Chapter One

Introductions of the main character, a young woman lost and seemingly not herself.

Night floods into the valley like icy water overflowing the banks of a river. It moves stealthily and without remorse, covering the fields as it wraps a haunting embrace around every building and person. One-by-one, lanterns are lit outside of the shabby, wooden dwellings of the village. Smoke escapes from stone chimneys. A scattered few remain outside, only temporarily, to ensure that no one is left outside. The villagers know the terrors the night holds. At night, the trees surrounding the village no long hold back the living darkness, allowing evil to slip through invisible gates, to hunt and roam freely, feasting on any living creature daring to remain unprotected.

With darkness settled over the valley and the residents of the village peacefully asleep in their comfortable homes, a deathly silence claims the night. The yellowed leaves of a branch rustle, seeming to part, clearing a path for a woman as she steps from the forest. Her bare feet crunch over the light frost spreading through the valley. She doesn’t feel the cold, but is a part of it, feeling the fluidity that is the night envelope her like a lover’s embrace. A slight rush of air sweeps down the north face of the mountain range beyond the village. Her glacial blue eyes catch the sudden flicker from the lanterns, nearly extinguishing the flame. The wind rapidly approaches, parting before reaching her as though it is forbidden to draw too close. Her wavy, honey-colored hair and her sheer, baby-blue robe barely move. A numbing presence coats her skin, allowing her to be oblivious to the temperatures dropping around her, giving her the sensation that she is floating as she moves across the open field.

She drifts closer to one of the ramshackle homes on the outer edge of the village, stopping along the side of the building, and peers through a gap in the shudders. Her left hand reaches out to steady herself against the side of the building, but quickly withdraws. Her body feels formless, like a ghost, and she fears that she will pass through the wall if she braces against it. Through the window, by the slim light of a tiny candle, she can see a loving couple settled for the night, but unable to sleep. They speak in a whisper that she can clearly hear, but she does not understand.

Then, in that moment, her long, slim fingers flutter. The tip of her middle finger briefly graces the rough surface of the dwelling. Like the wind rushing through the valley, a memory comes flooding back. She see herself as a little girl, running from the interior the small home, bounding from the front door to run through the nearby field. A forgotten smile pulls at the corner of her mouth but is quickly dashed away and lost in the distant past.

The candle on the bedside table goes out and the happy couple soon fall asleep.

They are not her parents.

The fact is she only faintly remembers what her parents looked like. Their voices have become hidden whispers on an empty ocean. A sad twinkle fills her eyes as a solitary tear forms. She remembers overhearing the faintest discussion concerning the death of her mother. Her father approached her and just as she starts to remember his face, she is struck with the disparaging image of his demise just after her eighth birthday

The tear trickles down her smooth, lightly rounded cheek, clinging to the edge of her jaw, before dropping freely into the air. The cool night air attacks the cascading tear, quickly crystalizing it as it sweeps it away, never to be found again.

She recalls a stranger coming to the home. He was a man she had only see a handful of times, always talking with her father or other village elders near the edge of the village, always around dusk. The last time she saw her father alive was the night the stranger took her away from the village. Not necessarily away, but no longer living within the village. She turns her head away from the window and gazes sightlessly into the forest. She can almost see her younger self being pulled through the field, away from the village and deep into the forest, which, for the last ten years, has been her home.

The moon, with an eerie, reddish glow, gradually crests the top of the mountains. The young woman turns from the home and crosses back into the forest. Soft voices rapidly echo through the night, calling her name like a distant memory. When she arrives at the edge of the forest, her bare feet seem to tingle from the frost as the branches part to expose a path. As she walks along this clear path, the branches close behind her, as if protecting her from the valley.

Guided by the opening of the path, she soon finds the heart of the forest. A thick, smooth tree stump juts from the ground as towering trees stand sentry around it with branches brushed back in a wide circle, exposing the starry night sky high overhead. She steps into the circular clearing with a sense of belonging, yet a tinge of foreboding prickles at her feet as she moves over the cool, dry earth.

“The villagers are talking.” Her voice breaks the calmness of the night, but her lips fail to move. “They are aware of the horrors you have caused over the years and they don’t want you around anymore.”

The man she speaks to remains with his back to her. He impatiently waited her return. Now, she is present, and he works deliberately to culminate the anxiety faintly blooming within her. “I only take those that are ready. Our survival is based on them.” His voice is jagged and raspy, like he has spent too many long nights screaming out in the cold. He adds, “Much like their survival is based on us. Who else can keep the forest at bay? I provide a swift and just end for those in need, those that are too old or too sick to be of use anymore.”

“But, if they attack, won’t the ceremony by ruined?” Her voice is innocent and ignorant.

He turns and faces her. A skeletal figure of a man, he is hunched over with long, bony figures, tipped with yellowed claws, picking at the torn fabric of his tattered robe. Over the course of his unnaturally long life, his hair has become a sagging, wiry mess of tangled, white strands. His maroon eyes, sunk deep into his skull, standout against the paleness of his white flesh. The smell of rot and decay emanate from his mouth with every breath.

“Anya, my lovely, they will not be able to stop us. I have worked far too hard acquiring the necessary components. Tonight, our ceremony will be complete.”

Excitement fills her youthful face, suppressing the sense of dread prickling crawling up the back of her leg, sneaking beneath her robe as it runs a long her spine, and pecks at the back of her mind. He steps in front of her and kisses her lightly on the cheek, much like a father would to his growing child. His rancid breath stings her face as his ice-cold lips touch her warm flesh.

The ceremony, she has come to think as being like a wedding. It’s an illusion she’ll cling to that illusion for as long as the creepy, decrepit man allows.

He takes her hand, which tingles within his touch, and guides her over to the unnaturally smooth stump of a large tree. He studies the stump for several seconds, remembering his history with the wide, flat piece of wood still anchored to the ground. Guiding her with the tips of his bony fingers, he has her sit upon the stump, which he has made his altar for this great and momentous ceremony.

He draws a knife from beneath his tattered clothing and uses it to slit his own forearm from wrist and elbow. The blood is black and appears coagulated at it oozes from the wound. He drips his blood in a rough circle around the makeshift altar. He dabs a finger into the blood coating his withered, wrinkled flesh and marks a streak of blood upon Anya’s cheeks; a horizontal line on one side and a vertical line on the other.

“Lay back,” he softly commands with a hoarse, worn voice.

Anya suddenly feels like she is standing along the tree line, watching the ceremony happen to some other girl. A little voice inside her head, screaming for her to get up and run, is blocked by the naïve, confused enthusiasm surging within her.

“Run, you fool! Get up and run!” her inner voice bellows.

But her body can no longer move. Her wrists and ankles are bound tightly with rope so dry that it causes her skin to itch. From inside her mind, a teardrop falls, screaming as it plummets. The noise echoes as it plunges towards the hollowness growing within her heart. Beyond the tree line becomes shrouded in blackness as everything within the clearing is illuminated from the blood-red moon suspended directly above. She looks to one side and finds another figure standing beside her in the darkness. A woman dressed from head-to-toe in black garments never seen by the girl, with a large brimmed hat tilted low to obscure her face.

“What’s happening to her?” she asks the stranger.

“The same thing that always happens to her. I’ve seen it a thousand times it never changes. It’s best to make yourself comfortable and wait for it to end,” the woman responds.

The hallow voice of the man Anya has come to know as Mundrun hisses a dead language reminiscent of an archaic era. Venomous spittle splashes over his dry, cracked lips as he chants the eerie words. The chant grows louder and stronger as his gang of minions surround the clearing and join in. Eventually, a clap of thunder explodes in the distance. The false sense of hope fills the confused part of her mind in hopes that the ceremony will not be completed.

“Settle down, girl,” the inner woman tells her without any emotion. “It’s all part of the show.”

With the chanting complete, Mundrun leans into the young woman. For years, ever since he killed her parents, he has raised as a daughter, protecting her and providing for her.

“I’m almost sorry for what is about to happen,” he whispers softly to her.

He kisses her cheek once more. Then, he opens his mouth wide enough for the jaw to flatten against his neck. A pale set of fangs roll down from the roof of his mouth, lining up behind his yellowed canines. He touches the fangs against the flesh of her neck. Her pulse surges against her skin. Gently, he eases his fangs into her. The warm blood splashes against the wound as he injects the clear venom into her body. She trembles briefly until her body becomes numb. Through tear-filled eyes, she gazes upon the truth of the world. She realizes she was taken against her will and blinded by lies, a life misguided and wasted. Quietly, she mourns the loss of her parents, knowing now that they died at the hands of the man she was tricked into loving like a father. As the venom courses through her veins, her blue eyes stare up at this man. She is shocked and terrified by his true image but is unable to flee.

“Hold on, girl. You’re in for a bit of a ride before it’s all over,” the mysterious woman tells her, before stepping back and fading into the darkness.

The hideous, demon-man begins the chanting once again, dancing around the altar as the commotion brews beyond the clearing. Then, he holds a small, dusty jar over his head. His maroon eyes flash bright red as he gazes down at Anya. He no longer sees her as a human, but a creature his survival depends upon. He reaches one hand forward and tears open her robe, exposing her abdomen to the cold, night air. His free hand splays upon her stomach, feeling the tiny, shuddering gasp of air escape her body.

“I have the blood, ash, and bone of the very first of my kind. Taken around a thousand years ago, he was held captive and tortured. Drained of blood, he was staked to the desert floor. For seven solid days his flesh was seared in the hot sun. His remains were collected, shattered, and placed in clay jars to be scattered around the world. You, my darling child, shall be the vessel that will bring him back into the world and, with it, our immortality.”

The lid of the jar is removed. A foul stench wafts into the young woman’s nose, tickling her senses, making her want to wretch and gag. She wants to rub her nose, to remove the smell from around her, but finds that she is bound too tightly to even think about moving. The hissing chant resumes as Mundrun tilts the jar to one side. The thick, black liquid slowly creeps towards the mouth of the jar where it remains perched on the edge before freefalling towards the warm flesh of Anya’s exposed stomach. She gasps as the ice-cold fluid caresses her skin, but deep inside her mind, she exhales a blood-curdling scream as the offensive concoction becomes intensely hot. Her glacial blue eyes reflect the disruption to her numb, docile state.

“Easy, child,” Mundrun commands, waving a clawed hand before her eyes. “The pain will soon be over.”

Anya appears to sooth at his command. Through bleary eyes, she faintly notices the knife is, once again, firmly gripped within his skeletal hand. He chants, repeating the same unknown verse again and again as he raises the knife high into the air. The tip of the knife points to the center of the crude concoction pooled upon her stomach. Mundrun’s eyes blaze like an inferno and his bony frame shakes violently as though possessed by some unseen force.

The venomous words fly past his lips like a breached dam, spraying into the night.

In the darkness of the trees, from the corner of one eye, Anya spots a shadowy figure. Certain that this is the creature called forth to take her life, she closes her eyes and shuts everything from her mind. In those last few moments, her hazy mind recalls a single prayer taught by her mother over a decade ago.

There is a brief commotion somewhere beyond the altar.

Her eyes snap open.

Something is wrong.

Mundrun screams as though in agony as the knife plunges downward.

 

Juliet Evermore slowly awakens, Her icy-blue eyes stare into the pitch-black darkness of her luxurious bedroom. Her mind scrounges the boundary between her dream, a memory of her previous life, and reality. Rested, she simultaneously feels as though she has been awake for hours. Momentarily disoriented, she sits up on the bed and sweeps her gaze around the room, scarcely recognizing the posh penthouse that has been her home, though under different names, for over fifty years ago.

She controls her breathing, drawing in each breath slowly and with practiced precision. She inhales sharply through her nose, catching a hint of the fresh-baked blueberry muffins from the cafeteria fifteen floors below. Her ears hone on the little patter of rain sporadically tapping upon the large, floor-to-ceiling windows currently covered by the hefty, burgundy drapes.

The familiarity of the penthouse returns.

She tosses the sheets to the side and smoothly slips from the bed. The hardwood floor is cool, but a welcomed change from the frost-covered field from her dream. She strolls towards the windows that line the exterior wall of the bedroom. She reaches for the thick, velvety curtains with a moment of hesitation. The fabric is warm and soft within her grasp as she inhales deeply as she listens to the last drops of rain pitter-patter against the glass. She opens her mind to receive an image of the world outside of her penthouse.

It is early morning. The bright, orangish-red ball of sunlight crests over the horizon. The purplish-blue sky slowly dissipates, conceding to the daylight that will become a brilliant, pastel shade of blue. With winter firmly in the past, the air is warm and delightful. The added moisture has added a deeper shade of green to the grass and the vegetation to healthily bloom.

The sound of the light traffic passing the building calls up to her from her perch overlooking the city. A freefalling sensation sweeps over Juliet as she attempts to extender her senses further.

Then, content that everything is alright with the world, she softly pulls the drapes to the side.

The day is as she envisioned. Light wisps of thin, white clouds dance with gracefulness over the city, fading away as the sun crawls over the horizon. A streak of flashing red light speeds through the street below, headed in her direction. It catches Juliet’s attention. She watches as the bustling traffic parts for the emergency vehicle, allowing it to pass unhindered.

Then, the siren fades, leaving the warble to echo inside her head. Her slender body tingles with a sense of urgency. She moves from the window to the mirrored door of her closet. Her naked reflection catches her attention with a view of the city over her shoulder. Tenderly, she traces the deep scar forever etched into her stomach, a constant reminder of her unnaturally long life, though something she has not consider for some time. There is a connection, one that runs deeper than the knife wound, between her dream and her life, but she knows that she doesn’t have the time to sort it all out, that something more important requires her attention.

A sudden dizziness wells up inside of her. Shutting her eyes, flashes of that haunted, demon-man overtakes her vision. His cracked, fiendishly lips whisper to her from the hidden depths of her mind, but she cannot hear him. Then, a loud, shriek rings in her ears. She stumbles away from the mirror, clutching her forehead.

Juliet Evermore sits upon the bed, her blue eyes cast upon the floor as she gathers her thoughts and composure.

She extends a hand out to the side, snatching the receiver from the bedside phone halfway through the first ring. She puts the phone to her ear and doesn’t say a word.

“Ma’am?” the voice on the other end of the line is practiced and respectful. “You are needed.”

“I know,” she replies. “Where?”

“Receiving Dock.”

The tall, slender woman with honey-blonde hair disconnects the call before the man finishes speaking. Purposefully, she rises from the comfortable, king-size bed, and walks over to the closet. Her reflection slides to the side as the mirrored door opens to reveal a closet nearly half the size of the bedroom.

Author's Note

This is more like a prologue, a way of kicking off the story. This is pretty much the original, as it was written, in 1998. Yes, some pieces were changed, mostly the end of the chapter where I toyed with rewriting it.