Treasure: a Vampire Novella | The Empty World Sequence

One

"Nephillim!" Cried the boy's mother, "Cursed!" The boy tried to silence his mother to no avail. He studied the doctor suspiciously.

"I have seen this before," said the doctor, "this child is also a victim of the Vampyre. There is not much time!"

The girl's father turned and rattled in the local dialect, it fell to the boy to translate, but when he realized the doctor understood the objections and still ignored them he began to curse the doctor in English, for his own reasons.

The young man did not agree with either, "It has been a decade since the Nephillim took Alexandria, no more die now than in war before. The number of undead is so small as not to be seen. A person does not become one of the Spawn just from one bite...and not from a single transfusion. Ceremonies must be performed. It's all been proved."

"No," said the doctor. "In 2001 a young woman was turned by drinking just a bottleful of the blood, this has been verified, she is one of the famous ones. In laboratories rats given just a drop of the blood showed the signs of the Vampyre..."

"It's all nonsense. You live in fear of what you do not have control over. You want to mutilate young girls to prove your worth." The boy turned to his mother, "Do not let him do this." But the knife was already out of the bag.

"Do it, Doctor, give her peace, give her rest now."

The doctor raised then a stake of ash and a mallet. The girls' father had to be restrained by his brother-in-law, and still struggled frantically to get to his daughter's body. The stake was placed over the young corpse's chest, the mallet was raised. The young man backed out of the room.

A knock came at the door upstairs. A pale hand drew it open. In the hall, the boy stood, towels in arms. "Come in," said the stranger. He was dressed in black silks now and the young servant noticed the various charms he wore: ankhs, the silver star and crescent, and at his throat a wide gray satin choker. It was all very common jewelry, except for the choker.

The boy walked into the room. He looked about himself as he set two towels on the small vanity. He felt he was being watched. He heard the door creak closed and click shut.

"Tell me, should I be afraid to walk the streets at night? all these unnatural deaths?" The last word had a strange ring to it. "Would you be afraid?" The stranger asked.

"No," laughed the boy and then remembered his place. "Sir, there are things we do not often care to mention so close at hand, but if you take my meaning: Those in power now...many fear them." He glanced toward the open window.

"The Nephillim?"

"Yes...Sir."

"Do you often get news here, being so close?"

"Of Them? Quite regularly. We had family here when Rome was taken over, Alexandria got the religious refugees. We had some even earlier when Karachi rose as their capital in the East. And I remember the taking of Alexandria myself."

"Have you not heard of the city called Necropolis or The City of Angels also in America?"

"Yes Sir, in schooling."

"That is good. But the old ones, they get superstitious?"

"Our people know many mysteries. Even those of the Nephillim. I am a proud Egyptian, but these Englishmen that have been through, they are no more than ambulance chasers."

The stranger laughed, "You sound like the young people of every city do, proud, and they all wait at the gates asking to be taken as the new apprentices."