Myths: Fatherland

Chapter 3: Failed Redemption

There had been a heavy downpour tonight, bringing with it the cold. I had no worries about this as I no longer felt cold nor hot.

I hadn't fed for two days, and the hunger in me had reached a new high. Standing on the rooftop of a three-story building, looking down at the deserted street below, I could see no life in sight save for the noises coming from the inhabitants of the various households. The sound of movies from TV sets, the ruckus from children who were way past their bedtime, the confrontation between the wives and their just returning husbands, which was fair enough as it was surely almost midnight! But all these noises paled in comparison to the pounding of hearts as they beat against their ribcage, the clashing of blood as they met at various corners in the vessels. The racing heart beat of lovestruck lovers, phone calls from one hormone filled teenager to another, and screams from horror movies all filled my ears as I did my best to keep from breathing in. I had long promised never to feed off humans but to keep to large prey animals. A promise I had never been able to keep for longer than a few decades. Once in a while, I would find myself unable to resist, and I would feed, but I would never end their lives.

The wind picked up again, and the scent of a flock of sheep wafted into my nostrils. I looked in the direction I expected it was coming from, and there they were in the distance, about a street away, hurdling together to keep warm. 'Finally, some nourishment!' I leapt in that direction, and in almost an instant, I was perched on the rooftop of the two-story apartment they laid below. 'Now, for the snatching and grabbing' I joked to myself, ready to pick the most robust male.

The headlights from a camry shone from a duplex a few houses away against the building I was atop. The duplex stood in the centre of a large parcel of fenced land. Two-thirds of the property was interlocked, and two flats stood separately from each other behind the duplex. A small room was built beside the gate, while a larger building stood to the left of the duplex. On the exposed one-third of land were fruit trees, all bearing fruits. The property was beautified with flowering shrubs and tall ornamental trees on either side of the property. A large, round ornamentel garden stood directly in front of the duplex and bore the statue of a giant blue fish. A large front door with a space for parking beside it opened, and from it, a lady on a call came out. She had a remote control key in hand as she moved towards the camry. She was stunning! Of course, wearing a blue polo and jeans sown from a navy blue material along with a pair of black shoes. Her hair was dark and bound in a ribbon at the back of her head. She was slender, of average height, and fair skinned. I could tell from her the smile on her and racing heartbeat that she was excited about something. I could have ignored her and gone back to picking off my 'black sheep', but my attention was held by the smell of blood coming from her recently cut finger wrapped in a handkerchief. I couldn't keep still as a burning and drying sensation rose in my throat. My muscles tensed, ready to leap into the distance, at the unsuspecting lady, rip into her neck, and to sink my fangs into her veins.

Quickly, I turned my attention to the now sleeping sheep, choosing to, instead, drain it rather than the human. Just as I made to leap down, I heard a low grumble from the lady as she stood in front of the gate to her house and next thing I knew, the gate began to creak in the middle as the two halves moved apart. I snapped! A witch! Rage began building in me. 'No! No!! It can't be! Not here! Not here where I had begun to settle!' She had entered the vehicle and was now driving out, the gate closing behind her. She had begun to drive off, and I leapt from my perch. My mind was hazy with thoughts as I restrained myself to keep just behind her car. The reminder of the friends like family that I had lost to the malevolence of witches was like gasoline to the rage within me. And finally, with that, the urge for vengeance and the intense hunger I felt prevailed.

Moving sideways to the right end of the camry, I rammed the vehicle, and it skid and went tumbling. It stopped after several tumbles on the tarred road. Now crazed from the smell of blood dripping from the numerous cuts and bruises she had just sustained from the crash, I waited in a dark corner of the street, waiting, as she struggled to crawl out of the wreckage. She was now out from under the wrecked car, she pulled out her phone and dialled a number whilst looking around for people who could aid her. 'I mustn't let this drag out, or I'll be dead before I know it.' I knew what she was, and I know better than to treat her like any other prey. First, I would have to disable her, and seeing that she was yet to be aware of my presence, my chances of surviving this were greater than before. Blood was dripping down her neck and staining her blue polo, and I had to act fast. I moved, she didn't know whatvhit had, and she lay sprawled on the floor with both legs bent awkwardly. She tried getting up but couldn't. She began to drag herself across to a pole that stood nearby. In desperation and in need of help that she was, I half expected her to begin to scream, but she didn't. She just kept looking frantically left and right as she continued to drag herself across. I needed to end this. I moved again, this time behind her, and raised both her arms and, with a little effort, dislocated both from her shoulders and moved away again.

This time, she let out a scream. It was almost deafening. Suddenly, the look on her face had gotten severe, focused, like she knew what to be expecting. 'Time for the kill.' I walked out of the darkness and started towards her as she laid virtually limbless, her eyes glinting with malice. She stared at me as I stopped right in front of her, and I knew she knew what I was. "Huh...a vampire? You could've done better..." She scoffed. I raised her by her shoulders into the air, ready to sink my teeth into her pretty little neck and satisfy my rage and hunger. Bitting into her, I savoured her taste and then her blood. The warm liquid filled my mouth, moving down my throat, the euphoria starting to build. Although I could taste something abnormal in her blood, I couldn't worry about that now. My strength was now returning, my senses rebuffed and then, unexpectedly, a head splitting headache, a migraine like no other. My head felt like it was being forced open by two clawing hands, my visions blurred, and I could stand no longer. I howled in pain as I crashed to the ground along with the lady I had been drinking from. My throat was beginning to constrict, and my blood began to boil. Every cell in my body was at risk of being cooked. I turned to look at the lady as I writhed in pain on the ground, and she had the utmost look of disgust on her face while her eyes glinted with joy. 'She was doing this! Damn! She's stronger than I had thought.' Maybe the strongest I had met in the last century. The pain grew worse, and I continued to thrash. Surely, I was soon to black out at any moment.

But then, abruptly, it stopped. It was gone! The head splitting headache, the boiling blood, all of it, it was all gone. Scampering up onto my feet and taking a few steps away from the lady, half expecting the t*****e to resume but nothing happened. Her gaze was fixed into nothingness, and a small pool of blood had formed around her head. Her beautiful face was perfectly at rest. She was dead!

Taking one last look, I turned and flashed away.

I woke up on my bed, it was daybreak, checked the time, it was 6:50am. Feeling quite well rested and satiated, I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. The apartment I was living in had quite the back story. The building was painted in different shades of brown and cream. The front door led to a large sitting room with patterned tiles of the same dark grey colour as the walls. Three large flower patterned sofas in shades of the red coat of an apple with the patterns having a darker tint to them sat facing a mahogany table with carvings on it, making it look like an antique. A small TV set rested on the wall. At the far side of the sitting room was a small dining room, its table and chairs all made from the same mahogany wood as that of the sitting room but without its carvings. To the left of the dining room was a U-shaped kitchen. And to its right was a long, narrow corridor at whose end a staircase could be seen leading down to a passage. The passage was laiden with 5 rooms to it sides. The largest of which I had claimed. I got back from the bathroom and strode to the cupboard to set out the cloth for the day. I got dressed and went to the sitting room to put on the TV. The events of last night played in my head. I had been very close to losing my life after locking horns with a formidable witch. If I hadn't caused her to crash, I'd have been left there, burnt down to the bones just the way the witches loved to have it. 'What a bunch of nutcases' I scoffed inward.

"...died in a car crash. She was working a case of human trafficking against the alleged mob boss, Mr Age Timothy, whom the masses have come to call Toxin, after his chemical factory released toxic waste into the drainage system of the Ikate LGA two years back..." I heard in the news. I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself, "...the detective who arrived at the crash site minutes ago has refused to give comments on whether it was really an accident or a planned attack... Surprisingly, it has just come to our knowledge that the detective also happens to be the victim's sister!..." I cringed in my seat. 'She had a sister? Oh no! This is trouble! Could she really be her sister? Damn it!' Thoughts were pouring into my mind as I began to pace around the room. Witches were a dangerous lot, never to be messed with, and here I was, having killed one, one with a family. I'd have to leave as soon as possible, leave my job too. Not that I'd have stayed long in it, I'd still have left it after a few years before I was noticed to be forever youthful. I stopped pacing and stared at myself in the mirror on the wall. I looked exactly the same as the day I was forcibly taken from the shores of my homeland and made to slave away on a foreign ship. Ever since I had completed my transition alongside Arinze, I had only ever stayed in one place for a few decades or sometimes weeks. He and I had been separated by our blood lord, each made to go along with a group of six to seven consisting of our kind. My group and I had only been together for less than a century before being decimated by them! Never having a place safe from them. Now, here I was, about to allow the same to happen again. 'No, not anymore! I will take a stand against every one of them, related or not. And I'd start my crusade with this sister.' I grabbed my work bag and headed out to the crash site.

I drove to the scene, arriving at about 8:30 a.m., and waited in the car while taking a look at the cloudy sky. This was the best condition. I stepped out of the car, foot first, the rays of the sun that escaped the clouds hit my arm, but it didn't burn it, although it was still painful . I walked over to the police tape, bent below to cross it, and now stood face-to-face with an overly attractive woman who wore her hair in a ribbon. Her hair was abysmally black, and her eyeballs were pearly white encircling black pupils. Her lips were pink and shaped like the bow of Cupid. Her ebony skin seemed to glow under the radiant sun, with a slender, curved body, and was the same height as her older sister. She had an all too familiar look on her face... she was staring awestruck at me, her lips a little parted. I spoke first, clearing my throat, "Good morning, detective," I extended my right arm for a handshake, "I'm Daniel, a reporter for The Patriots, and I have a few questions." She didn't speak but only kept staring. "Miss?" She snapped back into reality, blinking twice, and the responded, "Morning Mr Daniel, I'm Detective Lola," She made efforts to keep a straight face, "Whatever questions you have would have to wait, investigations are still ongoing..." As she spoke, I had forgotten why I had come here. Her voice was velvety, and with my heightened senses, it sounded like the song of the nightingale on a night of passion. I wanted to know her, I thought. "...so if you'll pls excuse me." She was moving away, I had to act now, "Wait Detective," I said, walking towards her, smiling, "how about a date tonight?" I asked. "Oh!" She replied, a little bemused and amused. I knew I was sure to get a yes for an answer. Resisting a vampire wasn't easy! "Well, Mr Daniel, that's really nice of you," I smiled, shoeing white teeth, she continued, "but I have to say no." And she walked away.