I had mere moments to put the pieces together. The fire was spreading, the smoke was thick. From the window, I saw the source of it. The plants were on fire, the inside of the walls in flames. I launched myself up and over the rising smoke onto the parapet, where I could see more. The flames wrapped around the walls, sparked by his accelerant. His frequency was dim but he was still here.
“They went that way,” the boy said, as he pointed in the direction of the field to the north.
I could not smell her, see her, feel her—she had vanished.
The flames agitated the bloodless, drew them to the smell of flesh inside. It was not long before they got past the walls, past the flames, and into the camp. I had lost too much time and needed to catch him before he disappeared. I followed the frequency along the wall to the back where it was strongest—I knew he was there waiting for me. I faced the sea and looked out, relieved no bloodless rose from the water below.
“Răzbunare.” The hushed word came up to meet me. “R-r-r-r-evenge s-s-s-sweet,” he said. I looked down at the face of the famed impaler, the raging pyromaniac, as he clung to the rock beneath the ledge of the parapet. Vlad smiled at me with his metal grill, his iron fangs a permanent fixture of his vampiric face. “For-r-r-r Jean,” he said. “If-f-f mine burn—yours-s-s too.”
He scowled, as he released his claws and fell back toward the sea. His body pierced the water like a torpedo, speeding beneath the waves and away from the cliff. Lost to the deep, he left me with his damage. He had helped Wallach invade the camp, causing the distraction that allowed the nomad to get the girl and the baby, and kill the clone. For revenge—all for petty revenge. He left with nothing but an empty satisfaction. But he would pay—revenge is sweet and primal and mine.
“No!” The boy’s voice reached me up on the wall. “Vincent.” His screams peaked—he was frightened. The bloodless came over the wall, burning in the flames but coming nevertheless. It was as if something greater than the smell of the men drove them to us.
I rushed down to get the boy. Several bloodless were closing in on him, backed into a corner as he was. He had a garden hoe and tried to hold them off. I sliced through the three of them, dropping them with my talons, and then threw the boy over my shoulder, carrying him to the smithy where I stored the seeds. We would use the powder to get the men out. “Have you seen the other two?” I asked.
“In the old bakery,” he said. “Last I saw.”
The two men had run into a hovel that had a second level, trying for higher ground. I grabbed the bag of seeds, my journal, and the boy. We crossed the street through the smoke. The air was thick and he could barely breathe let alone walk. I flung him over my shoulder again. The bloodless stayed clear of us with the seeds in my hand.
“Vincent.” Paul’s voice came at me through the smoke. The men were in the bakery but burning bloodless had trapped them. Beck was bit and Paul could barely stand. I will admit for a brief moment I questioned my intention. I should have fled, left them there amidst the flames and bloodless. I needed to track the girl—I needed to get out. “Vincent,” Paul’s second cry appealed to my heroic side.
The boy grabbed a pitchfork off the wall and ran toward the trapped men. He dug the prongs into the first bloodless and it dropped easily, aflame as it was. I destroyed the others swiftly and freed the men, pulling out the seeds and ordering them to make the powder. “We have to get out,” I said.
“How?”
“Over the wall.”
“But the flames,” Helgado said. “We can’t.”
“Through the gate then,” I said.
I believed the powder would make the bloodless disperse and we could walk right out the front door. The camp was a cacophony of howls and fiery roars. I could not see the bloodless, as I made my way through the lane with the men, tossing the powder around them. The market square was a scene of chaos—blind chaos. The smoke was thick but I could hear the frightened fowl cluck in their coop. I think it was at that moment everything slowed to a halt and the scene turned black and white. The smoke cleared and revealed the bloodless toppling over the walls as if aimlessly throwing themselves inside. They were like ants fleeing a poisoned hill, running away from something rather than to it.
Suddenly everything went mute and I was oblivious to the men screaming at my side. The sound of the camp’s large doors flying open deafened me, as the barrier exploded, the wood splintering beneath a heavy blow. Only when the smoke escaped from the entrance, as if sucked through the opening, did I see the cause.
“Du Maurier.” Rangu’s voice boomed with wickedness, as I barely trusted the vision that came to my eyes. An insult to our kind, he was a demonic aberration worse than Scylla or Demogorgon—hideous, gargantuan, transformed into something so unnatural I have yet to recover my senses. I cannot record the atrocity on these pages—but his guttural chuckle will haunt me always. “Vin-n-n-n-ncent-t-t-t-t-t!”
His appearance was not even the worst of it, for greater misery flanked him—my kin—Stephen and Veronica. Once lithe, beautiful, they were now transformed like Maxine into beaked, twisted, bulging-eyed creatures. Veronica stepped forward first, extending her hand. She made a trill sound that stung my ears and sounded like join us-s-s-s-s-s.
“I-I-I …” I stuttered, trying to reason with her but was barely able to speak. Stephen stepped forward, his blood-red eyes looking through me. His hair was disheveled with missing clumps and what looked like brain matter caught in its strands. He had obviously been bludgeoned in the head.
When Veronica came forward, I could not move, the horror of them both was too much. Stephen struck at me first, knocking me back thirty feet. The men had already fled and the bulk of the powder was gone, but it did not matter since it did not affect the bloodless vampires. Stephen came at me again, throwing his whole body on top of me. The force was violent, the momentum powerful. He pressed his face up against mine and I tried to see him as he once was, but could not. He was no longer one of mine. Rage filled me, sadness inspired me, and I reached for the nearest thing. When he had knocked me over, we toppled the water cart and one of its wheels was next to me. I grabbed it, ripping it from the axel, and slung it over his head. I threaded him between two spokes, crushing his malleable skull with the steel. When I got the wheel around his neck, I used my talons to sever his head from his body.
Veronica came forward next, her shrill scream deafening me again. She reached for her beloved’s body and yanked it off me, and then lunged for his severed head and attempted to place it back on his neck. I thought I was in a dream. She slammed the head down onto its body until it finally held itself and was newly fused together—Stephen was reborn. I did not have time to rise, for Rangu’s bellow came from somewhere above me, and when I looked up, he hovered over me, black tar seething from his grin. “Rmmmph!”
I had few options, if any, to escape with the three surrounding me. I do not know why the clone popped into my head in that instant, but like a vision she did, and I stiffened my muscles, imagining myself up and out from the fray. My body heeded the image and sprang up like a stone from a slingshot. My momentum was great but then I quickly sank and landed somewhere behind them, though not out of reach. Veronica was quick and threw herself at me, knocking me down again. Her fangs latched onto my throat but she could not grip my granite flesh. I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her mouth from my neck. Her scalp came off in my hand and her bite regained its vigor. I put my other hand under her chin and forced her away from me. She was strong but I was stronger. I could have severed her head, but did not waste the time. I sprang from the ground and ran up the laneway.
“Vincent,” the boy said. “Up here.”
The men were on the second floor of the bakery, and I scaled the wall to reach them.
“We’re trapped,” Helgado said. They were trapped, but I could still get away. Beck lay on the ground, his leg bloodied and wounded, and the smell hit me with force. “Vincent!” Helgado said. “What do we do?”
&n
bsp; His panic irritated me. “We have to get out,” I said.
“How?”
“Into the forest,” I said. “From there, we will see.” My plan was shoddy at best, but I never intended to see it through.
“That’s suicide,” Helgado said.
“Beck can’t walk,” Paul said.
“I can, I can,” Beck said through clenched teeth.
“Let’s go then” Helgado said. “What’re we waiting for?”
I was waiting for the bloodless vampires to find the humans—a fresh diversion. I suppose I could say I tried to save the three men, that I helped get them out, through the camp, over the wall and into the forest with me. I could lie and write history as I imagine it to be, but I am no liar—I am a vampire. This is where you will think me a villain perhaps, which is fine, just do not mistake me for a victim. I would save myself and find the girl. The horror of becoming a hybrid is enough to drive anyone to do what I did. I may seem cold-blooded now, but was far worse when I was human—war makes men brutal, makes them sacrifice morality, anything, to survive.
I tossed the injured man down to the abomination below. I ignored his screams, as I sank my fangs into the boy I had always considered my enemy. I drank Helgado’s blood for vengeance, without remorse. He passed out before I threw him down next. The other man did not stop me, but jumped from the second-story window to free himself. He broke his legs when he landed and the bloodless swarmed. He was the best distraction for me, as I made my way out the window and past the busied fiends tearing him apart. When I reached the parapet, I did not look back. I ran around to the rear of our hill town and launched myself into the raging sea below.
Save the girl—do it!
Byron’s words haunted me and I thought of nothing else. I did not doubt my girl was still alive. I suppose I could feel her blood, despite my indulgence with the boy. With fresh sustenance driving me, I launched my body up and out of the water, clinging to the slippery surface of the rock. I made my way sideways across the stone using my talons, moving north along the coast in the direction Wallach had taken my girl. When I reached the middle point of the field north of the hill town, I scaled the rock to the woods above, where an abandoned hamlet lay on the other side of an arboretum. I could only hope he had headed there. The nomad had an hour on me, maybe less, so I moved quickly through the trees, knowing I did not have much time before Rangu and his henchmen would be on my trail. There were few if any bloodless left in the woods. They had moved into the hill town, used up by the inferno.
I knew which way to go—maybe it was instinct, or perhaps I smelled her, but when I came across the body of a fallen bloodless in the middle of the small woods, I was on to her. It was motionless, lying on the ground next to my first clue. I picked up the Dilo seed and brought it to my lips. My fangs itched, it was covered in Evelina’s touch, her sweat, her scent. She had grabbed the sack of seeds before the nomad abducted her. He had no idea she was the reason he was safe from the bloodless. I found the second seed twenty feet from the first, and the third was on the outer edge of the hamlet on the other side of the woods. I crossed the meadow and found two more. Closer now, I found another a few yards from the last. The trail ended near a small water mill with a dried out wheel and a lawn overgrown with poppies.
I recognized the blood in the air. The scent came from inside the water mill, something lodged in a compartment between two spokes and the hub. I reached in and pulled out the baby’s swaddling blanket. It was stained with blood—not hers, her mother’s. I clung to the blanket, holding it to my nose. My gums tingled and I could not resist placing the soaked linen on my tongue.
“Ce mai faci, Du Maurier?” He greeted me with a bloody mouth, stained with the spoils of rabbits and badgers. The smell of animal blood gave me the slightest relief.
“Where is my girl?”
“Not yours anymore,” he said. “Îmi pare rău.” His apology was dripping with sarcasm.
I wanted to throttle him, tear him in two pieces, maybe four, but I needed him. I needed to know where she was. I tucked the bloody swaddling cloth in my belt and approached him slowly. “You can keep the baby,” I said. “I just want the girl.”
“Da,” he said. “Pardon.” He smiled. “Mâine.” Tomorrow.
“No,” I said. “Now.”
He toyed with the carcass hanging from his belt before ripping it off. He brought the rabbit up to his nose, savoring it. I suffered the nomad, as he bit through the pelt and slurped the animal noisily. When he was finished, he tossed it aside and then picked the fur from his teeth. “Veronica,” he said. “I want her, and the girl is yours.” He had to have known—he must have seen his progeny. “Unde este Veroní-í-í-íca?”
“Nu știu,” I said. “She has not been with me for—”
“Rahat, mincinos!” He did not believe me.
“Îmi pare rău,” I said. “I will tell you where she is if—and only if—you tell me where Evelina is.”
He read me—he knew I was telling the truth now. “Spune-mi,” he said.
I told him what I had seen in my camp, that they were just on the other side of the woods and they would be coming for me. I told him they were no longer like us.
“Răzbunare,” he said.
“Revenge,” I said. “For what?”
“Rangu.”
He knew I had not helped my fellow vampire in the vineyard. I had left him for dead, saving the girl instead. He came at me then with hate in his eyes but he faltered and I grabbed him by the throat, crushing it, as I tried to squeeze his head off. “Where is she?” I said. “Tell me and I will spare you.”
My talons pierced his weaker skin—the wild look in his eyes told me it was unpleasant. “Plecat,” he said barely audible. Gone.
I squeezed tightly. “Tell me,” I said. More tightly still. “Tell me.”
His eyes dulled and he strained to open his mouth when all at once the blood from the rabbit revisited him. He vomited down the front of his coat and I tossed him on the ground. He started to cackle but I could not tell if he laughed or cried. “Bine, Du Maurier, veți câștiga,” he said.
After conceding defeat, he said I had already lost her. He told me Rangu communes with the bloodless and leads them somehow. He brought them to my camp, made them climb the wall, and ordered them to rush into the fire. “I didn’t know about Veronica,” he said. “I didn’t know … vampir meu.” My vampire—she was no longer his, vampire no more. He said he did not know Vlad would be there, that the fire was a convenient distraction, a coincidence. But I do not know if I believe that.
“Does he have her?” I asked.
He shook his head. “She does,” he said.
“Who?”
“Împărăteasă,” he said. “She has the girl.”
Resurrected by the great Xing Fu of the Zhou dynasty at the turn of the twentieth century, the vampire Empress had become a powerhouse in recent decades.
“Where?”
He gave me a bloody smile and winked. “El vine,” he said. He is coming. “La revedere, Du Maurier.”
I did not hear Rangu come, but left Wallach not wanting to get caught up. Between the men I found on my shore, the ship I had seen passing, and the reputed Empress, I knew where to go. The Genoese docks were not far and as I got closer, the smell of human blood confirmed my suspicion. When I saw the harbor, it evinced the abandoned world. Boats and yachts had been neglected, tossed on their sides, some even sunk altogether. The port’s control tower had collapsed and was stuck, half in half out of the water. A massive cruise ship had capsized close to shore and was still eerily lit up by its emergency signals. Great cranes and container lifts were desolate, looking like visitors from outer space come to wreak havoc on the port and failed to return home. They stood guard along the water’s edge like mechanical giraffes. When I looked out at the bay, I saw the cargo ship about a mile off the coast. I had found what I was looking for. It was the same ship that had passed by all those days ago when she was with me.
I made my way down to the shipyard, looking for a vessel to take me out to sea. I heard them, as I approached—their frequencies buzzing all around me. A flock of harmless, hungry vampires loitered on one of the docks, standing in a line, facing the ship as though willing it to them. The bloody smell was unmistakable and even I could not keep my fangs from dropping. Only one of the vampires acknowledged me when I approached. He was a starved looking fellow with a more peaked complexion than most. He saluted me with his free hand, the other cradling the fine sculpture he held at his side.
“You’re an old one, aren’t you?” His regional accent was impeccable.
“Ancient,” I said.
He kept playing with his fangs, letting them drop over his bottom lip and then pulling them up again. “I haven’t seen you here before,” he said. “First time?”
“What is this?” I asked.
“Ho,” he said. “You don’t know? This is the jackpot, man. But where’s your offering?” He looked me up and down. “Your payment?” He asked. “Gotta give her something to get on, man.” He held out his sculpture for me. “It’s a Pisano,” he said.
The bust of a woman and child, probably the Madonna and Christ, was delicate, almost modern looking in its details. Its base was gone and it looked as if it had been ripped from a stone pedestal. I did not ask him where he got it—I did not care.
“You’ll need something like this to get in,” he said. “She doesn’t accept junk.”
“To get in?” I asked.
“The blood den, man,” he said. “No golden bough, no ferry ride to the pleasure dome.” He thought he was clever, smiling at his own wit, but I found him tedious. “You look well fed, man” he said. His eyes lingered on the redness of my lips. They betrayed my satiation. “Where do you keep your stash?” He sniffed the air around me.
I nudged him a little when he got too close.
“I gave up drinking the fiends,” he said. “Couldn’t take the stench anymore. Her den saved me, man. When the ship leaves, I jones until it pulls into port again. She gets the goods—I don’t know where she finds them but man she serves the freshest blood.”
The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) Page 20
