Son of Adam, Children of Lilith

To my dear Reverend,
I know your search for your missing daughter consumes you and your parish. Though I know this letter will not bring you any comfort, however it can at least end that search. I have taken her with me and she will not be coming back. You know who I am so you know that she is dead to you, that by the time you reach us she would die before leaving my side.
You know why she went with me but what you can't know is why I choose her. I could let you wonder, I should let you wonder, but I’m not the monster you make me in your sermons. So I will explain to you why.
I hope you choke on it.

I used to be a Holy warrior.
Does that surprise you?
Yes, a holy warrior. A shield of Adam, Aegi Mortalis. A blade of God.
I first joined in a youth bible camp of all places. My mother sent me there to learn of the Spirit. We had all the camp favorites; Archery, boating, arts and crafts, Swimming was always my favorite. A pity, that. But I got the benefit of an activity most kids didn't. I got to watch a man die.
One morning the Pastor, Father Sameal, woke up me a little before dawn and took me up past the hill behind the camp. I had no idea what was going on. Even now I don't know why he'd chosen me. Within minutes I was standing in front of a life sized cross. I'd seen it before of course, from the camp. It was one of three on the hill, you know the story. But something was different this time: there was a man bound to it.
I thought it was a prank, what else could it have been?
But as the sun came up that thought was banished forever. He began to fight harder and more desperately as the sun peaked over the horizon. I thought he was hamming up his part in the prank, and I had seen too many hidden camera videos. So I turned toward the sun to thank god for another day. Suddenly behind me I heard strained screaming. I spun just in time to see his skin begin to blaze and boil as the sun touched it.
He was a vampire, explained Father Sameal, one of the children of the fallen first wife of Adam, Lilith. She had been cursed to become a demon and birth monsters when she had refused to submit to her husband.
Yes, the creatures from the old hammer films actually stalk the night, he assured me. What’s worse is that these pathetic creatures weren't the monsters facing honorable hunters like in the movies. They never seek a challenge, preferring instead to attack playgrounds and rest homes at night. Simple to explain and get away with. A child or an old person goes missing and when one of the others reports it the story is written off as a simple case of overactive imagination, irresponsible adventuring, or the dementia of the old. It’s sad, but not worth looking into.
And another life is quietly snuffed.
It was the kids that made me want to join them in killing these things. I should have known it would be painful and dangerous. Just looking at the cold and distant Father Sameal should have tipped me off, I mean, hell, who in their right goddamned mind shows a ten year old a man burning to death in the morning sun? WHO?
It can't be excused by saying it was a one time deal. Turns out he did this sort of thing often. I was one of the lucky ones to actually see a vampire burn in the sun but he had proven it to other children in other ways. I never bothered to ask and thinking back I didn't really care, only that they were with me. Didn’t care or might have been afraid to know.
More than that I knew something the rest of the world didn't, I was in on the secret and I was a part of a secret society. It didn't matter that there was a real threat that me and the people in my secret family could die. As a matter of fact we rarely lived past 30. I was fighting a real and secret evil.
We, the children, acted as Samael's eyes and ears. We watched for the signs that a vampire had been stalking our playgrounds overnight. We listened for kids that had gone missing and where. We watched when we visited our grandparents in the nursing homes, I had a grandmother there, We listened to the 'crazy old person stories'.Then, when Sunday came, we reported to him everything we'd seen. Then he would send the teens and they would make short work of the vampire, make use of those raging hormones.
Every kid wants to grow up before their time. Mommy I want to be a firefighter! I want to be a doctor! I want to kill vampires and revel in their agonizing death as their ashes coat my face! Not healthy. And like I said, no matter how much we wanted to grow up it wasn’t likely we would see our fifteenth birthday. My last was at nineteen. But the best, or at least the most important, was at sixteen.
I got a smashing birthday party with my family; cake, friends, music, and a computer. That was what I got for my sixteenth birthday; laptop compute. I couldn't have been happier; a private place for my journal, a place to research the monsters in the shadows, and a place to talk to my brothers. Privately.
After the party and after everyone had left I got a call from Jason, Sameal's second. He said I needed to grab the biggest Tupperware I had, hop into my new car, and head down to the church. When I told him I got a computer instead of a car he told me and I quote; "Yeah you cant drive a laptop. Just hop on your bike and get over here. Ching ching."
After riding three miles against a stiff headwind I found the church dark and empty. Every sound in the sanctuary echoed off into infinity. My footsteps ran off of each dark stained window and up into the tower. When they returned they were deeper and alien.  I felt alone and lost.
So it's understandable why I jumped when Jason grabbed my shoulder.
After a laugh at my expense he took me downstairs. The Sunday school room looked like anything but; Candles were lit on every available surface and the air was heavy with the same incense that haunted the sanctuary. There were ten figures in black choir robes that covered them from head to foot giving most of them absolute anonymity. The most jarring difference was the cross on the ground with a writhing ten year old boy strapped to it. A writhing spitting angry little doppelganger of me.
Father Sameal was standing over him intoning a prayer and flicking holy water on him. Every drop burned like comic book acid. He was one of them.
I crept closer and sighed with relief. No matter how similar he was to me, same taste in clothes same hair and almost the same chin, his eyes were green to my brown. Still the resemblance was more than uncanny, it was disconcerting.
"The creature frightening you?" I looked up and the Father was smiling wryly at me.
"I-yes-no" I sighed heavily. I was afraid to let him down by admitting how scared seeing myself tied down to some wood on the floor made me. "I thought I knew him."
"Ah, It can be difficult when you knew the creature's human persona or worse the human being they once were. But remember whatever you might have think they were they are a monster now. See?" He poured out the last of the holy water on the boys face. His skin burned and blistered filling the air with an acrid smell. It made me glad for the incense. "Putting down my brothers’ remains taught me that, first-hand."
The creature cried out in pain and as I watched his face changed from an undead monster to a child lost and terrified. "That was a good lesson now that I think about it. I want you to imagine that it is who you thought it was."
I gaped. I had no idea how to feel. This was all I had been hoping for since I that morning on the hill. But when I looked down the creature I could only see myself just before I had learned the truth about the night. Destroying this thing meant I had earned the right to find and kill them outside the church. But to kill a little boy?
But I couldn't wuss out right then. I took a deep breath to ready myself and the vampire saw my fear. He started to gnash his fangs viciously at me. I smiled. Suddenly it was easier, he was a monster and I was cleansing the earth of evil. I reached for the stake the Father offered me. A square stick honed to a point with slivers of silver forced in at the corners. Concentrated anathema to a vampire.
I raised the instrument and his face reverted to the terrified child. Only this time I think the fear was real. He knew he was going to die. He started bawling like only a child, or a wicked mimicry, can.
I hesitated again. It was my inner child tied there to that cross. All my fear of death, the unknown screaming and straining right in front of me. I drove the stake into him and felt it pierce us both.
He screamed. He screamed a shrill piercing wail like a man watching, powerless, as his family burns crossed with the horror and pain as a limb is caught in active machinery.
His body contorted in a pain I could never imagine as all of his years returned to him in a moment. He was a teen in seconds but his bonds were tight, strong, and set for his short limbs. So as his bones grew they strained against his shackles. He yanked hard, trying to get free before the worst happened. Then it did, his bones shattered and burst through his flesh in a torrent of blood. His corded muscles spasmed in pain forcing his exposed bones to flail. As he became an old man his energy failed him and he fell back against the wood. He looked up at me face drawn in pain and desperation.
Then he died. His eyes stayed open but the fire went out. I watched in horror as his skin dried out and turned into a fine powder that fell away from his bones. His empty sockets stared back at me in accusation. And then even his bones became ash and everything that he had ever been was gone.
I gasped for breath through a ravaged throat only then realizing that I had been screaming with him. The wetness of my cheeks told of the tears that had been coursing down my cheeks. At least I hoped it was tears and not his blood. I hoped that with all of my heart.
I looked to Father Sameal and realized how little the whole episode had affected him. He was standing there solemn and calm as if he was at the pulpit was for the congregation. I couldn't believe it.
He knelt and scooped up the dust that had been a little boy only minutes before and capped the Tupperware I didn't remember giving him. I took it in shaking hands and pulled it in close to my body, hugging it like a teddy bear.
He signaled to one of the other hunters and a robed figure came over. The figure reached up and pulled back the hood to reveal long chocolate hair framing a beautiful girls face. She smiled at me and gently took my hand. I followed her meekly, happy to get away from the mess without having to think.
She took me to the spare sunday school classroom and reminded me exactly what life could be.
Hell of a way to lose your virginity huh?