One Blessing Two Curses: Of Vampires Maidens and Bunnies



  Also by Lumi Laura:

  Carpathian Vampire: ...when you've never known love...

  One Blessing, Two Curses

  Of Vampires, Maidens and Bunnies

  By

  Lumi Laura

  Translated from the Romanian

  by

  Dragoş Tătărescu

  Tragedy's Workshop

  Healdsburg, CA

  Copyright 2014 Luminița Laura

  ISBN-13: 1-311-58809-4

  ISBN-10: 978-1-311-58809-8

  Cover illustrations and design by David Sheppard

  Author Web site:

  www.LumiLaura.com

  Book Web site:

  www.CarpathianVampire.com

  One Blessing, Two Curses

  Mythology of the Vampire

  [Author's note: This short story is narrated by the antagonist of my novel Carpathian Vampire. It contains much of the mythology behind the race of vampires. The events of this story occurred within the same time frame as that of the novel.]

  On the southern slope of the Carpathian Mountains, Highway 714 winds north through a valley and then turns into a dirt road that eventually dead ends. From there, a footpath leads on up the mountain where, visible to those physically equipped for the climb, a great hole in the side of the cliff serves as entry to a cavern visited by tourists in summer months. Sitting in the middle of this great entrance is a small monastery. Before the cavern and the monastery, adequately blocking the entrance, is a visitors' center, manned year round by monks of the Romanian Orthodox faith.

  The Ialomicioara Cave, as it is now known, has a history. Zalmoxis, the god of the Getae, first inhabited the cave but that was millennia ago. In more recent memory, rumors of a habitation and supposed sightings by some of the monks at the monastery had at times sent panic through the small congregation, but no one of any intellectual proclivity took them seriously. All the same, the clergy knew something was rummaging through the garbage at night, and they'd seen pale footprints on the stone walkway from someone who'd stepped on a greasy biscuit. Parts of the cavern had never been explored because of the evil lurking there, and no one entered alone, particularly at night. Even so, the resident demon never threatened or hurt anyone. I knew the rumors of a demon were true.

  My name is Alu. Many will tell you of the origin of vampires, but only I know the truth, for I am the original. Yes, I started it all. According to Greek mythology, the Centaur Cheiron was an immortal. For those who have neglected their studies on the subject, a Centaur is an animal with the head and shoulders of a man but the body of a horse. Something that you'll not hear about except from me is that two types of immortals exist. The immortals we're used to hearing about are those who exist in the Divine World. The other type is the earthly immortals, like Cheiron, who live forever in what I like to call the real world, this place where you and I live out our lives. I'm an immortal, but I exist only in the real world, except for — well, I'll get to that another time. God, on the other hand, if he exists at all, exists only in the Divine World.

  Centaurs were a violent and disgusting race of beings, except for one, and that was Cheiron. He was the wisest and most knowledgeable of all beings, and many sent their young men to him to be taught, among them Achilles, who should need no introduction; Jason of the Argonauts; Asklepios the healer, before he became an immortal; and Theseus, king of Athens; as well as many, many others of lessor fame. Cheiron lived for many tens of thousands of years here on Earth, but one day he was wounded by an arrow from Heracles' bow, a wound that proved unhealable. Cheiron was destined to live out eternity in terrible agony; therefore, he gave up his immortality to Prometheus.

  Now some are of the controversial opinion that this is how Prometheus gained his immortality, but I'm here to tell you that it's just not true. Prometheus was a Titan and always a Titan, which everyone knows is a race of gods. He was a brother to Kronos, who until overthrown by Zeus was the god among gods. Prometheus was already immortal, the immortal who had created mankind, so Prometheus didn't need the extra immortality. When Cheiron was actively campaigning for someone to take on his immortality, Prometheus came running, shouting even, that he'd take it. No one else even had a chance to make an offer, so eager was Cheiron to give it up and Prometheus to claim it.

  Prometheus was ever the benefactor of mankind, loving us so much that he stole fire from Hephaestus, the god of fire, and gave it to mankind that we might not dwindle into nonexistence. But all humans are mortal, destined to suffer in turpitudity, whining and grumbling, having a progressive condition called old age, and to finally die.

  Immortality is a tricky thing, and it didn't come without its caveats. This immortality was solely for here on Earth because Cheiron was an earthly creature with the lifespan of an immortal. Since it was only for one person, Prometheus could give it to only one human, but because of Cheiron's knowledge of illness, Prometheus was able to make it a contagion among men, a blessing of sorts. But as the ancient Greeks said about the gods, they dispense two curses with each and every blessing, and such was the case with Prometheus' gift of immortality. This form of immortality, Cheiron's form, had to be fed with human blood or the possessor would also develop Cheiron's pain and agony that caused him to give it up.

  Our immortality having come from Cheiron, we have a little of the Centaur temperament, the second of the two curses. We have a tendency to be violent, which, to my way of thinking, actually serves us well because we must have blood from an uninfected human to alleviate the pain. We suffer no illnesses or disease. And the vampire always retains the basic nature of the human being that existed before he or she was turned. All this smoke and mirrors thing you've hear so much about, the business of no reflection and disappearing in a cloud of, is a lie also. The cross is obviously a pestilence to a vampire because it welcomes death in the real world and resurrection in the other, the Divine World, something totally counter to the entire vampire schema.

  So this then is the origin of vampirism, and it was I, Alu, to whom Prometheus first gave immortality on Earth. Which brings us to the subject at hand.

  Once upon a time, there was a young girl who was the fairest in all the land. And by fair, I do not mean that she was blond and blue-eyed. As a matter of fact, she had the shiniest black hair with which God ever graced a good girl, and the deepest brown eyes ever put on a human being. But this girl's qualities didn't stop there. She was the sweetest and kindliest of girls, a caretaker and spokeswoman for little children and a lover of animals, particularly little creatures of the fields.

  So it was that one day just after sundown she was in a meadow caring for a lost bunny rabbit, when a nasty old vampire happened upon her cooing to the cuddly creature. She was all bent over on the ground making over it when she looked up and saw me standing over her. Such a fright I've never before seen, and since I was still going through my cruel stage, this delighted me no end. I let her run, only getting close enough to encourage her panic so that she might renew her futile effort to outdistance me. I drew up behind her as she faltered from fatigue, and when she fell, I was upon her before she could resign herself to her fate and her panic was still in full bloom, her heart racing beyond itself.

  She was hot and sweaty, her neck salty and oily and smoother than a newborn's. I suckled her first, just to taste the deliciousness of her femininity, and then my teeth crashed through to the warm nectar, and all her life flowed from that gorgeous little body into old Alu, disgusting corruptor of all things fair. I put her lips to my throat, and she bit me but only sucked long enough to conjure the vampire spirit within her and not enough
to sate the afflictions of the condition for anytime at all.

  I abandoned her there on the ground, a rumpled lifeless form, but I had purposefully left her with a tiny spark of life, just enough for the infection of Prometheus' worldly immortality to grow and give her the hunger that would change her nature from a soft peace-loving creature into a violent, wrathful vampire. At least that was the plan. But that isn't what she became. She was able to overcome the nature of the vampire with which I had infected her, and although her thirst for blood was great, she refused to bite another human being. And so she developed the intense pain, identically that suffered by the Centaur Cheiron that had caused him to give up his immortality. She had acquired other pains too, but that's another story that I'll not get into here, other than to say that she developed the stigmata of Christ.

  Now, you really have to understand how good this girl-turned-vampire really was. That pain grows the longer you're suffering a blood deficiency, so that her pain and suffering were immediate and had increased ever since. Yet, she refused to indulge herself to relieve the symptoms. To deprive herself of the temptation, she went into the mountains and found the aforementioned cave in which she resided until the day in question. Some two hundred years or so have lapsed since I turned her and she sought refuge there. The creature only came to the entrance during the deepest night to rummage through garbage cans for a little nourishment for the human part of her existence. Still, food never nourished the vampire within, blood being its one source of sustenance, and her pain was forever, and ever growing

  All this is well and good for vampire lore, but now I come to a disturbing part of my story, and this is the reason I've told it at all because along comes another creature to spoil my fun. This one is a vampire also, not one I turned, although I did have a hand in the affair, much to my chagrin, for I turned the vampire who turned her. This girl is fair in the sense of blond hair and brown eyes, but she was turned by a divine creature, one who came to Earth believing she could corrupt my vampirity, as it were, and make me ineffectual by allowing me to bite her, a divine creature come to Earth as a human. She was sorely surprised, and it was one of my greatest joys to watch her wither with vampirism herself. But then she bit this fair-haired girl and regained enough of her nature to return to the Divine World and leave her Earthly vampirism behind. But in the process of sucking this girl's blood, she had in fact turned the girl, but with a twist. A turn with a twist? Yes, I know, quite humorous.

  Anyway, this vampire with a twist learned of this vegan vampire, who had secluded herself in a cave, and came poking about the monastery in search of her. She was a pretty thing, a little tall for my taste, and with a wooden cross about her neck, another of my loathings, and professing an interest in this beast that lurked in the shadows. This was in the fall of the year, a time without visitors or worshipers, and the solitary monk on duty was not pleased with the thought of another winter with the creature lurking about, so when this young woman, a vampire with a cross, told him that she might be able to rid the monastery of the pestilence, he was all for her giving it a go.

  Now I know what you're thinking. A vampire with a cross? My sentiment exactly when I first learned of her vampiric deficiency, and particularly after the part I played in turning her, but that's her story, and I'll not tell it here, although I'm not sure she'll be entirely truthful when she does. I am sure she knew I was present when she entered the cave, although I stayed out of sight, wishing more to see how this came about, if it did, than I was in preventing it. I wasn't sure she could locate the creature anyway, so tucked away she was within the far crevices of the cave. But the vampire-with-a-twist brought with her a little phosphorescence that, once her eyes adjusted to darkness, served well to guide her path even in the darkest enclaves.

  The creature could hear her coming and was herself afraid, as must have been the Minotaur when he first heard Theseus' footsteps coming to beat him to death. She didn't relish the idea of the pain of a beating in addition to the pain of unnurished vampirism and slid her slender frame into a crack in the rocks so narrow that hardly a snake could have withered through. And then her blond-haired predator proceeded with a blasphemous corruption of Genesis and the Beatitudes, thusly: "And God cast them out of the Garden lest man put forth his hand and taketh also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever. Woe unto you who are full, for you shall hunger. Blessed are the righteous for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. She who drinketh my blood, hath mortal life. Blessed is the mortal, for she shall findeth death on Earth and eternal life in Heaven." This is of course a riddle, and it concerns the nature of this vampire-with-a-twist. Her blood, as it turns out, is a cure for vampirism. Something galling to me beyond telling.

  With these words did she pull the creature from within her crevice and hold her such that this thing's malnourished mouth was against her own throat. "Drink!" she commanded, and the creature did, and such was her need that she far surpassed the consumption that her benefactor had allowed, who then slumped and appeared dead herself. Whereupon, the newly turned-back mortal offered up her own neck, and so did the vampire-with-a-twist drink upon her own patient's throat.

  Just the thought of all this turns my stomach, not so much from the gobbled repasts, but from the base altruism involved in such an ordeal. Taken at face value though, there's the girl-on-girl thing I find exciting. So there's that. That she could sell a mortal life on Earth, ending in death, in return for an immortal life in a questionable Heaven is repulsive to my sensibilities. Yet this is what she did. Myself, I favor eternal life on Earth, such that it is, instead of a conjectural one in a hopeful Heaven.

  Then the two of them left the cavern arm in arm, the old monk watching them go and wishing good riddance on both of them.

  Chalk one up for the cross-carrying vampire, but this isn't over yet.

  THE END