{One}
Nicolai stumbled into the house that had been his for centuries. Blood seeped from his weakened body but he had to get to his daughter. He slammed the door shut and fell to his knees, trying to stay conscious. His maid for many years, Victoria, ran from the kitchen and gasped when she saw her master on the floor.
“Sir Nicolai, what has happened to you?” She asked, running to his side and kneeling beside him.
“Not to worry, my girl. Help to the couch and call my beautiful daughter.”
Victoria struggled to help the old Vampire to his feet and she screamed violently for his daughter to join them. Once she had him on the couch, she screamed for the girl once more and then ran into the kitchen to gather some gauze and antibiotics to rub into his wounds.
Lamiai, his beautiful daughter stirred inside her coffin. She heard the faint screams of the woman who had helped raised her for many, many years but couldn’t understand a word she was saying. She opened her vivid purple eyes and stretched out before lifting the top of the coffin off and setting it to the side. She stepped out and took a deep breath, unaware that her father lay dying just right down stairs.
Lamiai sighed deeply as her bare feet drew her closer to the French doors that led to her lanai. She grabbed the champagne glass that sat on the mantel, licking her lips when the fresh, warm blood trickled into her mouth. She glanced at the digital clock that hung on the wall; 9:05pm.
She pushed open the doors and stepped out on the balcony, overlooking her birth land. The rolling, lush, green hills reached out as far as her eye could see. Beautiful four story mansions sprouted from beneath the trees; their old, Romanian architecture making them easy to recognize.
She jumped and whipped around when Victoria busted through the doors of her room. Lamiai ran over to the woman who had stayed young over a 100 years and lifted her face with her index finger, “What is wrong?”
“It’s your father young Lamiai, he’s downstairs. He’s… he’s bleeding profusely.”
Without another thought, Lamiai bolted out of the room and down the stairs with Victoria right behind her. When she dashed into the living room, the new lit moon had cast dark shadows on her father’s body. She fell to her knees and crawl over to him, her tears already cascading down her soft cheeks.
“What has happened to you father?”
“That doesn’t matter now my beloved daughter, I have much to tell you.”
He grunted in pain and gripped his chest and Victoria tried to best to clean to many puncture wounds on his body, “Tell me who did this to you father. I will go out right now and make sure that they never see another sunrise. Tell me who did this!”
“Hush my daughter! I must tell you many important things and who did this to me is not one of them. Now is my time, sweet daughter, my time to die.”
“No father! Please tell me who did this! I will make them pay!” She cried to him, grabbing his hand and rubbing her face into it.
“It is my time Lamiai. If it wasn’t, that young vampire wouldn’t have been able to defeat me. But you have many things to do now my love, many important things.”
“What must I do?”
Nicolai stared into her purple irises and ran his hand down the side of her face. His mother’s face instantly flashed in the front of his mind and the love that he had for her, “You look just like my mother. Her eyes were the exact shade of yours.”
“I know father, you have told me before.” Lamiai whispered.
Nicolai shuddered under the pain again as Victoria rubbed and poured more liquid onto his skin, trying desperately to save her master, “Listen to me now child. You have much to do before the first full moon of the New Year. I have been trying for years to produce another child so you would never have to deal with the prophecy, but I have failed. The burden now falls upon you now that I am dying.”
“What prophecy do you speak of father?”
“It is an ancient prophecy my dear. Now that I am dying, you are the only original family member left. The rest of us have been killed off throughout the years, and you must continue our bloodline.”
“But, I don’t understand. Our family has single-handed created out race of people. There are millions of us all over the world father, how am I the only one left?”
“You are the only living member of the original family my love. Yes, the rest of the vampires are products of us but their blood has been diluted and tainted as time has progressed. As the years passed, one by one, our family members have been plucked from this earth and you are the only one to succeed us now.
The prophecy states that the last family member must fall deeply in love and produce a child from that union before the first full moon of a new year. If the prophecy is not fulfilled, the last living member will die and the blood of the original family will be drained from every other vampire, killing them all.” Nicolai said, his breath becoming short.
“But you just said that our blood has become diluted and tainted. How will the others die if they are not pure?”
“Although the blood is tainted, it still needs ours to survive. If our bloodline dries up, our race is doomed my sweet girl. They will all die by the end of the year of the first full moon. You can not let this happen to us, Lamiai. Our family was worked for centuries to create our world, you can not let it parish because of my stupid pride. I should have just left that young vampire to his own.”
“What did he do to you father?”
“He stabbed me with the fang of a serpent. Pure bloods are severely allergic-“ More pain ripped through his dying body, his yellow eyes glazed over and turned a pale gray, “This is it my daughter, make me proud.”
Victoria and Lamiai wept over his body, “I love you father, forever and always.”
A faint smile rose on the old Vampire’s face and then his hand went limp in hers. His smile fell from his face and his eyes went cold. His chest stopped in mid-rise and his skin turned an ash gray. Victoria threw her body over Lamiai’s and held her tightly as the two women cried for the loss of their leader, mentor and father. Victoria rocked them slowly and whispered sweet words in Lamiai’s ear, trying to calm the girl.
They sat like that for hours, Lamiai still holding on to your fathers’ dead hand. Victoria soon left her, calling close friends of the family’s and moving his coffin into the living room. The house was soon full of old and young vampires, mourning the death of the man who had created them all. They soothed and calmed Lamiai, bringing her gifts and telling her that they would always be there to care for her.
Lamiai thanked them graciously and kissed her father one last time before his body was lowered into the coffin for the last time. Desmond, Nicolai’s closest friend, threw his arm over the still shaking Lamiai and led her outside after the coffin was put into a horse drawn carriage. Desmond and his wife Luna, Lamiai and Victoria piled into the carriage behind the one that held her fathers coffin, and took off into the dark night to lay him to rest.
They came to a stop in a lush field, vivid memories of Nicolai and Lamiai running through the field flashed in her mind. She could still hear his laughter as they played hide and seek when she was a child, causing more sheets of tears to fall down her ashen skin. They piled out of the carriage, Desmond and Luna taking Lamiai and Victoria’s hands into their own. The hundreds of Vampires watched silently as the hole was dug, women and men shedding silent tears into the unusually warm night.
Desmond released Lamiai’s hand only long enough to place his palms onto the lid of the coffin. He recited an old, Romanian prayer and urged all of the vampires to join him. Their voiced filled the night air and sky, chanting along in the old prayer. Their voices could be heard from miles around, the air filling their lungs and coating them like warm butter coating a piece of toast. At the end of the prayer, Desmond pulled his palms from the lid of the coffin laid a gentle kiss upon.
“Sleep well my beloved brother. You will be sorely missed.”
He stepped back and grabbed Lamiai’s hand again as two vampires lifted the coffin from the ground and began lowering it into the cold dirt. Lamiai stepped away from Desmond and ran over to a bush of roses that sprouted near a tall, old tree. She plucked one of the deep red roses from it’s place and jogged back over to the hole that now held her father.
When the coffin was positioned in its’ final resting place, Lamiai knelt down and sat back on her knees. She kissed the rose gently and the sweet smell from the waxy petals filled her mourning body. A single tear fell into the rose and she dropped it into the hole, the rose landing right on top of his coffin.
“I love you father, I will not fail you.” She whispered as the two vampires began throwing the dirt into the hole.
One by one, the other vampires came to the edge of the grave and placed flowers and offered Lamiai their condolences. She smiled sweetly and snuggled into Desmond’s arms as they all filled out one by one. When they were the last ones left, Desmond turned to Victoria and whispered something in her ear. She nodded at him and then smiled softly.
“Let’s get you two home before the sun rises.” Luna said, leading them back to the carriage.
When they were back in front of the home that Nicolai had built for his family, Desmond kissed the tips of Lamiai’s fingers and ran his hand down her pain-stricken face, “You have much to do my child in such a time of despair. I will be here to help you whenever you get lost my dear, do not forget that.”
“Thank you Desmond, my father loved you dearly. I love you dearly.” She whispered.
“And Luna and I love you two all the same. Hurry now child, the sun will be rising any minute.”
They gave their final goodbyes and Desmond jumped back into the carriage just as the sun began rising over the trees. Lamiai and Victoria ran back into the house and quickly slammed the curtains shut to block out the deadly light.
“Head to the basement my Lamiai. I have something to show you.”
Lamiai did as she was told and walked slowly down into the dark basement. She lit the candles that lined the staircase and then the ones the sat on the mantel and table in the basement. She sat on the old Victorian couch, pulling her legs underneath her. She wrapped a blanket around her still shivering body and bowed her head as more hot tears rolled down her face.
Victoria soon made her way down to the basement, carrying a silver platter. She sat the platter down on the table and handed the young girl a tall necked champagne glass of blood. When Lamiai refused the nourishment, Victoria sat the glass back down, “You must eat my dear girl. You need your strength.”
“I can not eat knowing my father will never eat again. I simply can not Victoria.”
“But it’s your favorite sweet girl, the blood of a young girl I found just before your father stumbled in.”
“It is old blood, we can not drink the blood of the dead.” Lamiai hissed back.
“Watch your mouth Lamiai, I know what we can and can not do. I would never serve you blood of the dead. I kept her alive and killed her just now so you could eat, now drink.”
Lamiai noted the forcefulness in Victoria’s voice and she promptly grabbed the glass and took a sip of the warm, thick liquid. She felt a little better as the blood warmed her naturally arctic body but nothing could take away the pain in her heart. She looked into Victoria’s brilliant blue eyes. Victoria was practically her mother. Nicolai had made Victoria especially for Lamiai after her natural mother had been tortured and thrown into the sunlight while in Egypt. Hundreds of years later, Victoria was still there, caring for the two people that she had loved the most.
“I wish this hadn’t have happened my child, you have a long journey a head of you now.”
Victoria pulled a long, rolled piece of parchment paper from under her dark dress and handed it across the table, “Read this, it will answer all of your questions.”
Lamiai grabbed the old paper and unrolled it, her eyes scanning over the old Transylvanian words, “What is this?” She whispered.
“It is the prophecy that your father found through his reading hundreds of years ago. Turns out, the animal that had bitten your grandmother had been written about before. The animal had one objective, and that was to find the perfect person to pass his gift along to. And that my dear girl, is the prophecy that you must fulfill to satisfy the animal.”
Lamiai’s eyes scanned over the old words as she translated them in her head, mouthing them silently to herself as her journey became clear to her.
The animal has chosen The Damien's as the birth family of the Vampire race. Without them, none of us will prosper. One the eve of the death of the second to last family member, the last of the family must begin their journey. If the last family member is not able to succeed in their task before the first full moon of the New Year, he/she will be murdered and the rest of the race will parish by the end of that year.
The last member must find a love to continue the blood line. They must produce a child out of love and nothing else, or the prophecy will not be fulfilled. This deed must be completed by the eve of the first full moon of the New Year or the gift the animal has given will be taken away.
“I must find love and conceive a child?” Lamiai exclaimed breathlessly.
Victoria nodded her head slowly, “Yes but like the prophecy states, you must find a king to help you control the throne. You must be in love and the child must be conceived in a fit of pure, unadulterated passion for the prophecy to be fulfilled. Anything less than that, and you along with the rest of us, will be killed.”
Lamiai rolled the prophecy back up and set it gently on the table as her mind began to race. She sipped on the blood slowly as her plan began to formulate in her head, “When is the first full moon of the New Year?”
“Exactly one year from tonight, January 17th, 2008.”
Lamiai laughed sarcastically and slammed the champagne glass back onto the platter, “So you are telling me, that I have one year to fall madly in love with someone and produce a child when I have no idea where to begin?”
“I know it is a lot but it will come you sweet Lamiai. You are a smart girl and I know that you will not let us down. It will come to you, I have faith in you.”
“Then you alone have faith in me, I haven’t the slightest clue what love for any other man but my father feels like.”
“Oh, you’ll know Lamiai, you will know. I said the same thing before I first laid eyes on your father, from then on, I’ve been completely devoted to him, taking care of him and his infant child.”
Victoria stood up from her seat and picked up the platter once more, “It has been a long night and you have been awake for 12 hours now. Climb back into your coffin and get your rest, I’ll collect dinner as usual at dusk tonight.”
Lamiai nodded and followed Victoria back up the stairs to the main level. Lamiai caught a glimpse of the corpse of the young girl that they had just drunk lying motionless on the counter in the kitchen. Lamiai then turned and headed up another flight of stairs, creeping past the windows and flattening her body against the walls to avoid the tiny slivers of sunlight that had still managed to burst through the thick curtains. Once back in the safety of her dark room, she locked the door behind her and through herself on the large, four post bed the sat in the middle of the large bedroom.
Her mind raced with thoughts and doubts that filled her body at that moment. Hatred for the young vampire that had taken her father soon rushed through her body like the blood that flowed through her veins. She wanted to do nothing more than find the young one and make him suffer. If only her father had woken her from her slumber and let her go with him, she could have protected him.
But that was all in the past now, and she had to keep her people alive. It made her angry that she had to work so hard to keep the very vampire that had killed her father alive, but many, many others would parish if she didn’t fulfill the prophecy. Everything that her father and early family members had worked for would be washed away like the banks of the mighty rivers of the world. She couldn’t let that happen, she couldn’t.
As she climbed into her coffin again and slid the top back over, she swore that she would being that very evening to find her dark prince. Nothing would keep her from fulfilling that prophecy. And nothing would keep her from letting her father down. As she shut her brilliant purple eyes and drifted off into a surprisingly peaceful slumber, she vowed that the young vampire would die a very unpleasant death.
A very unpleasant death indeed.
Author's Chapter Notes:
let me know what you guys think about this one, okay? i'm not sure if I should continue with it or not. you might find some mistakes here and there, i reread but can never catch all of my errors :)
Incomplete
god gave me style is the author of 19 other stories.
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