Virgin Sacrifice - Van Helsing Fanfiction

12 - God's Creations

The sound of the wind was ghostly. It was something of a widow's mournful cry as it crept through the dying branches of the winter trees, creaked through the tattered shutters or leapt haphazardly through the vampire bride's darkly shimmering hair, falling loose over her pale shoulders. Night had come and brought with it an orchestra of sound: some discordant and far-off like the baying of hunting wolves, others nearer and softer. A deer's startled breath as it hid, purposelessly, from those who craved its flesh.

That eerie sound reminded Verona of the whimpers of the victims she had hunted and, again, of the squeals when she threw down their fragile bodies and cracked into their throats, breaking them like alabaster jars. The hunger returned, sharp and piercing.

"The time is now," Verona indicated the dark horizon, "We must hunt."

The other vampire brides emerged from Frankenstein's ruined castle, listening obediently to their matron. For the moment at least.

When Verona felt the change from woman to beast, her words to the human rang true: there was no pain involved in the transformation. There was a tingle that ran the length of her body, similar to what she remembered as the feeling of a leg numbing and falling asleep. She felt her tendons expanding, taking a different shape: forming the membranous wings that sprouted down her back like a bridal veil. Her pelt was soft-grey, spattered with slightly darker shading on the hollows of her throat, lower stomach and wings. Her scent had changed, too: becoming lighter and less fragrant, the smell of a creature rotting.

Marishka cackled with glee as she took to the skies.

"She's going to scare the prey."

The eldest vampire bride could only watch disapprovingly as the foolish one dived and slid through the air, slick as an eel in brackish water. She doubted what the Master had seen in Marishka's character when he had blooded her all those years ago: only a spectacular beauty, she imagined, could make him forget all of her foolishness.

Aleera remarked, "Let the child have her fun. I don't much care for deer blood."

"There are wolves," Verona suggested quietly, "They, too, are on the hunt. You will find them a more challenging kill."

"Wolves bore me," Aleera grimaced petulantly. "Their loyalty is irksome. Last time, their pup's claws ripped my bodice."

"Can you blame them for defending their young?"

"But it was foolish," Aleera disagreed. "They could have made another."

There was silence for a beat, disruptive and deceptive. Verona knew that all whom saw her would see her trained and steeled features, mistaking her expression for calmness or readiness for the long hunt ahead of her, but that completely hid the feelings that twisted within. The lids of her eyes half-closed against the wind, but the sharpness of her grey eyes too deft and sharp to be serene.

There was once a time when Aleera and Verona had been something short of friends. When the girl was newly blooded and still learning of her abilities, she had come to the eldest bride for advice and offerings of friendship: while the Master was away or taken by his studies, they had laughed and bonded over their kills and discussed many things. Until the day arrived when Aleera learned of the bridal hierarchy: Verona knew, as she looked into the other bride's eyes each day after that, that Aleera craved the power and desired the sway of her influence over the Master. And she worried, sometimes in the darkest times before the rising of dawn, that Aleera's desire would come hard and sharp over her like a dagger and the young bride would try to kill her.

"That human has made a mark on you," Aleera smirked. "For hours, you think. Still staring into oblivion. Thinking."

"Mind your tongue!" Verona snapped. "You're talking to me. Not Marishka."