The Vampire Story Chapter 3

I awoke at some later time, in a cold stone cell. Heru was not in sight and I was quite alone in the cold stone room with thick metal bars which formed two walls, one to the hall and the other to another empty cell. My body was sore and tired, as if I had just run a great distance. “Now who is this that they have thrown in here, that awakes with silent breath?” a soft voice asked and I looked once more over towards the cell whose wall of metal bars mine shared. Sitting there, supporting herself against the bars was a young girl— no more then eight years old. She smiled and waved at me, which only made her look younger.
“My name is Atum.” I told her, slowly moving closer to the bars. “What is your name?”
“When the sun rose on my face I was called Halima.” the little girl said, as if reciting poetry, “but now that I sleep in a cell of metal and stone my name is no longer mine alone, and Lady Afrikaisi calls me Amisi and wishes a daughter to make of me”
“Where am I Amisi?” I whispered, adopting the tone that all adults take up when talking to a young child. “And where is my friend?”
“Your friend is up giving beauty to Lady Afrikaisi. He’ll not come down again—but rather journey up with the sun across the sky...” upon seeing my confused expression she sighed and hunched her shoulders. “Your friend the Heru is soon to die.”
“You mean Afrikaisi is going to kill him?” I gasped moving closer to the strange little girl.
She rolled her eyes up and paused for a moment to look at the ceiling. “Heru has followed Nectanebo.” She whispered. “And Lady has given you to.....” she paused for a moment and tilted her head as if listing to something that was hard to hear. “....to no one. She thinks your blood too blessed. Your father was Amun’s servant and the Lady is scared of Amun.”
“So what is to happen to me?” I asked, trying to believe that Heru was dead.
“You could sit in the dark, until they let you pass...” the girl suddenly paused, shaking her head as if her hair was wet and she wanted to dry it. “Or,” she said, her voice suddenly losing both it’s poetic nature and it’s youth, “you could take my hand and break away.” She reached forward with her left hand, her voice now sounded very much like the Priestesses who could see the future. “If Lady gets her way, then everyone shall think that we are from Osiris.” Amisi scowled. “Maybe to the North and East they still know the truth, but here we do not.”
“I don’t understand.” I sighed.
Amisi laughed then, before reaching out, again attempting to grab my hand. “You know the stories of the walking dead?” she asked and I nodded, for indeed I had heard the myths of Egypt, the myths of what we now call vampires. “I am dead, yet I move. The Lady is dead, yet she moves. You may die, but still move.”
“Die?” I gasped, finding myself drawing ever closer to the girl.
“Not really.” she laughed. “Breath— it stops. Heart—beats no longer. Blood—the sacred. Life—eternal.” She whispered, as if quoting a sacred text. “What thinks you, little son of Amun. Only through blood will you beak free.”
I did not entirely believe her and because of this I accepted and allowed her to draw my right hand towards her mouth. I was about to ask her something—what I don’t remember, when she bit down harshly into my wrist, drawing out my blood quickly so that I had no time to scream before I lost all my energy. For several minutes the blood flowed from my wrist to her mouth and, just when I thought my heart would beat it’s last she pulled me close and slit her wrist, before shoving it at my mouth. I swallowed the first few droplets without thinking and found that I wanted nothing more then to keep drawing blood from Amisi...from my sire.
As I drank images went through my head. Amisi had indeed once been called Halima and she had lived in a little village on the other side of the Nile Delta. Afrikaisi’s lover and sire, Jabari, had come through her village en route to Egypt. He had stolen away Halima and her mother when Halima was only five years old. Two years later he had given her his blood, as she was now giving me hers. Halmia had been a present for his lady love, Afrikaisi. It was Afrikaisi who had renamed Halima, calling her Amisi and—when it became apparent that Amisi was more powerful then her—it had been Afrikaisi who had thrown Amisi into this dark cell.
I felt my body convulse and the wrist vanished from my mouth as painful spasms racked through me. Amisi spoke softly as this happened, telling me that my body was destroying what I no longer needed to live and turning these useless organs into fuel for my new powers. As my body stopped convulsing and my mind cleared I found I could suddenly see in the dark of the cell. “But now what?” I asked, looking around. “For now it is he two of us, stuck in this cell.”
Amisi smiled and looked up at me. “No. For you have the strength to run away. Do not fear the sun....indeed fear nothing save for other vampires— yes that is the term for what we are. Fear nothing save for other vampires, for it is only another vampire that may end your life. Go north, to the Greek islands, the vampires there have no love for the Lady and Lord, they shall help you. Now run my childe and live life as I am unable.”
I found myself turning to my sire and kissing her hand. “Thank you sire.” I whispered.
“I pray that I shall be able to see you again.” she sighed, looking down at the dirt of the cell. “But you have strength only to escape. I think this is the last. Live for me, my childe.” And with a last look at the one who had given me my new life, I ran to the door of the cell, easily pulling it aside and running down the hall before the sound of tearing metal could even be heard.

Thanks to my newly found vampiric speed I reached Saqqâra in a solid night of running. I slept in a ruined home by the cities outer walls that night, not wanting someone to recognize men and ask where the Pharaoh was. The next morning, I awoke and gave away one of my gold bracelets in exchanged for passage on a boat to Cyprus. From that island I hopped my way towards Greece.
It was in Greece that I met other vampires. Vampiric men and women lived there with some regularity and were almost never discovered by the local people. The Greek people knew this and their stories always consisted of vampires that were indistinguishable from humans. However these people who knew that we were no different in appearance from the rest of us had very strange ideas about vampires. They thought that one could become a vampire by being excommunicated or desecrating a religious day, for dying alone or committing a great crime. The more paranoid of these Greeks believed that having a cat jump across your grave or eating a sheep killed by a wolf could cause one to become a vampire. Of course, all of these beliefs are untrue. The Greeks had a very mixed view of vampires, some believed that vampires were harmless—returning from death to help their widowed wife was one example I heard often. However they also regarded vampires as ravenous predators who would kill simply to kill. Mass panics could grip villages or even whole islands should a disease come along that seemed vampiric in nature.
In my travels from Egypt to Greece I met several vampires, all of which were either young in age or unknowing of other vampires. Eventually I managed to find the eldest vampire in existence, who had gathered around her several other vampires, all of which lived in a certain section of Athens. With many unanswered questions floating in my head, I went to Athens and was granted a reception with this older vampire, who had taken on the name of Athena.
As you know, Athena in myth was the goddess of civilization, wisdom and the disciplined side of war. She was the Protector of Athens and the Greeks called her Athena Polias, meaning Athena of the city. She was the favorite daughter of Zeus who had been born, fully grown and armed from his forehead after Zeus swallowed her mother, Metis. When I heard that there was a vampire who called herself by the name of Athena I thought that she was some mythical figure in the city—perhaps she pretended to be or was a Sage or Fortune teller. However the house I was sent to was not a temple or a place of business, but a perfectly normal home for an upper class family...save for this family was really a family of vampires.
Inside Athena’s house lived many different vampires who had been many different ages when they died. However, there were no child vampires her—no vampires such as my sire Amisi. In my travels to Greece and through the country itself I had never found a vampire who was younger then eighteen when he or she was created. I was simply ‘not done’. For who would truly wish to live forever as a child while one’s mind grew ever older.

The first vampire in Athena’s house that I met was called Deimos, he had been forty years old when he was made. Deimos was the ‘Master’ of the house, who was in charge of keeping everything exactly so for Athena. He seemed to take pride in his job and was well know in the vampiric community as an example of that which all children should aspire to be—gracious servants of their sires and their sire’s elder children.
Because I did not live with my sire—and therefore was not a slave to her—I was considered higher in the vampiric social order then Deimos, even though I was only a year into vampiric life, while Deimos had more then forth years of immortality behind him.  Because of this he played the role of a slave, bowing to me as if I was his master. “Lady Athena has heard much of you—the Egyptian Vampire.” he whispered as we walked through the halls of Athena’s home, which were filled with murals and sculptures, most of the Goddess Athena but some of other Gods and Goddesses from around the world. I saw several paintings of Isis and Osiris, which comforted me in some small way. “Word travels fast from vampire to vampire and this speed of knowledge is only increasing as the world comes closer together.” Deimos smiled as he pushed open a door and motioned for me to enter. “By what name shall I introduce you?”
“Atum.”
“Lady Athena?” he asked, still standing near the open door as I entered. “The Egyptian Vampire—Lord Atum.”
The room held three couches arranged in a square, with the fourth side being open towards the door. On the couch directly opposite from me reclined a female vampire who hand been no more then eighteen when she was given immortality. She wore the graceful folded dress of the Greeks, which is merely one or two long pieces of fabric draped and pinned and tied into a dress. Her dress was a pale rosy color, tied with golden string. Her body was adorned with polished black stones and gold. Long brown hair fell around her face to stop at her waist, twisting with a very slight natural curl. Her face was that of a Greek statue—every ratio perfectly laid down and her skin appeared to be marble—the over all effect was of a statue of a women...only her dress, jewelry, hair and blue eyes seemed to have any life in them. The only thing amiss about her appearance was a single scar which ran straight down from eyelash to just below her lip on her right cheek. As I stared her lips slowly curved upwards in a smile. “Greetings...Lord Atum.” her voice was like a mother greeting her son after not having seen him for many years and I caught a glimpse of her fangs as her smile grew and she pushed her hair back behind her right ear, the bracelets on her arm bumping into each other with a gentle sound as she shifted. “Please, sit down with me.”
I quickly moved to sit down upon one of the other two couches, which were angled slightly so that one could look at Athena more easily. “I thank you for seeing me; I know that it must seem odd that I come all the way from Egypt merely to see other vampires.” I looked down as I spoke, feeling ill at ease with this older vampire.
“Who is your sire? There is a passion in your eyes and I remember it from somewhere....”
“My sire was named Amisi. She was sired by Jabari, who came from a land east of Egypt.”
“Of course...I knew Jabari well enough. He was made by one of my children and,” she laughed, “to tell the truth I never liked him much. He thought too highly of himself. I went down to Egypt once...perhaps twenty-five years ago. At that time I saw little Amisi and I scolded Jabari harshly for making so young a child a vampire. Of course by that time she was already an adult...at least her mind was. How is Amisi, for she was an interesting immortal?”
“I do not know.” I told Athena. “Amisi gave me the blood so I could escape a slow death in Afrikaisi’s dungeons, where she herself was imprisoned. I do not know if she too escaped, or if she still lingers or even if she is dead, killed by Afrikaisi or her minions.”
“And Amisi sent you to me.” Athena mused her eyes suddenly gaining a far away look. “Listen well to me, young one, for I do not lightly impart my own story to you.” I leaned forward, eager to hear Athena’s story.
“I am grateful for the information.” I said respectfully. Athena smiled at me before looking down at her folded hands and beginning her tale.
“My sire’s name was Zakin and he is the blood from which we all spring. Zakin was one of the first people—he walked upon the earth only a few years after the creator brought everything into existence. And Zakin was the first man to be killed upon the innocent earth. His elder brother, jealous of the love their father bestowed on Zakin, struck him down in the field. At this time the creator gave Zakin a chance for another life. Zakin agreed and signed what came to be called ‘Zakin’s Pact’. What that pact is...no one knows, for Zakin never has told a living soul.”
“You mean to tell me,” I said, interrupting her story, “that Zakin is still on this earth? But they call you the eldest of our kind!”
“I do not know if Zakin is still upon the earth. Indeed he might have passed on, or he may be slumbering beneath the earth or walking in some strange place whose name I have never heard. I do not know, but—if Zakin is dead, then I am the eldest vampire in the world. Zakin was my father, he raised me and gave me my first name—Kaiyana. I was born 25 years after Zakin became the first vampire. When I was only a few days old my father and mother died in a natural disaster of some great magnitude. Zakin found me and raised me and, when he thought I was old enough, he turned me into a vampire.” Athena sighed and I thought I saw a tear form in her eye. “For many years we lived and traveled together. But then Zakin wished to wander alone, so he set off. For many years he would tell me of his adventures, but then—maybe two hundred years ago, his tales stopped reaching my ears and his children stopped coming to me...because there were no more children being born of his blood. Zakin vanished and has not been seen since that time.”
“That is why you call yourself the oldest...” I whispered as a single tear fell from Athena’s eye.
“Now those of us who can travel tell me of strange new names for kind—Adze, Asasabonsam, Impundulu, Obayifo—names which come from the lands far below the Nile and I wonder, I wonder if Zakin is out there, traveling without me and hearing he names that come from our section of the world— Callicantzaros, Empusas, Lamiai and Vrykolakas—and I wonder if he is out there, thinking of his Kaiyana. I almost wish I had not taken the name of Athena—for I worry that he has heard of me by that name and does not know that Kaiyana and Athena are one and the same.”

I stayed with Athena that night and many nights afterwards a friendship quickly grew between the two of us. Eventually I managed to find the courage to ask the one question that I had not asked her before.
“Why did you choose to be called Athena? Why not use Kaiyana, the name that you were given upon entry into the world—as I have done?”
Athena laughed at this, throwing her head back and exposing her fangs. “Atum, have you not noticed that our names live for such a short time? If I went about with the name Kaiyana I would arouse suspicion that I do not wish for. Athena suits this time and those vampires whom I know and trust still call me by my true name. Perhaps one day soon I shall change my name again, to reflect the new times. Athena suits me, as the goddess of civilization—of which I have seen so many, of wisdom—which I have eternity to collect and of disciplined war—as I have often been involved in war. You shall find yourself doing the same Atum, for already you receive strange looks upon calling yourself such. So what shall your new name be?” Athena smiled and flames seemed to dance in her eyes. “Something ordinary? Or something that still draws a gasp from the listener?”
“Why don’t you name me?” I asked. “Who would Athena wish to travel with her?”
Athena leaned in closer to me, observing every inch of my body in great detail before she rocked back on her heels and whispered. “You shall be Jason, one of heroes whom my namesake has helped, thus shall the vampiric Athena Polias have her champion. We shall dance through the ages, while my bright eyes look out on history as only one with immortality can. Would that not be grand, Jason who was Atum?”  At this Athena spread open her arms, as if to offer the entire world to me and with a smile upon my face, I accepted.
And so Athena and I lived together and became closer then a sire and childe. Indeed, during our time together many thought that I was the beloved childe and she my sire. Neither I nor Athena made any attempt to correct this belief. We lived in and around Athens until the Roman Empire was about seventy-five years old, at which point we moved to Rome. At the time another vampire—going by the name of Pernama (which I would later learn was an Indonesian word meaning ‘full moon’) lived in Rome and had told the vampiric world that she was the eldest vampire alive. It turned out that Pernama had once been called Stella. She had been sired by Deimos and had served both Athena and I while she had been in a sort of vampiric apprenticeship imposed by Deimos. Stella/Pernama was caught by surprise when Athena walked into her home and demanded, in front of a great number of other vampires, to know why her own grandchilde sought to elevate herself above her grandsire.
You see young one, when two vampires meet it is always apparent which one is the elder. It is one of the new senses that is acquired when you leave mortality behind, this instinct of age also applies to mortals for, if I am presented with two twins, I can tell which was born first and how long a time passed before the second was born.
In this way Athena assumed the same position she had held in Athens, but in Rome. For a time she considered changing her name, but the old Greek gods still had much sway over the population—and she had been known as Athena for such a long time, that she stuck with Athena. However at the time Egypt had begun to hold great sway over the population, so I returned to my original name of Atum for a time, before moving on and using the name Atemu.

To Be Continued