Eternal Enemies 2

I was 32 years old when I as kidnapped by vampires and turned in one of them. Or, as we say, “adopted” by a vampire family. I have been a Flaming Oak vampire ever since, enjoying the privileges of being part of the family, and one of the timeless, immortal, members. Doing my part to preserve the interests and the honour of the family.

Which in my case means for the most part to take part in duels. Most the time, duels that end in defeat for one side and a few bruises. Or decapitation, dismemberment, a heart ripped out of the ribcage, all things that can be fixed in a few hours leaving no physical scar. Only a bruised ego. Ever now an them those fights are more serious, because the topic being decided is not trivial, and then I know my very existence is at risk.

If I lose, I end up destroyed, consumed by the victor. Otherwise, I am the one who must end the existence of another person. Who, just like me, is fighting to settle disputes of some old vampires. Disputes we don’t even try understand, and no one bothers explain.

No need. We all serve our respective families. In the end of day, that is all that matters.

Tomorrow night is my birthday, so to speak. I will have been a vampire for 33 years. A little longer than my time on Earth as human.

I feel almost guilty for not go into a long depressive monologue about how low I have fallen and how terrible this life is. Would be for the sake of drama if I tried, life has been actually good to me. Not perfect.

Being a vampire means the need to hunt humans, who do not wish to be hunted by us. The Hunt is necessary, the act of take the blood from an intelligent being, by force, is absolutely fundamental for our sanity. Most the time it end well, we erase the memory of the human after healing the wound with a drop of our blood, and that is all. No significant trauma to speak about.

However, sometimes we lose control, and then we kill our human prey. Happens to all vampires, even the best among us cannot avoid. Comes with the territory, and I genuinely dislike it. Albeit, to be honest, you get used to it eventually. Gradually.

Is part of what we must do to continue our existence.

In my case, there is the duels.

Stories about vampires in fiction try to tell the opposite. However, by experience I can guarantee to you. When you are a vampire, and that is no longer new to you. To kill another vampire is far worse, emotionally. Kill someone like you is worse, kill humans is not pleasant, but is less bad than kill other vampires. Particularly in that case, since those fellows I had to kill are vampires more or less of the same generation I belong to. People like me, who had about the same little choice about taking part in those duels that I have.

Again, that is part of what I need to do. Accept I will kill humans from time to time, innocent fellows who just happened to be around when I was in hunting mode. Accept that I will kill other vampires too, in duels to the death. First need is organic, supernatural, second is a social obligation. Is fundamentally my day job, non-literally done during “day”, usually.

The hunting are moments every now and them. The duels are about five times month, on average. Both only rarely involve any death.

Which life has no downside? Who can say “I never do anything I would ratter not do”?

Feel free to accuse me of being rationalizing, if I am is for the sake of self-preservation. No better reason for a defence mechanism to exist and be kept in place.

Vampiric society is based in gradual acquisition of personal freedom. As the individual earns the trust of his Elders. Vampires never weaken, age only makes us stronger, and in this family we have a half dozen Elders who are over one million years old. They rarely stop to talk with the “young” fellows. Even the Elders who are around couple hundred thousand years old, like our “Vampire King”, the supreme political authority in the family, seldom get their attention.

I suppose the change in perspective you get when you are past one million years must make the short-term considerations of politics too repetitive to be interesting.

When we see and really ancient elder take part in some event, being that a battle or a ball, we know his contemporaries in other families will show up too. There is a sense of implicit need for balance and harmony in vampiric culture. What is beautiful, by its own merit.

Those duels to the death are more than a way to settle disputes. I am starting to realize now.

They involve the risk of destruction for young vampires of two families. Yes, that also gives the families a chance to test their training process and sharp combat skills outside open battles. Risking one individual instead of several. However, the duels are also designed with another purpose in mind.

Much of the power balance between families, and individual prestige of each member inside the family, comes from the vampire powers.

For the most part, the vampire powers are determined before we became vampires. They are the seeds sleeping in our blood when we are human. The only way to get new blood seeds is by consuming another vampire. And the chances to get a new blood seed in that process are extremely small.

To consume another vampire completely takes time and leaves you vulnerable. Is almost madness to try it during a ground battle. You would be exposing yourself to all risks, unable to react to your surroundings until you finish.

If the vampire is not at least almost as old as you are, your chances to gain any blood seed are astronomically low. If this vampire do not have developed blood seeds, you have nothing to hope for, undeveloped seeds cannot be taken. If the vampire is immobilized and was not just defeated, again, you have practically no chance at all. The duels are shaped to follow all necessary procedures to make the transference of blood seed as likely as it can be.

This gives the families the chance to improve promising young members, during their first couple centuries as vampires. After that, the trajectory of a vampire as duellist ends and he is transferred to some different activity.

We cannot choose the seed we get. I got a practically useless power of geo-localization in small scale, from a vampire who had the power to create a mist around himself. So dense that I could barely see him standing couple steps ahead of me. The mist burned my eyes and my skin like sulfuric acid, forcing me to regenerate constantly. Slowed my movements. Didn’t affected him at all. Of course, given the chance I would have chosen that instead of the thing I got.

After him I won a hundred fights to the death, consumed those vampires, and got no power from it.

One hundred and thirteen times after getting that first power, I finally got the second. It provides me the capacity to manipulate glass as if it was wet clay. I can touch it with my mind from across the room, and change its shape, but that is all I can do. Make it vibrate a little bit, perhaps I will develop the capacity to explode it eventually. Now I am in the process of learn how to change colour, right things inside it, walk through glass walls. In some advanced level of development I should be able to turn my blood and flesh into glass, making myself a statue of translucent material as strong as the windows of an armoured truck. Still, does not work with plastic, stone, ceramic or steel, only glass. And if painfully hard to improve, that power!

However, only five fights latter I got my last power so far. And this time was something good.

I am a healer and a shapeshifter. The combination is what makes me a good dualist. I am very resistant, can take a lot of injure. Can grow body-armour, spikes to pierce my adversary, drain his blood. Tentacles, extra-arms with long claws, extra muscles and bones that make me heavier and can be eliminated when I need to be lighter. That sort of thing. Is a supernatural power, as such not limited by the usual laws of physics. One day my bones and muscles will be stronger than the best steel, but for now they are far bellow that. You can say I am able to make my body stronger. Compared to the average vampire of my age without a power similar, I can make myself stronger than him, about as much as a bull can be stronger than a human. Or a polar bear, or a large gorilla, something like that.

Now I got, and have the chance to develop, the Artifex Seed. It is the seed that allow vampires to create solid objects with the physical characteristics of any material know by humans. From simple golden coins up to complex machine guns. In the most advanced levels the Artifex can create materials that escape the limits of physics, like vampiric powers to. Immune to gravity, invisible, capable to transport electricity without loss and even without generate any magnetic field, things like that. Far bellow those eccentric marvels, in a couple more decades with a little luck I should be able to sweat myself an actual bullet prove body armour. Perhaps create a rifle or a machinegun, with infinite supply of bullets. Not literally “infinite” this power do consumes blood, but the volume of stuff created is many times larger than the amount of blood consumed.

Right now my only resource to attack someone from distance if the pyrokinesis of Torch Seed, and that particular power is forbidden in most duels. Once I learn how to mix my shapeshifting and the Artifex power, I can turn myself basically in a T-800 extra-large on steroids. Improved with advanced self-regenerating capacity.

After the fight, all that extra weight disappears, reabsorbed in my body. Leaving me looking like I was back in my days as a human.

Only problem I can imagine is that, when I develop those capacities and start using them in duels the elders of my family will no longer find any opponent to me. Because no other family is likely to accept the challenge.

Goes without saying, that is not a bad prospect for me. Personally.

It means I will finally find myself free from the obligation of fight in those damn duels.