Dracula: Vampire Primarch

"No, man, no!"

"There is something different about your blood," I told him. "I must know what it is."

"Different?" He choked, waving his useless arms at me. Unable to tear my fingers from his hair. "We're fucking vampires, man! We're like you! You can't drink us. It'll just make you puke. Shit. Hasn't anyone taught you anything?"

He seemed to believe that what he was saying was true. I frowned at him, prodding him in the forehead.

"Are you considered strong for your kind?"

"Strong?" He froze in my grip. "What do you mean, am I strong?"

"Are you powerful?"

"Shit, I don't know." His eyes rolled in his head as he kept trying to wriggle free. His struggle amused me. He was a like a squirming babe trying to get loose of its parent's arms. Unfortunately, I wasn't very paternal. "Maybe? I mean, our Shadowdancing is pretty good. Not many are as good as we are. It's why we got the drop on you so easy."

"Shadowdancing?" I couldn't help but let out a small bark of laughter. He called his ability to merge with shadows such a thing? It had to be Sabetha's doing. Instinctively, I knew that's exactly what she would think of it as. Dancing in shadows. A flash of memory flickered through my mind. Sabetha, dancing on stage. Not yet a vampire. Fluid and graceful. I had been captivated enough to chase her. The memory faded, replaced by a dull ache. "How quaint."

The vampire froze suddenly, looking up at me with a mix of fear and curiosity of his own. "Who the fuck are you, man?"

Ignoring his question, I pushed his head aside to expose his throat.

"No no no!" He arched his back, kicking his legs. "Stop, man! Stop! Just… Think about… What… You're doing!"

But I held firm and lunged.

My fangs tore his skin and ripped the vein open. His blood erupted in a hissing torrent as he continued to thrash and wail.

I closed my mind off from his struggle.

Concentrated instead on the flavour.

Oily. Greasy.

Old candle wicks and sulphur.

The same as before. A subtle hint of black tea. That was new, but I assumed it had more to do with his Type.

More important to me were the similar notes. The oil. The grease.

Wicks and sulphur.

My memories were fractured. I wasn't sure I would ever be able to put them all back together again. In fact, I doubted I would ever recall half of my knowledge from before.

Already, I had tried to remember how I Turned vampires.

Asking myself over and over how I had Turned my Brides.

The method was lost to me. Perhaps the knowledge would rise eventually, but I accepted that, for now, it was gone, too deep within my fractured memories to be helpful.

Yet, the taste of the two vampires was something different. It was floating just under the surface. It bubbled below my conscious thoughts. Tantalisingly close.

What was it?

Wicks and sulphur.

I turned it over and over, draining him as slowly as I could. Letting the taste simmer.

Oily.

Bitter.

Not mortal. I was sure of that much. But it contained too much of its mortal flavour to belong to a vampire.

I sudden thought flared, along with a memory. A face.

An ugly face. Cackling to itself as it hovered in the shadows.

Renfield.

Robert Renfield.

His blood had been bitter! Wicks and sulphur!

Spitting the blood out, I pulled myself from the vampire's moaning form and rolled him onto his back.

Hope lit in his eyes, but he was weak now. Weak from blood loss.

I patted him down, searching him.

Nothing.

"Ah," I growled. "Don't you have a knife?"

"N-n-no…"

"What kind of world is this where a man doesn't carry a knife?" I sighed, making a mental note to have Vela get me a knife.

A quick glance at the trash strewn across the alley revealed a broken bottle. It looked like glass. I cocked my head at it and hobbled over to snatch it up.

Turning back to the vampire, I twirled the shard between my fingers. His eyes widened as I grinned broadly at him.

"Hey, man," he whimpered, inching away from me. "You ain't gonna… No… You can't be thinking…"

"Do you know the difference between a mortal and a vampire?"

"Please, man…"

"A vampire has no internal organs."

His mouth dropped open in disbelief. "What?"

"Well. Mostly, anyway," I scratched my head. Was I right about this? It felt right. "We have a stomach, where the blood we drink is collected. We have no other organs. No intestine. No liver. No kidneys. Just heart, stomach, and brain. This is the difference between vampire and prey. Which do you think you are? Are you vampire? Or prey?"

"This can't be real. You can't be real." He started to cry. "You're crazy, man…"

"Hmm."

I squatted beside him. Lifting his hooded top, I exposed his belly.

He struggled to get away, but I planted one hand on his chest to pin him firmly against the ground.

"Come on, man," he sobbed, trying to kick me off. "Please… Don't do this…"

"I must," I told him. The shard glinted in my hand. "Bear with it. It won't take long if you remain still. I must see what you are."

Then I slit his belly open.

The glass wasn't the best tool for it. It was hard to grip as his blood washed out over my hand. But I kept cutting through the layers of skin, fat, and muscle.

Until…

"Intestines," I said with disgust as they flopped out of his belly like a bucket of eels. The stench was revolting. "Then, you are indeed prey. Well, that just raises more questions, doesn't it?"

Looking up, I saw he'd fainted.

I shook my head.

He was no vampire.

If he was what my Brides had been creating, then they were truly unable to Turn. I felt a brief spark of smug satisfaction at the thought. They'd stolen my powers, but they couldn't steal the knowledge on how to use them.

I wondered how many failures they'd suffered. How many frustrations. How they must have cursed their decision to destroy me so soon.

Still.

I pulled the unconscious vampire's lips apart.

He did have fangs. And he did drink blood. He'd said so. He truly thought himself a vampire.

"They are deluded," I muttered, thinking of Robert Renfield.

There was a link between the two.

Closing my eyes, I tried to remember more about the man. But all I could summon from the depths of my shattered memories was an image of him, sheathed in shadow, cackling. Rubbing his hands together.

And sucking the juice from cockroaches.

Shuddering, I pushed aside my thoughts of the odious little man and stared at the wreckage of the creature in front of me. Suddenly, it gave a little twitch and then, to my surprise, the corpse began to quickly disintegrate in front of me.

Before I could do anything, he was a pile of ash at my feet. Even his intestines had been consumed by the glowing embers.

The more I thought about it, the odder it seemed. The other one had also turned to ash when I'd finished feeding on him.

I hadn't staked either one. Or burned them. They should have both survived. I felt that was true.

Yet, here they were. Piles of ash soaking into trickle of rancid water sliding down the gutter. If I was right, they could be killed if they lost all their blood and would turn to ash when they died.

What were they, if not a vampire?

Again, I felt something familiar tease the edge of my memory.

Only, this was more recent. Something I had forgotten…

"Hina!" I whipped around, limping towards her body and crouching down beside her. Pressing my fingers to her throat, I shook my head.

Her pulse was softer than her voice.

Gently, I rolled her over, pulling her up into my arms.

"Hina," I rasped, pushing her hair out of her face. She was pretty, I thought. Although blood covered half her face and made it difficult for me to concentrate.

It was calling to me.

What had she said? She was Type B Minus. She'd promised she would be flavourful.

"Hina," I repeated, gently tapping her cheek. "Wake up, Renfield!"

She moaned, her eyelids trembled as they opened a little. "Master…"

A flicker of memory cracked through my head like a snapping whip.

Robert Renfield.

Drinking from my wrist.

I glanced at the piles of ash, feeling like a lightning bolt had hit me. The hairs on the back of my neck rippled. Could it be?

"You did well, Renfield," I said grimly, lifting her arm, my fingers pressed to the inside of her wrist. It felt feeble. And it was skipping beats.

"Master…" She coughed as blood slid down from her lips. "Please… Forgive me…"

I tried to recall what I had to do. To Turn a Bride took time. And I had a hunch there were Rituals, too. But Renfield hadn't been a bride. He'd been…

He'd been…

I held back a frustrated snarl as it eluded my grasp.

"There is nothing to forgive," I told her, feeling her heartbeat flutter. I felt like I was in a race. A race against Death, who hovered in that alley with his grinning skull firmly fixed on her. "Forgive me for being slow. I am not yet recovered, but I should have been stronger for you."

The word.

Right there. In front of me.

I battered at the fog trying to hide it from me. The word floated, stubbornly distant. Refusing to be resisted, I beat at the memory of Renfield sucking on my wrist like a blacksmith at his forge. And, with a grunt, it finally popped loose.

I tasted the word on my lips. And a trickle of memories showed me glimpses of what I needed to know.

Ghoul.

***

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