Chapter 2: A Bloodening

He admitted that the young girl, Rhea, had been an odd choice. She was older than those of his usual preference, and a different gender at that, but her window was the only one that was open. Humans were much more perceptive of vampires now than they were the last he had risen; and now that their numbers were dwindling, it was harder to stay secretive. Wilhelm ran his tongue across the front of his teeth as he contemplated his next victim. There had already been five meals since his awakening a few weeks ago. The normal feeding pattern wasn't correct, but being dead for hundreds of years makes one hungry.

Rhea hung by her wrists from shackles against the far wall. Her dress had been removed; Wilhelm preferred to observe his meals naked. It made them that much more enticing. She was unconscious, breathing, and a pair of holes blemished her neck. His methods of killing his meal was a grueling process, requiring several days to complete. The older a victim was, the more blood there was to take. Younger meals were much more fresh and tasty, in his opinion.

She stirred. Her eyes fluttered as she raised her hanging head. Rhea looked about the room, not seeming to notice anything about her current status, save for a dull pain in her neck, shoulders, and wrists. The room was cold stone and smelled musty and mundane. There was a closed coffin on the floor next to an elaborate four-poster bed. The canopy and curtains were white sheers, allowing her to see through its translucent bodice to the object lying on the mattress. Rhea's breath caught in her throat as she recognized the figure.

Wilhelm stared into those huge blue eyes and grinned, careful not to show his fangs. The young girl tensed and twitched. Her eyes shot upward and a screech of fright erupted from her throat. She was bound at the wrists and naked as the day she was born. The realization made her cry out once more. Instant rage surged through her body as she began to pull against the restraints; her eyes searched for those of her captor. "Who are you?" she demanded. Wilhelm's smile widened, fangs gleaming in the low lamp light. "Who are you!" she screamed, body slapping against the cold stone as she writhed about. "Let me go you filth!" A frustrated growl slipped from her lips.

Then he was there by her side, fangs hovering over the perfect white flesh of her neck. He was so close that Rhea's pulse beat in his ears. She screeched in distress, freezing all motion, breath quickening with her pounding heart. Wilhelm growled low as he pulled away, lifting a hand to undo one of her shackles. Her cheeks turned pink as the back of his hand brushed her bare, erect nipple as he lowered his arm. Her right arm fell uselessly to her side, drained of blood and feeling. Wilhelm lifted the raw wrist to his lips and kissed the veins gently. She quivered. "Please…" she begged. He cared not for her pleas as his tongue slithered out from between his lips and licked the plump veins.

His eyes glowed with a hunger and ferocity many have seen before death. He looked up at the darling face of his victim and grinned wickedly. "You would make a great puppet," he whispered aloud. A wondrous slave to my needs, he whispered in her mind. Rhea whimpered as she looked away, her neck exposed. Wilhelm fought back the urge to drain her of her life force right then and there. But it was the thought of a new plan that unfurled in his mind, stopping him from taking such action. He wished that just for once he didn't have to listen to every nagging thought his mind created. This one, though, would suffice in capturing his real target.

Without another thought he bit savagely into the girl's wrist and began to drink. A small scream of surprise escaped Rhea before she began to go limp. She became unconscious once more and Wilhelm stopped. His teeth gleamed crimson in the low lamp light as he grinned at his pawn. He placed her wrist back in the shackle and stepped back, wiping the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. "Such a burden," he began quietly, "for you to bear. I almost feel remorse for you. But know this, little birdie," he stepped closer so that his mouth was next to her ear. "I will spill your blood in front of that imbecile of a vampire hunter. Your blood on his hands will show his failure to save you. Then, I will kill him."

He stepped away and returned to his coffin. The lid closed silently above him, but he did not sleep. Wilhelm lied on the silk and down linens of his coffin, caught in deep thought. I will kill him, he mused. Just like he had succeeded in killing me. The last time Wilhelm had risen, D was young and vigilant. He had no method, but had a good eye on his own back. D had always walked alone and had left his mother many years before. His horse was his only companion. When Wilhelm had met him in battle after killing an entire city's worth of children, he had noted that D was mature beyond his years and deserved nothing more than a taste of his own medicine.

Wilhelm had escaped this battle easily and had returned to his home. He slept in his coffin with a dead, naked boy child wrapped in his arms. He was caught in many dreams of pleasure and lust. He specialized in the giving of this cruel pleasure for the children he killed had loved him first for his touch. Wilhelm did not even hear the coffin lid lift. He did not see D hovering over him with a crude stake in his bandaged hand and a carpenter's hammer in the other. The last thing Wilhelm recalled was waking to that stake buried deep in his heart and screeching at the sight of D. The boy had his own cruel smile as he drove the stake deeper. The method had been dead for years but always seemed to work nonetheless.

He bled to death in his coffin; the blood seeped into the linens and through the black wood to pool on the stone floor. It ran down the creases and through cracks. It spilled down the walls of lower levels and into the dirt, never to be recaptured.

A grimace crossed Wilhelm's lips as he stared at the lid of his coffin. It was his, the same one he had been murdered in. The linens were replaced, but the wood grain forever etched the falling of his reign. His cousin had taken his place and his home. But when Wilhelm had awakened this time, his home was rubble, destroyed by the one called D. So he moved to new abandoned castle. He had never known who lived in this one, but it had been a vampire that last occupied its walls. The evidence showed in the many skeletons of humans and vampires alike.

The thought that another of his brethren had died, more than likely by the hand of D, saddened him slightly. It was the curse of a vampire to be both powerful and vulnerable to attack in the hours of day. Wilhelm growled at himself for feeling pity. He should have been stronger if he wanted to live. It was not I that turned his bones to dust but his own stupidity that did so. He concealed his own fate and has nothing to do with the plans I now conceive. His reasoning calmed his anger some and he smiled. D was coming for him. And Wilhelm was ready to return the favor D had dealt him so many centuries ago.