Free The Anatomy of Vampires: Volume 1 by Alistair Vlain

Disappeared into the night, back to a world where I would never belong. But she bestowed upon me a gift that would live within me forever. And I had no idea what was coming for me.
     
    I didn’t know it then, but the scar she’d left at my throat was the best clue she could have given me. After that night, I encountered many more Vampires who wanted to speak with me—to divulge information for my effort. They wished to discuss many things. Mostly the Regime, and their personal stories of their deaths by sunrise, members of their covens being captured for crossing borders, and attacks by Lycans and various followers of the light.
    I understood the Elves and, most importantly, the Wizards of the Regime were the Vampires’ natural enemies. I understood their leader, Vladislov, was hell-bent on the destruction of the night—suffocating the Vampires by keeping them locked in their secret cities. Starving them. Banishing them. Misunderstanding them. Perhaps he was afraid. Perhaps it was because he knew of a secret I’d only just discovered….
    It was very rare I came across a Vampire who shared a relationship with a mortal. Most of them felt very differently—we are just livestock and our only purpose is for feeding. But those who lived more open-mindedly knew different. There was more to the living than just keeping the dead alive. The Witch was right. There was something special about the single line running through my right palm. I guess I’d never noticed the matching line living in my wife’s palm as well. We were eternally linked to one another. “Fate lines,” they were called. And even though we could not be together, our fate would never truly separate. And there was comfort in knowing that.
    But something even more curious, was what the other cursed people expressed to me; the same notion of feeling more powerful once they’d fed from their mortal counterpart—the one they were eternally linked to. It was the same idea expressed to me by my wife. What could it have been? Was it something living within the blood? Was it something Vladislov feared most entirely—the Vampires would be unbeatable if they discovered this? Was that why he kept them so far away from what they needed most? Mortal blood. Interaction with people. Perhaps there was something special about a Vampire who learned to love their prey. Or something else.
    Perhaps…there was something special about a human being who could learn to love a monster….
     

 
     
     
Part Three
     
     
     
Chapter Seven
     
    Dark History
     
     
    “When one sun sets, a new one is reborn. And so the reign of perpetual day illuminates our world of magic, intrigue, and knowledge….”
    ~Valdiver of Russia: the first ruler of the Regime
     
    It took a long while to return to my studies after leaving Andela forever. It took a long while to regain the passion and the gumption to pursue anything. I knew she’d become the undead, but saying good-bye one final time was all too finite for me to deal with, and it left me with a heavy amount of grieving. But the things she said, and the things I’d noticed and seen, left me with more questions I often pondered late into the night. I lay in the bed of the inn where I stayed, tossing over the biggest question that gestated in my mind until I was ready to pop.
    Who was responsible for all of this?
    Certainly, it wasn’t God. Or was it? Who had placed all of this magic and complete and utter secrecy here among us? Perhaps it was the devil, or some other divine source also existing in secret. Whatever or whoever it was, was the reason my life had been turned on its head. It was the reason that now, in all ways but one, my wife was dead to me.
    It was the question of the origin of the Occult, which inspired me to reach the first theological library I could find. It would be a mortal establishment, but it was the only place where I knew to begin. And just like any little dingy town with a whorehouse and a tavern, there