by Mark Tufo
“Off to Trinitor’s house, I go. I have not felt this alive since Victor’s bite. Once I am free to roam the world, I believe I will continue to destroy the Talbot line. I wonder sometimes how much time has elapsed since I last walked the earth. It may be that there no longer are any Talbots; it’s difficult to decide whether that would be a good or bad thing.”
Chapter 20
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 15
“We are here,” Tommy announced.
I think I immediately started sweating. I’d already gone a few rounds at the hands of Ganlin, there was nothing about that experience I wanted to relive. “Where?” I asked, hoping he was wrong. This place looked as featureless and empty as any other.
“It is protected like Azile’s.”
If he knocked, it was a psychic thing, for I did not hear anything and he did not move, yet a moment later, something of a doorway shimmered into existence. I don’t know which of the three of us were more surprised when Eliza came to the opening.
Tommy looked like he was going to fall to his knees. Eliza’s gaze swept over him and to me.
“A housewarming gift? How thoughtful.” It was tough to call the thing that pulled up the corner of her mouth a smile. “It’s customary to bring wine, Tomas, but we will drink from him nonetheless.”
“Lizzie…how? Has Ganlin already freed you?”
“That useless disfigurement? He tasted nearly as vile as he looked.”
“What?” Tommy shouldered past his sister as she stepped aside. I saw what looked like a crime scene from a b-list movie made by an overzealous prop designer who’d had the good fortune to come upon a dumpster of fake gore and blood behind a Halloween superstore and wanted to use them all before they dried up in their containers.
Can’t say I was overly distraught with the Green Man’s passing, though staring down the double barrel of Eliza and Tommy wasn’t as appealing as it sounds.
“Oh, my. Are you soul rich again? What a truly karmic event.” Eliza had come over to me and was pulling in long drags of scent. “It is ambrosia! I’ve just finished dining, but there is always room for dessert.”
“Eliza, what have you done!” Tommy shouted from inside whatever I was looking at. “The mage was our way out of here! I was to offer Michael up in exchange for you!”
“Michael and I are now of equal value? My, my, my, Michael! What have you been up to in that life of yours?”
I said nothing.
“How long has it been since that bitch wife of yours and that witch sent me away? Speak!” she demanded when I still said nothing. “I know how fond of their genitalia men are; I could rip yours off and shove it down your throat before the crippling pain could make it to your brain.”
“Two hundred years or so.” That seemed to take her aback.
“Two hundred years? She cost me two hundred years? She must be brought to pay for that. But alas, humans are frail. Time wears them away faster than a raging stream does a muddy bank. Tell me, Michael, as the years passed, did you grow weak and turn her so that she would forever be by your side? Please tell me that this is truth. Because if it is, I will find her, and the joys we shall share together. My joys, her torment, really. But you understood that.”
She had gripped my chin and forced me to look into her eyes. “Tell me what I want to know!” she demanded.
When tears came freely from me she knew the truth.
“You let her die? You surprise me at every turn. There are few that would have allowed that. What did Ganlin want with you? There is nothing especially interesting about your soul, other than it is stained with your humanity.”
“It wasn’t him he wanted.” Tommy sat down hard, his head in his hands. “It was his wife.”
Eliza looked confused. “This Ganlin was powerful enough to reach up and snatch her from the heavens?”
“Not that wife. He is married to Azile now.”
“Azile? How is that possible? She had power! I felt it even as she wed my soul to me, but not that kind nor that much.”
“She grew more powerful.”
“I understand that, Tomas. She lives after two hundred years. Perhaps you should start at the beginning and fill me in on the parts that I am missing, so we can figure out what our course of action is.”
“There is no course of action now, Eliza, don’t you see that? You destroyed our way out of here.”
“Oh, Tomas. Always the doomsayer. If nothing else, we have a wonderful meal.”
“No!” Tommy looked up. “No. He could be our way out of here. “You’re right, Azile is powerful and she has the child, Gabriel. He is a Veil Piercer. They could possibly be made to comply.”
“Pity,” Eliza said as she dragged a long fingernail down the side of my face and neck. “I think at some point we will be able to revisit this,” she whispered in my ear.
Tommy spent a few hours recalling in detail all that had transpired; the rest of the zombie apocalypse, a lot of the things he had done during my downtime–some of which he never shared or alluded to during our time together. For that, I’m glad. The talk of the farm he cared for, and the human livestock he tended was a little more than I could stomach. Eliza grew much more interested in the Lycan wars, especially at the part I played and the time I’d spent with Ganlin.
“You are something of a legend now? There always was a purpose in you, Michael. I’d not seen it in those early years, though I could sense it was there, like a sparrow singing in the dark of night.”
She’d said it almost tenderly, like a mother would coo to her newborn. It was unsettling because I knew she was just wondering if this would somehow reveal more of my weaknesses or make me sweeter to eat.
“I am sort of surprised that with all your abilities, you had never once seen my brother for who he is. He never really had a chance, well neither of us, really. Physical, verbal, sexual abuse at such an early age tends to fundamentally change who you are, and then when the soul is removed, well, there goes any semblance of a governor to those tormented thoughts and the need to act out on those dark desires. Although, I must admit, Tomas has always been able to hide his true self. I have never seen a need to be anything other than myself, yet he would use subterfuge to his advantage. In the end, it brought you to me, so perhaps, there is some value in it.”
“We should get away from here. The scent of blood will bring company we do not wish to entertain,” Tommy said as I sat down.
“I’m done,” I told him.
Tommy looked like he was about to blow a faulty gasket in his neck. He stormed toward me; Eliza looked bemused. Tommy hit me hard enough to the side of the head I made an indentation in the ground. I sat back up.
“All that time and still you have grown no wiser. How is that even possible?” Eliza asked.
“It’s a talent, really,” I told her. “As for you, dickhead, I ain’t moving, not with these chains on. They fucking hurt. My ankles are killing, my shoulders are killing, and if I could feel my hands, I’m sure they’d be killing. Either finish me off, carry my ass, or take these things off. I can’t imagine between the two of you I’d be much of a threat; or are you still afraid of me?”
“Afraid of you?” Tommy scoffed.
“Then take the chains off, dear brother,” Eliza said.
“You do not understand, sister. He is slippery; a pig covered in lard.”
“Yes, but think of the bacon once caught.”
“Oh, all right. I get it. You want to eat me. At this point, I don’t even give a shit, either do it or shut up about it.”
“Have you grown so full of yourself, that you no longer fear me?” Eliza asked.
“You know what? I’ve faced more enemies than I care to think about. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just one more. What’s the worst that can happen? Either I kill you or you kill me. Though if you think about it, I’ve buried hundreds, nope, I take that back, thousands of potential killers.”
“Ah, but Michael, you forget that so have I. But, that’s not r
eally it, is it?” She was peering intently at me. “There’s a part of you that is ready to die. You are far too young for that to be from your vampirism. Many simply cannot live past five to six hundred years; they lose purpose and become so despairing of how the world has changed that they lose their minds and themselves. No... you want to be reunited! How sweet! That is most likely not going to happen for you, but how sweet.”
“We’ll see.”
“You were a worthy adversary back then, but I do believe I am liking this older version even better. Free him, Tomas, so that we may depart.”
“This is not wise.”
“Do it, or I will stay beside him until whatever comes, comes.”
Tommy hefted me up, undid all the chains, and pushed me roughly forward.
“It is always so shocking to those involved when he shows his true demeanor.” Eliza laughed as she said the words. “I’m not always there to witness the revelation, but when I am it is an exquisite delight.”
“I am so sick of vampires; you’re all lying sacks of shit. I met a few friends of yours, Payne, Charity, and Sophia. Ring any bells?”
“What about them?” She eyed me.
“I…” I was going to put the fear of some deity into her but just then the earth began to move and not in a love song type of way. Like California was about to drop into the ocean and make Arizona ocean-front property type of way.
“Run!” This from Tommy. I saw it on Eliza’s lips, she was about to protest that running was undignified or how it was beneath her or some such shit. When I saw the roiling, rolling wall of what I could only think was lava heading our way, I didn’t really give a fuck what she thought. I was on the move, amazing how boiling rock and earth can make all your aches and pains mysteriously disappear. For all her potential griping, she caught up to us fairly quickly. We could hear explosions behind us as the wall consumed everything in its path. The heat it was throwing off was beginning to become a factor. At first, it was just a warm summer breeze, then it was that gust of heat you feel when you open an oven, and it was rapidly moving to singe inducing steam, the kind that comes from a screaming tea kettle. It would not be long before our clothes caught fire and our skin began to slough off in crispy sheets, like packaged seaweed. I spared a glance at Tommy; he was off to my left and slightly ahead. “Fuck it,” I mumbled, my plan as half-baked as I was about to be.
I moved over and kick-tapped his right leg so that it crashed into his left, tripping him up. Under normal circumstances this is hilarious to a pack of drunk buddies. I knew there was more than a fair chance that I would become entangled with him. Was pretty fucking happy when I landed it perfectly and barely lost stride. I managed to reach down and grab my axe he had tucked into his belt before Tommy, went down into a rolling heap.
“Fuck you,” I mumbled as I continued, didn’t even chance a look back. Neither did Eliza, when she heard him scream out; so much for big sisterliness. I looked over to her and was pondering the same maneuver. She gave me a look that dared me to try; an Eliza on the prowl was far too dangerous. We’d been running for at least three miles when the land had an upturn; it wasn’t much of an incline, not at first anyway, but it did begin to give some much-needed breathing space between us and the fiery wall of death.
Then it started to rise in earnest and the lava was not flowing fast enough to fill the basin below us. Still, we ran–in case it got a second wind. When we got to the top I’d like to say we had an expansive view of the beautiful vista, but it was basically a brown turd of tundra, featureless and boring.
“You killed Tomas?” Eliza asked when we stopped. I was winded, had my hands on my knees; she looked like she was getting ready to go out to spin class or something.
“I hope so.” I did not look away from her, odds were we were about to go at it. For all my strengths, I did not think I had much of a chance against this waif of a girl.
“I do not believe the Michael I knew would have had the stomach to do that.”
“Probably not. And how do you feel about it?” I stood tall, in a vain attempt to look more imposing, though I’m thinking my heaving chest gave my pose away.
“Family must be avenged.”
“I can stand behind that comment. That’s why I did it. He threatened those I love, I won’t suffer the chance he makes good on it.”
“You realized that killing him would force me to kill you, correct?”
“Didn’t give it much thought; just seized the opportunity, like he did when he sliced Bill into chunks. Tell me what’s different Eliza? You were going to kill me anyway. But before you go and do something rash, I know something else.”
“Do tell.”
“You are a self-serving vampire. And yes, I took out Tommy, but I am still your best chance of getting out of here. I propose an alliance until such time as we can conclude this war of ours in a more traditional setting.”
“Why should I believe you? Perhaps I somehow come into some compromising situation, why would you not take advantage of that?”
“We’re not friends, never could be. Too much loss. But you were always who you said you were. I always knew where I stood with you. We are combatants; you’ve wrongly hated me for something a very distant ancestor did to you. Which by the way, if we’re being honest, I think you actually liked. Had Victor not come around, you would have died long ago, in the dirt of some shitty city. Instead, he changed you, allowed you to enact every sick and wrong thing that flutters about inside that head of yours. He made you, Eliza, and you love who you are. Your brother, on the other hand, pretended to be something he was not. And he was so good at it I adopted him, made him part of the family, when all the while he loathed me, I’m thinking more than you do. And I’ve got to tell you, that pisses me off to no end that he did that; I can never forgive nor forget it. He was a friend–no, a brother to my boys, my daughter. Another son, who was secretly plotting the downfall of everything I cared for. Fuck him. And oh yeah, fuck you. But I’ll honor my end of the agreement because I don’t want to stay here, either.”
“Kiss me.”
“Not a fucking chance.” I was thinking back to our first encounter when she was more zombie than vampire and licked my eyeball as I was frozen, rooted to the ground, good times.
“Pontius Pilate sealed his fate with a kiss.”
“I don’t see any silver coins.” I extended my hand. She looked at it like I’d uncoiled a fistful of snakes. “A normal human gesture a little too much for you?”
“I am not human!” she said with vehemence.
“It’s more for me than you.”
“If you but let go of that part of you, that weakness, I could show you your real potential.”
“Your apprentices don’t have much of a shelf life.”
She laughed, she genuinely laughed at that. I had just murdered her brother by lava flow and she was laughing.
“I will take your hand Michael Talbot; we will escape this place, and then you will give me what I am due.”
“First,” I said, pulling my hand back before she could make contact. “This ends with us. Should you kill me, your war with the Talbot lineage dies with me.”
“Why would I agree to such a thing?”
“Because I won’t fucking move otherwise.”
“Oh Michael, I could make you punch yourself until your hand split open and you were cutting deeply into your face with the shards from your broken knuckles. I’ve done it more than once; it is fairly entertaining.”
“What good is that going to do you?”
“If I can make you maim yourself, what makes you believe I couldn’t make you travel alongside me?”
“I’d say nine times out of ten, Eliza, you could kill me easily enough. Won’t even argue the point. But I will resist you with everything afforded me and just like I told your brother, at a time when you may need to be at your best, you will be strained. If that’s the route you want to go, let’s do it.”
“I am a vampire through and t
hrough. Lying is no more consequential to me than telling the truth. Why would you believe anything I may or may not agree to? In the end, words are merely words. How many times have false ones been spoken?”
I didn’t even know what to say. If someone tells you that they are just as likely to be telling the truth as not, how can you trust anything they say?
“How many of the Talbot lineage still wander the earth?”
It was not an answer I was prepared to give. First, because I really didn’t know. The Northern Maine compound Talbots had flourished; though I’d stopped checking in on them after the last of my children passed. There was no way of knowing how many of them there still were, or where they were.
“Two…there are two.”
“That is truth, though you hold something veiled which I cannot see.”
“Great. You can peer into minds as well?”
“It is a talent I kept hidden from Tomas. It was unclear to me if at some point he meant me harm and I wanted the weapon kept secret.”
“Well, now you know. They, along with Azile, are to be forever free from your wrath. In fact, you will not even seek them out, even just to get a peek. You will go back to England or whatever it is called now and set up your new life.”
“She played a part in my undoing. What kind of vampire would I be if I let that go without reprisal?”
“Azile is not one to be taken lightly; it would be better she did not know how I met my end, for she might take vengeance upon you.”
“That almost sounds like a challenge.”
“Eliza! We make this deal and you honor all facets of it or good fucking luck–and that’s sarcasm by the way–I don’t mean any of the luck parts. If we go our separate ways now, I hope you find your way into a dendrun hole filled with scorpions.”
“I could just follow you.”
“What? Like a lost puppy? I would think Eliza would be above that.”