Chapter 15 The Book of Origins

Earlier, when they were leaving Michaels club, Deja had noticed a book on his side table. A feeling came over her, the one she knew to trust when she was around something magical, something of importance urged her to slip the book off the table and tuck it under her blouse. Neculai had not noticed the book until he had pulled her close asking her to trust him, just before taking off into the sky with her. The unfamiliar hardback book rubbed in between them causing him to look down at her with a frown, but he didn't say anything until they arrived at a secluded vill he owned.

"What is that?" He asked leading her inside. She grinned and pulled the book from beneath her shirt.

"I don't know yet, but I feel this book is something special." She said going inside before looking around the villa...

Deja

Later that night...Deja was seated at the dining room table munching on an apple. (reading over Jovian's book on the Origins of the Vampire Species.

“Wow, this is fascinating Neculai. I can’t believe all of this was written down. I took a look at the dagger in the book and it is identical to your dagger. How did you get it?” she asked. She had a million and one questions but Neculai clearly was lost in his own thoughts. He pulled the book closer to him as he was sitting right next to her and begin to read.)

The book tells the story of the very first vampire. It starts by explaining how Sabastian was human and how he lived his life. It tells of his family and when he met his wife and married her. It tells of wars in his land.

He was a landowner who had to protect his land from those who wanted to overthrow his rule. It goes on to explain how he gain a reputation for the dark deeds because people became aware that he was consulting a warlock. The church banished him. The priest claimed his soul was damned and he wanted nothing to do with him.

He was excommunicated. Of course, he goes on to tell how his arrogance knew no bounds. Who was the church, priest, or anyone else going to tell him what he could or could not do? His wife on the other hand was tortured by his decision.

She had grown up in the church and she wanted him to apologize to the priest and get back in the church or she felt they were all doomed. However, he was stubborn and persistent. He would not allow anyone to steal his lands. No one would steal from him and no one would defeat him. Those who opposed him would meet a vicious end.

As he called in favors from surrounding kingdoms to help him defend his land and territories. He still consulted the warlock. However, for his wife’s sake, he limited his contact with him and didn’t speak of seeing the man to his wife. He thought he was winning his war against his sworn enemies but what he didn’t know is that one of his allies, his friend in fact had betrayed him.

His friend had turned his army against him and was attacking him from within his own walls. Sebastian was able to escape and he made his way to the warlock's cave. The man said he needed to be by the ocean and the cave made it impossible for many but the desperate got to him. When Sebastian arrived bloody, clothes ripped, the warlock knew what he was coming to see him about.

He offered him a chance to defeat his enemies. A chance to keep his land and restore his good name. Sebastian wanted it, he wanted it all. The warlock told him the truth, that what he would have to do is give up his soul in order to gain all that he wanted.

Sebastian was torn. He didn’t want to give up his soul. He had promised his wife that was the last thing he would do. He couldn’t go through with something like that.

However, he felt he had no choice. He couldn’t lose all that he held dear to him and so he did what the warlock told him. After the ritual was complete. He felt different.

He knew he was different. He could feel something in his body that wanted to be set free. He stumbled out of that cave a different man than when he went in. He made his way back to his property and land.

He snuck in through a secret passageway because his land was overrun with traitors. He sought his wife first. He would have to get her to safety. Then he could take care of his enemies, however as he made his way to where she would be hidden, he found he was too late. He found his wife dead.

She had been assaulted and murdered. The perpetrator was just getting up from his horrible deed as the rage in him took over. The man turned around and spotted him, laughing all along at how it was too late for her. He mocked Sabastian’s stupidity for leaving his wife to his mercies since he had none.

All along as he spoke the beast was coming forward. Sebastian could feel him bursting forth. His teeth turn to that of an animal, and his nails lengthen. The man was speaking until he heard the growling issue forth from him.

Sebastian made his way over to where his wife lay dead. He knelt beside her, the man had eased back his sword drawn. He was about to swing and delivered a death blow but Sabastian was faster. He caught the man by the wrist and twisted.

The man’s wrist was snapped in two easily. The sword fell from his useless fingers. Sebastian stood and that kill was his first taste of human blood. That was his first kill as a vampire, a monster, a true monster.

From there his life becomes one of living off the blood of others, a life of darkness, a life of revenge on the ones who betrayed him. Then one day he discovers this woman. A woman different from other women she wasn’t afraid of him. She saw something in him and made him feel alive once again.

He hadn’t felt truly alive in a long time. He cared once again, he had found his heart, his soul. Then it happened. She was pregnant. He knew the child could not be his, he is the walking living dead.

He has no seed to burst forth from his loins. So, he would have killed her, but it would have been like killing himself. So, he chased her away. He hated her, hated himself, and refused to see her, to be anywhere in the vicinity of her betrayal.

He went on a vicious rampage of slaughter. He made a slew of new vampires. Ones who were loyal to him. Ones who would never betray him. Ones like Vulcan, Aasir, Iovita, Sarafina and others. The loyalty they showed him is something the witch could never understand.

Then while living far away from the valley that she resided in, he was contacted by the human puppet who lived in his castle begging him to come back. The woman has given birth to a male child he was told. A child that craves blood. To his male child. A child that is a vampire, but also something else.

The servant begged him to come back and see for himself. So, he went back. He couldn’t believe what he was being told, but most importantly he couldn’t wait to see her. He missed her. She was there at his home when he arrived and she had bought the babe to meet him.

The babe was usual, it looked like its mother but he could smell the blood coursing through the babe. It was a cross of its mother’s blood and something else. Something more like him. He knew instantly, the babe was his.

How was that, he did not know, but it was.

He was fascinated. He watch the babe who grew quickly over the next month, until she decided that his home was no place to raise the babe. They had a long talk about the future and realize that away from his home is the only safe option to raise his little boy.

So, he let them go and didn’t see him again up close, of course. He would occasionally pass by and could hear the laughter of a small child, a small male child, his child. He would stop on those occasions and observe the child at play. He was faster than all the adults.

He could climb trees easily at three years old. He could leap high in the air and snatch birds right out of the sky. Of course, he would release them unharmed. Yet this child, his child, is different. Then he read on in the book, and it spoke of how it could be possible for the child to be conceived.

It spoke of the child’s mother as not mortal or at least not fully mortal. She was something else that made it possible for his child to be conceived and born. The last few pages of the book spoke of a special dagger that is needed for the mother's survival. The dagger of her people and without the dagger she would be consumed by the power in her. She would not survive it.

His child would not survive without it also. It went on to detail how the mother spent time away from the monastery leaving her babe behind. Sabastian accompanied her as she searched for her own ancestral lands and people. They got lucky and found a cousin of hers, but the cousin was afraid of him until she told him about the babe she had borne.

The babe was born of both Sabastian and herself. He was fascinated and he invited them into his home and asked her to tell him everything. After hearing their story he went on to tell her why the dagger was important. However, it wasn’t just the dagger but a ring also. She was given the dagger but not the ring.

She needs the ring also. So, she returned home to her babe knowing pursuing the ring was a dangerous endeavor, one she could not risk and leave her child without her. She showed him the dagger once and he drew it from memory. The End - Volume One, Neculai and Deja finished volume one. Now they had only one question on their mind, where was Volume Two...