The Marradith Ryder Series Part 3

“Can you drive?”

Marradith was about to ask why he wanted to know, but she looked at him and saw his swollen right eye. It gave her a little satisfaction to know that he was hurting.

“Yes, I’ve got a license.”

“Good. We’re taking your Mom’s car. She said that you keep the spare in your purse.”

They got in the car, and she turned the key to the ignition. “You’ve seen my Mom, haven’t you? You met her and my Dad.”

He shrugged. “Why do you say that?”

“Because she sounds like she trusts you.”

He changed the subject. “I want you to drive like normal. Keep to the speed limit. We’re going to get on Highway 315.”

“You’re real sure that I am not going to drive us off a bridge on purpose or something?”

He laughed dryly. “You’re a smart girl. I must say though, werewolves heal much more quickly than humans. I’d hate to see you take risks with your health like that.”

Marradith gunned the engine and pulled into the street.

***

Justin waited.

Marradith had asked so many questions that he was sure she’d keep asking more. Her silence bothered him. At least when she was speaking he had some idea of what was going on in that head of hers. She seemed to avoid his glance on purpose, even though he was staring at her. “Are you at least going to tell me where we’re headed?” she finally asked.

“There’s no need to tell you that yet.”

“Fine, just don’t tell me anything. You’re supposed to protect me , but you haven’t even told me who is after me in the first place. How do you expect it’s okay for you know everything about me and I have no idea what‘s going on?”

“Slow down, you’re speeding.” He snapped. “If your parents had told you about your heritage, that would have solved half the problem.”

“Don’t go criticizing my parents, at least they love me. You’re doing the same thing they did, but I don’t know what your deal is.” She paused. “Mom said something about you coming for me early. What‘s that mean?”

“Usually, we would not take a girl like you until you’re seventeen. Your parents were thinking they had another year before they had to tell you anything.”

“A girl like me…?”

“You learned that werewolves exist today. Has anyone ever told you anything about us before?”

“Other than what I’ve seen on television? You’re kidding, right?”

He sighed. “Everyone has heard the stories. One thing that the myths did get right: werewolves, vampires and witches all come from the same root.”

Marradith kept her eyes on the dark road ahead, still refusing to look at him. Her flesh was crawling. She knew he was going to tell her things she did not want to hear.

“Witches came first. Then the vampires. Werewolves were the third in the chain, and of course the most different. The very first of the werewolves were called Luki, and they were a breed that remained in canine form. They walked upright and spoke language.

It may help to think of them as similar to the first human cavemen. Luki hunted humans purely for sport, not for food. It wasn’t until the first Luki mated with a shape shifter that Wolves were able to change from canine to human and back again by will.”

“Wait a minute. Shape shifters? Where do they come from?”

“That’s something that no one really knows, but the shape shifters are not the point.”

“I don’t see where I am in all of this.”

“Hold on, I’m getting there,” he said. “As you can imagine, there was always breeding between the species. Witches are human. Wolves and vampires; we’re more like cousins of the human species. Similar blood, but with differences on the cellular level.”

“Mutations,” Marradith whispered.

“Perhaps. Or, maybe the result of evolution. Every now and again, a human is born who has more than one bloodline.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s say, a werewolf had an affair with a human, and a child was the result. That child could be a werewolf. But there is a chance that child, while appearing completely human, could carry the genetic imprint of a werewolf. That child would become an adult, marry another human, propagating that imprint on to his human offspring.”

“The same thing could, and often does, happen with vampires. The mixture with human, DNA destroys the need for blood that vampires have. Most often the children of these unions are witches. Some are Immortals, but neither ever need to drink blood.”

Marradith nodded. She had the sinking feeling that she knew where the end of this story would lead.

“Sometimes, a human is born who carries part of the genetic code of all three bloodlines: human, werewolf, and vampire. That person is what we would call Lamia.”

“You carry, from your Father, the gene of werewolf. From your Mother, you carry the gene of vampire. You are a Lamia.”

Marradith shook her head. “Did my parents know? All this time they knew I was going to be a freak?”

Justin frowned. “Your father knew there was a werewolf forebear. I can’t say if your Mother knew about the vampirism on her side. There are many people who have that blood, and live their entire lives without knowing it. Vampires feed on blood, but they also feed off of humans for sex. The energy produced sustains them just as well as actual blood. This is why there are so many stories of romantic vampires. Some of them marry their consorts and never even come close to killing them. Something of that sort must have happened on your Mom’s side of the family.”

“Lamia,” Marradith spoke the word, trying it on for size. It didn’t feel right.

Justin stiffened, and turned around to look through the back window. “Speed up!” He yelled. “We’ve got company.”

___
© 2009 Lori Titus

Lori Titus’s The Marradith Ryder Series appears in episodes on Flashes in the Dark. Many of her short stories appear on MicroHorror.com, DemonMinds.com, and Shadeworks.org. An upcoming story will also be featured as a pod cast on SFZine.org. For more information see her at http://www.myspace.com/talesforthedark.

The priest sensed a profound change of atmosphere the moment someone entered the darkened confessional.  Gripping his pectoral cross, he blessed himself, and mumbled prayers of protection in Latin.  He’d encountered dreadful phenomena during his forty years as a missionary in the Haitian jungle, but none darker than this.

Opening the sliding panel to expose the metal grill that separated their faces, he noticed a peculiar odor.  The stink of Hell, he thought, blessing himself again.  Another dark entity sent to harass me. He quickly unscrewed the top on a small bottle of holy water.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I’m so happy, I could burst,” said a woman’s voice.  “I just wanted to tell somebody.”

“This is not a place of levity.  This is a confessional.  A place where evil is purged.”

“I thought priests were bound to listen to anybody in a confessional, no matter what they had to say.”

“You heard wrong.  Tell me what you have to say.  Make it quick.”

“Suppose I buy your time.  Say, five minutes worth.  For that, I’ll put $1,000 in the poor box before I leave.”

“Don’t bother to lie.  Evil can do nothing good.”

“Evil is good fun,” she said.  “More than you could ever imagine.”

“Your mind is foul.”

“How true.  Do you know what I am?”

“Vampire.”

“Verrry good.  How did you know?”

“I can smell it on you.”

“Ah.  A holy man who can discern essences.  Let me ask you, Holy Man, have you ever bitten into a neck and drunk your fill?”

“It’s a stupid question,” he said.

“Hardly.  It’s a life changing experience.  It’s so erotically satisfying, nothing else approaches it.  You may be celibate, but I’ll bet you deeply crave erotic adventures.”

“We’re not here to talk about me.  Get to the point.”

“I just wanted to tell you how happy I am.  I can barely contain myself.”

“How many victims fell into your clutches tonight?” he asked.

“Fifteen.  Five an hour.  I’ve achieved a record.  I know the Master will richly reward me for being so wickedly industrious.  Would you like to be the sixteenth?”

“One false move, and you’ll regret coming here,” he said, gripping the bottle of holy water.  “Listen, don’t wait until Judgment Day.  Confess everything now and ask for the Almighty’s forgiveness.  The fact that you were able to enter this holy place without bursting into flames shows you can yet be saved.  Confess your foul murders.  Ask forgiveness.  Amend your life.  Do it quickly.”

“No!  I love my existence.  I feel bliss throughout my waking hours, and even more so at night.  But you have to wait until you’re dead, and then hope you’ll attain the bliss of Heaven—a place my Master assures me doesn’t exist.  Even if it did, why wait?  Join me now.  I could use a priest for an ally.  You’d make a good decoy to ensnare trusting souls.”

The priest hurled holy water through the screen.

She didn’t even have time to scream.

Using his cell phone, the priest called the housekeeper and asked her to put a fresh bag into the vacuum cleaner and bring it to the confessional.

Later, when opening the bag and examining the deceased’s dust, he found it bright red.  He carefully poured her dust into an empty Coke bottle.  Sealing it with wax, he said prayers of exorcism.

Carrying the bottle to the cellar, he stored it in a safe next to others containing werewolf, ghoul, and zombie dust.  Then he called an all-night radio talk show that focused on the uncanny and macabre.

“I just killed a vampire,” he told the host.

“Sure you did.  And I guess you see black helicopters, shape-shifters, and were abducted by aliens.”

“You must listen to me very carefully.  The only reason I’m telling you this is to warn everyone.  Beware!  This kind is particularly vicious.  Like nothing seen for hundreds of years.”

“Oh?  How can you tell?” asked the host.

“She turned to red dust.”

“Really?  And what color dust is there when you kill vampires that aren’t as nasty?”

“Grey.”

“I see.  So, what did you do with the red dust?”

“I vacuumed it.  Then I poured it into a Coke bottle.”

“Hear that folks? Here’s a guy who kills vampires, and stuffs them into Coke bottles.  What about zombies?  Kill any of those lately?”

“As a matter of fact I did.  But that was in Haiti, a few months ago.”

“Oh my.  Aren’t you the nasty serial monster killer.  How about telling us what color zombie dust is.”

“It depends on how they were zombified.  But most are pale yellow.”

“Get the hell off the phone, you freakin’ loon, and go take your meds!”

Later that night before returning to his coffin, the talk show host took inventory—just in case the goofy caller had actually killed a vampire.  Checking the seventeen coffins hidden beneath his Beverly Hills mansion, he found one empty.  One of his newest female recruits hadn’t returned from her nightly hunt, and dawn was near.   There was no time to search for her remains and perform a resurrection ritual.   He raged and pounded the walls.

With only minutes left before the accursed sunrise, he summoned rats, lizards, lice, beetles, leaches, and cockroaches.  He ordered them to scour every nook and cranny of the city for a sealed Coke bottle containing red dust.  Whoever found the bottle would be awarded a dozen putrefied corpses on which to snack.  An even richer reward awaited the one who found the priest.

Closing his coffin lid, he fell asleep wondering why the killer chose a Coke bottle instead of Pepsi.

___

© 2009 Michael A. Kechula

Michael A. Kechula is a retired tech writer. His fiction has won first place in seven contests and placed in six others. He’s also won Editor’s Choice awards four times. His stories have been published by 124 magazines and anthologies in Australia, Canada, England, India, Scotland, and US. He’s authored a book of flash and micro-fiction stories: “A Full Deck of Zombies–61 Speculative Fiction Tales.” eBook available at www.BooksForABuck.com and www.fictionwise.com. Paperback available at www.amazon.com.