The Immortals of Sumer

Chapter Seventeen

The world seemed to be silent for a moment and I wanted to shake my head, say ‘no’, or something…but I stopped and asked myself what else would I expect to do with my life. In all honesty, a hybrid vampire nymph that was always hunted by Vlad and now probably hated by the werewolves. There was so many nice things that I’ve had since being with Vlad. Food and clothes and comfort. I didn’t even bother telling him my last name was still Adams, as in Michael Adams.

“Yes, I’ll marry you, of course,” I said and he scooped me up in his arms with another kiss. He laughed and I was shocked at how warm his laugh was and I lean down to him for another kiss. He really did have a ring and he slid it onto my ring finger. I was shocked at how beautiful the ring was! It was a thin twisted band of three silver strands braided together and then it seemed to curl upwards to cup a precious stone. It was a black onyx stone and I loved it!

He could sense how much I liked it because he said, “I’m glad you truly love it.” He lean down to kiss me again before he told me how it was going to go down. Radu and Uri were going to escort me through the woods nearby. There would be a convoy at the ready at the first sight of something weird. We would set out at first light and must be back by the end of the day, before dark.

And he went overboard with the supplies. Oh, boy, did he ever but it was his way of being comfortable with me leaving him. I went to dinner with the ladies and they seemed extra chipper, which made my day go by quicker. I went back to Vlad to see him planning with Radu and Uri about the nearby forest areas. I sat in the chair and relaxed for the rest of the night until Vlad was ready for bed.

He was ready for bed by making them all get out as he picked me up. With me giggling, he threw me down on the cot as he undid his pants. I looked back up at him with an excitement and then I watched his pants drop. I watched him growing as I shimmed out of my own clothes. Slowly, he got down on top of me but I wasn’t having it this time. I twisted us around to where he was on his back and I got on top of him.

He was grinning at me as I pushed myself down on top of him and he moaned, seemingly losing control as I started bouncing up and down on him. He grabbed my breasts and pinched as I arched my back and clenched onto him, going up and down quicker and quicker. He was panting as much as I was as I started melting for him as I felt him twitching inside me.

He spun me around and bent me over again, on my knees with him holding my neck down to the pillow. He thrust inside me again and again as I moaned, not giving two shits who heard us. “Oh, oh f**k, yes,” I cried out as he let me go to grab both my hips and used them as leverage to start ramming against me. He seemed to have to stop suddenly, staying inside me as he groaned.

Then ever so slowly he pulled me up onto him again as we kissed passionately. We let our tongue entwine as our bodies kept rolling against each other. I was physically shaking as I melted for him a third time and he burned for me not a minute later. We crumpled onto the cot and I curled up against his chest, hiding my face against his neck.

He chuckled as he wrapped his arms around me and I listened to his breathing even out. “I’m glad you’re going to be my wife.” He chuckled softly in my ear and said, “With how we have s*x, you’re going to be more than my wife. If we keep this up without a condom, you’re going to be the mother of my children too.” I realized he was very spot on and my gut twisted. Oh, s**t!

We hadn’t been stopping because I just thought you know vampires were dead…but I literally am the product of a vampire and a witch! Come on, girl, be smarter! Making babies when you’re going to die in a year?! So they can be motherless like me? f**k that. I had to get away from that train of thought before Vlad caught on to my feelings about it all.

I would focus on tomorrow and the purpose ahead. Tomorrow, Radu, Uri and I would set out at first light. This was the one chance I had to find the stone. And soon, more sleep and more visions of it swept over me…

“Are you okay,” Uri asked. He and I were hiking through the forest and were were focused looking for the symbol I kept seeing. I had gotten so excited that I stumbled on some foliage that seemed to snag at my boot. I didn’t care, I wanted to find this symbol and I was so sure it was close by now! But it wasn’t a symbol, it was more like a circular polished stone with writing on it. Who wouldn’t be curious?

Anyway, I nodded and said, “Yeah, just checking out the scenery.” That was the truth. I was looking around the forest; seeing the huge sycamore trees, the deep green grass, and the plants that grew through the grass. I was also thinking that this would be a wonderful place to just meditate. After everything with Vlad, the slaves, and the werewolves, I could use some relaxation and meditation.

Then suddenly, from a ways away, Radu shouted for us to come check this out. He was looking down at his feet and I ran over to him, where I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a patch of grass missing and in its place was a perfectly circular white-“It’s an alabaster stone and it’s old,” was all Radu said. Yes!

Uri got there too and sighed. “Hey, it that it?” I heard him ask but I was silent. In the center of the stone was Theban writing that said: those ignor nt who l ve in he sun become a sent of li e to l ve where li ht wil not ga her an dark ess bec mes of the.

“Where have I seen that language before,” Uri asked but I sighed, blowing away dirt from the stone and, after hesitating over the burning sensation, I rubbed my finger over the areas that had been weathered unreadable. It didn’t hurt at all. The letters didn’t change either; it was very obviously a witch language. He may be a vampire but he should know that from Grandma.

“Its Theban. It says something but it doesn't make any sense because there are parts that I can’t read.”

“What does it say?” he asked and I shook my head.

“Those ignort nt who l ve in he sun become a sent of li e to l ve where li ht wil not ga her an dark ess bec mes of the. But it is obvious in some parts. Those ignorant who love-life-live! Those ignorant who live in he-his-I-I don’t know…”

“Those ignorant who live in…he-no, live in the sun! What’s next,” Uri asked, kneeing besides me. I smiled then and said:

“Those ignorant who live in the sun become a sent of li-it’s spelled li but then goes blank and moves on to a letter e.”

Uri repeated the sentence in his head, putting possible words into it until I realized what it was, “Those ignorant who live in the sun become absent of life to live where some-word-I-can’t-make-out will not ga her.” We did it again, filling in the blanks with possible words but couldn’t make sense of it yet so we moved on. “Will not blank an dark ess-darkness-bec mes of the-it just stops there with the word ‘the’.

“Is it possible that you have misread it and it reads get her instead of ‘ga her’?” Uri asked but I shook my head.

“We grew up with Theban script, Uri. It is spelled g-a-space-h-e-r.”

“Just checking,” Uri said then mumbled words that I could not make out until I sighed.

“I should have seen it. It says: Those ignorant who live in the sun become absent of life to live where light will not gather! And darkness bec mes of the-and darkness becomes the…becomes the what? There’s a letter there but I can’t make it out. It’s too faded away.”

“I know! Those ignorant who live in the sun become absent of life to live where light will not gather and darkness becomes them! It’s a riddle! What is the riddle speaking about? ‘Those ignorant who live in the sun’; that part of the passage is talking about a group of people obviously. And ‘live in the sun’ is a condition of the people or possibly the setting. ‘Become absent of life to live where light will not gather’ is the result of the riddle. ‘Darkness becomes them’ is a result too, but with more finality. Vampires and humans?

Uri and I sat down, fiddling with our packs to get me out some granola bars and a bottle of water. We were brainstorming while I ate a granola bar and then a second. Odd. I don’t normally need so much food. I picked through my bag for more. Uri and I wore typical hiking clothes; I wore a dark green tank top, some dark brown khaki cargo pants, and tan hiking boots while Uri wore a tan t-shirt, army green cargo pants, and black hiking boots. Both of us had our windbreakers wrapped around our waists.

In our packs, we had granola bars, nuts and dried fruit, bottled water, rope, climbers’ clips, harnesses, flashlights, flares, matches, a first aid kit, a blanket, a knife, and our new cell phones. It seemed ridiculous because we didn’t even know what we were looking for. But I knew that it had made Vlad feel better and it was better to be prepared and not need it, rather than need it and not be prepared…kind of like a condom: have one in case you need it instead of needing it and not having one.

I thought back to Vlad, mentioning having children because we weren’t using condoms, and I blushed, angry. I was a hybrid, what made him even think I could have kids? Uri asked if I was still hungry and I shook my head, coming back to the situation. I could hear Radu nearby, checking the surrounding areas quicker than I could. Uri stayed by me to protect me.

Uri lean back and sighed, saying: “Those ignorant who live in the sun become absent of life to live where light will not gather! And darkness becomes of thee….” Uri trailed off, staring off to the distance and I got nervous. Where was Radu now? I didn’t hear him!

Uri squeezed my hand before he told me a quick order to “Get behind me!” And I listened, backing up more around the tree when, suddenly, I heard creaking under us. I looked at the ground as it shook, gently at first then harsher. Uri was starting to turn towards me as I screamed, feeling everything suddenly starting to fall out from under me with a loud noise. I hardly remember falling but I woke up to feeling Uri cradling my shoulders. I was half sitting up in his arms as he shouted my name. Radu shouted down to him as he blocked out the sun overhead but his voice seemed so far away…

Suddenly, I came back to myself but the first thing I saw was the small, semi-round hole that had opened up above me and the grass, dirt, rocks, and leaves that had all fell into it was surrounding me like a birds nest or something. Uri was saying something so I blinked up at him to try to focus. “Selena, are you okay? Can you hear me, sis?!” Uri asked concerned and I nodded then gasped at the pain to my head and neck. “Okay, good-that’s good. Don’t move your head too much. You fell into a cavern below the weird disk thingy and your head is bleeding. You weren’t waking up there for a while.”

He was right. I looked beyond Radu, who hovered over the opening of the cavern to see the sky was dark now. We had left at first light and made it to the forest by noon. Vlad is gonna be so concerned. “Vlad-”

“He knows you’ve been hurt; a part of his convoy is coming to get us now. A medic will be with them,” Radu said and I sighed. Well, s**t! I found my vision stone and then what?! Some witch I was…Uri helped me stand up slowly and I groaned at the feeling of standing up too fast as my whole body felt my blood flush from head to toe. Suddenly, a rope landed by Uri and I realized Radu had the other end up there. Ha! I was in no condition to climb!

Uri shined a flashlight at the back of the cave, spinning that way suddenly, and I turned that way too but much slower. What had he heard? Wait! Was that-? I edged forward until I was at the wall of the cavern. Uri slowly followed me. When I realize what his light was showing me, I laughed. “Oh, my God, Uri, this is amazing! It’s perfect Theban language written in calligraphy on the walls and there are pictures illustrating the words.”

“But why would Theban-a witch language-be in a cave that has never seen the light of day before?”

“It just means that it has seen the light of day before; someone was here before but maybe it became impassable so the caves became forgotten.” I reasoned, mostly to myself.

“Well, what does it say?”

“No! No, we did enough exploring. You’re hurt. Let’s get you back to Vlad,” Radu demanded but we both ignored him.

“I don’t know. Let me find the beginning of it!” I said, excitedly. I walked along the wall, reading a few words until I could understand that I was getting closer and closer to the beginning. And then I found the beginning. There was a huge Theban letter that was followed by the rest of the Theban words but they were smaller print like you read in the books where the first letter of the first word of every chapter is in a larger print than the rest.

“I found the beginning! It says: The world…began in the sun…filled with…filled with ignorant humans…The humans…though smarter…and stronger than their…fellow animals… fell from the paths… of the sun and…were forced to wonder eternal through…darkness and suffering. They became so…tormented that they fell, succumbing to their darkness. They became dead to the human race but remained alive for all eternity, hunting in the darkness that created them anew.”

“What the f**k does that mean?” Uri asked and I moved down a little on the wall. “Like a vampire origin story or something?”

“There’s more. Uri, this whole room is covered in Theban script!” I said up to him then started reading more, “These misfortunate souls were death dealers. They made sport of hunting and killing anyone and anything that took to their liking. But the story truly begins with the first of humankind to stray into the darkness of eternity. His name was Gilgamesh and it was he who led others into the darkness with him. He…with his natural leadership skills…led the eternal souls throughout human history.”

“With his army of followers, he waged wars on humans, killing them in the shadows of darkness. As the shadows continued to grow in followers, Gilgamesh became the leader of them all. He became the King of… King of Darkness and created a massive community hidden from the humans of the sun. Even now, to this day, he lies in wait to catch and slaughter those who walk in his path of darkness. Uri, this is crazy! You realize what this is talking about?!”

“No, I am lost,” Uri muttered to me and I laughed.

“In prehistory, Gilgamesh, who is the legendary subject of the Epic of Gilgamesh, is said to be the son of Sumerian’s third king. Grandmother used to tell mom this story. It was about the King of Darkness, the immortals, and the eternal community.”

“A story of immortals like us in a cave that you were having visions to come to,” Uri asked and I sighed.

“Well when you put it like that…” I shrugged that off and said, “In my grimoire, it talks about all kinds of creatures: Immortals, Nymphs (which are what we Witches were first called), and even Lycans (which are where werewolves came from). But, anyway, this is the Vampire Origin Story and, this is in Theban script and-and, this is crazy!”

“These two stories, both from different origins-written and oral, coincide about the King of Darkness and the Eternal Empire and the hierarchy that the King created. But I never knew his name was Gilgamesh. I wish this had more detail on the timeline of his creation and more detail on…well, everything else.”

“Okay, that’s interesting but can you please get your butt back up here? Uri, that’s an order,” Radu said and I started grumbling as Uri dragged me over to the rope then grabbed ahold of the rope and then me. Radu helped pull us up, because vampire strength, of course. As soon as I got up there, I looked for the stone circle with the Theban script.

Now that I was topside, I saw the hole was actually seemingly ripped opened, but the ground no longer shook and everything was back to normal excluding the small circle stone that was missing. I looked down into the cave to frown.

“Do you guys see that?” I asked as I realized my blood from my head wound was pooling in very intricate ways. The floor seemed to have been etched into in a way that the center of the cave, which I stood over, had a divot that collected the blood and dispersed it in grooves around the cavern in a equal armed cross surrounded by a square that didn’t touch its cross.

I ran through mom’s history lessons and remembered that a God named Enki in Sumerian myth would be shown sitting on a square, which would be marked with a cross. It’s believed that the square represents his throne and the cross serves as the symbol of his sovereignty. Where had I seen that from?

Either way, my gut clenched at the sight of my blood spreading so specifically like that. I touched the back of my head and hissed in pain. Radu grabbed my backpack for me and Uri held my hand as we started walking back towards the military camp. I was bugging Radu that we couldn’t lose the spot of the cave but he said he already tagged the whole area with GPS locators so we could return when I was better.

And sure enough, Vlad was panicked. A military Jeep pulled up beside us before we got even a quarter mile from the forest and onto the road. Vlad was out of it instantly and in front of me. He looked me over and sighed down at me, “Let’s get you home so we can heal you up.” I nodded as he helped me into the Jeep with him beside me.

The whole trip back, I talked animatedly, despite my head wound, excited about the theories that came from the cave. Vlad listened to me, chuckling but I could tell he was tense. He was worried about me still. A vampire man back at camp was poking at the back of my head and I winced at a tender spot, making Vlad growl. I comforted him with a hand on his arm as the medic paused in his exam. It was enough for Vlad to relax and ask, “She is part vampire, a hybrid, and we are BloodBonded. If we were to share blood again, would she heal faster?”

The medic was surprised but held it in enough to say, “I only see advantages to it honestly. It is worth a try, but of course with a hybrid I don’t know if she will heal quickly or not. Whatever you choose, my Lord.” He looked down at me and I blushed, knowing exactly how we’d choose to share blood later. We thanked the doctor and Vlad held my hand as we walked back to the Generals Tent.

“There was a reason I was supposed to find the Origin story, thank you for trusting me enough to let me go,” I said, to reaffirm that respect in our relationship.

He nodded and then said, “I disliked it, you being so far away, but I love how excited you are about this. You have so much life in your eyes.” We went back to the tent and I straddled him on the desk chair as he bit down on my neck and I bit him. Immediately, I was hit with a wave of bloodlust and I knew he felt it too because he chuckled into my ear, releasing my throat. “Did I make you wet?” He asked, reaching into my pants. He gave me a knowing look and then he seemed to remember my head wound. He stood me up with him and turned me around to look if it was healing.

“It is healing. I’ll let you heal for now but I’m coming back here to repeat this healing process in the morning too. You better react the same way for me again, Beautiful,” he muttered down to me and I grinned up to him, knowing that was a promise. I couldn’t wait for him to deliver on it either as I felt my body physically healing and reenergizing. He was called away by a General and I sighed, bored again. The boredom gave me more time to process what has happened. I agreed to be his wife! We were gonna get married! Wow…and then what?

I didn’t get to worry about my future as Uri came into the tent, saying: “Let’s go! Now, Selena! Please, move!” Something was very wrong. I started to react finally, sitting up from the bed. How odd…had I been in bed? When had I fallen asleep? Uri grabbed our packs from the cave expedition and my hand and yanked me out of the tent. There was fire burning tents, coming closer and closer to me, as women screamed and men were fighting.

There were werewolves attacking the vampires and, instead of helping, Uri was demanding we run. He was afraid. Why?! We had fought them before…no, it was not them…they were running away with the soldiers!

“Someone is fighting Vlad’s men, right now! Not a wolf! Not a normal vampire either! We have to get out of here!” Uri barely explained and, out of now where, Radu was standing there. He was very injured, his throat bleeding like he was dying. But had he been human, he would have already been dead. What did this?! I helped him by putting his arm over my shoulder and Uri did the same for his other side. We tried to carry him towards the woods for cover, by the data center.

“Selena, should Vlad fall with Bogdan, it will hurt you. You will be incapacitated. Uri…” he gurgled out a horrid sound and then continued, “Whatever she feels…keep her silent.” He seemed sure Vlad would not win this time…

Out of nowhere, I was hit across my face and I gasped, coming back to myself. Ahh! I felt my lip as I blinked the vision from my eyes.