“Get me out of here,” I said to Peter, kicking the bars with my foot.
“Don’t make sudden movements,” he said. “Your choker is tight enough. The contraption’s old, so it’s probably unreliable. They’ve fitted it so the blade will release if your hands are freed, but you never know. It could be faulty. No sudden movements.”
“Help me.” My voice sounded whiny and Jörvi’s blood hardened in my stomach.
“I can’t stay, Evelina,” he said. “But know that Vincent is working to have you freed.”
“He’s angry with me—”
“Don’t be foolish,” he said. “Everything he does is for you.”
“He wasn’t in the ring—he wasn’t with me,” I said. “She could’ve ripped out my heart but he didn’t come to see—”
“Stop it,” he said. “You know little of the truth, blind as you are to the bigger picture.”
“Then tell me,” I said.
Peter sighed. “I can’t.”
I leaned my forehead against the bars and Peter touched my cheek. His signal hummed softly. “Please send Vincent,” I said, biting my lip, trying to regain some sense of myself, believing I was stronger than my whiny voice allowed.
“You are strong,” Peter said. “You’re also more brave than you know. You’ve conquered fear. Don’t forget that. You’ve defeated a vampire who should’ve finished you. You were never meant to leave that ring, Evelina.”
“What?” The question barely squeezed through my taut mouth.
“Mindiss was far stronger. You were set up for failure,” he said.
He could make out my confusion without reading my mind.
“I think the Empress chose Mindiss for her venerable nature—as I said, she thought she was supernatural and wouldn’t have hesitated to finish you off,” he said. “Remember the match we witnessed? Mindiss destroyed that vampire, once an ally, simply because she cursed her gods.”
I clenched my fists behind my back and the guillotine tightened, almost to the point of choking me. When I relaxed my hands again, the choke didn’t abate.
Peter looked down at my feet and said, “The Empress won’t admit it. It’s unnatural for a maker to want to destroy her progeny, though abandonment is another thing entirely.”
I wondered why Vincent hadn’t just killed her for me.
“Mindiss or your maker?” He asked, reading my mind.
“Both,” I said.
“You must win your own battles,” he said. “It’s a rite of passage, important for you to gain a reputation as your maker’s progeny. You remain vulnerable to the others if you can’t defend yourself.”
I thought of my immortality. I had seen Elizabeth, Jean, Byron all perish, but I hadn’t questioned their deaths. “I thought we lived forever.”
Peter smiled. “Ah, yes, well some of us like to think so. But a vampire can truly only conquer old age, not death. For comfort, think on God who knows the number of each hair on your head—He is greedy to have you back—He must have a way to summon the pure ones, like you, when it is your time.”
I didn’t understand what he meant by my purity since I’d killed a living creature in cold blood only moments ago, and an innocent human girl moments before that.
“I can’t speak to the donor’s innocence,” he said. “But the Fangool deserves no sympathy. She didn’t know the one true God. Fraudulent like a Catholic saint, she was nothing but a witch, a devil worshipper who’s paid for her blasphemous service—” Peter stopped and looked in the direction of the entrance, as though he’d heard something, and said, “You remain pure.”
“But I don’t—”
“I can’t explain now,” he said, turning back to look at me. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small notebook and said, “Take this. It’s from Vincent. He wants you to have it. He said you’d know what it was for.” He pulled me toward him and tucked it beneath the waist of my pants. “I have to go, but remember not to move. Don’t try to break the clamps despite your strength. The blade will surely cut off your head.” He smiled with the genuine smile that warmed me. “Turn for me,” he said. “Let me see your hands.” I obeyed and he reached through the bars and held my hands with his, touching my signet ring and caressing it with his fingers. He read all of my thoughts with one stroke, and my fear was abated. When I turned to look at him again, I smiled. With Peter as an ally, I would be all right. I knew it—I still do.
“I know,” he said. “Me too.”
He stepped away and made for the exit, but then stopped again, turning back to me. “Listen,” he said. “No matter what happens, don’t believe what any of them say—when they come for you. Don’t listen to them.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The Empress will send for you, but don’t trust the one who comes,” he said. “He’s going to lie to you, to tell you you’re going to be hung out to dry.”
“What does—”
“Don’t believe it,” he said. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. We won’t let it.” I found some comfort in his words, in his royal we. I guessed he meant Vincent and himself and perhaps Huitzilli too. “Don’t fight it when he comes, whoever he is. Just trust in us.”
“How will I get out?” My faint voice reminded me of the frightened girl who had once begged her savior to make her as strong as him—Evie Caro, the weak.
“Trust in your fate—God has you in his hands, Evelina,” he said. “I’ve prayed for you and he’ll not let you come to harm. Believe it.” He reached through the bars and caressed my cheek again with his open hand. His touch made my fangs drop and he smiled. “I wish,” he said. “I wish you weren’t made for another.” With that, Peter slipped away and I haven’t seen him since. I don’t know what has become of him, or any of them, but I still hope …
Entry 10
As I sat on the metal planks of Empress Cixi’s ship, in my small cell, waiting to be freed, a clash of sounds, unlike anything I’d heard until then, rocked the bulkheads around me. Like metal hammered on an anvil, the hull vibrated and rumbled, as water gushed through the narrow passageway, making a stream across the leaky deck. At first I thought we’d been rocked by an earthquake, but the shaking didn’t cease, and once I heard the howls in the distance, I knew what it was. The bloodless had come and were climbing the outer walls of the ship to get to the humans inside. The vampires’ shouts were unmistakable now, as the roar of chaos topside reached me all the way down in the tombs.
Agitated in my prison, I was helpless, subjected to an audible account of the attack until my release finally came in the midst of the skirmish.
“Ozi buna,” the vampire said. “Ava dara tasosit.”
I recognized his horrid face with its long nose and little teeth, his broken voice, the dry cadence of a language only he could speak.
“Bine sate vada dino,” he said. “Tie skimbat.”
He slipped a key into the lock of my cell and swung the door open, stepping forward to release my deathtrap. With ease, he snapped the wrist manacles and removed the neck brace, getting close enough for me to smell the rotten meat between his teeth, fur and tendons from his fetid animal feast. I turned away and he was offended, for he sneered at me and said, “Nu mul tumess.”
He slapped a bracelet around my wrist tied to a chain linked to a similar clamp on his. He led me out of the tombs and up to steerage, pulling me along with his leash. The passageways were abandoned, and the buzzing of distant frequencies told me all hands were up on deck. Through the engine room, up the ladderlike steps, down another passageway, we made our way to the ship’s fore. Once there, we traveled up several more sets of steps until we approached the top deck. I could hear the calls, as the vampires warded off the onslaught. He forced me up on deck from a small hatch at the ship’s bow, where I felt the sun’s heat before we reached the opening. When my captor opened the hatch to greet the sun shining directly above us, I stopped and tucked myself into his shadow. He looked back at me and sneered. “Nuva arda de mu
lta timp,” he said, yanking on the leash to hoist me up.
The sun blinded me, and I barely witnessed the fray, let alone my hero amidst the ship’s madness. All sound dissolved into one when the pain of my open-air pyre struck me. I’ve said that we don’t experience pain as humans do since our suffering is dull, if short-lived. But the pain of my premature flesh in the sunlight is ineffable—I swear I know the suffering of Dante’s souls in the rivers of boiling blood.
My hardness tightened around me, and then cracked into a million pieces, as the organs inside my body seemed to shrivel up, taking my blood high with them. My bones felt crystallized, like they cracked with each step, and when my body finally surrendered to the force of gravity, I seemed to float up as I sailed through the burning air. A high-pitched squeal severed my head, as the rays of the noon sun embraced me, reinforcing my torture in the melted skin of my new body.
Some relief came when I hit the water and sunk down to the bottom of the bay. I opened my mouth and sucked in the coldness, desperate to put out the fire inside me. My abductor dragged me through algae and seaweed, as I lay on my back with the torture. He walked quickly across the bottom of the sea, but every now and then he’d pull me through a beam of sunlight. At some point, I picked up the sparrow’s warble and concentrated on it alone, thinking my rescue was afoot. But Vincent never caught up to us, and when my abductor pulled me out of the water on the shore, the sunlight struck me again and robbed me of the coldness I’d consumed underwater. Blinded still, I stumbled as he towed me along behind him, only gaining relief when he pulled me into the shade.
“Apropa colo,” he said, yanking on the leash. “Vefi bine curand.”
My skin sizzled when he threw a hooded cloak over me, recoiling from the weight of the wool. I lost consciousness then, for I don’t remember feeding on his spoils, though I suffered the aftertaste of a pika he’d plucked from the brush.
I was lost by the time we reached the shed, unable to tag the landmarks or distinguish east from west, north from south.
“Soon tem aporpa colo,” he said. “Gra bitzi va.”
I ignored him and concentrated on Vincent’s signal, which seemed alive in me still. It was the faintest trace of sound and I couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined.
“Sanja,” he said. “Coo rund.”
He left me there in the dark shed chained up to the slab of concrete. But I was happy to be out of the sun, if only for the time being. When he returned with a badger, I braved the succor, knowing it was the only thing that could heal my burns. Blood—I needed blood—I need blood—blood—blood …
…
It’s dark now, but when morning comes, I’ll suffer again unless I find a place to hide. I’m on high ground, a rock ledge in the hills. I wanted to see the sea—see the sea—seascape see me—I need to escape …
…
I dreamed of Byron.
Vincent said we don’t sleep and so we don’t dream, but he also told me, “Our daydreams are like portals to the past and we may relive a seemingly insignificant moment that heeds an astounding revelation in the present.”
“Can we see the future?” I had asked, more eager to learn about our psychic powers and our ability to predict our fates.
He wasn’t amused, scolding me for thinking we were oracles or blind seers. “We go into the future unknowing, willingly, so that like man, despite our immortal nature, we may make our own destiny,” he had said. “Do not be fooled, Evelina. You are not owed anything—your immortality is on loan, not yours to keep.”
His words were mystical, his philosophy a puzzle to me then. But I have since traveled to the past, and walked through the portals of which he spoke.
I barely knew Byron and yet his short moments in my life stay with me. Maybe I’m becoming him, as I dissolve into this pile of ash.
“My dear, do you know you are pregnant?” Byron had asked me when we met.
I was ashamed of my situation, but he didn’t judge me. He took my hand in his and consoled me as I cried about it for the first time since knowing the truth. When I told Marco, he said I was lying—it wasn’t possible—but I knew it and carried my burden alone. I considered getting rid of it, I thought about a whole mess of things to do. But I couldn’t go through with it—not for religious reasons but because I was afraid I’d end up dead too. When Vincent left the chamber, I asked Byron to help me. I thought if anyone could help me, a doctor could.
“Will you take it out?” I asked.
His face didn’t change, but he squeezed my hand more tightly. “Why would you want to give it up?”
“How can I have a baby now? Here, in this world?”
“My dear,” he said, “a baby is exactly what this world needs.”
“We’ll die together,” I said. “How can I keep a baby safe?”
“Do not be afraid,” he said. “I will not let any harm come to you. Vincent will keep you safe.”
I felt Vincent’s absence then, and looked at the door through which he’d escaped. Byron suspected my affection because he said, “He will come back.”
“My condition—this situation—I’m embarrassed,” I said. “I’m more of a burden than you need me to be.”
“Far from it, my child,” Byron said. “You are a blessing—and our salvation—do not forget that.”
He rested his hand atop mine and gently caressed my skin with his cold, firm fingers. I didn’t understand his affection, why he adored me so and considered me a blessing. I wasn’t blind to their otherness, but neither was I oblivious to their kindness. We’d been fed and clothed and saved. I wasn’t their salvation—they were mine.
“I can’t express enough gratitude,” I said. “I feel … safe here with you, with him.”
“Vincent is nothing short of a hero, my dear.”
He studied me, and I him. His face was soft, and he didn’t look as aged as I originally thought. He looked barely twenty, in fact. When I first saw him, I thought he was old but as we gazed at each other, I knew I’d been mistaken. He must have been younger than my mother when she died.
“How old are you?” I asked, forgetting myself.
He smiled and that’s when I saw his pointy teeth. But I wasn’t scared. It was as if I knew what he was—what they all were—all along—as if I knew what I’d become.
“We are not the same,” he said. “It is true. We are, however, also no different. I was twenty-eight years old when I met Vincent.”
“And now?”
“I have lived for more than a century,” he said.
I think my reaction surprised him. I didn’t flinch when he told me his age, when he confessed what he was, and when I promised to keep his secret. He responded in kind, and said he knew I could be trusted.
“We rely on you in ways you cannot understand,” he said. “But we are not all villainous and you have nothing to fear—not you—not you.”
“I’m not frightened,” I said, though I confess I felt a swell of apprehension. “You are good. I can see that in you.”
Byron smiled again, and patted my hand. “Vincent is the good one,” he said. “He will be your champion if you let him. Do not be fooled by his monstrous exterior.” Byron leaned forward and whispered, “He is next to godly.”
I swallowed. I was under Byron’s spell, clinging to his words though we’d only just met. The impact he’d have on my life was clear. He smiled again and touched my cheek, making me shiver.
“You are no stranger,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You have visited me before,” he said.
I didn’t understand, and yet I knew.
“I have dreamed of you, my child,” he said. “That he would find you.”
I wanted to ask, but didn’t need to.
“Vincent,” he said. “My beloved has sought you out for lifetimes. We are connected you and I.” He released my hand and pulled his into his lap. He turned away and said, “He will need you when I am gone and so you must cling to him
.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, artless and sincere.
He looked back at me and sighed. “Cling to him,” he said. “He is fiercely loyal and will guard you with his life. Do you understand?”
I nodded, though I didn’t completely know what he meant until now. I do—now I understand wholeheartedly.
“May I tell you a story?” he asked.
I nodded and held my breath.
“Once upon a time, long before the world was formed, there were two species of beings. A powerful and mighty creator had made a benevolent being, while a weak and unskilled maker had given birth to a bloodhungry creature. The two species were expected to share the only planet that would support their life forms, but they did not live in harmony. For untold ages, the bloodhungry creature preyed on the benevolent being, feeding on its will and stealing its source of life. The benevolent being was resilient, though, and fought against its foe. The two species clashed for lifetimes until one day the two creators got together and made a third species. Sharing aspects of both, the hybrid being was sent to mark the balance. A war ensued, but none of the three beings perished. Now, the three were expected to live in harmony, but do you know what happened? The first two creatures, the benevolent and bloodhungry, set their past aside and spliced themselves together so they could rid themselves of the third.”
He stopped his story midstride, it seemed, and held me on the edge of suspense. He smiled and said, “Tell me, my dear. Do you think they succeeded in ridding themselves of the third, the creature of balance?”
I thought about the question for a moment, wanting him to know I’d been listening carefully. “I think they did, yes,” I said. “They must have.” I couldn’t see why the two hadn’t killed off the third, especially once teaming up and becoming extra powerful.
The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) Page 41