by Greg Hair
“Ghosts don’t exist,” said Ryker.
“Uh, hello! A whole group of vampires and werewolves standing right here,” said Connor. He then smiled and puffed out his chest because, there it was, the argument that would always prove the existence of ghosts.
“Well, I still don’t believe in ghosts.” Still, the Dane felt uneasy. Like he was being watched.
“You do understand that, according to my theory, they’re real because we’re real.
That by denying their existence, you’re denying your own. Right?” Ryker ignored Connor, moving closer into the ruins that stood near the edge of the island. The fortification that existed spread across several acres, but was in disrepair, crumbling after hundreds of years of conversion, loneliness, and inattention.
Moving farther into the dilapidated building, Ryker found a makeshift bed in a corner of nearby room. He knelt down, trying to pick up a scent, but all he could smell was the island. Inspection of the remaining rooms turned up nothing more. Even an investigation of the bell tower revealed little more than overgrown flora. The only life in residence was the vegetation.
“So what’s the deal with this place?” asked Connor. “What’s the connection to us?”
“I don’t know,” Ryker answered. “It looks like the connection hasn’t been made in centuries. I think we picked a good spot, though. I doubt anyone would look for us here.”
“I wonder if any of the older Senators know something about this island, but they just aren’t telling,” Annelise said. “Some of them looked uneasy once they heard this was our destination. I don’t think they want to be here.”
“Maybe it’s the ghosts,” said Connor.
Ryker cocked a half smile. “There’s more of the island I need to see. I noticed a field on the way over. I’m gonna check it out.”
“Want some company?” Annelise asked.
“No, stay with the rest of the group. You help the Senators that are still coming across get acclimated. Connor, you and Jacinda, get the boats back to their rightful owners. Catalina, stay with the kids. I won’t be long.” Ryker strolled out into the waning dark, nearing the field on the opposite end of Poveglia Island as the first streams of dawn began spraying the sky.
Crossing a bridge that spanned a small canal which split the island into two, a gust of wind smacked his face. It died down a little, but the blowing persisted. Venturing into the field alone, Ryker heard the trees in the distance and the tall grass before him, rustling in the wind. Or was it whispering? He tried focusing his ears, but he just couldn’t make out what they were saying.
The sounds increased as he inched farther into the field. Ryker spun around.
Nothing there. Just the trees and the wind.
“You one of them?”
The Dane leapt five yards away, without thinking, the voice behind him catching him by unusual surprise. He turned to see a man in a strange, long-nosed mask, staring at him.
“You one of them?” the stranger repeated. “Or are you corporeal? Flesh and bone.
I don’t remember seeing you before.” The stranger moved quickly toward Ryker, the latter taking another step back, and reached out to touch him. Or poke him, rather. “Ah, real! And a vampire, no less!”
“As are you, I see,” said Ryker. “Now who the hell are you?” He could have swore he was still hearing whispering.
“Why, I am Alessandro, my good sir,” he said, removing the mask. “The Alessandro. At your service.” He bowed. Alessandro was a handsome, young, dark-haired Italian, somewhere around his late-twenties when he was turned. The ragged clothes he wore revealed his lean, muscular, dirty body. Then Ryker noticed Alessandro’s feet—no shoes.
“Should I know you? What are you doing here?”
“Have you not come to relieve Alessandro?”
“Relieve you from what? Why are you here?”
“No. I ask the questions. They are my questions,” said Alessandro, sometimes looking past Ryker, other times looking next to him at nothing. “Alessandro would like to know if you are the island’s new protector so that I may go home.” My God, thought Ryker, he’s mad. That’s all I need. A crazy vampire.
“I’m sorry, I’m not your replacement. I didn’t even know you were here. Is that what you do here, protect the island?”
“Oh, yes sir,” Alessandro said, bowing again.
“Protect it from what? Who put you here?”
“Alessandro protects the island from those,” he said, pointing across the water to Venice, his voice nearly whispering. “Yes, I know he asked more.” Again, Alessandro spoke to no one or, at least, no one Ryker could see. “The Senate put me here, good sir.”
“The Senate?” Ryker asked, shocked, almost angry. Is it the ghosts, or this vampire the Senators are afraid of? “Who do you talk to when you do not talk to me?”
“The others that live with me here, of course.” He gave Ryker a curious expression, as if it were odd that Ryker even asked that. Like Ryker couldn’t see them.
“What others? I don’t see anyone.”
“They are the ones that came before. The ones that do not walk as we do. They died here many years ago, and die here still.”
This is getting weirder and weirder. “Who died many years ago? And who dies here still?”
“The ones from the plague. And the ones from today. Alessandro must feed still, is that not so, good sir?”
“You can see the dead?” Now it was starting to make sense.
“Yes, sir.”
“And the ones that die still, you mean Venetians that you kill for food, right?”
“Yes, sir. Alessandro believes you are a smart vampire.”
“Who do you kill and how often do you eat?”
“Oh, Alessandro only feeds on those that are bad. Yes, sir. And only once every fortnight, sir. Just like I was told to do. So as not to attract attention.”
“You’re saying you feed only once every couple of weeks?”
“Yes, sir. As far as people go. The rest of my food I used to get from animals on the island, but I’ve eaten them all.”
“Has it been a while since you last ate? People, I mean.”
“Several days, sir. Alessandro does as he is told. Yes, he does.” Ryker stared at Alessandro, quietly thinking to himself. “I need to get you something to eat.”
“Oh no, sir.” Alessandro looked worried. “That cannot be. The Senate will be most angry and put out with Alessandro.”
Ryker thought about what transpired at Burghausen. “Things have changed,” he said, looking down, then around the field. You’re one of the reasons people avoid the island, even if they don’t really know why they’re doing it. They don’t truly know that you exist here. That’s how you protect it. People think it’s cursed, mostly, because of you. You’ve been doing a great job, Alessandro. Things are going to change for you, but first you must eat. Come with me.”
Ryker began leading Alessandro through the field, across the bridge, and back toward the fortification.
“Why does the Senate want you to protect Povelgia?” he asked.
“In case they come back, and you have. Here you are! It is a glorious day for Alessandro! A glorious day!”
“One more question, Alessandro—how long have you been here?”
“Why, I do not know,” he said, seeming, for only a moment, to step out of the shadow of madness. “This is Alessandro’s home! Can I go home now?” And he stepped right back in. “May I ask you a question, sir?”
“Absolutely.” Ryker slowed down, to give his new friend the opportunity to walk along side him, but he noticed that Alessandro would always maintain a place behind him. As if he were subservient to Ryker.
“Is my wife, per chance, with you?”
“You’re married?”
“Yes, Alessandro has a wife.”
“What’s her name?”
“Carina. The most beautiful name in all the world, in all of Heaven. Hearing her name is like listening to a chor
us of Angles.”
“I’m sorry, Alessandro, I don’t know you’re wife,” said Ryker, growing angrier with the Senate with each answer Alessandro gave. “I’m afraid she’s not with me. But, let’s get some food in you, then maybe we can talk about her. Maybe some of my friends have heard of Carina. I have some Senators with me.” Ryker’s expression, chiseled by sympathy for the mad vampire, hardened into stone as they grew nearer to the island’s buildings. “Speaking of them, let’s go have a nice, long talk with the Senate.” Chapter 19
Everyone stared as Ryker returned from the foreign field with a raggedy-dressed companion.
“Who the hell is that?” he heard Connor whisper.
Ryker only smiled and nodded at those gathered as he passed. He felt Alessandro following closely, hunched over a little, mumbling to himself.
“No, he’s nice to Alessandro. Leave me alone. Come again another day.” The last one he repeated over and over, like a store owner holding his door open as customers exited at closing time. “Come again another day. Come again another day.” Ryker and his new friend approached the Greek Senator, a vampire, and the Iranian Senator, a werewolf. The Greek was already watching Ryker walk up; the Iranian looked up from his Quran to see what the whispering was about. Petros, the Greek, turned his head as if in shame.
“Who’s this?” asked the Persian, Bijan.
“You tell me,” Ryker replied.
“Do you not believe that I would tell you if I knew?” That was good enough for the Dane. Bijan was considered by many at Burghausen to be one of the most loyal and trustworthy Senators.
“Tell them your name,” Ryker said, watching closely those around him for any clue that someone there knew about the groundskeeper’s existence.
“Alessandro would like to offer greetings to his esteemed visitors,” the new vampire said. A sudden gasp came over the crowd. The majority knew who he was.
“Is it possible?” asked Bijan, closing his holy book. “Could this really be Alessandro? It seems our sins have returned, Petros.”
“Yes, it’s possible,” said Petros.
“I am sorry,” said Bijan, looking at Alessandro. “Have you been here, on this island, all this time?”
“Alessandro has been faithful, good sir.”
“I don’t know what he was like when he was first marooned here,” said Ryker,
“but he’s certainly different from the rest of us now. He talks to those we cannot see, and speaks of himself in third person. So who is he? How long has he been here? He says the Senate left him here. Is that true?”
Petros and Bijan looked at each other, then out at the other refugees.
“It is true,” said Petros. “It was decided by the Senate that Alessandro would remain on Poveglia, but not as punishment. He was to be a guard for the island, albeit a temporary one. But he certainly wasn’t marooned here—he was only with us a short time when he volunteered.”
“Let’s stop dancing around. What is this place? What is the Senate’s connection?
And why is Alessandro here? Why are we here, now?”
“Poveglia,” began Bijan, “is the original seat of the Senate. No one alive then is alive now to recount the story you are about to hear. We only know who he is because the information was passed on to us, just as it is now about to be to you. Some of us were here when Alessandro remained behind but, I assure you, his being left here all this time was not intentional.”
Alessandro began tugging on Ryker’s garments. The Dane brushed the mad vampire’s hand away.
“Werewolves and vampires,” Bijan continued, “arrived here soon after the fall of Rome, around 450. It is from Rome where the Senate cultivated its ideas and ways, including that of the Consulship. Of course, by that time, the Consulship had long been abandoned in Rome itself for the Emperor. Before Rome’s end, werewolves were worshipped as gods by small clusters of people. This was before my time.”
“And vampires,” said Petros, “fed in secret. Both groups lived, metaphorically, on the fringes of society; on the edges of the Empire, physically. Then the fall occurred. The various so-called Barbarian groups invaded and we, all of us, vampire and werewolf, were on the run, hunted. Almost to extinction.”
Alessandro continued to tug on Ryker’s shirt. “Not now,” said the Dane.
“The barbarians,” said Bijan, “believed what the Romans didn’t—that we existed.
Before, vampires and werewolves had little to do with each other. When the hunts began, we realized we needed each other. We were greatly outnumbered by the mortals.”
“So we ended up here,” said Petros, motioning at his surroundings. “We consolidated power and formed the Senate.”
“But the Senate was not then, as you know it now,” Bijan said. “It was early in its existence. The residents of Poveglia fed on the local Venetians, thinking nothing of the mortals. It was a one-way relationship. Then it happened.”
“The Death,” whispered Alessandro.
“That’s right, my mad friend,” said Petros. “The plague, the one that’s called the Black Death, hit. It was just before this, just before 1348, that many of the vampire Senators that stand with you today were created, werewolves not having the life span that we do. Now, as you know, disease affects us not, however, it did affect our food supply, if you know what I mean.”
Alessandro tugged incessantly. Ryker ignored him.
“We faced a dire food shortage when the plague began wiping out many Venetians. So we became less cautious about feeding, revealing too often what we were and how we fed. Then they began to believe that the strange ones that lived on Poveglia brought the plague to Venice, as part of God’s wrath for allowing evil spirits, us, to dwell here. The locals set out to destroy Poveglia, so we moved a second time—to Germany.
That’s when Alessandro was left here, put in place as a guard in case we ever needed to return.”
“So he’s been here,” Ryker began, calculating in his head, “about six hundred and fifty years? Guarding this small island alone? No wonder he’s lost his mind. Go on.”
“After the devastation in Venice,” said Bijan, “the Senate learned its lesson.
When we first arrived at Burghausen, there was no castle, only the village. A deal was struck with the villagers: we revealed immediately what we were and, if offered protection and did not feed off the locals, they would keep our secret. A symbiotic relationship was formed. The castle was built quickly since the work was done by werewolves and vampires, and there we resided. Until yesterday.”
“I still don’t understand how someone could be left here all this time, forgotten about,” said Ryker.
“You are correct,” Petros said. “We committed a huge error. This was extremely negligent on our part. We needed someone here, but it was not our intention to leave him here, without checking on him or relieving him, for over six hundred years. It’s not that we forgot about him, it’s just that so much time passed, well, we neglected him. I don’t even know how we could make it up to him. We are not able to return to him his sanity.” Ryker suddenly realized that Alessandro was still pulling on his clothes. “What is it?”
“Not all of the tale is true?” said Alessandro.
“What’s not true?” asked Ryker.
“Yes,” said Petros, “do tell. All of it is true, as best as it can be conveyed by those who were not alive at the time before Poveglia, but then, no one was.”
“That is what is false. I was alive.”
“When?” asked Annelise, approaching, putting her hand on his shoulder.
Alessandro shuddered when he looked at her and began weeping. “I was alive when the Great Empire was no more. Carina?”
“Impossible,” Petros exclaimed. “We would have known about it then. That would make you the oldest vampire. No, no way.”
“It is true,” Alessandro whispered, turning back to Ryker. “And I know who hunted our kinds with the invaders.” Alessandro looked again at Annelise.
“Yeah, other invaders,” Petros said, beginning to laugh.
“Who? Who hunted us with the invaders?” asked Ryker. He turned Alessandro’s head with his hand.
“The Dark One.” Alessandro lowered his whispering further.
“You mean the Devil?” Annelise asked, moving around to Alessandro’s front.
“Yes. The Dark One roamed the land, bringing destruction to our kinds. My Carina?”
“Preposterous,” said Petros.
Ryker mouthed the name Carina to Petros in an inquisitive gesture. The Greek shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
“Not necessarily, my friend,” Bijan said. “While I do not believe that it was the Devil himself, often times there is a shred of truth in a belief, or myth. In Alessandro’s mind, the belief exists of this Dark One, the Devil, that helped to hunt us down. We know the hunts happened. Is it not also possible that there was a greater force behind it than just the Goths?”
“The insane often see more clearly than the sane,” said Ryker.
“Yes, and according to you, he sees ghosts,” Petros responded.
“I think he has seen, and continues to see, what we do not want to see. Annelise, will you please take our new friend and get him cleaned up?”
“Of course,” she said.
As they walked away, Alessandro had difficulty walking due to focusing all of his attention on Annelise.
“Either way,” Petros began, “we don’t have to worry about this Dark One now.” He walked away, strolling through the crowd to pats on the back.
Ryker looked around, seeing that the majority of the Senators agreed with Petros’s position regarding Alessandro and the fabled Dark One. Bijan stood, standing beside Ryker.
“If Alessandro is as old as he claims,” began the Persian, “and he clearly is as mad as he appears, he would be one of the most dangerous vampires alive.” He walked away, rounding the corner to a more quiet, secluded place within the ruins, to continue his reading of the Quran.
Ryker remained frozen in place by Bijan’s words. He watched Annelise, continuing to lead Alessandro, with the teens, to get cleaned up. One of the most dangerous vampires alive. Ryker quickly joined his wife.
“Why do you keep calling my wife Carina?”