Marek (Buried Lore Book 1)

by Gemma Liviero

  There is a picture of your sister on this wall. Remember her how she was. I regret that Oleander cannot be saved. There may still be time for you.

  God be with you Marek,

  Irene.

  My hands were shaking as I turned the parchment over. On the back was a picture of a creature not unlike what I saw in the dungeon. Beside it was Irene’s handwriting. This is the price for immortality.

  I stood up to survey the portraits on the walls in my room. Strange anonymous faces and none there to resemble Oleander, though, one face looked familiar. It was familiar because the girl in the picture looked a lot like me. And then suddenly I knew her, the real Oleander, the one my mother had tried to protect from all of these horrors.

  Yes, it was Oleander. The golden-haired beauty belonged to someone else at some point. On the wall was a dark-haired girl with golden brown eyes like my own. It was a wonder that I failed to notice. The narrow long nose starting from high between her brows, the high cheekbones and the almond shaped eyes. It was her, my sister. The sister I never knew.

  Zeke stirred, his breathing was heavy, forced into a sleep I had filled with good memories to erase the images from the dungeon. I picked him up and carried him over my shoulder.

  In the hallway I passed a servant. I whispered: ‘You should go. You are not safe here.’ He stood looking at me the way cows do in a paddock of thick grass. He was confused, thinking, where would I go?

  I had to find out the truth, then I would leave here for good. Whatever it took I must rid myself of the demon inside even if it meant my own death.

  Oleander was calling me. She was whispering in my mind. She had already sensed my dissent.

  Celeste

  There was a sound of rustling from outside my place of darkness. People movements I’m not sure, but any noise was reassurance that I still existed. Oleander hummed to herself constantly. I was thankful for the humming. Without some sort of sound I thought I would go mad. Most of the time I was left to ponder in my own thoughts and dwell on my memories. Sometimes I had to imagine my hands in front of my face to keep myself focused, but sometimes I drifted in space.

  Oleander gave an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘Put him down on the lounge.’

  ‘I will not let him go. It is not safe for him here.’ It was Marek’s voice and I was suddenly alert. I lived for the warmth of his tone. I’m here, I screamed, wanting to pound at my prison walls, but of course when you are just a soul without flesh you have no way to make sound.

  ‘We do not kill children, Marek. They are far more important to us living. And Zeke will soon be able to come and go as he pleases, a fantasy by all children do you not think? He will know freedom like he has never known.’

  ‘You lie like you have lied about everything,’ Marek said with a break in his voice. Never had I heard him so distraught. ‘Tell me, Oleander, why me? Why did you have to lure me here?’

  ‘You are my brother. Family needs to stay together. And, of course, I love you.’

  ‘How can you possibly love me? I saw my future below this house.’

  ‘Yes, I know. That is a pity. Jean is very bad for leading you there.’ Oleander’s tone sounded uncaring in contrast to her words.

  If I could I would tell Marek everything I’ve heard for I’ve been here long enough to hear Oleander and Jean’s private discussions. I followed Marek’s progress through their stories. I learnt of his first human kill just after it happened. I heard how he fought hard against the demon spirit within him. And I heard how he lost the fight.

  ‘Oleander, why do this? Why change me into something else?’

  ‘You are meant for greater things…’

  ‘The way I am now is not who I am. You tricked me and fed me human blood.’

  There is silence.

  ‘Someone told you. Was it Irene?’

  ‘Did you murder her?’

  ‘She was against my leadership from the start, and she had the potential to be a troublemaker, but I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Was it Jean?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Oleander. ‘Perhaps… There are always consequences to one’s actions, and she had a choice.’

  ‘She was the last link to our mother and she was a good person. She did not deserve this life. Rewarded for her loyalty by death.’

  ‘Do you not realise what humans did to our mother? How they repaid her kindness by torturing her to death? Did you know they made me watch them burn her feet to see if she knew the whereabouts of others? She could have escaped but she died for us, Marek. She pleaded guilty and died to satisfy her executioners, so that they would not falsely look elsewhere for someone to burn; so that you and I could disappear and hide like rats. She died for another human also: your father. I hate him for that. She thought that her sacrifice would keep Ricco safe and free from persecution.’

  ‘Do not talk about my father,’ shouted Marek despairingly.

  I struggled with images of his wretched mother. I could only imagine what he was thinking.

  ‘Our mother was a soothsayer also,’ said Oleander. ‘She could sometimes see far into the future. When I was small she warned me that one day there would be a coven war. But what she didn’t see was that it will be a war that I plan to declare. The strigoi of this world do not have the sort of leadership they need. I can lead them.

  ‘I have lost many valuable members of my circle through petty disagreements and disloyalty. I need to recruit new members.’

  ‘Tell me…what do you want from me?’

  There was a pause. ‘You are strong, Marek. I don’t know how strong yet but you can be trained to be a powerful strigoi. With you by my side we will win the war.’

  ‘Oh, sister, I despise you too much to go into battle for you and the rest of your miscreants. Our mother would not be proud that such a daughter turned out to be nothing more than a delusional savage…’

  There was a sound of something falling heavily on the floor.

  ‘There now, perhaps you will not be so insolent, little brother!’

  More silence.

  ‘Do not forget that I am a leader of a very powerful group,’ she said and I sensed the fury behind these words. ‘I have to think of my real family. The strigoi. Humans are worthless. You were born a witch, Marek but with the misfortune of growing up with humankind who has been brainwashing you with their talk of false goodness, suffocating your mind with their feckless teachings. They are not like us. Witches being raised by humans has the same effect as humans raised by wolves. There is no education, and therefore no freedom to be who you truly are. I have taken you to the next stage of your power. I have given you safety and brought you to where you belong, and yet you are still ungrateful.’

  Marek’s laugh was bitter. ‘I have nothing to thank you for. There is no safety here. Your little dog, Jean, wants me dead.’

  ‘Jean is harmless really. He is prone to certain desires that let his character down. He would not have killed you. Your own instinct and power would have risen to the challenge. It is your confidence in your own abilities that lets you down.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I am willing to overlook your disrespect, and see that no harm comes your way. I take care of my own, especially my own blood brother.’

  ‘And the ones in the cellar? I see how you take care of your own kind. They are miserable beasts living in a dungeon.’

  ‘The ones in the cellar were, and are, weak-minded rebellious creatures out of control. They are dangerous to our kind and not strong enough to survive in this world. They threaten to expose us. I lock them up to be kind to them and look after the rest of us. You and I are strong, as are many others in our circle.

  ‘The first time I took human blood it was from a cup as you did for I was too small to bleed a victim of my own. You ran from this yet I was gripped from the very first time I learnt of my potential. It was my destiny and seemed so logical that with the powers of witchcraft we must be a higher order than humans. We are perfect
, Marek.’

  ‘Is that why you chose another body? You were so perfect? Did you murder the girl whose body you stole?’’

  ‘I see that Irene has given up much of what was shared in confidence,’ she sighed. ‘The souls of humans guarantee immortality but it does not stop our bodies from ageing. When a strigoi ages he needs to rest, sometimes for a hundred years to replenish. It is a waste of time. Can you imagine burying yourself in the earth for such a long period? Once upon a time, when there were no circles for protection, the strigoi discovered the art of rebirthing in human skin as a disguise to avoid persecution. In recent centuries, before my rule, this art was not used or taught within our coven; the strigoi purposely left ignorant of such knowledge.

  ‘To live forever young, a strigoi must find a new body or choose to sleep and replenish. I have taken away the choice. You see, it is better for the circle if we continue to remain in young bodies. Youth is the key; youth is power. I am surer of that than ever. The younger the host human the slower the ageing process, and the stronger we remain as a coven. This circle is your destiny too, Marek.’

  ‘I can barely comprehend what you are saying. You have no soul. That much is obvious. You not only use humans for food, you kill them for their skin.’

  ‘We do not kill the humans we just transfer their own souls so they will live in other forms.’

  A phantom chill crept through me though; without a body such sensation was made from memories only. There were flashbacks again of blood. She made it sound so easy yet there was much pain… much pain.

  ‘But why not swallow their souls like in every other kill?’

  ‘The human must still be living when a strigoi enters their body, and only then can the human soul be transferred to another carrier. In some instances, the souls have been swapped between the two, but the risks are high – strigoi bodies are quick to go cold. For the transfer to be successful, the human soul must survive and remain earthbound for a period, sometimes days, until all trace of its soul has left its body. It is complicated and delicate.

  ‘There have been various practices over the centuries. Souls would be transferred to animals, or older humans who were close to death. And sometimes to the insane, their tongues cut out; to become demented creatures spurned by society. Some thought it a safe way of making sure they were passing from this world to the next. I have since thought of other ways to keep the souls for eternity on earth, so that the transfer is infallible. I have corrected certain procedures. Now, nothing can go wrong.’

  Thumping the table, ‘What you do is so wrong!’ he yelled. ‘This is worse than murder. And if you stopped taking souls altogether? Stopped bleeding humans dry? If you stopped all this killing?’

  ‘Without the blood and souls of humans, then you and I, Zola and Jean would eventually become like those creatures in the basement. Creatures of the night rejected by everyone, even our own kind. Wandering the earth and hiding in dark holes so that we cannot be found, afraid of the light to expose us. And then when our bodies break down and we sink into the earth, we just exist in a prism of nothingness for eternity.

  ‘No, Marek. I know what you’re thinking. You cannot go back. We do not move from this world to the next. We are forever of the earth, or we are no more. Some of the strigoi in our circle are hundreds of years old. Wouldn’t you rather live for centuries with just the price of changing bodies every so often? Survival is not murder.’

  ‘Oleander, we were part of the same family. Now we aren’t. I am finished here.’

  ‘You want to leave, Marek, then go. I won’t stop you, for it is just a matter of time before you return.’

  ‘Celeste and Zeke are coming with me.’

  ‘I will not allow it. They belong to me now.’ Oleander’s voice changed. There was a brittleness that I had never heard before. She was not used to even the hint of loss, especially one such as Marek who would be important to her circle.

  ‘You could have ruled this coven with me. Now go! Leave here now, for there may be others who won’t give you a second chance. But Marek, the cravings will never go away. You will crave a soul like the rest of us. Your body will eventually crumble.’

  ‘That’s a risk I am prepared to take. You must convince Celeste to leave with me.’

  ‘Oh, you fool! That’s not Celeste. She is a strigoi who is seventy-years-old in human years; the same crone who visited you on the island, and who I rewarded with a new form for her reaching you with my message. Your Celeste is gone forever. You will never see her again. Her body was used in a rebirthing.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You should thank me really. Her stomach infection would have killed her if it wasn’t for me.’

  I heard Marek’s thunderous steps on timber.

  ‘Do not touch the boy! If you take him, he will die. That much I promise you. At least by leaving him you guarantee his life.’

  More footsteps and a door slammed. I was alone with Oleander again.

  ‘Did you hear that, Souls?’ asked Oleander. ‘Did you enjoy the show? Too bad you have no-one to tell it to. Another of us is unfortunately about to die.’

  I knew that there were others like me here too. If I had a body I would have killed her at that moment. If I could cry I would have spilled tears also. Marek was gone from me, possibly for good. He would most likely die somewhere in the forest at the hands of Oleander herself. I knew her better than her own brother. I could not warn him and tell him of the conversations Oleander and Jean shared. I also knew that no-one ever left here alive.

  Oleander’s rules. She knew about Irene. She was the one who planned the kill.

  Marek

  I ran to Celeste’s room. I touched her shoulder and her eyes opened fully, staring.

  ‘What do you want?’ It was an accusation.

  ‘We must leave this place, Celeste. You are not safe.’

  There was sharp laugh. ‘I am not going anywhere. This is my home.’

  ‘But Celeste…’

  ‘Get out Marek!’ She said, vehemently, through gritted teeth.

  It was distressing to see such a reaction. Could this Celeste have been swallowed up by luxury and decadence? Could she have been too easily swayed? Or was this someone else? In my heart I knew, yet I fought the truth.

  ‘Do you not know what is happening here? You saw the strigoi in the basement…you saw the demons.’

  ‘Demons?’ She repeated, slightly amused. ‘You mean demons like you and me? They are our kind, Marek.’

  I did not want to believe what she was saying. Perhaps the soul of my Celeste was still trapped deep inside her own body. Maybe this was the other practice Oleander referred to.

  ‘We must find your mother.’

  ‘My mother? You will probably have to travel to hell to see her.’

  ‘Celeste…’

  ‘Marek if you do not get out I will be forced to hurt you.’

  I grabbed her forcibly but was thrown back, repelled, not in the way of the library encounter with Oleander, more like a rough push, since she was not as strong.

  She was lost to me. Distressing though this was, I had no choice but to leave her, and I could now sense that other strigoi were alerted; their forces were hostile.

  This time I did not leave by the front door. Instinct told me that it was more dangerous. I headed towards the galley to leave from the basement. As I passed through, several human staff looked up. They appeared stunned, or caught – this visit totally unexpected. It was several seconds before I realised what was on the table before them. The man from the carriage I had spied on at the party was lying on the table. His arms hung from the table, his wrists cut. Blood dripped from his wounds into bowls on the floor beneath him. He was being blooded for the next feast. His eyes rolled back into his head and he moaned. The smell of blood drew me near him. The galley workers sensed it too. They were afraid that I might lose control and I feared that too. I wanted to free this man from his pain but I was no better than any other st
rigoi, and in no condition to help. I was his enemy, unable to control the urge; his blood was too rich, too inviting.

  I remembered the graveyard of carriages and wondered again at the many hundreds, possibly thousands of people who had died here over the years, and how I came to succumb to such evil.

  I ran through the basement door into the fresh night air and took my first real breath for hours. I would find my morality once again.

  Zola

  I followed Marek. I tricked the others, especially Jean, into thinking he was headed elsewhere. It would work for a time but soon they would all know what I had done. It was a huge risk and one that could see me imprisoned.

  Oleander had let her brother go and I wondered what her real plan was, as she did not like to lose.

  In time, Marek might be stronger but Oleander had mastered her craft better than anyone. I had seen her burn a disloyal circle member with just an incline of her head, and heard about other executions for even lesser misdemeanours. I had also witnessed her predecessor kill the untameable strigoi who fed indiscriminately and would give us all away.

  Marek’s breathing became laboured and he stopped to rest near a brook, his face awash with anguish. It was distressing to see him like this and it further inspired more tender emotions in me than I had ever felt before. He had left a good life already, not like many of us who could not have survived without the protection of the circle. He lifted his head suddenly sensing me near. ‘Zola?’

  I stepped into the moonlight, which shone brightly through a break in the clouds, illuminating the boulder where he sat. As I moved to sit beside him, there was hesitation and mistrust on his part. When I touched his arm gently he tensed.

  ‘I do not know who to trust.’

  ‘You can trust me.’

  ‘No. You are one of them.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘You murder for selfish benefit.’

  ‘It is not murder, Marek. It is survival.’

  ‘I do not believe you. I have seen what Jean is capable of. Why do you fawn on him so?’