“I ’oped zere would be others,” Maxine said, “’iding zere.” She choked a little.
“Reposes-toi, ma douce.” Rest, my sweet.
Jean took her by the hand and led her to a pew. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him. She could no longer see the look of horror on his face, the same one the rest of us will never forget. “But I was careful,” she whispered to him, as they sat.
“Obviously not careful enough,” I said since it was beneath me to cloak my scorn. I expressed my anger at her reckless behavior openly, though I admit scolding her then is something I regret now.
“I made my way to ze alley at ze side,” she said. “Zere was nobody zere, but I smelled eet.” Her eyes betrayed what eet was. “I smelled zat peppery sweetness and I knew it was fresh so I headed for ze trattoria when suddenly I ’eard zem.”
“The bloodless?” I asked.
“No, ze ’umans.”
“Where?”
“Inside,” she said.
“You heard voices?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure of it. I went to ze door and sniffed ze air. Zat’s when I knew I smelled eet and zen I ’eard whispers, a single voice, and zen … zen … I was captured.”
Maxine looked at each of us, the sting on our faces making her tremble. She had been caught up in a swarm of infected people we had come to call the bloodless. The plague consumed the humans and robbed them of that delectable ichor we were wont to devour. Losing our precious resource was a reality we still denied.
“Zey surrounded me and I could not escape. Zey pinched me with zeir teeth and dug zeir dirty bones into my skin.” She held out her arms to show us the wounds she had suffered. I was horrified by the sight of her torn limbs. Mangled teeth and bony fingers had punctured her marble skin and ripped out chunks of vampiric flesh. Her body would not recover without fresh blood. “I barely got—” She slumped forward and grabbed her stomach, as she let out a shriek.
More compassionate than I, Byron insisted on examining her. He wanted to inspect the wounds that would prove fatal. Jean held Maxine in his arms while Byron studied her limbs. Her flesh blistered, macerated as it was from lack of human blood.
“Comment est-ce possible?” Jean’s eyes were wide.
“She went out alone,” I said.
I was callous in my treatment of her but I could have never known what was coming. I believed it was as simple as Maxine having flown too close to the sun, her wings now melting. I was angry with her for daring to go out unaccompanied, and though I am not her keeper, I am somewhat responsible for her. I am the one who led them here, I am the one who promised to keep them safe. But if I am being totally honest, it is more than that. Her vulnerability frightened me. It meant this plague could strike me down too.
We stood around waiting to see what would happen next. I had never seen a vampire succumb to human frailty. We had never been infected by disease; no reports of vampires contracting HIV, Hepatitis, influenza, bubonic plagues, black plagues, green plagues, or any plagues for that matter. We had assumed this virus like all the others could only infect a mortal. But we were wrong.
Maxine writhed in the pain of her torn flesh, as she clung to her existence in the arms of her maker. “It burns,” she said. “It burns.”
It was not until her body heated that we knew she was infected. My sweet Byron tended to her all the while, as weak as he was. He tried to quell her pain with ointments and a sugar serum he had concocted in his chambers but even with all his scientific brilliance, he could not heal Maxine.
“Nom de Dieu,” Jean said. “What should we do?”
“We wait,” Byron said. He insisted we watch Maxine with diligence in case she changed.
“C’est pas possible?” Jean said, numb with disbelief.
None of us were ready to accept the reality that Maxine could morph into one of them, transform just like the humans do when they are infected.
“But she cannot,” Elizabeth said. She was Maxine’s dearest friend and her only progeny. Maxine had made Elizabeth so that she would have an eternal playmate—she was only a child when Jean made her his vampire. For some three hundred years the two girlish vampires had spent a childhood together, both made from the same eccentric venomline. She clung to Maxine, holding her maker’s hand in hers, trembling at the thought of losing her. “You can’t change,” Elizabeth said. “I won’t let you.” She turned to Jean and pleaded for him to help his beloved. “You must stop this or she’ll be lost to us forever.”
I do not think Maxine’s panic set in completely until then. When she heard her playmate’s plea, she cursed and screamed. “I don’t want to be one of zem. ’Elp me! Arrêter cette folie! Arrêter ma douleur! Jean, je t’en prie.”
I pulled Byron aside and asked him what he thought would happen to her.
“I cannot know for sure,” he said. “But her transformation, should it come, will come quickly.”
And so it did. One moment she thrashed in Jean’s arms, screaming at the top of her lungs, the next she was as rigid as stone.
“Jean,” Byron said. “Step away.”
Lost in the horror of the moment, Jean had to be pried from his demoiselle, too distraught to let her go. “Quelle horreur!” His cry echoed up through the spire of the cathedral.
“What should we do?” I asked.
Byron shook his head as if to say there was nothing we could do, but when Maxine opened her eyes, it was decided. She was reanimated, but would never live again.
It is difficult to describe what I witnessed in the chancel, for I still deny its truth. Maxine’s metamorphosis was quick, though the actual transformation seemed in slow motion. First her visage contorted into an expression of permanent horror, like Frankenstein’s might have looked when he first reanimated his patchwork. But Maxine’s contortions escalated and soon her nose and mouth began to fuse into what looked like a pointed beak; her skin twisted and became taut around her lips, which swelled like her eyes, bulging more greatly than those of a pop-eye fish. I looked away when her neck stretched wide with the tearing of her tendons and when her talons ripped through the tips of her toes, her newly clawed feet breaking the soles of her boots. She seethed and released a trill before she lunged at me, snapping her fangs. I did not hesitate to defend myself or my clan. I have no remorse for doing what I was forced to do, but the image of what I have done—what I had to do—is seared in my brain, too wretched to recount in full. I wonder if some things are not better left abandoned on the shores of Lethe.
Later. — Soon after we returned with the humans, they became a source of contention. Jean wanted the man, Elizabeth the girl, but Byron decided for all of us. He insisted the man and the girl be locked in a chamber while we made our plans. He was always the coolest head when vital matters were at hand. “They will be rationed,” he said.
“I agree,” I said. “But how long will two humans last with six hungry vampires?”
“We will take small sips.” He smiled, though I did not. He knew a sip would not suffice. The only way for him to recover was to drink three, four, maybe five men at a time. His diet was deficient, he was malnourished and fading rapidly. “Cull their blood,” he said.
“What?”
“Draw from the man first.” He handed me a syringe from one of his medical bags.
“You want me to extract his blood with this?”
“I am too weak,” he said. “Jean and Elizabeth are too hungry, and the other two are … well, you know.”
“As you wish.”
When I visited our captives, they were both conscious and aware of their new surroundings; they seemed to know we were not exactly the cavalry come to save the day.
“What happened to Salvatore?” The man played it tough, though it was obvious he just wanted to cry.
I ignored him and busied myself with attaching the syringe to the vial. I was in fact just biding my time. I had to work up the courage to draw the man’s blood. I do not like needles and the t
hought of poking him with one made me queasy. I reminded myself it was for Byron and that meant everything—there is nothing I will not do for him.
“Sir?” The girl spoke softly. She seemed braver than the man—if at all possible. “Thank you for saving us,” she said.
I looked at her, studying her for the first time in the light. She was ragged looking, dirty and disheveled. Her hair was matted and tangled, her clothes torn and she had no shoes on her feet. Oh my, she was a sight! I was repulsed to the point of not even desiring her blood. That was a first.
“Marco is hurt bad,” she said.
I looked at the man, he was in rough shape too. He had scars on his arms and legs from battling to survive, no doubt. His shirt was sleeveless and his pants were torn and shredded. He wore boots and a silly looking bandana around his neck. I decided I would not speak to them since it would only make matters uncomfortable.
I summoned Stephen to the room and had him steady the man, as I drew the blood. The needle missed several times, though it was not the man’s fault. Stephen held him down, planting his two hands on his dislocated arm, but I was clumsy with the tool—fangs are much more efficient. When I finally pierced the vein with the point of the needle, I whispered for Stephen to look away. I wished I could have too. I felt desperate to taste the blood, as it gushed up the syringe into the vial. It was thick and dark, that serum of the gods. How I miss those days!
I took four vials, two for Byron and one for each of the others. Veronica and Stephen would have to wait for their next fix, though I let Stephen lick off the blood that had dripped onto my finger in the clean up.
“Enough,” I said, as I pushed his head away; he would have devoured my whole hand had I let him. I ordered him to keep guard at the locked door with our captives safely tucked inside. “No one gets in or out,” I said. He obeyed, standing at attention as though a centurion saluting his general. The lick of blood had made him playful.
I ignored the girl’s pleas for my return, as I floated down the hallway to my beloved. When I entered Byron’s chamber, he lay in the sarcophagus we had found him in the tomb below the cathedral. He opened his eyes when he felt me at his side.
“My sweet Vincent,” he said. “How was it?”
“I will tell you another time. For now, I need you to drink this.”
He sat up and took the vial I offered him. With his beautiful sharp teeth, he tore off its cap and downed the drink. When I handed him a second vial, he finished that off too.
“How do you feel?” I smiled, certain the drink had revived him.
“I fear it is too late for me, sweet love,” he said, as he lay back down.
“I will bring you more then,” I said. “The entire man if I have to.”
As I turned to go, he stopped me, though not with words. His mind called me back; this was our union. As bonded vampires, we no longer need speech to communicate. He can speak into my thoughts, and I his, but since his falling ill, he has not been able to converse with me telepathically. I cannot express how relieved I was the power had returned. I rushed to his side, but he was more depleted than before. That bit of telepathy had zapped him of all the energy he had received from the blood. I searched his eyes, fearing nothing would bring him back.
Not ready to accept his fate yet, I left him to fetch more blood. I recruited Stephen’s help again, this time drawing from the girl.
“Please,” she said. “We are starved.”
As are we, I thought.
I siphoned more blood from the man and when I had taken the most I could from both of them without draining them completely, I ordered Stephen to get them some food. The ecclesiastics had left a pantry full of preserves and canned foodstuffs. Useless to us, they had gone untouched since we moved in. We lost our appetite for food when we lost our only true sustenance.
Stephen returned with a feast, and the two humans, near fainting, gorged on the spread of viands. The food appeased them, making them appreciate their captivity. I tossed Stephen two vials of the man’s blood before I rushed back to Byron. “Savor it,” I said.
When I brought the new vials to my beloved, he consumed them more reluctantly. “I have barely kept the others down,” he said.
It pained me to hear of his suffering; I would give my life to save my beloved.
“What can I do?” I said.
“One must resign oneself to defeat.” I could not accept that. This was not his end. There was a way to bring him back—there had to be.
I coaxed him to take a sip of the girl’s blood, reminding him the sexes carry different properties. I hoped hers would impact him greatly. He took the vial, forcing a smile. He tore off the cap and raised the container to his lips, tipping the end up gently and letting a few drops hit his tongue. I waited for him to take a proper swig. “Does she taste as sweet as she smells?”
He took another swig and rolled the serum around in his mouth as though sampling a Beaujolais. When he finally swallowed, he grinned. “Saccharine,” he said.
I had only tasted blood that sweet once, soon after I had become a vampire. I resided in a tomb, living among the dead by day since it felt like the most apt place to be in the beginning. We lived in a different world then and at night I would wander the gardens and fields, preying on any human that crossed my path—I did not discriminate. One evening, taking in the fresh Mediterranean air, I came upon a woman sitting alone between two olive trees.
“Salutations, my sister.”
“And to you, my brother.”
Her belly was round and full. “May I give you a hand?”
“No, I am well,” she said. “Just waiting for the pass to come.”
She was about to deliver, sent out to give birth alone in the night. It was not the custom for mothers to give birth to their sons alone, for they would often die before hearing their child’s first cry, but this woman and her child were abandoned.
“Shall I wait with you?” I was just a novice then with remnants of my humanity.
When her labor began, I held her hands, letting her use me as leverage. She squeezed me with all her might, but barely crushed my hardened skin, and I was careful not to squeeze back. She squatted between the trees, pushing down on her pelvis with her body’s whole force, and the dewy grass beneath her glistened with drops of blood. The smell overwhelmed me, and though I had wanted to wait for the baby, the sight of her torn flesh, bloody and ripe, drove me into a frenzy. I reached down and touched the wet grass below her. When I brought my fingers up to my lips, I was lost. My fangs tore into her neck, and I sucked the life from her, as she delivered her stillborn child onto the slippery grass between her legs. It was the sweetest blood I had ever tasted—dulcet and candied.
The human girl I had brought into the cathedral, the one whose blood stained the lips of my beloved, was pregnant.
21 September. — Once everyone knew about the girl’s condition, excitement filled the hours. Each of us desires to have our way with her. Jean is the most agitated. He wants to see the baby to term, raise it as his own and then bite its neck when it reaches the age of twelve. He has not gotten over his Maxine. Elizabeth wants a child companion too, and Stephen and Veronica desire draining the girl of her sweet ichor while the baby’s heart still beats inside her.
“I’ve never tasted blood that new,” Veronica said. “Can we please?” Stephen stroked her arm, as she spoke.
“Byron has called a meeting,” I said. “We will hear what he has to say.”
“Has it revived him any?” Elizabeth asked. None of them had seen Byron since he drank the vials, but she found her answer in my pained expression. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Il s’en sortira,” Jean said. He’ll recover.
We were gathered in the chancel, waiting for Byron and listening to the howls of a swarm, as it glided past the building. The humans are tucked away, deep inside the belly of the cathedral where nothing can get at them. When Byron finally appeared, looking sallow and weak, my heart sank. Stephen ran
to his side and gave him his arm. I had offered to bring him to the meeting, but he refused my help. I suspect his infirmity shames him, for he often tries to hide his suffering from me.
My sweet Byron, how it is difficult to see you these days—my whole world is cankered, as thoughts of your demise plague me. The anguish often brings me to my knees when I am alone in my chamber. I do not feel your frequency run through me anymore and it is the most sublime sense of abandonment.
“We must deal with the girl and her child bravely,” Byron said to the group.
“Can we keep it?” Elizabeth asked.
“Ça suffit.” Jean chided Elizabeth as he had Maxine.
“I have given the situation much thought,” Byron said, glancing over at me with his electric eyes, forever burning into me with their scrutiny. “I am not long for this world, and if we do not do something, neither are any of you. That child may be the answer to this plague.”
“Quoi?” Jean asked. “What can you mean?”
I knew what he meant. Byron had spoken to me the previous night, invading my thoughts, as I kneeled in my chamber. He believes the child will save us all; he envisions a new human race, a healthy nation that will rise and prosper and outlive the plague. But only with our help, for the fight will be long and difficult. With our protection, the healthy humans can propagate a new generation, and Byron believes that the girl’s child is a scientific sign, a guarantee in fact, that rebirth is the solution. The mortals are the answer to our survival, just as we are to theirs. “If enough humans survive, a resilient group can rise up and overcome,” I said.
“Exactly.” Byron looked at me when he spoke. “We can keep her safe and her child alive and perhaps even find others to protect.”
“But how?” Elizabeth asked.
“Willpower,” Veronica said. She was the most optimistic of us, the one with the strongest sense of humanity. Both she and Stephen were still young vampires, which meant they were the most capable of mustering up compassion for a human.
The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) Page 2