Entry #42

Ashes To Ashes
by Sandra Seamans


They gathered at sunset. Thirteen weary Immortals, coveting the freedom held in the depths of the Holy Grail. With the dawn, only two remained, the Grail tempting them with its blood red promise of redemption.

The others, after drinking from the Grail, had been reduced to ash. Their unbelief in the promise of Christ’s blood casting them forever to the four corners of neither here nor there. Gone were their eternal nights of walking the earth, thirsting for the blood of innocents.
Stutgard reached across the table, his fingers wrapping around the long stem of the Grail, slowly swirling the dark promise of life after death.

“Do you dare?” asked Vladmere.

“Oh, I dare. I’m weighting the option of an immortality I know against the gaining of a soul and thereby, entrance into an everlasting heaven that may or may not exist. I know there’s a hell. I’ve been living in it for a thousand years. But heaven? Such a mythic promise. I wonder, does it truly exist? To drink and believe in something that isn’t there is just as foolish as drinking without believing. Either way, the result is the same, a swirl of ashes tossed on the wind.”

“And either way, you’re free of the Vampire’s curse.” said Vladmere. “Does it matter if there’s a heaven to embrace your soul when you’re gone?”

“Only if I seek forgiveness from the God who cursed me to begin with,” said Stutgard, tossing back the blood of the Holy Grail.