Feature Writer: Gay Writer <[email protected]>
Feature Title: LUCIF 2
Published: 06.07.2007
Story Codes: Erotic Horror, Gay
Lucif 2
Chapter 2 — Druid Born
I knew that the Druids would come. They had no choice. We had created a new monster in this world, and had to somehow reign in the evil of our latest atrocity.
It is this one thing that has always made me laugh. Worry… it seemed so human an emotion and as equally senseless. Now don’t get me wrong, there are many human emotions that are constructive and useful, however ‘worry’, has never been one of them. It’s always seemed a fruitless endeavor to dread a thing that you cannot change when the time would be better spent finding a solution.
I rose from my bed early. I suppose it was the anticipation of something new and undiscovered in this world that made me almost giddy. The unsteady groan of wood complained as I sat upright and threw off my covers. Swinging my legs around, placing them on the floor, I lingered. There was no fighting the smile that stretched my lips as I contemplated the outcome of this day. They would arrive, and we would soon face the unknown.
There is a pattern that binds all things together. Whether your kind is able to perceive it, or not, is not my problem. This recent development, however, had put quite a kink in this plane of existence and I was curious to see it unfold.
I stood as I felt them draw near, and within seconds I heard Galen’s voice.
“May we enter?” His voice held the sharp bite of anger as he spat out each word.
“No you may not. Uncover him, just as the sun dips past the horizon, and restrain him as fast as you are able,” I answered, and grinned, knowing it wasn’t what they were expecting to hear.
I felt the sun’s rays slide up the front of my cottage like a rising, fog as my father’s eye dipped past the horizon. Passing through the front of my cottage, I stood in front of them.
Galen and Doris had already stripped away the blankets that covered Marcus, and now gripped his arms on either side. Roots had snaked up from under the ground, and now wound their way about his body. A sharp intake of breath could be heard as he slowly raised his head. His chin slowly lifted as his eyes glanced at Galen, then to Dorianna, and then, finally, centered on me.
Marcus moved so fast it didn’t even give the hint of motion. He burst from the roots and his parents’ embrace, but I held him. He was not touching the ground and floated barely an inch from my face. It was no easy task keeping him when he raged. Only a fraction more effort would be needed to stop the rotation of the planet. He was certainly strong, and… hungry.
I hadn’t noticed before, but their son, Marcus, had been born with an interesting mix of features. He had auburn hair, and blue grey eyes, yet the same delicate features both his parents possessed. He was too thin to be considered healthy, but there was no weakness in him now, save for his need for blood.
He crept almost imperceptibly closer as his desire to feed fueled his strength. His mouth was open as if in a yell and his fangs were poised to strike. His face was twisted in fury, and his arms stretched outwards as if to bring a killing embrace.
“What are you doing to our son, Lucif?” Dorianna’s voice was filled with a mother’s concern.
“I’m holding him. He wants to feed. Don’t you Marcus?” I released the hold on his head and watched his teeth gnash as he snarled.
“Yessss! Give it to me!” Marcus’ eyes followed me as I paced back and forth.
“Even now he strains to break loose from my hold, but he is not strong enough.” A weak sigh passed my lips.
I felt the yearning build in his chest like some clawing animal while he eyed me as his next meal. “Give me the blade.”
Doris fished through the satchel draped over her shoulder, and pulled the iron from the dark leather recess. She held it aloft in her open palm and I brought it through the air and to my hand. The hilt was made of ivory, but the blade was distinctly iron and I felt the burn on my flesh as I drew it across my wrist.
Marcus gasped at the smell of my blood and I held my wrist above him, letting my life spill onto his lips. The thick black liquid flowed like tree sap from the opening, and trickled down into his mouth ever so slowly. The wound sealed, and I watched the whites of his eyes fade to black as my blood coursed through his veins. His head swung from left to right, and finally lolled back on his shoulders as his drunken black eyes gazed aimlessly at the night sky.
“Moooorrre!” His words were more of a carnal hiss than actual speech.
“Doris… Galen.. you need to leave this place, and soon. I don’t think you want to witness what I have in mind.” I felt an extra push from Marcus as he struggled to break free from my hold on his body.
“I won’t leave my son here with you, Lucif.” There was no mistaking that she meant what she said.
“Fine… then you handle him.” I rose upward into the sky and released Marcus from my hold.
No sooner had I released him than Marcus raced to his mother’s side and buried his teeth in her neck. Galen called down lightning as she struggled in the tight embrace. The flashes of light tore at their son’s flesh but he ignored them as he drank. Within moments he would drain her.
A massive stone erupted from the ground and launched Marcus into the air. It gave them the moment they needed to escape. I felt them travel along the roots and between spaces as they moved away from the island.
“Damn you, Lucif!” Galen’s whispers filled my ears.
I gave them my final reply. “Do not return until she is ready to give birth; we’ve already given Marcus too much.”
As the moon traveled across the sky, I watched as Marcus crossed the land of the Island of Islay. He moved from town to town… men, women, and children were bled dry and still he showed no signs of stopping. I followed only seconds behind, burning the bodies to ensure that more of his kind would not wake.
I suppose it wasn’t the best solution in retrospect. For me, it solved a problem: no annoying neighbors, but in the same instance it severely limited the available food supply for Marcus.
It was this fact that sped me home and told me he would arrive shortly. The sun would be rising soon, and I had the feeling he would return. His hunger would guide him here even if simple reason escaped his fevered mind.
“LUCIF! What have you made of me!” I heard his strangled cry from within my cottage as though he screamed it into my ears.
I opened the door and saw him standing a few yards away. The dawn was quickly approaching and the sun had already begun painting the sky with a vibrant golden light. My father’s eye was fast approaching and even with the mix of our blood I knew he couldn’t stand the full force of it.
“Come in and rest. We’ll speak when you wake.” I’m not sure why I let him live that day.
He was the first vampire, though the name wasn’t given for centuries to come. Many horrific stories were told, and in truth, most were true. The early tales have been lost in time, but all have been quickly replaced by new ones. We kept to the Isle of Islay.
I woke the next morning before the sun dipped past the horizon and waited. I held Marcus’ dead form in place and watched as his eyes fluttered awake.
“If you can control yourself, I will release you.” Marcus lay still and didn’t answer for several minutes.
His mind was a flurry of thoughts, all broken and distant, and I strained to make sense of it.
“I hate you, Lucif, and one day I will kill you for what you’ve done to me.” The resolute tone of his words entered my ears and my mind as he spoke.
“This was your mother’s and father’s doing. Search my thoughts, and realize the truth of them. Know this though; I am eternal. I am not the creature you are, and I will destroy you at the first inclination of betrayal. Your parents’ inability to follow the natural order of things brought you to me, and it was upon their request that you are what you are now.” I would not have him at my back striving for my demise. The idea of it made me chuckle, and I suppose my response seemed almost sinister in retrospect.
“Well then, I will destroy them.” His mind shifted like an amorphous fog trying to take shape.
“No, you will do as you are told and give your unborn brother a chance at life. He must be born to release you from this torment, because I don’t have the heart to do what must be done.” I let the weight of my head pull my chin to my chest as I spoke.
Marcus broke free of my hold and moved through the space between us. His teeth tore at the skin of my neck and I let him feed. Minutes passed, and he soon stood and fell backwards to the floor. His body writhed, and I watched a new horror unfold.
The Druid blood had mixed with mine, and I knew that what he had become was something altogether new and different from us. He regained his composure and raced toward me for another attack.
I stopped him and, in doing so, also stopped the planet from spinning, bringing night and day to this world. Still, though we traveled through space in the cycle of seasons, this one had to be stopped. There was no other way. The devastation that followed was epic.
The oldest texts tell of the great floods and volcanic eruptions that resulted. They don’t, however, speak of or know the reason. Marcus would submit to me even if it meant the destruction of the world. He would know his place, and that I was the one creature that could control his course.
Marcus submitted, and became my executioner. He made quick work of any intruder that lay foot on this land. It was the time of the Vikings and Pharaohs, and ours story was just another legend.
Several months passed, and the land withered and slept through the changing of the seasons. Marcus’ desire for my blood dwindled and we had finally become companions, of a sort. We were never lovers during that time. Our bond was more of teacher and student, and I was glad for the distraction. It made the passage of time so much easier.
“Your mother and father are coming.” I poked at the glowing embers in the hearth as I spoke.
“I know.” His voice was without emotion, and I paused only a moment to look at him.
Though his frame never did grow beyond one starved for too long, his eyes had taken on a look of ghostly horror. Marcus didn’t age, and never would, but his eyes… his grey-blue eyes held a sadness I couldn’t explain. He was attractive by any measure. The long auburn hair and delicate curve of his chin framed a near perfect face and mirrored the slender perfection that was his body. He possessed a vicious beauty, if there was such a thing, and I found myself lost in it on more than one occasion as he slept. Our relationship remained platonic though, in all honesty, I yearned for more.
I built a pyre of wood just outside my cottage that evening, knowing we had guests coming. Doris and Galen or, more aptly put, Dorianna and Galen were approaching. Why she refused to go by her proper name baffled me. She had always been more than stubborn.
We waited patiently for them to arrive and soon they appeared before us, stepping out from behind a tree.
“Not this place, Galen. Not here!” Doris cried in the night and my pyre burst into flames.
The Earth shook, and my cottage collapsed in upon itself. Her labor pains shook the land as if the planet itself was birthing a new life.
“Good Evening, Mother!” The words had barely left Marcus’ mouth before he raced toward her.
Doris held up her hand, and from it launched a blinding white force that threw him violently through the air. He fell to the ground several feet away as the strange energy ate at his skin. The white light bit at his flesh and seemed to consume him layer by layer.
“STOP!” I stood between them and took the brunt of her attack. I felt the heat of my father’s eye along my skin.
She had tried to deal him a killing blow, though I didn’t understand why. Had I not intervened he would certainly have perished. Heat upon heat fed on my form as I stood in the path of her fury.
Another scream shattered the fire-lit darkness as Doris lurched forward like someone cushioning a recent blow. It was time.
“Take us there, Galen. Do it now!” Her usual high, even, tone was wracked with pain and her voice cracked as she called out to him.
Galen raised his arms from his sides and a circle of stones erupted from the ground and surrounded us. They seemed to grow and overlap upon each other as if they were alive. Soon the rock created a solid dome covering us, and there was the sensation of movement.
When he lowered his arms, the stones parted and drifted back into the earth. He staggered and fell to his knees as a new, star filled, tapestry appeared in the sky. We had traveled a great distance and it had been no small feat to bring us here.
“Nice grove.” I recovered from Dorianna’s attack and saw, that though weakened, Marcus had healed as well.
I couldn’t understand why she attacked him so violently, or why he wished to harm her. It seemed there was a mutual intent on both sides to do the other great injury, but there didn’t appear to be any logical reasoning behind it. ‘Why would you destroy the one chance your unborn child might have at a normal life?’
Doris screamed into the night, and squatted down to deliver her child in the fashion that is most natural. With the help of gravity and great effort on her part, the child would soon be born. Marcus again raced toward her.
“No Marcus!” This time I stopped him and, again, the planet as well.
The Earth’s rotation halted, and the moon and stars raced across the sky. Doris let loose a blast of such strength I knew now that it was a combination of her own and her unborn child’s. I moved Marcus out of the line of her attack, and watched it rip through the earth like a massive invisible plow, churning up everything in its path.
“Damn you, Lucif! You have no right to interfere!” She screamed her anguished words and sent another deadly blast in my direction.
Holding out my palm I sliced through the energy like a boat into a crashing wave and let the power wash over me. “I have every right, Druid. You forget who I am.”
To say that blast had no affect on me would be more a lie than even I was willing to speak at that time. It ate at me as fast as I was able to rebuild myself and, for a moment, I wondered if I would be able to stand against it. Had it erupted from another direction, I believe it would have split the world in two. Her strength did wane, however, and another torturous cry filled the night.
There was a complete calm that followed. There was not a single sound of life in the darkness; be it bird, insect, or even the drift of wind between branches. Finally, a desperate intake of breath broke the silence and a ragged but wavering wail was heard. Their son didn’t appear at all pleased to be entering the world. I can’t say I was any more impressed upon my arrival.
“Now… give him to me.” I shifted toward her letting the world pass through me as I advanced.
“Galen!” Her shrill voice was weak, even now in her terror, as she watched me approach.
“He cannot help you. He is as frozen as your son Marcus. Give him to me!” I was growing impatient and they were wasting time.
Each obstacle she raised, I passed through as though it were nothing. As I said before, we Slegna do not move as man. We pass through the things of this world as you do air. Soon I was upon her and I knelt at her side.
“If you want your child to live, then give him to me. I will not offer again.” Distant suns streaked the sky like falling stars and the blur made it hard to focus.
“Give Taron to me now!” Doris lifted her eyes to mine and finally relented. She had already named the child, but I was the first to speak his name.
I took the small thing in my arms and shifted over to Galen. “Take his life. Let’s not make this mistake a second time.”
Pulling the iron blade from his satchel, I lay it in his hands and released the hold I had on him. “Do it.”
Galen slumped as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. “I cannot.”
“Then he is dead.” I pushed through the child and built him beyond what he was.
The babe in my arms grew and stretched into a small child of maybe seven years, and I lay him on the ground. He continued to grow as I fed him time, and soon he was at the point of manhood. Tufts of hair grew at his groin and armpits and his skin raced to keep pace with his elongating bones. This one more resembled his father and yet, somewhere behind his eyes, was his mother.
“He is now at the time of changing. Either condemn him to life, or condemn him to death. Either way, it makes no difference to me.” I glanced at the blade in Galen’s hand and watched the streaks of starlight race along the metal.
Galen lifted the blade and plunged it into the adolescent chest of their newborn son. Dorianna sat upright, as if she felt the sharp edges herself, and her questioning emerald green eyes focused on her husband.
I snatched the blade from Galen’s hand and ran it through all three of their wrists with blinding speed to collect that which was necessary, blood. Crouching beside Taron I lay the metal over the wound and glanced back to Doris.
“Seal the wound.” I ran the metal along the ridges of torn meat on his chest and backed away.
A bolt of lightning streaked down, sealed the wound, and Taron breathed in his second breath of life.
“Three parts druid, one part Slegna, and now the blood of four. He will be the first truly human Druid, but it comes with a price. What this world has stolen from me, I have stolen from you.” I glanced at Doris to see the green of her eyes raging back at me.
“You, however; have a luxury I was never given. Eternity with the one you love.” With that I released the world, and the stars seemed to skid to a stop and fill the sky.
I took hold of Marcus and traveled the distance back to the ruins of my cottage. The Druids would not follow… not now. In some odd way the balance was restored, and strangely enough… I had a hand in it.
THE END OF CHAPTER TWO