Page 30 of Into The Light

“You were a warrior?”

I nodded.

“Did you have a family?”

That was a loaded question. “Yes. I still do. A brother and a sister.”

“Wait, still? Are they...?”

“Vampires? Yes. Lothaire and Annella. We were all changed at the same time.”

“How... how did you become... you know?”

“You can say it out loud.” I chuckled. Pink flushed her cheeks. “How did I become a vampire? That’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time. Five years to be exact.” She tipped her head and urged me on.

A sigh rode my shoulders, and I struggled for where to begin. “The short version is that the Black Death, a deadly plague, was coming our way, and my clan were descendants of Picts.”

“What are Picts?”

I tried to find a way to describe them. “The Picts were a tribal people in Scotland, similar to Native Americans here when foreigners first arrived on the soil. Pict means ‘painted people’. They were tattooed and painted, very primal. Even in comparison to our simple ways. They fought hard, but clans slowly pushed them from their lands, forcing them into seclusion and hiding. They were thought extinct by the eleventh century. But a small tribe of them survived, and only a handful of descendants, like my clan, knew they still existed.”

“Where did they go?” She blinked rapidly as she hung on my every word.

“An island. Hidden by magic.”

“Magic?” She sat back and clutched her chest. “There’s magic? It’s real?”

“Yes. It’s rare. But it’s real. It’s the reason I am still standing here hundreds of years later.”

“So, what happened?”

“With the Black Death sweeping the country, our chieftain, who was also my uncle, was one of only a handful of people who knew their whereabouts, and he sought them out. Knowing this small tribe also possessed magic, he asked them to grant our clan protection from the plague. Since we were their descendants, they agreed on the condition we would use our newfound powers to protect them from the invaders seeking to destroy them. Our chief made the deal and they cast a spell over my tribe. It granted us immortality, strength, speed, hearing, and fangs for weapons. We needed no food or drink. Sleep was optional. But, only some of us survived the transformation.”

She watched me with bated breath. “People died?”

“Yes. My father and mother, along with one brother, didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, genuine concern heavy in her voice.

It had been painful at the time, but the centuries had eased the pain, though I appreciated her concern. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”

“So, now you were all vampires?”

She finally said the word. “No. Not yet. As part of the deal, the strongest of the warriors were promised to live on the island, immortal soldiers to keep them safe from invaders. But our chief lost his wife in the transformation. Furious and grief-stricken he refused our end of the deal and our immortality was ripped away.”

“Then how are you still here?”

“During a battle only a week later, our chief ripped the throat from an invading clansman. As he swallowed the blood, he felt all his powers return. He commanded us to do the same. We drank the blood of our enemies and with it stole their life force and embedded it with our own.”

“Whoa.”

“As long as we continued to drink fresh blood, our powers and immortality remained. Furious he had found a way to keep the gift and unable to fully retract it, the Pict leader, a very powerful witch, cursed us to walk the dark for all eternity. We became unable to stand the sunlight after.”

“So, you are essentially the first vampires?”

“Yes,” I said, swirling my feet in the water.