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  A RELUCTANT VAMPIRE

  By Carla Krae

  Published by Carla Krae at Smashwords

  Copyright 2011 Carla Krae

  First Edition

  The right of Carla Krae to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons--living or dead--is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  A RELUCTANT VAMPIRE

  It was the first day of the year the sun’s warmth made my robe feel too warm. Sitting on a stone bench, I inhaled the scent of herbs and greens. Spring was late this year and my brothers kept me inside until the slippery threat of frost had fully faded from the garden's stone path, so finally getting outside again was a blessing.

  Footsteps crunched the dirt, coming nearer. "What is it, Brother Michael?" I asked.

  "How do you always know, Adamo?"

  "Your footfalls are heavy, my friend. I doubt you could creep upon the ancient."

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. "It's time for supper."

  Steadying my walking stick on the ground before me, I stood and set my hand on his shoulder. He was one of the few men taller than me at the monastery, but not by much, and he was used to modifying his gait to match my hesitant steps. Twenty paces later, we reached the kitchen door.

  Ours was not an order subsisting on bland and meager offerings, so the scents of roasted meat and vegetables came to me upon Brother Michael opening the door. My mouth watered and stomach growled, causing me to wonder how much time passed while I was outside. He led me to the dining hall and my usual seat at the end of a bench. Someone would place a plate and mug in front of me. Needing to depend on them to feed me bothered me at first, when my world went dark, but by now I knew I could trust them implicitly.

  Brother Michael's footsteps neared again and something thumped on the wood table. Sliding my fingers along the surface of the worn wood, I found a bowl. "Stew?"

  "Brother Thomas thought the bowl would be easier for you. The food is already cut."

  "Hm." I found the handle of a spoon when I felt around the circumference of the bowl. "Did I leave the table dirty?"

  "Calm yourself, Adamo. He's only trying to help."

  "I don't need to be treated like an infant, Michael."

  "Thomas hasn't been here long, Adamo. Eat, friend, and don't be offended."

  Nodding, I picked up the spoon and shoved the bite into my mouth. Most days, I was grateful to be in the abbey instead of out in the world where people like me were beggars just to survive.

  Someone slid a torch into the wall sconce to my right. Dusk must have fallen, cutting off the light coming through the windows. The night breeze stirred my hair, still carrying a touch of Winter's chill. Brother Theo called for someone to close the window from the cold. He was one of the elders and the cold sank into his bones more easily these days. Soon, it would be full dark and we would lock up for the night. Our location was secluded, but we were close to a main road for travelers.

  After supper, we attended evening devotion, then separated for free time before our rituals for bed. Some read, some wrote, others played music or games. We liked each other and it was unusual for one of us to seek solitude in his chamber unless he was ill.

  I couldn't read or illuminate manuscripts, but my hands were nimble enough to be useful. So, I was in the middle of counting stitches, needle poised in my right hand, when I heard horses' hooves outside. Who could be here at this time of night? A lost traveler?

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Three knocks. My brothers murmured among themselves and I heard someone walk away down the hall to answer the door. Michael came to my side.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "I don't know. It bothers me."

  "The Spirit giving you intuition, Brother?"

  He snorted. "Nothing so grand, Adamo. Just a feeling."

  "The Lord is subtle, Michael. Perhaps you should tell--" There was a shout down the hall from the front of the building. "Michael?"

  "Go to your room, Adamo, and wait for me."

  "What--"

  "Go." He shoved my staff into my hands and left me. There was much commotion and shuffling of feet around me.

  Counting off the steps in my mind, I walked to my bedchamber, my free hand clutching the cross hanging from my neck. Getting inside my room cut off the noise, but not my anxiety, and I whispered a prayer for peace.

  A horse and rider passed by the small open window opposite the door. I hurried to it and shut the hatch. Perhaps they were robbers. That would certainly explain the hurried actions of my brothers. We didn't shelter jewels or priceless artifacts, but we did keep volumes of value. Knowledge was priceless to some.

  I shouldn't get ahead of myself. There had been no sounds of fighting.

  Yet.

  The thunder of horse hooves passed by again, accompanied by the shouts of men. The scent of smoke seeped in from outside. Had they set the outbuildings on fire?

  “Adamo!”

  I opened my door. Michael grabbed my sleeve. “This way.”

  “What is happening?”

  “No matter what, do not leave the building.”

  “Michael, I don’t understand what--”

  He stopped, deeper in the monastery, and I heard hinges creak. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me down. “Feel the ladder. Hide in the cellar until all is quiet, even if you have to wait till morning.”

  “What trouble has befallen us, Brother?”

  “Agents of the Devil himself, Adamo. Promise me.”

  “I swear it.”

  “Hide now.”

  I climbed down the ladder, tremors of fear dancing in my stomach, and felt along the wall to a pile of sacks of grain and crouched behind them. The hatch was shut and I heard something scrape across the floor and stop above me.

  Would the cellar become my tomb this night?

  God in Heaven, please help us I prayed in whispered Latin, clinging to the cross hanging from neck. The sounds of struggle carried further out into the monastery. I heard the screams of men and their cries in death. My sanctuary, my home, was being destroyed. It didn’t make sense! My tears fell onto the dirt floor.

  I don’t know how long I huddled in the dark listening to my brothers dying.

  Then…the sound of footsteps, light and close together like a woman’s or a child. They stopped above and then the hatch was pulled open. I tried to not make a sound, but my breaths were rapid, dragging harshly out of my lungs.

  The footsteps came closer. I heard the swishing of fabric brushing against the burlap sacks, and smelled roses. The footsteps stopped in front of my hiding place and then I was suddenly yanked by my robe toward the ladder.

  “Unhand me!” I’d only heard one set of footsteps, but it wasn’t possible for a woman to move me so. “I have no riches!” The hands let
go, and I regained my balance. “Who are you?”

  “What is your name, boy?” a husky female voice asked in Italian.

  “Adamo, signora. You shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe.”

  She laughed. I wished I could see the owner of that lovely voice. “Of course it is.”

  “Oh, please help us. My brothers--”

  “Shhh. I will take care of you, Adamo.” She caressed my face with a cool, soft hand.

  My body sagged in relief an instant before I felt an intense sting in my neck.

  ****

  Noises. Scratching and whooshing and pounding and—

  So much overwhelming sound.

  Hide. Run.

  Curled in a ball covering my ears, I moaned, “I’m dying!”

  A woman laughed and the loudness of it shattered my head. “Adamo, focus. Relax.”

  “Speak softly, signora.”

  “I whisper, child. Sit up and show some dignity.” Her voice carried a note of authority and I did what she asked. “Good boy. I will get you something to eat.”

  The swish of her skirts faded away. She’d left.

  There was a draft, so we were no longer in the cellar. I sat on a wood floor, so it must be the dining hall. Though I didn’t expect to see anything, my eyes opened by reflex.

  “Jesu be praised! I’ve experienced a miracle!”

  Instead of the shroud of obscurity I’d come to expect for over half my life, the room was visible. Not perfectly, if I remembered correctly from childhood…the details were blurry and there was little color to my world, but I could see.

  I moved to my knees and praised God for this gift. It was not disappointing to receive imperfect sight since it must be the will of the Lord to keep my humble, to try my faith. Saint Paul endured much, so a lowly servant such as I could endure this, too.

  A sudden cuff to the ear sent me reeling, splayed on the floor and stunned.

  “You will not speak that name anymore! It is not God that gave you this gift, but I! And so much more. Rise. Drink. We have hours to travel.” A dead goat with its neck at an odd angle was at her feet. “I would have brought you a human but you slept too long. Eat.”

  Seeing me shake my head in denial, she huffed and slashed the goat’s throat with a dagger, spilling its blood on the floor. Instead of my stomach recoiling at the sight, I felt even worse hunger than I woke with and grabbed the corpse. New instinct took over. I drank as much blood as I could get down my throat. She petted my hair.

  Blood was all over me, staining my robe, my hands, and dripping from my chin. Once my belly was full, my wits returned. “What have you done? You have damned me!”

  She grabbed my chin and forced me to look up at her. “I have freed you. Come, childe. We do not have time for this.” She was a beautiful, terrible thing and something inside told me I could not refuse her command.

  I was given clean garments, a bowl of water to bathe, and instructed to follow to the carriage outside when I finished. Splashing water on my face, I discovered someone had shaved my beard. My brothers hadn’t wanted me to handle sharp objects, so once my beard started to grow, Brother Michael trimmed it for me every so often. The skin was tender to the touch now. What else had changed while I slept? Sighing, I lifted the soiled robe over my head and winced when my pendant landed on my bare chest. The contact of the cross stung. I tried to examine it and it burned my fingertips.

  I was forsaken. Truly damned.

  Tears leaked from my eyes. I didn’t know what I’d become, but my Lord, my Savior, had turned his back on me and all my friends were dead. Death, too, would be my destiny…

  Except the woman’s compulsion would not let me deviate from my task. First, a monster, and now bewitched? The night was truly cursed.

  Lifting the cord from my neck, I set the pendant on the table and continued dressing. The fine new clothes felt odd compared to the rough robes I’d worn since coming here at age five. The only home I really ever knew. Seeing the beloved rooms should have been a gift, but all I saw were the dead bodies. All I felt was pain.

  Outside, men sat on horseback flanking the carriage. The woman nodded to one of them, stepped up into the carriage, and beckoned me inside.

  “I am your maker, childe. You will do as I say when I say, without argument. In turn, I will teach you what you are. Do you know the word lamia?”

  I nodded. “It is Latin for things of the night.” Evil things like phantoms and witches.

  “We are vampires, the living dead. Blood sustains us. The sun burns us.”

  “This is impossible! You have bewitched me. I will not listen to--”

  Her hand shot out with lightning speed, gripping my chin and forcing me to look at her as fangs descended from her gums and her irises glowed red. She snarled like an animal and snapped her teeth close to my nose.

  “DEMON!”

  “And so are you.” She bit her wrist and thrust it at me. “Drink.”

  The dark force inside me craved the offering. I could not refuse. Pain blossomed in my mouth when my new fangs dropped. They sliced through her skin as if it were parchment. Drinking her blood, I felt a bond solidify.

  “There, now… Don’t you feel better?” she asked.

  Afraid to anger her again, I nodded. She smiled and my body relaxed.

  She was the most beautiful woman I could remember seeing. Her eyes were blue and her fair skin was perfect. Black hair was artfully pinned up and her lips were naturally pink, though perhaps that was the stain of blood. Her clothing…

  There, I glanced away. Unless styles had changed much since I was a boy—which was certainly possible—her dress exposed a near-indecent amount of bosom. Certainly more than would be considered chaste, and therefore, not for my eyes. This woman—vampire—was indecent as well as evil.

  I would not abandon my faith or its tenets no matter what she had done to me.

  “Your name, boy. What is it again?”

  “Adamo, signora.” Why did she call me a boy when she looked in the prime of her youth?

  “Do you have a surname, Adamo?”

  I shook my head and silently asked the Lord to forgive the lie. Mother visited me once a year on my birthday and I did not want these monsters to do to her or my sisters what they’d done to the monastery.

  “No matter. Do you know your age?”

  “I was born in 1700, signora.”

  “Thirty years…” She touched my cheek and turned my face toward her. “You will look at me when you speak, boy.”

  My eyes flicked up to her and down. “Forgive me. Until…until this, I was blind and accustomed to listening.”

  “I see. That explains your clumsiness. Were you always blind, Adamo?”

  “No, signora. I started losing my sight as a child and was sent to the Order many years ago. They taught me how to work with my hands. An ailment is no excuse to be useless.”

  “And what do you see now, childe?”

  Despite being night, I could see fairly well. Another part of the gift, or just an ability I didn’t remember having? It was a fine coach, lined in velvet and silk with sumptuously padded cushions. The windows had black velvet curtains to keep out the light. Necessary, if she was truthful about the sun. The red silk walls matched her dress and I wondered why the color stood out to me so intensely in the dark.

  “Adamo…”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know why I chose you?”

  I shook my head. She was very close now, her perfume of roses and spice filling my nose. She smoothed my hair around my ear. My mouth watered at her scent, a strange occurrence, and my scalp tingled from her touch.

  “Because we match, and I like my accessories to match. Do you remember your reflection?”

  “No, signora. Not really.”

  The knowledge of my appearance was vague. My hair was black and my skin light. Mother told me I was handsome, but the description meant little to me with no comparison in my mind. My eye color, along with most details, was long for
gotten.

  She smiled. “Trust me when I saw we are complimentary, Adamo. I’ll show you things you might have only dreamed of. Would you like that?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  She laughed, as if it was the most ridiculous notion she’d heard in years. “Where would you go, boy? No money, no home, no title…you have no idea what you’ve become, little fool.” She suddenly gripped my throat, her nails feeling like claws against my skin. “Ask any of the men—I can be very nice or very cruel, and it’s up to you which one I will be. Understood?”

  Her grip was too tight for me to speak. She took the sounds I made as an affirmative, though, and released my throat. I gasped for air.

  “You don’t need to breathe, idiot,” she said. “Stop acting like I choked you.” She pushed the curtain aside. “Vittore!”

  One of the men on horseback appeared next to the window. “Yes, my lady.”

  “Remind me to toughen up the boy when we reach safe lodging.”

  He grinned. “I told you he looked delicate.”

  “Would you please not discuss me as if I am deaf?”

  She struck my face. I stared at her in shock. The blow came faster than I could see.

  “You will speak only when spoken to, boy,” she ordered. She turned back to the man, Vittore. “How much longer to sunrise?”

  “About three hours. We will reach the villa in two.”

  “Good. I do not like being out close to daylight. Carry on, and see if you can coax the men a little faster.”

  “Yes, my lady. If it would also please you, I could run the boy with me.”

  She glanced at me, considering the offer. “Tempting…but no. Ask me in another hour.”

  He nodded to her. “As you wish.”

  She let go of the curtain and sighed. Pressing my body into the corner of the coach, I held my tongue and tried to keep my distance from the viper sitting next to me.

  Why had this happened to me? Had I not been faithful and obedient? My brothers died and went to Heaven, yet I was denied. Why must I bear this curse…what purpose lay before me?

  “Adamo, I am four hundred years old. Whatever you are planning, you will not get away with it.”