Chapter 1: Dark Memories

CHAPTER 1

 

“No....not again!"

Blood painted a veil of the deepest crimson over the icy depths of those silver orbs. Veins traced deep purple roads of sin across alabaster flesh, disappearing into the thicket of raven silk streaked with blood. Twin ivory stalagmites of equal length, honed to trenchant points grew from the maw of the vermilion caverns. A deep growl, like that of a wolf lying in wait in the shadows, rumbled deep within. It burned, it seared--no, it hungered for the drought it endured to be over...for the one thing that could quench it and nourish the demon writhing within...

The cavern clamped shut, warm and tortured breath flowing through the owner of those vermilion lips. The blood light faded from those cold silver eyes and the veins that had been so prominent before faded to bare traces of pulsing blue on her pale flesh. Her slender, powerful hand stopped its trembling, her finger prints immortally stamped on the wrought-iron railing. The dark-tinted windows of the sliding doors reflected faint traces of crimson streaks and pale skin, as though the woman standing before them was a mere shadow drifting across the expanse of time. For the entirety of her life, Kaileena Rose had endured torment beyond anything that could have been imagined or even conceived. When the thirst came upon her, it was a fierce battle of control. The demon within her was voracious in its hunger to take life, to sate its lust with the misery and death of another. It was hell, pure and unadulterated torment that was her eternal curse. But no more horrifying than the constant battle for control were the nightmares that raced through her mind.

Visions of young, naked girls strung up like slabs of beef, or hung in strange cages from the ceiling. Their bodies, riddled with holes or sliced open with anything that evil could grasp. Scissors, knives, pins, even spokes of red hot iron. The screams of the dying, the pleadings of the tortured to end their lives so they would not suffer any longer. Laughter as brittle and harsh as shattering, tainted glass. The endless tears of those who watched in horror as their fellow captives were slaughtered.

And the blood--it flowed in fresh, warm streams from the cages, down their bodies...and always that evil thing was there, revelling in the scent, the taste. The way it fed her obsession, the desire to breed more, to kill more, to drink more of that coppery font of life.

All in the name of vanity. To remain young forever. The idea of such bloodlust and gluttony made the young woman sick with revulsion.

And Kaileena was the result of that experiment. She bore the curse that forever plagued her existence, almost driving her to the brink of insanity. But the thought of tracking her prey kept her grounded. Indeed, there were times when the idea of driving a stake through her own heart held an irresistible temptation. It would certainly have ended her suffering. Her torment and constant, never-ending search for the blood of her creator. But she could not bring herself to do it. There was much work left to be done in this world. She could not afford to rest a single moment.

Breathing in the fresh, crisp scent of the twilight, she returned to the hallows of her home. It was nothing more than a simple studio apartment. The walls were polished black with tasteful gold, silver and copper running through them, draped with crimson and purple of the darkest and richest shades. There was a large kitchen to the far side; long black granite benches with rosewood cupboards and space-age stainless steel fridge and microwave next to the stove. Three doors that led respectively to the bathroom, living area and balcony. And in the far corner, next to a very large built-in display was the door to her bedroom. It was open a crack, but you could see the large double bed with crimson sheets and heavy thick curtains hanging over the French windows. But it was rare she would give herself in to sleep. As a respite, her body did require rest, but the chance that she would be so burdened with fatigue that the death-like sleep of the dead and the damned stole over her was one in a hundred. A hundred days she could go without proper sleep and still function well enough to do her daily work.

Such was the life of a half-breed, one supposed.

 

For that was what Kaileena was. A hybrid. A dhampir--half-human, half-vampire but all over cursed by the thirst that lingered beneath the surface. Even now she wondered what had driven that evil woman to grow wanton in her obsession, so much so that she had to use any means she had to produce an endless font of blood. Why she had to resort to such cruel and inhumane methods to sate her bloodlust and her desire to remain forever youthful. And why only she had survived while so many others died.

She laid her hand upon the worn leather bindings upon the table, her fingertips brushing the cracking, age-worn pages. The wax seal that was stamped upon the book crumbled to powder beneath her fingertips, leaving only a partial emblem remaining. She had dug this up years ago on a rare trip to the lands of Romania. It also served as a constant reminder of how everything aged, withered and crumbled around her. How everything would fall to ruin while she would remain young, healthy and strong; untouched by the ravages of time. She’d hoped she would find out if the woman she sought out had a weakness, a flaw, anything that could be used to destroy her by reading the book. Instead, it contained the records of a life of obsession, experiments--and so many, many innocent deaths.

It was the diary of the infamous Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory.

But Elizabeth’s reign of terror started so small. With just a single, yet poignant act. All of this brutality had stemmed from the Countess slapping a servant girl hard enough to draw blood.  Believing the servant's blood was a veritable fountain of youth, she'd killed the girl. A single belief had begun a life of feverish obsession. In the decade she'd ruled, a total of six hundred and fifty women were slaughtered to feed her vanity. Most of them had been simple peasant girls, lured to her castle with the promise of a plush life of servitude. A temptation to live better than their rustic existence had offered them.

A temptation that cost them their lives.

But it wasn't enough for Elizabeth. She wanted an endless supply of girls to feed her hideous fascination. And the girls were becoming wary of the castle in which she lived, believing it cursed. Horrific legends began to be woven about the lady of the castle--a demon who lusted for the flesh of young virgins to sate her hunger and appease her rage. How young girls entered the ramparts and never returned. Some myths even began to point to the cold truth that the countess was not of this world and needed their young, fresh blood to keep her living eternally. Such superstition left the countess without any source of the liquid revenue she so desperately craved. But that didn't stop the killings. If anything, it bred a different and more chilling kind of cunning. Using crude methods and the art of seduction, Elizabeth had taken it upon herself to court and seduce countless men in order to breed young girls. Not for sustenance or for profit, but for the main purpose of bathing in their blood to sustain her youth.  As she grew older and became sterile however, she'd gone to great lengths to find young girls who would do her bidding to breed for her. She'd even forced them to give up their offspring so they could feed her obsession and vanity. But not just any girls were selected for this task. They had to be strong, pure and untainted by the filth of mortality and humanity. In essence, they had to be of the ‘pure’, as she called it.

Vampires, bred from her or turned at the first opportunity to present itself.

This plan was so cruel and so deviously evil, yet it was brilliant in its chilling logic. Breed more girls to fill the void and turn suspicion away from her regarding the deaths of the women she'd slaughtered. If no one knew of the children's existence, no one would ever suspect foul play if one were to disappear. So simple and yet so unbelievably depraved. The very thought would have left those who listened to the tale shivering in a cold sweat, their faces taking on the colour of one who'd died of exposure to the bitter winter that ensnared the Carpathian mountains. Yet no one suspected a thing.

But one girl was different from the others. Kaileena’s mother. She grew to love the man she engaged in breeding with. She was the only one to refuse the order and tried to flee with the child she'd birthed with that young nobleman. She'd fled to the farthest reaches of Hungary, to where Elizabeth's uncle resided. She was going to raise the alarm as to what was happening in that accursed castle. But true to her nature, Elizabeth would not allow such defiance. She hunted them down and killed both of them in her rage. But the child the girl had given birth to was no where to be found.

 

Kaileena gritted her teeth, her jaw set in a cold line. It was all because of her. If Elizabeth had not been so careful about letting one girl escape, her mother and father would have lived long and happy lives. She would have been free, and able to control the thirst using the ancient vampire remedies of the time. There was even a rumour then about a recipe for a serum to reverse vampirism. However, that recipe was soon destroyed after she'd turned six. Her only chance of survival lay in the gentle, careworn hands of a priest in Budapest who'd taken her under his wing. He'd known from the start that she was not human but did not treat her like the devil many claimed her to be. He'd raised her like his very own, taught her the ways of the world in the secluded convent in which he lived. He even helped her discover ways to counter the vampire threat that lingered in their homeland. She remembered with nostalgia those long and happy days of her childhood.

All that changed when her surrogate father was taken by a vampire on his way to prepare for the morning sermon. His living corpse wandered the village for days in search of blood to feed his newborn life. And it had been Kaileena who'd been given the grim task of plunging a stake through his dead heart. She had only been ten years old.

 

That very tragedy birthed her calling to become what she was today. The slayer of the undead and the protector of the living. A killer that righteously carved a swathe through the populace of reanimated corpses, watching as the blood light faded from their eyes in their death throes. It gave her the drive to kill to end the suffering, though it seemed to leave so many lives devastated in her wake.

A common occurrence in the life of a Vampire Hunter.

And yet in the last five hundred years of wandering, steeped in the blood of her prey, she'd not once been able to find the one that caused her this torment. Not once had she been able to locate Elizabeth Bathory or end the countess's constant sating of her bloodlust. Kaileena clenched her fist, the flawless, young flesh trembling in quiet fury. The blood light flashed in her eyes but she chased it away. The madness of the thirst was ever lingering beneath the surface, ready to spring forth at the slightest hint of rage. She really needed to control her hair-trigger temper or the Crimson Fury would be unleashed in its hellish glory. She'd already fallen victim to it once more. A young man who'd tried to get her behind a theatre for a brief encounter of the sleazy kind, about three years ago. He'd been so insistent and forceful that it had unleashed her rage. By the time she'd calmed down again, the man was nothing more than a bloody lump of meat on the ground, surrounded in a pool of his own blood and s**t where the stomach had been ripped open. She could still smell that fetid stench now; the feel of the slick warmth on her hands. She'd only reacted in self-defence, but no one deserved such a cruel and agonising death. She vowed to never let herself give into her demonic nature again; even it cost her very life.

A scream sounded outside. A shrill, piercing shriek that would not rise from the throat of a startled young woman spooked by her friends. It was terrible, a last act of defiance before the life that flowed through them vanished. The scream of someone being murdered.

Kaileena swiftly crossed the room, climbing smoothly onto the railing. It was about the width of a closed palm laid flat and could barely support the weight of a passing cat. But she was able to crouch upon it with no difficulty. The railing didn't even seem to bend under her weight. Her cold eyes slid across the narrow alley below, roving the shadows. There. Twin pinpricks of crimson to the east of her gaze before it vanished. She wasted no time. She stepped lightly off of the railing and landed silently in the street, fifty feet below. A human being would have been killed the moment they'd hit the ground, the gravity of their fall drawing them to impending death. But she didn't even seem to have broken a limb! Another scream rent the air, chilling in its pitch and volume. Whatever was happening to that girl must have been horrific. Kaileena wondered why the sounds of vampire victims falling prey to the baleful fangs of their stalkers didn't give her nightmares anymore. She shook herself. She couldn't think on that now. If she hurried, there was still a chance at salvation for the innocent. The screams of the murdered girl in her mind, the young woman vanished into the shadows of the night.

Reviews

[Blake Cook]

I can tell this book is going to be gory and somewhat tragic. A truelly gripping first chapter.