The Blood In Between

by Randall G Ailes

  Constantine and Heinrik were caught by such surprise that they lurched for weapons but they were woefully late for any chance to actually hold one in their hands.

  “And you are Constantine, the hunter of vampires?”

  Sheepishly the men nodded and looked to the floor.

  “Not much of a hunter I think. I heard you were decimated by a vampire, before leaving port… with much less than what you had when you arrived.”

  This was a subject Constantine had already whipped himself with, many times. He was not humored by this stranger bursting in and startling them already. He was in no mood to be taunted. “Who are you and wha….”

  “My name is Desmondo Milan. How did you escape with your lives?”

  Both of the men knew what Desmondo Milan was. They had met everyone on the ship. Only a vampire might come to this ship and leave so suddenly, and without aid from another vessel. They hadn’t heard of him but they knew full well danger was in one of his hands and death lay in the other. Both men stood from the table where the solitary candle still burned. Milan held his fisted hand two feet above the flame and then opened. Constantine saw nothing spill ou,t but there was a poof and then the flame burned brighter.

  “Thank you Belladonna!” Milan regarded the two nervous-looking men. “Relax. I know who you were hired to track down and who engaged you. I’m trying to save your life here.”

  Heinrik and Constantine appeared confused.

  “This will be a difficult journey to the new world, and when you get there nothing will be familiar to you. But you are going to a land where I will not even be. You see, I do not want to live there for the same reason I gave you. Nothing there is familiar to me. And so I have come by to let you know I will not be there and you will be spending much effort and time to find me. I am going back and, I’m inviting you to come back with me to avenge those fallen comrades you recently sat with, drinking and laughing, drunk and full of life. You can keep what Del Rio paid you. I could care less. I’ll add to your fortunes. I want to hire you to help me destroy Lucido Del Rio and his tribe. He surprised you once. Wouldn’t it feel good to return the surprise? I have some replacements for your lost army, and a new second in command to replace the one you lost.”

  Both Constantine and Heinrik looked bewildered. “But I did not lose my trusty second, Heinrik is right here beside me.”

  Like a cat leaping from a place undetected, Milan moved to Heinrik in a split second, and sharp teeth tore at Heinrik’s exposed neck before he could even raise a hand to deflect the attack. Constantine began to move to help his friend repel this attack but it was already too late. Heinrik reached his hand out for his friend to take but Constantine stood there watching Heinrik slump and fade away. Milan stayed right there attached to his victim until the last heartbeat. Constantine remained where he was and wept.

  “There will be a boat pulling nigh as the horizon lightens. It is a dark ship called the Four Strong Winds. If you wish to stay alive, bring no weapons and find a way to get over to it. Pack some provisions. When you get aboard, do not go below deck. That would bring a quick end to your life. Avoid the shadows. We will talk when the evening is born.”

  Constantine was utterly demoralized inside. He had stood there and watched his good friend lose his life without jumping to his rescue, and he had to devalue their long relationship, further. Under the cover of darkness, before he jumped ship, without the crew discovering him in the middle of it, he had to purposely dismember his friend’s appendages and toss them over board, parceling them out over the night’s voyage, to ensure he never encountered Heinrik again.

  --------

  Back aboard the Four Strong Winds, Desmondo Milan pushed reluctant immature vampires to steer the ship and sail it with purpose, rather than drift with the breezes, for which it was so aptly named. But he was not the only one looking out of those eyes. He could turn to view what he wished most of the time, but wherever he glanced, a dark other inside him…a Lorn, could take in that information too, and use it for purposes other than his. It was a struggle, a long aching struggle to battle for control and use of his body. He was so fatigued. The battle continued even when he slept. The entity inside him, despised him…loathed all who were like him…hated all who weren’t like itself. Desmondo felt cold fingers all over his back and rough hands encasing his heart and his brain. Sometimes it was hard to find where his mind left off and the other’s mind began. He would often feel like he was swimming upstream or going against the grain. But if he went the direction the Lorn wanted, it was a downhill run…with the wind at his back. It was easy to join the already existing hatred this being had for Lucido Del Rio. But though that hatred was there, it also expanded to vampires in general. Since Milan was also a vampire, there was not complete agreement that all vampires needed to be eliminated. The Lorn’s grasp on him was not always commanding, and often it was a tussle where Milan would rule, until he needed to sleep and then he became a vehicle driven by someone else…something else. The tug o’ war did not only reveal Milan’s thinking to his invader, it also revealed his invader’s thoughts to him. The Lorn were not only afraid of vampires, they also desired to control them, possess them. For thousands of years they had lived undetected by others, but here in this world lived others who were inferior but similar to Lorn. The number of those who really knew they existed were very few, and confined to this world. Though Lorn wanted to one day sail the starry sky once again and catch up with others of their kind, there existed the possibility to snuff out the only knowledge of their existence here in this world. And so the race was on to erase the discovery erase the word, the thought,then to slip back into a time when no one knew of their presence.

  One thing he and the Lorn agreed on was that Lucido Del Rio and his so-called family needed to be ended. He didn’t need the push from the Lorn agenda. There was already a long-standing hatred but the Lorn were frustrated that Del Rio had escaped the carefully orchestrated plan for his destruction. Milan had encountered this before with Del Rio. He would love to see Del Rio die. He had done so already once, watching him burn as a flaming house came down around him. But that just wasn’t good enough… dead enough. Outside of any Lorn agenda, Milan was already seething. He had come close to losing his own life and lost many to the House of Del Rio. Milan had made it appear that the House of Milan had left for the new world. But he had gone into hiding instead. He needed time to ready his plan and when it was ready, the Lorn and Milan would be very pleased.

  35

  It is hard enough when numbers dwindle among a group struggling to survive as a species, even if they are gathered close in their daily lives. Merging and melding, mingling and fusing, if the distance is too great between its members, it is rare that a population can be maintained. Havens had a few unfortunate flaws. Though they were lovers of great passion and affection, they loved also the lives they shared with their companions, and that relationship often led to lives far away if it was in their companion’s nature to be nomads. Various forms of life travel the globe through migrations, flights or wandering herds. This is why many Havens often kept in pairs so they could still be in touch with someone of their own heritage. The earth is a marvelous place for Havens. It is water –rich and vapor exists almost everywhere. With so much to explore and so many places to go, is it any wonder that these ancient, gentle beings followed their muse and drifted apart?

  Once in a meadow, there was a low place where water collected from rain. It was not fed by anything else and never was broader than a large bed nor more than a foot in depth. In that small water was the solitary voice of a frog. Most likely it had been captured from a pond or lake by a child and transported to this small pool. Each night it called out with its froggy voice but never came an answer. There was no marsh or swamp nearby. The frog could only stay where it was and hope that it would not become too hot or too dry as the summer played out its days. The small water was very fragile. The winters also could be harsh and deadly. Still, the next year t
he frog’s calls could be heard all summer long and miraculously, it was heard the next year as well, crying out nightly into the dark with no reply returned. The next year though, it was quiet. The frog was never heard from again.

  Not finding any of those dark smoky marbles was distressing. Were they all washed away? Maybe the fact that none at all had been found meant someone had collected them. Who knew what was worse: having the responsibility to gather and keep such potent things or having no knowledge of where they were at all? Sundog and Crying Sky, Captain Gibson and Fawn17 held their collective breaths.

  The survivors from the crash of the Gemini rebuilt with secrecy in mind, with leaving few clues to their heritage and other worldly beginnings. They knew as a group that their knowledge surpassed anything, anywhere, currently on earth. None of them wanted any part of world conquest or influencing a natural evolution. Influenced perhaps by the relationships that bonded their captain and their physician, the Havens and the Yoomans looked after and nurtured each other which affected their health and lifespan. A handful of the group stayed on at Little Homa, but within a few years most were gone, departing to other shores and other adventures. The Gemini’s final resting place, its technology and its survivors hid in plain sight.

  Zeerah, the mate of the long departed Quaylan, had been bowled over and washed out to sea with many of the others as she resided inside her victim, a victim she would drain of energy and slowly use up in pursuit of Zeerah’s agenda. At first she joined a group of survivors who found each other after the tsunami had washed through. This seemed a wise move to her because if her current possession grew tired and gave out, being in this group improved the odds of transferring to another. To her surprise, her human slave, without knowing she was enslaved, struggled to exhaustion with the rest of the group, but, helping each other, the group made it back to Little Homa. After a day of recuperation, Zeerah began to understand that it might be wise to nonchalantly meander around the island searching for any small perfectly round spheres that might be among the wreckage. She had wanted to examine the Gemini because she felt there might be some unfound spheres still in the damaged ship, lodged here and there. But Captain Gibson had given orders barring the ship’s entry until it could be inspected for structural damage after the big wave had disrupted the island.

  There was something about this precaution that raised her concern. What was the reason for the sudden safety measures? Earlier, there had been a brief meeting of survivors in the morning at the cave’s entrance. A group counting of blessings had occurred. This time was also used to mourn losses and make announcements. Then discussion of projects, goals and their current situation began. Though it was like searching for a needle in a haystack, a sand sifting project was assigned as a serious enterprise. The marbles were mentioned specifically, as was how to behave around them if any were found. As this was being discussed, the captain, ship’s physician and two or three others scanned the crowd. It felt as if they were searching for her. They were aware of her and attempting to find her. It was a peculiar feeling, to have outsiders be aware of Lorn existence, and to actually have to be careful. These beings, these Yoomans were watchful and concerned. In their own pathetic way they were hunting her. Until meeting these water-based entities, these Havens, nothing had been aware of Lorn existence. These Yoomans now evaluating the crowd at the mouth of the cave must be ones possessed by Havens, and driven to search for her. She was alone but knew there could be help if she could find some of those spheres.

  Zeerah remembered a confrontation ages ago with two Havens. This resulted with her being rinsed down the drain which led to her long existence in a refuse container. This was something she did not want to experience again…ever. She would search where others did not, for the marbles and be watchful of the progress of other diggers. And she would maintain her vigilance for any attempts to examine the little slave she was driving. She could not stay on the island forever. They were on her trail and if she stayed too long, they would find her.

  --------

  Yes, the ship was important to safeguard and Gibby put a stop to people entering the wreckage until a thorough sweep was made for any more marbles. Fawn17 had seen perhaps twenty of them, (mostly black ones but not all, there was at least one red one) in a display that looked very much like small shelf or table décor, before the crash. It was in the shape of a tree with the marbles suspended and moving as foliage, orbiting in various directions but never colliding. That was how she described it. When they had been collecting them, about ten had been collected. Crying Sky was trying to find the brief vision Fawn17 had experienced when she had been captivated by them for a brief few seconds. It was perfectly remembered in the doctor’s brain if the scene in Quaylan’s quarters could be found. Then they would know exactly how many she had seen and perhaps how many could be found. The wreckage, when investigated, should yield more to what they had previously gathered. But Crying Sky and Sun Dog were busy with something else very important. They were investigating every person who entered the cave to see if somewhere in there they were unknowingly housing a Lorn.

  They would check everyone who came into the cave. But not everyone slept there or came every day. Some worked, or built or fished or harvested …or searched for little round marbles. If there was an opportunity in a closed in area, ones less bound to the cave were checked and rechecked. Zeerah realized that she could not avoid the scrutiny of a concerted effort of watchful eyes forever. She might have to give up on the search and slip away from the island, or maybe she could find a way to do some damage to those inferior Haven creatures or the ones they drive. One thing was soberly clear. If she left she may never encounter another one of her kind again. Though she was smarter than these stupid “maybe-we-could-be-friends” Havens, she was outnumbered, and even Zeerah had her limits. Her last face to face encounter hadn’t worked out so well.

  36

  Muscle memory, body memory, cellular memory, dream state, brain function, these were gears whose teeth meshed together to get the machinery of life turning again. Hot, cold, soft, bold, she blinked back to life like a strobe light. Persephone and John were there to monitor vital functions and oversee the jumpstart. Those functions sporadically returned and began a semblance of regularity. Vapor escaped through Misty’s mouth, feeble and shallow. Like smoke from a cigarette in a room, the vapor cloud coalesced and floated above Sanford’s body, then condensed around his face before disappearing up the sleeper’s nose. A moment or two longer, then Sanford slowly moved and began to look about the room. A second cloud came on the heels of the first exhale from Misty, and soon Millie’s body reanimated where it lay in a coma. Sanford and Millie lay there staring blankly for half-minute, and then turned to Cinnamon who was also sitting in the room.

  “We don’t know what we will find but in a rudimentary way, Misty is stabilizing. She wants to come back to us and is trying so hard. She is tired…so tired. We are all so very tired.” Millie said.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Cinnamon said tentatively. “I mean, this is a good sign?”

  “It is.” Sanford said. “We have been, the four of us…the five of us, putting together the most extraordinary puzzle, holding piece on to piece, to find a match and add to the picture made from millions of pieces. Those fragments are strung together in the ways we know Misty to be.”

  “Have you ever done a puzzle made up of millions upon millions of interlocking parts?” Persephone asked. “When Misty reached the water after being chased and wounded, she used every ounce of strength she had to pitch her essence into the sea so when those after her…the Lorn took her, they would only have her body. She was at least that practiced. Do you know the first thing they teach children in swim class?”

  Cinnamon slowly shook her head ‘no,’ but this was mainly to help Persephone move to where she was going her conversation. “They teach them to float, to pull their knees tightly to their chest and gather themselves up like a ball. Children learn the feel of it and gain confiden
ce when they get it right. They learn not to panic…that they can get to the surface and breathe. It is often called the jellyfish float. They don’t paddle or move along under their own power. If there is any travel at all, it’s through the wind or the current. It’s possible to take short breaths by rocking a little in that position. There are other ways to float and certainly move along the water in self-powered directions, but even floating like a jellyfish keeps them alive and gives them confidence to try other things. Panic is most often the killer when drowning occurs. Keeping your head about you is more than half of the battle. Misty is like the child who has learned the jellyfish, only in regard to stepping out of her body.

  It was fortunate that the water was calm. It made it easier for her to keep together. But, how long could she float? How long could she keep her essence? How much of herself could she keep? Maybe all of it…maybe most of it…maybe not enough…maybe this was all too much for her…maybe she will never be the same. She is very special, Cinnamon. I know most parents think this of their children but truly there is nothing like her.”

  Cinnamon carefully changed the subject. “Seph, I know you’re tired, but there is one more thing you have to look into, and I don’t know how it works with you, but it’s important.”

  --------

  Downstairs, Enos and Constance were sitting outside a room with their chairs stationed outside and facing the opened door where they kept their eyes on Ruby, their strange guest…or prisoner. Constance represented the maternal voice, feeling for their temporary lodger. Enos, sat at the ready with practiced preparedness, his hand not far from his holstered but unstrapped pistol. He showed a friendly face but inside he was ever on guard.

  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.”