Cruel Vampire Queen
written by: J.G. Millie
“The Vampire Queen is Looking for a Husband,” was today’s decree. “All men, single or wed, will need to enter on behalf of the Queen’s orders.” This was ridiculous. I understood the Queen had been lonely since her previous husband was sent to the underground, but why was I being roped into this. My cousin, Decklyn, was thrilled. He always had a hunger for her, and now he’d have his chance to prove it, but I was nothing. I was only one of thousands of the Queen’s royal guards. I’d been guarding her bedchambers since I was changed, and my cousin had found me this position. I couldn’t have been more grateful. It gave me a purpose in this never-ending death cycle.
“Hey Sage, you won’t believe it, guess?” Decklyn was bouncing in the air.
I waved him away, “I’m already aware of the proclamation.”
He landed beside me, shocked, “Seriously? How are you not more excited about this?”
“You’ve wanted the Queen, not me.” This was obvious. We’d had this discussion a million times, and now a million and one times. I was so over it.
“So, you know all about the challenges?”
“No,” this caught my attention. Had I missed something?
“Well, there’s a race around the world through mortal cemeteries, a vampire lifting challenge, and if we make it through those two then we just have to win the light challenge, and then I marry Queen Irabella.”
“Okay?”
“You know you’ve got to participate, by royal decree, all men-”
“I’m well aware, but I’ll fail the first round.” I grinned.
“How? You’re easily the fastest vampire here, besides me, of course.”
I roll my shoulder in agitation, “of course,” I mock, I’d simply fail to qualify for the next round.
“How many make it to the-?”
“Only the first million make it to the next round, and only the first thousand move on to the last challenge.”
“Alright, I’ll be sure to come in a million and one in the race.”
“Good luck with that, you forget your competitive nation.” He waved his finger at me. I picked him up, and tossed him through the roof. He only laughed. I’d had enough of his warnings.
I was furiously storming down the halls, making my way to the Queen’s chambers. I don’t know how it happened, but I’d won the race. Not one of the million, but first. I’d made sure to eat plenty of red meat, enough to make me sick, if only I could be sick in death. I’d made sure to even be late to the race. I’d strolled along the first cemetery, but a gust of wind had grabbed me, and dragged me into first place. Forcing me to win the race. But when I told Decklyn this, he’d simply laughed at me. He claimed it was the competitor in me, but I knew it hadn’t been me. He’d claimed nothing else could touch a vampire, but we both knew that was a lie too.
“Good morning, my darling Sage, how did the race go?” She asked as if she didn’t know.
I stood up a little straighter, unbaled my fists, and took a calming breath before bowing my head low for the Queen.
“I’m sure you’ve heard.” I snapped back.
“Oh no, I haven’t, for it hasn’t ended yet.” She laughed as if any of this was humorous. “Will you join me for some fruit?” She offered.
I nodded, and followed her into her bedchambers.
“Thank you, your royal highness.” I replied as I should with the utmost respect.
“No need for all of that courtesy, my darling Sage, just call me Irabella.”
“I’d rather not.” I mumbled under my breath.
“Excuse-me?” She looked taken aback, and almost hurt, but we both knew it was an act.
“I apologize, I’m incredibly grateful for the honor to perform for your hand in marriage, however, I’m not sure how I won the race.”
“You’re the best.” She said it matter-of-factly.
I shrugged, “I wasn’t trying to be.”
“I know,” she signed, “is this still about that human girl?”
“I’m married you know, so I don’t know why it was necessary to have all married vampires perform.”
“Humans don’t count. Nor do they matter.” She raised her voice in frustration.
I jumped up, and slammed my fist on her nice round breakfast table. “She matters! She will always matter to me!”
She stood up calmly, and waved her other guards out of the room. I could tell she was equally as angry as me, but I didn’t care.
“Oh darling, you will perform for me, and you will win my hand in marriage. You don’t need to be happy about it. But you’re my creation. You wanted to live. So you’re alive. Do Not blame me for your choice, if anything, you can thank me for taking an interest in you, and according to the mortal law, you’re only married til death, and I hate to break it to you darling, but you are indeed as dead as it gets.”
She sat back down with a smirk on her ridiculously cruel and porcelain face, “you will marry me whether you like it or not.”
“NO!” I punched the solid castle wall closest to me.
She cackled in response, “and if I remember correctly she’s dead because of you?”
“No,” but it was a weak response, and we both knew it to be a lie.
“Of course it was, you were just too weak to accept your fate, but it would have been with her.”
“I know.”
I turned to offer up an apology, but a strong gust of wind pinned me to the wall behind me.
“YOU!” She’d been the wind in the race.
“Yes,” she approached me like prey to a predator, and caressed my face in her delicate hands. I could feel her claws coming to life under her human form, and she dragged them down my cheeks, leaving her claim on both sides of my face. Her hair broke loose from its shimmering black braid and grew out in silver whips that lashed out all around us. Her true facial features came through her facade and cracked the porcelain of her made-up face. She snarled and drew her mouth wide to show off her fangs that glistened with her poisonous saliva. I remained silent knowing I could never defeat her by calling for help or using my powers because they weren’t my own. She’d given them to me. I felt enraged as she ripped open my forehead, leaving two large painful open wounds across it, one from each fang, to eventually scar.
The wind’s hold released me, but it didn’t matter. I would win because she’d just claimed me the same way she had her last three hundred and fifty thousand husbands. And when she’d finished with one of her ‘soulmates’ the end was worse than any imaginable death. They still lived below us in our underground tortured for eternity. My other best friend had been her last husband, and I still visited him, but the torture changed almost daily to fit the Queen’s cruel imagination. She would never be my Queen, and I’d never be her next husband.
I unfortunately won the next challenge. I could carry over a billion of us thanks to the Queen’s assistance. The wind above me practically carried them for me, and I made the mistake of challenging her strength as I continued to add vampire corpse after corpse to the pile I held above my head with her help to see how many she could carry, but I’d made the mistake of forgetting how much my competitors could carry, and they’d all dropped out by the billion mark, and I’d won. Furious would be an understatement of how I felt, and hate wasn’t strong enough for how I felt about the Queen.
“Good luck mate!” Decklyn called out from across the field.
I waved, so he knew I’d heard him, but everyone had seen the scars on my body. This competition was rigged at this point in the game, and everyone knew it, but no one wanted to believe it, especially me. I wanted to return to the day I was shot, and caught by our rivals. The same day my soulmate – not this imposter of a Queen, who’s trying way too hard to keep me – but my human soulmate who I married when I had a human soul. I wish I could say her name out loud, but I’d refused to do so in this form. I didn’t trust the Queen to have a change of heart, find her body in the cemetery closest to my hometown, and change her into one of us: a fate worse than death. She’d probably change her, and torture her to get to me. I could never let that happen. Oh! Why hadn’t I just died by her side? She’d tried to shoot one of them for me, but they had fired back, without hesitation, a dozen or more bullets, and left us there to die. I should have died with her, but I’d been afraid and prayed to a darker spirit to save me. That had been my biggest mistake, and if I could make things right, I would.
“You ready?” The stranger beside me asked. I knew he was just trying to make conversation, but I didn’t care.
“No, I have no interest in winning,” I replied.
“Then don’t.”
“Easy for you to say,” I argued.
“Then do.”
“Do what?” I snapped.
“Win.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Win like nobody else can because we’re all too scared.” He whispered like he’d given me the key to escape, but I didn’t understand the nonsense he spewed.
Before I could respond, the ground above split in the middle, and allowed sunlight to enter the arena where we all stood. It was a simple enough challenge, rule-wise, you stood there until you couldn’t handle melting any further, and when it got to be too much, you flew away or vanished.
The heat was searing my skin, burning through it. I clenched my teeth and tried to walk off, but my feet were planted to the black sand, beneath my feet, to attract the sun even further. It was unbearable. I couldn’t do this. I looked all around me, and vampires were vanishing fairly quickly, but how could I lose, if I couldn’t move. I tried shaking my body, back and forth, so she solidified my entire body in place with the force of her wind forcing me to stay in place. I pushed against it, but it did no good. She made me, and she would always be more powerful than me. The heat wasn’t bearable anymore, and I could feel my skin melting off of my skeleton. It was dreadful.
“I can’t do this. I can’t lose. She’s got me trapped.” I was panting, the pain made thinking and speaking difficult. I couldn’t even focus on an escape plan.
“I’m done, I can’t take this heat.” The stranger slammed what was left of his hand onto my shoulder, and I cried out in pain. “But you’re right, you can’t lose. So, you might as well win this challenge your way.” He smirked and then vanished.
What in the world did he mean by that? Why would I want to win? What did he mean by my way? He’s useless. I’m useless. This is all pointless.
“Sage-”
Had that been?
“Sage-”
It couldn’t be.
“Sage-”
It had to be a trick.
I glanced up into the sun, and felt my eyeballs melt from my eye sockets, and pool at my feet. I managed to wiggle what was left of my skeleton, but it wouldn’t be long before my skeleton followed my skin. I took a step forward into the light. Wait! My body wasn’t stuck anymore. I took another step towards the voice, and felt my lower body melt away.
“SAGE!” The Queen’s voice announced my victory, and demanded I return to her side, but not as her guard, as her husband.
I finally understood that stranger’s words. I stepped into the sunlight, and allowed my vampire flesh and bones to melt away with the world I would be leaving behind as I made my way to the beautiful heavens where my lovely Saphia awaited me.
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