Sangio sat in his father’s chair, swiveled towards the familiar view of the vineyard, and breathed in the essence of his father. Not sure whether to smile or cry, Sangio leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, choosing to recall only the good memories.
This is where the nurse, Stacey, found him an hour later, unmoving, and looking so grave that she wasn’t all that convinced that her employer wasn’t dead. Sensing her presence, Sangio opened his eyes quickly, causing Stacey to jump, as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment for the second time that day.
Sangio jumped to is feet.
“Has there been a change?” Sangio’s brow's creased together.
“No sir. I’m sorry. We just wanted you to know that her wounds are cleaned and dressed, and we have started an IV drip with antibiotics and pain medication to keep her sedated. The wound on her head is wrapped tightly, and though we don’t understand why, she has stopped bleeding. She has several bruises, including a very large bruise on her inner thigh, so we though it best to do a full body check for broken or sprained bones that we may have missed. There are several bruises, however most are already at least a week or so into the healing stage. The fresh ones appear to be on her shoulders, wrist, and the inner thigh as I said before. We also iced, and then wrapped her wrist, as it appears to be sprained. We are pretty confident it's not broken,” Stacey updated him.
“Thank you! You were thorough. Honestly, I hadn't even noticed an injury to the wrist,” Sangio said as he rushed towards Jessie's door, only to be stopped by Beth.
“No you don’t!” she said pointing at Sangio’s clothing. “This is a sterile room, and you need to change your clothes at the very least, although I recommend a hot shower.”
Sangio looked down at his clothes, covered in dried blood. He hadn’t even realized he had Jessie’s blood on his hands and arms, and when he went into the bathroom he could see it on his chin and neck.
Sangio laughed, remembering a time when the tiniest drop of blood would turn him into a vicious monster, ripping the throats of poor, unsuspecting people whose only mistake was getting a paper cut, or scratching themselves on a branch as they walked in the park. The fact that he could sit in the same car with a woman bleeding profusely, for multiple hours could be called a miracle, but miracle was a grotesque understatement.
Barely ten years ago, before the release of Polyheme in 2003, it would not have been possible. As a matter of a fact, the thought of a pseudo-blood coming in the convenience of powder form was completely overboard. The fact that it quenched the thirst when mixed with water was groundbreaking in a way that scientists would never have the pleasure of knowing. Phasing from blood to a man made hemoglobin-based oxygen supplement was difficult, but after almost seven years, Sangio’s body was content living off the Polyheme, the same way a human body could switch from a carnivorous diet to that of a vegetarian.
Showered and changed into clean clothes, Sangio once again rushed to Jessie’s quarters, and was pleased with the care the nurses had given her, not missing a single detail. If only Jessie could see the effort her nurses put into her care. Besides the medical needs, the nurses opened the drapes, letting the sunlight beam into the room. The old bed curtains were taken down, minimizing the heaviness from the air, and a thin, pink drapery hung from the two bed posts on either side of Jessie’s head. The winter comforter was replaced with a light, floral blanket, and a creamy yellow sheet set replaced the hunter green flannel sheets they walked in to.
At least one nurse found the rose garden. On every open flat surface, there was an array of roses, pink Tiffany’s, cottage roses, white Glamis castles, golden miniatures, tea roses of every color, and Versilia, the June peach, which had been his mother’s favorite. The roses were on the window sills, armoire, vanity, bedside tables, and there was even a fresh bouquet in the bathroom.
Jessie was changed into a simple white cotton nightgown, and modestly covered to hide the tubes from the IV. Her golden curls were pulled back and neatly woven in a braid, to keep it from getting snarled and tangled. Even her injuries, though he expected them to heal at an accelerated pace, looked better. Her head was dressed with fresh, sterile bandages, and the swelling had lessened, leaving many forms of discoloration due to the massive bruising. All things considered, the nurses did not disappoint. Too sad for words, Sangio nodded his head in approval, showing a silent gratitude to the nurses.
After a few minutes, Sangio spoke. “Please let me have a few moments with her. You have done a remarkable service to Jessica. Now, take some time for yourselves. I will call you when I’m ready.”
After the nurses had left, Sangio sat gently on the bed next to Jessie. He reached under the cover, and held her hand, feeling deep pangs of anger as he felt the gauze, knowing that was one more affliction of Dave. Jessie couldn’t feel his cold flesh through the gauze. She was sedated so she couldn't have felt his hand anyway.
Sangio leaned down near Jessie’s ear, smelling her sweet scent that was still alluring even in the presence of the antiseptics and other sterile smells. He loved the smell since the day she fell into his campsite. When he carried her back from the cliff, he wore her scent for days. It seemed so long ago, but it had been less than a week since he and Jessie went to the cliff and went shopping for trinkets. He didn’t even remember what he bought. He didn’t care about any of it. It was simply a way of spending the day with Jessie. His ploy.
Dave! Had he known how often Sangio considered killing him, he would have fled days before, especially after Sangio saw Jessie’s bruises at camp. He had to get out of there, as his anger was not within his control, but he should have stayed. He should have killed Dave then, and Jessie would have been fine. In the end though, Jessie will fully recover, but Dave will pay for his grave error. Sooner or later, Dave will pay. Sangio set Jessie’s hand back down gently, and started pacing the room, blaming himself for Jessie’s near death, knowing he could have prevented it, knowing he failed to protect her.
This wasn’t the first time Sangio failed to protect those he loved, and it was this thought that brought Sangio’s mind back to his thirty-fourth birthday in the mid 1800’s at the Danvonne Mansion.
Chapter 20
The winter of 1860 was unseasonably cold, but that was not a deterrent for Sangio to stroll the barren vineyard before making his way back to the grand ballroom to celebrate his thirty-fourth birthday. He was pumping himself up for a feast, followed by a long night of dance. Knowing his father and brother, he expected to find the eligible bachelorettes seated to his left, right, and a row of three in front of him. Resigned to play out the evening laid out before him, Sangio kicked a clod of dirt across the frosted grass and headed back to the mansion.
The buffet table was filled to the brim with dripping meats, glistening fruit, and piles of potatoes. The loaves of bread and baskets of rolls, freshly brought in from the kitchen, still had warm steam coming off of them. Everywhere you looked there was a new dish. Pots of venison stew, roasted pig surrounded by pearl onions, baby carrots and red potatoes, roasted duck with fresh cranberry jelly, gravies, salads, butter. Fine china, crystal and silver lined the perimeter of the table, which ran the entire length of the room, seating over one hundred of their closest friends, and in this case, a few new ones, as well. Crowding the table further were vats of wine, whiskey, rum, and ale for all to indulge in. The feast would make a king blush. And sure enough, the women outnumbered the men three to one.
“Go on in little brother.” Drake came up behind Sangio and gave him a slight nudge forward, into the crowded room. “They’re just ladies you know. They don’t bite.”
“It’s not the bite that concerns me. I happen to like the bitey ones,” Sangio laughed, pushing back on his brother.
“Come on, San. Don’t buy into that family curse crap. Our women are not destined to die young,” Drake tried to assure his little brother, slapping his heavy hand down on Sangio's shoulder.
“Brother, if you truly felt that way, why aren�
�t you remarried by now? Or Father, surely he would have liked to make an honest woman out of one of the many visitors he has had,” Sangio reminded him.
“You could not be more wrong, San,” Drake disagreed with a saddened voice, likely remembering the passing of his young wife who died only two years into their marriage of cholera. “You confuse a grieving heart with a fearful heart. Women were not built to endure plagues and injury as we men are. It’s a sad fact, but not an excuse never to settle down. But tonight brother, we celebrate life.”
Drake shoved his little brother farther into the room where Sangio was soon enough lost to the feast, flirting, dancing, drinking, and celebration of his life.
When the band ran out of songs and steam, the fireplaces ran low on wood, and the wine vats started to run dry, Sangio escorted the last of his party mates to their carriages, laughing and making plans to put together a hunting party soon. Sangio waved the carriages away, pleased with the night’s events. Though, at this point, it was nearing morning.
Sangio turned around and headed back to the mansion when he noticed that one of his party guests was sitting on the garden bench near the koi pond. Sangio immediately jogged towards the lady, concerned because of the bitter cold night. Surely her carriage would not have departed without her. Hoping this was not a ploy by Drake to make sure he had a companion for the night, Sangio called out to the lone woman.
“My lady?” Sangio beckoned, but she did not turn towards him.
He reached forward, tapping her shoulder lightly. When she still didn’t move, Sangio assumed she had overindulged on his free flowing spirits of the night. After calling out to her a couple more times and getting no response, he lifted her.
She had a slight frame, and despite the bulk of her black ball gown with long, thick layers of silk over additional layers of a cotton undergarment, she was extremely easy to lift, for dead weight.
Amused, and curious as to the identity of this petite, freezing, drunken lady, Sangio looked down upon her and was taken aback when he didn’t recognize her from the party., He quickly shrugged it off because most of the kerosene lanterns had been snuffed out as the last of the guests departed, therefore making it difficult to see her features clearly
Suddenly, the woman’s eyes flew open. They were blacker than a moonless night. Her pupils appeared to have swallowed the irises, and the margins of her eyelids were tinted lust-red. Just as quickly as she opened her eyes, she reached up around his neck. Alarmed by her rapid movement and unexpected strength, Sangio tried to pull her farther from his body, but she was clinging to him as a tick to a hunting dog.
“Father!” Sangio screamed as the pale woman pulled herself to his neck, sinking her fangs into the jugular, and spilling his blood into her mouth, down her throat, and settling in her now filling belly.
Sangio, feeling himself weakening quickly, dropped to his knees and then fell backwards onto the freezing ground, with this leech still attached and feeding. He heard the blast of his father’s flintlock as he started losing consciousness, knowing it was already too late for him.
Chapter 21
When Sangio opened his eyes, he immediately recognized his own bedroom by the dark mahogany posts he saw pointing towards the ceiling. He felt as if he were on fire, burning from the inside out, and when he tried to open his mouth he realized two things. He could not speak, and he was not taking breaths.
Perhaps the strongest feeling was his thirst. It overwhelmed all of his senses.The blaze, running from his palate and tongue, down his throat, past his vocal cords, and well down into his esophagus, was the cruelest form of pain he had ever felt. He would kill for a glass of water, literally, kill to get the raw burn of sandpaper and boring nails doused in acid to subside.
Sangio tried to sit up, but could not move. After several unsuccessful attempts over the next couple of hours, he gave up, cursing the betrayal of his own body. Slowly, the burning in his body began subsiding, but the thirst continued to increase.
Sangio was alerted by Dr. Klas entering his room, followed closely behind by Drake and Thaddeus, both of whom looked as if they had been crying and had not slept in a week.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Danvonne. Unfortunately, there are some practicalities that must be attended to as we need to prepare the body, um, Sangio for burial,” the doctor corrected himself quickly at the stiffening of the Danvonne men.
Turning to his nurse, he instructed, “Please note the cause of death as exsanguination in the medical log. After Mr. Danvonne and his son have an opportunity to say goodbye to young Sangio, please make preparations for the burial.”
Sangio laid on his bed and watched Dr. Klas shake the hands of his father and brother, who were now openly weeping.
“But I am alive!” Sangio screamed but only inside himself. “Please! What is happening? I am not dead! Do not mourn,” he continued in spite of himself as his father leaned forward, kissing Sangio on the forehead, and lightly closing his eyelids. Sangio willed his eyelids, seemingly the only part of his body that was willing to take his directives, to open again. A look of hope splashed across Thaddeus’s face, but the nurse dashed that immediately.
“It happens,” she explained. “Sometimes the muscles, they work, twitch, jump for hours after the spirit is gone. Sometimes,” she paused for a second. “Sometimes they even moan.”
The agony of having to lay in his bed, paralyzed, burning with pain was nothing compared to the sufferance of hearing the mournful goodbye from the two strongest men he had ever known,. Sangio wept within as he watched them walk out of his bedroom door, each holding the other one up.
Drake and Sangio were the best of friends through childhood and into adulthood. Drake was the foundation that held him together when their mother succumbed to pneumonia when Sangio was five years old. Drake, seven years his senior, effortlessly continued where his mother left off, and forced Sangio to pick himself up and carry on, just as Sangio had to do for his brother fifteen years later when Drake lost his wife.
Thaddeus, Drake, and Sangio were as close as a father and his boys could be. Thaddeus instilled in his boys a high regard for truth, honor, and hard-work, as well as a balance of strength and compassion. He did not send them off to schools as suggested by haughty relatives, nor did he pawn his sons off by accepting a marriage of convenience as other widowed men. He indulged his sons by taking them along on hunting trips, fishing, and many extended holidays. The boys were envied by their friends who were often left home with relatives or nannies, if not their own mothers.
Sangio was brought back to the present as the nurse closed the heavy door to his room. He heard the pin tumbler click as she locked it, assuring the dignity of the corpse she was preparing to strip and wash for burial. The nurse pulled back the heavy comforter, folded it symmetrically and placed it on the foot of the bed, and doing the same with the cotton sheet that was draped over him. She pulled off his stockings and placed them in a clothes basket, which instead of taking to the washroom, would be burned. The nurse came forward, unbuttoned the cuffs on his collared shirt, then moved on to the long row of buttons down his pleated chest.
“Stop this,” Sangio whispered, and was elated when he heard his own voice.
Not so elated was the nurse who jumped off the bed, tripped over the laundry basket, knocking over his desk chair.
The chair fell to the floor with a loud thud, the nurse following close behind, splintering the chair with her falling weight. Sangio slowly turned his head in her direction, intending to reassure her that everything was alright, but before he could say a word, as if it would have stopped her anyhow, the nurse screamed the longest, shrillest scream he had ever heard come from a woman, especially one so small.
Within seconds, Thaddeus and Drake were banging on the door, demanding that it be unlocked.
The nurse continued screaming and scrambled to her feet, backing into a corner of the room. She exchanged the scream for the chanting of the Lord’s Prayer, holding both of her ind
ex fingers in the shape of a crucifix towards Sangio. Scanning the room, the nurse grabbed a broken piece of wood from the splintered chair with her shaking hands, and walked towards Sangio, who still had extremely limited mobility.
“Father in Heaven, please forgive me for what I am about to do in your name!” she said as she ran straight for Sangio, holding the handmade dagger above her head to ensure force when she delivered her blow, aiming for his heart.
A mere instant before his second death, Sangio was saved when Thaddeus broke the lock, allowing Drake to run full speed into the nurse, sending her back to the floor she had just picked herself up off of.
“What the hell is wrong with you, woman?” Drake demanded, looking down with hate at this derangedfemale.
“He spoke. The devil spoke to me,” she cried, pointing towards the animated stare of Sangio.
“She tells the truth,” Sangio said. “However, I am not from the devil. There is some sort of grave misunderstanding. That is all.”
“Grave, indeed! That is exactly where you should be,” the nurse rebuked.
Thaddeus and Drake stood in shock, staring at Sangio, and then sharing confused glances between themselves, looking as forlorn as when they had said goodbye to him just a few minutes before.
“It must be destroyed! Drake, you must listen to me. It will be just minutes before he regains strength and it will be too late. I have seen this before. With the doctor,” she cried out.
“Quiet woman!” Thaddeus pointed at the nurse. “This is my son you speak of. His life.”
“No,” she disagreed vehemently. “Your son is dead, Mr. Danvonne. You saw for yourself. Please see past his familiar looks. He is from the devil I tell you. He is just like the one you have imprisoned in the barn. He is a monster in your son’s body.”
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