Shadow Over Sea And Sky

by K H Middlemass

  “No!” Emily cried, her voice returning in a sudden, dizzying rush. “No, no, please Reverend. Please, put it away. I don’t want to see it anymore.”

  Thankfully, he did as she asked, placing the lid back down and pushing the box away from her. Emily let out a breath that she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

  “What did you wrap it in?”

  “Rowan berries.”

  Emily felt the urge to laugh, loudly and without restraint.

  “This has to be a trick,” she gasped. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “Emily,” Abrahms coaxed, “do you honestly think I would do something like that?”

  “It’s easier to believe that you’d be playing some sick joke than what you’re asking me to believe!”

  “You’re still sitting here,” Abrahms reasoned. “You could have left when I went to get the box, but you stayed.”

  Emily’s gaze drifted back to the painting of Jesus in the centre of the wall in front of her. His mournful, pain-filled eyes stared balefully back at her.

  “Should I believe in angels too?” There was no spite in her voice, no venom. Abrahms leant over and hesitantly rested his hand on her shoulder. Emily found that she didn’t mind. His hand was comforting.

  “There are no angels in Caldmar,” Abrahms said. “But call it what you will, there is something evil here. Something ancient and dangerous.”

  Emily ran a weary hand through her hair. Her eyes felt dry and bleary. “Tell me about the heart. Tell me how you got it.”

  “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  Emily nodded tiredly. “I don’t have much choice; yours is the only explanation I have for any of this right now.”

  Abrahms nodded and quickly cleared his throat in a short, sharp burst.

  “As I said, it was a long time ago. I was living in the seminary then, in a place even more remote than this, an old village surrounded by moorland. I had thought it would be a good place for me; my calling is a hard one in the city, where everyone lives in their own heads and no one has time for faith or things greater than themselves, but there are little pockets in the world that never change. I found it peaceful and I could concentrate on my studies, which back then was all I really cared about. I was in my second year when strange things began to happen.

  “Sometimes I was sure that I could hear something at night, something that was prowling the moors. Nature is full of strange sounds, but none like this. It was frightening to hear, and I wasn’t the only one that heard it. It kept a few of us up at night, and we’d whisper amongst ourselves to try and figure it out. Eventually we got sick of it, and one night a few of us went out to see if we could track it down, but we found nothing. Whatever it was, it was good at hiding. On the very same night one of my fellow students, a young man named Joseph Gregory, wandered back out onto the moor after we had all gone back to our beds. He never came back. We woke up to his cold, empty bed and

  “It was decided that he had simply run away, but I wasn’t so sure. Joseph Gregory was a dedicated student of Theology, like me, and we had been friends. We studied together and discussed philosophy for hours. He wouldn’t have fled from God; it wasn’t his way. I was sure of it, but no one else believed me. There’s something about fear that causes people to close their ears, I find. Eventually someone else took his place, not that it mattered. Not long after Joseph, another student went missing. Then another. And then another. It was the same every time. The boy would go to bed but not be in it come morning, and the searches would turn up little to nothing, not even a hair. Panic started to brew. We all lived very close together in those days, you see, and there was talk of the seminary closing. I was determined that this was not to happen. I wanted to stay. I had enjoyed my peace, and now resented this creature that had disturbed it. And against my better judgement, I wanted vengeance for my fallen brothers. I know that’s not very godly of me, but it was how I felt.

  “So, one night I went out into the moors alone. I had taken a torch, my crucifix and a sharp knife that I had gone to great lengths to get from the kitchen. I remember it being very cold and that I was very, very frightened by myself. The moon was covered by shadow and the night felt horrifyingly complete. I could barely see in front of my face and the torch wasn’t much good in all that darkness, but I could feel that whatever it was that plagued the seminary was nearby. It was probably always nearby, not wanting to get too far from the food source, prowling through the wild bushes and waiting for another unsuspecting man to stumble into its jaws.

  “I was far away from the seminary, its light a dim dot behind me, when I first felt the pull. I’ll never forget the way it felt, Emily, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before or ever would again. I felt yearning, a deep and irresistible yearning in my very soul. It was like something was calling to me without words. For a moment I thought that God was leading me to where I needed to go, that he was guiding me, but then I remembered my fellow students and knew that whatever it was that had called to them was no holy thing. This was something that fed off holiness.”

  Abrahms paused to take a deep breath, visibly calming himself as the memories came back to him. Emily saw him repress a shudder before continuing, his voice just a little quieter than it was before.

  “Nevertheless, I followed it. I went deeper into the moors until I came upon a river running through the hills and down into the valley. I almost fell into it and twisted my ankle on a wayward rock, but the trickling of the water alerted me just in time. It was there that I found it.”

  He stopped again, looking off into the distance. A brown study, Emily’s mother would call it. Emily waited patiently, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling swimming in her stomach. She wasn’t sure how old Abrahms was, not an exact age, but Emily couldn’t help but see him as an old soul. There was something about his eyes, now vacant, that said they had seen more than you might expect. Here is a man with secrets, she thought.

  Abrahms took another deep breath, like he was trying to cleanse himself.

  “What did you find?” Emily prompted.

  Abrahms exhaled slowly before turning to look at Emily. “A white wolf. Even in the dark I could make out the colour of its fur. It glowed, Emily, and it was so beautiful I could hardly stand it. It caught my gaze and held me fast, and I realised that I wanted to go to it, to run my hands through its fur and feel its jaws around my throat. So I did. At the time, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.”

  Emily remembered that night in the Volkov house when she had locked eyes with the wolf, the feelings of elation that had flooded through her, the desire for freedom and how she had wanted to run with it into the wilds, never to be seen again.

  “I lay down beneath it and it pressed its paws against my chest, sinking me into the earth. Its eyes were on mine always, never breaking my gaze. They shone in the dark like tiny suns, reflecting hunger. It sniffed at me inquisitively and nipped at my skin with its sharp teeth, and I remembered that where there should have been pain, I instead felt a most exquisite pleasure, the way I would feel when I’d finished a long run.

  “But then in the haze I suddenly remembered my knife and my crucifix,” Abrahms went on. “I remembered why I had gone out there and what I had been seeking, and I fought back. I willed myself to overcome the urges coursing through me, I called upon God and prayed with all my might that I would survive and end this nightmare once and for all. I withdrew the knife from its hiding place and plunged the blade directly into the wolf’s chest. Like everything about this tale, I will never forget the sound that the beast made as the life drained out of it. An awful, strained wailing that makes my flesh crawl whenever I recall it, and I recall it often. My dreams are filled with that lament, night after night.

  “I scrambled up and grabbed the wolf by the scruff, then quickly drew the knife across its throat and held on tight until it was limp and twitching in my grip.

  “I had hoped that it was all over, until I felt the thing shiftin
g beneath my hands and knew that it was not yet dead. I felt it flex beneath me, trying to fight back, and it was then I realised that the wolf was no longer there. Suddenly, I was grappling with another man, although it was no man, not really. Even injured he was unnaturally strong, and we may have fought for minutes or hours, time ceased to mean anything. I was fast back then, and before exhaustion could start to claim me I managed to fall back before he could hurt me and found my footing again. I slashed at the space between us wildly, daring him to try and come near, and in his death throes he did dare. I plunged the knife into his chest again and again and again, half-crazed with fear and confusion. Until it became clear that I was stabbing into nothing but meat, that I had created a cavernous hole in the thing’s chest, which finally lay dead at my feet.

  “I dropped the knife from my hands, fell to my knees and proceeded to be violently sick, my whole body shaking. I could barely comprehend what I had just done, the act I had just committed. I ached all over, suddenly unbearably cold, and wept until dawn began to creep over the hills.

  “Only in the pale light of the morning was I able to get a close look at the man I had murdered, just before the sun had risen in the sky. A skinny, naked body with skin like parchment paper, long and tangled hair, and red eyes that remained open and staring even in death. Its mouth was open in a twisted maw, and I saw its fangs. Long, pointed things the colour of bone, teeth that had taken the lives of my friends in the seminary. I knew then that I had done the right thing even though my soul felt wretched and heavy with guilt. I found the knife and cut out its heart while the tears dried on my cheeks. By then the sun was higher, the warm light bathing me as I carried on with my gruesome work, but when the light touched the body underneath me the flesh sizzled and blackened like a sausage cooking over an open fire. By the time I was done, the whole body had been burnt to a crisp, disintegrating in the rising wind of the morning. The smell stayed in my mouth and nose for months afterwards, and I couldn’t even seem to wash it from my clothes. It remained with me as a constant reminder of the evil I had beheld that night.

  “I took the heart back to the seminary and wrapped it up in the branches I had pulled from the bushes on my way across the moor. I was not unfamiliar with mythology, and it always seemed to come back to the heart and the head. In the cold light of day, it was much easier to get my bearings and I was back to the seminary before everyone had risen for breakfast. No one knew where I had been or what I had done, even though I was never quite the same after that night. I hid the heart away in a little wooden box that my father had given me when I was a child and put it somewhere I could not see it. Students stopped disappearing and before long everything was as it had once been. The missing boys, my friends, were all but forgotten. But not by me. I still think about them, even now. I wish that I could have saved them. It shames me that I could not. I made a vow, there and then, that I would never let that evil touch me, or anyone else, again.”

  The story having reached its close, Abrahms stopped and left Emily to absorb everything that she had just heard. The reverend suddenly looked much smaller, much less powerful. That confidence that she had seen at Hugo’s funeral was nowhere now. His memories had drained away some vital part of him. His skin had turned grey, the bags under his eyes pronounced and rimmed with red.

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said lamely, unable to think of anything else to say.

  Abrahms shook his head slowly. “I am not sorry. It was the right thing to do.”

  “You think that what’s happening in Caldmar is the same thing that happened to you?”

  “Yes, Emily, that is exactly what I think. And what about you?”

  Emily was quiet for a moment, turning the thoughts over in her mind. It all made sense, and yet no sense at all. Her head was starting to ache in this cold, old room.

  “I think…” she said, considering each word carefully, “I think it’s like Ockham’s razor. It’s ridiculous, but it’s the simplest explanation and probably the right one. I don’t understand it, but then there’s been so much that I don’t understand lately that it seems pointless to dismiss it. What else can it be, an epidemic? Just a coincidence? I don’t think I’m willing to leave it to chance.”

  At that, a smile ghosted on Abrahms lips. “Neither was I, the first time.”

  Emily sagged in her chair, lifting her head to look at the ceiling. She exhaled through her teeth, making a long, hissing sound that cut viciously through the air.

  “All right,” she said in a voice so old it took her by surprise, “Let’s make a plan.”

  11

  When Emily got home she immediately went back into her parents’ bedroom and watched her mother sleep, thankful that she seemed unchanged from when she had left her earlier. She was lying on her back, her hair a total chaos around her. Emily moved a little closer, until she could hear the thin sound of Victoria’s breathing. She realised that there was a faint smell emanating from her body only barely noticeable from this distance, but she couldn’t identify it. Whatever it was, it was unpleasant. It might have been that Victoria hadn’t had the strength to get up and wash herself, and lying in your bed all day long was bound to have some effect on in the air in the room even when the windows were open from morning until night.

  Emily gently straightened out the duvet for her and went about clearing up the tissues and debris that had built up on the bedside cabinet, placing them in the waste basket next to the toilet door. She did this all as quietly as possible, but Victoria shifted and twisted her head to the side, moaning as if disturbed and pulling the skin over her neck tautly. A few stray locks of hair fell over her shoulder, revealing something that made Emily’s breath catch in her throat. She leant in towards Victoria, careful not to wake her, and took a closer look. Narrowing her eyes, she beheld two tiny pinpricks upon her mother’s throat. They were neat little holes that had almost closed, but the skin around them was still puckered and red. From a distance they would appear as nothing more than blemishes.

  Emily remembered Abrahms’ words to her in the vestry and immediately went to her room to retrieve the crucifix from her memory box. Looking at her reflection in the mirror she held up the crucifix so it aligned with her throat; the cross glinted like a tiny star. She unleashed the catch between her shaking fingers and went to put it around her neck, only to stop herself.

  If Abrahms was right somehow and Volkov really was a vampire, then why hadn’t he gone after her? She had been in his house, she had slept there, and yet he had left her untouched. After all, the dream of him had been just that; she bore no markings like her mother did, even though she could perfectly recall the pain that she had felt when his teeth had torn into her flesh. Why make her mother his victim when she had essentially walked right into his trap? It didn’t make sense to her at all.

  With a sigh, she went back into her mother’s room. She didn’t want to wake her, but Emily gave Victoria a quick shake by the shoulder and brought her back into consciousness long enough to pull her into the sitting position. She felt disturbingly light in Emily’s arms as she looped the necklace around her neck. When she laid her back down, the necklace pooled in Victoria’s hollow collarbone.

  After that, she took a deep, calming breath and closed the windows firmly. Then she went downstairs to the kitchen and retrieved a knife from the cutlery drawer. Her father was nowhere to be found and she wasn’t sure where he could be now, a fact that worried her more than she cared to admit. She knew that he must be busy, but she had also expected him to at least come home at night when Victoria was so sick. Back upstairs she slipped the knife between the bed frame and the mattress of her mother’s bed, taking great care not to disturb her. It felt ridiculous and superstitious, but Emily knew that it couldn’t do any harm to trust the reverend and follow his advice; she only regretted that she had not been able to find any incense on her way home. She wanted to stay there a little longer and keep an eye on Victoria, but she had gone without sleep for over a day and her head was
aching unbearably. She wanted darkness and quiet, needed solace. She went into her own bedroom and closed the door behind her.

  She went about her usual routine, changing into her night things and padding across the hall to brush her teeth, but it was all in a daze. Though she could feel the exhaustion in her limbs weighing her down she expected another restless night, but when the time came to finally slide between the crisp, clean sheets she could feel her body sinking into sleep before her head had even hit the pillow. She hadn’t realised how much she could miss her bed; coming back to it was like a warm, loving embrace. She did not even need to listen to the ocean to lull her into unconsciousness; it swept over her and pulled her blissfully down into blackness.

  For a time, she dreamt only of vague colours and shapes, allowing herself to fall deeper into the comfortable silence that wrapped around her like the blanket that kept her warm and safe as she slept.

  But then the dream changed and the shapes and colours became more defined, twisting themselves into things she did not recognise but knew full well to fear. She could feel her body resisting, twisting about but unable to draw her out from sleep. Through the fog she noticed the temperature shift in the room and how quickly it became cold and bitter. Then, it seemed that there was a weight upon her, a crushing sensation upon her chest that made it difficult for her to breathe and compelled her to sluggishly start to wake up again.

  When she opened her eyes, she found Volkov beneath the blanket with her, his body stretched across hers. Before she could react, he pressed his hand to her mouth and moved his face even closer until the tips of their noses brushed against each other. Even in the darkness his eyes glowed, burning like two fires.

  “Now now,” he whispered. “You know better than that, Miss Emily.”

  Time was still and once again she was trapped. The scream that was compelled to come forth suddenly died in her throat. Emily gave a quick jerk of her head and pleaded with her eyes for him to let her go. Volkov slowly removed his hand, taking care to trail his fingers across her cheek.