Marek (Buried Lore Book 1)

by Gemma Liviero

The woman pressed my brow with a damp cloth and gasped when she pulled it away. It was covered in blood. I was sweating the blood I stole; the same blood that now caused me much regret.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ There was a mixture of horror and compassion in her face.

  ‘I believe I am dying.’ And I faded into nothingness as the first dark day of my dying began.

  For several nights I was occasionally woken to take sips of water. I struggled to read the thoughts of the woman and children after a while, until they were just a humming sound and a few whispers in my head. I was delirious, tossing and turning, my body rejecting me.

  I dreamed again of my mother, a lace scarf draped around her head so that her face was hidden. She whispered in my ear. I caught some of the words. Marissa told me I was her son, that she loved me and Ricco. She also said she would see me again. It was all dreams but it kept me at peace in between the ache in my bones and the pounding pain in my head. If I died now, it would be a good thing: there was a chance I would be with Mama.

  Then one morning the aches of my affliction vanished and there was no more blood. Several cloths the woman had washed while tending me hung to dry over the fireplace.

  The young girl sat on my bed. She twisted the stem of a lilac flower in her fingers. When she realised that I was awake and looking at her she stopped, instantly alert.

  ‘I found this,’ she said proudly.

  My lips were stuck together. She thought of something else.

  ‘Do you eat children when you’re well?’

  ‘No. They’re too bony.’

  ‘My brother says you eat children, especially girls.’

  ‘Well, your brother is a good story teller and he likes to frighten you.’

  The girl skipped outside to return with her mother.

  ‘You are better?

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You have eaten nothing for days. You must be starving.’

  I sat up too quickly and felt dizzy. There were pangs in my body that I had not felt for a long time. It was the hunger for human food and the smell of her cooking moistened my mouth.

  ‘You look so weak and skinny. You must rest a little longer.’ The children told me I talked in my sleep, that I kept calling out to my mother and father. I queried them as I was worried that I might have said things to shock them.

  ‘You did talk of wolves.’

  That evening I sat with the family at their table. The woman had cooked some barley and cabbage broth. For the first time in months, food tasted like it should, not bland and unappealing.

  After dinner, my belly full, I played a game with the children. They threw knucklebones from their palms onto the backs of their hand. They were amazed at first that I never dropped one. Then I did, so that the game would be fair.

  The next day I chopped some wood for the fire and felt strong enough to fix the woman’s broken fence. I calculated how many weeks it would take before I saw my father again.

  It was my last night with them and while we sat near the hearth, the children told me things, their bare toes close to the warmth. The boy talked about stories he had heard, tales about demons who stole children and boiled their bones.

  I laughed but it was forced as I hoped these children never experienced the terrifying realities. ‘You have a great imagination but you frighten your sister.’ I squeezed the littlest one’s nose and she squealed delightedly.

  This was the most peaceful I had felt in ages. But try as I would, the past refused to leave me. I was remembering poor Celeste who I had let down. And I was not sure if I could have done more to take Zeke with me. Oleander would surely have tried to kill us both for her motivation for possession was strong.

  That night I dreamed the same dream I had for many nights, only this time it was clearer, more in focus and not distracted by my sickness. Zeke was in the dungeon. He was screaming for me and the beasts were chasing him. Oleander was watching on and did nothing to intercept.

  I woke suddenly before the sun was risen. My head was filled with images of drawings I had seen in Oleander’s library. Pictures of children cowering in terror, displayed like wares in front of the grotesque, the soul takers.

  We do not kill children, Marek, they are too important to us alive…He will know freedom like he has never known.

  My heart skipped a beat. Oleander’s path to her ultimate goals had been in front of me all the time. I had to return.

  I gently shook the woman awake and told her I was leaving, explaining that I had a long journey ahead of me. She looked sad but wished me Godspeed, although taken aback that I had to go so suddenly. I kissed the sleeping children on their foreheads and sent them happy dreams.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ I whispered to the woman. I was no longer strong enough to read her thoughts clearly nor did human sounds amplify in my ears, or their blood tickle my nose. Could that mean I was truly cured? I would hurry now before more died.

  Zeke

  I was woken in the middle of the night by Jean. He asked me if I wanted to play a game.

  I rubbed my eyes awake. I could see his teeth and eyes in the dark. His teeth were always shiny. Jean helped me up and I went to take off my nightshirt to put my day clothes on. Jean said it didn’t matter if I was a little bit naughty and ran around in my nightshirt. He wouldn’t tell Oleander if I didn’t. It had been a while since Jean had played a game with me.

  He held a candle and his eyes now looked yellowy red and a little frightening. But then he smiled his big smile and I could not help but smile too.

  ‘We are going to play hide and seek in the house.’ I remembered that we played this game the day before Marek left. I fell asleep during the game and did not know who won. ‘It is so much better in the dark do you not think, Foxy?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. It all sounded very exciting now. We ran down the hallways and Jean did a silly jig and a skip. He was so silly and I giggled. Jean put his finger up to my lips. For some reason we could not make too much noise.

  ‘Who else is playing?’ There was no-one else around and the rest of the house was without light.

  ‘They are all waiting in the basement. Quickly!’

  Only a few candles were lit, enough to light up the strange faces on the walls. They looked creepy and their eyes seemed to follow me. I stopped looking. I did not like those people. There was something dead about the way they looked, as if they were lying in coffins.

  I liked living here. I could stay up late. At the parties, trays of food were offered: meat, cakes, cheeses. I could have as much as I liked but sometimes I ate so much I felt sick. When I was with my mama and papa I would have two meals a day. Sometimes only one, and sometimes only bread.

  Before I came here Zola told me I would live in a place where my stomach would never be empty, and she had been right. Zola was my friend, my best friend, and I loved her almost as much as Mama. Poor Mama. I thought she would have loved it here too. Sometimes though I struggled to remember what she looked like. She died but I cannot remember how.

  Jean was smiling at me. Sometimes when he grinned like that I remembered the gypsy jesters. They frightened me when I was a baby. I would hide my face in Mama’s dress. I hated Papa but I could not say that to anyone for it was disloyal. I often imagined he was coming at my mama and me with his stick to beat us. I did not miss him at all.

  Jean said I was his special friend. He liked to play and jest. Not like Marek. He could be very serious at times. Always the one at the parties to tell me it was time for bed, sometimes carrying me if I was really sleepy. I wondered if he would come back here, from wherever he was, to play the game. I felt better when he was around though I could not really say why.

  ‘Now Foxy, we must hurry. You will be so surprised at this game. The others are waiting.’

  Others? Perhaps he has brought other children to play with us. Perhaps this is the big surprise. I once heard Oleander talking to Jean when they thought I was occupied with something else. Oleander promised J
ean more children would come.

  We entered a hallway. I had never seen this before, or had I? It was so far from my room. We went into a strange room where an ugly man was on a large painting. I did not like his tiny eyes. A secret door in the wall opened and we entered some dark stairs. This looked familiar but of course I had never been here.

  We were in a huge room, almost the size of the ballroom, with a high ceiling. It was painted with pictures of flying creatures like the statues on the front stairs. Torches lit up a stone table in the centre of the room. Oleander stood beside it and I remembered my nightshirt. Would she be angry? She always said I must dress my best for every occasion. Jean had not told me she would be here.

  There was darkness in the corners of this room and I heard noises like shuffling and murmurs. My neck felt cold and tingly all of a sudden. I was scared. This did not feel like a game, and where were all the others?

  ‘Come,’ said Oleander brightly. And I did. For everyone was afraid of her, including me.

  ‘Are you going to play our game?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said but she was looking at Jean. Oleander had never played a game with me before so this must be special.

  ‘Where’s Zola?’

  ‘She’ll probably be here soon.’

  I hoped so because I wanted her to be merry too. She had been looking miserable lately. I liked the smell of her hair. It stayed in my room long after she kissed me goodnight.

  Oleander seemed different tonight. She was frowning and smiling at the same time, looking at me strangely but not really seeing. As if pretending I wasn’t there. It was the same face my mother used when she would tell me that father would be home shortly.

  As pretty as she was, I did not like Oleander much, though if I said that, she might ask me to leave.

  ‘Come here!’ said Oleander sharply, suddenly squeezing my hand so tightly that it hurt. She lifted me up on the table. I was amazed at how strong she was for a girl.

  ‘Foxy,’ said Jean. ‘I want you to close your eyes and count to twenty. Can you count that far?’

  ‘Of course,’ I lied. Perhaps they wouldn’t hear me only count to ten while they were running to find their hiding places. Zola was teaching me to count and read.

  The stone table was cold and hard. Jean wrapped a scarf around my eyes. There was a sound of something sliding and then I felt someone’s breath close to my cheek and then it was gone.

  ‘Do I start now?’

  There was no answer. I felt totally alone. Except now there was another sound, like heavy breathing – so close, I could smell foul breath. I lifted up one side of the scarf. At first there was nothing. Then I turned my head and screamed.

  Zola

  Zeke was not in his room. I had been sleeping when I was quite suddenly woken by his thoughts. He was excited and somewhere in the castle with Jean. That alone concerned me.

  I stopped and closed my eyes to concentrate, to produce a vision in my mind. They were in the dungeon. Why? The underground was for transferrals and imprisonment only. I had seen a strange look in Jean’s eye lately. He was not telling me something. Ever since I suggested, on Marek’s behalf, that perhaps he was not meant to become a strigoi, I had been left out of Oleander’s private counsel.

  I went to her library but she was not there. Oleander had banned festivities tonight. She did that sometimes at her whim. We never questioned her motives on such things.

  There was a scream, faint, only a strigoi could hear it. I was no longer hearing Zeke’s thoughts. It was totally black.

  I ran through the halls fearfully. Please Jean, not Zeke. Not my little Zeke.

  ‘Marek!’

  Chapter 13

  Marek

  As I approached the castle in the distance I imagined someone calling my name. Bats silhouetted across the luminous night sky. There was an energy in the air: a force I could not quite grasp. Something bad was about to happen.

  I ran now, not as fast as in my strigoi form, but still faster than most. I burst through the front door. There was no feasting this night with the ballroom eerily empty. I knew exactly where to go. Something flew at me as I ran down the hallways. It was one of Oleander’s loyal flock. A female strigoi, her eyes flashing and lips drawn back, lunged at me and I pushed her aside. She was weak at best.

  Then, faintly, somewhere in my consciousness, I heard what I believed were Zola’s cries for help.

  Zola

  I rushed through the door of the cellar to see Zeke lying still on the stone table. Oleander and Jean were there also. Jean was bending over Zeke, breathing in his life. But no, wait…

  I was wrong. He was breathing his own life into Zeke, whose arms were covered in bite marks. I rushed at Jean and pushed him to the ground. I had to stop this transfer.

  Oleander shouted at me. ‘Out!’ She pointed her finger at me and I was flung back against the wall. Something in my back snapped. I tried to stand but I could not feel my feet. My back was broken. I needed to heal myself quickly. There was movement from the corner of my eye. It was the grotesque ones. They had smelt the blood of Zeke and crept out from the corners of the room to watch. They were allowed out of their cages, perhaps to witness what they too could have if they chose it. They had also used the commotion as a distraction to step closer, to salivate near fresh blood in the centre of the room.

  ‘Stay back!’ commanded Oleander, and they did. They had all felt her wrath at some point.

  I hurried. In their starved and demented states of desperation, they might feed on me. Oleander sent them pigs’ blood to pacify them, barely, but animal blood was never enough to satisfy a strigoi.

  Jean looked at me. ‘Sorry, Zola.’ But his apology was hollow and there was no remorse in his expression.

  I watched helplessly while my recovery cost precious minutes. Jean bent over Zeke once more and I noticed something next to the boy that I had not seen before. An animal lay sleeping.

  ‘Hurry Jean, his body is dying,’ ordered Oleander.

  And then Jean was again breathing his soul into Zeke. My bones clicked into place and I was barely healed by the time I stood, this time using the remains of my strength to send Jean through the air against the wall. His body slipped to the floor but it was just his empty shell.

  I had not only witnessed this process before, I had been part of it. For humans, their wrists, arms and neck were cut and bitten, and once sufficiently bled and weakened, the strigoi forced their soul into the human body, driving the original host soul out. The strigoi, now the new body host, breathed out the human soul into another form – human, animal and more recently objects. I’m glad Marek never witnessed any of this for his own sanity.

  ‘Too late!’ said a voice behind me.

  I turned. It was Zeke and I put my arm out to him. I could no longer feel him or read his mind. His smile, knowing and wise, was that of Jean. The transfer had been successful.

  I turned to Oleander. ‘Why?’

  ‘You dare question me? It is clear I cannot trust you. It seems you were not so alert the day you searched for Pietro or maybe you are just not as clever as you think you are. Our Celestina followed you and hid in the river to watch you allow his escape. You will stay down here until you learn loyalty once more.’

  The wolf was waking and he sniffed the air. He stood up, trembling – his legs unsteady – then jumped from the table, landing awkwardly. He hobbled towards me to whimper and nuzzle my hand. This was Zeke, now imprisoned in the body of the wolf. I buried my head in his soft fur and cried blood tears.

  There was a crashing sound as the door to the dungeon was smashed open. Marek stood in the ruins.

  He should have stayed away for I had surely caused his end too.

  Marek

  Jean was collapsed on the floor and at first I was relieved that there was no life there. Then my senses adjusted and I knew what had happened. I had seen this in my nightmares.

  ‘Zeke?’

  He stared at me, not in his normal i
nquisitive way but one of challenge. I knew then that I was too late.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jean casually as if consoling an old friend.

  ‘You are what’s wrong. All of you!’ I shouted, my voice bouncing off the walls. ‘Oleander you cannot do this. I cannot allow it. You must transfer him back. You promised no children.’

  ‘The writing was there all along, and the best chance of survival. We must break code and use them for the purposes of transferral,’ said Oleander.

  ‘Why Zeke?’

  ‘There must be sacrifices.’

  I saw Zola for the first time, tears falling on the wolf. I was remembering the wolf in the forest and its human memories. That same animal had followed me here. Perhaps it thought that in some way I could have helped him, instead, I killed him.

  ‘Why now? Why not free his soul rather than trap him forever.’

  ‘It must be very joyful for a child to live out their fantasy. Children love animals, Marek. I have given him a new chance. He will discover new adventures in the forest. I had grown quite fond of the boy. You could say I did it for love.’

  ‘You do not lie well. It is not love, Oleander. You think by putting him in a wolf’ from that this in some way absolves you from taking children when it was not in your code.’

  ‘This is my code now. I can break it and change it as I please.’

  I stepped forward and Jean nodded to the dark recesses of the room.

  Suddenly, I was surrounded by those pitiful, imprisoned beasts, pining for my blood. They had been promised a feed and would not miss an opportunity. Perhaps Oleander knew I was coming, which was why they were released. One grabbed me with long fleshless fingers, its breath nauseating. I pulled my dagger and swung wildly at it. The dagger sliced through its malnourished middle and it fell to the floor weakly, trying to heal itself. Another sunk its teeth into my back. I grabbed at its throat until it fell on the floor and then I sliced through its brittle neck bone.

  Several more hovered and I rushed at them. They scurried back into their corners like mice.