Wedding Bells & Cinnamon Rolls

5 - The Master Vampires' Plan

Twelve otherworldly creatures sat on gold thrones in front of a massive medieval tapestry. Of the lot, Autumn could only see six—the others were tucked away in shadow, which was probably a blessing. Each was dressed in a long red and gold robe with the hood pulled down low over their forehead. Out of those six, four were very small—about the size of toddlers—while the other two appeared to be of normal height. Bright crimson eyes stared at her out of elaborate masks that covered their whole face: a ram, three bearded men, a turtle, and a musical instrument that looked like a hand-held harp.

The skin on the back of Autumn's neck crawled as one of the creatures' arms moved, revealing a smooth grey hand. Vampire baby! she thought in terror, covering her mouth as a high-pitched, hysterical scream threatened to emerge. It's a goddamn alien vampire baby!

Then it began to speak, its voice unlike anything she'd ever heard before—neither male nor female ... androgynous.

Your wife is pregnant.

Autumn's head snapped up, all sense of terror fleeing. It was as if those four words were a spell to bring her back to earth. Prying her hands off of Corbin's arm, she turned to face the master vampire wearing the ram's mask.

"Excuse me?" She'd misheard them. That was the only logical explanation. Anything else was too fantastical to believe.

"You are pregnant," the creature repeated casually, two tiny hands popping out of its massive sleeves to interlace in its lap.

Was there something in those muffins? Was she somehow high? Autumn glanced down at her flat belly, hands rising of their own volition to protect this hypothetical cargo. "No—no, I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. I can't be pregnant." She glanced at Corbin; her husband wore that shocked look that only men who are just told they're going to be fathers get. "He can't—" She clamped down on the rest of the sentence, out of respect for Corbin's privacy. He can't father children because his gun is completely empty.

"No, he cannot," one of the vampires with the bearded mask affirmed. This one sounded vaguely male, with an accent Autumn couldn't pinpoint. "We made it that way for a reason."

Autumn looked up. Corbin blinked, then shook his head to clear it. "What?"

I always assumed it was part of the process, Autumn thought, reaching out to grab Corbin's arm. They did this on purpose?

"A long time ago, when we first walked this world," the vampire with the harp mask began, "our people freely bred with mortals."

Is that ... a woman? The figure beneath the robe shifted on her throne and a delicate bare foot slipped free from the folds. Yes, it was grey, but also quite feminine.

"Whether the fruit of Knowing or Fallen, the babes were born in terror, their mothers shunned and feared by the mortal population. Soon, the dhampir turned to darkness and violence, leading armies and slaughtering thousands. It was decided that we could not suffer them to live, so they were hunted and destroyed and we made it so that this mistake could never be repeated."

"Then ... how did Autumn come to be pregnant?" Corbin asked.

"You're telling me that I'm carrying a murder baby?" she exclaimed at the same time, watching as the robed figures in the shadows shifted. Was it going to be birthed Alien-style? Or was Corbin going to have to use his teeth to cut it free as it slowly crushed her from the inside out?

The six illuminated masters glanced at each other. In the shadows, the other masters moved slightly.

"I made it so you conceived," the ram-masked master replied as if were obvious, completely ignoring Autumn's rather reasonable question.