Son of Adam, Children of Lilith

Part three: Coming of ages

The church was dark and lonely when our headlights fell on it. In fact it reminded me of that first night so long ago. Memories of what we had done to that boy, vampire as I was, made me shiver under waves of fear and dread. I looked to Rachel, needing support to face the Aegis, and saw fear on Rachel's face. She had been with the aegis longer than me and it was frightening that, with what she knew, she was so scared.
She looked at me, concern joining the fear in her eyes. I swallowed my emotions and smiled reassuringly. Only one of us needed to be afraid, the one going in. "I'll just talk to the 'Padre' and explain what is going on." As soon as I said padre her face become skeptical. I knew it was too friendly but I have to forge on. "He values our souls almost as much as we do."
"Don't lie to me jerk." She growled, her growl actually sounded like it echoed in the car. I had to go, our humanity was fleeing us much too fast already. Fleeing her much too quickly.
"I have to go." I said as I pushed open the door and rushed, damning myself for the fear obvious in the crack of my voice.
She grabbed my arm. I wrenched it away and the fabric tore between us like paper. She gasped and I ran.

The moment I stepped onto the grounds it felt like I was swathed in fire. It faded to the overbearing heat of a sauna quickly but I could not ignore it. Beyond that there was a pressure coming from inside the church that pushed back against me when I tried to push the doors inward. The pressure didn't lessen when I came in the door. It became so intense I could feel it like a fist in my chest.
The vestibule was empty but I still felt as though I was being watched. When heaved open the doors to the sanctuary I found the pressure to be rolling off of the big crucifix. The eyes of the savior seemed to be judging me, but that could have just been the way the moonlight fell on them through the window.
I had to wonder -still wonder- what his judgement was.
I walked past the crucifix with my eyes fixed shamefully on the ground. The doors on either side of the rear of the stage lead to the back rooms and stairwells. I descended the stairs to the youth room.
I knew Father Samael would be in his office trying to explain why we were still gone to our parents or researching another text on demonology. He had a theory that he could find Lilith and that by ending her end the entire vampire race. He lived in his office.
I could go to him, but he would only see my fangs. I needed help convincing him, I needed the other Aegi.
There were only a few Aegi in the youth room and two of them jumped up when I came in from the stairwell.
Anthony noticed me from the couch before the other two. "I guess Jordan isn't as useless as I thought."
"Oh my God! Cinders! You're alive!" Deborah squeaked.
I smiled warmly, overtaken by the friendship in her voice, forgetting I now had fangs.
"VAMP!" Quinn shouted. Suddenly three people were on their feet ready to attack. None of them had their weapons, but that didn't make them harmless.
"What happened to Jordan?" Michael was always strategy first. It was the reason he was the head of the second team that Father Sameal was putting together.
"How is he just standing there?"
"Because we're not totally lost yet. Not totally fanger, we still have a chance to reclaim our souls!"
"We? We who?"
"Rachel and I. We are the only survivors of the strike team."
"No one survived." Came a disturbingly calm voice from the stairwell behind me.
I spun around and there was Father Sameal holding both a war ax and a silver short sword aloft ready to strike me down. "Where is the other vampire?"
I knew what he was doing. As a vampire, especially a fledgling, I should leap back in a bestial fear response right into the waiting clutches of the other hunters to be held down with bodies and silver crosses.
I felt the fear flood my mind but, with a deep breath, I held my ground. "Hello Father."
I heard at least two crashes behind me as the others leapt at nothing. They had to leap preemptively, they would be much too late if they had waited to see my reaction.
I fought off the urge to smile.
Sameal's expression shifted as he dropped the weapons from an aggressive posture to defensive in front of him.
"I'm not an animal or a demon." I said as explanation.
"You, vampire..." He said as he leveled the sword at me. "...are both and less than either."
I heard the Hunters get to their feet as quietly as they could, a cacophony. God we were fools, vampires were far greater than we gave them credit for. Fast, powerful, aware, and ancient; man is like a child to the vampire.
Or a rabbit.
I shook off that thought before the monster took hold. I could probably take the father, master hunter or not, but in the process the others would certainly kill me. But, more important than that, I needed their help, didn't I?
"My soul hasn't fled. The week hasn't passed. We're not of Satan's hordes yet. There is yet hope of re- uh- redemption."
"How long has it been then?" His sword never swayed even slightly.
"How long ago did you send us out? " I asked, thinking he shouldn't need to ask.
Suddenly he swung the weapons in an arc that should have severed my neck at my spine. It never connected as I ducked under and took hold of him by the neck. He tried to hit me again but I struck the weapons from his hands with a jab of my elbow and a vicious grip on his left wrist.
Everyone was frozen with indecision. I could kill him before any of them could react and they knew it. I couldn't kill him and I knew it.
And when I saw the sneering look he gave me I knew: he knew all of that and more.
I wanted to hurl him down the last of the stairs before I devoured him just to tear that expression apart into tiny shreds of flesh. I needed to.
I snarled and threw him to the feet of his hunters. It was satisfying, but not nearly so much as devouring any of his imperious expressions would have been.
Quinn and Anthony helped the father to his feet without looking away from me. It made for an awkward operation, completed with only minimal flailing.
I let a smile quirk my lip. "I can sense the monster that gave us this...sickness-" That's the word Rachel would have said but it wasn't right.
Father Sameal cut me off, "-curse."
That wasn't right either. "-curse. If we find and kill it soon-"
"-you'll be back to normal!" Quinn finished for me. I nodded.
The father gave me a soul searching look. Too bad I lacked one.
"Where is the other one?"
"She's in the car." I fought off the impulse to say more. She was in the car because she was afraid and ashamed. He hadn't said they would help, until he did we were vampires and they hunters. Her fear and shame are weaknesses they could exploit.
If I kept up my act they would think we were fearless.
I met his gaze hard, afraid to flinch.
"...are you the serpent or the penitent?" He asked himself.
"Trust me."
"Trust you? I've only just met you, cadaver, and like the serpent before you, speech ought to be impossible for the dead. So every word from your mouth issues from a forked tongue. How can I trust you?"
I snarled, "Don't then, bring everyone to make us tow the line. I don't know how many fangers we will need to kill, so numbers is a good idea."
He looked at me for a long time before nodding slowly. "Let's go slay some monsters."

The drive from the church was tense.
At first the Father wanted to separate us one to a vehicle, which would have left the odds at four to one in the car and two to one in the truck. I didn't trust him enough for that. I knew if we were split up it would be a bloodbath. So we compromised, she would sit in back with two of the Hunters and I would drive with the Father in the passenger seat next to me.
He held a silver dagger and his crucifix in his hands the whole way.
The feeling of where the vampire that had sired me was a tingling, goosebump raising, warmth. Something like the sun on your skin after getting out of a freezing stream. A feeling I sorely miss. Pleasure like that is easy to follow, so it wasn't long until we found the new lair.
Seems the cave we had raided was too rustic for the hemophages. They had holed up in an elementary school. Convenient for them that it was summer, though I found the remains of the janitor later on and he had put up a pretty good fight for a fifty year old.
The second we were out of the cars the division between us expressed itself in how Rachel and I held ourselves and stood apart from the rest of the group. I kept them all in view at all times.
"Here is the plan:..." Sameal said without preamble, "You two, the corpses, will walk in through the main door. Draw their attention. We will stage ourselves at the windows. I'll be following you two so I can tell my people where to stage. Try anything sinister and I'll end you myself. Try to tip off the other monsters I'll end you. Try to-"
"Yes, yes you'll kill us for any reason you can dream up, so be good. I know you Father. Despite the way you think I am dead and gone I know you."
He gave me a hateful look when I cut him off. I don't think had ever done that to him before. "So long as we understand each other, demon."
I snarled and spun on my heel. I was done convincing him of what we were. He could think whatever he liked, I was going to regain our souls, and then I was taking Rachel away. He could fight his own Midnight war.
Rachel followed dutifully. Her face was twisted with fear and her flashing eyes betrayed her paranoia. I wasn't sure if she was just afraid of the creatures who had once, already, slain us of if she was losing herself. Either way the way to make her better was the same.
They had broken open the front door so entry wasn't a problem for us. I heard conversation cut off down an echoing hallway to the right. "They know we are here." I muttered. I heard the hunters slip away 'silently' through the trees. They were as loud as elk calves.
The hall had a large main office to our right, fully exposed through large bay windows made to create the feeling of openness. The halls had childrens art projects posted sporadically on the walls. They weren't very good even for children so they were likely the projects left behind at the end of the semester. Many were torn violently from the wall and lay in bloody tatters on the ground. The image made me shiver in fear for the kids that would go missing in the following year.
We stalked down to a threeway hallway junction. I had no idea which way the monsters would lie. If we went the wrong direction they would be on us. Rachel and I were fast but they would be older, more powerful. I felt my creator near, but as close as we were that was all I could tell.
I had an idea, "Master! Your Children need you! We are new to the night! Teach us!"
"What are you doing?" Rachel and Sameal hissed at the same time. I had no doubt the Father was fingering his weapon, just itching to use it on us. I signaled for silence. I heard whispered conversation coming from the hall to our left. "Come on."
The conversation remained just muted enough that I couldn't pick up anything more than "Trap?" "...mine and..." "...stronger..."
We turned the corner into the hallway and the conversation died. I sushed over my shoulder, knowing that if I could hear them they certainly heard us.
I came to the last door in the colorfully decorated hallway.
"5th grade, class C" was emblazoned in black on the frosted glass window of the door.
My hand griped the door handle and froze. When I tried to lift it it felt heavy, like someone was holding it down from the other side. But i couldn't see anyone in the other side of the frosted glass. I looked down to find I'd released the handle and my hand was shaking.
It was the first time i would be in a room with a true vampire since they had killed me. The very monsters in the next room, too. I didn't even know if we had killed any of them, we hadn't checked for their corpses on the way out because there wouldn't be any.
A sharp prick followed by the burn of silver made me gasp through my teeth.