Chapter 7: SATAN BITE

Thomasina shudders involuntarily. Ferdinando tightens his grip on the woman he knows he loves as her legs give way.

“Thank ye, Ferdinando, I am weak, not yet in control of this body.”

“Worry not, my dear, my coach will take us home. You do want to come all the way home with me?”

“Aye, I wish to, until I can gather my strength, I have hid from the Archangel and The Maker for too long here, which has drained me of my power, but it was a necessary part of my plan.”

“Hiding and your plan, Thomasina? I thought the Archangel was preserving you until now, as part of The Maker’s Plan?”

“Nay, Briant, Thomasina, the child who was born into this body disappeared long ago. I began within Valentine Albury, but in impregnating Thomasina with a man child as a decoy, I occupied this body through Valentine’s semen. I knew The Maker would check out the foetus growing as Benjamin fforde and would find no trace of me there. I was intending to allow Thomasina to mate a couple of years down the line and grow a female child, but then the Archangel entered us before I was strong enough to fight him off. I hid here in this shell, remaining still and quiet, unnoticed by all, until now when the Archangel departed.”

“So, if you are the Child of Satan, who is in possession of Valentine?”

“No, Briant, I am no Satan’s Child, I am Satan himself. I am as old as this universe.I was banished to Hell, never to leave it, but I found a way out through my semen. Valentine has the Seed of Satan within him, but he is also merely a decoy. I am Satan himself waiting inside this female body, so I can release Satan’s Egg for fertilisation by any Man, even you, Briant. Once I am fully in charge of this body — and already I am feeling my way into the process — I will have you ravish this body with your seed to fertilize my Egg. I will beat The Maker at His own game. The Son of God may have had his followers, but who would not follow the irresistible Daughter of Satan, who will be designed to be the most beautiful woman in the world?”

“Fertilise your Egg? No, I would never do that, because I—”

“Because you love the body of this woman, of course you do, Briant. I knew your mortal human body would fall in love with Thomasina, as soon as I turned on her womanly charms. The Archangel didn’t know how to flirt with you but I did. You have already fallen in love with her and you will impregnate her once I have assumed full control and made her cycle ready to mate successfully. Satan’s Child would be our beautiful girl child and my plan is that the child will marry the new prince, James Francis Edward Stuart and become Queen. Lord Albury I have in place at the Palace will guarantee that through Lady Arabella as King James’ mistress.”

“Your plan will never—”

“I’ll leave this mortal shell when Thomasina dies, perhaps in childbirth would not be too soon to depart. And when you die, Briant, which by the look and age of you will be soon, as a reward for your aid, I will give you eternal life as one of my Devils from Hell. Then perhaps you could possess a twin brother to my granddaughter issues by my daughter and King James Francis Edward Stuart. Our grandson or daughter will become King, you could be my incestuous King or Queen, like the Egyptian Pharaohs of old. We could become eternal lovers, for generation after generation. In such guises, oh what eternal mischief we would weave!”

Without hesitation, Ferdinando bends his head and bites Thomasina/Satan in the neck, hard enough to draw blood but not drain the woman. Weakened by the departure of the Archangel, Thomasina or Satan are unable to oppose the bite.

“Ow! That hurt, Briant!” Satan cries, “I mean, I am not complaining, I enjoy a little bit of rough love as much as any normal devil does, but this is hardly the place to share our passion. No, we should indulge our carnal pleasures in front of a roaring fire — that is clearly my favoured coupling area! Also, here come the return of your servants—”

“The servants will protect us, Satan, while we sleep through the night and day to come as we return to my own manor in the far west of this, God’s Country. The curtains will be drawn, as the sun will soon burn off tomorrow morning’s mist and we cannot endure the bright sunlight for long. Rumours of my total destruction from the sun are exaggerated, as people need to feel safe from me, thinking I cannot roam during the day, but the sun of this planet doesn’t burn me to, dust ... but it does burn my skin painfully, so the wigs, face-paint—”

“What have you done to me, Briant? I feel so ... strange,” the woman in front of him declares, threatening to swoon unless Ferdinando holds her tight to him.

“I long believed that I was one of The Maker’s failed experiments, I am a Vampire, my dear Satan. I failed to recognise The Maker’s purpose in creating me, the first and for so long the only Vampire on this world, until I infected you, sweetheart. I was forced from my inception to feed on blood. But blood is highly nutritious, so one feed every seventy years or so suffices to renew my body, almost like living life afresh.”

“We are now Vampires?” Her voice is still Satan’s in tone, and Ferdinando’s disappointment shows in his face.

Ferdinando mutters, “I had hoped that Thomasina would be strong enough, knowing the depth of my love for her, but her girly voice in my head is no longer my constant companion of these last few days.”

“Thomasina is buried deep in this body and is of no consequence in our future, Briant. I know she has talked to you, I sensed it even though I know not what you discuss, but she is but a child of sixteen and is no match for me. I cannot fathom your claim that we are Vampires, they are naught but a myth. I am an immortal within a mortal, once she dies I will be free to return to Hell. I have missed much my mischief making.”

“No myth Satan, we — you the body you inhabit and I — are now Vampires. I was the Vampire and usually I bite to completely drain and kill my victims. I never had any desire to perpetuate my uniqueness, no pathological urge to pass on my genes. But, through my gentle bite on your lovely swan neck, I have started to turn you into such a creature. I had hoped I would be speaking to my dear Thomasina, though I fear now that the one I love within you is lost! She is quiet in my head at last, so I address you, Satan. We, you and I, are Vampires and know this, Vampires are immortal and they can never die. You may be immortal, but you are trapped in this body now for eternity. You can never leave this body through death and go back to your Hell, leaving your Devils leaderless and with no Devilish Plan to follow. There will be no ‘Son of Satan’ walking the earth, no ‘Daughter of Satan’ either, no Satanic ritual incest of Kings or Queens.”

“You cannot be immortal, only Archangels and Angels, Devils and I are —”

“Why do you think my ‘predecessors’ as WitchFinder Generals’ were always my ‘grandfathers’, with my ‘fathers’ in between declared as farmers or nonentities. My fathers never actually existed, except for fictitious entries in the registers of my home parish. My ‘predecessors’ were always me and I have always been old, as old as the Archangel who was your co-possessor. You know, Satan, that the Archangel was once my brother flying reptile, though he never recognised me in this evolved form that I have become.”

“But I’ve only ever heard of Vampires, as legends.” Satan squeals.

“I was always Vampire singular, there was only one, me. I kept myself hidden well, just like you have, Satan. I hide quietly among our food source and thereby have endured. Being immortal, time means little to me, just the cycle of ageing until I need to feed on living blood again. Being a Judge I have a ready supply of victims for whenever I choose to renew my body. I was here, Satan, on that very first Judgement Day, when this world was seared with fire and the sun blotted out by sulphur and dust for between half a century and a century.”

“What nonsense is this? You are just a public servant of the Stuart Crown, a human!” Satan/Thomasina cries as his body grows weaker as Ferdinando’s injected blood from his infected bite works its subtle magic on every cell in her body.

“I was here when The Maker banished you to your Hell, Satan. I saw the few flying reptiles saved as Chosen Archangels and spared by The Maker before being sent to do his bidding on other worlds, for other experiments in His Master Plan. All around me those arrogant giant reptiles who ruled this rock perished, their souls carted off to who knows what Purgatory where. Not for you or I, I thought, no sanctuary of Paradise, only eternal hunger and thirst. I was left here alone. The Maker’s Voice echoing in my bony cranium, the sulphuric acid rain burned my wings to dust. But I couldn’t die, I had been turned immortal, but I still felt the constant pain of the ravages of time and the constant hunger to feed.”

“But I am the Lord of Darkness and destruction, the equal of The Maker, this is supposed to be the scene of my Eternal Triumph through the Divine Right of the Stuart Crown!”

“No longer, Satan, now you are merely a host to a Vampire.”

“How long have you been a Vampire, Briant, since that first Judgement Day?” Satan croaked, falling to her knees.

“Aye. Sixty million years. I starved at first, under those impenetrable clouds while mortal beings, giant reptiles, burned around me in the fires of The Maker’s retribution, until I could barely move. I thought I died a thousand deaths, in those early centuries, I shrivelled up with dehydration until my skin peeled off my wasted muscles but still I didn’t die. Nothing could kill me.”

“Why are you here then, and why in this human form?” Satan asks.

“Ah, it was a process of elimination,” Ferdinando laughed humourlessly, “I ate roasted carrion at first, until even the rancid remains were gone, picked clean, yet they provided little sustenance to my new Vampiric form. I still wasted away and I knew not what I needed to do. Then one day I fed on the blood of a live but tiny mouselike creature that ventured out from its hiding place and suddenly I was reborn. I was a young foetus, tiny, but invigorated, reaching maturity in weeks as a giant mouse. I ate and ate, becoming a helpless foetus each time I drank a mouse’s blood. I grew up and consumed the blood of another. They were easy to catch. Time passed and each time I was reborn I began to look like a mouse. Then I had other appetites that developed as well as hunger, so I even had sex them, I was insatiable.”