10. He Who Does Not Learn from History
Burdened with the new memories that I drank out of Joachim, I didn't mind walking aimlessly until nightfall. Also, it made no difference to me to be naked. Anyway, with a pot belly and a dingus like a twisted peanut with an Afro wig, there wasn't much to feel bashful about.
It seemed simple enough to organize the memories in the blood. They were rather few, compared to the avalanche of reminiscence from Benjamin, which buried my own evocations. But I wasn't feeling antsy about the amount of them, but about the conclusions I was drawing from them.
First and foremost, I started having the awful suspicion that my intellect would never increase. I had already imagined that the spirit that lived besides and around my soul would impart me with extraordinary wisdom. I was even thinking ideas in my head with big words that I had never learnt before. But, when I reviewed the memories of the blood, I started understanding that my mental powers would never go beyond what they already were before the transformation. Joachim seemed like a mental giant compared to me, and Benjamin was some sort of dark god over both of us, especially after having consumed so many experiences along the blood of countless victims. But it wasn't as if they were more intelligent than me, no.
Simply, they knew more facts.
All the experiences throughout so many years filled them up like saddle bags to bursting, but they (and me, too) would never reflect any of the experiences that were collected. They would never improve on single bit the way they were.
I finally understood what the death of my body had meant… I would never change, nor would I ever have the chance to be better than before. As a matter of fact, according to the memories of the blood, I could only assume that I would become a worse and worse version of myself, day after day.
But that fit of self-pity was quickly gone, and I lost all interest in it when I remembered what I had learned. Joachim had been a vampire for a hundred years, and he had belonged to many monster's covens. And he had never met Benjamin.
In all the years that Joachim roamed the Earth, with every meeting of those assemblies of vampires, he discovered that there were always the same list of rules, as if they were some sort of boy scouts or kindergarten kids. The purpose of all those rules was to avoid catching the attention of the world of the living. The reason was simple: no matter how powerful the living dead thought they were, every day there were more and more living people, and less and less vampires.
So, the most important rules were these:
It is forbidden to make vampires out of children, because they are uncontrollable and wont to throw inconsolable tantrums, and in a matter of hours after being created they could create such a catastrophe that even the vampire leaders would be destroyed. It is forbidden to have two elder vampires in the same group, because sooner or later they will end up at each other's throats along with all their fledglings. It is forbidden to give any powers of the spirit to fledgling vampires, because only after the passage of many years they can learn to control them. And the most important rule for all vampires: It is absolutely forbidden to search for the Original Maker.
In my mind I could see the horrible results each time that someone would violate the rules. Although it seemed that the vampires had made up their rules in order to break them: almost every weekend there was some sort of crisis that ended up in great bonfires and lots of small parcels of ashes kept in leather pouches (and, in more modern times, even in plastic bags) as punishment.
But Joachim was very obedient, and he always did what was asked of him. For ten years after he had been turned into a vampire he was his maker's favorite pet. In the covens, the new vampires are the ones sent out to hunt for new victims, but are not allowed to drink the blood but only once a week. So the new vampires spend many years maddened by the thirst, but kept in check and obedient by the terror they feel of the elders, who are full of weird powers and unpredictable violence. After a while, the new vampires start learning to control the thirst a little bit, and that's when they begin to discover the powers of the spirit. But all the vampires in the world nowadays are very weak. It's as if all of them, even the most powerful elders, had received diluted blood for their transformation.
It was an easy mystery to solve, aided by Benjamin's memories. Of the first vampires that Benjamin created in ancient Egypt, almost none of them survived his experimentation with the spirit's fire. Afterward, when Benjamin began traveling throughout the world, he gradually started learning to control how much potency he transmitted to new vampires when he created them. After a few centuries of try-outs, hundreds of years before the Romans arrived to every corner of the ancient world, Benjamin had created vast legions of domesticated vampires, prey to the madness of the thirst, but without the solace of magical powers. For a thousand years, Benjamin ruled like a god over his creations.
But those few survivors from the first years of the thirst, gathered their own immortal armies slowly, and then, for a hundred and fifty years, there was open warfare between the first-born and the dark god.
Of course, Benjamin was the victor. Day after day, Benjamin searched far and wide for any sign of his creations, and made sure that each and every one of them ended up as a fistful of ashes. The malignant spirit could reanimate their wounded bodies and could heal almost any wound, but after the fire, there was no return. And there was no escape from it, either.
The world that the Romans inherited was innocent of monsters, except for one.
Sudden, like a bucket of cold water to the face, a new power awakened in my mind: Miles away I could sense a new presence. Joachim's memories informed me that he had been the leader of the coven at Kingsville, with dozens of fledglings, created from among the University students. But just yesterday one of the first-born had arrived on the town and had started decimating all of Joachim's followers. In fear, he had fled to Alice along with the last survivors of his group.
My new power told me with great precision where I would find this millennial first-born: Right on the dwelling of a lady, mother of two teenagers, who had been my whole world up to two days ago.
I ordered the spirit to fly with me to Kingsville, and in a matter of seconds, we had already crossed the distance of thirty miles…
Burdened with the new memories that I drank out of Joachim, I didn't mind walking aimlessly until nightfall. Also, it made no difference to me to be naked. Anyway, with a pot belly and a dingus like a twisted peanut with an Afro wig, there wasn't much to feel bashful about.
It seemed simple enough to organize the memories in the blood. They were rather few, compared to the avalanche of reminiscence from Benjamin, which buried my own evocations. But I wasn't feeling antsy about the amount of them, but about the conclusions I was drawing from them.
First and foremost, I started having the awful suspicion that my intellect would never increase. I had already imagined that the spirit that lived besides and around my soul would impart me with extraordinary wisdom. I was even thinking ideas in my head with big words that I had never learnt before. But, when I reviewed the memories of the blood, I started understanding that my mental powers would never go beyond what they already were before the transformation. Joachim seemed like a mental giant compared to me, and Benjamin was some sort of dark god over both of us, especially after having consumed so many experiences along the blood of countless victims. But it wasn't as if they were more intelligent than me, no.
Simply, they knew more facts.
All the experiences throughout so many years filled them up like saddle bags to bursting, but they (and me, too) would never reflect any of the experiences that were collected. They would never improve on single bit the way they were.
I finally understood what the death of my body had meant… I would never change, nor would I ever have the chance to be better than before. As a matter of fact, according to the memories of the blood, I could only assume that I would become a worse and worse version of myself, day after day.
But that fit of self-pity was quickly gone, and I lost all interest in it when I remembered what I had learned. Joachim had been a vampire for a hundred years, and he had belonged to many monster's covens. And he had never met Benjamin.
In all the years that Joachim roamed the Earth, with every meeting of those assemblies of vampires, he discovered that there were always the same list of rules, as if they were some sort of boy scouts or kindergarten kids. The purpose of all those rules was to avoid catching the attention of the world of the living. The reason was simple: no matter how powerful the living dead thought they were, every day there were more and more living people, and less and less vampires.
So, the most important rules were these:
It is forbidden to make vampires out of children, because they are uncontrollable and wont to throw inconsolable tantrums, and in a matter of hours after being created they could create such a catastrophe that even the vampire leaders would be destroyed. It is forbidden to have two elder vampires in the same group, because sooner or later they will end up at each other's throats along with all their fledglings. It is forbidden to give any powers of the spirit to fledgling vampires, because only after the passage of many years they can learn to control them. And the most important rule for all vampires: It is absolutely forbidden to search for the Original Maker.
In my mind I could see the horrible results each time that someone would violate the rules. Although it seemed that the vampires had made up their rules in order to break them: almost every weekend there was some sort of crisis that ended up in great bonfires and lots of small parcels of ashes kept in leather pouches (and, in more modern times, even in plastic bags) as punishment.
But Joachim was very obedient, and he always did what was asked of him. For ten years after he had been turned into a vampire he was his maker's favorite pet. In the covens, the new vampires are the ones sent out to hunt for new victims, but are not allowed to drink the blood but only once a week. So the new vampires spend many years maddened by the thirst, but kept in check and obedient by the terror they feel of the elders, who are full of weird powers and unpredictable violence. After a while, the new vampires start learning to control the thirst a little bit, and that's when they begin to discover the powers of the spirit. But all the vampires in the world nowadays are very weak. It's as if all of them, even the most powerful elders, had received diluted blood for their transformation.
It was an easy mystery to solve, aided by Benjamin's memories. Of the first vampires that Benjamin created in ancient Egypt, almost none of them survived his experimentation with the spirit's fire. Afterward, when Benjamin began traveling throughout the world, he gradually started learning to control how much potency he transmitted to new vampires when he created them. After a few centuries of try-outs, hundreds of years before the Romans arrived to every corner of the ancient world, Benjamin had created vast legions of domesticated vampires, prey to the madness of the thirst, but without the solace of magical powers. For a thousand years, Benjamin ruled like a god over his creations.
But those few survivors from the first years of the thirst, gathered their own immortal armies slowly, and then, for a hundred and fifty years, there was open warfare between the first-born and the dark god.
Of course, Benjamin was the victor. Day after day, Benjamin searched far and wide for any sign of his creations, and made sure that each and every one of them ended up as a fistful of ashes. The malignant spirit could reanimate their wounded bodies and could heal almost any wound, but after the fire, there was no return. And there was no escape from it, either.
The world that the Romans inherited was innocent of monsters, except for one.
Sudden, like a bucket of cold water to the face, a new power awakened in my mind: Miles away I could sense a new presence. Joachim's memories informed me that he had been the leader of the coven at Kingsville, with dozens of fledglings, created from among the University students. But just yesterday one of the first-born had arrived on the town and had started decimating all of Joachim's followers. In fear, he had fled to Alice along with the last survivors of his group.
My new power told me with great precision where I would find this millennial first-born: Right on the dwelling of a lady, mother of two teenagers, who had been my whole world up to two days ago.
I ordered the spirit to fly with me to Kingsville, and in a matter of seconds, we had already crossed the distance of thirty miles…
To Be Continued…
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