by Max Turner
I understood. It seemed a small concession for their security. “Death is John Entwistle,” I said. “But I don’t think he remembers who he really is.”
Istvan hummed a disconcerted note while he considered what I’d said. “So, he has reverted back to an earlier persona.”
I hadn’t heard the term persona used before, but I could guess its meaning. “He’s gone back to being John Tiptoft,” I said. “The Butcher of England.”
Istvan glanced at the corpses and, for a second, I could see fear written plainly on his face. “It is no wonder you did not wish to speak of it. This is dire news. We must find a way to deal with him. It will not be easy. Do you know his talents?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He can see things, visions of the past, and the future.”
“It is troubling enough that a man who sees the future chooses to throw his lot in with our enemies, but there is more. He has true sight. It makes him a particular bane to Vlad.”
“Why is that?”
“You must have noticed the way Vlad shifts from place to place,” Istvan explained. “He doesn’t seem to move, then is suddenly elsewhere. It is a trick of the mind. He projects an image, just as the rest of us do, but somehow, it stays frozen in your mind’s eye. Then he moves and your senses do not perceive the change. He can also present himself differently. No doubt you have noticed that he often appears larger. He can be near but appear far or be far but appear near. In combat, it makes him terribly dangerous. How do you strike a man, or stop his blade, when you have no true sense of where he is? But John sees things as they truly are, so to him, Vlad is where he appears to be. When they fight, it will be skill against skill alone, and with a blade, Tiptoft is the best I have ever seen.”
I could feel a heaviness in the air again. A kind of gloom. “We must have some chance against all of them?”
Istvan stood a little straighter and took a deep breath. “With an antidote, and all of us working together, yes, we have a better chance than most. Will we prevail? God only knows. But He seems to value a good struggle, for He is testing us all very sorely at the moment.”
“All the more reason to get my friends to help us.”
“They are not yet ready. I have done my best to further their combat training and have introduced them to some basic principles in psychic defence, but more practice and time is needed.”
“What about that other vampire, the one from the ship?”
“I don’t know who you mean.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Istvan had been gone before the stranger showed up to help me. “He was young-looking. I would have been a goner if he hadn’t shown up.”
Istvan smiled. “You were a goner. But your friends didn’t mention anyone else. Are you certain your memory is clear?”
“I think so.”
“And he didn’t say who he was?”
“Not exactly. All he said was … something about preparing the way.”
Istvan looked surprised, then pleased. “I am he who goes before and prepares the way.”
“That was it. Then he led me to the edge of the ship and asked me to take a leap of faith. If I hadn’t looked back, I would have made it.”
“A leap of faith.” Istvan pressed his lips together and let out a satisfied hum. “This is promising … very promising.”
“Why?”
“It seems we have an unexpected ally. You were saved by the Baptist. The one who goes before and prepares the way. He chose those words carefully. They were first spoken by John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Christ.” He looked at me and smiled. “This improves our chances.”
Uncle Jake had mentioned the Baptist back at Iron Spike Enterprises. “Do you know who he is?”
“No. But if he is watching over you, all the better.” He motioned for me to get into the coffin. “Now we need to get to work. The night will soon be upon us, and we have not yet prepared you for your role in this crazy scheme. Lie down, and I will explain.”
I was reluctant at first, but there was something in Istvan’s patient demeanour that assured me I would be safe, so I climbed into the coffin. The room began to spin.
“Are you comfortable?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
“You have been given Vlad’s blood and the blood of an exceptional night stalker.”
“What is that?”
“A vampire with a rather remarkable talent. Now, close your eyes.”
I hesitated.
“It will make this easier. Do not be afraid.”
I closed my eyes.
“You are a vampire, Zachariah. A creature of blood and shadow. In a moment, I am going to ask you to separate these things. To rise as a dark essence from your body of flesh and then, like a living shadow, become one with the night.”
CHAPTER 28
THE OFFER
BECOME ONE WITH THE NIGHT. That sounded like something straight out of a Hollywood movie. Hopefully not a horror flick that left the narrator in tiny, microwavable pieces.
“How do I do this?” I asked.
“Concentrate,” Istvan answered. He placed his hand over my forehead so his thumb and fingers were gently pinching my temples. “Imagine yourself as you would appear in a mirror.”
I pictured myself as a buff monk with a belt of rope and a passable head of hair.
“Now remove the colour. Remove the light. Leave only the silhouette. Your shadow.”
My imaginary brown habit turned black. My face, my eyes, my hair, my legs and hands, all of it.
“Slow your heart.”
“How?”
“Relax and take deeper breaths.”
Easy enough.
“Now push,” Istvan said. “Push your shadow against the wall.”
I furrowed my forehead and pushed outward, the same way I did when I felt an unwanted intruder in my head.
“You are pushing against me, against my presence,” Istvan said. “Ignore me. Focus on yourself. On your shadow image. Push it outward from your centre.”
I tried again. This time I pictured my shadow rising from my physical self. It didn’t work.
“Do not imagine it as if you were a spectator. You are the shadow that is rising. Push, and leave your body behind.”
I pictured the coffin around me, and Istvan standing above. Then I pushed outward, imagining myself as a shadow breaking free from where I lay. At the same time, I felt his fingers slide away, as though he were pulling an idea from my head.
I opened my eyes, or rather, my shadow eyes, free from my body, saw the room around me. I looked back at the coffin. My body might have been asleep. Or dead. Something about that thought brought on a sense of panic and everything went dark. My eyes opened. Istvan was standing over me. I was back in my body. The acrid smell of the corpses was suddenly more potent, as were the sounds in the room—the rats scurrying over one another in their cage, Istvan’s quiet breathing, my heartbeat.
“Almost,” he said. “Try again. This time, concentrate on keeping your shadow essence outside of your body, even when you perceive the room around you.”
And so I kept trying. Only once did I come close. My shadow separated itself completely from my body, then I began to float. I was weightless. Formless. Without a sense of touch I had no connection to anything. I panicked and fell back inside myself.
“You are almost there, Zachariah. Close enough that we can afford to take a few hours and gather our strength. We will refocus after you have slept. These things are always easier at night, when the sun is gone.”
Istvan slumped into a chair. I wondered if the break was more for him than for me. He looked as if Atlas had just dropped the weight of the world on his chest.
“You look exhausted, Istvan,” I said. “You need rest.”
He didn’t answer. He was already asleep. I shut my eyes and joined him.
Some time later, I awoke to a grating sound, like the movement of metal gears. Istvan stood at the counter, his hand on the lever that opened the do
or in the wall. In the next instant, Vlad was standing two feet inside the room.
“How have you fared?” he asked.
“Better than expected,” Istvan answered. “One or two more attempts ought to see it done.”
Vlad rested a mailed hand on either hip. He was wearing thick armour made from black metal plates overlaid with grey, like tarnished silver. It looked like something Sauron would have dressed his Black Riders in. The breastplate was decorated with a profile of a dragon’s head. His long hair had been combed back over his shoulders and his moustache had been groomed. A bearskin cloak was pinned to his shoulders with a matching set of brooches. I recognized them as the symbol of his old Coven: a dragon, carrying a broken cross in its mouth.
“Time has caught us, my friend,” he said. “Your strength has waned and you must feed. Leave the cub with me. I will join you when we are done.”
Istvan looked relieved. He nodded to me, then left. I felt a chill run through me. Regardless of how much I might have needed Vlad’s help, his presence unnerved me.
Vlad eyed me closely. For all of his hardware, he seemed lighter. I wondered if he had fed, and what strange talents he might have acquired.
“My cousin is not prone to exaggeration,” he said. “If he says you are close to being ready, I trust that is the truth.”
Vlad shifted towards me. My necklace was strung between his thick-fingered hands. He’d removed the golden crescent so that only the silver full moon charm was present. “It was wrong of me to take this heirloom from you and Luna. Ophelia would insist upon its return. I am sure we can agree there is no better judge of right and wrong than she.”
He slipped the necklace over my head. He was about half a foot shorter than me, but for an instant looked down on me as if he were twice as large. One blink later he was himself again.
I took the charm between my fingers and examined each side, as surprised by the gesture as I was by that fact that it seemed heavier than I remembered.
“We will continue your lesson,” he said. “But before that, I have an offer to make.” He held out his hand. There was a black dagger in it. The pommel was a dragon’s head. In its teeth was a ruby the size of a hen’s egg. The dragon’s neck formed the handle. Bat-like wings of the same dark metal stuck out to form the guard. Above this was the dragon’s tail—the blade. It was a perfect match for the sword he was carrying.
“This dagger is of exceptional quality, sibling to my Dragon Blade. Search the world over and you will find no weapons like these.” He held the dagger so I could see it better. The sheath was black leather, inlaid with a silver symbol identical to the brooches he was wearing: a dragon with a broken cross in its teeth, the sign of the Coven of the Dragon.
“I have poisoned the blade with the venom of a water snake native to Polynesia. The faint-banded sea snake, Hydrophis belcheri. It is the deadliest toxin nature has produced. Only the Changeling’s venom is stronger.”
He shifted closer, so he was right in front of me. “In ancient times, it was proper to seal contracts with a gift. Rings. Gold. Weapons. Land. In offering this dagger I am pledging my trust. Take it and you are pledging yours. It is no small thing. We will put aside our differences in the interests of saving Ophelia, even at the cost of our own lives.” He held the dagger up. “Will you accept?”
I hadn’t expected gifts. Giving me back my own necklace was one thing, but this extravagance put me on edge. For all its splendour, I knew this blade would cut two ways. But I also knew I was supposed to be forgiving, and to believe that people could change for the better. Still, this was Vlad. I didn’t want to be tied to him.
“I have nothing to offer in return,” I said, stalling.
“You are offering me your support. You might even save my life. I am buying that help in advance. Do you accept?”
If I did, would it imply that I had forgiven him? I hadn’t.
He held out the dagger, hilt first. The dragon’s eyes were black pearls. They seemed to stare at me no matter where the weapon moved. I felt as if I had been backed into a corner, with Ophelia’s life in the balance. I thought of all she had done for me, and accepted.
“Keep it close.”
I clipped the sheath to my belt of rope.
“That is a choice you will not regret.” His eyes dropped to the Dragon Dagger. “I have spoken with your friend Charles about this gift. He told me of your reluctance to kill, even in self-defence, but it seems your behaviour in Montreal aboard L’Esprit Sauvage is strong evidence of an ideological change.”
I didn’t want to talk to him about killing or my moral code. What I’d done aboard the ship had been an aberration, and it had backfired. Suki had died, just as Uncle Jake had died. I wasn’t a big believer in fate, or any kind of cosmic justice, but if I had been, it would have been easy to argue that her death was a punishment connected to my broken promise. I’d told myself after infecting Charlie that I’d never take a life again, and my actions had made a liar of me.
After a few awkward seconds Vlad continued, glancing from me to the grey, dead-eyed corpses along the wall.
“I was born in an age when religion suffused all aspects of life. When every occurrence, grand or trivial, rare or commonplace, was credited to God’s sovereignty. Since my death as a man half a millennium ago, I have been divided from the Church and the Vatican. Free from their interference and the constraints of dogma, I have spent countless hours contemplating the divine and the nature of the world. Over time, certain truths have emerged as indisputable. One is that we have risen to the pinnacle of nature’s hierarchy because we are her greatest killers. I have asked myself, how can this be so, if it is not God’s will?”
I looked into Vlad’s eyes to see if there was some sign that he was about to take a violent plunge off the deep end, but he was as calm and composed as I had ever seen him.
“Men in every age will speak about the will of God—that He wants you to believe this, or that, or worship this way or that way. Time has made liars of them all. God’s will is made obvious only by what is irrefutable. The fittest survive. I am sure you have some knowledge of Wallace and Darwin’s work on natural selection. I was not surprised when their theories came to prominence, though they shook the world to its very roots.” He fixed me with an intense stare, his wide green eyes unblinking. “How could it be wrong to kill for survival, if it is so integral a part of God’s plan for every creature, great and small?”
I’m not certain if he expected a reply. If God had any particular plans for me, He’d never mentioned them. And as for killing and the law of the jungle, my conscience told me we were supposed to rise above that. It had been a mistake for me to act otherwise. One I would not repeat.
“It is not my intention to start a debate on your right to self-preservation. Think on it. That is all. Now …” He paused to move Istvan’s stool out of the way. “I have distracted you from your appointed task long enough. Forgive me. We will continue with your lesson.” He gestured towards the coffin. “It will be easiest if you lie down.”
I was only too happy to put an end to the conversation. I climbed in.
“How did Istvan begin?”
“He asked me to imagine myself as a shadow,” I said. “Then I worked on trying to project myself outward.”
“You have done remarkably well in a short time,” Vlad observed. “But I would ask you—what is a shadow? It is a place sheltered from light. Without light, the shadow cannot exist. Begin with light. You have been to the tunnel. Close your eyes and visit it again.”
I pressed my lids together and imagined the circle in the distance, faint at first, then, as I drew closer, the warmth of light all around me.
“Good … Now, with the light surrounding you, there is nothing to project your shadow upon, so you must become a living shadow. A thing of darkness that, like other black objects, does not reflect the light. You must absorb the light, draw it into yourself.”
I pushed against the light and imagined myself a
ppearing black, but it didn’t work.
“Do not reject the light,” he said. “Rather, draw it into your centre, all of it, so that what remains is just the black shape your inner, hidden light occupies.”
I pulled the light inside and imagined myself as a shadow once more.
“Now rise,” he said.
I stood. He was looking at me. I glanced back at the coffin. My body was lying there, eyes closed. It was like staring into a mirror.
“Your body is now a soulless vessel and will remain preserved until you return.”
So I’d done it. I was a living shadow. A night stalker. An essence that was one with the night.
Vlad didn’t give me time to celebrate. “We are not yet finished,” he said. “You must learn to move as a shadow, a thing that exists where there is no light. To pass unnoticed is an invaluable skill. Quickly. We have little time.”
And so, with his help, I practised moving. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I could change my shape merely by willing it. In almost no time I could leak from shadow to shadow like a thing without form. I could twist and shrink and stretch. I was limited only by what shapes my mind could conceive. If only Charlie and Luna had been there to see me. It was thrilling, and it took me back to the first time I’d gone running with Mr. Entwistle. He’d helped me test my limits, and the strength I discovered in my body was empowering in exactly the same way as this. I felt as though I could stand alone against the whole world and come out without a scratch.
Vlad rested one hand on the pommel of his sword and the other on his hip, then announced that we were ready. He was looking at me intently again, and I saw something in his face that surprised me. It was pride. This from the man who had nearly ruined me.
I felt proud too. And excited. I probably should have been afraid. We were going to face the Changeling and his Horsemen. At the harbour they had been terrifying. But my fear was gone, and I owed this to him. Whoever said that truth was stranger than fiction must have lived through moments like this. Vlad and I, against the New Order. I would never have imagined it.