Chapter 6: Family Curse
21 BC
After nearly a decade of bliss, I found myself letting my guard down. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't help but feel safe again like I had when I was a boy back home. Having Samira by my side – another person to trust – she let me take some of the weight off my shoulders to carry for herself. I would rather carry it all to spare her the burden, but I could never win an argument with her. All she had to do was kiss me and I melted like ice in the sun. She was the sun in my mind. Her kiss melted me and her touch burned my skin as if I were standing in its light. Yet I couldn't run away from it. I wanted to burn. I would gladly burn for eternity.
The only thing that worried me was that I had told her everything about my past, yet she had nothing to tell me. She told me what she knew, of course, but that wasn't much compared to my own story. Her maker had abandoned her, she woke up alone. Either he did so on purpose, not wanting anything to do with her, or he didn't know he had turned her and thought instead that she was truly dead. Either way I had that thought stuck in the back of my mind – what will happen if and when he finds out?
Apparently, I wasn't the only one worried either. After a few years her nightmares slowly drifted away until they were nearly gone, and then all of a sudden came flooding back. The past week or so she was having them every day while we slept. We had moved into an abandoned home by the sea shore. It was for fisherman, she told me. They would stay there during the season and then move back home afterwards for farming season.
Today, like any other she was having a nightmare violent enough to wake me. I heard her scream and I jolted up from my slumber beside her.
"Nai!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. That was one of the few Egyptian words I knew, it meant no. It was a word she used a lot. I quickly grabbed her arms to hold her down and straddled her to keep her from flailing like a fish out of water.
"Samira." I said. I knew she would wake it was only a matter of time. I just had to wait it out. It hurt though, to see her like that knowing there was nothing I could do.
"Nai!...Nai…Rwi! (Arwee, Go away)." How I hate to see her cry. Tears of blood started flowing down her face. "S-htp (Sehtep, Please)." Then she screamed some more until she finally jolted and awakened. However, she didn't realize she was awake and only knew someone was on top of her. She quickly became angry and struggled to get me off and then flipped us over so she was over me with her dagger to my throat.
"Samira." I said softly looking into her eyes. "It is me."
Her eyes moved from side to side as she studied my face. Slowly I saw the anger fade and her eyes softened with regret and love. She dropped the dagger and cried falling to my chest. "I am sorry."
I hugged her tightly wrapping my arms around her and kissed her hair lovingly. "It is alright. You are safe."
I let her cry for a while, she cried herself back to sleep. I wished I could sleep, but the longer I thought about it the more worrisome I became. I didn't even care when the bleeds started. I just wanted to be able to protect her.
I was awake all day and when night came she woke up again. She had more bad dreams, but they were not as bad as the one before. She woke up and I was not beside her, which worried her I was sure. I was standing by the window looking out at the moon. During the day we boarded up all the windows to keep out the sun, but during the night I opened them.
"Godric." She said looking to me. I looked over my shoulder seeing her and went to her taking her hand helping her down from the bed. She quickly hugged me knowing I needed it for comfort. She could see the blood on my face. "I am so sorry." She whispered in my ear.
"You have nothing to be ashamed of. I just could not sleep."
"They are only dreams, Godric – "
"But what if not?"
"Since when did you believe such things?"
"Since I have come to know you." I answered. My culture did not place faith in anything mystical or unknown. We placed it in what we knew, which was nature. Nature was absolute. Gods and dreams and magic were not. Yet, her family believed in them very strongly. Her father was a priest from a very long line of priests. They worshipped the gods forever. One of her own tattoos was a triangle with three different symbols representing three different gods in which her family honored, and even claimed to be descended from. It was on her wrist with the top pointing up towards her elbow. At the top was the symbol of Ra, the king of the gods. That was who her father worshipped, and majority of those in her bloodline. The bottom right was one of his consorts, Hathor who Samira's mother worshipped. Then to the left was Hathor's consort, Horus. When I asked her what the connection between Horus and Ra was, she told me there was none. They were neither siblings, nor father and son. Their connection was the falcon. Ra and Horus were both represented by the falcon and were both gods of the sky and very old and very powerful.
"They are only dreams." She said again. She was probably saying it more for herself than for me. I could see it in her eyes, she knew something was wrong, but she wanted to believe otherwise.
"At least tell me what they are about?" I asked curiously. There were a million different possibilities in my head. They were going to eat away at my sanity. She shook her head refusing to do it, so I only pushed harder. "Please. The curiosity is going to drive me to insanity."
She sighed not wanting to give in, but she knew I wouldn't let it go. "The night I was turned." She answered. "Every night I have to relive the worse night of my life." She said softly as she began to break. "Being raped once was bad enough."
Unfortunately, I could sympathize. I stopped her before she went any further and upset herself even more by pulling her close. She buried her face into my chest crying as I held her. "He cannot hurt you again…No one will ever hurt you again." I promised her.
After a while, she got better and we left to go hunting. We lived a ways from civilization, so it took us a while to get there. And Samira wouldn't feed from the living so we had to find someone who was either dying or already dead. Preferably already dead. Luckily, it was a time of war so there were always a lot of dead people to be found. And on top of that Egyptians, I found, were very diligent in preserving the dead. However, we had to get to the bodies before they were embalmed or else there would be no blood to drink, instead it'd be a different kind of liquid. Every night we would sneak into the cemetery where they kept the dead and take help out the embalmers by draining the bodies for them.
Except tonight when we walked in we got a surprise. The second I walked into the building I could smell it in the air. "Someone has been in here." I told her as I put out my arm to keep her from going any further.
"Godric, I am in no mood for riddles." She said impatiently listening to her stomach growl as she tried to push past me.
I quickly grabbed her again. "No." I said softly. "Wait."
"What?"
"Can you not smell that?" I asked her surprised that she hadn't noticed. How could she not? Granted, the smell of death was already thick, but vampires smelled somewhat different and it was quite easy to pick up. She slowly inhaled once and then I saw it in her eyes as they widened. She could smell them. Apparently, someone else had gotten hungry too and beat us to the feast.
"We should go." She whispered grabbing my arm to try and lead me back out the way we came in. Yet I couldn't bring my feet to move. I had an odd instinct that the vampires inside with us didn't belong there, and I wasn't about to let them roam freely in our territory. I put my finger to my lips telling her to be quiet and removed her grip from my arm. Slowly I crept forward towards the dark corridor in front of us, then quickly rushed inside as quickly as I could grabbing the first thing I found. "Godric!" She cried hearing a few loud thuds. Whoever I had a hold of hit the wall then I hit the floor and something breakable, probably a vase, did as well and shattered. She came in and was quickly grabbed by the other vampire in the room.
My protective instincts kicked in and no longer caring about the vampire on top of me I looked to him. "Get your hands off her!" I ordered, though I doubted they were Gauls and knew what I was saying. The one above me punched me again to quiet me down.
"Who are you?" He asked me. If I had a heartbeat it would have stopped hearing words I knew, but didn't want to hear. He was a Roman. I swallowed hard looking up into his cold eyes praying to any god that was willing to listen to not let these men be friends of Appius on the hunt for me.
Before I could answer, thankfully, Samira cut in. Something she could always be counted upon to do. She could never stay quiet for long. "Why are you in here?" She asked them in Egyptian. "You have no right. This is our territory."
"Samira, they cannot understand you." I told her, and neither could I. I looked back up to my opponent. "Release her." I ordered again, only this time I said in Latin so I knew he would understand me. He cocked his head seeming surprised and stood up releasing me. I got back to my feet and held out my hand for her and she took it. "Now." I added angrily. "Who are you and why are you in our territory?"
"Your territory?" He asked me curiously. For the first time I actually got a good look at him, even though it was still pitch dark. That was one of the few upsides to being a vampire in my opinion. It made it hard for your enemies to sneak up on you. He had long, curly, dark hair draped over one eye down to his shoulders. He wore only a pair of pants. The other man wore the same. He had dark blond hair and blue eyes, and leaner and taller than the man in front of me. "This territory, like any territory, belongs to our master."
"I do not think so." Samira said.
"We do not care what a woman thinks." He said rasping through his teeth trying to frighten her. Of course, it didn't work. And she spit in his face to prove it. Quickly his hand went up in the air and it came down hard smacking her across the face. Angrily I jumped on him…again. On the ground I began punching him over and over in the side of the face until his companion tried to pull me off. Considering they had just fed they were stronger than I was, and he dragged me to the ground.
"Enough." I heard her rasp angrily. "Godric." She added getting my attention. "I said enough."
The man had me by the throat and lifted me up in the air. This was one of the times I wished I was taller. Perhaps, had that bastard let me age more than sixteen years I would be. "Now, you little bitch, you get to watch your man lose his head." He told her, which only angered her more. When she turned her head to face us, I noticed the color in her eyes had changed. It was something I had never seen before, not in a human at least. The yellows were like a light in the darkness. It reminded me of the wild cats back home who hid in the forest. I used to see eyes like that in the dark of night through the woods.
"Samira?" I said uncertain of what was happening, or even if she was alright.
I heard a feral growl escape her throat and then she attacked my captor knocking him to the ground. I fell landing on one knee holding my throat. When I looked up I no longer saw Samira over him. I saw a wild cat – a lioness to be specific. She had her teeth embedded into his throat killing him. The other man – the blond – ran away out of fear. I would have followed, but I was too shocked to move.
After his blood was all spent she looked to me and saw the shocked look on my face. I could see her eyes soften from a fierce predator's to Samira's. They turned back into the browns I knew then she turned and ran from me.
"Samira!" I called chasing after her. When I got outside she was nowhere to be found. I couldn't see her, but I could smell her. Then I heard sobs and sniffles. I followed my senses and found her in a nearby tree. "What are you doing up there?" I asked.
"I thought I had grown out of it." She said. "I thought I had control."
"You mean what you just did. You knew you could do that?"
Her head nodded quickly a few times. "It runs in the family." She explained. "I first shifted when I was only ten years old. But my mother did not want that for me. That was for the men in the family, they were the priests, and the magicians. The last time I shifted was when I was fourteen. All this time I thought I had gotten rid of this curse flowing through my veins... I do not want to be a freak!"
"Samira, you are a vampire." I reminded her. How much more of a freak could she get?
She jumped down from the tree, and I realized she was naked. Her clothes had slipped off her body during the transformation. "You do not understand." She said lowly as she made her way past me back towards the building to get her clothes. I followed her inside, and watched her put her dress back on. I knew she needed time to wrap her head around everything so I left her alone and followed her further into the building to find food. I was worried that man who escaped was going to return and he wouldn't be alone, so we desperately needed to feed and regain our strength. And she needed to stop being so bloody emotional.