Later that night, Celine barged into Maison’s quarters. Vestooli followed a moment later. They found Maison pacing back and forth on his ceiling. Vestooli spoke first. “Enchantress Crow tells me you stopped a sacrifice today.”
Maison stopped his pacing and looked down at them. He said nothing.
“I am rather curious to hear your explanation,” Vestooli continued, “since I am sure you see the implications of breaking the structures we have so carefully constructed for our livestock.”
That word, livestock. Is that what these people were? Maison used to think so. He resolved to keep these misgivings to himself. Instead, he said, “Count Hecate, if you are looking for an excuse, I have none to give. I’ve been considering what happened, and all I can conclude is that my judgment lapsed.”
With little movement, Vestooli shifted his own body upward. His feet alighted on the ceiling, and he stood upside down, eye to eye with Maison. Celine did likewise. Vestooli crossed his arms. A grin that was not happy formed on his handsome face. “Lord Jairn, please explain your actions this evening.”
Maison had forgotten what fear felt like. He clenched his hands to stop the trembling. Was that a cold shiver down his spine? “Count Hecate,” Maison began, carefully, “during tonight’s sacrifices, I found myself thinking about the rebellion for which we were punishing the humans.”
Vestooli crossed his arms. “And what, exactly, possessed you to stop the ritual mid-sacrifice?”
Maison found himself clearing his throat. He told himself it must be the blood he drank earlier. Vampires didn’t salivate or produce mucus. The only fluid in their bodies came from the blood of their prey. Maison continued, “I realized that we were creating martyrs. By killing the innocent family members of the rebels, we were ensuring the next rebellion would occur. Showing mercy, to the rebel leader’s son especially, could earn goodwill with the people. They now have less to avenge.”
Vestooli’s eyes narrowed. He stepped forward, standing nose to nose with Maison. The count spoke slowly, “Goodwill with the people. That is a very… human… notion.” Vestooli’s fangs extended. He sniffed the air around Maison and considered for a moment. Vestooli shook his head, as though disregarding a foolish idea. He took one step backward before continuing, “You didn’t give them less to avenge. You gave them hope. Hope that their vampire god-kings are infighting. That they have an ally on high. You must dispel this idea immediately, lest we will be dealing with rebellion from every human subject.”
Maison hadn’t considered that all the humans might fight back. He had counted on fear to keep them in check. Maison bowed his head, in a sign of humility. “What would you have me do, Count?”
Vestooli steepled his fingers under his chin, thinking for a moment. “Rectify your wrongs. Tomorrow evening, you will execute the rebel leader’s son before the whole town. Should you refuse, or should your cowardice show its face again, I will reduce you to ash.” As he spoke, Vestooli’s right hand clenched around a ball of flame.
If Maison had any saliva in his mouth, he would have gulped. He settled for staring straight ahead. “Yes, Count,” he said.
Vestooli extinguished the flame and wordlessly allowed himself to fall to the ground, shifting in the air without effort to land on his feet. Vestooli straightened his coat with casual hands as he looked up at Maison and said, “See you tomorrow night.”
…
As the first light of day approached, Maison should have been supping on a pint of blood before taking his repose in the coffin in his quarters. The cup of red liquid lay untouched on his table. Maison watched the sun rise, feeling an unfamiliar sense of dread. Like most vampires who lived for centuries, Maison was a survivor. Dread for himself was not a foreign emotion. After all, fear was a tool. Fear could subdue, defeat, or control one’s foes. Fear could alert one to danger and keep them alive, or at least undead. The dread Maison felt as he watched the golden ball rise beyond the distant mountains was not for himself. Why should the boy have to die? It was unfair. Cruel, even. Maison shuttered the window, steeping his room in darkness. He knew what he must do.
…
The cloak was roughspun, like that of a beggar. Maison Jairn drew no curious or suspicious glances as he marched through the streets of the sprawling village at the foot of Castle Ramshorn. Once, he was nearly bumped into by a man carrying a sack of grain to his wagon. Maison was careful to avoid contact, since a human walking into a vampire would feel a lot like stumbling into a brick wall.
Maison sniffed, and his nostrils were assaulted by the thousand flavors wafting through the air: horsehide, man sweat, baked food, rotting fruit, leather straps, excrement, a wicker basket full of ripe strawberries, ten kinds of dust, the iron taste of blood from a scab that just re-opened on the blacksmith’s elbow. It took him over two hours of wandering the streets before Maison found the boy’s scent. He smelled of apples, unwashed hair, and scraped knees. Maison approached the house. It was nothing special. In fact, it was the smallest house on the street. Giram “Magehand” Orfric may have been a war hero, but he was not wealthy. Maison listened by a window, pretending to look for something in the pockets of his cloak.
Within, Maison heard the boy trying to convince his mother that his breakfast was finished so he could play with his friends. After convincing him to take one more big bite, the boy’s mother relented. The son of Giram Orfric ran out the door like he was being chased. Maison watched him go, feeling foolish. What was he thinking? If he approached the boy dressed like this, he would be taken for a kidnapper. There had to be another way. Maison glanced back, toward his castle on the hill, wondering why it no longer filled him with pride. Nothing made sense today.
Maison turned and walked toward his once-beloved castle, careful to keep his hood up and his cloak pulled tight to avoid notice and the deadly sunlight. When he reached the edge of town, he gathered the necessary materials, stacking them against the stage where the false gods performed their sacrifices and flaunted their power. It took Maison half an hour to stack the right amount of wood and tinder. He found a nearby lantern with some oil still inside, tossed that on his pile, and used the blood within him to create a ball of fire in his hand, just as Vestooli had the night before. Maison tossed the ball casually, and the wood caught fire. He made his way back to Giram Orfric’s family home as the flames behind him spread from the stage to nearby buildings. Most of the houses and shops were constructed in haste, using nearby timber. Stone would have been sturdier and safer, but the vampires were in a hurry to populate their livestock pens. Villagers were already trying to fight the fires, but Maison knew the flames would spread too fast for them to save most of the town.
Maison hopped upward, floating to the roof of a two-story inn. He looked over the town and his voice boomed, “The overlords are angry! Your gods have turned on you! They’ve set fire to the town and mean to slay you all! Set your backs to the castle and flee while you can! Flee, for come nightfall, none will be spared!”
Nearby townspeople looked at each other, a mixture of confusion, fear, and unbelief painting their faces. Maison shouted his warning twice more, using his supernatural strength to make his words carry across town. Some people took his advice, and began gathering loved ones, animals, and the possessions they could carry. Others simply went about their business. Most had to contend with the fires in some way. As Maison hoped, the fire seemed to lend urgency to his words. Maison found himself worrying that the flames could injure those who were too slow to flee their homes.
He shook the thought and stepped off the building, falling impossibly slow. A couple panicking villagers noticed, but the next instant, Maison disappeared around a corner. He soon found himself in front of Giram Orfric’s home, once again. Giram’s wife was busy inside, but she appeared to be going about daily business as usual. That would not do.
Maison considered bursting through the door, but he settled for an urgent knock. When the woman answered the door, Maison was careful to keep his face hidden beneath the hood. “Did you hear the news? The false gods have set fire to the town. Everyone must leave while they still can!”
She looked at Maison with eyes full of grief and devoid of hope. “It is another trick. Running would only draw their ire, and it would ensure we would be the next sacrifices.”
Maison was about to tell her what a fool she was, didn’t she know her son was due to be executed that night? Of course, she didn’t. She had experienced firsthand the folly of doing something, of trying. Running away would be different than rebelling, but it would still require action. And action would require motivation.
Maison pulled back his hood. He stood under an overhang just outside the front door, so the sun’s rays missed him by mere inches. He smiled at her, letting the vampiric charms waft from him to her. She took a deep breath, and her eyes glazed over. “My Lord,” she began, in a dreamy voice, “you say we should leave? Will you be leaving as well?”
Maison nodded. “Get your son and gather provisions. You must leave town immediately.”
She smiled and curtsied. “As you wish.”
Maison replaced his hood and glanced toward his castle once more. Smoke billowed into the sky, thick and dark, partially obscuring his view of Castle Ramshorn. His eyes narrowed, and his enhanced vision focused on one of the tower’s windows. Maison saw eyes, peering back at him with reproach. The smoke shifted, and he saw something he never thought would fill him with so much dread: pale skin and raven-black hair. A beautiful face. The face of an enchantress. Celine looked directly at him, and Maison knew she saw through his disguise.
It was time to stop being cute about this plan. If he wanted to get everyone out of town, he needed to use whatever means were necessary. Maison looked into the nearby crowd and saw a man that he was pretty sure belonged to the city council. The man was elderly and round in the middle, but had a commanding presence. He was standing in the middle of the street, trying to calm people down and organize a firefighting group. The elderly man blinked, and Maison was standing before him. Maison used his vampiric charms once more, allowing the pheromones that carried the charm to waft into the man’s nose. Maison leaned close and said, “You are a good and wise leader. Now, lead these people out of town. You know the false gods are monsters. They are coming for everyone tonight. Go, and take everyone with you.”
The councilman trembled as Maison spoke, but he looked up at him with a trusting look that made Maison think of a puppy. Maison left the man standing there, confident that his instructions would be followed. It took Maison less than ten minutes to locate three more village leaders and charm them into leading the townsfolk out of town. Maison felt something not unlike joy as people began leaving town, leading beasts of burden that dragged wagons full of belongings.
Maison returned to Giram Orfric’s home, arriving just as Giram’s wife and son were finally leaving. Giram’s wife recognized Maison as he approached and appeared relieved to see him. Dragging her son by the hand, she said, “I didn’t introduce myself earlier. My name is Lane. Lane Orfric. This is William.”
Maison bowed slightly. “It is a pleasure to meet you both. Please follow me. I know the quickest way out of town. We must make haste.” Maison put their backs to his castle and led them west, toward a wood four miles off. Maison knew several villages lay in that direction, protected by Fort Skaze, a well-defended fortification that Maison and Celine had avoided attacking due to its mix of martial and magical defenders. Taking Fort Skaze would require either a prolonged siege or a pitched battle, and the vampires preferred the easy prey of lightly defended villages.
When they were no more than three hundred meters past the last building, Maison began hearing screams. Then came the unmistakable shrieks and moans of the undead. Celine’s zombies were attacking the village. Maison looked at Lane and William, who stopped with him. He found himself smiling. For the first time since he became a vampire, Maison felt purpose. Previously, he had goals, tasks to accomplish, but nothing like this. Suddenly, keeping these people alive was the only thing that mattered. Maybe it was even more important than self-preservation.
“Keep going,” Maison said to Giram Orfric’s family. “Keep going, no matter what you hear. Do not stop until you reach Fort Skaze. You will be safe there.”
William looked up at Maison, worried, “What are you going to do, Sir?”
Maison pulled his cloak back and drew his sword. “I’m going to make sure they won’t catch you.” The vampire looked at the mother and child once more before shouting, “Now, go!”
They obeyed, and Maison dashed toward the town. He moved with purpose, but slower than he should have. By the time Maison rounded a corner to enter the central street, the town was infested with the undead. Thankfully, the bright sun regulated vampires to the indoors. They could have covered themselves as Maison did, but any vampire with half a brain knew to avoid being outside even with quality sun-coverings. The sun was simply too dangerous. The zombies hated the daylight too, but they needn’t fear it as the vampires did. Still, Maison knew that Celine must be straining the limits of her powers to keep so many undead on this side of the dirt during the day.
The zombies ran, stumbling as they went, from house to house and shop to shop. Where people were found, they were swarmed and dragged to the sacrifice stage. The fire there had mostly burned itself out, turning the stage and the closest buildings into piles of smoky embers. Maison considered the best way to slow the zombies down. There were ways to dispatch large groups of undead at once, but it required magic that only humans or necromancers had access to: spells that channeled divine energy were among the best. With little other choice, Maison brandished his sword and moved in.
He was ignored at first. After all, the zombies were hunting humans, tracking them by the scent of brains and the sound of beating hearts. Maison slew the first zombie with a lateral swipe that removed its head. He stepped to the side, cleaving the next in two. For a time, it was no different than harvesting wheat. He was the reaper; returning the dead to their eternal rest.
The zombies noticed what he was doing, but made no move to stop him. If their decomposed faces could form expressions, they would have been surprised and confused. Eventually, when Maison had already felled over twenty of them, one zombie swung a club at him. Maison removed the arm with a vertical swipe of his sword before cutting the creature down. Suddenly, as though a switch had been flipped, the zombies turned on Maison.
He backed away, striking at the ambling bodies as they came near. They continued to fall like grass before the scythe, but there were simply too many. Their bodies pressed against each other, until it was no longer clear where one zombie ended and the other began. They began to press in from all sides. Maison knew there was only one reason these creatures would have turned on him; Celine knew what he was doing. He risked a glance upward and saw a hooded figure standing atop a nearby house, raven black hair streaming from the hood’s opening.
Maison turned his back on the zombies. After all, his mission with them had been a success. Now they hunted him, instead of the fleeing townsfolk. He ran, angling himself toward the building Celine stood atop. Maison leaped, trusting his supernatural strength to carry him two stories into the air. To his surprise, his feet didn’t rise more than three feet off the ground. He tried again, but got the same result. Maison’s heart beat fast with fear. How was he supposed to win without his strength, speed, and myriad other abilities?
Wait. His heart. It was beating. Maison put a hand to his chest, and the world seemed to slow around him. Thump. Thump. Thump. His heart beat, strong and true. Maison Jairn was no longer a creature of the night. He was alive!
And he was weakened. There was no way to reach Celine without finding a ladder to climb. Maison hoped that his legs would be strong enough to at least stay ahead of the wave of zombies that pursued him. He cut through a narrow alley, hoping the bottleneck would slow the zombies down. Maison glanced over his shoulder and was glad to see his plan seemed to be working. The zombies pushed and shoved, each trying to scramble over the others to be the first into the alley. He looked ahead and gasped.
Vestooli and Celine blocked the alley’s only other exit. The alley was shaded from the sun, and the vampires had let their hoods down. Celine looked sorrowful; Vestooli was enraged. The count raised a hand, and a shimmering wave of translucent, purplish energy shot forth and encircled Maison’s body. Maison was immobilized. He felt himself rising into the air. Vestooli stalked forward, keeping his hand raised. Maison struggled against the magical bonds in vain. The zombies were in the alley now, rushing toward the sound of Maison’s newly beating heart. At a gesture from Celine, the zombies halted.
Vestooli glared at Maison. “Lord Jairn,” Vestooli began, through gritted teeth, “you have surprised me. I thought you were a weakling, or simply a fool. I never would have guessed that you would lead an exodus of prisoners from your own castle.”
“I am no fool,” Maison said, “and I am no weakling. I was blind before, but now I can see.”
Vestooli chuckled dryly. “What do you see, O Enlightened One? You are a vampire, an undead creature who traded his soul for immortality.”
Celine spoke for the first time, “I’m not sure he is undead. Something is different about him.”
Vestooli looked at Celine, confusion evident on his handsome face. “Not undead? What do you mean?”
Celine levitated into the air, drawing closer to Maison. “Listen. Do you hear it?”
Vestooli paused, focusing with his senses. Maison saw his eyes widen. At that moment, Maison realized his limbs could move. Vestooli had stopped concentrating on his spell, and it was weakening. Maison didn’t wait for Vestooli to regain his composure. He struck down with his sword, which slashed through Vestooli’s hood and partway into his shoulder. Vestooli cried out, and the spell holding Maison broke. Maison fell, leaving his sword where it was. He was running before he touched the ground.
He was surprised and exhilarated when he reached the open end of the alley. Maison’s hood fell back, and he felt the warmth of the sun on his face. There was no pain, only a comfortable heat that radiated through his body. Maison heard the cries of the zombies as they resumed their chase, but he allowed himself one more moment of joy. He relished in the sensations, soaking in the brush of the wind, the smell of the dust, the way sunlight reflected off a discarded horseshoe. He could feel blood pumping through his veins, powered by a heart that had been dead for centuries. He felt… pain.
White hot pain lanced through Maison as something pierced his back and exited through his chest. The blade came out red, stained with Maison’s own blood. He knew whose blade it was before she whispered in his ear. “I’m sorry, my love,” Celine said, “I know you understand.”
Maison went down to his knees. “I understand,” he said, coughing, “perhaps… one day... your eyes will be opened.”
Celine knelt before Maison, letting him gaze into her eyes once more. Her raven hair framed her porcelain face, shaded by the hood she wore. “Perhaps,” she said. And she kissed him.
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed our second sidequest. Please tell a friend about the short story, and be sure to subscribe to What Next... A Choose Your Own Adventure Podcast! You can also follow us on Instagram @whatnextpodcast. I would love to hear your thoughts on this short story and the rest of my work! I hope you have a blessed day, free of vampires! Now, go follow Maison's example and do something nice for someone else! (I'm referring to the end of the story and not all the messed up stuff at the beginning)
-Jake
