Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 19:29:59 PDT From: Bloodspell Moone Subject: Transvamporia Transvamporia One: The Awakening PART ONE: LIFE Death is to some a moment of radical change, an entrance into the afterlife, a journey into the next stages of life. However, for some, death is something entirely different, a change in existence, without crossing over into an afterlife, without a meeting with one's maker, a cursed change into something else. Yes, when I died, my curse began, and I was just unlucky enough to be cursed in more than one way. You see, I still roam this world, I have come to grip with so many things, I have even gotten use to my existence. However, it was not always this way, I use to be human once, I use to be normal. I am a vampire now, I am also, well, perhaps I should first go back in time and let my story explain just what I am, or have become I should say. It was a cold December evening when it all began; the year was 1975. I was 25 years old at the time, a dashing young man without a future, or so it seemed that night. I was in a rut, a very deep one, and it was what led me to my fall from grace, I was suicidal that night and had planned to die, which I did, but not how I had planned. Sometimes plans can go awry, that is a lesson that I should have learned from the way my life bottomed out the last month. If something could go wrong, lately it did go wrong and I was certainly taking the brunt of it. I guess a month earlier, it all began when Josh, my best friend, confessed to me that he was really a woman trapped within a man's body and that he or I guess I should say she planned to live as a woman and have an expensive sex change operation. This nearly blew me away, Josh was always so masculine, and to find out it was all an act, well I felt betrayed. However, I loved Josh, well now Jeannette, and was going to stick by her through these changes. I may not understand them, but I was willing to remain open minded, which in the seventies was a rare commodity indeed. It was right around the same time that I had begun to notice a woman that appeared to be watching me. She was very beautiful, with her pale skin and long blonde mane of sensual hair that almost commanded me to go to her and run my fingers through her hair. She had a perfect figure too, almost too perfect, in fact everything about her was too perfect, like she was a goddess or something. If my throbbing erection had not distracted me, I may have registered that I only saw her because she wanted me to see her and that she knew me, was perhaps even stalking me. I soon forgot about her as my life continued to crumble around me. I was a resident at Queen General and had a very promising career, hopefully as a surgeon, ahead of me, well until my patients started dying and evidence pointed to me. I was shocked when the first one died, she was an elderly lady with cancer, and yes maybe she was better off dead as she had no real life except for one of pain in front of her. Whoever killed her probably did her a favor, however, it was still murder and she was my patient. The cause of death was cyanide poisoning via an injection threw her intravenous. This was obvious, however, we completely missed the two puncture marks on her neck. The police began an investigation, which is normal, and I was on the suspect list as I should be since I was her doctor. There were also some nurses and a porter on the list as well. The next night, another of my patients was found dead in the same matter, I was shocked, though not enough to get my name off of the suspect list that had shrunk down to a small handful of us. After the third murder, I was the prime suspect, though I really didn't worry too much about that as I was innocent and eventually whoever was doing this would get caught. Well, innocence didn't matter to the press as they somehow got wind of the suspect list and decided that I was the killer. They wrote stories that all but named me as the killer, I actually could have easily sued them for liable and defamation of character, but I never did get the chance as things kept getting worse. Society literally turned on me thanks to the press, and as a result, my patients requested a different doctor as they feared becoming the next victim of the evil Doctor Claude Andrews, my name by the way. The hospital was forced mainly by public pressure to suspend me until this was all cleared up, however, I think they really meant until the police could prove that it was me and then lock me up. I think even if I was proved innocent of these murders, too much damage had been done to my reputation for me to ever return to work at this hospital. And it would be very tough to get on at any other hospital, maybe out of country, but who knows, NBC is everywhere. Well, All of my friends deserted me, well except for Jeannette who had full confidence in me, She really believed that I was innocent, I was certainly glad that I was open-minded enough to accept her. My fianc‚e didn't have the same level of trust and belief in me and thus ended our engagement as well as our relationship. I was sinking so low and so fast, I was losing everything and it even was beginning to look like the police were building a lot of circumstantial evidence against me. It really looked like I was going to get arrested and probably end up in jail for crimes I did not commit. Well, I was getting to the point that I was actually starting to think about suicide, and then the bottom fell out. My parents were both found dead as their car went off of the road, into a marsh, they both drowned. This was a kicker for me, it pushed me over the edge, I had already decided to kill myself if things didn't get better, but this pushed up the schedule quite a bit and hence everything changed that cold December night. Killing myself would be easy, I was a doctor and certainly had the know-how. However, I did not have a prescription pad at home and was not going to sneak into the hospital to get one. I needed drugs, and yes I knew where I could get some. Jeannette, she always was up to her eyeballs in prescription drugs and I had a key to her apartment. I felt bad about doing this in her apartment, but my despair was so deep that I did not care and thus rushed off to her place to end my life. I pulled up to her apartment just as the last rays of the sun disappeared below the horizon. I knew that Jeannette was away for a few days, so I had complete privacy to do what I had to do, I was even more determined as I heard that an arrest had been issued for my arrest on the police band radio that I kept in my car. There was no hope, death was my only option, this night, I was going to die. It wasn't quite dark enough to turn on the lights as I entered Jeannette's apartment, however, I did turn on her bedroom light as it was a little darker in there. I smiled briefly as I saw all the pill bottles on her nightstand. I scanned the drug names till I found a bottle of pretty powerful barbiturates. They would certainly do the trick, but I would also drink some alcohol with them just to make sure that I did die. I had no intentions of waking up in a prison hospital or anything like that. I took pill after pill washing them down with Captain Morgan, until the bottle was empty, I could already feel a sluggishness overcoming me. I had no idea what the next bottle of pills were, but I managed to ingest them as well before I passed out, I did know that they were sugar coated as they actually tasted sweet. My last living memory is that of the woman again, she entered the room somehow and was screaming at me about how stupid I was, that she almost didn't get here in time. I then thought that I saw her teeth, no fangs as she descended on my neck; I died. PART TWO: DEATH Something was wrong, pain flared through every cell in my body, I felt death, I felt dead, but yet not, I felt pain. "It is alright my handsome Claude, the dark gift is working its magic on you, soon the pain will go away and you will be young and beautiful forever," she said, who was she? I lost consciousness again. The pain was still there, but it was different again, it felt like my muscles where vibrating, something was happening to me. "I have never seen the dark gift do this before, this is incredible, Claude can you hear me?" What was she saying, where was I? Oh yes, I killed myself, was this heaven, or Hell? Who was the woman, wait a minute she is the one that had been following me around. I tried to talk, but my paralysis would not allow it. I lost consciousness again. I slowly and very sluggishly regained consciousness, I was in complete darkness, yet I could see everything with perfect clarity. I could see every divot on the ceiling, every little crack that I should have had a hard time seeing, even in broad daylight. What was happening, why could I see so much better than I had ever been able to before? I then raised my hand up and could see the perfect skin on my hand, a very lovely hand at that, slim, very feminine with long slender nails, wait a minute, my hands! Those were the hands of a girl, I sat up in disbelief and then felt the weight of my breast sway on my chest, breasts, I had breasts, what was going on here? I reached my girl hands toward my breasts and touched them rather hesitantly to confirm indeed that they were mine. I was in Hell, that would explain this. I then reached down lower and let my new hands slide across my hairless flat tummy until it finally reached a mound of pubic hair, not what I was use to. I then felt lips, my lips that formed the entrance to my vagina, as my finger slipped into it, I felt a wave of pleasure ripple through me and also confirmed to myself that I was indeed a girl, inside and out. I had to find a mirror, I had to see this, I had to see me as I was holding out hope that once I found a mirror, I would see my old familiar mug staring back and I would no longer be a girl. That hope was quashed rather fast as there was a large mirror hanging on the far wall. As I walked over to it, I realized that I was indeed a girl, and that the creature that stared back at me was a goddess, like that girl, oh my God, the fangs, she had fangs. I opened my mouth and smiled looking for similar fangs and luckily, there were none. I was just a girl, a perfect girl, but a girl none the less. "Your fangs only descend when you are mad or ready to feed," she said as she entered the room with a smile on her perfect face, a face like mine, though mine was framed in red hair while hers was blonde. "Who are you? What have you done to me?" "My name is Countess Rebecca Von Grog. I am a vampire as you may have guessed, I must point out that you are a vampire too, a very pretty one at that," she smiled again, part of me wanted to love her while part of me wanted to hate her at the same time. "Vampires, there is no such thing," I said in my new sex kitten voice that really gave me the creeps hearing it come out of my mouth. "Really, well Claude, you are a vampire now, you will not, can not hold such a belief anymore. You are immortal now, you will live forever, you will never get sick, never age, a perfect goddess till the end of time." "Why did you turn me into a girl?" She laughed, "You are a vampire and your first concern is about being female, how typically male of you." "Couldn't you have just left me as a guy, why?" "Claude, I did not want to change you into a girl at all, I was looking for a male lover, I did not wish you to become a girl. The dark gift transforms us into vampires, I have never seen it change one's sex before. This is rather interesting and I have certainly had a lot of time to think about it since you began to change 5 days ago." "Five days?" "Yes, it has been five days since you tried to kill yourself. You are the doctor here, but I do have a theory as to why you are now a girl. You see you took a bottle of sleeping pills, no biggie there, but then you followed that with a bottle of a substance called premarin, a female hormone replacement." "Premarin, I was too out of it to realize what I took, but hormones alone could not do this too me, that does not answer anything." "No, you are right, but the dark gift, it works in such a way that it makes the new vampire perfect physically, a perfect representation of the sex. Well, I think it uses hormones as a basis for that transformation, and well your body was flooded with estrogen and hence, you are now a perfect female." "Okay, so how do we make me male again?" "We can't, you are a girl forever." I didn't want to register her last words, but I could not deny the fact that I was no longer a boy. "Rebecca, there has to be a way, I can't stay like this, I am a man, a doctor, I have a life." "Claude, that name is now inappropriate, I shall call you Cheyenne, yes that is suitable. Anyway, there is no way, you can cut off your hair, it will only grow back as you sleep through the next day. Besides, you do not have a life to return to, the police found your prints on a syringe filled with cyanide residue. I am afraid that there is no returning even if it were possible. Besides, you forfeited your life when you tried to kill yourself. You should be thanking me, I have given you a new and better life, and besides being a girl is not that bad. To be frank, I can't believe that we are arguing over the fact that you are a girl, I would think that you should be more angry about being turned into a vampire." "I am not a vampire, I can see my reflection in the mirror, I do not have fangs, I am not a demon, I am me, inside I am me, a man trapped in this cursed woman's body. So don't try to tell me what I should be worrying about, you are sick, you should talk to someone about this vampire fixation you have!" In a blur of movement, she was across the room and had her hand around my throat and had me a few inches off of the floor. I noticed that her eyes where a yellow green combination and almost seemed to burn. And her fangs where there in their glory gleaming white and unmistakable. She was a vampire, I could not deny what I knew already, she must have sensed my acceptance of the truth as she released her grip on me and let me stand on my own again. "All of the legends are not true my dear Cheyenne. Vampires are very easily seen in the mirror, things like garlic and running water are complete nonsense. A stake through the heart; decapitation; fire; and of course the sun will indeed destroy us. And we do need to drink blood to survive, that is a necessity, you will find that it tastes very good, it is even more enjoyable than sex." "Blood, I can not." "Yes you can, and you will. I did not make you to just die, I will make sure that you learn how to be a vampire and will survive before I leave you. Originally, I had planned to be with you much longer, but you are not lover material anymore. Perhaps in a hundred years or so when I decide it is time to take a female lover, I will look you up." "I don't want your help!" "Don't raise your voice with me young lady, I doubt you can survive without me and if I were to leave you alone, I doubt you could survive on your own. You have no clue how to be a vampire or even a woman for that matter." "I don't care, leave me alone," I said as the reality of my situation continued to sink in. She did this to me and for that I would never forgive her. "There are a few rules among our kind. One of them is to not leave behind your messes so that mortals can discover our existence. You are one such mess, without basic instruction, you endanger us all and that will not be permitted. If I leave you now, I t will only be because I have destroyed you. You are my childe, you have no choice in this matter." "I guess not, I know that you are stronger than me, however, I then beg of you to destroy me. I am a man, I will not live as a woman or a monster for that matter." I braced for her attack thinking that she would destroy me, but she simply smiled at me. "Cheyenne, I am not going to destroy you, you have my blood coursing through your veins, you are my childe and I want the best for you. Let me train you for a week, if at the end of that week you still want me to destroy you, I will. However, in exchange, you have to obey me during this week and do whatever I ask you to do in pursuit of your training." "Excuse me, there is nothing for me in that deal, destroy me now!" "Here is what is in it for you, if at that end of the week, you want to live, but do not want me around, I will also leave you be, you see, your destiny will once again be in your own hands. What do you say?" "I have a feeling that if I do not agree, you will force me anyway, so I guess I do not really have any choice. However, I do not accept that I am trapped forever as a female, If I go along with you, I want one thing in return, I want you to promise to help me find a way to become male again. If you are willing to do that, then I will give you a week." She smiled, I knew an agreement had been reached without her even having to say a word. I had no idea what my training was going to consist of, but I was sure that it was not going to be fun. "I accept, now we must begin tonight, the first thing you need to do is learn how to feed." "You mean kill, I am a doctor, I can not kill!" "We can feed without killing, it just takes a little control, I am sure you will have no problem with control as you are a smart one." "I am hungry, no killing though, I will have whatever control it requires not to kill. Now though we do have another problem to take care of before feeding." "Cheyenne, oh course, you need clothes, walking around naked looking for a victim just is not proper. I have already thought of that and if you will follow me, I will take you to your new clothes. I think you will like the selection I have laid out for you on my bed." "Great she has a bed, I guess that means we do not sleep in coffins." "No, coffins are for special occasions and for moving during the daylight. They also are great for parties." I actually chuckled at that one. As we entered her bedroom, I noticed she had a very interesting selection laid out for me. I stared at the clothes for a second realizing that she was planning on turning me into a slut. "Now Cheyenne, I know that these are a little skimpy," she said holding out a black lacy bra for me to take, "but, they really are great for hunting. Men throw themselves on your plate if you are dressed just right." I moaned as I took the bra and tried to figure out how to put it on, I didn't do that bad as I had seen so many women put them on and take them off in the hospital. I simply slid the shoulder straps on and then lowered my breasts into the cups and then grabbed each side of the strap and reached behind my back scrambling for a bit until both hooks finally latched. Without my vampire dexterity, I would have had more problems. Without my vampire dexterity, I would not be in this mess wearing a bra! "Not bad Cheyenne, perhaps you were always meant to be a girl." "Ha ha!" As I said that, I blushed a little, and an image of Jeannette popped into my mind. She must be going crazy with worry about me. It should be her here in this situation, she would love being a perfect female. Rebecca then handed me a pair of matching black lacy panties. I stepped into them and noticed how smooth my legs where as I pulled them up and then noted how round and plump my butt was as they fitted perfectly to my new contours. I then picked up a pair of black fishnet stockings. "You will have to roll them on, they do not go on like a sock sweetie." "I think I can manage, thank you," I said as I mentally thanked her for not letting me try to embarrass myself any further by fouling them up as I was going to try and put them on like I would a sock. As she had said, I rolled them up my legs noting once again their smoothness and just how shapely my legs were. She then handed me a very short black miniskirt that I had no problem with and also a red tank-top that also was fairly easy to put on. Last and not least, she handed me a pair of high heels, black of course. I didn't think that I would be able to walk in them, but thanks to my vampire balance, I had no problem. I noticed as I walked back to my bedroom that my hips had a natural sway to them as I walked. I guess she would not have to be teaching me how to walk. As I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my eyes at the goddess that stared back. It was going to take a long time to get use to it I guess. Get use to it! No, I had to be careful how I thought, I had to remember that I was a man and that this was temporary. However, I was gorgeous, certainly more than capable of giving an entire bar full of men erections that they would never forget. Wait a minute, I wanted one of those erections, I didn't want to be the cause of one. "Now Cheyenne, as vampires, we do not require a lot of makeup, however, a little bit on the eyes and lips as well as a little blush is always appropriate. Also nail polish too, it hides the funny color of our nails." I looked at my nails seeing what she meant, they seemed to look almost like marble and reflected light very weirdly. Nail polish was indeed needed. Rebecca had Shown me how to do my face, once again, my vampire dexterity made makeup application a snap. A very steady hand was very useful too. I used some black eyeliner and mascara to accentuate my eyes, also a little eye shadow helped. I did not require foundation for my perfect skin, but a finishing powder and some blush added a little bit of color to my face. I finished my lips with some ruby red lipstick, with that, I stepped back and admired the goddess staring out at me from the mirror. I was starting to get lost in her, when I realized what was happening and I backed off making sure to remember my lost masculinity. "You are a fast learner Cheyenne, let us see how fast you master the hunt." We left Rebecca's mansion, she had to be very rich to afford such a huge place, I had only seen a small part of it up till then. I was trying to calculate how much her place would be worth as she looked at me with an amused smile on her lips. "Cheyenne, I had amassed a lot of money over the ages, most of us old vampires are extremely rich." "Wow, how old are you?" "I am about 1000 years old." I was stopped dead in my tracks for a moment. That is very old, I was not expecting that at all, I thought I guess of her being in her early twenties as she looked. "Cheyenne, I told you that we are immortal, we really do live forever." And I was a girl possibly forever. Would I ever be able to get use to it? Before I knew it, we were just outside a bar, and I knew this had to be our destination, I certainly could smell something very yummy inside. It was blood that I smelled, I realized that as we entered the smoky bar in search for our food. It seemed like all the men instantly noticed both of us, and I kind of felt powerful inside. Rebecca led me to a private booth near the front of the bar, but very secluded, it was the sort of both where you could practically have sex without anyone knowing. As the waitress came over, Rebecca ordered two red wines. "The drinks are only for show Cheyenne, we can not eat or drink human food." This fact did not seem to bug me at all as the blood scent was really starting to drive me crazy. I knew that I had better feed soon, or I was going to lose control. "It is very hard to control it when you are new. Have some patients, we will feed very soon Cheyenne." Just as she said that, the waitress delivered to us our red wine and two playboy looking men stood at our tables waiting for an invitation to join us. Rebecca motioned for them to sit and they both took no time seating themselves. "Stare at yours, you can hypnotize him by just a mere thought," she whispered to me in a voice too low for humans to hear. I did as she told me, I simply stared at him and his eyes went blank, he went into a trance. Cool, the next door to door salesman at my door was gonna be in for a surprise. "Cheyenne, lets lead them out of here and to a more private setting. In case you lose control, I do not want to have to kill an entire bar to keep our secret." "Okay," I replied commanding for my man to follow me as we led them out of the bar and away towards a secluded alley. Rebecca moved on her supper first, and as she bit into his neck, the smell of blood was too much, I felt my fangs descend and my supper was ready. I kissed him lightly on his lips first, and then moved down to his neck as he moaned in pleasure. I could feel his blood pulsing in his carotid artery which being a doctor meant that I knew exactly where it was. I broke his skin slowly and sensations began to overwhelm me as his blood hit my tongue. All at once, my nipples hardened and began to tingle. I felt a fire burning between my legs as his blood continued to flow, it was incredible, I had never felt this alive in my entire life, I was building towards something, yes towards a female orgasm. I wanted it so badly, but I knew to orgasm, this man had to die, I was a doctor, I could not kill, oh but it felt so good. I deserved to orgasm, besides it was only a human, I felt the pleasure growing and growing, I had to have it, His heart stopped, and I went crazy in pleasure as my orgasm exploded in a rainbow of pleasure before my very eyes. I let his corpse drop to the ground as the pleasure still burned within my vagina. "Is it that good for male vampires," I asked? "I do not think so, as a result, they tend to have a lot more control," she said as her man's corpse fell to join mine. "That was very good, maybe I can get use to being a girl." "I thought you might say that after feeding, like I said earlier, it really is not that bad being female." "You are right on that fact Rebecca, or should I call you master?" "No, my childe, Rebecca is fine, let's go there is more to teach you." Transvamporia Two: Jeannette Introduction: Welcome to the second installment in the Transvamporia story, if you have not read the first part, I would recommend that you read it first, as this is a giant story that builds upon the previous parts. Now, I guess the best way to describe this story is to say that it is different than almost all of the stories you are use to reading here. I am a plot driven writer, and as such, the story line and the plot are going to be my primary concern. You will also notice that even though this is a TG story, I do dot dwell on the gender change as most of the stories in this archive tend to. I do though concentrate in creating an interesting read full of excitement and character development that is three dimensional, not just concentrating on the gender change. So, sit back and enjoy yourself, and let my words take you away to a world filled with vampires and fraught with danger. Part One: The vampire Rebecca. Blood, so red and sweet, so sensual, the elixir of the gods, the food of the vampire, and also my addiction. I am the vampire Cheyenne, a blood addict as well as many other things. I have seen a lot over the past 25 years, it actually seems like just yesterday that I was made into the fiend that I am, but it was a cold night, a long time ago, yes I remember that December night in 1975 very well. I remember how a vampire named Rebecca changed my life forever. How she brought me across the veil of life and death with her dark gift, a transition that also brought me across the gender barrier as well. That is a story that I have already told, as you may remember, I was actually more upset about becoming a woman than I was about becoming a vampire. Rebecca played a very good game, she knew that if she got me to experience the kill and the resulting female orgasm that came with it, I would forget about my silly desire to be a man again. She was right partly, I stopped dwelling on it and got caught up in the new sensations of the kill. However, I did not just accept my new found womanhood, I just numbed it out with the pleasure of the blood. I became addicted to it in such a way that it was my only concern; being a man trapped in the body of a goddess was not important, my time was better spent thinking about my next victim, my next fix as you might say. Rebecca knew this and played on it to the tee. She knew that once I had the taste for the blood, I would be its slave, and then she would have plenty of time to get me use to being a woman. I would not have much of a problem with it once I became accustomed to the blood and then had time to start living again. After that first night that we killed together in the alley, it became a ritual for us. We hunted every night, finding our victims from all over the city, some nights I would even kill three or four. Rebecca only killed one a night, she even once said that she could survive easily on less, but killed sometimes just out of a need to be social with me. To make me feel like I am not alone, perhaps even teach me bits of her killing style to help make me a better vampire as well as a better woman. I never questioned the better woman comment from here as like I said, I was caught up in the pleasure. My first two months as a vampire really flew by, but then I started to become accustomed to the blood, and it is here that this story begins. "Is it February already, I am actually having a hard time keeping track of the date if you can believe that?" Wow, I was actually beginning to think about something other than blood. "So Cheyenne, I think that maybe you are starting to get use to being a vampire, I expected as much, just not quite so soon," replied Rebecca with a smirk on her face. "Really, I feel like my head has been clearing as of late. I am remembering things about the past," I said. It was true, during my blood haze, I was only the vampire Cheyenne, without a past really, I had forgotten who or what I was, I had forgot about Claude. "The past, yes you are regaining your senses, it is all a part of becoming a vampire. You are reborn with full knowledge of who you were and your past, but then with the first kill, that knowledge is forgotten as the blood overpowers everything else. Usually, in about six months, you adapt to the pleasure and your memories return. You were made with strong blood and are a very strong woman, so for you, it appears that only two months were needed. You will indeed become a very powerful vampire under the proper guidance." "My name is Claude, you turned me into a woman. You promised to help me find a way to become male again," I said as the gravity of my position set in. "Your name is Cheyenne, Claude is dead, you can never go back to being him. I remember this foolishness from before, I will not tolerate it again. There is no going back, you will be a woman forever, get use to it!" There was a tone to her voice that told me not to push any further. She may have won this battle, but I was never going to give up finding a way to become male again. I just had no clue as to how to begin such a quest. "Rebecca, may I ask a question?" "Only as long as it has nothing to do with gender," she replied in a stern voice. "I was wondering about vampires in general, like where did we begin? What is the force that animates us? How did you become a vampire?" "The origin of vampires, a very interesting topic. I could speak volumes on all the stories that concern our origins. Some think we began in Egypt, others in Greece, even some claim we began in the Garden of Eden with Lilith. It is really hard to say exactly what is truth and what is fiction." "But surely you have some idea," I quickly piped in. "Well, I am about a thousand years old, and the one that made me was about two thousand years old. He told me of a vampire named Shahluka that was thought to be the oldest living vampire. Now, I had also heard of a rumor of a lost continent and a queen Shahluka of Atlantis. Perhaps they were the same person; perhaps vampirism originated in Atlantis, that is what I believe." "Atlantis, I guess if we can exist, then Atlantis and Big foot can too," I jokingly responded. "Do not mock what you do not understand, Atlantis was a reality just as we are, and well as for Big Foot, I have never seen one." " I am sorry, I guess I am in no position to mock, it is just my science background. Anyway, I think I need to feed, if you do not mind, I would like to go out solo tonight," I said hoping for a chance to be away from Rebecca and try to get some sort of plan together to reclaim my lost masculinity. "That would be fine Cheyenne. I have a few things I need to take care of, and it would be nice to have a little privacy myself. I know that you are probably thinking to yourself about becoming Claude again, it isn't going to happen, I would not waste your time on it, but if you need to learn the hard way that your condition is permanent, so be it." Rebecca was certainly smarter than I had given her credit for, but I had to try and free myself from this body. I would find a way, I had to, and I had an idea. I needed an ally, someone who understood gender and just might be able point me in the right direction. I knew exactly who that would be; Jeannette, my transsexual friend from before I became Cheyenne. I just had to think of how I was going to enlist her aid. If I just waltzed into her life looking as I do know, I doubt that she would recognize me, and I might even scare her off. There had to be a way to enlist her without exposing her to my new lifestyle. Now, I remember Rebecca once telling me that she entered someone's dream. That would do it, but how would I pull that off, could it be as easy as hypnotizing someone with my eyes. It was worth a try I guess, so I headed off to Jeannette's apartment, the place I died. By the time I got to Jeannette's place, it was well after midnight and with any luck, she would be asleep. I easily found her spare key hidden outside under her rug where she had always kept it. With my vampire senses, I could hear her sleeping, so I had no worries about her being up. I let myself in and made my way to her bedroom where she was fast asleep. It pulled on my heart seeing her again, I really did miss my old life, she was a reminder of that. So how was I going to enter her dreams, I guess if I was to do it, I would have to be relaxed myself and maybe just concentrate from there, I was certainly hoping. I lay down on the floor next to her bed and started to concentrate first on relaxing and then on her dreams. It really was that easy, as before I knew it, I felt a part of me leave my body and then I found myself standing in a foggy place without any real substance. I could sense her near, I quickly looked down at myself to see that I was still Cheyenne, with a little extra will power, my body shimmered and I was Claude again. I was overcome with a sense of relief, I touched myself between my legs to make sure that my illusion was complete, it was, I smiled. "Claude, is it really you," Jeannette said as she entered the foggy place that I stood in? "Hello Jeannette," I had my deep male voice, I liked this place. "I have been so worried about you, where did you go?" "Jeannette, I had to go away, I did not kill those people you know," I said as I remembered the murdered patients from before, then I remembered the puncture marks on their necks. Rebecca, she killed them, I should have noticed that before. That girl is far more dangerous than I thought. "Claude, I never doubted you. I really miss you, where is this place?" "You are dreaming Jeannette, but I am really here, I know this sounds weird, but I found a way to enter your dreams so that we can be friends again." "That sounds crazy, but yet I believe you. Are you alright? Where have you been staying?" "I am coping, a lot has happened to me and I think I really could use your help." "Oh Claude, has this anything to do with my missing pills?" "You are very smart Jeannette, I tried to kill myself that night in your apartment. I feel so very bad about it, I am so sorry." "It is okay, I have been thinking about ending it myself, I could really use a friend." "Jeannette, I had no idea, what is wrong?" "I have cancer, the doctors do not think I will live too much longer. As a result, I have been denied my final surgery, I am going to die with this bloody penis." I was shocked, I was not prepared for that revelation. "Jeannette, I am so sorry, what can I do to help?" "I want to see you again, not here in this dream world, but rather in real life. It is important for me, even just to hug you once more as a friend, can you do that for me?" "You are asking a lot of me, I have changed, I do not know if you could handle seeing me again." "I don't care, I can handle it, no matter how much you have changed, it will still be you, that is all that is important to me." I let the illusion fade and I was once again Cheyenne, standing in front of my best friend. She gasped and stared at me for a moment before talking. "You are beautiful, I should be asking if it is you Claude, but I know it is, I can feel you behind those eyes. I don't know how this could be possible, I do not want to know either, if this is you, then fine, come to me, we need to talk I think." "Yes we do need to talk. I will come to you later in the week, I have a lot of explaining to do to you, I will come in this form in real life, I know your mind still thinks I am a dream, but I am real, you will see. When I come, do not be afraid." With that, I left her dreams and found myself back in my physical body. I left her room as she was waking, this was not a good time as I had to feed, and her blood was already tempting me. I needed blood before I could return home to confront Rebecca on the murders that ruined my mortal life. Being in the body of a goddess was not all that bad, as it made the hunt very easy. I wondered if male vampires had a much more difficult time finding their prey, I know as a man, picking up women in a bar was not the easiest thing. It seemed though that the women had no problem, as most of us men were desperate. I smiled at the thought that I was no longer desperate; yikes, I wanted to be desperate again, I had better be careful not to get caught up in this body again. If I was not careful, I could get use to being a goddess and that was just unthinkable. Rebecca was in one of her many reading rooms reading an Anne Rice novel of all things when I arrived home still feeling the high from my recent kill. I watched her for a moment trying to think of how to bring it up to her without setting her off. I had to know just how much she played in my fall from grace, I was afraid that I was going to find out things that perhaps I did not want to know. "How was you evening?" Rebecca asked as she put aside her novel. It was called Interview with the Vampire, I was slightly amused that she would be reading such drivel. "It went okay. I have been thinking about a few things that happened before I died, and I was wondering if you could perhaps clear up a few things for me," I said as I waited for her to throw up her blinders. I expected her to stonewall me again, as she tended to almost always do. "I see, I think that I know where you are heading with this. You want to know why I picked you?" "Well that too, but I need to know about the murders that I was framed for, you killed those people didn't you?" I waited for her response. She laughed out loud and then said, "My you are indeed very smart. Yes, I killed them and framed you. I had to destroy your mortal life for two reasons. One, I had to make sure that you were strong, my companion had to be strong. Second, destroying your life would make your transition into the undead go rather smoothly." "You bitch! What gave you the right to destroy me, you are not God!" I was a little flustered. "Cheyenne, I am a goddess, I am more powerful than even you realize, I can do whatever I want, your mortal laws do not apply to me, I am above the law, I am a vampire as you are now too. You also kill, what right do you have?" "Did you kill my parents and all of the other passengers on that plane just to get me?" "No, that was just good luck," she said with a smile. "Good luck, those were my parents, you are sick Rebecca, I can not stand to be around you anymore. You said once that if I gave you a week, you would let me go free, well I gave you two months, and now I ask to go free. Otherwise, you had better destroy me as I will destroy you if I get the chance the way I feel right now." "Oh Cheyenne, you are getting flustered, good, I like your anger, it will make you a strong vampire. Go then, you are free. There is still a lot of training you require, but you will return to me someday begging for my love and attention. Go then I tell you, make your mark on the world, just remember the rules." "I know, I can not expose us to mortals." "Yes, that is one, you can also not make another without my permission, Until you are fully mature, you can not even hope to handle such ramifications of another. It would only be a threat to us all, and as such, it would be destroyed as well as you for breaking the rule. The vampire community takes these rules very seriously, if you break them, it will be out of my hands. You really are not ready to be on your own, but it is your choice, no go and be done with it." That was all she said and I walked out of her house that night and started a new chapter in my life. Part Two: The vampire Cheyenne I was finally free of Rebecca, which was certainly a step in the right direction. However, I had no place of my own or even a single dollar to my name. I was a homeless, broke vampire, but I was free. Money would not be a problem, I was sure that I could merely rob my victims for a little spending money. A place to stay, now that was going to be important as I need to be securely away from the sun during the day. I would also have to worry about possibly getting some identification of sorts, and maybe even a job too to get more money flowing. I was going to prove to Rebecca that I could survive on my own, I would live if only to exact my revenge on her for all that she had done to me. Another thought was also starting to emerge in my mind. I was planning on revealing myself to Jeannette which was breaking one of those rules Rebecca warned me about, but also, I was dwelling on her condition, I knew that I could not let her die. I was actually thinking about the possibility of making her like me, a vampire, the second rule that I was forbidden to break. Well, I was not about to let her die, she was my best friend, and also the only one I could think of that might be able to help me become a male again. Yes, breaking the rules would be worth it if she could help me reclaim my lost masculinity. I had a lot to think about for certain, but as dawn was approaching, my first concern was to find a place to sleep for the day. I managed to squeeze my way into an old boarded up warehouse in the water district. It was not very clean, but it was dark and very dusty which was a good indication that no one had been in here for a very long time. Oh well, I really didn't have much of a choice as I could feel the sun rising outside and felt that deep sleep descend on me as my consciousness slipped away for the day. Now vampires do not just pass out for the day, or go into a deathlike coma, in reality, our sleep is deep, but it is that, it is sleep and it tends to come with dreams. My first day on my own in that old warehouse, I had a dream that I would never forget. Perhaps if I would have heeded it, I could have prevented a lot of trouble that was to befall me, but I dismissed it as only a dream. It was a very vivid dream, a lot of bizarre imagery, perhaps too much so. As I woke at sunset, I tried to recall this strange dream, it was a little foggy, but still vivid at the same time. There was this woman in it, she was mad I think, but definitely very dangerous. She was torturing Jeannette, stealing secrets from her, secrets that would bring the world to its knees. She was very powerful, very nasty, I was afraid of her. Then the dream shifted and I was face to face with Claude, no me, the male me. This woman was there still, she was trying to kill me, she was controlling Claude, and I had to kill him and with that lost my chance to be male, condemning myself to this female body forever. I was certainly glad that it was only a dream. Another interesting aspect about being a vampire is that we did not really get dirty, that was partially due to not having functioning sweat glands, and also to the fact that our skin was very different from human skin. It for some reason did not allow dirt to adhere to it, which is really a good thing. Living in a warehouse without a shower would have been impossible under any other circumstances. Anyway, now I had to feed and then head off to pay Jeannette a visit. Tonight was a good night to break some rules and perhaps to find a few answers to my problem at the same time. As I left the warehouse, I was unaware that I was being watched, a game was a foot and I was about to play into my opponents hand and deliver to him a weapon. I fed on a junkie on my way over to Jennette's apartment, unfortunately he had no money, so I was still without a cent to my name. However, the money issue was for later, Jeannette was my first concern tonight. I told her that I was coming to her in her dream, but I doubt that she really believed it, and was preparing myself for her reaction to me. She was definitely going to be in for a few shocks tonight. As I neared her apartment, I reached out with my vampire senses to make sure that she was home, and she was. Luckily, she was alone which suited me as I was not in the most patient mood tonight. I entered her apartment and found my way to her doorbell. I rang it and waited for Jeannette to answer it. Jeannette open the door and just stared at me for a minute, all the color drained from her face as she realized that I was the woman from her dream. I could feel her fear welling up within her as she wanted to scream, but something held her back, some sort of calmness flowed into her. She knew who I was, I could see it in her eyes. Her fear evaporated completely, it was at that moment, I knew that what I was about to do was not a mistake. "Hi Jeanette," I said figuring it was as good an opening than anything else I could think of. I don't think there really is any etiquette for this sort of thing. "Claude, that really is you in there, my God you are so beautiful," she said with a spark of wonder in her voice, "that dream, I knew it was real." "Jeannette, you recognize me, I was certainly not expecting that," I said still a little astounded that she could see the real me through the form of this goddess. "Claude, I would recognize you anywhere, no matter what you looked like. However, I really am looking forward to your explanation of this," she said as she gestured at my body, "though I really think you should come inside as I have the feeling that this is going to be a long night." She was right, I entered her apartment and took a seat on her sofa as she closed and locked the door behind her. "Jeanette it is so very good to see you again, I have been thinking about this moment for quite a while now. I really wasn't expecting you to recognize me, that makes things much easier for sure." "Claude, I probably should not be calling you that after how you look. What happened to you, you are a woman. If you had inklings in that direction, I certainly would have easily detected them. And just look at you, I do not know of any surgeon that could do such a good job. I mean that is not your body, it is too perfect, of please tell me what is going on?" I could hear a little exasperation in her voice, it actually made me feel better in a funny sort of way. I guess that since she was showing me that she wasn't impossibly strong, it was helping me get in touch with my own humanity. It had been a long time, well a couple of months anyway, since I had felt human. "I am called Cheyenne now, and you are right, this body is too perfect and too female. I guess that is part of the problem; I am really in a mess Jeannette and I guess I am really hoping that you just may be able to help me. It seams like such a long time ago that this all began, but I guess that is where I really should start, at the beginning." "This all started that night in my apartment, this has something to do with the missing pills, doesn't it?" "You are very smart, yes you are right, it has a lot to do with the pills I took that night. Jeannette, I was at the end of my rope, I tried to commit suicide that night," I could feel a tear seep from the corner of my eye, it was the first time I cried since I became a vampire. I noticed that Jeannette just stared at my tear as it ran down my cheek and a look of concern came over her face. "Oh my god, your tears, they have blood in them!" I was shocked, but I guess it made sense, blood was such an important part of the vampire, so why not have tears of blood. "I am okay Jeannette, I am only crying, perhaps a handkerchief would be nice though." She reached for a tissue from the floral box of tissues sitting near her end of the coffee table. I accepted it from her and wiped away my bloody tears. She only stared not saying anything. "I guess there is no gentle way to say it my dear friend, but I am a vampire." Thanks to my bloody tears I figured that my chance to break it to her gently was no longer an option. "A vampire," she swallowed, "like Dracula, that is absurd, vampires do not exist for one, and if they did, and suppose you were one, well that would certainly not explain your new gender." "Actually, your hormone pills were the transforming agent, and I really am a vampire, I do not know how to prove it to you without scaring you half to death." "Okay, you really believe that you are a vampire. I will admit, that I have no idea how you could have that body, I am having trouble digesting the vampire bit, but please tell me everything first and I will then try to figure it out for myself, no matter how confusing it gets." "Okay, I guess it all started with another vampire named Rebecca. She had stalked me, and destroyed my life. She murdered those patients, it was part of her game. She wanted me as her immortal lover and figured that if she ruined my mortal life, I would have no choice but join her. Well her plan worked too well and I ended up here that night to kill myself. I took a bottle of your sleeping pills and as they were taking effect, I wanted to be absolutely sure that I succeeded and grabbed another bottle of pills not having any idea what they were." "My premarin," Jeannette interjected. "Yes, your hormones. Well, I would have succeeded, but Rebecca showed up and changed me into a vampire. Well, the process of the change acts on hormones as a beautifying agent and since my bloodstream was chalk full of estrogen, the dark gift responded to them and made me into the goddess form that I now live in. It certainly was a great shock to me, in fact I spent my first day as a vampire complaining about being in a female form and really didn't care that I was no longer human." "Okay, you are saying that my pills did this to you, that you are a vampire, are you sure, perhaps a plastic surgeon did this to you using some very advanced techniques and you have been since brainwashed." "Okay, I will prove it to you," I said as I took one of my pointed nails and ran it across the palm of my hand. Jeannette gasped as I sliced open my hand allowing the blood to flow. I then turned my hand upright to show her the wound that was already beginning to close right in front of her eyes. She stared at it in shock for what seemed like an eternity, though it was less than a minute. She then reached out and felt where the wound had just been moments ago. As she touched my cool perfect skin, her hand shoot back and she looked at me with fear in her eyes. "Jeannette, please do not be afraid, I would never hurt you. I came here for your help, I am still your best friend." "Vampire..." "Yes, I am a vampire, but I am also your friend, the only one who stood by you when you announced that you were going to live as a woman and try to get a sex change. I am still that friend." "Claude...I mean Cheyenne, you are telling the truth," she said as I could sense that she was regaining a little bit of her composure. "I am telling the truth, though I am here for more than just help, I want to help you too." Well, I was going to tell her everything, it seemed like the best thing to do. "Help me, I am going to die Cheyenne, you can't help me." "I can cure you and make you like me, you would become a vampire, but you would not be sick, you would not die, you would be young forever, we could be together." "Like you..." "Yes, like me. If you were to overdose on your hormones before I do it, you would then finally be a full woman like you have quested after your entire life. You would be more than just a woman, you would be a goddess." "You said that you needed my help, how does this help you?" "I need someone I can trust like you to help me find a way to become male again. That is my quest. Also, I need you, I need your company. I can't be around Rebecca, and being alone for all eternity would be rather boring." "You are offering me my life's desire and it will only cost me my humanity, and perhaps even my soul. I would like to ask for time to think about this offer, but I know that I can not turn you down, becoming a woman is worth any cost. I will do it, when do we start and just how do we do it." "Jeannette, I think it is time for you to get a very big glass of water as you have a lot of pills to swallow." Part Three: The vampire Jeannette After taking her pills, I had Jeannette lay down while I waited to make sure that the pills had enough time to absorb into her bloodstream without giving her liver too much of a chance to metabolize too much of the estrogen either. I approached her slowly as it was time to exchange blood. She looked at me with a very nervous glance, I quieted her fears with my eyes, I didn't want her to be filled with fear as my fangs descended and locked into place. "It is time my dear friend, are you ready to be reborn?" I moved in for her neck, not noticing the astral entity that was observing us. I gently kissed her neck, noting that she still had a few stray hairs, I guess she had yet to complete electrolysis. My tongue found her carotid artery and massaged the skin for a bit which would have the effect of numbing her neck a little so my bite would not hurt her as much. She did not feel any pain and in fact, she moaned in pleasure as I broke the skin with my very sharp fangs. Her blood tasted very good, I had to be careful not to drain her all the way if I wanted to give her my gift. I was just able to stop in time, it was a struggle as the blood still had a narcotic effect on me. However, Jeannette was too important to me and as such, was able to use this to pull myself back from completely draining her. I felt some sorrow as I pulled away from her neck, the old Jeannette was dead. I used one of my sharp nails to once again cut myself, not on the palm, but rather across my wrist. The blood began to swell quickly and I held it over her mouth letting it drip down into her throat. Her mouth began to swallow on its own accord and I then put my wrist flush against her lips and she began to suck; my blood kept flowing. I wasn't exactly sure how much to give her, but I reached a point where I was pretty certain that she had enough, I let her have a little more just in case. As I pulled my wrist free from her lips, she simply fell asleep in her bed. I watched her for a bit, not seeing much happening at first, remembering that my transformation took days, I figured that I had enough time to head out and feed as I was feeling very week from giving her so much blood. It was done, she was a vampire now, I had an ally and hopefully soon would have my masculinity back. I was so wrapped up in those thoughts as I left to get some blood that I did not detect the mortal watching her apartment, nor noted that he was sneaking in to pay my Jeannette a visit. If I had noticed him, he would have saved me a trip down to the bar. The stranger, who was so clever to get past me, had a plan, a very risky plan if you would have asked me, but a plan nonetheless. He entered her apartment using the spare key, the same one I used the night I became a vampire. Once inside, he did a very quick examination of Jeannette, and then removed a few skin samples as well as withdrew some blood. With his intended samples secured, he left as quickly as he had arrived. Once again I did not notice him, perhaps too high on the new blood I had just ingested. I went in immediately to check in on Jeannette, I could see a few changes already. The texture of her skin seemed smoother already, her hair was a little longer. She was definitely on her way, I was relieved to know that I must have given her enough blood. I wasn't sure how long this was going to take, but I was certain that we would be here for a least a day or two. I now had the task of creating a sleeping quarters for the two of us that would be secure from the sun. I still had a good three hours till sunrise, so I just watched her sleep for a while. I cleared out her storage room, it was perfect, no windows and big enough to squeeze her spare bed into it, well that is after I put the boxes that were in storage already in there into the spare room. Once I had the bed in there, I moved Jeannette into her new home, she was going to be spending a lot of time in that room till we had a better place to live. For me it was a step up from the warehouse I was sleeping in, well actually maybe a few floors up. As the sun came up, I fell into my deep sleep lying next to Jeannette, I had no idea that we were going to have an intruder again. About midday, our friend returned. He did not have to sneak as much this time as I was in a very deep sleep, almost coma like, and I was dreaming as I mentioned before we vampires do that. I was dreaming of a lab and the stranger that was in the apartment. He was creating something, something very dangerous, and then I saw Jeannette, she was beautiful, she was trying to kill me, she was wrong, something was wrong with her. Women were crying out, blaming me for something, begging me to save something, it was very confusing. The stranger slipped into the storage room with cat-like grace. He once again acquired skin and blood samples from Jeannette, being careful not to disturb me, a wise move. As he secured his samples, he paused looking at me and thought about just throwing the door open all the way and letting the sun destroy both myself as well as Jeannette. However, he wasn't certain at that point if he was finished with Jeannette yet, he just might need more samples. As the sun set, I woke feeling a little hungry as was usual for me. I looked down at Jeannette and was astounded by all the changes that had occurred throughout the day. Her skin was now perfect, like mine, her hair was turning black, from its usual brunette tone. I also noticed that her breasts were bigger, and real, her body had somehow dispelled her implants as they lay next to her body. I wondered if her penis was gone yet, I took a quick peek and found it still tucked in, though I am sure it was much smaller than it was before this all began. Her testes were gone though, no doubt they were ovaries now. From the look of things, I suspected that after one more day, all of her changes would be complete. She was still very deeply asleep, so I took the liberty of stepping out for a while to get myself fed. I was sure that she wouldn't be going anywhere and if she did wake up, I suspected she would still be out of it the way that I was. I was certainly feeling a little restless, so I took a long stroll to a bar that was almost on the other side of the neighborhood. As I walked through the streets at night I would always feel so powerful, I was the predator, I was a creature that evoked fear in the mere mortal, I had nothing to worry about unlike when I was a mortal woman alone on the streets at night. Wait a minute, I had just refereed to myself as a mortal woman before the change, where did that come from, I was a man. I had now been a woman for two months and a bit, and I was already starting to get use to it, my mind was even starting to think of myself as such, that was not good. As soon as Jeannette was ready, we had to find my lost masculinity before it was too late. As I was feeding on the other side of the neighborhood, our visitor was back and this time he had brought a few friends. It seems that he decided that he was going to need Jeannette after all, and they were there to help him kidnap Jeannette. They had little problem doing such, that is, till Jeannette woke up and was a little alarmed at what was happening. She had enough time to send out a mental cry for help before she passed out again. A lot of vampires heard her distress call, and it was to cause us trouble later, but the important thing at the time was that I heard it. His blood flowed down my throat in delicious waves of pleasure as my orgasm began to build in response to his slide towards death. I was so close now, and then my mind was shattered briefly as a feeling of urgency, a call for help filled all of my senses. Someone was in trouble, it was a vampire, it was Jeannette. I dropped my victim just short of my blood orgasm and ran as fast as I could towards the apartment. I moved so fast, that to a mortal, I would have been but a blur and a blast of air as I displaced the air before me. I think I actually flew for a part of the trip, but my mind was merely thinking only of Jeannette and really is uncertain of that. I didn't even stop to open the door, but burst in through it, splintering the door into an unrecognizable mush of wood that slammed into the opposite wall with a huge bang that shook the very building. Standing calmly beside the door to the storage closet was a man I had never seen before. Just inside the room, his two lackeys were in the process of stuffing Jeannette into a very large duffel bag. I radiated anger, and I was surely going to kill these three for this. The man spoke, "Cheyenne, welcome back, we thought we had more time to remove Jeannette before you returned. A slight miscalculation on my part I am afraid." He was too calm for a man about to die, this intrigued me a little, it perhaps bought him a few more minutes of life. "I am going to kill you, perhaps you will enlighten me as to how you thought that you could pull off such a mundane kidnapping attempt, or I can just kill you." "Cheyenne, you will not want to kill me as I am the only one who can make you male again. You see, I have been studying you for some time now, also Jeannette, she is giving me very valuable information." "What are you talking about," I demanded! "Let me explain then. First of all my name is Mark Knowell, I am a scientist and also what you might call a mystic or perhaps a psychic. The brunt of my work, my research, is in marrying science with the paranormal. I am getting very close to quite a few major discoveries, One of them, which will be important to you, is my gender potion." "Gender potion, what are you talking about?" His two lackeys keep an eye on things not moving at all, which is a good thing as I would not hesitate to kill them, I would then kill Mark after his speech. "My gender potion is based on your blood, I am very close to being able to replicate your gender change without turning my subjects into vampires. If I am successful, I can surely modify it to effect another gender change in you. That is why I am here for Jeannette, I need to examine her some more to unlock the final key to this puzzle. Soon, she will be a full-fledged vampire, and useless to me then. Cheyenne, I can free you, I really am your only hope." He was making sense, as much as I wanted to kill him, if he was right, he could free me from my curse, well, one of them at least. However, there were holes in his story, he was hiding something from me. "Okay Mark, you have my attention, but if you want to keep it as well as your life, I suggest that you give me a little more to go on, frankly I do not trust you at this point, certainly not enough to let you touch Jeannette." "Fair enough. I guess it all started the night you were made, I don't know why, but I felt something that night, like a disturbance on the astral plane. I left my body to investigate and that disturbance led me to you. I was astounded to learn that vampires existed, and then as your gender change occurred, well I was hooked so to say. I was able to sneak in when Rebecca was not around and managed to obtain samples from you. I have studied your blood quite a bit in the last month, however, only during your change was your blood useful for my study." "You stole my blood too," I was showing my anger again. "It really was necessary to my research, it gave me almost enough information to perfect my gender potion. Hell, with another five years or so of research in a lab, I would no doubt perfect it. But then, thanks to you, it happens again, you make Jeannette, and I have new data and a chance to complete this project. I am so close, I need her body to get the final answers, I promise you that no harm will come to her and that I will change you back into the male you are. You have to trust me, that is all you have to do, and in a few days, your nightmare will be over, you and Jeannette can leave and have all eternity together to do whatever." His arguments were very tempting, but yet I still felt that something was wrong. I should have just killed them all right there, but what if he was telling the truth, could I chance throwing away my masculinity because I was angry. No, I was not going to kill him, we were going to play his game and hopefully we would both end up winning. However, if he pulled anything, I would not hesitate to kill him. "Okay Mark, I will go along with you for now, but do not cross me, you will not get any further warnings." "But of course Cheyenne, I quite value my life, you can be assured of that," he said with a smile as he reached out to shake my hand, "we have a deal then, let us shake on it." "Whatever," I said as I allowed him to grasp my hand for his handshake, I then realized that I had been betrayed as darkness overtook me and I passed into unconsciousness. Before I regained consciousness, I had the dream again, Jeannette was trying to kill me, I didn't want to hurt her, but I had to defend myself, and Claude was there again, and the air it opened up and a girl that sort of looked like me walked out. She looked so sad, I wanted to cry for her. She then screamed that Armageddon was coming, it was almost too late. The evil Jeannette smiled and laughed at her, then I felt death, everywhere, it was so cold. Before I opened my eyes, I felt my hunger; it was very overwhelming, it was worse than I had ever remembered it being. I was a little confused as I opened my eyes, where was I, this was not Jeannette's apartment. Oh yes, now I remembered, Mike tricked me somehow, but what had he done, how did he pull it off. The handshake, something jabbed me, a drug, but what sort of drug could possibly knock out a vampire? I then noticed that I was in a very big cage, I also had a chain attached to an iron collar as well as two steel anklets. He certainly was not taking any chances with me, but did he really think that mere chains would hold the great and powerful vampire Cheyenne, boy was I getting full of myself. I tried to break the chains, but to no avail, they held fast, I was indeed trapped. Outside of the cage, there was a hospital bed and Jeannette was lying on it. I noticed that every so often I would catch a flicker of blue energy as though she was lying in a cocoon or force field of some sort. I could also see that her transformation was complete, she was beautiful with her long mane of black hair and perfect body like mine. She seemed to be conscious, maybe she knew more than I did. "Jeannette, can you hear me," I croaked, oh I was really thirsty, I must have been held here without blood for at least a few days. "Cheyenne, oh thank God, you are finally awake. Where are we, what is going on?" I guess she didn't have any more of an idea than I did, I guess we would have to wait till Mark decided to come down and gloat about whatever he achieved here. "I do not know where we are either, however, a human named Mark Knowell is responsible for this. I am going to kill him as soon as I am free." "Oh really," said Mark as he walked into the room, "I really don't think that you are going to be in any position to ever pull that off, as a matter of fact, I am almost done with you and ready to introduce you to Mr. Sun." "If you kill us, others will find you and kill you. I think it is you who are in big trouble," I replied knowing that the others would not help, heck they might applaud him for killing us considering I broke all the rules to make Jeannette. "No, my plan is really perfect, I think I am perfectly safe. Now, I must tell you that you fell for my deceptions even easier than I anticipated, but so far everything has transpired exactly as I have predicted. I have won, and there is nothing that you or anyone else on earth can do about it." "How did you drug me?" "I mentioned that I stole some of your blood too in trying to develop my gender potion, well my experiments kept creating vampires and well, I had to experiment on them before I destroyed them. As you can imagine, I learned a great deal about the vampire's biochemistry. I even was able to develop a drug that worked on sleep receptor sites in the brain that would fool the vampire into thinking it was daytime and thus make him or her fall asleep instantly. It works very well as you discovered, it actually travels almost instantly to those sites, another unique vampire adaptation, You really do have a very unique system, I could study you for a long time. However, I have larger dreams for me and hence I am now ready to begin my next step towards my plans for world domination." "World domination, you do have dreams. You will never even get close to that Mark, you are being stupid if you think that you truly have a chance." "Oh I have a chance alright. I have the gender potion, when I release it on the world, all the transformed men will obey me in hopes of getting their masculinity back, and the women, well they will miss getting fucked, so I guess I will have them over a barrel too." "You are crazy, it will never work." "You were willing to trust me in hopes of getting your masculinity back, are you so sure that you would not follow me if I promised a peaceful world, free from poverty, crime, war, and disease. I can deliver a perfect world, I will rule it, and when all the dust settles, history will record me as the greatest person that has ever lived. It really will be wonderful." "You are insane Mark, you can not pull that off without destroying the world. You see it as easy, but it is not, it is hard, you will only cause hardship and misery until someone kills you, it will happen, you can not expect to even try to pull this off without creating enemies." Two of his lackey's entered the room and stood patiently behind him. Turning to them, he said, "prep the operating room, I think I would like to do some exploratory surgery on Jeannette." "No," screamed Jeannette from her energy cocoon! "Please, she is innocent. You have your potion, you do not need to do this to her." "Ah, but I do as it will torture you my dear Cheyenne, and seeing you in anguish is rather fun." His lackey's started to wheel Jeannette and her hospital bed out of the door as she screamed continuously in horror. "I don't know how, but I am going to kill you, mark my words you bastard, I will kill you!" He just laughed and left the room with his lackeys, I could hear Jeannette's screams, from somewhere outside of the room, getting fainter, and then they stopped. I frantically begin to pull against my bindings but to no avail, All I ended up doing was getting myself madder and madder as I whipped against my bindings. I was almost about to give up when I heard a crack in the cement wall, this made me find extra strength and increase my efforts. With a loud crumbling rumble, I pull my restraints free of the concrete, I wasn't free yet, but I was a step closer, I sill had the bars to contend with. I pulled my chains with me as I reached the bars, like a dog without its master. The bars were very solid, I tried pulling on them, but it was going to be pointless, they were not even budging. I needed blood and as if God were on my side, I could hear someone approaching, it was one of Mark's lackeys. I quickly put my chains back so that he could not tell that I was free from my binds. "Hello," I said to him to gain his attention, and when he looked up I was able to capture him in my gaze. I was surprised that Mark did not warn his men not to look at me; his mistake, I was going to make sure that it came back to haunt him. "Look into my eyes my friend, you will do as I say, you love me, it feels good to help me, you would even die for me if I asked." "Die for you..." "Open this cage, free me so that we can be together," I commanded. "Only Mark can open the cage," he said. "Then come here, I want to kiss you my love, come to me." He walked zombie like over to the cage, I gave up the pretense that I was still bound and met him at the front of the cage. I reached out and brought his wrist in through the bars. I then released him from my gaze just before I bit into his wrist. He had just enough time to register horror before I broke his skin, and then well the pleasure of his blood entering my mouth overpowered everything else. I sucked harder and harder as my nipples strained to break free from my bra, my vagina became so drenched that you may have predicted that hurricane Excited just blew in. The blood continued to flow and I felt a very deep tingle within my vagina that spread to within my uterus, growing in strength. At the same time, my nipples also began t radiate this pleasure as well as my tongue and mouth as well as my throat and esophagus. The pleasure radiated downwards while it radiated up from my genitalia to meet in my core as one giant throbbing vesicle of pleasure. As I achieved orgasm, it was like that vesicle exploded, shot off into my brain a seething bolt of pleasure. As I recovered from it. I let go of the dead wrist and Mark's lackey fell to the floor dead. I felt so much better, a lot of my strength returned, though I could have used one more to regain all of my strength. I reached up to my neck and easily pulled the iron collar free and then did the same to the anklets. It felt great to be free from them, also the thought that Mark would soon be dead also excited me. I walked over to the bars expecting to just tear them apart, but something was wrong, they held, I still could not even budge them. They were no ordinary steel, Mark was smarter than I gave him credit for. So if I couldn't escape through the bars, I guess I had better concentrate on the brick wall, perhaps I could break through it. I went over to examine where I pulled my bindings free and it looked like it indeed could be done. I figured that there was probably nothing on the other side of that wall, so I decided the best way to break through it would be to probably kick at the weakest point. That seemed to me to be the crack in the middle of it where the neck binding had been pulled from. Well here it goes I thought as I stood back and did a roundhouse kick into that spot. I heard cement crumble as my kick crushed the bricks in the middle of the wall. Cracks spread out from where I hit and a lot of brick dust filled the air. One more kick like that, and I should be free. With the second kick , the wall came down, I was free, or so I thought. As the bricks cleared, I saw that the other side of the wall was an identical cage and Mark stood amused just outside of it. He started to laugh as I was still trapped, but only in a bigger cage. "What the hell," I said not believing this new predicament. "I am impressed, you through that wall a full two minutes earlier than I had anticipated. I told you, everything goes according to my plan, perhaps now you are beginning to understand that." I ran at the other cage wall in this new room, but it held against my attack. "My, my Cheyenne, don't you look cute with your yellow eyes and those fangs. I bet Mom would love it if I brought you home for dinner." He was patronizing me now, I was still determined to kill him. "Well, I killed one of your men mark, maybe your plan is not as good as you think." "Oh my, I had to feed you honey. I sent that man in for you to dine on." "You bastard, you will sacrifice your own men for your amusement, you are truly a monster." "Harsh words, but not surprising if not a little hypocritical from a woman that kills men everyday." He was right there, I then remembered Jeannette. "Jeannette, what have you done to her, you had better pray that she is alright." "She will be fine, the vampire body can take quite a bit of abuse, even major trauma and still survive. It was rather amazing, I actually removed her liver and was able to do all sorts of blood chemistry experiments on it. I was trying to find out just what happened to vampire blood in that organ, perhaps solve a mystery as to why vampires need so much blood to live." "You removed her liver," I was a little shocked, yet also slightly interested as the doctor part of my mind kicked in. "Yes, but it was amazing that when I was going to try and return what was left of it after I was through, well she had already grew a new one." "These vampire bodies are rather resilient, what did you find out," I asked? I was hoping that if I played along with him that perhaps he would put his guard down long enough to give me a chance to entrap him, maybe get him close enough to the cage to get my hands on him. "Well, as you are aware, in normal people, the liver concentrates old red blood cells and actually removes these from the blood to make bile, which is then stored in the gall bladder. Now in vampires, the liver actually removes all of the blood components and seems to convert them into something lymphatically based. I am thinking that the healing factor that vampires enjoy is totally based on this lymphatic cellular compound that the blood is turned into. This compound, actually seems to act as undifferentiated cells would and go to the sites of injury and almost magically heal them instantly." "That actually makes sense. So there actually is science behind some of this magic, I feel better knowing that." I actually was almost engrossed in what he had said, it made perfect sense, it was only too bad that he was a mad insane nut, he could have been a great researcher. "Yes indeed, the paranormal is but science that we do not understand. I have been bridging the gap between the two and as a result have made quite a few major breakthroughs." "Yes, it seems you have Mark. But why must you destroy the world, you could easily be a leader in the scientific community?" "Perhaps, but most do not look so favorably upon my research, I have many times been labeled a mad scientist. I guess in some ways I am a mad scientist. However, I have only one real ambition, and that is total and complete world domination. So you see, I have no choice but to follow my dream, and I am just smart enough to make it a reality." "You will not win, free me, let me end your misery," I said trying to hypnotize Mark to no avail. His mind just could not be influenced. "Nice try Cheyenne, I have work to do now so if you will excuse me. We will not talk again as sunrise is but in three hours and oh did I mention that you only have the same amount of time to live?" He then depressed a button on a remote and the outer walls as well as the ceiling began to retract. I was astounded, what an engineering marvel, my cage was actually sitting on a rooftop and only one wall was real, the rest were a makeshift illusion. Mark walked back in through the door in the one remaining wall throwing me a quick salute as it closed behind him. I had three hours to escape, or else it was game over. For the first hour, I paced the cage, testing the bars from various sections hoping to find a week spot, a single week bar that I could pull free to escape. There were no week bars, my trap seemed to be inescapable. I had now only two hours left till dawn, I was running out of time and God help me, if mark was this smart, perhaps the world was in trouble, big trouble. Wait, Rebecca, I could try to reach her mentally, perhaps she could save me, could help stop this mad man. I sat down and concentrated on her trying to send my plea for help. I got no response from her, I was not even sure if she heard me or not. I was down to one hour till sunrise and still had made no headway towards escaping. I was running out of time too fast. There had to be a way to escape, he couldn't be allowed to win, that gender potion of his had to be stopped, the world was relying on me, I couldn't die here, I had to save the world somehow. But how, oh yes, an idea formed. If I couldn't break the bars, maybe the solution was to move the cage. Yes, I looked down to see the metal floor was but a plate bolted into the roof of this building, much like the ceiling of my cage. I leaped upwards crashing against the ceiling, as I hit it, I felt the bolts give, yes it would be easy to pull this cage free from the roof. I leaped again and again until in a satisfying lurch, I overturned the cage as it came free from the roof. I was still stuck inside, but I was in a mobile prison now. The next part of my plan was a bit more risqué. Well, if I didn't do it, I was dead in about forty-five minutes, so I guess I had nothing to lose. I stared to roll the jail with me inside towards the edge of the roof. I stopped at the edge to look down, it was about a 30 story fall to the alleyway below. I was afraid, but I had a chance of surviving the fall and wrecking this cage as long as I didn't get decapitated in the process. Well, it was now or never, I was running out of time, I let the cage roll once more and then free fall. The wind roared past me, as I plunged down within my cage, at the same time watching the ground gets closer and closer. I was going to survive, I had to, and I had to save Jeannette and kill that bastard. I began to brace for impact pulling myself into a fetal position tucking in my head as the ground reached up and said hello. I heard metal tear and earth part in a loud whirling sound as my vision was clouded with dust and the feeling of impact broke bones. I felt a bar tear through me, I thought it was in my abdomen, but it was a little higher, puncturing a lung. Then the darkness overtook me, did I die? I awoke some time later racked in pain, I could see water and darkness, somewhere above there was light, and voices. "I'm telling you, I saw the whole thing, a cage with a woman in it fell off that roof and plunged to that hole right there, I think it was going so fast that it may have punched through the ground down into the sewer. I doubt that the woman is still alive, nothing could have survived that fall." Said one of the voices. I knew it would not be long till they were down here searching and if they found me they would pull me out into the sunlight where I would die, I was not going to let that happen. However, I was too week to move, I needed blood critically. "Are you okay miss?" Huh, I awoke again to see the face of an emergency worker. He was alone, I was hungry, I could smell his blood, I somehow found the energy to grab him and pull him to me. Voices were yelling from up top, but by the time they pulled their colleague up, it was too late, he was already drained of blood. I pulled the bar out of me, I still hurt, but I could escape now and find a place to sleep. Tonight I would return and Mark was going to die. I was up and ready to go promptly at sunset, I was going to have to feed probably twice before my confrontation with Mark. I wanted to make sure that I was as strong as possible since Mark was certainly a mortal that should not be underestimated. My lung still hurt where the bar had been driven through my chest, I shuddered thinking that just an inch to the right and it would have went through my heart; that may very well have killed me. However, I was alive and mark had underestimated me, I figured that gave me the edge I would need as well as surprise which I intended to use to my advantage. I actually ended up feeding on three before I felt fully recharged and ready to take on Mark. I made my way back to his building and easily scaled the thirty floors to the rooftop. I headed over to the door he had disappeared to and reached out with my vampire senses to see if anyone was on the other side. It seemed safe, so I gently applied enough strength to break the lock as quietly as possible. As I opened the door, I found myself at the top of a ramp that ran down to the next floor where I could see no activity from where I was. I very quietly eased my way down the ramp, ready to strike if anyone saw me. But, it led into an empty room and there seemed to be no one around, but that was not true, I could smell blood, it was close. I turned and under the ramp trying to hide from me was one of Mark's lackeys. I was still full from the three I fed on earlier, so I just went over to this man and snapped his neck, leaving his body in a pile under the ramp. There was only one door in the room, and using my senses, I detected no one on the other side of the door, so I opened it, it wasn't locked and stepped out into a hallway. My senses told me that there were humans behind every door other than the one I had come in through. I could also sense Jeannette, she was still alive, behind the door at the end of the hallway. I crept down to that door, I sensed two mortals in with her, I hoped that one of them was Mark. I opened the door very quickly, throwing it off its hinges to find Jeannette still on that same bed, and two of Mark's lackeys standing guard. They were no match for me and both soon sported matching broken necks as I plowed through them to get to Jeannette. "Cheyenne, Mark said you were dead, I am so happy to see you, wait do not touch me, the force field." I stopped just short of touching the energy barrier. "The power supply, I think it is under the bed, destroy it and I am free." I bend down, and she was right, there it was, I reached down and crushed it with my hand, Jeannette was free. "Oh thank God, I am free again, quick Cheyenne, we have to find Mark and kill him." "I will kill him Jeannette, I made that promise to him, you can have any more of his lackeys as I am sure you could use some blood." She nodded in agreement as we rushed out into the hall where his lackeys where assembling as they left their rooms. I left them for Jeannette, who had a bloodbath with them. I was a little surprised at the extent of her violence, but she had been cooped up for so long, I just dismissed it. There was only one door left unclosed and I knew Mark was behind it. I wasted no time and kicked the door in. Mark was alone in the center of the room; for the first time ever, he looked afraid. It was nice to see a rather unsure Mark, I was about to finally fulfill my promise. "Hello Cheyenne, I guess you won," he said almost in a drone like voice. "I told you that I would, now I am here to keep my promise." I said as I advanced on him. "You can kill me all you like my friend, it is as I have planned..." I snapped his neck, I did not want the foul taste of his blood on my lips. What did he mean that it was part of his plan, I really had a bad feeling about this. Jeannette came into the room and seemed overjoyed that Mark was dead. "It is over now, we are free," she said. "I hope you are right, something just doesn't feel right here, it was too easy." "He was arrogant, he really thought you were dead my love." That was strange, Jeannette had never called me her love before. Oh well she was not the same Jeannette I use to know anymore, she was now a vampire, she was not a man trying to be a woman anymore, she was a goddess, so, I guess things were going to change. "You are right, lets go home?" "I think we need a new home, you busted up the door on my apartment." "I had almost forgotten about that, we will need a new place I guess." "Well, I saw a safe in here and perhaps a little money will help us get set up," she purred. She then led me straight to the safe, which was not too hard to open using my enhanced hearing to hear the clicks on the combination dial. Inside it, was a lot of money stacked in very large piles. "There must be a million dollars or more in there," I gasped. Over the next week, we bought a house on a hill overlooking the downtown skyline that was fairly easy to convert for our needs. Jeannette seemed to be adapting very well to being a vampire, she really loved the kill, almost too much. Some nights she would kill two or three, I guess that was all part of the blood haze stage that she was in. With her in that stage, there was not really much conversation as all she seemed to think about was blood and the hunt. This continued this way for a while, and then the night she finally came out of her haze, we had a visitor. "Hello dear," said Rebecca as she walked into our new home. I was a little surprised to see her, but more importantly had a bad feeling about it. "Hi, this id not a social visit I can presume." "No, you are right Cheyenne, it is not a social visit at all. So, this must be the bitch you made," she said gesturing to Jeannette. "She is not a bitch Rebecca, she is my friend, my companion. I trust her like I can not you." "Well, I am not here to argue with you, I come with a message from the vampire council." "They know," I said. "Oh yeah, and are rather pissed at the whole thing as well as the fiasco with Mark Knowell. It really is a shame that he did not kill the both of you, then we merely of had to come in and kill Mark and his troops. However, now we need to throw a trial and everything for the two of you." "A trial, what sort of trial," asked Jeannette? "You will both appear before a vampire council trial where your fates will be determined. I will warn you that to date, every vampire that has broken both laws has been destroyed." "What if we do not go?" "Oh Cheyenne, they would then dispatch an assassin to kill the two of you. That could be fun to watch, but I think I might be able to save you in this case." "Save me, how, what about Jeannette?" "If you proclaim her a mistake and destroy her yourself, the council may go easy on you." "No, Cheyenne, I do not want to die," screamed Jeannette! "No way Rebecca, I will not kill Jeannette, I would lay down my own life for her if I had to." Jeannette had a bizarre smile on her face; I dismissed it. Very well then, I will then return to the council and inform them of your decision. They will then sign your death warrants, then nothing on Earth can save either of you," she said as she left as quickly as she came. I hugged Jeannette thinking of the next hurdle placed before us. Could two of us survive against the rest of the entire vampire community or was our deaths just a matter of time now. TRANSVAMPORIA PART THREE: Medusa's Elixir Introduction: Hi, and welcome to the third installment of the Transvamporia saga, well it will be a saga by the time I am done with it. I will reiterate once again that to appreciate this story, even to fully understand it, I strongly urge you, the reader, to read parts one and two first. Well, without any further ado, lets get into our story and see just what is developing in the world of the vampire Cheyenne. Part One: Judgement It had been close to a year now since I killed Mark Knowell and found out that the vampire council was going to issue orders for both my and Jeannette's deaths. It certainly weighed heavily on my mind, and I guess that I am glad that the bureaucracy of the vampire council was as slow as mortal government. This certainly bought us a lot of time to think and try to figure a way out of this mess that we had gotten ourselves into. Well, I guess it was my fault for breaking the rules, Jeannette was but an innocent bystander in this all. And Rebecca, my maker, was certainly going to enjoy this, however, I knew she would warn us when the execution orders were issued, she wanted to give us a small chance, not for us, but for her own amusement. I have been a source of big amusement for Rebecca for quite some time now. Ever since she turned me, a mortal male named Claude, into this female vampire I now am, she has sat back and has simply marveled at all the trouble I have gotten into. She probably even hopes that I find a way out of this dilemma just so that she will have someone to amuse herself with for years to come. Jeannette, was also at one point a man, though she was a transsexual in her mortal life and welcomed the change I gave her. She was then introduced into this new life as a prisoner of the evil Mark Knowells. He did very nasty thinks to her to create his gender potion that he had hoped to release on the world and spelled the end of civilization as we know it to create a new world of women, a world ruled by him. Well, we stopped him, but Jeannette never really recovered from what he did to her, she has been distant and acting strangely the last year, it has almost been as if she were a different person. The dark gift changed my friend a lot, and I guess in many ways she is a different person. Oh well, now I had to just find a way to save our lives so that hopefully one day I would be able to reach the Jeannette I knew which I was sure was locked in that skull of hers somewhere. My strange dreams continued to haunt me during the days. I still had images of Jeannette trying to kill me and of the girl that looked a little like me. Then, there was also another woman, very beautiful she was, but distant, I felt like I was linked to her in some way. Claude was there as well, he was always there, I guess he represented what I lost, by why was he always trying to kill me too, was it that he was afraid that I was going to forget about him and not try to get him back. I still wanted to be male, but I had to admit that being female was not as bad as it use to be and if I ended up stuck like this forever, I was sure that I could adapt. "Jeannette, I would like to start trying to figure out a way to regain my masculinity," I said to her as she entered our main living area returning from her hunt. "My Cheyenne, you do not like being female, you do make a very lovely woman you know." "Can we please be serious here," I asked her hoping to reach the friend that she use to be. "Okay, I think it is impossible, except if perhaps we could find a way to make you into a mortal again. Then if we could recreate Knowell's gender potion, perhaps we could turn you into a male." I was a little shocked at that idea, where did she get it from. "Jeannette, that might work, but his potion is dangerous, I would not want to recreate it. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could be horrible, especially if it fell into the hands of another Knowell." "You are probably right, so just get use to those tits sweetie," she said as she stormed out of the room. I was a little confused at her remarks, what was going on with Jeannette; it seemed like her behavior kept getting more and more odd as time went by. Could vampires have psychological problems, I was beginning to think so. Perhaps we needed for Jeannette to see a shrink. I had set up an appointment with a Dr. Sexton for the following night; it was amazing how hard it was to find a psychologist that would see us at night. However, when I volunteered to pay her five hundred dollars an hour opposed to the normal fifty dollars she charged, that got us the appointment quite easily. I had to lie a little telling her that Jeannette was allergic to the sun, which I guess is true in a way. Now, all I had to do was to convince her to go; that was going to be fun. However, when I broached the subject with her, she agreed to go without any hesitation. I was surprised, but also rather relieved as I was hoping that a little therapy would get my old friend back. Dr. Sexton's office was rather small, I was shown a seat in the waiting room where I would have to wait while Jeannette and her were going to have their session in her office. That was fine by me, as I would still be able to hear the conversation with my vampire-enhanced hearing. I settled in as the session began. "So Jeannette, what is it that brings you in here today?" "Well Doc, I guess my friend feels that I could use someone to talk to, to perhaps work out a few things." "How do you feel about that?" "Well, I am not the same girl I use to be, I think that Cheyenne should accept that and not push me so hard to be the girl I no longer am." "I see." Was I pushing her too hard, I thought that I was being understanding? "Cheyenne has all these high morals, she is just as much of a monster as I am, but yet she tries to elevate herself above that." "Do you see yourself as a monster?" "Isn't that what I just said Doc, Aren't I paying you to pay attention?" "Yes you are, I heard what you said, I am just curios why you think you are a monster?" "Let me see, should I list the ways. 1. I am a killer. 2. I drink blood. 3. I will probably kill you tonight Doc, I can imagine your blood tastes rather sweet." If I could have seen Dr. sexton's face, I am sure that it would have been etched with fear. What was Jeannette trying to do in there? "You see Doc, look into my eyes, yes, a little deeper. You hate yourself, go ahead pick up that letter opener." I was too my feet and running in to stop Jeannette's madness. "Go ahead plunge it into your stomach, yes just like that." I burst in on them, Dr. Sexton was staring at the letter opener she had just stabbed herself with, a look of pure shock was etched on her face. I looked at Jeannette and saw an expression I would never forget; she was enjoying this. There was something gleeful and sadistic about it. I quickly grabbed Dr. Sexton and snapped her neck. "What the fuck are you doing Jeannette?" "Oh don't get your panties in a wad Cheyenne, I did not like this woman and well, I thought that if I had some fun with her, the evening would not be a total waste. And well you just had to barge in and end all the fun, you really can be a party pooper." Jeannette then just turned and left the office heading off into the night, I only watched her go, realizing that I had a really bad problem on my hands. Then from out of nowhere, Rebecca was standing there before me. "Well, well, it looks like your creation is indeed a wild one. I like her style, but she is reckless and a danger to us all. I will be happy to see her destroyed. However, as for you, I will weep on the day you die." "Rebecca, I take it you are here to inform me of the council's decision." "I am sweetie. They have sentenced both of you to death, I told them that you had no intention of just turning yourself in, and well they dispatched an assassin." "Just one." "His name is Cronthos, he is very good, perhaps the best. From what I hear, he has never failed a mission." "Shit, okay, when will he get here?" "It is too late for him to travel tonight, and unfortunately there is a storm front in and that means that he can travel in the day tomorrow." "The day, how is that possible?" "He is very old, much older than I. The very old ones can travel in the day as long as they avoid direct sunlight. There is even a rumor that he is almost as old as Shahluka, the great Mother. I am afraid that you will probably not live for any longer than 24 hours. I am going to miss you." "I'll bet, if you'll forgive me, I have to find Jeannette and try to figure out our next move." "Good luck sweetie, though I doubt it will do you any good." As I rushed back to our place, I sent out a mental summing to Jeannette hoping that it would reach her. She had also been closing her self off to me mentally since becoming a vampire. When I got there, she was there though, waiting for me. I guess she could receive my mental calls, she just doesn't acknowledge them. "Jeannette, I am still pissed about tonight, but we have a bigger problem at this moment. An assassin has been dispatched to destroy us." "So, we kill him when he shows up," she said so matter of fact like. "No, I don't think so, he is very old, very powerful, we would not have a chance against him, my God he can even go out in the daytime as long as it is cloudy." "Really, if we could capture him and drink his blood, we would both become a lot more powerful." "What!" "We conceivably could get so strong that the council would leave us alone." "Jeannette, I can not believe what you are saying. You have completely lost your mind. I know that Knowell's hurt you a lot, but you are losing perspective with reality so fast that you are getting to be almost as nutty as he was." I regretted saying that almost as soon as it was out of my mouth. "Cheyenne, you have no right to say those things to me, you are very uncaring and certainly not acting like a friend. I feel like just leaving you and never returning, but then we would both be dead. Like it or not, we need each other if we are to survive, and my plan is the only one that seems to offer us a chance. If you have a better plan, tell me. I'll listen. However, if not, then we shall go with my plan." "Okay, I am listening, I guess I don't really have a choice." "Good, this is going to come as a bit of a shock, but over the last year, I have been studying Knowell's work." I gasped, "Well, I do not agree with how he developed his theories and such, but he was brilliant, and I think that we can stop this assassin using his discoveries." "Jeannette, I agree that he is brilliant, but he was also mad, I am sure that a lot of his theories were faulty, tainted with this madness." "His vampire sleep inducing drug certainly worked on you. However, I think that if this vampire can walk in the day, I suspect that he or she would be immune to it." "I would agree, his name is Cronthos." "Cronthos, interesting name. Anyway, so we need something a little larger scale, I think that I have something that just might do it." "Really, what is that?" She continued to surprise me, I didn't realize that Jeannette had that much of a science background. "It is a drug that blocks receptor sites on the undifferentiated lymph chemical that heals and keeps the vampire strong. It will for all purposes prevent him from healing and make him vulnerable to our attack." "You can make a drug like that?" "I already have a prototype of it, I was hoping that if I administered it to you then used the gender change potion on you, that it would make you a male again." I was surprised again and dreadfully confused. I had no idea what was going on here, but if she could do what she claimed, I was going to be free and we would be able to defeat Cronthos. "Okay, it sounds like an excellent plan. I can be male again, yes, I am sorry for doubting you." "That is okay Cheyenne. The sun will be up soon, let us get some sleep and then tonight when we get up, we will have to be ready I imagine we will not have much time to spare." With that, the two of us retired for the day. I was still a little apprehensive about her plan, but it was brilliant, too brilliant I thought as sleep overtook me. The dream returned a little more vivid and urgent than I was use to. Jeannette and Claude were chasing me, trying to kill me as usual. I saw also a man, I think it was Cronthos, he was crying. He would just look at me and burst into tears as though I betrayed him, which was weird since in the real world, he was out to kill me. The girl, who looked like me, smiled at me and told me to take heart and that I would figure out what was happening before it was too late. The other woman far off in the distance looked at me and took notice of me, she said that she would come. Jeannette caught up with me and smiled that new evil smile of hers before swinging her sword in an arc that would decapitate me; I woke. Sunrise was still at least a half an hour away, this was strange, and I usually never woke this early. It would give me time to figure things out, we had to be nuts to go after Cronthos, we should be running, but I guess running was hopeless. Jeannette's plan had better work. I was so close to becoming male again if everything worked as she predicted. I would still be a vampire, but I could live with that. I was actually beginning to look forward to this confrontation. Even so, I could not shake a feeling that I had for a long time. Something was wrong, but what was it, I certainly hoped it was not her plan in that it was doomed to fail. I didn't think so, there was something else happing here, something I could not quite grasp. What was it, was it that Jeannette had lost her marbles and I was putting my life in the hands of a crazy woman. Of course, the law against making another while you are so young, that's it, I was not old enough to realize just what the change would do to her mind. Only a certain type was fit enough mentally to make the transition and Jeannette was not. An older vampire would have known and never had selected her to become the raving lunatic she was headed towards. I only hoped that we could find a way to stabilize her once this was over. I walked out of my room as the sun finally set and sitting in my living room was the man from my dreams. "Cronthos, I presume." "The one and only, you have a nice place here. I am very glad that you are finally up, I want to get this over with fairly soon and then get back to some other pressing business. It seems an Asian Vampire thought it would be funny to turn a goat into a vampire, well needless to say, it is quite a mess." "I can imagine it would be," I said stalling so that Jeannette could get her chance to drug Cronthos. "Where is the other one, I can not detect her?" "Really, I could never detect her also, that is strange that someone as powerful as you can not detect her." "A trained mind can master screening techniques, it is just very unusual for a new vampire to master them. I myself was at least ten years a vampire when I mastered them." That was unusual, and worked to our advantage as I noticed Jeannette creeping up on him, she was only going to get one chance. "Cronthos, may I have a last request before you kill me?" My distraction was working. "What would that...Argh," he said as she plunged the syringe into his flesh and released the contents. He then swung his arm and sent her flying across the room like an unwanted piece of trash. Anger etched his face as he turned on me. "I feel so weird, what did she do to me," he exclaimed. "I think it is called stripping you of all your powers Cronthos." "No that is not possible," he said as I hit him with all I had. He flew across the room and almost landed on top of Jeannette as she quickly scurried out from under him. "Be careful Cheyenne, he still is very strong, we need to wear it out of him before we can proceed." "Okay, lets do it then," I responded. Cronthos picked himself up off of the floor to only receive a kick in the face from Jeannette. I then moved in quickly and sucker punched him. He was able to reach out and snap my wrist; I fell back in pain though it was already beginning to heal. Jeannette then ran a stake through the back of him and out his front, she got it through his heart. He collapsed immobile and Jeannette smiled her wicked grin, the same one from the dream. She then bent down and bit into his neck. I just watched as she started to drain him. That grin, I had seen it before. Wait, that was the same grin that Mark Knowell flashed me before he left me on the rooftop to die. I looked down and saw the syringe; it still had almost half of the drug left; and who was the other half for. My mind screamed out that it was for me, once she drained him dry, I was next. I quickly snatched the syringe and stabbed it into her arm releasing the rest of the drug into her system. I also pulled her away from Cronthos as she hissed at me. She may have had his blood, but she still didn't have his power, as the drug would stop that from happening. "You bitch, you were planning on killing me too," I screamed at her. "Oh, did I forget to mention that part of my plan?" "I don't know how you did it, but you are not Jeannette." "Bingo, give the girl a prize!" "Mark Knowell, I should have known!" "Well yes, that is true. But like I said, everything is going exactly as planned." "Where is Jeannette? Tell me before I kill you for good this time!" "Why she is dead, you killed her with your own bare hands. You see she was in my body, oh, I guess I forgot to mention to you that I have developed a process for swapping bodies too. Oh well, I think I will leave now, I have enough of his blood." I started to run after her, I was going to tear her apart, but how could I kill my friend's body. In my moment of hesitation, Jeannette slipped out of the apartment and started to flee, I was about to give chase. "Please help me, I will help you if you help me," a near dead Cronthos said. I couldn't leave him, if I were to defeat Knowell, I would need Cronthos to help. I bent over him and slit my wrist to give him enough blood to survive on. As I fed him, I heard Knowell's voice echo on the wind. "I am now the vampire Medusa, and so the world shall quake," followed by her laughter. Part Two: Alignments Once the drug started to wear off, Cronthos healed rather rapidly as usual for most vampires, though I think if I had lost as much blood as he had, I would not be so well recovered as he now was. I was also hoping that he remembered what he said about helping me, as I would have felt really betrayed if I had nursed him back to health only to have him destroy me. "I always keep my word Cheyenne, you need to learn how to shield your thoughts as they are very easily read." I blushed, I actually found him attractive, no that couldn't be; I was a man, not a woman. "I guess you are right. Tell me, what are you planning to do about the council's order?" "Cheyenne, stopping Medusa is my first priority, she has my blood, that is going to make her very strong and even more dangerous than she is already. She is also crazy enough to expose our kind and this must not be allowed to happen. Now, under the Extreme emergency act of our council guidelines, I am permitted to suspend your sentence and put it up for retrial at a later date. I am invoking that right under the condition that you help me clean up this mess." "I want to kill Medusa very badly, you can count me in Cronthos." "I thought as much, now tell me of her plans?" "Yeah, I would like to hear them too," said Rebecca as she pranced into the room from out of seemingly thin air. "Rebecca, it has been a very long time since last we met, I take it you are here to team up with us in this urgent manor," Cronthos said with a smile. "Well actually, I would be happy to do so, but only if Cheyenne admits that she needs me and asks me for my help," she replied with a mischievous smile. She had me, she once said I would do what I now had to do. I think that I was almost amused by this, but it hardly scratched the surface of the guilt and pain I felt over Jeannette's fate. "Okay Rebecca, would you please help us? I need you, there I said it, are you happy?" She only smiled. "Now Cheyenne, tell us of Medusa's plan," interjected Cronthos. " Well, as far as I know, he, I mean she planned to use a gender potion that would change all the men in the world into women. She then figured that they would follow her in hopes of earning back their masculinity. She also figured that the women would follow her too in hopes of earning back some of the men just so they could get fucked. I know it sounds inane, but that was her plan. I will also say, that in past dealings with this individual, deception and secret plans have been a common trait of Medusa. I expect the version of her plan that I have is but a very small part of the big picture." "I would agree, I think we can expect the unexpected. Medusa is certainly a genius, anyone who can develop a serum that removes a vampires power is definitely one to be reckoned with," said Cronthos. "I think we have one more thing we can count on." "What is that Cheyenne," asked Rebecca. "Ego, Medusa has a huge ego and as such likes to brag far in advanced of what she is doing. Hopefully if he, no she has an Achilles heel, that is it." "You know how I felt when I had to get use to your gender change," Rebecca said with a wink. "What can we do right now?" I hadn't a clue as to how to proceed at the moment. "Well, I am going to go and check on some things. I would recommend that you and Rebecca make sure that you are up to par on your powers and abilities. You need whatever edge you can get." "Well, if you let me drink your blood, I could become stronger." "Cheyenne, you were never told about the third rule within the council. It is forbidden for a vampire to drink the blood of an elder without the permission of the council in a unanimous vote." "I guess I can understand that," I said with little enthusiasm. With that Cronthos was gone so fast that it appeared that he just blinked out of existence. I was left alone with Rebecca, a woman I hated, not as much though as I hated Medusa. "I have an idea," said Rebecca with a smile. "What is that?" "Well, I would assume that this Medusa probably already has a lair or whatever, and it probably a place we could uncover with a little research. No doubt this place would hold a connection somehow to Knowell." "You just might have something, but what about my training, Cronthos told us to work on that," I replied thinking about how cute Cronthos was. "Training, we can do that later, we should start this immediately, as I am sure that time is of essence here. We do want to stop Medusa before she gets a chance to release that gender potion." " You are right, where do we start?" " The library." The fact that the main branch of the library was closed really didn't concern Rebecca too much. A little monetary reward and we were let in by one of the security guards. He seemed to know Rebecca; that was odd, I had never pegged Rebecca as the reading type. We made it up to the microfilm readers and she gave me a lot of papers and such on microfilm to scan. I also kept a pen and paper nearby just in case I found something that mentioned Knowell in any way, or that seemed like it could be linked to him in any way. The hours slipped by and no luck until I stumbled onto an article on prophetic dreaming. Mark Knowell wrote it. I quickly read the entire article; it was dealing with how psychic energy could trigger action potentials in neurons that could conceivably cause premonitions in the dream state. It was amazing, it didn't give us a clue as to where he was, but it gave me an answer as to how we might just be able to get a little psychic help. "Hey, I am finished here, did you find anything at all?" "Rebecca, I didn't find out where she is, but I think I know how to proceed," I said as she read the article. "You plan to go to a fortune teller," she mocked. "No, I have been having these weird dreams lately, they pretty well spelled out for me what was happing with Jeannette and I failed to see that. I didn't really believe in that sort of thing to be honest. However, I have no doubt now that they were prophetic. Maybe we can use my dreams to predict where medusa is or what her next stage in her plan is." "This is a very good idea Cheyenne, you never cease to amaze me." "I sometimes never cease to amaze myself either," I said thinking about how much I would like to get closer to Cronthos. We left the library and headed back to Rebecca's. On the way, Rebecca taught me a simple method for shielding my thoughts, she figured that she couldn't have me being embarrassed whenever Cronthos was around. Cronthos met us at Rebecca's with a worried look on his face. We all went into one of her large sitting rooms before he broke the news to us. "Medusa has made another. I felt an unauthorized vampire being made, and checking with the council to make sure that it was such, I am afraid that we all agree that only Medusa could have done it. Unfortunately this new vampire is somehow shielded from our collective probe so we still haven't a clue where they are." "Another vampire, why?" Rebecca inquired with a look of bewilderment on her face. "Easy," I said, "she needs lackeys, I expect she will make more, maybe even a small army of them." "An army, yes, that would not surprise me at all," Cronthos said grimly. "Well, maybe we can prevent that from happening once we figure out how to use my dreams." "I am confused and by the way good work on shielding your thoughts, I have yet to pick up a single one." We quickly related to him my idea about the prophetic dreams and how we might be able to get some information from them. "Cheyenne, this is an incredible idea. I have met a few vampires before with the gift of prophecy, but they died way before their time. I think that we could definitely use you gift to help us. If only there were the time to better train you in how to control your mental powers. Though, if Rebecca and I enter your dream with you, we may be able to help you control it and figure out what is going on with the prophetic images." "Well, that might be fine for you Cronthos, but I will be dead to the world once the sun comes up and have no way of getting inside of her dream," said Rebecca. "No problem, she will go to sleep before the sun sets so that you will have a chance to get in." "How am I supposed to fall asleep before the sun sets?" "Very easily, look into my eyes my dear Cheyenne," he caught me in his stare, "you are getting sleepy, very sleepy. The sun must be up, you should be asleep," he commanded. True to his words, I fell into a deep sleep. Darkness, so black but vivid, swirling in its own energies, threatening to take shape, color, form. From out of this void, comes first feeling that something is there, a feeling that perhaps I exist for how else can I perceive that something might be there? Feeling, yes, emotion, I am a creature of emotion living in a sea of nothing. If I live in a sea of nothing, then why do I need emotion? I don't, that is the answer and thus since I have emotion the nothing must have something, color. Colors of all spectrums whirl around me like a breeze that moves in quickly to get intimate and leaves me not quite satisfied, begging for more. The purples are tempting, lulling me into a friendship, but not that close of a friendship. The blues are closer, but yet not as close as the yellows are to me. The greens are like family to me, very comfortable. Then there are the oranges, my parents, security I think. But then comes red, the color of blood, and the color of love. Soon the red overpowers everything and the color becomes liquid, it becomes blood. I swim in the blood, I breathe in the blood, and I drink in the blood. Violently I am thrust out of the blood and onto an island, of black glass, in the middle of this great sea of blood. I am not alone; I turn to see Jeannette as she was before the change. Cronthos and Rebecca take form and appear next to me, I am happy that they are here. Jeannette sits down and starts to cry; I walk over to her to comfort her. "Oh Cheyenne, I was not strong enough, I am so sorry." I want to say that I don't blame her, but I can't talk. Cronthos and Rebecca stay silent just watching I expect they be only here really as observers, which is fine by me. "Knowell made me sick, He gave me my cancer knowing that he could manipulate you into changing me. He had plans to capture my body way back then you know. It is funny, but he has played a bigger game than even you realize. I can not tell you anymore." With that, she dissolved leaving me alone on my island that also started to fade as Cronthos and Rebecca had already done. I found myself in a different setting, the old familiar dreamscape I was use to, the foggy plain where I had seen so much in the past. Cronthos and Rebecca where already there waiting for me. Once again they remained silent trying not to interfere in the natural flow of the dream. The girl that looked a little like me appeared. He smiled at me as well as at Cronthos and Rebecca. "Hello there Cheyenne, I am here to give you another piece of the puzzle. Rebecca you should listen to this, you are also a part of the puzzle." Rebecca was going to reply, but Cronthos motioned for her to not get involved. "Knowell, he blew up the plane that your parents were on, I'll bet you didn't know that." "What!" I was shocked. "Yes it is true. If you think about it, I am sure you can figure out why." "He wanted me to commit suicide on his schedule and not Rebecca's. He wanted the accident with the hormones to happen." "You are smart, I am glad that you are smart." "Who are you?" "Cheyenne, you are not ready to learn who I am, we will meet in the future, or is it the past." She disappeared. Claude and Medusa then came charging out of the mist wielding swords. I was able to drop to the ground quickly to avoid being decapitated and Cronthos and Rebecca moved in and restrained the two. "In the dreamscape you can restrain us, but not in the real world," cackled Medusa. "You killed my parents!" "Yeah, but hey I've got a plan and am not afraid to use it. Just ask Claude here, he is my friend, he will be your downfall that is if you survive long enough to meet him." "Okay, what is your plan Medusa?" "Oh you are the direct one. I can but give you a single piece of the puzzle; those are the rules of these prophetic dreams you know. Let me see, don't bother looking for me, I will in time seek you out. You are a pain and before I release Medusa's elixir on the world, I would like a chance to gloat and kill you." Both her and Claude disappeared as the mysterious woman appeared in the fog. "My dear Cronthos, you know me, I am coming; the chosen one walks. The prophecy, it has begun. My dear Cheyenne, hold on, use your wits, you can win this battle. I will help you if you do my ever-sweet dear child. Rebecca, I charge you with the protection of the Chosen one. When the time comes you will need to lay your life down, do not fret, it is written." With that she disappears, the dream ends and I fall back into a dreamless sleep. I wake up just before sunset, which has become a bit of a tradition for me lately. My dream images are still fresh in my mind, could it be true that Knowell killed my parents? I feel a wave of intense hate flood through me. I was going to kill Medusa; she was living on borrowed time as far as I was concerned. I would just have to be patient and wait for her to seek me out like the dream said she would. If she indeed did, I would be more than ready for the encounter. "Good morning Cheyenne," said Cronthos as I entered the sleeping area, "How did you sleep?" "Not too bad, it was fairly uneventful after the dream. I dreamed that you were there with Rebecca as we had planned. That really was you right?" "Oh yes, indeed. Your dream worries me somewhat, but I will explain that to both you and Rebecca after you have fed. I have feeling that this is going to be a long night." I left Rebecca's house rather quickly as I was getting rather hungry and I wanted to get away from Cronthos as well to try and gain a little bit of perspective. Whenever I was around him, I kept getting thoughts about his body and what it would be like to be with him. I was thinking like a woman, I had to be careful of that or I just may end up killing Claude like I do in some of my dreams. I was still a man, I really had to remember that, and I was going to get my masculinity back somehow. These thoughts wrestled a little more as I found the old bar I use to frequent when I was a mortal. I had no idea why I choose this bar, but this night I had, and I just accepted that and entered a part of my old life. I scanned the bar; it had not really changed that much since the last time I had been here, back in 1975. It was Rusty's birthday, and I was treating him to an after hours celebration. We almost didn't make it here that night due to a three-car pile up, but lucky the victims were in fairly stable condition when they arrived at the ER and we were able to escape. That was a great night, we came here and hit the beer hard, and if I remember correctly, he ended leaving with a ver nice looking blonde. As I thought about how he would now be trying to pick me in my new condition, I spied him sitting in the corner drinking a beer and giving me the once over. I don't know why, but I approached him and when he invited me to sit down, I took him up on his offer. There was no way that I was going to feed on my friend, so why was I here. That was soon answered for me as I heard a scuffle up front and a lot of shouting. About ten men rushed in through the front and only entrance of the bar, they were all well armed with machine guns. "If anybody moves they are dead!" I looked up, and began to calculate how many of them I could take out before the first shot was fired. Maybe half of them I reasoned, but then the mortals that got shot would be on my conscious, and the ones that survive would know of the existence of vampires and that was also a situation that I did not want. I decided to sit tight and let this play out a bit to find a better opportunity for a solution. "Okay, everybody move towards the back of the bar," motioned the head gunman. The remaining customers and the staff moved to the back where Dusty and myself were seated. There were a total of twenty of us. This could be good as I was beginning to think that I could take them out with a greater certainty and maybe just leaving them bewildered without realizing what had happened. However when three vampires entered the bar, the complexity changed completely. Medusa was supposed to seek me out, and it looked like she had along with two of her creations. "My, my, my just who do we have here," Medusa said with a smile on her face. She walked towards the back where Dusty and I were seated. "Medusa, what are you doing here and what is with the armed guard?" "Cheyenne, I am here because you are, it is all part of my plan my dear girl. I knew you were going to be here tonight and have been planning this for weeks." "Bullshit, you are flying by the seat of your pants and I guess threw this last ditch plan together since you were not able to drain me the other night when we went up against Cronthos." "That was unexpected, I will admit that, but does not really alter my plan, I have contingencies for pretty well everything that can happen." "Why did you blow up that plane with my parents on it?" "You know about that, now I am surprised. Please tell me Cheyenne how did you ever manage to piece that one together?" I noticed that Dusty and a few of the other hostages were getting restless. "That is not important, so what are you really doing here?" "I am here for many reasons, I need to test out my elixir for one, I need to recruit a few more soldiers for another, and I am going to kill you for a bonus." "I see, perhaps then the two of us should step outside and see just who ends up dead." She may be stronger than me now, but I had the determination to kill her on my side. "Now Cheyenne, I do not want to kill you before you get a chance to see my elixir in action. Your friend Dusty, he looks like a very good test subject." I could see a look of apprehension on Dusty's face. "Leave Dusty alone Medusa," I said getting ready to attack. "Boys," she hollered, "now!" With that all hell broke loose, the men with the machine guns started to fire, the vampires pounced, and Medusa threw me backwards and grabbed Dusty to move him out of the line of fire. I had to go after the gunmen first; I had no choice, as I am sure Medusa counted on. I moved as fast as I could snapping their necks as I went until they were all dead, though from a quick glance it appeared they shot close to ten of the hostages. The two new vampires were feasting on another pair of the hostages and Medusa was doing something to Dusty, it looked like she was injecting something into him. As far as vampires went, these new ones that Medusa had made were rather ugly, almost surprisingly so. I grabbed the first one and hauled her off of her victim, she hissed at me, but I was stronger and threw her over the bar creating a loud breaking glass sound as bottles broke and glasses went flying. The second one stopped what she was doing and charged me. I was able to sidestep out of her way at the last minute and she ran into the bar splintering the wood. The remaining customers made an attempt to make a run for it, but where unsuccessful as Medusa through a canister among them with some sort of knock out gas in it. The first vampire attacked, there were still pieces of glass embedded in her face. As she leaped through the air, I ducked a little and grabbed her torso to flip her in the air and throw her down onto a table. The table splintered and smashed into various pieces, one such piece was a stake shaped shard that tore through this vampires chest and her heart killing her instantly. "Hold on!" Medusa said to the other vampire that was about to attack me. She stopped and we both looked at Medusa. "I thought we could take a break and check out what is happening to poor Dusty here." She smiled that ever so popular wicked smile of hers. "I assume you injected him with the elixir?" I knew the answer, but needed to talk anyway to buy me a little more time to formulate a way to kill her. "Come over here and see," she said. I walked over there to look down on Dusty's body; he had a look of pure terror etched into his face as his body began to transform. It started with his skin, his body hair just fell out including all the hair on his heat too; he would have looked like KoJack if his skin weren't becoming so smooth. Next, his legs began to shrink, as well as his arms, it looked like even the bones were changing, but where was all the extra mass going. The answer became very clear, as his sebaceous glands began to secrete a very thick pus like substance; the extra mass. As the goo on his body thickened, underneath, I could see his torso conforming to new contours. He was gaining curves where he never had them before. His tummy pulled in at the same time releasing a lot more of this pus, enough that a big gob of it dripped from his body making a loud splat as it hit the floor of the now quiet bar. His breasts grew through the pus straining against his shirt that was drenched in the mucous like pus secretions. I then noticed that new hair began to sprout on his head. I had no idea what color as it too was coated in this goo. The shape of his face also changed and I was certain that his transformation was almost complete. His nose started to bleed at the completion of his changes. "Medusa, that was very gross, couldn't you have developed a less messy drug?" "In vampires, our metabolisms can handle the changing masses and compensate for it. However in humans, the process is not quite so easy and the mass has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, to develop a elixir that works in the opposite direction is a lot harder as it has no extra mass to draw on." Dusty was indeed a mess, but he was completely female and effectively trapped like I was. However, I didn't expect for him to really survive through this night once the fight started. He started to cough up goo and then as his lungs appeared clear, fell asleep. I can imagine that the change was extremely hard on his system. "I guess this is it then, shall we begin my dear Cheyenne, are you ready to die?" "Well, I was thinking that perhaps next week might be more suitable, perhaps after I go to Disneyworld," I joked. "Very funny, but your time is up," with that she shot a dart at me. I was expecting this from her and was able to dodge it just in time, though her vampire lackey was not quite so lucky as the dart embedded in her left thigh. She looked down at it for a minute, groaned and then passed out. I attacked while I hopefully had Medusa at a disadvantage. She tried to ready her dart gun for another shot at me, but I was fast enough to knock it from her hands before she could fire it. The gun flew across the room and broke as it slammed into the wall. In my attack, I was also able to kick out Medusa's feet from underneath of her and she collapsed onto her rump rather heavily. I knew though that with Cronthos' blood in her, I would need to pretty well kill her instantly with an attack of some sort or she would just recover instantly. I also didn't discount any further tricks from her; nothing would surprise me anymore with this girl. "Very slick Cheyenne, but rather ineffective. I will just have to kill you with my bare hands." She jumped to her feet and somehow managed to cover the distance to me and get in a very hard punch that sent me sprawling over the bar into the mirror behind it that shattered from the impact. As I got up, I grabbed a bottle of vodka and threw it at her. She just let it break on herself to show me that she was indeed the tough girl. Good, I had an idea; I was going to let her ego do her in. I started pelting the bottles at her and she just kept walking towards me letting them break as they hit her. Just a little closer I thought as I eyed the lighter on the bar. We were about to see just what fire would do to this bitch. "Throw all the bottles you want Cheyenne, they will not harm me, I am a goddess now, and you are about to feel the full extent of my wraith!" "This is for Jeannette you fucking bitch!" As I yelled my battle cry, I grabbed the lighter, sparked it, thankfully it worked, and thrust it into her tummy as she was getting ready to pummel me. A little flame quickly exploded into a very big firestorm that swept up her body and quickly engulfed a bewildered Medusa. I pushed myself backward away from her, though my left arm was a blaze; I quickly fell to the floor and found a jacket to wrap around my arm with which to extinguish the fire with. I could hear her wailing the whole time and it sounded like she was running frantically trying to put herself out. I pulled myself up and saw that the flames that had engulfed her where spreading through the bar rather quickly. This whole place was going to be going up very quickly. I felt some intense heat on the side of my head to find that my hair was on fire. I used the jacket again to put it out. I had to get out of this bar and fast or I was about to share Medusa's fate. I noticed that the fire was spreading even faster than I had anticipated. My exit was totally ablaze, and I was trapped to die here listening to that inhuman wail coming from Medusa. There was too much fire to even find her anymore and the stench of the human bodies burning was even beginning to bother me. I had to extinguish my right side as it caught fire. I was going to have to try and run through the fire and I was about to when I noticed Rusty. He was still lying there coated in that goo, but not burning. The goo was protecting him, well her now. I leaped across the room to where Dusty was lying and began to rub the goo on his body into what was left of my hair and then over my skin and clothes. I wasn't sure if I had used enough goo, but I had run out of time. I could hear the roof starting to crumble and realized that it was coming down. I scooped up Dusty and ran through the flames out into the night. I kept running all the way back to Rebecca's. Part Three: Calm before the storm As I came running into Rebecca's, Cronthos and Rebecca where already there and both looked up at me in shock. I guess I can understand that, I was burned, had no hair, full of goo, and carrying a girl that was even more full of goo than I was. Yes, to say that they were shocked was an understatement. I had only gone out to feed, and here I returned looking like hell warmed over. "Cheyenne, what happened? I wish I knew something better to ask you, but look at you, and who is that, If you were going to pick up take out, couldn't you have picked up something for us too," asked a perplexed Rebecca? "I feel like hell, this is Dusty, we are not going to kill her, I need to get cleaned up and then I will tell you what happened." "You need blood, I will get you some while you clean up," said Cronthos. I turned away and carried Dusty into a downstairs bathroom. I turned the shower on hot and held Dusty under it as well as myself. The goo started to wash away, though the hot water stung against my burns. By the time we were finished the shower, both of us were naked, as our clothes were write-offs. I carried the naked Dusty into my room and put her into my bed. I grabbed a robe and went out to the main living area to meet with the others. As I walked in, I noticed that Cronthos had a young man sitting at his feet. I didn't need to be told that this young man was for me and I was on him in a second. I drained him very fast; the pleasure was there though it was shadowed by pain from by burns. "You were thirsty, I can imagine that you can use another two or three tonight my dear," said Rebecca. "I am fine for now, I did it, Medusa is dead!" "Dead, are you sure?" "Cronthos, I killed her myself, I am totally sure. She burned in the fire, she is dead." Cronthos frowned and looked over at Rebecca who also had a sad look on her face. "Cheyenne, with my blood in her system, I doubt that she is dead. I can withstand fire; hell, even Rebecca could survive. You are still too young yourself to survive, and from the looks of you, you almost didn't." "You mean, all I may have done is pissed her off," I said feeling a sense of hopelessness. What was I going to have to do to kill her? "No, you probably did hurt her, her burns will take a little bit of time to heal. However, we really are not much further ahead than we were earlier today," Cronthos said. "We know that she has perfected her elixir and that it works. That mortal I brought back was a man earlier tonight. He was also my friend when I use to be a mortal, I don't want to kill him." "He knows of our existence, the rules are clear, he must die," Rebecca said. "Perhaps if we examine her, she may be fit to be one of us," I plead with them. "Cheyenne, you are in trouble enough without causing any more. However, if I feel that Dusty is sane and strong enough to be one of us, I will allow you to bring him across, I will sanction the new childe." "Thank you Cronthos," I replied. "However," piped in Rebecca, "you are not strong enough to be even considering this Cheyenne. If it is to be done, I will do it. If you die when this is all over when you have your new trial, she will need someone still for guidance." "Now, we were supposed to talk about your dream before any of this happened and I suggest we keep to that plan as nothing has really changed. Medusa is still out there, and she will still be making her move. If we are lucky, tonight bought us a little more time to prepare," said Cronthos. "I confronted Medusa on my parents death and it rather shocked her that I knew. I think that maybe it is the past that may provide us with the clues on her and her plan. In the dream, it was pointed out that Rebecca was a part of the puzzle. How? What role does she play in this? What was Mark Knowell's relationship to her?" "Cheyenne, I have never heard of Mark before this. I am completely lost as to how I fit in." "Wait, didn't Mark transfer his consciousness to Jeannette. What if Mark was but just another shell that Medusa inhabited? The link may be there, but not with Mark, but rather with whoever she was before Mark," Cronthos said with a little bit of a twinkle behind his cute gray eyes. "That makes sense, but if that is so, then how do we kill her and keep her from just jumping to a new body. Also, how can we figure out just who she was in the past? She could be older than me for all we know. There was a Medusa in Greek mythology, maybe that was based on her," Rebecca said as both Cronthos and I agreed thinking that this problem may have indeed been quite a bit bigger than any of us had imagined. "She obviously knew about vampires, she must have found out somehow about us. I would think that if anyone crossed your path, a mortal that knew but did not die, we must examine that, that could be the piece," Cronthos said to Rebecca. "I have lived for a thousand years, I just don't think I have a chance of possibly remembering every mortal that I had dealings with. But wait, now that you mention it, there was something unusual that happened to me. I was on the Titanic the night she was sinking; it really was kind of bizarre. I was flying across the Atlantic and well I heard screaming, and when I went to investigate it, there she was, as plain as day, the doomed ship. Well, it was a free lunch to me, so I landed on the ship in plain sight of mortals. There was so much fear in their eyes that they didn't even register me. That was fine with me, I drained three of them and was about to leave when I noticed a woman watching me. I asked her what she was doing and she said that she was getting ready to drown, but that she was not afraid. I asked her why and she said that the soul and the body where separate and that her soul would be gone when this body died. I asked her what she meant and she smiled at me and told me that someday I would understand, perhaps before the millenium was finished and then she leaped into the icy Atlantic. I watched her as she fell, she was so composed, and then just before she hit the water, she started to freak out, it was so weird." "That was Medusa alright," I said. "I agree," added Cronthos. "But even that night on the Titanic, I could have sworn that she already knew me," Rebecca said, "this goes farther back, I am certain of it now." "Yes, you are right, but lets look at thinks from a different angle. We are trying to figure out where she came from, but perhaps we should take a minute and try to figure out where she is going to." "How are we supposed to do that Cronthos," I said still trying to keep myself from thinking inappropriate thoughts about him. "That is easy, the rest of your dream, the woman in the fog, she is another key, perhaps to both the past and to the future," said Cronthos. "What makes you think that," inquires Rebecca? "That woman is Shahluka," was his simple response. "Hold on, you mean Shahluka, the vampire rumored to be the oldest, maybe even the first, mother to us all," I asked. "Yes, it is her, the Mother is returning. The prophecies, only they would bring her back, they must have begun." "What prophecies?" Both Rebecca and I said at the same time. "I guess then it is time that I tell you about the beginning. Very few know of what I am about to speak on. I tell you both only because it is necessary. It is not to be repeated to anyone else unless absolutely necessary. A lot of our origins have been shrouded in mystery for a good reason. I am one of the few who knows a good portion of the story, only Shahluka knows it all." He paused, looking both of us over for a minute and then took quite a few deep breaths before continuing. "It was the height of the Age of Atlantis when vampires first appeared on this planet. Shahluka as you know was called the Mother of all vampires and that is for good reason, not only was she the first vampire; she actually created vampirism in her lab. Shahluka was a scientist, a very respected scientist of those days. She had made many discoveries along the way including, discovery of abnormal activity in the plate tectonics that predicted Atlantis was going to be swallowed by the Earth. She thought it was going to be so dramatic that there would not even be a trace of that great continent after the disaster. No one would believe it could happen and as such did not prepare. Shahluka was prepared to leave as well as some others like the Inca's of the Lower House." "Like the Mexican's?" "Yes, I think they went to Mexico Cheyenne. Anyway, another of Shahluka's discoveries was a compound that would heal any wound. She wanted to do animal trials on her discovery, but the disaster she predicted began, frantically in her attempt to escape, she accidentally was exposed to her new compound. Even so, she was able to escape with her son to Europe where she planned to start a new life. Things did not go as she had planned and soon discovered that she was different, her compound had changed her. She could no longer go out in the daylight and she craved human blood, in fact she needed it to live. She was a vampire, the first, the Mother to us all." "What about her son?" Rebecca asked totally enthralled in his story. "Well, she almost killed him for his blood, but luckily there were many savages around to feed on. One of these savages was a great prophet. He knew of Shahluka as he had seen her in his visions. He sought to find her and did indeed do just that. He was almost another victim, only the fact that he knew her name saved his life. She became interested in him and his powers. He never disappointed her in his predictions. They always came true to his word, and she loved him for this. He then began to have a very intense set of visions that had to be recorded, Shahluka introduced him to paper and pen, devices unheard of, but yet common in Atlantis. This old seer, in case you are wondering, had no name; he was merely called the old one. He filled a book with his prophecies, and this book was given to Shahluka who appointed herself the keeper of The Truth. She called this book The Truth, and swore to never reveal it in its entirety until the Chosen One was ready for the final war, for Armageddon." "The end of the world?" I asked in astonishment. "Yes, that is exactly what I mean. There is more though. I have had the honor of seeing some of the prophecies. I have never forgotten them because they refer to her, to the great Mother, to my mother. You see, I was that little boy she escaped with, I grew up and eventually she made me into a vampire. I was of the First Brood, and as far as I know, the only remaining vampire left from the First Brood. Medusa is now as powerful as a vampire of the Second Brood. Anyway, the prophecies said many things about my mother and the time before us. One such thing it said that is relevant here is: 'The end will come after the Great Mother repels the Trickster in a dire moment.' That makes me think that suppose that medusa is the Trickster and if that is the case, just suppose that all of this is but a game to draw out Shahluka so that Medusa can steal her body." "That is too scary to even think of," says a paler than normal Rebecca. "Let me get this straight," I say, "you think that we may all be but pawns in a game between Medusa and Shahluka with the total destruction of the planet hanging in the balance." "Yes, I am afraid so. However, there is one more player; the Chosen One." "Who is the Chosen One, how will we recognize him or her?" Rebecca asks knowing that the answer would not really reveal that piece of the puzzle yet. "We do not know, only when the time is right will the Chosen One be revealed. However, the Chosen One will have protectors. There is to be four or five of them, the prophecies were unclear on the exact numbers. Only Shahluka will appoint them, and you Rebecca are the first of them as she selected you in the dream last night. You will only remain with us until the Chosen One is revealed, and then you will go to this person and protect them, giving your life for them. It is your destiny." "Okay, what is my role, why am I having these dreams?" "Cheyenne, I have not a clue as to your role. I have turned over possibilities, but must keep them to myself until I am sure." "Maybe she is the Chosen One," said Rebecca with a small smile flashed to me. "No, I do not think so, but I do believe that she is somehow tied to the Chosen One. We will find out soon enough once Shahluka comes." Cronthos stopped there, and stretched for a bit. It was obvious that we were finished for the night, and then a scream erupted from my bedroom. "I think Sleeping Beauty has just woken," chirped in Rebecca. She was right, Dusty was awake and no doubt just discovered that he was no longer the man he once was. I got up and headed into my bedroom to deal with this, I noticed as I went that Cronthos was heading out and that Rebecca was following me, no doubt to be amused. "This isn't me...this isn't me...this isn't me...this isn't me..." said a distraught Dusty over and over again like it was a mantra that would break him free from his predicament. "Dusty, it is alright, I am here to try and help you understand what has happened to you." He looked up at me, "you are the woman from the bar, how did you do this to me?" "It is a long story, and I assure you that I did not do this to you, do you remember the woman that entered the bar after the gunmen?" "Yes, everything is so confusing. I am not supposed to have these," he said as he grasped his breasts and hefted them up for effect. "I know how you feel, you will get use to them though, I have." It was true; I had gotten use to being a woman. I still longed to be male again, but I no longer saw my body as odd. "You know, you were a man like me?" "Oh yeah, its me Claude." He showed no more extra shock as I had expected. "So that is how you hid from the police, a clever disguise. Who is she?" "She is the woman who framed me for those murders, and also the woman who made me this way, unintentionally though. Well, she did plan on turning me into a vampire, so that part was intentional." "Did you say vampire?" "Oh yeah, I did indeed say vampire, we have a lot to talk about." I spent the next hour briefing Rusty on all that had happened excluding though the prophecy and origin information as Cronthos insisted. He actually took it quite well, which surprised me a little. Rusty was very adaptable, that is what had made him such a great emergency room doctor. "So, as far as you know, I am stuck as a girl for possibly the rest of my life?" "Yes, that seems to be the case. I use to and I guess I still hold out hope that I will regain my masculinity someday, but after all this time, I am beginning to lose hope." He looked at that statement and then he shocked the pants off of me. "Well, being a girl won't be that bad, I am still human, well until you make me like you are into a vampire." "Dusty, how did you know that I wanted to make you into a vampire?" "Think about it, vampires really exist and most likely do not want that existence known to humans. Well I am a human, either you are going to kill me to protect your secret, or make me one of you. Now since I am still alive and you told me all that you had, I am assuming that the later is true." Rebecca spoke for the first time, "you are correct Dusty, we plan to do just that. You are strong enough mentally to make a great vampire. I will bring you across myself if you are ready." "I suppose I am. Let's do it now and get it over with," Dusty said while baring her neck. Rebecca moved in and bite Dusty's neck, I heard and smelt the blood begin to flow. I almost wanted to join in as I was still very hungry and still in pain from my burns that did heal a little. I even felt a little bit of stubble on some of the burned portions of my head. Soon Rebecca stopped taking blood and was feeding her blood from her wrist. I left the room at that point to let her finish. Cronthos was already back, and he had a mug of blood in his hand. "Here drink this Cheyenne, it will help your burns." I took the mug and drank, it was very good blood, it seemed to be charged with energy and I very quickly began to feel my pain disappear. "I feel better already, that was not normal blood was it?" "It was human blood, but I added a single drop of my own blood to accelerate your healing. It will not really make you any more powerful, perhaps it might make you as powerful as you would be naturally in another year. It certainly was not enough to require the council's permission." "Thank you," I said as I reached for him and gave him a little hug. He pulled me a little closer and planted a kiss on my lips, not too long, but very sweet. I had butterflies in my tummy. I was a little confused, but that passed as did the moment and we were just there again as usual. Rebecca came out of my room and gestured at the door. "Introducing for the first time, I proudly present my new childe; the vampire Dustia!" Dustia walked out slowly from the room, she truly was beautiful with her flowing locks of blonde hair and her perfect body, and an amazing poise that made me almost forget that she had ever been a man. It was getting close to sunrise again, so we all began preparations to sleep, including Cronthos as the weather was calling for a perfectly clear day and he was not going to be able to be up roaming about without adequate cloud cover. It wasn't long before we were all in our respective beds; Rebecca gave Dustia a room of her own. I must have fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow. I was once again roaming my dreamscape and on the field of fog where so much always happened. There was something different here this time though. The normal chaos was gone there was a calm to things. I knew that Medusa and Claude would not be assaulting me tonight. Maybe Medusa really was dead; maybe Cronthos was wrong. No, she was still alive; I could feel it. And then out of the mist came the girl that sort of looks like me. "Hello," she said. "Hi, who are you? Why is everything so calm?" "A lot is going to happen Cheyenne. I will tell you only what I will, sometimes the future is best left unknown. As to who I am, I am the last as Shahluka was the first. After me, our bloodline dies, The children of Cronthos are no more, the end comes. I will escape though and seek the past, the answers that lie there to prevent the future to save the world. Shahluka is coming, you will soon know your role in things. Through death and rebirth, shall the world herald a hero, the Chosen One." "Who is the Chosen One?" "I can not answer that as only Shahluka knows. You can guess though and will most likely be wrong. Her song has yet to begin, the princess of the vampires is yet to be crowned. Time holds the answers Cheyenne, be patient and all shall be revealed. It is written and so shall it be." The girl disappears and I feel another presence, it is Shahluka. She is not as far in the fog anymore, she is almost here, not long now I think. "Cheyenne, the stage needs to be set before the final act. Dustia, she is to be the second protector of the Chosen One, tell my son, tell Cronthos." "I will Great Mother, but I need to know more about the Chosen One, what is happing." "In good time Cheyenne, all answers will unfold. I am coming, you will get to meet me, you play an important role in all this child, have faith in that." "Am I a protector of the Chosen One too?" "No." "Am I the Chosen One?" "No." "Then what am I?" "You are linked to the Chosen One in ways that I will not reveal yet. At this moment, you are just as important as the Chosen One. Tell Cronthos such, you are to be protected until the Chosen One is revealed. You will face one of your greatest challenges soon, but I assure that all is necessary for the game to be played out. The end is near, but it can be stopped, the Chosen one can do it, so it is written." "Shahluka, why is everything so calm in here?" "It is the calm before the storm. Everything is about to change my child, the millenium is approaching." "Will the world end then." "No it ended in 2048 the first time." The dream ended and I was once again back into a deep dark dreamless sleep. As the sunsets, Cronthos is up already waiting for us to join him in the main living room. We enter one by one, first me then Rebecca and finally Dustia. I think about my dream and decide to tell Cronthos about it before heading out to feed considering what happened the night before. Thinking of that, I quickly ran my hands through my hair to make sure that it grew back as I slept, it had. The burns were also gone. "You look better today Cheyenne, I will accompany you tonight while you feed just to make sure you keep out of trouble," said Cronthos. "Thank you, but before we all head out, I need to pass on messages from Shahluka." "She talked to you last night?" Inquired Rebecca while she rubbed Dustia's back. "Yes, she did. Dustia, congratulations you are the second protector of the Chosen One. Rebecca will bring you up to speed on that while you learn the art of hunting." "What about the Chosen One, did she say anything more about that?" "Well Rebecca, I did learn a few things about her. For one she is female and is to be a vampire princess. I also know that it is not me, however she said that I am to be protected as I am as important as the Chosen One until the Chosen One is revealed. She also said that the world ended on 2048 the last time, I have no idea what she meant about that." Cronthos took a breath then said, "That is strange, perhaps it is another riddle. Did she say anything else?" "Yeah, she said that this is the calm before the storm." "Medusa then, she must be planning something big. I think we had better find out what and do everything we can to stop her. It is 1977 right now, so we only have 71 years left till 2048," said Rebecca. "That is lots of time," piped in Dustia. "Not to a vampire sweetie," replied Rebecca. "2048 may be wrong, we can't even be sure of that, I almost get the impression that Medusa is trying to speed up the original schedule. She just may destroy us all a lot sooner," said Cronthos. "I have a thought," I said, "what if this Trickster is not Medusa, but rather a greater being that is manipulating Medusa into destroying the world. If that is the case, will destroying Medusa be enough?" To Be Continued... Coming Soon: Transvamporia Four: Gender Wars.