Chapter 4: A War Waged - Part 1

Digging up the casket proved to be easier than anticipated.

The dirt she hauled from the farmlands seemed completely weightless, and for every shovelful she tossed aside she could feel the strength only grow further. As she inched closer to the man whom had summoned her, she could feel his influence growing stronger and stronger. The man who had destroyed the boundary of fairy tale and reality.

When her shovel finally hit wood with a hollow thud, and the dirt was all cleared from the casket, she noticed for the first time that her hand had almost completely turned black. The darkness from the mark was grasping its way up her arm in tendrils, following her veins. She looked down at the rotten, mud-caked wood, and she wiped her brow with her filthy hands, heaving a sigh. She fetched a length of rope from her old shed—the same place she had gotten her shovel—and she tied it around the casket at the center.

She heaved with all her might and found that the coffin felt like little more than a small child as she placed it on her back and held the rope over her shoulder with a single hand. She was about to climb out of the hole with her other hand but she stopped herself and smirked. She squatted low to the ground and then sprung up, leaping out of the seven foot deep hole with the casket on her back, the smirk having grown into a full-blown smile.

‘I think you’re starting to enjoy this, Jo.’

“I’ve never felt like I had any power before. It’s the first time that I feel like I have control over my own life. The power to change things.” Her voice faltered towards the end as she hefted the coffin higher on her back and bit her lip so hard she could taste her own blood.

‘Ironic, isn’t it?’

“That’s what I was going to say…” she whispered.

She began walking back towards her smouldering home, not knowing where else she could go, but the voice halted her in her tracks. He gave her direction to an old, abandoned church that she had never even known was nestled into the woods behind her old home.

When they arrived at the church, Joanna was surprised that the building was still standing. The aged stones were so covered with moss that it looked like a piece of the forest itself, and the structure leaned so heavily to the side that it seemed to be held in place only by the plants that called it home. In a way, it almost felt cosy—a home that a friendly witch might have lived in.

Off to the side of the building was a heavy pair of cellar doors—the lock binding them together proved ineffective against the strength of the woman who begged entry. She placed the coffin laying down on a workshop table in the cellar and she breathed a heavy sigh. It was done.

‘Not yet, Jo. You’re only halfway there.’

“What do you mean?” Fear tinged her voice, but much to the vampire’s glee, there was also hope.

‘Digging me up was only the first stage of my request. I have yet to become whole.’

“You mean to say that you aren’t—”

‘Not by a longshot, Jo. It takes more than a stake in the heart to kill the King of the Dead. Your kind has tried for centuries.’

“And yet, here you are enlisting the help of a little girl.”

‘Mind your place, Joanna. Remember who gave you the power that you’re drunk on.’

“Shut up!”

‘Oh? Does the truth hurt, my little girl?’

“I said shut up!”

Her fist struck the front of the coffin with incredible force, but in some strange feat of durability, the wood seemed to repel the attack. A shockwave from the impact blasted the mud and grime from the face of the coffin, and as the last of it fell away, she could see the initials ‘V.B’ burned into the wood. Her fist seemed to ache as she pulled it back from the punch, and she looked down at her knuckles to see the skin shredded and bleeding.

‘I gave you that power, Joanna, and I can most certainly take it away from you. Don’t think you’re the only one who will help me. You’re only here because you lived the closest to my grave. Because your family was what I saw most of in my time of slumber. Believe me, however, Joanna,’ The shadowy essence that she had seen before seemed to leak forth from the coffin and form a shapeless man, his hand lashing out and grabbing her by the throat. ‘if you continue to disrespect me, or believe yourself above me, I will show you just how wrong you are.’

The shadow tossed her to the ground and began to retreat back within the coffin as Joanna coughed, gasping for her breath as she looked at the box. She had almost forgotten what it was that she was dealing with. She knew that she had become something monstrous, but somehow in all of the chaos she had forgotten what she was dealing with. If something could create a monster as heinous as she was…then just how terrible was he?

“Who are you?”

‘I wondered when you would ask me that. My name is Victor Barlowe, and I was a blacksmith in my time.’

“That’s not what I meant.”

‘Ah, so it is the what that you seek.’

“Yes.”

‘I am a vampire. No…the vampire.’

“So, you truly are a demon.”

‘No, not at all. Demons are a different sort entirely. Nasty bunch, essentially bent on the extermination of life and the endless torturing of damned souls. You see, I am not interested in killing off every living thing. A Vampire has to feed off of the blood of the living. Human blood, to be precise. A curse passed down to us all from our Mother.’

“I thought that you were the King of the Dead?”

‘Yes…but that is another story. If you’re good maybe one day you will hear it. For now, however, I have more work that must be done. One last thing before you are free from this contract of ours. I need five men willing to trade their lives for gold.’

“And exactly how am I to convince them to do such a thing? It’s not like I am clad in gold, now am I?”

Wearing the robes of the nuns that had once inhabited their church, and carrying enough jewellery to purchase five souls, she had embarked on her quest. She had to take a horse from her stables, as the population of her small community outside of Whitehall had all been turned out by the redcoats before they had burned down her home. She would have to travel into Whitehall if she wanted to find what she was looking for.

She slipped into the tavern after dark, never speaking, but instead allowing her fingertips to trace along the flesh of the patrons. As she passed her hands over them she also skimmed the contents of their minds and hearts, searching for those who were hungry for power.

It did not take long before she felt a man bump into her, staggering back in from taking a piss. His white shirt was caked in sweat stains and it hung off of his lean frame. His dark brown hair was tied back into a ponytail and he sat back down at the bar with a heavy sigh, ordering another pint.

Joanna slid in beside him and didn’t say anything at all at first, sitting quietly with her hands folded onto her lap. She placed a hand on his forearm, apologizing for bothering him in a sweet sing-song voice. He turned to her impatiently, his eyes wild, and he was about to say something when she tightened her grip so hard that her fingernails dug into his skin.

She saw into him, like she had seen into Peterson, and she grinned from ear to ear as she let go of his arm and his head hit the bar table with a vicious thud. His beer spilled across the table and Joanna jumped backwards with a shriek of surprise as she caught him before he hit the ground. A couple of the visitors gave her a strange look as they noticed how she had caught the much heavier man, but most of them seemed to shrug it off, not wanting to think ill of a woman of the cloth. One man, however seemed to watch her carefully as she picked him back up into her seat, and she could feel his eyes on her back as she told the bartender that this man had consumed too much alcohol and she planned to let him rest the night at her church.

Bless her soul.

She explained that she didn’t have the strength to carry him to her horse by herself, so she asked if there was anyone who could help her. Of the men who stood up to help, she chose the one who looked more interested in her flesh than being a good person. She smirked as she nodded to him, throwing an arm over her forehead dramatically and thanking him for his valiant efforts. He picked the unconscious man up off of his chair and hauled him onto his back, struggling to move him into a piggy-back position.

After the deed was done and the man with the ponytail was secured on the back of Joanna’s horse, she turned to thank the man, but he was already upon her. His fist was crashing down toward her and it landed square on top of her nose, snapping it violently to the side. She hit the ground and her eyes watered as she felt the blood cascading across her lips and off her chin. The man’s trousers were loosened and he was dragging her by the hair while she was still stunned from the blow to her face.

However, as he tossed her behind a shed on the outskirts of town and tried to hike up her robes, his hand was stopped with brute force and it felt like cold vice grips had closed on his wrist. Joanna looked deep into his eyes and her pupils seemed to expand from corner to corner as her nose slid back into place with a small crack and the skin began to repair itself.

The man looked on in horror, and no matter how hard he pulled he could not get away.

“But I thought we were having fun?” Her voice was so sickeningly sweet that the man stopped resisting and instead began to cry like a child, knowing he had wronged a nightmare.

Her fist came down on his face in the same way that he had hit her, and the man’s nose broke so badly that it almost seemed to turn directly sideways. Her knuckles glanced off his lower lip on the path of the punch and split it in two. He hit the ground faster than a homesick fisherman and she hauled him up onto the back of her horse as well, slapping the horse’s rear and sending it running back toward home.

Joanna merely smiled as she raced off in the same direction, her footsteps carrying her faster than any horse could. The wind tore through her hair as she peeled the nun’s headdress away and she shouted out into the sky like an animal. This was truly what it meant to be free.

She had arrived at the church fifteen minutes before her horse trundled up to the overgrown relic they now called home. The men, bound tightly on its back, were nodding into a semi-consciousness as the horse’s gait slowed. She slapped their cheeks as they were brought before her by her companion, and they rolled their eyes drowsily toward her.

“Now, I need you two to listen to me closely. The two of you have been chosen to receive great power, but in order to achieve this you must do exactly as I say. Do you understand me?”

Slow nods.

“Good. I am going to untie you, and you are going to follow me into the cellar of this church. I have something that you both need to see if you are going to understand what is to follow.”

Again, their heads bobbed lazily. She gripped the ropes in her bare hands and pulled them apart like spaghetti noodles. The two both toppled to the ground, and rolled in the dirt, trying to orient themselves. Like newborn foals, they clambered to their feet and they stumbled in tow of the woman who kidnapped them. The bald, muscled, ugly man who had tried to take advantage of her rubbed his wrist gingerly. His eyes found the rifle that was tucked into a holster on the horse’s side, and Joanna looked at him with a grin.

“Do it,” she cooed.

His hand found the handle of the gun as if he had shot them all of his life, and it was cocked and aimed in what seemed to be a split second. The trigger pulled with no hesitation, and there was no remorse in the man’s eyes as the bullet ripped through the back of Joanna’s skull. She hit the ground hard, and the man spat at her feet.

“Crazy bitch,” he growled, turning on his heel and walking toward the path they had rode up on.

The man with the ponytail stood, his hands trembling, unable to move a muscle. “W—w—what h—h—have you done?”

Laughter rang out, soft and sinister in their ears. ‘You think you can kill the Queen of the Dead?’

The bald man stopped in his tracks and whirled around, looking at the corpse of the woman he had killed. Her fingers began to twitch, and there was an inexplicable noise, as if someone were shifting hollow stones around, and before he knew it the woman’s skull had repaired itself and she was sitting up facing him, her eyes like two burning embers, and her entire right arm was coated in darkness, the tendrils working their way up her right cheek.

“This is the power that I am offering you. The power to rule over men. To take whatever your heart desires.” Her voice was like silk ribbon and sweet perfume. It could not be ignored or denied.

“What is it you want from us?” The man with the ponytail spoke plainly, his voice unwavering and his eyes locked to hers, unafraid.

“It is not me that wants something, it is my master.”

“And who is this man?”

Not a man, Kadence. Victor’s voice echoed in their minds, soft, but demanding of absolute attention. Something more.

By the end of the second night, Joanna and her two newly recruited allies were able to seek out and procure three more (more or less) willing men. It was past midnight by the time the three of them made it back to the church with the three others, carrying them on horseback. It had been easier to persuade others to join them when they were approached by men that they knew; their tales of endless life and power were lures few could deny. They followed them into the cellar, and Victor’s coffin lay ajar, his withered, yet whole body completely still.

“This is what has given you these powers?” The first man, Henry, asked.

“Yes.” The men couldn’t help but stare at the black tendrils of tainted flesh that stretched across her cheeks.

“And what does he want from us in return for this satanic power?” This was Roland.

‘Your service. In only one thing. I need four vampires of powerful blood—my blood—to complete a ritual and reunite me with a very old friend.’

“I can’t help but notice there are five of us, but you just said you needed four vampires,” the last man, James spoke, confused.

‘Quite the pickle isn’t it?’

The steel clattering against the stone floor brought all of their eyes instantly to the kitchen knife, and they seemed to hang in the moment, looking to each other for some sort of sign that this was real. Hanz was the first to move, lunging for the knife, but Kadence brought his keel out in a sharp kick to his shin, bringing him quickly to the floor. He spun and received someone’s fist to the side of his jaw, the faces all a blur as he toppled backward. He felt someone grabbing his ponytail, and his neck being pulled up.

“Bullshit!” Hanz roared. “That son of a bitch is mine!”

Kadence’s head hit the floor as Hanz slammed into the man who had been holding him. He rolled over, trying to get his bearings, but the first thing he saw was the bald monster above him, his hand swinging down fast. Pain exploded throughout his body as the knife was plunged into his chest, and his eyes bulged as he felt his breath growing short, the vision of the grinning beast in front of him beginning to darken.

“There. Now there are four.” Hanz stated plainly, standing up and brushing his hands off as if he had just finished taking out the trash.

The other three men looked at him, horrified, and he quirked a brow at their puzzled faces.

“What?” He felt a wetness in his hands as he brushed them together, and when he looked down he could not explain the dark liquid that spewed from his neck like a burst pipe. He stumbled sideways and caught himself on the table, his blood coating the wood of the open casket.

Kadence dropped the knife, and he fell to his knees. Blood was draining from his chest wound quickly, and it was likely that his heart had been nicked. His shirt was quickly changing from white to red, and as he fell forwards, a pair of strong hands grabbed his shoulders and stopped him, laying him down softly.

“You’ve done well,” the man’s voice was coarse rocks rolling in the ocean, his vocal chords old and unused.