Kind, Josh... to be a Vampire, is the closest you can ever get, to becoming a god. I promised you power beyond life and death. I promised you ascension to godhood. And I deliver. These final hours of today, are your last hours on this Earth, as a mortal. Your last facets of humanity are vanishing. Come night, you will be reborn, as something much greater then you ever were. Take pride in that."~~
Josh's mind was too befuddled by the images, to formulate a response to his... Master's... ? Voice, that seemed to come from all around the abyss. But elation, mixed with pain, mixed with anger, at the inevitable realisation that he had been duped.
Or... had he? Was this not what he wanted, in the end? Empowerment? At any cost?
***
The First Night
His eyes opened, seeing the world around him anew. Awash in red haze, a myriad of thermal and aura-enhanced shapes all around, past the walls of the room he seemed to be in. The heat... from without, and within - was gone. In its place an inexplicable hunger. Or was it hunger? Or something else?
Slowly, he stood up, feeling... hollow. Hollow, yet powerful. Running both palms over his naked, emaciated, yet strangely... hardened... body, It felt... dead, and lifeless, yet at the same time, full of arcane energies that he couldn't begin to comprehend. He could feel no breath in his lungs anymore, he could sense no air on his skin... he seemed to be a part of his surroundings, yet - not a part of them, at the same time. Like existence out of phase. And the hunger...
No.
The thirst... it called to him. A siren's call of blood, urging him to feed. Without even realising it, he heard himself letting out a soft hiss, as he scented blood, somewhere beyond the door. His legs moved faster then thought, as he rushed out, breaking the door down, unthinkingly zeroing in onto the scent, a feral snarl on his pale, dead face, fangs instinctively extending, and protruding more then two centimetres past his upper lip.
"NO!" - Vikrion's voice was like a thunderclap in his psyche, as a pair of lanky yet incredibly strong arms restrained him, pinning him with irresistible force to the floor. Despite his newfound strength, he was unable to break the grip.
"Let me... GO! HGGGHHHHHSSSSS!" - he could not recognise his voice anymore. It was like nails across a chalkboard, like bare feet across a pane of broken glass, cutting them to pieces. His own voice hurt his ears.
"Not like this, my Turned." - his Master's tone was implacable. And maddeningly... reasonable.
"Blood... I smell it! I NEED IT... gghhhssshhhhh... now... NOW...." - unbelievable undertone of longing, beneath that inhuman, terrifying tonality.
"And you will have it. But not. Like. This. Not until the Creed becomes second nature to you."
"The... creed...?? What... CREED?! You... you... you used to... have it... like this! I... saw it... You... kkkgggghhhhssssssss-- I can smell them... ggghhh... I can feel them..." - He rived in agony, as the inner heat manifested itself again, this time pulsing in his fangs. He gnashed them uselessly against the carpeted floor, turning the carpet to shredded strips of fabric, as he continued to try and break free of the iron grip Vikrion had on him.
"I did. But those were different times. As I said. The world was smaller. The shadows were deeper. It was easier to hunt. Your power needs to mature. And we need no attention drawn to us. For now... take some more of my blood. It will sate you until I can transport the corpses of those officers, from where I stashed them. They will sustain us both for a time, while we have to stay here in this hideout. Now... sink in!" - shifting his grip over his newfound charge, to allow the newly-minted Fledgeling access to his forearm.
***
"Who am I... master? Why... why can't I remember?" - the fledgeling asked, once the blood-fever was brought under some semblance of control, and the heat subsided again. His fangs continued scratching softly at Vikrion's forearm.
"You will, in due time. Perhaps a week. Perhaps a month. Once you had a chance to reflect, and access the memories of your former life once more. Those will be the worst nights, nights of remembrance. You will regret. You will rage. You will despair and elate. You will hate me and love me. You will burn and freeze, in the space of human heartbeats. But you will find your own equilibrium, in time. And when you do, you will understand why you can't just go out, slay and feed at will. For now, know that you are mine. Nevir, Turned of Vikrion. Know that you sought power for the same reasons I had, long ago. And know that I have given it to you. But there are prices to pay. Balances to maintain."
"Hhsss... I don't... understand." - Nevir hissed softly, snuggling in closer to his Master's forearm. The heat was gone, for now. And that was really all he cared about, at the moment.
Vikrion didn't reply, as he sat there, cradling him. Even after three centuries, he himself still didn't fully understand. And now he had a Turned of his own, to teach, protect, and care for, through the worst, formative Fledgeling years. Decades perhaps. He found a purpose. But was he prepared for it?
"Did I make a mistake? Am I ready for this? Is there a reason most of us wait longer?"
He and his wife did have a child, during his mortal lifetime. Only an infant, before that life was shattered. But this was different. So very, very different. Vikrion's memories of his own early Fledgeling decades, flashed before his half-closed eyes. The uncontrollable urges, the intermittent periods of bloodrage, and black despair, his Master's dilligent, proactive role in keeping him from literally destroying himself... he knew Josh would go through the same process. Once he began to remember his former life.
THE END
The library - A Month After The Incident, Late Evening
"Ave Satanas... Luciferi Excelsi." - Josh's hoarse, broken tone sounded out in the lobby. The young man was skin and bone, his jacket and T-shirt tattered and filthy, his jeans torn and muddy, yet his eyes carried a strange fire in them. Glazed over, yet intent on the top of the double-helix stairwell where he first met his benefactor.
"AVE SATANAS, LUCIFERI EXCELSI!!! WHERE ARE YOU, VIKRION?! I PROVED MYSELF! I KILLED THEM ALL! I SURVIVED! I SURVI--!" - suddenly he collapsed to his knees, shuddering, as his body simply failed him, despite his mind's fervour. He was beyond exhausted. Only the remembrance of the promise made to him, kept him going.
"I... k-kept... my part... of the... deal. VI-VIKRION--?!" - he wheezed under his breath, throwing up on the gleaming marble floor of the library, before he weakly crawled up the first few stairs.
He had been on the run, ever since his unspeakable deed. On the run from the police, from his own conscience screaming at him, from the nightmares of his butchered parents, most nights... but most of all... he was on the run from himself. He just kept running. Anywhere. Nowhere. But he kept running. He survived by sleeping in the suburban yards at first, before vanishing into the woods, and feeding off scraps found in dumpsters, wild mushrooms, berries, and an occassional rat or bird. By all rights, he should have died, if not from exhaustion, then from any number of carrion diseases and food poisonings from eating raw food like that. Yet death wouldn't come. It was as if his crime was such, that even nature itself refused to end his life. No easy way out.
He was burning with fever, to be sure. Half-delirious. But the feverish heat only served to empower him. The remnants of Vikrion's mental suggestions remained. His will, influenced by the vampire's Domination remained strong. And instinctively, Josh had to return. He was compelled to, by a force he didn't understand. He kept weakly crawling upwards... stair by stair, his passage painted by filth and blood.
Outside in the street, sounds of police sirens could be heard. His return had not gone unnoticed, and the search, while having died down a bit, over the month, was still very much active. They were already here.
***
"HANDS ON THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD! DON'T MOVE! DON'T FUCKING MOVE!" - the lead cop yelled atop of his lungs, as soon as his Glock's flashlight fell upon the emaciated crawling figure, now midway up the wide stairwell.
"I SAID DON'T FUCKING MOVE! YOU, CALL IT IN! GET SOME BACKUP OVER HERE! WE'VE GOT HIM!" - the cop continued, advancing with a pair of colleagues forward, yet all three of them remaining wary. Almost... afraid. What this teenager had done... was beyond monstruous. It was a massacre, the scope of which surpassed any of the shootings recorded in the entire country. Arson, mutilation... the works. And the means used, the planning involved to carry it out... the meticulous savagery and determination evident in it.
...they were terrified, even as all three index fingers were half-pressing the triggers.
"You are making too much noise, cattle." - a stately, clipped tone echoed from the top of the stairwell, as a lone robed figure came into view. Josh's bleary, bloodshot eyes widened in delight, even as the three cops reflexively shifted their aim to the shadowy figure. The beams illuminated the man's face for a briefest heartbeat - a nightmarishly pale, rotten cadaverous visage, and a pair of red eyes. One of them actually fired - nerves getting the better of him, which invariably caused the other two to follow suit, unloading their magazines in reaction.
The first couple of rounds impacted the figure, to no obvious effect, aside from a subdued hiss of anger... before it vanished, even as a hail of bullets sent wooden splinters flying off the railing where it stood a semisecond ago, turning the balustrade into a shower of chipped wood. Only a shadow seemed to flash upwards, across the vaulted, ornate ceiling of the lobby, even as the double doors behind them suddenly slammed shut. Their aim shifted, shaky, sweaty hands fumbling with another mag at the belt... before the Aspirant vampire's shadow-leap ended, the tall, lanky, nightmare-faced individual landing soundlessly behind them.
As Josh managed to turn his head around, to watch... it was a blur. A feverish, mind-addled blur. The sights, the sounds... the screams of the cops, sounds of bones splintering, dying, wet gurgles, mixed with vitrolic hissing that sounded like it might be coming straight from Father Satan himself...
...he cracked a smile.
"I... I knew-- you didn't... abandon me, Vikrion." - before passing out on the stairs.
***
The Last Day
When he awakened again, the first thing Josh felt, was heat. Stifling, almost unbearable heat, permeating every fibre of his being. It seemed to be originating from the side of his neck. Reaching a shaky hand to it, he could feel a pair of small, yet deep punctures, which felt like a pair of lava needles, delivering that... heat... into him. He felt like he was burning from within. Reflexively, he scratched at them until his nails began to peel. Yet they also felt different. Sharper.
~~"Try to calm yourself, Josh. You will burn, but not burn up. Consider this a sacrament you are undertaking. You won't fully Turn yet... not for a number of hours to come. Until you do, your body will resist the Gift. Last vestiges of human weakness have to be swept away, you know. But know this. I was once where you are now. Father Satan tested me... broke me... and remade me in his image. As I am doing to you, now."~~ - his benefactor's soothing tone seemed to echo from somewhere ahead and above. Vikrion was still maintaining the Satanist act. Try as hard as he might, Josh couldn't focus his eyes. Past the nerve-shattering heat, he could also feel slight tussling and bumping, as well as hear the sound of an engine.
Were they in a car? Where was Vikrion taking him? The teen wanted to mouth those questions out loud, but his throat only produced choked-off, pained hisses and moans, as the searing heat literally made him want to jump out of his skin.
***
Before too long, the heat subsided somewhat, replaced by a strange sense of... falling. Into infinity. In his mind's eye, Josh could see his own body, as if from far below, in the abyss. It looked so frail, and broken, the last afterimage of the state he was in, when he passed out on the library's stairs. In his own mucus, filth, and blood. The last afterimage of his Human self, before Vikrion bit him, delivering his cursed blood into him, and the process of Turning began. For Josh though... it seemed like a surrealistic nightmare mixed with a touch of elation - he'd always read how advanced Satanic meditation could allow him to have outer body experiences. This certainly qualified.
Then the heat within returned, as his mind was yanked back up from the comforting embrace of the abyss.
***
Two hours later...
Shapes... scents... and the ever-increasing, ever inexorably escalating... pressure... in his jaw.
"Aaagggg... ggghhhaaaaa..." - the teenager moaned uncontrollably, still unable to focus his eyes to make out what was around him. It seemed... dark. Yet the overtone of heat was permeating from somewhere beyond. From without, not within, this time. Yet at least the shuddering and the engine sounds were no longer there. They stopped. Where? He couldn't even begin to guess, or even have the presence of mind to contemplate. Then the darkness around him suddenly vanished, replaced by... searing... no... INCINERATING... heat, making his skin feel as if it was dipped in an acid bath and peeling away. He screamed atop of his lungs, yet he didn't even recognise his own voice anymore... so laced with that same vitriolic hissing he heard, back at the library. And his lungs... was it just the effect of pain... or did they feel more - constricted... then before?
~~"Be still... it will only last a minute - I could not leave you in the trunk, the sun is already high up... poison... for our Kind. And the heat will sap your energy... now... when you need it the most. Your Turning is... well on it's way to be complete. Here... bite down on this... and do NOT open your eyes. Until you no longer sense heat from without. The one from within will last a while longer I'm afraid. I have rubbed you up with sunscreen but it will not last. We must get indoors... and cool down."~~
Vikrion's voice was barely registering at the edge of Josh's increasingly pain-racked senses. But two words penetrated, as well as a wet rag, suddenly shoved into his mouth. For a moment, Josh though it would choke him... but for some reason, inability to breathe didn't... make him any more uncomfortable then he already was.
Our Kind.
Our.
Kind.
***
Hours passed...
The heat subsided, at last... but the dreams and nightmares returned, for what little remained of Josh, as he was. Yet these were clearly not his own, anymore. Like a fragment of a long forgotten soul, they impaled themselved through his veil of memories, like a blade through his withering heart. He saw bygone times, peoples of old, nobles and peasants, priests and potentates of the Old World... he saw Vikrion, lashed to a wheel of pain, tortured in an iron maiden by men in black robes. He saw him being lashed until an inch of death, then thrown into a dungeon to die. He saw the man crawl out despite all odds, and survive, before going after his torturers, one by one. He saw Vikrion disembowel the very priest who ordered his tortures, and his wife's execution. He saw his benefactor's lowest of the low, and was humbled by the realisation. That what he went through in school, paled in comparison to what this man endured, during his mortal lifetime. And the depths of vengeance he had fulfilled.
~~"Don't feel humbled, my Turned. Times were very different, back then. The world was smaller, the shadows were deeper. Your trials and tribulations are no less profound then mine were. And I had help, just like the help I gave you. My Master empowered me, made me join him in Undeath. Because I proved worthy. He was impressed by my desire for revenge. As I became impressed by yours. I have killed those who tormented me. As you have killed those who tormented you. Satanic philosophy does get one thing right. We are each our own gods, and our potential is unlimited. And to be of the Kind, Josh... to be a Vampire, is the closest you can ever get, to becoming a god. I promised you power beyond life and death. I promised you ascension to godhood. And I deliver. These final hours of today, are your last hours on this Earth, as a mortal. Your last facets of humanity are vanishing. Come night, you will be reborn, as something much greater then you ever were. Take pride in that."~~
Josh's mind was too befuddled by the images, to formulate a response to his... Master's... ? Voice, that seemed to come from all around the abyss. But elation, mixed with pain, mixed with anger, at the inevitable realisation that he had been duped.
Or... had he? Was this not what he wanted, in the end? Empowerment? At any cost?
***
The First Night
His eyes opened, seeing the world around him anew. Awash in red haze, a myriad of thermal and aura-enhanced shapes all around, past the walls of the room he seemed to be in. The heat... from without, and within - was gone. In its place an inexplicable hunger. Or was it hunger? Or something else?
Slowly, he stood up, feeling... hollow. Hollow, yet powerful. Running both palms over his naked, emaciated, yet strangely... hardened... body, It felt... dead, and lifeless, yet at the same time, full of arcane energies that he couldn't begin to comprehend. He could feel no breath in his lungs anymore, he could sense no air on his skin... he seemed to be a part of his surroundings, yet - not a part of them, at the same time. Like existence out of phase. And the hunger...
No.
The thirst... it called to him. A siren's call of blood, urging him to feed. Without even realising it, he heard himself letting out a soft hiss, as he scented blood, somewhere beyond the door. His legs moved faster then thought, as he rushed out, breaking the door down, unthinkingly zeroing in onto the scent, a feral snarl on his pale, dead face, fangs instinctively extending, and protruding more then two centimetres past his upper lip.
"NO!" - Vikrion's voice was like a thunderclap in his psyche, as a pair of lanky yet incredibly strong arms restrained him, pinning him with irresistible force to the floor. Despite his newfound strength, he was unable to break the grip.
"Let me... GO! HGGGHHHHHSSSSS!" - he could not recognise his voice anymore. It was like nails across a chalkboard, like bare feet across a pane of broken glass, cutting them to pieces. His own voice hurt his ears.
"Not like this, my Turned." - his Master's tone was implacable. And maddeningly... reasonable.
"Blood... I smell it! I NEED IT... gghhhssshhhhh... now... NOW...." - unbelievable undertone of longing, beneath that inhuman, terrifying tonality.
"And you will have it. But not. Like. This. Not until the Creed becomes second nature to you."
"The... creed...?? What... CREED?! You... you... you used to... have it... like this! I... saw it... You... kkkgggghhhhssssssss-- I can smell them... ggghhh... I can feel them..." - He rived in agony, as the inner heat manifested itself again, this time pulsing in his fangs. He gnashed them uselessly against the carpeted floor, turning the carpet to shredded strips of fabric, as he continued to try and break free of the iron grip Vikrion had on him.
"I did. But those were different times. As I said. The world was smaller. The shadows were deeper. It was easier to hunt. Your power needs to mature. And we need no attention drawn to us. For now... take some more of my blood. It will sate you until I can transport the corpses of those officers, from where I stashed them. They will sustain us both for a time, while we have to stay here in this hideout. Now... sink in!" - shifting his grip over his newfound charge, to allow the newly-minted Fledgeling access to his forearm.
***
"Who am I... master? Why... why can't I remember?" - the fledgeling asked, once the blood-fever was brought under some semblance of control, and the heat subsided again. His fangs continued scratching softly at Vikrion's forearm.
"You will, in due time. Perhaps a week. Perhaps a month. Once you had a chance to reflect, and access the memories of your former life once more. Those will be the worst nights, nights of remembrance. You will regret. You will rage. You will despair and elate. You will hate me and love me. You will burn and freeze, in the space of human heartbeats. But you will find your own equilibrium, in time. And when you do, you will understand why you can't just go out, slay and feed at will. For now, know that you are mine. Nevir, Turned of Vikrion. Know that you sought power for the same reasons I had, long ago. And know that I have given it to you. But there are prices to pay. Balances to maintain."
"Hhsss... I don't... understand." - Nevir hissed softly, snuggling in closer to his Master's forearm. The heat was gone, for now. And that was really all he cared about, at the moment.
Vikrion didn't reply, as he sat there, cradling him. Even after three centuries, he himself still didn't fully understand. And now he had a Turned of his own, to teach, protect, and care for, through the worst, formative Fledgeling years. Decades perhaps. He found a purpose. But was he prepared for it?
"Did I make a mistake? Am I ready for this? Is there a reason most of us wait longer?"
He and his wife did have a child, during his mortal lifetime. Only an infant, before that life was shattered. But this was different. So very, very different. Vikrion's memories of his own early Fledgeling decades, flashed before his half-closed eyes. The uncontrollable urges, the intermittent periods of bloodrage, and black despair, his Master's dilligent, proactive role in keeping him from literally destroying himself... he knew Josh would go through the same process. Once he began to remember his former life.
THE END
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