Elijah Conrath. March 3, 1651—October 13, 1875.
Finally, rest in peace, my brother.
Beneath the words is the shape of a raven.
I trace my fingers over the roughly carved letters. It’s a reverent motion. On hallowed ground.
This is how Henry escaped the night the town tried to kill him. He probably would have been killed if he hadn’t had this escape route. From here, he’d gone into town, maybe tried to save his brother, only to find him dead and hanging from a tree.
At some point, he’d carved this into the old and weathered wood.
I can feel him here. Henry. My father. At some point, he’d been here, too. Alone. Scared. Angry. Feeling like the world is unfair.
“I wish you were here with me,” I say quietly into the morning light.
THE NEXT WEEK IS ONE without news or pressure from the House. Which is a relief. It allows me to get myself together. If I’m going to conquer my fear of vampires, I need to understand everything about them. I grill Rath.
The Born love blood, but they are not ruled by uncontrollable bloodlust like the Bitten, who drink blood out of obsession. Without regular drinking, the Bitten will wither and age at a much faster rate. The Born don’t need more than one feeding a week. But every so often, they can snap in bloodlust.
They both eat normal food.
All vampires need sleep. The Bitten sleep just the same as humans, just usually during the day since their eyes cannot handle the light. The Born suffer from a form of “insomnia,” as Rath put it. A Born’s senses are extremely heightened. Their vision, their hearing, smell, touch, everything. As is their brain activity. So letting themselves relax enough to sleep is often difficult.
Vampires are predators, specifically nocturnal ones. I guess this is where the bat legend comes from. There’s a lot of speculation that the King used something from them in his creation. Vampires eyes are designed, like night creatures, to dilate fully so they can see better at night. And like a bat, their enhanced sense of sound helps them see at night. But their eyes stay dilated all the time, causing them extreme discomfort and pain in too much light.
Thus, they all prefer the night.
The Born are better than the Bitten in every way. They’re stronger, have better senses. Not to mention the immortal versus the aging problem. Bitten also suffer from the Debt.
When a human is bitten by a vampire and turned, a sire bond of sorts is formed. The newly Bitten feels a sense of loyalty toward the vampire who created them. They’ll do just about anything for them and never once question a request.
Eventually, the Debt wears off. The length of time is never consistent. Sometimes it’s only a month, sometimes it lasts for years.
The Bitten can create other Bitten vampires.
In the world, there are probably more Bitten than Born. It is easy to create more Bitten, so long as you have the right amount of self-control. But conception of the Born doesn’t happen very often.
Still, the Born rule over and dominate the Bitten because they are in control of themselves. They are clear minded. And they hold the power.
And the Bitten often hate the Born.
It’s something that fascinates me. I cannot help but feel sorry for the Bitten. I imagine many didn’t ask for this life. They’re changed, cursed in craving the blood of what they once were. They have to say goodbye to the sun. And then they are so often enslaved.
It sounds like a civil war waiting to happen to me.
The physiology of a vampire is not much different than a human’s. They bleed. Their hearts still beat. But they all have retractable fangs, much like a cat’s retractable claws. And they all produce that toxin that numbs, erases memory, and possibly turns.
I’m learning. This will be my life someday. And I must educate myself.
I stare at the painting of my father in the library, turning the key around my neck over and over.
I still haven’t discovered what it opens.
Henry Conrath’s eyes are dark and deep. They’re the kind of eyes that lock things away, but reflect the darkness of their contents. I’ve asked Rath many times how old he was, but his answers are always vague. From Jasmine’s story, though, I know he was at least two hundred years old. Probably older. Elijah was born in 1651, Henry could be far older or far younger.
I try to imagine someone breaking into the Estate. They crept through the halls of the house with a stake, maybe crossbow, in hand. They found my father that morning, trying to fall asleep. Henry should have felt safe in his own home in a town where everyone feared him.
But someone drove a stake through his heart. And to make it so much worse, they drug his body out into the sun to make his anguish all the more intense.
I just can’t bring myself to believe the story.