A single tear escaped and slowly dripped down her wet face. “Before you get exiled, something far, far worse happens for my kind!” Esme smiled briefly and exhaled. “Even after a thousand years of training, in my last sparring session, I had made a futile attempt to avert my father’s spear; it spliced my side. He got so angry that I wasn’t able to deflect a simple swipe, he told me he was done training me for good.”
“That was a good thing, right?” asked Desiree.
Esme looked down at the floor. “Far from it. The next morning, my father took me by the back of my hair from the kitchen table and forced me outside. During the night, he had made a large wooden table. He forced me on all fours with my back facing him. He pushed me onto the table and was careful to rip only the back of my nightgown off. My father took his spear and completely sheared my wings off. Then he took a heated iron and put them on my back, so I would never be able to have them again.” She looked at the ceiling. “Ah, to fly again and see the wondrous landscapes of earth and other dimensional places.” Esme’s eyes dulled with sadness. She wiped her face again.
“You had wings?” Maryl asked in shock.
“Yes, and the process of having them removed was excruciatingly painful, but my father did not care. My Nephilim mother stopped caring for me after that. And that incident led to the creation of vampires.”
“I see absolutely no connection between the shearing of your wings and the inception of my species,” Clayton said in disbelief.
“My wings were taken away because of my lack of fighting ability and the good deeds I did for humans that upset both parents.”
“We surmised as much, come to the point,” Maryl said with impatience.
“I’m sorry, but I am purposely trying to delay the ending of my story.”
“Why?” asked Clayton.
“Because I am dying and trying to hold on.”
“Please try to continue, Esme!” begged Clayton.
Esme tried to gather her thoughts. “With my wings gone, for whatever reason, I fundamentally changed. The inner wickedness and warrior instinct my father could not produce within me in combat came out in other ways. From the point of my wing’s being hacked off, I was exiled from my family and stole food from the marketplace. Instead of seeking forgiveness, I rebelled and sought out how to get back at my father when, through my travels, I came upon a village in southern England. By coincidence, I came upon your family, Maryl Rosser. I had heard rumors, whispers of an extremely powerful witch family that, for the right price, would provide any potion I needed.”
“Wait, you visited my family first, yet you bit Clayton's family before mine?”
“Yes. I spoke with your great grandmother, who, at that time, was the supreme witch of that region. She sensed my inner agony and knew who I truly was. She bestowed upon me a spell that would bind and attach to me forever that enabled me to alter humans. The drawback to the potent enchantment was I could only infect eight people at one time and only once every hundred years. If I did it less than one hundred years, the binding spell would cease.”
“Why did you pick Clayton’s family? And why did you come back and bite mine?” Maryl said as she slapped the side of the cage.
“Your great grandmother’s asking price was to avoid biting her family. And at first, I honored her request. That night I headed further south and found Clayton’s grandfather and bit his pregnant wife.”
“Then, why did you come back to my descendants?” Maryl asked in confusion.
“Because the more I thought about it, the more I realized your great grandmother was the only being on the planet that would be able to reverse the binding spell. I was too angry at my father and sought retribution, that the thought of your great-grandmother ruining my plan was unbearable. So, at first light the morning after biting Clayton’s expectant grandmother, I snuck around your great grandmother’s house when she was tending to her garden and getting herbs. I attacked her and slit her throat. Then I snuck in and bit your expectant grandma. The rest, you know.”
“That’s not possible,” Maryl said.
“Why not?” asked Clayton.
“My great grandmother would’ve sensed you. Not to mention she would have protective spells so you could not enter her abode!”
“I understand your lack of faith in what I am telling you, Maryl Rosser, but believe me; I am telling you the truth.”
“How were you able to get to my great grandmother?” Maryl demanded.
Esme closed her eyes. Blood trickled from her nose. “Because. Because the spell was so incredibly powerful, it left her drained of her lifeforce, her energy. She had not the power or energy to put up any protective wards, and I knew that.”
Silence followed while the information sunk in.
“What did you do while waiting for the next hundred years?” Desiree asked.
“I was observing all of you through dimensional portals I had access to via my binding spell.”
Desiree raised her hand. “How come you picked May fourth at seven thirty-three in the morning to come back every hundred years? That’s a precise date.”
“That was when the spell was cast, and I was attached or bound to it. It was my new birthdate.”
“Why did you want to infect humans and turn them into vampires in the first place?”
“Because of my father! I wanted a species that would be as strong or stronger than the Nephilims and the Eliouds.”
“Again, why?” Clayton asked.
“To kill both species and get even with my father. I hated him! And to have someone else be the alpha and omega race for once!”
“How did you know to bite the humans?” asked Desiree.
“In order to alter something, it must reside from within the body. I needed a way inward to change eight women. I asked the spell to be puncture wounds into the neck where
