Danielle: Sorry it's taken so long to update. First fanfiction was down for a while, then I got banned for a while, then I had a writers block and school started then I had huge projects to do and I started a new account, then my computer had numerous technical difficulties. So it just kind of added up... Ok now to the chapter you're all so anxious to read.
Ps. Thank you to all of my loyal reviewers, I really appreciate it.
Stay in shadow ch 4: the world as we know it.
Bits and pieces of past memories flashed through Marik's head, in the silence over a gently moaning Kekouro he thought.
"Ugghh, Marik, when will this pain end?" Kekouro asked with huge questioning eyes.
"My dear, it will last only a short while…"said Marik coming out of deep contemplation. "Why does the strength of our fledglings vary?" He asked himself, "why do some turn out to be more powerful than gods, while others turn out to be no more than wraiths?"
"Marik what are you mumbling to yourself now?"
"Nothing dear Kekouro, shhh, just rest now, it'll all be over soon" Marik said comfortingly.
"How long is soon for you? A few centuries?" Kekouro asked sarcastically.
"Ahhh, what a pair we'll make through the centuries, why I bet when your change is done you'll be even more powerful than my creator, high priestess Hatarett." Marik stated reverently.
"Who's Hatarett?"
"Some one."
"Tell me pleease?" Kekouro begged.
"Oh all right, but if I tell you about her I'll have to tell you my past. I've never told anyone about my past…"Marik shrunk back onto a rock pulling his knees up to his chin and gave Kekouro a look of sadness the likes of which she'd never seen before. Silently an opalescent tear slid down Marik's face and landed with a plop on a rock.
"Marik, if it upsets you this much you don't have to tell me…"Kekouro said while staring into Marik's lavender eyes, now clouded by tears. She shuddered as another wave of pain swept over her. This will all end soon. She told herself gritting her teeth and willing herself not to cry out. The pain was immense; all of your human bodily fluids shoved violently out any open orifice is not a nice feeling.
"I have no choice I will tell you."
"No, you don't have to Marik, I see how much pain this brings, don't put yourself through it just for me." Kekouro pleaded.
"I have to, if I don't you'll never be able to trust me." Marik murmured through his anguish.
"If you need to tell me that badly…"Kekouro settled onto a nearby rock and sat cross-legged, intent upon the story to come. "Go on Marik, tell me your story." Kekouro implored.
"All right my sweet seraph, it all began two thousand years ago, the height of the Egyptian empire…"
The sun shone high overhead; I hurried to get out of it, not knowing that that careless act would change my destiny forever. I backed into a member of the cult of Set; most people in those times avoided any contact with them, But I the careless one had ran right into him. I turned around to apologize but he was gone. Most people would have thought that to be a bad omen, but I took no heed. After my excursion in the marketplace I headed home, by this time it was getting dark. I was turning the corner right before my house and the man I had run into in the marketplace and at least five more men, they attacked me and took me hostage. I tried to fight them but I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up I was tied to an altar in an old temple, there were two people on either side of me; one dressed as Set and the other as Anubis, my patron god. I stared at each of them for a short while and then fell back down into the black nothingness. When I came to again I was in a stone room below the sands; it was damp and cool. A plate of bread and a cup of wine was laid out in front of me, I tried to reach it because I was so very thirsty, but my arm wouldn't move, in fact I could barely open my eyes. I heard a muffled laughter in the background, then the grinding shift of one of the walls moving. In stepped two men, the same two I had seen the night before dressed as Anubis and Set. They spoke to each other in hushed whispers but I caught small fragments of their conversation.
"Should we help him?" one muttered to the other.
"Hatarett said she wanted this one kept alive" I strained to hear more but again my strength failed me, I fell back onto the stone floor with a thud. One of the men looked over at me and laughed the other one said something then walked away. I made one final attempt to reach the bottle of wine and then fell back down into exhausted sleep. I awoke the next day, my strength had returned in a small amount, I could crawl, as soon as I discovered that I made my way to the wine and bread and consumed it greedily. Contented I sank back down and went back to sleep.
I was awoken with a start, there was a strange creature staring at me! It had luminescent golden eyes that glowed like the sun's dying glow, and hair that shone like silver. I managed to breath out a sparse warning, but the creature just backed up, crossed its unearthly legs and stared at me all the more intently. Finally I could stand no more
"Be gone you pale beast of the underworld!" I shouted hoping that it would make the horror go away, but the creature just let out an inhuman laugh, like shattering glass, a voice inside my head cautioned me not to look into its eyes and suddenly it spoke.
"Such a beauty you are, skin the color of honey, eyes like the dawning skies, and hair the color and sheen of an ibis's wings. My dear you are perfect, you are everything I sent my servants to find."
"Why do you want me?" Ransom probably, why else keep me alive? I thought.
"No, little one, I have far more important things to do with you than ransom you, you are to be my heir."
"What are you?" I shouted at it.
"Oh but you haven't figured it out yet? Well then I guess I must tell you, I am exactly like you yet exactly not, I am alive but then again I'm not"
"What are you, a sphinx? Enough riddles! Tell me who and what you are!"
"My, a bit impatient now aren't we. To put it shortly, I'm Hatarett the High Priestess of Set's temple; I'm also a vampire. Their, does that settle your incessant questions?"
"What in hell's very name is a vampire?" I was gaining confidence so I tired my luck "I always knew people in Set's temple were loony, but you High Priestess, beat them all."
"You little brat! You dare insult me!" With that Hatarett abruptly slapped me across the face and sent me spinning into the wall. "Now look what you made me do, are you hurt?" she asked with concern in her eyes.
" Nothing that time won't fix" I was lying of course, I think Khufu's pyramid just fell upon my head.
"Really, now why not Khafre's?" Hatarett questioned playfully.
"What! How do you know what I'm thinking!" My jaw dropped in shock.
"That's easy, I could know everything about you if I wanted to, I'm a telepath. Please, don't look so shocked, and close your mouth you look like a beached fish"
" You still haven't answered my other question, what is a vampire?"
" Oh yes, a vampire is a person given incredible strength, immortality, and other gifts by their patron gods. Each god grants different powers so there are numerous kinds of vampires. They are immortal but at a price they must now drink the blood of man to survive and can never set foot in sunlight again."
"Well that would explain the anti-tan"
"You think that's funny? I have lived a thousand years already, I have many more to go, all of them I've lived alone."
" So I suppose you want me to be your companion."
"Yes, you are a superb specimen and perfect to preserve for eternity."
"Woah, eternity? I'm not even 17 yet! I only just became a tombkeeper, you have no idea how long eternity sound to a sixteen-year-old."
"quite true, I was once your age, but this world was quite different, there was no unified Egypt, there wasn't even a pharaoh."
"and what if I don't want to live forever with you?" I was really pushing my luck there, from what I felt when she slapped me the first time, she could kill me in an instant.
"Now why would you say that little one?" She called me the same names I call you Kekouro my dear. "To live forever without worrying about aging or disease, that truly is a gift from the gods."
"But what about everyone around us, don't the notice something's wrong?"
"They do, but I'm treated like a god, the bow before me as I take their lives." Hatarett arched her back and stretched like a spoiled cat. "The sun I rising now my little one, I must sleep now, but I will see you again tonight." Stifling a yawn she turned and walked out of my cell.
I sat for a moment in silence contemplating what she had said, a plan for escape began to form in my mind but sleep came to claim me all too quickly. As I slept, for the first time in many nights or days for that matter, I dreamt. The most vivid and horrifying scenes still run in my head today. I saw my self old, shriveled, and toothless dying in my bed of disease and starvation. All around me my family was dying of starvation. The very pyramids themselves were crumbling. I saw my step-brother, Odian, going to war and dying upon the spear of an enemy, his dying words were 'Ra forgive me, I have failed my brother and my land' Egypt overrun with foreigners, the Pharaoh slain upon his throne.
I awoke in a cold sweat, shaking; I sat up and looked around. Now I don't claim to be an oracle, but I know a prophetic dream when I have one. Finally it hit me, me, my family; the very land of Egypt was in danger. In my panic the guards heard me and ran in, and again any plans of escape were thwarted. One hit me over the head and my conciseness faded into oblivion.
When I awoke, as far as I could tell, it was night because Hateret was back.
"Feeling better?"
"Why ask, just read my aching mind." I snapped still a little groggy. I put my hand down to steady myself; it landed in a warm sticky puddle. I looked down, it was blood. I remembered being hit over the head, my hand immediately went to my scalp, and there was a tremendous bloody gash. And you wonder why I didn't feel good.
"Now, now, we'll have to fix that before I continue, I don't want you collapsing from blood loss on me now." She smirked as if enjoying a private joke.
"Don't you dare touch me!" I scooted back further. She came closer, I tried to back off, but my hand slipped in the puddle of my blood and I fell forward into her arms. Her naked arms gleamed in the semidarkness; they shone like marble yet they were supple and pliable.
"Dear lord Ra, how old is she?" I murmured to myself. A subtle fascination had come over me. She was beautiful, porcelain skin, shining silver hair, golden eyes as deep and swirling as Ra's orb. I pulled my eyes away, only to have them drawn right back. I was under her spell. She laughed; it sounded like bells chiming. Hatarett leaned forward and dragged her fingers through my blood. As she licked it off, I saw her shiver.
"You are special, that's the most potent blood I've had in centuries." She smiled, with that; she pounced, shoving me back against the stone walls. "I am going to enjoy this, I hope you do too." She kissed me roughly once on the lips, then moved to my neck. I felt her teeth on my skin for an instant, then a sharp pain that faded into sweet floating nothingness. In the distance between time and feeling I heard her say 'drink' and a warm sweet liquid was forced past my lips, I swallowed. The taste was electric, running through my body like a charge, I wanted more, and more I had, swallow after swallow. Until she threw me aside. The world slowly came back into focus; Hatarett was slumped over in a corner nursing her wrist, that in my haste to drink I had so cruelly torn open.
"My dear, you shall now live forever, unchanging and youthful." Hatarett cringed, her gaping wound closing. I saw her in a new light so to speak. She was still beautiful to me, but so was everything else, I could see the specks of glass I the sandstone walls the room seemed to swim with color. Scent after scent assaulted my senses.
"What have you done to me?" A sharp pain had began to assail my body, it came and went like waves on a beach. It was almost unbearable; it felt as if I was being pulled apart. Then the spasms began, wave after wave, they came, pain like liquid fire. Then suddenly they stopped. The silence was unnerving, I stood up slowly, the room swirled and the ground rushed up to meet me.
"Careful my dearest, you are as a newborn child now, learn to walk carefully with your newfound powers, or greed will over power you, for we are not perfect, we are still prey to the emotions of humans." Ah, more riddles from Hatarett. How I despised riddles, too hard to figure out, took too much time also.
"Hatarett, you mentioned something about patron gods before, what did you mean?" I hated riddles, I had thought that to be yet another, but the words stirred something inside.
"I meant exactly what I had said, in this immortal form we gain powers beyond mortal comprehension as we grow older. You, for example would gain different powers than me because you worship Anubis and I Set." More confusion on my part. She was talking nonsense again, maybe thousands of years alone had finally gotten to her, but I would never know. "My dear, you will find out for yourself as the years come…" She yawned, I yawned, it must have been contagious. I felt the lethargy of sleep steal over me, I could barely keep my eyes open. Hatarett, to my surprise stood up and walked to the door, not looking sleepy at all. Her last words to me were "Sleep in peace and live to see another night." She walked back and kissed me again, then swiftly stalked out the door. I would have followed her, but my limbs were like stone, they wouldn't move. The deathlike sleep of dawn claimed me briskly.