Revelation of a Vampire

I find myself dreaming of my brother again. The same dream, repeated every night, for the last… six thousand years? Seven? It’s hard to keep track after all this time. Things move so much faster now than they used to.

In my dreams, I kill him every night. The curse God put on me was so complete in its totality that even in my dreams I am not spared God’s judgment. Sleep offers no comfort, no catharsis. Every dawn, just before I sleep, just before the first line of the new day’s light is drawn across the sky, I pray to God. I pray, and I ask Him that this be the one time, the one single night in thousands of years, that I be granted a reprieve. Once, just once, even if it’s only in my dreams, I beg God to show me a vision of the road not taken. Let me accept God’s decision with grace and humility, not anger and wounded pride. Let me hug my brother again, let me tell him I love him again, rather than lead him to the fields and dash his head upon a stone.

But my prayers remain unanswered. And every time I sleep, I dream, and every time I dream, I hear those words echoing back at me, loud as thunder, crashing into me like lightning. In my dreams, I’m even saying it as I kill him, which is something I never did. I say it as the stone breaks his skin for the first time and he begins bleeding. I say it as I see the surprise on his face turn to horror. I say it as I continue to slam the stone down on him, again and again and again, until his screams of anguish and his desperate cries for mercy finally fall silent.

“I am not my brother’s keeper. I am not my brother’s keeper. I am not my brother’s keeper.”

I suppose it would help if I told you my name. My name is… well, I’ve had so many of them during my time, it’s impossible to remember them all. Every 35 years or so, people start to wonder why it looks like I haven’t aged. That is usually when it is time to move on, and moving on means setting up a new identity, finding a new home base, starting a whole new life really. Stay in one place for too long, never aging, only coming out at night, and eventually rumors turn into legends. And legends bring the hunters. So it is in your best interest, should you one day find yourself cursed with eternal life (and yes, it is most assuredly a curse), to become a nomad. To wander the earth.

And I was the first one to do it. I’ll share with you a secret: my real name. The first name I ever had, and also the last name I’ll ever have. The Alpha and the Omega.

My real name, my first name… is Cain. That Cain. “I am not my brother’s keeper” Cain. I am the one who jealously slew his brother Abel when God favored Abel’s offering over mine own. The Cain that was cursed by God to wander the world endlessly as a monster. The original murderer. The first vampire.

I’m sound asleep and as still as the grave when the call comes in on my emergency phone. The phone is connected to a vibration machine that violently shakes my coffin. The phone’s ringing alone would never wake me, you see. A vampire’s sleep is not an easy thing to disturb.

The jostling of the coffin pulls me up out of my slumber. The emergency line. I can count on one hand the number of people that know the number. All who know it also know exactly who I am and exactly what I am.

I gently push the lid of my coffin to the side and emerge from my slumber. I glance up at the clock and see that it’s Wednesday at 12 PM. High noon. I quickly push the “Off” button on the vibration machine before reaching for the phone. The caller ID tells me that the detective is calling. Detective Andrea Bennett, of the Los Angeles Police Department. I’ve spent the last fifteen years living in LA and have known her for the last five. Smart girl, but not smart enough to know better than to deal with me. For some strange reason I can’t explain, she seems to trust me. She considers me her go-to authority figure for anything involving the demonic, the divine, the paranormal, and all other things otherworldly.

She is well aware of what I am, and of the limits my condition imposes on me. We communicate frequently, sometimes daily even, but she only rings the emergency line when it’s bad. Very bad.

And she’s never called it during daylight hours before.

I answer the phone.

“I’m here. What have you got?”

“It’s a bloodbath over here. I’m counting over a dozen dead bodies. Someone put some serious work in. They’re slashed to pieces and ripped to shreds. We’ve been here two hours and we’re still finding bits of body parts.”

“So why call me?”

“Because somebody drew a bunch of freaky-ass symbols all over the place. It looks Satanic, but then again, what the fuck do I know about demons and devils? That’s why I called.”

“Take photos and email them to me. We can meet tonight to discuss.”

“Or I could just FaceTime you, you old boomer.”

“I am so very much older than a-”

I sigh as I hear Andrea chuckle.

“Very well. Call me on the cell.”

The emergency line is a landline hardwired into my apartment. I have a special agreement with both the apartment complex and the telephone company (because I own both) that this line will stay up and still be able to take calls even if the apocalypse occurs. Andrea disconnects the call, and within fifteen seconds I’m receiving a FaceTime request on the iPhone we normally use to communicate.

And so I find myself using the modern-day sorcery that we call a smartphone to see what Andrea wants me to see. And she was not lying: it is indeed a grisly sight. Andrea is unusually quiet as she pans her phone around the room. It is covered in blood, from floor to ceiling. Several of the blood puddles have chunks of meat in them. There are corpses, numerous corpses, all of them having died violently. These poor people died in terror and agony. I can tell by the horrified and anguished looks on their faces.

At least, the ones that still have their heads attached. Several of them appear to have been decapitated.

Soft as a whisper, and with a highly unusual undertone of trepidation in her voice, Andrea says to me, “Now check this shit out and tell me it doesn’t look like what I think it looks like.”

It is very strange for me to hear Andrea speak in such a way. Normally, nothing phases her. Nothing scares her. That’s the thing that I like the most about her. Hearing fear in her voice for the first time… it is not something I thought I would ever hear. But I hear it now.

Andrea brings the phone within a hair’s breadth of one of the decapitated victims. She uses the phone’s zoom feature to zoom in on the area near where this poor soul’s head used to be. I notice it immediately. Andrea confirms my worst suspicions.

“Those are bite marks, aren’t they? Bite marks from one side of the neck to the other. The same markings are on the other side of the body too. I checked. Please tell me I’m fucking crazy, because unless I’m fucking crazy, I think I’m looking at a guy who got his head bitten off.”

“You’re not crazy. Something terrible happened to him.”

“Understatement of the year. But he’s not the only one. Of the dozen of so bodies we’ve found, we’re missing heads on almost half of them. What could it be? Monster? Demon? Tell me something here.”

“I can’t say for sure right now. Give me another look around the room. Show me the symbols.”

Andrea does as she’s told and shows me the arcane symbols that have been painted in blood all throughout the crime scene. All are written in Arcana Infernalis. Several of them serve no purpose other than to glorify Satan. I see symbols that mean things like “Glory to the Father of Lies”, “Satan’s Power is Absolute”, and the classic “Abandon All Hope”. That particular one is drawn multiple times all around the room.

But two of the symbols are not just for show. I recognize the signs of powerful demonic magic. Roughly translated, one symbol says “All outsiders shall see nothing.” The second one says “No one here may make any sound.”

I explain all of this to Andrea and ask her where this all took place.

“We’re standing inside the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. It’s closed on Tuesdays. The first staff member that came in today to open the museum was the one that found… all of this. Whatever the fuck all of this is. I guess now we know why nobody heard anything or saw anything. How bad is it?”

“I won’t sugarcoat it.”

“You never do.”

“It’s bad, Andrea. Most demons don’t even understand Arcana Infernalis, let alone have the ability to draw the symbols correctly and then imbue them with magical power. Arcana Infernalis isn’t the language of demons. It’s the language of Demon Lords. Something very powerful did this.”

Credit to her, Andrea seems to take this news in stride.

“Well… shit.”

“Yes. Shit.”

I hear that same strange hesitation again, that same subtle hint of fear, as Andrea says to me, “Hard as it might be to imagine, it gets even worse. All this bullshit isn’t the only message our killer left us. You need to see this. It’s the reason I called and woke you up.”

I watch as Andrea walks over to another room. Her phone begins to shake. She’s trembling. Now I’m starting to worry. I look, and I see what she is so afraid of.

I see a young man. Mid 20’s, between 120 and 145 pounds. About six feet tall. Lithe, athletic figure. Blonde hair. Tattoos. Very handsome. Very attractive.

He’s been crucified.

But not a normal cross. He was crucified on a Satanic cross. And he’s wearing a crown of thorns. Andrea points out to me that he is also wearing Bella Lugosi’s cape from the original “Dracula” and that tablets from “The Ten Commandments” were placed at the base of the cross. All are objects that are in in the museum’s collection. And behind him, on the wall, written in blood, with letters two feet tall, are three simple words.

“Call Me Cain”.

I hear Andrea ask, “You seeing this?”

“I see it.”

“Then you know what I have to ask. You know I wouldn’t be a good cop if I didn’t ask.”

“So ask.”

Now there’s no mistaking the fear and hesitation in her voice.

“Did you do this, Cain?”

“No. I did not do this.”

“I believe you. Don’t make me regret it. Tell me something. Give me something to work with. Anything.”

“It’s not ‘Call Me Cain.’ It’s ‘Call Me, Cain.’ The person that did this wanted to get my attention. He wants me to call him. He’s returned. There’s only one person I know of that has the power to do this and would do something like this solely to leave me a message.”

“Who? Who the fuck would do all this just to get you to pick up a phone and dial a number?”

“The Antichrist.”

“You’re fucking joking.”

“No. I’m not. You were right to call me. But I need to be there. I need to see all this with my own eyes. I may be able to find something the LAPD missed. But only if I’m there in person. Several of my… powers… don’t work through electronic devices.”

“It’s broad daylight outside, Cain. And it’s a public museum. There are windows everywhere.”

“We’ll have to wait until the sun goes down. It will give me some time to do some research. And to make a few calls.”

“Including a call to your old buddy the Antichrist?”

“No, not him. I need to call a few different people. Demon hunters. Wizards. The church. Other allies. If The Antichrist truly has returned, defenses must be raised. Wait for me there. I’ll arrive as soon as I am able.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“You need to know that it’s the end of the world. Or at least, the latest attempt to end it. I’ll know more when I get there. We’ll talk soon. I need to go. Stay safe.”

“If I wanted to stay safe I wouldn’t have become a cop. Get your ass over here as soon as you can.”

And with that, the call ends. Several more calls, and several very difficult conversations, now await me. And then, once the sun falls, I’ll join Andrea. And together we’ll see if we can figure out a way to stop The Apocalypse.

It’s going to be an eventful night. I can feel it.

Time to go to work.