NOVEL WEB Chapter 1: 1
Someone might think that the life of a vampire is easy, that it is 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, best of all, corrupting them. But the parasite ends up mixing with the soul of the host, with their memories, with their personality, it fuses and that creates a new entity, beyond the parasite and beyond the host, that is the true vampire, the monster that is created in the fusion.
We live in the shadows, with all the precautions not to be discovered, so that when we hunt, feed and reproduce, this always goes unnoticed.
But in no society do these crimes go completely unnoticed; sooner or later they end up hunting you, either other humans in their fierce crusade, or other vampires who want the power of your lineage.
The older and purer the parasite, the greater the 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. You can only lock us up to dry us out until our host is a shell so empty and dead that it turns into dust, and at that moment the parasite will die if it does not find a new being to occupy. It is a slow but effective procedure.
If the vampire is young, you can impale it on a stake so that it loses its magic, and then set it on fire. Without the ability to dematerialize, the shell will burn, but it is not a good idea to try that with the ancients, it will rarely work.
My original name was Ashan Ap Vern, I was born in the twelfth century before Christ in a town in what you now call Ireland, and I was converted by my master when I was twenty-two. Don't see it as something romantic, as if he saved me from death by illness, he converted me only because he needed soldiers to save him from his enemies, no more, no less, I was a piece in his plans, and I was for many centuries until he gave me freedom.
Conversion is the most difficult and hardest process in the world, in reality the link between the master and the new vampire is established because both share the parasite, and with it a large part of the memories, and power.
But in each conversion that blood is diluted, it fades away, it becomes weak. According to my master's memories, there were only four more vampires above him until reaching the source, the first human being contaminated by the parasite. An ancient and powerful lineage, a supernatural force that could handle the darkest energies.
My master's branch had very strict rules about food and hunger control, we fed on criminals, the scum of society, we didn't kill innocents unless we saw the need. It was a golden rule, one that if broken meant true death at the hands of the rest of the family.
Vampires can go years without eating, that only weakens us if many decades go by without tasting blood, so we had to know how to choose in order to go as unnoticed as possible
Places with wars, poverty, and constant abuse have always been the breeding grounds from which we vampires drank, between corruption and death, no one notices four dead criminals, a whore decomposing in the water or four soldiers who die on patrol, these are not things that anyone used to put their nose into.
After more than two millennia hiding, living, with periods of lethargy and above learning all the secrets of life and non-life, when I was calmest in the safety net I had created, just at that moment I trusted myself I sealed my destiny forever.
I had as much power as I wanted and in 1269 there was no better place for me than London, two centuries infiltrating myself and my people in that city and that kingdom until I controlled it completely, operating with different names, with wealth, titles and pleasures at my disposal, and being feared and respected by all was the perfect place.
The room of the small tower was full of people, I remember that all my litter was there, they were not bad boys, many had been by my side for so long that they were like brothers. The door of the room opened and Mergar, one of the youngest, ran in, I remember his face as if it were today.
"Ashan, we have a problem, the Arcani want a meeting..."
"The Arcani?" "What are they doing in London, and what do they want from us? England is not their territory..."
"They gave me this letter for you. They say they will wait two days, otherwise they will understand that it is a refusal..."
I took that piece of paper written in pompous handwriting. They had not used ink, it was blood, but one that I knew very well, it was the blood of my master, the blood of Justicar Isbaelen.
"Ashan ap Isbaelen, Master Justicar of London, Me, the Arcani Teocolus, on behalf of my clan request a meeting for the division of the territory in England, your great master is dead as you can smell, the refusal will imply war and the extinction of yours, we await you at Robert Orshide's farm, on the road to Notingam"
The wine glass he had in his hand broke spilling wine and blood on the table, my master dead, my territory threatened by the Arcani, damned occult bastards, how could they have defeated Isbaelen, a true fifth degree? I could not even think that among the Arcani there was anyone so powerful active. But the worst was how had they found him? And how is it that none of my people, not even myself who had a great gift of prophecy, had predicted it?
The master had been in slumber for almost two centuries, it would not be his turn to wake up for another sixty-two years, along with my other brothers, his sanctuary was so secret that not even I knew where it was, only my Master's brother, Seth, knew. The Justicars currently had two great masters who took turns and ruled over the rest, every two hundred and fifty years, we the next generation could take breaks to enter slumber every hundred years.
The Justicars were spread across seven territories, of which three were under our exclusive control, the British Isles, Egypt and Sicily, and we coexisted with other clans in the Iberian Peninsula, France, Italy, and Greece. An attack on our power was too daring for a mere group of occultists, there had to be more forces active.
"Marcus go to Edinburgh and warn Elisha and his people, so they are prepared for the worst, Trevor, take a boat and go to Egypt, you have to find Master Seth, warn him of what is happening, the rest send the young to the rest of the nests so that everyone is prepared to leave, Ferdinand, take your entire litter and have them hide, if I don't return in two days, flee to Sicily or France with Viriato"
"What are you going to do, Ashan?"
"I will take a walk around the prison before going to see them"
"Aren't we going to fight?"
"The Arcani have no power to subdue us or threaten us like that, but if they are allied with the Nosferatu or the Inferni, we could not defeat them, if they are capable of attacking a fifth, none of us will have a chance"
It was not the first war between vampires that we lived, nor the most desperate situation, in the past centuries we had lost and recovered territories, there were weak agreements, and others more stable, 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 received a similar threat.
The 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 merged with the shadow of the night, and the wind carried me through the air at all the speed I could, 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 decapitation waited for their moment.
The man did not see me coming when I slipped through the cracks in the door of his cell. He was young, he could not have been more than eighteen years old, that is why I chose him. His blood was strong and full of life. He was snoring as if knowing that he was condemned to death had nothing to do with him. He had a cruel smile while he slept, and those disturbed features that were only a shadow of the crimes he would have committed outside.
I materialized at his side and with a blow from my sharp nails I cut his throat and jugular vein. The blood was gushing out, but I did not waste a drop. I had not eaten for years and the taste intoxicated me. I will not say that I did not enjoy it, but what took me there was the need for power.
When the prisoner was now only 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 going into the trap that I knew they were setting for me.