SciFi and Fantasy Stories: The Dhampir's Sketch

The Dhampir’s Sketch

A Sketch by Jamie Gorton

            She would be dead by the morning.

            He wanted nothing to do with the child, the dhampir. He wanted nothing to do with his wife, for that matter, but they had never consummated their marriage. It was a lust to do so, to sleep with his widow, which was even more powerful then the allure of Mother Lune. It became a habit, night after night, stealing away into his old cottage. The first night she just looked up, shocked, appalled by his presence, repelled by his touch.

            That didn’t stop them. They were married and they deserved certain things--- well, at least the man thought so. He would have an eternity to reflect on his choice, for the door to Mother Lune only opens to you once. He would despise himself beyond all evils for his choice, for now his cherished love, a love that surpassed even death, was dying. He wished he could offer her the gift of his blood, and he knew she would accept it if presented, but he could never bring her to the life--- or rather, un-death, that he was suffering. She was his only reason to exist, for even in nine short, mortal months every inch of his soul cried for release.

            Now, she was fading away. She was starved, emaciated, hungering only for a passion that nothing alive could give. The child, the dhampir, survived on her, but even he was unhealthy.

            He had a child!

            A child! A living, breathing child, firmly in Life, born from Un-Death. Of all things under Sol and Lune, a dhampir! A bastard of beings.

            He wrapped his hands around his neck in anguish, wishing there was a pulse he could squeeze out, wishing he could have a second chance of dying. Never, never, would someone go into the Mother’s kingdom so willingly! Oh, leap into the Mother’s arms and embrace her! To feel the calm cold of Death, the icy, silver splendor of the moon, the splendor that his icy skin and floured complexion mocked! How he prostrated himself under the full moon, conversing with the night, torturing his everlasting body, begging with undead tears for the sweet, empassioned release he denied himself for, for---

            Lust.

            Lust. Desire. Not even love. For it was Mother Lune he loved, for he desired Her above all things. It was misery that drove him into his widow’s arms, and so many times in the heat of passion he tried to kill her, to release himself from his fatal flaw.

            He never did, but if there was a time he should it was then.

            A dhampir.

            He watched without love as his widow twisted in agony, her back arching in misery. He was hidden in the shadows as the midwife and her daughters fussed and worked in their usual manner. He should kill them all. It would be a gift to them.

            A priest and a priestess were there, invoking, as they had so many times, the power of Mother Lune to banish him. Idiots. They couldn’t even see him, standing upright in the shadows, watching their trivial ceremony in the same room as it was being conducted. Divine powers were divine powers, but mortal limitations were another.

            Perhaps Father Adon could banish him. The Sun God could banish him, could shatter his miserable being into Un-Life with just a ray of dawn, easily spared. Un-Life, however, was the only thing he feared.

            He knew that there was a way to return to life. To kill, and drink from, a dhampir. He needed the child. That is why he was there, that is why his only son--- For how could it be anything but a son--- wasn’t disowned by his father.

            His flesh and blood, alive. To put it back into his empty husk of corporality was to deliver him back to life, long enough for a proper death.

            The baby came out alive as his mother went out dead. The father could feel it, feel the sudden opening of the gate of Death as he did so many times, as his midnight feasts swooned and died in his arms. There was always a part of him that felt an innate, searing pain and a part that leapt towards the unseen, unknown gate.

            Now.

            “I want to hold my son.” He said, stepping out of the darkness. The shadows clung to him and gushed out of his mouth, into his voice, twining around the timbre of his request.

            The midwife froze, and the vampire knew he could easily scare her straight to death. That would be enjoyable.

            “Adon!” The priest screamed, having enough tenacity to point at the vampire. Amazing how the man, sixty or older, had so much faith that his Almighty Father was the first thing he called out to, the first thing he grasped.

            There was a brilliant blaze, the light of the Sun reflecting off snow and flashing through ice. It knocked the father back into the shadows, reaching out to knit a veil of darkness over him.

            “Adon!” He screamed again, and another flash pierced the darkness of shadow and the darkness of the vampire’s ‘heart.’

            The priest was weak--- Weak of will. Only the virgin, pure sunlight of the Father could destroy him, and no mortal could channel that power and live. Or, at least the priest feared as much.

            He leapt out of the shadows and wrapped his arms around the priest in one powerful, fluid motion that made any cat look clumsy.

            “If you had a seed of faith you could move mountains, old man.” He hissed, the priest’s neck offering minimal resistance to his undead forearm. “Shirking your beliefs, huh? I’d start praying to the Moon, now.”

            The priest fell slack, and the vampire looked up. The midwife had been scared to death; she was crumpled on the ground. Well, not many 70-year-old women could take a blood-sucking monster flying out of nowhere.

            The priestess was gone.

            With the dhampir!

            He searched the night, the village, and the outlying farms, all in a blind rage. The priestess was gone.

            She was a priestess of Lune, of course. She was as comfortable in the night, in the shadows, under the stars, as any vampire. She couldn’t be entirely living herself, the rumors said. They said members of that order sacrificed more then worldly possessions for their powers.

            Not that he would ever find out. There was only one place the damned woman could be, hiding in a shrine, where he could never enter. He was still afraid of Un-Death.

            There was a chance he grasped, grasping it as tightly as he grasped life when he was already dead. A fire burned in him that led him to irrational hopes and terrific disappointment.

            By the time he was done, there were only two living things in that miserable hamlet. The priestess, and the dhampir.