by Jemma Chase
One by one, they cut us down. Hannah, Jonathan and Liam each fell during separate fights with vampire clans. Each body was buried as we had David’s and Adrienne’s. And with each body interred, more of our hope was buried as well.
“Maybe we should…forget this mission,” Marcus said as we finished our prayers for Liam’s soul.
I stared at the grave. “Liam died in the future, was saved and resurrected, and died again now. Each death was because of the vampires, the plague from this time that grew unchecked for centuries. If we can succeed, stop the plague here, he won’t die in the future.” Neither would Violet, or David, Hannah, or any of the others. We’d all be alive in the future, if we were successful here in the past.
Marcus took my hand. “But there are only two of us now.” He pulled me to him and held me. “I can’t lose you. I couldn’t go on alone here without you.”
“You could.”
“No. You could. You’ve always been the bravest, the strongest of us. I would die here without you to give me a reason to go on.”
I leaned against his chest. “Then we’ll have to ensure we survive.”
He sighed. “I want you to at least consider that we give up this quest. I love you, and I want to live with you, in safety.”
“I love you too.” I considered Marcus’ suggestion as we held each other. Would it be so wrong if we stopped, maybe only for a little while, and just allowed ourselves to actually live?
Marcus knew my resolve was weakening. He started speaking of a future where we would have children, live our lives somewhere safe, where the plague hadn’t come. His dream sounded worthy of consideration.
We wandered further north, not really looking for vampires now. Instead, we were looking for somewhere safe to live. I thought of all the vampire homes we’d left behind – if we’d stayed, if we’d stopped and made one of them our base, maybe the others would still be alive and with us.
If we’d stayed – at one of those homes or in our own time – maybe we’d have been safe.
But it hadn’t been safe in our own time, and safety wasn’t something we’d come to the far past for. I’d never known the luxury of safety.
Marcus was offering safety, but I knew it was a dream, an illusion. We would never be safe. Not as long as the vampire plague existed.
We tried. We truly did.
I removed my cloak, wore a dress and an appropriate woman’s head covering, hid my weapons, with the hope of blending in. Marcus didn’t have to hide as much, but we both used our cloaks as carrying bags.
Our attempts didn’t matter.
We thought to find a village and join it, move into a home none had a claim on any more because the Black Death had killed all potential claimants. But every village we came across ran us off. The insults varied, but the results were always the same.
“Your plan for us to settle down and stop vampire hunting doesn’t seem to be working,” I said as we trudged away from another place that didn’t want us, the shouts and screams of “God doesn’t want you here,” ringing in our ears.
“Maybe we need to choose a place where all the villagers are dead.”
“No. Then we’ll be accused of killing them all, should anyone else happen by.”
Marcus sighed. “Most likely true.” He put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me. “It’ll work out.”
“Not if we want to live with other people, apparently. They don’t like us much, do they? I don’t think we resemble any demons from the Bible, but you’d never know.”
Marcus was quiet.
“What are you thinking?”
“Maybe God doesn’t want us here. Maybe we weren’t supposed to come back.”
“We’re doing God’s work,” I said firmly, even as I admitted to myself that this was a strong possibility. “No religious text lists vampires as agents of good or of God. If we question our faith, our faith weakens.”
Marcus chuckled morosely. “I don’t have faith in much anymore. Other than you.” He hugged me again. “I know if you believe us to be doing right, then we’re doing right.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d stopped wondering if we were doing right months ago. Like Marcus, I couldn’t go on if I rejected my purpose. So I continued to embrace it, as I wondered if we could ever truly find safety, or if the mere hope of it was asking for more than we deserved.
We weren’t able to find safety. We were, however, able to find vampires.
There was a pattern, just as David had said there would be. I wasn’t sure I could see the entire picture, but certain commonalities were appearing to us.
The clans tended to be in more desolate areas, almost always family groups, or tiny communities. The solitary ’Pires were usually in the larger towns. There were exceptions, but by now, we’d accumulated enough kills to feel confident we were reading these patterns correctly.
The town ’Pires had thralls. The family groups didn’t. The families appeared to feed from each other and animals, but not so the town vampires. They had thralls as well as many dead. But with the Black Death still raging, no one looked too closely at the dead. No one but us.
It became easy to spot those a vampire had drained for food – they looked so much better in death than the victims of the bubonic plague.
In some few areas we were asked to give the last rites to the dying and to pray over the bodies of the dead. Our reputations as being evil or dangerous preceded us too often for this to be a common occurrence. We were blamed for the Black Death more frequently than we were hailed as clergy who could give a dying soul peace.
“Someone’s telling them about us,” Marcus said in frustration after we were run out of yet another town, a town with no vampires in it. “And they’re traveling faster than we are.”
“Maybe they have telepathy. We know the maker has control over his thralls, and, to a lesser degree, over the vampires he creates. Maybe that’s how they’re communicating.”
“Maybe.” Marcus frowned. “That was true in our time. But things are different with the ’Pires of this era.”
“The sooner we can determine how they know about us, the sooner we can find the source.”
Marcus put his arm around my shoulders. “And the sooner we can find where we want to spend the rest of our lives.”
I managed a smile. But I knew where we were spending the remainder of our lives, and want no longer had anything to do with it.
I soon gave up the disguise and again went attired ready for battle. So did Marcus. It changed nothing in how people reacted to us, but we were better able to escape or fight.
We wandered, looking for someplace, anyplace, that would accept us as much as for ’Pires. It was far easier to find the ’Pires than safety or even the mildest of welcomes.
We were still forced off the main roads for most of our traveling. This made finding solitary vampires somewhat easier because either we looked like prey to them or they thought to take us where no regular person would see.
We were deep in a wooded area. The foliage was so dense no sunlight reached the ground. A good place for vampires, just as the last several small forests had been.
The vampire attacked suddenly and swiftly, but Marcus and I were prepared. We fought back-to-back, giving the ’Pire no openings. We ripped the head off, set it on fire, and looted the body.
“This one wasn’t too bright,” Marcus said as he handed me the small amount of valuables he’d found. “Weak, too. He shouldn’t have tried to take us both at once.”
The head burned away as we finished and lit the body on fire. I looked around. “Why did this ’Pire attack? He wasn’t trying to feed or turn us.” I looked at the necklace Marcus had removed from the vampire’s neck – a thin leather cord held a wooden Cross of Christ.
“Maybe he thought he’d be a hero and impress the rest of his clan.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth, than we heard the unmistakable sound of a mob approaching.
“There!” a voice shout
ed. “Just as they said! The killers have murdered Brother Alfonse, defiled his body, and robbed him.”
Marcus took my hand and we ran.
We ran through the woods, the villagers after us. Fear is a wonderful motivator and even though we were tired, we didn’t slow down.
“There,” Marcus gasped as we breached the trees to see a little homestead. “A horse!”
She was a smallish mare, older, and didn’t look capable of carrying one person too far, let alone two for any distance.
Marcus ran to her anyway. He hugged me tightly and kissed me deeply. “Ride.”
“I can’t leave you here!”
He stroked my face, as the sounds of the mob drew nearer. “You can and you will. You’re stronger than me, stronger than all of us. And I can face death if I know you’re safe.”
“Let me fight with you, then. We’ll face the mob together.”
“No.” Conviction I hadn’t heard since we’d come back in time was in his voice. “I’ve always known that you were the key to our success. Us both dying means our mission and our lives were failures. I don’t want that. For me, and the others, you have to survive and go on.”
I wanted to protest some more, but I knew he was right. And I couldn’t let his sacrifice, or the sacrifice the others had made, be for nothing.
I kissed him again, for far too short a time. Then Marcus picked me up and shoved me onto the horse’s back. He slapped her rump and shouted, and the horse ran. I looked back, to see Marcus fighting. All too quickly, the mob surrounded and overpowered him.
I try not to remember the sounds of the mob tearing Marcus apart. But, like so many other memories, it never leaves me.
The mare and I ran on for a few miles. As she tired we reached another wooded area. I headed us into it and we hid.
I waited for nightfall, then snuck back, riding slowly, ready at any moment to make the poor mare run her fastest. But we were unmolested. The villagers had stopped looking for me. Killing Marcus had been enough for them.
They’d defiled his strong body and beautiful face. I didn’t care. I still kissed where his sparkling blue eyes had been, and the ragged hole that had once been his mouth.
I wrapped his body in his cloak and gathered what was left of his possessions. Interestingly, the villagers hadn’t taken his Nightsticks. Perhaps they believed them instruments of the Devil.
I heaved Marcus’ body over the mare’s back and we walked back to the woods. I buried Marcus there, marking his grave as all the others had been.
“Goodbye Marcus, my love. I’ll see you in Heaven, if nowhere else.”
And it was there that I cried for the first time since that vampire gang in the future had destroyed my life.
I cried for the loss of my love, my family, my innocence, my little sister, and all my friends. I cried because I would never see Marcus’ eyes again, I would never talk to anyone who knew and understood me, I would never have a life, only an existence. I cried because I and the others had failed. I cried because God – once my savior – had deserted me again.
The tears flowed for hours. The new day dawned and I still cried. Finally, though, my tears were used up. I lay on Marcus’ grave, while I slept and, when my dreams woke me, wondered what to do now.
Light shown through the trees and lit the small sack that held the last vampire’s belongings. I dumped them onto the ground. Nothing worth Marcus dying for was in here. Just some few coins and the necklace. I stared at the wooden Cross of Christ for a long time.
The mare and I left Marcus’ grave at dawn the next day. I rode her for several days, then let her go near a farm. Every other living thing with me had died horribly; why should she suffer the same fate? She trotted towards the safety of domestication while I stole a handcart – I had what was left of everyone’s belongings with me and couldn’t carry them alone easily.
This somewhat fair trade made, I headed to whatever fate might hold for me – more alone than I’d ever known someone could be.
I went on with the mission. I had nothing else, after all. Nothing else except for the certainty that the pattern we’d been searching for was almost complete.
My being alone should have meant I was picked off easily. But the opposite was true.
Alone, burdened only with the handcart and supplies, I drew no untoward notice from any people I passed. I killed vampires as I found them, also without too much issue.
The pain of being more effective alone intensified my loneliness. But that pain also honed my focus.
I wasn’t looking for stray ’Pires or even clans, but for something more important – the center of the pattern, the point from which the plague radiated. I wore the vampire’s necklace, both for remembrance of Marcus and as a talisman to lead me to my goal.
The ’Pire who had attacked us so that the villagers would see us attack him in return had worn a wooden Cross of Christ without issue. The villagers had called him Brother. So at least one vampire had been a man of God before being turned. And at least one vampire had continued to practice as a man of God until Marcus and I had killed him.
The question being begged was simple – how many other men of God had been turned and where had that turning happened? Either the ’Pires had randomly chosen Brother Alfonse or they hadn’t. I needed to find out, so I held onto the talisman and looked for its brothers.
It took some time, but the talisman worked.
I reached the Abbey before dusk. The tall, several-storied stone building sat at the top of a small hill. The village buildings were clustered around the Abbey’s grounds – it was the center point of this town.
The Abbey looked old and well maintained from the outside. The people cared about it. Or at least, they had.
No one was about – neither human nor animal were apparent to my senses. Not only that, but there were no signs of war, and no signs of the Black Death. Proof the other plague had come here, possibly many years prior.
I pushed at the entry door – it opened without resistance. I drew one of my Nightsticks. I had three others, each nestled in their velvet sheathes, hooked to my belt. They weighed heavily on me, but not as heavily as the loneliness. I didn’t allow myself to fear – I couldn’t afford the luxury.
The handcart with the rest of my gear I hid in a haystack at the outskirts of this village. I shouldn’t have brought the extra two Nightsticks along. I’d never done so before, but they made me feel less alone, as if one of the others, Marcus or Hannah, perhaps, were fighting at my side. I had more than my usual backup with me, that was all. So I told myself. As with loneliness, I couldn’t afford the luxury of fear, either.
I listened before I stepped inside but heard nothing. I left the door open to take advantage of the remaining light. Besides, once night came, a closed door wouldn’t protect me.
The room was lined with candleholders. Each held a partly burned candle, but none were lit – a bad sign. The grate was cold and empty, and a quick examination showed no fire had been lit for months. For this time of year, a worse sign than the unlit candles.
The room wasn’t in disarray, but smelled dusty and dead.
I found a flint and lit the candles, watching for any signs of life or movement. The room was smaller than I’d expected it to be, but this Abbey was more tall than wide. The interior was all dark wood with only a small wooden table and chairs inside. An antechamber, perhaps, used for visitors, with three doors and one stairway leading up.
A single lamp with an unburned candle in it sat on the table. I lit the wick and took the lamp with me.
I checked the doors first. The one to the right led to the large kitchen which accounted for most of the ground level. No one was here and no fresh food was in evidence, either. I smelled only the odor of decay. I did a cursory search – I had a good idea of what was causing the smell.
Nothing. But all this meant was someone had cleaned up. Possibly because they knew I was coming. The thought wasn’t comforting, but not a shock, either. Someone had kno
wn we were coming for, as near as I could tell, almost as long as we’d been here.
Another door led to the dining hall, also deserted, with no signs of meals taken or interrupted for some time.
The door from the dining room led to the chapel. This Abbey’s layout was an odd design, one I hadn’t seen before. What this meant I had no way of knowing.
The chapel looked typical – pews, an altar, religious symbols and statuary, a large cross. It was untouched, and the dust layer was thick, thicker than in the other rooms. I sneezed, several times. The dust here was real. The dust elsewhere was something else again, because human ashes never made me sneeze.
The stained-glass windows were intact – one on each side of the room, set to catch the first and last rays of the sun. I stared at the picture of the Resurrection on the western wall and wondered if Jesus had known what plague was to come. A part of me wondered if the vampires were part of God’s plan, a way to test humanity – to test me.
Returning to the antechamber, I went to the middle door – this led to the interior yard. There was no one there, but I was able to confirm what the window in the chapel had told me – I was losing the sun.
Unlike most Abbeys, there were no buildings around the yard, merely a low wall, too high for a man to jump easily, but a strong horse or stag probably could. The yard looked serene, with scattered benches, trees that had lost their leaves in preparation for winter, and a small pond.
I went to the pond and performed the cleansing and purification ceremony. I might not get to use this new source of holy water, but without another person to work with I’d found more creative ways to provide backup for myself.
As I finished the ceremony I noted there were no sounds, no animals or insects I could hear. All was unnaturally still.
My task completed, I returned to the Abbey’s interior and checked the last door, the one to the left, by the stairway. It opened into the Abbot’s office. Again, nothing disturbed or touched for days, maybe longer. And yet, all the dust everywhere had not made me sneeze – only the dust in the chapel had done so.