Bloodgifted
Page 18
‘Want me to go on?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please don’t stop. I want to hear it all.’
‘Marcus was horrified and determined to avenge the slain Roman captives. He was about to burn down the village and sell the women and children into slavery when the witch cursed him and his men into what they are now. In retaliation, he and his men killed them all. From that day, the Curse began to take effect. By the time they returned to the fort they were no longer human. The first ones they killed were the night sentries on top of the walls.
‘Those men were their friends, but all Marcus and his men saw were prey. They emptied them of blood then went in search of others, their thirst unquenchable and uncontrollable. They killed twenty-seven, then returned the next night and killed eighteen more, among them Nepos and Melander.’
I gasped. ‘Their own friends; the ones whom they sent back to the fort?’
‘That’s right. Those first few days of their transformation were the worst in their lives. The blood-thirst was impossible to control let alone resist. They were sickened and horrified by what they had done and some even attempted to end their lives, but their bodies healed almost immediately.’
‘What about the people left in the fort?’ I asked.
‘There was absolute panic, of course. Everyone thought demons had come among them, from the way the dead men’s throats had been ripped out. So the soldiers and their families fled and left the fort deserted for the next hundred years.’
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat.
‘Wait here, don’t move,’ Luc said and rose from the step, ran down the stairs in a blur and within seconds was back with a glass of water. ‘Drink this, ma petite.’
My hand trembled as I took it and drank half.
‘Feeling better?’
‘Yes, thanks. I’m not normally squeamish, but the way you tell it I almost feel like I’m there.’
‘Ready for more? Then eat, Laura.’
I nodded and nibbled at my breadstick. I felt as if under a spell. The history he related held me in its grip as the faces of Marcus, Terens, Sam, Cal and Jake stared down at me from the lead-glass window.
‘They went in search of a priest of Mithras, favourite deity of Roman soldiers at the time, hoping he’d be able to remove the curse. But it didn’t work. Eventually they were told to call up the witch’s spirit and offer their own blood as a sacrifice,’ he said.
‘And did they?’
He nodded. ‘There was no other choice. They returned to the village, located her body, burned it and as the flames rose they sliced open their veins and let the blood drip.’
‘Did she appear?’ I never believed in ghosts, but as of last Friday I had an open mind.
‘Yes, and she was angry. There was no way she’d relent. You see, Laura, she had been pregnant.’
Pregnant! No wonder she’d cursed him, I thought. But then her people attacked and killed his as well. What a mess. And Marcus, his men and my family have been paying for it ever since. As my students would say, that sucks big time!
I shook my head. ‘Both sides did wrong.’
‘There is a fine line between revenge and justice. Confuse the two and you only cause pain and suffering.’
‘For centuries,’ I added.
He nodded again, let out a deep breath and said, ‘Marcus realised that, but she made one concession.’ He looked up at the window again and intoned, almost to himself:
‘What has been done cannot be undone. But this one thing I can grant. As one of my children escaped your sword, while hunting out in the woods, so will I spare one of yours. Your wife will give birth to twins: Children of Light and Dark. The boy shall be as you, a drinker of blood, when he comes of age, but the girl will not. She will walk in the light. Long life will be granted her and her descendants. They will be known as Children of Light and their blood shall sustain the Child of Darkness. And you Roman, shall live all through the long ages ahead till one born of your house—a Child of Light and Dark—willingly bears a child to one of Prythin blood, a descendant of my house. For the child shall bear the mingled blood of Roman and Prythin—one race, one blood. Only then the curse shall be lifted.’
Luc stopped and turned to look at me. ‘Those were her very words. To Marcus that would have been the ultimate humiliation: one of his house, of Roman patrician blood, intermarrying with a painted savage.’
I turned from staring at the window to Luc as the realisation hit. Could it possibly refer to me? The curse presupposed Marcus’s descendant to be a woman. And it certainly didn’t refer to my aunt otherwise I wouldn’t have inherited the cursed gene.
Luc mentioned a Child of Light and Darkness, whatever that meant. My parents were two ordinary humans—John and Eilene Dantonville—so it couldn’t possibly refer to them, nor to me, and as I was an only child, which meant it would have to be someone in the next generation—my child or grandchild—unless of course, I never married.
That idea left me feeling hollow; I wanted to marry and eventually have kids, although the thought of one of my children being vampire food filled me with revulsion. Then another thought occurred to me—would Alec be their guardian? I suddenly saw myself fifty years from now standing on a sandstone platform handing over my white silk cloak to my child, much as my aunt Judy did with me. Would she—if it were a girl—experience the same attraction toward him as I did? Would he kiss her at the Ritual as he did me?
My stomach bunched into a tight knot.
‘Laura, are you all right?’ Luc asked. A flicker of concern crossed his face.
‘Yes, I’m fine, just thinking over everything you’ve told me.’ And it’s beginning to sicken me, I thought. I didn’t want to think about it let alone discuss it. ‘Her spirit then disappeared?’
‘No, she added that when the time came he and his men would be given a choice—to remain as they are or become human again.’
‘Why? Surely they’d choose humanity wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes indeed, my Laura. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Marcus and his men, and any whom they transformed, would start to age immediately as all the years of their lives catch up with them. They’d be dead within minutes. That was her idea of freedom!’
The sorceress certainly had her revenge. Whatever decision they made condemned them in some way. Alec had told me Luc had changed him. But who had changed Luc?
‘Can I ask who transformed you?’
He hesitated a moment before answering. ‘Marcus’s son, one of the twins, Lucius Antonius Pulcher.’
I gasped. ‘That means—’
‘Alec and I will be given the choice.’
And what a choice! The horrible image of Alec and Luc as wizened old men, aging, decaying and dying within a matter of minutes, whizzed through my mind. It was like something out of a horror film and I realised I didn’t want that to happen. Not to Luc—for my aunt’s sake. And not to Alec. I liked him, more than I should.
‘Then I hope it won’t happen for a long time yet!’ I said on impulse. Then the implications for us both of what I said occurred to me.
He smiled. ‘I understand what you mean and I’m flattered. We shall see.’
‘Did Marcus have the rings made in the same image as on his shield?’ I asked, wanting to change the subject.
‘He did. Before her apparition vanished the witch made one final demand—to take from her ashes the golden medallion she had been wearing. It had the figure of a serpent on it—the symbol of Melusine, the Pict goddess of retribution and vengeance. It contained two unusual red stones for eyes. Marcus was to create two identical rings with the same image, split the stones and place two in each ring, as you can see.’
He lifted my hand, turned it to the light and the serpent’s eyes gleamed dully. ‘The stones, she said, were actually two drops of her blood and imbued with power. They would glow on the finger of an Antonii —a descendant of the family of Marcus Antonius—and burn that of an impostor.’
Luc continued. ‘They were to be passed on through the generations till the Destined Ones appear, and only when their child is born in the exact same place where it all began, will the curse be ended. The rings themselves will hum in confirmation.’
I looked at the thing sitting so innocuously on my hand and shook my head. After my initial introduction to the ring on my birthday, I’d have thought nothing more could surprise me. I was wrong. First slithering, then glowing, now humming. What next, I thought, magic beans?
In some way I was relieved it hadn’t hummed, yet another part of me was disappointed and I had no explanation as to why.
‘Tell me about the twins,’ I asked, to rid my mind of yet another disturbing thought.
‘The girl, Antonia, lived for a hundred and forty-nine years. She passed on the curse to her firstborn—a boy called Paulus.’
‘And Lucius? What happened to him?’
‘He’s still around.’
‘Wasn’t he at the Ritual?’
‘He was there, but he likes to keep a low profile. You’ll get to know him soon, I promise.’
Strange, how I was getting used to the idea of being around people who were centuries, even millennia old. Only four days ago I’d been happily ignorant of this parallel world. How far I had come.
‘Marcus’s men must have taken it very badly, knowing there was no reprieve for them,’ I said.
He nodded and pointed to two of the four faces I hadn’t recognised. ‘Appius and Pudens took their own lives. Walked out into the sun one morning while the rest of them slept. The others… well,’ he shrugged. ‘They adjusted and left Britain for Gaul, as France was then called. Antonius had a villa there and his wife, Gallia, had recently given birth to the twins. They remained there for the next sixteen hundred years, till Claude D’Antonville, the thirtieth Ingenii and your great, great grandfather indulged his desire for adventure and gold by going to America and then here—’
‘—where he met my great, great grandmother, fell in love and never went back to France,’ I finished for him. ‘I know that story. It’s our family history. Dad told me when I was little; how our name was anglicised and the apostrophe dropped.’
‘Exactly. And we’ve been here ever since.’
‘So how did the Ritual develop?’
‘It was created in direct response to other vampire attacks on Antonia when she turned fifty.’
‘You mean there were others like you?’
‘Only a few and they homed in on her like radar. Lucius wasn’t there. He was in Britain. He’d run away as soon as the change came over him so as not to fulfil the sorceress’s prediction by feeding from his sister. He was fifteen. Yet thirty-five years later, when they both reached their fiftieth year—’
‘Oh!’ I didn’t mean to interrupt, yet again. It just came out of me as I understood the significance of that now.
He nodded his head once. ‘Yes, her blood matured and seemed to call to him, even over that distance. He couldn’t stay away. Meanwhile, her husband had divorced her for not being able to bear children. Marcus and Gallia knew nothing about the delayed conception she and her eventual offspring would experience. The sorceress hadn’t mentioned anything about that. And in those days, for a woman not to be able to have children it was, well… a disgrace.’
He rose from the step on which he’d sat and leant back against the balustrade, arms folded across his chest. ‘It happened quite accidentally. Lucius fought off two vampires who’d attacked Antonia. Jake and Terens came to help and they succeeded in killing them—beheading. Next to the sun it’s the surest way to despatch a blood drinker, as long as the head is kept well away from the body, otherwise it simply reattaches itself.’
The things I was learning! I was starting to worry my eyes would permanently remain the size of dinner plates. This was the kind of stuff a person read about in fantasy books, taking comfort from the fact it was far from realty. Yet here I was, utterly absorbed in a story that was just as real as the man who was relating it.
‘But Lucius had been badly wounded,’ he continued. ‘Unless he fed, he wouldn’t last till the morning to regenerate in the day sleep. As if acting on instinct, Antonia sliced open her wrist and pressed it to her brother’s mouth. The moment he tasted her blood, strength and power flowed through him. Her blood was unlike anything he’d ever tasted. He found he didn’t need to sleep as often and could even walk out into the day without burning. His strength increased, as had all his other faculties. Antonia’s blood was the key.’
‘Did Marcus feed from her too?’ Sheer curiosity prompted me to ask that question, even as the thought of it repulsed me.
‘No. He never did and, apart from Lucius, he forbade anyone else to as the consequences would have been dreadful. Every vampire in Europe would have fought to possess her. Some tried. So Marcus appointed Lucius her guardian and his own men—Justinus, Sempronius, Terentius, Calixtus, Martius and Galen—were placed under his command.’
I guessed those were the Latin names of the men I now knew as Jake, Sam, Terens and Cal. The other two I hadn’t heard before. ‘What happened to those last two?’ I pointed to their images in the window.
Luc’s gaze strayed up there and moved from one face to the next. ‘They died. Killed by vampire-hunters as they slept. The other vampires they encountered were wild, uncontrolled, killing indiscriminately, giving humans a reason to hunt us and so had to be stopped.’ The passion in his voice made me suspect he may have experienced such a thing sometime in his long life. I hadn’t yet asked him just how old he was.
‘It was one of the reasons for the establishment of the Principate—to rein them in and protect Antonia at the same time. That’s how it started. Lucius became their leader and since he was stronger, no one dared challenge him. Those few who tried were quickly dispatched. Then he and Marcus established the Brethren Laws, by which all blood drinkers must abide.’
‘And that’s worldwide?’
‘Yes. Leaders were appointed from among them and made responsible for other vampires in their regions—they’re the Prefects. Those still living are in the Eldership. Zhao and Kwame. You met them at the Ritual.’
‘I remember them.’ I thought back to Monday night and the gold cloaks they wore when we were introduced. Apart from the woman, Maris, who looked like she needed reining in, the others appeared solemn, even wise. Somehow I couldn’t picture them as wild and uncontrolled. But then, what did I know!
He let out a deep breath. ‘To finish a long story, Lucius noticed that whatever matured in Antonia’s blood at age fifty, began to wane as she reached her centenary. But her son, Paulus, inherited it. His eyes, like hers—like those of all our kind—were lavender. And like her, he aged slowly and his blood matured at fifty. It gave off the same strong, sweet scent as his mother’s. If there wasn’t a changeover of Ingenii Lucius could lose his position as Princeps, as he wouldn’t be strong enough to fend off challengers. It’s for that reason,’ he said, as he sat back down next to me, ‘the Ritual was established—as a sort of… coming-of-age rite and to introduce the new Bloodgifted—as they came to be known—to the vampire community.
‘On that very first occasion nobody challenged, and everything went seemingly well for the next several centuries, until one arose and challenged Lucius for the right to be Princeps. His name was Jaroslav, one of the Prefects from Eastern Europe. They fought. Jaroslav bit off Lucius’s finger and took the ring for himself.’ He indicated his own finger on which sat a serpent ring identical to mine, except its eyes were green rather than red.
Luc continued. ‘But as he did so, the eyes of the serpents turned black and the metal began to burn. The ring itself rejected him. Rather than lose his finger, Jaroslav ripped it off. Unfortunately, Marcus didn’t behead
him as he should have. He spared him, since there were so few of us at that time, and later he became one of the ringleaders behind the Second Rebellion. Lucius was forced to dispatch him after that.’
It doesn’t pay to play nice! I thought.
‘Lucius retrieved the ring and placed it back on his own—regenerated—finger. The serpent’s eyes on both rings glowed bright red and so became a feature of the ceremony, and it’s been repeated from then on every fifty years.’
‘And that’s how the Legacy began.’ Although I said it aloud, it was more to myself. ‘When exactly was that?’
‘By modern reckoning, in the middle of the tenth century.’
Yep, I was definitely going to need glasses to hide my perpetually wide-eyed look. Luc must have been used to goggle-eyed Ingenii, for he just kept on talking.
‘Lucius fed from her descendants for the next nine hundred years. Apart from one daughter, all the Bloodgifted were males.’
‘Who was the daughter?’
‘Judith.’
‘And now me.’
He nodded, then stood up and took my hands in his. It was strange but I felt comfortable with him doing that. It felt almost normal, unlike Alec whose touch made my body tingle.
‘Laura, now is the time for you to know all,’ he announced and pulled me to my feet.
What else was there? I don’t know how long we had sat here, on the stairs, as he revealed my family history to me.
‘My study.’ He motioned to a closed door on the landing I hadn’t noticed before. ‘I tend to spend more time in this room than anywhere else in the house.’
He opened the door to reveal a masculine domain dominated by a massive table carved from malachite with its own throne-like leather chair. Against the wall, near the entrance, stood a dark green, well-used Chesterfield on which my aunt sat. She rose as we entered.
‘Come in, dear,’ she said and beckoned me forward.
I heard the door close behind me as I crossed the rich burgundy carpet that matched the leather inlay on the desk. Bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes lined the walls, interspersed here and there with an assortment of silver-framed photographs. Luc, after following me in, stood beside Aunt Judy and took her hand. They looked anxious.