A Tailor's Son (Valadfar) (10 page)

It was only a short walk to Common Road and the streets
were empty apart from an old tomcat chasing down its dinner, but the
fat rat gave it the slip sliding under a crack in the nearby masonry.
William had to fight the urge to join the hunt the sensation drawing
him like a drug, but he had plans for that evening. It would be at Saint
Anne’s chapel that William would wait for the priest he remembered
from his rebirth. William’s legs began to move with vigour he had
never had while alive. Having spent most hours sitting behind a desk
he’d grown feeble and sluggish while he had been alive, but now he ran
faster than an athlete from one of the Solar games. The rainwater
splashed up from the puddles and pounded against his face. He ran
faster than any horse he had ever seen and in that moment William felt
alive. He made it to Saint Anne’s chapel unhindered. He knew that the
Reverend would not come to the chapel until the morning and he
would have to wait. He didn’t mind though, Saint Anne’s was far more
comfortable than the sewers he had been calling home, but the air was
too dry even in all the rain for the Rakta Ishvara sitting on his chest like
a giant callus. So William would make his way down into the basement
below. It was the first place he remembered after the mugging that had
killed him. When he had been dragged back from the lifestream as a
visitor in his own body, William had awoken in the catacombs. It was
there he chose to wait out the night.

William sat skulking in the obscurity, unmoving. He was like a
spider waiting for a fly. One of the strangest attributes to his new state
was the lack to need sleep. At night, when most people would tire,
William felt more energised. The creature inside him despised sunlight,
but in the darkness it could grow. The blood god, the Rakta Ishvara,
grew in strength as the sun hid from the night. Its barb like tendrils
pressed deeper into William’s body each night piercing his organs and
turning them black as it, slowly, night by night, took over his soul.

William was becoming more powerful than a giant and
swifter than the fiercest of wild cats but the price to pay was the total
absorption of everything that made him. Eventually the sun rose
outside the chapel. It was a perfect and calm day, bitterly cold but
beautiful. William’s night blessing faded and the weakness of mortality
coated him once more. The door above him opened and Paul shuffled
in, making his way down the stairs. William waited until the grumbling
had passed him by, the soreness in Paul’s knee obviously playing him
up in the bitter cold made him more vocal than a town crier. In the flick
of an eye the shadow skulking in the corner had moved and with it
William now crouched at the foot of the stairs. Even with the true
strength of the Rakta fading William moved with lightening speed,
before the dust he had unsettled had even landed he had blocked Paul’s
escape. Paul turned slowly his eyes wide with fright. He saw William
standing behind him. In a moment of fear and as a kneejerk reaction
Paul reached for the table trying desperately to grab the tongs he had
left there. They were not sharp and Paul would have preferred the
point of a blade between him and his experiment but beggars, or in this
case, priests, cannot be choosers. Paul barely blinked but he did not see
William’s lunge and a sudden and firm grasp upon his collar lifted Paul
clean off his feet sending him sailing against the cold stone floor with a
painful thud. Lying there helplessly, like so many of his victims, Paul
ached all over fearing for his life. Even riddled with fright it was funny
to Paul to think that he would come to an end at the hand of the Rakta
Ishvara at the very place he had created it.

“William, wait.”
Paul begged, hoping the controls he had put in
place would still work. Paul had no idea how William had broken free,
the herbal leafs that the villagers had given him should have worked. It
was the only reason the Rakta Ishvara from the Green Stone Isles had
not left its temple. It should not have been able to resist them. It was a
kind of old magic, a controlling spell of sorts that occurred naturally
within the plant. As William bore down on Paul, Paul could see
through the rags of scorched clothing that hung from William’s
muscular form that any trace of the leaf had gone. The fire, he thought,
it must have been the fire that destroyed them. Paul felt foolish and old.
It was an oversight he should have thought of. The dry leaves would
have turned to dust and ash in the heat of the inferno at the Queens.
That was why William never returned as he should.

“So, you at least learned my name before you did this to me.”
William
said through a snarl. Inside the hunger was demanding he kill the
wretch in front of him and feed. Old blood was still blood to the
parasite, but William fought against the urge. He had too many
questions to ask first. “
What is happening to me?”
He asked.

“You are alive, I saved you.”
Paul said his fear subsiding
somewhat “
Surely you are thankful for that
?” He added, glad that his test
subject was still human inside and that the Rakta Ishvara had not fully
taken over. William was not yet like the beast he had seen rip the child
apart back in The Dark Gulf, no, he still had humanity and people were
easy and weak. Paul hoped he could talk his way out of danger and
convince William to put the herbs back around his neck enslaving him
again.

“
Alive? You call this existence alive? Do you know what I’ve done?”
William asked showing his blood stained body as an example. His
clothes had burnt to a crisp during the fire and some fibres remained
attached to his fully healed skin much like that of long dead mummified
corpses, but instead of blistered and rotting skin. William looked
refreshed, almost sculpted, with renewed muscle mass. Paul shook his
head buying himself time to admire his creation. The burns had cleared
up completely and Paul could see the solid and rock-like structure
attached to William’s ribcage. It moved and pulsated like the heart of a
normal man but looked more like a crustacean clinging onto William’s
chest. It had grown to the point that it had ripped out of the skin. It
looked almost crab-like in structure but with the points of the legs still
buried deep beneath the flesh. Paul knew from his experiments that
once the parasite had taken such a strong hold onto a host body, it was
almost impossible to kill. If the host body were mutilated, then as long
as the Rakta could feed on fresh blood, the parts would re-grow. The
only way to finish it off was to insert something hard and sharp into the
ribcage structure. If the Rakta Ishvara was punctured in that way, it
could safely be removed. Paul remembered for a moment the huge
golden spikes that had lined the temple in The Dark Gulf, their devil
god so sure of its own strength taunted the villagers to try to kill it.
Shaking the memories from his mind, Paul flashed back to the urgency
of his own situation.

“You mean the fire? They had to pay. They were going to stop what I have
achieved here. I am so close to perfecting you.”
Paul said obviously proud of his
work. He tried to push himself up. His fear, almost gone it was being
replaced by the anger of his creation’s stupidity. That was until William
grew infuriated at the snivelling old man in front of him and sent his
foot crashing into Paul’s chest with the strength of a blacksmith’s
hammer. He pressed him back onto the bitterly cold floor and then the
fear returned as did Paul’s silence. William told Paul in gory detail the
entirety of what he had done. How he had escaped into the putrid
sewers, how he had fed on mice and rats and how his hunger had
grown and he had lost control killing no less than five people.

“Stop, just stop please. You don’t understand what I’m trying to do.”
Paul begged like many of his victims before him. He felt a mix of
trepidation and self loathing as he begged for his life. Paul could tell by
the blackening of William’s eyes that he did not have long before the
beast would need to feed again, if he really was going to talk his way out
of this he had to do it now.
“The Rakta Ishvara – I mean you – it will save us
all, it’s the cure to so many things. It can stop even death, just as soon as I cure the
bloodlust and I am so close, so very near.”
Paul said, offering the cure up like
a carrot to a donkey. He didn’t know much about the man he had
chosen to raise from the grave but he did know he had a family. Paul
hedged his bets that William would want to see them again and the
curing of his bloodlust would let him do that.

“I don’t care what you’re trying to do. I want to know how to stop this
thing inside him.”
William snarled. His hands shook as they clenched
around the priest’s collar. The hunger inside his mind urged him to sink
his teeth into the priest’s wrinkled neck and taste the sweet bitter nectar
within.

“
I don’t know how to yet, but-”
Paul began to grovel as he saw the
blackness growing over William’s eyes.
“-When?
” William interrupted the urge inside screaming
louder than a flock of gulls. If he didn’t leave the priest soon and get
back to the sewers he would end up killing him.
“Soon I will. I just need to do more tests and it will be perfected.”
Paul
hazarded a smile as he tried to play to William’s sensitive side, if he still
had one. Paul had seen the newspaper article. He knew William was a
family man. He had been a good man before he was killed and if
enough of that remained then Paul just might get to see another dawn.
“More tests? Is that what I am to you, just a failed experiment?”
William was losing control and his words became deep and animal-like
he needed answers but would not be able to hold on long enough to get
them. A huge grin filled Paul’s face and William knew that the man he
held in a vice-like grip had long since lost any hold on sanity.
“No, my son, you were his first success. From you I may find the cure. You
will be the one to give me life, just as I did you.”
Paul Augustus said in a
revelation that William would never understand. Paul was sick, dying,
he had lung cancer. It had spread through his body and would soon kill
him, there would be nothing that the doctors could do to cure his pox
as they called it, and the magic which may once have saved him was
now outlawed. Paul had resigned himself to death before he found out
about the Rakta Ishvara. This parasitic vampire could cure him, if only
he could stop the beast from taking over. It would repair the damage
done and kill the disease. It would make Paul all but immortal. “
If you
allow me to use your blood in my tests then we may be able to perfect you.”
“
We
w
hen was it that we became a team? I never asked for this.”
William said backing away from Paul. The urge to feed was sounding
off like cannon fire inside his skull. William had to silence it. He
dropped his head heavily onto the ornate stone sarcophagus close by,
sending a chip of stone across the catacombs. The hunger was almost
blinding now.
“
True, but then most do not ask for the blessing they are given. I brought
the creature that shares your body with you back from The Dark Gulf. It is because
of that that you still breathe. Do you still think about your family that lost you when
you were murdered? If we stop your hunger then they can have you back.”
Paul
bargained. He knew it was risky keeping William close by but the
opportunity was too great to miss. William was the first successful
application of a Rakta Ishvara leech. William suddenly withdrew his
face from the stonework and staggered back toward the stairs,
something changing within him. The blackness filled his eyes
completely as the Rakta Ishvara pumped dead and congealing blood
through his pupils.
“
No, I will not help you. I’ve done too much for you already, I’ve killed for
you priest. The creator will judge you for your sins.”
William spat as he ran up
the stairs and through the door of Saint Anne’s. He had wanted to kill
the priest but knew if there was any hope of ending this nightmare he
was now living it would rely on what Paul knew.
“It is a shame that he will have to be culled. The toxin has gone too far.
Damn it.”
Paul cursed to the dankness as he pulled himself onto his
aching knee. He breathed a sigh of relief at his solitude and relative
safety. He knew he was too weak to kill the Rakta Ishvara in its final
metamorphosis, but then an idea came to him. The fire did not finish
them all off, so O'Brien’s sons may yet prove useful.

If Harold had looked back over the times to come he would
have been both thankful and remorseful that William did not kill the
priest Paul on that fateful visit. If he had, then the way the story plays
out would have probably been quite different and Harold would be
rotting away in jail blamed for the fire at the Queens. A strange thing to
wish for but at least Harold would have been safe in jail. If William had
spent just a few more minutes in the cold catacombs feeding on the
priest then Harold may never have crossed paths with him again and
the Rakta Ishvara would have never got to see Harold’s face. As fate
would have it Francis Fraser, the inspector, had finished spending his
bribe money and had come back for Harold on the 18
^th
accompanied
by two officers from the special unit. He stood by the door reading his
rights while the two other baboons forced Harold to his feet, dressing
and cuffing him.

They dressed him in the same smoke-stained and scorched
clothes that he had been brought into the hospital with. The off-white
woollen trousers felt like ice as they were brutally pulled up and
buckled around his waist. Before the sleep left his eyes they led him out
of the hospital pushing Harold ahead of them, his arms pulled behind
his back in restraint. The two officers loaded him in the back of a
closed black cart. The chairs inside resembled two large wooden boxes,
one was fixed to either side with a small gap in-between. The two
specials sat up front on the riding porch while Inspector Francis Fraser
was inside the booth with Harold. He was the only other occupant in
the back. They both sat gazing out of the barred windows at
Neeskmouth as it rattled past.