Chapter 21 — Sabra

Latvia, Europe, 1518:

I WAS trembling with so much anger when I walked out of the burning house while carrying my father’s lifeless body. I could feel the heat on my skin and it ached, but it was nothing compared to the pain caused by my father’s sudden demise.

My breathing became unsteady as I laid his body on the ground along with the other corpses. I was late. I was not able to save them.

“I warned you and you did not listen! This would not have happened if only you listened to me. You are the reason why those people died, Cain!” In the middle of the chaos, those words from Sabra echoed in my ears.

I stood up and rushed to her. My jaw clenched as I strangled her neck. But instead of being terrified, she giggled. This was useless. The woman was a very powerful Mage. And a mere human like me could never inflict pain on her, no matter what I do.

“Craiceailte!” I said in a Celtic language which meant “you are crazy.” “Was it not enough that you took me away from my God that you still had to resort to this?”

“The gaol agam ort. And unless you surrender yourself entirely to me, I will keep taking things away from you, Cain.”

Love? I could not believe that after all the horrible things this woman did; she would still have the audacity to tell me she loved me. Talking to her was draining me more. I pushed her away when I felt the effect of her spell in my body once more. The sheer thought of touching this very woman made my stomach churn with so much disgust.

But I was more disgusted at myself for still feeling this same disdainful lust to hold Sabra or any available woman near me even after what was happening in my surrounding right now. When I saw the dagger strapped on the waist of a stranger who passed by, I stole it and immediately stabbed my stomach so I could focus on the physical pain rather than this need to pin any woman down.

Sabra laughed. “I turned your body into a pleasure puppet, Cain. Do you think a simple wound could stop you from craving a woman? You could never deny what your body wanted. And since we are bonded by a spell, you cannot die even if you wish to. As long as I am alive, you would be stuck with me, Cain. We would be together forever, my beloved.”

I was panting when I opened my eyes. Even if I was already awake, I feel like I could still hear Sabra’s laughter. It was ringing in my head. I immediately searched for Natasha on the other side of the bed when I realized that I was in my mansion in Talavera. It was where I'd chosen to sleep last night. It was the same place where Natasha found me before. My chest heaved. I could not breathe. It was like someone was strangling me when I got up on the bed.

I quickly lifted my hands to increase the hot temperature inside the room, but I still felt cold that the fire on my hands disappeared.

After waking up from the slumber spell, this was the first time that I had that kind of nightmare. I guess I got so used to sleeping beside Natasha night after night that’s why both my heart and body had been at peace lately.

When I could not stand the coldness any longer, I motioned my hands. In a blink of an eye, I found myself standing outside Natasha’s mansion in an exclusive village in Tagaytay.

I leaned on the gate while ringing the doorbell.

Tash, hurry. Please. I need to see you.

I did not wait too long. I heard the gate open. When Natasha finally appeared in front of me, I was shaking when I walked towards her and took her in my arms.

“Cain, what’s wrong? What happened to you? You’re freezing!”

I did not reply. My throat was dry. I leaned my forehead on her shoulder. I was twenty when my body had been cursed to eternal lust. Out of shame, guilt, and the burning need to feed every night, I had to leave the monastery. I was forced to sacrifice my religious devotion all because of a certain Mage. I had no place to go to after leaving the monastery. I wanted to go back to my father, to the only person kind enough to adopt me because I knew he was always waiting for my return along with the innocent kids I treated as my siblings.

But there were teenage girls in his house. I could not risk being with them and so I wandered around aimlessly, quenching my uncontrollable lust night after night like a beast in heat. I hated it. I hated Sabra and I hated myself for it. I hated myself for succumbing to temptation but the spell was too powerful to break. At that time, I did not know any Mage. I had not even heard of the Mages’ existence until I was unfortunate enough to meet Sabra when I went out of the monastery one time.

In the beginning, I tried locking myself up in a room to stop myself from being tempted. But the maddeningly hot sensation continued to seep from within me, turning my mind upside down until I could no longer think of anything but sex.

And that was exactly what Sabra wanted to happen. She wanted me to destroy myself, my beliefs, my faith, and all the things that was precious to me. She wanted me to live my life in humiliation as a previous servant of God. She wanted me to be shunned by everyone so that in the end, I would have no one to turn to but her. Those were her exact words when she locked me in her house to cast a spell on me. Those words had marked me even until today.

Since I was still human at that time, I had no way of fighting it. The spell corrupted me. It destroyed my innocence. It broke me, broke my mind, made me insane, until I finally did it with Sabra, a woman who was fifteen years older than me. She was my first. When I fed on her through sex, I hated myself even more; I hated myself for doing it with the very person I loathed the most.

And yet, I had no means to stop my body.

But Sabra’s spell had a glitch. It was not as perfect as she thought it would be. She thought that I would only be able to need one woman, to feel lust to only one woman, and that was her. Since we were bonded, she thought we would only need each other. But I felt lust towards other women, too. I could have sex with anyone else and that infuriated her. She threatened to destroy me more if I got involved with other women.

Out of rebellion and the desire to spite her, I refused to listen and had my revenge by having my fill of different women every night. I wanted to drive her mad the way she did to me. It was too late when I realized I made a big mistake. Sabra’s jealousy completely destroyed my life. That deranged woman casted a spell and burned the house of my family and friends, causing seventeen people to die in just one night. The sudden fires and explosion were the reason why the people in Latvia got to know Sabra as well as her extreme obsession towards me.

They treated me like a plague. And when every important person in my life was buried, I could not shed a tear. I had been called ruthless, savage, and so on because no tears came out from me even if they believed that it was my fault that so many people died. And it was because I angered a very powerful Mage who had become the enemy of the Church for using black magic.

After the burial, my shitty life began. I was tormented every night with my physical needs. If I refused to succumb to it, my whole body would ache and I would suffer in coldness.

“Cain, it’s late. Let’s head inside,” Natasha said which brought me back to reality.

“I wanted so badly to forget who I was before you met me, Natasha. But I can’t. Damn, I just can’t,” I said instead. “Do you know the disadvantage of immortals like me?”

“What?” she asked as if to indulge me while softly stroking my back.

“It’s the fact that we remember every single damn thing. It’s like we have a pile of recorded CDs in our heads which contains all the happiest and the nastiest memories we have. Those CDs play over and over in our heads, making it impossible for us to forget. Humans, on the other hand, are blessed. Their memories fade overtime. They forget things whether they like it or not,” I replied in a shaky voice.

To my surprise, I heard Natasha weep. When I released her from my embrace, I saw tears rolling down her cheeks while looking at me. It was as if… she was the one doing the crying for me because I, myself, could not cry.

I wiped her tears. “Why are you crying?”

“Because you’re hurt. Please don’t get hurt anymore.”

Even if I still felt weak, I managed to smile when I saw the concern in Natasha’s eyes. If I had met this adorable woman earlier, probably hundreds of years earlier, would things have changed? I caressed her cheeks. “Hush, stop crying. Don’t waste your precious tears on someone like me. I don’t deserve them.”

“Cain, you deserve so much better than you think. So please stop demeaning yourself. Whatever it is, it’s over now. It’s all in the past now,” she said while crying. “You can still make another CD, you know. You can create more CDs and fill it with only happy memories. You can make plenty of them, Cain. I will help you. I’m a composer, remember? If you will let me, I’ll help you compose every beautiful thing that you want to. Maybe by doing so, you still won’t be able to forget the ugly memories but you will have happy ones that will outshine the bad ones. Let me help you this time.” She reached for my hands and kissed them. “Who you were before we met, I don’t really care about that. The you that’s in front of me now is all that matters to me. That’s why I want you to know that you are not the CDs from your past. You are you, Cain. And you are a free man now.”

Natasha said those words as if she knew something. But I did not ask anymore. I was frightened to ask how much she knew. I just stared at her while she kept on crying for me. Her tears were slowly melting the coldness I felt. Her hands were as warm as the first time we met. And her touch was like a healing balm to my soul.

Slowly, I could feel her familiar warmth beginning to seep inside me.

Despite of all the things that happened in my life, I never cried. I did want to cry many times before; back when I was still young, when I could still remember how it felt to be human.

Despite that, I could feel it all within me. I could feel my heart rebelling, I could almost hear it weeping and screaming for me. Yet, tonight, while looking in Natasha’s innocent eyes and seeing nothing but my reflection there, suddenly, I found myself in tears.

This time, she was the one who wiped my tears. She tiptoed and pressed her forehead against mine. “You are free now, Cain. You’ve been freed for quite a while now.”

I lifted her and embraced her as tears continued to fall from my eyes. Maybe this was the freedom Natasha was talking about. Because in her arms, for the first time, I felt freed. My tears were proof.

After more than five hundred years, I finally wept… like a mad man that I once was.