by DL Atha
Peter had managed to reach his feet and he spared only the shortest of glances on me as I stepped across the threshold. His eyes flicked nervously away from me and towards the corner at something I couldn’t see but I was too riveted by the arc of red that leached in a near constant stream from his arm to the floor to pay much attention to what he was looking at.
I wanted to reach for him, to staunch the wounds on his arm but I dared not touch him. Instead, I forced myself to turn away and confront his attacker.
“What have you done?” I screeched at Adrik, who was standing in front of the fireplace, his back against the stone hearth. His tightly squeezed fists were the only indication that he had any emotion at all. Otherwise, Adrik appeared calm and collected.
“Only what I had to although I plan on doing far more. Your precious Peter came to stake us.” He gestured towards the corner that Peter continued to glance at nervously.
I took a few more steps into the room so I could see where Adrik was pointing. An iron cross had been knocked across the room. One end had penetrated the paneling on the far wall; the other end had created a perfect C shape scar in the dark oak floors where it had spun in a circle after a glancing blow off of Adrik’s broad forearm. The scent of his charred skin from where he’d made contact with the cross permeated the room. The smell touched a deep-seated and ancient fear inside of me, and I shivered, averting my eyes from the power of the cross.
“He must be more fool than foe to seek out our kind after dark,” Adrik said as he pushed forward from the hearth to advance towards Peter. “Or perhaps he wishes to join us.”
“He can help you!” I answered, catching him by the arm as he started to walk past me towards Peter. Adrik jerked his arm away from my hand and continued to advance on my friend. I shoved him back harder this time, nearly knocking him off balance.
“Adrik, he can help you. Didn’t you hear me? Why hurt him when he could be the answer to your prayers?”
“I have no desire to waste my time on prayer.”
“That’s not true, Adrik. This life brings you no true happiness. We both know that. Why would you want to hurt the one man who can bring you peace?” I questioned.
Adrik’s gaze touched mine briefly, but he ignored my last comment completely and pushed past me again.
“He came to stake us! Had it been left to Peter, you and I would have spent the next century writhing in the dirt.”
“He wouldn’t do that to me,” I argued, keeping myself between him and Peter.
“The way his ancestor did not trade his religion for favor and political gain? Peter would have slid that stake through your heart to the hilt without a second thought, Tamara.”
“He wouldn’t have hurt me.” I couldn’t look Adrik in the eye as I protested. I could feel Peter’s breathing pick up behind me. His heart sped up as I lied for him.
“You are a fool if you truly believe that,” Adrik answered.
“He’s my friend,” I said simply.
“His nature will not allow him to be your friend. He is your judge and your jury.”
Behind me, I felt the air stir as Peter bent over slightly, trying to use his shirt as a tourniquet to slow the flow of blood from his arm. He’d bled a great deal, and I knew Adrik was thirsty to taste him. Joel’s blood still coated my throat, and I was grateful for it quieted the hunger for a moment.
“Tamara, you have to end this,” Peter whispered to my back. He was speaking English, and I could sense the irritation in Adrik at not knowing what was being said. “You know I’m right,” he continued.
I kept my eyes on Adrik but spoke in Russian. “I asked you to not come here, Peter. Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you trust me?”
“Trust you! When you were under the influence of him? I didn’t believe you at first when you told me about the blood and the journal. But when you said Adrik’s name that day in the cemetery, it triggered something in my memory. Something that Dad had read me from his great grand-father’s journals. Stories that I thought were never any more than fairy tales. I’d given them no credence at all. But I’d never been able to forget his name. Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Tam?”
“I know exactly what I’ve done! And I would do it again but you’ve not answered the question, Peter. What have you done! And why did you come?”
I felt the unwanted answer swell in the space between us and become a separating wall. Peter was on one side and I on the other. I should have known the answer, of course. It was obvious now that the question had been asked, and I desperately hoped Peter wouldn’t have the courage to tear the wall down. That he would just leave the answer unspoken. But of course, Peter had never been a coward like me.
“To save you, Tam. You are your own worst enemy. And to save all of us from you. Myself included,” Peter answered.
I turned to Peter as I was forced to recognize the truth. The words were out, and I could no longer ignore them. He had torn the wall down and now I had to face him. He’d come to stake me, just as Adrik had said.
Behind me, Adrik laughed a low and deadly sound. “She now begins to see the light,” he commented.
“You came to sentence me to the grave, Peter, even though I would never have hurt you. I swore to myself that I would keep you safe, and I would have if you had just trusted me! How could you have done this? Would it have been so easy to put me down like that?”
“If I’d come for no other reason than to drive that stake through your heart, it would have already been done. I’d have come in the daylight when you were defenseless. But I didn’t, Tam. I came to save my friend before so many bodies stack up that she can’t remember who she even is. Ten years ago, I should have marched down to that dock and dragged you off of that ferry. I should have gone to Seattle and found you when you didn’t answer my emails. But I didn’t, and I’ve lived with those regrets every day. It’s a little too late to make up for the last decade, I realize, and I’ll have to deal with that for the rest of my life. I can’t save your life now, but I can save your soul.”
“I don’t need saving. I haven’t done anything wrong!” I hissed at him. “I was the victim.”
“But you didn’t have to be the victim, Tam. Not this time! You had the strength to walk away from Joel all those months ago in Seattle. All you had to do was walk away from this too.”
“Joel killed my mother, Peter. He would have killed me in the end. She and I deserved justice. Can’t you see that? Couldn’t anyone see that? Why am I the bad guy in all of this? The only thing I’m guilty of is figuring out a way to beat Joel at his own game. I wanted justice, and I got it!”
Peter shook his head at me, his breath blowing out in a harsh stream of air as he jabbed a finger in my direction.
“No! Justice would have been proving Joel guilty. A steadfast determination to see that he legally got what was coming to him. Justice would have been giving your mom what she wanted, which was to see you happy. Not condemned to eternal separation from her,” Peter answered.
He took a deep breath and paused. “What would your mom say, Tam? Have you thought about that at all? It would make her sick to know what you’ve done. She would hate this. She died protecting you, and now her death was in vain.”
I was angry now. Angry that he dared bring up Mom and then make it worse by saying her death meant nothing. Without a preconceived thought, my right hand arced gracefully and effortlessly wrapped around Peter’s neck as I brought him to his knees in front of me. He forgot about his bleeding arm as he reached up to pry uselessly at my fingers. I could feel the scratch of his fingernails against the skin of my hand and forearm. His carotid ricocheted erratically against my thumb. In the palm of my hand, Peter coughed out what little air he had left in his lungs.
“Kill him, Tamara. Let us drink the blood of our common enemy together,” Adrik said from behind me.
I stared hard at Peter for another moment. My rage felt like a mass of swarming yellow jackets in the pit of my belly. My
fangs descended sharply against my tongue, and my left hand flexed dangerously at my side. Instinct whispered to slit his neck, and I barely recognized the snarls of anger that came from my throat.
Apparently neither did Peter as he watched me with the strangest look I’d ever seen cross his face. There was the expected fear of course, and that was painful enough, but it was mixed with pity. I knew the look. I’d seen it all too often over the last few weeks. It had just never come from him. He’d always been the one to give me far more credit than I had ever really deserved.
It hurt to see Peter stare at me in such a way. My fangs lost their edge, and the growls died in my throat. I’d sworn to protect him, and here I was threatening him. The anger went out of me like a deflated balloon, and I loosened my grip on his neck. The knowledge of what I had to do crystallized in my mind.
Peter sucked in air gratefully, the fight leaving his body as he relaxed into my hand. His fingers loosened from my own although he still gripped my arm for support.
I pulled him gently to his feet and continued to hold him in my grasp while he regained his balance. His legs were unsteady and his gaze told me he was a little dizzy from the lack of oxygen. I could hear his heart working hard to keep up. He nodded at me that he was okay that tried to pull away from my grip.
But I refused to let go. Instead, I placed my hands on either side of his face. I ached to touch him one last time. I ran a finger across his lips and the strong line of his jaw.
“Peter, you have to leave. Take my family Bible and keep it next to your heart. Adrik cannot touch you as long as the Word of God touches your skin and he cannot control your mind. Take Mom’s crucifixes and go straight to the church, stay there, no matter what Adrik threatens. I’ll keep him from following you and in the morning, when the sun has risen, leave this island and leave no trail by which he can find you. Take the advice you gave me only two weeks ago.”
I let go of him and backed away so he could see my words were in earnest.
“Adrik,” I spoke over my shoulder. “You have to leave too. You are no longer tied to this ground. The six-month period of confinement has been over for you for ages so you can rest anywhere, and on any ground.”
I spoke Russian. Peter was more fluent than I was in the old language. He’d been raised on it the same as I. They could both understand me, and so they would each know what I was saying. I would sacrifice myself for the both of them. Adrik could leave and would be safe from Peter, who would be protected from Adrik.
“And what of you, Tamara?” Adrik spoke from behind me. “He will come for you at first light and he will put you to ground for good. He cannot be trusted.”
Peter was watching me just as I watched him and I knew that Adrik was correct. Because Peter was good. He was honorable and he would always do the right thing. No matter the personal pain that it caused him.
“I know, Adrik. Believe me, I know. But Peter is the Ivan of my story and I have to keep him safe,” I answered.
I heard only the rustle of wind to my right as Adrik sailed through the air. My eyes were still locked with Peter’s as his mouth began to open in a scream that never had the chance to fully form as his breath was knocked from his body. Peter’s lips pulled back, and I could see his gritted teeth as blood erupted from him in that same instant and sprayed in a wide arc as Adrik’s nails tore geysers in his chest.
The spray hit my mouth, and the taste spread out in the purest of sensations across my tongue. Behind me, it spattered against the back wall of the living room and sizzled in the remains of the fire Adrik had built when we’d risen earlier this evening.
It was like my feet were in quicksand, and my head in a fog. By the time I reacted, Peter was a dying man with blood pooling around where he’d fallen. I reached to shove Adrik away from my fallen friend, but my hands clutched only emptiness. I looked to the far side of the room and found him facing me defiantly.
I made first to bend towards Peter, and then indecision struck, and I changed course mid-movement, charging towards Adrik, but I pulled up short before I reached him. What was I going to do? We couldn’t kill one another, and locking into a violent battle with him would do Peter no good at all.
“How could you do this to me?” I hissed as I turned back towards Peter.
“You are not thinking clearly, Tamara. You think you understand the pain of being committed to a century under the earth, but you cannot possible comprehend,” Adrik answered. “This human is not worth that price.”
“He was worth everything,” I whispered as I gathered Peter up in my arms. He moaned slightly as I did so and resisted my grasp, struggling to get a handhold on the rug underneath him but he was weak, and his grip broke with no effort on my part.
His breaths were coming in ragged bursts through his clenched teeth and between the gashes on his chest, I could see his collapsed lung attempting to work as he struggled for air. The lacerations were shallow on the far right side of his ribcage but became deeper as they moved to the left side of his body, and just before the sternum, they were deep enough to have reached the lung. The wounds continued across his left chest before becoming shallow again and fading to mere graze marks. His legs lay at an odd angle to his body and twitched uncontrollably. With my left hand, I could feel the bones of his severed spine crackle in my hand.
His neck had been heavily damaged as well. One large neck vein had been reduced to threads of tissue only and blood flowed from it at a fatal rate. He would have already been dead if it had been an artery. Instead, this blood was the dark oxygen-starved fluid that seeps from veins.
Lowering my lips to his forehead, I kissed his clammy skin gently. Perspiration was beading in his hairline. His cheeks only minutes before hot with anger were now blanched with pain and fear. In front of my eyes, his lips paled and deepened to a blue.
“Peter… Peter…” I couldn’t quit saying his name, but I could say no more. It would have been demeaning to apologize for what he’d warned me would happen. I, who’d listened none at all, could hardly whisper a contrite apology now into the ear of a dying man. Even if I could have, it wouldn’t have mattered. Peter was ignoring me completely; my empty words falling on deaf ears. His attention was focused entirely on Adrik.
“Tell me, Adrik. Is this how you repay Ivan’s kindness to you?” Peter asked. Blood bubbled out, mixed with foamy air, from the wound on his chest. He didn’t have long, and he’d stopped struggling to escape as he recognized the seriousness of his situation.
Adrik looked both confused and angry. “What could you know of Ivan?”
“I know you swore an eternal oath to him that you would never harm him or any of his children,” Peter choked out between breaths. “How does it feel to know you broke that sacred oath?”
“I honored the oath to my friend,” Adrik said between clenched teeth. “How dare you question my loyalty. Remember it was I who was speaking truth while your ancestor was turning out lies! You are either very brave or very stupid. I never visited revenge on the archimandrite. Maybe I should get it now, priest.”
“Someone should question your loyalty, Adrik, because you’re too arrogant to do it yourself. You swore you would never hurt Ivan or any of his kin but you marked Tamara, and so you marked Ivan’s bloodline. And now she is sentenced to the same hell you chose for an eternity.”
Adrik’s eyes narrowed and he hissed dangerously towards Peter as he raised one arm to deliver what would no doubt be a death blow. “You lie. Just like your ancestor,” Adrik spoke.
“Are you so certain, Adrik? Years ago, my father told me your sad tale and how you pledged allegiance to one man, the very man who staked you. The only man who you not harm. That man’s name is written in Tamara’s family Bible. Ivan sired her mother’s bloodline, and so he sired Tamara. How arrogant to think Tamara had no connection to him just because she did not carry his name.”
I watched as Adrik’s expression changed from suspicious to anger and then his lips curled back with pure self-loa
thing. He looked at me with new eyes and then dropped the threatening arm he held up towards Peter to his side. Walking haltingly to my family Bible that still set on the bureau in the hall, his fingers hovered inches from the page as he traced the names down.
But Adrik had been a serf. He’d never learned to read, and so I leaned Peter gently against the couch at his urging and went to Adrik, holding him, as I confirmed his worst fears by reading the names that he pointed to. I read Ivan Korovin’s name in a hushed whisper, barely get the syllables out as I knew the pain it would cause him.
I pulled Adrik back to the living room, away from the condemnation on that page, whispering to him that he hadn’t known, and neither had I. It wasn’t his fault, I promised him. But he didn’t listen to me. Blood-filled tears ran down his cheeks.
“You did this to her, Adrik. This is your fault.” Peter struggled with the words as his breath would only come in short spurts.
“No. He didn’t know!” I shrieked at Peter. And immediately felt guilty as more of his blood leached onto the floor with his exertions.
“It is exactly like we talked about, Tam. When you reach the point that you justify the suffering of innocent people so you can serve up your own revenge or when you tell yourself that you’ll be careful and no one else will get caught up in your plot, you always end up hurting those you love. Adrik hurt Ivan, the one person that loved him. And the one person Adrik loved.”
The speech took the last of his energy and he dropped his head back against the couch. He gulped in large mouthfuls of air as his eyes rolled backwards. His chest heaved with the effort, and the muscles of his fingers twitched from lack of blood. His legs were rolled outwards with no muscle tone to keep them upright.
Adrik shook my arms from off his shoulders, not wanting my comfort, and sank down to the floor. I suppose he thought I knew somehow, about Ivan, and let him mark me despite his promises. But I was innocent in this one thing. I had no idea Ivan was a part of my family tree. “I didn’t know, Adrik. I swear.”