© 2017 K. P. Ambroziak
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Published by K. P. Ambroziak
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GRIEF for HEART
The Vincent Du Maurier Series
Book Four
By K. P. Ambroziak
Acknowledgment
This fourth book is dedicated to all of Vincent’s readers, especially those who’ve welcomed him in since the beginning.
For PSS, always.
Dearest Saba,
You cannot know how proud you make me, how fierce you’ve become in your transformation. You are the one to raise men, to create the world I have quit. This narrative is only a snippet, your beginning, the impetus that set you on this course. But you must see it for what it is, too, a testament to whom you have become since. I may have fallen away, but I’m not gone from our world. Our forefather has seen to that, and in my place he shall stand. Honor him as you have done me. Love him as you have loved me. Be the daughter to him you have been to me, one no father can deny.
Don’t be surprised at the knowledge I’ve acquired, the things I’ve uncovered here, words and deeds I’ve recounted. As a mortal, as the first descendant of man, I was not privy to omniscience, but now …
My change brings many insights, gifts from beyond. As my eyes were opened, so too were the paths to other worlds. Know this, my daughter, you are and always will be a goddess, a being knit from celestial thread, forged in the fires of other spheres, equipped with a grace too great for mortal material. So, too, are you as they said. You are His. You now belong to Vincent Du Maurier.
Dag
* * *
He floated in stasis for decades, his mind bent around the idea of returning, rising once again. The thirst in his throat was like no other, but his will was strong. The magic wouldn’t be forever. The torture, the solitude, the hunger wouldn’t be for all time. Soon, he told himself, soon I will wake and rise.
Seasons passed. Those he once knew, a lifetime ago, were gone. Those he would meet for a second time awaited him. He had a promise to honor.
I will beat this. He recalled his last words, the phrase that tumbled from his lips as his corpse began to decompose. The loss of his body wasn’t the thing, but his mental deterioration was everything. He bent his will about the trick, relying on the magic to see him through.
“This is not the end,” he mumbled in the dark, sealed in a capsule of his own making. “I will rise,” he said.
He floated for eternity and a day, missing another generation, another lifetime passing him by. His surroundings didn’t frighten him. Darkness was nothing. But he missed her, the one for whom he’d made the sacrifice. She was waiting, and he must get back to her.
The sun darted about the earth, the earth turned about the sun. The moon rolled like a dial in the sky, cresting the horizon to count the seasons. He didn’t move. He didn’t shout. He couldn’t speak. Everything was carapace about him, hard and crusted, as wet and soggy as he.
The cold reached for him first. He sensed it in his bones. The change coming, ever stronger in the most metaphysical way. His mind sung with the pleasure of knowing he could rise and seek out all he had lost. The magic had preserved his body, but his mood was changed. Choler owned him now, for lack of blood had made him irascible. He’d find drink first. Then he’d repossess his little one. The face of his warrior fed his soul. Her spirit knit into him long ago.
She had come to him first, confessed the truth.
“The blood is poison,” she had said. “You must resist.”
He chuckled with his deep belly roar, touching his forehead to hers. He saw her truth, and the new reality marked him.
She left and he stayed. The bad blood had taken its hold. There was no returning from this, he thought.
“It is too late for me,” he told her. “Know that I will find you again if I rise. To this, I swear.”
Abandoning him to his fate left her choked and rageful. He could see it in her eyes. He had marked her, too. If his god were willing, he’d find her again.
He mourned for days. Hunger pained him. He’d given up the drink, already forged a will of steel. He prayed to his god, he made his peace with the natural world, then he hovered. He entered the other sphere, the new age, the place where his body could sink as his spirit soared.
I will rise. He believed it. He counted on it. He made it true.
Those once trapped on the ship with him were long gone when he opened his eyes. The darkness had pulled them down, torn them up, spat them out. But he survived. He tasted the salt on his lips, his assurance he’d won his battle a second time. Death would not lay hands on him. Not him. Not yet. Not ever.
His strength faltered in the beginning. It took him time to loose his chains. The adamantine was meant to keep him submerged, even as he suffered. Through the wrath, through the hell, through the fire, he couldn’t break free before his time. There were several close calls, when he felt the energy of another in the darkness with him. But it was a mirage, just like the pain. “No pain,” he said, repeating his mantra until it became him.
He hovered, he prayed, he sank anew.
More than three turns of the moon passed before he twisted his hungry hands about the chains and yanked them off, his freedom a matter of shedding the clay.
He cracked, he crumbled, he dissolved into salt. But his god was fiercer than he, and held him together. Like the bird of his namesake, he fluttered and rose to the surface. The air teased his senses, the smell of blood rampant and warm. He was not long from feasting. The thought alone kept him sane, the scent of a fresh kill. He knew the difference now, bad blood from good. She’d taught him that, and he’d never make the mistake again.
He floated on the waves, greeting the god who’d saved him. My many lives are yours, he spoke into his god’s mind. Help me find what I need.
He stretched his limbs, shaking off the last of the clay that had kept him from tumbling to pieces. He was far now from the wreckage, far from those who’d succumbed to the fate of desiccation. Far from his former self.
“Blood,” he whimpered, as he crawled up onto the frozen shore. His feet would pay the price for the cold, the soil packed beneath the snow.
He launched himself across the surface as best he could, but his body had fallen into disuse and would need time to come back to life. He used all fours, like a jaguar, pulling his legs forward with the help of his hands. His corse bounded across the powdery terrain, his chest gliding overtop the ice.
He ran for seven changes of stars, for eight retreats of the moon, his thirst burning inside him, his ache deep in his temples, his want for blood voracious.
When he first laid eyes on the young hunter, he was sure he was hallucinating. The lack of blood had done it, he thought. It cannot be. But as he drew close, he realized where he was. The outline of the colony was plain, a village like the ones his people had erected long ago, before he was what he is now.
He spied for a time, watching to see. The boy was dressed in the fur of a fox, with a spear slung on his back, and a covey of birds perched on his belt, wal
king with a purpose, a confidence only strength could inspire.
He followed the youth into the woods, leaving the colony behind, his heart set on the blood of the young hunter. No other could satisfy him now.
The boy tarried for a time, inspecting several traps laid out the previous night, thoughts of his ornery father on his mind. The first three were empty, and the youth frowned at his failure. But the fourth cage was stuffed with fur, and he knelt down to touch it. The beaver had gorged on the wire, a bloodletting he hadn’t intended. Its teeth were caught in the metal, and the boy struggled to get the fur free. The animal had shrieked in the night, and he’d heard it.
When the young hunter bent down to look, he bared the flesh of his neck. The vampire couldn’t wait any longer. He rushed over the ice, and sprang on the youth, taking his skin up into his mouth, his fangs doling out all that he was, all that he’d ever be. He hadn’t forgotten this, nor had he surrendered it.
The blood was clean, the young hunter no false one, but a descendant of man. She’d said there were others. She’d assured him. She’d told him where to find the colony when he woke, promising him he’d find good blood.
He drank his fill, stealing the boy’s innocence, along with his senses. The two lay wasted when it was done. The vampire roiling in his high, the boy thrumming without consciousness. The sun came and went, and still the boy didn’t stir.
The new blood primed the vampire’s muscles, teased his rage, pumped his heart with vigor, and he contemplated a kill. His irons were poised, set to take the life of the young hunter. But he had a change of heart, admiring his quarry’s brazen looks, the cut of his jaw, the width of his shoulders.
Instead, he stripped the boy of his fur, taking the pelt from his chest, unlacing the leather shift he wore. Then he laid his hands on the boy’s pecks, and toyed with his flesh. He grew hungry again, and raised his open mouth to the sky. The thirst was greater than him. He closed his eyes to better feel the breeze on his new skin. His flesh tingled from the cold, but sizzled with the heat of his inflamed appetite.
Voices drew close. The shout of a man, calling a name. “Finn!” The single syllable sounded like a ping on the air, and the vampire knew.
“I have your Finn,” he mumbled to no one in particular, before sucking on another of the young hunter’s veins.
“Finn!” Now multiple voices called the boy. They couldn’t know that Finn was in another world, on another plane, perched between two pines, sunk into the forest floor.
“Finn!”
The vampire wrapped his body about Finn’s to warm him, pulling his weakened frame up into himself. His desire to wet his iron fangs was still strong, but he was stronger. He would not kill the boy. Not yet.
“Let me make you a god,” he whispered into Finn’s ear.
The boy stirred, and the vampire smiled. The promise of deity always wakes the dead, he thought. “I will not do it here, you must come with me.” He pulled his hand along the boy’s shorn hair, and thought of another. “Lead me to her.”
It wasn’t unreasonable for the vampire to think the young hunter knew something he didn’t. Surely the boy would understand his role. He’d always be prey for those hungrier than he. And there were more famished to be sure.
“Finn!”
The voices retreated, the search party moving away, off course, far from where he actually lay in the arms of the first predator. They’d been untouched in their paradise, unaware they could be hunted, too. The colonists never knew fear, until then.
Finn jolted awake, his eyes wide. “Far,” he moaned.
His new master licked the sweat from his brow, and grunted. “Your father has given up.”
The search party was long gone now, and Finn grew cold.
The vampire fed himself once more before sweeping his quarry up in his arms. The young hunter no longer seemed fierce, but looked like a mewling infant, his skin turning blue. The vampire pressed his mouth onto Finn’s and blew a heat to warm him. The touch of skin on skin aroused him but he’d drawn enough blood, and needed his hunter to regain some warmth first.
He dug a hole in the snow and tucked Finn into it, the young hunter unconscious again.
“I shall return,” he whispered to the boy.
The vampire took to the plain, his body stronger than ever, his force one to be reckoned with. He hunted now. Not for blood, but sport. He’d spotted a group of polar bears feeding on a beached whale not far from where he came on shore. He raced to the spot, sure to find the fur pelt he needed.
The sun was setting when he reached the water, the whale nothing but a carcass. A lone bear remained clawing at the scraps. The vampire smiled, and chuckled with the wind. Come, he thought, make me yours.
He dropped to all fours, and unleashed a wail that sounded something like a mourning squeal. The bear raised himself up on his hinds, and scanned the horizon. He couldn’t see his enemy, the vampire too quick for the eye. With his hackles up he swatted the empty air, the claws of his predator already poised at his throat. The bear released a whimper, and collapsed with a thud at the feet of his killer.
“Too easy,” the vampire mumbled.
The red blood stained the ice a coral color and the vampire scowled. He no longer liked the color of coral.
He gutted the bear there, on the shores of the colony, a fortuitous place to be, for that was where he discovered what he needed. He watched the current for a time, taking a break from his skinning, his claws and fingers dripping with the bear’s bloody gore. He resisted tasting the muck thanks to the young hunter’s fill. He licked his lips, picturing the boy’s hardened chest. He would anxiously await his recovery, so that he could take what’s his once more.
As the vampire spied the current, he drew up a plan. He had to travel on the sea once again, her coordinates tattooed on his mind. He’s to find her that way, he thought. She is not far, just across the water on another island.
He hurried to collect his bear skin, a pelt worthy of the young hunter. The blood would dry, and the fur would soon become like a second skin. He will keep me fed, and I will keep him alive. A fair trade, he thought, for Finn and I.
* * *
Saba stood between the birch trees, her body pressed up against a trunk. She slowed her breathing before raising her longbow. Her fingers would surely shake the arrow if she didn’t calm the patter of her heart. The rustle of the fox burrowing in the leaves a few meters away was the only sound for miles, its movements clipped and frantic. It would not stay in place for long. She had to raise the bow in silence, to ready the arrow with even greater skill. She held her breath as she brought the weapon up, and let out a short gust of air to warm the frost, as she slipped the arrow in place. She held her aim steady, one eye honed on the pile of dead leaves, her fingers taut, her lips parted. She counted in her head, just like her grandfather had taught her, then let sail the dart, releasing the tension in her fingers.
The arrow swooshed through the air, and landed with a thud. The fox squealed then scurried off.
“Darn it,” Saba mumbled.
She let her shoulders slump, dragging her feet to the mound of leaves where the end of the arrow was stuck up and out, shaming her for the miss.
Saba plucked the arrow from the ground, admiring its tip. The blood of the fox stained the metal, and she smiled. “Worth it,” she whispered.
She narrowed her eyes, looking in the direction the animal fled. An injured fox won’t get far, she thought. She schemed, determined to find the quarry and recoup her loss. She took to a light jog, hopping over rocks and roots, imagining her boots with wings, carrying her just above the woodland surface like Hermes, her favorite god from the stories. She’s more like Artemis, the mistress of the wild, but remained faithful to the messenger.
Saba eyed the ground as she went, her nose bent on smelling the blood of the fox. Freyit had taught her how to draw it out.
“The Arctic fox is a vain animal,” he’d said. “Injured, she’ll freeze up with humiliat
ion. Be patient, and she’ll come to you.”
Saba stopped, recalling that bit of wisdom. For a time, her stilted breath was all she could hear. The longbow was slung over her shoulder, her arrows tucked in the satchel at her waist. She stood tall, up on a knoll to better see the wooded landscape. A conspiracy of ravens croaked in the treetops above her, and she hushed them from her spot on the ground. “You’ll scare my fox,” she mumbled.
She spoke to herself, no echo for miles. The trees never repeated what they heard. One was always alone between the birches. But she was almost certain she’d picked up laughter, no sound of pleasure but derision, a mocking laugh running through the trees to meet her where she stood. The low rush of a growl came next, making her ears perk up.
“Who’s there?”
The woods fell silent once more, and she redoubled her effort to locate the fox. She looked for blood on the leaves, a trail surely to be found. She followed some muck for a while, until she reached a clearing she’d never seen before. The trees made a natural enclave, empty beneath their pergola. The ground seemed untouched by the cold season, the surrounding grass more green than the frosted earth between the trees.
She settled in to enjoy the peace and quiet that seemed only to exist in that spot. Another dimension, one without parents and grandfathers and sisters and colonists and newborns. The bane of her existence of late had been the crushing reality she would have to join soon, just as her sisters had, and give birth to baby upon baby upon baby. To make descendants to keep her ancestors alive, that was her purpose.
The whoosh of a raven pulled her gaze upward and she saw the sky darken. The eventide was rushing in, the bird warning her to leave the woods for home. She’d a meeting to keep, a conversation she’d been avoiding for some time.
Grief For Heart: The Vincent Du Maurier Series, Book 4 Page 1
