Anastasia - How to Vampire from Scratch

[Skibbles]

Chapter I: Lost Time
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Black waves pulled her out to sea, and no matter how much or how hard she paddled against the current it only brought her further from the shore of her home.

Home. She watched it for the last few minutes. The homestead with its cottage and its fields and its livestock and its little hand-built dock on the lake where they kept the fishing canoe upon where she found herself now. It was so small in the distance, and as the water had stilled and the breeze died it yet pulled away faster. Anastasia wondered if it was she that drifted away, or the shore.

Anastasia surrendered the fight, and sat in her canoe as it dragged ever away from land and into a velvet black landscape. One by one the stars winked out, the shore faded, the current ended, even the boat in which she saddled seemed to become misplaced until only she remained in the moon's light.

Then she awoke in the darkness of the earth.

Rather it was the corner of the root cellar it turned out, being noted first, as she gathered her wits while lying on the compacted earth. Anastasia could not remember how she got there. She felt confused, muddled, and frayed at both ends, but at least she knew where she was.

Anastasia climbed the creaking steps, threw open the cellar's door, and walked out into the night.

It was a pleasant, crisp evening, and a gentle gust swept through the tall grass and the trees with the calm roar of a million rusting leaves. The frogs and crickets were absent. Patchwork moonlight illuminated the forest floor, strobing as the canopy swept under the chaotic wind. The grass against the breeze rolled in white waves in the darkness.

Like a rippling black sea, she thought suddenly, as the hazy dream loomed fresh.

They kept the root cellar in the copse behind their cottage because the earth was cooler and more resistant to the weather. The trail out was well tread, short, easy to follow, and upon setting down the path she quickly realized she was barefoot. Anastasia set it to the back of her mind. It was a strange enough circumstance as it was.

What happened? The question strained her, and the answer pulled away to the edge of her memory's reach. It was there, she knew it, but it evaded and danced against her will to find it. Why can't I remember?

The answer greeted her, as she rounded the bend in the trail and out of the woods, or at least part of it.

Her home was ruined. Tiny wispy trails of smoke of a long dead fire lifted out of her collapsed and smoldering cottage. Broken furniture, scattered accoutrements, discarded pottery, and toppled farming equipment surrounded the area. Sheep wandered out of their pens lazily chewing on grass, greeting her with vague animal indifference to both her presence and the destruction around them.

The homestead had been built upon a gradual hillside near the lake. The fresh water, dark soil, and amicable seasonal weather had made it the perfect place to live out in the countryside. Being surrounded and cloaked by light vegetation made the little plot of land able only to be seen from the water or the other side of the lake. The extra security of the homestead's location had been Nicolas' idea.

Nicolas!

Anastasia's shock came at her sideways because shock had not seized her at all. Instead it slowly rolled to the fore of her thoughts as if it was a concern all along that saw fit not to rise unprompted. She had a husband and a son. Nicolas and Michael.

Why wasn't this the first concern? What wasn't there any concern? The curious thoughts probed at her while she explored and picked over the remains of her homestead. Everything she could find was burned or torn or both.

There was a battle here she thought, lifting a charred log that had been a doorframe out of the way of the entry to their cottage. She toured the house but what the fire didn't claim must have been ransacked by looters drawn by the smoke, or otherwise scattered about the property.

"I'll come back for you. I promise. I love you," he said over her shoulder.

She whirled around, but Nicolas was not there. Then the memory, no longer to be delayed, rushed forward.

Anastasia was exhausted and draped like dead weight in her husband's arms as he hurried her down a beaten path. She could hear a great commotion, a handful of singular voices raised in the challenge of battle, but it seemed hazy and distant compared to the paced breaths of hurry and controlled panic coming from Nicolas.

"What's happening?" her son Michael asked. The rapidly unfolding events were far in excess beyond the average experience at such a young age.

"We're getting out of here but I can't carry your mother all the way to the city."

He stopped, eased open the root cellar's wicker door, and clomped down the complaining steps. Nicolas gingerly laid her down, and propped her up against the corner.

"You're okay. You're okay," he lied to her, holding her face and brushing hair from her eyes. She remembered that part because she remembered she was not okay, but the details had smudged and fogged to the point where the entire ordeal had seemed an impossible recollection. Something was missing.

All she felt, as if it were the grandest moment of that night, was an overriding weariness. Anastasia wanted to reply, and she may have, but she could not recall what it was she said.

Nicolas dwelled with her longer than he should have. He didn't want to leave her there, but he had to and he did.

"I have to get Michael away from here, in case," he started, and broke off to shake himself free of the notion, "I'll come back for you. I promise. I love you."

Anastasia watched him leave up the tiny set of stairs, close the wicker door, and heard him speak to Michael. Their hurried departing footsteps were all she heard until she was alone in darkness, and that too claimed her as weariness ushered into into unconciousness.

Now she stood in the doorway of her disfigured homestead. How many hours has it been? She looked up, and noted the moon was full and bright but the night in the latter half and waning.

Turning towards the lakeside, she noticed a pair of lumps in the grass some thirty feet from the shore.

It didn't take long before they were easily recognizable as packed earth graves. Handmade wooden planks rose up from each mound emblazoned with a crudely carved gauntlet and eye she recognized as Helm's mark.

Not Nicolas and Michael, she concluded by the iconography alone, and besides both of these graves are full sized. So who are they?

Anastasia plopped down in the grass, consumed by the drifting memories and the peculiar circumstances, and looked out over the lake. Her home smouldered behind her, gravemarkers stood silent sentinel in front her, and she drew a deep breath of the cool evening air.

Then a sharp thought clawed at her. Had she not drawn a single breath until now or was that her imagination?

[Skibbles]

Chapter II: Big City Living
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For two days a proper quarry had eluded her, but they had subsisted well enough on the reserves that Nicolas' green thumb had served to make ample supply of. Now her prey had wandered no more than a hundred feet down by the creek, grazing with all the naivety that herbivores were common for.

Anastasia always had a knack for stalking, and she was a good shot too. Being an only child to a hunter had some advantages but it was already nearing twenty years since her father taught her how to get close, how to shoot, and most importantly how to kill clean. She missed him dearly, and prayed to his memory every time she took something home from the hunt.

From the dense undergrowth Anastasia lurked. With ponderous movements, careful not to betray her position, she drew an arrow to rest. The deer, an adult at least nearing four years of age, quietly drank from the chattering brook. Now and then it raised its head up to check around, but it did not see her.

She looked for a better spot, and re-positioned parallel to the creek in the shadow of a dense pine tree, where she could get clearer sight on the animal. Anastasia watched for a time. Quiet moments like this, when the air was crisp and still, and the morning birds still noisily greeted the sun's rise, never failed to give her a sense of the small wonders that passed every day just waiting to be appreciated.

It was also important not to let the small wonders get in the way of interrupting a hearty meal. Meat was good for a growing boy, and family was important.

Anastasia noiselessly lifted from the brush, arrow drawing aim in the same movement, and her bow whispered against the morning calm.

The pleasant memory abruptly fell, interrupted by heavy knocking at her door, and she sat up on the ratty cot that had been her lodging for the last six weeks - the cellar, the storage closet to be precise, of the local tavern aptly named 'Plum Street Tavern'.

Derren didn't wait for her voice to answer, and the door swung open moments later.

"Rise and shine hon. Light's castin' orange. Time for work." Derren was always to the point, and he never once forgot to rouse her when he said he would. The gruff man neared late middle age, with weathered skin, hacked short brown hair, and a shadow of greying stubble that somehow never needed attending. Anastasia had a feeling he'd lived more than enough lifetimes in just the one.

He casually leaned in the doorway, wiping down a tankard to help prepare for the evening's business, because he never wasted any time, and never laid about either. He owned the Plum Street Tavern. He also owned the little group that operated through the place.

'The Boys' he usually called them. There wasn't any official name for it as far as she could tell, but she knew they were a loose organization of the neighborhood's cuttpurses, thugs, and scum. They were the sort of characters she imagined frequented such an establishment. Now they were sort of a family, and family was important.

"You know I don't sleep," she grumbled, lifting away from the cot and throwing a plain tunic over her nightwear and wrestling it tight to her frame with a belt. Anastasia settled back to the cot to pull on some shoes, and bundle her hair up in a knot.

"Yeh yeh," he dismissed, spitting into the tankard and rubbing at it more to give it that 'like new' shine that the customers must really have appreciated, "real heartbreaker. Anyway. Most of the folk ain't workin' next few days so it's gonna be a busy night. Bring extra note and 'nother marker."

"I gotta bring up another barrel of brew, y'go on ahead," he added to that while watching her rise.

Anastasia pushed passed him and made it halfway up the stairs.

"Ana," he called up to her, still in view.

"What?"

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Nah hon I asked if you okay." His tone shifted, but it was enough. She knew what he was really asking.

"I'm fine." She changed her tone too.

"Alright alright! Gods below Ana I'm just askin' after ya." Defensive hands, rag in one and tankard in another, lifted to the air.

Work, as Derren called it, consisted of climbing into the rafters above the main hall and simply listening to the customer's conversations. He had a little spot neatly laid out for her. It was little more than a thick wood board that cradled across the rafters that she could lay on and concentrate.

Anastasia learned very early, after she woke up in the root cellar almost three months ago, that she could hear exceptionally well. She found that if she could focus she could sift through and pick out voices in a crowd even at a considerable distance. Her job was to simply write down anything she thought interesting: trade deals, dirty rumors, sordid facts, discussions about shipping manifests and times, anything and everything that might give The Boys a bit of an edge in their illegitimate business.

She must have been good at it too, because Derren rarely ever gave her another job, and that suited her fine. She didn't want to get involved with his dirty business, but she knew he had one. He had to. The man knew things and said things that normal people just don't know about or think about, and the rest of the Boys deferred to his input every single time.

Most of the customers babbled drunkenly about nothing important. In between the intoxicated arguments between fellows that weren't actually friends unless they were drunk, and the gamblers deluding themselves that the next draw of cards was their one big win, were real connections and stories. The latter two were her only source of entertainment.

The Plum Street Tavern publicly operated in the main hall, but a businessman like Derren diversified across many pursuits of which Anastasia didn't know about. There were passages in the walls, ladders and access points, all through the place. It was through these shoddy membranes that she lurked and squeezed to get around the building and stay out of public view during operating hours.

Shuffling along a side passage, then up a rope ladder, she finally crawled through the attic until reaching a trap door. She slid out onto the platform in the rafters Derren had laid out for her.

Anastasia could see Gregg, one of the Boys, down at the bar serving ale and taking money from a growing crowd. He was a fibrous man with sharp intelligent eyes, corded arms, dark oiled hair and a dagger for a goatee. She had a feeling he trusted her the least of the bunch from the constant glancing up into the darkness of the rafters, exactly where she lay, though she knew he couldn't see her. Maybe he thought she couldn't see him.

Gregg was also first to make very loud his objection when Derren sat everyone together for a vote, told them what she was, what he thought she could be useful for, and whether or not she should stay. They had a tie vote, but Derren broke it with his last vote in favor. They argued for hours that night until dawn must have broke. Derren never told her that particular story, but she heard it clear enough from the kitchen cupboard where he had her trapped near two months ago.

Of course once Derren found out exactly how well she could hear all future meetings between the seven men were held in a different language that she couldn't understand. Never had she heard anything like it.

Anastasia never learned exactly how she came to be trapped in the kitchen cupboard, and Derren refused to divulge it. All she recalled was the same dream she always had: drifting on a black ocean as the stars died and the shore fell away. She had come into focus after, with blood in her mouth and running down her chin, and drained rats on the floor. It was the first time she could hear his voice, muffled, on the other side of the door.

"Wanna make a deal w'cha," their relationship had began.

They talked for hours that night. It was the first time anyone had spoken to her for three weeks.

For three whole weeks she'd lived a patchwork nightmare of incoherent consciousness she could not understand. Blacking out and then waking up in a filthy hole smeared in blood and what she hoped had been animal hair. She would travel the wilderness towards the city for as long as she could, looking for Michael and Nicolas, before losing memory and finding herself again in a different hole in the ground somewhere else. Sometimes she'd even lose progress and find herself passing the same landmarks she already passed, later, when she was lucid enough to guide the direction of her travel.

What should have been about two days of travel along the open road had been an unending fit of deja vu as if she feverishly paddled a boat against a fast current only to discover that it wasn't water she sailed but air. Anastasia had relived the dream again and again: the shore pulled away, her home drifted apart, the stars fading one by one, then surrender. She learned to hate the dream.

Through their discussion they came to an agreement. Derren would help her find her family, and she would help him with his business. He would also help her learn about her condition.

"You tellin' me you don't know what's going on?" she could remember hearing the incredulous tone, and humor too, as he called through the pantry door before shaking the door's frame with a deep chested laugh.

"It's not funny!" she had screamed back, hurling a mason jar at the door. Fury and confusion had been all she'd known for too long.

Her response had prompted a long, sobering pause, and a slight shifting on the other side. Derren's voice returned sympathetic for the first time that night.

"...yeh, yer right. I'm sorry."

Then he told her what she was. He told her he didn't know everything about it, but that he 'knew enough to know.' Knowing enough to know, as it turned out later, was how Derren usually ended most discussions when questions started coming his way.

The night at the Plum Street Tavern had been drawing to a close, and Sarge was letting the last of the customers out. Letting out, in this case, being a euphemism for physically manhandling the drunkest patrons out the door with a strong arm and a bad temper.

'Sarge' was the loving nickname the rest of the Boys dubbed the man who had once been a local guard who was publicly whipped and discharged for drinking on the job. The drinking wouldn't have been such a big deal except that he had been caught throwing dice with half the Johnston gang, well known and wanted, in an alley behind a whorehouse. Sarge always claimed he didn't recognize them. Most thought he just didn't remember.

Now he had a new job with the Boys, and she was under no illusions that he was the most dangerous and ill tempered of the bunch. He had a powerful build, a wide jaw set with a few missing teeth, and a nose that twisted to the side from too many punches to the face.

Sarge was a bad drunk, but according to the rest of the Boys he'd been a legend with a sword, drunk or not, and the neighborhood seemed to know it. The Plum Street Tavern had its share of scuffles, but it was the most 'peaceful' spot in the quarter even when Sarge was drooling and unconscious in the corner. She wondered if anyone else noted that it was precisely when he was sleeping on the job that it was the most safe, as none of the patrons wanted to cause a large enough fuss to rouse him. Apparently, Derren warned her early on, he didn't take the war very well.

He was a jackass and a bully, but he was loyal to his family with the Boys and also the first one of the group to talk to her besides Derren. Not a damn thing in the world scared or worried the man, not even the monster they kept in the closet. On the second day she was there, just as night fell, he came to her door and bet she couldn't kick his Snuggybear. He was right.

Over the weeks he'd come around to her room in the supply closet in the cellar, when he could still walk mostly straight, and show her a few moves with a blade. They'd even spar time to time. Most of the Boys tolerated her but kept her at a distance. She felt that Sarge, on the other hand, had been the only one that accepted her albeit in his strange way.

Sarge watched her clamber off Derren's little spy landing and drop the last twenty feet to the floor of the main hall. The last of the customers having been escorted out for closing.

"Hear anything good Nibbler?" Sarge asked, glazed over and with a sway in his step. He drunk often enough not to slur most of the time.

Gods she hated that pet name, but he was the kind of brute who'd only do it more if she protested about it. Anastasia long learned to just deal with it, but luckily he was the only one who used it anyway.

"Couple things maybe. Johnston's crew looks like they're undercutting some of the local market's protection money," she held up a handful of her notes. Derren was right to bring extra script. It was chatty tonight.

"Guess I'm goin' around tomorrow remindin' the tenders why we charge extra."

"At least let the boss take a look."

"Whatever," he belched. "Fingers'r getting longer."

"What?"

"Fingers'r getting longer." He lifted his near-empty bottle towards her hand.

He was right. For a few weeks she'd noticed they'd gotten longer, and her nails pulled out into slightly curved hooks. She tried, a few times, to cut them back or even pull them out. Each time she watched them grow right back. She was changing more.

Four weeks ago Derren sat her down and told her that her hair had gone completely black, and her eyes became dark. She used to be blond, with hazel colored eyes.

He tried to show her in a mirror but she became uncontrollably furious and shattered it. She did not see a reflection. Instead it was a window directly into the dream she learned to hate: the stars died and the black ocean rolled, right there in the palm of Derren's hand, in a little three inch window he claimed was a mirror.

They went through four mirrors before Derren politely declined to fetch another.

If Sarge noticed her fingers she was sure everyone else had too, only she knew none of them had the gall to be so blatant about it like him.

Anastasia left him to finish his booze in the main hall. After a long night he usually fell asleep somewhere on the floor.

Derren was usually found sitting with Nathan in the parlor behind the bar after business closed. Nathan was one of the Boys as well, and the oldest of the bunch. He was a frail, greying man, with mottled skin, little round spectacles, and a slight tremble to his manner. Nathan was the bookkeeper, and tallying up the night's profits was never an activity that Derren postponed.

Nathan never once acknowledged her presence. He didn't speak to her, didn't look at her, and from the many conversations she could overheard he never even talked about her. The old man clearly wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. If anyone disliked her more than Gregg it was definitely the accountant.

It was so blatant that whenever she walked into the room he'd cut his words and simply scratch away at some accounts with a dancing quill. Derren always could tell it was her coming in by this fact alone.

"Any sweet ones for me tonight hon?" Derren, noticing Nathan's abrupt termination of conversation, twisted in his chair. He looked tired.

"Johnston's crew moving into the flat's market maybe. Overheard some of the tenders in the market talking about getting a better rate from them. Already told Sarge. He said he'd deal with it tomorrow."

Derren leafed through a few of her notes. He set them down in a pile of things to review later.

"Got somethin' for you this time."

He reached into a shirt pocket and drew out a torn and folded scrap of paper. Derren handed it to her between fingers.

Anastasia unfolded it. It was a hastily scratched address.

"It's too late to go out there. I'm not making a last minu-"

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

Derren rubbed his eyes, exhaustion from a late night, but she detected a strange concern in his manner of pause. Nathan was scratching away at his ledger still.

"Said I'd find y'man and your boy. Three whole quarters away, real far from my terri'try. Real bitch to find, expensive too, but them's the numbers. Man of my word."

[Skibbles]

The positive feedback from way more people than I expected has been so amazing. I wanted this chapter to be longer but it seemed more fitting to leave it where I landed.

Chapter III - The Danse Macabre
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Nicolas worked as a floor boss at the stockhouse on Emon Street. It was the largest warehouse in the quarter, positioned by the river cutting the city in half, and he'd landed a menial position there as a mover and loader on the river's dock. He'd worked hard at it, and by a stroke of luck the dock boss position opened up within a month and it went to him.

The previous boss disappeared. It was rumored he owed the wrong people too much money and ditched town, leaving his wife behind who yet grieved, or so he heard.

It was becoming late Autumn and the harvests were closing and the titanic amount of business revolving around imports and exports for grain and other goods meant everyone was working into the night to keep up with the flow. It was hard labor, even as the dock boss, but a life on the countryside was no easier. The higher position brought in enough money to put Michael into school and out of the brutal life that awaited a lot of the other children in the poor districts. They were able to move out of their tenement and secure a small home, a double decker squeezed into a long row of other houses exactly like it.

It had almost been a year since he went back to bury his wife, but the frequent nightmares and the living memories always felt like yesterday.

After Nicolas laid her down in the cellar he had taken Michael as far from the fighting as he could. First to a quiet roadside inn about two hours walk from their cottage, where he was well acquainted with the owning family, and they let him and Michael rest for the night free of charge. He sat awake downstairs by the hearth with the husband, a codgy rotund man with rosy cheeks and the best listening ear Nicolas would ever know, telling him what he'd seen and asking if he'd been going mad. They drank together until the early morning.

Once the sun crested full passed the morning, after the haze of a night's drinking and restless sleep had worn off, Nicolas borrowed a horse from the stable and made for the homestead. He found it easily enough, it looked just like he imagined it would, but he rode straight by, down the dirt footpath in the thicket, and to the root cellar he'd left Anastasia.

There he disembarked, and came just short of the thatch door buried in the ground.

He had to prepare himself. He was going to bury his wife today.

Then he stooped and pulled the door open, stepped in, and stopped. Nicolas thought he heard something.

"Hello?"

Nicolas was certain he heard something now. Scraping. Movement of some kind. He stepped down again. The wooden step protested.

"Ana?"

Something came at him from the darkness. It was a blur, like shadow on black, fast and angry. Something howled.

Nicolas stumbled and fell in panic, slid down a few steps, but scrambled back out of the cellar as fast as he could. Something grabbed his leg but he kicked and kicked and escaped. He knew whatever it was would be on him in seconds.

He crawled away in the grass and dirt, convinced of his own demise, until it settled on him that nothing was happening. He rolled to his back. The sun's light came at such a hard angle that anything from the earthen doorway inward was cast in blackness.

Nicolas recognized what he saw now. He'd seen it before on many nights in the distance, at the forest's edge, while smoking his pipe on their little porch before he was to go to bed. It was not an unusual sight to see out in the country, but it is the one image that he's never been able to shake off since that day.

Two eyes in the darkness, reflected light on silver discs like a nocturnal animal or simple feline, staring directly at him. They were motionless, soundless, and they didn't blink. For a while he became simply transfixed, and eventually even doubtful they were eyes to begin with and not a simple trick of the mind, but fear seeped into his every fiber. He couldn't approach again, and his voice seized.

He climbed to his feet, saddled up on his horse, and rode away. He couldn't look back.

Was he a coward? Maybe. He asked himself every night and still hadn't found the answer.

The events of that night had been fuzzy for him, for some weeks, but returned to him piece by piece over the months with a clarity that left him in little doubt that something strange and terrible happened.

They had forgotten that they were to have a friend over for supper.

Their friend arrived knocking on their door, and explained that it was the night they had planned. How could they forget? The courteous thing to do after their friend's long ride was of course to let him in. He was so well dressed and came with a basket of offerings for the table. It would have been rude to turn a friend away under such circumstances.

It was far too late to rouse Michael so the three of them gathered at the table. They exchanged pleasantries over some elven wine they traded for a basket of Nicolas' finest tomatoes earlier that year. They discussed the vintage and commented on its full taste. It was always good to have a friend over. It was so rare in the countryside.

Nicolas poured himself a second serving of wine, and another for Anastasia. She would probably be thirsty once their friend was done feasting on her. He could remember sharing a laugh with everyone as blood dribbled down her neckline. What a sight it was to see!

He remembered exploding with laughter when their front door buckled in, and four men with weapons and armor were all yelling and brandishing their holy icons. Nicolas enjoyed his wine and watched the five of them dance together, but Ana had become exhausted from all the fun and slid out of her chair. In all the festivities someone knocked over their oil lantern. Fire erupted along the trail of scattered fluid.

His son Michael was there too, in the doorway of his room, screaming. Even now Nicolas could still remember how he found it so strange that the boy didn't find the whole thing as entertaining as he.

Nicolas startled when one of the dancing warriors, thrown across the room, landed hard on the kitchen table in front of his seat. His face was sliced up, like a great cat has swiped it, and beyond recognition. The mangled warrior sighed his last breath then and there. Muted sound came rushing back to him at full force until all he could hear was yelling and fighting, pots shattering and furniture toppling. It was pandemonium.

Guided by panic as strangers battled through their home he bundled Anastasia up in his arms and shouted after Michael who followed.

They ran into the night.

The sun was falling at the docks, and he and the crew awaited one straggling boat to dock up. Once the leashes were thrown, and the workers pulled it up tight against the linen floats, Nicolas helped the lads out with the lifting so they'd all get home the faster.

Despite the longer hours as winter approached he always enjoyed the quiet walks home. Most folks were already locked up, the edges of their windows ablaze with the light of warm hearths, so he didn't have to shoulder through busy streets. It was a moment to think alone. Not always was that pleasant in and of itself, but it was more often than not.

Michael would already be asleep, so he fixed himself a simple meal of bread and cold porridge and sat alone at the table with his thoughts. He was reminded the winter's chill was coming early this year, by a cool gust from the window, so he moved to swing the panels shut.

There in the dark, no more than twenty feet from his window across the narrow cobble street, the pair of silver discs were looking directly at him.

Nicolas blinked, leaned forward as uncertainty swiftly swelled in his gut, but Michael's voice came from behind.

"Father?"

Michael was in the hallway rubbing his eyes sleepily.

"It's just me son. Back to bed now."

Michael shuffled off to his room, and Nicolas turned back to the window. The pair of silver discs were gone.