Sins of the Father

Chapter 18





When I awoke next, I heard the door above the stairs closing. I slowly lifted my head and saw the man who had taken me walk over.

He tsked as he lifted my face higher to meet his. “I see Martin has fed from you,” he said plainly, his foreign accent thick. “You have lost much blood, human.”

“What…do you…care?” I whispered weakly.

“I don’t,” he said simply as he watched me with detached fascination. “I’ve been watching you with those day walkers for the last few days. Why are they so…taken with you? I see nothing special about you…you are just a lowly human,” he said plainly. “I don’t understand it.”

“I…I just work…for them. I’m not…special.”

The man chuckled and shook his head. “You don’t see,” he said, turning away. “It’s of no consequence. As I said before, you are just a means to an end for me. I want them dead and you are going to help me accomplish that.” He turned back to me and smiled cruelly. “They will come looking for you, without a doubt, and I’ll be waiting.”

I was momentarily glad to hear that this monster thought Archer and his crew would come save me, but then I realized they would never get the chance. He intended to kill them.

“Why?” I croaked out. “Why…are you after them?”

He pursed his lips in thought and studied me for a moment. “To explain to you why, I have to start at the beginning,” he said as he began circling me. “My beginning.”

“Can’t…wait,” I whispered sarcastically.

He came to a stop in front of me and tsked. “Do not anger me, human,” he warned with solid black eyes. “You would like me when I am angry.”

I scoffed weakly and lifted my head higher. “I already don’t like you.”

The man threw his head back and cackled. “So headstrong,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “It’ll be fun to break you.”

I closed my eyes and turned my head away. As much as I wanted to argue with him, I simply didn’t have the energy any longer. I heard him resume his walk around me as he continued talking.

“My name is Amun and I have walked this earth for time immeasurable,” he spoke proudly. “I have seen many civilizations come and go, the earth freeze and thaw, and yet I still walk. As I said before, I am the beginning; the father of all those who drink the blood of the living. I created my first son over eight thousand years ago in the land of Egypt and he went on to father all of those who are like Martin. Your day walkers call them the Dark Ones.”

I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, realizing what he was saying. “You created…vampires?”

“Yes,” he said simply as he came to a standstill in front of me.

“How?” I whispered.

He tsked, obviously not interested in telling me, and began his story again. “I used to drink the blood of the living to survive, but found my body starting to deteriorate a few thousand years ago. So, I began feeding from the immortal race I created, desperate to find a way to stay alive. And it worked. Their immortal blood made me strong again; faster and younger. It was the cure I so desperately needed. I drained them completely, of course, and disposed of the remains, maintaining my secret. No one but my son knew I fathered and now fed from our race and I never wanted that information coming to light.”

“1,900 years ago, I ran into a new race of vampires in Hibernia, your modern day Ireland. They smelled of the sun and worshiped your Christian God. Needless to say, I was confused and intrigued. I followed one of them for a few nights and learned everything I could about their race through him. When I saw that the man had the power to read a human’s mind, I wanted to know more, so I approached him. He did not take the introduction well, so I silenced him by draining him.” Amun smiled at the memory and licked his lips. “Almost immediately I could hear the thoughts of the humans in the village. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least, and wanted to know what else this vampire’s blood could afford me. I sat on a nearby hill and bravely met the morning sun when it rose. To my immense delight, I did not burn. That was the first sunrise I had seen in over ten thousand years.”

Amun sighed and continued. “All too soon, the powers of the day walker’s blood faded and my body once again began to deteriorate. To permanently remedy this, I fed on one day walker a month and one night walker every week. You see, the day walkers were so few in number back then that I could not afford to engorge myself more often than once a month for fear of diminishing my supply.” He chuckled and smiled cruelly. “That is no longer a problem today. Each time I feed from the day walkers, I retain their powers for a time…usually a few weeks. It’s an amazing thing, their powers.”

I closed my eyes, absolutely disgusted at the mere sight of Amun, and shook my head. “What…the hell…does any of this…have to do with…my friends?” I asked, barely able to get the whole sentence out. I was so weak and fighting hard to stay conscious.

He growled and my eyes flew open as he tightly wrapped his hand around my throat, his completely black eyes consuming mine. “Your day walkers are the descendants of that spurius Cináed,” he spat angrily as he squeezed my throat. “He is the one who finally caught me, bled me, and sealed me underneath a church in a tomb for over a thousand years,”

I opened my mouth wide, desperately trying to suck in air, but it was no use. Amun’s hand was wrapped too tightly around my airway. In seconds, my vision began going black and I started to pass out.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Amun growled as he released my throat and backhanded me. “You WILL stay awake!”

I coughed and gasped for air; my throat burned and my face stung from where his blow had landed across my right cheek. “Sorry…I asked,” I managed to say weakly once I caught my breath. “You know…acting like a dick…won’t make yours any bigger.”

Amun paced in front of me and spoke harshly to me in a language I was unfamiliar with. “I grow tired of you,” he finally said to me in English.

I took a deep breath and raised my head higher to look at him. “Finally…something we have in common,” I sarcastically bit back. If I was going to die by this monster’s hands, I wanted to die as Skye Everleigh Morrison; strong, independent, ‘sassy-as-hell-and-doesn’t-give-a-f*ck-what-you-think-about-it’ woman. I didn’t want to die weak and fearful. I knew my fate was in God’s hands; I accepted a long time ago that He was in control of my life, I wasn’t. If I was meant to die here today, then I would die being myself; not the victim that this psycho was trying to make me into.

Amun chuckled and grabbed a fist full of my hair, tilting my head back even further. “You remind me of a girl that I once knew,” he said with a sick smile.

“Oh yeah?” I asked tiredly. My body desperately needed to recuperate from the recent events and I could feel its pull on my droopy eyes. “What happened…to her?”

Amun leaned closer, his nose almost touching mine, and whispered slowly, “I ate her.”

I swallowed hard as he shoved my head away. I watched as he calmly pulled in the cuffs of his shirt, readjusting them, and fixed his suit jacket. He ran his fingers through his short dark hair and turned back to me.

“Where was I?” he asked, his brow momentarily furrowed in thought before his blue eyes suddenly lit up and he smiled. “Oh yes…the tomb. So, Cináed was able to capture me, bleed me almost dry, and lock me underground in a tomb. In there I sat, chained in silver and draped in crosses, unable to move but fully aware for over a thousand years. I had all that time to plan my revenge should I ever escape, although I didn’t know how long my body would last. As I previously told you, it had been deteriorating for some time before I started drinking immortal blood. Imagine my surprise when I did not die,” he smiled.

“As luck would have it, the church was demolished a few weeks ago, and my enclosure was discovered in the process. One of the men spotted me chained up and he came over and cut me free. Once the silver and holy relics were removed, I drained my rescuer and his companions. After I drained the human men and regained a fraction of my strength, I went out hunting for a proper meal. I drained a score of vampires, completely restoring me to my former glory, and commenced my search of Cináed. Much to my dismay, I learned that he was dead, so I decided the next best thing would be to kill off his offspring. And kill them all, I shall.”

“But…why did you kill…the human at my house?” I croaked weakly as I felt hot tears slide down my face. “Jesse wasn’t a…descendant of Cináed. He didn’t…deserve to die. He had…nothing to do with…any of this.”

Amun shook his head. “I did not kill the human. Martin did,” he said as he reached over and gently touched the tears on my cheeks, a look of fascination on his face. “You cry for him…why?”

I roughly jerked my face to the side, away from his touch. “Because he didn’t deserve to die!” I yelled, mustering all the strength and anger I had, putting them into my words. “He wasn’t a part of your war. He knew…nothing of…your kind. And yet you killed him anyway.”

Amun pursed his lips and began walking around me again. “Martin killed him. And he died because he was in the way. We were observing you and that day walker, preparing to leave Callum’s head in your metal chariot, when the human came up and began destroying it. I have to admit, I watched the whole thing in complete rapture. His anger was impressive; feral and immense. He would have made a fierce vampire. But, alas, he had to be disposed of. He had been following your every move for the last few days and he was making my hunt more difficult than it needed to be.”

“You cold hearted bastard!” I spat and yanked as hard as I could on my chains.

He backhanded me again, harder this time. “Silence! You need to learn your place, woman. I don’t know what happened to this world while I was entombed, but I don’t care for it. A woman is to be seen, not heard. Used as a man pleases without complaint from the female. I hope this isn’t a widespread problem. The human race was loathsome a thousand years ago. If all women are like you now, I shudder to think what living among you will be like. Too bad my tastes have evolved to immortals. I’d like nothing more than to drain you dry and silence that sarcastic mouth of yours, woman.”

“F*ck you,” I spat weakly.

Amun chuckled and stepped back. “I’ll pretend I understand what that means if it makes you feel more powerful, human. You really are such a pathetic species.”

I watched as he pulled a velvet bag out of his jacket pocket and smile at me. “I need to give your day walkers more incentive to find you, I believe. Two days have passed and they aren’t even close.” He reached forward using vampire speed and yanked a fist full of my hair out. I screamed out in pain as he held it out between our faces. I saw a chunk of bloody scalp and I started crying again; half from the unbelievable pain, half from anger. I loved my hair and this a*shole had torn a huge chunk of it out…along with some scalp. I will not focus on the chunk of skin hanging from it, I silently told myself. Don’tlookdon’tlookdon’tlook. I couldn’t help myself…I looked again and he just laughed as he watched the pain and anguish on my face.

Amun carefully folded my hair up and put it in the velvet bag; knotting it when he was done and putting it back in his jacket pocket. He then reached out and ripped my black Motörhead t-shirt from my body, leaving me only in my bra. I cried out in pain again, this time it was coming from my wrists. He tore my shirt from my body with such force that I swung a little on my chains.

“That should do it,” he said, smiling as he wadded my shirt up in his hand and turned to leave.

“That was…vintage, you bastard!” I screamed at him through my tears as he closed the door to the basement. My head was pounding and my entire body ached. I prayed for the darkness to take me again, to relieve me of my pain, but it didn’t. I stayed awake and aware for the next few hours and dreamed of the chance to kick that bastard vampire’s ass.

The next time I awoke, something cold was sliding down my torso. My eyes flew open and I saw Martin standing in front of me with a sly grin on his face as his fingers explored my exposed skin.

“Don’t f*cking…touch me,” I growled as I tried to jerk away from his icy trace.

Martin chuckled as I watched his fangs slowly descend from his upper gums. “Watch how you talk to me, human. Your life is in my hands, remember?”

I swallowed hard and looked away from him. I whimpered as his fingers moved along the edges of the cups on my bra. I knew I had to stay silent and try my best not anger him, as difficult as that was for me. I didn’t think I’d survive him feeding off me again.

“Wh…where’s Amun?” I asked timidly.

“Out,” Martin whispered as he slid one of his fingers under my bra. “He’s been gone for some time and I don’t expect him back anytime soon…not that you should worry about that.” He licked his lips as he slid his cold finger along the underside of my breast.

“What are you…planning on doing to me?” I whispered as my body began to shake from pure fear.

He leaned forward, burying his face into the hollow of my neck, and took a deep breath in. “Your fear smells amazing. It makes my mouth water.”

“Please,” I begged frantically. “Don’t bite me again, Martin.”

He chuckled and licked my neck. “I’m not going to bite you. I’m going to f*ck you. I haven’t had a human in a while.”

I jerked on my chains frantically as I pleaded with him. “You don’t want to do this Martin. Amun will be mad, think about it.”

He laughed as he roughly pulled up my bra, exposing my breasts. “Amun doesn’t give a damn about you and doesn’t care what I do with you.”

I started to panic as Martin unbuttoned my corduroys and slowly slid the zipper down. “Please don’t do this Martin. You said you wouldn’t hurt me if I was good.”

“I said if you cooperated, I wouldn’t feed from you again,” he said, licking his lips as he slid my pants down my hips. “Are you going to cooperate, or shall I sink my fangs into your tasty little neck again?” I whimpered and tightly closed my eyes.

Just then the door opened and Amun slowly made his way down the steps, his eyes locked on mine. “Martin, you are not seriously considering mating with this human, are you?” he asked, a look of disgust on his face.

“I was bored, master,” he explained quickly as he stepped away from me. “I haven’t used a human in a number of years.”

Amun tsked as he walked up to me, his eyes roaming my body. “Do not lower yourself, Martin. You are vampire and she is a human, unworthy of your attentions. Get upstairs and wait for me there.”

“Yes, master,” he said and glanced longingly back at me for a moment before leaving the room.

Amun reached over and quickly righted my pants and bra, surprising me. I knew he could care less what happened to me and was shocked that he stopped Martin from raping me, whatever his reasoning was.

“Great vampires do not fraternize sexually with humans,” he said, reading my mind. “I stopped him to help him, not you.”

I lowered my gaze as he turned to the water spigot on the wall and filled the metal cup again. He brought it over to me and allowed me to drink the whole thing. Without another word, he left and I was alone again, thankful for his brief interruption.

Hours passed and I remained awake, scared that Martin would come back and finish what he started. I saw the look in his eyes and knew that he was far from finished with me, no matter what Amun said. He’d probably just wait for him to leave again. I felt so vulnerable and helpless chained to this pipe in the ceiling. Even if I had the use of my arms, I don’t think I’d have been able to fight off Martin’s advances.

I was in the most pain I had ever been in in my life. I took a quick evaluation of the injuries I had sustained thus far and started to cry again. There was my ripped scalp and missing hair, the deep gash on my left forearm inflicted by Amun when he kidnapped me, my broken right wrist and dislocated right shoulder, my bruised and aching face caused by Martin and Amun’s hands, and let’s not forget the fang marks in my neck where Martin almost drained me into nonexistence. I was damn lucky to be alive and I knew it.