Young Writers Society

This is the first of a few short stories introducing some of my most ancient vampires. I'll do more work on this one--Ferric--since he's one of my favorites. Especially insane and all. I love him (he created my main vamp, Antonio).

So, tell me what you think, k?

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NOTE: Extreme violence

Ferric

There’s nothing as fragile as a soul stripped bare.

I think I heard that somewhere once, but I can’t remember where. Perhaps this is true. I wouldn’t know. I do not have a soul.

I have been asleep for more then fifty years, soaking up the nutrients of the earth around me. Deep beneath my house in the homeland, where the earth is dry and the sun hot. I could smell the sweat off the tribesmen. Not my descendents, but close enough that I did not feel… violated. They worked above me, spent years on crops and hunting, and I merely rested. I accumulated power to me.

I could feel the source, several thousand miles away, trapped in ice. No, not trapped, not really. She’s merely sleeping, too. The creator of many species, including my own. Much of her blood line have become extinct. The dragons of Europe and Asia, the sacrificial gods of the new South America. We are among her only surviving children, us and the demons that lurk in shadowed allies, caves and mines. Searching for weak-willed creatures to feed off of.

She is like all of us, the heart that has beat for billions of creatures throughout time. She alone is a survivor, she alone has seen the face of the Lord, has been crafted by His own hand. But that’s just fairy-tale nonsense… isn’t it?

Hearts beat, blood rushes. I feel a fight above me, some thirty feet up through cold, hard-packed earth. My eyes open, and they are milky, filmy. I could not see through the darkness even with my eyesight in tacked, but I know that when I rise, I will be blind. Momentarily. I need blood. My bones are brittle—not as brittle as a human’s, but still weak. My skin is dry as paper. I look like a dried husk, a mummified creature, with hair sticking here and there to my scalp, which has been wrinkled and pressed to my skull. I’m quite the spectacle. How did I allow myself to get in such a state?

Two men are trying to harm a woman of the tribe. It angers me. I rise.

The earth knows me as one of her children, a dead thing that needs to stay in her bosom; but she also knows that I will have my way, and she parts for me, so that it is easier then swimming. I break the surface with a gasp, a rattle the sounds deep within my chest as my dehydrated lungs try to function for the first time in decades. The warm night air rushes over me and I think—I have not felt warmth in a long time.

My sense of hearing is weakened, my sense of smell is sharpened, but I still cannot see. I reach out and grasp one of the men, barely exerting myself. I must have looked like I was flying for him, to the woman’s eyes.

My teeth rip into his throat too hard, spraying blood. Messy, messy. This isn’t like me. I am a cultured man.

I force myself to stop, but my tongue still laps at the blood that has been spilled, the blood still being pumped from the grotesque, gaping wound with every heart beat. My eyes clear just the smallest bit, and I can see shapes moving. More thugs, coming from the shadowed ally. A feast.

My second kill is neater, but still not up to par. I take more from him as another tries to brain me. It doesn’t work, and I snap his neck, tearing his head from his body. I’m sprayed with his blood. There is none there to drink. I can smell his infection, and it does not suit me. This disease cannot kill me, but it burns on my tongue and goes down hard.

The next man nearly falls into my embrace, my vampire wills keeping him and the last one silent and still. The girl has long since fled to tell her tribe the horrors she has seen, not to be believed, I’m sure. I will have disposed of the bodies long before they come searching.

I know the last man is more then I need, but I still thirst. My tongue tingles with the taste of the last three, the one before sucked nearly dry. I do not mourn for their deaths.

I take the last man into my arms—a tall, burly black creature, with skin even darker than mine—and he whimpers like a woman under my caress. It makes me smile.

I barely remember taking the bodies far from there, tossing them into a land fill that is already thick with murdered people. A few more won’t hurt. I run fast, faster then mortal eyes can see, and soon I am back where I started, at the step of my old home, a home that, at outward appearance, isn’t much. The door is rusted, the paint is peeling, and shingles are missing. It is a one-story hovel that holds surprises underneath it, but at first glance is nothing but an abandoned building.

The door hinges have rusted and the wood is rotting, but the key still works. I climb up to the roof to find it, under the seventh row of shingles, nineteenth down. I land on the ground, moving with the shadow, so I become one. A mortal would have had to watch very carefully to see the slight disturbance that I made. I opened the door, and the dust billows from a breath of wind. There are years of dirt and dusk, so thick that it chokes the air, and I stand outside for a moment, before entering. I cough, lightly, my lungs thick with fluids that I stole.

I catch a reflection of myself in the mirror and smile again. My chin is soaked with blood, my hair thick with it. It reminds me of wars that I fought long ago, not giving a damn for the mortals cause, reveling in the death and chaos around me.

It feels good to be back.

*

Seventy-two beats a minute, thousands of humans, and the beats all seemed to come in one, steady, thrum. It was deafening. I wandered the allies half-crazed, my need for blood surging. I had not felt hunger this strong since my days as a young thing, long since gone. It was amazing how my rest had changed me.

I found the boy, barely legal in this country, crouched in an alley, looking sick. I could smell the reek of alcohol and drugs on him, felt the dizziness of his brain. It wasn’t my best choice, but I had to feed. I touched his face, forcing my hand to be still, sure. I would not make a mess of myself in such a large city, where there are no local legends to hide behind, only the law. Here the law was a frightening thing, even to me.

His eyes were brown, that brown that has more colors the longer you look at it. I ran fingers through his hair, soft and strangely multi-colored. It fascinated me, this hair, and I watched the colors change as my touch brought different lights to it. I did not want to kill this boy.

But, still, the bloodlust thrummed through me, unsated. I clouded his mind the moment before my teeth sunk into his neck. I fed at him hard enough that the skin puckered and bruised, turned red and purple beneath my lips. I dropped him with a thud to the ground, my neck arched, mouth open in a gasp. His blood tasted young, laced with sex and liquor and drugs. It tasted warm… good. I collapsed to the flood, ignoring the soiled water and other fluids that streamed from a dumpster onto the ground. I wetted my fingers with the blood on my lips, painting them red. I laughed and covered my head with my arms, and started to rock. Ah, this was so sweet! To be awake and struggling with these emotions once again.

His heartbeat quickened and I heard it. The other heartbeats had been dimmed, tucked away quiet-like… but I could still hear it if I tried. Like turning up a radio. I looked up, and his eyes were wide, frightened. I was on him, pinning him to the ground, my lips at his throat again. I wanted him, wanted him in so many ways, but one lust overpowered another and once more I tasted his blood on my tongue.

I held his pulse in my mouth, rolled it around, played with it. I could feel it slow. Feel it struggle like a bird in my closed fist… felt it try and circulate thinning blood. When I tore myself away I opened up a wound in his neck, a killing wound. No, no, no, this wasn’t what I wanted, damn it.

I slashed at my wrist, and blood splashed onto his wound, closing it in seconds. Still I could hear his heart beat, almost taste it, slowing. I had killed him.

I pressed my blood to his lips before thinking clearly. His hands shot up, grasped my wrist, and pulled it close. He bit at the wound, keeping it open, causing shivers of pain and pleasure to rip through me. He pressed me against the alley wall, and I let him, let him feed, let him be.

Raven, Raven, that was his name, I realized, he projected it onto me. The blood was already changing him, making him stronger, making his will and his body like iron to me. I took my wrist away, and he tried to attack me. I shoved him away, smashed him against the dumpster. He wasn’t thinking clearly. Neither was I.

I could feel a woman child in the abandoned building next to me, with the stink of dead things around her, needles empty and bloody scattered around her sleeping person. I ran there, pulled her to me, and returned to my new creation, my third and youngest child. He needed human blood, blood that burned on his tongue, not my cool, dead drought.

She woke with him grabbing at her, and she screamed. I shushed her, forcing into her mind images of pleasure and beauty, images that as of yet he could not provide. Raven held her gently, as though he had done this before, rocked against her in waves of pleasure as he fed. I watched, pleased. It had been a while since I had a young thing to teach how to kill.

Her heart stopped, and he fed at her until he could pull no more blood from her. Without her heart to offer up her life to him, it was hard work, and he finally gave up, and dropped her. His eyes were clearing; he was gathering himself, regrouping. I watched him, and I smiled, and I cupped his face in my hands, and I kissed him.

“You will be my sacrifice,” I said, “I allow you to live where others will die. This is your new life, live it well. I leave you here, my child, go find my others, they will help you. Their blood is yours, you will locate them easily. I leave you.”

The words were an old ritual—altered in some places—from long ago, in my days when I would offer up sacrifice to my god, slaughter in His name… but that was long ago. The words had new meaning now. I knew my purpose.

I had to offer up a new sacrifice. This was my true calling.

*

I found a home. A ram shacked, abandoned thing deep in the swamps of Florida. It wasn’t large on any scale, perhaps three rooms in all. Water stains ruined the hardwood and the walls in what could have been, once upon a time, a very respectable house. It fit me.

Apart from a moldy mattress and a pile of wood that used to be a table, there was a cracked and rotting arm chair that squeaked when I sat in it, groaning with my weight. I sat there for hours, contemplating.

The surrounding wildlife, runaway’s and homeless supplied my food. I was not going to kill someone important, but I had no quarrels with it if I knew the person was not to be missed. Unlike some of my more sentimental brethren, I had no moral squabbles to deal with.

The owner of this territory, most of southern Florida, feared me. I sensed her prodding around at my psyche, trying to figure me out. As soon as she realized that I was far too powerful to push away, she hid. I sensed her no more. I was the lurking presence in her home, the shadowed thing in the corner. If she ignored me, I might go away. I would, but she feared I would not.

She was of my sire’s line. Down generations and generations, so that she did not know the few drops of pure lineage that ran through her blood. Nobility of the highest standard, second only to one. I knew Anuk slept in the warmer regions, deep in South America perchance. She was already waking up. Our first, however, was still sound asleep, locked in ice.

The little creature was of the name Malik, a young thing by my standards, born in Africa as I was, taken by the English to America where she was put in service to a vampire. A vampire that, coincidentally, made her into one of us. She was four hundred years old, give or take a few decades. It was what I could gather from her before she shut herself up, locked down her defenses. I could break them, of course, but I did not want to intrude. Let her keep her false sense of security.

I took the few days of rest to compile myself, relish in the sweet sin of the hunt, and learn of my new powers. By the time the police found the first body, I was gone and onto the next place of rest.

I felt myself drawn to my children, my rose and my cold one, the youngest holders of territory in vampire history. I was proud of them, and cautious. If they had slept, they had acquired powers, and if they still held a grudge… well…

They were my children and I did not wish to harm them, but I would do anything to defend myself. I had purpose now, after all. The gods had given me a new mission.

Raven was with them now, my little bird, my newest creature. When I arrived I watched my Rhoswen show him the best places to hunt, and I watched him kill once again. Watched how much control he had already gained. I shielded myself too well for them to sense me, and I announced my presence to no one. I was invisible to them. I folded myself in shadows and watched them kill and felt pride.

My eldest, the one with the moonlit hair that had and still did fascinate me, he was with a girl when I saw him. A girl full of warmth. At first I felt it was a game. He took her to dinner, held her hands across the table, stared into her eyes, laughed with her. She smiled, her eyes sparkled, her skin flushed. I watched her with him and grew hungry for her.

I could not reach into her mind to see what she felt, the motion would have been detected by my child. He took her back to his home, small by my standards, and I watched them sit together near the fire. I watched them kiss. I watched his eyes turn to flames of need, but he did not strike. He wanted her, oh he did, but he restrained himself. Why?

While he was with her, I stole into his room. It was dangerous, yes, but seeing him had rekindled a recklessness that I had long abandoned. He had always had this affect on me.

The room smelled like the girl, and that strange odorless, cool scent that my kind is famous for. I caught the hint of cologne on the air, perhaps his way of masking this defect, but it was not enough to hide it completely. He trusted her. It perked my curiosity, and I was soon flipping through things. The usual books were on the shelves, pictures of the two of them were on table tops and on a shelf over the bed. I frowned. She was smiling in most of the pictures, unless—which was apparent in some—he caught her when she didn’t know he was photographing her. In these she appeared sad, almost lonely, contemplative. I picked up a picture, memorized her profile, and wondered.

My questions were answered when I saw around her neck a glimmer of silver, and a charm that I myself had crafted lying on her hand. She wore my—his—ankh. A spell thing that I had cast only one hundred and ninety years ago, when I had Antonio with me as a human, and wanted him to be protected. He had kept it…

For sentimental value, he had said. He used to look at me like he looked at her. Different in its ways, but the love and passion had been there. It made me tremble, and I almost broke the glass frame.

I slipped out into his garden, and waited for them to fall asleep. The trees hid me well. I watched the neighbors lovemaking with minimal interest. I watched my son and his new romance slip into sleep holding each other with jealousy. It had been a long time since I had felt this.

I reached into her mind while she slept, when her defenses were at their weakest. He would feel it eventually, but I had time to break my tie before he woke to investigate the strange feeling.

I pulled out memories, stored them, and pulled away. Antonio was sitting up in his bed, looking around. I had lingered to long.

In a hotel room I looked over what I had found like a thief examining the valuables he lifted from an old woman’s house. Their past was spotted with emotions that raged strong. Fear, hatred, annoyance… love.

I felt a surge of loneliness. Hopelessness. How I wanted him back now that I had seen a woman in his arms. How I wanted to feel him writhe beneath me. I wanted to see if he still caught his breath when I dug my nails into his thigh.

It was time to meet this woman. It was time to see what she had that I did not.

The End.

I think tribe's men is supposed to be one word, but I'm not exactly sure. Tribesmen?

Not as brittle as a humans

There should be an apostrophe in humans.

The earth knows me as one of her children, a dead thing that needs to stay in her bosom, but she also knows that I will have my way, and she parts for me, so that it is easier then swimming.

You could make this sentence less run on if you make the comma between bosom and but a semicolon.

I spill outward onto the surface, and I can hear the screams of the men as they catch sight of me.

I'm not sure if 'spill' is the correct word here. It's not very dramatic, actually, and does not seem to correctly describe him coming out of the ground.

My sense of hearing is weakened, my sense of smell is sharpened.

You might want to put a 'but' or 'however, my sense of smell...' in there. Just a suggestion.

My teeth rip into his throat too hard. Spraying blood.

These should be one sentence. I can tell doing this is just part of your style, but spraying blood should not be a different sentence at all.

There is none there to drink. I can smell his infection, and it does not suit me. It will not kill me, but it does not taste good, either.

Say that it would taste vial. That would make more of an impact that 'not good'.

The next man nearly falls into my embrace, my vampire wills keeping him and the last one silent, still.

You might just want to say 'silent and still' instead of using more commas.

The girl has long since fled, to tell her tribe the horrors that she has seen, not to be believed, I’m sure.

The girl has long since fled to tell her tribe of the horrors she has seen... There is both an unneeded comma and an unneeded 'that'. The word 'that' is misused very, very often, and this is not one of the times it should actually be used.

I know that the last man is more then I need now, but I’m still thirsting.

Take out the 'that' here as well.

I take the last man into my arms—a tall, burly black creature, with skin darker then even mine—and he whimpers like a woman under my caress.

'Then' should be 'than'. Then refers to time. The phrase 'than even mine' doesn't flow well, either, so you might just want to revise that.

I run fast, and soon I am back at my house.

This seems incomplete. You should say it is a home that he has left for a very long time.

The dust billows from the breath of wind, and I cough, lightly.

'and i cough lightly.' No need for the comma.


You go from him being on the roof to him being inside and seeing himself in the mirror; you should really put something about him actually going inside there.


I really, really enjoyed this. Ferric is a sick little b*st*rd... and as for using profanity to descrive him, there is no other way. He has a very cool air about him, being that wonderful but proper killing machine he is. I enjoyed reading this, and hope you post more soon.

Ah! Thank you thank you thank you! You have no idea how long its been since I've received a proper critique! *hugs*

I like your suggestions, I'll make the necessary changes tonight, when I write the next "chapter" to Ferric's little introduction.

And, yes, I know that Ferric is one sick like b*stard... but we haven't even scratched the surface. He's a very interesting little one. You have no idea what a joy it is to work with him. You never know quite what he's going to do or say.

This is kind of a branch off of the story "The Dreaming" that I'm writing right now (Some 15,000 words so far) and I introduce Ferric after his sleep. He's one scary mother f*cker... sleeping just made him stronger, a little better rested. He's still trying to get the hang of his new powers when the main character meets him. He does some strange stuff to her, too...

Ah, I get ahead of myself. I'll post more tonight. Thanks again. ^^ I really appreciate it.

Not a problem. I belong to Writingforums.com as well, and I was actually surprised that the reviews and critiques here weren't as I was used to. Line by line critiques there happen all the time, not just 'Oh I liked it' or 'I think it needs work.'


So you are very welcome.


Ferric is sexy.

*bump*

It needs to be bumped, since I added two chapters. Nyah. It's finished. READ AND REVIEW!

please.

Deep beneath my house in the homeland, where the earth is dry and the sun hot.

This isn't a complete sentence. As norris pointed out, this seems to be a part of your style, but it's distracting. I find that incomplete sentences are only appropriate in dialouge (to dissenters... Yes, I realise that you're supposed to stay by the book thruout, but face facts: human beings abandon grammar in dialouge. It's more important to accurately portray dialouge than to play by the rules, in my humble opinion.)

I accumulated power to me.

I don't think accumulated was the word you were looking for, but no matter. Just cut to me, and it will work.

Much of her blood line have become extinct.

I feel like there's an error in grammer here, but I can't put my finger on it, so let's just re-phrase. How 'bout "Her bloodline has reached its end--her descendents have all but become extinct."

The dragons of Europe and Asia, the sacrificial gods of the new South America. We are among her only surviving children, us and the demons that lurk in shadowed allies, caves and mines. Searching for weak-willed creatures to feed off of.

This needs to be combined, as the first line is a very incomplete thought. Let's try: "We--the dragons of Europe and Asia, the sacrifical Gods of the new South America--are among her only surviving children. The demons that lurk in shadowed allies, caves and mines call us "brother" as well."
Are you going to tell me about Old South America? I'm curious.

She is like all of us, the heart that has beat for billions of creatures throughout time. She alone is a survivor, she alone has seen the face of the Lord, has been crafted by His own hand. But that’s just fairy-tale nonsense… isn’t it?

Excellent. This draws the reader in further.

I could not see through the darkness even with my eyesight in tacked, but I know that when I rise, I will be blind. Momentarily.

intact. And make momentarily a part of the sentence (please).

The next man nearly falls into my embrace, my vampire wills

Are you trying to say "wiles" as in that horrible, sexist and archaic term "feminine wiles"?

land fill should be landfill.

The door hinges have rusted and the wood is rotting, but the key still works

If the house is as broken-down as you describe, a key isn't going to do much good. He should be able to just wiggle the knob and get in. And don't tell me he isn't able to, he just killed three guys, Ferric has his wits about him.

Here the law was a frightening thing, even to me.

How does a vampire who's been in hiding for 50 years know about modern human laws?

ram shacked should be ramshackle.

How did Ferric get to Florida?

It perked my curiosity

Piqued, not perked. (means "aroused'.)

I had lingered to long

to should be too.

I like it, it's like Anne Rice but not incredibly boring. Ferric's interesting, and you certainly have the family ties worked out. I want to see more, please. The only thing I would warn you against is your tendency toward the dramatic. A little dry humor will go along way here, so keep your tongue at least somewhat in cheek.

Good work, Tess.

Ha ha. Humor. Ferric. Don't go well.

I'm going to do "Nyx" next, and he's a bit more humorous. Most of the ancients tend to be very serious. Nyx is one of the "younger" ancients, so I don't have to worry about it much. To be humorous would be out of character, even if it's dry.

And I started really detesting the abrupt sentence thing when I was reading the story outloud onto my cassette of short stories. I kept on having to record over spots cause my tongue would trip. I've amended most of it.

Ah, and, I really couldn't say how Ferric got to Florida or America in general or why he didn't just bust into his house without a key. I guess (with the house thing) he didn't want to look "uncultured"... he has odd views on that. Doesn't mind spraying blood all over himself, but when it comes to a broken door... oh ho!

Um... yes, but, America. Well, he just goes places. Kinda spastically. Anyway, I think I mentioned that this is all tied to my story "The Dreaming". It's basically I wanted some background on him, and show some scenes that my narrator in "Dreaming" was... dreaming. So I did this.

Anyway, Ferric is fun (and sexy) and I just love writing about him. I might do a "Stories of the Ancients: Ferric part II" or something, but probably not until I've got a few others under my belt.

Glad that you like it, though, and thanks for the suggestions ^^ . Happiness is mine.

If you go Anne Rice on us, I will have to destroy you. She ruined her series.


I haven't read the next two chapters yet, and I feel sort of bad getting points for a critique when all this is is a comment.


Oh, wait, I have an idea...

Where are the next two chapters?

*hunts*

That's it. There were three "chapters", sections, and then it ended. No more Ferric. If you want to read more about him, call me in a month or so. By that point "The Dreaming" should be pretty close or been finished. This is a back story for Dreaming.