Dracula: Patient zero

Chapter: 8

Ultimate predator

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Upon arrival in Celt’s territories, Vladus immediately felt familiar with what he could see... The climate and forest felt familiar and foreign at the same time. He was now close enough to notice that the presence he had felt wasn't alone...

Whatever they were, there were three of them. But one of them was visibly different since he was overshadowing the other two with his powerful aura. He was still far from the town but the presence seemed to be coming from near enough to see the town.

The Celt’s territory was a lot more archaic than the country he had just left... The streets were made out of dirt and mud, covered with horses’ feces and God knows what else... There was a pungent smell of urine and rotting meat floating about that Vladus noticed even from a kilometer away...

The houses were standard wooden homes with sloped roofs preventing snow from pilling up to high and destroying the roof under it's weight. Farmlands and small farmer houses surrounded the town. This town counted around 5000 inhabitants, which even by those days’ standards was quite small...

Vladus thought to himself, there is no way three people 'like me' can survive on such a small population... So what were they? They simply couldn't be like him... Also, he was now only a kilometer away from the presence’s location and he/she still hadn't move in a way that showed they had noticed him...

Did it mean that he was the only one capable of sensing their presence? Maybe they couldn't sense him the way he could... Since the night was mostly over, Vladus decided to stay put in a nearby cave to wait for the next night before getting closer.

He needed to make sure to have enough hours of darkness ahead of him before making a move. Always be prepared to the unexpected.

[The night after]

Vladus woke up after a somewhat good night of sleep since the cave he had chosen wasn't too humid. He quickly ran to the top of the hill and analyzed the situation. The three presences still hadn't moved, neither did they show any sigh of knowing Vladus presence there.

So he quickly moved in and stopped just before entering the small town. The most imposing of the three presences immediately started moving in on his position, finally showing that he/she had sensed him coming.

Vladus slowed down and started walking in the middle of the deserted street as if he owned the place. The presence suddenly stopped on top of a three-floor building near Vladus’s position, visibly watching him. Vladus reaction was to turn and slowly walk toward a dark alley where they could talk in peace.

Immediately after Vladus entered the alley, the presence jumped down the roof and onto the other side of the dark alley facing Vladus.

[...]

«Vladus» How long to do intend to pretend as if didn't know you're there...

«Unknown man» ...... This is MY territory, allocated to me by the elder's council! I have the law on my side and if you don't want a stake in your heart you better walk the fuck away form here!

«Vladus» Council? Elders? Law? Stake in the heart?.... I have no clue what you are talking about but may I ask what you are? Do you perhaps drink blood as well?

«Unknown man» ........Da fuq? You don't know anything? You don't even know what we are?

«Vladus» What we areeee???? Said Vladus, his eyes filled with question marks.

«Unknown man» SIghhhhhh let me guess... An orphan?

«Vladus» ..... No.. I grew up with both my parents...

«Unknown man» Not those vulgar humans!!!! I am talking about your maker!!! Who is he? The one who turned you into a vampire?

«Vladus» Maker?.... Vampire???....

«Unknown man» You gotta be fucking kidding me! Your maker has broken who know how many of our laws by turning, then abandoning you... I though the council had resolved this matter long ago...

«Vladus» Turning?.....

«Unknown man» Sighhhhh I can tell, you're going to be a pain in the ass... I don't want you here but if I let a baby vampire going around without any education then I would be no better than your deadbeat maker... sighhhhh

«Vladus» ....???....

«Markus» My name is Markus, a 550 years old vampire. For a vampire, the older they are the stronger they get... Being as old as me is prideful and should deserve respect from babies like you... From now on, I will teach you all you need to know to live as a vampire... So you will call me teacher from now on. Once I finished teaching you everything I know, I want you the fuck out of my territories.

«Vladus» .......... Vladus simply remained silent.

«Markus» Sighhh look like I’ll need to teach you how to respect your elders as well... If you don't show respect to the elders you won't live long as a vampire.

«Vladus» You keep calling us vampires... What is a vampire?

«Markus» Creatures of the night. Blessed with unimaginable powers, balanced by many curses preventing us from taking over the world. We also need blood to survive like leaches...

I will keep teaching you all you need to know but let's do this somewhere else... Here who know how many ears are listening...

«Vladus» None... Except us.

«Markus» .... It may seem that way but we never know... Come, follow me... He then started walking toward a large mansion on the border of town.

Vladus was a bit puzzled, it was easy to sense the presence of anyone possibly listening in on them, but maybe there were more things he didn't know about... Or maybe his sensing abilities were simply far superior to theirs.

Whatever it was, it didn't matter. Vladus and Markus reached the house in no time and as they were about to enter the house, Vladus felt the two other presences (He now knew to be vampires) inside the mansion but simply kept quiet about it.

Why was he like 'MY territories' and stuff, yet had two other friends with him... And how could the three of them survive in such a small town? They entered and Markus immediately walked down the hallway into a living room filled with wooden furniture. Nothing luxurious here... Markus then sat on a chair and offered a similar chair to Vladus.

«Markus» How long have you been a vampire for ?

«Vladus» Uhhh.... No idea....

«Markus» I can't blame you... The first days are really confusing and it's hard to keep track of time... You must be around a few weeks old max from what you know about our kind...

«Vladus» ........

«Markus» So... First things you should know... If your heart gets destroyed, you're dead... If your head is severed, you're dead... If you are exposed to sunlight for to long, you're dead...

«Vladus» Da fuq? So weak... You mean if I rip your head off you're truly going to die?

Vlad wondered how this could be true since he couldn't die those ways.... He knew well since he had tried in the past... Other vampires seemed to be quite weak compared to him... They were like him, yet different... (Other vampires were poor imitation of Vladus).

«Markus» Huhuhu it may sound simple but just try... A 550 years old vampire is not easily surprised and/or overpowered... Ok next, if you turn a human into a vampire, the 'newborn' become your responsibility... You are obligated to teach him everything he may need to know to survive on his own without bringing too much attention to our species...

«Vladus» Hooo.. It's basically like having children??? Also... Why avoiding attention? Vladus was exited at the idea of being able to make himself some 'children'.

«Markus» Throughout the centuries, human have became quite good at hunting us... A few millenniums ago we almost went extinct... Those who survived these terrible times have formed the elder council and have ruled over us vampire since then. If we want to survive we need to live in the shadows, hiding our existence to humans...

«Vladus» .... Lame ... Thought Vladus to himself.

«Vladus» So... How do I make children?

«Markus» ....? Children? Sighhh I feel like I shouldn't teach you this stuff... Whatever... To turn a human into vampire you need to have him drink your blood, then give him a bite.

The virus in the blood and saliva of vampires are different and need to be combined to start the mutation process. The virus in the blood needs to be absorbed through the digestive system and the virus contained in the saliva need to be directly injected in the bloodstream.

After hearing this, Vladus had a vivid flashback of the time he got eaten alive back in the days... He remembered clearly biting at their ankles and everything else he could reach in his desperate attempt at fighting back. He had created vampires back then, and they had created more vampires later on...

This was the exact moment Vladus had stopped being alone, but he was unaware of all this for thousands of years. Markus also explained that a bond is created between the maker and his 'child' allowing the maker to always know where his kids are.

This explained why he could feel so many vampires all around the world since he basically was their ancestor... The father of all vampires. Markus spent hours explaining him everything. Vampires had gathered quite a bit of knowledge about themselves in those thousands of years.

Also, the more powerful the maker, the more powerful a vampire will start his life at. What determines a vampire’s strength is how powerful the maker is, how old the vampire is, and how much blood has been consumed in his lifetime.

He spoke about the 12 originals vampires as generation one, and their children to be generation two, etc. As a generation goes by, the purity of vampire is being lost and a vampire made by a 4th generation would be stronger than a 10th generation even if the later were older...

It's all about bloodline purity. When I asked about the originals 12 Markus simply said no one knew what had happened to them... Most think them dead, other thing they are hibernating somewhere... Vladus took the resolution to have a “little talk” with them if they happened to resurface one day.

Vladus learned that powerful/old vampires often developed weird abilities known only to them. (Like his ability to control nocturnal creatures). Among the ability owned by all vampires was something very interesting. Markus taught Vladus how to 'spellbind'. A very useful ability allowing vampire to 'hypnotize' humans to a certain degree.

The stronger the vampire, the more effective it is, also the weak minded are the easiest to manipulate with spellbinding. It is quite simple, you look a human in the eyes and give them an order... The more powerful you are and the more you believe your orders to be absolute, the more effective it will be.

This of course don't work on other vampires... Markus explained how you could ask a human to jump off a bridge, and that if you were strong enough and/or the target weak minded enough that they would simply jump without hesitation.

He also explained that most vampires had a human follower charge with taking care of his master during daytime... Also that a vampire should have a strong box to sleep in during the day since the darker is the place you sleep in, the less power is lost during the day.

Vladus didn't really understand this since he was quite all right with sunlight... As long as he avoided to be exposed to DIRECT sunlight... Reflective light wasn't affecting him that much... Maybe one of the props of being as old as he was... The stronger you are, the more you can resist sunlight...

Vladus couldn't help but notice that everything that was lethal to vampires was at most a hindrance to Vladus... Vampire die if exposed more than a minute to sunlight... Yet Vladus had spend a lot longer that that in direct sunlight and had only dried up as a result...

Then Markus spoke about the council more in details, the vampire laws and all the bullshit related to them that Vladus really couldn't care less about. If those elders wanted him to follow their rules, they would have to come in person and force him to... If they didn't end up dying first.

They talked and talked until Vladus curiosity was satisfied. They then started talking about their favorite, blood.

«Markus» ..... No no no... Babies blood is the purest and by far the best!

«Vladus» Hurfm.. Babies don't have any interesting knowledge or memories, and since they are mostly unaware of what's going on around them they lack the taste of terror I enjoy so much...

«Markus» Hahaha what would a baby vampire like you know anyway...

«Vladus» I eaten countless babies, children, women, men... Even animals...

«Markus» Animals? Markus showed a disgusted expression.

«Markus» I find weird the way you talk as if you were older than myself... hahaha

«Vladus» .... Never-mind ... What about vampire blood?

«Markus» Ho!.. Yes we all tried at least once mwehehe Vampire blood contain so much more power! It is highly concentrated blood, to powerful to be absorbed... Every-time a vampire try to drink another vampire’s blood they puke it all out immediately after. Vampire blood is simply to powerful even for the elders to drink...

«Vladus» Really???

«Markus» Huhhuhu wanna to try it out? Said Markus before cutting his wrist and presenting it to Vladus.

«Vladus» Sniff* sniff*

After smelling Markus blood, Vladus consciousness blacked out. Ha few seconds later he was woken up by Markus' scream telling him to stop. Without realizing it, Vladus had ripped Markus's arm and was sucking on the stomp like a big straw.

«Markus» STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!???

«Vladus» Sorry... I lost it for a minute there... This was simply to delicious.. Even better than human blood... He said while licking his fingers.

[...]

«Markus» ........? How come you're not sick? You should be puking your guts out by now....

«Vladus» It would be weird to puke out such delicious blood... I feel a lot more pow- Thump! Hurggg....

Vladus fell to his knees... Holding his head with both hands, the pain was familiar... The same pain he had felt back then when he started to transform into a vampire... What was happening?

«Markus» Ha! There you go... It took you a while but like I said... We can't drink from our own race... I hope you suffer a lot for ripping my arm off! Do you know how long this shit take to grow back?

«Vladus» HAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

Vladus eyes turned black, veins covering his face, Vladus was suffering like never before… Something was happening to his body... He could feel his body rapidly changing. Being the virus host, Vladus was not like the other vampires... He was the patient zero... The virus had mutated inside him the first time... And was now in the process of mutating once again... Slowly adapting his host body to a better source of food.

Vladus bottom jaw dislocated itself allowing him open his mouth wide enough to bite someone's face off like a snake. In the middle of his black eyes, a glowing iris appeared, giving off a very creepy red light that showed immense power.

Then in his monstrously wide opened mouth, two more sets of canines slowly grew. A set on his top jaw, and a set on his lower jaw. He was now a red glowing eyed, four fanged vampire. Markus stood there, incredulously watching the scene.

Vladus had evolved into a vampire adapted to feed upon other vampires. Quickly coming to the same conclusion, Markus broke one of the table legs and in a flash, stuck the improvised wooden stake into Vladus heart.

«Markus» I don,t know what the fuck you are, but we can't have a vampire capable of preying on us... That would be too much dangerous... Sorry pal.

They stood there, looking at each other for a few seconds... Five seconds later, Markus realized something was wrong... Vladus had a stake in his heart, yet he wasn't dying... Actually he hadn't even flinched after being staked...

«Markus» ....How come you won't die ??? What the fuck are you????????

«Vladus» Hahahahahahaha* Thank you for everything you taught me... teacher... Said Vladus while showing the creepiest four fanged grin Markus had ever seen.

As Markus was about to run away in panic, Vladus was already upon him, sinking his four fangs into Markus' neck, furiously draining him to the last drop. Once empty, Markus simply fell to the ground before disintegrating into ashes.

His eyes glowing brightly in the darkness of the living room, his mouth and chest covered in blood Vladus was ecstatic. He had just found the most powerful drug in the world. This was Vladus faith... Cursed to feed upon his own kind forever and ever and ever.

«Vladus» Now... Why are those two other weak vampires not reacting to the death of one of their own? They haven't moved at all since I arrived here.

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Many thanks to gcman01 for proofreading this chapter!

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