Byron shook his head and said, “My dear, the benevolent and bloodhungry became the creature of balance, and she alone inhabits the world.”
It took a moment, but when my ah-ha moment came, Byron laughed and caressed my hand again. “We must become creatures of balance if we are to survive the world we have built for ourselves. Even Vincent.”
“Me too?” I asked.
“You too, my child,” he said. “Especially you.”
I never told Vincent about the things Byron said to me. I never told him I knew what he was from the beginning, that his desire for my blood—my baby’s blood—tortured him. He doesn’t know it pained me too. He doesn’t realize Byron expected us to become the creature of balance, Evelina the benevolent and Vincent the bloodhungry. I wonder if Byron sees I’m no longer what I was, I’m no longer the gentle creature he once knew. It seems I’ve failed, and will never become the hybrid being I so long to be. Vincent and I will remain separate, and bloodhungry.
***
25 December. — Once again, I shall record the events from memory. My last entry feels like a lifetime ago, though only days have passed. The world has shrunk once more, and I can barely keep up with the workings of fate. I am tested, Byron, and I am no longer myself.
Peter never returned because our priorities took on a new shade. It was not so much the blare of the ship’s alarms that ripped me from my thoughtful state, but the rush of frequencies that passed my cabin. The passageway was a scene of disorder, as vampires rushed topside to face the oncoming danger—the bloodless had come. I hardly believed the announcement myself, but when I reached the weather deck, I experienced déjà vu. The water was riddled with heads, as corpses floated toward the vessel from the shore.
Zhi’s soldiers were quick to take their place, getting off shots from different positions on the ship. When I looked over the side, I saw the effect of their guns. Their weapons were capable of disabling the bloodless with one shot. The darts they emitted were poisonous and not just with any poison, but with a chemically engineered serum that stops the bloodless dead in its tracks. By some miracle, Byron, Cixi holds the secret of incapacitation that you were so desperate to discover. Whoever funds her—Xing Fu’s contacts at the womb, the core, the facility in the Nortrak—has given her a weapon that makes her invincible and her ship impenetrable. No wonder she keeps the blood as safe as she does. I could barely believe my eyes, as I watched the darts peg them off one by one. Zhi’s soldiers wielded their guns with precision, making shots like experienced snipers, lodging the dart into the point of the neck that releases the poison into the throat. You were correct about the spine—and the throat is the vulnerable point of entry.
“Fire!” Zhi shouted, as he stood General to Cixi’s troop of vampires. “Reload. Hold steady. Fire.” He repeated his command, and the soldiers obeyed, holding a stream of fire on the moving targets. There seemed no end to their supply of poisonous darts. I saw Huitzilli up on the radio tower with his own contraption, a blowpipe that sent the darts cutting through the air like missiles. The Toltec was concentrated, as he blew into his weapon without ceasing.
The bloodless that dodged the darts waded through their decimated brethren, clambering over the husks of flesh that got in their way. The water energized the live ones and the mob seemed unending, as dry land coughed up its virus and spewed it into the harbor.
When I saw a swarm skirt the line of fire and reach the ladder on the side of the ship, I did not hesitate to meet them before they rose up. I recalled the slickness of the ship’s hull, and counted on it keeping them from scaling up to the deck. I started down the ladder, gliding from rung to rung feet first, and then stopped to turn my body before reaching the bottom. I tucked my boots beneath the rail and hung from the ladder with my hands free. The smell, familiar and putrid, took me back to my hill town’s fortification and fueled an anger that was already full throttle.
Well fed and reinvigorated, I did not falter, as the bloodless rose to meet me. I pulled the first body up myself and dug my talons deep in the sides of his head up to my wrists, imitating my Evelina in the ring. The soft tissue melted in my hands and I shook the ick loose before driving my fist through the one coming up behind it. The third body squealed and lunged for me, but its foot was stuck on the bottom rung and it could not reach me. I, ever the gallant one, dropped down a few rungs and pulled it up to me when a fourth came up from behind and swatted at me. The bloodless trills became aggravated when a fifth and sixth joined the party. I know you question my renewed vigor, my absence of fear, but believe me when I say the troop at my back inspired my intrepidness. I was not alone in my defense and could battle the bloodless for days with the vampire army behind me.
When the remnants of a woman faced me, skinless and skeletal, I was reminded the bloodless will not roam the planet forever. They will soon collapse in decay. Her mouth was agape and the few teeth that remained were rotted in her blackened gums. She could smell Muriel’s ichor on my lips, no doubt, and I bared my iron fangs for the sheer pleasure of letting them warm in the daylight. I drove my talons through her neck and pulled out her spine. She collapsed into the next bloodless rising to greet me.
I slid down one more rung, and grabbed the bony fingers as they tried for me. The bloodless howled and chomped its jaw—it was not as decayed as the previous ones, though it was rotting nevertheless. Its hand came loose and I twisted it from its wrist joint like a key in a lock; when I ripped a seam down its middle, from crown to crotch, it wailed until it hit the bay and sank.
A swarm tread water at the base of the ladder, and I taunted them with a clap of my hands. But stranger than myth, they backed away and floated toward the shore again, almost as if they were called to return. Some of them were hit by the darts they had escaped coming forward, but others retreated without looking back. Like the bloodless tossing themselves over my walls into the burning plants, these splashed through the water only to climb the rocky land anew and make for the brush on the shore’s ledge.
I could not know their mission was accomplished and they had satisfied their role as diversion. I could not fathom my Evelina topside, in the sunlight, dragged across the weather deck and tossed over the side of the ship, as I foolishly relished in a good old-fashioned scrimmage. I could not know—I did not know until Peter came for me.
I retreated to my cabin to satisfy my hunger with my donor. Muriel was unaware of the circumstances of the attack, though she and the others knew a breach was possible. Their section of the ship is equipped for such things and their quarters are sealed off with a mechanized hatch that locks them in. I had to wait for the all clear before she could be released to me.
“I was with Lucia,” she said, as I escorted her to my cabin. “I cradled her in my arms, soothing her. She was frightened, I’m sure of it. She senses the danger.” I found that difficult to believe, but was not interested in a dispute. “I was afraid they’d gotten onboard,” she said.
“The ship will never be breached,” I said. If I was certain of anything it was that Cixi’s ship was a tank, a vessel equipped to fend off any manner of assault. I could not know the vulnerability that lay within.
“We’ve been attacked before,” she said.
“But you were safe, no?”
She bit her bottom lip and said, “Yes, but sometimes I’m reminded of my reality.”
“Which is what exactly?” I asked.
“I will spend the rest of my life between this ship and the core.”
“The core?”
She looked up at me. “We’re not supposed to talk about the core.”
“Is it in the Nortrak?”
She nodded and brought a finger to her lips. I waited until we entered my cabin to ask about the womb.
“I don’t know what the womb is,” she said. “But I’ve heard Captain Jem speak about it. Mind you, he was drunk at the time, so who knows if it means anything.”
“You are from America, though?”
“Yes,” she
said. “What’s left of it, I suppose. I was born during the first wave of quakes, so I’ve lived with this my whole life. I was one of the lucky ones. My father was a colonel—he was connected.”
I did not realize I had yet to feed until she swallowed and the vein in her neck throbbed, mimicking fright.
“Would you like to bite me?” She asked. “I can tell you’re hungry.”
I am not always good at hiding my desire. It is the most basic need—instinctual, really. I held out my hand and she took it, letting me sweep her into my arms and take her while still standing. The blood high stole my senses and when Peter knocked on my door, I was miles away.
“She’s gone,” he said, his panicked voice telling me to whom he referred.
“Where?” I asked.
“No one knows,” he said. “She’s not in her cell, but the guillotine is still there.”
I pushed past Peter and headed to the Empress’s cabin. She was there with Youlan, the captain and a stranger—a young vampire I had not met.
“Good you’re here,” she said to me. “I’ve been told my progeny has escaped, but worse, we’ve been violated. He gained access to the ship, though my den keeper and ferryman assure me they didn’t bring him aboard.”
“How?” I asked. I tempered my rage, despite my difficulty to do so. Muriel’s blood gave me some sense of peace, as it settled in through my limbs, but the abduction of my counterpart caused an inner fit of pique.
“No one knows,” she said. “But I’m determined to find out.” Since she was not smoking or gesturing in any of the strange ways she is wont to do, I believed her.
“And the attack?” I asked. “Was that also him?” I knew it was, though I did not doubt the barrage of bloodless, their controlled movements, and slick retreat, pointed to an accomplice. Rangu had taken my Evelina and I had to get her back before she succumbed to a fate to which I could not suffer. I could not know what treachery abounded, whether the Empress had given Wallach access, sold her progeny back to him for some valuable artifact, or whether the ship harbored other traitors. I had my suspicions but any one of them could have coordinated her abduction.
“I will take the captain with me and anyone who is willing,” I said. “They have gained a substantial head start, and the sun is still up for too many hours.”
“Like fucking hell I’m disembarking,” Captain Jem said. “I don’t go on dry land. Not fucking here. No fucking way.”
“You have little choice in the matter,” I said, and turned to the Empress. “I need the poison, the ammunition you use to disable them. Can you give me a stronger dose?”
“For what?” She asked.
“For a stronger enemy than the bloodless,” I said. “Rangu must be stopped.”
When I recall the conversation now, I think it strange the Empress did not question who Rangu was or why he was strong. She seemed to already know about the aberration, the seething fiend.
“You may take a donor, but not the skipper,” Youlan said. “I will release several guards—volunteers—and the weapons you ask for, but not the Empress’s captain.”
The small party in Cixi’s cabin grew when Zhi and Huitzilli entered. I studied the group, trying to learn who seemed closest to the Empress. She had only revealed minor anxiety at losing her progeny, though that may have been due to her cold nature. When she hissed at Youlan and dismissed her for hijacking the negotiations and suggesting Captain Jem is too valuable to be taken on land, I thought their roles were evident. But the Empress’s authority was challenged when the ferryman addressed her in an ancient tongue only the two of them knew. They disputed feverishly, masking their conversation from the rest of us.
“This is a waste of time,” I said. “I am leaving with this man and several dart guns and a large dose of whatever it is you use to disable them.”
“I am coming too, ancient one,” Huitzilli said.
I pulled Captain Jem by the collar and the Empress cocked her shoulders back, but Zhi seemed to temper her with a flick of his hand. “Release them,” he said.
The Empress scowled at her boatman and sucked the air in through her teeth. When she waved us off, I told Zhi to ferry us to the shore.
“They headed toward the east,” the stranger said, as we made for the door.
I stepped up to the young vampire and put my face close to his. “Tell me what you know,” I said.
He tried to step back but I had immobilized him. He strained to speak and said, “I was up on one of the fore towers when I saw them come from the hatch. I—I didn’t know—”
“What did you see?” I asked, unable to hide the anger in my voice.
“He pulled her along on some kind of lead, she kept her head down, trying to—well, she clung to him for shade—I think—and when he dove over, she was forced to follow. But I didn’t see them again until he pulled her up on the shore, heading east. That’s when I lost them.”
“And you saw nothing else that might help us?” I asked.
Perhaps it was the way he said no, or the fact that he had seen Evelina’s abduction and done nothing to stop it, but I silenced him with a talon to the jugular, tearing out his larynx with one sweep. I did not stay to see the Empress’s reaction, but dragged the captain out.
Peter remained onboard, though he begged me to take him with us. “I can be of use,” he said. “I will hear her—I can help you find where she is.”
I did not doubt his gift, but only I would hear the sparrow and draw her out of hiding. Plus, Peter was no fighter. He could defend himself, to be sure, but Galla had not made him a great warrior. “You must stay with the ship, do not let it leave without us,” I said.
I thought the Empress would remain docked, especially since I took her captain and favorite guard, but I would not make assumptions about the wily queen. I could not know if she orchestrated Evelina’s capture because she defeated Mindiss, or had killed her donor. Perhaps this was her way of ridding herself of the novice. “Stay close to the Empress,” I said. “Find out what you can about the abduction, and who we can trust. But be careful. Be discerning, know your enemies from your friends.”
“I will pray …” he said, leaving the offer hanging like his faith. “I will watch for your return with Evelina.”
The sun was high when we set out to the east. Two more vampires volunteered for my crew: Hari, a thousand year old from the most ancient city in India, and Pechu, born in Nagoya in the seventeenth century. It did not surprise me when the two older ones volunteered to accompany me. Though age is not a measure of loyalty, both vampires recognized my ancient nature, and they were both expert shots. I apprised them of my enemy as we rode to shore.
“Two shots, then,” Huitzilli said. “The fiends will need two each.”
“We must strategize our approach, ancient one,” Hari said. “The leader, this Rangu, will not leave himself in the open. If he has set a trap, he is prepared.”
“They obey him?” Pechu asked.
I told him I did not know how but explained what I had witnessed in my hill town.
“Zhi has doubled the poison in these,” Hari said, showing me the store of darts. “But perhaps I should double again.” He set to work melding the poison together, opening the bottom caps of the darts and making a stronger mixture.
“Is it harmless to us?” I asked.
“Not really,” Hari said. “A single shot of half a dose will paralyze the strongest of us.”
“Where does the poison come from?”
The vampire shrugged and looked back at the ship.
“Do we kill the nomad?” Pechu asked.
“Let me,” Huitzilli said. “He must suffer for taking Tepin.”
We understood one another, as if Evelina was the sealant between us. Captain Jem was the only misfit in our crew, but Hari kept him close, giving him a dart gun and showing him the most efficient way to reload. His hands shook for the lesson, but I was not concerned for the drunk. If he did not return with us, we would find another ski
pper.
Zhi considered himself too valuable to risk and wished us luck from the shore, refusing to disembark. “Send out a signal when you return,” he said. “We’ll be watching—waiting.” He handed us flare guns, and I tucked mine in my waist. It was not all that long ago he had forced the Damascus steel on me and left me to a similar fate. I knew my purpose then, though I was also driven by my desire to see my girl again. Evelina, my fierce novice, I am coming for you. That was my mantra all along, every step we took, every trail we followed. I am coming for you.
Facing the sunlight would make her fearless, and that gave me some comfort. We believe our seventy-five years of darkness prepare us for immortality. Once a vampire sees the sun again, he knows he will live forever. She may have suffered the fireball before her time but she has been inducted into its power nevertheless. She will recover from her burns, and when she does, she will know she is immortal. That is the strength that will drive her, the new power she wields. I am coming for you.
We traveled east through an overgrown landscape, abandoned fruit farms and large tracks of vibrant scapes that seemed resistant to the sun. Cypress lined the path, as we hustled to find a trail. It looked hopeless, though I suspected Rangu would make it easy for me. He wanted me to pick up his bait, surely, to find his trap. I just hoped he had not made her his as he had done with my others. I would turn to stone if so. I am coming for you.
The scenery was free of bloodless until we reached a small ravine in a valley, running through two hillsides. Several swarms had gathered on the slope opposite our position. They had not touched water yet, though they were headed toward the stream. We pushed forward, unafraid with our arms. Captain Jem clung to Hari, keeping his eyes closed most of the way. The bloodless sensed him and circled toward us.
“Shall we put them down,” Huitzilli said, pulling out his blowpipe and shooting off three darts before the other two had taken their first shot. Huitzilli was by far the superior warrior of the three. I stood guard, surveying our surroundings and the three vampires took down the swarms without getting closer than thirty feet. The bloodless dropped one by one and we traveled ahead. The sun was still high, revealing mid-afternoon.
The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) Page 42