A pinch in my head causes me to flinch. "What?" I twitch. "Magna Carta..." her voice is barely audible, a ghostly echo.
Magna Carta...
"Do you remember your real name?" She asks me. My name is Deidre Hahkethomemah Omehia, that's what my mother told me. "Magna! Listen to me." Thankful squeezes her arms around my neck. "It's a witch hunt!"
"A witch hunt?" What about vampires? Do vampires have nothing to do with it? "I can hear your thoughts. Listen to me, Ahlean is the wife of Iblis. She bit God and The angel Gabriel. Gabriel bit some angels which led to a big outbreak in heaven. Vampirism is a virus. Gabriel made angels sick and God had to drop them. That's where Obayifo come from. Sick angels."
"Why are you telling me all this now?" I set her feet on the ground. She takes my shirt to restore her balance. "Because I'm telling you what she's telling me! Magna, I'm not here. My soul is bind to a doll. I can barely control my skeleton."
One of my main concerns is what happened for her to get like this? "Scientist back in Virginia thought vampires had Autoimmune hemolytic anemia, AIHA. It's a rare disorder where the blood itself. However," Thankful lowers her gaze at the road. "Vampires only get this when they are Drunk. Aleigha is Drunk."
"Ok..." I'm not sure what to do right now. To me this is basic information, I know he's Drunk. "It's a big scientific thing. Drunk blood cells will eat themselves. Mori cells act as the membrane around healthy human cells."
"I'm paying attention. Are you going to tell me, they've been trying to find the cure."
"No!" she slaps me. "I'm trying to tell you your mother is fucking a sciopath--"
I respect my mom. She raised us to be strong, sound-minded, people. I'm a vampire. I've been paying attention. My mother used to eat herself. Aleigha does it.
My hands wrap around Thankful's throat, I can feel the air she needs coming and going. "Ka-Niishi" as I say the spell, Thankful's body is full of skin. "I've been reading every thought. I'm good at playing stupid aren't I?"
____________
Wait. I know you.
Thankful--No, Agradecida. I'm trying to be as straightforward as I can be. We don't mention the year because it helps with the confusion. Get me out of this body was always what my mother screamed. The Growden Clan wanted to use the magic and practices of the She Clan. The Growden's go back to the witch trials. It's not my mother that was in a hole. It was my grandmother, Olisha.
She wanted to protect her daughter. At the time of the trials. My grandparents grew around ignorant people. They revealed Gabriel was an angel and he changed his name to Regal.
My mother, Lordy or Childhood, her birth was treated like the antichrist. My grandparents went into hiding. Olisha did everything to protect my mother from hunters, She did it for her husband too. A human loved an angel.
God loved his angel. To witness him turn away from the light was heartbreaking. He called him Lucifer and Lucifer became Regal. The goal was to stop a virus that came from hell itself. Vampirism was invented by the black satan beneath.
Devil Things. Grandma made a Hole of men from Norway, some shipped from Africa, and traded with Asia when it came to noble daughters and sons. She was making a cult, which is what Vampires use to protect themselves. The lynching happened years ago.
Lordy taught her family how to manipulate souls. As written in The Eldritch Detail of Vampire Crafting. Once you use a body, get the items, you have a vampire.
Vampires made this way, are not free. It's easy to weave in slavery. You can manipulate the soul in the vampire.
Gabriel is no longer an angel in the eyes of God but a creature. To his most high, his favorite angel was a Devil Thing. To get a soul from hell, you have to make contracts with Devils. Lordy suffered an asthma attack when she was young, she was nine months old. Her soul is powerful, it came and told her parents what to do to get her to breathe.
Witches are tricky and you can't have a witch from a vampire. But they made one hell of a child. She can't get into her body because it's destroyed. They raped, cut, and removed. They buried her legs in Maine, took her torso to Texas, left her head in Virginia, and put her arms there too. By the time we found all the parts. It was bone and you can't put one together.
We use magic to change age. My grandmother looks fucking twenty-five, my mom is six feet five with the looks of a twenty-year-old. My name is Magna Carta, how ironic. And my mother's soul told her children to change their names. I have about six. Deidre Fareware, Eugene Hatfield, Hannibal Mears, Chastity Donald; I can use magic to make me a woman. It's useful when going in the brothels of the Ghytto.
Then the raid happened. I remember crawling the sides of the wall in the house. I heard gunfire whistling through the air. I saw my Uncle Malachi drop to the floor with six bullets in his chests, two in his head. The DOHRCC patrols came in and held his head down, removed all of his teeth. My brothers, his sons; Voise, Aunio, and Act the youngest.
What about my marriage with Thankful, Agradecida. Toda left her body as well as her sister. The Dante Twins.
Cassius is the firstborn. Now if you count twins. Real, his actual name not Akika, would also be first instead of second. He's the twin brother of Warr. Back in Thief Grow, we kept to ourselves. Like mama always said, we never had real friends. At first, we thought, mama wanted us to be vampires that hide. We don't want to hide. And she said one day, that's a good idea. Let's go walk in the sun.
Warr's fake names, Cassius, Eddie, Latrelle Williamson, Bankston Robertson. We did a lot to hide. Then Near gave a speech in town about vamps walking in the day. We used to live in a small apartment. Vampires don't have a right to own a home.
I remember the first time I saw a vampire bake in the sun on the side of the street. Vampires stay in the Belly, the slum area in Norfolk. Rich, healthy, humans stay in The Brawn.
I've been hearing Agradecida. I'm a nigger with teeth, A blood-sucking liar, HIV infected bat. She's trying to play the card so well. Who is Headcount?
I put a thousand dollars on the claim he worships vampires. Abigail Gibson started that shit back in Norway. She was terrified by my grandmother. My mother is a big gangsta, at least we knew where she got it from. She was a Maul with a Haul.
Granddaddy started the blood market. He got so sick of seeing niggas drop in the street with no life support.
Agradecida is a worshipper. Vampires don't like a crowd, we keep family and a few friends. Also, we hung with Folks, another term for witch. Like Godelieve, she's a good friend of the family.
As for worshippers, they seek to share the vampiric lifestyle. They admire the strength behind it. Also, goofy-ass vampire romances. Fuck Twilight. If a real vamp ever stalks a girl, she's there to be a fuck toy or lunch. The movie made no sense. Edward and Bella wouldn't be married and if that child was born there's a 26% chance they would lose her.
Agradecida hangs around me for my blood. All she does is look at my arms. Vampires + Vampire = Drunk.
Vampire + Drunk = Drunk
Drunk + Human = Drunk (Imp: RARE)
Vampire + Human = infection, they do not become vampires in the sense they went through a ritual. They get sick.
Drunk + Human, this is what worshippers do. If they can get a hold on a vampire, they will and can drain the blood and think it. This is infection. It's even worse with a Drunken vampire.
It's rare, but drinking vampire blood turns you into a clown ass nigga, an Imp. Your skin is discolored. Even the DOHRCC made a liquor, project Darebácký Liquor.
From milking Vampires. I'm starting to think one of them had too much.