Chapter 4
Evil Consumes Evil
I couldn't speak. I couldn't move.
When you are over 3,000 years old...
When you have outlived your child, your grandchildren, and lost all track of your descendents...
When the world you grew up in is remembered only in the unreliable writings of succeeding cultures now also long dead...
When you are immortal and physically unchanging...
When you are all of these things, the last thing you ever expect to hear is the voice of your long dead mortal sister.
I took one breath. Then another. Then three more. When I finally spoke, I tried to sound nonchalant.
In other words, I lied like a washed bedspread in a no-tell motel.
"Clytemnestra (not exactly her real name, by the way). You never write, you never call, is that any way to treat your sister?"
"Half sister," Clytemnestra corrected.
"How about not really my sister at all, if you want to get technical?" I said. "I know what you really are."
Clytemnestra laughed. Or, more correctly, the thing wearing her corpse laughed. She was wearing a pea coat and a hooded sweatshirt, which gave her the cloaked look I had noticed earlier. As she laughed, she threw back her hood.
"What?" Clytemnestra said. "Do you no longer acknowledge the family resemblance?"
The face that was revealed from under the hood came as a shock, although I should have known enough to expect something like it. There was hair only on the rear part of the head. The front of the face and the front half of the scalp was ridged. The ears were as pointed as Mr. Spock's, and the eyes were the color of piss. The teeth, and particularly the canines, were so huge that I was surprised she could even speak coherently.
In short, she was hideous. Although, it you want to know the truth, my own half sister's soul was every bit as ugly as the demon that had ejected it.
It was this way with master vampires, ones so ancient that the blood demon circulating within literally shaped the corpse it inhabited into its demonic aspect. And since my half sister, unlike myself, was mortal, this meant that I was looking at a vampire sired over 3,100 years ago, which made her by far the most ancient vampire I had ever seen.
How could I not have known?
"So, sis," I said. "Been in LA long?"
The thing that was once my half sister, a very, very long time ago, chuckled drily.
"I've been everywhere long," she said. "But then, I suspect you know what that's like."
I was torn. I didn't have a wooden stake on me (here I am, over 3,100 years old, and I still make mistakes like chasing vampires without a stake), but I could still try to rip Clytemnestra's head off her body. On the other hand, I had an irresistible urge to catch up. After all, even if this thing was just wearing my half sister's corpse, and even if I hated my half sister for murdering the best friend I ever had, this vampire still had Clytemnestra's memories. She was the only other link back to people and a world only she and I truly remembered (well, except for my asshole half brother on my immortal father's side, but we weren't talking, and I hadn't seen him in over 900 years).
It took me almost a full second of deliberation to decide I would rip Clytemnestra's head off.