The Last Vampire (Part 1)

Blood and Starlight Chapter 4 Part 1

Blood and Starlight: A conjurer, a vampire, and a mechanical demon embark on a rescue mission.

Audience: Adults (contains violence, strong language, and sexual content)

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Chapter 4

The Last Vampire (Part 1)

“Back so soon?” Dr. Faidra's dry voice greeted him at the doorway. The Oubliette seemed especially dirty today. Coarse metal dust heaped in mounds around her work bench. It appeared the doctor was building something new.

“I was only sending Rión on her way,” Ely said. “What are you working on?”

Dr. F grunted, not pausing her stylus strokes. “Something to monitor our excessive seismic activity."

Ely pulled up a chair to sit.

Dr. F looked up over her glasses with undisguised irritation. “Is there something you need, warm blood? Are you injured again?”

“What do you know about vampires?” Ely asked.

“They were allergic to sunlight and fed on human blood,” Dr. F intoned, more acrid sarcasm than usual.

“I met one,” Ely said.

This caught her attention. She even set down her stylus and looked up at him with milky, bloodshot eyes.

“You what?”

“Last night. I was walking in the Spine–”

“What were you doing there?” Dr. F interrupted.

“Reminiscing,” Ely replied. “He said he's been trapped all this time and that the tremor set him loose. The one that caved in the north wing.”

“Did he have a name, this vampire?” Dr. F asked.

“Ravan Aurelio,” Ely said.

Ely had never before seen Dr. Selene Faidra look rattled. Teeth bared. Chest heaving, drawing breath not out of necessity but pure shock.

“You know him?” Ely asked.

"Yes. He is very dangerous, Elyssandro. You're going to need protection.”

Her chair screeched on the floor, and she began rummaging through her shelves.

“He seemed…odd but reasonable,” Ely commented. “A little inconsiderate of personal space.”

“The only reason you are still alive is because a thousand years of imprisonment will have weakened him,” Dr. F stated, then returned to rummaging.

“What did he do?” Ely asked.

“Ravan Aurelio wreaked bloody terror on Dianessa,” Dr. Faidra told him. “He slaughtered babes in their cradles and women at their work. The Cosmologists finally trapped him and locked him in the caves deep in the Spine. Ah, here.”

The doctor brought an ornate ebony box inlaid with silver back to her work bench. She carefully opened the lid. A glassy mirrorwood stake lay nestled in blue velvet. She handed it to Ely.

“Keep this with you,” she instructed. “Aim for the heart. Anywhere else will only enrage him.”

Ely frowned at the instrument. The strange markings carved from handle to point were not common glyphs used in Applied Magics. These were sharp. Lethal. Death magic in written form.

“You didn't make this,” Ely observed.

“No,” she shook her head. “The Cosmologists carried them as a rule. I didn't think there were any vampires left after the Curse. It would appear that Ravan's imprisonment saved him. A most unfortunate turn of events.”

Ely rolled the smooth stake over in his hand, revisiting the encounter in the Spine. He remembered the intoxicating thrill of the vampire's presence, the underlying danger in his soothing tones, but not the devious evil with which Dr. Faidra seemed to equate him. He certainly didn't want to use this implement on a being that was the last of his kind.

From the look on Dr. F's face, she would not be receptive to his reluctance, so he placed the stake in his inside coat pocket and said, “Well, you've given me a great deal to ponder. But first I'm going to get some sleep. Enjoy your project.”

Dr. Faidra's voice followed him toward the door. “You've never been in company with vampires before, Elyssandro. They are cunning with motives behind their motives. Remember that.”

Ely nodded and exited the Oubliette, for once relieved to regain his solitude. Weariness set in as he returned to the east wing common room. He had not slept the previous night, and the sun was once again preparing its descent.

He kicked off his shoes, threw his coat around the back of an armchair, and collapsed on the chaise. Despite his exhaustion, sleep evaded him. He tossed and turned, mind awhirl with the events of the past few days. Who could have guessed that the tremor that shook him from his bed would turn his entire world on its head?

With a sigh, he rose and fetched the book that Ariel Marcellus had hurled at him. Perhaps he would have better luck tonight finding the answers hidden in its dusty pages. An hour's labor proved his optimism misguided.

He exchanged the book for his violin. Music cleared the cobwebs from his mind and eased the tension headache that had been creeping on.

Ely paused to yawn, and his stomach rumbled. A few days of real food had undone years of disciplined abstinence. He set down his instrument, trying to decide if he should eat the remainder of the provisions Rión had left behind or collapse into bed.

“That was beautiful.”

The languid voice over his shoulder sent his heart leaping into his throat. He knew the intruder before he turned. Ravan had taken up residence on the armchair. His feet were bare. In fact, his entire costume was exceedingly simple. Earth-toned linen with a plain high-collared jacket.

“You don't mind do you?” the vampire asked. “The window was open. I never could resist music.”

“Not at all, Ravan,” Ely said, setting his violin back in its case.

“It's Rav, please,” the vampire corrected. He looked almost alive when he smiled.

“Rav,” Ely echoed.

His thoughts strayed for a moment to the stake resting in the coat draped behind Rav's head. He wondered if the vampire had selected that seat on purpose.

“I saw the Tower lying in ruins at the bottom of a chasm,” Rav continued. “What of the Cosmologists? Are you all that's left, or are there others?”

“Just me, that I know of, though I'm no Cosmologist,” Ely said. “You knew them?”

Rav avoided his gaze, a shadow overtaking his expression. “I did.”

“Did you by chance know an Ariel Marcellus?” Ely asked, not sure why the phantom visitation and the vampire’s appearance felt connected.

Rav looked up at him in surprise. Ely opened the book to the page his phantom visitor had recommended.

Rav inclined his head, face pensive. "She came to Dianessa from the Protectorate. Like you."

“How do you know where I came from?” Ely interjected, intrigued.

“Your accent,” Rav replied.

“Of course,” Ely said with an ironic chuckle. “Dr. F says my tongue is hopelessly tainted by Paxat. I suppose it is still true even after all this time.”

Rav continued, “Ariel was an exceptional conjurer. Not a studied scholar like the Cosmologists of the Tower. She possessed raw power such as none of them had ever seen. She could change shapes. One could often spot her as a falcon soaring above the highest precipices of the Tower under the light of the moon.

“She was not welcomed with open arms by those in authority. They feared her. Envied her. She was like the wind and the sky and vast galaxies teeming with stars. They could not fathom her.”

The vampire’s seething intensity crackled electric through the air between them.

“You loved her,” Ely remarked.

“Love?” Rav repeated. “Humans have beaten that word into something so bereft of meaning.”

There was pain in his voice and rage at whatever violence now played out within his recollection. If the vampire had slept all this time, then to him these memories were still fresh.

“What happened to her?” Ely asked.

Rav’s glittering eyes lifted to his face. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was locked in a stone sarcophagus and left to rot.”

“Why?” Ely asked.

Rav’s voice grew quiet. Tense. “I discovered their plans. The atrocity they had built for her. I tried to stop them.”

Ely’s brows raised, his skin prickling. He reached for the scroll that Ariel had thrown at his head. “Does this look familiar?”

Rav bared gleaming fangs, elongated from their reposed position with his mounting rage. “How did you find this?”

“Ariel,” Ely told him. “She's been…haunting me, I suppose, for the past week. Though she's unlike any ghost I’ve ever encountered. I think the quake that woke you may have disturbed her too. She said that she’s trapped.”

“She’s alive,” Rav all but whispered.

“I think so,” Ely frowned.

Relief brought life into the vampire's face, followed by dawning horror. “They did it, then.”

“Did what?” Ely asked.

Rav tapped the schematic. “What you see depicted here is a prison built for a single inmate. If she is alive, that can only mean that they succeeded.”

Rav stood.

“I have to go.”

“I could go with you,” Ely said, also standing.

He had no idea why those words had tumbled out of his mouth, but now that they had, he wanted to follow through on this quest.

Rav shook his head. “No. I have to move quickly, and you should rest. You're nearly spent.”

“How do you…?” Ely started.

Rav set a mesmerizing gaze upon him. “I told you. I can feel you.”

He lifted his hand, and Ely's stomach dropped as he realized that the vampire held the mirrorwood stake balanced between his pale fingers.

“You shouldn't leave this lying about,” Rav said. He slipped the stake into the empty sword loop on Ely's belt. “There are monsters on the loose.”

The vampire grinned. Then he vanished through the open window.

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Many thanks!