***
Wrapped once more in her big, fluffy dressing gown, Lenina took her laptop into the kitchen and put the kettle on.
Minutes later with a mug of tea at her side and a search engine opened, she typed “vampire” into the search bar.
The search turned up all the nonsense she expected. Costumes, fan clubs, films, books and songs. Fictional characters, poetry, accounts of ‘real life’ vampires and diseases which had once been mistaken for vampirism. Myths, legends and fables from America, Eastern Europe and Japan. And pictures. So many pictures.
Red lips, sharp teeth, bloodied throats and dark handsome men with pronounced widow’s peaks and sultry eyes. Then came the more contemporary images: pale teenage boys with moody stares, floppy hair and glittery skin.
The tea grew cold beside her as the list of useless websites grew longer.
She jabbed her thumb into her mouth, gnawing the nail until it split and peeled away between her teeth. The very act reminded her of the dreams. The dreams in which her voice deepened, her body grew large and strong and her name was Saar of Egypt. It seemed ridiculous, but the whole situation resembled something from the script of a movie anyway. She tugged the laptop closer and typed: “Sar.”
The search engine suggested several alternative spellings before she could convince it that she meant what she typed.
The results list comprised a miserable selection of unrelated businesses, acronyms and partial surnames. Sighing, she clicked the first suggested spellings, “Zaar.”
The search engine immediately flipped to “tsar” and began listing biographies of Russian rulers from Yuri I and Ivan II to Vasily I. Lenina glared at the screen and tapped her finger to her mouth, trying to sound through the name in her head. The accents of her dreams resembled nothing she knew. Long, lazy sounds with harsh consonants and the occasional dropped syllable.
Instead, she turned her thoughts to the people. The soldiers used bronze weapons and wore leather or straw sandals. Men and women wore coloured paints around their eyes as well as simple linen skirts on their bottom halves.
‘Shendyt,’ she murmured.
“Egyptian soldier Sar.” Once more the search engine corrected her: “Saar.”
She skimmed the results list for several pages until one entry made her pause.
“. . . Saar’s love affair with . . . and of course Cleopatra, as Pharaoh of Egypt was known to . . .”
Her fingers hovered over the track pad. More than once the man in her dream had mentioned Cleopatra. Swallowing the lump of unease in her throat, Lenina clicked the link.
The page opened with ominous music and a tacky animation of a vampire stereotype leaning over a comic depiction of the last Pharaoh of Egypt. Cleopatra’s large eyes and thick black hair were unmistakable, synonymous with the film made famous by Elizabeth Taylor.
Heartened, Lenina began to read. Her enthusiasm faded minutes later when she realised that the site, amateur at best, a joke at worst, contained little fact and more than its share of speculation and make-believe. Some details tallied with what she knew of the Ptolemaic period, but the rest came straight from one lonely source text. A book written by a man who claimed to be one of the world’s first vampires.
Lenina tangled her fingers in her hair and tapped her foot against the floor. The author, using the pen name Xerxes XIV, wrote of his ties to the Ptolemaic vampires in a book named The Start of It All, The Birth of The First of Us. From the blurb, the book appeared to be a long-winded biography of one Egyptian soldier who served under Cleopatra before Octavian’s forces made Egypt part of the Roman republic. Though crazy and probably a waste of time, Lenina grudgingly acknowledged that this was her only clue. The website contained a digital version of the source text, compiled from its original Coptic and made available to download for a small fee. There seemed little choice in the matter. Lenina purchased the book and two minutes later, opened the file.
Saar, heroic and loved by all, knew that we, men and women blessed by Set, are the true rulers of this world. He created thousands of god-touched warriors to help him further Set’s plan to make his followers the most powerful creatures on the planet.
‘Seriously?’ She rubbed her eyes and skipped forward a few pages.
But Saar could only work with the raw material he was given. He could not make worthy god-touched followers from humans plagued by weakness. So he left his Egyptian roots and journeyed south, seeking others to bless with his gift. His search took him across the world to many different peoples, from Mongolians to Japanese samurai, Aboriginal wild men to European dignitaries. Saar spent years searching for his ideal human.
Lenina yawned and skipped back through the text, waiting for something to catch her attention. When it did, she froze, gazing at a name she knew incredibly well. It was followed by another.
Mosi was a great favourite of Saar’s despite his humble and vulgar beginnings. He wasn’t a special man, nor a particularly intelligent one, but his grasp of the Five Powers matched Saar’s like no other. For that reason he quickly became Saar’s right-hand man, second only to the love of his life, Kiya.
Rain drummed at the windows, filling the silence with gentle white nose. The occasional rumble of thunder came with it and a flash of lightning briefly brightened the kitchen. Normal things. Natural things. Phenomena she couldn’t possibly hear or see alongside names plucked straight from her dreams.
Mosi. The man Saar once loved. The man he battled on the blood-soaked sands outside Alexandria. The man who betrayed Saar in the last battle against Octavian’s men.
Kiya. Dark-haired, long-limbed and beautiful, she had a sharp tongue and a temper to match. The same woman Saar wept over as her body crumbled into sand.
Lenina pressed her hands flat to the table, anchoring herself in the kitchen with the touch of something solid and real.
A deep breath in. Another one out. Part of her recoiled from the names written in the book. That same side of her longed to crawl into bed and hide beneath the duvet, shutting out all the terrible truths of the last twenty-four hours. The other part of her crowed with vindication and relief.
The visions weren’t nightmares. Nor the frightening imaginings of a mind on the verge of breakdown. Mosi and Kiya were real. Saar was real. His life played before her eyes each time she slept, moving backwards from his last battles to show his gradual rise to power. Lenina knew then that Xerxes was wrong. Saar hadn’t just loved Kiya, but Mosi too. The other man’s betrayal hit him hard because of that fact. She kept reading.
Relations between Kiya and Mosi were strained at best, volatile at worst, but no others cared for Saar more than they. No others were afforded such preferential treatment.
These two were the first of Saar’s original fourteen children; Hasina, Aswad, Ife, Faki, Jamila, Jafari, Kakra, Atsu, Moswen, Musa, Nubia and Adofo.
Seven men and seven women, chosen by Saar for their skills, intelligence or connections. They helped create the other god-touched warriors he then recruited to his personal army, Red Fang.
A shiver of cold coursed down Lenina’s back. God-touched. Red Fang. Seeing the phrases strengthened her recollection. Hadn’t Saar called his soldiers god-touched? Hadn’t Kiya insisted Red Fang was a suitable name for the army they intended to build together?
Scraping her chair closer to the table, Lenina scrolled to the beginning of book to read it properly. She read about Saar’s plans to secure leadership of Egypt with an army of men loyal to him. His failure caused by Mosi’s betrayal. His search around the world for suitable substitutes which would enable him to rekindle his fight to rule in place of humans, whom he thought to be weak, soulless and foolish. The book culminated in a lavish account of the Battle of Waterloo, in which Saar, having sided with Napoleon, lost spectacularly to Duke Wellington’s allied forces in 1815.
Though no trace of Saar’s body was ever found, every God-Touched less than four years old perished that day. Many believe this was a direct result of Saar’s death as he was
the primary link to Set. Without him to bind us together, the weakest of our number couldn’t hope to survive.
But we maintain hope.
Sacred texts held by Red Fang tell of secret ways to restore Saar to a living god-touched body. “The Prophecy,” as it is widely known, speaks of a Vessel suited to this purpose.
The Vessel will be known by a symbol unique to Saar, but the exact details are the subject of much speculation. The popular belief is that the Vessel will bear a mark much like the one representing Red Fang, a curved slash resembling a long tooth, often called the Neeva. However the Prophecy and the specific details it contains remain the business of Majestics and not any God-Touched younger than First Generation.
In their search for the Vessel, Majestics gave all Elders a specific role: seeker, watcher or soldier. Seekers search for the Vessel, watchers ingratiate themselves into human society, while soldiers are our first line of defence against all those who seek to do us harm.
Lenina wiped her grainy eyes and licked her dry lips. She pushed back from the laptop, shaking her head.
The room seemed to spin, fragmented images whirling through her mind in a colourful kaleidoscope of memories. In the silence of her large modern kitchen, it all seemed so foreign and out of place. Yet parts of it were familiar and not only from her dreams. Something about the tale Xerxes told and the emotions he toyed with captured her heartstrings and plucked them like a harp’s. Despite that, Xerxes had written only a fraction of the real story. She knew that with a certainty that frightened her. His simplified and indulgent account skimmed the surface of the man called Saar, no doubt a result of the rose-coloured glasses he wore when looking at his hero.
The front door opened with a soft click. Soft thuds and a strong smell of wet leather told Lenina who it was long before Nick put his head around the door frame.
‘Hey.’ He dropped his motorcycle helmet on the table and unzipped the top half of his oversuit. ‘You didn’t call. How was the doctor?’
She had to think. That morning and the simple worry of calling the doctor seemed a million years ago. She gazed at her fingers. ‘No appointments until Monday.’
Peeling off the top half of the suit, Nick fanned his t-shirt against his chest. ‘I suppose Ray had a fit about that.’
Lenina turned away. She couldn’t bear to look at Nick’s cheery face, such a mismatch with the rest of her day.
‘What’s wrong, babe?’
Where could she possibly start?
‘Is it the goodie bags again? I told you, just put in cufflinks and earrings or whatever it was you wanted.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Then what? The dress?’
Lenina drummed her fingertips against the table. Anger roughened her voice. ‘Not everything is about this stupid wedding.’
‘Wow, okay. But it’s all you’ve talked about for months. Nothing else exists right now except flowers, horse-drawn carriages and white doves.’
She wondered if Saar ever worried about such mundane things as weddings. Tears gathered in her eyes and ran free, splashing against the laptop. ‘I’ve done such horrible things. I’m a monster.’
Nick actually smiled. ‘Every woman gets a bit stressed when planning something like this. You’re no monster.’
‘No, you don’t understand—’
He grabbed her hand and held it. His fingers brushed hers and she realised he was stroking her engagement ring. ‘I haven’t made any vows yet,’ he whispered, ‘but I’m with you for better or worse. Nothing you can do or say will take away what we have. Tell me what’s got you hissing like a koperkapel.’
She arched an eyebrow at him.
‘A snake from back home.’
Lenina looked away from her fingers. She met Nick’s eyes and saw the sincerity there, the love. The thin film of sweat on his cheeks and forehead made his skin shine while the heat gave him a warm glow.
He squeezed her hand. ‘Tell me.’
‘I’m a vampire.’
He blinked at her.
‘The man in the park. When he bit me he turned me into a vampire. I think. Or perhaps it’s when I drank his blood. I don’t know. But I do know that I’m a vampire now. Or God-Touched . . . they never say vampire. Is that the wrong word? I don’t know.’ By the time she finished speaking, Lenina had to gasp to breathe.
Nick squeezed her hands. ‘Come on, babe. This is a joke, né? You don’t even believe in that stuff.’
‘I didn’t, but then I found this website and it had all this information that matched my dreams and—’
‘Dreams?’
She took a deep breath. No matter how she tried to explain it, Lenina knew it wouldn’t make sense.
‘It doesn’t matter. None of it’s important except the first bit. I’m a vampire.’
Nick pulled back and crossed his arms. ‘Right. So you drink blood now, né?’
Lenina saw the woman on the park again. The glassy eyes. Bloodied throat. With the image came a name, floating up like an air bubble from the oceanic depths of her mind. Pauline Lock. Though she had no idea how, Lenina knew the name belonged to the dead woman.
She bit her lip. ‘Yes. I’ve already done it.’
‘You drank blood?’
A nod. ‘Today. In the park. I killed a woman. I kicked her dog.’
Nick stood, hunching his shoulders against his ears. His voice trembled, a soft stream of Afrikaans expletives before dipping back into English. ‘That’s a really shitty joke, Lenina.’ He turned on his heel. ‘I’m going upstairs.’
Chapter Fifteen