Valantinus

 

Blood Brothers

All materials and concepts relating to the Valantinus: Blood Brothers is copyright © Ziana de Bethune, 2009. No part of this story may be reproduced without written permission from the author.

“As the blood that passes through your hearts is spoiled
with vengeance, the evils from the Underworld have turned you into a species that must drink blood to survive. You have sought vengeance with the heartlessness of asps; there-fore, asps you all shall be."

 

 

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Prologue

"Crazy as you are, why do you promise yourself
to live a long time, you who cannot count on a single day?"


These words you will see in the underground catacombs in Paris.

In these catacombs you will find the Chalk Caves, the Limestone Quarry, the Tunnels, and walls constructed of bone and skull. Ever present is the chill of death wrapped in a frosting of spider webs glistening in beams of artificial light. There are about 300 kilometers of these underground passages. At the conclusion of the 18th century, the government began converting these subterranean caverns into mass graves. Millions of bones and rotting corpses were moved across the city in carts at night, into these tunnels—a monumental undertaking that went on for fifteen months.I observed as they used the bones of so many dead—some slain by my own breed—to line the walls of a cavern that used to belong to me. Some of my own bones hold up the walls in an area called The Empire of the Dead.

The château that I resided in, up to the year 1452, was built upon such a catacomb. We called it the Sanctuary. Construction of the Sanctuary began in 1429 and was completed in the year 1435 by ten of the Originals. Burrowed deep into the earth, three levels under a cemetery on the outer rim of Paris, it was once a haven for ten ancient vampires who had chosen to remove themselves from the corruption of the new breed and carry on lives of fractured tranquility.

A narrow corridor led to a stairwell that provided an exit via a crypt in the center of the cemetery, which bore one of my former names. Above us the cadavers of the newly planted and the bones of the long-dead continued to decay, their graves covered by an ever-present layer of fog rising up from decomposing carcasses. It seemed appropriate that we place ourselves below the dead for we were far beyond deceased. We died more often than any human, our souls arguably more travel-worn than the mere mortal who makes but one journey through death’s door.

Through our night vision we saw one another in shades of blue, the outer edges of our forms glowing ethereally as if a halo of godliness surrounded our unholy beings for the sole purpose of reminding us how far adrift we were. In addition to being a safe house the Sanctuary was once used to stow the Books of Numbers, whose information dated back to the time of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. Those books no longer exist. All that I recount, I dredge up from the ruins of my primordial memory.

The Sanctuary is now a tourist attraction. It has been since June 19th, 1994. I went last year to “take the tour.” The Tour Guide claimed that it was once was a quarry where they had mined limestone for the construction of a church sitting on the adjacent property. While it is true that the limestone in there was used to build something, it had not been a church but my own four-story château, which was converted to a church centuries after I, myself, set fire to the place and walked away.

When a tourist mentioned that there appeared to have been a fire there at one time, for the walls of this “limestone quarry” appear charred, the guide had no sensible reply. Some who were more in tune to their higher selves sensed evil whispering over their skins “like a cold draft.” They shivered, not knowing that I was the evil standing in their midst, the former occupant of this cavern, the King of the Damned.

Its true history is as much a mystery to the human race as are the rest of the catacombs under the city. Those who have spent their lives carbon-dating and sifting through historical data may know some things that their very intelligent brains reveal to them, but they do not know it all.

 


Upon our creation there were exactly 2,791 of our kind. I was there the day the curse was laid upon us and we became the Men and Women of Naja Haje. That is what we were called at the start—asp men and women. Over time we became known as the “blood drinkers,” and later, “vampires,” both terms created by humans. But we were really cobras in men’s and women’s skins with capabilities to inject venom and reproduce ourselves.

Prior to the Fall of the Naja Haje there was only one way to kill us, and two ways that we could kill ourselves. We coveted these secrets; therefore, if one of us was murdered, we knew it was a crime committed by our own.

For 2,791 years after our creation we occupied a human body until it expired, and then our spirits abandoned it to search for another host. We returned with full recall of all previous lives so that we never forgot our reason for being. In your terms of reference, it would be comparable to reincarnation.

We could turn humans into our kind but we were not permitted to exceed 2,791 of our kind in total or serious consequences would be applied. It was on account of my settling of scores that we were created in the first place, and for that reason I was appointed Governor, a post that would be exclusively mine until the day of my own demise. It was my responsibility to ensure that our breed obeyed the Covenants imposed upon us so we would never become the majority. I did fail in my duties as Governor—and we paid a grievous price.

After the battle between The Originals and our descendants in 1452, all things changed. No longer did they—the New Breed—occupy their bodies until they expired, and then return in new ones. The bodies they resided in became immortal, but they became vulnerable. Their appearances changed. They quickly evolved into a species that bore canine teeth which grew when they drew blood. The puncture holes they created in the throats of victims left scars. They were pale of flesh since they could not survive exposure to the sun. It burnt them to ashes to be blown off in the wind, as did death by wooden stakes through the heart. All the ridiculous tactics dreamed up by humans to slay us, that we laughed at before, became very real threats to the New Breed. They could not look upon holy icons, touch silver or garlic, or walk on holy ground. It was as if the gods or demons had decided to get yet another laugh at our expense, by catering to human whimsies. Ergo, they became creatures that haunted the streets only at night, cloaked in darkness, preying on humans while fearing them at the same time. The two changes that worked in their favor was that their eye color was not golden amber...and they bore no halo in the dark.

I survived the final battle, ergo, I retained my powers of near invincibility, which is why so many of the undead would have rested easier if I had been removed from the equation. But here, I still walk the earth in 2008.

I am Valantinus.