by J. X. Evans
He finally opened his eyes. He grabbed the bottle and filled the red tinged glass once more. He sipped at it. He liked it cold almost as much as he liked it warm, different experience, different type of pleasure almost, but with the same intensity.
He sipped, grabbed the bucket with the bottle in it, and a chair and dragged them to the window. Beams of moonlight were coming through it to spill on the carpeted floor. His room had a view of the back yard, much smaller and less extravagant than the front one, though not simple or modest by any stretch of the imagination, and in Ulrik’s opinion that much more beautiful in its concentrated allure.
He sat in the comfortable chair, crossing his legs, and taking sips from the glass, licking his thin hard lips clean of the delicious, sticky substance. Blood stains. And it stains hard, and he did not enjoy having a bloody mustache, not that his appearance mattered to him, he did not sip from a glass because it was less messy, it was just that if it stuck to his upper lip then it would be right under his nose. It made him smell the thing continuously, it made him wanting it continuously, and Ulrik did not like feeling tempted, addicted, chained to something as basic as his thirst for blood.
Ulrik could see James, the butler, from his window. He was an English man, imported straight from the motherland, the mansion’s previous owners had placed a special order for the man to come and see to their every need, and his services did not come cheap, not cheap at all. Yet now he worked for the highest wage a man can work for. He worked for his life. He was old and tall, with a short silver ponytail. He was wearing a heavy jacket and gardening gloves, closing up a hole in the ground with a spade. This was the fifth hip of dirt in the back yard, the other graves were filled with bodies similar to Kostas’. Mainly Helena’s victims but Duncan had helped a little bit, and of course there were some of the dead that never rose from the turning process. Good thing the rounds of the turnings had paused for the moment, a little bit more and the line of mass graves would need to pass straight through the roses. The hole was almost closed up, Helena had not bothered to tell the old man about the other body lying between the twin stairs, and the butler would have to do the whole thing over, if he wanted that is. Why did the man do it? Why did he keep digging all those graves? What he was asked to do was only to store the bodies until the time came to feed them to the thralls. Thralls could devour anything in the human body, bones, hair, and even intestines and their contents, and boy did they have an appetite. Two of them could easily eat a grown man whole in under an hour, even though they could do with much less than that. Maybe the butler felt like he did the dead a favor, some religious thing or another…dead is dead right? Is it less of a sacrilege if you have to dig them up later than if you had never put them down under to begin with? Certainly not. When Ulrik had seen James for the first time he seemed like an energetic forty year old in the body of a sixty year old. Now he had grown thin and weary and he was walking with his back hunched. At first he could not bear to be less than impeccably dressed, now it seemed like he could not care less; living with a trio of vampires had taken a toll on the poor man. The work of digging holes at night and in the cold, to bury used up human bodies was too much a task for James, both physically and mentally. Ulrik could sense the man’s sanity slowly yet steadily leaving his body, evaporating like dry ice in the cold winter’s breeze. James pushed the shovel in the dirt and left it there, looked up to Ulrik’s room, placing his hands on his aching back. James was not able to see him, it was too dark and he did not know whether Ulrik had returned or not. It was probably only a coincidence. Ulrik could see the old man’s condensed breath in the cold night, and he could see his carotid arteries, hard and rigid from a long life of blood sausage for breakfast and stressing over capricious rich people dinners and plans. The couple of hollow pulsing cords were straining against the old loose skin of his long neck with every pump of his hammering heart... Ulrik was a vampire, straining arteries on the neck of weak and lonely humans in a beautiful body ridden garden at night is about as sexy as it can get. He finished the second glass of blood with a toss of his wrist and he refilled it, sipped once more.
He should probably start acting the part of the vampire, they were soon going to be the rulers of this fucked up world once again after all. He had tried the ‘blood from the source’ as Helena had put it and he had found it delicious…until he didn’t that is. It was shortly after he had arisen from his turning, a new vampire. He was born in the place were Sweden resides today or maybe Norway, the exact place was somewhere in the current borders. It was in a relatively small village and he did not know the exact year he was turned or born, but it was somewhere around 600 C.E. It was a simple life, raid and plunder in the summer, fish and hunt and gather wood in the winter. He had spent his whole mortal life in that place, like his father, and his father’s father, and who knew how many fathers had come and passed since one of Ulrik’s relatives had lived anywhere else in the blue sphere. He was young, but he was hard and it had been five successful summers of plundering the neighboring lands, but only four winters of peaceful family time with his lovely wife Therese and his young son Lars, one cannot be so lucky as to be happy with enjoying the simple things in life…the universe gets giddy when that happens.
It was in the middle of winter, and that was a time to hole up with the family and survive the cold unforgiving winters of the north, it was not a time for war. There were constant snowstorms, so it was nothing sort of a miracle when a man appeared in the village a cold windy morning alive, not frozen yet tired. The Great Gothi had foreseen a disaster and the chief had commanded the tired man to be one of the messengers of the ill news. He came from the big city, a long way down the road and he brought the news, news of foreign armies that were advancing on us, despite the snow ridden plains. Armies that would stop at nothing. Armies that had no use for peace or settlements and that we would need to stop if we wanted to keep ourselves and our families safe from death or worse. Ulrik had thought what every logical man would have thought when he listened to the phrase ‘or worse’, he expected rape and slavery and abuse from sick, battle hungry foreigners. And no one wants anything like these things even remotely near himself or their loved ones…his imagination was shortsighted to say the least. So the men of the village assembled, a hundred and twenty-six all in all, but each one of them had a worth of at least three regular men, and old crazy Cobb for ten; well maybe a little less since his age had started to show.
The messenger continued his journey to nearby villages and maybe even to neighboring countries without even pausing for anything other than a quick hot meal and a resupply. Ulrik would have been surprised to find out he managed to reach the next secluded village, which was days’ worth of walk through hard terrain away. The next day Ulrik and the others began the hard march towards the main city; and that march was probably the hardest thing Ulrik had ever done in his life as a human and maybe even as a vampire. The cold unbearable. The visibility inexistent. The footing treacherous, and the progress comparable to that of a snail’s trying to climb the Empire State building in the middle of a windy autumn’s thunderstorm. Until they reached the big city on the hill they had collectively lost close to a hundred fingers and toes to the winter, sixty of them along with their owners, and another twenty had to stay in beds for long days and nights while trying not to cough their lungs out. Most of them managed it, which is more than what someone can expect. They were not the first to reach the city and they were not the last. A large crowd had gathered from all around, in a small amount of time; but the city’s stores were full with grain and the space sufficient and the more they were, the hotter the nights would be. Some time passed and people started wondering whether the Gothi’s omens were true or not, since no word had come from anywhere about any roaming hostile armies; but for news to travel back then, there needed to be a messenger, and for a messenger to do his job, he needed to survive the mayhem.
There were a lot of disputes between the big names of the north. Some said,
march and meet the ghost foe. Others said stay and wait warm and comfortable and rested, and fight behind the wooden walls. And most said stay the rest of the winter, eat, drink and have no cares since there is no army that can march through this terrain in this weather of the winter then pack up and go home after nothing had happened. One day came when the weather was significantly calmer and the grand chief made a decision to form parties for reconnaissance and after that to reach a better informed decision. The party that Ulrik was in, was consisted of thirty-eight men and they headed south-east of the city.
When he thought back on that fateful encounter from time to time, at first, Ulrik thought that the enemies were many. And more hidden in bushes and trees, an ambush maybe. But as time passed and the shock steadily wore off, and his mind adjusted to the new reality of things, he made himself remember. And he made himself stick to the truth and the facts.
They were more of a company, or a party rather than an army. Twenty-one all in all, but each and every one of them dressed in armor fit for a king and in pose to match it. They did not even have horses. Ulrik and the others supposed that they were a scouting party, and that the main body of the army would be somewhere close behind them. Maybe their horses had perished from the snowstorms, certainly the snowy woods would have proved too much of a challenge for the noble animals. They seemed too fancy for scouts though…but shit all those southerners dressed to impress, even in war. Still, Ulrik and company had almost twice their numbers and the advantage of surprise and they were northerners, not new to fighting in the snowy hills. Everyone looked at one another, shaking their heads positively, excited with the potential of an easy fight; Ulrik used to be scared before most fights, any sensible man would be, but with all these advantages and warriors such as Cobb in the party only a coward would have been scared, and he was no coward. ‘A coward is not a man who finds himself scared in the face of danger, that man is a smart one. A coward is one that lets his fear completely overwhelm him. And if there was a moment in life when a brave man should choose to become a coward, then that was it. They charged, running down the slope, howling like mad men. The southerners stopped their hike, looked up, mildly disinterested and then wiped them all out. It was over in a second or two. Ulrik remembered only being lifted off the ground, getting tossed upwards with ridiculous speed and strength. He hit his head on a thick tree branch. Next thing he remembers is that his throat seemed raw. A dark, red thirst. A coldness and a…
There was the sound of slow steps coming from the silent hallway, moving towards his chamber. The butler. James knocked at the door, courteous and gentle as ever.
“Enter.” Ulrik said, drinking the last of the blood which remained inside the champagne glass.
James walked in, bowing from the waist, a shallow, formal bow. “Master Ulrik, good evening. Your presence is requested in Master Duncan’s study.”
There was a slight tremor in his voice, Ulrik was always good to the poor man…well, he was not bad at least. James seemed scared, the plan must have been failure on Duncan’s end as well then. “Good evening. I will be right there, thank you.” James turned and left, closing the door behind him.
Ulrik took a breath, reached down in the bucket and drew out the almost empty bottle. He emptied it. Drinking straight from within it and he reached in with his long, slender tongue to lick the bottle clean. He placed the wet bottle down on the desk and walked out through his bedroom’s door, licking his lips clean with his red-tinged tongue.
21. A TRIP
It was afternoon but the sun was still up and the three of them, Zora, Robert and Pericles were in the fridge truck, driving. It had been a fairly unpleasant night after the incident, followed by an unpleasant morning. Zora had laid to sleep in a guest room which had been given to her for her sole personal use. Sleep did not come so easy to her though, not generally and not at that night either, and Katherine’s sweatpants were a bit too large for her, and that bothered her somewhat. On the morning she did pretty much nothing else other than stand by her phone, waiting for an update…but the thing never rang. She went through some forms and stretches and she thought on the last day’s events some more. She was used to treating her body to harsh challenges almost every morning, push a little more, that’s how one gets better after all, but with the ambivalence of the situation she could not know when she might need the energy. So she took it slow today, revisiting the basics isn’t ever a bad way to go after all.
From her room she could listen to the sounds of the family getting ready to depart for another day of routine, feet dragging on carpets, doors slamming softly, the sound of the microwave oven and the clanking of spoons in bowls with cereal. Pericles woke up a bit after the Adamis’ had left, and Mark and Robert followed suit short after him. Robert seemed as if he was sleepwalking and the other two injured parties of the little group seemed good as new, although a bit groggy; which was logical when someone thought about it, she was a bit sleepy herself. They cooked breakfast and they sat down and ate, talking about the evident lack of equipment and the evident need for it.
“I had given a bag of guns to your brother, Thanos. You know, in case of an emergency.” Rob told Pericles between big gulps of the third cup of coffee in a space of fifteen minutes. “We could drive to his place and retrieve it.”
Zora had tried to remind them of their orders, “I would love to do something about this whole deal, just as any of us. But the orders were given as such for a reason.”
“Stay here if you want.” Rob said and got up, grabbing a newspaper under his armpit.
“Are we going?” Mark asked.
“Relax a bit.” Rob said over his shoulder.
Mark and Pericles chuckled, and Zora finished her oatmeal. Rob was technically the ranking officer there so, barring snitching, she could not do much about it. She had no intention of doing such a thing of course, and she was getting bored either way, so she tagged along. Mark said something about picking up a few things he had stashed somewhere and that he would meet them back at the house later. So it was just the three of them.
They drove on the highway a while, then they left it, and drove a bit more. The roads getting progressively smaller and smaller. They turned right at some sort of dirt trail and at its end they found a secluded house. It had white walls and ceramic tile roof with a soot stained chimney protruding on one side. A small front yard, some bushes and weeds and pine trees here and there that seemed to have spouted on their own. They followed the dirt path all the way to the front door and stopped.
“What are you waiting for? Open the door. You do have the keys right?” Pericles said to Rob.
“I have the keys.”
“Go on then.”
“Wait a fucking bit,” Rob said, trying his best to untangle the keychain from whatever had gotten tangled with inside his pocket.
“Good.” Perry responded. It seemed to Zora that Pericles did not appreciate his brother’s entanglement with the supernatural world, or Rob’s entanglement with him. A reasonable concern, since sometimes it could be dangerous even for the professionals. Or more accurately, it was almost always dangerous and other times it was deadly.
“Relax.” Rob said.
“What…? What the fuck is wrong with you today?”
“I am sleepy, just let it go.” Robert said and pushed the door open.
The place was not big, but neither was it small. It was simple and through no stretch of the imagination clean or organized. Clothes and books and magazines were indiscriminately scattered on the floor, plates and cutlery left on the table and in the sink. And there was enough dust to resupply the Sahara desert in the highly unlikely event of a mass vacuum cleaner invasion and total annihilation.
Pericles picked up a mustard stained flannel from the floor between thumb and index, and placed it on top of the wooden chair that apparently acted as a sort of clothes stand for the owner of the house. “Happy to see that my little brother has his life in order... As always.” He moved to the kitche
n, opened the fridge, took a carton of milk out and sniffed it. “It does not smell disgusting or acrid. Which means he was here recently.” Perry put the carton back, “So, do you know where he is?”
“Not a clue, stop complaining and come help me. You aren’t his mother.” Rob said to Pericles while opening the door to the back yard.
Pericles opened a carton of orange juice, sniffed it and took a gulp. He ran to the bathroom sink and spit it out. “This one was bad.” He said to Zora.
“You know that we can actually eat spoiled food right? It’s not like we get sick or anything.” Zora said with a straight face while Pericles was cleaning some juice from his beard with water and a towel.
“I know. But I still have taste buds don’t I?” Pericles said and walked past her to toss the carton of spoiled juice to the trash can. He moved some pieces of a broken jar with his foot to one corner so that it was more or less out of the way and went out the door. Zora was the last one through. There was a stone wall that surrounded a space around the house, but multiple large sections of it were torn down; so the yard communicated with the small forest that surrounded the house.
