And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting
(Genesis 9:5)
The instant the heavy door opened the stench of blood was overwhelming.
Sasha grimaced at the suspicious breeze coming from the back of the chapel and tightened the grip on the silver candlestick she was carrying. Her hands were sticky with sweat and she felt unwell.
In the unsteady flickering candlelight, standing out from the glooming darkness, there was a shadow, made of solid miasma, which seemed to stare down on the brave girl.
This was where Sasha's baptism took place 15 years ago, and she visited this place almost weekly. But tonight the girl felt low for the first time seeing the face in the dark.
"Holy Mother, protect me, please. Please protect me, Holy Mother..."
Sasha was, barring her brother, the bravest person in town.
The cowardly villagers had abandoned everything and locked themselves up in their houses when they appeared. Even her father, the chief of town, had retreated into his estate in which garlic and hawthorn had been scattered and kept quiet. And no one had offered help to her brother for saving his fiancée who had been taken by them.
Three days ago Sasha wanted to accompany her brother who was leaving for the church which they occupied. But he gently refused her offer. He left a message saying Sasha should protect their parents while he's gone, then left on his own - and hadn't returned.
"Dear Lord, please protect me. Holy Mother, please protect me."
Sasha went one step after the other, barely able to see in the darkness of the chapel. In her worst nightmares, a cold hand stretched out and touched her shoulder. Her eyes stung from forgetting to blink as she tried to see through the dark.
Hearing the creaking noise from the floor nearby Sasha nervously licked her dried lips: "W... who's there...?"
Sasha was almost petrified with horror as the shadow of a gigantic woman slowly appeared in the light of the outstretched candlestick. Unconsciously she took three steps back until she finally realized that the gently smiling woman holding a baby in her arms was made of white marble.
A sigh of relief escaped from Sasha's mouth: "O... oh, goodness! Please don't threaten me like this, Holy Mother."
Her heart was still throbbing and her knees shaking so violently that she could barely hold herself up. She wiped away the cold sweat on her forehead.
Suddenly hearing someone making fun of the statue of the Holy Mother, Sasha abruptly turned around – and this time, her heart seemed to stop beating entirely.
There were two figures sitting on a bench.
"Hey, there seems to be someone here, Mirith."
"It seems to be a sweet, little birdie, Marith."
There were two women, smiling at each other.
They looked identical: alabaster white skin as well as their waist-long, golden hair. And even though it was about the season when the snow slowly started to fall they were wearing identical thin gowns made of silk.
The only difference to distinguish them was the color of the rouge used on their lips: one pair of lips was lightly pink while the other was dark blue.
Amber eyes flashed, and the pink lips whispered: "Mirith, now that's weak. We haven't even prepared tea for our long awaited guest. Where have I put the samovar, though?"
They giggled and looked around dramatically, as if searching for it. Sasha wielded her candlestick: "W... wha... what happened to my brother, you monsters?"
In the wavering candlelight the shadows of the three were dancing like bizarre creatures.
Although scared to the bones, the young woman shouted with all her might: "I… I am Sasha, daughter of Kasparek, chief of Konavli village! I came to avenge my brother! Prepare to fight!"
"Brother? Maybe this birdie is talking about that cockerel, Marith?"
Barely moving pink lips murmured: "Hee, you remember? The cockerel who recently read the Bible to us..."
"Tch, look there's a Bible again! And a crucifix, too!"
Sasha screamed, holding the Bible in her left hand and thrusting the rosary around her neck forward with the other. At the same time, her knees were shaking violently out of fear, and her heart seemed to freeze.
While the appearance of the two seductively laughing and chatting women was beautiful in the spirit of the darkness, Sasha wasn't deceived by it. These beautiful women belonged to them.
After Armageddon, they had suddenly appeared, mankind's natural enemy.
"Creeps of the shadows," "relatives of the night," "fellows of the darkness," etc. to mention just a few nicknames of the many given to those terrific monsters. Of all these names, the best known was -
"Vampires! We...well then, prepare to die!"
"Your brother was really delicious, birdie."
Sweet voices suddenly were breathing next to Sasha's ears, and her shoulders were held by two hands. Sasha's face turned deathly white.
Indeed, the forms that should have been sitting on the bench had faded in front of her eyes. It seemed as if both monsters had changed position with an instant movement and were now standing behind the brave girl.
"Read the Bible. See if it can save you…"
"Point the cross at us..."
"Beg for your life..."
"In the end, you'll become our feast."
Sasha couldn't even answer to the alternating whispering voices.
Fingers as cold as ice coiled around the hand of the numb girl, and the candlestick dropped onto the floor.
"This birdie is smarter than her brother, isn't she, Mirith? She's well prepared."
"That's true, Marith. That bloody silver... it's what we Methusela despise most. Right after sunlight."
The woman with the dark blue rouge looked disgusted and kicked the dropped candlestick into a far corner of the chapel. Hitting the floor, the candle went out, and the surroundings were swallowed by the darkness again.
"Don't be scared, birdie. You too are going to the place where your beloved brother is now."
From parted pink lips, two long fangs flashed and an over-sweet voice purred: "Well, now, birdie, what do you taste like?"
In the dim moonlight flooding in from the window, dark blue lips secretly hovered over the girl's neck. White fangs were slowly buried into fresh, soft flesh -
Then something glittering like ice tore the darkness apart.
"!"
The vampire with the darker lips let out an earsplitting shriek with a voice unknown to those of this world, and she threw her head back in anguish. An ordinary rosary stuck deeply in her hand, and though the cross looked neither sharp nor as if it had been thrown with especial force, it pierced through the back of her hand and came out of the palm.
"Mi-Mirith!"
Holding her sister, who was crying in agony, Marith, the vampire with the slightly pink rouge, resolutely turned around. Wide eyes narrowed and filled with infinite malice.
"Who... is there? The fool disturbing our meal is probably someone else from this village..."
Beyond the skylight, the blue night sky was visible. From the south, two moons were looking down on the earth. One hung as a perfect silver circle, but under the ominous light of the other - a distorted bloody red - suddenly stood a tall figure.
"Unfortunately, I am not a villager." The figure's voice was calm. "Vampires Marith Zadrovshka and Mirith Zadrovshka. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I arrest you as suspects in 22 cases of murder and blood predation in the village of Konavli."
"Bastard! That robe...!"
Mirith bared her fangs at the figure lightened up by the moonlight. The form, a tall man, was wearing a black robe and a cape of the same color. A silver rosary hung close to his chest, glimmering in the light.
"Vatican!"
"Ah, finally. I have been sent by the Vatican's Department of Foreign Affairs." The polite yet out of place introduction was interrupted by the sound of something burying into flesh.
The rosary that had pierced the vampire's hand was now pushed deeply into the man's back.
As if she had been there the entire time, Mirith suddenly stood behind him and spat nastily: "A Terran. How dare you hurt me…die and atone, dog!"
A slender hand bearing an unnatural power moved gracefully, and the rosary was thrust into his back entirely. The ominous sound of a heart being penetrated was heard, and at the same time the tall man dropped to his knees.
The splash of blood had a strange white beauty in the sallow moonlight, and a pleased Mirith was smiling: "So silly... it was the same with the priest, it's the same with this one here. The Vatican's pet dogs quickly run off like cowards, don't you think, Marith."
"Whatever. But Mirith, please do not soil the floor. You have to take care of it, that blood is yours."
Having settled that with her younger sister, who was vindictive and drunk off the smell of blood, Marith dropped her eyes to the girl in her arms.
Confronted with the unfolding tragedy of her imminent end, the brave girl fainted, and her eyes rolled back.
"Well, then, I'll have a drink from this birdie."
Marith softly ran her fingers through the hair falling over the white face in front of her and laughed. For a Terran, the girl was fairly beautiful. How delicious would her blood be then?
From the entrance, the sound of fangs burying into flesh could be heard, followed by the purring noise her sister made while drinking luscious lifeblood. Her prey's blood must be much better. Marith snarled: "Please, leave half of him for me, Mirith."
While moving the hair from the girl's nape, Marith suggested to her younger sister: "I've left half of the birdie's blood too. Let's change to be fair."
"... That's not possible." The voice out of the silence wasn't Mirith's though. "I am from a kind that follows a special diet... I can’t drink that girl's blood."
"!?"
When Marith quickly turned around, the first thing she saw were her younger sister's wide eyes, and she seemed almost Terran in appearance by the fear in her expression. Only a thin sigh escaped from the dark blue lips that had formed to release a scream. To make things worse, the white face had become even whiter. What shocked Marith the most was not her younger sister's form, but rather the tall figure covering the throat -
"I.. idiot... what, who are you!?"
A red liquid was drawing a line like a thread starting from the mouth of the person who was lapping over Mirith's neck as if kissing her. This was a sight which made Marith swallow in fear. What this person was sucking was...
"Fool! You... YOU, blood... OUR blood!"
"Well, haven't you thought about such a thing?"
While Mirith's body, which had lost all its strength from fear and blood loss, dropped to the floor, he smiled sadly. Lips parted in a crescent shape showed unmistakable fangs.
"Humans eat cows and chicken. The blood of these humans is drunk by the likes of you. And, you..."
"I... see... I've heard rumors... the Vatican, our enemy, keeps outrageous beasts. And those creatures drink, of all things possible, our blood..."
While stepping up to the vampire whose teeth were chattering with fear, the man spoke his introduction in a quiet, sad voice: "I am... a vampire who sucks the blood of vampires."
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