by Aderyn Wood
The illustration came into clear focus. It was a detailed image of the blade, the Holy Lance, the spear that had inflicted the final wound on Jesus Christ at the crucifixion.
He turned his attention to the words scrawled to the side of the image. He took a pen from his pocket and began translating the meaning onto a paper napkin.
… And the guardian Michael shall bear the Lance of Constantine that smote the Son of Justice, and with which he shall vanquish the Spawn of Chaos in the final exorcism, the final reckoning.
“Sweet Jesus…”
“Is there something wrong with the breakfast, sir?”
Michael looked up to see the waiter giving him an unfriendly stare. The man’s necklace glinted in the sunshine – a crucifix.
“I’m sorry,” Michael said. “The breakfast is fine, thank you.”
The waiter gave him a suspicious nod as he glanced at the untouched breakfast, before leaving him once more.
Michael returned his attention to the parchment and was about to undertake more of the translation when his phone rang. He frowned wondering who would be calling him. Georgette perhaps? But when he checked the screen the number was unknown. Perhaps there was another phone on the boat. He pushed the button.
“Hello.”
“Michael.”
Michael’s hands buzzed. “What do you want?” he said, the venom in his voice clear even to him.
Amynta laughed. “I believe I have something you want. Or should I say, someone.”
Panic surged through Michael’s blood, his hands grew hot. “Don’t play games. Just tell me.”
“I paid another visit to your boat this morning.”
Michael’s heart turned to stone.
“I had intended to find you. I had a good plan too. I was going to kidnap you, Michael. But I couldn’t. Not with her there. It would have been too dangerous for both of us now that she’s finally fed on you.”
Michael swallowed, his eyes scanning the surrounds, suddenly wondering whether Amynta was watching him, in a concealed place close by.
“Still listening, Michael?”
“How—”
“Never mind how, the fact is I saw you, if only briefly, and I could sniff the lust on the pair of you. It won’t be long now, Michael and her spell over you will be complete. Oh, you’ll enjoy it, you’ll try not to but you will. But it will only bring you pain in the end. Still, that is no concern of mine, in fact, it will aid my mission.”
Michael could feel his mouth turn down into a scowl, his cheeks filled with heat and his heart thumped a hard rhythm. “What do you want?”
“I now have something you want. You see, I have your little French friend. Georgette, I believe her name is, oui?”
“No.”
“Oh, yes. I would put her on the phone to prove my point, but I’m afraid she’s incapable of talk at the moment. Perhaps I gave her too much sedation. It was difficult to judge the dose, she is quite a large lady, isn’t she, Michael? And feisty. So different to your usual type. You like ’em small, yes? With a little elfin face and a rosebud mouth?” Amynta laughed, before clearing her throat. “You must bring Emma to me when I ask it. She will be vital when the time comes to trap Asha.”
“Where?”
“I’ll call when it’s time. If you follow my instructions without a hitch your French friend will live. If not, she will die, and it won’t be the first time I’ve killed a human for the cause.”
The phone went dead, and Michael dropped it, his tingling hands unable to grip anything any longer. He stood and rolling his shoulders, retrieved his phone. He then slipped the Foliss into his coat pocket and made his way out of the cafe, leaving his breakfast behind him, untouched.
Chapter 13
The dream took him back to the mountains where snow covered towering cypress with soft white layers. The clan had made camp and would remain for the winter. One tent, its canvas the colour of blood that stood out in sharp contrast to the white drifts of snow, had been pitched further from the others. Smoke spiralled from the hole at its peak.
It was dawn, but the sky filled with charcoal and flurries of snow turned the early light grey. A figure wearing a heavy cloak made fresh prints in the snow, heading toward the red tent. A girl who had newly become woman made her way to the witch for the ritual.
Inside, the young woman pulled back her cowl and greeted the crone respectfully. The girl had black hair and full lips, and it was plain to see she would grow to become a great beauty.
The old woman gave her a smile and spoke an ancient tongue. “It is time, child.” She held out a small clay vial filled with the girl’s own blood.
The girl’s dark eyes grew wide and her lips trembled, but the pull of duty tugged at her and she nodded as she stepped forward to clutch the vial.
Nathaniel woke to screams. His eyes focused in less than a second on dim surrounds. Damp stone walls, damp stone floors, and iron bars. A dungeon, an ancient one too. It stank of piss and stale blood. He was lying on the filthy floor registering the pain around his wrists. Silver cuffs sizzled quietly on his red-raw skin. He rested back against the cold hard stone and closed his eyes for a moment. In that instant he saw the image of the girl from his dreams. It remained a mystery to him as to why he would dream after all these centuries of sleeping like the dead.
More screams pierced the stale air and Nathaniel’s eyes flew open. An iron gate stood locked before him. No windows in the thick stone walls – that was something. Gerold would hold him here until he could hand him over to Amynta, when Nathaniel would finally face his end. It didn’t frighten him. Though if he had a choice, he would avoid her.
Another scream and Nathaniel tilted his head, narrowing his eyes to look beyond the iron bars, but the dimness offered no answers as to what the hell was going on out there. He lifted his nose and sniffed the air, rank with blood – vampire blood. Someone was torturing and bleeding a Dark One. An Old One by the scent of it. Could Amynta be here already? But he’d caught no scent of her and Nathaniel would recognise her murderous reek anywhere.
He sat up with a grunt, but streaks of fire bolted through his entire body and he recalled the monk and that syringe, filled with silver nitrate.
“God damn you, Gerold,” he hissed as he sat up slowly and waited for the pain to dull, and cursed himself too for being so stupid. But this pull that led him east, it was making thinking difficult, and had clouded his judgement. Now he was weak and badly needed to feed, but still he felt the pull gnawing at him to move. Gritting his teeth he managed to crawl the small distance to the iron bars, the fire in his veins hurting more with the movement. He peered through the bars. Another cell faced his own. Empty.
The screams came again but stopped mid-bellow. A man, whoever the poor bastard was, Nathaniel would probably know him. The monk told him that aside from Asha herself, Nathaniel was the oldest vampire left in the world. It didn’t seem possible. But Gerold wasn’t prone to lying, not as far as Nathaniel knew, anyway. He was the second oldest vampire. Not for much longer, judging from those screams. He didn’t doubt his existence was about to come to a brutal end. And a painful one.
Footsteps rung out and Nathaniel crept over to cower in the shadows by the wall. He resisted scrunching his eyes shut with the new pain that flourished everywhere, and peered into the gloom as the footsteps grew louder.
Two figures in black held a tortured looking wreck by his arms. A vampire, the one who’d been screaming most like. The two men resembled Schleck’s soldier types in Paris – black military uniforms. They opened the cell opposite and threw the vampire in. He was an Old One, though not as old as Nathaniel, and he crumpled into a heap, dormant. Nathaniel tried to get a better look at him, but the two guards turned and blocked his view. One of them gave a twisted smile. “Now it’s Chartley’s turn. She’s been looking forward to this.” The accent was Australian.
Nathaniel looked at them. One had blond hair and a broad nose, the other dark hair and a beard. They were youn
g, strong men, and both, he suddenly realised, newly turned vampires – young and stupid.
The blond with the broad nose opened Nathaniel’s cell door and they both stepped inside. Nathaniel spotted the wooden stakes with silver tips at their belts.
“Don’t try anything, Chartley,” the bearded one said, also Australian. They would have been backpackers before they were turned.
Nathaniel gave them a dark stare. He detested Australians, and all ‘new-worlders’ in general. Especially ones like these brutes. They had no respect for history. No knowledge of what came before the last few centuries. No culture. No refinement. Their type filled backpackers hostels and hovels the world over. They were full of ignorance and arrogance in equal measure, as though their appearance before the rest of the world was a gift bestowed from their gracious generosity. But they were easy prey for a hungry vampire. Nathaniel cleared his throat. “It’s not the first time vampires have been used as a weapon. We had a name for turncoats like you in the inquisition.”
“Oh? And what was that, Chartley? Not that we’re interested.” They clutched beneath Nathaniel’s arms and he was hoisted to his feet.
“Cabrón.”
“What does that mean when it’s at home?” the big nose asked as they dragged Nathaniel out.
“Let me put it in a way you understand,” Nathaniel said through gritted teeth as his veins burned ever more powerfully. “Dumbasses.”
A fist shot out and slammed Nathaniel’s stomach like a sledgehammer. He tried to double over but the thugs held him fast and continued marching through the dungeon as his feet dragged out behind him.
“We’re allowed to do whatever the fuck we want to you, shithead,” the blond drawled in his ear.
Nathaniel tried to speak, but his voice was gone. He’d been winded. Normally, he’d have healed by now but with so much pain his body was no longer coping, not without feeding.
“Even kill you,” the beard said.
It was a good thing Nathaniel couldn’t speak. He wanted to explain why they were so stupid. That they would face the wrath of any Old One who learned of their treachery. Such grievances against one’s own kind were always met with swift justice once an Old One got wind of it. It was a law as much about instinct as the need to feed. Nathaniel had first grown aware of it when he’d come of age, in the days of the various inquisitions, when new vampires turned and raised by humans were used by nefarious leaders to do their bidding. Those Young Ones were hunted down and exterminated by Nathaniel and all Old Ones. Sometimes they’d even acted as a pack and Nathaniel wondered now, as he had then, why they had done so, and how it had happened that aged vampires were working together cooperatively.
His thoughts were interrupted when the two cabrones paused at an arched entry. Inside the large chamber the walls were rendered and painted a prison green. A table stood under a lamp by a wall and a number of surgical instruments lined it, along with empty vials and syringes that made Nathaniel’s veins throb with renewed pain just by looking at them. A clear liquid sat in some of them. Silver nitrate.
The two thugs dragged him forward into the room and Nathaniel’s eyes locked on Schleck. She sat behind a desk that was arranged in an orderly fashion with a lamp to one side, a short pile of old texts on the other and a laptop in the middle. A takeaway coffee cup sat by her laptop and bore the mark of Schleck’s red lipstick. Such a human thing seemed incongruent with the woman.
“Put him on the chair,” Schleck said, without raising her eyes from the laptop on which she was typing.
They dragged him to the chair near the table with the surgical equipment. The blond brought out a key with his gloved hand and unlocked Nathaniel’s cuffs. He had a moment of blissful relief before his arms were strapped to the chair with silver infused bands that now burned the delicate skin of his forearms. He clamped his teeth together. He’d experienced enough pain to last until kingdom come, he could handle a little more.
“You may prepare subject seventy-six now,” Schleck said in clipped words as she stood and approached Nathaniel.
The two thugs replied in unison, “Yes, mistress.” They marched out of the room.
Nathaniel studied Schleck. Her movements were unhindered, which was strange. She’d been shot by Georgette that night. She should be in pain. She shouldn’t even be able to stand, but here she was standing before him, fit as a fiddle. Her perfect eyebrows and lipstick made him annoyed for some reason. “You’re making vampires.” His voice rasped, but when he tried to swallow, his mouth and throat felt dry as dust. At this stage, even a drink of water would be welcome.
Schleck glanced at him as she selected a large syringe from the table, one of the collection filled with silver nitrate. “A brilliant idea. Mine of course.”
“No, it’s been done before, by tyrants with bigger egos than even yours.”
Schleck raised an eyebrow. “I’ve waited for this moment for quite some time, Chartley. I’ve studied you ever since I first joined the Order of the SS.”
Nathaniel laughed. “SS now is it? Whose stupid notion was that? Yours? You’d have been a sympathiser.” He narrowed his eyes. “You probably are a sympathiser. What are your kind called? Neo Nazi. That’s it.”
Schleck puckered her lips in a way that did nothing to make Nathaniel feel better about his predicament. “No. Not Nazi. SS stands for something more powerful. We work toward the extermination of your kind. That is our purpose. Our sole purpose.”
Nathaniel frowned trying to think through the possibilities of the acronym. His mind kept throwing up obvious terms like Schutzstaffel, or unlikely terms like Secret Service or Star Spangled. It was useless. Any other time he would have a chance, but now with his veins aching and very likely about to ache some more there was no way he could focus his mind.
“As I was saying,” Schleck continued. “You’ve been a slippery target throughout the ages it seems. You’ve survived witch hunts, inquisitions, government agents and war.” She wore a smug look on her broad face, her head even waddled a bit. She was enjoying this. Enjoying the glory of being the one who would kill him no doubt. She would take her time about it too, so that she could relish every second and commit it to memory to relive it whenever she wanted.
“You’re going to kill me,” Nathaniel said.
“Eventually, you will die. But it is Amynta who will have the honour of thrusting a stake through your heart. She likes to do it the old-fashioned way.”
“You consider yourself a slayer, like Amynta, but you’re not. You never will be, it’s just not in your blood.” It was true. Nathaniel had come across only four true slayers in all the time he’d been vampire. There was something about them that set them apart from the rats. They had unexplained strength and speed for one thing. But it was their blood that gave them away. Gavius had put the clues together. It held the most delicious scent, deep and rich, something akin to fine chocolate, and gave the vampire a heady feeling just by breathing it in. But it was a trap. Like some plants with their pretty flowers and perfumes that would attract insects only to trap them so the plant may feast on their victim’s flesh. So, too, the slayer was dangerous and to be avoided at all costs.
Schleck was ordinary, though a sense of evil came from her. A passion for killing. It was a wonder she hadn’t turned herself into a vampire. No doubt Amynta called the shots and she would never allow one like Schleck to be turned. Too difficult to control.
Schleck scowled. Her hands opened and closed into fists by her side. She was eager to begin.
“I know what you want,” Nathaniel said.
“You’ve no idea.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “I don’t have it anymore. The lance was taken from me.”
Schleck’s eyebrow arched.
“It’s true. It’s gone. I’ve no idea where.”
Schleck gave him a smile and a sickening feeling flourished in his stomach. “The lance is no longer my concern,” she said with frightening quietness.
“What are you going
to do?”
“I will ask the questions. But first, I need a sample of your blood.” Schleck bent and swabbed his arm before standing and picking up a large empty syringe.
“My blood is low.”
“There’s enough.” She plunged the needle into Nathaniel’s cold flesh. It found a vein and she pulled back. The blood was dark, too dark. It needed replenishing and soon.
“Is this how you make new vampires?” Nathaniel croaked.
The syringe filled, and she extracted the needle. “Don’t be dense. You know we would need much more than this to make a vampire.”
Yes, he did know. The process was a slow one, requiring the victim to be bled almost entirely before consuming a large quantity of blood from their maker. Few survived to become vampire, and generally only the blood of Old Ones could make it work. He’d only made three Young Ones himself, and now, only one survived. Emma.
Schleck emptied Nathaniel’s blood into a vial and swished it around in front of him. “But this will be very useful.” Her smile returned. “Another of my ideas.”
Nathaniel frowned. He recalled tasting Schleck’s blood in Paris, after they’d both been shot and the definite taint. “You’re drinking vampire blood,” he whispered. “That’s why you’ve healed so quickly.”
She gave him another smirk.
“It will kill you.”
“That is not your concern. But this is not all for me. I will deliver it to Amynta, and once she tastes it, you will never be far from her radar.” Shleck leaned in close. “Lest you do something stupid like try to escape.”
She placed the vial in a small refrigerator by the table then removed her surgical gloves and donned black leather ones. “Now, it is time for me to ask those questions.”
And here it comes. Nathaniel’s eyebrows drew together in an involuntary frown. What information did they want if they were no longer concerned with the lance? During the inquisition, Amynta had been most interested in the whereabouts of fellow vampires. Well, they could ask about that till the sun rose – he’d lost touch with all of them.
