IM01 - Carpe Noctem by Katie Salidas

as if I were looking at her right now,” he sighed. “She was an enchanting beauty with gorgeous long black hair.”
    He turned the page again, pointing out another drawing of a tall, slender woman dressed in traditional Greek style, with dark hair and a floor-length, white tunic dress.
    Wow, she is beautiful .
    “It was that night that I would be turned. Kallisto told me she was born of the gods and wished to bestow her gift on me. She enticed me with carnal pleasures, telling me I needed to free myself from mortality with ecstasy and wine. Only the wine she offered me was blood. We lay as lovers that night, entwined in one another’s bodies, sharing in the feast of blood. By morning I was a vampire and we retreated to the lower hidden floor of the temple.”
    I nodded as Lysander turned the page, revealing more writing and a drawing of a man holding two women covered in blood.
    The serene look left Lysander’s face. “I too struggled initially with the thought of killing, as I see you do,” he said. “Though my teacher was not so patient with me. The first night after my transformation, I was offered two beautiful virgins for my first meal. I refused them at first, feeling sorry for them, not wanting to end their lives. I feared becoming a monster as you do.”
    Lysander spoke matter-of-factly, but his words were a relief to me. I was glad to hear I wasn’t a disappointment for struggling with my newfound need for blood.
     He continued, “This enraged Kallisto, and in her fury, she attacked me. Her strength out-matched mine. I was a newborn vampire, weak and unable to stop her. She tossed me around like a rag doll and threatened to abandon me to the sunlight as punishment. It was made clear from the start that there would never be a choice in who was to be sacrificed. I was to drink the blood of the living or die for showing disrespect to my mistress for her gift.”
    “So she made you kill the virgins?” I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand.
    “Yes.”
    “She sounds like a cruel, heartless bitch,” I said, under my breath.
    “Kallisto was a strict mistress, but also a talented lover. She used the pleasures of the flesh to reward my obedient behavior, allowing me to perform any act of carnal desire with her as long as I accepted her as my mistress. Over the years, I grew to love Kallisto and wanted nothing more than her happiness. We became partners, a kind of husband and wife, and it was just the two of us living in the temple.”
    He turned the page again, showing another drawing of a large city. “Time moved on, and soon the Romans commanded Greece.”
    I recognized the huge coliseum in the center of the picture, surrounded by a tight network of streets and wondered how he managed to get such detail into his drawings
    “Kallisto grew restless and soon tired of living in the temple. She decided we would move to the heart of the empire and add to our family. So, we left Amfissa and headed to Rome.”
    “You left your home for her?”
    “Yes, I loved Kallisto. I wanted to make her happy. Also, a vampire can only stay in one place for so long before people get too suspicious.”
    “Yeah, I guess you do have a point there.”
    I smiled, leaning in attentively as Lysander continued his story.
    “We made it to Rome, and our timing could not have been better. We arrived just after the assassination of the great Gaius Julius Caesar. All of Rome was in an uproar as political powers scrambled to reestablish order. Kallisto loved the chaos and used it to establish the first members of our coven. She sought out and quickly befriended Roman patricians and anyone with homes and money. Using the gift of immortality as trade, she gained access to riches and palatial homes. The upheaval in the aftermath of Caesar’s death left many fearing they would be murdered for their political alliances, and for them, immortality was the only way they would survive. It was a good plan, and our family grew to a few dozen in