By your historical records, the year was 912AD in Norway. Astrid and I had been married for nearly 3 years. Gods, she was the perfect wife. As a Viking man, I enoyed raiding as much as any man in my position, but in the spring, when our blood began to heat up, that was when she truly shined. A fierce shield maiden, she fought like a demon in the shield wall, and could best any man walking with sword or axe. She was death incarnate, it was beautiful.
For years we had been trying to conceive a son. We prayed to Freya and made sacrifices to her in the hopes that she would bless us with a child but to no avail. In 916, when Astrid took an arrow to the stomach from an English soldier, we had no idea she was with child. The wound killed our unborn child, and left her unable to have children. Had I known, I never would have allowed her to step foot on that boat. Maybe things would have been different then, or maybe we had been damned from the start...
We returned home, devastated over our loss. As soon as she recovered Astrid went to the shrine above our villiage and cursed the gods. As much as I feared the All Father's scorn, I couldn't turn my back on my wife. Even today, after everything that has happened...I still cant bring myself to end it...
We raided again the following year, only something had changed in my love. She had a thirst for blood and battle that I had never seen before. For us, it had always been the fight that brought us satisfaction, not the kill. But now, Astrid only seemed happy when she was covered in the blood of Englishmen. An opportunity to inflict the pain on them that they had on her. One evening, as the sun went down, we lay beneath a tree in a great field after a particularly bloody battle. Astrid always wanted to make love after the fight, it made her smile again, and I was more than willing to do anything that would bring a smile back to her face. That was when he came to us...
My gods have long since been dead. Forgotten and replaced by your Christian god, but as we lay there, naked under the moonlight before a man in a wide brimmed hat with one eye flanked by ravens, we swore it was the All Father Odin himself. Come to visit his wrath on us and keep us from Valhalla for all eternity. Looking back, I think we were right.
Instead of striking us down, he offered us a gift. Drink of his blood, he said, and finally be able to satisfy our thirst. Astrid jumped at the opportunity without thought, and I followed suite. I would follow her anywhere...
What happened after is...hazy. We awoke together in that same spot, surrounded by our crew. I've never been so thirsty. Pure instinct drove us as we tore them apart one by one, and drank the life force from there veins. It was a long time before I came to my senses and realized what we had done. Astrid however just looked down at the slaughter, then to me, and said "More..."
We moved from villiage to villiage under the cover of night. Sleeping in caves and shelters during the day as we discovered that the suns rays could be our undoing. I was happy and content to feed only when necessary, but as in our old life, my wife seemed to have a thirst that was never ending. I pleaded with her to realize that this wasnt our way. That this new life wasn't a gift, but a curse. I asked her to meet the sun with me, but she refused. When she drained an entire villiage, men, women, and children in a single evening, I knew my love was gone. Replaced by something else entirely. A monster wearing my wifes skin....Those years were some of the darkest of my long life, but what I did next...that was my biggest regret.
The Christian Church had come to be the biggest power in England, and it was them that helped me lure her into the trap. We weakened her, binded her in a coffin, and burried her where she couldn't hurt another soul. They had wanted me to kill her but I couldn't bring myself to drive that stake into her heart...I still don't know if I could. For a long time she could be heard, screaming beneath the ground. It was when she went quiet though that I knew then she had become her most dangerous...
In the years that followed, I worked for the Church. Astrid and I were hardly the only ones of our kind, and in return for the safe keeping of my wife, I was tasked with disposing of my own kind when they found themselves unable to control their hunger. Last year, I was...finishing a job. Modern day London made it much more difficult to move undetected, but I had learned to blend in. As I shoved the body into the crematorium, my cell phone rang. The voice on the other side belonging to a priest who regularly gave me instruction. His voice was so full of fear it made my blood run cold...
"She's escaped..." he said. "I dont know how, but she's escaped. You need to come in..."
It's funny how a smell can take you back. And over the smell of burning flesh I was able to pick up on my wife's. Old soil and blood, and the growling coming from the shadows confirmed her presence. She could have killed me then, should have killed me..but she couldnt no more than I could her. When the church's men broke in, I didn't hesitate in slaughtering them all. We escaped together into the night before she fled with a stern warning to "stay out of her way.."
I don't know what she's planning, but I have to stop her. I only hope I have the strength when the time comes...
-Major work in progress-
. . .
