Intro:
Way, way back when my brother, Jonathan, and I were still teenagers, Jonathan tried his hand at professional writing. He wrote an interesting story about a vampire who exposed himself to sunlight, yet did not die, and sent it into a fanzine called the “Nocturnal Ecstasy Vampire Coven.” They didn’t publish the story, but did encourage him to continue writing, which he did, although he didn’t pursue writing professionally in the long run.
Fast forward to nearly twenty years later. I thought the idea was too good to let die, and decided to reproduce the story on my own. Some years after I’d done that, I chanced upon the original copy of what Jonathan had written long before, and compared notes. I incorporated some of the elements from his story into mine, and made that the final version. At just that exact time, I discovered an anthology called “These Vampires Still Don’t Sparkle,” which was ending the acceptance of submissions exactly the day prior. I submitted the story anyway, apologizing and explaining that I learned about the story less than 24 hours too late, and begged them to accept the manuscript. They did. The story was published as the very last story in the anthology in March of 2014.
Jonathan insisted I could take full credit for the story, but I gave him credit as the co-author anyway. Enjoy!
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The dim, red glow of the coming sunrise slowly grew in the East, and the village which was nestled beneath the hills would soon be bathed in the amber light of morning. None yet stirred in the still, placent homes for the sun had not yet broken over the horizon, but soon enough some would, preparing themselves for the churn of daily life. The warm red glow turned slowly pink, and then orange, and the light began to creep towards the forest on the village’s northern border, the forest which was known locally as the Forest of the Vampires. The name itself was no folklore, for many a villager had been lost by wandering too close to those dense branches, and the elders all warned of the hazards of the vampires who dwelt there.
Such a vampire was seated up inside a tree at the edge of the forest, awaiting the dawn.
Malko was in a state of suicidal despair. The elder vampires had given him almost no answers that were to his liking, and even fewer that were to his satisfaction. What was the point of living as a creature of the night when all it meant was killing, feeding off the demise of those whom they did not understand? He had learned all he could from his fellow vampires. He would now consult the daylight. His brothers had warned that the sun’s rays would kill him, that the pain would be terrible, but how could they know? In Malko’s view, even if it were true, it couldn’t possibly measure up to the pain of ignorance. He would have the truth, or he would have oblivion.
From somewhere inside the village, a rooster crowed, the sigil of the morning, and a herald of doom for vampires. The first rays of morning light had now touched the topmost leaves of his tree, and were slowly creeping down towards him. He felt the slightest hint of regret—the closest thing a vampire has akin to fear.
Almost before realizing it, he felt the sun’s rays overtake him. The warmth shone upon his face, and then upon his hands, eventually even permeating his clothing. He felt moisturized in warmth, and waited for the inevitable moment in which his skin would burst into agonizing flames.
But it never happened.
In disbelief, he stared at both hands and observed that they were whole and intact. His elders were wrong, he thought. The sun had not killed him!
Almost as if he’d thought too soon, a sudden, agonizing pain shot through the center of his chest, and he fell from the tree. Malko instinctively began to start digging at the ground, seeking shelter from the menace of daylight. But it was too late. The pain hit him again, and he doubled over. It felt like an explosion from within! Yet his body was still whole, even after the pain hit him a third time. By the fourth pain, he nearly cried out, as he expected his body to burst into a ball of fire and smoke, but again, there was no conflagration. One after another the pains continued, growing faster and faster. And, unendurable as the torture was for him, Malko realized that the pains were gradually subsiding with each cycle. They grew regular, thumping within his breastbone, and it finally occurred to him what had been happening:
His heart, after centuries of withered disuse, had begun beating again.
He didn’t know how many hours he spent on his knees waiting for the pain to ebb. When he finally felt able, he got up and saw that the sun was now quite high. The village below was bustling with activity, and Malko watched the people going hither and to with stunned fascination.
He began to run towards the village, eager to explore this newfound experience. He expected he would reach the village in minutes, just as he’d done before in darkness. But one minute later found him on the ground, weak and gasping. The thing in his chest had become – upset. It thumped like mad, as if trying to kill him before he could even reach the town. Gradually, however, the thumping slowed. He stopped gasping, and began breathing deeply, and on purpose, relishing the feeling. He had never noticed breathing before. Apparently, his newly beating heart demanded air in order to run.
He took another a couple more deep breaths, enjoying the scents of the forest. His nostrils then suddenly caught the scent of something new. Not blood, no. Something drier, more full. Not sweet, and not nearly salty. Could that be the smell of bread? He wanted to satisfy his curiosity about this and decided to run again, this time consciously trying to breathe as he did so, and found that he could run continually if he deliberately breathed hard. He was at the village border within a minute, and stopped running, but found he could not stop breathing hard right away. He’d never had to catch his breath before, and found the sensation to be a disturbingly odd loss of control. Apparently, the thumping thing in his chest exacted a tribute of air far greater than the extra amount he’d taken in in during the time spent running.
Walking up the main road, he began passing by a small row of homes. He was almost to the last of them, where the bread smell was coming from, when he spotted a small boy standing in its doorway, looking at him. Malko stopped walking as he took the sight of him in, marking his face, his eyes, and his scent. Then he waved, and smiled a fang-ridden smile. The boy didn’t seem to know how to react right away, but then smiled and waved back enthusiastically. But this delightful first contact was not to last long. Immediately a woman, presumably his mother, appeared behind the boy, took one look at the fangs of the smiling vampire, and quickly yanked the child inside and slammed the door.
Malko was not discouraged at this. Indeed, upon looking around, he saw that several of the other villagers had spotted his teeth and reacted similarly. The sounds of rapidly closing shutters and hastily shut doors greeted his ears. He’d expected as much, and probably worse, but reasoned that such rejection was beyond his control. Thus, he wasted no more time pondering it and walked on.
The village grew steadily more silent with each step he took. The street suddenly became deserted. When it seemed that the village had finally gone deathly quiet, he realized he’d reached the village square, for a large, hexagonal gazebo was now in front of him. Situated on a far corner behind it, was the largest building that he’d seen yet, with a more angular roof and a large spike proceeding upward from it. Noting that the architecture was more pristine and well thought out than the homes he’d just passed by, he discerned that the inhabitant of this building must be someone of high wealth. Could this be what the elders had called a church?
His attention centered on someone he could ask about it—a small, gangly old man who was seated on the top stair of one of the gazebo’s entrances, his head leaning up against the post on his right side, seemingly asleep. Having no one else to question, he addressed the man with the first words he’d ever uttered to a villager.
“Excuse me?”
The old man’s eyes opened up into tiny slits. “Eh? Whazzat?”
“I said, excuse me?”
His eyes opened up a bit wider as he sat upright, the right eye clear and dark, the left milky white with cataract. “Whoza—we-hell! Figure this!”
“I was wondering about this building here…” Malko began.
“Never thought to see your kind in town again!”
This gave Malko pause. “You’ve seen one of us before?”
“Yep. Vampire. About five years ago.” The old man reached into a lapel pocket and pulled out a pipe and tobacco bag with his bony fingers.
Malko decided to table his curiosity about the large building and press the issue. “Did he appear during the day, like me?”
“Nope,” he answered, striking a match and lighting his pipe. It was an act befuddling to Malko, who’d never before witnessed the striking of a match. “Early dawn,” the old man continued. “Killed my son-in-law, you know.”
“I see,” offered Malko, not knowing quite how to handle that delicate subject. Justify it? Apologize for it? Offer restitution? He’d none to give, but it might be polite. Fortunately, the old man continued.
“Guess he took him a little bit too close to the forest edge,” he said, wisps of smoke curling about his grey beard. “Woodsman there knocked him out of his tree by throwing an axe at him. That’s the key, you know? There’s something bout those trees that gives you folk a little extra—a little extra somthin’, I dunno. Anyway, out of his tree he went weak, and then the whole town set upon him. Went and dragged him through to the square and set him on fire. Not far from where you’re standin’ in fact. Right over there.” One of his old bony fingers pointed to a spot next to the church, and Malko saw there the wooden pole which had been placed in the ground. The dark charcoal scorings along its side confirmed the story.
Rhynchus. He was talking about Rhynchus, Malko realized. He’d disappeared five years ago. The elders didn’t say where he went, only that he was gone. He now understood why. They didn’t want it to be common knowledge that the villagers were capable of killing a vampire..
“First time they’d killed one in a long while,” the old man went on. “Celebrated it for weeks on end.”
That statement piqued his curiosity. “You mean, there have been others killed?”
The elder man barely acknowledged the question at first. But then answered, “Oh, sure, I’ve seen a few. Once was one who walked in the daytime like you. He seemed all right, at first. Even made friends with a few of us young folk, includin’ me. Heh! I was a bold one back then! But then he went and raped a girl. Never understood that. Her friends went and killed him for it.”
Malko looked back at the old man. So there had been others! He was not the first. He’d heard a story years before of a vampire who once let the sun burn him. Jeramiak, his name was. He would have died about the same time this old man had been young. But the elders had said he had instantly died, charred by the sun. Obviously, this was a lie. But rape? It seemed too strange to be true. Yet this old man seemed sincere. And – calm. “You don’t seem to be afraid of me,” Malko noted, marveling at the old man’s serenity. “In fact, you seem to be the only one in this village who isn’t.”
The old man smiled a toothless smile. “Son, when you’re my age, death’s comin’ any second. You’re just an end to the suspense.”
Made perfect sense to Malko. “Well, you won’t die by me. I’m only here to learn. About my people, and yours.”
“Learn, eh?” The old man sucked on his pipe stem thoughtfully. “Not much to learn from me, anymore. I tend to forget things these days. And there ain’t much to learn from Him, neither,” he gestured toward the church. “Nothing but crap, and it isn’t even Sunday. But if you know how to read, there’s a library over there.” He pointed off to his right at a rather ordinary looking building facing the gazebo. “Not much variety in it, but it’ll have what you’re looking for. Worth a look-see.”
Malko didn’t know quite what to make of this reply. He’d never heard of a library, and had no concept of anything like a ‘sun-day.’ He also didn’t know who the cryptic ‘Him’ referred to. Presumably the wealthy inhabitant of the church. But he’d gleaned enough to realize that he’d been given an alternate resource for information. Perhaps a better one.
“Thank you, friend.”
“Name’s Josiah Abner, but call me Jo-ab. Everybody else does.” he returned. “But you might not want to stick around long. Villagers won’t take to you, see.”
Malko regarded this warning respectfully. Still, he’d come this far, and as such felt it better to follow the old man’s first suggestion before following his second one. “I thank you anyway,” he said. Then, giving a small, polite bow, he made for the building Jo-ab had called a ‘lye-brairee.’
It didn’t look especially different from any of the other houses. Perhaps slightly bigger, and it had windows of glass rather than shutters, but it was still basically the same wooden construction as everything else. He pushed inward on the door in front of him and found that it yeilded easily. He suddenly relished the idea of finding shade, as he realized that his skin had been itching something awful. Sunburn was yet another concept unknown among his kind. Within, he found himself surrounded by rudimentary structures of hewn wood. They were filled with rows of much smaller rectangular objects, the function of which he could only guess.
“I’m sorry,” said a female voice from somewhere in back. Then, the female herself came into view from behind one of the wood structures. She was holding several of the smaller rectangular objects. “I was busy shelving in back. I try to keep busy since it seems like we get so few visitors in here during—oh!” She stopped short at the sight of her visitor. “Oh my!”
Malko sized her up in that one, startled instant. She was a thin and frail form, old enough for the faintest hint of lines to have begun showing upon her face, but still quite comely. Her dark blonde hair hung down to her waist, straight as an arrow, and the corset which bound her matronly dress was no wider than a child’s. She wore spectacles upon a face so shocked that Malko tried quickly to console her. “Please,” he said, “don’t be frightened. I mean no harm.”
She didn’t answer right away. Merely stood there, frozen like a statue, staring at him. It was several moments before she took a small step back, and in a trembling voice said softly, “I believe you.” She let another moment go by, a silent confirmation to what had just been spoken, then added, “You’re one of the old ones, aren’t you? A vampire?”
He slowly nodded the affirmative, then broke his gaze from her and began examining the shelf to his left, walking slowly and softly towards her as he did so. “I’m here,” he stopped walking and picked up one of the small rectangles, “to learn. I need to know the mysteries between your people and mine.”
She neither trembled nor backpedaled at his approach. “Well, we—we have lots of books on that.”
“Books?” he inquired, examining the thin, flat object in his hand. “These things are books?”
“Of course,” she replied. “This is a library.”
“Lye-brairee,” he repeated, the concept becoming clearer to him. “The old man outside also used that word.”
“Jo-ab?” she asked, smiling for the first time. “Yes, he’s always trying to get people in here.” She suddenly paused, the smile vanishing from her face. “I—I suppose he must have known you wouldn’t hurt me…”
“I told him as much.” Malko’s attention never diverted away from the book. He held it to his nostrils and took in its scent. “It’s made of wood?” he asked.
“It’s made of paper, actually. And paper’s made of wood.” She set the books she’d been carrying aside on an empty space on the shelf nearest her and took a step towards the stranger. “You have no books where you’re from?”
“No, we have books,” he answered. “But they’re not like these at all.”
“I see.” She let a moment slip by, then introduced herself. “I’m Alexandria, by the way.”
“Malko,” he curtly replied. He had still not taken his eyes off of the book, so engrossed was he in examining it. Suddenly, the realization hit him as to the full meaning of the word, ‘library.’ It was a dwelling. A dwelling whose main purpose was to be a home for books. The concept was new and exciting to him—a devotion to knowledge which went beyond having the elders safeguard a few books within their tree-huts. “I’d like to know more,” he said, finally turning to look at her.
“If you open the book, you might be able to read it,” she offered.
He examined the volume’s edge, and discovered that a light prying of one side with his long fingernails allowed for the book to open with ease. But the writing he found inside was tiny and indecipherable. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know how to read the writing of your people.”
“That’s because it’s upside-down,” she corrected him. “Try turning the book rightside-up.”
He did so to find that the text’s meaning jumped out in front of his eyes. Nearly all of it was understandable, and he found this even more shocking than not being able to comprehend any of it at all. “Our people’s writing—it’s identical?”
“Yes. Our people were once the same. Common language, common culture—but then something happened, and your people were driven away into the trees. No one really knows exactly what it was.”
“How is is that your scribes can write so small? And so clearly?”
“That book isn’t written. It’s printed.”
“Printed?”
She opened her mouth to answer the question, then stopped herself. “Never mind,” she said at length. “It would take too long to explain.”
Standing there, open book in hand, he began to read, his attention undivided for nearly half an hour as he went from first page to last. He then immediately picked up another book near it and began to read, and discovered it covered the same subject. Nevertheless, he read it from cover to cover as well.
On and on he read, never tiring, never sitting. Through trial and error in sampling, he discovered that different shelves covered different topics, and with each book he sampled, he read it completely through. So many books covered so many topics, but the vast majority of books he found were about vampires.
He looked about for the woman, and found she’d gone.
“Alexandria?” he called. No one replied. He was about to call to her again when she emerged from behind one of the bookshelves.
“Hello, again,” she said. “Everything’s going well? You’re discovering new things?”
“Some,” he answered. “Many things here are wrong. Like crosses. They don’t drive us away, we just don’t like them. Or coffins. None of us sleeps in a coffin.” He picked up another book he’d read. “This one says that vampires breed by draining victims and having them drink their blood, but that’s only partly true.”
“You don’t breed that way?” she asked.
“Only rarely, though we’ve heard it was once quite common. We sire children, just as you do.”
“I see. Yes, well, a lot of what’s here is folklore. So few of us get a chance to actually talk with one of you.” She seemed to reflect on that for a moment before remembering why she’d come over to him in the first place. “Oh, sorry. You wanted something?”
“Just a question, really,” he said, trying to sound apologetic. “My people, they are the reason for this—library?”
“Mostly.” She replied. “My father loved books. He was a real knowledge-nut. But he especially obsessed over the subject of vampires and their ways. He kept telling people that it was necessary for us to understand them. Not many people listened, I guess, including me.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “I guess when my husband got killed, it made me change my mind. I took over for my father after that.” She tried to read Malko’s face, and found it blank. “Husband. That’s the man who was with me…”
“Yes, we have husbands and wives among my people as well,” he quickly cut in. “But no wife has yet been assigned to me.”
Alexandria nodded. “Yes. Your people don’t marry, as such.”
Malko was startled. “How do you know that?” he asked.
“I read about it. In one of the books of your people.”
Malko was again stunned. “You have one?”
“Oh, yes! I’m not sure how my father got it, only that it cost him a great deal, but it’s the rarest book in our collection. We never lend it out and no one has ever asked to see it.”
“Then let me be the first to ask!” he declared.
Alexandria did not bother to pick up the spoon as she turned around and dashed to the back, returning almost instantly with a bundle of folded cloth. She handed the bundle to Malko, who unfolded it carefully. There, situated in his hands, was a tattered stack of square parchments. They were remarkably filthy. The sinuous bindings which once held them together had evidently rotted away decades ago, leaving the pages loose, but the writings were there, still legible in carbon-black. The top cover bore an ancient word: “Verfossebukch.”
“I’m not sure what that first word means,” said Alexandria. “The rest of the book is written plainly, but that strange title eludes me.”
“It should. It’s an ancient Volkish word for ‘forbidden writings.’”
It meant more than that, as he knew full well. It meant most forbidden writings, and was the most revered and guarded volume among his people. Only the Draak was allowed to read it, and none other. He’d heard of past volumes becoming too worn out to be of much use, at which point a new copy would be drawn, with the old being given a ceremonial, secret burial. This must be how it came to reside in the villagers’ library. Some fool of a human must have discovered its burial place and dug it up. Now it was here, in his very hands, and he knew he had to read it.
A flat surface was needed. Had he known the word, ‘table,’ he would have asked for one. “Is there a place I can set this?” he finally asked.
She took him to a corner in back where a table had been set aside, and there Malko carefully laid out the leaves of the tattered codex and began to read.
“Wouldn’t you prefer to sit down?” Alexandria asked.
“I don’t require it.”
Slowly, every teaching of his youth was laid bare as fraud as the words of the book revealed themselves to him. He learned that they and humans were kindred, separated only by a few thousand years or so, but that the foresters had, at one fateful age, been stricken by a disease which slowed their hearts, bleached their skin, and eventually killed them. They learned that they could tap into an old magic and draw energy from the trees, but at a terrible price. Their stomachs had to hold a bezoar of nock, and they had to feed it with the blood of their fellow men. Faced with such horror, the stricken chose to let themselves die for the good of all. But a few were dark of heart. They conspired to evil and chose to live by feeding upon the villagers. Gorging themselves upon their blood, they became all but immortal. They stole some of their women for themselves, infected them, and bred children. Then they killed the women off, and their children were given only what the elders taught. With each generation, these young, the wampiren, grew sleeker, their hands better suited for living in the trees, and their teeth became sharp.
Malko pondered this. It rang true.
“Alexandria!” Malko cried. “You’ve read this already! You know what it means! Why, if your people gave only a little of their blood every several days, my people could survive easily. We wouldn’t have to kill. We could even live among you. With our longer lives, we could make ourselves an asset to your people in the teaching of numbers and letters. We—we could be at peace!”
He looked at her, standing there at his side, and she looked at him back with a kind of faraway gaze that he couldn’t fathom. Then, she kissed him.
It was not the dark kiss of a vampire, but the soft kiss of a human, administered to the lips instead of the neck. He caught the scent of her excitement. A yearning arose in him, not for blood, but something quite similar. He touched her hair. It was soft. The pounding heart in his chest pounded much harder, and he then had the thought to take her by the back of her neck and kiss her again; to rip off her clothes and his, and revel in the touch of her naked flesh until – well, he wasn’t sure what would happen then! He only knew he needed to do it. He even raised his hand up to seize her, but stopped. Something inside him knew that he didn’t want to simply take her. That would reduce Alexandria to a mere victim, and he didn’t want a victim. He wanted her! But this was a very un-vampire-like desire, and he knew it. For creatures of the night, when the blood-urge is felt, the overwhelming drive is to satisfy it! But somehow, he held back. At that moment, he realized why Jeramiak had raped. He had tasted this new, sexual desire toward a human female for the first time, and simply did what any other vampire would likely have done.
This revelation was instantly followed by a wave of doubt. Here he stood, having just made the pitch for peace, and he himself had nearly succumbed to the desire to simply take that which was not given. Was it then impossible for vampires to truly coexist with humans? Was the fact that he was, just now, able to curtail his nature evidence that other vampires could do the same, or was he merely a freak? Was he even a true vampire at all?
He had no more time to ponder such questions. From the street outside, shouting noises could clearly be heard. Alexandria’s eyes grew wide with fear, and she dashed to the door, throwing it shut, and bolting it.
“Malko! You need to leave! They’ve come for you!”
They both heard the loud breaking of glass and saw that a large stone had shattered one of the windows, outside of which, an angry mob of villagers had quickly swarmed, armed with shovels, pitchforks, sickles, and anything else they’d hastily grabbed. Despite it still being daylight, many brandished torches, and over the shouting, one voice rose clear:
“Alexi! We know you’re in there with that thing, you witch! Turn him over to us now and the magistrate will be merciful!”
“Who is that?” Malko asked.
“The Reverend Carthage,” Alexandria answered. “He’s mayor of the town.”
“He—lives in the church?”
“Most of the time.”
“What say you, Widow Bosley?” the voice outside called again.
“You’re wrong!” Alexandria cried out the broken window. “He’s not here to harm anybody!”
“A likely story, heathen! A benevolent vampire? Hah! You must think us children! Now turn that devil over to us, or be thrown to the cave wolves!”
“Never!”
Malko laid a spindley hand on Alexandria’s shoulder, and pulled her away from the broken window to face him. “I shall go out to them,” he told her.
“You can’t!” she protested. “They’ll kill you!”
“Perhaps,” he conceded, “but to change things, someone must make the first bold step.” And with that, he unbolted the door, and stepped outside.
The crowd recoiled back at the vampire who boldly appeared in front of them, creating a semicircle of wide space away from the library door, and sending a small, human-body ridden shockwave through the crowd. His presence was even more striking as he stood without fear directly facing the sun, which by now was hanging quite low on the horizon, its reddening rays giving his white skin an eerie luminescence.
“Be calm,” he spoke clearly. “I mean you no harm.”
“He lies!” shouted back the Reverend Carthage.
“I know that my people have committed many horrors against your people,” the vampire began. “You have every reason not to trust me or listen to what I have to say. But I tell you, our days of enmity can end at long last. We can finally have peace between us!”
“Silence!” spat the Reverend. “It is written, ‘thou shalt not permit a demon to speak!’”
This got Malko’s attention. “Written? Where is it written?”
“In the Most Holy Book. The one volume which that Bosley Witch refuses to keep on her shelves!”
In a flash, Malko understood. The villagers had their Holy Writ as well. And while the sacred volumes of the vampires were designed to prevent them from interacting with the people of the village, except to kill them, the scriptures of the villagers were designed to enforce the very same barrier from the opposite side. Boldly, and not a little naïvely, he held up his hands and said, “I know how hard it can be to think contrary to one’s elders and traditions. But I tell you, just as my people’s scriptures lied to me, so also have your scriptures lied…”
“Blasphemer!” roared Carthage, who lunged forward.
Malko intended only to mildly throw him backward a little. But as the Reverend grasped him by the throat with both hands, he suddenly realized that he handn’t the strength to throw a pebble, much less a human body. Instead, the body which was thrown was his own – right into the heart of the crowd!
“Bind him!” bellowed the triumphant Reverend Mayor, and the people in the crowd roared into action, hastily, sloppily, fastening rough ropes and crudely tied knots to Malko’s wrists and ankles, while similtaneously delivering poorly-aimed punches, kicks, and blows with make-shift weapons.
“No! Stop!” cried Alexandria, who rushed outside into the thick of the crowd to stop them. But she had little more strength than Malko, and a rough hand clasped the back of her corset and roughly threw her back onto the library’s outer wall.
“Back, demoness!” Carthage growled. “You’ll watch your precious lover die right before you join him!”
Malko tried to punch, tried to kick, but no avail. Yet not once did he cry out. There was no point in doing so, nor fear to drive him irrationally to. None of his kind would come to save him in daylight, and he knew it well. Eventually, he felt himself being pulled upright, and fastened to the same pole where Rhyncus met his fate.
“Bring tinder wood and dowse that beast with oil!” the Reverend ordered. “We’ll light a fire large enough so that those forest-monsters can see what befalls their kind at our hands!”
Desperate to save Malko, Alexi summoned all her strength and kicked Carthage swiftly between the legs. But alas, she did not manage a square hit. The preacher doubled over, but only momentarily. He quickly rose, and with every ounce of his rage, struck Alexandria across the face, knocking her to the ground. Then, taking one of the torches from a peasant nearby, he shouted, “Let us purge all the evil from our village! The witch would poison your minds with evil books. Let them burn like the vampire!” He threw the torch through the still open library door, and many of the other villagers with torches quickly followed his lead, breaking the remaining windows and throwing torches inside.
“NO!” Alexi roared, and without a moment’s hesitation, she dove through the door, tore off the billow of her dress, and began using it to beat back the flames. Her screams and shrieks pulled the attention of the villagers universally toward the library, where they witnessed a truly horrific sight. The books and the aged wood of the shelves caught fire quickly, and the dress served only to fan the flames. Eventually, the dress too, caught fire, as did Alexi’s half-naked, screaming body, yet not once did she attempt to defend herself, and only her continuing shreiks and wails, indistinguishable from those she’d bellowed before the flames touched her, betrayed the pain of her searing flesh; so ultimate was her desire to preserve the knowledge held within the books! The self-sacrifice was so terrifying, and so compelling, that the villagers went quiet, and many of the men removed their hats.
Malko was moved as well. Her shreiks and coughs were growing steadily quieter, now. She would be lost—utterly, and forever. He wouldn’t even be able to rescue her by making her a creature of the night, feeding her his blood the way the ancient vampires used to. No, her charred flesh would never respond to him. She was lost to the dream he believed in, the first martyr to a stillborn idea. He would become the second, and the last. The pain of the loss filled him with the alien emotion of sorrow. As he felt a blood-red tear stream down his cheek, he suddenly realized that his hands and feet had been cut free!
Whirling around to look behind him and see who had cut his bonds, he saw a face he recognized. “Jo-ab!” he exclaimed.
“Get going!” he said. “This is no place for you!”
“But why?” Malko asked. “Why free me? My people killed your son-in-law!”
“He was a horse’s ass! Now run!” He put his bony hand on Malko’s shoulder and added, “Make them pay for burning up my daughter!”
The weight of the old man’s words hit him with full force, and he ran, never looking back, going as fast as his weakened legs were capable of carrying him, and remembering to breathe as deeply and as hard as he could. He was only to the outskirts of the village when he heard the shouting of the angry mob. “He’s escaping! The vampire’s escaping!” The crowd rushed after him in pursuit, overrunning the old man, Jo-ab, as a passing sickle neatly severed his elderly head from his body.
It was dusk, and the reddened sun was settng, now. Malko wanted the sun to sink faster so that he could sink into the darkness and disappear. Yet all his willpower could not make the sun sink one tiny bit faster, and he was not entirely certain that he wanted it to, for his heart was slowing, beating ever softer and quieter. Each step he took became more difficult, each breath he gasped, shallower. He had been without the nourishing energies of the trees ever since dawn, and now his newly beating heart betrayed him. From behind, he could hear the villagers gaining ground, and something among them made a sound like a crack of thunder. His left shoulder exploded in pain! He’d heard about muskets, but he never knew the agony of having a bullet hit you. He instantly realized that no amount of heavy breathing would sustain him now. He would never reach the forest. Yet in his cold, steely reason, he knew that he would die trying. Finally, the sun set. His heart stopped completely, and his weakened muscles failed. He collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees as the first of the villagers overtook him. The villager greeted him with a sharp kick to the ribcage, sending him tumbling over and onto his belly.
And then a strange twist of fate went in Malko’s favor. Lying there upon the ground, his eyes caught sight of a young sapling tree protruding from the ground in front of him. It was no more than a cubit tall, healthy and struggling in vain to survive on the open field. Malko grasped it, and it quickly withered and died in his fingers as its energy flowed into him.
He wasted no time using it. As several more of the villagers tried to seize him he threw them off, and with long, bounding strides, made it to the edge of the forest within seconds. He leapt high into the treetops, drawing ever more energy from each branch he touched. The wound in his shoulder instantly healed, with only the blood stain upon his torn garment to show it had ever been there. He was himself again!
He picked a high perch and looked back to find that the villagers were now gathering on the open field at the forest’s edge. Many brandished torches against the encroaching darkness, and at the crowd’s vanguard was the Reverend Carthage.
“Listen to me!” he shouted. “Trees can be regrown! Forests can be replanted! That vampire thinks he’s escaped, but he won’t last the night! We’ll burn his precious forest to the ground and every vampire with it! Follow me!”
Malko’s thirst for blood had returned with a vengeance, and he was about to do something about it. Deftly weaving through the branches as the Reverend drew nearer, he positioned himself directly in front of his point of approach. He watched him grow closer and closer. Then, finally, the Mayor made the fatal mistake of being just a little bit too close. As Carthage’s arm pulled back to throw the torch into the forest branches, Malko leaped from his high perch, caught a low bough with his legs, and used its natural springiness to swoop down and snatch the clergyman off the ground and into the air. The only thing marking the spot where he’d been only a fraction of a second before, was the dropped torch. He drained his victim dry in seconds, and then hurled it like a rag doll into the thick of the crowd.
The sight of the ghastly withered corpse falling to earth had exactly the effect on the villagers that the vampire had intended as panic seized them. “The Reverend!” they cried. “My God! He’s killed the Reverend! Run! Run! He’ll get us all!”
Malko watched them flee with satisfaction as he slowly descended back to the ground. He walked over to the torch which Carthage never managed to throw, its flames still flickering in the darkness, and kicked some dirt on top of it, putting the flames out. It was a fitting metaphor of the man he’d just killed.
He had learned much from his experience in the daylight. He saw how thick-headed the villagers were – how quick they were to judge what they didn’t understand. They didn’t question things, as he had. As the woman, Alexandria, had. Or the old man, her poor father. No, he thought, they followed blindly, letting their fears rule them. They were cattle fit for the slaughter.
He would feed freely upon them now, terrorizing as many as he could. For now he knew many of the secrets the villagers kept. He saw that human dwellings were vulnerable – susceptible to fire, rocks and other tools. He’d learned about guns and what they were capable of. He would be the thing they most feared, the demon who could strike at any time, from any place. And yet, he also knew, he would not be reckless. Not every villager would feel his fangs. No, there were a few, like Alexi, like Jo-ab, who would better try to understand things before they act. He would always be watchful for such as these, and they would be the ones who would be spared. And he would spare those who showed only a flicker of hope, or a moment of doubt. Any with the potential for awakening, with the temperment of patience, would not feel the pinch of death by his teeth. Perhaps the little boy, the one who waved, would be the next to awaken; the next to question. Yes, he would be spared.
And then, in the fullness of time, in the passing of the eons, the blind and the foolhardy would pass away, picked off one by one until there were none left. Then the vampires would again walk in the daylight, and ask to make peace among them, and Malko would be there. Radical changes, he now knew, were impossible. He would have to try to accomplish in centuries what he could not accomplish in a day, as he also now knew that the pruning away of the old was necessary to ensure the growth of the new. He would tell the young vampires what he had learned, and try to win over the elders. He would shape the village by preying upon those infected with stupidity and blind faith.
What horror! That even a creature of the night would take such a path! But Malko was, after all, a vampire, and in spite of his dreams for peace, thought as vampires do. And the image of Alexi’s death burned within him! She deserved more vengeance than merely the thin, watery blood of the Reverend Carthage. She, the one woman who ever showed him love, the one woman who should be alive, was dead. She was worth several villages, and more. So, Malko reasoned, for deeply rooted evil to be defeated, evil had to feed upon evil until it consumed itself like a snake eating its own tail. It would be sad, and it would be hard, but eventually, peace would at long last be accomplished. Pax par tridentum!
And all this because a vampire dared to spend one day in the sun.