Where It Started
1414 Words
The mist had not cleared.
If anything, it swelled around them as Armand Cain trailed behind Celeste through Blackthorn's winding streets. Lanterns along the cramped roads shuddered with jagged light, struggling to cut through the fog that gagged the town like a mouthful of ash. The air was frigid here, oppressive. The silence between them was not hollow; it was heavy with significance, with unvoiced questions, held-back desire, and something much more sinister than either dared to call.
She stepped ahead of him, her cloak a dark shadow falling behind her, the lines of her body changing beneath silken folds. Her skin shone like alabaster in the light of the lanterns, not living, not dying, something different altogether. Armand could not help but follow her with his gaze. She was a paradox, lovely and awful. And each time her shining eyes met his, a shiver passed through him, not so much of fear, but lust.
The fog was not natural. He was certain of that. It constricted them, this fog, like a living entity considerate, protective, and old. It seemed summoned. As though it had a purpose: to hide the town from reality. or imprison someone within it.
The smell of wet wood and the reek of dying leaves hung in the air. But under it, Celeste's essence imprinted her own: lavender, old blood, and something else. Something else gentler. Something human.
They halted.
A large, black-stoned house loomed before them, surrounded by gnarled trees and an iron fence infested with rust. Its windows were boarded up, its face cracked and weathered with rain rot. The town had grown old, but this house had desiccated. And it still stood.
"This is where it all began," Celeste said, her voice a strand of silk blended with loss. "All of it."
Armand's throat constricted.
The house was older than the village. It exuded a presence, as though it was waiting not just for visitors, but for someone in particular. His hand fell instinctively to his sword.
“What happened here? ” he asked.
Celeste didn't respond initially. She stood with her back to the door, her profile illuminated by the lantern light, her face a mask. "Prior to your people's discovery of fear of the dark, this town thrummed with energy. Not the sort that your Order instructs you in rituals, relics, and beasts. No, something more fundamental. Deeper. The earth itself was alive with magic. And humans. Humans tend to want to master what they don't comprehend.
Her voice quivered, and Armand heard something odd in its weakness.
"Were you involved in it?" he whispered.
Her eyes dropped to him, then clear, unblinking. "Yes, I was the start, and I was the error."
A silence built between them. The word hung suspended. Curse. It echoed in Armand's mind like the tolling of a cathedral bell.
"You think I'm supposed to believe you're a victim?" he asked. "A vampire who just happened to be caught up in something ancient and horrible?"
"I expect nothing from you," she whispered. "But I saved you, didn't I? Twice. And here you are."
Armand had no response for that. His faith was rigid, his conditioning absolute. But none of it readied him for her, for the way her voice etched itself beneath his skin, or how she made his years of certainty grow silent around him like armor.
The ground around them shook.
Not an earthquake. No movement of stone, no pressure. It felt like something was stirring.
Armand turned, sword in hand, his gaze scanning the fog-shrouded road.
Celeste didn't blink. "It's not vampires," she replied. "It's worse."
He felt his stomach lurch. "What is it?"
She walked over to the front door of the manor, following the curve of the iron handle with her fingers. "It's not a who, Armand. It's a what. And it never stopped watching.
The doors groaned open with the sound of a dying animal. Out of the darkness within came a gust of air, cold, dry, and heavy with the stench of old dust and things better left in the ground.
He stayed back at the door.
Duty yelped for him to depart. His training yelled for restraint. But neither had any bearing when he gazed at her. The hunter in him cried for death. The man in him craved answers, and more than that, he craved to touch the truth hidden behind her grief.
"What do we find inside?" he questioned.
Celeste turned, her tone barely above a whisper. "The truth. And the start of the end."
They entered inside.
The doors slammed shut behind them.
The entrance hall was large and run-down. Peeling wallpaper remained on the walls. Rotting beams creaked across the high ceiling. Portraits along the walls of faces long deceased, eyes that tracked them with accusation. Dust covered the floor. But somewhere above, the distant flicker of candlelight danced.
As they went up the grand staircase, the quiet grew more profound. The house creaked, but it was more than wood. It was breathing.
Celeste stepped forward, but Armand couldn't take his eyes off her hips rocking, the arch of her back, and the way her fingers stroked down the banister with deference. The space between them grew heavy. His heart raced. And when she turned back to him, her gaze held a fraction of a second too long.
They stood before a huge door wrought with runes he didn't understand. Celeste placed a hand on it, and it creaked open by itself.
The room was cold and wide, washed in silver moonlight. At its center lay an altar of stone etched with ancient glyphs, each pulsing faintly with light. The very air felt heavier here, like they’d stepped into another time.
Celeste walked to the altar, her movements reverent. “This is where the pact was made.”
Armand moved forward, driven. He extended his hand. As soon as his fingers made contact with the stone, pain shot through his brain.
Blood. Flame. Shouting. A woman, exquisite and shattered. A man in shackles. A god of darkness murmuring promises in darkness.
He jerked his hand away, heart pounding.
"What in the world was that?"
Celeste stood next to him, closer than she had been earlier. "Memories. The altar remembers."
He looked at her. "And you?"
"I never forgot.
He gazed at her. She was every question he'd buried, every rule he'd obeyed, and every line he was supposed to never cross.
But he crossed it.
He moved closer.
And so did she.
Their mouths were inches apart. Her breath whispered across his lips. His hand drifted to her waist, not knowing if it was desire, fury, or something more sinister drawing him closer. Her palm came to a stop on his chest, fingers tracing the curve of his collar.
"I shouldn't want this," he whispered.
"I gave up trying to want anything a long time ago," she said.
He kissed her.
It was not soft.
It was hunger.
Her lips parted in a gasp, and he moved into her, holding her against the wall. Her hands were tangled in his hair, his fingers wrapped around the curve of her hip. There was no fear, only flame. Her fangs scraped his lip, leaving a trickle of blood, and she pulled away, eyes untamed.
"Don't," she breathed. "If I taste too much, I won't be able to stop."
He stared at her neck, at the soft pulse under skin like porcelain.
"I don't care."
She did.
With a shuddering breath, she thrust him back, not hard, but firm.
"This is not just lust, Armand," she whispered, her voice ragged. "This is the curse. It calls to you. It feeds on attachment, desire. It craves this."
He fought to breathe, chest thudding. "Then let it. Let it know what it's awakened."
Celeste's smile, bitter and broken. "You don't get it. If we surrender, we don't make it."
They stood in silence.
And the altar surged.
The glyphs flared.
A sound from beneath the floor, muted and inhuman, wet and echoing, like flesh scraping across stone.
Celeste's eyes flew to the door. "It's here."
"What is it?"
She turned to him, the pretense stripped away. "The thing that ate this town. The reason I've remained. The reason people vanish.
Armand pulled out his sword. "Then we kill it."
She took his hand, hers sliding over his. "Together, or not at all."
The ground under the altar split apart.
And the whispers resumed.
- Writer
