(The Last of the Divinities, 6,033 words, Genre: Supernatural/Horror)

200 A.D

I was still a fledgling when I first heard the rumours of divine blood. To myself and the other vampires of the community, it was the stuff of legend. They talked about it like the epitome of everything that was available to us in the world. There was no sweeter succour, no more powerful nourishment than that of the divine blood. The rumour was that there were humans that could talk to God, messengers of the heavens, and to feast upon them and have their blood pumping through your system, was to partake in their power.

Of course, I didn’t know much about it then. This was just the hearsay and rumours that spread through local gossip of the vampire community. My transition from human into a vampire was pretty regular. In my life as a human I had been a farm labourer in the local human residential community. I was turned, almost by accident, my sire didn’t care for me. He was simply recruiting more vampires into his ever increasing army of the undead.

The year was two hundred years after the death of Christ. Christianity was still in its formative stages and that’s where all these rumours of divine blood had begun circulating. I was nowhere near the Middle East of the planet, and the word that had reached our small community of vampires was still fresh to our ears. We were part of a community of vampires that decided to settle in the one area, rather than roam the Earth. We were based in what would come to be known as the Slovak Ore Mountains in Northern Hungary. We would feast on the local residents and travellers of the area. Then return to our refuge hidden within the mountains and forestry.

It is embedded within human culture that vampires are an evil race. Full of villains and degenerates, murderers and thieves. But in reality we’re more like the Great White Shark. We’re dangerous, but are we necessarily evil? It doesn’t help to think of us like that. We’re just higher up on the food chain. We feast mainly on humans because we look like them, we’re able to sense the differences between humans and vampires, so we usually blend in with them. And because we have so much in common, we sometimes live amongst them. If we were able to blend into the world of dolphins because we were similar in our appearance, then they’d probably be our primary prey instead. We don’t always prey on humans, it’s just the food that we’ve become used to over our evolution. And sometimes, when we see there is benefit to keep a human alive or turn them, then that’s what we do. The human world doesn’t recognize our existence for the most part, because, humans being humans, there would be mass panic and hysteria if they did. They would organize themselves in their masses to hunt us down, so we prefer to keep our existence secret. And humans are no easy prey, they are able to defend themselves and sometimes even hunt us. So don’t think vampires are evil. I like to think of it more as: that we provide a balance to nature that wouldn’t otherwise be there if we didn’t exist.

The community that I was living in it at that time had its own source of electricity. My job was to help prepare the generator, so that it could provide light to our small community built up in the mountains. It’s probably unfathomable to most people that a source of electricity existed in 200 A.D. But vampires are immortal and have all the time in the world to create new things. When you think that there was a pre-historic version of a battery made up from citric acid and clay pots in Ancient Egypt. The idea of an electricity source at that period of time wasn’t really that unbelievable after all. Especially for a vampire community running separate from the rest of the human race.

The generator was housed under the cover of a building, like a hall, standing aside from the rest of the village huts in the community. We required the shade for our continued existence, because if there is one thing true about vampires, it is that they’re nocturnal creatures. The hall was large. And so was the generator. The generator was running off of static electricity. I will attempt to describe it’s make-up here. The running of the machine was built off of a giant cloth material, twenty-five meters in length. At the end of the giant piece of fabric material was a steel bar. What we would do is twist the material and slowly, during the course of the night, the fabric material would untangle itself and force the steel bar to twist in circles in the process of untangling itself. There was enough momentum from the unwinding of the fabric material to create enough force and pressure that the steel bar would be able to twist and turn a series of circular cogs. These circular cogs, much like the gear of a wrist watch, would propel two discs that were lined up against one another. The surface of one which was coated in rubber. The other coated in carpet material. The one with carpet material had copper wires running behind it that acted as conductors for the static electricity that was created. The static electricity would be created and it would create an electrical current that we then ran into a series of lights that ran through the vampire village community. We had a prehistoric lighting system, unrecognizable from the light bulb of today, but still similar.

We didn’t have the technology or manpower back then to mine for fossil fuels. So this was really, the best that we could do. I worked within the vampire community taking on shifts of tangling the cloth during the daytime, which was then used at night to light up the village. I would work for three days in a row and then three days off. The three days off I would seek education into the history of the vampire race. A vast and rich history that is so complex, that to describe it here would be the same as recording the entire history of the human race. The vampire community worked as a community and some of the other vampires’ duties included hunting and preparing blood for the rest of the community of vampires. With human technology and surveillance being what it is today, it would be difficult to build something like that for vampires in contemporary times.

I was living in the mountain community for a period of twenty years. Twenty years worth of study and labouring, twenty years until that peaceful living was disturbed. I don’t know what happened exactly, but I knew it had to do with the generator. When the humans attacked our village, they were after the generator. Word had somehow spread about the miracle of electricity and the humans were eager to get their hands on this advanced technology.

They came during the daytime, while most of our forces and soldiers were asleep in their village styled huts. At the time I was working within the large hall, twisting the fabric in order to charge the generator, when the vampires on watch sounded the alarm to the rest of the village that they were under siege. It was disastrous what occurred from that point on.

The village huts and the inhabitances of the other vampires were all lit on fire. Human soldiers had identified the encampment as belonging to vampires and they knew how to deal with us. We were completely defenceless to what occurred. My fellow vampires were burning alive inside the contents of their homes, they dare not step outside and expose themselves to the sunlight outside, lest be exposed to a similar fate.

They had identified the location of the generator, the only reason why I still live to this day. There would have been minor resistance outside as vampires, on fire, flung themselves at their attackers. I was not witness to what occurred, I can only guess. I hid myself in an underground compartment beneath the generator. When night finally arrived, I was able to sneak past the guardsmen who had gained control of the hall where the generator was housed.

Before I left, I torched the hall, the generator went down in flames as the rest of the village had. The community of vampires that I had been a part of was no more. It seemed as if I was the sole survivor of the event.

From that point on I had to make my way out and into the human world. Blending in amongst them as I once had. Equipped only with the knowledge of what I had learned of our kind. It seemed that larger cities were the best place to occupy. Feasting on the humans in smaller towns or villages, the human population would become aware of missing people quicker than in the built up areas.

And that was it, my start as a vampire.

1000 A.D

I had survived the last eight hundred years by living in cities for no more than a decade. I felt that that was the best thing to do. And the education that I had received after I was turned was of great assistance to my survival.

I travelled extensively, living in one area for no more than a decade at a time. I saved up and invested in rare metals, my labouring skills came in handy as I would often find myself toiling the land and in different areas at night to earn myself a wage. I was blending in with the humans, living amongst them. Travelling from area to area and building myself up a small fortune over that time. Sometimes, though it was rare, I would run into other vampires. We would talk and trade stories. We are such a territorial creature that we never did spend that much time together. For the most part I was indulging in the social surroundings of other humans. My relationships were mainly female. Though after about a period of five hundred years, I grew bored of a heterosexual lifestyle and started to fuck men.

There was one relationship that was of keen note on these relations. And that was when I was living in one of France’s larger cities. The streets were polluted with beggars, but there was one man who developed the art of begging to a degree in which I had never seen before. He was an artist, a one of a kind, and I sought to bring him in and under my care. He was a mime artist and needed the support to purchase different make-up materials. The bizarre nature of that relationship led me to revealing my own nature as a vampire to him. For his natural life we were engaged in a homosexual relationship. It lasted for his own lifetime, which was about forty-six years. He developed cancer of the lower intestine and I stood beside him, administering a cocktail mix of different painkiller herbal remedies so that he could pass away as peacefully as he could. That man expanded my mind in so many ways. I came to realize that humans, although their life was limited. They had the pressure of all of my years of experience condensed into a single lifetime, to live life to its fullest extent in a condensed timeframe. I thank him for the journey that he took me on and the experiences we shared together.

At the turn of the millennium is when I found them. They were a group of vampires who masked themselves as Christian missionaries. The idea in human culture that we were afraid of Christian symbolism is something that still irritates me to this day. The fact is and the fact remains that why we leave the Christians alone is because they are and always have been a vehicle of change for the human civilization for benefit. The idea of Christian hope and charity is something that we, as vampires living amongst the human community, partake in. I don’t think that there is one vampire alive who hasn’t been assisted in some way by the charities that these people invest in. Their very existence helps us survive and for that, if we run into a Christian of high spiritual fortitude, we will most often leave them alone for the fact that their faith often breeds an innocence to our predatory nature that our kind have decided to show mercy to these types. And for that reason it is imbedded in Western culture that Christianity serves as a protection to these people.

The vampires, who made up the Christian missionaries at this point in time were simply a group of vampires who were testing the Christian faith. For those who were considered sinners of the Christian religion who didn’t submit to Christ’s forgiveness, they would feast upon. They saw themselves simply as enforcing Christ’s rule here on Earth. Their opinions and perspectives would be considered as somewhat distorted, but when you have an eternity to live, you often find yourself bored and lacking any goal or mission in your endless life. And for that reason, I joined in amongst their number.

The leader of this group was quite an enigmatic individual. He drew others towards him. He was advanced in years and because of this, his power and experience had a hold on all of the other vampires that he led. The group would travel to rural and estranged parts of the European continent. Providing aid and strength to Christian forces. There were other creatures in this world of a supernatural nature. Werewolves, succubae and other monsters. The Christian sect of vampires did business with all of them. Creating parlays and negotiating on behalf of the human forces. They were the only ones who looked kindly upon their prey.

I remember talking to their leader in closed quarters at one point. His name, Mefisto Amatopoles. I asked him why he was doing all of this and he revealed to me the true nature of his own identity. He was one of the twelve vampires who had fed upon Christ. The actual Jesus Christ. Not some antiquated notion of the figure that was recorded in the biblical texts. But the actual Christ.

He was one of twelve vampires that feasted upon his blood at night, drinking from his body while he was displayed up on the cross. He described it, the drinking of his blood, as an experience like none other. When he drank of his blood, he was filled with divine visions from the heavens. That is how he knew Christ was truly the son of God, or the son of a God. The experience had filled him with holy visions of another world. Messages flowed through his entire body at the slightest taste of that blood.

I had heard of it before. All of those years back. In the community in which I was taught of the world of vampires. The idea of divine blood. But to meet Mefisto and actually talk to a vampire who had feasted on divine blood was another thing entirely. He told me that was how he converted to Christianity. Because he knew that Christ was a true messenger of the heavens and not just some hoax or fraud. The experience had filled him with power and still emanated him with power to this day. And that was the true reason why the other vampires had chosen to follow him and pick him as their leader.

I listened to Mefisto and paid close attention to the experience as he described it. As the blood touched his lips, his mind had convulsed with powerful visions and he was taken to another plane. He had described it as the kingdom of heaven. There he had conversed with holy spirits who had directed him to follow Christ despite his supernatural nature. To become a part of Christ’s following and protect his followers. Being an advocate for his followers in the supernatural world. And that is what he had done.

From that point on, I became obsessed with the idea of divine blood. I saw how the other vampires who followed Mefisto all respected him. How they obeyed his orders willingly. This was no ordinary vampire that they were following, this was Mefisto Amatopoles, the vampire who had fed upon Christ. From that point on, I made it my desire to become like him. Like he was. A leader of the vampire race. But, how? I would have to find another of divine heritage and feed upon them myself.

I travelled with Mefisto and the Christian vampires for the next two hundred years. Working under his direction as a missionary and a warrior. We were followers of Christ and we would do battle with our own kind, human infidels and all sorts. Some of the other vampires despised us. Some of them joined us. It was a fine line that Mefisto was walking along in his following of divine heritage.

He saw the issue as that we should serve them. To act as their agents on Earth. I had other ideas about the matter. I never spoke to him directly about the matter, but I developed these ideas in my own mind. The idea that we should not serve, but we should enslave them and all those of divine heritage. To use their power and visions for the benefit of the vampire race.

After developing these ideas for some time. I approached Mefisto with my thoughts. I discussed with him, at length, a new vision. A vision where the vampires ruled the Church, where we would be the ones in power over Christ’s followers.

At the very prospect of this concept. Mefisto cast me out from his community. Calling the very idea an abomination. Some of the other vampires who had listened to me, decided to follow me in this idea, for they were upset with their subservient nature towards the Church.

I and the others were cast out, left to wander the Earth as our own splitting from what we once were.

1400 A.D

I was travelling around Western Europe during this period, mainly serving different armies and acting as a mercenary. I had to do that in order to survive. There were other vampires with me, together we formed our own small enclave, offering our services to the highest bidder. I was always in search of knowledge of those who possessed divine blood.

For the past two hundred years since we had split from Mefisto’s group, we had all been struggling to survive. But somehow we managed, every day was a struggle for our small group. We were the remnants of what we had once been and slowly we were tearing ourselves apart as arguments formed, tensions were running high. Then, as if the Gods themselves answered our prayers, I heard the news that was spreading throughout Europe. A young French maid who was receiving messages from God. A Christian woman, a Roman Catholic to be exact. And with that rumour, I knew what she was. An individual of divine blood.

I knew that we couldn’t join France or her side in the ongoing war. But if we served England and served the country well, then they might allow us to have our way with her. Or at least we would be on the side that would capture her. They called her the Maid of Orleans. And she believed that she was chosen by God to lead France in this ongoing conflict that was occurring through Europe.

And so the other vampires and I served England. Back then I wore chainmail with a cloth tunic covering the armour, I had a long sword at hand and the other vampires and I would launch covert operations at night against the French armies in a precursor to guerilla warfare. We would rape, we would pillage, we would do what we had to in order to gain the English armies favour.

I lost some good friends in those days, but also made some new ones. It was a battle, surrounding ourselves in shit and mud. No task was beyond our reach. We caused mayhem up and down the European coast. All in the name of bloody warfare. I remember one incident in which I broke a child’s arm just to prove a point to the local peasantry. Enforcing our rule onto the European continent as a superior force. The child screamed and screamed for days on end, I did not feast upon him. I just continued making an example of him to the local peasants that this is what would continue to occur if they joined the French armies in protest.

At points, because of the constant work I was doing, I would develop migraines. The fatigue was immense, but we all powered through. Continuing with our torturous ways and inflicting brutality up and down the coast. I took several bruises to the face in one riot, I barely escaped alive at others. It was all in the name of English rule. But the French forces were continually proving themselves a fierce opponent.

It all came to a head at the end. Eventually France entered into a truce with the English forces. In view of the public, the trial was politically motivated. Joan of Arc was being trialled for heresy by the crown. But what was occurring in the back rooms as the trial occurred was a fierce confrontation between the vampires and the English commanders. I was manoeuvring myself to take the Maid of Orleans and feast upon her and so were the other vampires. In the city streets as the trial was occurring I was figuring out a way so that I could feast upon her.

At one point the English forces were holding me down. Though they were humans, they were attempting to restrain me. They had cornered me in an alleyway, attempting to seize all the work that I had done over the years and make it their own. I couldn’t let them get away with it. And so I powered through them. Kicking one to the jaw and slicing another soldier with my withdrawn sword.

I was then able to find a peasant girl who was a look alike for Joan. Or similar enough. I broke through the guard that had imprisoned her, the trial had already taken place and they were waiting to put her to death. I knocked out the guards, rendering them unconscious momentarily. Then sent the peasant girl into the cell to take Joan’s place.

All of the other vampires were after this girl. They all wanted a taste of divine blood. They were fighting over her like a pack of rabid animals. I had to take her into the back alleyway, at the same time taking with me the peasant girl who acted as her replacement, delivering her into the cell and locking it behind me. I took the real Joan of Arc into the alleyway outside the prison.

She was screaming frantically, asking for help, where there was none to be found. I pivoted her body and then sunk my teeth into her neck. The experience of her blood was like none other that I had tasted before. I was filled with visions, as the blood pulsed down my throat, travelling down my gullet and devouring her as a whole. The blood was warm and thick, filled with electricity. Each drop was full of a power that I had never felt before. There was a flash of visions that entered my mind. Flashes of her life, each more disturbing than the last. Visions of war, of famine and destruction. Every part of her life coursed through my being. Her last words as I took her were, “Good, now you know who I am.”

She collapsed into me as a deflated mass. The life had been drained out of her. After the event, I felt empowered, I walked away from the alleyway, leaving her corpse there to be feasted on by the rats. She was nothing more than a lifeless corpse, a nobody… That’s what they would think when they discovered her body, while the doppelganger took upon themselves the crimes from which the real Joan of Arc had committed through her life.

For the next ten days I was running on a high. Everyone before me seemed so insignificant. I had finally achieved my goal. Then reality sets in, what was I to do next? After the initial ecstasy and power, what was I meant to do? I was now empowered with blood from the heavens, my senses heightened. The feelings were overwhelming. So what was I meant to do?

Everything that I had set out to achieve, I had achieved in that single moment. Four hundred years of roaming through Western Europe. Acting as a soldier, offering my services to the highest bidder. And now what? Did I simply drift away when my goal was achieved. The other vampires recognized me, of course, of course… They would follow me, yes, that much is true.

But I had to keep my focus and retain my power. To continue existing in this world I couldn’t get too pigheaded. If I became too arrogant. Surely an angry mob would take me down, and then what? What would I do then? I couldn’t exactly strut my success around town. I was a bit arrogant after the initial success, but did it show? Only on the inside. And inside my own mind, I pulled myself down. Restraining myself and any feeling of superiority I would feel towards the others. This was, after all, divine blood. To take part in any grand celebration would be a disaster.

And so instead I retired to the comfort of a small rural village in the middle of nowhere. Yes, some would suppose that it defeated the purpose of my own success. But for me, the isolation allowed me to focus in on my own mind. I had learned the art of meditation several centuries back. And so I sat in a small hut for the next twenty years. Not taking any action apart from bringing peace to my own mind. The very power of divine blood was that strong… And so I centered myself.

After twenty years of drinking blood from local peasants and hiding away their bodies. I decided to leave my surroundings and once again find the vampires who I had led through the war with the French. They had become confused and disoriented after my mysterious disappearance. But slowly I found them, one by one, and shared my experience. They were initially dumbfounded by what had occurred. And then I had to explain things to them very carefully.

I told them this, “At the peak of your power, you must hide away so that you can centre yourself. You must do this so your mind does not collapse. Otherwise, everything that I had worked so hard to achieve would have been for naught. I would have destroyed myself and all of those around me if it weren’t for some form of divine intervention.”

The other vampires who heard this all nodded their heads in silence as I once more took the lead over my own clan.

1900 A.D

At the turn of the century I took a blow to the head. I didn’t think that my mind would ever repair itself, I was lying in hospital for a series of six months before I could formulate a thought again. The whole series of events was traumatic. Vampires do go through injuries, but they repair themselves quickly. A loss of limb or otherwise is permanent, we don’t grow that back.

After I recovered, I spent time in the countryside. I was rich and powerful. I had a small army that had been following me ever since I feasted upon the Maid of Orleans. Her power had remained with me after all those years. The divinity had remained with me. During the last five hundred years I had fought a war with Mefisto and his followers, we were the ones who had claimed victory.

My estate was like a vineyard. I had human captives set up in my underground basement. They were being held captive against their will. I was still fair to the human population, the selection of my captives were mainly criminals. They were living blood banks and slowly, while living on my estate and drinking the blood of my captives I recovered.

It was a great time to be alive for a while. But then the Great War occurred, which all started with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The humans and their technology had evolved to such a point that I and the other vampires were unwilling to participate in the ongoing conflict. Instead, we sought shelter from the conflict in Eastern Europe. Leaving behind us the luxurious estate that we had built up to protect us. Whoever discovered what had been going on at the vineyard would have been horrified to discover the captives in the basement below.

One of the vampires whom I was leading at that period of time became discontent with my leadership. It wasn’t really open rebellion, but he would mock me in front of the other vampires. One night I took him into the backrooms and beat him senseless before sending him on his way out into the unknown world, unprotected and at a loss for company.

But after that. I had visions of that vampire as he continued to haunt my dreams. There was something about the event that I knew I should act on. And that is when I realized that I should have killed him instead of letting him free to wander the Earth and seek his own revenge at a later time.

I was growing bored and my power was waning. That was when I realized, with the latest advancements in human technology. That we could monitor the rest of the world. That we could finally track down all those of divine blood across the world. We could monitor them all, and like the humans had created factories with the industrial revolution, we could create a product line of divine blood.

We survived the Great War and then set about our work. After nineteen-eighteen and the end of the first world war there was a spiritual revival that occurred in Western Europe. Occult groups like the Golden Dawn and literary societies started appearing. It was almost a pagan revivalism, we were responsible for that. We were the instruments that were pushing individuals to new heights in their spiritual development. Allowing for us to inspect potential cases of what could be divine blood.

As time passed. Tensions heightened. There were more cases of a heightened state of madness that were occurring through the European continent. The debt and the problems that had occurred in Germany after the First World War created unprecedented circumstances. Hitler rose to power and that’s when the real problems began.

Lucky enough for us, that’s just what we needed. By that time we had found enough individuals with divine blood or traces of, that we were able to shepherd them into our protection. Medicine had evolved to that point to allow for blood transfusions and so instead of killing our potential victims and draining them dry, we would drain them slowly, then feed them again until they became healthy and their own blood supply replenished themselves so that we could once again take another ‘donation’.

We had successfully seized the source of divine blood, and were now making it accessible to all vampires. For a price, of course.

2000 A.D THE NEW MILLENIUM

We had seized the supply of human blood and we were now organizing the masses. We had given all of those of divine blood a place in the world as celebrity status. They were actors, writers, poets, musicians… They were all performers, leaders of the people who would entertain during the daytime. We allowed them to do whatever they wanted. Of course, there was one condition, they would have to give and donate their blood. We would bottle the blood and sell it to the vampires en masse.

There were small rebellions. Celebrities were killing themselves by drug overdoses and suicide when they came to realize the true nature of the world. It was a horrible and bleak world to be in. One in which they not only had to perform to the human population, but also had to act as a resource for the vampire population. And amongst the vampire population, I was the richest and most powerful.

I would indulge in different brands of my company’s own choice. The vintage Nicholson, a bottle of Downey or the newly discovered Watson. Sometimes I would even partake in a bottle of the lower class Bona… I don’t know why, it just had a particular tang to it that I enjoyed. They were all bottled products that contained the celebrities’ blood. And I was the producer of them all.

Then came the day when we were running out of products. I and the other vampires didn’t know what to do with ourselves. The entire world was in ruins, there was catastrophe after catastrophe. All of these political upheavals were destroying the very stability of the celebrity culture that I had helped to build. We were running out of divine blood and we were running out fast. Nobody knew what to do with themselves. People were panicking, everything around them was a disaster.

It all came to a head with the last one. The last of the divinities. I knew after this one, this last woman… There would be no one else to take their place. She was under my protection and all of the other vampires were going mad in an attempt to seize her and drink her blood. I didn’t know what to do. I was trapped in the confines of my mansion with every door blocked and locked. I didn’t allow entrance to anyone, not even that of my closest friends.

I sat in the lounge room of my mansion, blocked off from the rest of the world. Alone, with the last celebrity, the last individual of divine blood. We talked for a while. She shared her thoughts and I shared mine. Her visions were overwhelming her, she was talking about the end of the world. Without people of divine blood there to lead the masses, the world would simply fall apart and burn. She was suffering from it, all of these horrifying visions and she was screaming at it. That it was all my fault. That if I hadn’t of organized celebrity culture and created this modern world, everything would be fine. But now, it would all end, and pretty soon too by what she was saying.

At that point in time I decided to put her out of her suffering. I walked up towards her as she screamed. Screaming at me that it was all my fault. She had been a musician back in the day and her lungs were a powerful tool. As she was screaming at me, I seized her and dug my teeth in the left side of her neck. She fell into my arms as I drained her body, just like what we used to do before all of these modern productions began. She fell into my arms, losing consciousness and slowly fading from this world.

Afterwards I sat on my couch and let the visions take me. They were of the collapse and the end of the world. I could literally see skyscrapers falling down, cities burning, and the human population panicking and tearing itself apart at the seams.

And with the last of the divinities, I knew, that would be the end.