Chapter 3: The First General
It's amazing what I accomplished in the 136 days since my birth.
Today is 13 February 44 BC. (Remember it's BC so the year counts down and not up)
My plan was simple. Find suitable male candidates. Strategically bite their neck, release my exclusive Count venom then drink some of their blood. As with any Army there has to be a strict hierarchy or nothing will be accomplished. Failure is never an option. Mark my words, I will never fail.
Okay, moving on. For the sake of simplicity, I will introduce my second tier of defense at this time. This level consists of two entities, Counts and Lords.
Both possess one quarter of the power of the Generals and Admirals and most importantly; to become a Lord you must have specials powers before becoming one. But never fear, I will be able to control and maintain the Lord's power activities at eighty percent, 24/7. I, also, plan to station one Count in every city/bigtown to basically sit on red alert.
Also, I will solidify their loyalty and use these specialized soldiers to infiltrate strategic parts of the Roman Empire. Thus, in a nutshell, welcome to the birth of my personal Vampire Army.
I trekked south creating loyal vampire soldiers along the way. The entire Mediterranean area was in fact at my mercy. As was Gaul, France, Spain and Egypt. While in Alexandria, I heard more about Julius Caesar and his alliance with Queen Cleopatra during the winter of 48 BC.
This was the same man who was currently in Rome putting the Greco-Roman world back in place. What a busy guy! I, also, learned that the next year Caesar fought a brief local war in northeastern Anatolia where his famous words of this bothersome of campaign were: Veni, vidi, vici which means "I came, I saw, I conquered." These words repeatedly reached my own ears.
Never stopping, Caesar returned to Rome, shortly thereafter he had gained the title of dictator then headed out for Africa, crushed his opponents there, returned to Rome, only to leave in November for "Father Spain" to quell a surge of resistance whereby on 17 March 45 BCE at Munda he was victorious.
You guessed it, back to Rome, less than a year had passed during which time Caesar had been diligently working on the monumental task of reconstruction. But whispers of discord were gaining momentum and moving rapidly along with the violent winds of March.
My admiration of this former soldier, now dictator was off the charts. I was hearing ominous whispers of impending betrayal. Caesar's blunt approach was rapidly alienating former enemies who he had in fact given amnesty, respect, loyalty, friendship and love were now turning against him in droves. They were jealous, equally power-hungry bitter men who believed in strength in numbers whereby they would all participate and be guilty in mass. Word had it that things were at fever pitch.
Not to be deterred from my own plan, I was in and around Egypt, Jerusalem and other desert places, I deftly created three counts and dispatched them further west.
Now back to Caesar. I had my own plan for him. It was pure genius! Why did it take me so long to reach this decision? Well, in my defense, having only been born a month and a half ago, I admittedly got sidetracked by trying to infiltrate an already established Republic at warp speed. In any event, I'm back on track.
As I was saying. Here was a man who saw an opportunity to seize power, and he took it, time after time. I'd found the right man to become my first General. It was obvious, Julius Caesar possessed the perfect political and military background and quite frankly, he was in a bit of a predicament. I would be his only way out. He just didn't know it, yet. And I had to hurry.
Time was of the essence.
Today was 13 February44BC. I made my way back to Rome with the sole purpose of crossing paths with Caesar.
I maneuvered through the streets of Rome without any incident. By the way, it pays to wear the right clothes in order to blend in with the populace. Then, too, I was rapidly mastering the art of clandestine observation and before I knew it, I found myself a few feet of my mark when wham. I blacked out. Really!
I was standing, no more like hovering in what appeared to be a Senate House. My vision was blurry which was strange since I cannot lose my eyesight because of my healing capabilities.
Anyway, Caesar had just entered the Senate House and before he could say or do anything, a group of Senator's, some who had greeted Caesar cordially a few minutes earlier turned, brandished knives and stabbed the shocked, defenseless man about twenty-three times. Then they fled in terror leaving the great Julius Caesar dying, bleeding out onto the cold marble floor where his wounded body had crumpled.
Time was not on his side, his body was losing the warmth of life, growing colder and colder as death took control. A dark figure approached. I emerged from this vision. What?
I found myself back where I had been, standing next to Julius Caesar. Disconcerted because of all the gore I had seen in my blurred vision; I stole a quick glance around. Business as usual, men strolling along, some were silent, others were quietly chatting. No bloody marble, no dead dictator, nothing!
I took the plunge, now or never, and never was not an option. Time was of the essence; I needed to test the validity of something. I turned to Caesar and without any preamble, I bluntly told him that he should have bodyguards. He is the dictator of the Roman Republic and that he was a prime candidate for assassination.
He looked at me, totally dumbfounded. Then his ego blossomed into full bloom. He refused to believe such an act. He indicated that they wouldn't dare, many owed their wealth, their status in the Senate and in Rome to him.
A month later on 15 March 44BC, Julius Caesar entered the Senate house. He looked around, he really didn't want to be there, earlier, his wife in hysterics, begged him not to go, she told him that she had a dream that something bad would happen. He scoffed at this preposterous idea and told her dismissively, that he'd be fine.
Standing in the midst of his peers as he had done hundreds of times before, Caesar opened his mouth to speak.
Simultaneously, the Senators reached into the folds of their togas swiftly withdrawing daggers and blindly stabbed at their defenseless ruler. Twenty-three daggers hit their target. Terrified, the murderers fled the scene of their dastardly act.
They had inadvertently expedited the timeframe.
I instantly approached Caesar, grabbed him by the shoulders before he could moan 'help me' and told him that everything would be fine.
I wasn't lying when I said that.
My plan of creating my personal Empire would begin right now. I bent my head toward the exposed flesh of his sweaty neck, opened my mouth, plunged my perfectly formed fangs deep into his flesh releasing the designated "General" venom.
His blood was so warm, so sweet, I savored each drop. I was excited, I had just created my first General, immortal like me. But I had to set the scene that would be etched into the history books.
Within three seconds, my Julius Caesar was transformed from his own mortal body which lay bleeding out on the marble floor of the Senate house for the moment.
My Caesar groaned, our eyes locked, he opened his mouth, I could see his two fangs. They were sharp, his remaining teeth were pointed and sharp as well. I nodded with satisfaction. The sequence was on track. His transformation was complete the moment the teeth returned to their pre-vampire general state. He now belonged to me.
He murmured thanks. He was glad that I had saved him. He even felt stronger than he ever did before. With the knowledge that I granted him; Julius was exited for what would happen next. Even though Julius knew that he wouldn't be in charge, he didn't care because he knew that he will be a part of a bigger organization and close to the top in status.
Something bigger than the Roman Republican ever could have been.
In order to keep my infiltration plan in effect. I needed to make certain that the World knew that the great Julius Caesar was in fact dead.
I raised my hand, snapped my fingers and drum roll please, the exact mortal replica of Julius Caesar's mutilated body appeared precisely where Julius had been bleeding out.
Julius's eyes widened of shock. He had never seen this before in this life. He swore that he will serve this Draven well into the future.
Satisfied with the death scene, I then turned to the immortal Julius Caesar and said,
"Welcome Vampire General Julius Caesar, you are my first general in the newly formed Lüxe Bond."
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First 5 chapters will be posted within 2 days then 1-3 chapters weekly. Thanks for reading. Don't forget to add this to your library.