Elizaveta, my love. Our child, torn from the womb.
I cracked my mouth open as wide as I could, spittle dangling from my fangs—
Reversing his hands, Vinci took the back of my skull and drove my forehead down into the stones past his shoulder. Rendered nearly unconscious, I rolled off him and lay in the street. He could have finished me then, had he so chosen.
Even in this, I heard him clearly in my disorientation, I educate you.
When I could sit up he was gone. I crawled over to Elizaveta, knowing it was too late. I was too late. She was no more. Near us, our naked child lay discarded on the cobbles like so much refuse.
Oh how I despised him then, hated him madly and deeply. The way only a son can hate a father. He had made me what I was, and then deprived me of all that mattered. I was left with memories alone. My Elizaveta. Where once flesh and blood, beauty and intellect, now an empty vessel in my arms, fated to rot in the earth.
Such was my grief, I ignored the necessary cautions. It was there that they found me, besides my love, and the lifeless shell of the child that would have been our son. The net fell from above, ensnaring me. A silver net! Any other material I would have torn to shreds within moments, but not this. Its silver-treated fibers seared my flesh with every move.
Convinced of the futility of my struggle, I looked up to find myself surrounded by the hunters. Tak chto eto demon, affirmed the patriarch. This is the demon. They gathered about the scene, the holy man with torch and cutlass; Lady Hawthorne brandishing a Deringer; the man who passed as her brother with his crossbow centered on me; only the Arab, in his suit and turban, unarmed.
Elizaveta’s husband was there as well. Producing a pistol, he pressed it to my head through the net. Tears streaked his face as he gasped for breath.
Destroying him, Lady Hawthorne spoke, will not bring her back. Will not bring them back.
The husband collapsed to his knees. Better I should join her then, he took the pistol from my head and pressed it to his own.
Don’t be daft, Master Hawthorne deftly removed the pistol from out his hand. Time for that later.
Master Hawthorne stood above me. Time now is of the essence. The Arab came behind me. His words—Salam, javoon—were the last I heard before a crushing blow to the back of my head rendered me insensate.
Salam, javoon.
Time is a prison. Behind us stretches a vast region we remember as the past; before us, as though behind a perpetually closed door, an unchartered future. We forever occupy this spot, a particular moment, the eternal now. Like bugs in amber, though we fail to recognize our imprisonment. And what of the alternative? Nonexistence, death, never to have been at all? I understood Elizaveta’s husband’s grief. I shared it.
Salam, javoon.
The words that had announced my fugue delivered me from it.
Can you hear me, javoon?
I recognized the Arab by his voice. Restrained, all I could see of him were his shoes and pants.
The device in which they had secured me was known as the Street Sweeper’s Daughter. My head was pushed down while my knees forced up into a crouching position. A constraint device, a metal contraption of loops and chains treated with silver, I appeared squashed in a bear trap. I knew what it was without having to be told, knew also how those left so restrained would bleed from the mouth and nose over time and lose their sanity.
I sensed that it was still night, the same night I was taken. Wherever we were—I suspected the grandmother’s house—it was damp. A coal stove did little to dispel the chill.
The Arab and I were apparently alone for the moment.
If you harmed my family as you have this man’s, javoon, he pronounced, My pursuit would know no rest, and your suffering—when you were found—would feel to you an eternity. I would hunt you through the ages. On Allah I swear this.
Destroy me now, I told him, or I will take from you all you hold dear, as was taken from me.
The priest, he ignored my threat, would have your end at this moment. If allowed. He clicked his tongue, as if remonstrating a child and not a being of my years. And if it were for you we had come, such would be your fate. But it is not you we seek, javoon.
Not me? Puzzled, I tried to look up, the device constraining me.
Footsteps announced the arrival of others in the room. We seek the one you serve, a woman’s voice announced. The Lady and Master Hawthorne with the Patriarch.
He is known to you, perhaps, as Vinci.
Craning my neck to the side, I spied the Russian clergyman, cutlass scabbarded at his side. Hands swaddled in thick mittens, he cracked the feed door to the stove, heat and light belching forth. He removed a glowing poker from within.
It is by my intercession, javoon, that your restraints are loosened. The Arab whispered in my ear. They can just as easily be tightened with my command. Tell the lady that which she wishes to know.
I serve none but myself! I shouted. The Patriarch stepped in, applying the poker to my shoulder. My skin sizzled, the pain deeper than that imposed by either the net or the Street Sweeper’s Daughter. I shuddered where I was, locked in place, refusing to cry out. As the bearded man stepped back, I smelled my burnt flesh on the air.
That’s where this starts, declared Master Hawthorne. You decide where it ends. Where is he?
Tell him, javoon, whispered the Arab.
I cursed them in half a dozen languages before the Patriarch reapplied the poker.
Imagine! My Elizaveta gone. Our child no more. That these hunters came not for me, but for him—for him! The indignity of it all. Their tortures I forebore. The pain of the flame applied to skin. The whispered obsecrations of the Arab with his affected concern. The supercilious stare of the lady and her “brother” as they scrutinized and supervised my torment.
Tell us where we will find him, javoon, the Arab adjured, you owe him nothing.
It was true.
Vinci had betrayed my loyalty. His actions that night revoked the fealty I had once accorded him. Whether I lived or perished at the hands of these, my tormenters, I cared not a whit. Without Elizaveta, my existence was forfeit. Yet I cared very much that Vinci be made to suffer, that he be forced to bear the cost of my own misfortune for which he was responsible. I told them where they could find him. I described our house, his chambers, how he protected himself during the day.
Free me, I offered them wholeheartedly, and I will take you to him.
No sooner had I done so than a clamor arose from elsewhere in the house, a dull crash and cries, the alarum sounded. Stay put, javoon, the Arab warned me, a look of concern on his face before he rose.
He is here, Master Hawthorne announced to the others, raising his crossbow. He bade the Patriarch stay and guard me before he, the Lady and the Arab rushed as one from the room.
More screams sounded throughout the home.
The Patriarch eyed me warily, opening the feed door and replacing the poker among the glowing coals within. He stood there in his robes and hat, cutlass drawn.
I knew without knowing: Vinci had come to this place. Why he came I could not fathom. I could only imagine he sought my end.
Slipping into the room via the shadows, he could not ask to find me in a more vulnerable position, contorted in the Street Sweeper’s Daughter as I was.
Bozhe moi! The Patriarch called out to his deity, barely able to raise his cutlass before Vinci was on him. My former master drove the clergyman head first into the stove, knocking the kamilavka from his head. The man’s petrified cry cut short as the blistering air seared his lungs. Hair and beard immediately ignited, the fire spreading like some greedy beast to his overcossack and the riasa worn beneath.
The Patriarch struggled in Vinci’s grasp, his own hands melting to the stove against which he sought desperately to extricate himself, his legs and torso bucking like some mad animal.
Upon his release he streaked from the room like a comet hurtling through space, flailing with burning arms at the fire that
danced about his head and shoulders, spreading the flames as he ran from the room.
Finish me then, I demanded of Vinci from my bonds. Finish me, if that is what you have come to do.
I am not here to destroy you.
I became aware of another in the room with us, one I had overlooked in the overwhelming revulsion that filled me in Vinci’s presence.
If I freed you now, you would set upon me, and I have no desire to continue our earlier broil. You have grown strong, he commended me, my equal in more ways than one. Therefore I will not free you.
My face, lowering, I could not bring to bare on his visage, such were my confines.
Instead, Vinci continued, I bid you farewell. And in so doing I express only this hope: that when next we encounter each other, you will have some understanding of my actions this night, though I know it will not allay your hand. What sounded like a sigh issued from him then. Until next we meet.
Someone approached me, hesitantly, frightened or disoriented. Whoever it was began to unencumber me from the Street Sweeper. When the last of the silver-coated straps fell from my singed flesh, I looked upon Aalam, still blinking his way out of the daze into which he had been mesmerized.
The boy helped me to my feet.
I don’t understand, Leonid, he looked around the room in terror, as though seeing it for the first time. The pungently-sweet stench of the Patriarch filled the air. What is happening?
Take me to the grandmother, I commanded him.
Aalam led us. Sections of the house burned about us, the heat pulsating. We passed the broken and mangled bodies of the household staff, men and women who had fallen before Vinci.
The old woman was in her room upstairs.
Stay, I ordered Aalam, leaving him inside the door. The stench of garlic, rank in the room, offended my senses. I ignored it, intent on my murderous task. She smiled foolishly as I approached her bed, greeting me by her husband’s name.
Here! He is here! Elizaveta’s husband burst into the chamber, a pistol in his hand. He is—
Before he could continue his cry or loose his first shot, I took his arm from his body, tossing the limb aside. The man staggered about the room, disbelief in his eyes. He collapsed in a seated position against the wall, his one hand pressed to the stump at his shoulder, blood streaming from between his fingers. He watched as I mounted the bed.
The old woman beamed at me as I lay a hand on either of her wrinkled cheeks. Wrenching her head from her body, blood geysered from her torso, fanning the room. I pitched her skull through the window glass.
From elsewhere in the home, the sound of rushing feet, warning cries and pistol shots.
Before leaving the room, I twisted the man’s head completely around, the bones in his neck cracking like so many knuckles. I propelled Aalam before me, my hand guiding him by the neck. I drove the boy to the place we had met, the roof.
Morning was not far off, the sky bluing to the east.
Perched on the eaves, we witnessed the pandemonium on the grounds. The mansion was ablaze, the fires spreading. Shadowy forms ran beneath us, men with buckets of water.
Leonid. Sadness in Aalam’s eyes. The child shook under my hand. I don’t understand…
Aalam! Bedo! The Arab stood in the gardens, staring up in horror, screaming at his child to run. Bedo!
Aalam looked from his father below—
Leonid?
—to me next to him, to one he thought a boy—
What are you, Leonid?
—one he thought a friend.
Leonid, please.
A push—Go to your father!—sent the child from the roof, incomprehension and betrayal on his shocked face. As he plummeted, I was already looking out over the city, taking in its breadth and grandeur, breathing deep its air.
Petersburg.
Elizaveta.
I would need to leave this place, leave it now.
Put it all behind me.
Vinci. My thoughts kept returning to him. To him I owed everything: my life, my damnation. I would not be if not for him; I would be not what I am if not for him. I must admit to then thinking it better to have perished on that field in the Ukraine when I was a boy. To have perished in the mouths of the wolves. The wolves Vinci had first rescued me from. But for that, I would not be relating this tale; but for him, I would know not loss.
The whistle of a bolt through the air brought me back to my senses.
On the ground below, Master Hawthorne reloaded his crossbow, grim determination writ on his face. Kneeling besides the broken body of his boy, the Arab wailed in grief. He pointed up at me with trembling digit, vowing never-ending vengeance.
Before Hawthorne could release a second arrow, I fled.
I abandoned that burning house, turning my back on the city and my happiness. My Elizaveta consigned to memory. I knew then that from that night forth, I would burn with a new passion, intent on Vinci’s destruction.
“Did you ever catch up with him?” Boone asked. “With Vinci?”
Rainford smiled grimly.
“And what happened?”
“That, Boone, is another tale—”
“—for another time,” Boone grumbled. “Right.” He stood, Pomeroy already standing, storing away his Dictaphone. “Hey, Rainford, let me ask you something.”
The Dark Lord waited on his settee.
“You still miss her?”
The vampire was silent a moment before replying. “I loved her,” he admitted, “I loved her as I have never loved anyone since.”
Thursday
22 October 1998
34.
5:45 A.M. (EST)
It’d been a slow night and there were few patrons in the diner this early in the morning. The waitress counted on her tips and today, well, looked like today that wasn’t going to happen. Hopefully things would pick up around lunch. They usually did.
A man had hurriedly entered moments earlier, joining three already seated in a booth at the back. “Somebody tell me what the fuck is going on?” she’d heard him demand of the others, shushed by his friends as she approached. She smiled as she walked over, doing her job, not interested in their business, their business their business, the coffee carafe in her hand.
The fourth man—almost six foot with a stomach on him, probably in his forties and not a pleasant guy to look at—put his hand on his overturned coffee cup, not interested.
“Please.” The oldest guy at the table held up his mug. The waitress put him at maybe fifty. His face was pocked from acne scars, probably counted against him when he was younger but lent him a certain air today. Kind enough looking guy. Whether he was truly a kind guy, or the kind of guy who only looked it, that would be revealed when he laid the tip down later.
She filled his cup and he thanked her as she walked away.
“The matter, Hank?” Jerry, the kind looking man, raised his mug to his lips, detected the coffee was too hot and lowered it. “You don’t want to have a cup of coffee with the rest of us?”
“They know.” Hank ignored him. “Just tell me,” Hank had palmed his overturned coffee cup and was tapping it against the saucer beneath, “Spasso knows, don’t he?”
“Spasso knows.” Tom, in his early thirties, was the youngest of the four. He wore a sports jacket over jeans and a t-shirt. Under the tee his stomach was churning, nerves.
“Peter tell him?”
“No.” Jerry sipped at his coffee. “Peter says he didn’t tell him.”
“The fuck you mean then—Johnny knows? What happened to the other guys?”
“Be quiet, Hank.” Gaby hadn’t touched his coffee the whole time. Gaby was tall and heavy, but he carried the weight well. You met Gaby, your first impression wasn’t oh here’s a fat guy. “You want this whole diner to know our business?”
“Fuck this diner.” Hank looked around, “Fuck these people,” but he quieted as he continued. “And fuck me,” almost whispering this last part. “The fuck was I thinking?
“
You were thinking you were going to get rich.” Jerry set his mug down, deciding he’d give it a few minutes to cool. “You stay calm, it’s still going to happen.” Smiled at Hank, reassuring him.
Hank looked doubtful. “What about the other guys?”
“Gooch thinks Heinlein knows it was us,” Tom said, leaving the know-it-was-us-that-robbed-him unspoken. His stomach was turning over on him, threatening to do terrible things. He felt as anxious as Hank sounded. Felt like he needed to go to the bathroom again. “We haven’t heard from the other guys.”
“How does the Hiney know?” Hank was livid and tapping his coffee cup down harder. “What’d somebody get guilty and tell him? You fuckin’ guys. The man doesn’t know us from shit, if we passed him on the street—”
“No,” Jerry assured him, “nobody yapped.”
“Thank Christ for that.” Hank took a look around, eyeing the other patrons, the waitress minding her own business over behind the counter. “You know what,” he turned the cup over in his hand, “I could use a cup of coffee,” raised it up in the air. The waitress either didn’t see him or was ignoring him.
“I think Gooch is just real nervous.” Tom tried to think it out. “I mean, fuck, I’m nervous.” He was clenching his buttocks as he spoke, afraid that if he broke wind he’d ruin his pants. “And I don’t have to work with Heinlein every day.”
“So? I don’t get it—” Hank stopped trying to get the waitress’ attention. Bitch was ignoring him. “Why’s he nervous?”
Jerry had his hands tented on the tabletop in front of him. “Says the Hineys been looking at him funny the past week or so.”
“That cocksucker. I knew we should have—”
“No, Hank,” Jerry corrected him, his hands still on the table. Gaby was looking at Jerry, looking at him concerned about Hank. “We shouldn’t have. Okay?” The look Gaby gave Jerry was completely lost on Hank who, restless in the booth next to Gaby, was now tapping his coffee mug with a spoon.
Chink-chink-chink.
“Listen, Hank,” Jerry’s voice was low. “We got the money. We got away with it…”
I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) Page 20
