I could see the boy’s hair sprouting where he’d torn his locks from his scalp. It was strange watching the hair wriggle from his skin, seeing it wind down, serpent-like, across his brow. I hugged him tight to my chest. “Oh, Ilio,” I sighed.
“His son!” he said in a grating voice. “He loved his son so much! How can a man live with such pain, Thest? It would drive me insane!”
“It is hard,” I confessed. “It is always hard when you lose someone you love. But it is something we all must learn to do. Especially creatures like you and I, who live so much longer than mortal men.”
“I do not think that I will be able to bear it!” he hissed.
“You will have to, Ilio,” I replied. “You may soon have a child of your own to look after!”
4
Even with his accelerated mental faculties, it took a moment for my words to sink in. He frowned up at me, confused by what I’d said, still wrestling with the memories of his recent mortal victim. “What… what do you mean?” he stammered.
I laughed gently as his confusion. “You may be a father soon,” I repeated.
He pulled away from me, pressing his fingertips to his temples. “Please, Thest, no lessons tonight. My skull feels like it’s splitting open. I don’t even know which thoughts are my own, and which thoughts belong to the mortal that I’ve killed.”
“I’m not trying to impart a lesson, Ilio. I am only acting as a deliverer of news.”
He blinked up at me doubtfully. “What are you talking about?” he cried. “How can I be a father?”
“Ilio,” I teased him gently, “we had this talk when we still lived on the mountain. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t mean ‘how’ like that--”
“Do you recall the Neirie women the Elders sent to our tent? One of them is with child. She claims that you are the sire.”
Ilio shook his head. “Me? A father? That can’t be true!”
“I assure you, it is a distinct possibility.”
“But I only did it that one time,” he protested.
“All it takes is one time!” I laughed. I put a hand on his shoulder, smiling sympathetically. “Come now, man! I explained to you how babies are made. It is not a complicated process.”
“No, it is not,” Ilio said. He thought for a moment, head down, then looked at me with a tentative smile. “Can it really be true? Have I fathered a mortal child?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I cannot say for sure, Ilio. The Neirie man I conversed with tonight, Tapas-- you know, the giant that I told you about-- delivered the message to me. And he was only repeating what the slave girl claims. Only she would know if it is true or not, but she says that it is you. I do not know why she would lie about it.”
Ilio scrubbed his bloody cheeks with his sleeve. “Can we go to their camp and see her tonight?” he asked.
I nodded to the dead man lying at our feet. “Do you think that is wise?”
His face crumpled. “Oh, Thest! What am I going to do? I failed miserably the very first time I was tempted!”
“As did I, remember?”
“Perhaps it would be best if I do not acknowledge this child. If I harmed the baby, or the woman who bore him, I would destroy myself out of remorse.”
I nodded. “That was the course I chose when I was made this vicious thing we are,” I said. “I abandoned my children, abandoned my mates. I did it for their safety, but it is a decision I have always regretted. Perhaps, with my help, you could have a happier fate.”
“You would do that for me?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I will advise you,” I answered. “I will do my best to train you, but ultimately your life is your own. Your decisions are yours, and it is you and you alone who will have to live with the consequences of your actions.”
Ilio looked to the dead man.
“I suppose we should bury his body in some remote location,” he said finally. “It would not be fit for the Neirie to learn of my failure. Not if we wish to live among them. Not if I wish to be a father to this child.”
I nodded solemnly. Acts of deception have never set well with me, but I am enough of a realist to know that a lie is sometimes the lesser evil. As I myself have lied-- to the boy, from the very moment that I “rescued” him.
I am a father of lies, I thought, but aloud I said, “If that is what you think is best.”
“I don’t think any of this is ‘best’,” Ilio confessed, scooping up his victim’s body. He stood, the Tanti dangling in his arms. “It is just that I see no other alternative,” he explained.
He sounded so like me in that moment that I had a strange thought: that the man-child was more like me than could rationally be explained. He seemed more like a child of my flesh than an adopted son. Perhaps, when I had made him an immortal, the essence of my soul had been distilled into his own, as the essence of mortal men and women mix when they make a child together.
The clouds that had been massing all evening had finally overspread the heavens. Lightning flickered like the tongue of a serpent, followed by a great crash of thunder. We listened to the thunder reverberate across the plains, waning into the distance even as the echo rolled back upon itself. The rain began to fall with a sudden drumming in the treetops. Cold rainwater filtered through the piney boughs above us, drizzling down on our heads in purring rivulets.
Water running down his face, Ilio looked at the dead man in his arms. “Would that this rain could wash away the wrongs I have done tonight,” he murmured.
“Such stains can never be washed away.”
“As you know from bitter experience,” the boy said. He looked at me, raindrops dripping from his curled lashes. “And now I.”
I looked back at him, silent. Waiting.
“Let us bury this man tonight,” Ilio nodded. “Then tomorrow we shall visit the camp of the Neirie. I would like to see this woman who claims I’ve fathered her child. I will know if she speaks the truth.”
“As you wish,” I nodded, and then he turned and walked into the open.
The boy vanished into the flapping gray curtain of the rain.
A moment later, I followed.
5
Ilio dug the Tanti’s grave beside a stream, laying his victim to rest at the base of a willow tree. The tree was young and twisted by the stout winds that ripped through the region, but I thought it was probably a very lovely spot when the weather was not so miserable: the stream, the willow, the gently sloping hills.
“I can still feel him inside me,” Ilio said as the rain beat down on us. He shoved his hand into the earth like a spade, wrenching out a great divot of muddy sod. A mortal would have been impressed by the strength such an act required, but not I. I was only wet.
I’d offered to help the boy dig his victim’s grave, but he had refused. He said he wanted to do it himself. I approved of the sentiment and so I did not press him. Instead, I walked a little distance away and sat on the bank of the stream.
I watched the water race by as he dug, dangling my feet. Leaves and small branches went whirling past, hurried by the downpour. My hair was hanging in wet strands, my clothes soaked through, but it did not bother me overly much. Cold hasn’t bothered me since the night I was made into a blood drinker.
“It is like his ghost is whispering inside my mind,” Ilio said later, taking a break from his labors. “His words are foreign, yet I understand them without effort.”
“What does he say to you?” I asked.
“He does not blame me for his death,” Ilio answered. “He says… his suffering was no greater than the beasts he killed to feed his own belly. He says that all living creatures must eat to live. That life is a great circle, and even we T’sukuru will return to the earth someday, to be devoured by the grass and the trees and the flowers.”
“That is a comforting thought,” I said.
Ilio returned to his chore. He tore another chunk of earth from the mortal’s grave, the roots in the soil snapping. The drumming downpour
cleaned the boy as quickly as he muddied himself, which I thought was very fitting. He had done a terrible thing, but not willfully, not with any malice.
“He asks me only to remember his life, and the love he had for his son,” Ilio said with a grunt, pushing another hunk of earth aside. “And if I, by chance, ever come across the bones of his son, to give them a proper burial so that his son’s spirit can rest in peace as well.”
Ilio lifted the Tanti into his arms and placed the man gently into the ground. He laid the man to rest in the manner that my own people once favored: on his side, with his knees drawn up to his chest. Like a child in the womb.
Ilio climbed out of the grave. He knelt down and began to push the dirt in upon the dead man. He filled the hole quickly, pressing it down with his palms. When he was finished, he stood on his knees. He tilted his head back and held his arms out at his sides and let the rain wash him clean.
“He’s gone now,” Ilio sighed.
“Then let us go now, as well,” I said, rising from my perch. “I’m soaked to the skin, and I need to fill my belly.”
6
We camped that morning in the grove of pines where I’d found Ilio huddled over his Tanti victim. The rain continued to slash down from the heavens, so we constructed a crude lean-to and wrapped up in my cloak.
My vampiric skills were no match for the deluge. I could find not one dry stick with which to build a fire. My only solace was that the nearby Neirie, as resourceful as they were, had no fires either that night.
We rested together beneath the angled roof of our dripping lean-to, listening to the rain hiss down without respite. If we were mortal men, we would have been miserable. Cold, wet, shivering. As we were not mortal men, the storm was merely an inconvenience, but I did miss the comforts of a nice big fire, its light and warm. I have always enjoyed staring into the flames of a campfire, watching them leap and twirl like dancers. Much as you modern mortals enjoy staring into the cold blue light of your electric television sets.
Ilio talked interminably as the rain drummed down. He talked of the child he might have, and how a blood drinker might live among mortal men, and keep them safe from our cursed appetite.
I offered what advice I could, cautioning him against too much hope. “The woman may not even want you for a mate, Ilio,” I pointed out. “Naming you the father is no proposal of marriage.” To his credit, he understood, and confessed that he was only passing the time. I nodded, water dripping from the tip of my nose.
“Tapas said that he and his people will part with the Neirie in the morning,” I said, changing the subject. “The hunting party they met a couple days ago are from a region near his tribal lands. He plans to travel with them.”
“You wish to see him off, don’t you?” Ilio asked.
I nodded. “I think we should both go. He can introduce us to the group. He speaks the language of the Tanti, the tongue the mother of your child speaks. Once Tapas and his people leave, there may be few among the Neirie who speak the Denghoi tongue.”
“I would like that,” Ilio admitted.
He pressed up against me, quietly happy. I put my arm around his shoulders, wondering how long it would be before we parted, this boy and I. He was nearly a man, in thought if not in form. He might look like a child, frozen in time by the vampiric transformation, but he would soon yearn to be free of my rule. He would want to lead his own life, be the master of his own destiny… and that was as it should be.
What would I do then, I wondered. Where would I go?
Perhaps I would travel east, I thought. Seek out those Others we’ve heard so many rumors of. Their brutal reputation did not frighten me. I knew my power, and I was fairly certain I could protect myself among the blood drinkers of the east.
I spent the rest of the night thinking about those mysterious immortals, wondering what they were like, how many of our kind roamed the world. What strange customs did they keep? What deities did they worship? The questions swirled inside my head like a cloud of buzzing gnats. The prospect of meeting other members of my race filled me with great excitement.
I looked toward the east, but it was just as gray and featureless as any other direction in the downpour. The rain, like the mountains, guarded the secrets of the eastern blood drinkers.
7
At the first hint of dawn, which was little more than a lightening of the featureless haze that had enveloped the region, we set off for the Neirie encampment. It was still raining hard when we abandoned the conifer wood, but the rain slackened as we traveled southeast, ebbing at last to a slow drizzle as we rounded a hill and beheld the camp below.
Like us, the Neirie had slept beneath makeshift lean-tos constructed of tree limbs and foliage. They had fled the village of the Oombai with scant supplies, living off the land as best they could as they journeyed home. They had plundered a bit of clothing and weapons from the fallen Oombai army, but their settlement still looked quite poor. Once again I found myself impressed by their spirit and resourcefulness.
A good number of men and women had already arisen. They stumbled groggily about the camp, looking for a bit of breakfast, or ducked into the bushes to take care of their morning toilet. They had managed to build a couple smoldering fires, shielding the flames beneath the overhang of their shelters, and that’s where most of them gathered once they’d visited the woods, boiling their morning tea or having their first smoke of the day.
None took note of our approach.
Ilio faltered at my side as we descended the hill toward their camp, his face purposefully neutral. I could see his nostrils flaring. I put my hand on his shoulder to support him.
“Are you sure you can endure this, boy?” I asked.
I could feel his muscles twitching beneath my hand. His entire body had gone rigid, like a great cat preparing to spring upon its prey.
“I can… smell them,” he whispered huskily. “Their... blood!”
“As do I,” I said. “Try to put thoughts of feeding out of your mind. Do not even allow yourself to fantasize about it.”
He swallowed, then nodded anxiously. “I am ready.”
He strode ahead of me without encouragement then, moving purposefully. I hurried to catch up, putting a pleasant expression on my face. The ground squished soggily beneath our feet.
Where was Tapas? I wondered, searching the Neirie faces below. Had his group already departed?
At last someone took notice of us. A female voice rang out in fear. All through the camp, nervous Neirie eyes swiveled in our direction. Several men leapt to their feet, clutching spears or clubs. Others tried hurriedly to reassure their companions, explaining that I was the one who had killed the Elders, saved them from the Oombai’s final attempt to recapture them.
I saw Tapas then. He came scurrying from a copse of spindly saplings, fumbling with the laces of his breeches. He raised his hand to me as he shouted at the others. “Taian dow!” he yelled. “Sprecht ien d’tzau!” Most of the men lowered their weapons, though a few continued to stare at us suspiciously.
“It pleases me to see you, Thest,” Tapas called, climbing the hill to meet us. He was a little out of breath. “Have you come to see me off this fine summer morning?”
I embraced the soggy man with a laugh, and we continued toward the camp, walking side by side. “I have motives other than courtesy for visiting you this morning, I must confess,” I said.
“If you’ve come to ask us for a favor, know that we are only too happy to accommodate your needs,” Tapas replied. “We owe you more than just our freedom, T’sukuru. Many of us owe you our lives.”
“You are very generous, Tapas. The favor I ask is very small.”
“You have but to speak it.”
I noticed that he kept peeking at the boy as we walked. “This is Ilio,” I introduced them. “He is my adopted son.”
“He is much changed from the last time I saw him,” Tapas said, looking down on the lad with a friendly smile. “Ilio, is it? That is a Denghoi nam
e. I saw you at the Oombai festival.” Ilio nodded in acknowledgement, and Tapas turned back toward me. “He is a blood god now. I can tell by the pallor of his skin.”
“He is T’sukuru,” I confirmed.
I glanced at Ilio from the corner of my eye, noting the stiff gait with which he walked. I could see it was a effort for him to resist the song of the blood. I empathized. I, too, felt its seductive call. The living hunger twisted my guts into knots. It whispered temptations in my mind, seducing, cajoling. Kill them… feast on their blood…!
As it always does.
Never ceasing.
Even as I suffered, I kept a close eye on the boy, ready to restrain him should he lose control and pounce.
Tapas sensed that I was reluctant to discuss the boy’s condition. He changed the subject. “So tell me, great warrior, what is this favor you seek?”
“You speak the tongue of these other tribes,” I said. “I would have you make a way for us among them before you leave for your homeland.”
“A formal introduction, you mean. So that they’re comfortable with your presence?”
I nodded.
“But of course, my friend! Such a small favor to ask!”
Ilio looked at me imploringly.
“Also,” I said, “we would like to see the woman. The one who claims my son has sired a child in her belly.”
“The Tanti woman Priss,” Tapas said.
“Priss?” Ilio shouted, surprising us both. “Priss is the one who carries my child?”
Tapas absorbed the boy’s excitement, grinning knowingly at me.
“So she claims,” Tapas said mildly. He leaned toward me, muttering out of the corner of his mouth, “No ass can proclaim a foal of his spraying ‘til the babe is full grown and takes up his braying.”
The Oldest Living Vampire In Love (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 3) Page 9