A Mother's Love

                                                                                A Mother's Love

    I don't know why she did this. I was not looking for eternal life. My own mother died birthing me. That was twenty-five years ago, and my father has yet to let me forget it. How I took the love of his life away. How it should have went the other way. How the wrong one died. I hate him, and I always will.

    The year was 1944. It was a hot, sultry Bavarian night when she came to me. She stood there beautiful at our barn door, with long jet-black hair gingerly wrapped around her bare shoulders. Her dark eyes bored a whole through me as I pitched the hay to our cattle. I felt this undeniable urge to go to her, to kiss her shoulders, her neck, her luscious lips. I could not stop myself I tell you! I was bewitched as I groped her, as I picked her up and raised her dress high to enter her...and then I felt the pressure...and the pleasure...and the pain.

    All I remember of my re-birth was her animalistic sounds and her moans of delight as she drained me of my blood. Then she gently, almost lovingly, laid me down on the hay mound, cut her wrist with something sharp, and lowered seven drops of her blood into my gaping mouth. And then I died.

    I remember the tunnel, the great light, the feeling of total love, and suddenly I was blanketed by something black, and cold...I was so cold. It wrapped its sinewy arms around me and I felt myself falling backwards as it yelled with the force of thunder--“NO, HE IS MINE!!”-- and I woke up to see my Master peering at me from the rafters. With out-stretched arms she glided with ease and laid beside me and caressed my cheeks and rubbed my forehead, and comforted me. I was not afraid. I've never been afraid of anything since but the “Bottomless Soul” who delivered me to my next and last life. I could neither speak nor move, and then she touched my lips.

    “You can speak now, Andre” she whispered. Her voice was that of a mother to her babe, and I looked upon her with love, the kind I never knew till now.

    “Do you have a name?” I asked

    “Yes, my child, you may call me Morianna.”

    “What are you?” I asked. “What did you do to me?”

    She sighed, and looked upward at a small hole in the roof. The full moon illuminated a face that changed from harsh to gentile in a flash as the clouds shielded her and then moved on. She was... absolutely ravishing, and I felt myself moving towards her again. Before I could focus with my new eyes of depth and understanding she was back on the loft, staring at me with a look that chilled me for a second or two.

    “You must NEVER do that again Andre! It is tiltotten. You must never do that again. I am your Edesanya.”

    She was Hungarian. I'd heard that language before in the village. I understood the forbidden, but not the other. She was my Deliverer now, and as she swooped back down she took me by the hand and led me to the barn door. I could see his shadowy figure moving in the front room; the candles flickered as he walked by.

    “Andre, can you hear it now?”

    “Hear what?”

    “The sound of the Vodka being poured, over and over. Can you hear it now, my son?”

    Yes, I could hear what I only imagined before. My anger at his relentless drunken binges swelled in my head, and my teeth began to hurt... and move. Morianna and I moved, or floated to the shabby screen door and into the kitchen, then she disappeared. I stood there behind this pig as he poured one and another and the memories of his insults took over, and I moved on him. I grabbed him by his hair and looked him in the eyes as I jerked his head back. The days of his grabbing me by the ankle, as he did when I was young, flipping me upside down and beating me in front of my friends was over. The days of his screams and vulgar words directed at me were soon to be vanquished. The fright in his face was that of a fine violin played softly to me, and I enjoyed it.

    “Do you want justice Andre? The kind of justice only our kind can give; swift and sure.”

    I looked up to see my Morianna sitting in an old armchair, her black dress covering her crossed legs to her ankles. She rose and walked slowly towards us until she was face to face with my tormentor. She leaned on her wrists as she moved closer to him. When she was almost nose-to-nose she smiled and said--

    “Do you remember me, Edvard? Do you recognize me now, my love?”

    His face became as pale as the snow in the Alps as he tried to cry, or ask forgiveness for his crimes. She looked up at me and with a look of finality she nodded her head.

    “Do it Andre, do it now. Claim your revenge, and relish its sweetness. Do it now!”

    And then I jerked his head to the left and instinctively put my right hand under his armpit, and found the pressure point. My eyes saw into his soul and I showed him his destiny in a flash of time as I bit down hard on his nape and began to drain him. As his power and will began to leave him I squeezed the point which gave me more of that precious and delicious fluid that I so greatly craved. I let his limp and pitiful frame slide to the floor, and then we left. My first life was over.

    We walked out and gazed at the full moon. I had never seen its true brilliance and loveliness before. I would remember and appreciate that night forever and ever. I looked at my new friend, wondering what she was, who made her this way, why me? She turned, and in a way I couldn't explain, relayed to me--

    “In time, Andre, in time.” She held out her left hand, and slowly I put my right in hers.

    “Come my son,” she spoke, “we must go to Rosenhym. We will feast tonight like none other. Come, rise with me.”

    We rose slowly until we cleared the tree tops, and then we flew effortlessly southward. We didn't fly parallel like the birds, but standing straight up. In the distance I heard gunfire, and loud explosions and men screaming with agonizing cries. It was then I noticed my needs, my hunger. I gave no moral thought to it; just to go and feed. I had become... Nosferatu.

    “Morianna, what is happening here?”

    “This is where we feed, Andre. Wars were made for us, and we for them. We survive by feeding off the wounded and the dying, as we have for centuries. Observe and learn, my son.”

    I hung there above the battlefield watching the two sides firing their large canons at each other. But, in the dark no shells seemed to hit its mark. I watched as she separated from me and wave her hand at an incoming rocket. It seemed to slow down and then it moved to its right. Morianna was directing its course by the movement of her hand until its found its target, and a Nazi tank exploded. Then a foxhole and then a machine gun nest. There was smoke and fire and dust everywhere.

    “Come Andre, it's time.”

    We swooped down hard and fast and landed by the tank. Then she ordered me to touch her shoulder, and we became a mist, a fog or two puffs of smoke...I don't know which.

    “Follow my lead,” she said as we entered the gunner's hole. “Take from only those still alive. Never take from the dead, lest you surely die. Feed on any open wound—leave no marks.”

    We immediately found that two of the crew were still alive and bleeding steadily from their injuries. Morianna took the gunner and I took the driver. We drank heartily from chest and leg wounds. I'll never forget the look on his face as I attached myself to this so-called German Superman. He was afraid, almost crying as I looked up at him. He was in my power now; my control. As he slipped to the other side I sensed a gasp of relief and happiness as I showed him mercy and did it swiftly. And then we left to search the camp, and preform our duty to the others.

    After we had our fill we retreated back to my farm as we had left it. Just slightly to the north of the barn was a large cave that I'd never seen before. I'd walked past it, played on its hillside and hid there as a child to escape the monster's beatings. How could I have missed this, I thought? I needed answers.

    As we entered I noticed two large, wooden boxes in the center covered with a leather lid. Somehow I knew one was mine, and what I must do till sundown. When we walked over Morianna stopped by hers and chanted something in her tongue that I couldn't understand.

    “Sit down by me, Andre, and I will tell you all that you need to know.”

    I sat beside her. I phrased my questions in my mind but she was the first to speak.

    “You want to know why, don't you. Why I chose you, why now and why we did what we did tonight.”

    “Yes, but... can you read my mind?”

    “Oh, yes. I can read everyone's mind, and you will too, in time. Now I'll explain. On the night you were born, I was in great distress. You were breeched, and I was bleeding badly. As my mid-wife left to get clean linen he appeared to me. His name is Saraquel, and he is my Master. He seemed so kind and loving, and he gave me a choice. He would save your life or mine. Of course I chose you. Andre, I am your Edesanya. I am your earth mother.”

    For some reason, I wasn't surprised. I hung my head and asked--

    “What we did tonight-- do we do it often?”

    “You will, and for all eternity. Our kind has started every war that has ever been. This is how we survive. We bite our recruits, as I did you, but we feed and survive on the battlefield. When mankind said that WWI was the 'War to end all Wars' we just laughed. They don't have a clue, wars will never end-- they can't for us to exist.”

    “Then... we have our kind in the humans world?”

    “Oh yes. In governments, in the militarys, in high office. We can move about in the daytime, but our powers are greatly diminished then. We draw our powers from the night and the moon. You see, when I say wars will never end, I mean it.”

    “Now, what do we do?”

    “We crawl into these boxes and sleep. They are filled with the earth of our homelands. We must rest in them during the full of the moon, each and every month.”

    “But , who put these here. How did you hide this cave from me all these years?” I asked as we slid into our beds.

    She looked over at me as she went to close her lid.

    “In due time, my child, in due time. Rest well, my son, for tomorrow night we go to Berlin. We will enjoy the Russian army, their blood is intoxicating."

                                                                                                        The End