“Not now!” she hissed. “There are too many guards. They surround this lodge at his commands, and are spread throughout the village, too. Bhulloch has instructed them to kill you if you try to escape, or kill the boy in failing that. Wait until it is night and their warriors are blinded by the dark.”
She did not know my strength, obviously. I had survived the maw of a glacier, a mountain of grinding ice. Yet, I worried for Ilio, who was mortal. I could not move at full speed with him in my arms. The force would kill him, and all it would take was one lucky spear or arrow to end his life.
Perhaps… perhaps a trade. The three Neirie women and a peaceful departure in exchange for a bit of my immortal spittle.
It seemed like a fair bargain, one the Elders would leap at.
“Why do you tell me these things?” I asked. It was my final suspicion. “You risk your life for us, yet we are strangers to you.”
The woman named Aioa drew herself up. “I was not born a slave, Blood Drinker,” she said haughtily. “If I had the strength of your kind, I would kill those old men and end the rule of the wicked Oombai, once and for all.”
Then she seemed to fear she’d said too much. She motioned curtly to her sisters and they rose. Heads down, the three of them departed.
6
After they left, Ilio dozed, drunk on the rancid fruit drink the Neirie had plied him with. He snored naked on his back, a satisfied smile upon his lips. I remained wary, my mind restless with anxiety. I was a stranger in a strange land. The customs of these Ground Scratchers, these people called the Oombai, were outrageous to my sensibilities. Had the entire world advanced in such a manner during my long sleep in the ice? This culture seemed little better than the Foul Ones who had bedeviled my race so long ago. I longed for the simplicity of my mountain cave, and the tranquility of my long solitude there, overlooking the valley of my human life, with only the wind and the bones of my loved ones, long buried, to keep me company.
What should I do with Ilio? My adopted child was a vulnerability. My vampire flesh might be nigh impregnable, but my heart was not so unassailable. Ilio, as much as I loved him, was a chink in my natural defenses, a weakness I had not accounted for.
Perhaps I should transform him into an immortal. I thought I knew the trick of it. It had been performed on me, after all. It seemed simple enough-- the transfer of the Living Blood. An instant of writhing agony, and then…
But I loved the boy. I loved his humanity. His innocence. My offenses against him were numerous enough. Did I dare make them insurmountable?
As I mulled these thoughts in my mind, afternoon melted into evening. Ilio rose from his nap and wanted to venture outside. He was eager to explore the village of the Oombai. He’d glimpsed innumerable curiosities when we passed through the avenues of the settlement earlier, and with the recklessness of naiveté, he wanted to investigate each of them further. He’d paid little attention to my conversation with Aioa. In his youth, and in his assurance of my strength, he thought us invulnerable, the menace of the Elders’ schemes a petty concern. Before I could counsel him otherwise, impress on him the gravity of our situation, the curtain of the hut was swept aside and Elder Bhulloch ducked inside.
“I trust you’ve rested well, Thest. Evening has come, which I know is more to the liking of your people. Come. Accompany me to the plaza. We’ve prepared a feast in your honor. I think you’ll find it entertaining.”
He rubbed his hands together as we rose.
“Come! Come!” Bhulloch pressed us. “The weather is pleasant. Let us enjoy ourselves tonight.”
His guards fell into step behind us as we accompanied the bent old man to the sprawling community’s central court.
“This way. This way,” the old man said.
I assessed the warriors as we walked. They were armed with spears and knives and were heavily muscled, their faces grim. It was obvious Bhulloch’s escort was a pair of veteran warriors. Their bodies were darkened by the elements and crisscrossed with a multitude of scars. They had seen battle. They would kill without hesitation. No danger to me, of course. I was ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. But I worried for Ilio, who trotted along at my side without a care, enthusiastic, commenting loudly at all the wonders he beheld.
“Look at the torches!” he gasped. “I’ve never seen so many torches, Thest! It is night, yet the village is bright as day!”
The central plaza was an arrangement of low curved walls. The walls were constructed of stone, their size and shape carefully selected so that the structure was uniform and aesthetically pleasing. The ramparts were organized in several concentric circles, within which the elite of Oombai society had gathered, sitting upon low benches made of flat river rocks, their bottoms cushioned with woven mats or furs. The Neirie tended dutifully to their masters, cooling them with ornate feather fans or fetching food and drink for them. It seemed to me the further we traveled within the crude amphitheater, the richer and older the Oombai grew as we passed.
The buzz of their conversations made my ears throb. The smell of their bodies was overwhelming. I felt my mouth water as the blood hunger stirred inside me, but I wrestled it down. It would be Ilio’s death if I lost control.
I cast out with my senses for the Neirie named Aioa. She was near. I could smell her… There! I spied her attending one of the elders in the central circle, the fat one named Ungst, the slave master. She was pouring wine for him while he squeezed her ass, ignoring the crude laughter he shared with his companions.
Ilio gasped. “Thest! Look!”
I turned my eyes and beheld a curious sight. Standing upon the central dais was a nude male with skin so dark it was almost black. The man was moving his hands rhythmically, catching and throwing several sizzling torches in the air. Always there was one flaming torch twirling in the air above his head, and he continued this act without dropping any of them as Bhulloch showed us to our seats.
“Please, sit at my right, Thest. It is the seat of honor,” he said.
This was a great festival, greater than any I had ever enjoyed. As Neirie summoned steaming platters of food for Ilio and my hosts to gorge themselves on, I found a gourd of blood pressed into my hands. I sniffed the contents of the cup. It was fresh human blood. But who did this blood belong to? I brought it to my lips. Still warm…!
“Drink! Drink!” Bhulloch cried.
As the feast progressed, the entertainment waxed even more outlandish. After the juggler, a group of nude performers entertained the crowds by walking on their hands or contorting their bodies into boneless-looking shapes. Tumblers took great leaps—great by human standards, anyway—spinning their bodies in the air before rolling back to their feet to do it again. We were entertained by limber female dancers, whose bellies undulated sinuously, writhing rapidly in and out. They alternately concealed and exposed their nakedness behind great fans of fluttering feathers as they made their way around the central circle, grinding their genitals, which were spread open by piercings, in the faces of the elite. As the Oombai select grew increasingly drunk, they cried out for sexual performances, something or someone they called Halforeh Tapas. I watched as a massively endowed male was hauled onto the stage, a sturdy leash knotted round his neck. He was a giant, nearly seven foot tall, with a wild red mane and a body covered in a wiry, animalistic pelt of curly hair. His attendants threatened him with clubs, pointing him toward a waiting female. To the crowd’s screams of approval, he mated with the pale and buxom woman, one of the feather dancers. The big man’s cock seemed almost too massive to fit inside the woman’s body. I could see the female straining to accommodate him. After he spilled his seed inside her, animals were led onto the dais then and the couplings on display became even more debased, for the beasts did not mate with other animals, but bleated and squalled as they were sullied by Neirie males. Though the cheering and laughter grew even louder, I found the sight repulsive.
I sought to engage the chieftain Bhulloch in conversation, but he was distracted b
y the copulations on the dais. He eyed the vulgar displays with an expression of voracious jealousy. I wanted to know more about the vampires who traded with his people, but he did not heed my subtle hints, and then I was distracted myself as Ilio—too full on drink and the rich, greasy food he’d stuffed himself on—doubled over and began to vomit on the ground between his feet.
Bhulloch noticed the boy puking and laughed merrily. “Your slave runneth over!” he wheezed.
“You’ve had enough,” I said sternly to the boy when his convulsions had passed. I snatched the fruit out of his hands and threw it aside.
Ilio wiped his lips and nodded. His face was red and snot was hanging from his nostrils. “I’m sorry, Thest.”
When the final goat had been defamed and the plundered beasts were led back to their pens, Bhulloch sought to engage me in conversation.
It had grown late and many of the festival-goers were stumbling drunkenly to their homes. The torches were burning low. The plaza was emptying. I was relieved the time for bargaining had come. My patience was long past frayed.
The old man, his eyes rimmed red by the rancid fruit drink he’d gulped all night, came to the point nearly without preamble, emboldened by his drunkenness. His health was waning, he told me. He woke in the morning coughing blood, and had begun to pass blood in his shit as well. The Oombai knew my peoples’ blood had healing properties. They called the magic blood ebu potashu, and paid a handsome price for it when the T’sukuru came to trade. What prize, he asked, could he offer to entice me to impart some of my curative potash?
Of course, I was ready for the old beggar. “I will give you what you seek, Old One. I ask only one favor in return.”
“What is that?” the old man inquired eagerly. He clasped his hands together, as if to restrain himself from embracing me.
“The Neirie who attended us today in our hut...”
“Yes?”
“I desire the one called Aioa.”
The old man grinned, exposing his two rotten teeth. “Ahh! Yes! Yes! The fiery one has sparked your desire, has she? I’m happy to be rid of her, to be truthful. And such a small favor to ask! You are far more reasonable than your brethren from the East. They demand too much, and offer so little in return.”
He gestured with a finger, commanding his attendants in the Oombai’s gibberish tongue. His Neirie nodded and hurried through the thinning crowd to fetch the fiery-tempered slave girl.
The other elders had gathered round, their eyes gleaming hungrily. A large shell bowl was placed on the ground at my feet. A receptacle for my potashu… or so I believed.
There is no such thing as a small favor, I thought to myself. I will give them just a little, and use their desire for more to bargain for Aioa’s sisters as well.
The Elders’ greedy eyes made me uncomfortable. I cast my thoughts inwards, to the cold black thing that resided within me. I remembered how my maker had transformed me. How he opened his fanged jaws and caused the black blood inside him to pour into my mouth. I had vomited many times in my life, when I was still human and vulnerable to illness. Surely it was not much different.
As I contemplated the act, I saw that Aioa was being led by Bhulloch’s attendants toward our group. Why was she balking? Surely she wanted to be free!
“Bring that obstinate creature over here!” Bhulloch commanded. He spoke some more in Oombai, waving with a curled finger. Aioa was pressed to her knees in front of me. I tried to catch her eye, to smile at her, thinking she would be pleased that I had won her freedom, but when I did, I saw that her eyes were round with horror. I realized too late the old man had misunderstood me.
Before I could protest, the attendant behind her pulled her chin up by the bristles of her head and sliced her throat open with a blade.
“No!” I cried.
Aioa twitched and made choking sounds as the attendant drained her blood into the bowl, holding her head in his hands. She batted the air. Struck the edge of the bowl. Almost overturned it.
“No-no-no!” I roared, leaping to my feet. I shoved the attendant who’d butchered her away from the dying woman. In my horror, I used my full strength, and the man went flying across the amphitheater. He sailed clear over the central dais and collided with the stone wall on the other side with enough force to topple a section of it. He slumped to the ground, blood drooling from his mouth, the bones in his back and pelvis shattered.
I thought to use my vampire blood to save the woman, but before I could move to do so, the elders fell away in fear and their guards swarmed forward to attack me.
I snarled and fell to one knee as a quiver of arrows plunged into my shoulder and ribs, converging on me from several directions at once.
Bhulloch tried to scramble away, his mouth agape, his eyes bulging, but Gant and his ancient sire stood in his path.
In fury and pain, I lashed out at the Chief Elder. The top of his head exploded amidst the pale blurred sweep of my arm. Brains and blood and chunks of flesh peppered the mass of panicked humans surrounding us. The old man’s body slid down, the top half of it missing. All that remained of his face was a jaw, hanging askew, and the wet pink worm of his tongue.
Ilio cried out then, and I turned to see him falling onto his hip, the shaft of an arrow protruding from his breast. A second arrow whistled toward him, but I managed to snatch it from the air before it found his throat.
I roared as my maker had roared that day on the mountain, when we went to confront the monster plaguing the Neanderthals. An expanding ring of dust swirled from the ground around me. Many of the encircling torches guttered out. To my left, the surviving elders clutched their heads, the tall one Hault stumbling to his knees. To my right, blood burst from Ilio’s nose and ears. My howl had ruptured his eardrums.
Ilio! His safety was my only thought then. My adopted son had been wounded!
I scooped him into my arms. Several Oombai warriors were sprinting toward us, brandishing spears and knives. Holding the boy tight to my body, I fled as fast as I dared to move. I leapt to the raised dais in the center of the piazza, and bound from there up and over the heads of the fleeing humans. Several more arrows hissed through the air as I accelerated, but I leapt clear of them. They all passed harmlessly beneath me… all save one, which flew at me from the rear, where I could not see it. This bolt, a sling-thrown javelin, pierced the meaty part of my upper hip. It struck with enough force to turn me in the air, but I did not lose hold of the boy, and clutching Ilio tight to me, I leapt clear of the plaza and crossed the village of the Ground Scratchers in moments, the little thatch huts blurring past.
Ilio moaned into the cold skin of my neck as I flew through the air with him. The wind flattened his hair to his brow. He coughed blood against my shoulder. He tried to speak but the roar of the wind snatched his words from his lips.
Stars and moon overhead. The village behind us. The great plains stretching out ahead.
Let me find a copse of wood where I could tend to his wounds…!
“Don’t die, boy!” I commanded.
My feet touched earth and I leapt again into the whistling air.
Interval
Liege. December 24, 2010. 3:32 am.
For a moment, I sat on the edge of the bed, my eyes distant. I was still far away in my thoughts, far from my finely appointed apartment with all its modern amenities: its televisions and laptop computer, its telephone and security system, electric refrigeration unit and cooktop range (these very rarely used). The wail of a police siren drifted very faintly into the room from the street below, but I did not hear it. For a moment I was still flying across that Austrian plain, my dying child in my arms, an arrow piercing him between the ribs. I was still fleeing through the night, looking for a safe wooded place where we could hide from the Oombai long enough for me to tend to the boy’s injuries.
Then the man taped to the chair across the room from me shifted in his bindings and cleared his throat, and I blinked, my mind returning to the present. My gleaming eyes t
ilted his direction, and I smiled.
“Do you have children, Mister…? Ah! I just realized I do not know your surname. What is your family name, Lukas?”
My handsome captive answered my smile with a sullen grimace. “Jaeger,” he finally replied.
“Jaeger,” I repeated, a look of amusement crossing my stony features. “Do you know the origin of your surname, Mr. Jaeger?” I asked.
“No.”
“Jaeger means ‘huntsman’.”
He just stared at me.
“I thought you would be amused by the coincidence,” I said, but he appeared unmoved. “Ah well. You modern folk have little respect for such things. Too much TV. All the noise and flashing images atrophy your sense of wonder.”
I have little patience for television. With my enhanced senses, I can see the images as they are inscribed on the surface of the display, one by one, like cartoon pictures in a child’s animated flipbook. It gives me a headache.
I do, however, enjoy music. I have fine collections of vinyl recordings in all my far flung homes. The collection I have in my American home is quite self-indulgent, I must confess. I have a lot of time to pursue my hobbies.
I thought of my rambling estate in the Appalachian Mountains, near the Cherokee National Forest in Northeastern Tennessee. The mountains there are so beautiful in the summer. It is tranquil and remote. I should return there soon. It’s been a long time.
Excuse me. I’m so easily distracted…!
“As I was saying…” I continued. “Tell me, Mr. Jaeger, do you have children?”
My captive—my beautiful killer, my plunderer, my rapist—did not respond to my question at first. I could see the thoughts running through his mind. How should he reply? With the truth? With a lie? What would benefit him the most? And why was I asking him this? Was I probing for weakness, something I could threaten him with?
The Oldest Living Vampire on the Prowl (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 2) Page 13
