Eros and the Vampyr

The vampyr roared with the weight of darkness pouring from its gaping maw. The creature had been lost to its bestial desires and lunged at Eros with reckless abandon. Eros rolled to the side through the shallow swamp and found his footing. He brandished the blade at his side and brought it parallel to his face in the form of ox. In the blade’s hilt rested the Valmore family blood diamond. Eros looked and saw his reflection in the jewel and felt the responsibility of his family’s legacy begin to weigh on him.

Eros studied the creature. He had never seen a vampyr in person but he knew what they were capable of. The creature was more bat than man and would not be able to regain its humanity so easily. The beast stood a full head taller than him hunched forward and its long, wiry arms rose up and revealed the knife-like nails on its fingers. Its feet had painfully stretched out and grown massive talons that gave it a bird-like repose. Its pale, naked body glimmered in the moonlight as its form gave way to a disproportionate head as the folds in its skin dangled and folded into a fat, nightmarish abomination of eukaryotic design. Its jaw was slack and salivating wide enough to show the rows of teeth lined in its mouth. Atop its head rose two pointed ears and below its eyes gleamed a sickly yellow as the form shrunk into the dark.

Eros remained in his stance. He knew what would come next.

The vampyr leaped and slashed its claws at Eros. Its wings stretched out unexpectedly and propelled it forward. Eros leaped to the side and brought his sword down and rained black blood across the swamp. The vampyr shrieked and Eros felt the adrenaline surge within him.

There was a crash of flesh and wings. The creature rose up and revealed its new scar across its ribs. It felt the wound and looked at the blood on its hand before narrowing its palid eyes at Eros.

Eros felt his heart murmur and tightened the grip on his sword. The beast sprang forth again. Eros swung forth.

...

“I’m asking you to find my husband, my lord. He’s b-been gone for days and I just need the p-peace of mind in knowing what has befallen him.” Eros had been listening to the woman explain the situation over and over again; it was taking all of his training and patience to prevent his eyes from glazing over. Cynthie, the woman across the table from him, had been telling the same story on repeat, trying to find meaning in it: her husband, Walten, had disappeared three days ago. He had gone into the woods around their home after several nights of oddities - of odd cravings of raw meat, of nocturnal hours of consciousness… signs that confirmed the worst. It was as if the bodies of the skewered cattle in the back weren’t a clear enough indication.

“You’re also asking me to possibly kill him, you know,” Eros said as he shifted the drink he had on the table restlessly. “Because he couldn’t be anything else but a vampyr, judging by the size of the bite marks on the cattle out back. Valmore services don’t come cheap, sadly.”

“The c-cost reflects your skill, Lord Valmore,” Cynthie said. “There is a reason I asked for you though. For a… special exception to your service.”

Eros’s ears perked up. It was not often this happened - almost never, really - and he leaned forward in his chair slowly. “And what reputation do you think I carry, miss? I usually perform one act only regarding monsters.”

“S-Sir,” Cynthie puttered, “I’ve heard of your empathy. From the people in Littenborough. They speak of your kindness. Your gentleness. I… I fear the worst for my husband, that he is a vampyr, sir. I know the Valmores are monster slayers. I know what you intend to do. But, please” she leaned forward. Her eyes were filled with tears, colored orange by the glow of the fire in her hut. “Please, if there is any way you can save my husband, I beg of you.”

Eros paused and nodded slowly. His kindness? Gentleness? All he had done was show the people the respect they deserve. Were they always kind to him in return? No. But in this line of work, it was important to be approachable. 

He knew that there was almost no chance of saving Walten if he had turned into a vampyr. He remembered what his father told him: take no chances. Your life is not worth theirs. 

He looked over at the sword he had rested next to the fireplace. The blood diamond in its hilt glistened with the flickering flames and cast the reflection of himself and Cynthie back at him. It was red, he told himself, for the blood he must spill. Red for the blood he must preserve in the innocents he’d save. Red for the certainty of a violent death that all creatures must face. As it had been with the Valmores for the past century and as it would always be.

And yet…

“Miss,” Eros said, “Do you have a clove of garlic?”

...

Walten’s claws dug through Eros’s padded armor and shattered the plating. 

Eros yelled in pain and stumbled forward through the swamp. He was bleeding. Just enough to be a problem. He held his wound and sagged his sword into the water, drawing nonsensical patterns with the blade. Walten stalked around the perimeter of the pool of water and watched Eros before making his next move.

The blood diamond gleamed back at Eros and shimmered with the reminder to take the kill. His stalling had gotten him hurt. At his side dangled a link of garlic gloves. He had intended to wound Walten and shove the cloves into his mouth, thus negating the vampyrism.

It was not going well.

The wound could be magically healed, but Eros needed time to do so - time that he didn’t have currently. Spells would be his fallback. Through his head he ran through the basic invocations he could conjure for their practicality: electricity would instantly kill him in the swamp. Ice would freeze him where he stood. Water was better for movement rather than attacking. That left…

Walten lunged again and glided across the pool. Eros curved his left hand and cast forth a fireball that hit the vampyr square in the chest. The creature fell out of the air and back into the pool as it began to squirm intensely.

Eros saw his chance. He sprinted towards the fallen Walten. Pain from his wound was searing through his body, but he couldn’t let it hold him back.. He wanted to save Walten, not kill him. Cynthie had begged him. He couldn’t go back to her and say he hadn’t tried.

He gripped the garlic in his left hand as he came over the vampyr’s body. He had no time to react as Walten kicked upward and sent him flying across the swamp.

...

He had left Cynthie’s house and was now readying his horse, but the woman was still following him outside.

In the darkness, she pleaded as she had been the entire time. “I’m beginning you, sir. If my husband has turned, please show him mercy. He is full of love and affection, not malice like others.”

Eros notched the garlic to his hip and began to ready his sword. It was dark and Cynthie’s quaint cottage was nestled in the woods just off the main road to the neighboring towns. It was easy to miss had you not been looking for it, and upon further inspection it told of everything Cynthie and Walten’s life had to offer: they were a simple couple who were madly in love and worked hard on their small crops to make a comfortable living for themselves. 

“You cannot negotiate with a vampyr, miss,” Eros said as he tightened his sword to his hip. “They are not like lycans, either, where you could shoot them from a distance with silver. Impalement of their heart is the only sure way to stop them. Putting this garlic in his throat is practically a death sentence. I will try, but I cannot promise.”

Cynthie grew more somber than before. Her tears had dried up and her expression had gone neutral. Eros’s eyes were adjusting and the sight of the woman’s resigning expression. She was bracing herself for the worst outcome: that her husband wouldn’t return.

“I don’t know what I’ll do without him. I’ll lose this farm, Lord Valmore. I’ll have no home. No money. Nothing. I want what’s best for him, sir, but if there’s any way to save him, please, I beg of you…”

Eros stood in the dark for a while, unsure of what to say. He was trying to avoid his idealistic thoughts. He had seen many homes, many families, many innocent people disemboweled, torn apart, dismembered in inventive ways by the most insidious of forces. He was one man with generations of legacy compelling him forward. He knew what must be done, yet he was exhausted of the sobbing families. The mourning. The chaos. The abrupt destruction of life.

“This is the way things are,” his father had said. “The blood diamond in your sword is a reminder of it. Do not forget it.”

He hadn’t. He never would.

...

The water began to cover Eros. He thrust his head up for a sharp gasp of air but felt an unbearable weight crush him against the floor of the pool. He opened his eyes. Walten had landed atop him. The man-turned-beast was seated upon him like an anvil being press downward.

In his pinned arm he felt the garlic brush up against his knuckles. In his right he found the pommel of his sword. Quickly, it was dawning upon Eros what needed to be done.

...

He felt his father’s elbow bash him in the jaw and the wooden sword mercilessly crack over his back, forcing him into submission.

“Dead,” he father grunted as he waltzed around Eros’s breaking body. He wore training gear and his long, graying hair flowed freely behind a sparring mask.

Eros groaned as he pulled himself to his feet, knowing what was coming next. The reset.

“Again,” his father snarled and came at Eros with murderous intent.

Eros brought up his sword quickly and blocked several of his father’s unorthodox strikes in quick succession. The rhythmic crashing of their wooden swords echoed in the training hall masking the shuffling of Eros’s retreating steps. His father was too powerful, too dominant for him to keep up. He was only a child and still learning, but that did not make the training any easier.

There was no escape.

After several steps, Eros was against the wall. His father stood with his sword raised overhead, ready to bring it down onto Eros. He ducked and fell under his father’s legs, raising his blade to strike his father across the back.

A swift donkey kick sent Eros flying backwards.

His father was upon him and Eros felt the tip of his father’s wooden sword stab down into his gut. Eros yelped like a dog and winced as the blade pulled away.

“There’s only one way out in our family’s line of work, Eros,” he father coldly remarked. “You weren’t fast enough. You left yourself wide open. Monsters do not play by the rules. Be the man you are expected to be and strike quick and without a second thought.”

Eros stared up at the ceiling as his father’s footsteps echoed out of the training hall. He lay sprawled out like a starfish and let the pain recede over time. He thought of the blood diamond that would adorn his sword and what it would mean one day. He would have to leave this weakness behind. There was no other certainty other than knowing he would need to kill every beast and foe that crossed his path.

There was, indeed, only one way out.

...

I’m sorry, father, Eros told himself as he saw Walten’s jaw open up. The vampyr’s jaws were reaching down into the water and moving to bite at his throat.

The pommel in his right hand came into his grip and he mustered the last of his strength. The vampyr was too close to angle the sword for a kill. Instead, Eros bashed the vampyr across the head with the face of the blood diamond, cracking against its skull like a roll of thunder. Through the water, Eros could hear the loud explosion of pain that erupted from the creature. Suddenly, his body was free. He found the garlic in his left hand and was upon Walten’s aberratic form. The creature stumbled backwards as its black blood poured out from its head. Its jaw remained open wide.

Eros clenched the garlic in his fist and delivered it into the vampyr’s maw. He felt the writhing pulsation of shock erupt through the vampyr as the garlic was forcibly dispensed inside its throat. Eros let go and sprang backwards as the vampyr began to cry and shriek in sheer terror.

From the horrific bat-beast peeled away fragments of its flesh. Its body began to shrink and its fingers began to shrink from their elongated form. The arched ears and eyes shrunk and hissed away to human shape with a serpentine hiss. Amid the wailing of the creature, the cries of a man emerging from his imprisonment began to take control. Walten re-emerged from his fleshy prison, alive from bearing the weight of his terrible curse.

Eros breathed a heavy sigh of relief and immediately fell down into the swamp, staring in relief as the man before him stumbled forward, naked and afraid of what had just happened.

“What… what happened?” Walten asked. “Who are you? Where are we?”

...

Eros spent some time healing the injuries Walten had sustained in their fight. Then, Eros healed himself and whistled for his horse. After giiving Walten a spare cloak and clothes to wear, the two rode Eros’s horse back to Cynthie.

The wife ran to Walten and sobbed into her husband’s chest for a long while before she could even muster a thank you to Eros. “Thank you, lord Valmore,” she said in between sobs. “You showed my husband more kindness than anyone else would.”

Eros nodded and smirked kindly. It was so different from any outcome than he was used to. The job was usually thankless and met with ire. For once, he had made it work for everyone in the end.

“Sir, thank you,” Walten said as he shook Eros’s hand. “I’m sure we have enough payment for your services. Allow us to find something.”

“No, no need,” Eros said to the couple’s surprise. His mind was already made up. He went to his sword and unsheathed it, looking at the blood diamond in his hilt. The years of pain, the years of abuse, the years of not looking for the right solution over the easier solution. The path hadn’t been easy to bring Walten back, but it was still possible. This gem meant nothing now. This philosophy, he told himself, meant nothing.

He aggressively unsocketed the blood diamond and handed it to Walten. “Get it appraised and sell it in the nearby cities,” he said. “I have no use for it any longer.”

Walten rubbed his head on the side where he had been hit with the gem. Almost reluctantly, he took it and stepped back. “But… my lord, we hired you for your service. You shouldn’t be paying us.”

“Think of it as us being even,” Eros said. “It’s a bad memory for me. But you have a wife and farm to care for. Make good use of it.”

Walten nodded. “I will, sir. Thank you.”

Eros nodded in return and grabbed the reins of his horse. He gave the steed a kick and brought the beast to life with a rumble and a cry. He rode onto the road, heading on and leaving behind something he should have rid himself of a long time ago.