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BEWITCHED
BORN OF DARKNESS #4
R. B. FIELDS
Copyright 2020
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely
coincidental. Opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not
necessarily reflect those of the author.
1. Christoph
2. Dawn
3. Christoph
4. Era
5. Draynor
6. Markula
7. Dawn
8. Silas
9. Kain
10. Dawn
11. Markula
12. Draynor
13. Dawn
14. Dawn
15. Dawn
16. Dawn
17. Dawn
18. Kain
19. Dawn
20. Markula
21. Draynor
22. Dawn
“O ne will rise .
A nd she will be forged of bone and flesh , a
love like no other — inamorata . A nd she alone shall force the
heavens wide . T hen shall the race of vampire fall . B y their own
hand , by their own blood , they shall splinter from the inside ,
brother against brother , none left standing but the guilty .
A nd when our kind spills her blood , so the race of vampire
will finally end .”
2
DAWN
S ilas, Draynor, and Kain sit in chairs near the window, their
heads together in discussion. Though they appear
secretive, they aren’t trying to hide anything, but they are nervous
— they dislike this part of the process. They hate spilling her blood.
They hate that I’m not one of them — inamorata. A fated match.
To them, she is all that matters, and to me … well, we’re still
figuring that out, according to Dawn. I’d have said, “We’re enjoying
one another’s flesh while we determine what the future looks like,”
but I suppose her words are as good as any.
And every day with her feels more poignant than the one before,
her scent sweeter in my nose. I did not believe them when they told
me she was their beloved — their inamorata. I thought it insane. I
resisted the feeling from day one. Perhaps I tried harder to resist
than they did, or perhaps I have some inner strength, or even …
prejudice against her kind. It has taken me some time to come to
terms with that one, but I think it’s true — I resisted her because
she was human. For if humans are worthy of love, then killing them
indiscriminately as I’ve done since I turned is horrifically wrong —
the guilt eats at me in quiet moments. This group appears to feel
the same.
But they only hunt the wicked. They have no need for guilt.
“Era?” Her voice is soft and sweet like music to my ear, though I
ignore that thought — that is the thought of a fated match, and I
am not beholden to fate.
I reach for Dawn’s hair and let my long fingers tangle in her
silken tresses. She caresses me with her gaze. Markula sits behind
her, one of his thick arms around her rib cage — he still won’t allow
me to be alone with her. He talks a big game when she has me tied
to the bedpost, but I believe he knows I will not bite her — her
blood is deadly to us, and it has helped us to kill her enemies more
than once. It is more than the hunter blood, more than the witch
blood she carries. It is the hex.
But now, I need it.
Without a sensual connection, I’d be unable to see much of
anything, but we have found the blood helps. Being free of the cuffs
also helps — the restraints bind my arms and legs but also seem to
dampen my gifts. Freedom of mind and body alike appear to be
crucial to the process where Dawn is involved, though none of us
are sure why that is.
Markula knows it is time — I can tell by the tightness around his
irises. He traces his fingernails from her shoulder and over the lean
muscles of her bicep, her forearm, down to the slender bones of her
wrist. The blood pulses blue along the underside of her arm as he
turns her hand over and raises it, slowly, reverently, to his lips.
She closes her eyes and turns her head toward him, showing me
the deeply purple veins in her neck.
His fangs descend.
A saccharine stench, too sweet, too heavy, cuts the air like
smoke. He yanks his mouth away almost immediately, but I can still
see the ruby against the tips of his pearly teeth. He wipes his mouth
on his arm, making a gagging-spitting sound like a cat choking on a
hairball. She blinks and holds her arm over the sheets at her side.
We all watch the blood drip onto the silk. One drop. Two. Three.
The heavy sweetness intensifies. I fear I might choke.
When Markula presses a cloth to her wound, I lower my
fingertips to the silk sheets, relishing the burn of her blood against
the pad of my thumb. Not as intense as letting it drip onto my skin,
not as painful as letting it slip over the fat of my lips and into my
mouth, but it tingles sharply like it might blister. My fangs tingle, too,
the tips burning against my gums, but I will them back.
The vision comes almost immediately.
In my mind’s eye, sheets of white silk undulate as if they’re
hanging from a clothesline. Curtains, maybe. But my eyes are still
open, and beyond those curtains, I see her, Dawn, her head thrown
back against Markula’s chest, his arm still wrapped protectively
around her ribs. Markula shifts to remove her tank top, freeing the
pale globes of her breasts.
“I love that this is the way to enhance your powers,” she says,
her eyes shining. Markula has freed her of her panties, too, though I
am not sure when. My hand rests on her naked thigh. I press my
other hand harder against the bloody sheets.
Markula leans back against the pillows, tugging her with him. He
watches me with glittering eyes, one hand on her throat as if he
might choke her, but I know it is a protective measure — Markula
may never trust me fully.
And then she’s splayed out before me, resting against the
Warrior, her legs spread, his fingers playing at the apex of her
thighs. She moans, grinding her pelvis against him, his tongue
caressing the soft skin behind her ear.
He watches me.
White curtains billow in my brain.
I shed my pants like a snake shedding its skin. She meets my
eyes as I climb up past her knees, keeping one hand on the stained
sheets. Markula uses two fingers to spread the folds of her pussy
wide for me. I’m hard, throbbing, my mouth watering, but I know
better than to lower my lips to her sex — Markula would have my
head for sure.
I slip my dick inside her, the wet, tight heat of her enveloping my
senses, but inside my head, the vision intensifies. It’s not white
curtains … snow? Yes, definitely snow, and a lot of it. As opposed to
a curtain in front of a window, this stretches on for miles and miles.
Even the horizon line is crusted in white, a line of ice against an
eternally gray sky. Does the sun ever rise here? Is it always this
monotonous night?
Dawn moves her hips against me, drawing a grunt from deep in
my belly. A hot burn spreads from my loins up through my ribs and
down over my thighs. My cock, sheathed in her heat, aches with
pleasure, and with every pulse of her hips, the vision expands,
widening, broadening, as if I’m on a conveyer belt that’s moving
backward.
Dawn moans. And …
There. The mountains stretch along the horizon, a jagged line of
peaks like blades stabbing the moon. The valleys between are filled
with shadowed crevices that feel like eyes.
A woman wrapped in a thick, down-filled jacket and leather
gloves comes into focus in the foreground. Long black hair billows
from beneath her woolen hat. Even her eyes are hidden behind
snow goggles.
And she’s not alone.
She looks up at her comrade. Taller than she is, but seemingly
impervious to the cold — he wears only jeans and a long-sleeved
sweater. And as he turns away from her, I can see through his eyes
… I can see the house. An enormous fortress of stone looms at the
height of the mountain, a dim yellowed light glowing from the
interior. He probably came from inside, though he wouldn’t have
needed a coat anyway. One of the skills dhampirs possess is that
they are impervious to temperature extremes. No frost can
penetrate his flesh.
“Please reconsider, Shannon.”
Shannon — her mother. And he’s asking her for something,
almost begging. This isn’t what I expected. The rage I saw in him
before led me to believe Dawn’s mother was but a vessel for his
offspring.
“You know as well as I do that this is the best choice, Christoph.
Living here, they’d all know — it would only take one of them to find
you, to figure out what you are — ”
“If the hex fails in the human world, what happens?”
“Then vampires will know she’s a hunter.” Her voice cracks on the
last word.
“She’ll want to kill them — they’ll want to kill her. But living as a
human, she’d be up against one or two at a time. Here, we’d be
ambushed. And I think we owe it to her to at least let her try the
human world before we hide her away forever.”
“As if the human world has anything to offer.” His face is a mask
of placidity, but it shouldn’t be … dhampirs don’t maintain calm. Did
we misjudge him? Did I?
He starts for the house, his hand on her shoulder. “Twenty
years,” he says to the stars. “It will go by in a blink.”
Dawn writhes beneath me, and for a moment all I see is her
face, her big blue eyes, her lips so pink with life. I thrust my hips,
supporting myself on my hands, on the bloody sheet, and I realize
my fingers are already blistering — my fingertips sting. But I don’t
care. I thrust my hips, shoving my cock deeper into her wet pussy,
making her breasts bounce against her ribs. Markula grabs hold of
one of them and rolls her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
She cries out and groans, and when she closes her eyes, I follow
suit and watch … and watch.
Shannon follows the dhampir over the snow, her hair glinting in
the light from inside as they step onto the stone porch. “Yes. In
twenty years, I’ll tell her what she is. And when she’s ready, if she
wants to come, I’ll bring her here. But I can’t imagine she will
refuse. Even now, kicking in my belly, I can feel her … spirit. There is
a darkness in her, Christoph, but she’s feisty.”
“Feisty? That might be the spicy food.” He shakes his head, then
lowers his lips to the crown of her head. Gentle. Loving. “Humans
are such weaklings. Which is why, by the time you return, I’ll have
built a fortress for us.” His face goes grave. “But you must protect
her, Shannon. Kill any vampire who gets near her. They are the
biggest threat to us — to all of us.” They step into the gilded interior,
silhouetted by the wan light — candles.
“I will, Christoph. I’ll protect her with my life.”
The huge double doors swing closed.
My consciousness slams back into the present to find Dawn
bucking against me, her heels hooked around my hips, pulling me
deeper, her breath coming in rapid little squeaks that only makes me
want to fuck her harder. So I do, oh I do, Markula’s knuckles hard
against my belly as he manipulates her clit. At some point while I
was watching that snow-swept mountaintop, Draynor, Silas, and Kain
surrounded the bed, blocking out the walls beyond. Kain smiles
down at us, reaches between me and Dawn, and brushes his fingers
over her nipple.
She comes with a rush that clenches around my cock, and a
moment later, I feel the vibration from Kain’s fingertips in my body
as well, though he isn’t touching me, isn’t even close to touching
me. No … this is my gift. I’m feeling what she did moments before,
watching my own face as I fuck her, feeling the exquisite pressure as
her muscles spasm then release with orgasm.
I grunt and thrust one final time, my nerve endings on fire with
pleasure as I spurt into her. I try to pull back, but her feet are still
hooked around my hips. Her eyes are open now, her lips parted.
“What do you see?” she pants. That’s why she’s still holding onto
me, I realize. She wants to make sure I don’t lose the vision.
I explain as quickly as I can, my eyes on hers as I launch into the
final bit. “Your father adored your mother — this wasn’t rape. This
was love. But your father blames vampires for destroying his life. His
hatred for us is more intense than I thought. He gave up fatherhood
to protect you, let your mother raise you in a place they thought
you’d be safe — he won’t take kindly to us pulling you out of that life
now. Until us, you were hidden. Before Silas found you on that
bridge, vampires didn’t see you for what you were.” I’ve gone soft
inside her, but the warmth of her remains a comfort. I don’t want to
move.
“The timeline is messy,” Kain says, lowering himself into the chair
at the bedside. “As it often is with Diviners. If Silas hadn’t brought
you to us, Markula’s brother never would have been able to see that
version of the future. He never would have known about the
prophecy.”
“But if Silas hadn’t intervened, I’d have been killed by another
vampire,” she says. “Silas saved my life the night we met.”
Draynor takes the seat beside Kain, my old friend’s face pensive.
“Either way, vampires are what put you in danger that night,” he
says. “And we are why you’re in danger now. Your mother’s love
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libraries of Arabic literature, to compile local histories and poems,
and, in a measure, to become centres for the propagation of
intellectual thought.
That is the condition in which Leo Africanus found them in the
sixteenth century, when he first revealed their existence to an
incredulous and largely unlettered Western world; in which the
pioneer explorers of the nineteenth century found them; in which the
political agents of Great Britain found them ten years ago when
destiny drove her to establish her supremacy in the country. That is
the condition in which they are to-day in this difficult transition stage
when the mechanical engines of modern progress, the feverish
economic activity of the Western world, the invading rattle of another
civilization made up of widely differing ideals, modes of thought, and
aims, assailed them.
Will the irresistible might wielded by the new forces be wisely
exercised in the future? Will those who, in the ultimate resort, direct
it, abide by the experience and the advice of the small but splendid
band of men whose herculean and whole-hearted labours have
inscribed on the roll of British history an achievement, not of
conquest, but of constructive statesmanship of just and sober
guidance nowhere exceeded in our management of tropical
dependencies? Will they be brought to understand all that is
excellent and of good repute in this indigenous civilization; to realize
the necessity of preserving its structural foundations, of honouring its
organic institutions, of protecting and strengthening its spiritual
agencies? Will they have the patience to move slowly; the sympathy
to appreciate the period of strain and stress which these
revolutionary influences must bring with them; the perception to
recognize what elements of greatness and of far-reaching promise
this indigenous civilization contains? Or will they, pushed by other
counsellors, incline to go too fast both politically and economically,
impatiently brushing aside immemorial ceremonies and customs, or
permitting them to be assaulted by selfish interests on the one hand
and short-sighted zeal on the other? Will they forget, amid the
clamorous calls of “progress” and “enlightenment” that their own
proclaimed high purpose (nobly accomplished by their
representatives) of staying the ravages of internal warfare and
healing open wounds will be shamed in the result if, through their
instrumentality, the seeds of deeper, deadlier ills are sown which
would eat away this fine material, destroy the lofty courtesies, the
culture and the healthy industrial life of this land, converting its
peoples into a troubled, shiftless mass, hirelings, bereft of economic
independence and having lost all sense of national vitality? Thoughts
such as these must needs crowd upon the traveller through these
vast spaces and populous centres as he watches the iron horse
pursue its irrevocable advance towards the great Hausa cities of the
plains, as he hears the increasing calls from the newly opened tin
mines for labour, from the Lancashire cotton-spinner for cotton and
markets; as he takes cognisance of the suggestions already being
made to break the spirit of the new and admirable land-law, and of
the efforts to introduce a militant Christian propaganda; as he listens
in certain quarters to the loose talk about the “shibboleths” and
“absurdities” of indigenous forms and ceremonies, the
cumbrousness of native laws and etiquette.
CHAPTER IV
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE LONG-DISTANCE TRADER
A TRADING CARAVAN.
CHAPTER V
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE AGRICULTURIST
And now a faint amber flush appears in the eastern sky. It is the
signal for many sounds. A hum of many human bees, the crowing of
countless roosters, the barking of lean and yellow “pye” dogs, the
braying of the donkey and the neigh of his nobler relative, the
bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle. The scent of burning wood
assails the nostrils with redolent perfume. The white tick-birds, which
have passed the night close-packed on the fronds of the tall fan-
palms, rustle their feathers and prepare, in company with their
scraggy-necked scavenging colleagues the vultures, for the useful if
unedifying business of the day. Nigerian life begins, and what a busy
intensive life it is! From sunrise to sunset, save for a couple of hours
in the heat of the day, every one appears to have his hands full.
Soon all will be at work. The men driving the animals to pasture, or
hoeing in the fields, or busy at the forge, or dye-pit or loom; or
making ready to sally forth to the nearest market with the products of
the local industry. The women cooking the breakfast, or picking or
spinning cotton, or attending to the younger children, or pounding
corn in large and solid wooden mortars, pulping the grain with
pestles—long staves, clubbed at either end—grasped now in one
hand, now in the other, the whole body swinging with the stroke as it
descends, and, perhaps, a baby at the back, swinging with it; or
separating on flat slabs of stone the seed from the cotton lint picked
the previous day. This is a people of agriculturists, for among them
agriculture is at once life’s necessity and its most important
occupation. The sowing and reaping, and the intermediate seasons
bring with them their several tasks. The ground must be cleared and
hoed, and the sowing of the staple crops concluded before the early
rains in May, which will cover the land with a sheet of tender green
shoots of guinea-corn, maize, and millet, and, more rarely, wheat.
When these crops have ripened, the heads of the grain will be cut
off, the bulk of them either marketed or stored—spread out upon the
thatch-roofed houses to dry, sometimes piled up in a huge circle
upon a cleared, dry space—in granaries of clay or thatch, according
to the local idea; others set aside for next year’s seeds. The stalks,
ten to fifteen feet in height, will be carefully gathered and stacked for
fencing purposes. Nothing that nature provides or man produces is
wasted in this country. Nature is, in general, kind. It has blessed man
with a generally fertile and rapidly recuperative soil, provided also
that in the more barren, mountainous regions, where ordinary
processes would be insufficient, millions of earth-worms shall
annually fling their casts of virgin sub-soil upon the sun-baked
surface. And man himself, in perennial contact with Nature, has
learned to read and retain many of her secrets which his civilized
brother has forgotten. One tree grows gourds with neck and all
complete, which need but to be plucked, emptied and dried to make
first-rate water-bottles. A vigorous ground creeper yields enormous
pumpkin-shaped fruit whose contents afford a succulent potage,
while its thick shell scraped and dried furnishes plates, bowls, pots,
and dishes of every size, and put to a hundred uses: ornaments, too,
when man has grafted his art upon its surface with dyes and carved
patterns. A bush yields a substantial pod which when ready to burst
and scatter its seeds is found to contain a fibrous substance which
resembles—and may be identical with, I am not botanist enough to
tell—the loofah of commerce, and is put to the same uses. From the
seeds of the beautiful locust-bean tree (dorowa), whose gorgeous
crimson blooms form so notable a feature of the scenery in the
flowering season, soup is made, while the casing of the bean affords
a singularly enduring varnish. The fruit of the invaluable Kadenia or
shea tree is used for food, for oil, and medicinally. The bees receive
particular attention for their honey and their wax, the latter utilized in
sundry ways from ornamenting Korans down to the manufacture of
candles. As many as a dozen oblong, mud-lined, wicker hives closed
at one end, the other having a small aperture, may sometimes be
seen in a single tree. Before harvest time has dawned and with the
harvesting, the secondary crops come in for attention. Cassava and
cotton, indigo and sugar-cane, sweet potatoes and tobacco, onions
and ground-nuts, beans and pepper, yams and rice, according to the
locality and suitability of the soil. The farmers of a moist district will
concentrate on the sugar-cane—its silvery, tufted, feathery crowns
waving in the breeze are always a delight: of a dry, on ground-nuts:
those enjoying a rich loam on cotton, and so on. While the staple
crops represent the imperious necessity of life—food, the profits from
the secondary crops are expended in the purchase of clothing, salt
and tools, the payment of taxes, the entertainment of friends and
chance acquaintances (a generous hospitality characterizes this
patriarchal society), and the purchase of luxuries, kolas, tobacco,
ornaments for wives and children. It is a revelation to see the cotton-
fields, the plants in raised rows three feet apart, the land having in
many cases been precedently enriched by a catch-crop of beans,
whose withering stems (where not removed for fodder, or hoed in as
manure) are observable between the healthy shrubs, often four or
five feet in height, thickly covered with yellow flowers or snowy bolls
of white, bursting from the split pod. The fields themselves are
protected from incursions of sheep and goats by tall neat fencing of
guinea-corn stalks, or reeds, kept in place by native rope of
uncommon strength. Many cassava fields, the root of this plant
furnishing an invaluable diet, being indeed, one of the staples of the
more southerly regions, are similarly fenced. Equally astonishing are
the irrigated farms which you meet with on the banks of the water-
courses. The plots are marked out with the mathematical precision of
squares on a chess-board, divided by ridges with frequent gaps
permitting of a free influx of water from the central channel, at the
opening of which, fixed in a raised platform, a long pole with a
calabash tied on the end of it, is lowered into the water and its
contents afterwards poured into the trench. Conditions differ of
course according to locality, and the technique and industry
displayed by the farmers of one district vary a good deal from the
next. In the northern part of Zaria and in Kano the science of
agriculture has attained remarkable development. There is little we
can teach the Kano farmer. There is much we can learn from him.
Rotation of crops and green manuring are thoroughly understood,
and I have frequently noticed in the neighbourhood of some village
small heaps of ashes and dry animal manure deposited at intervals
along the crest of cultivated ridges which the rains will presently
wash into the waiting earth. In fact, every scrap of fertilizing
substance is husbanded by this expert and industrious agricultural
people. Instead of wasting money with the deluded notion of
“teaching modern methods” to the Northern Nigerian farmer, we
should be better employed in endeavouring to find an answer to the
puzzling question of how it is that land which for centuries has been
yielding enormous crops of grain, which in the spring is one carpet of
green, and in November one huge cornfield “white unto harvest,” can
continue doing so. What is wanted is an expert agriculturist who will
start out not to teach but to learn; who will study for a period of say
five years the highly complicated and scientific methods of native
agriculture, and base possible improvements and suggestions,
maybe, for labour-saving appliances, upon real knowledge.
Kano is, of course, the most fertile province of the Protectorate,
but this general description of agricultural Nigeria does not only
apply to Kano Province. I saw nothing finer in the way of deep
cultivation (for yams and guinea-corn chiefly) than among the Bauchi
pagans. The pagan Gwarri of the Niger Province have for ages past
grown abundant crops in terraces up their mountainsides whither
they sought refuge from Hausa and Fulani raids. The soil around
Sokoto, where the advancing Sahara trenches upon the fertile belt,
may look arid and incapable of sustaining annual crops, yet every
year it blossoms like a rose. But the result means and needs
inherited lore and sustained and strenuous labour. From the early
rains until harvest time a prolific weed-growth has continuously to be
fought. Insect pests, though not conspicuously numerous in most
years, nevertheless exist, amongst them the locusts, which
sometimes cover the heavens with their flight; the caterpillar, which
eats the corn in its early youth; the blight (daraba), which attacks the
ripening ear. In some districts not so favoured, the soil being of
compact clay with a thin coating of humus, intensive cultivation has
proved exhausting, and it is a study to note how every ounce of
humus is tended with religious care. Very hard work at the right time
is the secret of success for the Nigerian agriculturist. It is little short
of marvellous that with all he has to do he somehow manages to
build our railways and our roads. Indeed, if that phenomenon has in
many respects its satisfactory, it has also its sombre, social side.
One can but hope that the former may outweigh the latter as the
country gradually settles down after the severe demands placed
upon it these last few years.
A GWARRI GIRL.
A HAUSA TRADING WOMAN.