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.
