by Amy Rachiele
“That’s it?” Mouse says, surprised.
“That is all. You can last many days on just the small dose of a rat or a few mice.” I do not mention cats knowing his deep affection for them.
“I am leaving to investigate the ship.”
“Can I come too?”
“No,” I say, patting his shoulder. “Stay and rest. The crew is not ready for your speedy recovery and changed countenance.”
Mouse is disappointed but heeds my command and stays behind. Passing by, I glance into the saloon and see Sybrina busy concocting something. I step closer; she is organizing small bowls filled with an array of oddities. She is busy at her task and does not sense me. My curiosity is piqued as I draw further into the room.
“’Ello, Minister,” Cook greets me. Sybrina’s head snaps up from her task in a confounded look.
“Leave us... please,” I order, adding please to be cordial. The cook shuffles out of the room with a grunt.
“How is...?” she starts.
“He is resting,” I say immediately, putting her fears to rest. “I see you are busy. What may your task be?”
“Something only you can help me with.” I am taken aback by her response.
“How can I help you?”
“I need your blood.”
I laugh heartily at her outrageous declaration and transform my tone into a seductively improper one. “You may have anything I possess.”
“I would want to examine your anatomy first,” she continues, and I cannot resist the devilish comment.
“Please do,” I quip and my eyebrows raise in jest. “But first I must tend to the boy. Come by my cabin in the morning. He should be well by then.”
“What about...” she whispers. “Vadim.”
“He is of great concern. We must prepare, but I cannot leave Mouse for too long, and I wish to check the ship. Knowing Vadim as I do, he would not attempt another attack so quickly after the other. He enjoys making a grand entrance.” I cannot help myself, and I stroke her perfect cheek with my finger. “Call out and I will hear you, if trouble comes to your door tonight.”
Secretly euphoric that I will be with Sybrina come morning, I walk through the ship. Preparation is vital to negate a repeat performance. The crew must be wary and vigilante while I attempt to figure out how to mask us. The fog was an unnatural occurrence; Vadim must know something I do not. The organic suspension of the will of the crew was a magnificent display of power. I can only imagine where he learned such tricks.
I have submitted myself to examination by Sybrina. I’m fixed upon the bed in my quarters. She is standing over me and if it were not for being indestructible this would make for a very vulnerable position.
“Are you comfortable?” she asks. I grin mischievously; I would find true comfort if she would lie down upon me. I chastise myself for my dishonorable thoughts. My want grows stronger by the day. If you had asked me a fortnight or any amount of years ago, I would not have thought it possible. Her eyes are wistful as if she knows my devious ponderings, but maintains her ladylike and professional air.
“Roll up your sleeves please. I am going to start by examining your skin,” she informs me, holding up a magnifying glass loaned to her by the captain, who uses it to examine maps and other nautical paraphernalia. Sybrina leans down, placing the round glass close to her face. Beautiful eyes are made larger than life and I chuckle with amusement.
“What is so funny, sir?” she asks, looking up at me.
“Nothing,” I say, stifling my smile. Sybrina goes back to her business. I laugh again seeing her bright orbs three times their normal size. She stands up straight as if in disgust. “Would you mind clueing me into the joke?” she asks, reprimanding me.
“Your eyes are so pretty to see through the looking glass. I want to touch them.” She stops, startled by my admission.
Her beautiful eyes glaze over with heat, darkening with want. In a surprising act, very slowly, she leans down, her gaze upon me, turning from want into an ignition of passion. Her lips crush into mine, exhilarating and consuming. Something as simple as a kiss fueling me like nothing else has in so long. I force my arms to stay by my side. I let this be all her, fear of making another mistake; she needs this control if she’s ever to trust me. I want this relationship to go farther, and I will do everything I have to, to make it happen.
She pulls back slightly, her breath still upon me; I soak it up, wishing her to be this close always. A flash of unsureness resonates in her face. She needs to know that what she has done is wanted so I gently raise my hand, cup her cheek, and slide my hand behind her neck. Ever so lightly, I pull her back down to me and kiss her again. The passion is still there but there is something else, a reverent adoration I had not felt before. A question that I never doubted the answer to or had to give any great thought to is do I love Sybrina? Yes, I wholly and completely love her. My heart spikes with the hope that she may love me as well. Someone at the door gives us a start and Sybrina jumps away from me. It is Mouse.
“I have what you asked for, miss,” he says, suspecting something may have been going on. One thing that is changed about the boy’s disposition is that becoming a vampire has given him great confidence. Mouse holds up two glass vials, triumphant.
“Thank you,” Sybrina says, clearly affected by our moments together.
“Did anyone see you?” I ask, sitting up.
“I was too quick.” There is a hint of arrogance in his manner.
“Good.”
Mouse hands the glass tubes to Sybrina. Her face shines down at me in happy fondness. One look from her awakens all of me, even the recesses of myself, numbed by the passage of time. For Aristotle, Shakespeare, and the budding authors of this era, love has been a subject tossed and stirred over and over in scholarly analyses. Fate and love hashed out in verses of poems, songs, and the dissection of emotions and actions. The ruminations of the greatest thinkers cannot unlock the mysteries. Why should one flourish and another suffer? What is the attraction to one and not the other?
“Please open your skin.” Her request makes my skin buzz with passion. I knick my wrist open and she holds the vial beneath it. Crimson drops flow and pool in the bottom of the glass. Mouse shuffles across the room moving as far away from my blood as he can. It is time for another feeding. “That should be enough to work with.” Sybrina has filled two in that short time. I sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed.
“You have not done your examination,” I remind her, disappointed to not have her hands all over me, studying me. I can feel my eyes flash and change. She tosses a glance over her shoulder at Mouse, and I see a blush rise to her cheeks.
“I think I have what I need for now.”
I stand and in the small space I tower over her slender frame. “I do not,” spills from my lips, and I grin mischievously at her. Sybrina takes a step back, embarrassed.
“It is time for Mouse to eat.”
“Oh… uh… All right. I will be in the kitchen… Goodbye for now,” she stammers. It is amazingly sweet to see her unraveled. Holding her scientific treasure in her hand, she turns for the door and lets her breath release.
“Bye, miss,” Mouse calls to her. She gives him a deep smile and leaves.
“You are sweet on her,” Mouse pronounces as soon as we are alone.
“What if I am?” My tone is patronizing. Mouse steps back, but then thinks better of it.
“You think because I’m an illiterate bastard I can’t see what’s right in front of me!” Mouse’s temper is rising, one of the drawbacks of becoming an immortal.
“I don’t think that.”
“Yes you do! Everyone I meet finds me a simpleton!” Mouse’s agitation climbs, and I am afraid he’s going to lose it.
“Calm yourself. Find your inner restraint.” We are at a standoff in this tiny room on this tiny ship in this limitless ocean. His brown eyes turn the color of golden honey. Mouse’s temper and childish tantrum could destroy all of it. This wel
l-meaning boy now possesses the strength of a hundred men and powers only found in folklore. A bout between us could reduce the ship to sinking splinters.
“Remember what I told you!” My voice booms viciously. “Restraint or everything you love you will destroy!”
The boy looks to the floor in submission. He huffs and mumbles to himself. Hopefully, it is a chant that can tame him. I raise my wrist to my mouth and bite. “Here,” I offer. “This will help.” He takes a heady drink. “Lie down and rest.”
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“Where do you think?”
“To Sybrina,” he replies.
Sybrina:
“How long have you been standing there?” I ask.
“A while.” Elijah pushes off from the wall he is leaning against in the saloon.
“It is rude not to announce yourself,” I say and there is sassiness in my voice, and I’m not sure why. I keep my eyes on my work.
“So, you are calling me out on my propriety?” He is laughing at me again.
“Maybe.” I can’t look at him; I can feel heat rushing to my face.
Elijah stands in front of the table I am using for my work. “It is rude not to look at the person you are conversing with.”
“You make me uncomfortable on occasion,” I answer honestly.
“You did not seem uncomfortable in my chambers an hour ago.”
I lift my gaze in silent reprimand. “You unnerve me at the most inopportune moments.”
“You may find I unnerve you, as you say, because you are not familiar with your feelings.”
A scowl cuts deep into my facial features and I exclaim, “My feelings! I should say I know my own feelings, sir.”
“My, my… how formal.” He is slinking closer to me and coming around the table. He envelops my hand, gently taking it away from my work and placing it in his own. My heart speeds up at the contact and I hate the lack of control I feel. I have a task to complete and Elijah is toying with me. I can’t think with the infernal pounding noise in my ears. He kisses the back of the hand he has commandeered and it sends tingles through my body. Elijah is moving closer ever so slowly; it’s maddening and exhilarating. He runs his fingers through my hair and cups my chin. He leans down to me, and I prepare for another passionate kiss.
“Has anyone ever made you forget your science and swept you off your feet?” His voice is tantalizingly lazy with need. My eyes close, relishing the contact and his words. I am waiting for the kiss. “Ever had a suitor that consumes your thoughts?” No! I want to scream, just kiss me! His arms are now wrapped around me like a beloved blanket. He whispers, brushing his lips to my ear, “I’m announcing myself, Miss Sybrina. I am calling on you. You’ll never be rid of me.” Words filled with love and lust swirl around me in a drunken haze. I have never had this before. It is a glorious sensation.
But still, no kiss. A new emotion is building in me, wrapping a rope around the want—frustration. Another moment passes in our embrace, and I can take it no longer. I move to kiss him, and the fireworks that follow blast the logic out of me. I need his touch all over. Danger, death, and my duty submerged under an appetite I didn’t know existed.
Elijah is the first to break the embrace, hesitantly. My mind is swirling with desire. My eyes are closed and when they open, Elijah’s deep green ones are fixed upon me. He smiles radiantly and I smile with him. In a gentlemanly manner he takes a step back, sweeps his hand across my impromptu laboratory, and requests, “Explain this to me.”
I gather myself and reach over to my notes. I was able to secure a writing tablet and pencil from the ship’s stores. Attempting to clear my head, I start.
“Under a microscope, the blood taken from the victims acted unlike human blood. I began studying it at school when I scraped small amounts of blood from the wounds of the exsanguinated corpses we found around England. It was a very minute amount but available all the same.” Looking down at the paper in front of me, I recall, “I took copious notes, but left everything behind when I learned of my family’s deaths.” My stomach sours at the thought of first learning of their demise—crippling and painful. Then a harsh realization dawns on me that my notes is the journal Vadim referred to. Oh! Joshua! “My friend,” I say absently. I believe Joshua would have taken my effects and stored them for me. It was never discussed, but knowing him as I do, I am sure he would take care of me so. What if Vadim learned of the location? I must stop him before he steals more from me.
“Sybrina,” Elijah says, alarmed, “You have paled. Are you ill?” Elijah touches my face with care. I shake off my worry and discomfort.
“I am well… The blood you carry has a natural fighting agent. The sample of blood I took from you confirms it. What if a foreign substance is ingested?”
“I have consumed foods. Those have not injured me.”
“Hmmm… Foods ingested through the mouth, not harmful. Do you need food?”
“No.”
“Of course, ingestion would be too easy. That eliminates my first and less probable hypothesis… Fire. What about at a high temperature?”
“I’ve seen immortals walk out of infernos.”
I pause to sort myself. “Holy water?”
“Folklore,” Elijah retorts quickly then stops. “Although I have heard whispers of large amounts blistering our skin, but it heals almost immediately. Some old fellow, I heard, did it over and over.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Boredom... Madness… It’s a malady we do not fully understand,” Elijah says offhandedly.
“You once told me that no metal forged could hurt your skin.”
“Correct.”
She paces as she recalls her knowledge. I believe I may be able to figure out a way to extinguish Vadim.”
“This way to destroy him, if you found it, you may also be able to destroy me?”
“Yes. It would be a way to annihilate an entire race... all vampires,” I say gravely.
“How would you do this?”
“I need more time to figure the particulars.”
If I did not know better I would say now that Elijah is pale. His handsome face changed into something solemn. “I’ll leave you to it.” He departs with very little acknowledgment and the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I take another vial of Elijah’s blood, and think about how sad he looked as he left. I would have expected that a fiend such as Vadim, a person that has caused such anguish in so many lives, being expelled would be a relief to Elijah. I tap the glass watching the swirling red liquid. The composition is visibly thicker than human blood. I place it in the crock beside my small homemade laboratory. I rest my hands on the table and let out a frustrated sigh. The veins on the inside of my arm are bulging and it hits me. I know what I have to do. I walk to the musket balls and grab a bunch in my hand, caressing and swirling them around in between my fingers. I think about all of the facts and make a decision. It is the only way to end this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mouse hovering in a corner watching me while I work. His face is tortured and brooding. Immediately I think he is not happy about becoming a vampire. It was a mistake. Should I have let him die? Slowly, he saunters over and sits on a bench by me. He is staring at my pile of ingredients and mixtures but is looking right through them. His words are soft. “Can I ask you something?
“Of course. You can ask any manner of question you wish.” My heart aches to see him looking so forlorn. I developed a deep affection for him in a short time.
“Will you teach me to read?”
I am surprised at his question after all he’s endured in the past few days. I would think he would want to discuss his altered state, or the tragedy of losing his shipmates, the trauma of dropping from the mast. Literacy is a topic I would never have deduced.
“I would be happy to.”
His face brightens, but I know I will not live long enough to teach him anything. In his new life, there shall be many others to teach him. He
could go to school if he wished, learn any trade, and travel to the furthermost reaches of the earth without fear. His possibilities are endless without the limitations of growing old. In essence, he could be the most intelligent being on the earth if he set his mind to it.
Elijah:
Destroy Vadim? It is not possible! The words floating on the air recounting a way of actually taking him out of the world is not as syrupy as it should be, it sounds heinous. On an inexplicable level, I have reasoned that he is my mistake and here to stay. Sybrina’s use of the word race, a word that is synonymous with validating vampires as worthy of being in this world, gives substance to a creature only thought of in the pages of horror stories and tales.
Would I want her to find a way? A small part of me is elated that if I ever wanted to finally leave and not spend eternity walking the earth, I could dispel myself. The thought of being in this world without Sybrina would be an inducement but any other reason would be an immortal suicide not justified by anything other than cowardice. I make my rounds on the ship checking for any signs of Vadim or a new attack, and I can’t help but think on the demise of Vadim’s love, Sarah.
Sarah’s parasol cast a shadow on the cobblestone walkway as we stood at the base of the brownstone waiting for Vadim to bring the carriage around. Her delicate skin shaded from the rays of the summer sun, with a bustle on her dress that was all the rage of the period. Sarah’s figure, slight in stature, like Sybrina’s.
Behind us, below the windows of the immense home, carefully planted to grow into its unruly state, is a conglomerate of blooming roses, protected by a wrought iron fence. Small sprigs of yellow wild flowers jut out from in between the large blossoms. I remember laughing with Sarah; her face was bright and lively. It was in that moment it happened. There was no warning. A brown mass with hooves stretching out of nowhere trampled Sarah where she stood inches from me. An innocuous event of waiting roadside, something done over and over, turned catastrophic by a runaway horse.
