Chapter 7 – Lamia
LAMIA
I’ve read the precious book more times than I can count. I’ve touched the pages. I’ve traced the words. And I feel something I haven’t felt in this long lifetime as a monster—hope. Hope that maybe there’s more to being this creature than I believed.
The siren brought me a map. I’ve compared it to the one in the book.
And now I think I know where the Cave of Blood is located.
Which means, I could go there. I could see if the other creatures like me have answers to any of my questions.
And, although I’m trying not to imagine it, I could find my children.
Although it’s impossible.
I killed them.
They can’t just be reborn. It’s a myth. A legend.
If I begin to hope for that, and it isn’t true, I don’t think I can bare it. So that’s one thing I won’t hope for.
I also found something else. There may be a way to undo this curse. I found it on the back of the page. Written in a pale silver pen that was only visible in the light.
So yes, I feel hope. Even though I don’t want to get excited.
Because there’s one problem. To reach the cave, I’ll have to travel on land…land filled with humans. Places where I need to stop and get things that are drawn on the little map. And with my bloodlust, such a thing would be dangerous.
Too dangerous.
So, I have hope. I just need to work out the problem of how to reach the mythical cave.
Rising from beside my fire, where only a slight glow still heats the wood, I wrap the book carefully and set it down gently on the rock I was sitting on.
Taking a deep breath, I shift, my snake form disappearing and my long tail becoming legs.
Going to the edge of the water, I strip off my dress and dive in.
Behind me, I feel my long black hair spreading out in the water. I kick and dive beneath the waves, allowing my heart to soar for just for a moment, allowing myself to daydream beneath the waves. I imagine a life with my children, with company, and with happiness.
When I rise from the water, a lump has formed in my throat. I crawl onto the sand and collapse. Before I can stop myself, I start to cry. The day that I became this thing comes back to me, pushing aside all thoughts of happiness and hope. I remember it all so clearly.
I was young. A mother of two small children, a son who had just turned six seasons and a daughter who had turned four.
I was married to a human man who worked hard for us and loved me deep within his heart.
I had gone out to the woods to collect mushrooms with my pet pig.
And after a morning of hard work, I’d stopped at a familiar lake to bathe.
Stripping off my clothes, I’d dived into the waters, my heart soaring, content beyond belief.
Just the way I was feeling only moments ago.
But when I’d emerged from the waters, I found a man watching me.
Something about him had seemed…off. He’d told me I was beautiful and that he would make love to me. I’d told him no.
There was nothing within me that wanted him. My heart and soul belonged to my family.
I remembered that his eyes had then begun to glow golden. And then all my fears about him had faded away. The husband I loved, the children I adored, it all became fuzzy.
We had sex then, on the shore. Sex that was disjointed and confusing in my mind.
And when he was done, he’d risen above me, smiled, and faded with a crackle of lightning.
All that I had done had come back to me then. I didn’t understand any of it. I hated myself for being unfaithful to my husband, and I’d wept like a fool.
And then the woman was standing in front of me. Like the man, there was something off about her. She was in all ways remarkably beautiful, almost inhumanely so. Her hair was long and dark, and her eyes held the anger of a thousand storms.
I didn’t know then that I’d become another victim in the war between Zeus and his wife. A war in which the only losers were the humans Zeus dragged into his bed…women who would be punished by Hera if found.
I only knew that I was confused and frightened.
“You humans always seem to tempt my husband,” she said, her voice dripping with acid.
I had stared at her, not knowing what to say, heart racing. I hadn’t tempted her husband. I hadn’t wanted her husband. And the knowledge stung deep within me.
Her expression held nothing of understanding or pity, only wrath. Wrath so deep I couldn’t bring myself to speak.
And then she’d smiled. “And there are consequences to leading him astray.”
She had raised a hand that glowed with a black mist, and then, I changed. My body became that of a snake, and an insatiable hunger came over me. I’d smelled blood on the air and took off through the forest like a bat out of hell.
The goddess’s laugh had followed me.
My husband and children were out in the yard. I heard their laughter. I had flashes of their smiles. Of the sunlight bathing them in its rich glow.
And then I’d descended on them, slaughtering them.
I’d fed and fed on their blood until they lay around me dead.
Then, and only then, had I come back to myself.
And when I saw what I’d done, grief had driven me to a cliff.
I tossed myself from the edge, expecting to feel the sweet kiss of death on my lips.
Lying on the sharp rocks, bleeding and broken, was the first time I learned that death could not be my escape.
I could hurt. I could suffer. But I couldn’t die.
I’d returned to bury their bodies. But they were gone. And our home was burned to the ground.
Time after that had no meaning. I sought places away from humanity. Places where I couldn’t hurt anyone. But somehow, humans and magical creatures alike would find me, and yet again I would kill.
Push through the memories, Lamia.
Push past them.
But the darkness is too deep. And I’m gone.
Hours pass before I seem to remember where I am, kneeling on the shore, crying, lost in memories. I wipe the tears away and rise on legs that shake. Perhaps I shouldn’t even pretend the book has any real information.
Hope is far too dangerous a thing to someone like me.
But as I look to the woods, I discover a man. He watches me with narrowed eyes, and I take a step back. Somehow I feel more vulnerable that he saw my breakdown than that I stand before him naked.
“You should go,” I tell him, my voice raspy with tears.
He takes a step closer. “And why should I do that?”
“I’m not safe,” I say, knowing this big man probably believes he’s more dangerous than me. “Return to your boat and go. Before it’s too late.”
He cocks his head in a strange way and comes even closer.
I back up until I’m ankle deep in water.
It’s not just that he’s coming closer; it’s that the hunger within me is building yet again.
Even from here I can feel his pulse. I can smell his blood, and it’s familiar and delicious.
An aching begins inside of me, like something I’ve only felt a few times in my life, and the similarity makes me freeze.
Memories come back to me. Of three gargoyles I killed. Their blood had been like a delicacy to me. Like a drug I couldn’t stop drinking. It’d called to me from far away. And as I drained them, I wanted more. I wanted things I never imagined.
“You’re…him,” I say, his face suddenly as familiar as my own.
“Do you remember all the people you kill?” he asks, and his voice is dark and dangerous.
I shake my head, my heart racing. “How—how are you here? I—I killed you.”
His hair is sleek and black. His body is massive and muscular. As he draws closer, my gaze moves to his eyes, which are so dark they’re nearly black, then to the red ring around his pupils.
I gasp. They look like mine.
“That’s right,” he says. “You did something to me, and I want to know what.”
I’m trembling. “I don’t know. This is impossible.”
“Impossible?” The word drips with acid. “Clearly not.”
I shake my head. “It has to have been…two hundred years since I killed you.”
He winces, like my words are a blow to him. “Why does that matter?”
“When did you awaken?” I ask, a strange trickle moving down my spine.
“Nearly a week ago.”
“The day I read the book,” I say to myself. “Impossible.”
“Book?” He frowns. “What does a book have to do with anything?”
I stare at him again. “I’m sorry. This has never happened before.”
His mouth curls into a cruel smile. “You prefer your victims to stay dead?”
“No!” And even I can hear the frustration in my voice.
“You don’t understand. I don’t want to kill anyone.
I don’t want anyone to die. But they do.
Anyone who comes too close to me...like a destructive force, I kill anything precious and important.
But you…you’re alive. It has to be because of the book. Which makes you—“
My gaze slides to the book, and I start toward it, completely ignoring him. An instant later, he tackles me.
For a minute, I just stare up at him in shock as he pins my wrists above my head. Those dark eyes of his looming over me. His mouth twisted in rage.
“What do you want?” I ask, my gaze sliding to his throat. To the pulse I sense just beneath his flesh.
“I want to be like I was before. I want this…feeling…to be gone.”
“What feeling?”
He stares down at me, hard. “Can you fix this?”
“I—“ I don’t know if I can. I never thought I could. “There’s a book near the fire. It’s the only thing I’ve found about me or my kind. In it, it suggests there’s a way to undo the curse.”
“How?”
“We have to go to a place called the Cave of Blood. There’s more of my kind there. People who know more than I do.”
He studies me. “How do I know you’re not lying?”
I hold his gaze. “I’m not guaranteeing anything. But I want to go there.”
“Then let’s go.”
I shake my head.
He frowns. “If there’s a place that can undo this curse, you’ll take me there.”
My gaze slides back to his throat, and everything inside of me seems to tense. My breathing becomes labored and hunger blossoms within me.
“You don’t understand.”