“The old man—James Stephenson—was a kind, young-hearted genius. He admitted he also enjoyed perusing the books and documents, with the quiet comfort of the night hugging him. So every night for months henceforth, he would take a break from his duties to chat. We would sit and discuss literature, history. Since intellectual conversation had been a rarity for so long, I welcomed his presence.
“A strange kinship developed between us. He was the human version of me, I suppose. It was sobering. Here I was, alone in the world, and I had found someone to connect with.
“But one night he caught me feeding in the alley behind the library. He tried to run, but I gave chase, overtook him, and pinned him down. He begged for his life. So rather than kill him, I decided to turn him. For what better way to honor his plea than to grant him the gift of everlasting life?
“Afterward, he approached me as you have, asking that I teach him the ways of vampirism. I obliged. And due to his historical knowledge, he became our historian. He tracked down all folklore pertaining to vampires, compiled it, documented it for the Undead public. He discerned fact from fiction so our legacy can carry on.
“He was and still is my closest colleague, the only person I feel I can confide in. He knows me better than I do.
“But enough of that for now.”
Barnaby disappeared. Brian followed the sound of rustling clothes until he located him floating twenty feet above.
“What color is the spot on the collar of my shirt?”
“Are you serious?”
“You proclaim to have your senses under control, but I want to test that proclamation,” Barnaby said. “I ate something last night that is not my usual cuisine. Remain where you stand and tell me what color it is.”
Brian shook his head. He inhaled through his nostrils to steady his nerves. An unnecessary physical exaggeration, but one that still invoked a sense of calmness nonetheless. He narrowed his eyes, envisioning the spot on the collar as if it were inches away. Collar. Stain. Spot. His eyesight magnified until the collar was directly before him. He narrowed the focus until the fibers of the fabric appeared as if under a microscope.
“Orange.”
“Excellent. And can you guess what type of food it was?”
“How am I supposed to tell that by color?”
“Use your nose.”
“From here?”
Barnaby smiled and nodded.
Brian shook his head. Smell to discover what one spot on a collar might be from twenty feet away. It was insane. Inhuman.
And completely within his new limits.
He sniffed. Tomato sauce. A chunk of noodle. A piece of lentil, a chunk of fried onion. Intoxicating yet pungent garlic sauce. But this wasn’t simple pasta. No, there was something authentic about it, something exotic. He had travelled to Cairo, Egypt once, after his mother died. He distinctly remembered that smell and the rich mixture of flavors. “Koshery.” His sight returned to normal.
Barnaby glided down from above. He landed and walked toward Brian, clapping. “Bravo, Koltz!”
Brian raised an eyebrow. “Egypt? Or just Egyptian cuisine at some place I’ve never heard of before?”
“Ah, now that is the real question,” Barnaby said, raising his index finger and jabbing at the air. He turned and walked to the center of his chamber, passing by the lone female statue. The fountain basin was gone, sunken beneath the stone floor as if it never existed.
Brian’s mouth watered. His birthing place had been a beautiful large vampire-style martini glass, and he wanted another sip.
He shook the dreadful thought away. He needed to focus on honing his abilities so he could finally return to some sense of normalcy. Not that there could be any normalcy in being a vampire. Sleeping during daylight. Feeding off of humans. Powers beyond human comprehension.
Living longer than humans ever could.
Brian frowned as Barnaby approached the dais. “How do you do it?”
Barnaby sat upon his throne, reached behind it, and pulled out a small card table adorned with various gems. “You shall have to be more specific, Koltz. Again, I cannot read your mind.”
“How do you march on knowing all those around you will eventually die?”
Barnaby set up the table. Then he produced a small stool from behind the throne and beckoned for Brian to sit. Brian crossed the room and obliged. The card table had sixty-four alternating white and black squares etched onto the top.
The Undead leader grabbed a velvet bag from beneath the throne, placed it on the table, and pulled its drawstrings. “Humans are precarious creatures. They war amongst themselves far more than vampires, yet they also seek peace. They move from mate to mate, job to job, never satisfied yet always seeking satisfaction. I am intrigued by their complexity, but I prefer to observe from afar rather than mingle with them. That is how I march on.”
Barnaby dumped the contents of the bag onto the table. Two-inch-tall black and white figurines spilled out. Chess pieces, custom made. The pawns were incredibly detailed figurines of humans chained to tiny blocks of stone. Eyebrows, noses, mouths—All different, all unique. The rooks were gargoyles resting atop boulders, all four the same except for the color. The knights were giant bats with blood droplets painted onto their breasts, and clawed feet gripping a levelled branch at the base. The bishops looked much like the priests of Haven: Cloaked figures with nothing more than the tips of noses poking out from beneath the cowls. The kings were replicas of Barnaby himself, in his majestic Undead Army fatigues. And the queens were gorgeous, curvaceous women with flowing robes, flowing hair, and unmistakable facial features.
Brian picked up the black queen and raised an eyebrow.
Barnaby waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, it is her. I said I prefer to keep my distance. That does not always mean I am able to ignore my feelings.”
Brian nodded, remembering their trip to the Haven orphanage. He dared not reveal he’d witnessed their lover’s embrace, their kiss. He thought suddenly of Ruby. He wanted to have a relationship with her, but his current musings of living forever while she died ripped at his heart. Stella had her children, her orphans, her immortality, an Undead lover.
What would Ruby have in the end?
“Why is it you’ve turned so few humans in your lifetime?” Brian blurted out.
Barnaby shrugged. “As I implied earlier, few have been worthy of bestowing my personal powers upon. I do not need to carry on my name, as I do plan to live forever, you know. Also, we cannot procreate. It is impossible amongst the Undead. ”
“What about with humans? Could a human woman bear a vampire’s child?”
Barnaby’s black eyes flared momentarily. “Even if it were fathomable, the offspring would be an abomination. Such thoughts should never be mentioned again. Anywhere, or with anyone.”
Brian averted his gaze. He set about placing the white pieces on the table squares before him, ready to play and avoid the conversations. Brian had been a chess aficionado in college. Perhaps Barnaby would challenge him.
“You are learning faster than others I have mentored. Have you not noticed your speed?”
Brian looked up. Barnaby’s black pieces were already aligned. Brian slowly placed the remainder of his pieces. Agonizingly slow. He chuckled. He’d been moving at the pace of a human. “Apparently not.” He moved the pawn in front of his king two spaces forward. Pawn to e4, his favorite opening move. He could gain control of the center of the board, depending upon his next move.
Barnaby moved the pawn in front of his Queen two spaces forward.
Brian would normally have taken the bait and killed the diagonal pawn. Instead, he reciprocated by moving his right bishop two spaces to the left in the hopes of having a major player stalk the center of the board.
Barnaby swiped Brian’s e4 pawn and set it behind his king. Brian used his free bishop to take Barnaby’s foremost pawn.
Barnaby sniggered and moved his Queen forward, resting it horizontally next to Brian’s bishop. “R
est well tonight. Tomorrow will be trying.”
Shit. “Why’s that?” Brian asked, debating his next move.
Barnaby rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands before his chin. Shadows danced upon his face as the velvet ceiling swayed above them. “Tomorrow, we spar.”
Chapter 23
“He won’t harm me, Ruby.”
“What, just because he opened himself up to you? How can you just believe everything he tells you?”
Brian shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.” There were half-truths to everything Barnaby said, but the famed tyrant wouldn’t open up if his intentions were cruel.
Or would he?
Ruby slipped out from under the bed-sheets, wearing only her bra and panties. She stretched like a cat, flexing her toned muscles.
Brian almost groaned aloud with desire. They had slept in the same bed that night, but nothing more than heavy petting had occurred. Damned childhood movies and novels always depicted sexual attraction—and acts—between the two species, but Brian believed the fascination to be a mere perversity of twisted authors and playwrights. Humans were afraid of vampires, not attracted to them.
“I don’t trust him. Neither should you.”
“I asked him to teach me. Are you always so untrusting?”
She stepped forward and rested her hand upon his bare chest. “I trust you.”
She shouldn’t. He was an undying creature of the night. He placed his hand on hers and smiled. “Tour the castle. Or the courtyard. They’re sleeping. You’ll be safe. And I’m confident I’ll be safe as well.”
She dropped her arm and turned away.
The silence killed him. Would have, if he weren’t already dead. “I’ll see you later. Okay?”
Still no response.
He slipped a shirt on, then disappeared through the hidden entrance and made his way to Barnaby’s chamber.
Silence trotted along beside him the entire way.
Wind blew from behind him. Brian strained, trying to force the wind to blow from beneath instead.
“Koltz, I expected better from you after yesterday’s progression.”
Brian clenched his jaw and stopped blurring his eyesight. “I don’t understand the mechanics of it.”
Barnaby scoffed and descended from his airborne perch near the ceiling, stopping to levitate inches above the floor. He wore a jogging suit much like what he’d given Brian and Ruby, except it displayed his signature style: Ruffled wrists and ankles. “You need to let go of the scientist within you, Koltz. This is not something that can be defined by the parameters of the human world. It is a magical gift and requires no thought. Simply revel in the fact that it works.”
“I don’t understand how blurring my eyesight calls upon this great power you deem magical. It’s not scientifically possible, and therefore not something I can just do.”
Barnaby stepped down to the ground. “You state our eyesight can be explained away, and our enlarged olfactory glands cause us to have an overwhelming sense of smell. Our taste buds, then, must be about three times the physical size of a human’s?”
“A little less than that, actually.”
“Very well. And I know our hearing has been attributed to an extra sonar-like tiny funnel-shaped bone that manifests near our eardrum after transformation. Our nerve endings are thinner, more sensitive, yet pain dissipates in mere seconds.”
“I’m not following you here.”
“How do you explain the movements?”
Brian had never thought on it. With all their other enhanced abilities, speed-of-light movement seemed natural, reasonable. Maybe vampires could manipulate certain planes of the physical realm? No, too science-fiction-y. He scratched his mop of unkempt hair.
“Just as you cannot explain the erratic, swift movements of our kind, you cannot explain our ability to levitate. So stop trying.”
Brian closed his eyes. He’d been able to call upon the winds and direct them when he jumped through the lancet. How had he done it?
Stop trying.
He opened his eyes again. Levitation remained unexplainable, yet he’d done many things in the past week he’d never thought possible. He strained his eyes until Barnaby was a gray blotch before him. A breeze caressed his back. He clenched his jaw. From below.
The breeze shifted and Brian was lifted. He kept his vision blurred and floated toward the ceiling. “Do I have to constantly blur my sight to keep levitating?”
“Only for a split second. But we shall get to that in due time, Koltz.” Barnaby floated up to him, then fell backward with his hands knitted behind his head as if he were lying on his back. “What I want you to do now is lean back and relax, like I am.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
Barnaby chuckled. “Think of it like a bed of nails. Fall back and call upon specific pressure points to keep you from losing control.”
Brian felt patronized by Barnaby’s apparent amusement with his ignorance, but he nodded anyway. Pressure points. He would need to drop off the breeze beneath him, fall back, and will new breezes to hit specific points. Five: Both shoulders, the small of his back, and both calves.
It wasn’t possible, but it wouldn’t kill him if he tried and failed.
He fell back. He plummeted. Panicked, he called upon the strange breeze. A gale-like force hit him square in the small of his back and swept him up. The ceiling slammed into his nose. Dizziness washed over him, and then he plummeted again.
Adrenaline kicked in, and everything slowed to a crawl. Just like in the fight. Brian blurred his eyesight and imagined the five pressure points. The winds answered his call. He made his eyesight normal and looked down over his shoulder. He was suspended in a prone position scant centimeters from the floor. But at least I don’t need to blur my sight anymore.
“Well done, Koltz.” Barnaby descended down like an angel on high, one leg back as though he were running in mid-air. “I feared you would not be able to master something so intricate so quickly.”
Brian stared at the ceiling and smiled. “I didn’t think so either.” He made a quick mental gesture, and the breezes on his upper torso converged, pushing him until he was standing in mid-air. He descended and landed lightly on his feet.
He heard a wild rustle of clothing.
A booted foot collided with his jaw, dislocating his mandible and causing pain to shoot through his face. Brian sailed headfirst into the far wall behind him. A loud crunch sounded as he slammed into the stone. On the ground, he attempted to push himself back up but fell onto his nose. His right shoulder blade had been crushed on impact.
Even knowing he would heal in seconds didn’t stop panic from flooding through him. The attackers—They’re back!
But only Barnaby stood in the room, arms crossed, black eyes glossy, an unmistakable smirk on his face.
Brian grinned. The movement melded his lower jaw back into position with a sickening pop. “I should’ve expected that.”
“We are Undead, Koltz. We are hated. Never let your guard down.”
Brian jumped to his feet and swung his right arm in a wide circle. Already healed. He wasn’t a fighter, and his encounter with the three vampires the other day provided him little trust in his fighting skills. He would have to go on instinct and dumb luck as always. He’d watched ample fighting championships in his lifetime to be able to mimic moves as well.
Barnaby leapt high and soared at him in a flying kick. Brian placed his arms before him in an X and widened his stance, prepared to absorb the momentum of the tremendous oncoming blow.
The foot never connected. Barnaby extended both legs down and landed in front of Brian. He threw an underhanded punch into Brian’s stomach, then danced away like a boxer.
Brian didn’t double over, but took the pain in stride. He uncrossed his arms and brought them out in a defensive stance: Cupped hands, the left high, the right low. He kept his body square to Barnaby as the vampire lord circled to the left.
Barnaby fein
ted with a left jab, closing in fast. He then telegraphed the right upper-cut he was attempting to follow with. Brian blocked it with his left hand, then hooked around with his right and hit Barnaby square in the jaw.
The Undead leader laughed, ducked to waist level, and wrapped his arms around Brian’s torso. They were suddenly airborne. Brian pummelled Barnaby in the face but couldn’t get enough leverage to faze him. The crowns of their heads touched against the ceiling, and Barnaby dropped Brian.
Anxiety squeezed his stomach as he plummeted. He couldn’t call upon his newfound levitation skills quick enough. And he didn’t need to.
Barnaby flew at him with blinding speed and rammed his left shoulder into Brian’s chest, driving him down. They crashed to the stone floor in a heap.
Brian couldn’t move his neck. He was sprawled on the floor, legs and arms at awkward angles, his back broken.
Barnaby floated upward, smirking. “Get up, Koltz.”
Brian clenched his jaw to ward off the scream rising within. A striking thought invaded his mind: Was Barnaby trying to kill him?
“Get up. We are vulnerable if we do not bite down the pain and will our bodies to heal.”
Brian stared past Barnaby as the vampire leader floated steadily higher. He’d always thought vampire healing powers were innate, not something that could be called upon at will.
“Get up!” Barnaby roared again, eyes still glossy-black. Then he dove headfirst, aimed at Brian, clothing billowing behind him.
Heal! Brian ground his teeth together. Heal, damn it! Anger flooded through him. Warmth gathered at the small of his back. The ball of warmth became so hot he feared it would burn him from the inside.
The Human-Undead War Trilogy (Book 1): Dark Intentions Page 17
