“As a father, I apologize,” Jacob added when no one said a word.
“You don’t have to,” sighed Caleb, sitting down, feeling strangely exhausted. “I think it’s clear that this is no longer your son.”
“But he was. Anyway,” Jacob sighed. “This is only a new obstacle to overcome. Axel was right. We must go for the two heads and cut them off. Without them those things will be lost and all who support their vision as well.”
“I worry ...” Amanda cut him off. “The virus we developed may not work on those vampires.”
“It’s all about trying,” Pein added, “and for that, we need one.”
The people looked at him in astonishment. While it was true that capturing one would give them the certainty that not only did they exist but they would have an opportunity to find out how to end them. The mission was risky.”
“I’ll go,” Pein went on.
“No, I’ll do it.” Jeoff stood up with a serious look on a face accented by glasses. “Your mental state is not good Pein. Alexander’s death still weighs you down and that will lead you to make mistakes.”
“But ...” Jeff tried to reply but was silenced with a gesture from Caleb.
“Jeoff will go. The sooner the better. Let’s get some rest for today. I’ll go report to Ajax and Elizabeth,” Caleb said, dismissing everyone present. Saddened they started to leave.
“I’m going to the city immediately,” Jeoff said, approaching, almost asking permission to leave.
“Jeoff,” Caleb called when they were alone. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
“I can’t lose another friend,” Caleb said with a frown, causing Jeoff’s mouth to open slightly in astonishment.
Both were men of few words, or rather, it was difficult for them to express themselves, but with silence, they had always been able to say everything. Jeoff soon saw in Caleb his own pain reflected back. It didn’t take him much longer than Alexander to become loyal. One day he swore with his own silence to be faithful to Caleb forever. And soon Jeoff realized that he had made the right decision.
The door behind him opened.
“I’m sorry to break this magical moment,” Luxt said, and received a grunt from both of them, “but I’d like to come with you. I know the city. I have lived there for many years. I think I know where we will find those mutant vampires.”
“Jeoff?” Caleb asked, leaving the decision to him.
“It’s okay. Come on.”
The three of them went outside just as Johana and Meryl were passing by the door. They stopped when they heard them talking. When Caleb turned, making it possible for Meryl to see his face, she almost did not recognize him. He seemed exhausted, worried, and on the brink of fainting.
“Caleb.” When she reached him Meryl showed her concern for him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I feel tired ...” Caleb rubbed his face.
“Let’s go home,” she said, grabbing his arm.
“One moment.” Caleb turned to face the two men that were waiting behind him. “I want you back in two or three days at the most.”
“Wait,” Johana said. “Where are you going?”
“We’re going to get one of George’s mutant vampires,” Luxt said, buttoning his coat.
“What!” Both women shouted at the same time.
“I don’t like it any better than you,” Caleb cut them off before they continued to scream. “But we need to know if they are real and if we can kill them like the others.”
“Jeoff ... Luxt …” Meryl tried to turn, but Caleb began to walk taking her along with him.
“You better come back!” Meryl shouted as they also began to walk away, heading for the exit. Meryl could see them raise their hands in farewell.
“They’ll come back, Meryl.”
Meryl wanted to believe him, but after seeing Alexander’s death, the belief that they would never fall vanished painfully. Until then she never thought she could lose them. The people that she’s spent months with and that had formed into a small family. As they headed for the small house, Meryl looked up with the intention of swallowing the terror that they would not return. As they closed the door behind them, Meryl grabbed Caleb’s arm to look into his face.
“What’s wrong? You look horrible.”
“I don’t know,” Caleb admitted in a tired, confused tone of voice. “I think I’m sleepy.”
“Axel’s blood? Then the gift that he was talking about…”
“Maybe, I hope it’s that, and nothing else,” Caleb admitted worriedly, he realized that he had no assurance of what drinking Axel’s blood might provoke and everything he hadn’t thought about before filled his head.
He had been a bit stupid not to weigh his actions, relying on what his best friend’s killer had told him, although it was his thirst for vengeance that had finally controlled him. There had been only one thought, that of killing him, the rest was not important until now.
“Let’s go to bed,” Meryl said, pulling him up the stairs and walking into Caleb’s room.
“Hey.” He stopped her as she sat on the bed. “You aren’t thinking about staying. It could be dangerous, Meryl.”
“Of course I’m going to stay with you Caleb,” Meryl said seriously. “Even if the same thing happened to you as it did George. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, he didn’t.”
Caleb smiled, she was right. He lay down, stretched out his arm and left a space in which Meryl fit so perfectly and naturally at his side. At that moment his eyelids began to weigh as if they were made of metal. It had been so many centuries since he had experienced this. That Caleb felt confused and strange. It was surely caused by sudden sleepiness. Caleb let out a sigh and pressed Meryl close against him. In that moment, that feeling ... there was simply no way to express how she made him feel.
“You’re lucky I can’t keep my eyes open ...” Caleb warned, a second later he sank into a deep sleep. Meryl smiled.
♫♫♫
A dark field spread out in all directions. The light was more powerful. It had been years since his eyes had been exposed to such clarity. The smell of death invaded the whole place until it reached the cells of his body and the only sound that reached his ears was a continuous and uncomfortable dripping, but he perceived it distantly, almost inaudible.
Caleb felt heavy and strange as if he couldn’t control the movements of his body. He began to totter as he took the first steps. He seemed to be looking for something, but locked in his mind, he didn’t know what he was looking for. After a couple of minutes he began to get accustomed to the light and although the sky was still covered with dark clouds they were clearly less thick. The clouds let a great amount of light enter and he was able to see and to differentiate then, although a little blurred, thousands of bodies around him, mutilated, and bloody. Confused, he watched without being able to control his movements. He reached out to steady himself when he staggered and Caleb saw that his own hands were stained red with blood and were full of deep wounds. His heart was paralyzed when, without stopping his advance, he passed two bodies. It was Jeoff and Pein. Their dead eyes looked at the sky, soulless, and lifeless. Caleb wanted to stop, but his body continued forward, betraying him. Why? What was happening?
At that place, meter by meter, Caleb began to see each body. Yong’s soldiers stood out in their armor. Which had always been shining and unblemished, and was now shattered and stained. Ajax, Elizabeth, Dee, André ... then Johana and Legrant, Yong ... the human rebels and even Amanda. They all lay around creating a horrifying sea of corpses. All the people Caleb knew and that were important to him, were there, dead. The silence was made more powerful and he yelled in his mind, his cage, in which he couldn’t break out of. Where is Meryl? He called her, but there was still a void. He no longer heard that distant dripping of blood, was he deaf? Suddenly Caleb felt himself falling. He
saw that the ground at some point in the past had been brown and was now bloody. Suddenly, his head turned without him having ordered and he saw that he had stumbled upon the body of what appeared to be a beast. Although he could only see a portion of the strange face. Could it be one of the beasts? If so ... they would need a miracle.
His body finally managed to rise and balance dangerously. As if he were carrying a ton of weight on his back. Caleb began to take small, unsteady steps. He was clearly severely wounded, but he couldn’t move his head to see his condition. He simply continued forward without listening to the commands of his brain, as if they were two independent beings.
Corpse after corpse he searched everything that his vision allowed and suddenly his stiff body began to accelerate as if he had seen something, which he couldn’t perceive. He ran, fell and rose every meter, felt physical exhaustion and mental frustration for not controlling his movements. Caleb screamed in that invisible cage and felt that he broke into millions of pieces when he saw her. When Caleb reached her he fell on her. He placed a hand on her bloody face. Meryl’s eyes opened with difficulty, they were bright. She swallowed hard and smiled when she saw him. Her lips began to move, but Caleb still couldn’t hear. His eyes fell on Meryl’s lips, which seemed to apologize for something she had done. At that moment Caleb’s head rose, breaking eye contact with her, looking a few yards beyond to see the body of Epsilon. With a quick movement, he turned his eyes to Meryl who continued to speak. Perceiving the movement of her dry lips, he could swear she was telling him what happened and thought he made out her words. “I have achieved it,” after saying this, she smiled again.
For a second he remained immobile. The moment seemed eternal. All of his past came striking at him like a tsunami, every moment of his past, every painful moment ... But nothing, absolutely nothing of it resembled what he felt at that moment when he saw Meryl stop breathing. She gave a last smile, looked at him, and whispering her last, I love you.
♫♫♫
“Caleb! Caleb!”
The shouts they both uttered attracted Legrant. Who had been in Caleb’s office checking maps of the area. He kicked the door open and watched as his leader struggled with some strange, invisible entity as Meryl tried to dodge the terrifying blows. Facing danger, he had no choice but to jump over them, almost pulling Meryl out of bed and finally catching Caleb’s hands. Caleb opened his eyes at that moment. He was as confused as a boy of only five years who had suffered his first nightmare.
“Caleb,” Meryl whispered, still stunned.
Caleb jerked Legrant aside and grabbed Meryl’s arm pulling her suddenly over him. With the imperative need to see that she was all right, safe, but above all alive.
“What happened? You were screaming,” she said as he looked at her wide-eyed.
“Fuck,” the word escaped him after several seconds of watching her. Of making sure she was all right. “I think it was Axel’s vision.”
“And?” Legrant asked, approaching, needing to know.
“He told us the truth. You were all dead.”
“And you?” Meryl asked.
“No, but I was badly wounded. I could barely walk. I saw all of you. Fuck, Meryl,” Caleb growled, still affected by the images, which repeated over and over again in his mind.
“What did you see?” Meryl wanted to know.
“No.” Caleb stopped for a few seconds. He needed to sort out his head. “I don’t know how you managed it, but I think you managed to kill Epsilon and the payment for that was your life. You were there, on the floor dying, but you smiled,” Caleb’s voice broke slightly. “Don’t do anything. Not even if you have the slightest chance,” he suddenly recovered and looked at her with his red eyes. It was a warning. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, Caleb,” Meryl tried to reassure him. “Now, knowing that. I’ll think things through before I do anything.”
“Did you see anything else that could help us?” Legrant asked worriedly.
“Yes, those freaks. Fuck! I shouldn’t have sent those two alone.”
Caleb got up from the bed staggering. His body was still suffering the effects of the vision, but he needed to go in search of Jeoff. Both Meryl and Legrant stopped him before Caleb could walk out of the door.
“Hold on, Caleb,” Legrant said, standing between the door with his hands held high. “Think for a moment. You know that Jeoff will not try anything if he sees it’s really dangerous, so calm down.”
Caleb stopped. Legrant was right. Jeoff was a very cautious person. He was probably the most cautious person Caleb had ever met. Caleb sat on the bed. He hadn’t felt such physical and mental exhaustion for centuries.
“I’ll go get you some blood. You look weak,” Legrant told him.
Meryl watched Caleb for a few seconds. She remembered the panic she suffered when, long ago, she saw pieces of a horrible past. Meryl couldn’t change the past, but Caleb had glimpsed a vision of the future. A future that they did have the opportunity to change and they had better succeed if they wanted to continue living.
“Calm down, Caleb,” Meryl said, at last, sitting next to him and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, pulling him toward her to cradle him. “We can change everything that you’ve seen.”
“I can’t even explain how I felt when I saw you all there,” Caleb confessed, lowering his head like a child who couldn’t bear the pain in his heart.
“I can. Sadness, frustration, a pain impossible to bear. We all know that you care if you don’t say anything, Caleb, because we feel exactly the same as you,” Meryl said as he held her tightly. She was right. Meryl was always able to say everything that he couldn’t. “I know you don’t like the idea, Caleb,” Meryl continued, tightening the grip of her hands on his face, “but the more visions you have, the more data we’ll get to change things and not make the same mistakes.”
“You know?”Caleb wanted to laugh. “You just acted like Amanda. I felt like I was embraced by a stranger.”
“Hey! I’m the only one who can hold you. Don’t think about other women.”
“Jealous?” Caleb raised an eyebrow and the look on his face didn’t tell her much, even though Meryl tried to analyze it.
“Yes,” Meryl said earnestly, after a few seconds of silence.
“That’s good. My soul rejoices,” Caleb confessed, letting himself fall on her.
With Caleb a few inches away, feeling the tips of his hair brush against her face again, Meryl closed her eyes remembering the quiet happy days she spent at the mansion. Meryl couldn’t help feel that her eyes were tearing up because nothing would ever be the same. Alexander was no longer with them and soon it was possible that they wouldn’t be alive either. It would leave the house eternally empty, or perhaps full of sad ghosts and memories.
“You know something, Meryl?” Caleb asked with a sigh that caressed her cheeks. Meryl opened her eyes. “If I am honest, looking at you now, I realize that there is no human expression to explain what you make me feel.”
Meryl smiled as she laid her hands on Caleb’s face to bring him a few inches closer until their foreheads touched. When he tried to express himself or say what his heart was hiding it melted her heart. Especially since Meryl knew he didn’t like it and wasn’t good at doing it. For Caleb, it took an immense effort.
“It’s good to know that you feel the way I do and better still to hear you say it. I don’t know what will happen in the future and I want to believe that we can change it,” continued Meryl while staring at him, and he watched her intently, “perhaps the future won’t turn out like we want. What I do know is that we must live in the present.”
“Yes,” he whispered, lowering his head to kiss her.
Melody N° 13
Spawns
The next two nights, Caleb’s dreams became clear and he began to suspect what might be some of the mistakes that would lead them, not
only to defeat but to death. This place definitely couldn’t be the one that appeared in his vision. Although, he was not sure what the exact location was. Caleb knew it wasn’t a city. It was a barren field that was too exposed, with no places to hide, no shelter or cover. It also seemed to him that the attack they carried out was a frontal attack and Caleb thought their fate might have been dependent on their ignorance of those freaks. Axel must have also thought this and it led him to make the decision to cause his own death. Thus giving them a small chance to win. However, things were complicated. There were so many factors to take into account that Caleb was sure that the slightest mistake would lead them back to their fatal destiny.
Every morning, just after awakening, he would join the group that Ajax and Elizabeth had decided to take part in and which had so far stayed in the background, leaving every decision to Caleb. They had limited themselves to giving their support. To be part of and contribute as many men as they could to the growing army. Now, that their designated zones had fallen under the influence of Epsilon.
As they argued over Caleb’s latest vision and after almost a week of Jeoff and Luxt’s having left. Caleb stressed that it had been three days since anyone knew anything about them. A shout warned those present that something was going on outside of the building. They ran out through the door and into the small square of worn cobblestones, which stood in the middle of the ghost town they used as a base. There were already a large number of people around something or someone. Out of the crowd, they saw Meryl with a pale face, who didn’t hesitate to address Caleb.
“They’re horrible,” Meryl whispered, looking at him with a mixture of bewilderment and terror. “They caught one. They brought one of those things. They’re insane vampires.”
Melodies of Blood 2 Page 18
