Marek (Buried Lore Book 1)

by Gemma Liviero

  ‘You took a long time,’ she said. ‘Where is Pietro?’

  ‘He is gone for good,’ and I glanced away from her eyes and feigned weariness.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He is dead. I killed him...’

  ‘That was not your decision to make,’ she said angrily.

  ‘It was either him or me. Pietro is still cunning. He may be weak but he tried to kill me. See?’ I held up my arms. ‘He proved to be very difficult.’

  ‘Where are his remains?’

  ‘Your rule has been applied concerning fallen strigoi. His ashes have been scattered to the winds.’

  ‘You should have healed yourself by now,’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘I was too weak from the fight. Killing another strigoi took nearly every ounce of strength.’

  Oleander rubbed her hand over my wounds, which sizzled then disappeared beneath clear skin. ‘You see I am always doing something for you to make your life better.’

  I nodded my thanks and waited for her dismissal.

  ‘Zola,’ she said. ‘If you are lying…’ It was a warning and I dreaded the coming days, when she would no doubt be watching every movement. It was best not to say anything further lest I give some truth away.

  A carriage arrived at the front entrance, which distracted Oleander. ‘Jean is back and I think he has company.’

  Jean entered arm in arm with a harlot, the bodice of her dress barely covering her breasts, and an older man of considerable wealth but of little worth. They were humans and their minutes were measured now.

  Jean took my hand and kissed it much to the disappointment of the human girl, who took his hand off mine possessively and began to kiss his neck.

  He pulled her away. ‘Not yet my dear. The pleasure will be over much too soon if you keep that up.’ Jean looked at me seductively, to include me in his secret meaning.

  The three disappeared into the ballroom and I followed quickly to avoid further scrutiny from Oleander.

  Already people were arriving for the feast. I found my corner and took a seat. Several would-be suitors asked me to dance but I was not interested. I looked the other way.

  Marek was there and my world was alive once more. He looked more dashing than normal. His face was no longer olive but pearlescent against black velvet, which suited him well. He noticed me, waved, and headed in my direction but Celestina suddenly appeared out of thin air to whisper in his ear. He looked at me reluctantly before following her to the dance floor and I could not help but notice the rage that burned behind Jean’s eyes.

  Jean

  I was so sick of him. Oleander was always talking about him as if he was the saviour of us all, something her soothsaying mother once saw, and I had to feign interest. I believed he was more likely to be the downfall of our coven than anything else. She thought he was the greatest find for our circle. I tried telling her; though, now adept at taking a life, he had still not taken a soul.

  ‘In time,’ said Oleander. But she did not see him like I did. There was something sickeningly good about him that did not sit well within the confines of a strigoi world. I was convinced that he would not go the distance. I would find some way to expose him as a fraud. Once I did, she would again pay more attention to me and perhaps humour me with some of my more unconventional suggestions. In our conversations I had already felt that she believed in my ideas. There was one in particular for which I had planted a seed many months earlier. Oleander knew from her books and her own ponderings that what I was offering was an appropriate activity to extend the life of our coven but I had yet to gain her final approval. A most annoying thing it was to require someone’s approval.

  And then there was Celestina. She agreed with everything I said and was more loyal to me than anyone else. It was my exquisite company she had long desired. Anyone in my company agreed that I was still the most handsome of the male strigoi. Yet even as I thought this, I was aware that something had to be done to make me perfect again, even if that meant an extremely unconventional method, and one that went against the ancient strigoi code.

  Marek

  After the dance with Celeste I went in search of Zola but she had left. Celeste followed me, detecting my disinterest in her this evening and looking for ways to engage me.

  ‘Let’s play a game of hide and seek,’ she suggested, ‘for it will be good for sad-faced Zeke.’

  Poor Zeke. She was right about him. He did not look happy these days. There were no children for him to play with and he thought often of his mother. This I knew from reading his thoughts. That sense was heightened now and I enjoyed listening to the thoughts of humans: their petty worries, their dreams and desires.

  Jean was bored of Zeke. Now only Zola spent any time with the boy. I suspected that Zola also kept a watchful eye on him at night in case there were those who had other ideas, though Oleander assured me that while strigoi were dangerous they were not uncivilised.

  It seemed Oleander’s plan for Zeke was that he would ultimately be a servant. It was not much of a destiny but perhaps it was the safest place for him in our world.

  Celeste returned with her recruits: Zeke whose eyes had lit up with the suggestion of a game, and to my dismay, Jean. I smiled indifferently at him and he did the same. The four of us dispersed into the vastness of the castle with its endless hallways and rooms.

  At the top of the ballroom stairs there were two corridors leading to the east and west wings, and each wing had its own maze of passageways to various part of the palatial abode. My room was in the east wing where some of the more casual strigoi guests stayed from time to time.

  Somewhere in the corridors running west were Oleander’s and Jean’s chambers. I had, since my time there, only wandered from Oleander’s library near the entrance, to the great hall and to my room or Zola’s room in the eastern wing. So there was still much to see.

  I heard running feet in both directions as I began to count. Zeke could hardly suppress his squeals of excitement in the distance. I commenced the chase down the eastern corridor and then changed my mind to head west where Zeke had moved out of sight. My instinct told me to be near the boy. Portraits of men and women lined the walls. Most were notably unattractive, nothing like those of us at the feasts.

  Oleander, by Zola’s accounts and others – as I had spoken now to many strigoi in the fold – was credited with showing great strength as a child and her following started back then. She was smart and quick at her tasks and showed the other strigoi how to live without fear. She came to this house to learn from another: an ancient by the name of Lewis. It was said that he had lived for centuries.

  I could sense that Celeste was somewhere in the east wing. Zeke and Jean were together in the west. Zeke’s laugh trickled down the corridors from somewhere ahead and I caught a glimpse of Jean’s coattails.

  I ran into a room, empty but for clothes strewn on the floor. I tried several more doors but they were not there. I turned to the right and soon arrived at a dead end. I still felt their presence with Zeke’s thoughts hanging in the air. I burst into the closest room but there was no-one. Several candles were lit around another portrait; the face of a man was illuminated in a circle of light. He had an angular face, intelligent eyes, and draped in coloured robes like a priest, and obviously from a time before mine.

  Although empty, the presence of others was very much alive. I could hear Zeke’s heart beating fast. I pulled apart heavy red curtains on the back wall to reveal a door. Through this I saw stairs leading down into darkness. My shoes shuffled and echoed on each stair as I headed downwards into what I could only describe as a black hole.

  Jean’s sickly sweet cologne led the way but more noticeably an earthy smell filled my nostrils, of other strigoi nearby. Oleander had also been here recently.

  I was alerted by new sounds and thoughts. It was Zeke again but this time excitement was replaced by distress and the sounds of whimpering. At the base of the stairs I pushed open a heavy wooden door to enter a
vast chamber nearly as big as the great hall. Several doors led off from this room with caged fronts. Marble columns surrounded a stone structure in the centre.

  I approached it cautiously. There were whisperings and I sensed so many of my own kind. This distracted me until I heard shuffling just out of my vision. I turned to see Zeke but no sign of Jean.

  Some grotesque being had enfolded him in its arms. Demon-like yellow eyes glared at me through peeling mottled skin, not unlike the old crone who had arrived at the island. It was hairless, its bones protruding. There was a rancid stench of rotting flesh. One long taloned finger rested on Zeke’s throat. When I stepped towards it, the creature hissed at me, revealing long carnivorous teeth. It held Zeke tighter and I could see and smell the faintest pinprick of blood on his neck.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked.

  ‘Stay away! This one’s mine,’ it said in rasped, broken speech. There was an animal-like possessiveness about this creature and I was fearful now that Zeke would quickly become its food.

  I knew I must destroy this thing when several more stepped out from cages now opened, surrounding me. I grabbed the creature around its neck and pieces of its flesh came off in my hands. Fooled into believing this was a weakling I was thrown back and lost my balance falling hard on the floor, my chest winded. This was a living gargoyle since there was no other word to describe such ugliness, with the power of a strigoi. I closed my eyes and pushed the creature backwards with my mind but it still would not let Zeke out of its hold. More grotesque creatures advanced, close enough to smell their hot and putrid breath.

  ‘Enough!’ Jean stepped into the light. The creatures hissed at him as they bent their heads submissively, retreating slightly. The boy was then released.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked Jean, breathlessly, a firm and protective arm around Zeke who was trying hard not to look at the beasts. For the first time I was relieved to have Jean’s company.

  Jean laughed. ‘You mean you do not recognise your own kind?’

  Lies! That was not possible. These were vile demons, not like the magnificent strigoi I mixed with.

  ‘Neve!’ called one of the creatures, its gaze directed to the room’s entrance.

  I turned to see that Celeste had entered. She looked shocked at first and then a mixture of disgust and shame washed across her face before she ran from the room. The creature who had called out the name started to wail – horrible shrieking sounds – before several others dragged it away. I was now horrified to see that the dark rooms, surrounding us, were full of similar beasts; most prevented from leaving by iron bars across their cells. This was a prison.

  ‘You are lying. These are not strigoi.’

  ‘Why should I lie? There is nothing to gain by it.’ There was an element of spite in his words. I sensed nothing but malice and disliked the way he kept glancing at Zeke as if to devour him. Zeke held on to me tightly, his face burrowed into my coat, as he attempted to block out the ghastly scene.

  ‘These are strigoi. Beings just like us except returned to our original form. For that is the price of immortality my friend. You have to find a new body every few years if you want to stay looking handsome.’ He laughed again. ‘It is happening to me now and I am in the market for a new one.’ He looked me up and down with the hungry smirk of a cat. ‘Though there are better, younger bodies than yours. I would prefer your soul instead.’

  I took a cautionary step backwards.

  ‘It won’t hurt a bit. Oleander will be angry for a while but she will soon see my way, and I will make up some story about how you tried to kill me first. She idolises me far above you.’

  Jean stepped towards me again and I found that I was unable to move my legs, forced to release my hold of Zeke. My untrained power was no match for his. He leaned forward and drew back in a great breath, breathing me in. A rush of blood rose up through my body; so powerful was this force that I tasted blood in my mouth.

  ‘Jean!’ There was a sudden release and I collapsed on the floor. ‘What are you doing?’

  Zola bent down to me. ‘Are you all right?’ I nodded, wiping away a drop of blood, which had escaped my mouth. Zola was angry. ‘You should not be here.’

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It is a dungeon…’ She was afraid to tell me. ‘Jean, you should not have released them,’ and with her power she slammed the cell doors shut to retain the ghoulish escapees.

  I pushed past them roughly, taking Zeke with me who was whimpering like a dog, still fearful that there were creatures lurking in the fringes of the room. I would ask Oleander. She would surely explain that I was not like one of those creatures and nor were the strigoi in the ballroom. Though the look on Zola’s face told me what I feared the most.

  Chapter 11

  Marek

  As I headed through the hallways, Zeke tightly in my arms, I passed the open door of one of the guestrooms. I didn’t know the strigoi inside but I had seen him before. He was absorbing the blood from a woman who had arrived by carriage earlier that night. A human no doubt tricked into thinking it would be a wonderful night, tantalised by the beauty of her strigoi host. Her dead husband’s jewels and inheritance to be taken and pocketed by the soul taker but only after every ounce of blood had been siphoned first, and her body discarded in the canal like so many before her. In the corners of the room, several other strigoi waited eagerly for their turn.

  Back in my room I did not show fear to Zeke, and neither could I let him out of my sight. He looked silently at me for some sort of answer but there was nothing I could think to say. His eyes were puffy and red-rimmed and his thoughts were wild. I carried him to my bed and touched his forehead. Heat radiated from my hand and he fell asleep in seconds, the memories of the evening erased.

  My window faced the moon, which lit a pathway through the tall trees, showing the way out of here. The fall of snow had eased. Some of the strigoi were leaving the festival, their light banter travelling on the breeze. No human could see or hear these. By the time they thought they heard a sound, or felt the rush of wind, there would just be the flutter of leaves, and a few light indents in the snow.

  I paced the room. My head was noisy and full. Sounds from the gala below were magnified in my head making it hard to think. Slowly I shut them out with my craft, something Zola taught me. Once clear of sound I was free to assess. Zeke was in danger here. Zola could not always be here to watch over him, though I could not completely trust her either. In fact, there was no-one here for me. My own life was on a knife’s edge. The encounter with Jean had confirmed this.

  Questions swirled through my head. Why was I here? What was Oleander’s real purpose for me? I was nothing more than a murderer – a villain and an enemy to my poor loving father and other humans. Why had I not seen that until now? Had I been hexed? I remembered my recent kills and the sudden dawning of my crimes weighed like a cloak of lead around me. What would my father say? He would look at me in horror. He would disown me and it would be his right. For I was no longer the son he thought I was.

  I felt a surge of anger and picking up a book I threw it across the room hitting the doll that Irene had given me. It crashed against the wall and fell to the floor, splitting open the delicate head of the figurine. A piece of parchment, folded tightly, was wedged inside. It would have been painstakingly fed through a small hole in the bottom.

  It was a letter scrawled. Someone had hurriedly written this and the style changed slightly from time to time like the author had paused and left the writing table. I looked at the bottom to see that it was signed from Irene.

  Dear Marek, I pray that you read this in time. Oleander searches my thoughts constantly to see if I am loyal. I have learnt to lock thoughts away in my mind from years of being a servant in this house, but I am getting older now and it is not so easy. I fear my time is short on this earth and to be honest, I am now looking forward to moving to the next world. If I stay here I might not even have that chance.

  Marek,
when I saw you I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was a mixture of sadness and relief that you turned out so well. However, I do not know if you are a strigoi or not. You know that there is a difference between a strigoi and a witch, Marek. A witch, at least, has a human soul.

  Nothing is as it seems in this house. Make no mistake, the strigoi are demons. You know they weren’t always this way. It is the choices they made and it is Oleander and her new breed who have taken on this darkest and oldest of witchcraft: the stealing of human shells in their quest for perfection.

  Your mother left here many years ago. She wanted a different world for her child, Oleander.

  We met Ricco travelling south, a wonderful man and it breaks my heart to know that, in the right place, Marissa and he could have had a wonderful life together, and Oleander would have perhaps turned out differently.

  Before your mother was caught and imprisoned in a filthy cell to live with vermin, she asked me to take her daughter far away to prevent the same fate. She believed that her daughter would have a better chance with me. How sad she would be today if she saw that it wasn’t true, that I had failed her trust and brought her child back to this horror.

  I am ashamed to say that it is because of me we came back here. And knowing that your sister had the craft I could not bear to see her suffer the same fate as your poor mother. She was ten at the time and we were starving. It was a fierce winter. I was a single woman without means. I begged for our food. Oleander was so scrawny I did not think she would last the winter for she had not yet come into her craft. That was when I decided to return to Lewis. He took us both back.

  I do not have much time. I wish I could tell you more. You are in danger Marek: real danger. They are changing you into something that you are not. They have been poisoning your wine with human blood.

  There are people here who will consider you a threat to their own power. Do not trust anyone and leave if you still can.