SIX | SOULLESS

That afternoon, Kathrena seemed even more determined than I was to avoid a lengthy discussion about our school day. Falmer was reclined in his seat in the kitchen again, though this time his feet were up on the orange table. He squinted at me as Kathrena barged past and slipped up the stairs; I just shook my head at him.

“She’s acting weird,” he said, tossing an apple back and forth between his hands.

We had no need nor desire to eat, but Aradia liked to keep the kitchen stocked with fresh food. She did this for two reasons: the first was an act of caution, in case any humans stumbled across our thriving household and discovered there to be no food inside; the other was far simpler. We had a number of human guests – donors, as some of the Clan chose to call them – and we wanted them to be well fed.

I shrugged. “Is she?”

I don’t know why I felt such a sudden loyalty to Kathrena. Falmer and I had always been far closer than Kathrena and I, but there was something about her secret-keeping that endeared me to her. She seemed happy – possibly for the first time in the last four years, and for who knows how long before that.

Falmer grinned, his wicked-sharp fangs sliding down from beneath his upper lip. “Perhaps she’s enlisted with the Guild of the Soul Stealers. Now that,” he said, punctuating his words with a fervent toss of his apple, “would make for some interesting gossip around here.”

“I suppose so,” I said, but my heart was not in it. My mind was already walking up the stairs, rounding the corner and sitting at my desk.

“Are you okay, Ellis?” He asked with a frown. He pulled his feet down from the table, and the apple stilled in his hands.

I shrugged again. “Fine. Just – school is exhausting. Even more so the second time around.”

He grinned at that. “If only you’d been turned just a few years later,” he sighed, but his eyes were teasing.

He was right, I supposed. Being turned at seventeen meant that I was an eternal teenager. This was considered a gift within the Dark Vampires, but to those of us who wished to fit in with humanity, and followed the path of the light, being turned at a younger age meant an immortal life of youth.

The Dark Vampires saw this as a blessing, as they saw youth as a sign of innocence. They believed that it was easier to hunt if one had the visage of purity masking their true intentions.

For the Light Vampires, however, adulthood was preferable. The age difference was less stark, less apparent, less obvious in the later years of life. One could be turned in their thirties, for instance, and upon arrival in a new town they could claim that they were in their late twenties. Even with no signs of aging, they could stay in one place for a little over a decade without arousing any suspicion.

A seventeen year old, however, could not claim to be twenty-seven when they had so clearly not aged in all of that time. That meant more movement, and more disruption – neither of which the Light Vampires particularly enjoyed.

“If only,” I said, and I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, I’ve got a lot of homework to do, so –“

“So what?” Falmer asked, pulling his legs down from the table. “It’s not like you to care about homework, El. Especially not homework you’ve done before. Just think – in five years, ten, fifteen, twenty, you’ll still be doing the same homework. Live a little,” he grinned.

I shuddered at the thought. “Maybe Kathrena’s got the right idea,” I laughed. “Maybe I should think about signing up to the Soul Stealers, too.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, waggling his eyebrows.

The Guild of the Soul Stealers were a band of rogue vampires, joined by their rejection of Clan life and a desire to take what few other vampires dared to take in its entirety. They were cast further into the night than even the Dark Vampires, for they too fed without honour. When taken unwilling, the magick of blood, which carried the soul, was more powerful – but it cast that which took it into darkness.

The Soul Stealers did not just take blood from unwilling victims, however. Most Dark Vampires left their victims alive, so as not to arouse too much suspicion. One victim claiming to have been attacked by a vampire held far less weight than a number of blood-drained bodies found, discarded like an empty picnic basket once a child had had their fill of sandwiches and lemonade.

They utilised fear to flavour their food, as they themselves put it – according to Aradia, anyway. She’d spun the web of their story for me one evening, her spindly fingers drawing dreadful patterns in the air as she’d explained their… tendencies. The Soul Stealers believed that the more fear a victim felt before their death, the more magick their blood held as it was transfused from the body of the living to the body of the undead. 

They were torturous and evil creatures – far more so than any other vampire. They lived under a ruse of chaos, but instilling such fear in the humans they so desperately sought after took cunning, forethought, and detailed planning.

They worshipped Haerlyne, who they believed was the God of Chaos, Theft, and Revenge. Aradia had told me of their great shrines, draped in ruby-red silk that flowed like blood from an open wound. They shrouded it with the bodies of their victims, giving them up in offering once their souls had been drawn from their bodies.

I’d shaken my head at her words as Aradia had spoken, and had bid her an early good night. I’d lain awake, however, long after the darkness had rolled into the sky. I’d imagined my parents’ bodies strewn across their gruesome altars, and I’d tried to cry.

Despite the likeness to humanity that being a Light Vampire afforded me, it seemed that the gifts of the path of the light were not endless. I’d been unable to shed so much as one tear, and that realisation had sent me further into my spiral. My duvet had torn between my newly strong fingernails, as I’d clenched my bed sheets and writhed beneath them in agony.

I sighed. I was unwilling to remember that night, and I had work to do. Not homework, though, as I’d told Falmer. I had research of my own to conduct.

I slipped up the stairs, following in Kathrena’s footsteps. I could hear her giggling from outside her bedroom door, and I stepped loudly around our hallway in the hopes that she’d realise she needed to lower the volume, lest she reveal her secret unintentionally.

I opened my door loudly, and let it slam behind me. I needed everyone to think that I was sulking about my day in my room. I let out a loud sigh for added dramatic effect, and then I slumped down in my desk chair and opened up my laptop.

I wasn’t really sure where to start. I knew that I wanted to look through the books in the library later, once everyone had filtered upstairs. I’d wait until after I’d fed – the humans were only staying with us for another day or two, and I wanted to make the most of being able to drink directly from the source.

If I waited until later, I would arouse far less suspicion. Falmer was right – it was unusual for me to be so eager to complete my homework. There were a good number of supernatural books downstairs, and I needed to find out all I could about werewolves.

I spun myself around on my chair as I waited for my laptop to load. To begin with, I’d not put much effort into decorating it. I’d not planned on staying with the Sunstone Clan for long, when Aradia and Ezrand had first taken me in. I’d been grateful, but fearful in equal parts. I was disgusted by my new body, my new urges.

I’d been a lot nicer as a human. I suppose I was spoilt by my parents, but not too much – enough to know that I was loved, but not enough that I started acting out. We’d always been close, and I attributed a lot of my popularity to them. I’d grown up with an abundance of self-confidence, and that had always attracted others to me.

Then I’d been turned into a vampire, and when I’d woken up my parents were gone.

My home screen had finally loaded, so I yanked my office chair to an abrupt halt. My background was a generic landscape photo of sun-drenched orange mountains, and it was not an image I’d chosen for myself. My desk itself was sparsely decorated. I had a few house plants that I’d picked out, wanting to bring the joy I felt in my little balcony garden into the bedroom itself.

Besides my plants, the room held little else of appeal to me. Aradia had offered to print and frame some photos of me with my family, but I’d declined. The memory of them was too painful, even now. If I needed to see them, or speak to them, I preferred to do so in private. I'd made a memorial of my own, out in the forest. It offered me more than any photo could.

I doubted that there would be much useful information online, but I decided that it was worth having a quick browse, anyway. My foot tapped against the carpeted floor as I scrolled through a myriad of useless search results, and then one caught my eye.

Vampires and Their Human Mates.

I opened the link into a new, untraceable tab. I doubted that Aradia had the time or inclination to monitor our search history, but I felt that it was best to err on the side of caution.

The memory of the golden-eyed boy sprung to mind, and for a moment I let my imagination wander freely. I’d never heard of a vampire’s nightmate being a human before, but I supposed it could work – if the vampire was strong enough to resist the urge to feed.

The website, however, proved to be as useless as the rest of the search results I’d trawled through. It was a documentation written by a human, which told of their love affair with a vampire. Although some of their facts lined up, most of it was nonsense. I sighed heavily, and closed the lid of my laptop.

I’d not realised how long I’d been scrolling for, but as I pushed myself back in my chair I noticed that the darkness was drawing in outside. Our eyesight was far better than that of a human, and as such I’d not needed to turn on a light.

I’d not noticed the lack of light, however. I felt myself snort, but I was detached from it. My canines were beginning to poke at my lower lip, and I stood sharply. I caught sight of myself in the mirror, and swallowed heavily; partly from disdain at my blazing eyes and extended fangs, but also partly from… hunger.

I turned away. It was time to feed.