They both picked up Ruby’s movement as she awoke and stretched. “If…if…where is Max? I needing touch him. Max and Ruby, Ruby and Max. Max come to Ruby.”
“Ruby, Max is gone.” Enos said.
“…but…but I wanting Max.”
“I know it’s sad, but I’m afraid Max isn’t coming home.”
“Okay, thank you… I go home now…look for Maxy.” She stood up and approached the door.
Enos matched her advance with his own, blocking the passage. Ruby came to an abrupt stop and scowled.
“What’s going on here?” Cinnamon and Persephone had come from the stairs. Cinnamon had asked the question. Enos appeared relieved to have some help with something he never really felt comfortable handling. Ruby saw Cinnamon on approach and relaxed a little.
“Ruby, I have brought someone who can talk with you…someone you can understand and someone who can understand you. I think we are both puzzled by what’s going on. I don’t like what’s going on right now between us. Please, let’s find out how we can both get what we want. Let’s find out how we can become better friends. Just a few minutes more, Ruby, please.”
Ruby backed away. Cinnamon and Persephone moved past Enos and into the room. Cinnamon arranged three chairs trying not to look at Ruby who was edgy. She didn’t want to have a glance into her eyes be misconstrued as a challenge or a threat. They sat down in that triangle and soon after, Persephone slumped in her chair eyes closed, in a swoon. Ruby was concerned and brought her face close to Persephone’s for further study but soon she also drooped in her chair.
Ruby’s respiration was slow and steady. The Haven inside Persephone, rendered the Dog-one to sleep and now, though tired, she would not rest until some answers were found. At least there was a better order of thought inside Ruby at the moment, than the tangles and fragments inside Misty. Persephone followed corridors and trails and roads and highways. She read thoughts and reviewed plans, found histories and studied schematics. It was one thing to soak up these things like a sponge, but still another to purposely interfere with their workings. But Havens who had left Homa so long ago, had learned to adapt to survive and the days of living life purely as watchers were long gone. Firstly, Ruby would be placed into a temporary sleep mode. Everyone in the house needed that, and needed freedom from worry and responsibility. Secondly, the last few days of Ruby’s life should be reviewed. It was likely that some glimpses of Lorn life and their plans had been seen by Ruby. These memories were important. And then, there was the need to understand Ruby and help her, if possible.
The Haven from inside Persephone, now inside Ruby, began turning down the lights and making cursory rounds. She was dog tired. After saying this to herself she chuckled at the irony of her comment. From the very beginning she had been on guard for a trap or an encounter with a Lorn. She expected one but hadn’t found one. No evidence a Lorn had ever been there…not a smudge. Down one tube and up another hallway, follwing one trunk to another. Outside a door she approached there was a puddle as wide as the entry.
“What is this?” She thought. “Is there an injury? What is this mess? Is it blood? No, it’s urine. Ruby’s urine. What was this about?”
She examined the frame and door. There were scratches, many scratches… a prolonged effort to get inside. Was this a memory Ruby was trying access? The grooves were deep and desperate. Was the urine being used to mark the door? Maybe, but it said more. It said frustration, maybe even anger…disrespect. Ruby could not get the door open but the Haven could.
She stood to one side in case something should come charging out on the attack, and slid the door open. The size of the room was mammoth and filled nearly to capacity by a dark transparent orb. Inside it a storm swirled. She wanted to run away but that action had resulted in several of those she knew and loved to be hunted down and killed. No, she would learn what she could. Although it appeared huge to her, she knew it was the size of a marble. And as she moved beside the large black ball, something inside appeared to congeal and follow her along.
37
Back on dry land once again, Constantine was loaded into a wagon, and quickly left port. What port it was, he was not told. He traveled under cover and was not in a good mood. He had endured cramped spaces on the ship and a rather difficult ship-to-ship transfer. The transfer was particularly frightening because the ship’s appearance was foreboding. To decide to transfer, mid-ocean, to a ship such as this had those involved shaking their heads and avoiding a direct meeting of the eyes. Once he was aboard the Four Strong Winds, it was emotional agony to watch the ship he had been on, disappear into the distance. The trip was stressful and eerie. There was little comfort. The days were unsettling and the nights were worrisome. Grunts and snarls, groans and loud scratching made him feel he was a floundering fish and the gulls were circling. But, though they could have pulled into port during the day, the ship held off until the evening.
He was being kept in secret. Constantine realized this but that didn’t help him endure the journey nor help to cement his loyalty. He found himself wishing he was back on the first ship, cursing Del Rio and damning his fortunes as he sailed to the new world, knowing he had a year to find and kill Milan or Del Rio would come looking. Now though, Constantine was in league with one vampire intent on ending another. A mouse caught between two cats….
His cramped and uncomfortable travel continued. Once, he even voiced his complaint to his drivers who responded, “If you want to take your complaint to the vampire, that’s your business but we are going to follow the task and the manner he has instructed.” After another day he was allowed to ride out in the open. An hour or two more and they pulled into a deep gorge, where there were several crudely constructed buildings and large stone house. As the wagon approached the house, Constantine passed by thirty or forty men practicing with bows and arrows. They were marshalled in this training by one man who called out commands and the others drew back on their strings and let them go in practiced unison. He watched the arrows sail through the air like a flock of birds or a cloud and land in or around the target in a chorus of sharp smacks.
The wagon pulled up and he was led to stairs that ran zigzag, up the side of the house.
“She waits for you on the roof top.” The main driver informed. “Stay in the sun and go not near the windows.”
He began to climb these steps made hot by the nearly noon sun, but as soon as he had begun, from underneath the house he heard cries for help and pleas for mercy. This caused him to look in the direction of these voices and when he did, he saw arms and hands reaching from underneath the house. There were many who implored from the cellar. They were frightened men, women and children. “Help us please, we must escape, she’s feeding us to the creatures, please help us get free.”
At the top, two men were stationed and he was bidden to approach this woman in the center of a terrace at the house, and to be reverent in his demeanor. He began his way to her but strangely she was doing some bends and pivots in some kind of dance. When he was at last in front of her, she stopped her slow swirls and regarded him through one eye.
“So,” she began in a hoarse whisper, “ye be the one they call Constantine?”
He nodded, dumbfounded, then thought better of this response and said, “Yes, I am Constantine.”
“Great killer of vampires are ye?”
Constantine heaved a big sigh. “It has been said of me and I have been proud of this for many years. Of late, I have not been so proud. My soldiers have been destroyed and all of them before my eyes…one by one, even my longest and best friend.”
“Oh, the shame of it. Ye meet up with a vampire…one of the old ones, and he takes what he wants from ye and ye whimper about it? Where is ye cry for vengeance? …Don’t it make ye want to hurt these vampires as much as they have cut ye?”
Constantine roused himself from his gloomy state and focused more of his attention toward the woman asking him these questions. “I am Constantine. Who are you?”
“I am Belladonna, maker of potions, breeder of exotic lives, and consorter with vampires….”
“So, you are a witch!” Constantine interrupted.
Belladonna did not like the interruption or the inference. “What I am,” Belladonna sent him a one-eyed glare, “is someone ye better not trifle with. Ye come here full of la-de-dah because ye fancy yerself as some mighty vampire slayer. Well, I’m glad to have yer here but I don’t need ye. I have MacQueen and you’ll find he is no idiot with vampire matters. Yer just a seasoning for the stew, too much and ye spoil the taste, so if ye want to be something more than an additive then I need ye to join here with them…this little army without causing a ripple. Ye’ll use the smarts ye have to add and blend…add and blend, but ye won’t spoil the broth. Find a way to blend with MacQueen and we could be so potent. Do ye understand?”
Constantine nodded.
“Ye don’t want to be on the bad side of me nor the vampires who follow the song that Desmondo Milan sings. Do ye hear?”
Constantine glanced at Belladonna.
“Ye can be the great Constantine again and these deeds we are about to do can make it so, but here you will be no better or worse than MacQueen. Help him make these men deadly for Lucido Del Rio and his ilk. Ye do that and ye will leave with people whispering yer name as ye pass by in the street, and have jingle in yer pocket as well. Now be gone and work to make the rabble below, such marksmen with their bows and sharp little arrows. I know yer tired from yer journey, but you can sleep when yer dead.”
Constantine turned and strode toward the stairs.
“Stay clear of this stoney-house, no matter what ye hear or think ye see. Ye think ye know all about vampires but unless ye want to learn firsthand, keep yer distance…especially at night.”
He began his descent down the stairs and stayed to the outside rail minding the witch’s warning. After a flight, he heard the scraping of nails and desperate pleas, and when he turned his eyes to view inside, he saw a sickening struggle. Though it was bright outside which made looking inside all the more difficult, there was someone on the floor, being kept there by something, and the like of which he had never seen. It was dark and looked the shape of a grub yet it was the size of an adult human. The bottom end to this thing ended as grubs do yet the top had human features and arms that kept the poor victim pushed to the floor while this hideous thing fed on them. He hurried on but could not stop himself from viewing into the window opening the next flight down. There he witnessed nearly the same thing as he had one flight above. Only here he could see that the victim here was a woman or a child hopelessly outmatched and trapped like a butterfly caught in a spider web. Constantine was so unnerved by these visions that he missed a step and tumbled the last half of stairs to the ground. He would have fled from the house but for those watching. He limped out toward the men who were practicing their talents with a bow and managed to smooth out his stride by the time he got there.
Belladonna didn’t see Constantine’s misstep, but she heard it and leaned over in time to see him limping away. She could guess the rest. Well, maybe it was for the best. A brief look through a window, an eyeful of the terrible abominations that grew there and crawled in those dark rooms, maybe that was the kind of motivation that set a man like Constantine on fire. If it didn’t, maybe at the very least it would keep him away from the house. The remains of Bevin and Jennifer were inside. He on the upper floor and she on the lower. Little was known regarding the reviving of vampires from ashes. Few had tried it and even fewer had done it. Only two actually, Michael Ro’dan was one of them.
Belladonna had talked to both Ro’dan and Tilson just before they had begun their work with Del Rio and the Daccotta woman. She had been chasing after them since they’d run off with the ashes of those vampires, hoping to be able to revive them. Back then, Belladonna had tried to collect her feral children to use their help in the hunt but it was too late. Ro`dan and Tilson had made it back to the strange giant at Del Rio’s home, even as her feral children tried to stop them. She learned enough to know that it was dangerous to stay here longer. Though the reviving was nearly complete, or so it seemed, it was dangerous to remain any longer. She remembered the wild rampage Lucido Del Rio had experienced as he rejoined. The trail of destruction, a village leveled, lives lost, like all the worst parts of being hurt, angry and drunk. And Belladonna remembered the vision of Veria, when they had held her as captive, caged, wild and slashing. Apparently, in some final push, the tamed and the untamed, the sane and the insane wrestled it out. Belladonna would oversee the revival of these two vampires now under her care, but from a distance. Let the unfortunate ones take the risks and make the sacrifices. There were many of those around already…meals waiting to be eaten.
38
For a few seconds I was lost in the lust I felt for Veria, a desire far beyond propriety built from years of enticement and bantering. And then I was angry with Veria for luring me into the house, confused at the group waiting for me and then angry with all of them for conspiring to descend upon me by surprise. Then, I realized there was no surprise. I had been given many warnings and chances to escape what was now at hand. I was encircled and the area inside that circle was getting smaller.
“Michael Ro`dan, you have provided many years of service to the House of Del Rio, as a guest, then a friend, then a ward, and most recently as a caretaker. You have requested to become family and in turn the family has considered your request. Assignments were made to ponder the pros and cons your request carries. We know you. We know better than you do, what the joining would mean to us and to you. You have made a difference, saved lives and made personal sacrifice. You have suffered with us our gains and trials. The decision is not unanimous, nor would I trust it if it were. It is difficult to join this…this family, and equally as hard to take part in it. To leave it is not easy either.”
There was laughter. The circle shrank a bit more.
“We are a family of dunces, crazies and lunatics. You’ll fit right in. But we are also smart, savvy and passionate and… we are monsters, Michael. We are cold, calculating killers. So, you must have heart and take heart…because just as the demands are unfathomable, so are the rewards. The weighing of this balance lies squarely with you.”
And then they pounced….
Don Lucido was the first and he was quick and powerful. I had my mind made up to fight against what I had asked for, yet before I could muster a resistance his fangs were deep into my neck, which I barely felt. I will confess that much of what follows is disjointed and I am not certain of how time progressed. It felt both brief and timeless. I have been hideously drunk before, and have had fevers so deep that my concept of what is real and what was a fevered dream have been completely indistinguishable. I have not known the taste of the poppy flower nor the effects of hemp, yet what I have, what I have heard about their distortions aligns with what I was experiencing with don Lucido. Though others clustered around, none interfered with don Lucido’s ministrations. I bore a mark that stated I was part of this family, his family. The others held back while don Lucido worked on me and drank of my blood.
We were back in Glyn an ancient city, tragically swept over by a lava flow from a nearby volcano. Though don Lucido had brought me many places, familiar and alien, more often than not, he enjoyed bringing me to Glyn. A portion of it had been perfectly preserved inside a bubble in the lava’s flow, a place where air had been trapped and all had been burned to ash and yet sealed for thousands of years. All the walls and buildings still stood, and the streets could still be walked, but there was no one to travel them.
“Can you understand the beauty of darkness?” Don Lucido said.
“It’s hard to see beauty if it’s dark.” I replied.
“Darkness can droop over everything and smother your very soul. It can be cold and achingly alone. I know, I’ve seen it be powerfully intimidating and seen so many lives fade to nothingness. I know what you mean but it is also a dark canvas t
o plant, grow and harvest your dreams, nightmares too if you’re stupid. Why do you think we dream so much in the darkness of slumber?”
He opened his arms to indicate our surroundings. “I wanted to bring you someplace familiar to you yet confining. You will experience disorientation.” Don Lucido said. “Try to remember the lessons many of us have taught you. If you do that you will make a harsh and difficult transition much easier, and it will help you to keep your course. You do not want to get lost in these lands. Many come to the shores of lunacy, few leave once they arrive.
You are dying, Michael, consumed even as I speak with you. The others are tasting your essence and seeing your life with each beat of your heart. This will become more painful, yet some sleep through it. You will become very, very cold. You will want for breath. You will panic and feel terror and your stomach will heave. But are these not the same sensations of birth? Don’t struggle. Don’t flail about. Let it come to you and when it does, give into it. Your blood runs out with your life. Don’t fight it. Listen to your heartbeat. You are unconscious now and fading. I listen for your last heartbeat…your last breath.”
I experienced hallucinations and visions. I heard things too loudly for my ears and at times not at all. Somewhere inside I knew my body was experiencing fits, yet I was being held tightly and drawn closer. Then I heard my heartbeats pulsing strongly but it seemed every contraction was slower and weaker in its ability send my life force to my extremities…to anywhere, really.
One heart beat seemed to have miles to travel before the next one. I was looking through fog. Visions raced against thoughts, coming to me and through me. I felt slow to react. It seemed to take a day to simply turn my head.
Don Lucido’s voice came to me again.
The Blood In Between (The Safe Haven Trilogy Book 3) Page 21