Chapter 1
One might think that a vampire's life is easy, simple, but deep down, a vampire is nothing more than a parasite that takes over a human host and needs to feed in the most obscene ways for a human being: with the blood of its victims, with their souls, consuming them or, better yet, corrupting them.
But the parasite ends up merging with the host's soul, with their memories, with their personality; it merges, and that creates a new entity, beyond parasite and host, which is the true vampire, the monster born from the fusion.
I speak of monsters, and I include myself, because that is what we are. To deny it is absurd. We are a danger to the rest of humanity, not because we have better or worse hearts, not because of inherent inclinations in our nature, but because of the most terrible factor, the one that most easily corrupts any kind of being: the excess of time, the boredom that comes with the passing of centuries without them counting. That makes us cold, makes us morally relativistic, disconnects us from true human feeling.
There's another factor that few would mention, I'm not one of them that deny reality; I like to call things by their name, the factor is our manifest superiority. Our powers, our strength, our capacity for survival make us the perfect predator, and it's very difficult not to succumb to the temptation to use that power in the cruelest ways possible.
The thing is, every monster has its playground. For some, it's murder, savagery; for others, it's the exercise of power; for me, it's sex.
That's the aspect I've never been able to control, the corrupt part of me, and deep down, the engine that allows this old soul to continue existing. The thrill of conquest, the pleasure, the vice... I am a sexual predator, though not in the modern sense of the term, that's another story.
I am a being who lives for many things, but I wouldn't be able to endure the centuries without sex. It's that simple, that brutal, that sickening... The life of a vampire is not easy.
We live in the shadows, taking every precaution to avoid being discovered, so that when we hunt, feed, and reproduce, it must always go unnoticed. That is the only law common to all vampires: that we not will be discovered. Afterward, each family imposes its own creed.
But in no society these crimes always go completely unnoticed; sooner or later, they end up hunting you down, whether it's other humans in their fierce crusade, or other vampires who want the power of your lineage. Ancient blood is power and knowledge, and nothing matters more than being the strongest predator. Therein lies the key to your survival and your independence.
The older and purer the parasite, the greater its potential. In the end, the most dangerous thing for a vampire is always another vampire. Vampirism has no cure, and killing an ancient vampire is very difficult. We can only be sealed away to dry out until our host is such an empty, lifeless husk that it turns to dust, and at that point, the parasite will die if it doesn't find a new host. It's a slow but effective process.
If the vampire is young, you can impale them on a stake to drain their magic and then set them on fire. Without the ability to dematerialize, the shell will burn, but it's not a good idea to try this with ancient vampires; it rarely works.
The other option—a taboo, if you will—is to eat the ancient vampire, steal their power, but in doing so, part of their parasite will pass to you, or even take control if you aren't strong enough to resist. Our heart is the source of our powers; it has taken me millennia to discover this truth that seems so obvious.
My original name was Derrel Ap Vendem. I was born in the 12th century BC in a village in what is now Ireland, and my master turned me at the age of twenty-two. Don't see it as something romantic, as if he saved me from dying of illness; he turned me simply because he needed soldiers to save him from his enemies or allow him to carry out his plans, nothing more, nothing less. I was part of his plans, and I was for many centuries, until he granted me my freedom.
Conversion is the most difficult and arduous process in the world. In reality, the bond between master and new vampire is established because they both share the parasite, and with it, a large part of their memories and power. With training, with work, with willpower, the master can choose what they transfer from their mind to the disciple, but a young vampire who turns another human is like a glass of water poured unfiltered into another vessel.
But with each conversion, that blood is diluted, fades, weakens. According to my master's memories, there were only four other vampires above him before reaching the source, the first human infected by the parasite. An ancient and powerful bloodline, a supernatural force capable of controlling the darkest energies, a being with every imaginable power.
What became of that being, or how did it disappear? It's something my master didn't know, and that I discovered far too late...
My master's branch had very strict rules regarding food and hunger control. We fed on criminals, the dregs of society, and we didn't kill innocents unless our survival was clearly compromised, and even then, it deserved punishment. It was a golden rule, one that, if broken, meant death at the hands of the rest of the family, or at the very least, imprisonment or banishment.
Vampires can go years without eating; this only weakens us if many decades pass without tasting blood. That's why we had to know how to choose our victims to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
Places plagued by war, poverty, and constant abuse have always been the breeding ground from which we vampires drew sustenance. Amidst corruption and death, no one pays attention to four dead criminals, a prostitute decomposing in the water, or four soldiers dying on patrol; these weren't things that no one used to bother with. Times have changed for the better, for humanity.
After more than two millennia hidden, living, with periods of dormancy, and on top of that, learning all the secrets of life and unlife, when I was most at peace within the safety net I had created, precisely at the moment I trusted myself, I sealed my fate forever.
I had all the power I desired, and in 1269, there was no better place for me than London. Two centuries of infiltrating that city and kingdom with my people until I controlled it completely, operating under different names, with riches, titles, and pleasures at my disposal, and being feared and respected by all, it was the perfect place for a vampire with a moral compass.
The room in the small tower was crowded. I remember my whole litter was there. They weren't bad kids; many had been with me so long they were like brothers. The door to the room opened, and Melgar, one of the youngest, came running in. I remember his face like it was yesterday.
"Derrel, we have a problem. The Lamia want a meeting..."
"The Lamia?" "What are they doing in London, and what do they want from us? England isn't their territory..."
"They gave me this letter for you. They say they'll wait two days; otherwise, they'll take it as a refusal..."
I took the paper, written in pompous calligraphy. They hadn't used ink; it was blood, but blood I knew all too well: the blood of my master, the blood of Supreme Judge Justica Anubiel.
"Derrel ap Anubiel, Master Justicar of London, I, the Lamia Theofolus, on behalf of my clan, request a meeting for the division of territory in England. Your great lord is dead, as you can smell, and refusal will mean war and the extinction of yours. We await you at Clarence Oldshide's farm, on the road to Nottingham."
The wine goblet in my hand shattered, spilling wine and blood onto the table. My master was dead, my territory threatened by the Lamia, those damned occult bastards. How could they have defeated Anubiel, a true fifth-degree vampire? I couldn't even imagine that there was anyone so powerful and daring among the Lamia. But the worst part was how they had found him. How could no one in my people, not even I, who possessed a great gift of prophecy, have foreseen this?
The master had been in slumber for nearly two centuries; he would not awaken for another sixty-two years, along with my other brethren. His sanctuary was so secret that not even I knew its location; only Seth, my master's brother, knew. The Justicar currently had two great masters who alternated ruling the rest every two hundred and fifty years; the next generation could take breaks to sleep every one hundred years.
The Justicar extended across seven territories, three of which were under our exclusive control: the British Isles, Egypt, and Sicily. We coexisted with other clans in the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy, and Greece. An attack on our power was too audacious for a mere group of occultists; there had to be more active forces involved.
"Marcelus, go to Edinburgh and warn Odysseus and his people so they're prepared for the worst. Trevor, take a ship and go to Egypt. You have to find Master Seth and warn him about what's happening. The rest of you, send the chicks back to the other nests so everyone is ready to leave. Fernando, take your whole brood and have them hide in Scotland. If I don't return in two days, flee to Sicily or France with Viriato."
"What are you going to do, Derrel?"
"I'll take a look around the prison before going to see them."
"Aren't we going to fight?"
"The Lamia have no power to subdue or threaten us in that way, but if they ally with the Strighoy or the Vrykolakas, we wouldn't be able to defeat them. If they're capable of attacking a fifth, none of us will stand a chance."
It wasn't the first vampire war we'd experienced, nor the most desperate situation. In past centuries, we had lost and regained territories; there had been weak agreements and more stable ones, but since the death of Grand Master Athod, the master of Isbaelen and Seth, more than a millennium and a half ago, we had never faced a similar threat.
We justicars were discreet. We could establish large nests because of our policy of not killing innocents, but that also made us despicable in the eyes of other vampire clans.
I melted into the shadow of the night, and the wind propelled me through the air at full speed. By the time I crossed the walls of the London prison, only twenty minutes had passed. Hidden in the shadow of a guard, I reached the deepest dungeons, where criminals, waiting to be executed by hanging or beheading, awaited their moment.
The man didn't see me coming when I slipped through the cracks in his cell door. He was young, no more than eighteen, which is why I chose him, that and because his mind was a jumble of violent images, scarred by his crimes. His blood was strong and full of life. He snored as if knowing he was condemned to death had nothing to do with him. He wore a cruel smile in his sleep, and those disturbed features were only a shadow of the crimes he would have committed outside.
I materialized beside him and, with a swipe of my sharp nails, I cut his throat and jugular vein. Blood gushed out, but I didn't waste a single drop. I hadn't eaten in years, and the taste intoxicated me. I won't say I didn't enjoy it, but what brought me there was the need for power.
When the prisoner was nothing more than a dry body, I left, hiding from shadow to shadow until I left the prison and put myself back in the hands of the wind, and with a gust I went to the next point where I had to stop before falling into the trap that I knew they were setting for me.
