Author's Note: The title and inspiration for this piece is derived from the song "Luca" by: Brand New. The song as well as the band is excellent, and I recommend them. Reviews are always great; I love getting feedback. Thanks for reading.


"Luca"

Loyalty. It's a funny, fickle thing really if that loyalty was founded on something inherently unstable. If you ever had any doubt that you would not want to be loyal to the cause or person that you said you would owe allegiance to, then the foundation's always going to have that crack in it, the crack that is easily expanded and exploited. All it takes is that one thing, the proverbial final straw, and the loyalty can go straight to ruin.

Death. It's something that I thought I used to understand. You lived, you did the best you could, and then at some point, you died. It was all preordained by God or whatever deity exists, I confess I do not know which it be, if any deity at all. Maybe all there was was Fate.

I thought I knew something about death until I died.

No really, I died. Technically anyways. It wasn't later until the term, the "undead" was coined for creatures like myself, but at the time that I died, I was as good as dead. And it was all her fault. She made me what I am, a monster for all intensive purposes. There's nothing I can do about it, and she never gave me the choice in the first place. I doubt that if I had had options, I would have chosen the life I embarked on. Maybe nowadays I can see a grand purpose for doing so (after all now I'm relatively happy) but in those first years, I was ravaged.

I hated her, yet I obeyed her. What else could I have done? She could have easily turned on me. The one who raises you up can also tear you back down again, like the ill-fated queens of Henry VIII came to knew intimately. I'd read about it, and being a fellow with a great deal of common sense, I knew she could take me if I rebelled. And I hated that fact just as much as I hated her.

Hate. It was the prominent emotion I felt during those dark years. I was just so angry, and everyone was so angry, so I was furious, magnified a hundredfold. Nobody on the face of the planet had ever felt so much rage all at once; how would it be possible without my talent after all?

Yes, I have a talent. Not all vampires do, but I was special somehow. I feel everything, every little twinge of emotion the people around me feel. I can influence those feelings, calm someone down for instance. In more recent years I've come to terms with accepting that it is a useful power. At the time of all the hate though, I didn't feel lucky. I felt like I was being punished somehow. But for what? In my human life I had not done anything really wrong. Sure, I was a soldier, and yes we did kill people. But am I a murderer for that or do I get some credit for it just being a career of sorts? Even now I have no idea, but it's always something I've wondered about.

There was another reason I disliked my power. She liked it, wanted to use it to her own ends like she did with me herself. It was what I had expected of her. She always had been a cold, calculating sort of woman. My wife refers to her in more colourful terms, but let's not get into that now. I'll just content myself with saying for the moment that it was a surprising night when she first talked about her like that, seeing as how it had been the first time I'd ever heard my wife curse. But let's get on with it, there's so much more to say before we get to that rather interesting point.

I was supposed to use my powers, and admittedly superior knowledge of fighting to control the fleet of newborns that made up her army. It was a horrible task, and it's not one I ever particularly enjoyed, though it left its marks on me. Literally thousands of marks; in some places it's hard to see anything but the scarring. Mostly on my arms and chest though, after all the new ones always went for the most obvious kill. Still I managed to do my job, and I'm still here.

As time went on, life became routine, mechanical even. The only real break in the monotony wasn't even that pleasant of a one.

She decided to reward me. Lucky me right? Not so, I'm afraid. Her kind of reward was not the one I was seeking. I'm ashamed of that time, and I've always wished I could take it back. Always.

Lust is also a fickle thing, sometimes it passes rather quickly, with a single act. Other times it's more drawn out, perhaps over a few years. Sometimes you confuse lust with a combination of other things. Maybe what you think is lust is really just a mix of pent-up anger, hate, and resent that is finally released, but through another physical act other than a fight? At least that's what I have convinced myself it was. I didn't really ever lust after her. She wasn't even attractive to me to begin with. Our kind is attractive, to draw the prey, but as a woman, she didn't interest me that way. I was just getting out my toxic feelings in the only way I could back then.

That's really the only way I can explain it.

I kind of wish though that I hadn't tried to get rid of the anger that way, because besides making me unhappy and not ridding me of the anger, it just made me hate myself.


This is going to be a two-part story, meaning there will be a second chapter finish it off. Reviews?