Of Demigods And Men by
Bonnie Pardoe
Guess I was the worst off.After Knight gave me the injection, he left to give the vaccine to the others in need. But it was hours before the serum took effect. Hours of sweating and delirium. I thought for certain Knight had been wrong. Maybe he hadn't given me enough? Did the stuff even work? Maybe I was just too far gone?
I felt like I was still sinking, my breathing more and more labored as Screed's had been toward the end.
And the pain!
The searing pain!
I suddenly knew the answer to the question I'd always wondered about: what my master had feel as she walked into the rising sun.
But I still don't know why. Why would she leave us after only one night, when there was so much more for her to teach us? I have to think that things might have been different had she stayed. But she left us. So, I left him.
As we dug ourselves into the earth that morning, frantically before the rising sun could reach us, the Inca spoke to me and I understood him, as I had understood our master, though neither knew my language any more than I knew theirs. He told me how our lives would be now. How his people would worship us as gods!
But as I spent the day, covered in that bug-infested soil, I knew he was wrong. Our master had not turned us into gods. No, she had turned us into animals, who stalked and killed to drink still-warm blood of what was once our own kind. I did not know about his people, but I knew that mine would burn me, not laud me, for what I had become.
And though I knew I could not return to my people, I also knew that I would not go to his. The Incas had killed too many of my friends; I would not now help them to kill more. Nor would I let him help them. So, when I rose that night, I staked him to the ground, as it was said in the old gypsy legends.
But I had not killed him. I went for months thinking I had — months of foraging in the woods, trying to figure out what I was now. Until one night I caught an Incan scout, covered in Spanish blood. As I fed, I learned the true fate of my mortal enemy. Brutally twisting his neck until it snapped, I dropped the savage to the ground, forgotten, as I took to the air. I would find him.
From the cover of the trees, I saw that he sat at the right hand of Atahualpa. Once a lowly foot soldier, the Inca now looked to be chief adviser to the leader of the Incan nation. Suddenly realizing that he was far smarter, far more cunning, than I had given him credit, I wondered how he had used his new abilities to gain such stature among his people. I had stayed far from mine, fearing I would not be able to control my hunger around them, and not wanting the guilt I was sure killing a friend would bring to me.As I pondered this, they took me. Though my hearing was far keener than it had ever been as a mortal, I had allowed myself to become totally absorbed in my reverie. I thought of struggling, knowing I could easily break free, but then realized that these Incan soldiers would take me precisely where I wanted to be. They would take me to Atahualpa.
And they did. Atahualpa spoke to me and was amazed when I understood him. The Inca translated my words back to him, though I knew not accurately. When I had convinced him I had no current information to give, I was ordered killed, but the Inca interceded. He assured his leader that I could be useful to them and that he should be allowed to have possession of me. Amazed, I stood there. The Great Atahualpa nodded like a rag doll, giving in to everything the Inca asked for.
He did not speak to me again until we were alone. "You see," he gloated. "I am everything here! I have the Sapa Inca's ear and I would have his throne if it were my wish! Why have you not taken these rights from your people?"
"My people are not ignorant, like yours. My people know their God and know that I am not Him."
"No, it is not my people who are faulted, it is you. It is your ignorance that has kept you from greatness all these months. Your ignorance allowed you to believe you could kill me so easily."
"But we can be killed. She told us that much."
"Fool. In your blind haste, you missed my heart. When my former comrades found me, I was to them as dead. They took me back to the village and the priest gave me the final blood rites. I awoke before them and sprang up fully healed of my wound. The priest proclaimed me as a prophecy revealed! And so I am. She told us that, remember? There are those taken and changed, to become immortal warriors. That is us."
"No. That is your religion. It is not mine. What she gave me... she did not ask if I wanted it. And now she is gone and holds no strings to me."
"Life we are not asked if we want. Death we are not asked if we want. But we take it because we have no choice. This is as that. We have no choice. Not you, not I. We are her warriors and she would not have chosen us if we had not been the ones. Tonight you will see. Tonight we punish and we praise. Tonight you will know fully of what she gave to us."
I looked at him unbelieving. Was he mad? Or was I?
"Remain here," he said as he rose to go. Then just as he was about to close the heavy door behind him, he added, "You are hungry. I will send you something."
Something. I could not imagine what. Perhaps he had discovered other things which could sustain us? I hoped so, because I had not had my fill of the Incan scout I had abandoned in the woods hours before.
Soon, there came a knocking at the door before it opened. A large Incan guard stood behind a small, dark girl — a servant, though I saw no platter of food in her hands. She entered and the guard closed the door on us. She was pretty as these savages went, I thought. She wore a simple, woven robe, and her sleek hair was tied back.
For a moment, my mortal mind took over. It had been so long since I had been with a woman ... many months, since before we had left Panama City. My loins ached for the touch of a woman, for that needed release! But what stood before me was no woman. I moved back from her. But soon my vampire mind became aroused. The smell of her blood was intoxicating, and I was so... hungry....
"No!" I shouted as I strode toward the door. Frightened by my outburst, she quickly moved aside. I demanded that the guard take her away, but he did not understand my Spanish.
But in that moment the Inca returned, and he understood me. "She is not to your liking? Taller, perhaps? Fatter?"
I stood before him horrified. I had killed only soldiers — Incan soldiers — these past months. And killing them had served me two-fold: I fed and they did not kill anymore of my friends. But this.... This... girl....
"You have not taken a woman, yet?" he asked me, and his eyes laughed even though his mouth remained emotionless.
"I have had many women," I assured him, though I felt like a boy telling tales of manhood to his adolescent friends.
"But not since your death." It was not a question. He knew. "Try her. The pleasure, as much as the fear, flavors the blood. Then, if she is not to your liking, I will bring you another."
"She is a child!" I insisted, still unbelieving of what he was offering.
"No. She may look like one to your foreign eyes, but among her people she is a woman."
Her people? She was no servant, I suddenly realized. She was a slave.
Then he stood before her. Cupping her chin in his hands, he spoke to her gently in his language. "Do for him anything he wants. Give him all that you are, willingly." Her eyes grew wide, and like Atahualpa, she nodded her wordless ascent.
He left us then, alone. And she immediately came to me. She drew off her rough garment and I saw before me no child. She was, indeed as the Inca had said, a woman, full of form and grace. How had his words changed her so? How had his words affected her at all?
I wanted to know these things, more than I wanted anything else at that moment, so I spoke to her, but she could not understand my language as the Inca had. No matter how I commanded, she did as the Inca had bidden her. And before too long, my lust for knowledge had been buried beneath my need for physical satisfaction. I drew her to me, pressing her naked body against me, devouring her lips, tasting the salt on her skin, feeling the heat of her life-fluid just beneath. I wanted her. And I wanted her in a way I had never known before.
I lowered her to the stone floor, though she seemed not to notice the cold against her back. Her fingers yanked my leggings down as my hands spread wide her knees. She accepted me, as if she had been born for this moment, but even so, I took her fiercely, plunging so deep and hard that she could do naught but scream in pain. The rough stone beneath her blushed as my thrusts scraped the skin from her back. I could not stop myself from moving into her, harder, faster, until all I could see before me was a haze of red animal-lust. And through this, beyond her screams, I heard her urging me on, giving me everything, letting me take even more.
The aching grew unbearable between my legs, but despite my efforts I could not release into her. Harder I thrust, until I felt I would crush her hips beneath mine, but the aching only spread — upward from my loins to my belly, into my chest, until I was so consumed that I too screamed out in pain and desire and hunger. Then down I plunged, sinking my teeth into her neck, drinking in her life, until finally a spasm forced my seed deep into her, but too late as her lifeless body lay beneath me.
Covered in sweat and blood, I fell beside her, panting and exhausted, yet filled with the most incredible feelings. It was like no experience I'd ever had as a mortal. I was exhilarated, empowered. The Inca had been right! We were gods to these creatures now. They moved before us for our pleasure!
And I vowed there that I was done with Pizarro and Atahualpa and their foolish war. It was nothing to me. There was a world out there, and for the first time I would be my own master in it.
But as I dressed, the slave's dead eyes seemed to follow me. She lay so ashen, except for the blood which stained her neck and her thighs — her blood, the blood I had forced from her, the blood the Inca had somehow forced her to give to me.
I would learn more before I left here. I would learn all he knew. Shoving the guard effortlessly aside, I left the cell in search of the Inca.
Outside I found him, deep in preparation for some ceremony. Crowds were gathering below the platform upon which he stood.
"I see you now understand," he said to me by way of a greeting. "You will join me, and we will rule this world as our master meant us to!" Just then a horn blew and the crowd below huddled together and grew still. Atahualpa took his throne and addressed the crowd: a man would be punished today, a Spaniard, not for his acts as a soldier, but for his acts against the Incan gods.
I leaned toward the Inca. "What has he done?"
Beside the Inca now stood a young girl, dressed in white, with a necklace made from shiny red pods. He put a hand on her shoulder as he explained. "This soldier found her mother by the river and raped her on the rocks before killing her."
I could not help but think of the young girl whose body I had just left lifeless. But then I saw the conquistador they marched to the stone alter.
"You know this man."
I nodded. "He has killed many innocents — Spaniards as well as Incans."
"Yet your people did not bring him to justice. Why?" the Inca demanded.
"The ones who knew were powerless to do anything. The ones who had the power had no proof."
"That is why we exist," he said, turning to face me, his now-yellow eyes meeting my brown ones. "We have the proof and we have the power. Righteousness is ours."
"But we kill. What I did to that girl ... she was an innocent. There was no justice in what I did."
"You still do not understand," he said, shaking his head in disappointment. "We stand between them and the gods. We take from them what we must, to survive, so that we may protect them and serve our master's wishes. It is our duty, our right."
He then took the young girl to edge of the platform and spoke to the audience gathered below. "Today is her day. Today, I will give her justice from this soldier. Tomorrow, I will show you how to take justice from our invading enemies!"
The crowd let out a deafening war cry. It was clear that tomorrow would bring a great battle, that the Inca had some plan to defeat the Spanish. I did not know if I could stop them, nor if I should even try. Could our master have really wanted this? Why would she desire me to turn against my own people?
But as I pondered these unanswerable questions, the Inca returned to the stone alter where the conquistador was now spread and bound. I expected a beheading — I knew it was their way — but this tableau confused me. The Inca gathered together a few bowls, cups, and pouches. As he mumbled the words of a rhythmic chant, he took some of the powders the vessels contained and sprinkled them over the soldier. He then lifted his arms to the sky and demanded blessings from the gods, demanded sanction to do their bidding.
Then, in one swift movement, he plunged his hand down into the chest of the soldier, ripping out his still-beating heart! The Inca then raised it up to show his gods, squeezing the organ until its crimson fluids rained down into his open mouth.
Like an echo of my own horrification, a gasp tore through the spectators below. Then, without thought, I flew at the Inca, catching him and rolling us both to the very edge of the elevated stage. "No," I screamed. "This is NOT what she wanted!"
"It is," he spat as he changed his position, gaining leverage over me.
"I will not be a part of this," I declared. Then I saw it, a ceremonial sword hung behind the sacrificial alter. I wrenched myself free of the Inca's clutched and flew towards it, but he grabbed my ankle and threw me high into the air.
"You will do her biding or you will die at my hands," he proclaimed as he caught me in the clouds.
Our battle, which had begun on the ground months before as mortal soldiers, now continued above, beyond the eyes of the Incan masses. Again we fought for what seemed like hours — though, this time, I was no match for him.
The Inca had used his time as a vampire to hone his skills as a warrior, while I had spent those same days as little more than an animal. But, I had learned two thing: when to attack and when to run.
As the first rays of the dawn licked up over the horizon, a reflection struck the Inca and I used the split second of distraction to make my escape, back to ground, where I buried myself in the soil for the day. Knowing that the Inca would have to wait out the day as I did, I wondered if he would choose to return to his people at sundown, or continue his pursuit of me.
Days later, Pizarro's men ambushed and captured Atahualpa. I knew that if the natives had been defeated, then the Inca had never returned to lead them. I also knew why: his final words to me. Until I carried out our master's biding to his satisfaction, he would hunt me to the ends of the earth.
But, he was not my master. My master was dead. And I would live my life any way I saw fit. Even if it meant running from him forever....
The End
Thanks go to Nancy W., the one true leader of the Incarnates, for her invaluable assistance and beta reading!