CHAPTER 2
~~1666~~
Carlisle opened his eyes. For a moment he was paralyzed and his eyes swept the room. The dawn of the third day had broken. The sun had not risen and the sky was barely purple, but compared to the pitch black of the cellar, a dim light was visible through the cracks in the cellar doors. Carlisle knew he was missing a short period of memory because he had last been aware of his fading breath, and it had been completely dark outside. Had he…?
Suddenly, he sat straight up as an explosion of every smell, sound, and color around him overwhelmed his senses. He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears. But just as quickly, his mind filtered the noise, so when he opened his eyes again, he noted that he could perceive every moving creature’s sound in the house, could identify every smell within a six-block radius, and saw with perfect acuity even in near complete darkness every object in the room.
For a moment, Carlisle was exhilarated and easily pulled himself out of the pile of rotten potatoes, but when he was free, he smelled and then looked down and saw the dry blood that covered his shirt. He was overcome with the desire to suck his own blood out of the fabric. And then a deep, ravenous thirst suddenly stabbed at his insides but he did not desire the shelves of wine or sacks of turnips or pickled meat in the cellar. His instincts took over, and he sniffed out the closest available source of what he desired – a small female, just at the top of the stairs to the cellar beyond a flimsy wooden door, which he knew he could pulverize quite easily.
A CHILD!? I want to drink the blood of a CHILD?! I am plotting to kill a child!! Carlisle backed up toward to cellar doors, struggling to push down the monstrous craving that was rumbling deep inside him. Several times he started toward the stairs leading up to the playing little girl who was so close, such an easy meal… Finally, he managed to open the cellar doors and forced himself to walk up the steps to the street. He looked up at the purple morning sky, which was starting to turn slightly pink in the east as the sun crept higher, and he closed his coat over his bloody shirt so he would not attract attention, but that reminded him of…
He put his hand up to his neck, where the vampire had bitten him. The bite on his neck was healed over to a soft scar. Then he realized that it was more than a bite mark, one soft raised line lead to another, and another. The vampire had torn apart his neck in the attack. Suddenly he was seized with rage, and he slammed the cellar doors with such force that they splintered. The door handle had come off in his hand, and when he looked at it, he saw that his stone-hard fingers had squeezed the thick metal as if it were clay. He was shocked by his strength, and he ran down the alley for fear of being caught but realized that in a blink of an eye he was two miles from where he had been. Carlisle gasped and looked around him. There were not very many people around yet, and those that were out apparently had not seen him moving since he was too fast for their eyes to perceive. Fear gripped him, anger pulsed through him, thirst called him in all directions toward the humans nearby who were completely unaware of the newborn vampire that was cowering between two buildings in London, covering his head trying to block out all of the heartbeats pounding in his ears.
When Carlisle could bear it no longer, he determined to run as far and as fast as possible away from all of the people. He ran in short spurts, hiding from the sight of any human, and headed for the woods nearby. He would have to go a long way, out of the city, past the fields of workers; but he appeared to move unnoticed. When he could no longer hear any heart beats calling him nor smell any hint of the enticing aroma of blood, he finally stopped and was amazed that he felt no fatigue from his efforts. Carlisle was standing in a clearing near the edge of the forest under a tree that had to be a thousand years old. Only fifteen minutes had passed, the sun was just peeking over the treetops, and he had run at least twenty miles. For the first moment since he awoke, he took some time to think.
I cannot do this! I will not become an agent of death! I will not become this monster! This must …END.
Carlisle formulated the plan instantly. He sat next to a tree completely still and calmly waited through the entire day, deliberately watching nothing but the slow crawl of the sun across the sky until darkness fell again so there would be fewer humans around to tempt his senses as he ran. His plan might instantly condemn him to hell, but he did not care. He preferred to go to hell for this rather than for killing one of God’s people. He could not believe it was such a simple choice.
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Carlisle sat by the shore on a boulder as large as a house at the top of a cliff face that was hundreds of feet from the rocky shore where white waves crashed. The bright sunlight reflected off his diamond hard skin and the sounds and smells of the sea and wind rolled over him like the surf far below but he ignored everything. He wasn’t sure why he was there. He had been sitting on the boulder for four days without moving. He had no motivation to move, so he simply didn’t. He thought rather apathetically that he could try again to kill himself by jumping off the cliff into the sea, but he knew that there was no hope of success. He had jumped from the spire of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. He had stood in the flames of a glass factory. He had leapt from the London Bridge and sat at the bottom of the Thames. He had tried every weapon he could find. He had even stolen some holy water and drunk it. And he had finally come to the conclusion that while his body was whole and strong, there was nothing that could destroy its power. Carlisle began to wonder if all of the legends around how to kill a vampire existed because any vampire who had been successfully killed was weakened.
A voice of hope in the back of his mind proposed that because the only thing he could feel anymore was his blood-lusting thirst, eventually lack of nutrition might finally weaken him enough to make him vulnerable; or simply end the nightmare. And it was a nightmare, a never-ending horror, because he also could not sleep. He had spent every waking moment since he was reborn as a demon loathing his very existence.
Hypocrite, his inner voice said. You loathed yourself long before you died. You are a child of death, born of a dead woman, reared by a man whose faith in life and God was dead. You have always been dead inside. You never even knew what it was to be truly alive. And now, you never will.
Carlisle’s inner voice was becoming louder and louder. He began to wonder if the voice was his vampire conscience, or if it was who he really was, finally breaking free. The voice never told him to feed; that was his body, which he kept perfectly locked in place with every ounce of his will. So he dared to hope that the voice was himself, some remnant of his humanity that he clung to no matter how loudly disapproving it was of his attempts at suicide.
Slowly, his body actually began to weaken. He could feel it. After twenty days, he could no longer hold himself still. He moved from the boulder and took one more look down the cliff. He still knew that the fall would not kill him, and it wasn’t worth the effort of climbing all the way back up the cliff face or running along the shore until he found an easier way up.
He headed back, or was drawn without realizing it, to the forest. He thought he was wandering aimlessly, until he happened upon a natural rock cave: a perfect hole to crawl into to die. Carlisle crawled in and found that it was clean and dry and recently vacated by a family of wolves by the scent he picked up. Something inside him told him that running into wolves was dangerous, but he did not care. He lay down on the bed of grass in the corner of the tiny cave, and waited.
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Carlisle had been lying in a daze, not asleep but not exactly sure what was inside his mind and what was out in the world. He knew it was fall, but he was unfazed by rain or sun, heat or cold, day or night. All he could think of was the thirst.
Carlisle had never wanted for food in his mortal life, and he knew what a blessing that had been. His father had inherited his mother’s small fortune, which was supplemented by his church salary and the parishioners’ tithes. Carlisle’s tuition at boarding school was always paid on time, so he had every meal he needed. He had seen desperate hunger before in both men’s and animals’ eyes. He had also seen starvation. It was the most visceral depiction of living death that he had ever seen, in his opinion even more graphic than a drawing and quartering which was over quickly. Oddly, however, though Carlisle felt he was reaching his end, his body was not wasting like those he had seen in the slums of London; he was simply weaker. It was as if his body had been frozen in time to an impermeable, unchanging, indestructible force. Not so indestructible, he promised himself. This will end.
He felt the ground vibrating underneath him. He bolted up straight, and his nostrils flared before he could regain control of himself. He sighed with relief. He knew that it was not a human party. He had successfully evaded humans for more than four months. There was no way he would tempt himself now. He felt the comforting weakness return to his temporarily energized muscles, until he caught the scent. It was not human, but it called to him. Carlisle rolled over onto his side and sniffed again. He did not really know what he was doing until he was crawling out of his cave and pulling himself up from the forest floor. The vibration was palpable now through his feet, and he could see them through the trees.
Carlisle was running; where the energy came from he did not know, but just ahead of him was what he craved, what he desired. He reached out with his hand…
When he finally looked up at the sky, his vision was much clearer than it had been. All of his senses were heightened again. The velvety dark of the night sky above was sparkling like the sea. He could see colors in every shining star. The grass of the meadow around him was turning brown, and it whispered as it swayed in the chilly fall breeze. He closed his eyes and felt the air wrap around his cold skin, and then he felt something more viscous than water dripping from his chin. Carlisle looked down and saw on his hands the unmistakable crimson stains of blood, as if he had bathed in it.
His breathing quickened as he backed away from the body next to him, the image of its unmoving form seared into his eyes like a hot iron. His first kill. Carlisle's thoughts were swirling uncontrollably, and he crawled backward away from it though he was unable to look away. And then he bumped into another body. As he jumped up from the forest floor, away from his second kill, he turned his head and saw in his field of vision four more.
His mind suddenly took hold of his heart and said, Look at them, you fool.
Carlisle closed his eyes and shook his head.
I said, LOOK AT THEM. His inner voice demanded.
Carlisle opened his eyes and first looked at his hands. They were still drenched in blood. Then he looked back at his first kill. It was a deer. He turned to the second – another deer. He walked past all of the rest of them; there were nine altogether.
Carlisle stood still as a statue, staring at the last one. Its large black eyes were still and empty. He could see where his own teeth had ripped out its throat, and then he rubbed the faint scars on his neck.
This is the answer. Carlisle realized the inner voice was not simply critical of him; it was his voice of reason.
He turned and ran toward the craggy peak in the distance, his legs moving faster than they had in months as the new blood filled his open veins, and he tracked the herd he had attacked.
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~~1669~~
Carlisle walked through a small farmer’s market on a cold and cloudy afternoon in a clearing by the crossroads five miles from the center of London. He still did not trust himself to walk into the city, but when he was well fed he felt capable of walking in this smaller gathering of humans.
The market was actually just a collection of lean-tos set up along the crossroads. There were barely thirty humans around, and as long as Carlisle gave them a wide berth, he was able to stay in control. However, every trip took a significant effort and caused him physical pain. Every time he took a breath around humans, Carlisle felt as if he was breathing in burning ash; a burning he knew would only be quenched by satisfying his thirst for blood.
When he listened in on the conversations as he passed by, it seemed they barely took notice of the mysterious figure who always had a hood over his head and only came to the market when there was cloud cover. None suspected a vampire in their midst – especially not one who did not feed on humans. He returned to his cart and began to pack up his wares. He had made several significant sales that day, plenty of money for the supplies he required.
It had all started about seven months after his transformation: while hunting one evening he found a caravan that had been attacked in the forest and the dead left to rot in the road. He found weapons, clothing, and some books. His clothes had been reduced to rags, with the exposure he endured over the first few months and his failed suicide attempts. It felt strange to have such luxurious fabrics on his cold dead skin, but the sensation was far more intense than he had ever realized as a mortal. Clothing had been about utility, not comfort, in his former life.
The books he found were all written by Greek philosophers. He had spent a little time translating the classics in boarding school in his Greek class, but reading them again from an entirely different perspective immediately intrigued him. He read them over and over, even after he had memorized each page.
The weapons he put to immediate use for hunting, but not for himself. He used his superior sight and reflexes to kill foxes, deer, and wolves, and he sold the meat and pelts. He had found a way to make a good living, with minimal human contact.
Carlisle was in a hurry to leave the market because he did not like stay among the humans any longer than he had to. But a man on a horse arrived at the crossroads and stopped behind him.
“Good evening, sir. I can see you are leaving, but I must trouble you for one of your warm pelts. I’m afraid I may be ill before I reach my destination.”
Carlisle could smell the man’s general good health and guessed that he must be past his prime, probably in his forties. Carlisle could hear his wealth with the rubbing of fine fabrics. But as he turned to look at the man, the first thing that caught his eye was the tied stacks of books hanging from his saddlebag.
The man followed Carlisle’s gaze and smiled. “You have an eye for reading, sir?”
Carlisle nodded. “I had an aptitude for science and religion in school. My studies were forgotten for years, until recently.”
The man had not really expected such a response, and now dismounted and looked more closely at the strange hunter with a pale face. Carlisle instantly shrank from the man’s gaze and began to untie some of the furs he had just put away.
The man frowned. “You are a learned man, I can see it. But something dreadful has happened. Where is your family? Your home?”
Carlisle’s instincts were reawakening; this human was taking too much of an interest in him, and it was enticing his senses. “I have none, sir.”
The man leaned a little closer, and Carlisle had to stop breathing to prevent the scent of blood from overwhelming him. “Are you a Catholic?” the man said quietly and sympathetically.
Carlisle did not answer. The man took this as something of a confirmation. “My mother’s sister married into a Catholic family. They were killed and their lands taken. I will presume for the moment that is what has happened to you, sir, for I can see you do not wish to discuss it.” He walked back over to his horse, and Carlisle took the opportunity to relax his face a little. The man returned with three books. “I hope you will accept this as payment for that fine wolf’s skin.” He indicated the deep black fur on the top of Carlisle’s collection.
Carlisle was taken aback by the generosity and shook his head. “You must know I cannot accept more than one book in payment, sir.”
The man smiled. “Your honesty has proven my instinct about you, sir. My name is Thomas Hawthorne. I am a professor of physic, and I am to teach at Trinity College in Cambridge.” He smiled broadly when he saw that Carlisle recognized the college and suddenly appreciated to whom he was speaking.
“I had considered applying, but at the time, it seemed God had other plans for me.” Carlisle frowned as he spoke.
Hawthorne was intrigued. “And what was your intended field of study?” he asked eagerly.
Carlisle shrugged. “I… don’t remember.” Carlisle’s brows knit as he searched his memory, but the desire was long gone from his human mind, and now had completely faded as his entire existence had become focused on resisting his very nature.
Hawthorne watched the young man struggling internally and he felt a great swell of sympathy for him. He held out all three books to Carlisle and waited until Carlisle took them. Carlisle handed Hawthorne the wolf skin, which Hawthorne threw over his shoulders.
“I can see you are still young, and you have likely had a hard start to your life or lost a legacy that was due to you. But your thirst for knowledge is a rare thing. If you ever find you have sufficient curiosity, I will make certain we find you the means to study.” Hawthorne bowed slightly to Carlisle.
Carlisle bowed back, and watched with wonder as Hawthorne rode away. Carlisle looked down at the books: Galen, Hippocrates, and Fuchs. Carlisle opened Galen: On the Natural Faculties.
“Since feeling and voluntary motion are peculiar to animals, whilst growth and nutrition are common to plants as well, we may look at the former as effects of the soul and the latter as effects of the nature.”
Carlisle closed the book and looked in the direction Hawthorne had ridden. For the first time in years, Carlisle had a new thirst gnawing at his insides when he had thought he would never be able to move beyond simply surviving. Carlisle packed the books in his saddlebag carefully with his other treasured volumes, wrapping them all in cloth to protect them. He decided in that moment to formulate his plan to return to civilization.
