A half an hour later I was racing though a the outskirts of Charlottesville when I felt her. A lone hunter who just finished feeding. Following her scent to an open park where she was dropping a body into the trunk of a car. Time to find out if he had been right, could I feed on them? She never saw me coming just the faintest breath of wind as I grabbed her, forcing her head back. I fed on her, neater this time letting my fangs do the work rather then ripping through flesh. Her “life” was stronger than the vitality I had taken before but it had a taint to it. Some darkness that altered the life it gave me. That didn’t mean it lacked power, it literally felt like I was vibrating with energy. Some internal voice told me the animating force was leaving her body. Her end coming faster then I expected and bringing with it unwanted memories of my wife and child. They were still fresh in my mind but I had to do this and there was some pleasure in it. The killing of one of them brought a smile to my face.
Opening the trunk putting her lifeless body beside her victim. An older lady who looked like she had been living on the streets, the look of peace on her face nearly broke me. How could she be at peace after such a vile end? Where the romanticized stories of vampire feeding true? It would make sense that some sort of euphoria helped them feed. I still had so many questions, for most was what to do with two bodies in a trunk? When I tore my eyes away from her finally noticing the gas can and road flare tucked into the wheel well it answered that mystery. It seemed simple enough. After taking the cash the vamp had, about two hundred I left the car burning behind me and headed north toward the last trace of Justicar I could feel.
Somewhere in the night it occurred to me just how casually I had killed her and how quickly. I had never killed or even seen death before yesterday but had accepted both, like there were just now part of me. It made me wonder how much of this change was physical and how much included the death of my humanity? The idea of being human is all we know, in some undefined way it’s our core. It is US, the very thing that binds our world together. Racism and bigotry existed but there was always this core value of being human that kept it all going. I was no longer part of that, the realization made me feel hollow suddenly. Could I somehow keep my humanity while being a monster? The moral concepts of right and wrong would have to be adjusted to the new reality that is my existence.
As I ran thinking about it made me realize that human morality had always been flexible. Once upon a time shooting someone at high noon was acceptable, duels where a matter of honor and often resulted in death. The moral flexibility of our race was something I hadn’t considered before. Could I kept some part of my humanity and still adapt to my new existence? My ideals and morals would have to adapt to an entire new way of existing. Physical death was the first part, the beginning of the change from human to vampire. This death though was subtle, slower harder to grasp or even be aware of. The end of myself as a moral being, existing in a world full of other humans. If I wanted to retain some of my humanity it would have to be through conscious effort, the predator I was becoming would try and erase such weakness.
That dawn found me in West Virginia, in a root cellar on long forgotten farm. The fields farmed by some corporation rather then the family who built it. There was something fitting in find refuge here, where the presence of man was fading back into nature. The house was slowly being taken back by the land. A tree had grown up the side, ripping the support timbers out as it went. What was left of house felt very real to me, it had a sense of honesty, dying an honorable death of sorts. Its primary function no longer needed so it was returning to the world. I had been thinking about my new ‘life’, this house made me question further. Was I really a monster now? Existing outside of nature?
In truth humans had existed outside of nature for a long time now. Evolution had ceased, there was no more natural selection, no adaptive genetics. Our bodies now worked to process chemicals and modified food. Was this new life of mine some sort of progression or was it a regression? How was it viewed by the gods? I felt like me, a version of me that could kill others easily, but still me. Did I still have a soul, had I ever had one? I had never been particularly religious, just enough of a facade to look like a good neighbor. Of course I prayed at all the socially acceptable times, and occasionally I spoke to god like everyone does. Maybe this new life is proof we’re are wrong? Or we’re they right? Too much to figure out right now, it would all be answered by the end of this.....life? Death? I don’t even know how to phrase my own existence, undead?
The next day I hit Jersey, a small town on the coast about 40 miles outside of Atlantic City. The vampires there had preyed mostly on travelers to Atlantic City, past tense because I left them all dead. I lost his scent, but found a lead to Ohio. With some encouragement the master of said his creator was there and that he knew more than most about our kind. The Justicar and history of vamps overall, or at least he thought he did. Ohio it is, information was what I needed and it didn’t matter who had it. It took two nights to make Ohio, sleeping in an abandoned warehouse, running through cornfields and woods by night.
I remember crossing the Appalachians through West Virginia and noticing the animals were aware of me. It made me thing back, I hadn’t seen a stray cat or dog since this happened, not even a rat. They say animals can sense danger and death, if that was true it made sense they would avoid my kind. It was just a guess I still didn't know anything, hadn't even begun to think about abilities or any of it. Feeding on other vampires worked, worked amazing in fact! Feeding on the entire Jersey lair was filling, it would be a while before I needed to feed again. The speed and strength where obvious, same with the increased senses. The 6th sense was almost a predatory sense of fear but not just fear. I could sense prey and predator in nature and from my ilk.
The cat hunting the rat, predator and prey each serving their own purpose and each with their own feeling. The rats fear driving it’s cunning mind. The cats hunting instincts with, it turns out we’re right about them playing with their food, a dose of sadistic humor. I was just beginning to know how to use it, they seemed to get stronger when I focused on them. Hearing the morning school bell from 15 miles away easily. Smelling humanity from miles away, knowing where it was just by that smell. I had run from state to state with no exhaustion and still hadn’t found a limit to my strength. Admittedly I didn’t try but so hard, lifting a abandoned tractor with ease was enough to grasp the idea. My question was how did I really stack up against others of my kind? Had I just been lucky so far? The Ohio master would be my first real test.
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The first night in Columbus I spotted one of them, feeding on a jogger. Following him made me sick when he fed, I wanted to stop it but needed a trail. Rationalizing to myself that it was too late for to change anything by the time I got there. It’s a great tool, allows us to convince ourselves of about anything. It allowed me to sit here and watch a murder, while plotting my own killing spree. Did it count as murder if they were already dead? It’s a fair question really and was occupying my mind, maybe ask a lawyer?
I followed him back to an old school, it looked like it was abandoned in the 1970's. Still solid and in good condition, but again the lack of humanity’s interference was showing as the ivy found cracks in the mortar forcing its way in. The grass as over grown but not enough to draw attention, obviously someone mowed it within the last month or so. The bushes that had once lined walk ways were overgrown, bugs buzzed around me. Slipping from shadow to shadow I wound my way closer, than I got bored.
Brazenly walking into the basement, killing the one I had followed drinking him dry before the others reacted. There were fourteen of them this time, it was a bit more of a fight. Okay that’s not exactly true, it was harder to do while not killing them outright. Before they had a chance to register it I was among them, breaking bones severely enough to incapacitate. A wake of blood and limbs trailed behind me covering the basement. Honestly the only one who took more then half a second was the master, and that was only because I didn’t want him to severely injured, I needed information. With no real knowledge I desperately needed to separate fact from fiction. Some of my new powers were easy to grasp because my body seemed to automatically adapt to them, like they had always been there. I had actually wondered in Jersey if they were humans playing at being vampires. They seemed to move in slow motion honestly, I needed to know if power or age made that much of a difference. I also needed more though, was there a hierarchy ? A ruling cast? Why was I different? Was it who bit you or was it just a matter of age?
He was easy to spot when it started, sitting on a literal throne watching in horror as I drained the last of his group dry. He tried to fight, but he was broken and done in seconds. He managed to nick me in the arm, which was more than anyone else had done. It was healed almost immediately, then I start in with the questions. Refusing to call him master I immediately renamed him Jacky, mostly because I just didn’t care.
He knew that once there had been a ruling council that consisted of representatives from the major cities around the world. Two hundred years ago the members of the council had foolishly tried to kill the Justicar and Carnifex. Who had in turn wiped them all out, except Pool if I believe the kid, and abolished the council. Now Justicar was judge and jury and Carnifex the executioner, there was no appeal, no quarter.
Their rules were simple, there was some mystical ratio of vamp to human population in each area. Masters ruled through power, and if they were weak enough to lose a challenge they were dead and the city had a new master. Dead seemed out of place in that description but final death seems too poetic. They ceased to be? The old man tied to his throne with his own tendons, turns out it’s the best way to bind one of us, used final death and it bothered me.
No publicity ever. Evidently such a scenario might get your whole city wiped clean by the Justicar and Carnifax. Jacky told me a story about Chicago back during prohibition. The Chicago master had gotten tied in with the local mob and was showing off in public. Killing the feds and competition, doing it by feeding on them. He wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that they where drained of blood and left. He had also turned the cheif of police and the mayor into vamps. I guess it was cheaper then paying bribes? It had gotten to the point that there was actual clubs where the locals fed openly on people, ah the decadence of the roaring 20’s. The whole lair was wiped out, the city didn't have another vampire until one of the old masters got tired of Texas and moved there. Needless to say no one shows off in public anymore.
He also told me about the hunters, some long forgotten part of the catholic church. He didn’t know much about them, except that the church was no longer involved. They were operating with no legitimate funding or resources, according to the master they where inconsequential. Only killing maybe 6 or 7 a year that he heard about, mostly the young and weak. They did however exist, I found myself more interested in this then anything else he had to say really. Did the Church or any other groups know about them? Maybe here in the states, lacking the religious authority of say Rome, it was weak but was it there? Things I would want to know later.
We where fast, strong, all of our abilities were decided by age of your creator, the kid had been honest. As far Jacky knew, since Justicar made me, I was the third or fourth most powerful vampire in existence. He said third at first but then corrected himself when I felt something off saying he couldn’t be absolutely sure Cain was dead. As far as he knew Justicar was either the direct creation of Cain, or once removed making him the most powerful active vampire. It also seemed he couldn’t say if the Justicar or Carnifex were more powerful. Jacky swore no one knew where Carnifex came from, one day he was with Justicar. No one really wanted to question it. Most assume that the Justicar made him, it was the simplest answer. Not that it lessened the fear of him in the slightest.
Cain was an interesting mystery, he just disappeared a thousand years ago, just gone. Most of the masters assumed that Justicar had somehow killed him but they had know way of knowing for sure. Jacky didn’t really know much about him, mostly rumors. The biggest rumor was that Cain was the one from the Bible, created by god as punishment for slaying his brother. He didn’t believe in it but relayed it to me anyway since I asked. His personal theory was that Cain simply pre dated mankind, the planetary apex predator or was until he disappeared.
The golden rule was ‘Do not eat your own.’ Sadly a bit late to worry about that one for me, his look of horror when I drained his spawn was satisfying though. It was also the first time I heard the rule of three. Evidently a vampire isn't fully a vampire until he had fed on three humans. I had only fed on two, the horror of it still haunted my sleep and had no plans to feed on more. Something snapped inside me as he argued, stating over and over that I MUST feed a third time for my powers to fully manifest. Images flashed through my head, my wife and child covered in blood dead in my arms. My anger may have gotten the better of me, I ripped his head off and drained him. In hindsight I really needed to work on my temper, but like the kid said, fuck authority.