Cruxim (Paranormal Fallen Angel/Vampire Series)

by Karin Cox

  Are you dead? My voice sounded small and strangled and far off, and already I was dreading her answer.

  “No,” she laughed but not without pain. “I live, Ame. I live for you.”

  Where? The panic returned. Where are you, Sabine? God help me! I will tear them to pieces until I find you.

  “No!” Her tone was harsh. “There has been enough cruelty. So much cruelty as to make even a feline weep.”

  It struck me as strange to hear her refer to herself so. She had always considered herself wholly woman. But I had no doubt that beastly actions had driven her to me. I felt her lips on my wrist, and her warm tongue lapped at the trickle of blood that slithered from my crucified palms.

  Again, I tried to sit, to stir and possibly even to wake to her, so tangible was the touch of her fur and the sensation of her lips, but again she stopped me.

  “Come for me, but then let us leave this place. They have taken me to an island, a walled city overlooking some kind of strait. In a tower they confine me by day. I fight, of course, but they are strong, Ame. An army of undead.”

  Where is this place, Sabine?

  “I know not, only that it is an island, several hours south-east yet still in France, and well defended.” She fell silent.

  Sabine? My heart cried out to her, worried she had vanished. Have they hurt you?

  Mewling kisses peppered my face in answer and I lay back, lost in the sensation and in the deep currents of loss and pain and hope that flowed through us both.

  I cannot bear for them to hurt you. Tell me where your stone is, that I might keep it safe.

  “Ame, I cannot. A Sphinx may reveal it only in riddles.”

  She was ever an enigma. Then riddle me! Let me know!

  She paused, and even in my semi-lucid state, I knew she feared it would be of no use. Did I know her so little, after all this time?

  “Where womb and navel meet as one, and python’s coils foretell the sun, there shall you find the stone you seek, of marble smooth and white and sleek. Make a pledge to know thyself before mischief is nigh, and you shall know the ancient place at which my stone doth lie.”

  Go on, I heard myself urge.

  She laughed. “There is no more, Ame.”

  But that makes no sense. I tried to commit it to memory but my mind was a fog.

  She said nothing, just smiled sadly. “I cannot tell you more.”

  Sabine, you must! I cannot bear what they might do to you before I find you.

  She said again in that soft mellifluous voice she used only for me, “Hush, my darling. Then forget the stone. What use is stone when the flesh desires? Come for me here. Find this island and come for me, and we shall flee accursed France forever, but do not fear for me, for I have two things they do not.”

  What do you have? My head was a mess of riddles and dreams.

  “I have you. And I have faith.”

  I awoke with a start to find myself alone, my head against cold stone made warm with sleep’s tears.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to discern the dream from reality. Had Sabine been real or a phantasm come to taunt me? I tried to call the riddle to my mind, but it was patchy and fragmented, fading into my subconscious. “Sabine!” I cried aloud. “Sabine, tell me more!” But she could not.

  I paced the rooftop, pondering where the island she mentioned might be and trying to remember the riddle. Even if I could locate the island, my wings were so tender I doubted I could make it any further south than Provins. Just getting to Paris had been an effort.

  Why? I cursed to myself, and my torn wings flapped in agitation. Why do I know so little about everything? About Sphinxes and their riddles? About myself? Then, as my despairing mind grappled to recall and decode Sabine’s riddle, it settled on Gandler’s face, hooded as he held up a book to the bars in the tower of Sezanne, mocking me with the image of a Sphinx.

  The incunabulum! I had never read the entry. On finding the book centuries ago, I had not contemplated ever meeting a Sphinx. I had only flipped through, searching for my kind. When all trace of my species was absent, I had been disappointed at first, and then relieved, and then, I had given it to Joslyn. Perhaps the book mentioned something about a Sphinx’s riddle, or how to find an anchorstone! Wincing at the pain I knew it would cause my wings, I swooped off the rooftop and headed back toward Provins.

  Mid-morning, a gentle shaking woke me to the song of swallows in the chamber above. “Ame, awake.”

  “Sabine!” I cried. In my half-asleep state, I expected it to be another dream. But then I noticed the dark rough-hewn passage I was in and recognized the blue eyes. “Joslyn?” I rubbed my aching wings. I had not expected to see her again, perhaps ever. I had imagined she had been true to her word.

  “Arise.” Crouching down, she touched me again, and I wondered if I were still dreaming.

  “Joslyn, I told you: I cannot.”

  With a sad smile, she gazed down at her hands. Her eyes were red-rimmed, the lower lids heavy with the weight of tears. “I know. Be at peace. I have an idea where they may have taken Sabine.”

  “Sabine?”

  “You love her,” she whispered, as I righted myself and ran a hand through my hair. “And I love you,” she continued. “I would not wish for you the loneliness I endure. All night once you left me last, I raged and wept, and before the sun rose I thought I would sit out in it, see the sun kiss the treetops one last time before I left you. But I could not.” She stood and faced the wall of the tunnel. It was dark and cool, a cavern of limestone.

  It reminded me suddenly of a grave, filled with her bereavement.

  “As long as you live I will love you, and I will wait for you, but I will help you free Sabine first, and then I will leave you.”

  “Joslyn.” I breathed her name, recognizing the gift she was offering me. How sweet a girl she was, even still. Too sweet for Satan, I thought. Surely. “How did you get back here?”

  “These passages run underground, all throughout the city. Just before the sun rose, I took shelter in a storeroom. In the cellar was a passage and then another. Eventually, they led me to the Grange aux Dimes, and to you.” She turned back to face me and I saw her eyes linger on the musculature of my chest, on the ugly scars that crossed it like a crucifix. She shivered, but whether from desire or pity I could not tell.

  “And Sabine?” I asked. “You think you know where she is? I ... I ... an island...” I was at a loss to explain my dream of the night before. I had been tired, bereft; perhaps it had been my imagination playing tricks.

  “Yes. Far to the south-east of here, there is an isle, the Île de Ré. It is a walled city, a fortress near impenetrable. Once before Beltran has taken me there—a bloody place surrounded by a great wall. Beltran had been there before, to feed on the corpses of the carnage following the siege of 1627. Afterwards, he told me, the king had commissioned a master engineer, Vauban, to build the wall and citadel. At the time, men said no place in France was better defended and that sixteen thousand people could be protected there for a year or more. ”

  And what place made by man could ward off an attack by Vampires? I thought.

  “Beltran has many such places around the globe, but this is the most well-defended. I believe he will have taken her there. But what did Gandler mean by her blood debt?” Joslyn picked up my shirt where I had discarded it on the floor, patted the creases smooth, and threw it to me.

  I reached up and caught it, slipped it on. “He had a son: Fritz. It was Sabine’s job to guard the boy. Gandler threatened her, of course. The boy had a blood disorder. He made more blood than required and bled from the eyes, nose, mouth. From most of his orifices. A tasty morsel for Vampire. When they killed him, Gandler blamed Sabine.”

  Joslyn looked puzzled. “But she is immortal, is she not?”

  “Yes. But there are still ways to end a Sphinx’s eternity.” With trembling hands, I picked up the incunabulum from where it lay on the floor. I had read it only cursorily, once, hundred
s of years before when I had given it to Joslyn.

  “Every night, she returns to the place from whence she came: her anchorstone,” I explained as I flipped through the pages. The sheets were thinner than I remembered all those years ago, and worn, the color faded from them. “She will tell no one where it is, not even me. Destroying it is the only way to kill her. Gandler has searched for it for decades. When he finds it, he will grind it into dust, and with it Sabine.”

  “And until then…” Joslyn asked.

  “He will torture her. Nightly will he destroy her, and daily will she vanish to her stone, only to return at moonrise completely renewed. I can only imagine how that will frustrate Gandler. It will amuse him and Beltran to think up new tortures for her.”

  Joslyn drew in her breath.

  With a heavy heart, I turned to the page about the Sphinx and began to read:

  “A mythological hybrid, the Sphinx is a beautiful woman with the wings of an eagle and the supple body of a lion, although several other variations of this creature have been observed. From whence such mysterious creatures arise it is hard to say, but they exist in countless mythologies and in various incantations, and literature and art are rife with representations of this preternatural beast.”

  I cringed at the word, knowing how Sabine would hate to be described so, and then read on:

  “Grecian Sphinxes are known to have the head and breasts of a woman, the wings of an eagle and the body of a lioness, and the name Sphinx is indeed derived from the Greek. Egyptian sphinxes, many of which are male, are known as ‘shesep-ankh,’ a name that translates loosely as ‘living image.’ Perhaps a reference to the Sphinx’s affiliation with lifelike sculpture. Immortal, and sometimes immoral, this magical creature is tenacious, resilient, ferocious, and associated with a single stone or statue that appears to anchor the creature to the earthly realm and is said to confine it by day. It is said that Sphinxes are able to choose a new stone by night by roaring before the desired sculpture beneath a full moon. If no roar answers back, the stone is otherwise unoccupied and the Sphinx might enter it and bind herself to it. However, Sphinxes are known to be highly territorial and will fight for the right to a particular stone if already occupied, which leads this author to assert that few leave their anchorstones voluntarily. Further mythology has it that a Sphinx can be woken from the anchorstone by day, and there have been reports of a Sphinx’s eyes suddenly snapping open to vigilantly watch the area under his or her protection. Some suggest a kiss, or a spell, the words of which have never been adequately relayed to this author, may partially rouse a Sphinx by day. Perhaps unsurprisingly, tombs and temples appear to be the haunts of this mysterious creature, which is active only by night and entirely absent by day. Sphinxes feed on meat or carrion but may also dine upon Vampires, although this cataloguer finds such suggestion doubtful. Lifespan and reproductive history are unknown, but it appears only the destruction of the stone results in the Sphinx’s ultimate end.”

  Although there was no mention of the riddle, the words gave me some comfort. I stroked the page, which bore a stylized golden figure of a Sphinx. She must have changed her stone, I realized, perhaps several times since she had guarded Ramesses’ tomb. Gandler did not have the stone, and the book had made no mention of the riddle, so Sabine’s suffering was, at least, temporary. Then, thinking of the hours I had spent searching for her stone in Paris and realizing it might be anywhere, I handed the book back to Joslyn, disappointed.

  “This fortress, the Île de Ré,” I asked. “Is there any way to breach the fortifications? What weapons are there, and where are they situated? If I am able to fly in, where can I land with safety? Where inside do you think they might keep her?”

  “The defensives are many. Even with an army, we might struggle to gain entry. And if we do, how will you defeat so many of them?”

  Sabine’s words in my dream—an army of undead—rang in my ears. “An army we do not have.” I sighed. “Although they do.”

  The task seemed insurmountable. Why? I silently accused my Maker. Why make me like this, a solitary killer with no army to operate against the undead? Such hatred for them and myself their only weapon. It rankled me. I felt I had been set an impossible task, one I could only hope to fail in perpetuity, as I had failed to protect Joslyn all those centuries ago, as I had failed to protect Sabine just days hence. A roar of anger issued from me and I slapped my ruined wings in disgust.

  “What is it?” Joslyn’s lip trembled.

  “Nothing but that the world seems too unfair. How is it Beltran and Gandler, and beasts of their kind, can live, but Danette and Sabine and you and I must suffer so? How is it that, for all I do for God, he punishes me thus?”

  “Do not talk of God.” Joslyn shivered, and I suddenly noticed the torn white silk had been replaced with the dress of a noblewoman: green silk taffeta with embroidered Chinoiserie flowers. A droplet of blood stained the bodice. I tried to contain a shiver of disgust.

  “I wondered, once, why he never spoke to me all of those years ago in the convent,” Joslyn said. “But now I realize that neither of them do, at least not in words, only in deed.” She smoothed down the full petticoats. “I do not hear Satan’s forked tongue whispering, but nor do I hear your Maker’s harps ever playing for me. All that was holy and good in me I gave away for you. You were the only god I prayed to, and prayed for, my guardian angel. And now, all there is left for me is to believe in you and to protect you.”

  I wanted to weep at that, for if only I had protected her that night, we would not be here with my senses acutely aware of her every movement and her tear-stained eyes avoiding my gaze. But then she would be long dead. Bones in a grave. The thought chilled me.

  “I do not hear him either,” I admitted. “Perhaps God is mute, or I have already failed him and his silence is my punishment.”

  “No,” Joslyn said, and her eyes filled again with tears. “He has failed you.”

  The Île de Ré was south-east some three hundred and forty miles. Even had I been able to fly that far on my injured wings, Joslyn could not. If we could procure a horse and buggy, the journey would take us a week or more, but animals were known to baulk at preternatural masters, potentially extending our journey. More worrying, for me, was whether I could be alone with her for so long? Traveling by day presented us with further problems and would require Joslyn to be concealed in a casket in a covered wagon, so we conceived upon the idea that I was an undertaker, carrying a noblewoman’s body to her father in La Rochelle.

  After our preparations, we both slept deeply: myself curled away to face the wall and Joslyn in an alcove near the entrance to our chamber. I knew from her face that she longed to curl into me, but even asleep I was a threat to her.

  It was close to midnight before we awoke, so tired were we from the emotions of the night before.

  “Come,” I told her. “You must feed, and so must I.” I had hoped that keeping myself sated might prevent me from desiring her. “Go!” I commanded. “And meet me back here within three hours, whence we will take our leave. If I am late returning, it will be because I must find a carriage that can bear us, and a casket to contain you.”

  “A nice one,” she instructed.

  “Go!”

  Glad as I had been to see her this morning, I was almost as relieved when she left. After ten minutes or so, I stole out after her. The streets were quiet. Only the smell of the markets lingered. Where might I find blood to nourish me on a night like this? I thought. Perhaps I would not. Unless ... had some of them returned to seek me out or to find Joslyn? It was all I could hope for. For hours, I prowled the shadows and loitered in the poplar groves. My nostrils twitched for just a sniff of Vampire blood, but they had all vanished. I contented myself with finding a carriage for our journey. If I were to play the part of an undertaker, I reasoned, I might as well be authentic. The smell of brine and embalming fluid led me to the mortuary. There, in the stables, was a horse-drawn hearse and the sturdy black mare t
hat pulled it. It would be a conspicuous theft, no doubt, but I figured few would argue once they saw me, and Joslyn and I would be long gone on the road to the Île de Ré by the time the mortician had arisen.

  Perhaps I should have brought her with me, to ensure he would not arise. The thought was absurd and immoral. A bitter laugh sprang from me.

  “You laugh?”

  I spun, unsettled by my unexpected companion.

  “Joslyn! You must leave me.”

  “You have not yet fed?”

  “It is not so easy for one such as I. My prey is less unassuming than yours.” My words were harsh to her ears I could tell, but I could not keep the accusation from my tone.

  “Feed on me again. You did not kill me last time.”

  “Joslyn!” I said her name like an obscenity. “It must never happen again.”

  “You have a horse, I see. And a carriage. Now for a coffin.” She wisely changed the subject.

  “Keep watch,” I instructed her. “I will return in good time.”

  As I had expected, the mortician locked his doors, but I flew over the walled garden and inspected the stone building until I found a high window I thought was not properly latched. On tender wings, I flapped up to the window and carefully nudged open the shutters, slipping inside as quietly as a zephyr. Downstairs, in the deathly quiet of the parlor, a body had been laid out. I could hear the faint wheeze of the mortician’s snores upstairs and the ticking of a timepiece as I approached the cedar casket. The body was covered with a pall and wreathed with champagne roses—a coffin for a woman. After moving the flowers, I folded back the pall and gasped. The eyes of the flower seller sprang open. “My Lord,” she said, as she sat up in her coffin.

  Horror twisted my guts, but she looked around vacantly and then flung her arms around me. “E said he’d come back for me, tho’ he weren't nearly as beautiful as you are, my angel,” she said. “I knew you’d come for me. Come, give Bessie a kiss.”