BloodWish

by Tima Maria Lacoba

  He rolled up his sleeve and showed me his wrist. ‘No, you are Pazuzim. Like me. See? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  The exact same birthmark stared up a me. My skin tingled as the blood drained from my face leaving me numb. ‘I don’t know the hell you’re talking about.’ But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the identical mark on his wrist. This was no coincidence. As far as I knew, my family had no French connections, so there was no way we were related. Yet, the striking similarity of the birthmark ... and something else deep down in my gut that convinced me the guy was telling the truth. A lump the size of a bloody rock lodged in my throat, but I managed to croak out: ‘What the hell is a Pazu ...?’

  Then it hit me, “Pazu” the “p” and “z” —the initials that Nighthunter kid Davis spoke about—stood for Pazuzim! I’d have to tell the kid when I got back.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘What?’

  The old guy’s brow creased till their fleshy lines touched the top rim of his glasses. ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m listening. Just ... never mind. This stuff’s all new to me.’ And I didn’t like not knowing something this important. My teeth clenched so tight that my jaw began to ache. How could my dad have kept this from me? He’d had to have known, for sure. I thought back to find any hints, any clues that could explain why he hadn’t told me. Hell, there was nothing.

  The old guy muttered something in French, rose from the table and trudged to a cabinet that was probably as old as him. The chipped and scratched bottom timber drawer grated as he struggled to open it. Any moment and he’d start coughing again. And this time, he could keel over from it.

  ‘Here, let me.’

  The damn thing slowly slid out, and he bent to lift a decrepit-looking dark green wooden box. ‘Ah!’ He grimaced and slammed his hand to his back as he slowly straightened. ‘Cursed arthritis!’

  ‘Where do you want it?’

  ‘Table.’

  It was surprisingly heavy. What the hell did he have in it? From the top drawer, he extracted a key and tossed it to me. ‘Unlock it.’

  The musty smell of old paper hit my nose as I opened it. Sitting atop a pile of yellowing sheets was the same worn-looking, faded red-leather-bound-book that Davis had shown me back in Sydney, minus all the sticky tape.

  Junot’s bony hand snatched it up. Nicotine-stained fingers shakily leafed through it. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Sommers.’

  He grimaced. ‘English.’

  ‘Australian,’ I corrected him.

  He shrugged. ‘All the same. Your family came originally from England, no?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Humph! Sommers, Sommers ... I don’t remember a family by that name. Mother’s maiden name?’

  ‘Paisley.’

  ‘No, that’s not it.’

  I baulked at the implication. ‘You’re kidding, right? My family name in there.’ I jerked my head to indicate the notebook.

  ‘You have the mark. Your name will be in here.’ He stabbed the book with a gnarled finger. ‘The head of every Pazuzim family had a register of all the others in case they tracked a fanghead into another family’s territory. You had to ask permission.’ He regarded me again over the rim of his glasses. ‘You sure you’ve never heard this before?’

  ‘How many times...!’

  Fanghead? I liked it.

  ‘Humph!’ He shook his head, the corners of his mouth turned down as he leafed through the pages of the notebook. ‘Then there is much to tell you. I need another coffee.’ He glanced up. ‘And from the looks of you, so do you.’

  ‘You have no idea.’

  He actually cracked a smile in that craggy face. ‘You’re closer. Put the water on.’

  While I did that, he flipped over a few more pages, muttering to himself the whole time—in French. ‘Up to your right,’ he hollered after I’d opened a couple of cupboard doors looking for the blasted coffee jar or tin, or whatever he kept his coffee in. ‘Biscuit tin’s next to it.’

  ‘What did you mean, if my family’s still alive?’

  ‘Just what I said. Many families were wiped out, others died out or ... disappeared. You know, like yours.’

  Fair enough. I got where he was coming from. We’d emigrated from Britain to Australia, and my great-grandparents hadn’t bothered to remain in touch with the other Pazuzim families. The question was, why the hell not? Had there been a falling out? Guess I’d soon find out. For sure as hell, I wasn’t leaving until I got answers.

  ‘The ones who got wiped out? How?’

  ‘The fangheads ordered our extermination.’ He sighed, pulled his glasses off his face and turned to me. ‘At first, their high elder, Marcus, was against it. He wanted us turned and made their slaves. But he didn’t know that Pazuzim cannot be transformed into one of them. What he got instead, from the few he captured, were mindless killers with the strength and speed that matched their own. They rampaged through their fortress, slaughtering every fanghead in sight. Marcus and his son, Lucien, barely escaped with their lives.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘It’s legendary among our people.’

  Biscuit tin tucked under my arm, I carried over two steaming cups of coffee and handed him one. ‘And I know damn nothing about it.’ The coffee turned bitter in my mouth as I swallowed it down.

  He shrugged, shoved the glasses back on his nose and returned to the notebook. After turning another page, his eyes lit up, and he slapped his palm on the table. ‘Aha! Here it is. Listen.’ He read something out—in French. The only word I recognised was “Sommerset.”

  ‘English, please.’

  ‘It says that two families left England to go to Australia. It’s dated 1893. The Sommersets and’ —he glanced back to the notebook ‘—the Davidoffs.’

  Sommersets? Now my stomach really did take a dive and I swallowed a deep gulp of coffee to settle it. As a kid, I’d accidentally come across an old photo among my dad’s things. It was Family Day at school, and I needed to bring something. The photo had looked perfect, especially as it had a date—1893. I recognised the face of my great, great-granddad who’d brought the family to Australia from the UK. His portrait once hung in the living room until Mum had it moved into the hallway. But the name was on the back of the photo was John Ernest Sommerset, which had confused me. We were “Sommers” not “Sommerset”.

  Yeah, dad had been really thrilled when I’d asked him about it. To this day, I could still see his angry face as he’d snatched it from my hand. ‘What were you doing snooping through my box, Matt? How many times have I warned you?’

  I’d gulped back angry tears. He’d then made me promise to forget about the damn thing and the name on it. I’d promised—fingers crossed behind my back. I’d hoped I would have the guts to ask him when I got older.

  He died of cancer four years later, and that chance had died with him.

  ‘You are a Sommerset. Your ancestor changed his name to protect his family.’ Junot pointed at me.

  And that little revelation had my insides roiling. Family secrets. I hated them. Look what Laura’s dirty little family secret had done to us.

  My fists clenched.

  Yet, as I thought about it, had Lebrettan known who or what I was, I wouldn’t be alive now. Which raised the question: Why had my family—and the Davidoffs, which I assumed were that Nighthunter kid’s family, based on the similarity between Davis and Davidoff—left Britain? Had it been to follow Lebrettan’s clan or to get away from them? If it was the latter, it certainly made the name change understandable, and with it all the damn secrecy. My father, and grandfather, were simply protecting us from extermination. And it had worked. I was living proof.

  ‘Does it say anything more, like why we left?’

  The old guy pushed his glasses further up his nose. His eyes scanned down the page, and he turned back through a few before pushing the notebook aside. ‘Nothing here. Maybe this one ...’

  He rifled through a few l
oose papers, quickly scanning through each, ‘Not these,’ before dumping them on the tabletop. ‘Maybe ... this one.’ How many notebooks were in that drawer? ‘Did I tell you about the peace pacts between our people and the fangheads?’

  I speared the old man with a look. ‘Not yet. Pacts? More than one?’

  ‘That’s what it usually means.’

  I tried not to roll my eyes. Think I lost out on that one.

  ‘You going to ask me why they failed?’ The corners of his mouth curled up. Old guy was enjoying this.

  ‘Why spoil your fun.’

  He gave a close-mouthed chuckle, dropped one notebook he’d been scouring through to pick another one. ‘They couldn’t control their rogues, so we had to. End of peace treaty.’

  ‘The rebellions. Yeah, heard about them.’

  ‘Humph! You learned much from your time with the Ingenii girl.’

  I nodded, and tried to make sense of what he’d just said, about some sort of deal between the vampire hunters and Lebrettan’s bloodsuckers, or fangheads, as he called them. From what Laura—I tried to ignore the tightening in my gut—had told me, Lebrettan had faced two rebellions in his lifetime, and both had been dealt with. But it had obviously resulted in human deaths. So, if the old guy’s ancestors had been doing their share of vamp killing, did that mean there had been another more recent rebellion or just a bunch of them going rogue that forced the hunters into action?

  Whichever it was, it again proved that if Lebrettan had lost control of his fangheads, then so could Munro. And it could happen anytime again.

  Not on my bloody patch! My teeth clenched so hard that my jaw throbbed. I rubbed it to ease the ache, as yet again, images of Laura flickered through my mind, her unearthly beauty setting my groin afire.

  Damn it!

  I had to keep her face out of my head. ‘Why renew the peace pacts if the vamps kept breaking them?’

  ‘Because there weren’t enough of us left to keep fighting, yet we were still a threat to them.’

  Then I asked the burning question. ‘What happened that forced my family to leave Britain? Were they running away to protect themselves?’ If that was indeed the case, then our name change and hiding who or what we were all made sense ... and I couldn’t blame them.

  The old guy put the notebooks down, leaned back in his seat and clasped his hands over his stomach. ‘From what I know, the head of your family voted against another peace with the fangheads. Some agreed with him, others didn’t. There was much arguing and accusing the others of forsaking our role. But, as in the past, there were those who argued that the cursed fangheads were different—Marcus and his clan. Marcus punished those who killed humans, hunting them down, leaving them to fry in the sun.’ He shrugged. ‘He and his clan were doing our job. After six thousand years killing fangheads, our numbers were low. Some believed we were no longer needed. Entire families had stopped hunting even earlier when there were no more fanghead-related killings in their territories. Their urge to hunt went dormant. So, a new peace treaty was made.’

  I guessed those who didn’t agree left the country. ‘So that’s why my family left Britain. They didn’t go along with the decision, did they?’ Why did that not surprise me.

  He pursed his lips and cocked his head to the side, and that gesture worried me. Something was coming that I probably wouldn’t like. I swallowed and waited.

  ‘Your family—along with a few others—were seen as a danger to the rest and expelled, thrown outside the Protection of the Pazuzim. They could not expect help from other families if attacked by fangheads. Many were wiped out and with the rest we lost contact.’ He looked thoughtfully at me over the rim of his spectacles. ‘I’m glad your family survived.’

  Yeah, thanks. Small consolation, yet my dad’s reaction when I found my grandfather’s photo as a kid now made sense. He had known, and his anger had most probably hidden his fear for me, and for my sisters.

  I dropped my head into my hands, letting my nails dig into my scalp in the off chance I was actually only dreaming all this shit. But, nope, I was awake, and it was real.

  Bloody fucking real.

  The old guy grunted. He’d pulled out something else from the drawer—a large and thick hardcover tome with the name “Junot”, and right beneath it the same squiggle-and-hook image as my birthmark.

  Any last miniscule bit of doubt about my connection to this old guy, and the vampire hunters and my family, just took one hell of a nosedive.

  I needed a stiff drink. ‘Got anything stronger than coffee?’

  A small smile appeared on those pale thin lips. ‘It is hard discovering who you really are, is it not?’

  He could’ve slugged me in the face, the effect would’ve been the same. I hated the implication. Hated that I suddenly understood how it must have hit Laura when she’d learned the truth about herself ... and how it had changed her. That it hadn’t been all her fault. If only she’d been told sooner.... If only I’d been told as well. Would I still have asked her out ... that day we’d met?

  I rubbed my chest at the sudden tightness, and with coffee in hand, went to open the window. Too bad if the old guy complained about the cold air. Right now, I needed it to clear my head, make sense of everything. If I hadn’t met Laura and seen the truth with my own eyes, I wouldn’t be here, right now. In another life, I would’ve dismissed the old guy’s words as dementia-driven ravings.

  In another life.

  What a joke! I allowed myself an ironic laugh.

  ‘Something funny out there?’

  ‘The absurdity of life, mate.’ I turned my wrist up, my eyes tracing the outline of my birthmark. ‘I’m supposedly from a line of vampire hunters, and I go and fall for a vampire ... or half vampire. Ever heard of that happening?’

  The old guy snorted. ‘You do not love her. It is the Pazuzim in you. It drew you to her to get close enough for a kill.’

  I spun around, spilling the few drops of coffee left in my cup. ‘Bullshit!’

  He pursed his lips and lifted his hands, palm upwards. ‘Eh bien! I tell you the truth, and you say it’s bullshit. Of course, you know better than me.’

  ‘No way! I never had some sick urge to hurt her let alone kill her. That’s just crazy.’ The whole idea was repulsive. This time, the old guy was way dead wrong. ‘We were together three months, and in all that—’

  ‘Did you always want to know where she’d been, what she’d been doing or who she was meeting? Did you ever follow her, convincing yourself it was for her safety? Like some crazy stalker?’ His brows rose, dark brown eyes lasering into mine, but that wasn’t what made my throat suddenly dry—so much so, I couldn’t even swallow.

  I dropped into a chair, my sweaty hands scrunching the stained tablecloth in my fists, as scene after scene of me doing just as the old guy had said replayed in my head. Hell, wouldn’t any cop with enemies do the same to protect his loved ones? Sure, a small voice in my head said, but I never interrogated my mum or sisters the way I did Laura. I didn’t secretly place a GPS tracker in their phones. Did I? It was for her safety, I said back to it.

  My throat tightened and I tugged roughly at my tie to loosen it.

  Damn! My hand shook, too.

  ‘Aha! See? I am right, am I not?’ Eyes glinting with satisfaction, he wagged a gnarled finger at me. Took all my self-control not to reach out and snap the bony thing.

  ‘Whatever I did was for her safety!’

  He barked out a laugh. ‘Of course it was; if that’s what you want to believe. And gritting your teeth at me won’t change the truth.’

  I slammed both hands flat on the table and glared at him. ‘I love her, and that’s the truth!’ And it was killing me.

  He removed his glasses, sighed and rubbed his eyes, then rose, came to my side and placed his hand on my shoulder. ‘I know you don’t want to believe me, so let me ask you one last question, and perhaps you may begin to see.’

  I shrugged. ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘This Ingen
ii ... you said you dated for three months, no?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I assume she wasn’t your first woman. I say this because you look in your thirties, and most men have known several woman by that time.’

  ‘Bit nosey much?’

  He tapped my shoulder a few times, before sitting down again. ‘Did you try to protect those other women the same way as this one?’

  It took all of one second for the proverbial penny to drop, and with it the remnants of my gut. ‘No.’

  He spread his hands and let them drop on the tabletop. ‘Now you begin to see.’

  And what I saw I hated, and no matter which way I looked at it, I had to admit the old guy was right, except for the killing bit. Yeah, I could’ve happily killed Lebrettan and all the others, but not her. Never her. And the more deeply I analysed it, I knew why. ‘She’s different. Not entirely human nor vampire either. Somewhere in-between. Maybe that’s why those Pazuzim killer instincts didn’t fully kick in.’

  Junot’s wrinkled face took on a pensive expression; his mouth drooped and he gave me a slow nod. ‘Mmm. It’s possible, although I’ve never heard of it happening before. But then she is, as you said— ‘his thin shoulders rose in a slight shrug ‘—in-between.’

  The old guy sighed and slurped his coffee. Must be cold by now. It triggered a memory. Laura’s faced scrunched up in a cute grimace downing the last drops of coffee she’d left sitting on her desk. I’d gotten off work early and picked her up. ‘One day I’ll actually get to finish my coffee while it’s still hot.’

  That was a month into our relationship. When everything had been good. Before it had all changed.

  Bile rose in my throat. I had to think of something else. Anything.

  I closed my eyes, rolled my shoulders and let my head drop back to ease some of the tension. ‘What the hell does Pazuzim mean anyway?’

  Pages rustled, then stopped.

  ‘Come, look at this, and you will know.’

  He’d angled the book toward me. I leaned forward to get a better view of the weird-looking image he pointed to, and which I immediately recognised. It was the same as the small figurine I’d seen in Davis’s vampire-hunting kit.