Blood Ties E-Book

J. S. Volpe

• Herausgeber: J. S. Volpe
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A dark tale set in the world of Eridia.

Jesus Christ XIV has spent his life in thrall to the vampires of Merrimont Castle, hidden deep in the remote monster-haunted land called the Wilds.  Unlike the other human servants/livestock, who wistfully dream of a life beyond the castle walls, Jesus Christ XIV secretly wishes to become a vampire himself, a being of grace and culture and eternal beauty. And though Ascensions—the raising of a lowly servant to the ranks of the vampires—are exceedingly rare, it soon becomes clear that Jesus Christ XIV has indeed been chosen for this signal honor. But on the eve of his Ascension, everything is thrown into chaos by the unexpected appearance of the legendary vampire hunter named Hull, the very man the vampires fled to the Wilds to escape…

Leseprobe

Blood Ties

by J. S. Volpe

Copyright © 2012 J. S. Volpe

All rights reserved.

As I kneel in the dirt, picking toadberries from the squat green bushes that line the southern end of the orchard behind Merrimont Castle, Spiro Agnew leans toward me and says, “Hey, Gee.”

My name is actually Jesus Christ XIV, but he still calls me by that silly childhood nickname. I wish he would stop. We are eighteen now, long past the age at which such things should be set aside.

“What is it now, Spiro?” I say, though I suspect I know: This is undoubtedly the prelude to yet another of his seemingly endless disquisitions on the supposed wonders of the outside world.

I look up just in time to see him cast a nervous glance at the castle five hundred feet behind us. There, from a second-storey window, Campielos, one of the younger Masters, watches Spiro and me and the rest of today’s farming crew as we do our work. The day is clear and sunny, so Campielos stays safely back in the shadows, his face merely a pale oval in the darkness.

Spiro always acts furtive when he prattles on about the outside world, though he need not. We are free to discuss what we like. The Masters are very generous in that regard. Besides, we are too far away for Campielos to hear us anyway, despite the Masters’ superior senses. Spiro is merely being paranoid and perhaps feels a little guilty for thinking about the outside world when we are treated so well here.

Seeing that Campielos’s attention is elsewhere, Spiro turns to me and says, “I heard something interesting—a story I’ve never heard before, about the other mortals. Out there.” He nods at the ivy-shrouded stone wall that encloses the castle grounds. The wall is fifteen feet high and seven thick, and from its top protrude metal spikes that mirror the jagged peaks of the Peletite Mountains which loom hazy and gray in the distance.

“Oh?” I say, concentrating on getting at a cluster of berries deep in the heart of a thick bush. I am tired of his fascination with the mortal world beyond the wall. Like my nickname, it belongs to childhood.

“Yes. Madonna XIX was telling a story her mother told her, a story that’s been passed down in her family ever since our ancestors were brought here. Apparently in the human societies out there they had a beverage made from some kind of plant—Madonna wasn’t sure which plant, exactly—but when you drank it, it did things to your mind. It made you feel really good. It made your brain think differently.”

I can’t help but laugh.

Spiro frowns at me. “Why is that funny? It’s true, and I think it’s fascinating.”

“It just sounds silly. A drink that makes you think differently? It sounds like a fable. And why would anyone want to think differently anyway?”

“She said it made you feel good,” he mutters. He is upset with me for laughing, for not sharing his wide-eyed excitement.

I can’t help it, though. The concept is ridiculous. “Do people in the outside world not feel good very often, then? Are their lives so miserable that they must imbibe liquefied plants to be happy?”

Spiro glowers and says nothing. We pick berries in silence for a while as small white clouds drift across the blue summer sky. When Spiro speaks again, he is once more smiling and exuberant, any bad feelings between us shrugged off as is his wont.

“Who are you hoping to be paired with?” he asks. He is referring to the upcoming Pairing Ceremony, a triennial event in which the Masters assign all the men and women between the ages of seventeen and nineteen into breeding pairs. There are six of us this year, including Spiro and myself. Spiro hopes to be paired with Mary Magdalene VII, whom he has lusted after ever since he hit puberty.

As for myself, if forced to choose, I suppose I would pick Marilyn Monroe III. But I am beginning to suspect I have a higher destiny, one that does not involve mating and reproducing. I am reluctant to tell this to Spiro, however, so instead I say, “Marilyn, of course.”

He grins. “I thought so. You always loved those blondes.”

I grin back with affected lasciviousness.

Chuckling, Spiro moves on to another toadberry bush.

* * *

When our work is done for the day, we return to the village, a cluster of huts and workshops and other buildings hugging the north wall of the castle. Some of us begin dividing up and distributing the harvested food, while those whose turn it is to serve the Masters bathe, eat, and go to bed for a few hours’ sleep. I am in the latter group.

As is usual on nights that I serve the Masters, my anticipation makes sleep impossible. I lie on my cot, fidgeting, until the iron bell in the southwest tower tolls, then I join the small crowd at the mouth of the Conduit, a long round tunnel cut into the base of the castle’s north side. At its inner end is an iron door leading to the castle’s cellar, though we cannot see the door from here, for the Conduit is unlit.

As we wait, a girlish voice rises from the dark hills beyond the wall.

“Mommy?” it cries. “Mommy?”

A long pause, then again, louder: “Mommy!”

Another pause, then: “Mommy, it’s hurting me! Mommy!”

The cries continue, growing shriller and more urgent before degenerating into a series of warbling howls that sound disturbingly like laughter.

This is not the first time we have heard these chilling sounds. No one, not even the Masters, has ever been able to spy the creature responsible—and creature it surely is, for paw-prints about the size of a dog’s have been found in the muddy ground outside the wall following the creature’s visits.

Countless horrors prowl the rocky hills and tangled forests that surround Merrimont—trolls, remorthori, strange creatures made of metal (Larissa once called them robots), and worse. Two years ago we were harvesting corn when a giant strode past the wall, which reached only to the bottom of his sternum. He did not threaten us, only gave us a disinterested glance before he passed out of sight, but he could have kicked down the wall and stomped us into pulp had he chosen to. And once when I was a boy we saw a lenticular silver object moving slowly above the mountains. To have been visible to us at that distance, the object must have been larger than Merrimont itself. As we watched in awe, our work forgotten, it stopped, hovered for a moment as if deliberating, and then emitted a ray of red light from its underside. When the ray hit a nearby peak, the entire peak exploded in a white flash, hurling boulders at its neighbors and spewing up a column of dust and smoke. Through the smoke we caught a glimpse of the silver object descending behind the shattered peak. We never saw it again, but I do not doubt that it is still out there somewhere. The Wilds are a dangerous place to live, and I am glad we have the Masters to protect us.