Page 90 of Stalked

“Keep your voice down!” he whispered sternly. The look he gave me, that tortured stare, was familiar; I had seen it a thousand times before. It was the same way he had looked at me when the crowd took me away to be hanged. The look told me he loved me but couldn’t stop what was about to come.

Dorian turned from me, heading to the door, but I quickly stepped in front of him, blocking him from leaving. “Do not walk out that door, Dorian. Please, talk to me.” There was so much desperation in my tone that my voice cracked. He turned back around but didn’t speak. “Dorian,” I whispered again.

“Shh, not here,” he whispered while signaling with his head to a camera tucked in the corner of the ceiling.

We’re being watched.

Kyoko entered the room and glared at us suspiciously. An uncomfortable silence loomed in the air as Dorian straightened out his shirt and walked away from me, leaving me standing alone in the corner.

“I’m supposed to brief you on today’s activities and the house rules, but we need to get you cleaned up; that shirt is stained,” Kyoko informed me. “I can still smell your blood from across the house.” She glared at Dorian. “What are you still doing here? Get back to your assignment.”

Dorian nodded. “Sorry, Kyoko, there was a bit more blood that needed tending to.” He looked over at me one last time, face blank. “I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

Tears fell as I sank down at the kitchen table; my body was numb, and I couldn’t help but absentmindedly rub at my neck where Roland had bitten. It healed, but I still felt his sharp fangs in my neck. It was clear that Dorian still cared—I saw that now—but it didn’t mean he’d save me. Roland used to see me as his child, and even so, he was so willing to feed on me.

I drew my eyes to a large painting on the wall of a nude demon with scarlet red skin and black bat-like wings. It looked like the devil I had always imagined. In his arms was a beautiful woman wearing a long white dress. The demon’s mouth was open, showing shiny-white fangs as he gazed at her neck with lust-filled eyes. He didn’t look anything like the vampires I’d met. The vampires here were all beautiful and humanlike.

Kyoko walked toward me, placing a knitted bag on the kitchen table. I tore my eyes away from the painting and glanced at the bag.

“You like that painting, don’t you?” She gestured toward it.

“Not really. It’s a little too terrifying for me,” I admitted.

Kyoko sat down and stared at the painting with me. “His name was Misha. The devil had a plan for him to change this world forever. He was only a baby when he was sent to Earth thousands of years ago. In a small village, there was a couple who couldn’t have children of their own, and they took him in. They raised him like their own son, and as terrifying as he looked, they loved him deeply.”

When Caleb first talked about the existence of vampires, he mentioned an angel who had a child with a demon, who they named Kylan. Then Kylan became the very first vampire to walk the earth, spawning a plague of monsters to consume humankind. It was a dark story, and I hated that I had to know about it. Hated that I had to know without a doubt that vampires are real, as is the devil, and I’m trapped in the story as some beacon of light to lead an army of good against evil. But despite the hollow sadness that it filled me with, I wanted to know more.

“His parents tried to feed him milk from a human breast and food from their farm, but he threw everything up. One night, they found him covered in the blood of their sheep. The desire for blood was all he could think about—all he wanted. His instincts brought forth the craving for it, yet he had no idea why. It was the only way for him to survive. He also grew at an abnormal rate. Within a year, he was fully grown.”

As disturbing as the story was, the more I learned about vampires and their original creator, the easier it would be for me to expose their weaknesses and fight back. Kylan may have been the original vampire, but this was the demon that created him in the first place: his father. I wanted to know more, so I stared at her intently and nodded. My gesture caused her to perk up, eager to share more of their dark history.

“Then one night,” Kyoko continued, “while Misha was sleeping, he had a dream. In the dream, the devil appeared and told him why he was sent here in the first place. He told him he was here to create an army, and humans were destined to be their food supply. Misha was filled with so much evil and hatred that he obeyed the devil’s instructions without question. He slaughtered the people who raised him and fed upon them. It was Misha who gave us the namevampire. His mission was to feed a human his blood and then kill them. Once they awoke, they had to feed on human blood. After that, the transition would be complete, or so he thought.”

“It didn’t work at first?” I asked.

She frowned. “It never worked,” she said. “The humans he turned had transformed into what Misha looked like, unlike the vampires you see today. Their outsides were red, demonic, and frightening to humans. He knew this would be a problem. It’s much easier to charm someone to be their victim when their appearance is beautiful and approachable. He also had no control over these vampires. They were like rabid beasts with no intellect or self-control. He knew he had no choice but to kill all he had created and start over.”

She stood up and walked toward the painting. My eyes followed her around the table, and she stopped in front of it, placing her hand on the elegant white dress the angel wore.

“It was then that Misha had another dream, where the devil told him there would be an angel sent to Earth to put a stop to their plan.” Kyoko removed her hand from the painting and looked over at me. “The devil told him to destroy her. So, one day, while he was tracking the forest by his house, he saw this angelic, blonde-haired woman. Misha couldn’t take his eyes off her immaculate beauty.”

I looked back at the painting.

“Her name was Tatyana,” Kyoko said.

Kylan’s mother.

“She was wearing all white, and her hair was golden like the sunrise, and it fell straight down to her waistline. Misha was taken aback by her presence and was determined to have her, even though he knew this was the angel the devil had told him to kill.”

Kyoko joined me back at the table. “We don’t know if Tatyana was forced or mated with him willingly, but together they created a child. Misha wouldn’t destroy the angel sent to stop him, but he would use her to build his army.

“Their union created a half-breed. His son would be the one to create vampires. He’d make them demonic on the inside, like himself, but beautiful on the outside, like Tatyana. They would also have half of their human traits inside of them, but they’d lose their soul.” Kyoko smiled. “Tatyana named her son Kylan.”

I cringed at the sound of his name.

“When Kylan was born, Tatyana was relieved to see he didn’t look like demonic Misha. He was beautiful and perfect, just like her. Kylan couldn’t eat human food either, so Misha fed him only blood. Misha would fetch the blood first, then serve it to Kylan because he didn’t have fangs yet to pierce the victims’ skin. It took her son a few years to grow into a man, but then, like Misha, he stopped growing.

“One day, Tatyana was cooking supper when Kylan came into the room covered in blood. As she looked closer, she could see Kylan’s fangs were out and his father’s head in his hand.”

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