Markinson was likeable. He had an old world charm, like that refined by the aristocracy of Europe for the last fifteen centuries. He spoke with a slight accent, but Roland couldn't place it. Maybe English with hints of German?
Markinson smiled slightly. “What do you think of my setting for this chapter of Bloodlust?"
Jim snubbed out his cigar. Markinson hated smoke. “It's a gorgeous place, but we're going to have a hell of a time getting the feeling of age through the camera."
"Yes, this is an ancient place.” Markinson watched the clouds for a moment. “The rains will come soon. Not hard, mind you, but a gentle rain lasting perhaps thirty minutes, then the sun will return.” He faced Roland squarely. “It has been doing that here for more than two thousand years."
The hard steel of the gaze seemed to pin him in place, like a bug to a collector's specimen board. Roland struggled against the bond in his mind for a moment before breaking free. He had no idea what to say. “How did you ever pick this particular place as a setting, Stanley?"
"Oh, that was easy. You see, my family once lived here."
"Really? So this is your family estate?"
Markinson laughed softly. “No, not any longer. We ended up on the wrong side of the English."
"Sounds like family politics is a lot like the movie business. Piss off the wrong people, and you're out."
"Perhaps it is, yes.” Markinson sighed heavily. “In any event, what does the rest of the crew and the cast have to say so far?"
Jim looked longingly at the cigar butt on the ground for a moment. “Everyone loves the place. We can't get over the feeling of history here."
"There is a great deal of history here.” A sudden smile split Markinson's face. “Perhaps even Elektra will become a part of that history.” A gentle chuckle escaped his lips before he walked away.
* * * *
Scotland, 1301
Again, Melissa looked out the carriage window at the passing countryside, but this would be the last time for this trip. She and her entourage would reach the castle of her new husband very soon now.
For the last quarter-hour, she'd been able to see the castle in the distance. Sitting near the vertex of a low hill, she knew from past experiences that the castle would be easy to defend by covering the very pinnacle of the mound with just a few soldiers. The position also would shield the castle from the weather.
Despite the military propensity of the castle, it looked dark and foreboding from this distance. Age hung on the grey stone walls like moss hanging from the trees near a swamp. Even with the mists of the morning long since scattered by the warmth of the sun, the keep had a look that would frighten most mortals.
Melissa felt no such fear. She had lived in far worse places. Some had been dank and dark. Other places had been hot and sweltering. A few had been nice, by mortal standards. Most had been less so. It made no difference to her. As long as she could feed and the mortals left her alone, it didn't matter.
As they neared the castle, the small farms along the rough road became more numerous. Soon, the caravan entered the village itself. As far as she and her escorts knew, the village had no real name. The simple name of McGill's Keep would do.
The village was hardly up to the standards England had set. Small, dirty, and dusty, the village was little more than a few houses and businesses clustered together and a little grimy pub tucked in between two shops. Filthy men and women stopped what they were doing to stare at the royal coach and the armed men surrounding it as they made their way through town. Even dirtier children ran behind, laughing and screaming despite the marks of the pox on their skin.
Between the village and the castle lay more farmland. As they passed one well-kept farm, Melissa noticed two men standing in the field. The men could not have been more different
One man was small and scrawny, looking much like a scarecrow standing in the field. His arms and legs had a spindly look, and his clothes ill fit him. His wild shock of silver hair exploded from his head like the rockets and fireworks she'd seen in the Far East. Dirt crusted his face and all of his exposed skin.
The other man clearly was a peasant as well, but that's where the similarities ended. His clothes, while coarse and primitive, were clean and fit his body well. Although some dirt from his labors mussed his hands and arms, the tanned skin of his face looked like he had wiped the soil and sweat from it recently. The man had his light red hair pulled back and tied behind his head, and in spite of his toils, it looked clean as well. As he leaned on his hoe, his huge arms flexed, and Melissa could see the hard muscles flexing under the tanned skin.
"Driver, stop the carriage.” She couldn't help herself. Melissa wanted a better look at these two men who would soon be under her charge. Her stranger-fiancé might not have known it yet, but she planned to take an active role in governing the keep.
The carriage came to a clattering halt on the stone road, and the knight who was in charge rode up to speak to her. “My lady, we shouldn't stop here."
"Mind your duties, Sir George, and I'll mind mine."
The man appeared as if he was about to speak again, but the look in her eye must have deterred him. She felt the predator's skills coming to her now, her ears picking up sounds far too faint for mortal ears. The scents of the two men wafted across the field to fill her nose. She knew her eyes had also taken on a little of the green and red tint as the irises became more catlike as her vision sharpened and she saw the hints of color in the aura of living creatures.
Sir George's horse whinnied and started, staggering backward from the instinctive perception of a predatory threat. Despite the horse dancing and rearing and its hooves lifting several inches from the dusty road, the knight held tight to the reins and spoke softly to his steed until the horse calmed. As if also sensing an unseen threat, his voice came soft, almost like a whisper when he looked at her. “Yes, my lady.” He rode away.
As she watched the men in field, her brain sorted through the flood of information hitting her senses. Soon, she isolated the smell of the big, redheaded farmer. He smelled of sweat, yes, but it was clean sweat born of honest, hard work. He leaned casually on his hoe and watched her. With vision far superior to that of a mortal, even passing that sported by hawks searching for mice from high in the sky, she could see his hazel eyes calmly searching her from across the distance. The images were distorted by her heat vision, though, and she saw the calm blue color of the warm aura surrounding him. The man radiated only curiosity with no hint of fear.
The scarecrow of a man, however, reeked of fear. Its stench filled her nose and mind, threatening to trigger the change in her.
Melissa pulled her head back inside the coach. “Driver, move on."
Her heart pounded in her chest like a drum calling cadence for some vast army, and her breath roared through her throat as the carriage began to move toward her future.
* * * *
"Look, Duncan! She comes now!"
Duncan looked up from the clump of weeds he worried with the hoe. Gilroy shook with excitement as he pointed toward the road, and Duncan saw a small caravan moving from the village toward the castle. There were several wagons with colored cloth concealing lumps and bumps of varying shapes and sizes. Many soldiers, both on horseback and foot, moved along with the procession. Duncan thought two of the horsemen to be knights because they wore English-style armor. And then there was the carriage.
Pulled by four tremendous white stallions, the carriage, black like lacquered wood he had once seen, with its ornate gold trim shimmered in the morning light. White gauze curtains hid the interior from view, not that he could have seen much at the distance between him and the road. A driver and a soldier rode the carriage, and two footmen clung to the rails on the back. The sparkling black of the carriage contrasted fiercely with the pure white of the horses and dusty grey stone of the road.
The carriage rumbled to a halt, and the rest of the caravan stopped as well. One of the men Duncan thought a knight rode to t
he window of the coach and paused for a moment. He wondered if a snake may have frightened the horse because it stumbled back away from the coach. Even at the distance Duncan stood from the road, he saw the horse's eyes wide and white in terror. The knight was an exceptional rider, however, and his calm command of his animal let him keep his place in the saddle. The knight moved away, but Duncan saw his nervous glances back toward the passenger in the carriage.
As the window came into clear view, Duncan could see a young woman leaning out, staring at him and Gilroy.
Her long hair, the color of golden wheat ready for harvest, streamed away from the carriage window in the breeze. Her hair sparkled in the sun and threw scintillating flashes of light in all directions. Duncan couldn't see her face clearly across the field, but his heart and mind told him it would be pretty, with a small, upturned nose.
His breath seemed to freeze in his chest as his imagination filled in the blanks between what he could and couldn't see. The high cheekbones covered with soft, smooth skin the color of milk filled his mind. That tiny nose slightly turned, resting comfortably between eyes of sapphire blue. He could see her long blonde hair spilling over her shoulders to outline round breasts, high and firm. The slimness of her waist gave way to hips that would move delightfully as she walked. Her amazing shapely hips were perched atop long, curvaceous legs. Her gaze seemed to drift over Gilroy a few times and then turned to him. Even though he could not see her eyes clearly, Duncan felt them stab into him, as if she looked directly into his very soul.
Without warning, a chill passed through the air. Duncan realized his body, not the air, seemed to go cold as he felt the hair on his neck stir to stand on end. He glanced about quickly, his instincts all screaming at him that danger was near, that some horrendous killer stalked the countryside, dark and bloodthirsty.
He felt more than he saw Gilroy shiver and clutch his arms about his body. Gilroy's voice came soft as a whisper, and a trembling fear poured through. “Sooder folley, Duncan."
The beautiful woman pulled her head back inside the carriage, and it moved away.
Duncan swallowed and the chill left his bones. “Ye're mad or drunk."
"Nay. Mark my words. Sooder folley."
Duncan tried to laugh, but it came out as a snort. “There's nay such thing."
With the echoes of the chill still in him, Duncan wondered if he believed that.
* * * *
Melissa stared out the window of her chambers in the castle. The house servants greeted her and ushered her here as soon as she arrived. The servants said her soon-to-be husband would join her for dinner. Like so many other things, this didn't matter. In the scheme of a life that had lasted more than three thousand years, and would continue for at least that much, a few hours amounted to less than nothing.
As she stared out over the rocky landscape, her mind continuously drifted back to the big man she had seen in the fields earlier. Something about him had grabbed her attention, but she did not know what. Perhaps it wasn't he at all, but his spindly friend instead.
The dirty, skinny man knew what she was. Somehow, he could see through the façade and had pegged her. Some mortals, she knew, had that ability. Something like a sixth sense let them spot predators long before the others. Perhaps that let them outlive their companions.
She smiled a little, remembering the precognitive dream of the man who, in five hundred years, would explain all of that to a shocked and pious world.
Melissa stood and walked to the balcony of her suite. She passed the heavy tapestries hanging on the cold stone walls and shook her head. Compared to those found within her last home in England, these were mere rugs. Still, McGill Keep wasn't all that bad, she conceded. She'd lived in worse places.
She leaned on the railing and looked over her new fiefdom. She felt no shame at the idea of how she would control her future husband. Mortal men were so easy to manipulate. She wouldn't even need to use the subtle nudges to his mind and thoughts of which her kind were capable. Sex alone easily controlled mortal men.
For the right behaviors on her part, for the right treats in bed, he would do anything she asked. By withholding her body from him, she could get him to take on the entire English army with a broom straw.
If her new husband tried to force himself on her, he would have a nasty surprise. She had learned, however, over the centuries of living with mortal men, that even token resistance followed by submission made an effective tool to manipulate men.
But she felt no shame from such methods of control. She only did what females of her kind had done for all time. It was nothing to be ashamed of, simply a means to an end.
She felt the telltale compression of the air as someone moved in the suite behind her. Instinct took over, and the change moved over Melissa in a limited way. Her ears, eyes, and nose became more aware, and a faint green colored her vision as she moved slowly to turn to face the room.
A voice that echoed across the millennia and yet also from just a few decades past reached her ears before she could complete her turn.
"Aset Ma'at Amen."
She froze. Only one person knew that name, a name she hadn't used since he killed her.
She turned to face him. “You."
The small man smiled gently. “Yes, it is me.” Despite having seen him last more than four decades ago, he hadn't changed. His hair had the color of the rats and mice that infested the temples of home. His skin held a milky pallor to match that of the priesthood of Anubis from which he arose. It was his eyes, the color of metal worked in a forge and cleaned of the scale left behind, that always transfixed her.
On that night so many years ago, in the gardens of Ma'at at her temple, it had been his eyes that had first attracted her. He hadn't needed to use the powers of his mind to control or subdue her. She had willingly given herself to him, willingly damned herself for all time.
"Set Ankh Halus, what are you doing here? What do you want?"
He tilted his head to the side, and a sad smile came to his face. “The same thing I have always wanted. You.” He seemed to shrug just a little and the sadness faded from the smile, replaced by something akin to childish joy at some hidden secret. “As for what I'm doing here, that involves my new name. You can call me Angus. Angus McGill."
Even though she knew from the royal Scottish kilt and trappings he wore that this was coming, her heart pounded in her chest. The shock, even forewarned, caused the change to leap upon her. Her vision flashed to sense heat, green hues for cool objects like the table and other furniture, a glaring white for the flickering torches, and an eerie red with white tinges around the edges for his glowing body. She felt the fangs growing long and hard in her mouth, parting her lips, as she prepared to attack.
She lunged at him, but he had already moved. With a terrifying speed gained from more than ten thousands years of predation, he stepped to the side and almost casually grasped her wrists in his hand.
His small body belied his true strength, and he held her without effort. When he yanked her roughly, bringing her face only inches from his, Melissa saw his eyes. The change had come over him as well.
His voice came as a powerful, low growl like the rumbling of a tiger. “You wish to kill me? Remember, my love, we cannot die."
"I am not your love.” Raising her voice would only be a waste of energy, and she needed every ounce to escape him. “And I never will be. You made me this."
"Perhaps I did, but you joined me of your own free will.” He smiled, and she realized his smile always pleased and terrified her. No matter what else, he'd been her only first love for the last three thousand years, and he always would be, but the smile hinted at the killer lurking just behind the white teeth, not unlike the smiling crocodiles along the Nile that grinned at the reed-gather before attacking. “Melissa."
She struggled against his grip, but she could not escape. “Bastard!” She spat at his face.
He easily dodged the spittle, moving like lightning. “You will never le
arn.” With a casual flip of his arm, he flung her through the air and she landed roughly on the bed. The impact of her body caused the supporting ropes under the down-filled mattress to creak and groan, and her sharpened hearing picked up the snapping of at least one rope as it gave way under the strain. Springing to her hands and knees, Melissa growled and hissed at him. “Take me if you will, but know that you'll carry the scars."
McGill laughed out loud. “My love, I could take you if I desired, and the cuts will only add to the pleasure before they heal. I will not take you. Not now.” The rumbling growl of his killer's voice wasn't the only thing that made the thinly veiled threat so sinister. She knew McGill's soul was tainted and putrid from his thousands of years of dealing death. He walked to stand beside the bed. He didn't need to raise his voice as the mortals did to be threatening. “You have had a shock and need time to adjust. And we have all the time in the world."
He reached to stroke her cheek, and Melissa snapped at his hand. He again moved in a flash, and her teeth slammed together with a loud click.
McGill chuckled and left her chambers, taking one last glance back at her kneeling on the bed. As she had thought so many times in the past, Melissa thought she saw a hint of sadness and tenderness in the face of the monster.
* * * *
He hummed to himself as he made his way back to the Great Hall. McGill had some details to attend to relating to a peasant who refused to pay his taxes. Perhaps, he thought, I will feed today.
His new bride had reacted just as he knew she would. He knew not by some mysterious power of his mind, but from past experience. She had always reacted this way. Angry, threatening, and trying to kill him, but she would calm down soon. Just as she always calmed herself when she saw the inevitable path they must follow.
More than three thousand years ago, he made her into what they both are today. His kind knew the truth, unlike the superstitious mortal fools. An illness brought about the change, not cursing the gods or even one particular god. He had seen in his dreams that mortals would one day learn of things called viruses. Perhaps this was a virus. Maybe there would one day be a cure, but none of his kind ever saw that in a dream.
Ruins of a Past Day: Bloodlust 1 Page 2
