All great stories have great beginnings; they often start with a meeting in a tavern or the arrival of a mysterious stranger in a town laden with outlaws. Mine, however, began six feet under, thanks to an attractive vampire with hair that blazed like a hearthfire.

If this were a conventional biography, I would have began with the incident where I devoured a ghoul’s heart —Devil bless his generous soul–and became immortal. But I choose not to. Who cares if a young lady became a trifle too famished to concern herself with social propriety? She has every right to, and people know it. All they want is is a good story, and I intend to give them one.

I’ll begin with the event that defined my career—the one where I rose from the dead, or so those unaware of my peculiar talents would say. Buy them a drink, and they’ll say I crushed a man’s head with my bare hands. Toss them a coin, and they’ll swear I led dragons to slay a nun. Offer them a warm bed and a bucket to piss in, and they’ll claim I rode a winged horse to kill a rakish prince. All these legends. All these songs. They’re true.

But they are just songs and legends that present the truth in a different light. Which is why I ask you, would you rather listen to those charlatans who twist my story for their own gain? Or would you rather hear it from me—a woman kissed on the arse by sweet Lady Misfortune? If your answer is the latter, then put on a glove and take my red right hand, for we’re about to hail a boat and set sail down this indomitable, never-ending river called Time. But if your answer is the former, I ask you—why not? I killed old empire fanatics and hacked their god to bits; surely that counts for something. Now, hurry up, you reluctant sod— take my hand and heed my ignoble tale.

*****

Around five hundred years ago, on a night when ponds shimmered with the soft hue of milky pearls and owls flirted with wide, lustful eyes, I found myself astride a rude black stallion, its hooves clattering on the cobbled path in the middle of a forest. The sound was loud enough to be a wake-up call to a Wendigo, ever in search of its greatest rival, yours truly, the greatest of all man-eaters.

My long, matted hair, caked with blood, danced in the cool night air, mirroring the rustle of the trees lining the road ahead. Among those trees, pointy-eared cunts lay in wait, their eyes tracking me. The first arrow came with the soft, buzzing hum of a honeybee as it sliced through the air. As I listened to the sound, the hairs on my body prickled like a frightened rooster’s. My hand, driven by instinct, shot out and caught the shaft inches from my face.

Some pointy-eared bastard let another arrow fly. Slicing through the mist, it struck my horse with a sickening thud, embedding itself deep in its skull. I was thrown off balance, crashing to the ground—my face landing in goat shit. The impact knocked the wind out of me, leaving me sprawled and gasping. After what felt like an eternity, I slowly began to rise from that indignity, but a heavy boot slammed down on my back, pinning me hard against the cobblestones and forcing me to taste goat shit once again.

"The mighty ghoul under my boots," said a gravelly voice voice. "I feel so honored."

He lifted his boot off my body and whistled like a koel. Two men emerged from the bushes and hauled me to my feet—not for the cunt who had put his filthy boot on my back, but for the striking woman who made men think: Oh, seven blessings, she could do unspeakable things to me.

She walked toward me, silent as a snake in the grass, her visage—ahem—pardon me for the dreadful metaphor—like a petal with eyes of stone floating on a river of piranhas.

She approached, a cigar in her mouth, its smoke curling in foggy drifts. She was the kind of woman who could make a man jump into a pit of vipers by convincing him the alternative was far worse.

"You killed my brother?" the elf asked, cold and direct. Ah, she was such a delight. People with that no-nonsense approach practically begged to have their feathers ruffled, and it is the birthright of every trickster to rile up such peculiar creatures. I held back and simply nodded in response. But still, common sense wasn’t my strongest suit, and so I couldn’t resist asking the triggering question.

"I killed a lot of brothers. Which one do you speak of?"

"The one whose cock you cut off and shoved into his mouth," she answered, her collected facade breaking with that twitch in her lips.

"Oh, you mean Lordling Cockless? That goat-fu—" She struck me across the face, and I saw stars.

“Drag this whore to farewell grounds,” she said, her gaze peeling away as if I were less than a worm. How hateful. But given what I did I can't blame her.

“Sounds like a lovely place” I said.

They dragged me through the forest, tying me to one of their scrawny horses. Poor bastards, those elves—they were once so glorious, riding shiny steeds! How the mighty have fallen! Centuries ago, they saw humanity as little more than dirt beneath their feet. Now look at those proud pointies, living in shitholes. Ah, those poor fuckers—so sad, so tragic, so melancholic and all those synonyms.

My pity only lasted untilthe horse jolted forward, dragging my body across the unforgiving earth. Twigs and jagged stones tore at my skin, ripping through flesh that reattached as quickly as it was shredded, barely keeping me alive. I tasted blood, dirt, and things both familiar and foreign. I struck a root or two, my body jerking upward, bones snapping and rejoining in a brutal, nauseating rhythm.

Finally, when the moon reached its peak and ghosts roamed the earth to appear only to drunks, they stopped near a graveyard on a cliff overlooking their fragile settlement. The settlement, cobbled together from scraps of wood, metal, and cloth, flickered with sporadic lights, like dying fireflies—fairies imprisoned in lamps. These fairies dimmed now, their glow fading with the slow poisoning of their sacred tree, the source of all that powered elvish life.

Oh, those poor fairies! How dreadful it must be to be so charmingly queer and yet imprisoned in wretched lamps! How I yearned to free them whenever I saw them. Where does that desire come from? I often wondered, and the answer always lay in the memories I lost after devouring the ghoul heart. Sometimes, those memories return, and helplessness stirs my temper. But I quell it quickly with a single thought: Lady Fate is one horny bitch,"

They untied me from the horse, and bound my hands as I knelt. "Lady Fate is one horny bitch," I muttered, more to unsettle the elves than to temper my anger.

A swift kick to my face drove me into the wet grass, the taste of iron spreading across my tongue.

"Quiet," snapped the same elf who’d shoved me down, his boot still reeking of filth.

"W-what’s your name?" I asked, spitting blood. "You’ve got a remarkable kick. Seems only fair to know the name."

" Kalantus, my lady. The name’s Kalantus," he said, giving a mock bow.

“Kalantus!” I exclaimed, giggling like a lovestruck girl. “Such a masculine name for such an unmasculine man. Hitting a woman like that—are you sure you’re not compensating for something?”

“Careful, my lady,” he growled. “We wouldn’t want that pretty face of yours ruined by common filth like me.”

“I am an immortal, you dumb fuck,” I said, and Kalanthus unsheathed his blade, pressing it to my cheek.

“You asked for it,” he said, grinning with such evilness even I would find comical

“Which goblin your mother was shagging when she was supposed to be teaching you manners?"

"Enough!" barked the she-elf. "This one’s mine, Kalantus. Mine!"

"Yes, Lady Lilia," he replied, backing immediately.

“Ghoul blood would taste foul on your tongue, vampire.” I said.

The red-haired elf unsheathed her cinquedea. She held it in her hand as though it had sprouted from her palm. What an honor, indeed, to meet one’s end at the hands of such a ravishing creature—with red hair that complemented her unblemished fair skin, and blue eyes that shone like opals. She was perfect.

Unfortunately, I do not have the pleasure of dying normally, and the elf was well aware of the fact—she had planned accordingly. She did not prepare an elaborate ritual or embark on a long journey to a volcano carrying my corpse. Instead, she did it the old-fashioned way of torturing immortals: placing me in a casket and burying me six feet under.

As her merry band of elves dug, the she-elf spoke. "You love the sound of your own voice, don’t you? Fine, let’s play a game. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you have to act like a buffoon so I can inflict pain that you crave so much."

“Wonderful, ask away,” I said.

“Who asked you to kill my brother?”

“The one who farts in roses an' speaks in po'try," I slurred, as if I were one bottle away from fucking an undesirable.

She growled and carved a line across my cheek. “Name,” she asked, her voice sharp like thorns. “I demand a name.”

“He’s a very important person. Are you willing to take that risk?”

A quick flash of the knife parted my flesh in a symmetrical line, revealing the muscle beneath. The blood stopped before it could mark my pale cheek entirely, as the skin healed.

“You’d need to carve through a hundred men—hard sons of bitches who collect elvish scalps like prized trophies.”

"‘Black Company’ she spat, disgusted.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Heard they were the ones who chopped your father’s head off and stuck a pig’s on instead. Creative pricks, aren’t they?” I said, cackling. I let my cackle drag longer than necessary to play her little game.

Then I saw her face—fury twisting her fine features into a mask of a wounded lion. It’s a sin for such a fine facade to be marred by such dark emotions.

"I knew your brother was born from the corpse of your hanged mother. Is that right? Felt right to kill him that way," I said, giving her my special crooked smile—reserved for those who want to rend me asunder.

She pounced on me, slamming me to the ground and knocking the wind out of me. Then, with a primal scream, she slashed my face over and over. Each cut brought a brief flash of pain before it healed almost instantly. I laughed through the entire ordeal—unintentionally, more lunatic than usual. I just couldn’t control it.

“What the fuck is wrong with her?” whispered a she-elf whose facade and good name elude my memory.

The vanpire elf, exhausted, collapsed beside me, panting, each breath escaping as a thin plume of mist.

"I... I killed him because I wanted to," I said, a smile trembling on my lips even as pain ripped through my body. "The money’s... it’s good and all, but... but with a good conscience, I... I must speak with utmost veraciy—if... if he’d been a good lay, I wouldn’t... wouldn’t have bothered killing him. Do you want to know his final wo-”

Sweet ol’ Kalanthus stomped me in the face, forcing my head back into the mud. He knelt down, scooped up a handful of horse shit, and smeared it across my face—slow and calm, like a virtuoso finishing his masterpiece.

I tried to spit it out, but it landed back on my face as a wet, dried splatter that clung to my skin. I wiped it away with the back of my hand, smearing it more than cleaning it.

“Delightful,” I muttered, the bitter taste still lingering on my tongue.

The red-haired elf rose to her feet and brushed the dust off her clothes with an air of dignity—the kind only the privileged possess, accompanied by that subtle annoyance at the dirt that dared to cling to them. It must have felt nostalgic for her to act so dignified in days when there was no dignity left for her kin. It makes sense, I suppose, as people say: elves feel more deeply than anyone else; everything they do is infused with passion. Profess your love to them through actions, and you may bask in the gratitude of multitudes. But slight them even slightly, and all of mankind cannot shelter you from their wrath.

"Kalanthus," she whispered, her voice cold and low, casting that invisible thread of authority that makes you quiver without your knowing.

Kalanthus stepped forward, his stride carrying all the meekness of a sheep about to be slaughtered.

"Yes?" he croaked. A sudden punch to the throat and a roundhouse kick to the face sent him sprawling. The vampire elf strode over to him like a tiger approaching its dying prey and planted a foot on his chest.

"You've been an insolent little fuck for quite some time," she hissed, her voice low and venomous. She spat on his face—lucky bastard—and said, "When I command you to speak, you speak. When I order you to move, you move. When I adore you to shit, you shit!"

She knelt down, her red hair dancing in the wind like rage personified. “Do you understand?” she whispered, her voice cold and low.

"Y-yes," he croaked. "I-it wasn’t... wasn’t m-my in... in-in-intention t-to question your judgment."

"Good," she said, her face calm, having made her point. She stood up and turned to me with contempt in her eyes.

"Deal with her," she commanded, gesturing to her servants. Behind her, Kalantus muttered under his foul breath, "Fuck you, bitch. I'll kill you myself." My enhanced senses caught all of it. The way he said it sounded like a promise meant to be kept. It would have been good to know how that went for him. But alas, they buried me six feet under, and I never found out. Every day, as I lay buried, they poured spider acid—a substance I heal from slowly—into my casket through a pipe they had placed when burying me. In that casket, I suffocated in a torturous, ponderous rhythm, yearning for sweet release—and yet, contradictingly, I also felt the desire to survive, like all mankind. To be suffocated, yet without taking the hand of death as it extended its skeletal fingers, whispering like a shameless vixen, “Touch me, touch me,” felt unnatural. Wrong. Do you understand?

After two years of suffering, one day the usual prick did not come to pour acid. In his place came the wendigo. In tears, it tore open the casket, and I felt both bitter and thankful. Then, with its emaciated hands, it picked out each maggot, concern flickering in its hollow white eyes. You want to imagine it, I suppose, to haunt your dreams, perhaps? I can fulfill that desire. Imagine a starving wolf, but with antlers twisted like gnarled branches and sharp bones protruding from its emaciated chest. Disgusting? There is more. Think of its skin stretched tight over its face, long limbs, and hands, with hollow eyes of hunger and malice. It moves on hind legs, its patchy fur blacker than night, and claws sharp enough to tear through flesh and bone like the silk of a blushing groom.

It poured flesh and blood from a cask onto my lips, and my body began to heal. With the maggots out of my flesh, I stood up in all my naked glory, gazing upon the tall monstrosity.

“Did you a a red haired vampire elf?” I asked.

"I slay not mine kin, yet thou art an exception." It said.

"Can you tell me if you killed an elf that was uncharacteristically ugly?" I asked eagerly.

"Nay, but I have laid curses most foul: mothers to devour their daughters, sisters to consume their brothers, fathers to feast upon their sons, and neighbors to rend one another asunder."

"You should have spared the children—what in the name of Lilet’s cock is wrong with you?" I said, genuinely upset.

"I have healed thee, that thou might rise and face me in battle! Stand, thou bosom friend, and fight!"

"I am naked, you mutt! I have neither sword nor armor with which to fight you."

I heard someone approaching from behind and turned around with the alertness of a feline. Standing there was a young elf—dark-skinned and handsome, if you could overlook the axe lodged in his skull and the unsettling red glow of his eyes. He tossed a curved, single-edged sword adorned with elvish runes at my feet and began to strip—an act I would have watched giggling, had he not been dead.

Yes, indeed, I'm a necrophagic creature with boundless lust, but I am not perverse; my lust is solely reserved for all things humanoid that are willing to have long romantic walks with a croissant in hand or a cheap bottle of vodka.

He bore scars that could make any maiden who dreamed of chivalrous heroes gasp—lassies like yours truly, of course. The sleeping beast beneath his torso—the magic wand that bewitched bitches like me—was a sight to behold. As he walked, his wang, the shaft, swayed like a tail.

As much as it pained me to do, I looked beyond him and saw red pinpricks glowing in among the trees. Five elves, I guessed without counting, for five is the limit of a wendigo's tether.

I put on the tattered tunic trousers and boots, then picked up the weapon.

“Beautifully made.” I said, swinging about the sword with practiced ease.

"Six, including this naked one? Oh, how noble. I’m not the same graceful girl I once was." I asked, turning to the wendigo.

"I am not unjust. I shall release them upon thee, and when thou hast recovered , I shall face thee in turn."

"How generous. Tell me, fellow fiend, no matter what happens here, you wouldn’t lay a finger on me, correct?”I said approaching it.

"Deceit is unknown to me; 'tis the way of men alone. I do as I speak."

"Hope you are right!" I said, pirouetting on my feet. With a swift swing of my sword, I sliced through its long limbs. That poor trusty fucker caught off guard and crashed to the ground—his head striking the tombstone with a satisfying thud.

“I am no human, but I do share all their vices and none of their virtues, so you should have thought of me doing this mutt. Now, you promised to fight only when the time is right, so you better keep it! O noble creature who knows no deceit” I said, slashing the abdomen of the elf who had so generously stripped off their clothes for me.

The other five stepped out of the darkness, carrying with them weapons of opportune, scythe, swords, rakes, even pans!

The man with the pan pounced like a cat, and I swung my sword and cut his head clean off. His body skidded across the ground, his hand still clutching his sooty weapon.

I sensed movement behind me—but it was too quick to react. I still tried, turning, but not fast enough to avoid the blonde-haired she-elf whose rake punched into my side.

Pain flared, but I caught the weapon before it drove deeper and snapped it with my forearm. My senses warned me again—I ducked low, feeling the air whistle as a hammer passed. The she-elf wasn’t so lucky. The wild swing caught her in the head, which burst like an overripe tomato, showering the ground in brain pulp.I pivoted and opened the stomach of the brute, who collapsed like a rag doll. But before I enjoyed the victory, a kick to my head sent me crashing to the ground.

The one who kicked me wore armor made of mismatched parts—and held a longsword in his hand. I tried to get up, but a child with a dagger leaped on top of me and stabbed me in the eye. The brat tried to pry the dagger out to stab me again. As I struggled to get him off, the armored elf bent low and slid his sword through my cheeks, the blade cutting into my mouth and emerging from the other side.

I pulled the fallen rake from my side and drove it into the head of the child elf, just as the brute elf withdrew his sword. Shoving the youngling off me, I rolled away from his mighty swing that left a deep gash on grass and sprang to my feet.

“Your love for prolonged cruelty is my blessing,” I said to Wendigo, smiling as the wound sealed itself. I could imagine how unsettling it must be to naïve young bloods eager to slay the big, bad Lyra the Ghoul. Those brave soldier boys who had managed to land a similar cut had watched in horror as it mended before their eyes.

I always gave them a chance to prove themselves after the defeat by offering them two easy choices—their balls or their lives—and, surprisingly, many chose their balls. It was a trick question, fools now you just lost your lives!

The armored brute advanced, swinging for my ribs—I moved out of reach and, quick as a cat catching a rat, closed the distance before he could comprehend. A flash of movement, and my blade sliced toward the underside of his wrist. His grip faltered, the longsword dipping in his grasp.

Seizing this opening, I struck again, driving my blade into the gap between his pauldron and breastplate. I wrenched it free, tearing his muscle in the process.He staggered back, and then his knees buckled as blood spilled down from his side. Just to be sure, I picked up a rake, removed his helmet and stabbed him in the face.

“That was beautiful and a much needed warm up for staying still for so long. How long was I out again?” I asked approaching the wendigo who started to heal its legs.

“Two summers,” the wendigo said.

“Two goddamn years? I suppose it’s too late to fulfill that spy’s dying wish to warn King Vasley of a possible snow elf invasion on Vransy.”

"Why dost thou offer aid to one thou claim’st no care for? Was it perchance empathy thou didst feel?"

"Empathy? Don’t be ridiculous!" I said, more sharply than I expected. “I care for rewards and nothing more.”

"Carest thou naught for what doth befall? The purpose of mortals is lost to mine understanding, yet thou wert once of their kind—dost thou truly scorn all thought of a higher calling?"

"I don’t know about this empathy you speak of. Helping the kingdom earn me some coin to satisfy my desires for pleasure and wine!”

“Carest thou naught for mankind?“Desirest thou not to be as they art? Thou speakest as they do.””

“Yes, I do not care for the upheavals that so frequently occur in the cycles of mankind. Men resent me for my nature, and their insults may flow freely, but in the end, only I shall remain—so why bother to be like them?”

"I hath beheld a vision, a dream of thee as a maiden fair. Each time I dost taste thy blood, memories of thy past life do unfold ere mine eyes. Dost thou desire to know what thou once wert? Wouldst thou learn of the love, the heartbreak, and the time when thou didst possess a soul?"

I drew my sword and leveled it at the cur’s head. “Hold your tongue, dog. I’ll not suffer your prattle any longer.”

"Wilt thou slay me? Nay, thou shalt not, my love, thou shalt not. I am all thou hast."

I wanted to drive that sword in and end it then and there—perhaps it would have been for the best. But history isn’t made by doing all the right things. Sometimes you must not listen to a rational mind that urges you to kill the mutt conspiring to ruin your pleasure-seeking. Instead, give it a kiss, go seek out your salad days, and end up meeting a charming little girl— who would change your life forever.