Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3)

by Richard M. Ankers

  “And the others?” I asked. “What happened to the second bitten?”

  “The Hierarchy! They lurched into forgetfulness. It's easy when you wish to. And in the so doing developed their own petty squabbling and eccentricities. Most even forgot where and who they came from. Most,” he repeated. “Of course, they were quick to reappoint themselves as the masters of this place or that, king of here, queen of there, take on the vocal characteristics – they were ever good mimics – of the places they masqueraded as being from.”

  “Chantelle,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, she most of all. If you catch her on a bad day, you might still glimpse some of her cockney trollop.”

  “And, this is where the Marquis and Jean's parents joined forces.” Aurora shook out her mane of milk-white hair.

  “Very,” Walter growled uncharacteristically. “They planned and manipulated and even tricked me into parting with some blood, and other fluids,” he frowned.

  “Because of the prophecy?”

  “Yes, Jean, although I never called it a prophecy just a promise. The Hierarchy believed that when humanity returned, they would take whichever male and female Eternal remained, whisk them away to preserve our race as they had the animals in the forests, birds in the skies, and fish in the seas. They would transport us to a new utopia unlike anything we'd ever seen, a second Eden.”

  “Did you believe it, Walter?”

  “If I didn't, do you think I would have gone to all this trouble to survive?”

  “Point taken.”

  “But if they just take two…”

  “I wouldn't read too much into it, my dear.”

  “But…”

  “I really wouldn't. The choices one might have thought we'd have to make are slowly being made for us. Which reminds me, Jean, where is Princess Linka, she seems to have gone astray?”

  My hand held only air.

  Where indeed was Linka, and where too was Sunyin?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  -

  Reunions

  The sun shivered, cold as my palm, shuddered, spluttered, stalled, then slowly slipped from the sky all its colour dripping away. Walter saw it too.

  “Look sharp,” he said, offering one hand to Aurora and another to me. “We must descend.”

  “Descend! Descend where?” My mind ran amok with confusion and betrayal. All I'd fought for was turned on its head, my world finally gone mad and me with it.

  “Where it all began,” said Walter. “La Fenice.”

  * * *

  He knew the way as though it imprinted on him all those lifetimes ago. Along a canal of sediment and silt, Walter raced at a pace both Aurora and I struggled to keep. The trudging, sludging, foot-sinking Merryweather was gone replaced by a man Aurora's equal and more. His movements were like the wind everywhere and nowhere at once. He breezed across the landscape casting glances to piles of heaped wreckage, others to the dilapidated remains of buildings collapsed without the aid of the Adriatic's buoyancy. Like a popped balloon, the fairy tale of the sunken city disappeared before our eyes. There were no marvels, no underwater miracles, just a sad little legend depleted and broken. It was quite the disappointment; I'd hoped for more.

  Merryweather came to a sudden jolting stop, lifted his head and sniffed a memory.

  “There,” he said, his right arm flashing out. “The opera house, I would know it anywhere.”

  I followed his line to a hillock of still wet sand. There were no signs of any building never mind one that sounded like it should've been the grandest of all.

  Undeterred, Walter dove for the building-less heap and began excavating. Sand, mud and worse flew in all directions as Aurora joined her father. I opted to leave them to it, my heart just wasn't it. Within a minute, they'd uncovered an entrance.

  “Are you ready, my daughter?”

  “Sir.”

  “And you, Jean? There's no turning back once we enter this place. It is the endgame, my friend.”

  I looked to the sky, Walter, then Aurora who stood there defiant and for some reason, my old fires returned. “Walter, I've never been more ready for anything in my life.”

  In an unusual silence, he did not reply just smiled a vulpine grin. It was an expression he seemed meant to bear.

  The shattered doors covered in the sludge of ages lost caused him to pause, to touch, to remember, but not for long. A swift kick and what remained barred our way no longer. We were in, dropping into the secreted night an Eternal longs for. The way was black as pitch. Good.

  Walter led with Aurora and me in his wake. We entered a tunnel carved as if by some gigantic worm, so perfectly circular was it. Arms spread, a hand seeking the tactile security of the tunnel's edges, Walter marched with rapid steps.

  The building had slipped through history to an acute angle. So, as we moved on, we also moved down. We descended through both reality and time, physics and the laws we lived by blurring. The constrictions placed upon us by our false world were never more so than within the confines of La Fenice. Within forty steps, we might as well have lived on a different world, the earth of the sterile Eternal departed. One could only wish.

  At a point where the tunnel narrowed, Walter stopped dead. The dandy's head moved from side to side, his fingers probing the sand wall. He sampled the tunnel like a sculptor his clay. When satisfied with his deliberations, Walter turned to the right and kicked out with tremendous force. I thought he'd lost it, at least, more than normal, but he'd not. A second door burst inwards to reveal a space unencumbered by aeons of sand, but rather, the trappings of its former undersea existence. Seaweed coated every inch of the place, whelks and molluscs proliferated. We might've entered the caverns of Poseidon, so unnatural was this bizarre world. Green-tinged and algae covered, its walls appeared almost luminescent to my nocturnal vision. I spied the odd bit of damp, flaked paintwork in amongst the sea life, flecks of manmade colour, but nothing else to distinguish the emptiness as constructed and not a natural cave. It was astonishing in a slimy sort of way. And that was when I saw it: water.

  “Father,” said Aurora when she realised I'd not moved.

  Walter gave me a look, then paced to the stood water which had found its own level in that darkest of places. He knelt on the floor and stuck his head into the obsidian pool. A second later he'd gone.

  “We must turn back, Aura. There isn't a way through this place, I can sense it.”

  “You sense nothing but your own fear,” said Walter, as he spluttered back into the cavern. “The basement door's blocked and I require both your aid to shift it.”

  “I cannot.”

  “You can, Jean.”

  “Aura, I cannot. There is more chance of me licking the walls dry of seaweed than there is going under there.”

  “Well, it's not that I wouldn't want to see it,” Merryweather chuckled.

  A glare from Aurora silenced him.

  “Do you trust me?” Walter asked.

  “I've never trusted you.”

  “You've never trusted anyone,” he quipped.

  “That's not true.”

  “Really!”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you trust me, don't you, Jean?”

  “Yes, Aura, I do. I have trusted you without question since the day we first met.”

  “Then do this for me, for I will not leave your side. I give you my word.”

  Aurora offered me her hand, her pale skin glistening in the dampness. And, yes, I trusted her. Those eyes of ocean depths were the only pools I'd ever trusted. Without hesitation, I took her hand in my own.

  “Good,” said Merryweather, “about time. Now listen, both of you,” he said looking at me. “The basement of La Fenice always stood in water.”

  “That is not a great reassurance.”

  “If you'll let me finish, Jean.” Walter gave me a peeved look. “As I was saying, La Fenice always stood in water. The basement had to be pumped out regularly as a result of water permeating the building's
foundations. For the likes of Aurora, myself and even you, my hydrophobic friend, the bricks will give, the water drain and we shall descend.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I know things.”

  “So you say, but you've little proof to back it up. Even if we get through, there's nothing to say we are in the right place. There was no sign of entry at the surface. There was no indication the others came this way. This could all be a wild goose chase.”

  “They did not come this way.”

  “There you go,” I said with a flourish.

  “They did not come this way because they do not know of it.”

  “And you do?”

  “As I keep insisting, I know much.”

  “Can you give me a hint? I'd hate to see Aura get wet for no reason.”

  “Do not worry about me,” she said.

  “It was a delaying tactic,” I whispered.

  “And a poor one,” Merryweather added cupping a hand to his ear. “But, as seen as I have been in a nostalgic and giving mood the last few hours, I shall indulge you.”

  “Makes a change.”

  A hissed, “Jean,” from Aurora silenced me.

  “Venice was built on a lagoon, which covered the largest cave system in the Adriatic, not that humanity knew so.”

  “How?” Aurora's usual brief response.

  “Because, my darling girl, it was my followers that excavated them. When I resigned myself to never seeing your mother again, I did the next best thing, I made my home as near to where we had first loved as I could. It was from the caves we shall encounter that the true mythos of the vampire, not Eternal, assembled: darkness; bats; the underworld and so on and so forth. They all stemmed from those we dragged there. I cared not who knew and over time became complacent, reckless even. I almost double-dared mankind to come in after me. But it was not they who released me from the burden of my melancholy.”

  “Then, who?”

  “Ah, Jean, I suspect you already know. Your parents could be very persuasive when the need arose. They persuaded me to take in the world, sample the continents and all they offered. All! In those days, my friend, I was as bored as you ad infinitum. So, I left. I wandered for the longest time and as the aeons ticked by, forgot. I forgot the world, and the world forgot me. I forgot the past and cared not for the future. When I returned much, much later, changed, only the Hierarchy remembered me. Even then, they thought me broken, a laughingstock; I was never broken, not completely. And though I had forgotten so much, I never forgot this, Jean. I'd left a way through my one good memory, a way to return to the only place I wished. Nobody knows it. Nobody! We will come at them unnoticed and make them pay.”

  Merryweather's eyes widened, his grin expanded to dangerous proportions, and I saw how he'd left the crumbs of a plan even in antiquity. Much as I hated to admit it, I smiled too.

  “Come on,” he said, “let's make a new history.”

  Merryweather stepped into the water and vanished in stages of black. Aurora squeezed my quaking hand, kissed my cheek, and pulled me in after her father. In less than a human heartbeat, we'd submerged.

  It was odd. I would not say there was no panic because there was, but not much. Whilst Aurora held my hand, I felt safe. Though my every molecule screamed for clear air, my brain said if the girl saved me from the depths of the Arctic ocean through an orca pod and all those who wished to drown me, then a flooded basement was nothing.

  We drifted down through the liquid night to come to rest beside Merryweather, who awaited us. He pointed to the rotting wood of the door before us, which looked no more solid than the interior of a vein. As if sensing my skepticism, Walter dug steel talons into the framework and pulled it away in a blinding burst of sediment and microorganisms. Beneath it stood a wall of lead.

  Merryweather indicated that he wished us to push. Aurora would not loosen her grip, so placed one hand centrally, as did I; Merryweather placed two. Then, we pushed. We three exerted the pressure of an army, Aurora's nails digging deep into the leaded surface. But hers was nothing compared to the pressure applied by her father. Even the water that slid relentlessly down my throat until my body was full from top to bottom went unnoticed at his strength. The Britannian's hands pressed into the blockade as if into soft flesh. When I, too, redoubled my efforts, there was nothing could have stood in our way.

  In a deluge of shattered entranceway and stagnant water, the three of us were regurgitated into an empty space falling, falling, tumbling and falling again. Water streamed from my mouth like disgorged blood unable to withstand the centrifugal forces of our spinning descent; I was glad to be rid of it. When we landed with a splash in a three-foot deep accumulation of sludge, it was to Walter's maniacal laughter.

  “Told you!” he screeched. “I told you, but you didn't believe me, did you?”

  “Hush!” said Aurora.

  “No need! No need!”

  “There is,” she commanded.

  “And I say, there is not!”

  Merryweather sprung to his feet, took a moment to get his bearings, and then shot off. I listened as his feet splish-splashed away into the distance. The second sound was of a switch being flipped.

  “Let there be light,” Walter announced.

  And the bowels of the earth were illuminated, Aurora and mine's joint gasps echoing in understatements.

  “What do you think?” asked the dandy.

  “I do not know what to think?” Aurora replied.

  “Ditto,” said I.

  We were in a single, gigantic room of immeasurable size, its floor carpeted, at least in the areas undamaged by water seepage, in a thick, rouge covering. The walls were decorated with every masterpiece one could ever have imagined, pictures of all styles, all kinds, consumed every spare inch of wall space.

  “Originals?” I asked.

  “Every last one of them.”

  “Impressive,” I conceded.

  My eyes travelled up, up, and up again to a ceiling of arched, wood beams that spanned the hundreds of feet from wall to wall. Dangling between those mighty struts where chandeliers adorned in myriad coloured candles. The millions of lights flickered in perpetual motion as though they breathed a steadying heartbeat without once looking like they'd extinguish.

  “Nuclear powered electric,” Walter said touching his nose.

  I nodded but was none the wiser.

  “I love it father,” said Aurora. The Nordic princess admired the wondrous antiquities and furniture that littered the place; it was a miracle we'd landed in the one patch free of such things, or carefully planned.

  “This would have been yours, Aurora.”

  “Mine.”

  “You are my only heir. Or is it heiress?” he said turning to me.

  “No idea.”

  “Good lord, Jean, you're no help at all.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Merryweather burst into laughter and dashed over to give me a slap on the back.

  “I think we could have been happy here, don't you?”

  “Yes,” said Aurora without hesitation.

  “Yes,” said I, and I meant it much to my surprise.

  “Ah, I had so much morbid fun here. Your parents would have killed for this little gem.” He winked and smiled his vulpine grin again. “If the Marquis and those two could have got their hands on this power source, they might have already gone by now.”

  “Would that not have been a good thing?”

  “No,” Walter shot back. “For they would go into the void, whereas you shall go home.”

  “Home?”

  “Home,” he repeated. “This is how Eternals were meant to live. Or we did, and that's what cursed us? I forget which?” Merryweather took a slow spin of his old home. “Ah well,” he mused. “It won't be long now.”

  “What won't, father?”

  “The rot.”

  “What rot?”

  “I had the place vacuum sealed to protect it. And I might add, if the
man that did it was still alive, he wouldn't be for much longer because this… this is a disgrace,” he said pointing at the pools of water. “That wasn't supposed to happen.”

  “How long?” I asked.

  “It has been… How do you quantify a timescale in the millions?”

  “You just did.”

  “Exactly, and who cares? Not I that's for sure,” he said answering himself. “Hey-ho, it was nice to see the old girl one last time. Time to go,” he said and beckoned Aurora and I to him. “I hope you're both prepared for a scrap because my ex and the rest of them won't appreciate seeing us three.”

  “You really don't think they'll expect it?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, I guarantee it! Not from where we're going to pop out, anyway.”

  “I don't like the sound of that,” said Aurora.

  “Ye of little faith. If there was one thing that passing myself off as a Britannian for most of eternity taught, it was this: one must rule with a touch of finesse or not bother ruling at all. Or was that the French, Jean?”

  “No idea, I've never had finesse.”

  “Oh, I don't know, dear boy, I think you've always exhibited a certain je ne sais quoi.”

  Merryweather patted my back and skipped off in the opposite direction.

  “Was that a compliment?” I asked.

  “I think it was,” Aurora beamed, took my hand and dragged me after her father. “Are you blushing, Jean?” she added.

  “Vampires, can't blush,” I huffed.

  “Ha! Ha! So you admit you're nothing but a common or garden bloodsucker.” Walter popped out from behind a nude sculpture of a man with no arms and blew a raspberry before retreating post-haste.

  Aurora turned and smiled a most wonderful smile and whispered, “Vampires might never have smiled, but Eternals can.”

  And, as her father disappeared behind a life-sized marble elephant, Aurora and me in hot pursuit, I thought for the first time, I cared not which I was, I was me, and that's all that mattered.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  -

  Scowls

  The enormity of Walter's old home bewitched and beguiled, an endless space of accumulated eccentricities. One moment I passed an oak dressing table laid out with perfumes and powders of undoubted quality, the next, gazed at stuffed monstrosities bygones of some extinct era. Yet, despite the dashes of flamboyance, the bizarre twists of taste, there was an undercurrent of consistency to Merryweather's accumulated paraphernalia: they were inextricably linked he and they, the contents of a disgorged heart. Aurora loved them all.