The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3)

by K. P. Ambroziak

  She was still a bit groggy, but she lay back on the berth and stirred when I spoke. She looked up at me with soft eyes and said, “Yes, but he lives in a different section.”

  “Why? Does the Empress separate men and women?”

  She shook her head. “I need to tell you something,” she said. “I have a message from Vincent.”

  “What is it?” I was eager to hear anything from my beloved, even if it came from the mouth of a donor.

  “He wants you to only feed on me,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t say,” she said. “To be honest, I was surprised he said it. But he insisted that I be your only donor.”

  “Does he only drink your blood?”

  “No,” she said. “Mine and another girl’s.”

  My anger almost brought me to my knees, my fingertips burning and my chin feeling like it’d been whacked, as jealousy’s spiteful twin ate from my gut. I muted my anger, though, not wanting to frighten Muriel. “What other girl?” I asked, desperate to sound normal. It pained me to think of the young girl’s color, her taste, her beauty. He must’ve found her appealing, at least enough to feed on her when he could’ve been satisfied with Muriel’s blood, as I’m expected to be.

  “She lives with me,” she said. “She helps me take care of Lucia.”

  “Who’s Lucia?” I was ashamed the moment I asked. The child, Evelina, the child that was torn from your limbs, the child Vincent fought to save.

  Muriel looked at me with sympathy, which only made me more angry. “She’s doing well,” she said. “Your baby girl is thriving here.”

  I waved the air and looked away. I didn’t want to hear anything that sounded remotely like an expression of human emotion. I didn’t need softness and sentimentality to distract me. There was no place for nostalgia in my world.

  “What’s this girl’s name?” I asked. “Vincent’s other donor?”

  “Gia,” she said. “Her name is Gia.”

  The rap on the door let me know it was time for my donor to go. Before sending her away, I had one last request. “Will you do something for me?” I asked.

  “Of course, Evelina,” she said. It was strange to hear my name come from so small a voice. “Anything that’s within my power.”

  I assured her it wasn’t a complicated task. “Can you get me a razor?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll send Monica with it when I return.”

  I assumed it was an errand beneath her when she mentioned another. “Monica?”

  “She’s our steward,” she said. “She’d be the one to get it.”

  It didn’t surprise me there was a rank among the humans. If I’d learned anything about my maker, it was that she ran a tight ship.

  Veor knocked on the door a second time, asking if she was all right. “I’m fine,” she said. “I must go, Evelina. But I’ll send Monica right away.”

  When the girl showed up only moments later, I didn’t doubt Muriel’s loyalty.

  Monica’s skin was as rich as honey and her hair as frizzy as a sponge. She smiled wide, showcasing the lovely gap between her two front teeth. Veor, who stood a few paces back and refused to greet me a second time, accompanied her.

  “Evelina,” the girl said. “Muriel sent me with this.”

  I took the small package from her and thanked her without ceremony and closed my door again.

  Sealed in the solitude of my compartment, I unwrapped the razor from the linen and pulled it out. It was a silver straight edge with an opal handle. The blade was shiny and sharp. I filled the small washbasin with cold water and then dropped my head over the pool and wet my hair. I began midway and worked my way up, slicing into my strands with the straight edge. I avoided looking in the broken mirror hanging above the basin. If I relied on the cracked shards to guide me, they’d only slow me down. I used my fingers instead, shearing off my strands one handful at a time. I ran my fingers over my head until I’d reached the desired length, about an inch all around. My hair straddled the basin and lay in heaps on the deck, but I didn’t mourn it. I wouldn’t let it be used against me and though I’d always coveted my girlish tresses, I was no longer a girl and the mane was unbefitting the warrior I wanted to become.

  The Empress was the first to admire my new cut. She sent for me to visit her in her cabin, where she announced my challenge in the ring.

  “It suits you, Ei wai lina,” she said. She was happy I’d learned Mandarin, and spoke rapidly, testing my new skill set—a test which I passed with ease. “I didn’t doubt your ability,” she said. “Xing Fu’s venom is potent.”

  She was a completely changed vampire, sweet and attentive to me. She sat me on the daybed with her and offered me a cigarette from her case. I took it, not wanting to seem impolite, but never lit it and left it poised between two fingers. When she noticed I wasn’t actually smoking the stick, she took my hand and held it up to her mouth, lighting the cigarette with one powerful pull on the filter. Once lit, she gestured for me to put it in my mouth and waited while I took a drag. I didn’t choke on it, but suffered the shock of the nicotine to my heart. The Empress laughed.

  “First time?” She asked.

  “I don’t smoke,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can see that. You will, however.”

  I wasn’t sure about that but didn’t want to disrupt what seemed like a pleasant visit. The Empress was in a fine mood, though I knew that could change like the weather out at sea. My heart beat rapidly in my chest, almost drumming on my ribs, as we smoked cigarettes together like a couple of schoolgirls under the bleachers. I finished three before she addressed me. The crystal ashtray on the side table was filled with butts and ash. The Empress started a sixth when I politely refused a fourth.

  “I have decided how you will prove your worth,” she said. “How you will make Xing Fu proud.”

  She stood up and paced the cabin with her hands tucked in the sleeves of her robe and her cigarette holder poised in her taut mouth.

  “Do you know why I must be hard on you, Ei wai lina?” She looked at me when she spoke, but only through the large mirror that hung on the bulkhead across from the daybed. I shook my head to show her I didn’t know. “Humph,” she said.

  There was a pedestal in one corner of her compartment that held a small ivory box. She went over to the box and pulled a key from her sleeve to unlock it. Once she lifted the lid, the inside of the box glowed. I thought I’d imagined the light coming from the box, but once she pulled something out and closed it again, I definitely saw a light go out.

  “Xing Fu, my maker,” she said, “gave me this box when I was awakened to blood. It’s filled with treasures given over the years for my diligence and loyalty. Today, I pass one of them on to you as a show of my commitment.”

  She turned to face me with something small clasped in her hand. I couldn’t see the gift she wanted to bestow on me, but I didn’t doubt it was opulent. She moved toward me, and I stayed perfectly still, though I moved slightly back when she reached for my hand.

  “Are you frightened?” She asked through clenched teeth.

  I renewed my effort to be brave and sat up taller on the daybed, leaning toward her and holding my hand up for her. “Of course not,” I said with a smile.

  “Good,” she said. “Fear can be a motivator, but it can also destroy every part of you and burn you like the sunlight. Fear is like a disease that will eat away at your insides and corrupt you from within. You cannot hide fear, nor can you run from it. If you invite fear in, it will never leave. All fear must be destroyed, Ei wai lina. You cannot carry fear with you. It’s too heavy and will suffocate you the first chance it gets.” She sounded like she was reading from the strips of wisdom hidden in the folds of fortune cookies.

  She stared at me with her dragoness eyes and I suppressed the fear that rumbled in my belly. I encouraged anger instead and stoked its flames.

  “Good,” she said again, as she caressed the back of my hand with her claws
. “You have fine fingers but your talons are slow to come, and that, my novice, tells me that you’re still fearful.”

  I braced inwardly, waiting for her to slap me across the face with her talons just to show me what I was missing. But the abuse didn’t come. Instead, she produced the gold signet ring she’d taken from the ivory box and placed it on the index finger of my left hand.

  “Perfect fit,” she said. “We have similar hands, you and I.” She held up her hands to show me, her decorative claws covering several of her fingers. I thought our hands looked nothing alike, but who was I to break our bonding moment. If I’d learned anything so far, it was that I had to befriend my maker, at least for the time being, until my beloved took me from my hell and we began the life he’d promised me.

  “What do you think of Vincent?” The Empress asked, as if she could read my mind. I suddenly recalled Peter’s warning to be diplomatic of thought, as well as speech, since he wasn’t sure if she had the gift to read me.

  “As you know, he saved my life,” I said.

  “Did he really, though?” She smiled and stroked my hand again. She hadn’t let it go since placing the ring on my finger. “Didn’t I save you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course, you’ve given me a better life than any I could’ve imagined.” I was disgusted by my faux flattery but played the required role. I would be the devoted progeny, the exemplary novice, the loyal subject, anything to get away unscathed.

  The Empress studied my face, having pulled her gaze away from the signet ring. “I really do like this look for you,” she said. “It suits your round face better, makes you look more fierce, less girlish.” She reached out and drew her finger across my hairline, and down to my chin. “You are still beautiful, though,” she said. “What does Vincent think?”

  He hadn’t seen it yet, and I told her so.

  “We’ll have to ask him when he arrives, then,” she said. “Another cigarette?”

  I shook my head and thanked her.

  “I think you should,” she said, and pulled the case from her sleeve, clicking it open and sticking it in my face before I had the chance to refuse a second time. I took the cigarette but before I could bring it to my mouth, she leaned in, her taut lips red and dry, offering to light it for me. That’s when I noticed her tongue, which was fittingly pointed like a dragon’s. She lit the stick and I smoked my fifth cigarette within minutes. I hated the taste and couldn’t wait to wash it away with Muriel’s blood.

  “So you’ll tell him, then?” She asked.

  “Tell him?” I was confused. The Empress would jump from thought to thought as seamlessly as she’d jumped from bulkhead to bulkhead during her attack on me. She was difficult to follow in conversation and battle.

  “You’ll tell Vincent that you’re grateful I saved your life,” she said. “He should know the truth. I’m sure he still believes you are his in some way. But we should clear that up when he comes.”

  She tested me to see if I’d have the courage to tell him I wasn’t his. I disliked the Empress more than ever, but would never show her, let alone think it. I smiled at her and assured her I would clear that up the minute I saw him.

  “He should be here promptly,” she said. “He told Youlan he’d finish feeding and come at once.”

  I pictured Vincent feeding on Gia. I knew Muriel would be too depleted from feeding me, and he’d be sucking on the neck of the other donor. My fangs dropped, though I held my jaw still as stone. Empress Cixi smiled when she noticed my reaction. It had been subtle, but I couldn’t hide it. She held her cigarette case open and forced me to take another.

  I got up from the daybed once she’d lit it for me, and I paced the deck, as I inhaled the whole cigarette with one ambitious drag. The sooner I was done with it, the better. I stamped the butt out in the crystal ashtray, relieved she didn’t offer me another.

  “Do you remember your human life?” She asked.

  I felt entranced, as if lightheaded from all the smoke. She waved her hand and assured me the dizziness would pass.

  “I recall some things,” I said. “But they seem almost like a dream.”

  “Do you know Vincent has recorded much of your time together in a book he keeps with him?”

  She was referring to his journal—I didn’t know our life was recorded in its pages. It didn’t occur to me she could be lying and that she’d never seen the contents of his notebook. I assumed he carried it on him.

  “I know he keeps a journal,” I said. “But I’ve never read it.”

  “You should,” she said. “It’s gripping.” She lied with ease, that grand manipulator. “I want you to get it for me,” she said. “I want you to know what he thinks of you.”

  “If you’ve read it,” I said, “why don’t you just tell me.”

  That didn’t sit well with the Empress and she got up from the daybed with fiery eyes, as though poised to wipe the impudence from my lips, with fingers flexed and hardened talons. The cigarette dangling from her mouth tilted on the slightest angle when her lips parted. Balanced on the precipice between kindness and wrath, my maker drew in a breath and smiled, her hands releasing their tension, her eyes softening. “You really should read it for yourself, Ei wai lina.” There was a knock on the door and before she gave the visitor leave to enter, she whispered, “Think on it.”

  I expected my beloved to come into the cabin, and my nerves rattled my core, as I brought my hand up to cover my head. I suddenly felt self-conscious of my haircut. But it was a false alarm, for a young boy, perhaps only ten, came in, wearing a traditional Chinese suit, black silk with a green dragon on the left pectoral. He was a cute boy with a blond crew cut, and his colors were more magnificent than Hal’s. His skin gave off an electric blue color like the morphos I’d seen in my childhood nature books. The shade of blue shifted, as though undecided on which electric tint to settle.

  The Empress addressed the boy in a language I’d not learned yet, but it sounded Scandinavian, though it could’ve been Portuguese. The two exchanged words before the young boy sat on the daybed and opened his shirt. Despite the beautiful colors of his skin, I was put off by his age. He seemed young—too young—to be a donor.

  “Ei wai lina,” she said. “Please.” She gestured for me to sit beside the boy, and taste his blood. “Jörvi is a new addition, but he’s rather tasty.”

  Jörvi, like Hal, also seemed one-dimensional, robotic, as he awaited my bite. He was unaffected by his situation and, for a child, I found him self-possessed. I would’ve liked to refuse but something told me that if I did, I’d suffer the wrath of my maker. She’d been on her best behavior until then, despite her struggle to do so, and I didn’t want to see that change, especially since Vincent was coming. I’d be doubly humiliated if he came in as she batted me around the cabin for refusing her offering.

  I sat beside Jörvi and leaned into him. When my fangs dropped, he didn’t flinch or draw back but moved a bit closer. My teeth found the vein and pierced the boy’s delicate skin. His blood was extra sweet and I indulged myself, drinking him long past the point I should’ve, though he never wilted to indicate my stopping. I only pulled my fangs from the boy when I felt a yank on my shoulder. Lost in the pleasure of the sweet blood, I didn’t notice Vincent enter. He stood over me with a scowl and I quickly wiped Jörvi’s blood from my lips. A glance around the cabin alerted me to my abandonment. The Empress had left me while I fed.

  “She will be back,” Vincent said. “Get up.”

  I obeyed and bolted up from the daybed, leaving the donor to his recovery. I assumed he’d need a moment to regain his strength but he also stood up, and fled the compartment. Alone with Vincent, I shrunk under his scrutiny. He didn’t say a word, but glowered at me, his eyes not leaving my face. I could barely return his look, and stared at the deck sheepishly.

  He finally said, “Look at me.”

  Though difficult to face him, I did and we locked eyes. I don’t know if I imagined it, but I thought he softened unde
r my gaze. He released the tension in his mouth, and his eyes seemed to narrow when his brow furled. I wanted to reach out and touch his face with my hand as I once did, reminding him how handsome he was when he smiled, but I wouldn’t dare.

  I don’t know how long we studied each other like that, alone in the Empress’s cabin, but I felt my whole existence encompassed in those moments of intimacy—for it was intimate, though I can’t say why. Perhaps I felt him whispering secrets in my ear, or at least I felt his desire to do so, though neither of us spoke. The spell was only broken when the Empress’s simian screech echoed in the passageway. She was about to enter the cabin, and I think Vincent also sensed her because he reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it twice before releasing it again and stepping away from me to stand on the other side of the cabin.

  “Good,” the Empress said. “She’s told you, then?”

  Vincent nodded and smiled.

  I was wholly confused but didn’t dare let her see my confusion. They’d obviously made some arrangement when I was tied up with Jörvi, for I had no idea what I’d told him or when I’d said it.

  “What do you think of her new style?” She asked. “I told her to cut it, of course. I thought it would better suit a progeny of mine.”

  I bit my lip, though I don’t know why her duplicitous behavior surprised me.

  “Her features are such that it is difficult for anything to diminish their quality,” Vincent said.

  I took it as a compliment, though I’m not certain it was. When he looked over at me to study me again, the lingering electricity from his touch renewed its charge.

  Empress Cixi pulled out her cigarette case and offered him one, which he refused. Then, without asking, she pulled one out for me, lit it, and handed it to me. I took the stick and put it in my mouth, smoking my seventh cigarette. I don’t know why I felt embarrassed, but I did and finished the butt off as quickly as I could.

  “Shall we discuss the fight?” He asked. “Since that is why I am here.”

  Empress Cixi smiled. “Yes, of course, the fight,” she said. “We’ll leave strategy to Huitzilli, but we should plan for her failure.”