But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife.
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loath the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corpse:
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are withered on the stem.
- The Giaour
A Fragment of a Turkish Tale
- Lord Byron
The short mousy hair, blue eyes and mischievous grin
of the girl child had been too much for the vampire to
resist. Because of this, Elizabetha found herself carrying
the small, limp body of the little girl through the choked,
tangled, dark swamp. No doubt the parents she belonged
to had noticed quite quickly that their lovely daughter
was missing. Elizabetha nearly wept at the thought of
their sorrow.
The vampire had come with the carnival. “Harley
Dune's Marvels of the World,” a caravan of brightly
painted carts and vans once a year stopped in the Louisiana
swamp area and charged obscene amounts of money to the
unsuspecting locals. The newest attraction to the carnival
was the freak show, and not surprisingly, the vampire
ran it. Elizabetha was the only one who could stand the
sight of its many exploited prisoners. Often she felt
agonizing sorrow for them.
When she saw the little girl, peering through the thick
purple, velvet curtain that served as a door to the tent
that held her freaks, she smiled. The innocence of the
small flushed face and attentive eyes caught Elizabetha
in a spell. She fell instantly in love.
As the sun began to sink, she found the girl sitting
alone, her short legs tucked tightly to her chest, tears
streaming down her cherubic cheeks. Pure sorrow at the
sight of this fragile doll-like thing in any kind of pain
flowed like salt through an open wound, all around Elizabetha.
She nervously tucked stray ebony curls from her pale forehead
and straightened her long blue skirt. Removing her colorful
scarf tied around her hips, she padded silently on sandaled
feet to the child. A flicker of recognition passed between
the girl's amber eyes as the vampire wrapped the scarf
around her thin shoulders, wracked with shudders of sobbing
aftermath. As she crouched beside the child, Elizabetha
smiled warmly and opened her arms, silently inviting the
little girl into her embrace. To
her ultimate joy, the pretty face looked down into smiled
shyly back through a veil of fading tears, and the little
girl leapt into her arms as if she were being pursued.
Elizabetha clung to the child as if she were the one in
need of reassurance and protection.
Elizabetha took the child's hand and listened as the
girl recounted in her childish voice that her parents
had “gone away.” All the while she led the
child deeper into the swamp and fading light. They walked
in silence for a time until the child was plagued with
a fit of yawns and tears, and she could go no further
on her own two feet. Elizabetha gently lifted the girl
into her strong, lithe arms as if she weighed no more
than a feather. She began to sing softly, and the gentle
clinking of her bangles echoed as she moved. “Deep
into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering,
fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dreamed
before.” The quiet tune worked as if it were a lullaby.
A small, seemingly perfect head, heavy with sleep, and
a brow smudged with dirt and humidity, began to droop
against Elizabetha's shoulder.
Carefully, so as not to disturb the sleeping child's
dreams. Elizabetha tilted back the flushed face and gently
opened a small vein in the girl neck with her nail. She
watched transfixed as the blood flowed slowly from the
small wound. So dark was the life that pushed forth from
the girl's neck that it seemed an endless black, darker
than the twilight. Slowly, almost as if in a dream, she
lowered her face to the wound, her mouth seeking out the
tiny gash, her lips staining a bloody crimson when she
found it.
A passion overtook here, a need to destroy something
beautiful. By the time her mouth broke contact with the
child's neck, the tiny body was long cold with death.
She sat with the body of the loveliest creature she had
ever seen, cradled in her arms for what seemed an eternity.
Swiftly yet gently, she carried the stony cold body through
the seemingly endless swamp, and at the heart of it, Elizabetha
came to a place thick with the scent of death. Lovingly
the vampire smoothed the child's damp hair from her face,
ran a finger down her pale, chubby cheek, and placed a
careful kiss on her forehead. Removing her thick scarf
from stiff shoulders, she gently slipped the tiny body
into a wide, shallow pool. The shallow pool seemed deeper
and darker than any abyss and concealed many such bodies.
As she watched the lovely little girl sink from view,
she cried. Real tears traced her delicate cheeks, real
sobs were swallowed by the darkness, and a vice of pain
seized her hardened heart. Never had Elizabetha felt such
sorrow. Never had a victim of her bloodlust affected her
this way. Her quiet, choked sobs turned to violent, angry
cries; her tears of sorrow turned to tears of rage. How
could God let a thing like her exist? How could God allow
little girls to die at the hands of a monster? Fury enveloped
her, loved her, and drove her on.
She awoke as the light of the quickly rising sun crept
through the window of her small, portable trailer. She
smiled a sad, tired smile. In her dreams, she had seen
God, had touched flesh, and felt the warmth of his soul.
He had removed the ancient black rosary from around her
neck gently. He had whispered secrets lovingly to calm
her raging fits of sorrow. He had taken her hand and placed
it over his heart. He smiled then, and she understood.
This morning would be her morning. After centuries of
agony and pleasure and pain, God had granted the immortal
a mortal death.
They found her that day. A smile teasing the slightly
upturned corners of her crimson mouth caked with the evidence
of her last, sorrowful meal. The remnants of a black rosary
were scattered about her, the tiny obsidian crucifix clutched
loosely in her pale, ivory hand.
