Episode 32: Countess and Creator
Written By Karl White
Smoke and burnt flesh clung to Elizabeth’s breath. Her world had once again been leveled, this time by her own blood. Anger surged. Rage boiled. Wrath filled her mind.
Though Royce fled, during their encounter and their battle, she slipped into his mind, severing his mental connection with her. Generations on Earth had honed her telepathy. Her Tuning, Sight, and Reading were razors now. She found the path he’d used to track her and closed it. He could no longer find her in his head. It wasn’t victory, but it eased her as she vanished into hiding.
She wanted him dead for what he’d done. But Royce had proved cunning. She’d faced danger before, changed course, adapted, fought free, but this felt different. Control shifted, even if only a fraction, and she hated the feeling.
Elizabeth carefully made her way east, slipping into the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1601, a noblewoman approached her, mistaking the road-worn stranger for a destitute prostitute. She was Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed, renowned for “helping” women in need.
The Countess of Čachtice, 1601 - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
But both women, not knowing who the other really was, entered a tangled, bloody web that would solidify their places in the history of Vampire lore. Elizabeth, the Creature of the Night, allowed Báthory, who was really a cold-blooded serial killer, to take her back to the noble woman’s estate for food and shelter. The Vampire intended to make a meal out of the countess, and the other, planned on using who she'd mistaken for a woman of ill-repute, for a disturbing blood-bath ritual.
Things unfolded quickly with the Vampire being as shocked as the murderer. Báthory, used her powerful position in society to satisfy an insane bloodlust she could not control, evading capture or suspicion by being above it. Elizabeth saw a delicious opportunity to use a human in a position of power to provide her with blood, all while staying hidden.
Using her ability to control, Elizabeth seduced Báthory into becoming her Familiar, with the killer more than happy to comply -- fascinated with the Vampire’s shared lust for blood. And so it went, behind the stone walls of Čachtice Castle, their unholy union in blood would not run dry for many years.
It was a near nonstop orgy of death, fueled by their collective cravings and frightened accomplices who would lure young women from neighboring villages to the castle with offers of work as maidservants. The killer Báthory would slaughter the women, bathing in their blood, while the Vampire would happily clean up the mess, making a meal of the fresh kills.
The Countess’s “Ritual” - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
But like all good things, their arrangement had a boundary, as suspicions of the events at the castle would bring about an investigation by the King in 1610. Báthory tried to shift blame to “a creature”, but no such thing fit the minds of men who saw only a countess and her crimes. She was sealed into a room under house arrest, walled in stone, and left to rot until her death in 1614.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, had been siphoning the countess’s wealth the whole time. When the noose tightened, she stepped into shadows and was gone.
The legacy of her time with Báthory would convince history that the Countess was a vile creature, cementing the human’s place in Vampiric lore...Later inspiring modern beliefs associated with the monster. Elizabeth the Vampire, would continue to live in the perimeter of the night, slowly building a Brood, and surrounding herself with layers of protection in case Royce resurfaced.
As Ezath gained a real world education, moving through human history, becoming Elizabeth, she wasn’t the only one of her kind shaping history. An ocean away, another of the original three, lived a different sort of life. Rah had settled in Haiti, built a tight-knit Brood, and owned one of the largest coffee-and-sugar plantations on earth...wealth vast enough to deflect attention from himself and his family. Yet for all he’d made, something hollowed him...Regret...The ache of a bloody past he couldn't outrun.
Rah - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
When they first reached Earth, he carried the mission’s highest ranks, commanding officer, scientist, medic, but that was far from the life that forged him. Rah came from humble beginnings, he was dark-complexioned, low caste on his home world, a child with a hunger to learn and a future conscripted into war. He rose ranks fast, not as an officer, but as a killer. A Hunter. One of the elite sent to break lesser worlds and kill without distinction in the name of conquest.
His people were constantly at war, either seizing worlds or starting conflicts to feed their planet’s quickly consumed resources. Rah knew his place in society as a lowborn and accepted his role as a killer. He was the best at what he did and had no equal when it came to the body count he left in his wake. But there was more to his savageness as lowborn’s were never allowed to obtain a higher status than him.
In fact, all who served as Hunters died on the battlefield. But Rah survived because his skill and fortitude. And as his people entered a peaceful period, he was granted a rare concession: permission to pursue a nobler path. He received an extensive education in mathematics, medicine, science. Commissioned as a military scientist. He excelled, to the surprise of anyone who only knew the butcher and not the mind that had always been there.
Rah’s improbable escape from his predetermined path, ultimately led him to join the small exploratory mission, that ended with he and the other’s crash landing on Earth. As a castaway, Rah was happy, marooned on a planet that knew nothing of his past as a cold-blooded killer. It offered a true reset and a chance to plunge into the work he loved on a planet ripe with new and exciting scientific finds.
Ezath and Anu, didn’t share Rah’s enthusiasm for their new lives on Earth. In truth, they might have killed him had they known a retrieval could still have found them, if the rescue beacon had remained on through their Long Sleep. Rah made sure it didn’t. Faced with the prospect of never going back, he chose exile for all three. He marooned them, on purpose.
On Earth, what delighted Rah most was the species in bloom, witnessing the rapid growth of the early humans. He marveled at their quick minds and felt a stab of guilt each time he fed. A moral dilemma he solved by preying on less developed mammals.
But it angered the others, especially Anu, who called it self-sabotage for the sake of the “lowly” humans. But Rah respected this world’s inhabitants. He’d ravaged and destroyed too many planets, he wanted this to be different. He fed only enough to live, left the animals breathing, and used his telepathy to calm them, to show intent. It was a peaceful practice, sustenance pared to its minimum.
When the three parasites decided to part ways, Rah, using what little equipment of theirs that still worked, studied topographical read-outs indicating there were many other large landmasses on the planet, the most intriguing was to the West.
But navigating the furthest reaches of the vast oceans would prove complicated...And so, near what is now Lagos, and with the help of a local tribe we would later call the Yoruba, Rah spent his nights building a vessel. A massive raft made from hollowed logs, coated in wood tar, fashioned with a support frame and animal hides. A craft that would shield him from the sun and carry him over the long blue distances. More importantly, his construction would supply the humans with a blueprint for one of the most widely used forms of travel.
Rah constructs a raft - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Rah would also teach them about planting seeds from select plants, showing them how to bear crops. In time, their stories would fold him into divinity. He’d become, Obàtálá, the creator, descending from the heavens to carry the earth across the primordial waters and populate new lands. For Rah, it was an auspicious start. A mission recast, not conquest, but the steady raising of humankind.
TO BE CONTINUED…