In the bed I’d been given, I slept. And as I slept, I dreamed of the past. These weren’t particularly pleasant memories for me; I can’t say I was happy to reminisce on days gone by. As a matter of fact, I made it a personal policy to try and ignore anything that happened more than fifty years ago.

Naturally, I was terrible at it.

So, yeah. There was that time me and the gang got together and caused the collapse of western civilization and tried to turn the planet into a giant graveyard.

In hindsight, it was a dick move on our part. Bringing ruin to dozens of nations so that we could set ourselves above their terrified surviving populations and reign over them as false gods…I mean, yes it was fun. It was so much fun…but it just wasn’t a very nice thing to do. It certainly didn’t increase our popularity with the faceless masses.

But you know, in our defense, we were vampires and vampires derive intense pleasure from pointless displays of cruelty, although that’s not entirely the reason why we did what we did. It’s not like any of us had the option of sitting things out. The order to ravage society had come from the top.

As the Lord of Blood, there was only one person who could command me to do anything, and that was my mother. You might have heard of her; Desadia Crudelitas.

Okay, you probably haven’t; that name is ridiculous. She loved it, though. My older brother Vitor once made the mistake of mocking it where she could hear and that was it for him. My sisters and I didn’t see Vitor again for most of the nineteenth century. When he was finally returned to us, just in time to join the family for the Great Chicago fire, (known less formally as the cookout of ’71), he was a much quieter person. I didn’t ask questions.

When it came to the old woman, I never asked questions.

I simply obeyed.

I was the only one of my siblings to have never been punished. I think Vitor hated me a little for that, but to hell with that attitude. I knew my place and stuck to it, and in so doing, I stayed on Mom's good side. Maybe it was because I was the Lord of Blood and had a more intuitive understanding of our mother’s personality and just how unnatural her existence truly was. How unnatural was she, you might ask. Well, words like primordial abomination were a good way to get started. If you kept going, you might eventually land on elder thing or crawling chaos, although I’m sure that last description belonged to somebody else. It might not have, though; that was the problem.

Mom was more commonly known as Emperor Crusica. Yes, that Emperor Crusica. The feared ruler of all undead everywhere, the one who’d given the order to devour mankind, the wound of darkness and the bearer of a million more unpleasant titles. He was in fact, a woman.

I think. It really depended on her mood.

Remember, I never asked questions. Asking my mother a question was one of the worst things anyone could possibly do while in her presence, because sometimes she would answer them…

Have you ever heard that phrase, knowledge man was never meant to know? I can assure you it exists. And how does knowledge man was never meant to know affect someone who accidentally learns it?

Have you ever seen the movie, Scanners?

Yeah, the one where the guy’s head explodes.

It’s like that. But nastier.

A lot of friends over the years have misunderstood the relationship my siblings and I shared with Crusica. They’d tease us and tell us to toughen up and not to be so fearful of her. Even now, I can only shake my head at the depths of their ignorance. Why does everyone think that just because they have an opinion about something means they’re qualified to give advice?

Listen, Crusica was a shapeshifting biomass of sentient demonic blood that ate souls, so excuse us for not wanting to anger her unnecessarily. Maybe if one of your parents was an unspeakable horror from the hungering beyond who had slipped through the thin veil of reality protecting our small little world from that which our delicate minds can scarcely conceive, I’d consider listening to your pep talk. But sadly, very few people had similar life experiences while growing up.

Toughen up. What a load of idiocy.

Over the years, a lot of people have called me a monster. A fiend. An unrelenting blight upon the land. They even attributed me to a few biblical passages warning of my coming and the disasters I’d leave in my wake. I’m not a very religious person, so I could never decide if I found that flattering or insulting.

But just so we’re clear, I deserved every insult my detractors threw at me. Every curse they could send my way. Before that Sophia woman struck me down, I had a kill count that I stopped keeping track of once it hit six figures. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it did show my efficacy as the Lord of Blood. I took my role seriously and I got things done.

But I can’t claim sole credit for my many horrendous misdeeds. Like I said earlier, I had quite the family. I’ve already mentioned Crusica, our Emperor and progenitor. But there was also my elder brother Vitor, the Lord of Beasts, as well as my sisters, Hedonia, the Lady of Mist, and Protea, the Lady of shapes. As the youngest, that made me the baby of the bunch.

(Well, there was also Bathory, the sister who preceded me as the Lady of Blood, but we never talked about her. She’d gotten herself in trouble with mother and lost her station. I’d been created to replace her.)

Stolen story; please report.

(I think Bathory was still alive, somewhere. Although she probably wished she wasn’t. You know how moms can be, right? They love getting creative with their punishments.)

They had many names for my siblings and me. When we assembled, we were mainly called the Four Great Lords, but we were also known as the Four Heavenly Kings, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Four Elemental Fiends, and the Four Beasts of Gehenna. During my Nintendo phase, I kept petitioning to have our name changed to the Elite Four, but Vitor threatened to kill me if I didn’t stop, so I eventually gave up on it.

Vitor was truly a killjoy, the quintessential big brother bully, but Hedonia and Protea both thought my suggestions were clever. I always did get along better with them. They enjoyed being older sisters and playing along with my antics. Heh, thanks to them, I grew up spoiled and indulged.

Although our individual might was considerable, the powers my siblings and I wielded were meant to be used in tandem. Strong alone, stronger together. When we marched as one, nothing could stand in our path. No army could oppose us, no titan could impede our stride. As the Four Great Lords, we were almost equal to Crusica herself, not that we would ever dare to offer such an opinion.

In her name, we killed so many people…

That was the part I never truly understood. The Vampire Nation had existed for thousands of years, hiding in the darkness of civilization, ruling from its shadows. Although the existence of vampires was known, none realized the depths of our power or how far our influence extended across the world. They weren’t yet aware of great Crusica, or of how mighty the limitless armies of undead she commanded were.

The Earth I came from was a strange place. One where magic was openly practiced by a select few, where science could create anything one could imagine, where daring men and women in colorful costumes dashed from rooftops to prevent crime, where beings from other worlds visited to share their knowledge or to lead invasions. It was also a place as ordinary as could be. A strange hodgepodge of the fantastic and the familiar. A sort of…urban fantasy?

It’s difficult to describe that time as anything other than an age of heroes. Of marvels and icons, where anything was possible, but everything was always safely reset to maintain an unspoken status quo.

It was nice. I liked that world. I enjoyed living in it and occasionally playing the role of the villain for the earnest young champions seeking some evil to thwart. I had a lot of fun. Even when “defeated” I’d leave the game with a smile on my face. I was glad to have lived long enough to see such wonders unfold.

It all seemed like a dream that would never end.

But then our emperor commanded us to rise and burn everything down; to blacken the skies with ash and dye the seas red with spilled blood. To fill the air with cries of despair and suffering.

To kill hope itself.

I didn’t want to. I swear it. But mother demanded it, and the will of Crusica cannot be denied. Just as Rachel cannot disobey me, I could not disobey my creator.

So, the Four Lords obeyed and began the crimson crusade to end humanity.

That was when being a vampire stopped being fun.

Why did Crusica demand that of us? That question drives me to this day. Why did she use us to do this terrible thing? Did she truly believe that she had become a god? That she was untouchable? If that was what she thought, then she learned otherwise when she failed to escape the reprisal that followed, when in the throes of her madness, Crusica ordered us to violate an ancient treaty and assault the nations of the east, where the cultivators honed their skills and lived in secrecy.

That had been the mistake that sealed her fate. I remember the outrage on her perfect face as the Murim Alliance charged at her palanquin and fought through our endless numbers to reach her. The disbelief she showed when their grandmasters summoned an actual Celestial Ancestor to purify her with the light of an ascended realm.

I remember her screams of defiance and fear in that moment when justice finally caught up to her and her body was reduced to atoms.

But mostly, I remember the four of us turning tail and running for our lives, because noooooope, screw that. We were just following orders, sorry for the mess, congratulations on your victory, keep on defying the heavens and we’ll keep out of your hair.

Call us cowards if you like, but we didn’t want any of that smoke. Can you blame us? You must understand, summoning a celestial is a big deal. It was a show of force like nothing the cultivators had ever displayed before, and it cost them dearly in resources and manpower. For them to go that far was their way of showing that they didn’t fear death and that they’d gladly sink the continent itself if it meant they could take us with them.

What do you say in the face of such bravery and resolve? If you’re smart, you’d say goodbye and you’d leave. Which is exactly what we did. Their message was simple. Stay out of our turf or else. Well, message received, guys.

As for the ultimate fate of our dearly departed mother?

Who gave a damn? She was Hell’s problem now.

__

I awoke from my troubled sleep with Schulz’s worried face laying on my belly. Touched by his concern, I lightly scratched his ear before sitting up. Beside my bed, Rachel was propped against a corner in easy reach of my hand. As I rubbed the sides of my head, I heard her concerned voice reach out to me.

“Are you okay, Stragos?” she asked. “That seemed like one hell of a dream you were having.”

“Was it?” I asked. “I can’t even remember what it was about.”

“Yeah, well you definitely didn’t look like you were having a good time,” she said. “You kept moaning someone’s name. I think it was—”

“Don’t tell me who it was,” I quickly said, cutting her off. “Nightmares are best when quickly forgotten. I’ve got plenty of bad memories waiting to pop up unexpectedly, that I’d rather not have to deal with. Best not to hear any names associated with them.”

“I guess,” Rachel said doubtfully. “But ignoring your troubles doesn’t mean that you’ve dealt with them.”

“That’s fine. I’m immortal. I can always grow as a person tomorrow,” I replied. “For us, there’s always tomorrow.”

“So, what now?” Rachel asked, thankfully setting the topic aside.

I checked the time and saw that dinner wouldn’t be for another hour. Then I said, “I guess we’ll use these skill points I earned when I leveled up and then spend a little time bonding.”

“Sounds like a thrill, dad,” she replied sarcastically. Then, as I stood up, she fell silent.

“What?” I said, wondering why she was being so quiet.

“Kyler…look at yourself,” Rachel said urgently. “In the mirror! Take a look, I’m serious!”

Puzzled by her urgency, I did as she said, and found myself whistling in surprise at the sight that greeted me. “Well, son of a gun,” I said with a slight grin. “Take a look at that! Just when did I get so pretty?”

It was true. When I’d gone to sleep, I’d been far skinnier, much shorter, and slightly hunched over from years of poor posture. Now, I stood at about six feet tall, with a much healthier weight and even some noticeable definition on my muscles. My neck and shoulders were considerably thicker too.

If not for my pale skin and seemingly permanent rings under my eyes, I doubt anyone would have recognized me at a glance. As I thought about it, I realized that I now bore a stronger resemblance to Patrick, Kyler Evan’s older half-brother.

“What happened to you?” Rachel asked.

“I’m not sure yet," I said. "But I think I like it?”