Page 23 of Paying The Vampire

I descended farther and farther down, and it only occurred to me then that I must have been going into the mountain. I had assumed that the base of the castle would have gone as far as the stone that had been erected, but now I realized it must have gone down into the mountain itself. After all, what was the point of building a castle on a mountain if you were not going to make use of the gargantuan thing, with all its caverns and winding tunnels?

Indeed, I soon realized that I had left the confines of the castle itself. The stone blocks gave way to smooth walls. I cursed the vampires for making their tombs underground, but I supposed that was the natural place to put them. I waved the torch in front of me, treading carefully as I had no idea where I was treading. At one point I came across a wide canyon and only knew this because I happened to kick a stone over it. It skittered down, and I did not hear it land. Perhaps the mountain went on forever.

I carefully sidled along and followed the path around. There were no signposts here, but there was only one path. Wide caves that looked like the gaping maws of beasts were hewn into the mountain, but they only held shadows. I gulped and every instinct in my body told me to turn back. I was a wolf and wolves were not supposed to be here. This was a place for vampires. I felt as though I was treading on sacred ground.

But I knew that Clea must have walked the same path before me, and she had survived. If she could do it then so could I. I swallowed my fear and ignored the whispers that swirled around the air, knowing that they were as much a product of my imagination as they were anything else.

I kept telling myself that Cassius was the last vampire, the last king, so what did I have to be afraid of? Yet somehow that did not stop the icy chill from crawling down my spine, or prevent my heart from shuddering.

Eventually the sloping incline plateaued and I noticed that the openings had been carved more methodically. There were touches of artistry here, and they had been made wider. I entered one and my mouth turned agape as I saw the row of coffins lined in this wide tomb. I had never truly considered how many vampires had lived here, but by the look of these coffins it was countless. The wolves would have had a fit if they had known that I was standing here amid this desolate chamber, the air dripping with death.

I glanced around and thought about the tomb I was searching for. There were no names, but Amara had been important to Cassius. He spoke about her with reverence, so I assumed that she was a vampire of some importance. She would surely have a tomb like this as well. It didn’t take long to spot it. It was a grand coffin with a heavy stone slab upon it. At its head was a grand carving of a weeping angel, its hands steepled in prayer, its face turned towards the coffin. The more I stared at it the more I expected it to move and look up. Every muscle inside me was tense, ready to flinch, run and retreat back upstairs.

I checked around the coffin, but I did not see any hint of a diary, and then I realized that it must have been inside the coffin. It was a grisly business, opening up a coffin, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it. The last thing I wanted to do was disturb the dead. But if I retreated now then what had been the point of attacking Cassius? I was either going to see this through to the end, or I was going to have to face the consequences from Cassius.

Truth or consequence… it was a hard choice to make.

But I had made it this far and I knew I was going to have to go farther. I took a deep breath and placed the torch in a holder nearby. I then rubbed my palms together and braced myself to move the stone. I grunted as I pushed the heavy slab away. It scraped against the stone bottom in an unholy, eerie noise and a musty smell emerged. I coughed and spluttered, flinching back as I let the old air escape. I looked up to check that the weeping angel was in the same position, and breathed with relief when I saw that it was.

After gathering the rest of my strength I pushed the lid away so that I could access the tomb. I was fully prepared to gaze upon the skeletal remains of a vampire, but as I looked inside the tomb I was filled with surprise.

There was nothing inside, nothing but a book. Her diary.

Yet this didn’t make sense. Cassius had told me they had all died. If so, where were their bodies? I looked behind me at all the other coffins and wondered if they were all empty. If so, where were they? I did not have the strength or the patience, or frankly the stomach to investigate all of the coffins. Perhaps this was one of the things Clea had warned me about. If so, then the answers should be in this book.

Even though there was no body I was still tentative as I reached in and plucked the book out of the tomb. Even though Clea must have done so before me, I still felt wary about disturbing hallowed ground. This was meant for a dead body, and it felt wrong to be taking something away from it.

The book was old. The leather cover was worn and the pages were loose and stained with age. A lot of the pages were blank, but one of them towards the back was folded, a sign perhaps that Clea had read it. I flicked through the pages and recognized some of the handwriting from some of the books I had read through. Amara must have been quite the scholar. There should have been a great deal of wisdom within these pages, but what I really needed to know was what Cassius was lying about.

I began reading from the page that Clea had marked. Despite only having one brief conversation I felt as though we shared a kinship. She had looked out for me all those years ago, leaving me hints to point into this direction. I settled on the edge of the coffin and read by the firelight of my torch, my shoulders hunched, trying to ignore the macabre surroundings.

*

I thought I could save him from his own foolishness, but Cassius will be the death of us all. I have tried to explain to him over and over again how there is only one way for us to survive, yet he is adamant that he knows what is right. I should have taken greater care to grind his arrogance out of him. To think that I saw something in him a long time ago, that I thought I could nurture it. It is rare that my judgment has been wrong, yet in this case I find myself wondering why I ever thought he could be something worthwhile. It must have been a weak point in my life. When I saw him he reminded me so much of what I had once been, and I had pitied him. Perhaps I am the true fool here. I should never have coaxed him back to my lair and given him this gift that is most sacred to us. He does not appreciate it. He has never truly appreciated it and to think that he might be the one to sit on the throne and call himself king… to think that he is self righteous enough to believe that he knows best when he is but a child…

No… no this cannot stand. I will not endure this behavior from him. I will not allow him to dictate the way we live, and I will not let him take our future away from us. We are vampires and we are perennial. We are eternal.

Cassius is death, and I shall not let him touch me. I will live on. It is he who will die.

*

My gaze danced over the words again and again, not quite willing to believe what I was reading. If I understood this right it meant that Cassius was the one responsible for the death of the vampires. I thought back to what he told me, how coy he had been about the past, how reluctant he had been to talk about it. There was so much of him that was shrouded in a secret and was this what he had been hiding from me? This truth that he was the last vampire remaining not because he was an embattled survivor, but because he had gotten rid of his own kind?

I looked at all the coffins before me and wondered if they had been filled by him. I could imagine him dragging them all down, pulling them to the depths of this castle and sealing them to their eternal rest. And Amara, what fate had she met? Perhaps she had been flung down the mountain, cast into the abyss, all from the man she had made.

Cassius was dangerous and this revelation chilled me to the core. My hands rose to my lips. I had kissed him. I had danced with him. I had allowed myself to believe that he was kind and courteous, and I had even experienced flickers of attraction towards him.

But he had slain his own race, cast them into damnation, and despite them being vampires I knew that I could not stay with him after this.

Clea must have felt the same way.

I grabbed the torch and felt a sense of urgency rushing through me. I ran swiftly, my lungs tight with sharp, short breaths. The world was a blur as I battled against the incline which seemed steeper now, wanting to return to the castle before he awoke, before he could take his revenge upon me. Cassius had lied to me. He had hidden the truth, pretended that he was a victim when all along he had chosen this life for himself. I needed to escape. I needed to get to the top of the castle and use that portal to return home, or even get anywhere else that was not here. I should never have left. I should never have believed his promise.

I should have stayed where I was, because now I knew that like the vampires I could die here too.

Chapter Nineteen

Cassius