Children of the Night

by Zan Safra

  Isola di San Michele. The cemetery island.

  Laszlo glides to the nearest pier and uncovers the moored gondola, throwing back the canvas with a grand gesture. The gondola isn’t an ordinary craft, with a spiraling prow and carved seats. The boat is black from stem to stern, plain and somber. A funerary gondola.

  I stop. Amon springs into the gondola and turns to look at me, cocking his head. Laszlo smirks. “Coming, siorina?”

  It’s come. My last chance to refuse. To run.

  The gondola floats, waiting like an open casket. My own.

  I take a deep breath and step into the boat.

  Laszlo takes up the oarsman’s position, standing at the stern, and begins to row. The gondola slips through the water. I sit with my hands folded in my lap, spine straight, gaze fixed on the island ahead. My fingers brush the heads of the hatpins up my sleeve. I take one and draw it out the slightest amount.

  Isola di San Michele nears, sandstone walls aglow in the moonlight, dead branches reaching for the sky like skeleton fingers. Every ghost tale I’ve ever heard comes to me, stories of spirits haunting the waters. Corpses of the drowned dragging sailors into the depths. The specter of a nobleman bearing the head of his own murdered wife. Ghost children traveling atop their own coffins, omens of death to all who behold them.

  I nearly believe them now.

  We reach the island and a small stone dock. Amon bounds onto the shore and scales the wall, disappearing over the top. The trees loom, whispering.

  Laszlo moors the gondola and I climb out, onto a short flight of steps. The chill in my bones surges as my feet touch the ground.

  I follow Laszlo to the gatehouse. A heavy padlock and chain seal its iron gates. Laszlo twists the padlock, casually tearing the metal apart. The gates groan and slowly part. Beyond them is a wall of mottled shadows. Shafts of moonlight illuminate angular tombstones jutting from the ground like the teeth of some half-buried beast.

  Laszlo steps aside. I pass through the gates. They slam shut behind us like the doors of a crypt.

  We start through the cemetery, following a path, past trees and scores of gravestones, some well cared-for and flowered, others crooked and so worn that their carved names have vanished. Amon appears out of the dark, bounding from stone to stone, vaulting over tombs.

  We come to a crescent of mausolea, all shut with barred gates. I flinch as Amon takes my hand. It takes all that I have not to jerk away from the touch of his skin, icy, callused and dry. He grins with a mouthful of black fangs and points to the seventh mausoleum.

  Laszlo leads us to it and taps different bars in a pattern of knocks. I hear a faint rumble. The bars descend into the ground, freeing the mausoleum’s door. He pushes it open. A gust of dank air wafts out, smelling of mud, mold, decay.

  Amon lets go of my hand and runs into the mausoleum. I gather my skirts and follow him.

  The tomb is overgrown, dilapidated. Waist-high weeds sprout through cracks in the stone floor, half-hiding the plain marble sarcophagus standing in the center. The air is damp, still.

  Laszlo shrugs. “No illumination, I’m afraid.”

  What?

  I blink, hard, but nothing about the mausoleum changes. I see everything about me: the pitted stone of the sarcophagus and the mold streaking the walls, every button on Laszlo’s coat, every scrap of lace. The pair of vampires seem sharper now, clearer than in the foggy gaslight, though their colors are gone, replaced by shades of deep gray and black. Their eyes shine like those of animals, gleaming flat disks.

  And we stand in pitch darkness.

  “I…I can see.”

  Laszlo frowns. I look away, my heart hammering more violently than before. I see how the Dead see.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.

  Laszlo lifts the sarcophagus’ lid. There’s no coffin inside, nor a stone bottom. A black well leads into a chamber of slimy mud walls, twenty feet below. There are no steps, no ladder. Only the pit.

  Laszlo waits. Amon gazes at me expectantly. I go to the sarcophagus. Mildew smears my skirts as I climb onto its side, swinging my legs over the ledge. The pit yawns. The underground beast is waiting, and I’m meant to leap down its throat.

  I grip the stone. I’m strong when the Dead are present. I can only hope I’m strong enough to survive a fall.

  I steel myself and jump.

  My skirts fly around me. I land in a crouch. The impact doesn’t so much as rattle me.

  Laszlo and Amon land beside me and head for the mouth of a tunnel. I follow them, struggling to keep my footing as the muddy passage continues downwards. Water drips from the ceiling, trickling through my hair.

  We pass the mouths of other tunnels on our left and right, more slimy passages. Dozens of them.

  “How many Dead are in Venice?” I whisper.

  “Some come, some go. But so many have fled or changed allegiance…” Laszlo brushes a speck of dirt from his sleeve and sighs. “Oh, our court was grand.”

  “Court?”

  “Death doesn’t rob us of our pretensions.” He chuckles. “You would have marveled at it. The salons. The balls. The hunts…”

  He shakes his head. “Diminished. Poor Dona Marina’s last gala was quite the disappointment. She’s gone into seclusion with shame.”

  My dread grows even worse. “Hunts?”

  “Yes.” He runs the tip of his tongue over his teeth. At close quarters I can see their edges, serrated like a shark’s. “Nothing compares to the chase.”

  He sighs again. “If only you could…well.” He looks at me sidelong, lips curving in a half-smile. “Perhaps one day you shall.”

  The invisible fist tightens again. I’ve nothing to say.

  The tunnel opens into a cavern. The smell of blood and rot strikes me, a stench so thick that it hangs like a fog, turning the air to a slime that makes my eyes water. I blink away tears and strangle a scream.

  The cavern is a nightmare ballroom. The floor is a sea of bones, legs, ribs, crumbling skulls patched with scraps of bloodless flesh. Thousands of hollow sockets stare at me. The walls are made of bone, jawless skulls packed together like bricks, shrouded in ragged cobwebs. A web of leg bones covers the ceiling, arranged in patterns like a horrible decoration, framing a mosaic of human teeth.

  Eyes glitter in the dark. Dozens of Lesser Dead creatures gather by the walls, crouching in packs. Pale winged strix crawl over the mounted skulls like bats, hissing among themselves. Upiri, samca, pricolici, moura and more crouch or cling, growling softly.

  Speaking.

  I understand them. The growls transform into words, fractured thoughts. Hungry. Mine. Leave. Mine. Go. Hungry. Mine. MINE!

  One wolf-like pricolici tackles another. They crash into the wall, grappling. A few other Dead creatures cast curious glances in their direction, but soon turn away, to stare. At me.

  All movement stops. Silence falls as the eyes of every member of the court fix on me.

  Blood, a samca growls. Blood! MINE!

  The Dead creature springs from its crouch and gallops towards me like an ape. Laszlo darts in front of me and backhands the vampire to the ground. The samca falls, bones shattering under its weight. Laszlo snarls at the others. Out of my way, slaves.

  The samca and the crowd of Lesser Dead shrink back, watching me hungrily from beneath their brows. Lszlo scoffs at them like royalty sneering at peasants. I follow him, stumbling as my feet sink into hidden pits in the ground. Now and again something squelches.

  Moonlight streams from a gash in the center of the cavern’s roof, casting a marble glow over a mountain of bones three times my height. An ancient Dead creature hunches atop it, a human thighbone in its hands. Its head is hairless, its skin chalk-white, its ears stretched into sharp points. Cobwebs cover it, stretching from the bones to its shoulders like a bizarre cape.

  The thighbone cracks in the vampire’s hands. The Dead creature extends a serrated white tongue and carves a chunk of
marrow from the bone.

  Another of the Greater Dead. Nosferat.

  The vampire swallows the marrow and turns to look down at us. Its eyes are bile-colored and grotesquely large. Its mouth opens, revealing two fangs in the center of its gum, a gruesome cross between a rat’s and a snake’s.

  Neither its lips nor jaw move, but a voice still leaves its throat, a dry croak. “What…is…this?”

  “An Unnatural, my lord.” Laszlo bows and sweeps his arm towards me. “Don Giacomo Foscari, the siorina Ayanda.”

  The nosferat eyes me, chewing. Laszlo nudges me. “Show some manners.”

  I grip my skirts and curtsy. “D-Don Giacomo.”

  Bones rattle as another vampire slinks from behind the mountain. Her whitened hair is dry as straw, twisted into straggling braids that dangle from beneath a metal circlet. Wormy veins pulse under paper-thin skin covered in faded tattoos, patterns of complicated knots that travel from her arms to her neck. A plate of dented armor protects her torso and heavy gauntlets cover her hands, with slits that allow her claws to protrude from their fingertips.

  Gjenganger, another of the Greater Dead. A warrior vampire.

  She looks me up and down, lip curling in a sneer. “Unnatural.” Her voice drips with disdain. “Evil filth.”

  Laszlo rolls his eyes. “Such airs, Rionach.”

  The Lesser Dead draw closer, growls turning to whispers, too soft to make out. The nosferat stares at me. I feel his gaze dissecting me, unwinding me thread by thread.

  “Strange. Thou art not meat,” Don Giacomo drawls. “I have no desire to drink thee dry.”

  A samca grumbles. Don Giacomo’s gaze slides from me, hardening into a glare. The samca falls silent with a sulky hiss.

  His gaze meets mine again. “What art thou, girl?”

  I swallow hard and straighten my posture. “Unnatural.”

  “More than that.”

  “I don’t know.”

  The Dead mutter. Strange creature. Not meat.

  “I gain strength in your presence.” My voice sounds horribly loud. “I see as you see. I understand your speech. I…I don’t know what it means.”

  Don Giacomo narrows his eyes. Another whisper begins behind me. Dhampiresa…dhampiresa…dhampiresa…

  Rionach’s sneer falters. Don Giacomo flicks his wrist and tosses the empty thighbone over his shoulder. A scrawny ghul leaps out of the shadows, catches it and scurries away, the bone crumbling between its teeth.

  “What dost thou want?” the nosferat asks.

  I try to ignore the noise of splitting bone. “I want to kill the fiend.”

  Rionach snorts. “You, monster?”

  Don Giacomo lifts a hand. Rionach closes her mouth.

  The nosferat’s gaze grows vague, turning inward. “Dhampiresa,” he murmurs. “Dhampiresa.”

  He looks to me again. “For what reason dost thou wish her destruction?”

  “I…perhaps my reason’s the same as yours.”

  “Is it?” His lip curls, revealing more of his rat-like fangs. “Hath she stolen what is thine? Hath she invaded thy domain and robbed thee of thy subjects?”

  His face contorts into a furious mask. “The Dead of Venice are mine. The lowly ones I direct. The others serve me willingly.”

  He flexes his claws. “But she hath broken my thrall. Lured many to her cause. Given others leave to flee.”

  Rionach glares at Laszlo. He gazes back with an innocent smile.

  “How has she broken it?”

  “I am old, girl. So very, very old.” He shakes his head with a twisted smile. “My strength is not what it was.”

  He scrutinizes me again. “What dost thou know of her?”

  My skin crawls under his gaze. “She calls herself the Dragon’s heir—"

  “Arrogant wench!”

  His voice roars about the chamber. The Lesser Dead retreat.

  “We remain as we were at death. She was young at hers. Reckless. Filled with foolish dreams.” A contemptuous snarl slides into his voice. “She ignores the ancient laws. She speaks of uniting the Houses. Uniting!” He laughs, a single dry bark. “House wars against House. The strong slay the weak. That is our way!”

  The Dead murmur. Rionach nods. Laszlo says nothing, his face carefully blank.

  “But she dares usurp my House. A slithering, whispering, perfidious wretch of a kudlak…” The nosferat growls like a beast. “She hath not the power to battle as is the law, yet dares claim the crown of the Dragon!”

  Now’s my chance to ask. Perhaps my only one. “Dragon?”

  “The conqueror. The murdered king,” he murmurs. “Dracul.”

  The word punches into my chest like a dagger.

  “We await his return. But not in the form of a viperous kudlak! A whelp that hath forgotten her place!”

  Don Giacomo clenches his jaw, staring into the distance. “Had I the strength I once possessed…”

  Laszlo steps forward. “The strength that may lie in the blood of a singular Unnatural?”

  I whirl on him. A faint smile crosses his face. “As I said, I’ve no real wish to leave.”

  “Yes.” Don Giacomo’s sickly eyes slide from Laszlo to me. “Yes…”

  He jerks his head at Rionach. She lunges at me and backhands me across the face. I crash down onto the floor of bones, my head spinning. She seizes my arm. Laszlo grabs my other. The pair of them lift me, dragging me up the mountain of bones to where the nosferat crouches, moonlight glinting on his spittle-slicked fangs.

  “No!” I kick out, digging my heels into the bones. The vampires’ fingers squeeze, locking me in a viselike grip. I twist, thrash, but can’t break free. My strength isn’t enough, not against two of the Greater Dead…

  “Come now, don’t carry on so,” Laszlo says. His voice is conversational, without even a hint of strain. “You never truly believed you could destroy the fiend yourself, did you?” His hands tighten like iron bands. “Now you’ll give your strength to one who can.”

  He meant for this to happen. This was his plan from the start. And like a fool I followed him.

  I wrestle my arm from Rionach’s grip and smash my fist into his face. His head swivels about, turned at an impossible angle, and rights itself, joints crackling. He turns to me, eyes narrowed to slits, with no trace of lightness left.

  “At least you’ll be of use to someone,” he hisses. “Unnatural filth.”

  Rionach seizes my arm again. Don Giacomo waits at the mountain’s peak. His white tongue flicks out, dripping as his mouth stretches into a hungry leer.

  The taste of ash floods my mouth. The cold within me explodes, bolts darting through my body, my brain, my metallaric arm. Darkness fills me like smoke. Feelings that aren’t mine rise with it, as though someone else has slipped into my skin—

  Something bashes me sideways, out of my own head, turning me to a ghost in my own body. The vampires throw me down before the nosferat. My fingers clench the bones. The feelings boil inside me. Outrage, disgust, fury—

  This maggot dares to threaten me…to set his minions upon me…presumes to so much as meet my gaze—

  Something drags my voice from my throat, word by word. “You…talk…of…places.”

  The bones crumble to powder in my hands. “Yet you have forgotten yours!”

  The force propels me onto my feet. My hand rips a silver hatpin from my sleeve and stabs it into the nosferat’s heart.

  The vampire’s eyes bulge. My hand opens. The nosferat clutches at the pin, his flesh sizzling, burning. His eyes search mine, filled with shock, stupefaction.

  Recognition.

  Don Giacomo shatters. A dried-out corpse fractures and falls to dust. His skeleton crumples and joins the mountain of bones.

  The emotions flee my head. I gasp a breath, on my own. Alone in my body.

  Something used me. Something turned me to a puppet and used my hand to—

  Silence fills the cavern.
The Dead gape at me, moonlit statues.

  A smile cracks Laszlo’s face. Without taking his eyes from me, he sinks to one knee.

  Rionach looks between us, speechless. She clenches her fists, gritting her fangs, and kneels.

  Laszlo hisses at the others. “On your knees, vermin!”

  The Lesser Dead scuttle backwards, dropping low. Laszlo’s smirk widens. “Command,” he says.

  The rest of the Dead speak as one, a chorus of growls. “We shall obey.”

  Laszlo’s smile distorts his voice. “Call.”

  “We shall answer.”

  “Lead.”

  “We shall follow.”

  They bow their heads.

  To me.

  A crackle rises from the bones. Don Giacomo’s dust stirs as though caught in a breeze. It begins to rise, particles revolving into a whirlwind.

  The dust closes around me before I can scream, sinking into my skin and the icy marrow of my bones. A black needle stabs into my heart, piercing like a venom-filled fang.

  The cloud vanishes. A black core pulses inside my heart, cold as the void. The tether that’s always guided me towards the Dead pulls taut, split into many, blackened strands of spiderweb stretching from my heart to each of theirs.

  No…no, this is wrong, this can’t be…

  The knot in my heart burns cold. I want it gone, out of me, I want to reach into my chest and rip it out—

  The Lesser Dead creep closer. I lurch back, crashing down onto the mountain of bones. “Get away from me!”

  A force speeds down the strands. The Dead recoil. I fight my way to my feet and stagger down the mountain. The crowd of Dead parts, opening a path. I run into the passage and the nest of tunnels. The passage jerks to the right and spills into a muddy chamber, pitch-dark, its ground patched with pools of water coated in scum.

  I don’t know where I am. I don’t care. I have to get away, from these creatures and their filthy lair and the thing that seized me and the rot burning in my heart…

  Tears stream down my face. What am I?

  The scent of the sea wisps from the tunnel to my left. I run into it. Rancid water spatters my face. Dangling roots claw at my hair. The dripping walls turn to stone and then I’m out, bursting from a crack in a wall and out onto the stone dock. The lights of Venice gleam like distant fireflies.