Mother Sarah (Story Sunday)

Sarah was a puritan healer who worshipped the Goddess Isis and yet, shunned the heathen rituals of her friends and neighbors. Barren since birth from illness, she wore no garlic strands or crosses and feared not to walk in the night, even after the attacks started. She believed she was under the protection of the goddess and could often be seen strolling the main paths, as if to prove her outrageous claim.

And so it was she found him on the side of the dirt road, a bloody pile of charred robes and skeletal hands, and instantly recognized him for the creature he was. Vampyre.

Instead of trying to finish him off, as her fellow townsmen would have no doubt done, she stepped to him lightly and began examining his wounds. Weak, dying maybe, he still tried to grab her, glimmering eyes attempting to seduce but Sara was a sturdy girl of even sturdier determination and she simply shoved a potion down his throat and waited.

When he slept, she painstakingly took him home, to the area she’d prepared, unable to believe her good luck. On her first try, she had gotten what she wanted and it had only taken three lives. She’d expected that number to be much higher.

The emaciated Vampyre came awake all at once and Sarah could feel his sunken black eyes suddenly watching as she took rats from one wire cage and placed them in another. She chose only the plumpest specimens and the last, she kept a hold of, turning to look at her captive.

"Blood for blood."

The weak creature hissed his rage, his denial of her offer, and she shrugged, puritan brown eyes shrewd.

"You will give me what I want or you will never leave here."

He really struggled then, twisting and shouting gibberish threats and curses. His thin body tensed against the chains, testing them but he found no weakness, nor would he. These restraints had been forged with just this purpose in mind.

Sarah moved closer, gentle fingers calming the nervous rodent in her grip.

"Blood for blood!" With a vicious jerk, she snapped the rats neck and kept twisting, pulling hard, and its head came off with a wet, sickening crunch, sending scarlet drops of lifeblood splattering across the Vampyre’s pale face. It gushed against the bars of his cage, close enough to drip, to allow for only a taste and the rest poured onto the dirt floor of his underground cell.

"Nooo!" The Vampyre slammed himself against the chains, head straining to get his forked tongue on the splatters, and Sarah laughed at his obvious desperation.

"I will come back in a few days to ask again." Seconds later, she was climbing the wooden ladder, pulling it up behind her.

His furious struggles ceased to exist as soon as she lowered the earthen plug and the young widow moved toward the well to wash, humming happily. John would be very pleased with how far she had gotten with the research. He had never been able to capture a live specimen to experiment on, had died trying, but Sarah had done it simply by following the notes in his journal.

"Vampyres are solitary and will often attack any of their kind who threaten to expose them."

Sarah had understood this would apply to even rumors and it had been her tools that plunged into those girl's necks, not a Vampyre’s fangs, her own mouth that had removed the coppery blood and dumped it far from the attack. After two deaths, the village people had started hunting and more than one night walker had been staked, burned, and decapitated. Not to mention the innocent villager that had been mistaken for a creature of the night.

The townspeople had been near panic then and all she had to do was watch and wait for whatever black sheep the rest of the Vampyres believed to be guilty. With John's sleep potions in her apron, she had prowled the woods and met with success. Her specimen was weak, likely why the others had thought him guilty in the first place, and she had no doubt he would relent under her torture without the month's long battle of wills that she had prepared for.

Sarah smiled, a hard, glinting grin of triumph. With the Vampyres willing donations, she would have the blessing of Isis and the transformation would heal her barren womb and create a new species of monster. She would be their maker, their Mother.

Her hand rubbed at her empty belly, eyes glittering with insanity. It was the one thing John had not been able to give her. Children of her own.