The Vampire & Her Witch

Hamdi’s golden eyes blinked slowly as the emaciated lupine vampire struggled to regain his bearings. When they finally focused on the short, dark-haired vampire before him, his eyes went wide in fear.

”Y-your Eternity,” Hamdi stammered, finding his rough voice from months of anguished cries and painful disuse. ”Th-thank y-you, for r-rescuing me.”

”Thank Answaen for sending someone to retrieve your worthless carcass,” Shubnalu said as he returned to his painting, refusing to interrupt his work for something as simple as questions.

”Your master is still alive? Your Gift is intact, and little Nyrielle defeated you anyway?” Shubnalu asked as he retrieved a paintbrush and began mixing a dark, ruddy brown before painting a long, sensuous line that flowed from behind one hill toward the foreground of the painting. Where the line approached the burning trees, his brush flickered back and forth, blurring the layer of paint before flickering up to capture a trace of the reddish-orange and blending it into the surface of his river.

There had been countless bodies in the river that night, both in armor and in rough peasant clothes. It would take time to paint them all in, but Shubnalu had plenty of time...

”Master Bardas s-s-still l-lives,” Hamdi forced himself to say before he broke off in a coughing fit. When he finally recovered his ability to speak, he continued at a slow, measured pace.

”It wasn’t Her Eternity alone,” Hamdi said. ”Her pet priest. Burned me with ’Holy Fire.’ Vengeance and fury in flame,” he explained. ”Alone, she... -AAAAAGGH!!!-”

Shubnalu flicked the tip of his smallest finger at Hamdi without putting his paint brush down, launching a twisted dart of deep crimson energy that burrowed into the hollow of Hamdi’s right shoulder. The dart didn’t spill a single drop of blood; rather, it drank in the blood that should have flowed from the wound and used it to grow larger and sharper still until the point of the dart erupted from the back of Hamdi’s shoulder, still twisting through his flesh like a drill.

”Thank my Master for the lesson,” Answaen said as her hand gripped Hamdi by the scruff of the neck, lifting his feet a full foot off the ground. ”And apologize for lying like a dog.”

”I didn’t -AAAARRGGGGGG!!!!-” Hamdi started only to scream again as the dart piercing his shoulder grew wicked barbs that tore at his flesh.

Shubnalu still hadn’t looked away from his painting as his brush began filling in details in the foreground, streaks of lighter brown that blended into the outlines of huts and homes, each broken and burning into the night, adding its own trail of sooty smoke to the clouds above.

”Master needs to know if little Nyrielle has grown strong enough to defeat you on her own,” Answaen said. ”Answer him truthfully.”

”I, I don’t know,” Hamdi said, tucking his hairless tail between his legs as his body trembled uncontrollably in Answaen’s grip. ”I, I’m sorry. I won’t lie, b-but I didn’t h-have, have the full strength of my pack,” he explained. ”Only two of my p-progeny were close enough to draw strength from...”

”This is why your master was a fool to hunt the Church in their home across the sea,” Shubnalu said, pausing long enough to hold up a hand and recall the twisted, barbed dart from where it had lodged itself in Hamdi’s shoulder. The dart tore itself free with a sound of ripping flesh and cracking bone, flying across the room and shrinking in size until it blended seamlessly with the crimson jewel set in the silver ring on Shubnalu’s smallest finger.

”That he’s still alive after all of these years without falling prey to the schemes of the ’Saints’ counts for something, I suppose,” Shubnalu said as he returned to his painting, rouging out the outline of a fortress with five spires protruding from a cliffside like a hand reaching out of the stone.

”Do you know anything else that’s useful, High. Lord. Hamdi?” Shubnalu said, emphasizing each word of the fallen lord’s title.

”I’ve l-learned a g-great deal, your Eternity,” Hamdi said quickly. ”About the Church and their Inquisition. I had more than fifty years to torture...”

”Irrelevant,” Shubnalu said as he set down his brush once again before walking over to the suspended lupine lord. ”Starving, caged dogs are dangerous because they only know how to bite. The minions of the artificial sovereigns are no different,” he said as he held out a pale, alabaster hand covered in silver rings studded with crimson jewels.

”You’ve done as well as can be expected, Hamdi,” Shubnalu said, giving the withered vampire a smile that felt as empty and hollow as the ancient vampire’s eyes. ”I’ll repay your service by giving Bardas a gift. The freedom to create another progeny who can bear the Strength of the Pack,” he said as his fingernails stretched into long, dark claws.

”Sanguine Harvest: Blood of the Father,” Shubnalu intoned as crimson energy spilled from his wrist, enveloping his hand as the tips of his claws pierced into the flesh directly above Hamdi’s heart.

”NOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

”AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!”

Hamdi screamed as Shubnalu pulled his hand back, drawing with it five thin streams of blood drawn directly from Hamdi’s heart. The blood didn’t belong to him; the blood belonged to Bardas. It was the essence of the Gift that Bardas had bestowed on his progeny, the source of Hamdi’s power and strength and his unique bond to the vampire who made him.

Shubnalu pulled every last drop of that blood from Hamdi’s body, leaving him withered and frail. Five hundred years, held at bay by the gift of his master’s blood, caught up to him at once. What hair he had left turned white before crumbling away, and his flesh dried up and wrinkled like a grape left in the sun. His bones cracked and broke under the strain of his body’s failure, and the heart that struggled to beat in his chest gave a final, soft -thump- before going still forever.

Hamdi’s eyes, his perfect, gleaming, golden eyes, were the last thing to fade, staring in horror at the Fangs of Death who stripped away everything that had defined Hamdi for the past five centuries.

”Don’t worry,” Shubnalu said as the pulsing, crimson energy pinned between his claws began to pulse brighter and brighter as it slowly condensed into a crystalline, faceted form. ”I’ll put this essence of yours to good use,” he said as the first genuine-looking smile Hamdi had ever seen appeared on the ancient vampire’s lush lips.

”Answaen can stay a few days longer,” he said as he watched the light fading from Hamdi’s eyes. ”While I craft a gift for little Nyrielle to welcome her home...”