Julien Gregg's Days of Atlantis 9: The Vampire Saga
Days of Atlantis: The Vampire Saga
by [Julien Gregg](mailto:juilengregg85@gmail.com?subject=Days of Atlantis on Nifty)
This is the story of Darias and Ren, two gods born of a human queen. They were born the princes of Atlantis and their lives were nearly destroyed by the Olympian God Zeus. After a lifetime of rape, torture and violence, Darias attacks Zeus and is cursed by Apollo. He can never see the sun again and must hunt humanity for their blood. The vampire is created. Learning of his brother's plight, Ren attacks Zeus, thinking that he is the God who cursed his brother. Ren will be cursed by Artemis. He will be ruled by the moon and be forced to change into a beast who hunts humanity for their flesh. The Forsaken is created. This is their story. Many of the Greek and Egyptian Gods will be featured in this story. I did research, but I felt it was necessary for this story to change certain things about the Gods. This is only a story so please don't try to correct me. This is the beginning of the Vampire Saga. This is how it all began. So just enjoy the ride. This story contains scenes depicting violence, death, murder, torture, rape, homosexuality, heterosexuality, homosexual sex, heterosexual sex and has a strong violent and sexual theme. If it is not legal in your place of residence for you to read this type of material, or if you are offended by this type of material please leave the site now. For all others the chapter links are below.
This story is a work of fiction its characters do not exist outside the story. Any resemblance to living people or places is strictly coincidence. This story is Copyright © 2015 Julien Gregg. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This story contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Chapter 8
Darias walked through the palace and out into the night like a mortal man while he thought about what he'd done. Giovanni was one thing. Rafael was quite another. He'd saved him from mortal death, but what had he brought him into? He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't hear the stealthy footsteps behind him for a while. When he finally did he stopped. He turned and was riveted by what he saw. Before him stood Apollo and beside Apollo was a vision that Darias knew couldn't exist.
She was beautiful in every way. Her raven hair was untouched by the night breeze, her alabaster skin seemed to glow in the moonlight. Her eyes were a vision of preternatural beauty. They were blue like the eyes of her Greek father, but they had a light to them like electricity fed through the sea on a sunny day. Her lips were the color of blood, and as she smiled the fang teeth were visible. He was confused and astounded.
"Darias," said Apollo in his flippant way. "You said something about living through eternity alone. Well I decided to make a child of my own. Isn't she wondrous?"
Darias was a statue as he stared at her. This was not possible. The Fates had said that they couldn't make females. Yet here she stood in her undead body, the magic clearly working on the last of her human tissues, changing them into what she would become in the coming nights. This was not possible!
"Impossible," he breathed, looking at her like she was a vision sent to torture his mind.
"Yet here she stands," Apollo said with the laughter in his voice. "Thalia, say hello to Darias, The Atlantian Dark God of Blood."
"Hello, Darias," she said, smiling at him. Her voice was like bells on the night wind.
"Well, we have to be going, Darias," said Apollo. "The sun is rising soon, and I know Thalia is feeling its effects. Come, Thalia."
They walked away leaving Darias standing there locked in his statue state as he watched them go. He couldn't believe this. It had to be some trick. Apollo was playing with him. He had no time to go to The Fates to get them to tell him the truth of this. Apollo was right. The sun was rising. Already Darias could feel the effects on his blood. He could feel the pull of sleep that threatened to take him at any moment.
He flashed himself to the chamber at the top of his temple. He sat down on the stone slab that was his bed and wondered how he could get to the bottom of Apollo's game. He laid back and arranged his limbs as the sun's rays fully blanketed the earth. Sleep took him as he thought of making Apollo pay for this game.
"Good morning, Ren," said Elle when he flashed himself into her apartments. "And how are you this fine morning?"
Never was sitting at the small table in her sitting room. She'd placed a plate of eggs and ham in front of him with bread and cheese. There was milk in a golden pitcher and wine in another. She was trying to teach the child to use a fork. He appeared to be about five Sundays past his first name day which was only yesterday. He'd grown again even after they insisted that his growing had stopped.
"Did Darias come to you last night?" Ren asked as he sat at the small table next to the boy.
"No he didn't," she said, pouring him a glass of wine. "Breakfast?"
"No, thank you," he said, taking the goblet of wine. "This will be fine."
"I hear that Darias was in Phalon's apartments last night," she said. "Now there are strange men in the apartment and Phalon has asked King Pias for another set of apartments away from Rafael and barred the door for anyone but servants who are only allowed into the living room."
He looked at her for a long moment when she stopped talking. There was a not of accusation in her voice. Ren knew that Darias had promised to change her when the baby was born, but why would she be angry about Rafael? It made no sense to him. Darias had done it to save Rafael from dying.
"Rafael was dying," he said softly. "He'd not have lasted to the morning. Darias did it save him."
"Noble," she said. Then she sighed. "I suppose I'm angry about nothing. He will come back to me when there is time. I'm carrying his child after all."
"What is it that you think you will become, Elle?" he asked. "When you give birth to your child you expect Darias to change you, yes? What will you be when the change is complete?"
"Why I'll be like my husband," she said as if that was plain and obvious.
"Yes, but what exactly do you think your husband is?" he asked. "You heard the words of the prophecy spoken by The Fates, Elle. You know what he is."
"What he is, Ren, is my husband," she said heatedly. "I will be as close to what he is so that we can share eternity together. Our child will grow up with both parents as it is supposed to be."
"Supposed to be," he sighed. "Elle, you will be an undead immortal who drinks the blood of the living to survive. That is the mother your child will grow up with."
"Such things you say to me," she said in a cold voice. "You say these things in front of Never, who understands everything we say. You shame yourself, Ren. I bid you leave my apartments and do not return until your tongue has learned civility."
He wandered the palace for most of the morning. He nearly walked right into Andra's mother and father but turned to avoid them before the actual catastrophe happened. Then he was off in search of Phalon's new apartments. He wanted to know what Phalon had to say about the change in his son. Sure he'd been the one to put the idea in his head, and he wasn't going to try to make him regret it. He knew what his son would become. He knew what Darias was. This wasn't about making him see the light. This was about being with the man who he'd wished as a boy had been his father.
"Ah, Ren," said Phalon when Ren nearly walked right into him. Seemed that was the way his day was going to go, he decided as he smiled.
"Phalon," he said. "I was looking for you."
"Well you've found me, Lad," said Phalon with a smile. "Come. My new apartments are just here." He pointed the way to the third door. Ren was amazed to realize that King Pias's apartments were just across the hall and four doors down.
"Isn't that the King's chambers?" he asked, pointing to the door.
"Why yes," said Phalon. "King Pias was happy to move me closer. I'm to be one of his advisors now, Lad. Come inside. I have wine."
"Yes, of course," Ren said, following him inside.
The living room was a vision. The seating bench was covered with dark silk and padded with what Ren assumed was fowl feathers. There were two chairs with high backs also padded and covered with dark silk. The tables were dark wood like those in the King's chambers. A golden tray with a pitcher and four goblets rested on the long table in front of the bench.
The floor to ceiling windows were stained with pictures of knights and a crown. They were draped with that same dark silk from the ceiling to the floor. The chandelier had upwards of fifty candles all lit and burning bright. The lamp stands were all lit, giving the room a cheerful glow.
The walls were covered with damask in rows of crowns and swords. All of Phalon's things were in the apartment. His shield and swords were on the wall with the crest of his family engraved on the face of the shield with its lion and scepter. The books he'd used to teach them when they were boys were all lined up on the shelves beside the fireplace. The small things the boys had made for him over the years were lined up on the mantle. That touched Ren that Phalon had kept the small, crude statues the boys had made him over the years.
Ren so missed the electric lights from Atlantis and was amazed by just how far advanced Atlantis had been. The books, for example were like nothing found in Greece or any other country in the world. No Greek aside from Phalon and Rafael could read the Atlantian script in the bound books. No other country had bound books. There were so many things that Atlantis had that no other country in the world had ever dreamed of. The portraits that were painted with fine feathers were unlike any in the world. Phalon had them on the walls. There were portraits of Darias and Ren seated on the bench in the Rose Garden of the palace in Atlantis. There were portraits of Rafael and Darias sitting at the table in Phalon's apartments, playing stones. There were so many portraits of the three of them. It warmed Ren's heart to see them. There was love for him and his brother in this room. It reminded Ren that during a time in their lives when what they knew was pain and shame there was a shining light of love in Phalon's home for them. It was what made them able to endure and go on.
Memories of Phalon's kind words and soothing hands washed over Ren as they seated themselves on the bench and Phalon poured wine into goblets. He remembered the hugs and encouraging words after a night of terror and pain. He remembered the joy the man had felt at each of their accomplishments. He remembered the words of encouragement that he spoke to them separately and the respectful distance he'd given them when he'd taken them to the Temple of the Gods. He'd had no idea what they'd said to them. He only knew, like they did that the Gods had abandoned them. He'd been there for them when they cried out from the pain of their stations. He'd been there for them when they'd needed a father to talk to and found only silence in Poseidon's temple. He loved this man like no other, and he wouldn't sit here and try to make him see that he'd done the wrong thing for his son. Not when he loved this man so much and had been loved so by him in a time of terrible darkness in his life.
"Thank you, Phalon," he said, smiling at the man and trying to convey the love he felt in that smile.
"'Tis nothing, Lad," replied Phalon. "I enjoy sharing wine and a nice day with those that I love."
"We love you so much, Phalon," he said. "We love you for who you are and who you were when our lives were in such darkness. Do you know that if not for you we'd have caved?"
"No, Lad," Phalon said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You and your brother would never have caved. If there was anything that I did to lighten the load cast upon your shoulders then I am happy and have achieved a small amount of greatness in my life. Understand, Lad, I did it all because I loved you so."
Ren was moved to an emotion he was no longer comfortable expressing. Phalon was silent and just left his hand on his shoulder while Ren possessed the raw emotion that went through him. He felt such love for this man and had no idea how to show it. He thought that if he didn't find a way to deal with the emotion he felt it would explode from him in a way that would shame both him and Phalon. Suddenly he knew he had to say something.
"Phalon, you will have a long life, free of the pains and problems of old age," he said, fully aware that his God voice was speaking. "You will find the love that makes your soul sing, and you will know that you are loved all of the days of your life by your son and the two young princes that you tried so hard to keep sane in a time of madness."
Phalon put his other hand to his forehead and shivered. Ren was afraid that he'd hurt him, but Phalon slowly sat back up and looked at him. He smiled radiantly at him and then shook his head. Ren waited for what he would say. He knew what he'd done to him. He knew there would be ramifications to deal with but he'd be damned if he'd undo it.
"Ren," Phalon said softly. "You honor me in a way that is too much. I loved you because you were wonderful boys who loved my son so completely."
"You were the father we wished we'd had to begin with, Phalon," he said.
For the next two hours they talked back and forth about how they felt for one another. Phalon didn't even know what Ren had done. He'd made him immortal! It was the only way to give him what Ren believed was fitting. By the time a servant brought in a lunch of stewed meat with tomatoes and cheese they were done talking about love. Now they were talking about Rafael.
"It's only been one night," Phalon was saying. "I was sent away shortly after Darias brought those men to tend him. I'd swear I know them from somewhere."
"I wouldn't worry about those men too much, Phalon," he said. He knew where those men had come from. What he didn't know was what the King thought about Darias taking men from the cells below the palace to tend a sleeping immortal and to ultimately become his food when he woke.
"Darias said as long as ten nights," Phalon said. "I will be of good cheer. My son will rise in ten nights and then he will live forever."
Ren thought that forever was relative. He had no idea how long Darias's children would live. Darias and Ren were both eternal. Immortality wasn't theirs anymore. There was no way short of a God Killer to end them. Their mother had told them both that the last of the God Killers had been destroyed by Set.
"Understand that Rafael will be greatly changed, Phalon," he said slowly. "He won't be the same."
"Oh, I know," Phalon said with a smile. "Finally he will be healthy."
He wouldn't scare the man. No he wouldn't do that after all that had been said between them. This was another thing to lay at Zeus's feet. Apollo may have spun the curse that did all of this, but it was Zeus who started it all. He started it with his hatred for a pair of infants that hadn't even been given the chance to be anything. He killed it by putting hatred in Savetor's heart and getting another to put lust in the hearts of others toward two young boys and ultimately trying to kill them in a senseless war. Then he'd done the unthinkable. He'd destroyed their home, killing the people and causing the survivors to be changed into Sea People. Yes, this was all Zeus's fault.
By the time he left Phalon to seek out Darias as the sun was beginning to set he was more sure than he'd ever been that Zeus had to die. He went to his own apartments and found Isis, Poseidon and Ra sitting in his living room waiting for him. He sighed when he closed his door and turned to face them.
"You have done the unthinkable, my son," said Isis. "Immortality is not yours to bestow."
"Phalon is a great man, Mother," he said. "He loved us when no one else did. He was there when none of you were."
He wanted the words back as he said them. It was like a slap in her face, and that was not what he'd intended. He was only trying to make her understand why he'd done what he'd done for Phalon. He hadn't wanted to jab her in the heart at the same time. All three of them looked as if he'd struck them. He sighed and sat down, willing a goblet of wine to appear in his hand.
"I see your powers are growing," said Poseidon.
"Yes," he said, taking a drink. "I discover new ones all the time. Did you know I nearly ended Apollo two nights ago? I hit him with a beam of what looked like sunlight from the palm of my hand. I was angry at him for his treatment of Darias and I nearly killed him."
"You didn't nearly kill him," said Isis. "Apollo would have been fine with a little blood and much rest. You cannot kill either Darias or Apollo."
"Well that's good to know," he said. "Darias has been leery of me since it happened. If you could, please let him know that I am no threat to him."
"We must speak about Phalon, my son," said Poseidon. "You bestowed immortality upon him. I understand why you did it, but after everything I have already done for the man. This was too far."
"What you have done for the man?" Ren asked, looking at his father. "What have you done for the man?"
"I put his name in Pias's head for the position of advisor after I made it known that his current advisor was taking his gold," Poseidon replied. "I eased the aches in his joints that time had placed there. I gave him his apartments and left him living in comfort with his Atlantian treasures that had been lost when the nation sank to the bottom of the sea."
"I thank you for what you've done for him, Father," he said. "But I will not take back what I did. Phalon loved us when everyone else only lusted over us. He was there when we cried and needed human contact that wasn't tainted by Zeus and his insanity. For that and so much more I'm proud of what I've done for him. I will not have it undone."
"It cannot be undone, my son," said Isis. "You made it a fact by speaking it. We cannot undo it."
"Then I have nothing to worry about," said Ren. "Rafael will likely live forever now that Darias has changed him. Darias and I are eternal and now Phalon will be immortal. I think it's only right."
"You must no go about bestowing immortality on mortal men and women," said Isis.
"I won't go about bestowing immortality on anyone else," he said. "Phalon was a one time thing, Mother. I assure you."
"And what of the men you will change once you are cursed, my son?" Poseidon asked.
"They will not be immortal men," he said in his God Voice. "They will pass the gene down through their family lines to all male children born of their semen. That is the only immortality I will allow them."
"You're doing it again, my son," said Isis.
"I am done with this discussion, Mother," he said. "Blame Zeus for this. All of this is his fault. Everything that has happened in our lives is Zeus's fault."
"He's right, Mother," said Ra. "Zeus is to be blamed for all that is happening. If he had not hated them none of this would be taking place."
Darias flashed into the living room, making them all look away from the blinding light. He was in a rage, and Ren had no idea why. Surely it wasn't Phalon. He'd thought that Darias would back him up on his decision to make him immortal. No, it wasn't Phalon, but something was wrong.
"Apollo has made a female vampire," he said, hatred dripping from his voice.
"My son," Poseidon said, standing. "What about this has you like this?"
"The Fates told me and Duku that my kind cannot mate with or change females," he said. "They told us that we would walk the world without the love of females and that if we wanted that love we would be forced to find it with each other."
"I'll kill them," Ra said lowly but forcefully.
"Quiet, my son," said Isis. "The Fates did not make this so by simply saying it to Darias and Duku. They report the truth of things. They don't have the power of a God."
"But why can he do this if we cannot?" he asked. "His curse was split evenly. If we cannot do a thing he should not be able to do it either."
"This is the truth of the matter," said Poseidon. "I was there and witnessed this curse. It was split evenly. Something else is at play here."
"Zeus," said Ren. "It has to be Zeus."
"Go to The Fates, my sons," said Isis. "You know you cannot go to Olympus. Go to The Fates and hear the truth with your own ears."
They flashed out of the room immediately and Isis turned to look at Poseidon. They knew that this was bad. They knew that this was far worse than Ren's bestowing immortality on his former teacher. They knew that this would likely be the final act that would send their son to his curse.
* * *
The cave was dark. Darias and Ren made their way through the cave with a small ball of light that rested in Ren's palm. Darias was still too afraid of that tiny ball of sunlight to form his own. He knew that it would burn his flesh. Ren had told him that it couldn't actually kill him or Apollo. It would burn and be agony for a time, but nothing could kill them. They were Gods after all.
They found the chamber of The Fates and were confused by what they found. Darias flung light toward the candles, ignoring the searing pain in his palm as he did so. The candles blazed to show them a burned chamber. The Fates weren't there. The stone bowl of silver liquid had been tipped over. It was empty now. They looked at each other in confusion. What had happened here?
"Zeus happened here," said the voice of Aphrodite as she appeared with her daughters in the center of the chamber. "He came here to kill my daughters because of what they will say to you this night. He knows that Ren will come for him at the end of this. He knows that what he has done will finally push Ren to the brink."
"What has he done?" Darias demanded. To Hades with Zeus for all he cared. He wanted to know.
"He proclaimed that you and your kind would be without women, Darias," she said. "You didn't need The Fates to hear these words. You had only to ask any of us that were there that night. Poseidon couldn't tell you because he flashed out of there as soon as you did. It was after that, when Zeus was back on his feet. He said the words in his God Voice, making them truth. No member of your line will ever know the love of a woman without impregnating her with another halfling offspring. She will die giving birth to the child. It will rob her of her life and live nearly an immortal life. Any female you try to change will die. He said these words about you, Darias, not Apollo."
"He said these words to further inflict torture on my brother," Ren said hatefully. "Then what? Why did he come here and try to kill your daughters?"
"Because he knows that they will tell you what I have just told you," she said. "He tried to kill them to stop them from telling you this. Ren, please do not attack Zeus. This has got to stop."
"This will stop when Zeus is dead at my feet," he spat and flashed himself out of the cavern.
Darias stood there watching the spot where his brother had stood beside him. He'd gone for Zeus. It was the only answer. He looked at his aunt and cousins in silence. There was nothing to be done about it. The Fates had told them both that this would happen.
"You know that he will be cursed for this, Darias," said Aphrodite.
"Yes, I know," he said. "Yet I cannot keep him from this. It is destined to be."
"Nothing is destined, Darias," she said. "Zeus deserves his death. I'll grant you that. We stood back and let you do it because we believed that he deserved your wrath. We didn't stop the curse because we couldn't. You blame us for that, but it was out of our hands. You won't listen to this, but I am telling you that Ren will be cursed and no one will be able to stop it."
"Well I will stop Zeus from using his voice to make my brother's curse worse than it has to be," he said, "Mark me, Aunt, if you come and try to stop me I will do to you what I plan to do to Zeus."
He flashed himself out of the cavern and directly to Olympus. What he found when he got there was exactly what he expected. Ren was screaming in his God Voice directly at Zeus. Artemis was preparing to curse his brother. Darias was ready for all of that when suddenly all of the Gods looked directly at him. He turned to find Apollo standing beside him.
"You have no right to be here!" cried Zeus. "You both have to leave this place. I command it."
"You command nothing before the Gods of Atlantis," Ren said. "You are the cause of all of the misery in our lives, Zeus. You will pay for that today. You need only to look at me!"
He rose his hands and the same thing Darias had done began. Zeus's own lightning shot from his hands to Zeus. The smell was nearly unbearable. He watched it happening and tried to move to prevent Artemis, but something was keeping him in place. He finally understood what Aphrodite had said to him. They could not interfere. Artemis stepped forward and so did a male God that Darias didn't know. The curse shot from her hands in a burst of red light. It touched his brother and then seemed to rebound and struck Artemis. She convulsed and the air seemed to ripple. The wolf burst from within her, shattering her human form and throwing chunks of flesh all over the temple. She shook her brilliant fur until all of it was gone. Then she howled at nothing as they turned to look at Ren.
Ren was shaking violently. His eyes took on a yellow light and he threw his head back and screamed. His body seemed to ripple and then he stood up straight again. He looked at them as Zeus got to his feet and started to raise his hands. Darias stepped forward then. He rose his own hands and spoke in his God Voice.
"You have meddled in our lives for the last time, Zeus," he said, making the man stop and turn to look at him. Suddenly all eyes were on Darias as he spoke. "You will meddle no more. I strip you of your God Power and make you a human man, but I will not take your immortality. No, you will walk the earth along with our children to see the destruction that your hatred had caused. You are no longer a God of Olympus. Let the others hear me. If you come near either of us again I will do this to all of you."
"You all have to leave Olympus," said Athena. "You cannot be here!"
"This is my home," said Apollo. "This is my sister's home. None of you will take that from us."
"Come Ren," Darias said, extending his hand to his brother. "Let us go where there are no Gods who are beneath us."
They flashed back to the palace grounds in silence. Then they beheld the man who was Zeus. He was stumbling and talking to himself. They looked at each other and Ren began to laugh. He pointed at him and began to speak in his God Voice, making Darias be silent.
"Behold," he said pointing at Zeus. "The King of the Olympian Gods. You will be an immortal man that nothing can kill. You will be mocked and be made the joke of human existence everywhere you go. You life will be misery and pain just as you tried to make sure our lives would be. Go, lowest of low servants. Be gone from my sight."
They watched him stumble away with everyone laughing and pointing at him. Children threw stones at him and adults allowed it. They shouted ridicule at him as he moved among them. Some tripped him and tried to knock him down. Darias and Ren stood there and watched with matching expressions of pain mixed with triumph. The sight before them brought back very bad memories that neither of them wanted to remember.
"I made statements today about what my line would be like," Ren told him as they walked back to the palace. "I think you need to do the same thing."
"In your God Voice?" Darias asked as they reached the entrance, nodded to the guards and walked into the palace.
"Yes," sighed Ren. "It's the only way to make it stick."
"Fine," he said, stopping and turning to look at him. "From this point on my children will be known as vampires. They will have three fledglings of their own and no more. They will walk this world in secret, living among the humans and killing only the evil. There will be those who will break this rule and I mark them rogue. Children like Never will be born to find them all, but I will find a female whose line will be made slayers of rogue vampires. I will create my companion who will be neither human nor vampire to walk the earth at my side, going into the light where I cannot go. He will be called my drone. Together drones and vampires will form covens all over the world."
"And what of your child?" Ren asked.
"My child will live a full life," he said, continuing to use his God Voice. "My child will know both vampires and your Forsaken children and love them for who they are. My child will sire a family that will always be in tune with the vampires and the Forsaken."
"I will form a family of my own," Ren said. "I have a woman in mind already. She will bear me sons. They will make my family thrive. They too will live in tune with vampires and my Forsaken. Perhaps one day my family will live alongside yours."
"One day a member of your family and a member of mine will mate and sire a whole new kind of being," Darias said. "Together they will form a God."
"Are you quite finished, my sons?" Isis asked as she flashed in front of them. "It was one thing to bestow immortality upon Phalon. It is quite another to set the tone for millions of people. Stop this before it's too late. This is why we don't spend time with humans. This is why we stay in our realm and take a distant approach at helping humans."
"We are part of the world, Mother," said Ren. "We cannot leave them to themselves just yet. We have to set the tone for our kind. We have done nothing wrong."
"And what of Zeus?" she asked.
"You will not speak to us about Zeus," Darias said forcefully. "Nothing that we have done to Zeus is in any way unjust. He deserved everything we did to him and so much more."
They walked away from her after that. The full moon was in four nights and Ren had much preparing to do before that night. He would hunt the world of man for its flesh. Those words haunted his nights. He had to prepare. Darias went to Elle to tell her the truth about what he'd learned. She sat at the table, helping Never color. Darias had no words for her as far as Never was concerned. He'd made a proclamation about what his life would be, but he couldn't tell Elle that now.
"I can't change you," he said. "You will die if I do."
"You promised me, Darias," she said calmly. "You will do as you promised."
"It cannot be done," he said. "Zeus saw to that when I was cursed."
"And did you try again to kill Zeus?" she asked in her sweet voice. It was strange to hear such words of murder from her sweet voice.
"Ren did," he said. "He failed. Zeus lives, but I made him an immortal man with no God Powers. He will be the subject of ridicule and torment for eternity."
"That's fitting," she said. "He deserves at least that. You cannot change me so that I can be with you forever and it is his fault."
"Yes," he said.
"Then I shall die," she said. "You will go on without me. I will live for my child, but I will grow old and die."
"Don't say such things," he said, gripping her hand.
"I speak the truth," she said. "You cannot stop it."
Could he? Ren had given Phalon immortality. Would Elle accept being immortal but not being like her husband? Would he be able to stand it. For her to be immortal and him not able to touch her sexually? It was mind numbing to consider. He couldn't do a thing until the baby was born. Until then he had to let her believe what she was saying.
Their nights were filled with Ren fearing the moon and Darias trying to figure out how to tell Elle that he could make her immortal but they would never be equal. The palace was gearing up for some sort of celebration that Darias and Ren knew nothing about. Darias checked on his sleeping children and listened to the cries coming from Egypt. Someone was in his temple and crying out for help. He flashed himself to the temple and brought the statue to life in the center of the fountain of blood.
What he found were men with swords inside his temple! The man, Doran was a high priest of his temple. He'd been begging the men of Egypt to pay tribute to their Blood God. These men were not Egyptian. He didn't know where they'd come from, but they were attempting to kill his priest. He took action quickly. Moving among them and sucking their life away through their blood. One by one they were dead on the temple floor.
"My God," Doran said, falling to his knees among the dead men.
"Rise, my son," Darias said. "I have slain your enemies."
"More will come, Lord," Doran said. "These were but four of a battalion of soldiers."
"Then I will protect you," he said. He spread his arms and willed Doran to comply. "Come to me my son."
* * *
Ren sat in his apartments wondering where the Gods had gone. Darias was gone as well. He'd made his preparations for the full moon. There really were no fool proof preparations for what was coming. How do you chain a God and keep him from killing when he's been cursed and forced to turn into a monster who is a killing monster?
He'd seen what Artemis had become. The glorious white wolf that was twice the size of the wolves he'd learned about in his studies. He'd never actually seen a wolf until that moment. He wasn't sure that her size was really all that bigger than actual wolves. She was a Goddess. That was certain, yet she was also a wolf. He supposed it was fitting. After all she was the Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon. He was a God of the Moon and wolves and the hunt. It was all very fitting.
The second night after the curse was visited upon him he had the Lady Agarista in his apartments and knew her carnally. He agreed to marry her but told her that he was a God unlike any other God in existence. She said she didn't care. They were married the very next day by the King's chaplain himself. He spent his nights with his new wife a little sad that his family wasn't there for the wedding. Elle had been there, but she looked at him with such cold eyes that he had almost wished she hadn't come at all.
But on the day of the full moon he felt it crawling up and down his spine. He could feel it in his bones and his penis. It was running through him like the electricity that was harnessed in Atlantis. He could feel the wolf inside him trying to get out. His voice deepened when he talked, and already people were talking about the shine of his eyes when the light touched them just right. The wolf was coming and there was no stopping it.
He went away from people into the woods and stripped out of his clothing. Those he tied to a tree and then he ran. His leg muscles burned as he ran. The air stung his lungs as he drew it in. His heart was slamming in his chest so hard that he thought it would break free of his ribcage and fall upon the earth still beating. He stopped when the pain began. He could feel his bones cracking as they rearranged. He cried out from the agony of it all. He fell onto his hands and knees.
He could feel his skin ripping on his face. He sat up and pulled chunks of his face off with his hands. This was not how it had happened with Artemis, but then she hadn't fought it. He was fighting it every step of the way. He clawed and pulled at his face, dropping pieces onto the ground under him. Then his hands began to crack, the bones snapping in them, making him scream. Claws came through his middle knuckles, breaking the bones to do it.
Suddenly his chest began to scream in agony. He used those new claws to tear at his chest until he felt the fur of the wolf. Bone and flesh fell to the ground in front of him. He could feel the muzzle of the wolf breaking through his skull. He pulled the scalp of his head off and it dropped to the ground. He threw his head back and howled at the moon like a wolf.
Then his legs began to snap and change. The flesh fell off of them and the wolf took shape. He shook his body, flinging the remaining blood and flesh all over the forest. Then he smelled the meat of his human body and began to eat it, devouring it and growling at it all at the same time. He stayed there until he'd eaten every bit of his human flesh and bone. Then he threw his head back and howled again.
He ran and smelled and howled all night long. He wondered why he could still think like a human, like a God. In the back of his mind he could hear the feral thoughts of the wolf. All good smell, bad smell, hunger and run, run, run. It was a voice that would be so easy to accept and let take him over. He supposed this would be the fight for each and every one of his kind as they became the wolf. The fight was pushing that voice to the back of your mind and keeping it there forever. It was remembering walking on two legs with human flesh and eating human food.
He hunted and ate what he found, but it was not what he wanted. He was horrified to remember men and women and remember their smell. It made his entire body throb. He wanted human flesh. Oh how he craved it. He needed it. That's what the voice in his head kept telling him. Hunt, tear, rip, chew, eat, run, run, run. He fought that voice and kept running, eating the life of the forest as he passed through it back and forth. The animals fled from him in a panic they'd never known. He stopped only to howl at the moon when it could be seen through the thick branches of the trees of the forest. He was one with the night in a way he imagined Darias was. This was freedom like he'd never known it.
* * *
"The people of Egypt are at war with an invading force, my son," said Isis when she appeared before Darias three nights after the full moon. "What is so urgent that you would pull me away from the fight?"
"Ren," he said. "He changed into the wolf three nights ago, Mother. He's still the wolf. He hasn't come back. I can track him only so far in the forest. I'm not as fast as he is out there. Over open ground I could keep pace with my brother. He is in the forest. Mother he has to reclaim his human form."
"But the curse said he would be ruled by the moon," Isis said. "The moon is still full, Darias. Wait to panic until the moon is no longer full."
"I thought of that," he said. "I tell you something is wrong."
"I must go, my son," she said. "Egypt is at war."
"So you said," he said coldly. "I should have known we'd be alone in this. When has a God helped us? Go, Mother. Go back to your precious Egypt while your son is suffering. It shouldn't be hard. We suffered for years without you."
He flashed himself away from her and went back to searching for his brother. They'd do this on their own like everything else. He found him finally and then lost him again. Ren came up to him in wolf form, and for a moment Darias thought he would attack him. He sniffed the air in front of him and howled before turning to run away again. Darias called out to him but the wolf didn't stop. He just kept running.
For three nights this went on. He'd catch up to him, go through the sniffing and howling ritual again and then Ren would take off running through the forest again. Each time Darias would look up at the full moon in the sky and sigh. Two more nights and the moon would change again. He hoped that he could get his brother to change back after the moon changed. One thing was certain. He wouldn't ask for the help of a God. He'd do this for his brother on his own.
Elle would have nothing to do with him while this was going on. She informed him that until Ren was back in human form she wanted nothing to do with either of them. He stalked off from her apartments and hunted in the night for blood he didn't need. After feeding each night he would return to the forest to hunt for his brother. It was becoming a rat race.
Then what he'd feared began to happen. The night before the moon was to change three human victims had been found. They'd been mauled as if by a bear. Miraculously all three had survived. Darias wondered how they'd survived the attacks and thought a God might be involved, but he was too tired of screaming at Gods to find out.
Finally the moon changed. It was no longer full in the sky. He knew nothing about the phases of the moon, but he began to search for his brother again. When he finally found him, Ren was lying at the base of a tree. He was panting and making strange sounds. Darias started to move toward him but Ren growled at him so he stopped.
Then the wolf stood up and howled at the sky. The entire body began to ripple and steam actually rose from the fur. Darias stared at the wolf as the change began. It howled and whined. Then before his very eyes something happened that defied reality. Ren's human hand came through the mouth of the wolf!
The hand quickly became an arm and then a shoulder. The wolf backed up as if trying to get away. Then the skull split and more of Ren came through the space between the pieces. He screamed in pain as he tried to step out of the wolf. The wolf was meanwhile losing fur. The tail fell off and the body elongated. More steam rose from the hairless wolf as the split in the skull was rent further down the wolf's back. As he watched his brother slowly crawled forth from the form of the wolf.
The wolf itself began to melt into the ground. Steam rose from the ground where the flesh of the wolf had melted into it. Ren shook and shivered as he looked around. A sticky mucous was all over him. Steam rose from it. The smell was horrendous but Darias never took his eyes off his brother. The man stood and stumbled toward the small creek that Darias had only just noticed.
He fell into the water with a gasp and began to splash it all over his body, washing away the slime and blood until he looked almost human again. There was a slight sheen to his skin that was new, but it faded as he washed. Then he was up and walking like a human, but with problems. It was almost like he was remembering how to walk like a man. He went to a nearby tree and took down the bundle of clothes that was tied there. As Darias watched his brother dressed. Finally he was standing before him as the God he was.
"Are you well, my brother?" Darias asked, standing stock still and watching.
"I am well, Darias," he said. He shook his head and flexed his fingers. "It is strange returning to this form. How long?"
"Four nights," Darias replied.
"And the humans," he said softly. "Were they safe from me?"
"Three victims," Darias said just as softly. "They each survived the attack. They are under the care of the palace physicians."
"Oh," Ren said simply. "What of my wife?"
"The Lady Agarista awaits your return," said Darias. "I've not seen much of her. She is staying with my wife who would not allow me inside her apartments until you are in your human form again."
"Well I am in my human form," Darias said, taking a shaky step. "Let us show the world that Ren, The Dark God of Wolves is in his human form."
Ren wondered if he would ever feel like his old self again. He was back in his human form once again, but he still felt the wolf lurking behind the skin. He could hear it as if from a great distance, calling to him to hunt, run and eat. He believed he would feel it for the rest of his immortal life.
The three human victims he'd left in his wake were his now. He was sure of that. They would change just as he had at the next full moon. They would suffer the pain and agony of the change just as he had, probably more because they were not Gods. What had he done?
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