Blood Inheritance by M. Benjamin Woodall

Author:M. Benjamin Woodall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampire, coming of age, frankenstein, victorian era, boarding school, van helsing, werewolf story, ya steampunk, teen monster
Publisher: M. Benjamin Woodall

Blood on My Hands

Late in the night, I awoke with an abrupt start. I had intended to see Fia again, but I must have fallen asleep. My mind was a jumble of confused images of the day before. Or had I indeed sneaked off campus early after sundown? It certainly felt so. My eyes gleaned the contours of the ceiling above, and I blankly followed the nooks and creases of the old wooden boards stretching across it. Aye. Aye, I hazily recalled her face out on the moors. But why was she screaming?

I sat up, and a pounding pain surged into my cranium. I slumped forward against my lap, grabbing my head. I concentrated on the picture of Fia’s face in my mind, fighting to sift through a fog of anguish to remember more. I had been with her, aye, out on the moors earlier in the night, but something had gone wrong. Horribly wrong. Her look, as I then remembered, was that of fear.

I stood, dizzy at first but catching my balance. Flashes of Fia shrieking in unparalleled horror filled my thoughts. They were ice cold picks stabbing through my chest, and I could not get rid of them.

Determined to find out if she was still in danger, I soft-footed from my room, making my way into the commons and through the secret door. The grandfather clockface showed 12:30, but its ticking had stopped. It had not been wound as should have been done on a Wednesday, so I knew it was in the early morning hours. Was it close to dawn? If it were, I would surely be found out, but I could not dawdle. Somehow, I knew I must know the truth.

Walking down the narrow, dark stairs I grabbed hold of my crucifix—my shirt was gone! The cool air against my bare chest became suddenly apparent. I felt down along my almost bare legs, my trousers—I apparently had not worn my pajamas—were frayed and torn. I stopped to calm my heart before going back up the stairs. Making my way back through the common room, I returned to my quarters to change into a new pair of trousers and shirt, grabbing my coat too.

What had happened? Had I been attacked? I was not hurt. I forced myself to think little of it, and I headed back down the secret steps.

Hurrying off campus and out onto the moors, eventually making my way to the place we all had gathered those many nights before, I found myself beyond the edge of the hillside. Rydle’s dormitory sprung up over the landscape as if to cover and protect a body, a corpse of one of its own, lying at the floor of a knoll.

I came closer to inspect it. The fingers of the sun stretched around the hilltops and pulled back the long shadows as I stared down at Fia’s face gaping face attached to a bloodied body like a carcass at a butcher shop but covered in threads. Ripped apart by a beast—a werewolf, no doubt.

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