Chapter Text
Blood.
The path was covered in blood. It oozed into the soil, blending into the mud being made by the rain, bucketing down like the tears of a grieving mother. A beastly man with two right hands crouched over the once-proud knight in shining armour, feeding from his jugular. The vampire- the filthy revenant, the cursed undead- drank his fill of Polnareff's blood, gulping it down in the manner that a leech feeds off a weary traveller who stumbles into a bog. Polnareff twitched, occasionally letting out a soft scream, but he was powerless. Although the vampire looked thin and emancipated he had a grip like iron, and he had clamped firmly onto his neck.
Polnareff's eyes slid to the side, where he could see the lifeless body of his sister. The vampire had made an advance towards her, and when she had fought back- luckily before the bloodsucker could do what he was originally planning- he had grown enraged and simply broke her neck. Sherry lay in a crumpled heap like a discarded doll as the vampire continued his unholy feast. At long last, once there was no more blood in Polnareff's veins, he pulled loose. The knight had gone incredibly pale, and his eyes were hazy and unfocused.
"Look at yourself, Jean Pierre." The vampire spat, holding the knight's head over a muddy puddle. In the moonlight he saw his face- pale as the moon overhead, with two puncture wounds in his throat.
"That's the face of a man who'll never get to heaven. You're a vampire too, just like me. A bloodsucker. A..."
That was as far as the man with two right hands got, as with the last of his strength, Polnareff had gripped his sword. With the taunts ringing in his ears, he decapitated the beast who had bitten him with his silver sword. Thick blood spouted from the stump of where the vampire's head once was, and he crumbled to dust.
"For Sherry..." Polnareff gasped, before collapsing. He rolled into a ditch, his once-bright armour stained and sullied with mud. The knight sank into the mud of the drainage ditch, and promptly passed out.
"Do you think he's alive?"
"Don't touch him, what if he's got the pox? Or the plague?"
"He wouldn't get it, he's a knight. They fight for God, and the preacher said that only sinners get sick."
"Didn't you get sick last summer?"
"Enough of th.... hey, he's moving!"
Polnareff grunted, his eyes opening slowly. He'd been entirely covered in mud, with only his armour-clad legs sticking out of the dirt he'd fallen into. Even then, they felt sore, as if he'd been sunburnt. His mind drifted back to the scary stories told around campfires with his friends, and he sighed in misery. The sun killed vampires- and they had to feed off the blood of living things. Polnareff was distracted by a scraping noise, as the two peasants who'd found him dug away at the soil. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to face them in his current state.
"Holy shit, he's so pale!" One said.
"Check for a heartbeat, that means he's alive." The other replied. The first one (Polnareff mentally dubbed the men as "Un" and "Deux") stuck his fingers on Polnareff's temple, then put his ear to his chest.
"No sign of a heartbeat and he's as cold as ice." Un said with a sad sigh.
"Let's drag him back to the village and throw him into the plague pit then." Deux replied. Polnareff flinched at the idea of being stuffed into a pit full of rotting corpses, and his eyes flew open.
"Don't do that!" He gasped, before wrenching himself out of the mud and crawling up onto the path. He looked at the spot where Sherry once was, and gasped at her absence.
"Where is she? Where's my sister?!" He demanded. Un and Deux glanced at each other, before Deux spoke up.
"You mean the brunette maiden? She was taken up to the churchyard and buried."
Polnareff thanked Deux, then ran towards the tiny Brittany village where he and his sister had lived their entire lives.
The sun had just set, and the priest lifted the final spadeful of cold, dead earth onto Sherry's grave. The young girl lay under the soil, lifeless as the stone that marked the place of her burial.
"Ah, Jean-Pierre!" The old man smiled at the sight of Polnareff running up to the church gate. "I'm so sorry, my child. There was nothing we could do to save her, she was dead on arrival. We... we had to bury her as soon as possible, and I meant to send a messenger but nobody could bear to break the news to you!" The priest choked back tears at this, and Polnareff was struck by another cold bolt of sadness. He went to comfort the weeping old man, yet the minute he stepped onto the consecrated ground he let out a loud hiss. It burnt- it was as if he'd stepped into a vat of boiling hot oil, rather than onto a patch of grass.
"What on earth?!" The priest gasped, stepping back. Polnareff tried to take another step, in order to pay his respects to his poor, dead sister- but the result was the same. He let out a shriek, revealing his sharp white fangs to the preacher.
"Demon..." the old man gasped.
"Please, you don't understand. I was attacked, I was bitten by a vampire, but I won't ever feed upon anyone! I swear on my honour that..."
But it was too late. The priest pulled out his rosary, bore the crucifix, and steadily walked towards Polnareff.
"Get out of this village, demon. I don't know what on God's green earth you are, but you wear the skin of Sir Jean Pierre Polnareff. He was such a brave knight- how dare you sully his image!"
Polnareff caught sight of himself again in the reflection on the church window, and let out a gasp. His ears had pointed at the top, his eyes were red, his hair and skin were snow-white, and his incisors were fangs. As he gazed his reflection faded away, and that was the last time the vampire ever saw his face reflected back at him.
"BEGONE!" The priest yelled, and Polnareff turned tail and ran. He wept tears of blood, like tiny rubies, as he sprinted down the muddy streets of the village that was once home. The knight kept running and running, as he knew in his un-beating heart that this place would never be home again.
Jean Pierre spent the next few weeks in a daze. Using the stories he'd been told of vampires, he managed to barely survive. He filled a pouch on his belt with soil from the path where he was transformed, and made sure to sleep in dark, secluded areas. He only fed from livestock, and even then, he'd just feed from the sickly looking ones- not only was he putting them out of their misery, it would look far less suspicious when the farmers awoke to find a dead cow or the corpse of a pig. Many times, he'd considered walking out into the sunlight and ending it all- but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Sherry's memory lived on with him, and to kill himself would be to truly kill her too. As the year went by, and the years became decades and the decades became centuries, Polnareff never died. He wasn't alive, but he wasn't dead either. And yet, despite his undead state, he couldn't bear to see his sister truly vanish from existence, even if she was just a memory.
So he fed from livestock, never humans. He slept in a coffin, and only ever attacked humans to stop them from doing wicked acts- like the times in the Paris catacombs when he'd ripped the throats out of a group of cruel-faced soldiers in jackboots, allowing a terrified-looking child to escape their persecution. This act had gained the attention of a US soldier (who was secretly a werewolf), who had offered to take him back to his house in Washington State when the war was over. The house was said to be a safe place for monsters, and he accepted. He couldn't die- he had to keep going.
He had to do it for Sherry.
He did it all for Sherry.
Yet Polnareff wasn't the only undead man out there. Thousands of years ago, another undead being had been created. About two thousand, one hundred and fifty years before the birth of Jesus, a huge statue was being completed in Kemet, land of the black soil of the Nile. It was a huge lion, sporting the head of a man- a sphinx. It wasn't just a statue though, it had several tunnels underneath it. One of those tunnels was attached to a tomb, as had been instructed by the Pharaoh. After all, he had to make sure that whoever was buried here could NEVER be stumbled upon by the living.
About 28 years ago, Pharaoh Khafre's head magician had a vision on his deathbed. He had seen a baby boy with wavy scars on his face, who was destined to be Khafre's next court magician. The last magician had barely taken his final breath by the time that the pharaoh had sent a crew of soldiers down the Nile on a reed boat, to the border where Kemet rubbed shoulders with Nubia. They reached the village where the baby boy was said to be, and immediately set about slaughtering. Anybody who stood in their way was cut down with their sharp copper blades, until the baby was found at long last. He had dark skin, clever eyes, and the signature wavy scars on his cheeks, which were just a mark he was born with. The soldiers sailed away with the baby in their grasp, knowing that this baby was the next greatest magician of Kemet.
The baby wasn't given a name- he was just The Magician. He was taught in fortune telling, scrying, charm making, combat magic and dreamwalking, yet it soon became clear that this young boy was a clairvoyant. Magician's ears were pierced with golden hoops, and he was dressed in fine linen robes, but all the comforts in the world couldn't change the fact that the palace was a gilded cage. Magician was forbidden from leaving, and any acts of rebellion were met with a harsh slap or a wooden switch being taken to the soles of his feet.
"Tell me, Magician, will the crops grow well?" Khafre asked one day, when the boy was about 9 (his real birthday was unknown due to his parents being murdered.)
"They'll be normal, but the dates will do incredibly well." The boy replied, consulting his tarot cards. And lo and behold, the palm trees grew fat with dates that year.
The years passed, and Magician grew into a young man. His familiar- a large red bird- never left his shoulder, just as his tarot cards never left his hands. It was around this time that Khafre started to get suspicious. His wife would often disappear for hours, and be seen giggling with the gardener far more than she ever laughed at his jokes. In his turmoil, he visited Magician.
"Tell me, is my wife being unfaithful?" Khafre asked.
"Oh, incredibly. She'd been with every male servant except me, because she's scared of my powers." Magician replied. Khafre's face coiled into a scowl, and he flipped over the clairvoyant's table.
"How dare you lie to me!" He screamed.
"I can't change fate! I can only read it!" Magician gasped.
"Then tell me a new one!" Khafre yelled, believing that fate was simply what Magician told him. In his terror, Magician simply gasped "I meant, she's very faithful! She'd never cheat!"
Years passed, and Khafre believed that the second prophecy was true. He didn't know that his magician couldn't change fate, and he kept believing this right up until he found his wife in bed with the cook. It was in the marital bed too! In his rage, he stormed over to Magician's chambers, and dragged him out by his ear.
"You didn't change my fate!" The pharaoh screamed.
"I told you, I can't do that! I just told you a new prophecy to get you off my case!" The sorcerer replied. Khafre glared down at him, and curled his lip.
"Guards- take this man away. Give him a punishment suitable for those who lie to their Pharaoh."
Magician's Familiar was killed, and dried out into a creepy little bird mummy. But the bird had it easy- nothing could compare to what had happened to its owner. Magician was cursed with a spell to give him eternal life, the kind that could only be removed by the gods of the duat themselves.
"Not like you'll ever see the Duat, traitor." The executioner sneered as Magician was dragged away.
The curse was only part one of his punishment. Although it would allow him to regrow to a certain point- Pharaoh had decided that that point was where he looked human, just very thin and dry -skinned with a few holes on his cheeks and a cavity on his chest from where his organs were removed. This was because now that he couldn't die, he could experience the full pain of mummification- whilst still alive. Magician could do nothing but scream as he was disemboweled, stuffed with natron, wrapped in bandages, and his brains were ripped out via his nostrils. His spirit still possessed this mummified husk, however, and he was powerless as he and his Familiar were wrapped up, stuffed inside a casket with the protective spells removed, and buried in a tomb connected to the great sphinx via a tunnel. And as if the face of the Sphinx didn't scare off any intruding grave robbers, an inscription was placed above the tomb's door.
"May not the living enter here."
And this is where our story begins.