The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier (Book 1)

by Ambroziak, K. P.

  Neither of them whispered now.

  “And so what did he tell you about Vincent? This fortune-teller?”

  “Not a fortune—never mind,” he said. “He didn’t say anything about him. He just told me I had to come and get you and take you with me no matter what.”

  “This is crazy,” she said.

  I tried to read her voice, to learn if she believed the foolish liar or not.

  “The shaman said all that?” She sniffled; he had upset her with his lies. “He’s wrong,” she said. “Vincent is the only thing—the only one who can keep me safe.”

  “Just listen to me,” he said. “The shaman was right about everything else so far.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my injury, the seeds, you.”

  “But …”

  “You have to come with me,” he said. “You have to trust me. He’s no good for you. I can keep you safe. I’d never let anything happen to you.”

  I did not think Evelina would betray my trust, that she would tell him my secret. He would wear his fear on his sleeve if she did.

  When he left her room a few moments later, I decided to make him pay for his treachery. Since he and Evelina had grown close, he had stopped locking his door at night, and when he fell back asleep, I entered his room. He was beneath the covers, but it was easy to slide them off of him. I grabbed hold of his newly healed arm and yanked it from its socket again. I was swift, already out the door and back in the front room when he jolted awake from the pain. His scream shook the house and Evelina ran to his side to quell his nightmare. When she saw his arm dangling from its socket, she called for help.

  I snapped his arm back into place and told her to fetch the sling. “You must have pulled it in your sleep,” I said.

  I assumed he was in too much pain to speak when he did not answer. Evelina returned and I tied his shoulder in place and assigned her to play nurse. When I left them, I was satisfied there would be no more talk of leaving without me.

  18 November. — This morning I went in to check on him. Evelina was still by his side, but had dropped off to sleep with her head on his pillow. Helgado was awake.

  “She needs to rest in her room,” I said.

  The sound of my voice woke her. “I want to stay,” she whispered.

  I left them alone again, but was not surprised when she came to fetch me an hour later.

  “Helgado needs to talk to you,” she said.

  I did not bother to ask what about and headed into his room.

  “I wasn’t telling you the truth before about the monastery,” he said. “I had written Brother Clemente a letter telling him about the plague after all.” Evelina came into the room with me but he asked her to wait outside. He needed to keep his lies separate and straight. “I couldn’t leave without warning them,” he said. “But as I was leaving, the friar stopped me and broke his vow. He told me that God had spoken to him and given him a message for me.”

  He paused for a moment, either for dramatic effect or, most likely, to come up with something convincing.

  “He said, ‘Man has warded off the devil since the beginning of time. This plague, too, shall be conquered. The dead are not returning in the name of God, but come as warriors of Satan. Let the Almighty Son of God enact His revenge upon these days. Do not give in to temptation. The Lord has a great plan for you. Go into the desert, a message awaits you there. Go in peace, my brother.’” He looked at me as though he expected me to say something that would suggest his monk’s words were riveting. I denied him the pleasure and said nothing.

  “When I left them,” he said. “I headed into the wilderness and that’s where I found Farouch.”

  I restrained my laughter at the silliness of calling his made-up shaman Farouch.

  “He’s a Métis shaman,” he said. “I smelled the smoke from his pipe first—it was blowing across the clearing from where he sat in front of a huge red teepee.” He smiled and I wondered if a bit of delusion had not infected his fabrication. He may very well have imagined his vision; the desert sun has a way of draining a man of his senses.

  “Whoa, did he make an impression—his stature was ferocious. And he was a giant, kind of like you. I thought I was hallucinating. He was bare-chested, wearing nothing but loin cloth and prayer beads, and had stripes of red and white paint on his cheeks and chest. His skin was brown and leathery, like he’d been in the sun for years. And he didn’t really speak to me with words, but somehow I knew he was inviting me into his teepee.”

  Helgado was able to describe the inside of the tent more elaborately than I would have given him credit for. He has a vivid imagination.

  “The interior was bronze with large stripes of gold and silver,” he said. “And it shimmered in the firelight—and the smoke—the smoke from the fire pit went up through the opening at the top of the teepee and a little pot-belly kettle sat bubbling on a rack just above the fire. The steam climbed the walls of the tent and twisted itself around the smoke, as both escaped the hole at the top together.” He paused again and then proceeded to detail the furniture and accents. “There was a small stool next to the fire and a mat of straw that was lying on the ground at the back of the tent,” he said. “And several clay bowls with purple powder residue were turned on their sides, and a few pestles and glass containers scattered across the floor—everything was stained plum color.” Finally, his shaman spoke. “Miitshow was the first thing he said aloud, and I don’t know how, but I knew what it meant—he wanted me to sip from his cup. It was filled with a thick, sticky substance that numbed my tongue. It had a funny taste—familiar but not really. I can’t describe it, but I can still feel it on the tip of my tongue.”

  He said its texture was like honey, but not sweet. He guessed it was a mix of blood and sap. When he drew his tongue across his top lip, I thought of blood—his blood.

  “I downed it,” he said. “And then he offered me a drag off his pipe. That’s when he started chanting. I could’ve sworn the fire rose and fell with the sound of his voice.”

  Helgado closed his eyes and began to chant softly. “Toñ Periinaan, dañ li syel kayaayeen kiichitwaawan toñ noo. Kiiya kaaniikaanishtaman ...”Almost possessed, he did not stop until he opened his eyes again and said: “Answichil—Amen.”

  It was the Our Father in Michif, the language of the Métis. Since Helgado’s expression was blank when he recited, I could not tell if he had actually slipped away in that moment of recall. “Sorry,” he said. “The shaman taught me that and I haven’t forgotten.”

  I was beginning to get bored with his extraneous details, but I did not want to distract him from the cause and so I let him continue.

  “When the sun went down, the fire lit up shadows in the tent. Things in the desert were creeping all around us. The shaman chanted, outmatching the rise of wails coming from the dead outside. That’s when I saw him produce a dark seed—it was the size of a macadamia nut.” Helgado reached into his pocket with his free arm and produced the very same seed. “He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger like this,” he said. “And then trapped it in both his hands and rubbed his palms together really fast. After a few seconds, the seed disappeared and there was this plum-colored powder in his palms. With his hands open, he moved to the fire and blew the powder into the flame. It went up in the smoke and out through the hole at the top of the teepee.”

  I could guess what happened next—the bloodless dropped all around them.

  “One by one,” he said, “the shadows outside the tent fell like dominoes. And when the last wail was silenced, the shaman stopped chanting. ‘Waapow, waapow’ he said pointing to the door of the tent.” Helgado told me he looked out and saw the bloodless toppled over one another on the ground. “They didn’t rise again but melted into a black—”

  “Tar?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The powder from the seed causes them to melt or something. It’s like magic—or acid. They just fold under the power of the seeds—and not just the seeds but
the whole plant too. The shaman calls it the Dilo plant.”

  That the deterrent to this plague is found in the natural world should not surprise me. Nature’s way of correcting herself, I suppose. She thrives despite the erring ways of man. “What does the plant look like?” I asked.

  “I never saw it,” he said. “But the shaman said it had a thick yellow stigma and five large droopy brown petals ridged on their outer edges. The seeds are in the bulb, and the bulb is at the bottom of the style. But the plant has to be flowering or they’ll be no seeds.”

  It was a story for Byron. He believed the virus had a natural enemy, though he thought it would be found in man rather than the earth. Since I had little else to go on, I believed the boy’s tale. “Does the seed have to be made into powder for it to work?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve always broken it down.”

  “And how many of these seeds do you have?” I already knew the answer.

  “Not enough,” he said.

  “Can the plant be cultivated?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I never tried.”

  He was holding back on the map, so I pushed a little harder.

  “Where did the shaman find these plants?”

  “At the base of a bluff off the coast,” he said.

  “Which coast?”

  “The Ligurian Sea.”

  It was not far from where we were. “We need to get more,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “The bottom of that bluff—that’s where I’m headed. They’ll be flowering soon and I didn’t expect to be here this long.”

  I caught the blush that rose up his neck when he reached behind him for the map. It reminded me I was hungry.

  “He gave me this and told me to go back to my father’s villa before going to the bluff,” he said. “He told me I needed to pick up the photograph, but he didn’t say why.”

  I am certain that was not the first lie he told me throughout our conversation.

  “Will you come with me?” He had accepted the necessity of my being one of his traveling companions. The bluff would be impossible to scale without my help, as would protecting Evelina. “We have to leave,” he said. “Tomorrow if possible.”

  “May I see the map?” I asked.

  “It stays with me,” he said, though he held it out to me. “I’m sure you understand.”

  But of course I understand.

  Later. — Evelina woke in the middle of the night and came to see me. I had just finished preparing our provisions and was about to get out my pen and journal. She looked soft and lovely with sleep still in her eyes. She is a temptation for the strongest vampire, even as the incense pollutes her smell, that luscious scent that always lurks somewhere between my nostrils and the back of my throat. I cannot wait to taste her again.

  “I’m frightened,” she said.

  “You are safe with me.”

  I could only allay her fears with the same mantra I had been conditioning her with since the start.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you haven’t fed,” she said. “You’re starving and depleted and you can’t possibly protect me in this condition.”

  Though she sounded slightly hysterical, she was right. I was struggling. “I will feed when I can,” I said.

  “Why have you avoided feeding from us?”

  I thought her question was ridiculous until I realized I had denied my nature without thinking about it. Why had I not taken from the boy? I could have indulged here and there, especially if I knocked him out first. The stench of humanness had clung to me ever since I resigned myself to saving the girl. “I am still satisfied from …” I do not know why I had difficulty voicing it. I had tasted her blood, fed off her sustenance—her child’s life source—and was desperate for more, but in doing so I had broken my promise to my beloved. I did not want to be reminded of that.

  “But Byron wouldn’t want you to starve like this,” she said.

  Her mention of Byron darkened my mood and I scowled without realizing I was doing so. Evelina reached out her hand and placed it on my cheek.

  “You are handsome,” she said. “But not when you look angry.”

  My fangs dropped at the touch of her skin against my cheek. I threw my tongue up to quell their itch. “Go,” I said. “You need to sleep.”

  She let her hand drop and my desire died.

  “I won’t survive this journey without you,” she said. “I can’t.” She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out the vial. It was filled with fresh blood. The aroma nearly destroyed me. “If you won’t do this for me,” she said. “Do it for Byron.”

  If only she knew what she asked of me. If only she knew that drinking her blood was the last thing my beloved would want me to do. If only …

  I took the vial from her hand and tucked it into my coat pocket. She left me alone then with these empty thoughts and the temptation to drink her blood a second time.

  19 November. — We left this morning before sunrise. Helgado and Evelina waited for my signal on the steps of the villa. I set off ahead of them to the main square to ring the bell in the tower as a distraction for the bloodless. I confess I was more than capable of accomplishing my task. Sometime before dawn, I gave in to desire. Her blood coursed through me with vigor, as her baby spiced the mix and made her serum more potent. I was high when I left the villa, steeped in the ecstasy of those few drops from the vial. I slipped past the bloodless without effort, agile and strong.

  When I scaled the side of the bell tower, I was elevated enough to see the entire village and the villa on the top of the hill where Evelina and Helgado waited for my signal. I struck the bell with the ridge of my newly hardened hand over and over again, drawing the bloodless to my call. The side streets emptied, as ailing bodies crawled and stumbled into the main square. When the street was clear, the boy led the girl over the mess of tar and down the path I had taken several days earlier.

  Once I had corralled the bloodless in the main square with my bell, I flung myself from the tower to the peak of the chapel beside it. I flew from rooftop to rooftop until I reached a safe place to land and made my way up the streets to the shed. Evelina was relieved when she saw me, throwing her arms around me. Helgado reloaded his rucksack and a second bag.

  “We have no time,” I said, sweeping Evelina up in my arms and tossing the half empty bag over my shoulders. “Now,” I said to the boy.

  We headed out of the yard and down the street to the fence Helgado had crawled through on his way up to the villa. I put Evelina down and told him to go first. He had some difficulty sliding through the opening with his injured arm, but I gave him a hand and he braved the pain. Evelina went next, slipping through easily even with her large belly. I tossed the bags to Helgado, pulling his attention away from me, and leapt over the fence. Evelina saw me and smiled. She knew I had fed.

  By the time the sun had risen, we were miles from the villa and it was lost to memory. My mind wandered, as we made our way through the overgrown vines of the vineyards.

  “Can we rest?” Evelina’s voice broke the silence. I did not think of stopping. Since I had enough energy for both of us, I reached over to pick her up but she pulled away. “I don’t think that’ll do it,” she said. “I feel … I need to sit.”

  “Is it the baby?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “What are you feeling?” Helgado asked.

  “Just a little pain,” she said. “A cramp—a stitch, that’s all.”

  We stopped between a row of vines, making a little place for her to rest on the ground. I laid my coat down and helped her sit on it.

  “Maybe she needs something to eat,” Helgado said. He looked through the bag to see what he had. “Nuts, apricots or dried jerky?” He asked.

  “None of those will do,” I said. “She needs protein.” Byron had told me the girl would require plenty of animal flesh to enrich the growth of the b
aby. He suggested I hunt small game for her, feeding her the livers and hearts if she would suffer them. I had neglected his command since we had enough canned food at the villa. “I will have to get her something fresh,” I said. “I will be back.”

  I instructed Helgado to mark a perimeter around them with some of his powder.

  “I only have a few seeds left—”

  I stopped him with my scowl. His frugality made me livid. “If I am not here to defend her—”

  “Okay, okay,” he said.

  I waited until he rolled the seed in his hands and spread the powder around them before taking off through the grapevines. When I disappeared from his line of sight, I sped up, flying through the rows of flowering vines, picking up animal scents as I went. I reached all the way across the vineyard to the neighboring fencerow. The scent was strong in the brush, where game hid in the thickets. The shaded foliage marked the hunter’s hour, late in the afternoon when the gregarious plant-eaters escaped from their burrows to pick the sweetest berries on the briar. I scoured the overgrown patch for the dark eyes of the rabbit. The smell of the cottontail was getting stronger.

  As I awaited him in stillness, my mind strayed to human times, to the ephebic prince I stalked much the same. Troilus became my game too, as I sought his bright eyes in the somber temple. When I found him crouched by the altar, I almost did not kill him. He seemed worthy of my sympathy. The boy could not even fake an aggressive countenance. Lithe and elegant, he was a vision of femininity. He was surely a male adolescent but everything about him was unmanly. When he spoke, falsetto notes relayed his message. It was the whine that caused me to do it, his aggravating whimper made up my mind. I decapitated him with my sword, placing his torso upon the altar and his head in a bowl at his feet. I rode away from the temple with his blood still dripping from my sword. Wrath owned me then—they were warring times.

  It was not long before the rabbit came out to greet me. I caught him up in one hand, and cracked his neck with the other. As I flew through the rows back to Evelina with the kill on my belt, I sensed the other. The vampire’s presence crashed into me and I could only hope he did not reach them before I did. When Evelina’s scream roared through the vines, I redoubled my pace. When I reached her, she was alone.