Chapter 8 – Oliver
HISTORY
OLIVER
Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d never known who my father was.
The beast inside me, the one who clawed at my insides trying to escape, that was his fault.
I don’t mean in a psychological, blame-your-parents-for-all-your-problems sort of way.
I mean he actually did this to me. I despise what he made me.
I hate him more than any being that exists in the world.
Had it not been for him, I doubt I’d be capable of hatred at all.
My mother almost died while she was pregnant with me.
She was starving, unable to feed after being trapped with Asher for thousands of years.
Her father, Asmodeus, took her in. A demon king in Hell had more empathy for us than my father ever would.
I wouldn’t be here today without my grandfather’s help.
You’d think I’d have a better relationship with him now, but I don’t. I haven’t seen him in years.
My mother escaped Asher because nothing and no one could hold her down.
I’d never admit it to her, but I’ve always admired that about her, that inner strength that’s urged her on, no matter what.
But I also still hold a lot of anger and resentment inside for how she left me with a monster.
How long can an immortal hold a grudge? Only time can tell.
I was twelve years old when she took me to Asher with the bright idea that he could teach me how to be a man.
Though that was probably just an excuse; it was more likely it was about her yearning for him, her need to be near him.
At first, I was so excited to meet him. I had such love in my heart, fostered by the Hetairai, Aphrodite’s famous temple prostitutes, who helped raise me.
I had so much love to give that bastard.
I felt lucky that he saw himself within me, and lucky that he’d kept me when my mother left him again a year later.
As if being his son wasn’t bad enough, when I went through the change, he fed me his own blood, burdening me with more of his sickness.
The change created the second form, but it only came out when I needed more strength or if I was starving.
After seeing the beast, he didn’t see his son anymore, he saw a weapon to be used.
I was his blade. At the time, I’d thought, This is how I become a man.
I did it out of loyalty, duty, and even love. I desperately wanted to make him proud.
Does love make one do horrifying things?
I destroyed entire villages at his command.
I murdered the innocent. I burned the world down at a point of a finger.
I took lives without argument, without justice because he told me to.
He didn’t even have to tell me because I wanted that sick smile on his face.
I wanted him to praise his little monster. How ignorant was I in my youth?
When the weight of death and destruction became too hard to bear, and the faces of my victims haunted me, I stopped fighting. I let an innocent live. Asher wouldn’t accept this kind of weakness. As his heir, I wasn’t allowed to be weak. Not once did he ever treat me as if I was his son.
The first time my beast didn’t listen to Asher’s demands, he beat me in the hall as his men watched.
I didn’t fight back or make a noise. I deserved every punishment.
I deserved that pain. The silence, above all, drove him crazy.
More than anything, he hated that he couldn’t break me.
He hated me more when his men got quiet after they’d been cheering him on in the beginning.
He feared their sudden respect for his son.
He had beaten me till he was exhausted, which is an impressive feat for any vampire.
I was bloody, my skin flayed off around my ribs where it hurt the worst. I was unable to lift my head, unable to fight back when he dragged me down into the darkness.
He left me in a dungeon-like hole where I was left to starve and rot.
It was a place to keep those who didn’t deserve a blade.
It was there where he cut off my wings and demanded I kneel to him, to call him king.
But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t kneel to a monster. I would never kneel again to a selfish, wicked king who cared only for destruction.
Had I not been immortal and able to heal from his abuses, things would have been much worse.
I thank the Light for small mercies that I didn’t bear those scars on the outside.
It’s bad enough to carry the scars that didn’t leave marks, the ones that haunt you forever.
The ones that cause eternal pain and are impossible to conquer.
Asher would visit that dark and dank prison.
He’d beat me, demanding the same thing, to kneel, to submit to his will.
I was so dehumanized I could no longer take my human form.
I became the beast all the time. That’s when it gained a voice.
We split in that prison. He took the brunt of the pain, of the hunger, and I watched, detached from our shared eyes.
To this day I don’t actually know how long I was down there before Asher needed me back to fight on his side. Of course he’d made another enemy, he always did. So he’d brought women into the dungeon to entice me, knowing I hadn’t fed in God knew how long.
I’ll never forget the worst one, a young girl, the one I allowed to live and the reason for my punishment. Shoshana, a name, a face, a memory I wish I could forget.
She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old when he brought her to me. Even though I’d been the reason her entire family was slaughtered, she still became a kind of friend during my imprisonment. She would sneak down the ladders and sing to me to try to calm the beast.
But Asher used her to break me further, teaching me a valuable lesson: Love makes you weak. When you care for someone, a target appears on their back.
They’d entered together as big fat tears streamed down her face.
She begged me not to kill her and, under other circumstances, I would have never touched an innocent.
She was so innocent even the beast hadn’t wanted to harm her.
I think he might have refused the blood had Asher not hurt her in front of us.
Asher slit her throat. She died there on the cold, earthen floor. Her blood stirred the hunger inside us, made the beast roar at the smell. Asher demanded submission. He demanded that I kneel. He promised I could have the blood, that he would bring more and free me.
And the beast gave up. He kneeled for the bastard. Right then and there, I hated him. I hated the monster I’d become. I hated the fact that he kneeled to Asher. But I hated Asher most of all. I had so fully become the monster that he took my will, locking me inside my own mind.
I was released from the dungeon after I killed three more women.
I was given a day to heal my injuries, then the next day I was fed again and released.
Asher leashed me like a dog, then took me to that hall where I’d been beaten.
Sitting on his throne, he looked around at his men, then petted my head like a dog as I knelt in front of him. I became the evidence of his power.
See what will happen if you defy me. See what will happen to all of you. Words of warning from a stolen throne, which echoed inside my head.
I thrashed and cried inside, trying to escape, to take control, but I was leashed by the beast, who was leashed by Asher.
I needed to stop the madness, but the beast was stronger and wouldn’t release me.
For a while my memories faded, my existence wiped.
I have no idea what we did, who we killed, or how we lived. I ceased living.
Some of the vampires say Asher is an ancient king of Sumer, one who’s watched over his people up until the modern age, as if he’s some sort of hero.
I’ve heard he was Sargon of Akkad or even the Gilgamesh, but I don’t believe any of it.
Asher could never love mortals enough to protect them.
He never loved anyone enough to protect them. Not my mother and definitely not me.
Asher kept me as his pet, his weapon, only letting me out to reap destruction upon the land he claimed to rule.
He kept me in that dungeon and beat me, starved me, over and over again so I couldn’t escape.
I became the “man” he wanted me to be, a feral beast because there’s no doubt that’s what we became to please him.
I’d murdered many for Asher’s need for power.
I’d gifted him an army of poisonous allegiance from men who only bowed because they feared the beast only Asher could control.
In return, he’d taken my freedom, my soul, shoving it down so deep that when my mother finally came back, she didn’t know who I was.
I was trapped so fully inside that beast we could no longer speak or communicate with language.
I slept for long periods of time inside my mind, losing myself a little more.
When the beast slept, I felt ashamed of what I’d become.
I remembered seeing my mother for the first time through the eyes of the beast as he roared and swiped at her.
I was screaming in my own mind, begging her to help me, but she couldn’t hear it, she didn’t know me.
In that form, my body is larger and my skin matches the blackness of my eyes.
I’m stronger, faster, and even more lethal as I disappear into the shadows.
It’s what makes me such a good killer, the ultimate predator.
Even though she was afraid of the beast at first, she came back day in and day out. She came to the dungeon to study me, even at one point asking me what I was. I continued to cry out for her, hoping she’d be able to help me.