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Cordillera Paine mountains, Chile

Aureliano’s Story

My maker was at war, and that made me one of her soldiers.

I had no choice but to obey, of course, though I’ve never felt it necessary to disobey Solana in anything.

“Why do you fight wars in this way,” I had asked her, confused as to why we were attempting to change humans into vampires. It didn’t seem like a war. I’d seen violence as a human, not true war but border skirmishes with the local people. When I had studied in Lima, tensions in the English colonies were a topic of discussion, and those tensions resulted in a war that broke out shortly after I was turned. So it was no surprise when real war followed in my home country of Chile some 40 years later. The ‘war’ that Solana was having me fight, where success was measured in how many new vampires we made, could not be more different from that.

Solana laughed. “We are not the way we used to be, my son,” she told me. “There were once many more of us. Now we try to take back what we lost.”

“Lost how? In a real war? Is that why you don’t just kill him—”

She waved her hand. “If I killed Lucien every time we disagreed about something, I would be a pretty poor wife, wouldn’t I?”

She then showed me how to make, how to propagate the species. I could scarcely remember how it had been done to me, almost a century before.

First, a human is taken. Solana said it was better to either choose one that would not be missed, or one that was in a position of power. We rarely concern ourselves with power in the human realm, but it can provide a decade or two of convenience if the change takes. It normally doesn’t.

We each took humans—for my first time we took a pair of shepherds, watching their flock—that would probably have been assumed the victim of a puma attack.

We then drain all the human’s blood. We drink it, and as we drink, their delectable blood is slowly replaced with a clear, foul-tasting bile. There is no better way to drain them, and it is what our bodies are for.

A cut is made down the chest, the ribs torn open, to reach the heart.

One of the heart tubes is cut open. The one suspended above the heart, none of the others, and not the heart itself. Solana says cutting into the heart itself can produce a vampire, but even less often. Best to use the tube.

Then a vampire vomits into the tube.

Not the ‘vomit’ of a vampire spitting up some human food they ate, be it out of simple curiosity or a desire to blend in. The vomit of releasing fetid black humour that accumulates in the stomach over a century of unlife.

It smelled awful, and was old and black and was full of clots or something of the kind.

Then everything is placed back the way it was. Solana showed me how to use horsehair or boiled cotton thread to sew it back together: the heart tube, the skin, everything. Even with a vampire’s speed it was still the work of half an hour to carefully put everything back where it was.

After that, the body is wrapped tightly in bandages and then buried under a rock cairn. If, after two or three days, the cairn has not been disturbed, the transformation was not successful and the corpse can stay and rot.

Solana says that each step is important, each step increases the odds of success. I have no reason to doubt her.

The terms of the war required us each to turn 25 humans over a period of two weeks. They were a mixture of townsfolk from Punta Arenas, local shepherds, and Indigenous people.

One of the townsfolk was Mariana Aravena, a young midwife who appeared to be in her early twenties. It was the same age I was when I was turned, and under similar circumstances.

Today, I find myself inclined to look back on my choice: did I find the curve of her shoulders intoxicating, back then? Did I find myself moved to poetry by the way her dark brown hair glinted red when it caught the moonlight just so? Did I find her voice dark and syrupy?

I know I didn’t. I was one short of that night’s quota, because I’d been too messy when I ripped open that night’s first attempt, necessitating a long and exacting suturing process.

I chose Mariana because it was late enough that the humans were all in their homes. Homes I could not enter without an invitation.

She had been in the streets, making her way home after attending a long and difficult birth. I would scarcely have cared if she were the town wanton, and for all I can remember now, in my hindsight bias tinged recollection, maybe that is what I assumed of her at the time.

In any event, I found Mariana, and I turned her. I took care when I cracked her chest open, cut the hard, fleshy bits around her ribs, and opened up her heart-tube to fill it with my fetid stomach-goo. The care I took was not the tender caress of a lover; no, it was the care of a tinkerer. Of a watchmaker. To me, she was a human. A thing. Something to be worked on in the exacting way that I had been taught. Nothing more.

Three days later, Solana was thrilled to see one of my cairns had been disturbed, with the fresh soil of the grave once more upturned.

I didn’t remember which of my targets had risen. Which victim had dug itself out.

For a seasoned vampire like Solana, locating the survivor would be no challenge.

***

Week One

Mariana didn’t look at all different from the night I had turned her, and Solana had paid her little attention. We hadn’t even given her proper food, only what we could steal for her: empanadas, tortillas, humitas. They were almost all cold by the time we presented her with them, not that either of us thought it mattered.

It wasn’t blood, after all.

There was a grand ceremony when Mariana was presented to Solana’s queen, Ñanku. She was a middle-aged woman who lounged on a simple, wooden throne, her body heavy with gold and jewels. Her skin was a rich, warm brown, her almond-shaped eyes nearly black and surrounded by striking geometric tattoos. Her black hair was almost invisible beneath the draped chains of gold and jade.

Mariana was the only survivor of the hundred humans that were chosen—half by Solana and me, half by her husband Lucien who mentored ratty little Jorje. And so Solana won the war and with it, the prize: Punta Arenas, a new town, added to her duchy.

The ceremony was the only time I ever saw Ñanku, though Solana often spoke of her in hushed, reverent tones, as though she were truly a goddess and not just playing at one. That’s how people like Solana see the oldbloods. Of course, I didn’t know anything about them, and I’d seen nothing they’d done to earn such deference. I don’t think I ever will: I can’t understand taking pride in being the dull bark of a tree. What’s the point of being a thin ring trapped around dead wood when you could be the lively flush of new growth, alive with possibility?

Of course, perhaps given a few centuries I, too, might have changed my attitude.

But oppressors are oppressors.

***

Week Two

Solana moved to Punta Arenas, partly to ensure Lucien did not attempt to poach any of her new humans, but more because she was seeking a stable coterie of janissaries instead of conducting more haphazard raiding of the local towns that we had been doing.

Our kingdom’s laws required that Mariana be mentored, and Solana had no interest in it, and so that task fell upon me. She was released to my custody, and I took her into a cave high in the mountains where she could not hope to escape, not in a body that still remained mostly as incapable as a strong human’s—yes, less capable than even a thrall.

I left a half-drained human in her cave, but she refused to eat it.

“You’ll starve if you don’t!” I told her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” I lied. “Eat it.”

She looked at the human, and I could see the longing. “No. I’m not killing another person.” I could tell she wanted to, though. Our instincts are strong.

“You will, criatura,” I told her, chuckling. I grabbed the human as it made an awful screeching noise, which dissipated into pleasant moans once I had been feeding from it for a few moments.

I drained this one, waiting until the sweet blood tasted as though it had been almost completely replaced by my clear vampiric bile. I knew from experience that a human at this stage of drainage might live another day or two, but would never awaken.

The next night I went into the cave and told her to eat, and left her alone when she refused.

The human was dead on the third night. It pains me to admit it now, but I congratulated her.

***

Week Three

I had nothing to do other than talk to her: I was meant to advise her in our ways, after all. It was the biggest responsibility Solana had given me to this point, and I knew if I impressed her I could expect to benefit down the line.

“Where do you go during the day?”

“I sleep,” I admitted. I climbed higher up into the mountains into my own cave. I’m not careless: Solana told me never to allow the possibility that a rival might pull me out into the sun. And the wisdom of someone who had lived ten centuries with all the conflicts that implied was wisdom I intended to follow.

“Oh,” she frowned. “All day?”

I nodded. “Yes, you will too, soon.”

“Soon? How soon?”

I waved my hand, gesturing outwards. I couldn’t remember how long it had taken when I was first changed from a human. It was all so long ago. “Yes, as you…” I realised I didn’t know how it worked. How any of it worked. But I knew enough to provide a passable story. “Your blood will change, to be more like mine. It takes time. You’ll be stronger. Faster.”

She made a small humming noise. I had told her this before. She already knew this. “And I’ll become like you?” At the time, I neither realised nor cared how much that thought scared her.

“Yes.”

“What did you say you were called?”

The language she spoke didn’t have a word for ‘vampire’, so I just used the slavic term that had gained popularity lately. “We’re called vampires,” I explained.

She nodded. “Bahm-peer?” She repeated.

I couldn’t help but smile at the way her accent changed the word. “Yes. We awaken at night, and we eat blood.”

“I know, I remember you finding me and…” she paused. “So, you were the one who did this to me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I didn’t have a good answer for that.

***

Week Four

Mariana had been knitting with the materials I had stolen for her. She had made herself a large, warm shawl—she told me she still felt the cold, and though I had obtained some more warm clothes for her, she said she liked to have something to do while I slept. She had then started working on a pair of socks.

She took such care in everything she did. I found myself waking each evening, eager to see the progress she had made during the day.

She told me she didn’t have much else to entertain herself. I thought she did: she asked me endless questions while she knitted those socks.

Why did I turn her? Because I was told to.

Why was I told to? Because my maker was at war.

What sort of war involved making new vampires? Was she expected to fight? No, she wasn’t. The fact her change had worked at all had won us the war.

That answer had intrigued her. “It doesn’t always work?”

“It almost never does. You were one of fifty.”

She stopped knitting, and nodded to herself. “Fifty. So… you didn’t choose me?”

I didn’t know what she meant by that, and she must have seen the confusion on my face, because she continued: “You didn’t… see me and want me to make me like you?”

“No?”

She frowned, and returned to her knitting. I thought she was done after that, but she had more questions the next day.

Why did the sun burn me and not her? It would start burning her in a few weeks, and yes, that was why she felt so tired when the sun was up.

How did I avoid getting caught in the sunlight? I use my pocket watch.

What about before watches were invented? You can also use the stars.

Do you still feel pain and emotions like humans do? Of course I do.

Why do you eat them, then? Because there is nothing else to eat.

Have you tried eating animals? I heard it was impossible.

But you haven’t tried? No, why would I?

Why wasn’t she allowed to go home? Because she would tell the humans about us.

Why was that a problem?

I refused to answer that one, but that was because I knew the answer: once the humans are aware of us, they will be able to hunt us down one by one and drag us into the sun.

***

Week Five

I had stolen her a bible, thinking she would enjoy having something to read while I slept and hunted.

I thought she could read—the newspaper that I had taken in Punta Arenas last month had kept her occupied, after all, until she had worn it out. The edges had frayed, and the text had worn in the places it had been folded until those folds became so thin that some pages split into pieces.

But she almost never read the bible, and I asked her about it.

“Ah, no,” she smiled. “It’s harder than the newspaper, it’s long and there’s a lot of…” she said, flipping through the pages until she found one of the many genealogies, “Engendró, you see?”

“Ah yes, but you have learned that word now, niña. And there are a lot of other parts…” I remember feeling strange, that I would care so much that she was content during the time I was asleep.

She laughed. “Yes, but, Aureliano, it was translated a hundred years ago. It sounds like the way you speak, only it doesn’t stop to explain to me if I don’t understand something…”

I frowned. It seemed perfectly ordinary to me. And I understood her fine, though she spoke a little casually for my taste. I supposed it made sense: she was made from one of the local humans, and I didn’t much care for the way they spoke, either.

“Well, if you want to practise, I can help you,” I offered. It was my job, after all.

“I would like that.”

I found myself oddly glad that she had agreed. I retrieved a newspaper, handed it to her, and then stood behind her to follow along as she attempted to read.

***

Week Six

I had stolen a flute for her three days earlier, and she often played it after her reading practise. The notes filled the cave, sometimes joyful, but more often soft and mournful. I enjoyed hearing something echoing in the cave other than our voices, though I’d come to enjoy the sound of hers.

Her flute playing stopped.

“Aurelito?” She had taken to calling me that. It grated on me at first, but I had grown to enjoy it.

“Yes, Mariana?”

“Do you play any instruments?”

I smiled. I did. “Yes, the violin.”

“Do you have one?”

“Yes, I can go get it.”

She looked at me, and I saw her deep brown eyes for what felt like the first time. They gave me an unfamiliar, but comfortable, shiver down my spine. “Could you take me with you?”

I wasn’t sure. I had not shown her my lair. She wouldn’t be able to reach it, not yet. Her arms and legs were still so much weaker than mine. Her body so much frailer: if she were injured, she’d take a long time to heal.

She saw my hesitation. “Another one of your secrets?”

I frowned. She had been full of questions, more than I was at her age. I didn’t know the answers to many of them. “I can’t show you my lair.”

“Why not?”

“For starters, you can’t reach it. You’re still too weak.”

“And secondly?”

“Solana told me never to show my lair to someone who can still go into the sun.” I paused, not quite remembering my own second adolescence. It was so long ago. “You… still can, can’t you?”

“Yes, but I could feel myself getting sunburned after only a few minutes.” She paused, considering this. “Oh, you’re worried I might kill you?”

“You’d just have to pull me into the sun, and I would die.”

“Is that the only way?”

I chuckled. “You know I won’t tell you that, Chiquilla.”

***

Week Seven

Her reading had progressed to the point that she could read the newspaper, and so I had taken to stealing them for her whenever I had the opportunity. Punta Arenas published a bulletin every two weeks, and occasionally received a shipment of Valparaíso’s daily paper, often weeks late.

“Oh, you didn’t get Tuesday’s issue of El Mercurio!” she scolded me. I smiled.

“I’m sorry, they didn’t have it in town. I did find Le Figaro, though,” I handed her the newspaper: it was three months old, of course, but I thought a townsperson like her might appreciate knowledge from the continent. I almost never saw European newspapers so thought she would appreciate the rare treasure.

She gave me one of her favourite looks, the kind that meant she thought I had made a fool of myself. A small smile with her eyes directed to the roof of the cave. “Do you really think I can read that?”

“Ah, did you not learn to read French at all?”

“I didn’t learn to speak French at all.”

“I thought you were educated?”

“Why?”

“You can read,” I offered. Admittedly, her reading ability was still somewhat poor, though the lessons had improved it a great deal.

“Yes, the nuns taught us. So we could read hymns and manage the household.”

“And when you were human, your job…”

She laughed. “I birth babies, Aurelito. Do you think midwifery requires an education?”

“Well, I hear surgeons go to school nowadays,” I muttered, embarrassed.

“It’s women’s work. It comes naturally.” She frowned, the light leaving her eyes. “I won’t be doing it again, will I?”

I shook my head. “No, you’ll never be able to go back. You’re one of us now.”

“Are you happier this way?” she asked me.

I hesitated. I had never considered that before. “Of course. I’m strong, I’m fast, and I will live forever.”

“...In fear that I’ll pull you into the sun,” she finished.

“Do you not think I’m happy?”

She smiled, and shook her head. “You may live forever, but you have nothing to live for.”

I now know that she was right, but I was not ready to admit that. Not to myself, and especially not to her. “You are incorrect, Chiquilla. My job is to teach you. As well as improving your reading, I’ll teach you French. Then Latin, once you’ve got the hang of it.”

Her smile changed from a sort of melancholy acknowledgement to something that came from a place of joy as the corners of her eyes crinkled. “Do you know any other languages?”

“Yes, I speak a bit of Kawésqar, and some English, though I stumble over both still.”

“I suppose living so long gives you time to learn, doesn’t it?” The reluctant smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth made her face glow.

***

Week Eight

I had come to look forward to our reading lessons, and I believe Mariana did, too. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment, to mentor one of my inferiors. She no doubt felt honoured to be worthy of the time as someone as esteemed as I.

Our habit involved her sitting and reading aloud from a newspaper, and then from a bible, while I stood behind her and assisted with difficult words. My superior eyesight made this possible, and it was a comfortable position for both of us.

On this occasion, she had just finished reading from the book of Matthew.

“I never thought it would be so easy…” she mused, standing to carefully place the book into the box of her things that sat in the middle of the cave (she used it as a table).

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. “I always thought that… it would be hard to read as well as my father did. But all it took was some practice! It’s been three weeks, and we haven’t even been practising every day.” She waved her hands slightly to her side, as though frustrated.

“Well, I am a good teacher.”

She couldn’t stifle her laughter as she moved to stand opposite me, arms folded. “You are adequate, Aurelito.”

I bristled. “I have taught you everything you know about being a vampire. I believe I have done so admirably, given the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

“Well, I had not expected to have a pup—”

“A pup?”

“Yes, that is what young vampires are called—”

“—like a baby dog?”

“Yes. Now, as I was saying, I had not expected to have a pup.”

This seemed to interest her. “Why not? You made me, did you not?”

“Yes, but I didn’t expect you to live.”

“Ah, of course.” I could sense some bite in her tone, and felt an urge to explain myself that I didn’t yet understand.

Instead, I brought us back to the initial topic: “So, I am surprised to have had the opportunity to teach someone about our ways.”

She didn’t seem to have listened, her next words spoken suddenly and sharply. “Were you not…” she hesitated. “...expecting to have… pups… someday?”

“I didn’t know how it was done,” I replied. I remembered my last moments as a human: a pleasure I had not felt before and have not felt since, that seemed to fill every inch of my body with its fullness. Then my vision clouded over in brown, with flickering stars, and the pain and the fear filled me. It felt like I was experiencing my death at that moment. Little did I know that Solana was about to give me eternal life: the greatest gift anyone could receive. “I mean, you must know… you were dead when I…”

She nodded. “Yes, but don’t vampires talk about… Is it not something you all want someday? Like we—like humans do?”

“No, of course not. We’re solitary. My maker, Solana, I see every few months. There’s a few more like me—”

“—her other… pups?”

“—No, I’m her only living pup.” I clarified. “She has a husband too, but I think they see each other every ten years or so?”

Mariana’s face took on an ashen look. I thought the references to solitude were what shook her, at the time. “What point is a husband, then?”

“Oh, I believe they enjoy one another’s company, when they spend time together. But after a hundred years I believe they both found other pursuits that they enjoy,” there was a sense of emptiness, or longing, within me that I was not used to. I had never found Solana’s marital situation to be of any note.

“Pursuits they enjoy more than company as man and wife?”

I laughed. “Chiquilla, you said you were a midwife? You see men and wives when they are at their most attentive. Rest assured that such passions fade with time, especially in humans, who age so.”