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

by K. P. Ambroziak

  The violet sky, lightening by the moment, made her shrouded head glow, adorning her with a halo, and I thought how my counterpart is all that is wholesome and pure, she is everything good in me stowed away and muted for blood.

  The Rise of Evelina Caro

  The Empress’s interest in Evelina waned once she lost Xing Fu, though she never questioned the cause of her maker’s demise. The donor’s secret remained safe from Cixi. She refused visitors, even Youlan, locking herself up in her cabin with the young Jörvi for succor. Her threat to kill him at dawn stirred nothing in me, though I had Veor guard Muriel against her until my Evelina had paid Cixi her due.

  When the cargo ship reached the shores of the Nortrak, it did so without its original head. I had encouraged Evelina to end the Empress’s reign because such an act would confirm her autonomy and power. Though she had free will in all things, I insisted she get her revenge before we abandon the ship. Her place at its head would make our escape easier. Without question, she had the strength, the wit and the bravery to do what needed to be done. Her irons marked her for it, and when I commended her for her use of them on the shores of the Ligurian sea, she played modest, claiming the Toltec had teased her irons out.

  “His were mean,” she had said, “and I wanted a set of my own so badly I obsessed over them. By the time I was starved and alone, they were itching to come out.”

  Her eagerness made me smile. She turned from girl to woman overnight, like my Shenmé, and her vampirehood demanded my attention. She showed me her irons again and again, tempting me as Huitzilli had teased her with his. Our physical communion was not only baptized in the carnal but the brutal too, Evelina far more violent than Byron ever was. Her fearlessness at the cathedral was just a sketch of who she would become.

  I admired her more than ever, as she stepped into the role I had given her without a modicum of hesitation, fear no longer an emotion that moved her. When I asked her in the privacy of the cabin we shared if she would like to become the head of a band of wild and unruly vampires, she said, “These vampires will only obey me if I destroy their Empress.”

  “That is correct,” I said, reading her body shift as a sign of approval.

  “Do I need permission to kill a vampire older than me?”

  “From whom?”

  “My maker.”

  I smiled inwardly. “It is all yours.”

  “She falls in your line, though.”

  “Cixi has nothing of me in her, and the viper must get her comeuppance.”

  “Do you think I can do it?”

  “I believe it is something you were made to do. The closure will benefit you, too.”

  “Should I be angry at her for making me yours?”

  “Are you?”

  “I can’t hold it against her since it’s the only thing I’ve wanted since meeting you.”

  Her confession made me high, as she tightened the cords of love.

  “It was my gift to give,” I said, “not hers. She robbed us of our ceremony.”

  “I see.” She ran her hand over the cropped ends of her short hair, some of it having already grown back.

  In our early hours together Evelina had asked me in a moment of weakness, when pleasure wracked her body, if I could have made her. My answer was simple, “If only for this,” I whispered, my low timber causing her hard body to tremble.

  “Tell me how to take the Empress’s head,” she said. “I am ready to get my revenge.”

  I gave my counterpart the directions she needed, the secret bits of advice that would have Cixi bending at Evelina’s will. I did not worry my girl would lose courage or heart or develop a conscience to bar her against fulfilling the task. Evelina had tasted Cixi’s evil firsthand, a humiliation that required reparation.

  I was not present for Cixi’s beheading, but Evelina gave me details. “I doubled my strength to smite her bones,” she said. “I wished to see agony paint her face gray.”

  “But you were denied,” I said.

  “I was.”

  “The Empress would not give you the pleasure of seeing her pain.”

  “It wasn’t that,” Evelina said. “She begged for death, she wailed with hurt. She even promised to throw herself overboard with her maker.”

  “She longed to be with Shenmé.”

  “She wanted me to send her to her maker.” Evelina looked away, unable to hold my gaze.

  “There is no shame in empathy,” I said.

  “She collapsed on the deck and begged me to take her life with honor.”

  “And did you heed her request?”

  “How could I?” The corners of her mouth drew upward, though her smile was reserved.

  “Let me see,” I said, pressing my forehead to hers. Her vault opened and the fresh memory appeared before me.

  “Do it Ei wai lina!” The Empress had begged. “Send me to a watery grave. Burn me up and let my ashes float in the sea with my maker’s. Put your hand on my heart and pull it out from my chest. Starve me and toss me overboard. Please, please end this misery.” Cixi was on the deck, reaching for my girl, as she stood ten feet taller like a fierce and unforgiving goddess.

  “I want to burn out your heart, Cixi,” Evelina had said, her voice calm and soft as she leaned in to kiss the Empress with her eyes. “I want you to drink the gore of the bloodless, as they tear you to pieces.”

  “No, Ei wai lina. Keep me whole for Shenmé.”

  “No,” Evelina had whispered the word twice, as she soothed the dragoness with a stroke of her hair. Then, sliding her hand down the side of her cheek, she cupped the Empress’s chin in her palm and pulled her face upward. “I can’t do that,” she said. “Your crown is the thing I need.”

  “No,” the Empress wailed. “No! You can’t! It mustn’t end it like this, Ei wai lina. Please, show mercy.”

  “As you have shown me?”

  “Have pity on the one who saved you—I brought you to Vincent—I gave you to the great one—I made you his—with his venom.”

  “Another crime for which you must pay. Stealing my life, my awakening too.”

  The Empress bowed her head and said, “You do not regret becoming his, do you?”

  Evelina’s voice boomed in the cabin, and the trinkets on the shelves shook. “It was his gift to give, not yours.”

  “You must see,” Cixi said, “forgiveness is the higher road.”

  Evelina chuckled and ran her fingers through the Empress’s hair, pulling her head back and down. She leaned forward and placed her mouth overtop Cixi’s, keeping her in suspense. “You must stay your wrath,” the Empress said. “My vampires will not let you get away with this.”

  “I already have.”

  “Your heart is soft, Ei wai lina. You are a novice, your humanity is still strong in you. Take pity on me, see in your heart.”

  “There is room for only one thing in my heart.”

  “I know the truth about Lucia,” the Empress said.

  Evelina faltered, and dropped her hand from the Empress’s head. She stepped back and scowled. Cixi thought it was her chance, her reprieve, the perfect words to soften Evelina’s wrath.

  But Evelina said, “She belongs to Vincent.”

  “You know,” the Empress whispered, though Evelina did not hear. The novice’s ears were tuned to the swift breeze of her talons as they cut along the air, swooping down to slice off the head of her enemy.

  Commander and empress no more, Cixi’s head dangled in Evelina’s hand midair with a mixed look of terror and spite, her dragoness eyes staring up at her assailant. The image was seared on my mind when I pulled myself from the memory.

  “Lucia is mine,” I said.

  “Of course,” Evelina said. “She’s yours until the end of time, as am I.”

  She had not uncovered the truth, for she meant it symbolically.

  “She is mine,” I said. “I shall always keep her safe.”

  I told Evelina I was proud of her courage, her strength to avenge the treachery
Shenmé’s progeny had wrought. “Time cannot wait,” I said. “You must claim what is yours.”

  “The crew?”

  “They need a new head,” I said.

  “But will they obey a novice?”

  “They shall bow before my progeny and accept the Empress’s crown as proof you are a novice no more.”

  I did not tell her we needed an obedient clan, one that would remain in line until we had the chance to abandon them to their doom.

  A Spring of Blood

  Vincent’s past led to my present, and whatever portion of the future I was to be granted.

  “You are a testament to Evelina’s rise,” he said. “Can you see it?”

  I assured him I couldn’t.

  He rose from the chair and it creaked with relief. He flew to my side once again and bent down beside me, dropping his head to my ear to whisper, “Your guardian escaped the ship with us.”

  The world had already shrunk to the size of my studio, but with his words it shrank to sit atop the head of a pin. “My guardian?”

  “Can you recall his face?”

  I closed my eyes and imagined some of the characters he’d written about in his journal, their faces appearing as somber bloodhounds ripping up the night. None looked as my guardian had.

  “Picture one with a mouth full of metal, and gore beneath his fingernails, talons half the length of your nail beds.”

  “I can’t.”

  “He has changed over the years,” he said. “We all have.”

  He told me my guardian had come up with the plan to save what was left of Vincent’s line.

  “Will I meet him again?”

  Vincent snapped his fingers and his eyes grew wide, as he pressed his forehead up against mine. I shut my eyes, and lost my balance, falling back onto the floor behind me when his cold lips seemed to touch mine. I fell and fell, never actually touching stone, until light erupted in the darkness, and a wraith appeared before me.

  The man I called my guardian wore a high collar that covered his bearded chin, but I recognized the pendant hung about the figure’s neck. I had often seen my guardian clutch the string of beads, rolling each one in his fingers, as he mumbled the words he never spoke aloud.

  “He is the genesis,” my guardian whispered. “And she the holy vessel.”

  “Tell me your name,” I said to him as though he were in the room with me and not a thought planted in my mind.

  “You don’t remember me for good reason.”

  “Why?”

  “I am the rock. He is the genesis and she the holy vessel.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You are nothing without them,” he said.

  His face was aglow.

  “Where did you go? Why have you abandoned me?” I asked.

  “I am the rock, he is the genesis, and she the holy vessel, you are the seed, the last man, and our salvation.”

  “Why did you abandon me?”

  “I taught you all that I could,” he said. “You are safest in the second colony of the resurrected.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Where the others reside.”

  “What others?”

  He mouthed something but I couldn’t make it out and then he seemed to evaporate, his figure dissolving like a puff of smoke. I opened my eyes as soon as he vanished, and found Vincent’s face as close to mine as it had been before.

  “Would you like to meet her?” He asked, his mouth still hovering over mine.

  I cleared my throat, my larynx numb, and asked who.

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  He inhaled a gust of air, pulling mine from my lungs again. I grew dizzy as a grumble rose up from the pit of his stomach, like a sound erupting from the earth’s core as magma gurgles and chortles with the shifting of tectonic plates. I floated, struggling to grasp the edge of my drafting table as I drifted up to the ceiling above. The air grew thinner as brushstrokes of light danced in the sky above me.

  “Give in,” he whispered from far away.

  Suspended in darkness, my body came crashing to solid ground with a thud that wracked my spine, the hard blow sending heat through my skin. I rested in a dark place, the smell of frost strongest by my head.

  “He is awake,” someone said.

  “Bring him to me,” a second voice spoke.

  My body was lifted again, though this time by the hands of those around me. They carried me to a soft surface, the smell of frost replaced with lavender. I swooned, my head spinning from the change in gravity, but I listened for Vincent’s voice. When I finally heard the rich lilt of the vampire, I clung to it for comfort. The low grumbling served as a familiar backdrop, though I couldn’t see him.

  The smallest voice spoke next, “I should bring him the light. There isn’t much time.” My mind played tricks on me since I recognized my mother’s voice, though that was impossible. I barely recalled her face, let alone her voice. “You may see her again,” Gerenios had told me, “but memorize her features just in case.” I obeyed him and locked away some imagined composite of her. Her features changed but when I discovered Evelina’s notes, my mother’s image blended with my mosaic of Vincent’s counterpart.

  “He awakes,” another said.

  “His heart will replenish the lost blood,” the other said.

  “I hope he hasn’t suffered too much,” the smallest voice said.

  I was sure it was my mother’s voice, and I wanted so desperately to see her, but I couldn’t combat the darkness around me.

  Vincent? I mouthed his name.

  “He strains to see,” the first voice said. “Give him light.”

  With that, a strong force pressed itself into my brow and my head seemed to split in two. The pain sang in the roots of my gums, until a fine light came on and dulled it. Three figures stood over me, their faces shadowed.

  “Don’t speak,” the tallest one said.

  In my memory, she’s more elegant than the other two, but they were only ever a composite built from imagination. As I lay in that haunted space with the three figures standing over me, I pictured one of them as Béa Bijarnarson, the woman who’d given me life. I imagined witnessing my mother’s beauty in the faces of her ancestors, and that like them she was of Vincent’s line.

  “Don’t try to sit up,” one of them said. She reached out and caressed my cheek. “That’s our boy,” she said. “Let the light fill you, and heal your body.”

  My arm had seized up in pain, swelling as I lay there, giving them succor.

  “You were made for this.” The voice I imagined as Béa’s warmed my spirit. “You are for us.”

  I don’t understand. I tried to speak the words aloud, but could only mouth them. Vincent? Mother? What trick is this?

  “He is going into shock,” the deepest voice said, and then she called to Vincent. “He must be returned.”

  A scream escaped my lips as the three fell away, and I was plunged into darkness, departing my studio at the top of the tower in the second colony of the resurrected.

  My swelled tongue shrank, but my arm ached, as the warmth of Vincent’s touch seemed to heal the pain. “You will be fine,” he said. “They were easy on you.”

  They, I thought, the word repeating itself as though my inner voice was locked in an echo chamber. I wrestled with my stupor, finally pulling myself out with a jolt upward. My arm twitched, too heavy to lift. “What has happened to me?”

  “Once again you have extended life,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  I could feel what it meant in my bones.

  “You are our only source in a world of new blood,” he said.

  He had placed himself at my side, his aspect the tender one. The feathered mattress beneath me, the smell of ink on my drafting table, and the moisture of the tower walls gave me relief, but his soft look could make a heaven of any hell.

  “What am I?”

  “The last of them,” he said.


  “Of whom?”

  He looked away and grumbled, if only purring like a cat. “The race of men.”

  “My mother,” I said, “is my mother still alive?”

  He looked away and snarled. “No,” he said. “Béa is dead.”

  “When did she die?”

  He abandoned my side and paced the studio, avoiding to look at me. “I cannot speak of her end,” he said. “Not now.”

  “Did she—was she one of your donors?”

  “She was our only source of blood until he came and did what he does best.”

  “Laszlo Arros?” A chill crept up my spine when a breeze seemed to touch the small of my back, where my pullover had risen. My shoulders shook and I tensed.

  “You must recover,” he said. “Drink some.” He poured a cup of cider from a jug I hadn’t seen brought to my studio. I didn’t bother to ask where it came from. He’d done far greater feats than produce a jug of cider out of thin air.

  “When you are ready, we shall continue,” he said. “We must get back to the ship, and the brood of vampires about to accept their new commander.”

  “I know what I am,” I said.

  “Good,” he said, ducking back into the shadows. “Then, shall we begin?”

  “Are you going to take me away from here?” I asked, unwilling to begin until I’d settled my future.

  “Why would I take you from the home I have built for you?”

  “You built? But Gerenios—”

  “Do you trust me, Dagur?”

  I couldn’t say no. As frightened as I’d been at the start, the web into which I was woven had appeared. I was more akin to the vampires than the settlers, and I couldn’t escape my duty as the last of my race.

  A Perfect Plan

  We descended into the pit of vampires, buzzing with tongues embroiled in gossip and intrigue. Huitzilli and Zhi flanked Evelina as her guard, as the highest ranked of the ill-sorted army, a troop sealed with spit and blood. The rest were surprisingly loyal, unwilling to challenge their new commander. It could have been the head of their former leader stuck on a spike at Evelina’s side, or perhaps it was the sight of me behind her, but they raised their fists and pumped the air, no longer chanting “Novitiate,” but giving her a new title. The small Venetian brood started to chant “Dogaressa” from the gore stained decks, crowning her ruler of their renaissance republic. Their praise rushed through the crowd with haste, as others joined the chant.