Written in Blood

I crashed into her sarcophagus face down, felt the air rush from my body, struggling to breathe. A thick layer of dirt under me, I pushed up and turned over. A sick-sucking echoed in the vault as I tried to catch my breath. Valerie pounced on top of me, pinning me down, as I struggled to get air back into my lungs and tried to fight her. Glowering at me, she held me in place, her anger boiled, and I thought, "This is it; she's going to kill me."

"You tried to slaughter me," she said.

"No, I wasn't going to do that."

"Liar," she said. "You intended to cut my head off, how do you know?"

"Know what?"

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Mistress," three-voice spoke in unison.

"My dear, sweet children, go away, take your prize to the library and finish her. Let the others sup first, Alexandru, lest you leave them nothing."

"Of course, Mistress," the elder said.

"Yes," the other two said in unison. Laughing and talking, I heard their voices grow fainter until again we were in silence. Gazing around, I saw the rats glaring at us, perched on the ledge above, and I doubted if she'd order them to rip me to shreds, but she might. They scrambled around, running over each other to keep an eye on us.

Her eyes drew my attention back to her, burning her gawp into me, inside my thoughts, my memories, the Countess dug through my secrets old and new, she found what she wanted, those words sprang into her consciousness from my own.

"Perhaps this shall kill her and set me free," inside both our minds, my words betrayed me.

"There is the truth. You tried to hide it from me," Countess Drago said. "Foolish child, I can know your every thought, every emotion. Our bargain is ended. You shall be my child, one of Lilith's daughters," she said, her voice hissing like a snake.

Letting loose of one of my shoulders, she tugged her gown free from her breast. The Countess dragged a fingernail deep into the flesh of her exposed bosom, blood trickled from the gash, she lowered herself on me, forcing my mouth to her chest and the blood.

"Drink," she ordered me, pushing my face right into the blood.

The red fluid flowed into my mouth in small gushes. The moisture tasted different than I expected, a light iron flavor. Somewhat savory and ever so, flavorsome. A shock passed through my system, befuddled me, making such a rush of bewilderment spread throughout my essence -- I consumed the blood like a drunk guzzled down a bottle of wine.

Waves of ecstatic bliss engulfed me as I suckled her essence, an ecstasy I'd never experienced overwhelmed my entire being. I desired more. I feared that in that moment of wanton craving, I sealed my fate.

After a while, she stopped my feeding, and she fed on me.

We made love in that tomb, amid the stink of decay, we made ecstatic love. The smell no longer offended my senses. The foulness melted from my consciousness as thoughts of Valerie forced everything else aside while we became one.

All the while, she fed, which was beautiful, and I understood I belonged to her. When we finished, she carried me back to the room, laying me on the bed she cuddled with me. My breathing hurt me. My blood rushing through my veins felt like knives cutting their way from one place to another throughout my veins. The realization came over me, I was dying, and I realized death clutched me in a cold, rapturous embrace.

Death caressed me as a lover. Late in the evening, she rose and was gone.

Through the hours, I lingered in pain, and my agony flowered as my strength failed. I longed for the sweet release of death. Out of character, I prayed to a God, despite the fact I didn't believe in him, for some sort of divine intervention. None came, and I lingered in a twilight nearing the crossing over the Countess had spoken about early that morning.

The door creaked and groaned. A young woman stood just inside the door. With her hand clutched to her neck, blood oozed around her fingers in short pulses, and she stumbled toward me. Falling on the bed, just inches from me, I saw her hand move away from the slash in her neck.

In a flash, I sprang on her, clamping my mouth over the wound, drinking deep of her essence. The manna was paltry, nearly flavorless, affording no measure of enjoyment compared to the Countess's rich, vibrant blood. Nonetheless, it fed me, giving me the sustenance I needed. Death's hold slipped from me as my strength grew.

I sucked on her vein, drinking in the near lifeless fluid, feeling her rapture but gaining little joy from her ecstasy. It provided nourishment but did nothing to satisfy the deeper want. The yearning was beyond this child's capacity to fulfill. Once I had my fill, I tossed her to the floor. When I sat up in my bed, I turned and saw all of them standing there, watching the show.

The boys clapped their hands, retrieved the dying girl, and hurried away to satisfy their own desires. I had never seen the girl before, never set eyes on her as a living being again, for they would consume every drop of her.

Though my Mistress had been careful not to cut her deep enough for the girl to bleed to death, I had drunk deeply from her. They would take more, and she wouldn't last until the first light. I knew she'd be dead soon, and I didn't care. Countess Drago was right. No life existed within these sheep.

"You need time to regain your strength," she said. "It's the 23rd day of May. The boys will leave you alone until June 1st. After that, the younger boys will feed on you. Alexandru will not, for he would take all of you in two days, perhaps one. I want you to have a long time to pay for your disobedience.

The younger boys, well, if they gulp two mouthfuls a day of your life saturated blood, their needs will be satiated, three hearty gulps of your blood, and their lust are fulfilled. I don't want that, and they need to learn to hunt.

"Alexandru is fifty years Undead. He hunts for his food, he will continue to do so. He will bring the boys playthings to allow you time to recover. They will feed on you for months. It will be August before your weakness will make you bedridden. September before death releases you from your suffering. Afterward, you die and are reborn one of my Undead, a child of Lilith, and my sweet daughter, as well."

"I promise you," Countess Drago said, "glorious rapture, freedom from any moral restraint, and life ever after unto infinity. For a time, near the end, ecstasy wears off, a slow, agonizing death follows. This torment is your punishment. You are not allowed to feed again until after you are Undead."

She moved to the door, opening it, the two younger boys entered the room. "Cristian and Boian have only been with me for a few months longer than you. So young, so much for them to learn. If I delay my departure until you can go with me, you can have Michael for your first convert. Don't you want to feed on Michael?"

"I'll never harm Michela," I said.

"Oh, yes, you will," she answered. "I'll have arrangements for your departure from here in September. I go now to claim my new domain. I'll see you in October." She whispered in my ear instructions for the end, directions for me to follow. The hate of her had burnt out of me. All that remained was love, adoration, and a worshipful reverence. But her instructions were lost in my pain.

The Countess Draconus Valeriana was more than a woman to me, she was a powerful goddess, my Mistress, and she held my life in her hands. I wanted this, and yet, I still wanted to flee, or to die and not become Nosferatu; nonetheless, to live forever, oh, it must be such a wondrous, glorious enchantment, to live without the dread of death.

****

And thus, all which has transpired was how I have come to this moment. I have been reduced to food and a plaything for the grooms, growing weaker, in equal degrees, while they become stronger. They consume more of me each night. It is Thursday, August 22st, and I feel my strength fading. Within a short period, oh, so terribly soon, I'll be bedridden, die, and join them.

Where bony flesh once stretched over the boys' skeletons, they ripple with muscles whilst I become skin and bones. Feasting on me sexually and feeding on my precious life-filled blood, the two of them grew strong. She left nigh on to two months past, leaving me to the boys' fulling her promise to them.

Her promise to me, the ecstasy, the sexual adventures, and freedom from moral constraints, as well, has been fulfilled. I have not again tasted blood. I must find a way out, for I cannot bring myself to fall so far into this strange cult.

The words she whispered to me have passed from memory. I no longer know what I was to do, and I do not wish to do, whatever it was, that she'd desired of me. I only want the blessed nothingness of death, or is there a nothingness?

Without the benefit of feeding on blood, I grow weaker with each passing night. I realize if I don't consume blood, soon, I will perish. Fearing my death will not be true death. I will be Nosferatu, like my Mistress before me. Even knowing that I am not allowed to drink their blood, the sweet children offer. I refuse. If they want me sexually or as food, I cannot say no. Nonetheless, even if I were able, I wouldn't reject these sweet loving children of Lilith.

My complexion has grown pale, my eyes gloomy. I only know this because of the fragments of the mirror in my room. I gaze at myself in the stark light of the morning sun with several of the shards laid next to each other.

With ever-growing horror, I see my dying before me, for each day, I'm less alive. Every single morning, I'm more ashen, listless, weaker to the point that my blood, what there is of it, hurts me as it flows through my veins. Each beat of my heart resounds in my ear like an enormous, clanging bell on a church.

I cannot harm the boys, and I cannot refuse them. I see only one escape, only one way out of this terrible, fantastic quandary. Leaving it all behind is unthinkable, but what about Michael, my affection for Michael. Sweet, lovely, mediocre, dull Michael and his consuming tasteless, banal obsession with technology. I have betrayed him.

I'm unworthy.

I do love Michael, but the thought of gowning old with the man frightens me. Yes, I'm more fearful of this, far more, than any of the horrible events I have experienced at the castle. I realized the awful truth a month ago, I wanted this so badly and, therefore, no longer desire Michael's tender, insipid touch.

Michael is a colorless man in a dull, dreary world. That notwithstanding, I feel dreadful for how I have betrayed him. Should I survive, I know I'll seek him out and destroy him. The urge to kiss him, make sweet love to him. All the while, I'd feed on him, overwhelmed my thoughts.

At times, all I think of is to devour him, guzzling all the life from sweet, unexceptional Michael. The energy, the life, is the blood. So, dear, so powerful, I want all Michael has. Yet, I cannot do that to him, ruinate his existence, consume and defile his purity.

But I shall if only I am given the opportunity.

I'm only doing what I now do because they cannot take me quickly to the point of change. If, indeed, I change. Is one feast enough to contaminate me so thoroughly that I would crossover? This was important, I cannot allow myself to feed on their blood and, in so doing, become a certainty to be one of them. They are young, their needs are fulfilled with a few mouthfuls. I will wither away in a weak, waisted condition while pain and pleasure turn to pleasureless anguish.

Leaving me waiting on my final heartbeat and a sweet release from this life. But do I want to wake in a new life? Yes, but no, both are true. If I die now of my own hand, would that set me free from existence? Shall I act stave off the dreadful, delightful change and free my soul? Ninety days ago, I vowed I had no soul. Now I'm vexed over my soul's condition.

Outside the big, broken bay window, forty or fifty feet below, was the river. The fall thrills and horrifies me. The water may be as hard as a stone from such a height. I might survive and float away down the waterfalls to the valley.

Perhaps, that would kill me.

If not, I become like them, and I shall seek Michael. Nonetheless, I might die, a sweet rapid death, how lovely would my fall be, how I desire to plummet to my demise. To be dead, truly dead, would be beautiful, or would I wake in a new harsher world?

Lust consumes me, desire to live gashes my soul, and the knowledge of what the Countess is, what I will become, haunts me. I could join her. But this might free me.

I shall wrap this journal tightly an old oil duster I found here. In that state, my hope shall be the book is protected from the water.

At least, there will be a record of what happened to me, though if I survive into Undeath, I shall seek out tedious, dull Michael and be the death of him. The sun dips low in the western sky. I will put my pen down, secure the journal, and throw myself to my fate.

I know not when, or if, I shall take a pen in my hand ever again, courage, courage, to the end, I must have courage. The words of Hamlet spring into my head.

"To die -- to sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say we end to die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream -- ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come."

I pray God, there be nothing after death, but sleep, sweet, dreamless slumber through the ages of eternity, pray he spare me the Undeath of Nosferatu.

****

No more writing appears in Jane Hanson Journal.

Chapter 8

The massive castle's western wall took on a yellow cast to its gray stone as the sun began to sink behind the mountain to the west. On the southern face of the massive stone structure, a woman stepped up into the casement of a sizeable broken bay window, tossed out a yellow bundle, then watched it fall to the river below her.

The bundle rushed through the channel, spilling over the falls, tumbling to a second waterfall, and then to the waterway below it. Jane Hanson lingered, pondering the wisdom of her decision. She heard bare feet running down the hall outside the library. The scratching of the door and creaking of hinges as the boys pulled it open.

"No," Boian said.

"Please, we don't need to feed tonight," Cristian added. "Don't leave us."

"Sweet boys," she said, jumping from the window. She held her arms to her chest as she plummeted the 40-foot drop, her feet hit the water, and her body went under the surface. The pain engulfed her as the river swallowed her. The beautiful, wasted woman descended deep into the dark waters, her body lifted upward toward the surface.

The two brothers ran to the window, they saw where she hit. Look as they might, they didn't see her surface, nor did they see a dead body bob in the waves of the river. They watched the water, hoping to see her, staring into the darkness. At last, the trio moved away from the window.

"Whatever shall we do now?" Cristian asked.

"I suppose we shall learn to hunt," Boian said.

Alexandru entered the room, "We shall go hunting, yes, indeed. But we will bring the prey here and keep them and suckle on their sweet nectar, not take a mouthful, and let them go free. We will grow strong, like Mistress Drago. I thought Mistress Jane was to rule. But now, in our Mistresses' absence, we are the rulers."

Putting his hands on the younger children of Lilith, he smiled as he looked out the window. Her body bobbed to the surface, flip-flop over the waterfall. Alexandru wondered if a possibility existed, she'd survive such a drop.

"I wonder, is this also part of the Countess's plan," Boian said.

"Perhaps," Alexandru said. "Perhaps, we shan't know."

****

The old monk walked by the bank of the river, pondering the mystery of God and forgiveness. Stopping, he bowed his head and said a prayer as the sun rose over the mountain and cast its bright light across the small valley. Raising his head, he exclaimed a rejoicing shout to the new day.

"Hosanna, in the highest."

The young postulant walking behind the monk said, "Look, Brother Gregory."

On the bank, where the water whirled around the bend in the river, amongst the reeds, lay a woman. The monk ran to her, bent down, and felt for her pulse on her neck.

"She lives, but only just," the old man said. "Oh, my Lord, she has the mark of the Countess and her children." Pointing at the many feeding scars on her exposed neck and shoulders.

The woman's eyes opened; she saw the old man's kind face gazing at her. She could see the concern in his expression. Tears flowed from her eyes, and she whispered something to him.

"What?" he asked her.

"Leave me," she repeated, only slightly louder. "I wanted to die."

Scooping the woman into his arms, the old monk stood, turned, and walked back toward the monastery.

"I'll find a doctor," the postulant said.

"No," the monk said. "She either lives or dies. Cut me a thick limb from an oak tree, three feet long, char it on one end and shave it to a sharp point, just in case she does ...," he paused for several moments, "neither. I had dealings of this kind many years ago and miles from here. If I had the courage in those days, I'd have ended this sickness. I'll not let this spread from here."

****

Excerpt from Brother Thaddeus's Journal

Monday, September 16th, 1901

With pen in hand, I struggle to put down the strange story of the woman in the river. Brother Gregory and I found her on the bank, where the river bends around the mountain and flows by our Priory, the Lady of Eternal Sorrows, where Monks and Nuns seek a closer union with God.

On her lovely shoulders and neck, she bore the marks of the Countess of Blood. Her name is Doctor Jane Hanson, the most beautiful of all that humanity has produced. Soon after, she recovered, and the Priory fell into wicked ungodliness. The contamination of the blood followed. Doctor Hanson, a novice named Sister Ruth, and I are the sole survivors of the dreadful plague, which befell the Priory. Life is in the blood ...