“That means he only spent a few hours each day carrying on with his own life?” Zack was disturbed by the news.
“No. We had become his life. You need to understand, Zack, he enjoyed disfiguring us. He enjoyed harming us. He liked hearing the screams, the audible pain was palpable to him.” Martin said with exhaustion in his throat.
“That's horrible. Did you ever scream?” Zack asked the obvious question.
“Yes, but only for the first thirty five years. I eventually just quit one day. My mind filled with too much pain, I think.” Martin took a deep breath. “The remaining time I simply listened to the minds that came and went around the mansion. I heard thousands of conversations that I felt would one day be of great benefit to me later if I was able to escape. Things that once I told your Yugo, he gladly paid me for. The mental sounds that kept me sane all those years are now a currency to me.” Martin stood up, then knelt down on his left knee. He lowered his head. “This is the thanks I offer to you and Salas. As all that I am. As the former High King of the Five Vampire Kingdoms, I thank both of you for freeing me.”
“But It wasn't me.” Zack didn't want to remember what Salas made his body do to Malio.
Martin raised his head. “You did it with him, I know.”
“How? How do you know something like that? He hasn't even talked with me about it. How could you know if he didn't say anything to me?” Zack was defending his innocence in the matter.
“Because I can read his inner thoughts as well as all of your conversations. He only refuses to share his mind with you. It's a weak strategy as I see it. If I was in his position, actually befriending you, the host would be key to achieving any goal I might have.” Martin was dead on.
“You bastard! Zack, leave now. His words are poison to-” Salas wanted to shut Martin up, but had no way of doing so.
“I can understand Salas' situation. To be eternal without lines of direct influence over hundreds of years, it would be a difficult place to be in. Especially with his lofty pursuit of killing Fear.” Martin and Zack could hear Salas yelling his head off. “We can only imagine why he never took to train himself any further than he has.”
“Zack, tell him exactly what I say to you.” Salas said to Zack with a dark tone.
“He wants to speak to you, Martin.” Zack told Martin.
“I know, let him say it.” Martin got back up, reclining into the chair.
Zack said every word that came through from Salas. “You egotistical fucker! How dare you sit there and call me untrained! Of all the seven demon vampires, I refused this! It was forced on me! All I want is my revenge, that's all. Is my request so unreasonable? He may be an elder, but that doesn't mean I can't kill him. You have no comprehension of what I went through to hate him this much.”
Martin leaned forward towards Zack. “No, Salas. I know exactly what they did to you. The twenty seven years of chanting, killing your brothers beside you, damning you to reincarnate every three hundred years. I know it all and more. You saw what Malio did to me through his eyes. You alone have a special knowledge of just how twisted my experience was to yours. How more involved it was compared to yours.”
“So? What's your point?” Salas said through Zack.
“After one hundred years of torture, I walked away when you both saved me. My current demeanor is proof that the vindication you seek is not necessary.” Martin said calmly.
“Didn't you scream at him?” Salas asked Martin.
“In the end, no. I was able to tune Malio out.” Martin said. “The others weren't as focused as I was on staying alive. Phillipe and Timothy gave in a few years after I was taken in. Teresa had gone some time before I arrived. The sounds coming from her mind were not coherent anymore.”
Zack wanted to pose his own question. Salas had been unwillfully silenced by Martin's words. He didn't want to say anything more to him. “Does it still affect you? What I mean is, do you still scream from what Malio did to you?”
The door opened abruptly. It was Marin. “Yugo requests you in the main hall, Mr. Giver.”
Zack turned. Standing, he dusted off the anger that Salas was still holding onto. “Okay.” Zack put his hand out to Martin. “Thank you for your time High King Martin.” Zack bowed.
“Let's go, Mr. Giver.” Marin reminded Zack.
“He didn't answer you.” Salas whispered to Zack.
Zack was halfway out the room as he called back to Martin. “You didn't answer my question. Do you ever scream at night when you think about the awful things that were done to you?”
Martin moved within Zack's sight, but had disappeared before Zack was able to register it. Martin was a few inches away from Zack's left ear, leaning towards him.
“Of course not Mr. Giver. I've long forgotten how to scream from the sensation of pain.” Martin's soothing voice seemed to echo the terrifying nature of his words. His face was still as he said it. He was serious in every way a man could be. The time he had spent under Malio had humbled him beyond the understanding of most men.
The sentence horrified Zack even further.
“Don't you feel wronged by what Malio did to you? You don't seem upset at all.” Zack could only see Martin as a victim.
“You don't understand. It is in the mind of the abused to decide if they are.” Martin smiled at Zack.
Zack finally realized what Martin had chosen to do. He decided to move on with his life, consciously.
Marin pulled Zack's arm, tugging him away to where Yugo was. Zack didn't resist anymore. He wanted answers from Yugo just as much as Yugo wanted more information from him.
The study that Marin brought Zack to was lined with old books. Most of their covers had fallen off. Not by the neglect of the owner, but from the laborious passage of time and use.
“The room is filled with material on the demon vampires, on me.” Salas said to Zack.
Yugo sat on a stool at the other end of a very large map table. The surface was a milky semitransparent glass with a bright light emanating from below it. Several ancient maps were laid atop the table. Three of them pointing to similar places.
“I see you made it through your little talk with Martin. That's good.” Yugo grinned, pleased with himself. “I bet Salas had a proper fit when Martin got to explaining himself. And by now Salas has probably told you what this room contains.”
“You're studying the demon vampires.” Zack ignored Yugo's other comment. Believing it would only anger Salas more.
“Yes. I'm studying all of them, including our own.” Yugo searched for something in a stack of letters. “I want to know why only Salas has been able to awaken once through the thousands of years they've all been at it.”
“What the hell does he think I've been doing? I've tried with every host I've had.” Salas said to Zack.
“I don't think it's from lack of trying.” Zack told Yugo.
“I thought he'd say something like that.” Yugo found the letter he was looking for. He tossed it across the room. “Here, read that.”
Zack caught the old worn envelope in his fingertips. He opened it and read it out loud. “I am sure this is the only way. That is what I have decided after the years he has offered it. I know I want this. Tonight he will take me, body and soul.” Zack lowered the paper, scoffing at it. “What the hell is this Yugo? Some Victorian letter of confession? I don't want to read about some random girl losing her virginity. Why'd you really bring me here?”
“It's not about sex, Zack. Keep reading it.” Yugo got up and began ruffling through more papers in the far corner.
Zack continued to read the letter. “I am writing this to assure myself of what I will lose, if anything, from his proposal. Knowing that after it has occurred we will both be forever altered. Knowing that our minds will be the same and I will travel through the eras as he does if I eventually perish. It was his promise to me that this way I would retain my soul. That through this pact, this personal ritual, we would be compiled together into one being. I am not qui
te sure what that means, even past what he has told me. But I am aware of the clear benefit. I will retain my soul and life.” Zack paused. “Are you sure this has something relevant in it?”
“Keep reading.” Yugo said, still searching. Not breaking his concentration, he held his eyes to the task at hand.
Zack returned to the letter. “It may seem insane to consider his offering, knowing what he honestly told me of his past. However, it has been twenty years since he first spoke to me. He has never steered me wrong. I have come to trust him above all others. The gifts he has given me allow me to stand strong against anyone, to defend myself against all odds. He has given me an absolute power and asked for nothing else in return. He is a godsend and a wonderful conversationalist. I do believe that if he was in the flesh I would clearly fall for him. Maybe that is why I am so considering this union he suggested. He assured me that in all his incantations, I would be the first to ever merge with him. That my mind alone is close enough to his to make this possible. This is why at the time writing this I have fully set my life in his hands. Tonight, when I slumber, we will become interlocked, unable to be hereafter removed from each other. And tomorrow, when I rise, we will be a demon vampire awakened inside one body.” Zack immediately felt the ramifications of what this letter meant. “Holy shit!”
“Holy shit is right.” Yugo commented, raising his right arm into the air. He had found what he was looking for. “If that letter is true, it means there is another way to live without Salas consuming your soul.”
Zack examined the letter further. It was signed Sophialla Ashmore. “Who's Sophialla?” Zack studied the letter for any remaining clues.
“You're starting to investigate more. I'm impressed. I didn't expect this much of a progression from you at this point. Even after the influx of blood.” Salas said quietly.
Zack noticed the date on the letter was 1603. “This is four hundred years old! Who the hell is this?”
Yugo came up to Zack and placed a photo in his hand. It was of a painting in the national museum. It was an adult woman in a large white dress. She was posed for the picture, sitting on a chair with a meadow behind her. Zack didn't see what the photo had to do with the letter.
“Look at the name on the bronze plate.” Salas hinted.
Zack held up the photo to get a little more light on the museum name plate. “Sophialla Ashmore, 1799.”
“Now you understand.” Yugo had proved the connection. “She's was alive two hundred years ago, at least. As for now, no one knows.”
“What do you mean 'as for now'? She's a demon vampire! If she's still alive, that means she's over four centuries old. That she's made peace with her demon! That she's found another way outside of the solution this Damien guy had come up with! We have to tell someone about this!” Zack was ranting now, it was beginning to irritate Yugo.
“No.” Yugo said clearly.
“What do you mean, no?” Zack wanted an answer, quickly.
“This Sophialla apparently doesn't want to be found. Even if she did, there is no one that would be able to tell her to mind her own business on any matter.” Yugo explained.
“Why, aren't there vampire elders and all?” Zack said, speaking from a shared knowledge of Salas' experiences.
“You impress me again, Zack. Stealing thoughts like that from me. That's a good sign. Here are some more. There are a total of twelve vampire elders. One of them is named Fear.” Salas continued to praise Zack for his innovative problem solving skills. Accessing thoughts like he did should have been outside Zack's level of ability. He did so out of instinct alone. Salas, however insulted, was enjoying the leaps and bounds his host was making.
“The twelve of them have to be more powerful than her, right?” Zack blurted out. “And this Fear, he should be able to find her, right?”
Yugo snatched the photo from Zack's hand, along with the letter. Tucking it back into the envelope is was previously in. Yugo sat down and stared up at Zack. “No.”
“No to what?” Zack didn't get what Yugo was saying.
“No to it all.” Yugo said calmly. “If she's still alive, at the age of four hundred plus years. That makes her the oldest living awakened demon vampire, ever.”
“So she's old. What does that matter?” Zack didn't see the true problem.
“Demon vampires don't obtain power and strength on the same level vampires do.” Yugo elaborated. “You've seen the difference between Kyli and Marin, right? How much unstoppable physical strength he has?”
Zack nodded subtlety.
“It's the same for us. A vampire can't hold a candle to a demon vampire in the flesh. Elders, gifts, age, nothing factors into it. She's at the top of our power chain.” Yugo said to Zack.
“So what does that make her? Invincible?” Zack suggested.
“No. That's not a good enough rendering of her power.” Yugo looked around the room. He set his eyes on the painting of the four vampires Zack had seen earlier. “Put bluntly, a demon vampire of her age is a god.”
“So you're telling me I'm dead if she comes for me? What else is new?” Zack had gotten used to the idea of someone vastly beyond him wanting to murder him.
“Oh, she won't want to murder you.” Yugo corrected Zack.
“Then what?” Zack couldn't see any other course of action for her.
Yugo hesitated. “I'm not sure you'll want to know, Zack.”
“I think I can take it.” Zack replied.
“She wants to reverse the ritual that made the demons more than six thousand years ago.” Yugo had laid it down on Zack.
“I don't get it.” Zack tilted his head. He was drawing a blank. “How can you reverse something that happened that long ago?”
“She can't.” Salas said in protest to the idea. “The best she can hope for is to-” Salas stopped his own line of thought.
“What? All she can do is what?” Zack said out loud to Salas.
“So the demon has an understanding of what she's really attempting to do? Tell me, what does the great Salas have planned to escape this destiny?” Yugo was asking for a direct answer from Zack's demon.
“Nothing. He stopped talking to me. I think what you said upset him.” Zack explained.
“Aw, the demon has feelings.” Yugo laughed.
“Shut up you half eaten prick. I don't want to hear shit from your rotting ass, Crescial.” Salas was angry at Yugo. He let a name slip, something he had never said before.
“Who's Crescial?” Zack asked Yugo.
Zack felt the pressure of a hand on his right shoulder. The scent was of several types of blood at once. A flurry of smells that wafted to his nose. It was familiar, but this was the first time Zack had sensed it before. His vampeal nose was lighting up new areas in his memory.
“I think this is a good time for Zack to retire.” Marin's voice was sharp and commanding. He was cutting Zack's question short, on purpose.
Zack nodded slowly. Sensing that he better not contest Marin's suggestion. Yugo waved goodbye as Zack turned back and left with Marin towards the limo. Ellen was patiently waiting for them, opening the door with a smile. Marin got in first, then Zack.
Before Ellen closed the door, he spoke to Zack quickly. “I see you made it out alive. And with some information. Good to see you're following in his footsteps, Zack. You'll need to be crafty for what's coming.”
Ellen walked around to the front, started the engine, and they were all off to Zack's apartment.
* * * *
Three days passed as Zack spent most of his hours with Salas. Zack's room was deteriorating. Worn, unwashed clothes were scattered across the floor. There was a growing smell that was unpleasant, radiating from his laundry bin. John hadn't been able to come by the apartment, between his work and Diane. Zack was alone, completely forsaken in his moment of doubt.
In the dream world, Zack's legs were propped on a sand mound, overlooking the beach. He was shirtless, and in black board shorts. Taking in the artificial sun he was creating
. He was playing with the weather, causing it to rain sporadically.
“It's like a faucet.” Zack laughed, smiling wide.
Salas' long coat flapped in the wind, blocking Zack's view on purpose.
“Hey, what's that for.” Zack objected.
“I'm making a point. Sitting here, in this world is killing you. It's killing me.” Salas was serious. He was taking a dark tone with Zack.
Zack put his legs down. He leaned forward with a sigh. “Then what do you think I should do now? I know I'm nothing like you, Salas. I know that's what you're thinking about. That's why you're angry at me, isn't it?” Zack was using his gift even in the dream world, against his own demon at that.
“You really are too damn good at this you know.” Salas said to Zack with a fed up tone.
“I thought that was a good thing. You say it like you regret what I've been able to do with what you've given me.” Zack didn't know why Salas was acting the way he was.
“You have been doing well, I'll be the first to admit that. But there is a down side you will soon find.” Salas knelt down to Zack's level. “You'll begin hearing them all one day.” Salas put his index and middle finger to the side of his right forehead. “With each use, the gift becomes stronger, reinforced. Like a channel, it has to be dug. There will come a time when it reaches a climax.”
“Is that what happened with you?” Zack was worried what this might mean for him.
“No. That's never happened to me. Remember, I am the source of this gift. I can wield it without penalty or limit. The mind is my playground as it is for you here.” Salas stood back up, extending his hand to Zack.
“I need to show you what I mean.” Salas pulled Zack up.
Zack took the invitation.
“Are you ready?” Salas asked.
Zack gulped, clearing his throat. “Yeah.”
Salas smiled. “Then let's walk into my past for a change.”
The beach melted away in a sudden flash of fire and rain hailing down from a black sky. The scene had been ripped, torn from Salas' memories. In the middle of a bustling town, there was a bright red haired woman with a buxom figure, strolling though the street. The entire memory was dulled, almost colorless, fading into shades of gray and brown. The exception was this stunning redhead in the middle of the road. Her eyes a lush deep, detailed blue. Her face light and youthful. She was a stark contrast to the world around her.
Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) Page 70