Dangerous Ties

by Devyn Quinn

  On the day of my arrival, a fellow passenger aboard my carriage had explained to me what these blocks bordered. As high as my hips and separated each by good yard, these black objects encircled the whole of the monastery parameters. They were uncluttered edifices, without a strand of the dead overgrowth that so heavily carpeted the grounds beyond them.

  I placed a hand on the block standing to my left. Smooth as satin was this uncertain stone, and although the morning sun poured down on its surface, the block was colder than steel. With the pads of my fingers, I caressed the sharply hewn edges of the top. After a moment, a leaden vibration began to resonate from within the block. I drew my hand back and heard a crow cackle angrily behind me. Another bird chirped worriedly, and another squawked in warning. In moments, it seemed every tree I had passed on my way resounded with avian discontent.

  A banshee-like shriek jarred the pre-dawn air. It was a peafowl’s call, and its foreboding sound silenced the other birds.

  I set the lamp on the ground long enough to draw the hammer from my waistband. It looked so unthreatening, this toy-ishly made tool, but I brandished it in front of me as I picked the lantern back up and started across the property. It was only seconds before the lantern light revealed the dour masonry of the monastery. It was the southern transept, with a single portal hewn at the crux. As I contemplated which direction to take, a sulky, fretful cry trailed toward me from the right. Padding quietly, I came upon a passageway of black tile laid between two limestone archways. This passage, I knew, led to the eastern crux of the monastery, and as I drew closer, I saw that the limestone was covered by vines with thorns as large as daggers. The cry sounded again from down the long vista. I breathed deeply and turned the lantern’s oil down to only a hair of a flame. I whispered another charm learned from Irmhild and proceeded between the archways.

  It was darker than I had imagined within this intimidating corridor, and the thorns shivered as I passed through. My ears picked up the distinct sound of vines rustling across the stones, but I did not walk into any of them, and to the relief of my suspicion, they did not offer to touch me. Another, more agonized cry hastened my gait, and soon I exited the dreadful passage and stepped onto a courtyard of the same black tile.

  I stood silently, allowing my vision to adjust to the open night air again. A peafowl screeched close to my left, but when the ungodly sound faded, I heard the cry again. My eyes moved to the direction it issued from and alit upon a large object in the center of the courtyard. After a moment or two, my scrutiny clarified so that I knew what I looked upon was a very deep rectangular stone sarcophagus. Its flat, unornamented lid, however, had been edged away slightly. I saw movement suddenly behind it, and raising my eyes, I made out two or three shadowy silhouettes.

  Lowering the lantern silently, I took a few steps until I could make out their dimensions clearly: two lean, robed and cowled monks, and between them they held Carina by her wrists. She struggled to release herself from their impassive hold; her flimsy gown was torn, and her hair smudged with mud. The monks ignored her struggle, and when one of them peered suddenly over his shoulder, I saw another monk advance out of the shadows from the far side of the courtyard. The cowl of his robe was pulled back so I had a good look at his sickly white face and pious sneer. He walked up behind Carina and snatched the ends of her hair with one hand. With her head forced back on her neck, she had no choice but to endure his scrutiny. Chiseled, porcelain scorn was the glare that bore down on my Carina.

  He tapped her brow with a bony forefinger, making not only Carina jump, but my heart as well. My breath was anxious, but I dared not move, at least not until there was an undeniable indication of violence from the vampire monks.

  I listened as the one gripping Carina’s hair spoke (and if disease had a voice, its resonance could have been no unhealthier than the one I heard at that moment): “Your continued effrontery to our mother is unforgivable, Urdhel fräulein. It is time you learn to serve properly, with that simplicity and humility that is our condition and duty. Just as we, you shall not insult the laws of the universe by assuming the passions that our gracious mother has sole prerogative to indulge and the wisdom alone to utilize.”

  Carina’s mouth quivered. “Please,” she sobbed, “just let me die!”

  “You will be grateful for the state we have offered you, after you have learned to serve properly.”

  Carina shook her head. Her tender eyes glistened with contempt. “No, I will not nurse Marcel’s thoughts again—not as a passionless leech as you, or even as a glutton of flesh and blood like your vain and greedy mother! I would rather die than serve her!”

  A sharp hiss cut through the night air from beyond them. Before Carina could turn her head, Griselda emerged. As graceful as a gazelle she moved, but she strode up to Carina so quickly that the uncowled vampire jumped timidly and backed away from the other side of the sarcophagus. Griselda grasped Carina’s face between her trembling hands. The other two held on to Carina all the firmer, but their mother’s luminous scowl cowered them visibly.

  “You will die, human sow, when I am ready for you to die,” Griselda said. She had spoken in Carina’s own language, but now that I was unaffected by her startling physical allure, I perceived a distinctly coarse but undefined Anglo timbre in her accent.

  One of the vampires holding on to Carina made a low and uncertain murmur. At once Griselda snarled at him so savagely that his knees buckled slightly as he cringed.

  “She is unworthy, you fool. How dare you voice sympathy for a vile creature, one who would assume those privileges only I can appreciate!”

  The vampire’s head shook vigorously. With an indignant grunt, Griselda turned her imperious attention back to Carina.

  “You are an ugly insect compared with me! The only reason you have not met death yet is that we need you to guide us past the trifling wards placed in the valley by you and your damnable priestess sisters. Death will come, justly and soon, you ugly, brazen thief!”

  Griselda released her and wrapped her arms about herself. She spat on Carina, then glared at her for a time with the pout of a spoiled child. But her next direction came in the voice of the practiced self-victim, “Place her in the sarcophagus. There she may plead with the spiders and other insects until she is persuaded to serve me willingly.”

  The uncowled son moved about the sarcophagus eagerly. He untied the hemp cord from his robe, and with a nod to his brothers, the three of them wrested Carina’s struggling arms behind her. While his cowled brothers secured her elbows, the berating vampire tied Carina’s wrists together with the hemp. But when he bowed over and grabbed for Carina’s knees, she shrieked and flailed her legs violently. Pinned by the other two, however, she was no match for his determination, and at last his ashen hands vised about her ankles. Together, the three conveyed her over the rectangular opening of the sarcophagus. As they raised her high over the portal, I caught a glimpse of something dark and hairy scurry down from one corner and into the murky recesses. Carina shrieked again as they dropped her inside, and the thud of her impact upon the cold interior surface stilled the next beat of my heart.

  I squeezed the hammer’s handle in frustration as they worked to push the lid back into place. Carina’s screams echoed within the stone confines. My chest was heavy with the impulse to run forward and challenge them right then and there. Only Griselda’s last heartless words reassured there was still time. They were not planning to leave her in the stone coffin forever, and so would not yet harm her in any way that might damage her priestess’s ability to avail them safe passage into the valley. No, Griselda’s aim at the moment was merely to condition through terror.

  When they had sealed Carina inside, Griselda’s sons began to utter some heavy, woebegone chant. The words were not Latin but some unknown language, though its cadence was reminiscent to somber Christian chants I had heard in other parts of the world. Griselda’s lips turned up in a self-assured grin. She spun and paraded over the courtyard toward the
shade from whence she had come. Her monstrously blithe laughter wafted through the air as her sons turned and filed after her.

  I despaired to leave Carina alone in the sarcophagus. But the rite was not finished, and I knew she would suffer more if I acted rashly. I waited a while, until her panicky screams deteriorated to thin sobbing. I let the sound of this imprint itself on my memory and welcomed the vision of what vile creatures must have that moment surrounded Carina in the blackness. These things were branded upon my purpose, and clarified the ration of my hatred.

  My grip crushed around the hammer’s handle so that some of the splinters gave way under my hand. Drawing a long, calming breath of air, I turned away and headed back through the archways.

  7

  I did not sleep the rest of the night. I was miserable to think of Carina shut up in the sarcophagus, yet I knew my feelings were unproductive. Compelled to search through my collection, I found the hemp-paged copy of The Breath of Life. A manuscript I had only skimmed through before, I spent the remainder of hours until dawn digesting it.

  The book was only one of five known existing copies of the personal and quite priceless diary of the sorcerer-priest Catullus of Aricia, written before his death by assassins of Constantine the First. Those historians who were acquainted with the rare manuscript discounted it as the delusional testimony of a half-mad pagan fanatic, but the few educated minds who had actually read it without religious bias considered Catullus’s notes some of the most practical and easily understandable manuals of demonology ever recorded. In the past, my personal infatuation with ostentatious ritual had allowed little credence for the importance of such an unelaborated work. Something within me had changed; for once, I had no consideration for what aesthetic ambience I came away with. All that mattered was finding the information that I sensed was to be found within the diary’s pages.

  Later, after morning had come, I at last put the diary away. I went to the schoolhouse and opened class. My thoughts were on the ritual that awaited me to finish and of all my eyes had drank in the night before. My teaching duties did not interfere with the fidelity to my cause; I performed with mechanical, yet flawless, self-possession. This worked, so that even when the whispering little discussion between two of my pupils escalated into impertinent disruption, I reacted but was undaunted.

  The familiar, comfortable strictness that I had feared to exert over the past few weeks came back to me. In my most implacable voice, I ordered the women—Rosemar, and her daughter, Gildemar—to their feet. They obeyed with giggling apologies that only confirmed my suspicion that unless the situation was handled with a firm hand, I would soon lose all respect in my own classroom.

  Without a second thought, I ordered them to lift the hems of their frocks to their hips. The daughter’s mouth fell open, and her mother crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow to deliver me a most disproving look. It was this matronly haughtiness that had to be humbled first. Snatching up my crop, I strode toward Rosemar so swiftly that she jumped.

  “Dare you, sir!”

  “Madam, you will remain silent or I shall send for your good husband straightaway.”

  Her pretty mouth puckered angrily, but there was a frightful blush in her cheeks.

  “There shall be no more impertinence demonstrated in this classroom, madam. Now, you two shall lift your frocks, bend over your chairs, and hold firmly to the seats.”

  I caught the terrified glance exchanged between mother and daughter, but solemnly they complied, lifting their frocks ever so fastidiously. Each wore a pair of white silk underpants with scalloped lace hems. Sublime complement of sensuality and innocence were these delicate garments. As they turned and bent over their seats, a couple of gasps elicited from the rest of the class. I ignored it, poised myself behind Rosemar, and laid a steadying hand over the small of her back. As I raised the crop over her backside she let out a low, agitated groan and her shapely buttocks clenched in expectation beneath the silk undergarment. At the first thrash of my crop she shrieked loudly, but the following strokes I dealt so rapidly she hardly had time to gasp between them. Fifteen sound strokes I dealt her, and warning her not to move from her properly humbled position, I proceeded to the daughter. Gildemar received the same number of thrashes, but I allowed her to lower her frock when the punishment ended. Only Rosemar, I deemed, needed further chastening, not only for her challenging behavior of before, but to set an example to the rest of the class. Thus was the daughter allowed to sit back in her seat with a discomforted pout to keep her company while her mother remained bowed over her chair. I returned to the lesson they had interrupted, at ease for the first time within my sphere. And though I spied an occasional teardrop fall from Rosemar’s face to her seat, not a single peep or whisper did I hear from any of my pupils for the remainder of the day.

  8

  Irmhild was standing under one of the apple trees outside as I left the schoolhouse that afternoon. A small wicker basket lay at her feet, and the green cloth inside prevented me from seeing whatever she carried in it. Her hands were behind her back as I greeted her, and the staunch timbre of her voice was a little more subdued than I recalled.

  “You have the look of the famished,” she said.

  I smiled humorlessly, though it was a comfort to see her.

  “The hunger has passed. And though my perceptions are clearer than ever in my life, it seems I do not think, but rather functionally go about my routine.”

  Her eyes glinted. “And never have you been more assured in your actions, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you have slept, at least a little.”

  I nodded. It was an embroidered gesture, but it seemed kinder than offering a comment that could inadvertently bring up the wrenching scene I had come across the night before. Irmhild smiled blandly. She had the faraway look of one contemplating some old inner turmoil as she peered about the lush violet-sprinkled grass.

  “The gods seed paradise by men’s actions,” she spoke absently, “and harvest it through the desires of women.”

  At my silence, Irmhild sighed, and brought her arms forward and took my hand. Turning it over, she laid in my palm a wide band of cast iron. It was pliable, but only enough for the task for which Irmhild had brought it. The very feel of it made me eager to return home and finish the rite before nightfall.

  “This is the last thing I may provide you. It will bring Carina out of darkness, but only your knowledge can keep her out of the shadows and exorcize the evil from whence it comes.”

  I stared at the metal in my palm: a fragile piece of simple iron, yet it seemed at the moment weightier than gold.

  She touched my chin with her warm fingertips, and again I was struck by the resemblance between her and Carina.

  “I have kept Carina’s fate secret thus far. But if you fail, or if you fall into their hands, I must speak to the council. Carina must not suffer any longer. And if Griselda possesses you, likewise she possesses your knowledge. Then shall she be empowered with the means to leave her haven and resume her pillage of mortality, and worst, be immune from our wards and rites that have thus far limited her power.”

  The breeze tousled her long white hair, and her wrinkles seemed more pronounced as I regarded her. “I have wronged Carina by my zeal to see the vampires destroyed once and for all. Do not insult her injury by jeopardizing yourself, Marcel. Save her if you can, but do not confront Griselda. Promise me this.”

  I felt her mind touch my thoughts. These thoughts, bastioned by keen and sobered intent, allowed only the reassurance she sought. Smiling, I took her hand and kissed it. A wilted touch of rose shaded her cheeks.

  “It is my mistake that led Carina to resign hope, not yours,” I said. “And I intend to do nothing more now than to recapture and protect her.”

  She seemed content with this, and stooping, handed me the basket.

  “After your work is finished, eat,” she instructed. “Weistreim is the baker’s apprentice and made this himself from the o
ld recipe.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Irmhild turned and started up the street toward her home. Her shoulders were rounded and her gait wearily patient. My gut twisted with outrage to know the cause of her weariness. But smartly, I subdued the emotion, useless for the time, and tucked the items she had brought beside whatever was covered in the basket. Then I tidied up the classroom and hurried off.

  I did not return immediately to my cabin. Carina’s unexpected entombment obliged certain extra measures on my part than for which I was willing to admit to her grandmother. I made a trip to the blacksmith’s shop and asked to see the sturdiest iron rod available. The man showed me an assortment of simple rods that could be used as base material for other tools. Nothing, however, sturdy enough to pry open the sarcophagus. Then I noticed a rusted poker standing by the fireplace. A weighty-looking object, it stood at least to my shoulders—too large an item for an ordinary household. Interested, I inquired of it.

  “Came by it from one of the duke’s donation fairs,” the man explained, “or as they are known here, his housecleaning fairs.” The blacksmith’s eyes widened as he regarded the thing. “I would not wish to have to maintain the hearth for which that thing is required, would you?”

  I went and examined it carefully. The rust flaked away easily, and I saw that the poker was only iron plated. The core was steel.

  “How much would you take for it?”

  He looked flustered and thoughtful at once. At last he replied with an earnest nod, “Promise to come to the wedding when I marry little Gretchen next month and it is yours, schoolmaster.”

  The name brought the image of one my pupils to mind.