by DL Atha
“My punishment was made worse as next the surgeon grasped the many stakes that pierced my heart and examined the blood that oozed from the entrance wounds. He rubbed every inch of my body with garlic oil. My skin flamed in response. Although silent to the men who stood over me, my shrieks drowned out every other thought in my mind. The garlic soaked into my skin, which broke and bled underneath the oil, allowing it to penetrate even more. No part of me was untouched by the flames of the oil, and to make the humiliation worse, he packed my every orifice with the whole herb. Blood ran from my eyes and across my cheeks.
“But the surgeon had more punishments planned. He slashed my elbow and drained me of blood, bringing my hunger raging to the surface. I thought I saw a moment of pity as his gaze traveled the length of my pain-wracked body. I snarled at him, hissing with pain. I did not want his pity.
“The only respite was the sight of Irena’s body laid out upon a cot in the corner of the room. She was quite dead, but I could see through my tortures that her body had been treated with the same contempt as mine. To the humans in the room, she was nothing but an empty corpse, but she was anything but the shell they assumed her to be. Deep within, I could feel the stirrings of her restless, undead spirit beginning to form. The transformation was still early, but already her rage was smoldering. If this fort ever disturbed our undead graves after tonight, they would be lucky, I thought, if it was me they awoke and not her.
“Finally I was dressed in some cast-off wool garments and carried back to my grave. It was a long journey in the hands of the four shaking humans chosen to convey me. Their every misstep shook the stakes in my chest, and if I my frozen tongue would have worked, I would have begged for mercy.
“By the time we arrived to my previous burial site, the coffin was half-full of water from the rain that had moved in during the evening. It covered my face as the soldiers dropped me down into the watery hell. For besides fire, nothing creates such fear to the vampire as water.
“It sloshed up and over my face. It drained down my throat and filled my lungs. Paralyzed by the power of the stake and the garlic, I could not even close my mouth against its cold, dirty stream.
“The men did not even have the graciousness to close my eyes. I could do nothing but watch through the ripples of the water that covered my head as a hunter leaned in over the casket. Slicing one more metal stake through my heart, he hammered its beveled tip into the wooden bottom of the crypt.
“Above me, stars twinkled amongst the clouds that moved to the east. The rain had ended and a thick fog had rolled in from the coast. It weaved itself in tattered strands along the forest floor, intertwining amongst the legs of the human that bore witness to my suffering.
“In a last bit of cruelty, a heavy metal cross was dropped onto my chest. It burned, settling deeper as it seared into my chest.
“Above me, the humans laughed as the cross burned my skin. They leaned in over my coffin and boasted of the hell that awaited me after a long watery grave. Eventually growing tired of the sport, they sealed me in the coffin, nailing thick metal studs into the lid.
“Immortality does not always have a nice ring to it. Especially when facing an eternity of torment. I was young as a vampire and had only ever been young, even as a human. Perhaps if I had been more mature in one of my lives or had spent a decade or two at ground of my own choice, the pain would have been more bearable. Perhaps I could have looked ahead and saw that nothing on this earth would last forever.
“But as it was, I could not see beyond the day or the week, let alone the months and years that lay ahead. I lived only in the now. I could not see that time washes away all pain, all wounds and destroys everything that is not eternal, and that these shackles binding me so tightly would in some future dissolve in what must be the boundless abyss of time.
“As strong as the iron used to construct the cross on my chest, as vigorous as the herb that weakened my body, and as virile as the wood penetrating my heart, I was stronger and more eternal than even the elements themselves.
“Burn the vampire into ash and can we not yet come forth? Even ash is still solid in your hands. Water cannot drown us, earth can only bury us for so long, and wind can only blow us so far. What cannot decompose cannot be destroyed. Unnatural in life, we remain unnatural in death. Unchanging, unmoving, we remain frozen between two worlds—between life and death.
“If I had been coherent when thrown into my watery coffin, perhaps I would have laughed at their shortsightedness. Instead, the water I cursed has been my friend over the years. It washed away the garlic oil from my skin. The herb in my body lasted the longest, but it too eventually eroded.
“Alaska is a land alive. So very alive that the ground shudders with arduous growing pains. Over the years, my grave shifted with the movement, and one particular upheaval forced my bound arms apart. How good it felt to be relieved from the cross created by my own limbs.
“The wood of my coffin lasted longer than I expected, but it, along with some of the stakes, finally gave way to wet and rot, reverting back into the soil from which it had sprang. With each element removed, I gained more mobility. I could not rise, but when darkness reigned, I could at least flex my fingers or blink my eyes.
“The iron cross was the last sacrament to keep me pinned beneath the earth. It had seared into my skin so deeply that it rested upon my heart, and I could not escape it. I gnashed my teeth and cried out to the world above me but no living thing answered me.
“For fifty years, I laid there. Fifty years of sorrow and suffering had dragged on in an endless hell when one morning I heard the approach of footsteps. Unlike the steps of those who only passed through the forest, these footfalls hesitated, backing up and then taking a few steps to the right or to the left, before finally settling on a path that brought them directly overhead my grave.
“These were not the sounds of a young man on a hunting venture but instead the hesitant steps of an old man. I heard the creak of his bones as he lowered himself next to my burial spot.
“It was midmorning, and the power of the sun was on the earth, so my paralysis was deep or my fingers would have been digging into the earth with the unbearable pain caused by the human’s closeness. Above me, the man’s heartbeat was erratic, and his ancient lungs wheezed with his exertions. I did not care that he was old or near death. I cared only for the hum of the blood passing through his stiff old arteries.
“The human did nothing more than sit there for a quarter of an hour before his wheezing finally came to a stop. It was then that he began to speak to me in a voice that had aged with time but whose tenderness I would have recognized anywhere. Even now, the thought of that tender tenor brings me some measure of comfort.
“Ivan talked for hours that day. How glorious it was to escape the confines of the grave, if only in his words and stories, and see the world through Ivan’s eyes.
“How he had changed over the years. And the fort as well. No longer a peasant, Ivan was now a man of some position. Serfdom, it seemed, had ended in Russia, and I would have been freed if I had lived. He had proved himself reliable over the years and had picked up a trade. My friend had become a respectable miller, and in doing so had gained a wife and children.
“But his home was nearly empty now and death knocked at my friend’s door. Three sons had stayed in Alaska, although only one had remained in New Archangel. One daughter had married the fort surgeon and remained in New Archangel. His last child died within a month of birth; the boy had been christened and buried in the small cemetery atop the hill. His wooden marker had since given up the ghost to the elements, but still Ivan visited there at least once a week. This lost child had brought him immeasurable pain, for he had taken his mother with him.
“In the decades since my staking, the fort had changed as well. Gone was the shabby village and replacing it was an honest town of trade and a busy harbor. The Church at last was firmly established; the natives well assimilated, for the most part, into the religio
n of the Russians.
“Even the name had changed. Many people now thought of New Archangel as ‘Sitka.’ The deep superstitions of the Russians were slowly being replaced as men of learning now resided in New Archangel. There were even visions of a college. Even the Church had lost many of the old Slavic beliefs that had been so prevalent when the fort had been established.
“Long since forgotten was the vampire who had been staked and buried in a distant corner of the forest. Such a legend, such a monster had no place in this modern, civilized Sitka. Whatever rumors had been told of me, whatever fear I had instilled in the men who had put me to ground had died with them. Ivan had outlived them all and I lived on, it appeared, only in the mind of my best friend.
“Ivan’s health was poor, his breathing raspy. He had to stop often to catch the breath that rattled loosely in his lungs. How I envied him, for he was not long for this world. His body’s suffering would end soon, and that is what brought him, gasping for air and leaning on a cane for support, to my grave that early summer morning.
“He sat beside me that day, describing in detail the things I had never experienced in my short life. He described the joys of marriage and the feel of his children when he held them in his arms for the first time. He described the emotions of watching his family grow and in being able to provide for them.
“And he talked of the archimandrite and how he had died an old man in his bed not even a decade past. Ivan had approached him once many years back, begging him to rescind my excommunication. He had looked at Ivan as though my friend had become unhinged, a light smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
“‘My child, I do not believe in such superstition. Forget such nonsense. Turn instead to the firm instruction of the Church,’ the archimandrite had said, forming the cross upon his chest.
“It was the last time Ivan had mentioned me to anyone. Never had he spoke of me to his children or his wife except in nightmares that he explained away as only ghostly tales told him in his childhood. He had suffered the knowledge of my fate in silence, having no wish to burden his family with such stories.
“Of Irena’s father, Ivan recounted how he had died at sea for no apparent reason; the man had simply wasted away. The crew aboard the vessel, knowing he had staked his own daughter, weighted his body after his death and cast him overboard, fearing he was vexed and might reappear in the morning.
“Of Irena, Ivan said nothing. Perhaps he was afraid the very mention of her name might bring me out of the ground despite the cross under which I struggled. Perhaps being a father had changed his mind of her over the years. Likely he could not bear the image of her, a woman, suffering the same fate as me.
“Finally he spoke of my crimes against my own humanity and the potential I had thrown away for revenge. ‘Was revenge worth what I had given up?’ he asked time and again.
“I was thankful then to be stilled by the sun. I was glad that my lips failed me, for Ivan would not have understood my answer if I had been forced to give one.
“It was late summer, and so the days were longer. Not long before sunset, I heard him begin to dig at the ground surrounding my grave. I guess if you bury a vampire, you don’t forget where you have put him, for his hands went right to the spot. Ivan scratched furiously at the dirt, but as with all things, his muscles were not what they had been when we had been young. His heart palpitated all the more with his struggles and his breath came in short gasping wheezes, but still he continued until I saw sunlight for the first time in five decades.
“Ivan sat down beside me then, recapturing his lost breath. The sweat of his labors flavored the air, and I could smell a sickness in his lung that was revolting even to me despite my great hunger.
“The sunlight, gratefully, had ebbed by now, and my muscles began to move. My hands flexed at my sides, and I bared fangs at him, straining the muscles of my neck as I struggled to reach him. Howling with hunger, I threw my head back in hopes of the momentum to dislodge the cross that lay seared to my chest. Luckily for Ivan, something that powerful cannot be moved, and he remained safe. I had no control at this point. It had long since been robbed of me by the hunger.
“Shaking his head sadly, Ivan shushed me, whispering calm words mixed with soothing sounds, as you would a mad man. I cried for blood, begging him to give me but a taste.
“‘I am sorry, Adrik. My time on this earth grows short, and one fear plagues me, leaving me unable to die with any semblance of peace. Since the night I forced a stake through my best friend’s heart, I have considered your plight.’
“‘I wake each morning considering your suffering. I think to bring your comfort. I am nearly able to convince myself that you were never truly the animal you were accused of being. But then I muster myself out of bed and, walking about the village, I see the children, the innocents and reason whispers to me that you must never rise. Know that I will love you as my brother for an eternity and forgive me the actions I must repeat. The cross still holds you but I have come to re-enforce your bindings.’
“For several moments, he studied my face. His expression was blanched with sadness, and then hardening with determination, he reached a shaking hand inside a bag strapped at his waist and removed a stake of iron. The metal gleamed despite the darkness, and I shivered at the thought of its purpose, dreading the pain that it was certain to bring.
“‘Brother,’ I struggled to utter a coherent word between hisses of hunger. ‘A concession, Ivan. Please,’ I pleaded.
“‘What, Adrik? Anything, save your release, and I vow to make every effort to see it done,’ Ivan promised.
“‘Do what you must here and then see that you secure Irena as you do me. Do not let her escape her punishment.’
“He stared at me first with shock and then with anger that gave way to disgust.
“‘A half a century of sorrow and still you think only of vengeance.’ Ivan raised the stake, his arms shaking with exertion while he spoke. ‘I see now how deserving you are of this fate. You have become no different than the woman who did this to you. Perhaps the passing of yet another century will find you more remorseful.’
“‘Please, Ivan. You gave your word,’ I hissed through the hunger.
“Nodding his head in agreement, he brought his arms high above his head, and with the full effort of his failing strength, he pushed a new stake, forged from iron by his own hand, through my heart. Producing a rock from his waist sack, he pounded the stake into place until it had passed through my body and was buried to the hilt in my chest. The tip passed deeply into the dirt and held me completely immobile once more.
“The pain was exquisite; I had forgotten its sharpness. How insensate I had become with the lack of stimulation. Fire erupted from inside my chest and radiated out to every fiber of my body.
“My last sight was Ivan’s hand as he closed my eyes. His tears for my sins mingled with the dirt as he filled in my grave. I cried for different reasons. It was not for sadness but for want of blood.
“Ivan never made good on his promise to secure Irena. He choked on his own blood in a paroxysm of coughing not one hundred yards from my grave but I did not mourn for Ivan, instead I grieved for myself. His was my last connection to humanity and he had entered Paradise.
“After his passing, I existed only in the cold, wet blackness of the earth. If the fifty years I had spent in the ground before Ivan visited my tomb had been wretched, there are no words to describe the next century and a half.
“One would think that the years would begin to fold in upon themselves. Instead, the marking of time became my obsession, and I have marked its passing second by second.
“Until you, Tamara. You are the first bright spot in two centuries of endless nights.”
Chapter 14
The clouds had slowly fallen apart in the black sky, and as they did so, the moon slid out. At first only a sliver that lit the edges of the furrowed clouds was revealed but finally a solid silver disk that illuminated the earth with such forc
e that it could have passed for early morning slipped from the cloud cover.
That great ball of light was the focus of my vision when Adrik pulled away, leaving me alone with my thoughts for the first time that night. I stared at it through the window from my bed, at first confused but finally with the comprehension that I was no longer one with Adrik.
The bond was still there. I could sense it, invisible and yet tethering, but Adrik was closed off to me. I could feel nothing from him. No more a part of the buried vampire, I was just me, the girl who had lost too much. The one with her own grudge.
Beside my bed, the clock ticked off the seconds slowly into the quiet of the room, seeming louder than I’d remembered. Maybe I’d just become much more aware of time. After all, I felt as though I’d spent a century with Adrik, enshrined in the ground. It may have been a dream, but it seemed as real as the last twenty-eight years of my real life.
One thing is for certain. I’d never felt more alone than I did at this moment. Adrik was gone. I searched my thoughts for him, vainly bringing up the most terrible of his memories to evoke a response but could find him nowhere.
Screaming his name in my head, he didn’t answer, and I was angry. It seemed unfair and cruel that after I’d lived his torments that he should desert me like this. I wanted to tell him of mine. Didn’t I deserve that courtesy? I was alone in my head, and I didn’t like the sensation. After so intimate a bond with Adrik, such aloneness felt unnatural.
Even my skin, when I held my arm up to the moonlight, looked pathetically mortal. Humanity clung to my body; my eyesight was normal, my hearing weak. And even as everything in this room was familiar and everything about my body felt whole, it also felt surreal, as if I were out of place and not really a part of this home at all.
