Mindiss sneered in return. “You are defeated,” she said. “Your heart is emptied of its black arts, but it shall come out of your chest—to rest—no less.”
Their rhymes were like chants or spells they cast on each other. I studied the scene closely, recalling Mindiss’s threats, which seemed idle when made in my cabin. When she pulled out the vampire’s heart, it still beat in her hand for a brief moment and then hardened, turning to black porcelain, or something lacquered and firm like it.
I won’t say it didn’t freak me out to see a vampire mutilate another without decapitation. The victim was surely destroyed, and when her body shriveled in Mindiss’s hands, she threw the carcass across the deck and raised her arms to rouse the spectators. The cheers were unsettling, as they praised her barbarity. Peter sensed my discomfort and escorted me back through steerage to Huitzilli’s compartment. When we came upon his door, I’d a moment of apprehension as I recalled his attack on me, those iron fangs dripping with rage.
“It was an exercise,” Peter said. I thought he meant the battle we’d just witnessed, but then clarified when he said, “Huitzilli would never attack you.”
“I don’t know if I believe that,” I said. “I have to admit I don’t know how safe I feel on this ship.”
“That’s why we need to prepare you, Evelina.”
“She came to see me,” I said. “The vampire who just tore out the heart of the other.”
“I know,” he said. “You needed to see her in the ring to know what kind of opponent she is, the weapons she uses.”
“Was that magic?”
He nodded and said, “She’s not like us. She was possessed when she was made a vampire.” He took my hand in his. “She was a Fangool.”
I thought I’d seen it all with the bloodless and vampires, but our world abounds with mysteries from the spiritual realm too.
Peter read my fear and squeezed my hand with his. “You’re not without friends,” he said. “Those of us who’ll show you how to beat her.”
“What’s a Fangool?”
“She believes she commutes between the land of the dead, where her gods live, and the human world.”
“She said she’s coming for revenge,” I said. “What did she mean?” Peter looked away, as though regretting the conversation. “Tell me,” I said.
He returned his gaze and studied me for a moment. He smiled warmly, and then said, “Your ritual battle has been set.” I’m not sure I vocalized my disbelief, but he still heard it. “The Empress has made the arrangements,” he said. “They can’t be undone.”
“But I—”
“Let’s not keep Huitzilli waiting,” he said. With his hand still clasping mine, he opened the door and pulled me into the cabin.
Huitzilli was ready for me. “Tepin,” he shouted, as soon as we entered. “You’ve recovered, I see,” he said with a belly roar. “Come. We must rise to the night sky and praise Tezcatlipoca.”
Huitzilli paid homage to his deity nightly, chanting beneath the stars. Tezcatlipoca was known for many things, including enmity, discord, rulership and sorcery, and when Huitzilli took me topside, up on the deck and outside for the first time since my awakening, he taught me to harness the power of his god.
My flesh tingled in the night air, the cool breeze from the sea softening every cell in my hardened body. I’d been inside the ship for too long and being topside made me burn with pleasure. The galaxy above our heads lit up the sky like nothing I’d seen before. Each fire making up the never-ending, expanding cosmos revealed itself as a singular flame. I could almost see the tips of the fires as they burned. The wind from the sea massaged my skin, sending chills beneath my flesh, and the smell of the air in the harbor hit me with a blow, as fetid bodies and burnt ash reached me in equal parts. The pleasant smell of blood from the bowels of the ship evaporated on the sea air, eaten up by the stifling aroma of the world outside.
“This is overwhelming,” I said. “Like sensory overload.”
“It’s the blood high,” Peter said. “You’re still reaping Hal’s benefits.”
“It can’t just be the blood,” I said. “Everything is so—so alive and real, like my very existence is a tangible thing.”
Huitzilli laughed at my babbling, trite philosophies. “You’re like one who’s been pierced for the first time, but knows how to enjoy the pleasure of the penetration,” he said.
He took me to the stern of the ship, dismissing the guard who was on watch. The vampire seemed willing to quit his post even before the Hummingbird commanded him to do so.
“Come, Tepin,” Huitzilli said, “you and I shall go out on the water together.”
He stepped over the railing and walked down the slanted tail of the vessel all the way to its tip. I stood at the rails, working up the courage to follow my trainer out over the water. A childhood memory of drowning made my knees lock and I was stuck to the deck.
“Come, Tepin,” Huitzilli said. “What delays you?”
Peter could see why I hesitated, but didn’t offer any consolation. He couldn’t help me venture out to the edge of the ship and I had to obey Huitzilli’s command. Cautiously I went, my boots gripping the slick surface of the metal, if barely. I skidded a few times as I made my way out to Huitzilli sitting on the edge with his legs dangling over the side. He motioned for me to sit beside him and so I did.
He chanted softly in a language I didn’t understand, and when he finished, he turned to me and said, “Tezcatlipoca is the Smoking Mirror. Do you know why we call him that?”
I assumed his question was rhetorical, but I still shook my head to gesture I didn’t.
“When we pray to him, he shows us what we need to see, but never with clarity,” he said. “Do you know why?”
“Because we have to discover it on our own?” I said, merely guessing.
“No, Tepin,” he said. “He covers it with smoke because he doesn’t want us to be distracted by the reflection in the mirror. The things we need to see are already in us, just like our strengths and weaknesses. Everything you need to exist in this world is already in you.”
Would that apply to the hundreds or thousands of years I’d see of the world, I wondered. And would I still be equipped to live in a world far different than this one?
“Tezcatlipoca is a jaguar, Tepin,” he said. “A jaguar can climb like a monkey, crawl like a crab and swim like a fish, and his bite is strong enough to pierce a tortoise shell. He can drag a nine hundred pound bull across the desert and pulverize his bones once he’s ready to feast. The larger his prey, the better, and he’ll feast on any flesh, even the plump anaconda, which he prizes in particular for the challenge it presents him in the hunt. But do you know how he takes his prey down, Tepin?”
Huitzilli’s question lingered on the sea air, and the warrior smiled. He tossed his head back and opened his mouth wide. He made a sound like he was exhaling a gust of air and I heard his jaw click as he released his iron fangs. The metal razors gleamed in the moonlight. When he turned to look at me again, he sneered and lurched toward me. I flinched and lost my balance, tumbling backward. Swift like a cat, Huitzilli grabbed me and when I saw his irons again, they were more foreboding since his face was distorted by my having been turned upside down. He’d caught me by the wrist and was the only thing stopping me from falling in the water.
He laughed, irons and all, which made his aspect even more frightening. When he yanked me up and placed me beside him again, he said, “Where are you going? I wasn’t finished.”
Though his aspect had scared me, my belly burned at the sight of him. His irons made me angry. He laughed again. “That’s it,” he said. “Let that fuel you.”
“When will I get mine?” I asked.
“When you are ready,” he said. “Now look, I’ve brought them out to show you just how useful they can be.” He took my hand in his and brought the inside of my wrist up to one of his fangs, just barely touching the razor edge against my hardened skin. With one swipe across m
y flesh, he tore into it and revealed my gooey interior. I examined the clean tear in my wrist, more interested in how he’d sliced my skin, than my innards. Huitzilli retracted his iron fangs, though it looked painful to do so without their having tasted blood. “So I’ll ask again, Tepin,” he said. “Do you know how the jaguar takes down his prey?”
“He uses his fangs,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “But the tool he uses is only half of it. The way he uses that tool is everything.” He smiled and I thought his face was the handsomest I’d ever seen—even more handsome than Vincent’s. “The jaguar will disable his prey by either digging his canines into its neck, suffocating it, or, more effective still, he’ll plunge his fangs into its head to crush its skull and puncture its brain.” He admired the animal with a smile directed out to sea, which I thought was probably also for his god. “Do you know how much more effective iron fangs are for piercing skulls?”
I hadn’t seen Vincent use his fangs, but I nodded, enthralled by Huitzilli and the beautiful brutality of the vampire’s tools.
“Can I do anything to make mine come sooner?” I asked, eager to wield the same power. I didn’t question my gifts, the weapons I’d gained upon awakening—human repulsion and reason had gone. To be vicious and terrifying was to be perfect.
“First things first,” he said. “You must learn to float.” He leaned his forehead against mine, and for a brief moment I felt the intensity of his flesh. My fangs dropped, aroused by the Toltec. He brushed his thumb across my lips as he’d done before, and then used his mind trick to wrangle my thoughts and drain them like water passing through a sieve. He said, “Trust your instincts, Tepin,” before my body sailed through the air and plummeted into the sea, dropping to the bottom like a marble slab.
I was confused until I realized Huitzilli had tossed me overboard and wasn’t coming in after me. This was a test like all the others. But this one, more than any other, frightened me. Knowing I didn’t need air to survive wasn’t consolation. If I couldn’t get my impossibly heavy body up and out of the water, I’d be relegated to the depths of the bay forever. Did Peter see me drop into the water? Would Huitzilli rescue me if I couldn’t get up? I must have spent minutes, or maybe hours, contemplating wasted theories. This was a test—no one would save me. We’d come out on deck when the moon was still bright in the sky, so I had hours before sunrise. But hours may not be enough.
I’d landed on my back and tried to turn myself over to use my arms to push myself up to a standing position, but that was impossible. I could barely move, let alone rotate my body. I felt the force of the water bearing down on me, as if I were being sucked into the seabed beneath me. I didn’t panic—at first—but when I realized I was stuck, fear got the better of me and I felt the corners of my eyes tighten. The trapped emotion wanted out and so I opened my mouth to release it with a scream. The gush of salt water choked me and made my position worse, as the weight of the water inside me pushed me deeper into the bed beneath me. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize my hero reaching down into the depths to pull me up. But he didn’t come.
I could feel my hair, long and buoyant, floating around my crown and I pictured Ophelia drowned in the shallow bit of water. I laughed inwardly when I thought how different our situations seemed—I was alive but fully submerged. I could do this, I knew I could. I just needed to concentrate and remember everything I’d been told. I was fearful when the Empress tossed me around the room, and I was afraid when Huitzilli came at me with his iron fangs in the ring. The fear was the thing they wanted me to conquer. There was no more room for fear. Huitzilli said I have everything in me already, and that my anger must fuel me. All the pain and fear I experienced as a human was gone, or at least it should’ve been. Perhaps, I thought, I’m holding on to some of it, which weighs me down. Vincent’s words reached me in the sea’s dark silence: Nostalgia will choke you with every memory you clutch, so you must kill the urge to think of the past. The past is gone, which is why you shall continue to right the present.
As I thought of his words, I realized this was a chance to right the present. My body was heavy and difficult to move through water, but I was still stronger than the heaviness. I was powerful now, I was immortal—I am immortal—and nothing can steal my life. I thought about Mindiss and her threats, and my anger vexed me. I thought of my abusive maker, and my anger plucked at me. I thought of Vincent’s cold, dismissive attitude, his abandonment, his rejection, and my anger prodded at me. With the last one, I was able to jerk my body up and onto my side, letting the momentum of my weight pull me over onto my stomach. Rage was the key—if I hadn’t known it before, I knew it then. As I recalled the fragments and pieces of experience that made me angry, my strength grew. Soon I was pushing my body up from the bottom of the sea. Gravity still weighed on me, like a magnet clutching metal, but I fought against it and willed my body to twist up and away from the force.
Believe me when I say it took me hours to win this battle, to spin my body with enough momentum to drill my way up and out of the water. When I finally broke the surface, a purpling sky welcomed me. The sun was at the horizon, threatening to shine directly on me. The water showed signs of glistening, as I turned around to face the ship. I was exhausted, starved, but not yet close to the finish line. Huitzilli and Peter waved to me from the ship’s deck. “Get up, Tepin,” Huitzilli shouted. “Or you’ll sink to the bottom again.”
I’d no idea how to propel my heavy body out of the water through the air and onto the ship, and almost felt like letting everything go and sinking back to the bottom again. But then I saw him—Vincent—high up on one of the ship’s towers, watching me under a bluing sky. He knew I saw him, but he sat in stillness, observing the exercise that tested my ability. I’d thought only rage could fuel me, but I discovered that ego was a strong motivator too, and my need to impress Vincent trumped all others. I closed my eyes, concentrated on the feel of my body, remembering when Huitzilli had pinned me beneath his fist in the ring and I’d relaxed every muscle in my body to float out and up from his hold. I tried the same method and let my muscles melt beneath my flesh. My effort was futile, though, for I didn’t move a bit, and when I opened my eyes again and looked up at Vincent, he was gone. I slowly sunk down below the waterline, hearing the shouts of my trainer and mentor, as they goaded me.
“Do this, Tepin,” Huitzilli said. “Now, before the sun rises and burns you to ash.”
Peter shouted, “Get out of the water, Evelina. You must get out.”
I renewed my effort, recalling my anger and bringing it to the fore to fuel my abandoned self once again. “Fuck, Vincent,” I whispered, though it was out of character for me to use such profanity. “Fuck him. Fuck, Vincent,” I said repeatedly like a mantra for success. My rage boiled, as the fire ripped through me and stimulated every muscle in my hardened body. With the magic of the Hummingbird, I floated up and pulled my wet body out of the water, taking leaps toward the ship. I could only climb the ladder to board, and had to make my way around the stern and along the ship’s other side. When I got to the hull, I slapped my hands on the vessel just above the waterline and pulled myself through the sea, letting the metal guide me. I was exhausted by the time I reached the ladder, but I pressed on, feeling the dawning of the sun’s heat. I pulled myself up onto the second rung, and lifted my legs with every last ounce of strength I had. “Fuck, Vincent,” I whispered, as I ignored the throbbing in my head. The growing heat on my flesh numbed me, but I bounded up the ladder, having gained some energy when my body hit the air, as though freed from an anchor.
I was surprised when I reached topside and stepped onto the deck, and Vincent greeted me. “Good, Evelina,” he said. He didn’t smile, but wasn’t scowling either. He reached for my hand and pulled me into the shade of a dingy hanging overhead. “We need to get you inside,” he said.
I didn’t ask for Huitzilli or Peter, grateful I was with him—only him. My anger dissolved when he touched my hand at the railing and pu
lled me into the shade. I forgot the mantra that had given me the strength to pass the test.
“You’ll need to feed,” he said. “A donor’s waiting for you in your compartment.”
Vincent led me through the passageways quickly, eager to get me back into my cabin. The ship was quiet, and the only sound I heard was the sparrow, as it guided me. I could almost hear the hum of my own signal, desperate to be in sync with the other. I wanted to tell him how much I missed him, and was determined to do so the moment we reached the privacy of my compartment …
Entry 6
I think I daydreamed for a time, dropping the pencil and shutting the book. I’m waiting for him to return with another offering. I’m hungry still—so—so—so—hungry. I’d welcome the feral dreck … anything to keep from drying up …
When Vincent brought me back to my compartment, he didn’t come inside, though he lingered on the threshold until I’d settled in and started feeding on Muriel. Blood seemed more desirable than him for the first time, and I satisfied my hunger despite my discontented heart. Finished, I got up from the berth and paced my small cabin, urging the blood high to work its way through me and ease my aching muscles. The salve didn’t take long, but I healed more slowly than I’d done when my arm was pulled from its socket. Perhaps Hal’s blood was more potent than Muriel’s. I studied the strawberry blond, seeking her neon colors. I decided it was a trick of the den, its lighting manipulated for effect, an elevated pleasure of some sort.
“Do you know Hal?” I didn’t ask if Muriel had to leave immediately. I hadn’t noticed Veor, or another bodyguard when we arrived, so I thought perhaps she’d have to wait for her escort.
The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) Page 34