The Diary of the Vam’pir Jacques (The Diaries of the Immortals #1)

Chapter Thirteen.

I refused to return to the main caves we lived in for a good three months. And I declined to speak to either of them for a year at least.

After the first month, Inka tried to talk to me when I went to get my blood, but I wanted none of it. I didn’t want Inka’s apologies—or anything else from her.

I was hurt and angry, and I suppose you think she’d a right to be too. But you forget I’d known Inka for nearly a five hundred years, and I knew her inside out. Inka had wished her son never to leave her. Inka would not have faced Mihal’s death, so screw her, I didn’t see why I should bother. The pair of them could’ve gone to hell for all I cared. The others tried, they waylaid me when I collected my blood and attempted different approaches. They shouted at me and begged me to come home. Everyone wanted to know how I changed Mihal, and each time, I stared straight through them.

A side effect of creating a Vam’pir I discovered was if I gave him a direct order, he had to obey. So I ordered Mihal not to tell anyone and he couldn’t. That pissed Inka off even more which amused me further. Fuck her!

Nathan himself came and visited. How he’d found me, I don’t know, but he had. And I refused to talk to him too. Truthfully, I did not want to talk to anyone.

All I wanted was to wallow in my self-righteous grief and anger. I’d done the one thing Inka truly wanted, and she’d thrown it back in my face.

A rift formed between Mihal and me, too.

Mihal never quite forgave me, and I didn’t care. He was my son, but the way he acted towards me made me wish more than once I’d left him to die. Mihal was superior and smug and completely playing the victim.

Mihal proclaimed to all and sundry he hadn’t wished for this, and his selfish father had forced this on him. The situation was made worse as Curtan sadly watched Anton pass from old age a few weeks later.

I attended the funeral but still refused to speak to anyone. I’d my own pain to deal with and wanted to deal with no one else’s.

After six months, I decided I’d punished Inka enough by not telling her my whereabouts. Silently, I moved back into the main cavern, but I still declined to talk to them both. Mihal proclaimed me a childish and idiotic man. He was willing to forgive and forget, but I would not take the hand he offered.

I was sure the change addled Mihal’s brains somehow. I’d been a good father to him while he was alive and had doted on him. Now Mihal treated me like a leper and a simpleton.

Well, I wasn’t either. However, if Mihal preferred this approach, I accepted it.

In retaliation, I portrayed Mihal as the uncaring son and Inka as the indecisive mother. Clearly, Inka didn’t know what she wanted. People remembered her begging me to change Mihal, so it backfired on her. Plus, I wouldn’t look at them and often left the room if they were present. My hurt was on display for everyone to see, and people gossiped.

Nightly, I stayed in my workroom every waking hour and designed many pieces of gold work and jewellery. My pain was so terrible at getting everything wrong that over half the community felt sorry for me and often berated Inka and Mihal.

Perfect. I’d achieved my goal and got plenty of sympathy. People stopped by for chats or to inquire how I was, and I stared at them with sad eyes and carried on working. Everyone assumed I was grief stricken and full of remorse at what I’d done, everybody except Inka and Mihal, who knew me too well.

They looked at me with accusing eyes as Har’chens told them bluntly that their compassion had now expired. Har-chen’s demanded to know how Inka and Mihal could treat me so badly, and inwardly, I grinned in satisfaction. Let Inka and Mihal suffer the general consensus like I’d had to.

Public opinion wasn’t nice when it was directed against them. Mihal soon shut his mouth when he realised he no longer got sympathy. I played them, and they fell into the traps set every time.

Honestly, I guess I sound very immature to you, and I was. I craved the attention, and I wanted the sympathy, and I set out to get it in a very underhanded way.

I wasn’t old when I turned, and I’ve never grown up. There was one very adult thing I suggested, and that was for the breakup of Har’ches.

◆◆◆

We’d more deaths than births over the next five hundred years, and everyone realised we were slowly dying. I hated this, and at the same time, we noticed the barbarians had started to evolve. We thought it would be possible to help them and at the same time preserve our knowledge.

Thoughtfully, I suggested we send out teams of twelve all over the world. The plan was to share our knowledge and experience, so Har’ches would not be forgotten.

The plan’s acceptance was slow; three centuries elapsed before serious consideration.

Har’ches now only supported nine hundred people; such had been the loss of life and low birth rate that we’d experienced. Within another thousand years, Har’ches would no longer exist. The knowledge of Kaltos, Mora and Har’ches would finally disappear. There would be nobody left to learn from our mistakes.

If fate hadn’t been so unkind to us, Har’ches would’ve thrived. But every society must come to an end, and it was our turn.

I claim that Har’ches would have continued, and it probably would have if not for fate. This I feel because the Har’chen had learned from the past and its mistakes. Har’ches should’ve become a great civilisation, remembered like Egypt or Rome, and nothing would have stopped them.

But fate put a stop to the future Har’ches first showed. In our egotism we hatched a plan so upcoming races would learn from this, rather than our knowledge die out. We wouldn’t give them our technology, which was much too dangerous for a primitive society, but we could impart our learnings.

In mankind, we could see great potential, and we thought you would take our lessons and integrate them into your past, and you did. You took the best of us and made it your own history. Vam’pirs and Har’chen left you puzzles and legacies that you claimed as yours, and you forgot where they come from.

I both like and dislike being forgotten. A positive is the Har’chen legacy kept your minds busy trying to unravel your roots. I admit freely that you would not have become what you have if not for Vam’pirs and Har’chen. Humans would’ve remained barbarians scrabbling in the dirt if we hadn’t instilled hope and curiosity in you to solve your hidden, mysterious past.

A mysterious past built by Har’chen and Vam’pir together. Who wants to be forgotten? That stings my ego.

Mankind slowly learns the lessons we left you, but you don’t recall your teachers. That isn’t very nice.

Man showed the greatest promise, and you could still achieve it. The great pyramids built by us in Egypt had hieroglyphics covering them. This was an ancient form of writing in Kaltos, and we taught the early Egyptians how to write using them. Only a few chosen could read and understand them. This we allowed.

If there were only a few to read them, then the rest of mankind would stretch their brains and try to decipher them. Over time, you forgot how to read them, but they were a puzzle modern-day men could not stand. You had to understand, and you did! I’m very proud of you.

It is a great shame that the earthquake destroyed the hieroglyphics written on the pyramids. They confirmed the story that I’ve told you.

But we placed the tale elsewhere in Egypt. In several places, to be exact, and you will one day find it for yourself and then have proof of what I’ve told you.

Har’ches left you clues; the two long tunnels in the great pyramid (or air vents, as they’ve been called) lining up to the stars in Orion’s belt. Only in our time did they line up. The great Sphinx itself faces the sunrise, but we chose a lion, not a pharaoh’s face. That was man’s ego to put a human face upon it. Once more, the lion serves as a clue, as Leo’s constellation was in the sky during Kaltos’s destruction. The way the Nile was channelled to match the Milky Way during our time.

Look at the erosion on the Sphinx. There is horizontal weathering of the stone. The last time the Giza area was submerged was 9000 years ago. This is a fact. It is also true about the wearing on the Sphinx. This means for the Sphinx to have such water damage, it must have been built before 7000 BC. Yet archaeologists claim it was built in 2500 BC.

Anyone see the problem here?

These clues suggest the existence of a once great and special civilisation that perished. Har’ches was vain enough to wish to be remembered. So, we ensured Har’ches would be remembered somehow. Even if it’s through humans solving the puzzles that we’ve left.

There are several people now who look outside what conventional archaeology tells them and ask, ‘What if? What if there is something that we’ve forgotten in our history?’

There is, and its name is Kaltos. You will find other evidence buried on the bottom of the sea, lost cities can be found in Peru and Mexico. England holds numerous other clues, including Stonehenge.

We wished to ensure that if another Reckoning hit, something would survive. If it didn’t, the Vam’pirs would have ensured it had. The fact remains that Kaltons had their own puzzles to solve. There’d been another civilisation before Kaltos rose.

Kaltos been given puzzles to solve ourselves, when our ancestors were little better than the barbarians we helped. Kaltons had help in becoming what we once were, and so we helped humanity.

I’ve no doubt that, someday, you’ll leave a legacy for whatever follows you.

That legacy could transcend this planet. I firmly believe humankind will explore space, discovering other life and planets. I can see a great and powerful future for you if you set your minds to it.

Of course, I’ll be around to see it, hopefully.

As I look to the challenges that face humanity, I feel energised and not as tired or as worn as I previously felt. Hope floods me as I yearn to join mankind in your quest for greatness.

Stop the wars and the famine, and something marvellous will happen. Just wait and see. I cannot wait for you to ‘find yourselves’, and I have meddled more than once. Most Vam’pirs have in one way or another.

When you sail into the unknown, there’ll be at least one Vam’pir that’ll go with you.

Nasty thought, isn’t it, that you will be responsible for siccing us onto another culture? By the time-space travel is developed, I hope that you have grown up enough to accept us for what we are.

◆◆◆

Returning to my story…

Groups of twelve journeyed worldwide. We chose people younger than two hundred and who had no chance to birth children. Our DNA was incompatible with humanity. We couldn’t have children by the barbarians, a rather nasty prospect, but desperate times spawned wild ideas. Plus mankind was certainly beginning to breed prolifically.

Har’ches sent out over half the population and left Har’ches with just under four hundred people living there. Though sadness reigned, comfort existed. It was good to know that our knowledge wouldn’t die out. That comforted us through the long and lonely nights.

Fighting the inevitable was fruitless, Har’ches was dying, and we’d to face that fact.

Stoically, we did. This was harder for the Vam’pirs as we had already lost so much, and we were losing our one link with the old life.

If Vam’pirs hadn’t have been created, would Kaltos have survived? I doubted it. Something else would’ve come along to ruin our life, but it was nice to believe we might’ve made it.

Only Vam’pirs survive, the remnants of a once-promising civilisation.

Quietly reflecting on the past, I find comfort in time acting as a healer and friend. However, a hint of sorrow remains. I may proclaim to have great sadness, but really, there is only a little. Some things are not meant to be, and obviously Kaltos, Mora and Har’ches were one of those. We had had our chance, and we admitted defeat gracefully.

Har’ches continued for another six hundred years before dying out completely. The knowledge that kept them alive was the fact that somewhere out in the world were their descendants and families. That gave the last few Har’chen hope.

With dignity and sorrow, we buried the last Har’chen with a piece of our hearts. All our hopes and dreams had gone with him.

After the last person died, Vam’pirs were unsure how to proceed. The city was a literal ghost town; there was no reason to stay. Finally, we turned our backs and travelled north to Scotland and stayed there out of the way of prying eyes. It was easy to lose ourselves in the Highlands.

Scotland was safer for us in more ways than one. If we had remained in Har’ches and Mora, then who knows what melancholy would have done us? It was best to start anew and begin again somewhere else.

Ah. I hear you ask. Then how did you get your blood if they had all died?

Quite easy really, we had reached the stage where we didn’t need as much, and so we drank the fresh blood of animals. There were plenty around, and so we took judiciously from them, careful not to decimate a breed. None of us wanted to be responsible for wiping out a species.

Vam’pir’s stayed together for another thousand years. Then, as mankind grew more interesting, we all went our separate ways. After three thousand years, you yearn for someone different to talk to.

We irritated each other intensely; surprisingly, we didn’t resort to violence. I was lucky to be alive, as I did one outrageous thing after another. They all chastised me, and Nathan was caught as often as I was.

Nathan and I were a pair of rouges with years stretching out ahead of us, and we wished to do what we wanted.

I can’t rightly remember who first drank the blood of another human for food, but I think that it had been Nathan. He’d discovered a murderer hiding near to us, which had just been simply dubbed Home.

Nathan took matters into his own hands when he realised the man would escape unpunished. Nathan was dreadfully ill after and took weeks to recover, as he had drunk, until the man’s heart stopped beating. This never happened when we drank from an animal. That meant there was something in human DNA that makes us sick if we drank till you died.

This period yielded two additional self-discoveries. The first was that we could hear each other if we wanted to. I forget who demonstrated this ability, but if we thought at a person, then they would hear it. This allowed many private conversations nobody could interrupt.

This came in mighty handy for Nathan and I to cause more mischief, and we did.

I shrug. Don’t be so disapproving. Given my history as a troublemaker, why stop now?

We could also hear if someone called from a vast distance, and it was with this in our hearts that we split. Being completely aware we were only a thought away helped a great deal.

The second was incredibly helpful. Antonio hadn’t been paying attention and had been unable to make it back from his coffin and been caught by the sun rising. Fortunately, thick mist and cloud cover prevailed that day for Antonio.

Antonio had not burned to a crisp and turned into ashes, which I was sure he was intensely grateful for. One lesson learned was only direct sunlight could kill us. The daytime was open for us to move around as long as the sun remained hidden behind clouds. Although most of us were cautious, we all did it at some point.

It appeared our bodies had taken on a change, as we no longer needed to sleep nightly either unless we wanted to.

Vam’pirs have to sleep at least every thousand years for a good three or four decades for our bodies to process the information that we gather. Much like a baby.

This is forced upon us, and there is nothing we can do to stop it, but the gain far outweighs the loss of a couple of decades. Changes may have happened during this time, but nothing that great that we couldn’t keep up with them.

And we sleep to heal. I don’t believe that needs explaining, do you?

There is one thing that I have to tell you.

When I do, you will laugh and say, ‘See, I knew that it was fiction!’

That is what the name Kaltos translates into your language:

Atlantis.

Part Two.