Disclaimer: This story is based on the character Carlisle Cullen of the Twilight saga, both created and copyrighted by Stephanie Meyer. I take NO ownership of ANY aspect of the Twilight saga featured in this or subsequent chapters.
Blood & Burial
Chapter 1
Pull The Trigger
It was the single most excruciating pain I had experienced in my entire life.
Only seconds had passed between the moment I felt his teeth pierce into my neck and the moment I heard the gunshot scream into his chest. But within those seconds, I felt the venom scourge through my veins like boiling oil, racing its way to the tips of my fingers and the soles of my feet. It was as though my entire body had collided with a fiery carriage, still smoldering from the flames of hell.
I shoved my limp assailant to the floor below me, and the second I heard his body connect with the ground my hands flew to the bite marks that he left on my neck. The site of penetration was ice cold, such a dramatic contradiction to the burning that I felt throughout my body. As my fingers retracted from my neck I could see the blood bathed all over them- my blood. I dropped to my knees as the unsettling truth made my stomach turn over on its side.
The vampire had bitten me.
And then the real pain began.
I knew enough about the vampires I had hunted to know how they were created- yes, created, not born. It was the bite that set the spell in motion within their victims, that could turn the hunter into the very thing they hunted, or the coward into the very thing they feared the most. It was this vampire's bite that would forever alter the course of my life, and I knew now that there was no return to normalcy for me.
Barnabas's footsteps were like a death march to my ears as I heard him approach the alley where my broken body was resting. I could cover the marks on my neck with the cloth I ripped from my attacker's sleeve, but he would undoubtedly see the blood all over my hands and the pain that I could barely hide behind my eyes. How could I hide this from my brother? We'd been hunting with our father since our teenage years, and at this point in our lives we could practically read the thoughts off of each other's minds. What thoughts would race through his mind as the deafening truth of my situation screamed out at him? How could he possibly look upon me, knowing full well what I will become?
Barnabas rounded the corner into the alley, the sound of his water-soaked boots echoing off the walls around us. I could hear what remained of our hunting party race past him as he stopped to catch his breath.
"The vampire clan is in retreat," he reported to me. "We're burning what remains of them now. One of our boys got ambushed. Almost couldn't recognize him with all the blood and…"
His voice began to trail off as I staggered to my feet. The evidence was all there, right in front of him- the blood pulsing from my neck, my soiled hands, the lifeless vampire body lying in front of both of us. I knew eventually it would have to sink in.
"Are there any bullets left in your gun?" I forced out of my coarse throat.
"Only two," Barnabas stammered.
"Load one…now," I said to my brother. I removed my hand from the bite it was concealing and forced my eyes to meet his. Barnabas stared somberly back at me, his hand barely hovering above the handle of his pistol.
Our father instilled a great deal of conventions he had followed in his days as a hunter, but in the case of vampires he had one rule that he stood by at all times- no one bearing a vampire bite came back with us. We instilled that in the parties that hunted with us, and on many occasions it was Barnabas and myself who would insure that such regulation was enforced.
On this day it was me bearing the bite of a vampire. We both knew what needed to be done.
I watched Barnabas grasp the gun from his side and pull the silver-lined bullets from his waist. I watched him instinctively load the bullets into the chamber, not once removing his solemn gaze from my eyes. When the chamber was locked, he tilted his gun and stared soberly at the barrel.
"You have to do it Barnabas," I said sternly.
"I can't Carlisle," his head shook from side to side in refusal.
"I can't live like this," I shot back. "I won't live like this."
"I can't," his hand shook as he began to lower his gun.
"Don't be blind Barnabas! Look at me!" I staggered forward and clasped the hand that was fixed to his gun and thrust the barrel into my chest. I could feel my heart pulse through my coat against the cold barrel of Barnabas's gun, my hands shaking as I struggled to keep his aim at my heart.
"I won't live this way Barnabas! I won't become one of them," I shot a glance at the corpse behind us. I couldn't even bring myself to call him a vampire. I couldn't get myself to even say the word out loud. I knew every passing second brought me closer to that hell, and I wanted nothing more than to be shot and buried right then and there than to live the rest of my life as a walking nightmare.
And all it would take was one shot. One bullet. One pull of the trigger, and the nightmare would stop before it ever even began.
Barnabas struggled as I forced the barrel of his gun below my chin. I could point his gun wherever I wanted, but it was him and him alone who would have to pull the trigger. And then the magnitude of what I was asking my brother to do had hit me. I wasn't asking him to slay a monster or put down one of our mortally wounded men. I was asking him to kill his brother.
And I knew he couldn't do it.
And more importantly, he wouldn't do it.
My hands released their grip on Barnabas's gun, and the gun fell to the ground as he did the same. At the same moment I felt my brother's arms wrap around my shoulders, and I wrapped mine around his. It was the final time I would embrace my brother. I knew I could never return home, not with what I would become.
As I staggered away from Barnabas I proceeded towards the lifeless body of the vampire that brought this curse upon me. I tore my coat off of me and draped it around his shoulders.
"Bring the body to be burned," I directed my brother. "Tell our father that I was attacked and bitten, and that my lifeless body had to be burned. Be sure the men bear witness." I turned towards the darkened end of the alley.
"Where will you go?" Barnabas asked me as he took the body into his arms. I had no answer for him. I had no idea where one goes when they're about to undergo the most painful transformation of their life.
I turned to face my brother. We had spent so much of our lives battling underworld demons and the inhuman creatures around us that it had become the central focus of our relationship. Outside of our hunts, we had little brotherly time. Our lives took place on the road, in the woods, between dark and damp street alleys and rotting cellars. It was fitting that our time together would end on the only plane we knew.
"Learn from my mistakes Barnabas. Our father was wrong. This path will only lead you to become a monster. A monster like me."
As my back turned away I could hear Barnabas call my name. I turned my head past my shoulders to meet his eyes for the last time.
"Carlisle," he said, forcing back his emotion. "Be safe."
I turned once more and walked into the shadows.
\m/ d-_-b \m/