Chapter 6 Burning Pyres

Leila stood by the edge of the bed observing her parents' cadavers bloodless... lifeless. She admired with morbid pleasure her complete doing as if was a masterpiece. Her body straightened up with an air of pride while in her body the blood frenzy. She breathed -something not natural in her- in a calmer pace making her breasts, ready to pop out of her tight ragged white corset, to oscillate in a relaxed rhythm. Leila's black eyes, dim and deep like Tartarus pits, glistened with demoniac flare while her half-opened mouth revealed her still dripping blood fangs. The carmine liquid trailed warm down her jaw, but a drop of blood was too precious to be spilled on the floor and she licked it back to her lips.

It had been so easy for Leila to slaughter everyone in the castle. She knew very well since she was a girl every secret passageway, chamber or nook in the fortress. Hiding in beneath the cold and humid inner walls, she waited for the night to come and the right moment to hunt and attack. In a way she didn't knew, the warm blood in her victims quenched an immense thirst, an unbearable soreness in her throat. Leila, still concealed behind the thick walls was able to hear, to feel the blood pumping through the humans' veins. The ferrous smell maddened her and it stopped only after she killed and drank her victim's blood.

But now, she would never hear again the pulsing of the blood, the heart beats hammering inside the chest of the inhabitants of the castle because they were all dead, dead by her hand. Everyone including her parents were killed and not a single trace of remorse she felt before, during or after she assassinated Lord Bruce and Lady Bertha. Like an orchestrated time-line torture, she left them for the last as she fed of both blood and fear of those who lived in the Von Dorcha's mansion.

When she broke into the count's bedchambers, she saw the terror drew on their faces when they found out she was the killer... a monster that rose and surged from hell morphed into their beloved daughter. They suffered till their last breath while nothing inside of hers was moved; no compassion neither mercy  she showed to her parents. Blood weighed more than anything... In all the extension of the quote. And there was something even more exhilarating, pleasurable that grew inside of hers when they begged for their lives. Specially her mother.

"No, please Leila! I'm your mother! Noooooo!" Was Lady Bertha's pleading scream, the last thing she said before Leila tore her head off to drink the blood gushing out her slashed throat. The dryness in her mouth overpowered the risen from the dead young countess and it was greater than the love that she could have felt for her parents.

Blurry memories popped in black and white flashes, tainted with red in Leila's agitated mind. The turmoil of bittersweet images were interrupted by the whistling sound of a rock approaching through to the air in a somehow slow pace... Slow to her kin senses. A second later, the stone broke the window pane and landed right at her feet then she heard the voices of a raged crowd nearing by.

Leila stood by the tall arched window observing the flickering fire of the torches floating in the dimness until they were close enough to distinguish the people's faces. When they arrived to the main gates, they pushed and kicked the iron entryway until the heavy planks collapsed.

"We must kill with the demon!"

"We will make it through the main entrance!"

"Let's kill the vampyr!"

It was a mayhem of screams and cries, but the raven haired caught what everybody was saying amongst the febrile hubbub of voices and that fascinated her. Every aspect of this new essence, of what she had become, delighted her, making her feel powerful. With obnoxious haughtiness, Leila turned around, stepping carelessly over her parents's corpses and left the room. She walked through the unlighted hallways, adapting her sight to the lack of light in the same way wolf or cat would do. Moving with grace and great skill, her feet barely touched the ground attracted with vicious morbidity to the stirred up multitude that struggled to break into the interior of the castle. On her way, the woman met no obstacles in the darkness as she tore doors off and tossed furniture away with supernatural strength. Nothing, nobody would ever interpose on her way and now the countess felt she was free, powerful and indestructible, the way she always dreamt to be.

The front door of the mansion crashed making a thundering sound as it hit the floor. Armed with spikes, sticks, rakes every sort of rudimentary artifacts, the yelling crowd made their way into the mansion.

Leila remained stoic, standing in the middle of the receiving hall. The reddish light in the torches reflected on her ghastly face while her fangs protruded threatening those who'd ventured to step inside her house. Embedded with madness and craving to kill her, the villagers charged against Leila.

"You, Satan's daughter! Your days on the Earth have ended today, vampyr!" A priest flanked by the multitude yelled at her, holding a wooden crucifix and sounding more like an ordinary nervous man than a man of faith himself.

'A vampyr? Is that what I am now?' Leila gave a thought to the clergy man's words. Even the unknown term sounded dangerous to hers, like something to be respected it feared. 'But... These guys really think they can defeat me? Idiots!'

The frenetic horde advanced with their crooks and rakes in hand, yet the countess stood immovable. She was confident in what she was and how strong she'd become and believing herself capable of repelling the attack, she waited beaming an arrogant grin on her face.

The first villager to reach Leila was hurled into the air and so the second and a third man that attacked her. But when they grouped to seize the vampyr it was more difficult to fight them back. Even after killing a few of them and hurting some other badly, they were still too many for her. Sadly for the woman, she had found out in the worst way that she wasn't indestructible in the end. Badly hurt she wrestled in vain with a dozen men that tied her wrists and toes. Leila writhed and screeched when after being wounded in one of her sides. Some of the men jolted back terrified when she convulsed violently after being pierced. The demonic creature felt her life gulping out her body with every gush of blood lost.

"Be careful with her fangs!" The priest warned. "And make sure she's well tied."

Leila fought for her existence. A moment ago she was sure that nothing could stop her, but she erred badly. Now she was hounded by a group of choleric villagers which sought only to destroy her.

Once the men tied Leila up, they dragged her out the castle. She twitched and tried to break the ropes around her wrists and ankles when a villager audaciously roped Leila to the neck. As they arrived to the front yard, the priest and a group of men burned a pyre outside. With eyes wide open, the vampyr saw the incandescent column of fire and smoke growing bigger and fear, for the first time since she returned from the death invaded her wholeness.

The countess was taken to the pit fire, the blazes crackled in front of her making her shiver. Frustrated, feeling defeated and weak, she managed to shake off some of the men that held her. But is wasn't enough to set herself free. The men tensed the grips while in the background the clergyman recited prayers in Latin and some of the versicles hurt her ears. Twitching and writing she saw some of the villagers carried a heavy wooden post in arms. The tortuous image of crucified Jesus Christ blink inside her head. There was no doubt, these men were going to burn her alive and she would pay hard for her arrogance.