The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3)

by K. P. Ambroziak

  “Do you miss him?” I asked, though he could have seen the question on my mind.

  “Terribly.” His voice sounded hollow.

  “Will you see him—” A thunderous knock banged at my door, and I practically flew off my stool.

  “Dagur!” The voice called.

  I spun around the studio in search of Vincent, but he had vanished.

  “Coming,” I said.

  I raced to the door and wrestled with the bolt before unlatching it. The sheets of transcription fell to the floor in my haste.

  Gerenios stood on the threshold, out of breath and shaken. “You are safe,” he said. “Good.”

  “What is happening?”

  He pushed past me, flinging the door closed behind him. He flew to the window and brought down the shutter, sealing me off from the light. “It’s too dark,” I protested.

  “Shush,” he said. “You must remain still.”

  “What is happening?”

  “Freyit has tracked it coming over the mountain.”

  “What?”

  Gerenios swung around and grabbed me by the shoulders. His touch was nothing like Vincent’s but his urgency undeniable. “You must remain quiet.”

  I whispered this time, “What is going on?”

  “There’s something you don’t know about the attacks.”

  “The hunter has returned?”

  “It’s not simply a hunter,” he said. “But a nimrod.”

  “What’s a nimrod?”

  “Freyit saw it first, from the watchtower in the south end.”

  “Saw what?”

  “It came in like a mist,” he said. “But when it stopped at the edge of the wall, he saw a figure clear as day. It’s the size of three men.”

  “Impossible.”

  “It is not, and it’s coming for you.”

  “Why me?” Hard as I tried, I could not hide the panic in my voice.

  “You must trust me, Dagur. The colony has set forces up all around your tower. It will not get in.”

  Gerenios worked to bolt the window where Vincent had perched on the sill, admiring the suspended sun.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know,” Gerenios said. “But you must trust us. We have planned for this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Gerenios put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me from getting up, trapping me on my cot, barring me from shuffling across the floor.

  “Nothing is getting in or out,” he said, raising a hand to his lips.

  With Vincent having breached my tower, I hardly found Gerenios’s words comforting.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” I said. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  Gerenios shrugged and said, “Impossible.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not your prisoner. My guardian didn’t leave me here to be kept in a cell.”

  “What do you know of him? Has he returned?”

  “My guardian?” All at once his identity seemed obvious, and I thought it was Vincent.

  “Has he returned?” Gerenios’s hands were resting on my shoulders and he shook me when he spoke. “Has your guardian returned?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gerenios sighed and released his hold on me. “You’d know him if he returned.”

  I stood up, and Gerenios blocked me with his body. “I just want to show you something,” I said.

  “I’ll get it,” he said. “You stay put.”

  “It’s on the table. The texts I’ve been transcribing.”

  He crossed the studio to my drafting table and held the light over it. “There’s nothing here.”

  “Of course it’s there.” I got up and rushed to his side, tossing the sheets from the surface of the table and then dropping to the floor to rifle through the sheaves that had fallen. “They’re blank,” I said.

  “What are?”

  “But it was here,” I said. “He must have taken it.”

  “Who?” Gerenios lifted me off the floor with a single hand and held me by the collar. “Who took it?”

  I looked into his face, and saw the man who had watched over me for more seasons than I could count. His loyalty was plain, but I lied and said, “My memory is playing tricks on me. I haven’t begun a new text yet.”

  “Has he returned?”

  “Who?”

  “Your guardian,” Gerenios said, urgently.

  “No.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I can see that he has. Why are you lying, Dagur?”

  “I’m not. I don’t recall my guardian so I can’t know if he’s returned.”

  “Who has come?”

  “No one.”

  Gerenios gave a soft nod, and guided me back to the cot. “Sit,” he said with a sigh. “There’s something you need to know.”

  He was about to shine light on some of the things Vincent had left obscure.

  “We started this settlement many seasons ago, before you arrived, as you know. You never asked why we are named the second colony, but there was a first.”

  “I never thought,” my voice got caught in my throat.

  “We escaped the first settlement,” he said. “Much like this one, something began hunting us there, too. Most of the colonists were killed before a small group of us left in the middle of the night, braving the wild seas to come here.”

  “Where was the first settlement?”

  “Far away from here,” he said. “You heard it mentioned in those journals.” He glanced back at my shelves to where the original texts lay. “They called it the Nortrak once upon a time.”

  “How long ago did you leave?”

  “Too many seasons ago now.”

  The air in the studio grew cold as Vincent’s deep timber struck it. “Not like this,” he said.

  I looked at Gerenios, who seemed unmoved by the sound of Vincent’s voice.

  “You have come,” Gerenios said, turning to greet the shadow as it rose up in the far corner.

  “Of course,” Vincent said. “I gave you ample warning.”

  “It’s time to leave,” Gerenios said. “The nimrod has returned.”

  “We shall not leave this time,” Vincent said.

  “But he comes for Dagur.”

  “He will not have him,” he said, “and no other settlers will suffer his wrath.”

  “Do you swear?”

  “I do,” Vincent said. “But I see your word is less honorable.”

  “He must know.”

  “He will in time.”

  “He doesn’t understand.”

  “He is not your responsibility anymore,” Vincent said, moving into the realm of the candlelight. I cringed at the face he wore, his metal teeth gleaming in the shine of the flame.

  “I’m sworn to him,” Gerenios said. “And to her.”

  “She sees your commitment but cannot ease your loss.”

  “I love the boy,” he said.

  Gerenios had never spoken of love, and when he mouthed something else, Vincent tightened his mystical grip about his larynx as he had often done with me, and cut off the sound.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Neither of them paid me mind, as Gerenios stepped forward for a face off with Vincent.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” The vampire flexed his fingers, and his claws grew in a split-second.

  “No choice,” Gerenios whispered, reaching for the dagger at his side.

  Gerenios was a large man, one I always saw as the warrior type, but standing in front of the vampire as he was, he shrank down to nothing. The tension between them was great, but they weren’t true enemies.

  “Everything in its time, Gerenios.”

  “The boy must know the truth,” he said. “You said once his guardian returned, I could tell him.”

  “Peter has not yet returned, has he?”

  “You have come in his stead, but he is with you.”

  “I have come alone,” Vincent said, “for the nimrod w
ho has risen once again belongs to no one but me.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Close,” he said, giving a nod in my direction. “He isn’t ready yet.”

  “Have you found her?”

  “No.”

  “What is to be done if you don’t?”

  “We will find her.”

  The men seemed to drop their guard anew, neither one aiming to injure the other.

  “You will tell him, then?” Gerenios asked.

  “All in good time.”

  Gerenios took in a deep breath and backed away. “As you wish,” he said.

  “He is safe for now,” Vincent said. “Do as I have advised, and the nimrod will not advance. Go back and lead the others. Your colony will not fall tonight.”

  Gerenios said no more, but dropped his head in obedience. He left without a backward glance, and not a word to me. He sealed the door from the outside, his steps growing faint as he bounded down the stairs to the earth below.

  Once Vincent and I were alone, I attempted to question him but he muted me again. “I see all of your questions,” he said. “They will be answered by the end.”

  I tried to keep my inquiry at the forefront of my mind but soon all my questions, save one, scattered to dark recesses, into the tombs in which thoughts go to die. I wanted to ask how Gerenios had lived so long, seeming so young.

  “You must return to your work,” Vincent said. “I am in the midst of my story and only your pen keeps it unfolding.”

  The scene I’d witnessed between he and Gerenios was half forgotten already, and I returned to my stool at the drafting table.

  “Take up the pen,” he said, holding it in midair for me. “Let us return to the facility in the Nortrak, shall we? I have said that Byron was one of the breadcrumbs Thetis had dropped for me to find. My mother had a plan, and my visit to the facility was a part of it. She needed to reveal certain things to me, events I had forgotten …”

  Youlan’s Reveal

  The reception chamber into which I had landed was unchanged, though I had fallen off a steep mental cliff and lost my bearings. The sterile room was empty, for I could sense Laszlo Arros’s abandonment, but the screen I had vandalized remained cracked.

  When a wall panel to my left opened, Youlan stood in the doorway, a long tunnel laid out behind her.

  “Come,” she said.

  “Where is Lucia?”

  “Come.” Her voice had not changed.

  I rushed her and sent her flying through the corridor. She crashed to the ground with a smile.

  “Come,” she repeated, pushing me off her. I had never experienced her strength on the ship, but I could see how hearty she was. She rose from the assault and stood with fists clenched and feet spread. “Come.”

  I raised my hand and drew a talon along her neck, and then placed a firm grip around her throat. “I will not follow you until you tell me where I can find Evelina’s child.”

  Heat rose on her skin and her eyes fired, violet and brilliant. “You,” she said. “Come.”

  “Me,” I smiled. “I will rain hellfire down on you before I take one step to follow you. Now, where is the child you took?”

  Her head bent from side to side, slowly. “Lucia is with Youlan.”

  “I have no time for games.” I stepped forward but she shot back, out of reach.

  “Where is she, Youlan?”

  “I am Kaysu.”

  “Kaysu?” I said. “Is that code for something?”

  “It is my name.”

  “Why did they call you Youlan on the ship?”

  “Youlan is with Lucia.”

  I anticipated her move as I made mine, pinning her against the wall. With my hand on her throat I detected the sincerity in her second attempt. “I am Kaysu,” she repeated.

  The spitting image of Youlan, she spoke the truth. When I had met Youlan on the ship, in Captain Jem’s quarters, she was an inch taller. Kaysu was a replica, an imperfect one, but a twin nevertheless.

  “Where is Lucia?” I pressed her into the wall.

  “Come.”

  “You will take me to her?”

  “Come.”

  When I released my hold on her neck, she dropped to the floor, but did not lose her balance. She turned on her heel, and bolted down the corridor, disappearing around the corner. I followed with no other leads for finding Lucia, her scent deadened by the stifling atmosphere below.

  Kaysu reached a hatch at the end of the corridor and waited for me. “Place your hand here,” she said, pointing to the pad on the wall. “It is the only way to go forward.”

  I obeyed and the hatch popped open. “Come,” she said, as she walked through the doorway into a corridor identical to the first.

  I sensed my Lucia, her scent seeping through a small vent at the end of the second corridor. If I could have torn down the wall to reach her, I would have.

  “She is through here,” I said. “How do I get there?” I lunged forward but Kaysu backed away.

  “Come,” she said.

  I pressed Kaysu into the wall nearest her, and swept her up, putting my arm about her waist and pulling her to the ground, pinning her down with my boot. “Take me to her,” I said.

  I admired her for a moment, as she melted into the floor, her body giving in to my power. She had Youlan’s waxy lips, but their pinkish hue made me curious. I drew close to her mouth and tasted metal, not blood.

  “Where is the child?” I crushed her beneath my full weight, and pushed my face up against hers. “Tell me now or I take off your head.”

  “Come,” she said, the word squeezing out of her taut mouth.

  “One more time,” I said.

  “Come.”

  I pushed my body off hers, and as I raised a set of claws to slash her neck, a voice rose up behind me.

  “Kaysu belongs to me.”

  I did not heed the interruption, for I had finished with games. My hesitation was brief before I launched my blades into Kaysu’s neck, cutting her head from her body with one swipe. Her head rolled away, as her decapitated body relaxed beneath my boot, her gory innards greasing the cement floor. Without turning to see the one to whom Kaysu belonged, I moved to the vent, and tried to pull off its grill.

  “Come,” the new one said, having rushed to the side of her fallen sister.

  “Take me to the child,” I said.

  She held up the head with the face that resembled her own, before letting it fall to the floor and kicking it to the side.

  “I am Youlan,” she said with a grin.

  “Another clone?”

  “Clone?” She scoffed and tossed a glance to the side. “I am original.”

  She bore differences to Kaysu, the most prominent one being her cherry-red lips.

  A dart of fear caught me, as I pictured her feeding on Lucia. She noticed the change in my expression and shook her head. “My master would kill me if I touched the child,” she said.

  “Laszlo Arros?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is the child?”

  She huffed and looked past me. “You didn’t remember me,” she said, as she moved toward me like an alligator through a swamp, slow but certain.

  “Where is your maker?” I asked.

  “Shall I take you to him,” she said.

  “Lead the way.”

  She did not move. “He has been waiting for you,” she said.

  Her stare piqued my wrath. “Let us go,” I said. “I am willing to follow you.”

  “You would not follow Kaysu.”

  “I followed Youlan to get here, and I will follow you—”

  “I am Youlan.” She bore insult badly. “Do you really not recall who I am?”

  “No.”

  “Shall I remind you?”

  “I would prefer if you took me to see Laszlo Arros so that I may pull his spine up through his throat and leave him a cripple.”

  She let out a sordid laugh that echoed up the corridor. “You said you wo
uld be funny the next time we met.”

  “You must be mistaken. I care little for humor and would never promise it to anyone.”

  “You did.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  She pulled her wrist up and looked at her watch. “Several minutes ago,” she said, “in your chamber.”

  I am certain I scowled at her, but she took it as an invitation to step forward and pull me into an embrace. I pushed her off and sent her flying back onto the floor.

  “You spurn my love,” she said.

  “What love?”

  “For Lucia,” she said. “For you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The result of a pregnant soul.”

  “What?”

  “You seek your most recent offspring, but shun the others.”

  “You are not mine,” I said, missing the point entirely. She had figured out that Lucia was mine.

  “I, like Lucia, make you immortal,” she said.

  I moved toward her and she did not back away. “Of what foolishness do you speak,” I said. “You are nothing to me.”

  She smiled and said, “You come into the womb to destroy the children you have made. I ought to peel away your stony flesh and burn your bones.”

  She crouched to the ground and then used force to propel her body through the air like Huitzilli’s, tossing herself like a snake from one branch to the next, ungraceful but effective. She passed over me, dragging the tips of her adamantine talons across my head, and landed with a crash, digging those same talons into the floor to stop her momentum. I turned to face her, poised as a bear might rise to greet a man.

  Her smile was gone but her irons were out. “Do you recognize me now?” She asked, dropping her head to the side as though straightening out a kink.

  “No.”

  Hate brightened her violet eyes, as her metal gleamed in the fluorescent light. “You are everything to me.”

  “You are nothing.”

  “You told me you would say that.”

  “You have imagined a past that does not exist.”

  “No.” She leaned forward. “I am Youlan.”

  “Where is Laszlo Arros?”

  “Everywhere.”

  She pointed upward to a hidden camera in the ceiling of the corridor which moved when she spoke. “He is omniscient.”

  “I see,” I said. “Let us not delay, then. Take me to him.”

  She stood up and straightened her back and walked calmly beneath the camera, jumping straight up and yanking the whole thing out of the wall. She brought the small device up to her face, and nodded at it.