Awakened Dawn

Two:

Part of me didn’t know what to expect when we arrived at the massive building. Just in this one area flowed more traffic of activity and human life than an entire segment of London four hundred years ago. To imagine multi-million populaces in many metropolises across a vast network of nations would have been inconceivable for people of that era.

What was also inconceivable at the time of my entombment was this bright light that seemed to illuminate every square inch of the darkness. Earth was now a terribly bright place and humans appeared to have conquered the night. All this unimaginable advancement gave rise to a host of questions, like how my tribe was maintaining its blood supply.

Some iron bird thundered overhead and I jumped and turned to study it.

“What the devil is that!?”

I asked, looking upward to the sky, and several of the nearby humans turned to gaze upon me like a nutter. There was something remarkably reminiscent of the sketches of the human Leonardo Da Vinci’s work centuries prior in the flying metal construct. In fact, many objects and ideas around this city seemed to be inspired by seemingly mad geniuses from centuries ago. Back when they dreamed of the world with more laws and fewer limitations than previously imagined, everyone called them heretics, and many suffered for their art and innovation.

Beyond all hope of personal recognition, it appeared these same madmen were immortalized in their life’s work, now integrally integrated into the human experience of life. Something almost beautiful in the injustice mixed with vindication nearly summoned tears to the eye. As a being of such lengthy existence, I could appreciate the duality of the nature of men and women. That which stands out is hammered down, yet that which stands apart is what inspires the most galvanizing change in the future course of mankind.

“That’s just a plane, basically a flying tin can. No biggie, you’ll eventually learn to love them like the rest of us, or you’ll learn to take a pill before you board, and sleep through the flight.”

Anne remarked, and I frowned.

“What the devil is a pill? If that is some sort of tonic for the nerves, I never require such bloody appeasements like some sort of dainty lady.”

I said, and the sudden influx of distaste in my tone spoke to my potent feelings against just such stereotypes. More’s the pity that vampyr men were still as much guilty of these generalities as humans, that I could hardly contain my darker impulses when they would insult my strength or assumed me weak or adverse to wade in the thickest c*****e to defend what was mine. Truth was, while many of the courtly gentlemen of my kingdom and those surrounding my former home of Dublin, were playing with the t***s of their mistresses, I was fighting back fae threats and human usurpers who would have claimed our little fiefdom for themselves.

“One can certainly see why there are not more fae folk here in the dark new world.”

I commented and something in my descriptor of the Americas seemed to surprise and confound my beautiful young new friend.

“I thought Africa was the Dark Continent?”

Anne asked, and I smiled and bobbed my head in confirmation.

“Aye, it was called such, but the Americas were also the dark savage new world as well. We landed faced with shifters and all manners of indigenous dangers lurking about.”

She seemed to nod with her mouth slightly ajar.

“Fairies are real?”

She asked me, and I grinned at her, forgetting myself in the fog of my thirst. Most of the time, I was like a stone monument in flesh and blood. I could stand implacable even under the fiercest scrutiny.

“They are regrettably as real as you or I. They may not feast upon your very blood, but they do in fact feed upon human life force in many ways. In that, we immortals are all vampyr in some manner or another.”

I told her, and she seemed to handle this information in stride. Anne seemed to be a very capable young woman, able to put everything into perspective and face down even death incarnate. Beyond every hope I could have had, she was kind, and she was willing to blindly aid a being who had more than once warned her off for fear of danger.

“So, should I start laying out mushroom circles to trap fae? Or, perhaps untying all my shoes and spreading them out along the entrance to my yard?”

She inquired and I snorted slightly, as it was far from the first time I had heard this wives’ tale about fairies. They were not wee-people like the stories suggested. In fact, elves on average were nearer to seven-foot tall. Only the pixies and a few other fae species were small like the mythology of humans would suggest. Pixies alone were also the most harmless individually. Most humans only knew minor mischiefs such as their likes. Pukas and other larger shape-changers caused mortal danger to those fool enough to cross their paths. The fae, on average, was melancholy to the lives of mortals than vampyr. We relished and revered the continued growth of our blood supply and the slow changes and adaptations of the species we had been like an older sibling to, helping with invisible guidance in critical times.

Make no mistake, there were full clans of vampyr whose blood hoarders and blood revelers were made. They would snuff out the life of the mortals around them on a whim and drink them dry. There was extraordinarily little which separated the lunatic pan-species.

“So, fairies really don’t like metal? That rumor is true?”

Anne asked, and I bobbed my head in confirmation.

“Just iron, but correct. To touch iron for a fae is like being scorched by the heat of a truly bright flame.”

She seemed to think about this new information.

“So, yeah, that was a plane and we’re going to walk into this hospital now before someone decides to toss us both in the funny farm.”

She said, and I gave her a cross look and she shrugged and gently nudged me on towards the door. Her lack of fear and seeming trust in my continued restraint amazed me. There was no way for me to know if she was remarkably brave or remarkably stupid to be in such proximity to a ravenous vampyr. Especially one of my considerable prowess. She could not begin to imagine the power I once held over the civilized world. I was she who was two of the most powerful beings in all of Britannia, and by extension, all of the Americas later.

The Lycanthropes tried to kill me, force me out, and even sent assassins for my heart. All failed. Ironically, it was my very own flesh and blood who locked me in my prison in the end. Once more, a pulse of anxiety shot through me as my nerves were like razor blades across the skin, wondering what had become of my daughter Alexia.

“By the by, you wouldn’t happen to know of Alexia Aubrey, would you?”

I asked, and Anne’s eyes bulged in her head.

“The most beautiful and influential young woman in all of New Orleans? Head of her family corporation built up since the very foundation of New Orleans?! Everyone knows of her, why?”

She asked, and I looked away, and considered her very honest sounding assessment of what was known of my child to the mortal world.

“Let’s just say she is my closest family remaining since she appears to be breathing.”

I told Anne honest enough, skipping the slight details of how she was my baby, and I was older than the dust coating the surface world.

“Don’t tell me, vampire, like you?”

She asked, and several people gawked at us as they heard the V-word in passing.

“Keep your bloody lips sealed on that topic, woman! DO ye want a fecking lynching mob at our every beck and call?!”

I exclaimed softly but ardently to her.

“Sure, like anyone is going to care about the VAMPIRES!”

Anne shouted, and I growled and prepared to pounce at her. But beyond a few skeptical looks, half-drowsy and barely gawking up from the small devices they were staring upon, no one seemed to notice or care about us. Anne had literally just shouted vampire in the street leading up to a hospital building.

“You should see the look on your face right now! It’s priceless!”

She said in a giggling fit of amusement as she opened and held the door for me.

I nodded slightly in thanks as I walked in and brushed past her. Something about her type of vulgarity seemed to amuse and intrigue me, despite my fears about being discovered.

“What about yer friends? Will they tell the tale of the wench in the coffin?”

I asked, and she laughed again and shook her head widely and said, “No, people will just think we’re high as kites! No way in hell they will risk that!”

My frown deepened as I took in this information. Anne seemed to believe there was more to lose by talking of vampires than in keeping them safely hidden. This told me humans still did not know of us, and that they no longer seemed to be nearly as prone to the traditions and superstitions of my bygone era.

“This sounds like a very pleasant time to be a vampyr. No lynching mobs or torch-carrying mortals to chase us out of town.”

Anne seemed to be skeptical about this comment, but she arched a quizzical brow.

“You cannot be serious?”

She asked, and I shrugged and said, “They used to drown young women and call them witches, despite there being no such thing.”

This captured her attention, and she snapped her fingers and said, “Dammit, I was all about the Wicca when I was younger.”

I hissed and exclaimed, “Darken Fae rituals!”

Her eyes bulged wider and she said, “So, witchcraft is what, dark fae?”

I looked off and considered the question but kept walking. How would I explain power and magiks to a human? Magiks are ageless and primal abilities that transcended the physical laws of nature. They tapped into the celestial laws, which humans had yet to even discover were in existence, even now. Vampyr and Fae have lived by the celestial laws that govern all existence since the dawn of our two species. The Lycanthropes came along later, a cursed manifestation of the darken fae magiks, but evidence of the fallout of universal laws run rampant. However, that was all story for another time.

“Never you mind that. For now, let us locate your bagged blood source so we can retreat from this abysmally smelling place. It is as artificial as it is unnatural.”

I commented. The odors of harsh chemicals or alchemical properties were ripe in the air. There were a plethora of masked humans, as if fearful of the very air they breathed. The fear permeated this entire structure like a supercharged magiks of its own kind. Emotions powerful enough caused magiks hot spots. If the fae were around, the darkened ones would certainly love to feast upon this misery and terror. The night folk would suck them dry of their powerful negative emotions, just for the light folk to suck out the joy and love which remained, leaving humans empty husks. As previously stated, we are all vampyr of some form or another. Mine is simply the thirst for their blood, not to drive them mad whilst removing critical life essence.

As with everything, there is fae who live in balance and only feed upon what is needed on all sides in all courts. But there are also many who would have humans dried to dust for their amusement. In this, no species appears to be superior, not really. No evil absolute, and not truly. Just only various shades of all these things combined on heaven, earth, and hell all.

The expansive reception area held nearly one hundred freshly ailing patients of all manners of infirmities. I could smell blood sicknesses in some, others with fresh physical trauma, and even more with contagious injections. Blood and flesh told their stories as if they were open books to me, without bothering to even look upon the various bodies. My blood sense was extremely developed. By the time I was a child of twelve, I could track even the most powerful prey over hundreds of miles off the scent of a single speck of blood or sweat.

“This probably isn’t a very good place to bring a starving vampire, on second thought. But, since we’re here, how about you just put on your big vamp panties and follow me. I think I remember where the hematology department is located.”

Anne informed me, and she pulled me along as if to snap me from my blood-addled trance. Some sanity hard won over the two centuries of the prison had managed to hone my razor sharp control into an even more finely tuned edge. No vampire I have ever seen released from their sentence had ever lasted more than a second without killing the closest mortal in their vicinity. We often took men sentenced for execution off the local magistrate’s hands for this very reason. They fed the revived, and the town was spared dealing with another horrible criminal. Reason in thirst was beyond normal. Usually, in thirst, there was only depravity and mayhem. Yet, here I was, sane, starving, but fully under my own power. Anne’s thrumming pulse was deeply appealing, but I managed to retain the same sanity I’d usually expect had I been feeding every day as was my usual.

“I assure you, I have myself restrained, though I am not certain how.”

I confessed and assured Anne at the same time. She seemed to give this a moment’s thought before she searched around for something that did not appear obvious to me right now.

“Ah, there we go!”

She exclaimed, and trotted over holding my hand, pulling me along like a horse dragging its weary passenger from behind.

“What the devil is that?!”

I asked, and she flicked an amusing look at me and asked, “Why is the vampire constantly asking about the devil? You’d expect a little less Puritan out of a creature of the night.”

Standing there blinking at her choice of descriptors for my behavior and wording was enlightening in many ways. It seemed to indicate a deviation in the culture of America, the departure from the ways of their forefathers. Not that I believed the Puritans had been all that interesting in the first place. Salem was a monumental waste of youth and beauty, and I had heard from friends how xenophobic and paranoid the bitterness and bile of the blood font had become surrounding the far too uptight condemning ways of the radical Puritans. We had witnessed this in every major social structuring and religious body throughout time. Blaming the unusual or the outsider and charging them with crimes of fiction simply to assert authority.

“Oh, how young and naïve it is to not realize that the devil is with us all, always. The devil is inside us all, each one capable of profoundly ghastly deeds disguised with the veneer of civility.”

I told her, as we approached a curious construct which I soon recognized as a map of sorts. I saw “Hematology” written on the fifth floor, and it appeared to be on the eastern side of the building at the rear corner.

“Am I to assume, we go to the fifth floor to the eastern rear corner?”

I inquired. Anne gave me a slightly surprised look, and I smirked at her without exposing my teeth to the well-lit hospital full of various ill mortals.

“Yeah, just amazed you worked that out so quick.”

She confessed, and I gave her a bemused look.

“I am a fast study, My Lady. Now, if you would be so kind, please show me to the stairs so I may travel to our destination.”

She seemed to give me a strange look, as if unable to decide how to react to my endearment and proper address. It only took a heartbeat to realize the old titles and proper names were not in use today. Anne’s expression gave that way for me.

“The elevator is back here, come on smarty vamp.”

She sassed, and I narrowed my eyes marginally at her. I suspected her words to be some form of clever wordplay, only I did not have the relevant experience with modern language and dialect to grasp her play on words.

“After you then, madam.”

I said, testing the waters, and once again, she seemed to cringe slightly, as if this was awkward and out of place in her vocabulary.

“You’re going to have to learn how to speak before you open your mouth around anyone else. You’re a dead giveaway that you don’t belong here.”

Anne informed me, and her words bit into my heart, finding purchase inside me. I knew she was right, on more levels than her mortal mind could possibly perceive. I was the relic of the past, the only living queen to have lost her throne and not her life. My kind is ferociously territorial, we do not handle challenges to our authority well. Now I was a ghost, floating around my daughter’s fiefdom, scrounging for my first meal. To say this was a miserable affair for me, would grievously understate matters. My pain and my anxiety were unfathomable, as were the sorrowful emotions which caused my madness in the first place. Even to this day, I cannot begin to understand the sequence of events that caused me to go primal. Even a grieving mother should not have flipped so easily to her most savage instinct. There was something wrong with me. I was broken inside in some manner which aided this process. This is what I have concluded thus far.

Even now that I was free and about to feed, I had no earthly idea what I was planning to do with my life. Everything I lived and worked for had already come to pass and passed me by. My entire life and my entire kingdom had already passed on to the capable hands of my child. As much as I loved who I was, I did not love it enough to cause my daughter harm. Alexia lost not only a sister, but her mum, that day two centuries ago. I was not there for my girl and she was forced to make decisions no fifteen-year-old should have to make. Like my mum before me, I too left a young vampyr to fend for herself. Only mine was a little queen. Part of my deepest fear had been my children warring over the crown since both children were powerful young vampyrs in their own rights. Each was respected by the age of their adulthood in the eyes of the Clan at thirteen. However, they were scarcely more than girls when last I saw either one.

To manage to hold my tears inside was no small feat. Alexia and Abigale were the only joyful light of my universe. They were like the sun itself without the blistering anguish.

“Heavens above! What in the holy mother’s name is that coffin-like opening?!”

I asked, as a ringing sounded, and the metal doors parted, and people walked out of the metallic confines. Several of them stared at me in passing. According to Anne, my dress was not period appropriate. Yet another confounding thing, my dress was intact, but it displayed signs of aging, despite the runes in the coffin. No vampyr in all the time the hibernation coffins had been used had ever experienced the passage of time as I.

If not for trusting the one who sealed me as I do my Alexia, I would have been forced to believe some tampering was deliberate. However, no way in hell was my Alexia trying to destroy my mind further. She was more likely to have tried to make things as pleasant as could be possible.

There were no ready answers for me.

“This is the elevator, as in our way up to the fifth floor.”

I gave the questionable device a once-over and sucked back my quips and observations about the possible structural flaws in the device.

“I am going to trust your word is good, Miss Anne. You do not appear to be leading me to my own death.”

I said, and she seemed to be suppressing a grin, but her lips were twitching in amusement.

“You do that, and please, how about we move this along, yeah? You look like you came out of the damn Victorian Era.”

She said, and I smiled slightly, and I prowled into the open doors. I felt the elevator shift slightly with my weight as we entered. I realized the contraption must be hanging in place by some mechanical device, because of how unstable the floor felt beneath me.

“You’re sure this damnable human concept is worth the metal it’s forged with?”

I asked, making a casual comment about the less than stellar metal mixture used in this creation. It was a poor man’s design. If this were something used to forge blades, it would be brittle compared to the others of higher quality and refined process. Being that I was once a queen, it was down to me to know such matters at a glance. I must know my men are all gaining weapons of a high standard and they are as well-armed and protected if they face down our enemies, as is possible.

“Next stop, vamp meals on wheels.”

Anne murmured to herself, and she smiled, knowing very well I could make out her words. While I did not understand the cultural reference, I did very easily deduce she was once again playing on her words with the vampire insertion. True to her word, the ghastly device shut upon us, yanked us up five floors, and finally came to a jarring stop on the fifth floor.

“Never again! Feck that, I’d rather take the bloody stairs, henceforth.”

I told her, as Anne led me off the elevator contraption, and I swore several choice phrases to myself as we began to walk east and south.

“Ok, so, um, can you move fast? Like once we get through the hematology department, can you like sneak past the people working? If you can’t make it to the large refrigerators unnoticed, then we may have just wasted time.”

Anne asked, and I nodded vigorously and said, “Aye, I am extremely fast. Your eyes only see what I will you to see.”

I told her in a very sincere tone, and Anne gave me a brittle smile.

“You certainly know how to sound damn creepy for such a Class-A hottie, you know!”

Anne told me, and I shrugged and said, “Your world is as queer to me as I must be to you.”

She smiled at me and muttered, “One could only hope you’re as queer as I am.”

I frowned because her play on words now confounded me. Was she saying she wished me as odd as her?

“Queer in what manner? Is there something off about you? Mayhap we can have the doctors give you a gander whilst we are here, Miss Anne.”

I asked, and she laughed loudly, and several of the white and blue dressed ladies in uniform trousers looked our way. I was marveling at the many women dressed more like men. Fashion and dress had shifted on a dime in my absence. I had no issue with the more masculine appearance, and I loved how many of the masculine looks accentuated the female curves so generously, but I was amazed that the men allowed such changes. I was going to lose myself in a library before long, that was certain. I had a lot of catching up to do.

***

“Just do vampire things, and go fetch the blood, girl!”

Anne said, and she motioned me towards a room where I could already smell a massive reservoir of blood. Never even in the wildest of sanguine dens of vampyr iniquity had I smelt such a vast array of blood.

“Heaven keep me sane!”

I murmured in exclamation to myself, as I prayed and shot off, moving fast enough that Anne and all the other mortals lost all sight or perception of me instantly.

There was no need to explain how the chilly glassy doors worked, as I was smart enough to deduce the blood was being kept chilled to preserve it from spoiling. Humans had grown clever in my rest. They were always resourceful, but now they had become downright cheeky!

Controlling my urge to empty the entire coffer to my strange zipper bag Anne gifted me, I took two clear bags of blood, and I quickly rushed out as the white coat clad woman turned at the sound of the door clicking. My movement should hopefully be unnoticed.