Fortier: Blood and Moon

Absolute

It didn't take long before I was back in those narrow paths leading to our house. It felt more surreal with every step I took. Was I not the one who always said that I will not partake? What changed? I don't understand. Is this the emotions that humans often write poems tales about? How useless, pointless and painful it is . . .

As I got closer to the house, the sound of battle soon lit in my ears and I began to smell the blood that was covering the place. I rushed inside, and pushed the door open, a trail of blood caught my attention and led me across the hallway, and there I saw members of my family, lying in a pool of their own blood. But next to them were many Bertrams as well, there was no doubt.

I closed my eyes for a moment, to try and sense who was there, and how many they were. Two apparent smells jumped ahead of the rest and those two were none other than Roger and Lychas. The head of the Bertrams, themselves, came personally to fight this war. But what does it mean? Was he betting that I would fight with my father and that I would take myself away?

I heard a scream that sounded familiar a bit, and it forced my eyes open. I rushed in, pushing through the doors and ignoring whatever was in front of me; they were too busy to notice me, believe it or not. But that usually happens in battles; if you lose your concentration for but a moment you are lost.

I went inside the corridor and pushed into the hall where I first met my mother, and there I saw Petra. Why was she not in my mother’s room? And why do I not sense any breath coming out of her? Did she suddenly fall asleep on the ground while drinking blood? No . . . Petra was dead. I stood there in silence, with my eyes just fixated on her. How calm she was in life and in her death, and it was only then that it struck me. If I was blood she was the moon.

I've never felt such rage before, but is it justified? Who even killed her? I don't see anyone, not a soul in that forsaken hall. I swallow and for some reason I spoke. “Petra?” I said loud and clear.

“Alfred? Is that truly you!” my mother said, as she barged through from my father's room. She rushed in and hugged me, but I didn't hug her back. I simply looked at her. “Did my father do this?” I asked her. I wanted to know if he was the one who did this.

“No! Alfred, it wasn’t your father. It's not what it looks like, son! You gotta help us fend off this attack, we were caught off guard--“

“It wasn't your father that killed Petra,” I heard a voice cry from the darkness, and instantly I sighed knowing that this is someone who is worthy to stand before me.

“Then who did?” I asked.

“It was me, Fortier,” Roger said, as he came forth and stood across from me. He sighed and took a breath. “How shameful . . . A Zeidan and a Bertram? You make me sick to my stomach. We came here to protect our own, but what do we find? My little sister, laying in your filthy bed, dressed like you.”

“Why would you kill your own sister, Roger? Have you lost your mind?” I asked him. It didn't make sense to me. Why would they put their honor ahead of their own? Did I even have a right to interfere between them? No, f**k that. Those pitiful things never mattered to me anyway.

“Yes. Our family has been long-standing since before you and she both existed, and it will remain far longer than you and I both do, as well.” He said as he started to crack his knuckles. Just what was going on his mind?

“So what, you did this for your honor?”

“That’s exactly right. It's not something, someone like you can understand.”

“You truly believe that a mere illusion is worth more than a life?” I said before I cracked my neck in return. “Well, let's put that to the test, shall we?” I added before I began to walk towards him.

“It's funny you say that, Alfred,” he said before a smirk wore his face. “You probably heard about the rumors going left and right about who is stronger between the two of us.”

“Don't insult me,” I said before I took a pause. “The fact that a fake and an original are being compared is insult enough.” I then took another glimpse at him.

He jumped and in a blink of an eye, he threw a punch at me. He aimed it straight into my eyes. Good tactic, if it wasn't that I was miles faster than him. I caught his fist with my palm, and I began to squeeze.

I heard him begin to scream louder by the second. I took a look deep into his eyes. “I want you to die, knowing full well that it is because you killed Petra, your family will perish by my hands, every single one of them.”

I could see his eyes widen up, bewildered he didn’t know what to do except shout louder and throw as many punches as he could to my side with his free hand. But it didn’t mean anything; I couldn't feel it. That was the true difference between the real Fortier and the fake.

His eyes sprung across and flailed, he was looking left and right, frantically looking for someone to save him from my grasp. But something clicked inside of me: this was the person whom they compared me with?

Pathetic. I don't know why, but I felt that sensation, that bloodlust that only a vicious vampire would feel. I pushed his arm upwards and he staggered.

He yelled if only for a moment, before I struck my hand towards his chest, and took out his heart. He squealed, as would befit him. A wounded animal, no more and no less. What a joke, for me to be compared to this. Blood came running down his nose, mouth and eyes. The sheer force of standing before me must have gotten to him. He had seconds to live without his heart . . . and how did he use them? He didn’t.

I took a long and hard look into his eyes, and leaned towards him. "Where is your honor now, Roger? Where are those who will cry for you? Who will remember you?” I whispered gently into his ear before I took a pause. “You needn't worry, they will all join you soon enough.”

His eyes turned red, and he dropped on the floor, his body still shivering and shaking beneath me where he belonged, but the bloodlust wasn’t gone. Petra's death sure did its toll me . . . I couldn’t believe that I was drawn into that conflict finally. I rolled my eyes down to my fist, where Roger's heart was still beating. Now, this is the part that I haven't told you.

How power transfers from one vampire to another, see not a lot of vampires even know how this is done; convenient for me, to tell you the truth, but the secret lies in those seconds where the heart of another is still beating. One must devour it to acquire the abilities of the host.

But, being the Fortier, I had the privilege to be able to pass on a few, and that is exactly what I did. I simply stared at the heart, as the beatings then stopped. I looked at my mother, and she had this look on her face . . . I could never shake the feeling off.

My own mother was scared of me. Of what I became and what I could do. That look on her face sent a chill down my spine.

I stopped, as more and more Bertrams flooded to where we were. They were busy eying down their fallen hero . . . their own version of the Fortier, beaten like a mad dog and shown his place. I heard them whisper to each other “Roger is dead . . . this is over, we can't beat the Fortier . . . we need to go back!”

Were they cowards? Or did they simply understand that there was no possibility of victory so long as I stand where I am? I took another look at them, and heard the cries of someone who sounded familiar.

They all turned towards those voices of agony, as if the earth had split apart. I looked ahead and saw the door to my father's chambers pushed open.

Lychas was injured. Just what was he up to? Was he battling against my father? He came rushing in, and only halted when his eyes fell upon the bodies of Petra and Roger, his prized possessions, both lay in a pool of their own blood.

His eyes bewildered, as both his mouth and jaw were wide open. I could hear his own heartbeats swell and rise up rivaling that of drums.

In a blink of an eye, blood came splattering from Lychas as well, he coughed as he began spitting blood, he looked down and saw another hand that plowed through his chest, he felt the fingernails of another resting on his beating heart before it forced it out to make through to the other end. The hand that did that belonged to none other than my father.

My father kicked Lychas as he fell on his face. He was holding the beating heart of another Bertram, and not just a Bertram, but the most important one of them all.

They all gawked and began to shiver where they stand. The long-battled war between our families was settled, but to what end? Would my father ever stop hunting them down?

I heard my father laugh, as he began to sink his teeth right into that heart, and picked a huge portion of it in his mouth. The more he chewed, the more blood came out from the heart he was devouring. He began to stagger as that rush of energy and power transferred to him.

He began to laugh hysterically. “It is done! Kill them all! Let none escape!” he cried.

I couldn't believe my own eyes. He had the thing he wanted the most . . . the vampires responsible for the atrocity of the Salem Witch trials were finally dead, so just why did he desire more death and destruction . . . ? Just when would it end?

I looked across and saw the faces of the Bertrams gathered there, their fight you would think would’ve been long gone, but I knew that this would have the opposite effect: it would spark in them a new light of vengeance all the same . . . . I wouldn't let that happen. I couldn't.

And so, my mother had her eyes fixed on me, trying to make to stop this madness, I could see it in her face, but more so than ever, my father would be more ferocious and ruthless.

With those thoughts in mind, I marched slowly towards my father and stopped right behind him. He was too busy laughing to notice me.

I grabbed him, and turned him around; his eyes were filled with delight. Having won this without my involvement for much, was surely a huge victory that would be forever remembered. “Alfred, my son! I knew you would stand with us—”

He stopped, suddenly. He couldn’t continue his sentence. His eyes turned to the color of the sun. Brightened in fury as he gazed upon his son, that struck his heart down and took it out. “Why!” he mumbled before his gaze fell upon his departing heart.

“I told you to weigh your words carefully,” I said to him, before I pushed him with my left hand. In my right lay the heart of my own father. Much to the horrors and screams of the family members and my mother, none of them though, had dared to move a single step, as I turned to face them all, Bertrams and Zeidans alike.

“Let his death be the end of this.” I said unto them. My words felt like a soothing knife that kindled and tended to the hearts of the wounded as it did to those who moments earlier reveled in the taste of victory before I squashed my father’s heart.

“And this will be the end of this, for if this feud continues, I will be the end of you all.”