by Atha, DL
For the Sake
of Revenge
An Alaskan Vampire Novel
By
DL Atha
Copyright © 2013 DL Atha
All rights reserved by the author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-0-9793356-5-5
This book is dedicated to my husband, Erich, who has allowed my laptop to spend many nights in our bed with very few complaints—again. And to our three darling children who inspire me with their antics every day.
With Special thanks to Debbie Hewett, who has been with this project when it was only a tossed around idea and a few hastily typed pages. Your support is priceless.
And to Dr. Jennifer Burks who has been one of my closest friends and greatest allies. Thanks for believing in me and for helping me to have fun.
Also a special thanks to the beta readers who helped with proofing and idea bouncing:
Dr. Jarrett Lea
Dr. Patric Anderson
Dr. Robert Sanders
Christy M. Copeland
Michelle Westbrook
Tammie Young
Margaret Clymer
Danielle Ritch
Kristy Brewer
Sherra Bean
Jeff Burks
Ron Martin
Phyllis Atha
Other books by DL Atha
Blood Reaction: A Vampire Novel
Here lies the girl
who fell for death
He stole her heart
and took her breath
He kissed her as he took her life
She should have watched out for that scythe
– Submitted by: Hali, Londonderry, to Haunted Bay
For the Sake
of Revenge
An Alaskan Vampire Novel
Chapter 1
“Uppyr.” I breathed the word out between sips of steaming hot tea as I squinted down at the aged label clinging to the ancient bottle I held in my other hand.
Have I read that right? I questioned myself. It had been a few years since I’d read any Russian writings, but as I studied the word again, I was certain of its meaning.
“Vampire,” I spoke aloud this time, translating from Russian to English, hoping it sounded less insane.
I gave it a few seconds to let the syllables sink in, saying it over a few times in my head.
No, it still sounded insane.
A second word was elegantly scrawled onto the label, but in the dim lighting, I couldn’t make it out. Casting a sideways look at the cold fire burning in the hearth, I scooted as far forward on the couch as I could without leaving the coziness of the blanket I’d wrapped up in and focused all my efforts on reading the label; my face screwed up with the effort.
“Krov,” I sounded it out, searching my mind for the meaning.
Blood. Grandmother had used the word from time to time, usually in some ancient reference to a curse—or when hunting. Occasionally, these two strangely different subjects had collided in her world.
“Uppyr krov. Vampire blood,” I spoke aloud to the empty house. Then I laughed, but only a little. I am of Russian descent after all, and we don’t limit ourselves to the normal thoughts of traditional Americans; hence always keeping a broom visible in the corner of the living room and the horseshoe over the doorway. The horseshoe isn’t an Alaskan custom. Mom had just borrowed the idea from her southern friend Gloria, but in her world, you could never be too careful.
With the exception of a date on the label—January 26, 1808—there were no other markings on the bottle. No serial numbers or expiration dates stamped into the glass to suggest it was modern; the vial was slightly misshapen with an old and withered cork stuffed deep into the neck of the glass.
Despite the date written on the bottle, the contents flowed freely. No dried remnants clung to the sides of the vial; no clots stuck to the bottom.
It looks very fresh for two-hundred-year-old blood, I thought skeptically to myself as I traded the bottle for my teacup, setting the relic down beside the lamp.
Earlier in the day, I’d found the bottle in an unpretentious wooden chest hidden in a secret compartment of my mom’s old steamer trunk. I’d been working most of the afternoon on sorting decades’ worth of heavily worn coats and mothy long-sleeved underwear from out of the steamer when I lost my balance leaning over the tall sides of the trunk. My fingers had inadvertently pushed through what turned out to be a false bottom as I caught myself.
At first, I’d jerked my hand back as if my fingers had landed in a clutch of spiders, but unable to resist my curiosity, I’d tentatively stretched my hand back in and palpated until I stroked the free edge of what felt like a wooden box.
I clawed at it until the false bottom of the steamer trunk could no longer take it, giving up its treasure with a sudden split. Antique dust exploded up into the space around me as I landed hard on my butt, a small wooden trunk held aloft in one hand as my other stretched out behind to keep me upright. Musty air tickled my nose, and I sneezed hard before regaining my balance.
I carried my treasure with me as I retrieved some tissue and sat down on the couch to study my find. Getting comfortable, I turned the small wooden box over slowly in my hands as my imagination ran away with the possibilities of what it could contain. Surely something good or whoever had hidden it wouldn’t have bothered, right?
About the size of a shoebox, the trunk certainly appeared to be an antique. The wood was a dark, rich chocolate and into the top, an Orthodox cross was deeply carved. Besides the etching, there were no other markings. Instead, the wood had been so meticulously polished, or had simply been handled enough, that I could see the outline of my face in the grain of the wood. Nothing seemed to hold it together. I couldn’t find a nail or a bolt. The wooden pieces were so precisely cut that it fit together like a puzzle.
Kinda like Mom, I mused. She’d needed nothing to hold her together either.
I wiped away a layer of fine dust from the side of the trunk and my features stared back, reflected in the polished wood. Halfheartedly, I smiled at the woman in the reflection, conceding for the first time in my life that I did in fact look like my mother.
God, how I missed her.
She’d been a lady of few possessions and even fewer secrets, so it seemed odd she’d have kept this box hidden from me. More likely, it had been placed there years before by someone in our family tree. I remembered my grandmother saying the steamer had been handed down from her great-grandfather. Potentially, the trunk could have sat hidden in the false bottom of the steamer for well over a century—maybe two. Mom had probably never laid eyes on it or the mysterious contents.
Nor did it seem to want to share its secrets with me. The lid was tightly adhered, and I couldn’t get enough leverage with my fingernails to push the lid open. I’m not known for my patience, and soon I was prying at the lid with an old kitchen knife—tenderly of course. I was tense with anxiety when the lid finally erupted off with a twist of the knife, the contents exploding around me.
Old yellowed papers floated through the air, small fragments breaking off and waltzing on the breeze of the fireplace. Hastily, I waved the musty fragments away, anxious to get to the good stuff but I was sorely disappointed as I pulled out only more stacks of ancient vellum that seemed to age further in front of my eyes.
I’d expected something far more important than papers to have been so carefully concealed and something of monetary value would have been helpful consideri
ng the financial straits I was in.
Digging deeper, I found two books that I laid aside before my fingers curled around the cold, curved bottle, whose label I was now deciphering.
At first, I thought it was worthless in the shallow light of the living room—some old glass bottle of God only knew what. An ancient wine or maybe perfume I’d guessed as the liquid had swirled in the confines of the bottle.
But here in the brighter light of the lamp with the words “vampire blood” inscribed on the side, the bottle had become far more interesting. Valuable even. Collectors paid through the nose for stuff like this.
I shuffled through the trunk again, looking for anything that pertained to the bottle of blood. Studying the tattered papers first, I was dissatisfied with their contents. Most were letters to family, sent back and forth from Alaska to Russia, and were pretty mundane. Somebody was betrothed, a great aunt had died, a new grandbaby was born. They were all handwritten in Russian, the writing fading in and out in an elegant old-world script that made the words all the harder to translate, but none of them mentioned anything about vampire blood.
Only the books remained, and I set the trunk at my feet as I flipped through these. The first book creaked as I opened it, the binding worn and heavily creased but stiff from lack of use. It appeared to be some sort of medical text, and I flipped through the pages, grimacing a little at the torturous appearing illustrations of old medical procedures. There were various drawings of bleedings and even one detailed sketch of how to drill a hole in a man’s head. The dude in the drawing was way too calm.
The smaller of the two volumes was short but thick, the mahogany cover worn to the point that in some places the color of the leather had faded to only an off white. Barely legible was the name ‘Klim Semenov, Surgeon’ engraved into the leather of the bottom right corner. The gold that had once been present in the lettering had chipped away and now only flecks could be seen glittering in the lamplight. A tattered bookmark lay about halfway through the book.
Inside the cover at the bottom right in Russian was scrawled ‘Personal journal of Klim Semenov, Surgeon New Archangel Outpost, Alaska, Russian American Trading Company.’
I glanced back at the bottle and realized it was the same handwriting on the label. Like the blood, the journal was now more interesting, and I planned to search it cover to cover for anything that pertained to the bottle.
It would be slow going; the book was old and the script elaborate, yet faded. But I had all afternoon and little else to do, so I threw a couple of green logs on the fire, ignoring the tufts of smoke from the burning moss, wormed deeper into my blanket and began to translate.
The surgeon’s writing was anything if not meticulous, and the first few pages were fairly mundane. He was the only doctor for the fort at New Archangel, so he cared not only for the hunters, fur traders, soldiers, and clergy but also for any of the natives who cared to visit him.
New Archangel was the first name given to the city of Sitka, Alaska, where I had grown up and currently lived. Originally a fort, the town had been established as the capital for the Russian American Trading Company, which had a charter from the Tsar of Russia, giving the company sole rights to the fur trade. Over the years, the town became known by the Tlingit Indian name, Shee-Atika, which in turn became Sitka. Alexander Baranov, the manager of the company, had defeated the Tlingit Indian tribe here for the final time in 1804. You can’t grow up in Sitka and not know these simple facts; the history is everywhere.
Most of the entries discussed the weather in New Archangel and the doctor’s assumptions of how it affected the health of the fort. He described some illnesses, a few cases that sounded suspiciously like food poisoning, and another couple cases of the flu. At least three entries were dedicated to the coming and going of the ships that frequented New Archangel’s harbor, most of which brought new rounds of sickness.
My eyes were nearly crossed two hours and thirty pages later when the surgeon’s neat, elegant script became harried, the words smudged either by tears or sweat.
The top of the page dated the entry as January 26, 1808, the same date inscribed on the bottle of blood. In contrast to the surgeon’s usual concise, methodical entries, this one was several pages long. The writing was crooked and messy, as though it were written with emotion this time and not just science. I read through it once, and even though I was fluent in Russian, I had to force myself to start over and read it aloud, translating as I went.
“Tonight, a creature, which I considered to be myth only, was laid upon my examining table. I was raised on such tales, but being trained in the art and science of medicine, I considered such stories the fodder of children and the nightmares of the poor and uneducated. If I had not seen the evidence myself, examined the beast with my own hands, I would have laughed at such a story.
“A fortnight ago, January 12, 1808, a young serf died in opposition of the Church. In truth, he committed suicide. The man, his Christian name was Adrik, was accused of raping a wealthy young woman of high social stature—Irena Ivonvosky. Irena was to be, upon the death of her father, the Duchess of the Ivonvosky estate. As such, she was betrothed to a nephew of the Tsar.
“The accusation of rape was an odd charge given the degree of Adrik’s conviction, as he was long known to be a religious. Despite a reliable witness, Adrik denied the charges and refused to repent and acknowledge his crimes. Thus, he was excommunicated from the Church. Apparently driven to madness by the loss of his religion, Adrik committed suicide. The morning following Adrik’s suicide, his closest and only friend, Ivan, removed the body and buried it on unhallowed ground and without the typical precautions afforded those who die outside the Church. He was not staked or decapitated. Neither was he bound.
“By the judgment of the Baranov, being himself a man of science, Adrik’s body was left undisturbed and no precautions were taken against the chance of him rising a vampire. Except for his burial on unhallowed ground, the body remained unmarred and intact.
“The men and women of the fort were naturally excited and frightened by the unusual condition of Adrik’s death. Ivan was beseeched by the citizens of the fort to return to Adrik’s burial site and stake him, as he was the only man who knew where the body lay. He refused, and the Baranov upheld his decision.
“Fourteen nights had passed since Adrik was placed in the ground by Ivan with no untoward events. The anxiety surrounding the fort was just beginning to fade when the young woman, Irena, who had accused Adrik of the heinous crime of rape, was found dead in the home she shared with her father. Her body now lies on a cot in the very room in which I write this journal entry.
“The condition of her body leaves no question as to what manner of beast attacked her. Of the state of her body, I can only say that I will be haunted forever by those memories. No human encounter could have left her thus. Her father, convinced that she had suffered the same fate as Adrik, staked her himself when he found her covered in the marks of vampirism and clinging to life. It was disturbing, for the woman was still yet living when her father ran her through with the stake.
“After such a display, a search party was raised, led by Ivan, and the vampire was hunted and staked near the location of his previous burial. It was Ivan who performed the first blow. The corpse was then brought to me so that I could perform the rituals to keep him safely interred.
“I was aghast when the body was laid out upon my examination table. Unlike Irena’s remains, the vampire’s body was nearly pristine except for the multiple stakes that penetrated his chest. Only three had hit the heart, but it was enough to immobilize him.
“But leaving nothing to chance, the archimandrite stood at the corpse’s feet, our Holy Cross held up in defense, lest the vampire be able to withstand the power of the stakes.
“As a human, Adrik had been a fine specimen of manhood. Tall and with fair complexion, he had been quite vigorous and had the strength of two men. He had been hardworking and loyal, of normal intellect despite his
peasant birth but something of an introvert. His face had been kind with emotions easily read from his expressions. In my estimation, the man was completely lacking in guile.
“Tonight, I looked down into that same face I had been familiar with for over two years and could see no vestiges of human emotions. As I walked around the corpse, I could feel its eyes upon me, even though they did not move within their sockets. His presence leaves a palpable fear in the room. Even in his weakened state, his body trembled with rage at my handling of him.
“Legend says that the vampire cannot die, that he can merely be contained. And since he cannot die, his body cannot undergo the natural process of returning to the dust from whence it came. Unless Adrik can be re-communicated, he will remain as he is for an eternity, and so while his body can be controlled, it can never be fully destroyed.
“Knowing what I had to do to protect the fort did not make the deed any easier, and I admit I was forced to take several slugs of vodka to steady my trembling hands. I have taken several more since.
“First, I removed his clothes, marveling at his body as I did so. My hands shivered at the coolness of his skin. Despite his paleness, his lips were blood red, and I shuddered knowing how they had obtained their unnatural color. The dehydration that should have overtaken his body in the grave has not occurred; instead, his skin has a fullness and a softness that not even the tender skin of a child can compare. The ligature marks that had once surrounded his neck are now absent; his skin is whole and unmarred except the penetration of the stakes. I know this as it was I who examined him upon his human death. I helped Ivan cut the noose from his neck, after all, on the morning after his hanging.