Bloodline by Joel Abernathy
7
My own transformationhad been the stuff of nightmares, and Enoch’s like witnessing the birth of a demon. Never had I imagined the bond between a sire and his fledgling might be tender.
Jonas remained in my bed for three days, and for that time, we feasted upon each other in every way. His lust was insatiable, as was his thirst, and I had never given myself to a worthier pursuit than trying in vain to satisfy them both.
In the beginning, he seemed incapable of retracting his claws or fangs no matter how I instructed him. It was hard to teach another what I could scarcely remember learning myself. When finally he regained a passably human appearance and immediately suggested returning to the world at large, I knew our isolation was a matter of keeping his family from seeing him that way.
He assured me the house was large and the others would mostly leave us to our own devices on the rare occasion they occupied it. The entrances and all the windows were sealed by magic, but I could explore within reason.
I was relieved when none of the other members of the Hart clan emerged, whether it was because they were gone or merely hiding. I could see the change that had come over Jonas in the last few days. He was growing weaker, and there were shadows underneath his eyes that made him appear older.
My blood was not enough. Evidently, the family had prepared. The blood pudding laid out in the kitchen seemed almost a comical solution, but it eased my thirst and I assured Jonas it would come to be enough for him as well. He agreed it was better if he never tasted human blood from the outset, a theory my own experience evidenced.
And yet, as the days passed, his family members grew more accustomed to my presence and warier of his. It soon became clear to me that not all the Harts were as enthusiastic about the plan as Jonas and his uncle Berne were.
The old man I’d learned to be Jonas’ father, Richard, often argued with him behind closed doors and beheld his son the way the villagers had so often looked at me.
While they had taken me under the pretense of study, it soon became equally clear that Jonas was the true test subject. Berne and his son, Taylor, were eager to try the forbidden drink next, once Jonas’ newfound displays of strength astounded them.
With human blood newly in my system, I realized I truly had traded a good portion of my strength and ability in favor of an animal-based diet. For all their talk of wanting to keep a clear line between “our kind” and the other vampires, Jonas and the others quickly evolved to talk of how human blood might be “ethically” obtained.
Richard and I formed an unlikely alliance in our opposition to the idea. Perhaps we both saw the writing on the wall. Perhaps we merely saw the change in Jonas.
It was subtle in the beginning. Long after I’d closed my eyes, I would feel myself being watched and open them to find him lost in his own head. He always insisted that nothing was the matter when pressed, but his fuse was shorter than ever.
He’d fought with Taylor once, over what neither of them would say, and while Jonas was quick to dismiss the fact that he’d nearly broken his cousin’s arm, even Berne watched him with greater care from that day on.
Then, the time came for them to test their theory. I was not to be allowed to leave the premises, no matter how I insisted that sending Jonas out alone after another vampire when he was so newly awakened as one himself was a terrible idea.
Jonas and Taylor went out that night, but only Jonas returned. He recounted the tale most clinically, and it was his attempt at emotion toward the end that filled me with trepidation. I could tell from the look in Richard’s eyes that he was as skeptical as I was of the story of how the nest they’d infiltrated had overwhelmed them both and taken Taylor out before Jonas could gain the upper hand.
Berne was too lost in his grief to give in to suspicion that night, but he too eventually saw what I had feared from the very beginning. That no matter how good a man was in essence, vampirism was a poison that took its toll, eventually. That no amount of a hunter’s will or humanitarian inklings could stave off the beast in its entirety.
Jonas continued to hunt, and he continued to be more successful at it than the entire family ever had been in their combined efforts. The longer his trips lasted, the more plain the truth became until finally, I could no longer ignore it.
There were stirrings within the Hart clan and they all pointed to betrayal the moment the truth we all suspected was revealed. Taylor’s mother and three brothers had returned home for the funeral, but I knew they had not merely gathered to grieve. They had come to assess the failure of Jonas’ experiment, and while he saw it as an opportunity to bring them all over to his side, I saw the wary glances they cast his way on the rare occasion he was home at all.
One night, when he came home reeking of human blood that he’d scarcely bothered to scrub off his hands, I cornered him. “You must stop this,” I whispered harshly, in fear for his life.
His eyes narrowed. He was so short-tempered those days. When he looked at me, I saw none of the tenderness that had always seemed so out of place. “What are you on about now?” he asked, attempting to walk past me.
I blocked his path to the door. He always came in through the side entrance when he’d been on one of his “hunts.” I didn’t doubt that he sought and found his prey each night, but I knew there was truth in his family’s whispers that his fangs sank into human flesh as often as our kind’s.
“You must listen. Your family is still here, a week after the funeral. Does that not strike you as strange for a clan that’s scarcely in the same room once a decade?”
“What of it?” he asked impatiently.
“You cannot be this blind, Jonas.” My gaze traveled down to the blood on his collar and my stomach churned, not from hunger but from guilt. “The rest of us certainly aren’t.”
“If you have something to say, just come out and say it. I don’t have time for your melodramatics.”
“No, I imagine there’s not much you have time for between the two lives you’ve been living,” I snapped. “How many humans have you killed, Jonas? And for how long?”
The dangerous glint in his eyes told me the answer was exactly what I’d feared from the very beginning. “Get out of my way, Marcellus.”
“They’ll kill you,” I said, my back pressed to the door and my arms stretched out against it. “I hear them talking through the floorboards when you’re gone. If we leave now, there is still time. We’ll board a ship, set sail for somewhere far from here. Somewhere we can start over.”
“Are you insane?” he growled. “Listen to yourself. I’m not leaving. This is my fucking home and they couldn’t kill me if they wanted to.”
“You don’t know that. Just because you’re immune to the sunlight doesn’t mean you inherited every immunity.”
“Step aside, Marcellus.”
I shook my head, holding my ground. “If you die, you kill us both. You begged me to bring you into this life. Don’t lead us both into death because of your own pride.”
A look I had only ever seen on Enoch’s face crossed his, and he shoved me aside hard enough to send me into the opposite wall. The cans in the pantry behind me spilled out onto the floor around me and in that moment, I knew. It didn’t matter how pure or vile the soul was in the beginning. Anything I touched was destined to become corrupted. Twisted. Tainted. Everything I loved eventually turned to decay.
I flew to my feet and ran after him, but I wasn’t fast enough. He stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by his kin, and the somber looks on their faces became sinister in the flickering glow of the torches in their hands.
“A seal,” Jonas murmured, looking all around him, as if at some archway visible only to him. “And one far more binding than the family name, it seems.”
“You left us no choice, Jonas. Your experiment failed,” his father said in a grave tone. Pain deepened the lines on his face. Lines that would never mar his son’s youthful beauty. “You killed your own cousin.”
“Taylor got himself killed with his foolishness!” Jonas snarled. The blood in his eyes told the truth. He was no longer any more human than I was.
“Enough of your lies!” Richard bellowed. “This ends tonight.” He dropped the torch and a circle of flame ate up the kerosene that bound Jonas in.
“No!” I cried, rushing toward him.
“Stay back!” Jonas roared, the force in his words halting my progress.
“Let him out,” I demanded, turning on his family. They stood like stone statues, unmoving and unmoved. I turned in desperation to Richard. “He is your son!”
“And the curse will die with him,” the old man said, remorseless. “You are welcome to do the same. It’s your blood that damned him.”
I lunged for Richard, blinded by my rage as the flames spread through the inner circle and Jonas’ cries filled the room. Something struck me from behind, a wooden stake plunging deep, sending me to my knees. I felt the tip of it pierce through the other side of my chest and someone stomped it in even deeper, pinning me to the floorboards like a butterfly on a spreading board. My heart ceased beating immediately, but it would do nothing more than keep me in place for consumption by the flames. I strained in vain to reach for the splintered wood impaling my back as the Harts filed out of the room, stepping over my body one by one.
Jonas’ howls of agony seemed to last for hours. The flame consumed the living room and whether he was gone or the roar of the fire had merely drowned him out, it was a small mercy. The flames rose up around me, lapping at my clothing and turning the stake within me to ash, and yet, I remained.
I alone remained. It occurred to me only once the beams of the roof had caved in around me—and all the rest of the Hart estate along with them—that even fire would not lower itself to purify my filthy soul.
I could not die, though my skin was tarnished with soot and it seemed as if the blood within my veins had boiled off, leaving me an empty husk. The Harts seemed to realize this fact when they at last returned to the rubble and found my desiccated body perfectly preserved within the ash. They agonized for several minutes before deciding the only way to be rid of me was to pin me once more with a stake to the bottom of a coffin and bury me many miles away, beneath the church in the family’s care.
In that manner, it had been said that vampires could last for many centuries, and Verne insisted there had never been a case of one escaping. In that manner, I would pass the centuries and remain their family’s secret charge. I died eternally and lay in wait for the end of the world, or for the end of myself at long last. As the centuries become one, I knew not which would come first.