Entry 2
My abductor returned, though he wasn’t alone this time. His leader isn’t vampire, isn’t bloodless, but some monstrous mutation of both. I’m hesitant to call him a ghoul but he’s like something from a tale of the macabre. He’s a genuine demon, if they do in fact exist, and when I first laid eyes on him, I thought I recognized him from my nightmares in the hill town. He knows me and whispers my name between the words he wheezes out, his beaked mouth garbling his speech. But he doesn’t frighten me because I can hear his frequency—clearly, in fact—which helps me anticipate his behavior. He comes in peace despite himself.
“Eveleeeenaaaaa,” he said. “Vincent rescue.” He didn’t approach me, but stood in the doorway, blocking his entourage from entering. When a bloodless poked its nose into the shed, as though sniffing for me, he crushed its head with his elbow, squashing it beyond repair. “Vincent comes,” he said, drawing out both n’s in Vincent, making it sound like he was caught in a stammer.
When he shut the door again, I dropped the chain. I’d wrapped it around my wrists, and held it taut in my hands, ready to choke him with the links if he came closer. Shortly after he left, my abductor returned with supper. I downed the wanting blood and tossed the carcass back at him. He brought the ferret to his lips to finish it off, disappointed to find I’d left him nothing.
“La com,” he said, as he spat on the ground in disgust. He slammed the shed door and I waited some moments for him to disappear before returning to my ritual. This is how I while away the hours until my rescue, knowing Vincent will find me—he has to—he’ll always come for me.
…
As I compose this entry in my head, it proves a challenge to recall my encounter with the vampire to whom I belong. There’s no room for me to be sentimental, and I don’t miss the frailty I experienced as a human girl. I felt my strength swell, as my body continued to marbleize, and when Vincent took me to see Empress Cixi, I’d gained control over my limbs, having fully adopted my new body. Vincent noticed the ease with which I carried myself and told me the strawberry blond’s blood had healed my cells.
“It is that which makes us desire the blood,” he said. “Its ability to restore our nature and make us feel invincible incites our want for it, but you will learn to temper your passion.”
I analyzed every word he said. Would he teach me to temper my passion? Did he know I held him above everything else, my unwanted child, my humanity, blood? His cold eyes punished me when he spoke. They only showed their beauty when he smiled, and he hadn’t smiled at me since I was human. (His grin at my drink didn’t count since his anticipation for the girl had prompted it).
When we reached the Empress’s cabin, we entered without knocking. A slender vampire opened the door in anticipation of our arrival. Vincent returned her stare, and then ordered me to sit on the throne across from the daybed. I thought the vampire was my maker until I actually met the Empress.
I suppose I should digress briefly and record how I came to be the Empress’s progeny. Desperate to die when I thought Vincent had abandoned me, I stole a pointed claw from the Empress. I have no remorse for my attempted suicide: death was mine if Vincent was not. As the hours passed, as I sat locked in a small compartment away from my baby and the world as I knew it, I prayed, though my faith in his coming faded with every passing sound outside my prison. I sat by the entrance, eventually falling asleep there. I cried unless I slept—in fact, the bruising from those wounds remain. I only hushed myself when I heard footsteps along the passageway. I waited, I hoped, I begged and bargained, but he didn’t come. He’d deserted me, thinking I was dead, and so I wanted to be.
When I was finally met with some kind of relief, it was in the form of this strange girl who treated me like a doll. She didn’t speak to me, but rushed into my cabin and tore at my robe. I’d been in the soiled wrap for too long, but this girl undressed me and washed me with soapy water she’d carried in with her. I didn’t resist. She could’ve killed me, I wouldn’t have cared, but she was gentle, as she worked to clean me up. When she’d washed under my arms and my face and my hair, she dried me off and ran a brush through my knots. I cried all the while, but she didn’t comfort me. She covered me with a blanket when she was done, picked up the basin and brush, and slipped out of the compartment again. I stood alone in the wrap for a few seconds before I collapsed on the deck.
Unconscious for a time, when I woke, the girl was with me again. She’d dressed me in a strange outfit and pulled me up as soon as I opened my eyes. She led me to a single chair in the middle of the cabin, facing the dark bulkhead. She placed something on my head, but I was too starved to care. I hadn’t eaten in so long, I was a phantom. I’d forgotten Alessandra, Helgado, Lucia—and death was mine. I sat on that chair for ages, stifling my sobs, as single tears ran down my cheeks, drying up before dropping from my chin. I think I slept on that chair since I don’t remember moving from it again. When the Empress came into my compartment, I’d no idea who she was. She floated around me like a wisp, a slender cigarette dangling from her red lips.
“You are lovely,” she’d said. “I see why now.”
She bent down to examine me and when she caressed my cheek I felt the tip of her ornamental claw. The idea came to me in one single bound, as though no time elapsed between my thinking about it and doing it. I dug her metal point into my neck before I realized it as my escape. I don’t know if I succumbed to death and she revived me, or if I simply lost blood and consciousness, but when I woke, I was in Vincent’s arms and all was right with my world again.
Vincent greeted the Empress with a slight bow when she came in to meet me as her progeny. She’d removed her decorative claws but I recognized my fatal instrument on the canvas of the large portrait on the bulkhead behind her. I smiled inwardly when I saw it. She stared at him for a moment and then glanced over at me.
“Way shama tat zu ze?” Her words were meaningless sounds since I didn’t understand what she said until Vincent told me to stand up and greet my maker. The Empress addressed me in Mandarin, Vincent said, because she expected me to learn it. I assured him it was impossible, but he insisted I would. Despite the difficulty of studying Chinese, I was hung up on the thought of adopting her language, and essentially her lineage.
“It is a pleasure to—”
“Tingzhi,” she said. Stop! It’s a word I came to learn right away since she used it freely in our first visit. “Her face is like a pumpkin,” she said, this time in perfect Italian so I could hear the insult. She pulled on her cigarette with her blood red lips and inhaled half of it. “Ninung punung jurgei wokan.”
Vincent decoded her command for me, and I was struck by his ability to speak Mandarin. “Your maker would like you to show her your fangs,” he said.
And that’s how it began. Like a child parading her talents for her governess, I was forced to show the Empress my fangs, my nails, my skin, my waistline, my elbows, my hair, my feet and my stomach, which was the most embarrassing. I stood in front of her where she sat on the daybed, smoking an endless link of cigarettes, and lifted my cheongsam all the way up past my waist to bare my newly emptied belly. I was grateful the mute girl had given me underwear, even if it meant she’d seen more than I’d cared to show. My stretch marks and flabby skin were gone, and I admired my perfect stomach with wonder.
“Humph,” the Empress said. She pointed at my belly and reached out to touch it. “Grotesque,” she said in my native tongue. “She will begin her training with Zhi.”
“I am happy to choose for her,” Vincent said. “She is still mine, Cixi.”
I was overjoyed when he said the words, though I knew he didn’t mean them in the way I’d have liked him to when he spoke about a fair exchange. “You have the museum,” he said. “And the head. I have yet to receive my payment in full.”
The Empress tapped her tongue on the roof of her mouth. It was the first time I’d seen her teeth and I recalled how her fangs hadn’t dropped when she visited me in
the compartment. She hadn’t intended to feed on me. She simply wanted to inspect Vincent’s girl.
“We’ll talk of this another time,” she said. “For now you should give the novice to Zhi. He’ll be in charge of her apprenticeship and find her the proper trainer. By the shape of her hands, she’ll make a good fighter when her claws come in.”
I looked at Vincent, hoping he’d protest. I couldn’t bear the thought of being with another, but he abandoned me once again and simply bowed to her command. “As you wish, Empress,” he said.
Inwardly I seethed at the thought of being passed off, wanting him to teach me, to show me how to be his vampire. I almost expressed my disapproval until he touched my arm and led me out of the cabin. I didn’t say goodbye to my maker, for she turned away from the both of us, as we exited.
After I met the Empress and Vincent left me to see to “other matters,” as he put it, I meditated, awaiting his return. I sat on the berth with my legs crossed and eyes closed. I placed my hands facing upward on my knees and pictured him. He didn’t always look handsome, especially when he scowled, but I imagined him smiling and drew soft lines on his face. He looked at me with the eyes I adored and we locked ourselves in that imagined stare until the sound of a bird’s warble broke my concentration. I opened my eyes and looked around the compartment but it was empty. I hadn’t dreamed it, for even with eyes open, I heard it. The sound grew louder before I noticed Vincent’s step in the passageway, and when he entered the cabin, the warble peaked and then settled to a soft lull. He read my expression, knowing what I’d experienced, and the slightest smile rose on his lips, as though he wanted to greet me with a larger one but still retain a stern aspect.
I’d first learned about the vampire’s signal when we stayed in the villa on the outskirts of Portero. Those days seem long ago, but I haven’t forgotten them yet. “It is most similar to the high-pitched chant of a sparrow,” Vincent had said. Patient with my curiosity, he was willing to divulge a few of his secrets in exchange for my blood, though he could’ve had it for free.
A vampire’s frequency is like his fingerprint—no two are the same. Vincent’s vibrates with a tempo that loops, like the mellow call of a bird. It’s no wonder others are drawn to it. When I heard it for the first time, I couldn’t imagine my life without it, and it pained me to think I’d been deaf to it when we spent all that time together. It still penetrates me now like nothing else—deep, deep down to my very core—and I listen for it continually.
“Not every vampire can distinguish between frequencies,” he said. “Though most will pick up on them. I am glad you are able to discern mine from the others.”
“I haven’t heard others,” I said.
“You will.”
He’d returned to me softer, more attentive and willing to speak with me. I wanted to ask what had changed but was afraid to ruin the favorable mood he’d fallen into. “Why can’t you train me?” I asked instead.
“It is beneath me,” he said.
I don’t know what reaction my face showed but it caught him by surprise, for he suddenly looked sorry for saying it. “It is not an insult, Evelina. You are the newest vampire, and I am ancient. The disparity between our ages is too great. I cannot stoop to the dregs of training a novice.”
“Even if I’m yours?”
“You are not mine,” he said.
The words stung, though sorrow didn’t bite at me, only rage. I seethed again, as I contemplated the fate of being another’s progeny. “Why did the Empress change me?” I asked.
“For greed,” he said. “We made a deal and she could only acquire her part of the bargain if you were alive when I returned.”
“Aren’t I supposed to be human, though?”
He looked away, as if he needed to harness his own anger, that which begged to be freed. He was disappointed in me. I could read it plainly on his face. A permanent scowl marked him. I’d stolen the one thing he’d worked so hard to keep—Evelina Caro, the girl that Byron had asked him to save for humanity and his kind. “I will always find you,” he had said to me once, but I hadn’t trusted him and my betrayal pains him.
“Please forgive me,” I said. “I couldn’t know—I was frightened and I didn’t know you’d—please don’t abandon me again.”
He looked at me, confused. “Evelina, of what do you speak?”
I wanted to cry some real tears, as the corners of my eyes tightened again. Hardened now, I could do nothing to release the emotion still trapped inside me. “Nothing,” I said. “I’m just—it’s nothing.”
“You will need to feed again soon,” he said. “But I will take you to Peter first.”
I felt like a child forced to go to a sleepover. The thought of being separated from him overwhelmed me, as did my anger. “No,” I said.
“Excuse me?” He looked at me with disdain, and I almost feared him.
“I just mean, I don’t want to meet others,” I said. “I want to stay with you.”
“You have things to learn and this is the best place for you to do so.”
I obeyed my master, fearing the moment he’d be torn from me and I’d lose the one thing that gave me any sense of myself. My feelings for the human child had taken flight and I’d no desire to see her.
“Are you going to leave me?” I could barely ask, fearful as I was of his answer.
“Not just yet,” he said. “Come.”
I followed him out of my cage and into the jungle, where he led me through the ship, giving me a tour of a place that had held a certain mystery until then.
“We are headed for the soldiers’ quarters at the stern of the ship,” he said.
We traveled through the same passageways we had on the way to the Empress’s cabin, the elegant ones I’d ignored before. The steel paneled bulkheads were adorned with silk fabrics and artifacts of immeasurable value. Vincent pointed out some of the more choice pieces, as we passed them. I know nothing of art, but I’m not ignorant of beauty. When I saw the painting of the girl in the water, I had to stop. She lay in a shallow stream, facing up, wearing an expression of horror that made me gasp. A corpse for certain, she was drowned with a posy of colorful flowers that circled her floating body. The shrubbery around her was green as any green could be, and though the lights below deck were dim, I saw the colors perfectly. Peacefulness marked her woe, and I wondered if she knew she was dead.
“It is Ophelia,” Vincent said. “Millais’s Ophelia.”
“I thought Ophelia was from Shakespeare?”
“She is a character in Hamlet,” he said. “But the painter is John Everett Millais.” I couldn’t think of a thing to say in response, the image filling me with sorrow and ire. “Come, Evelina.” Vincent touched my arm and softened my wrath.
When I think of the image now, I know it was an augury. She showed me what I’d soon be, and when I recall my plunge into the depths of the sea, the estrangement my drowning has caused, I know Ophelia’s hopeless abandonment is mine too.
We eventually went below, down to the bowels of the ship where the drab and rusted bulkheads of the servants’ quarters gave me a sense of relief. A distinct separation of rank marked Empress Cixi’s vessel, as she and her entourage inhabited the first-class quarters at the ship’s stern while those under her command lived among the steerage compartments. I couldn’t say where she kept the human cargo then, for I wasn’t so lucky, though I’d guessed it was somewhere near the front section of the ship since the strawberry blond appeared well fed, clean and generally happy. I assumed the Empress preserved her chattel’s dignity, keeping them safe and satisfied, though they didn’t roam the ship freely.
Vincent stopped and turned to face me. “Listen,” he said. “Tell me what you hear.”
I hadn’t focused on sound, as we toured the ship, having been engaged with the sights. But I did as my master commanded, and listened to the vibrations along the bulkheads. At first, the sound was like steam from a radiator, steady and flat, but then the rustling sharpened and
I was able to distinguish between tones. Before long, I counted the different rhythms and timbres and didn’t just hear frequencies but also voices. Chatter along the steel soon turned into whole conversations, and distinct words rose up from the din. She’s mine—pren la—neemhar—I’m starved—Hashe wo da—Niba tadu—Wozian egu—Wuluase. A medley of languages came at me, and I counted each one, though I didn’t understand the meaning of any of the foreign words.
“I hear them,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “How many signals?”
I hadn’t counted frequencies, only voices. “I hear more than fifty different voices,” I said.
“You hear voices?” He scowled at me. “You mean frequencies.”
“I hear those too,” I said. “But the voices are more distinct.”
Vincent looked puzzled. “Are you still picking up my signal?”
I wanted to say it was difficult for me to ignore it, that I’d never stop hearing it, but I tamed my affection and reserved my admiration for a more appropriate time. “Of course,” I said. “Do you hear mine?” I hadn’t yet asked him about my fingerprint, the imperial mark which stamped me for the Empress and not my beloved.
“Yes,” he said. “But it is weak. Come and meet Peter.”
When we reached several levels lower, we came to a passageway with an orderly line of vampires. They chatted casually, some joking, some deep in conversation, and I recognized each of the voices from the ones I’d overheard. Most of them spoke a dialect of Chinese, but also French, Dutch, English, American and Italian. I looked at them as we passed, but none of them returned a glance, keeping their heads down and whispers low. When I asked him about it, he told me it was a show of reverence.
“For me?” I asked.
That made him smile. “No, Evelina,” he said. “For me.”
The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) Page 24