[Blood Archive Entry]
They arrived in the cemetery around midday; the sun was burning high in the sky.
Driving to the gate, they were stopped by the gravekeeper, who gave them an unfriendly look.
A gaunt man, with thinning hair, dressed in shabby clothes.
"The cemetery is closed." He spoke in a raspy, unpleasant voice.
Darian frowned.
"Why is it closed?"
"It's closed because I said it's closed. Anyway, what's it to you? What are you doing here?"
Rebekah's eyes twitched, not too happy about the man's attitude. Darian grabbed her hand and calmed her down.
Rebekah forced a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and spoke. "We have family here, so we would like to pay our respects. Is that possible?"
The grave keeper scoffed, cleared his throat, and spit on the ground. "I don't know you lot, and I don't think anyone here has any living family. So," he gave Rebekah a lecherous look and continued, "why don't you tell me what you really want, sweetness? And I'll see what we can do about it." He smiled, revealing yellow rotting teeth.
Out of his sight, Darian's eyes glowed in a mean red, his ears sharpening and his nails turning into long talons. But the next second, he blinked and all was back to normal.
Between gritted teeth, Darian spoke. "Rebekah, he would make things faster for us to find the grave, but I find him insufferable-"
"You little-"
"-so why don't we quicken this up? Use your little trick, would you?" He gave Rebekah a meaningful look, and she grinned evilly.
"Hoh? A trick, eh? Why don't you show me that trick swee-" His words caught, as he looked into Rebekah's eyes.
Her pupils contracted into a dot; the man's pupils did the same soon after. His eyes turned dazed and unfocused.
Rebekah turned to Darian, her eyes sported a mockingly insulted look. "I find it offensive that you call one of my favorite abilities a 'trick'."
Darian shrugged.
Rebekah turned to the gravekeeper and said with a disgusted tone. "Step away from the car."
"Yes," he said with a monotonous tone and stepped away without hesitation.
The two got out of the car and looked at the closed gate.
"Open the gate," Rebekah ordered, to which the man obeyed silently.
They stepped into the cemetery, a sea of gravestones and angel statues—all of which seemed to be gazing at them filled with scorn, but one blink and that all vanished.
"Are you familiar with all gravesites?" Rebekah asked without turning towards the man.
"I don't understand the question."
She sighed. "Would you be able to guide us to any specific grave?"
"No."
Darian's face was deadpan. "Then what is it that you do here?"
The man didn't answer.
Rebekah frowned angrily. "You will answer any questions he asks. You will obey any order he gives you."
He simply nodded and answered the previous question. "I only keep the cemetery clean; I don't need to know where and who is buried here."
"You said earlier that all people here had no living relatives. How would you know that if you don't even know who is buried here?"
"Because that is what the previous grave keeper said."
"So how can we find a specific person in the middle of all this?"
"We keep records."
"Perfect! Find where Elizabeth Dumitru was buried."
He nodded and walked off towards a small building in the distance.
Half an hour later, he came back. And he stared at the two blankly. Not saying or doing anything else.
Rebekah's face was dry while Darian felt several veins popping in his forehead.
"So? Take us there!"
He nodded and led them to a corner of the cemetery.
A lone gravestone stood there, in it the name 'Elizabeth Dumitru' was engraved, and nothing else.
"No date of birth and demise, no epitaph, damn… Now I get why she is so bloody resentful." Darian said, to which Rebekah just nodded.
Darian looked at the grave keeper's frail arms and smirked maliciously.
"Dig."
The man's lips pursed, and he seemed unwilling, until Rebekah shot him a look. After that, he nodded and fetched a shovel before starting to dig the grave.
Darian scoffed and walked away.
"Where are you going?" Rebekah asked.
"To get the tarp."
A couple of hours later, the gravekeeper unearthed a rotting casket.
"Open it," Rebekah commanded.
The man stuck the shovel between the cracks of the casket and forced it open.
Inside was the frail, decayed skeleton of a woman, buried in her own bridal dress.
"Now that is just cruel…" Darian said.
"Her fiancée was a prick." The grave keeper commented.
"And you know this how?"
"It was written in the book; he specifically instructed that she should be buried in it and that her gravestone should only have her name and nothing else. If it were up to him, it wouldn't even have that, but the church would not allow it."
"Bastard," Rebekah cursed.
"Grab the body and put it on the tarp and wrap it up," Darian spoke to the man, who did it without questioning.
After he was done, he wiped the sweat off his brow and asked. "Anything else?"
"One more thing." Darian grinned, his smile filled with sharp teeth, his eyes glinting with a cruel light. "Die."
The grave keeper's eyes widened, and Rebekah's mental hold over him broke, but before he could do much else, Darian made his move.
His fingers twirled and contorted in strange ways, and then he pushed his hand forward.
A red triangle with a line through the middle shone in the air briefly.
Then a violent gush of air burst forward towards the man.
He didn't even get to react because as soon as the shockwave hit him, he turned into a red stain on the ground.
No bones, no organs, nothing but his blood was left behind.
"I didn't know you managed to create a second sign," Rebekah said with a curious glint in her gaze.
"Yeah, I managed to create three."
"What does the last one do?"
"You'll see."
"Fine, be that way!" She pouted before turning back to him with a playful smile. "What was that about your signs being weak again?"
He looked at her with a dry expression. "It IS weak."
"Huh?!" She asked, confused.
"You and I should be able to do the same thing with strength alone." He said nonchalantly. "Which makes this whole thing pointless, besides looking cool. My biggest gripe with the signs isn't their current state; they are powerful enough for an initial product. What I do have a problem with is that I cannot improve them any further at the moment."
Rebekah nodded. "You have any solutions?"
"The solution itself is simple; what isn't simple is how to achieve it."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll have to break what restrains my species." Something in his tone—ancient, hungry—made the air feel colder.
"The 'locks'."
"Yeah…"
"One thing I'm confused about is that you said one of them prevents you from creating new vampires, be it from turning someone or having a child."
"And?"
"And you said other vampires of your kind can have children, albeit with much difficulty. What's up with that?"
"Sol'Vahr's brother managed to break his legacy lock before he split himself. That means his descendants all have that lock broken. Which gives them the ability to reproduce, but since none of them have the special something that composes a primogenitor, they can't turn someone from another species into one of us."
"Vampires from my lineage don't have that problem, though?"
"Because your origin is different, you all were born something else, and only after were you turned into a vampire, that alone makes all the difference." He looked upwards to the sky. "We were born like this. If you want a perfect example, just look at nature. You don't see a tiger turning a leopard into one of his own, do you? It's the same with us."
"So, if you break your locks, would you be able to turn people into one of your own species?"
"Not straight away? No… I will still need to craft a turning ritual; otherwise, my spawn may be flawed or severely weakened."
"I see…" She nodded, although she looked a tad bit dejected. "Any ideas on how to break your locks?"
"A couple, but nothing conclusive as of yet."
They both went silent for a few minutes, relishing the comfortable smile and the smell of the fresh blood.
"Let's get back to the car, I think I have an idea for our little hunt."
"Oh?"
"I'll tell you later."
She nodded and picked up the tarp with the corpse in it.
Both made their way to the car and drove off.