Aleron: Book One of Strigoi Series (Stringoi Series) (29 page)

One of my youngest fledglings, Sakina, along with the first of Sinaa’s brood, Raya, were reportedly seen with a few of the missing women. A witch hunt began in Alexandria, where they both lived when they were mortal. Pandora instructed both of them to let themselves be captured. This would end suspicion and return some normalcy to our lives in Cairo. They were also to confess to the slayings from the surrounding cities as well. It wouldn’t take much to convince the lawmakers of their guilt. Pandora simply put some of the remains of the missing women in the basement of one of the homes rented by us in the names of Raya’s mortal husband, who also met a most untimely and gruesome death at the hands of Eliza.

Raya and Sakina were decapitated in front of hundreds of spectators just as the sun set in Alexandria. In their last moments, they were both dressed in sack-like cotton gowns, hands bound with twine behind their backs, bent over what resembled a large, much-used butcher’s block, with their necks outstretched. Their knees were fastened to the elevated wooden platform that also served as a stage. The executioners wore all black, including a black hood with two eyeholes.

One of the lawmakers signaled the executioner and, with one mighty chop of the axe, Raya’s head sprang toward the crowd, landing just short of the edge of the platform. Sakina, having witnessed the beheading of her sister, began to turn her neck to the side in an unnatural way, looked out into the crowd, and smirked. In that moment another thud was heard by the menacing crowd, and Sakina’s head settled next to Raya’s.

The blood spewed onto the closest onlookers as the putrid-smelling reaper reached down and grabbed the decapitated heads by the hair and tossed them into the mob. All the while, the bodies searched for their heads.

The swarm became fiendish at the sheer sight of the execution, dancing and yelling in perverted amusement. They were mad to revel in such practices, men, women, and children alike. Bloodthirsty fiends! Vampires!

Pandora and Eliza were there to recover the heads, and they did so with such speed that the heads never touched the ground, seemingly disappearing right before the grasping onlookers eager for a trophy. The bodies were removed by the executioners, who soon were executed themselves just beneath the blood-soaked platform. Pandora and Eliza placed the heads upon the bodies, tore open their own flesh, and allowed some of their own blood to drip onto the necks.

The brain stem began to reattach itself to the top of the spine. Before long, Raya’s and Sakina’s eyes opened. The four of them disposed of the male bodies and vanished into the night.

Suspicions rose as the executioners’ families complained of missing fathers and husbands. Plus, the bodies of the evil twins were never found. In time the story became folklore, then legend. Some believed Raya and Sakina were still buried in Egypt. Some have dedicated their lives to telling the story of the sister serial killers. A motion picture was made in their infamy. Mortals love to be entertained by us—and we love to entertain.

From time to time, I would dream of al-Montaza, my father’s home. In the dreams, I would always find him reading and thinking in his study. He would occasionally look outside his window, searching for any trace of his once-mortal son, a son who he knew was no longer human. In the dream, no matter how close I came to his home and no matter how well he searched, he never saw me. My father knew nothing of my presence, except the lingering feeling when he entered my mother’s room after I had visited. The visions would always depict my mother dying. There was a burning desire within me to give her the gift of life everlasting, but the thought of actually doing this sickened me.

My mother, a vampire? Camilia, who spent her entire life making disciples of God? A soul whose light shone brightly, even to the angels in heaven, condemned to an immortal afterlife in hell on earth? It would be despicable! And if I had turned my mother, my father would eventually have had to be turned, too. I couldn’t bring myself to condemn my mortal parents to hell. I began to understand Pandora’s words about immortality.

As we lived, unchanged and uninhibited by time, we died a little each day through the mortals we loved. We watched them grow old and wither. As time passed we loved them from afar, lest they begin to take notice of our seemingly perfect and unchanging features. My father noticed this when he finally saw me.

Still, thoughts of the death of my mortal mother and father grieved me. My sister and her son remained my only link to the living. I understood why so many drove themselves mad after they received the blood kiss of life everlasting. They weren’t able to handle our timeless existence. And with time, even the strongest of us began to waver. The only way to live was attachment. I was attached to my sister and to Mynea, as well as to my coven. However, Pandora was attached to memories and the days of old. She was changing.

Pandora began to withdraw. It was easy to pick up on her change since I’d witnessed it before. Then, I said nothing, because I didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps I chose not to see it, as I had when Mynea decided to leave. This time, however, my intuition was keen. I carefully
observed Pandora’s dealings with our young coven, and after seventeen months in my presence, I could easily see the change.

Aside from purchasing real estate and occasional words of welcome and direction for the young ones, Pandora was seldom to be seen with any of our family. Her visits to my bed on the highest level of our enormous home became fewer and fewer, as those nights were filled with fledglings. She wasn’t jealous, for, as I explained earlier, Pandora no longer had her heart to give. She was preparing to leave.

One evening I waited for her in the courtyard in front of our estate. She arrived just before sunrise, knowing she would be alone since the coming of the sun sent the young ones in our family into a vampiric slumber. Her thoughts were unknown to me as she took slow steps to and fro. I called out to her.

“How much longer will you remain with us?” Judging by her immediate alertness, I must have startled her.

She turned swiftly and saw me sitting atop a massive stone depiction of a beast with a lion’s head and the body of a gargoyle. “The sun’s paralyzing effects on you are subsiding, Aleron. You’ve truly surpassed many who were born before you.” She walked over to me for the embrace I longed for. I knew that she longed for my touch and that she wanted to share a kiss with me, to give me a glimpse of why she was leaving us. I got off the gargoyle and stood next to her. I bit her neck and drank; it was pure ecstasy revisited. I withdrew my fangs and continued with my tongue around the base of her neck. I closed my eyes for a moment, basking in the eroticism. When I opened them, she was gone.

I turned around swiftly and saw nothing but an empty courtyard, her scent fading in the night breeze. All she left me with was a vivid memory, a vision forced into my mind by her will. I distinctly saw Mynea in the reflection of the abyss, in the reflection of the eyes that haunted me. Pandora wanted me to see this. She wanted me to remember. I looked into the night sky and saw those same eyes within the moon, looking at me. Then as quickly as she had gone, they, too, vanished.

CHAPTER 25

y dreams grew dark. I was the reaper of souls, the bringer of death, yet my dreams were even darker, saturated with despair. I traveled pathways to a destiny that was obscure, yet somewhat familiar to me. I saw myself in the eyes of those who were of him. I was invisible and immune to their touch. I ascended to the highest tower of his lair, where only remnants of what was once living remained, enveloped in the unmistakable stench of the slow decay of human flesh. I awoke many evenings with the smell still lingering from the dream.

Besides my dark dreams, an unknown voice had entered my mind, speaking to me whether I was asleep or awake. It spoke to me in riddles and unfamiliar phrases:
Whatever in you that is black compares not, for what you seek is a thousand times darker
.

The perfect baritone diction, no doubt from early fourteenth century Eastern Europe. He was speaking Romani Kapachi.

Long is the way, but the path is not of your knowledge
.

At first I thought it to be Vlad speaking to me. But though it was supernatural, certainly immortal, and absolutely vampiric, I came to realize it wasn’t the voice of Vlad. But how could this be? How could there be another male vampire other than Vlad? Was the call simply part of my imagination compensating me for feeling lonely, loathing the thought of living an eternity without what was rightfully mine yet painfully his? Was I subconsciously cursing my coven for lacking the nourishment I truly desired?

The sound was internal, and I felt it was driving me mad. Was this the loneliness Pandora spoke of? A feeling of isolation so great that it could bring the strongest of us to the brink of suicide?

Suddenly it occurred to me that if this voice were of an internal origin, it would naturally sound familiar to me. If not my own voice, it would be the voice of someone in my past, the articulation of my father or uncle or any other male who had managed to influence my life. If not a mortal, then I realized what I was deducing. It couldn’t have been my imagination. It came from elsewhere and forced itself upon my mind for me to consider. I deduced that it originated from the thoughts, lungs, and mouth of an ancient one, whose power was so immense that I would briefly see crimson whenever it spoke to me. I concluded Vlad must also know of him, since he knew of Vlad.

Vlad had shielded this ancient one’s existence from all of his children. The ancient one was why Vlad enforced the law that there could never be male children. Sasha’s fledgling male had nothing to do with it. This must have been what Pandora sensed when sharing a kiss with Vlad, knowing he shielded this from her.

In the beginning, I was there, and so I shall be at the conclusion
.

Who was he? Where did he come from? Who made him? Where is he now? All of these questions rushed into my head the moment my eyes sprung open, all relevant, yet all irrelevant compared to the most glaring query of them all: Why was he speaking to me? I heard it in my dreams, spoken from the mouth of the ancient one. I grew familiar with this tongue.