The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier (Book 1) (22 page)

Human blood.

I abandoned the cart and tracked the scent
west through the forest. I slid past trees and tripled my pace, as the smell became
stronger, sharper, its promise boosting my energy. I trampled pines, twigs,
roots and stumps, jumped over shrubs and under branches, until I reached the
end of the woods. As I stood on the cliff, facing the swollen expanse, I realized
the scent came from a distance far greater than I could travel. I spotted the
ship at the furthest reaches of the sea, carrying the human cargo along the
waves. The smell wafted through the air like the beguiling charm of the Siren
and I stood on the ledge, yearning to pull it to me. I watched it sail past the
French Isle and into a port somewhere else, not realizing the swell of the waves
put me in a trance—I stopped thinking and only dreamed.

I imagined hearing Evelina’s cry from beyond
the other side of the woods. My heart raced, as I dreamed of tearing across the
forest path to scale the trees that hung over our walls. I would hop down from
the branch, spilling the canteens of water across the grassy lane. I could even
hear Alessandra, counting out the breaths, as the boy paced the girl’s doorstep
outside. He would greet me coldly before I grabbed him by the neck and dug my
iron fangs deep into his jugular, ripping open the skin and draining him of his
hot blood. I would toss his limp body across the yard, as the girl’s screams tore
through her hovel. I imagined her cry of pain would irritate me second only to
her stench, the smell of her insides being ripped open. The taunts of her fresh
blood would provoke me. The grace and discipline I spent millennia honing would
be gone. I would not resist the child, the saccharine plasma of the newborn
would be my dessert—its mother’s blood filling my appetite. I imagined
turning my iron fangs on Evelina, shooting my venom deep into her veins and
making her mine—consecrating her my vampire!

Vincent
come—
I
imagined the new mother disheveled, draped with bloodstained linens, her skin
exposed in desirable places, the rush of fluid through the rivers of her arms,
legs, neck, her perfect, ageless flesh—living flesh.
Vincent come—
I imagined caressing her lips with my tongue,
wetting my fangs as they dropped and pierced the edge of her mouth, the swell
of her juice, as the blood gushed to meet me, the sweet taste of Evelina, as it
trickled down my throat, hot and sticky like boiled honey.
Vincent stop—
seconds away from tasting my imagined ecstasy, I
succumbed to my frailty and dropped out of consciousness on the edge of the
cliff.

When I woke, my vision was blurred and only a
fragment of my fantasy remained. The urgency of tasting Evelina’s blood had dissipated,
the spell broken, but I was grateful to be far from her at that moment. I drew in
fresh air, as I tried to revive myself, my thoughts. Human blood was all around
me—the smell unmistakable. That heavenly fragrance of tin and cloves
tickled my venom and piqued more than my curiosity. I leaned over the ledge and
peered down the face of the cliff. I saw a flicker of light tucked inside a
hollow at the base of the promontory where the tide rolled up onto the sandy
beach.

My talons did most of the work, as I scaled
the rock to the shore. I struggled to keep myself from sliding a few times, my
claws having weakened without her blood, but I kept my fingers engaged and dug
my feet in. The stone crumbled beneath each kick of my boot, as I made clefts
in the bluff for my climb back up. Sometimes just the promise of a taste is
enough to give me energy.

When I finally reached the beach, I was
several feet from the opening of the hollow and I sucked in the fresh blood. As
I made my way to the opening, I heard voices, at least two men speaking a tongue
I had mastered centuries ago.

“We need to leave,” one of them said.

“We can’t,” said the other, “not until he can
walk.”

“We’ll have to carry him.”

“What?”

“We can’t stay here.”

“He’s in too much pain.”

“But we have to go.”

“What if I catch us some fish tomorrow?”

“There’s no fish.”

“But what if—”

“We’ve got to go.”

“Shush!” A third one spoke this time. “Do you
hear that?”

“What? I don’t hear—”

“Shush.”

I pressed myself up against the rock just
outside the hollow. One of the men poked his head out of the opening and looked
around. He squinted, as he peered in my direction, but I had wedged myself into
the rock and he could not see me. “It’s nothing,” he said, as he tucked himself
back inside.

“What if she comes back? What if she finds
us?”

“That isn’t going to happen,” the third man
said. His voice was the most deadpan of the three. “She won’t find us.”

“Humph.”

“What?”

“You think she—” The one who peeked his
head out trembled more than the other two. “Never mind.”

“No,” the tired one said. “She wouldn’t risk
it.”

“So what’s the plan then?”

“I told you we’ve gotta leave first thing.”

“How are we going to scale the rock?”

“We’re going to follow the shoreline,” the tired
one said. “Till we find the best place to go up.”

“What about your leg?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Now let’s get some
rest.”

The men fell silent and my fangs dropped, as I
licked my lips in anticipation. But I hesitated and I am not sure why. With the
grace I may have now considered a curse, I stopped to contemplate the use they
may be to me over the long term. If I were to bring them back, they could serve
me indefinitely with their blood. I would gain much more if I did not waste
them all at once, and I was still intent on repopulating the earth. My mind spun,
as I deliberated their fate, letting preservation win out—theirs and
mine. I decided on a plan and somehow gathered enough strength to see it
through.

I faced the rock wall again and dug in my
talons. The clefts I made on the way down were invaluable on the way up, plus
Alessandra had taught me how to spring vertically and I exploited my newly
extended reach. When I got to the top, I headed into the forest toward the
ravine. I tracked the bloodless to a little clearing of velvety grass littered
with acorns. The oak trees made a natural pergola with their leaves.

The bloodless wrestled with a severed animal
haunch and did not hear me approach. I had readied the strap from one of the
canteens to use as a leash, planning to slip it over his wrists and drag him
off by the arms, but when I reached for him, he scrambled forward, making a
clumsy escape through the brush. He leapt on all fours like an animal into the
bushes in front of him, leaving the haunch behind, but he did not get far when his
flesh got caught in the branches. He howled when I tied the leather strap
around his neck, so I stuck the haunch in his mouth to shut him up. I bound his
wrists the best I could with his flesh worn away as it was. The horror of such
decayed humanity made my venom freeze within my veins. I could not look the
bloodless in the eyes—they were windows into a hallowed hell I would do everything
to avoid.

Once bound and gagged, I dragged him back
through the forest. When we reached the promontory, I dropped him close to the
edge. I did not doubt he could smell the humans since he was agitated, and
before I could free his arms, he rolled away from me and over the edge of the
bluff. The bloodless plummeted to the sandy shore, hitting it with a thud that
was drowned out by the crashing waves. I rushed down after him—he was
useless to me tied up.

When I caught up to him, he was turning over
in the sand. One of his legs barely hung from his hip, but he still clawed the
ground with his bound wrists, trying to reach the humans. I snapped the binds
off with my talons, and the bloodless used his hands to pull himself up, falling
when he tried to walk. He was persistent though and crawled through the sand on
all fours to reach his prey.

“What is it?” One of them said from the
hollow.

“It’s one of them,” the tired one said.

“What should we d—”

“Shush!”

They thought if they kept quiet enough the
darkness would protect them. The bloodless stuck out his tongue and lapped up
the air, as he reached the opening of the hollow. The anticipation of tasting
their blood teased the tips of my fangs and I felt a rush of heat through my
cold body. My delicate points had already dropped again. The bloodless twisted
his head and jut out his chin, raising his left hand, as he inched his way over
the threshold. One of the men screamed and another yelled for Paul before I
crossed into the darkness.

“Get it!”

“I can’t see it,” the other said.

The injured man shrieked, as the bloodless
reached for him. He could not have seen the creature but must have sensed his
proximity. The other two men cowered along the inside edge of the rock. The bloodless
got hold of the injured one and was about to sink his jaw into his arm when I stuck
my dagger deep in his neck. I reached into my pocket and pulled out some of the
powder. The bloodless scrambled backwards, but not before I blew it in his
face. He dragged himself away, deeper into the hollow.

I wasted no time reaching for the man’s arm
and sinking my fangs in before he knew who got a piece of him. He had passed
out, but still fresh to taste. I siphoned the blood quickly with muted force, indulging
in the thickness of his savor. I let the blood linger in my mouth before
ingesting it and enjoyed my energy’s rise with his ichor, relishing that
familiar tingle. His blood was unlike the girl’s, savory rather than sweet, but
in some ways more potent. When I finished feeding, I let the man’s arm drop. My
head spun with delight and I barely noticed the other two cowering against the
rock.

“He’s gone,” one of them said.

“Paul?” The other asked.

“You are safe now,” I said, my voice rumbling
along the walls of the cavern.

“Who—who—?”

The injured man stirred and muffled groans
echoed in the hollow. I crouched beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
The blood from his wound had clotted.

“Who are you?” The oldest of the three spoke
first.

“I am from a village not far from here,” I
said. “We have a camp. It is safe.”

“How did you—I mean, where did—”

“I was fishing along the shore when I heard
the screams,” I said.

The two men slowly came away from the wall. “We
should make a fire,” the older one said.

I pulled out the piece of flint I carry with
me and struck it on the steel of my blade. The small sparks eventually erupted into
flame. Once the hollow was lit, the two men picked up their injured friend and
laid him close to the fire. He groaned a little but had passed out again. They
could see me now and the young one’s eyes grew wide.

“Are you a viking or something?”

I smiled and offered them the canteens, which
they drank greedily.

“Paul’s injured,” one of the men said. “His
leg’s hurt pretty bad.”

“I have medical supplies back at the camp,” I
said. “I can bring you to it if you would like.”

“You got food?”

“Enough,” I said.

“Paul can’t walk,” the older man said.

“I can carry him up,” I said. “I have a cart that
we can use to pull him the rest of the way.”

I planned on scaling the rock, using the
clefts I had made to get us to the top. If we left in the dark, they would not
fear the vertical rise as much and the light of the moon would be enough to
guide them. I put out the fire and led them from the cavern. The young one,
Tim, introduced himself when we exited the hollow. Beck looked the oldest of
the three, and I carried Paul on my back while the other two followed behind.

The climb was difficult—for them, not
me. I masked my strength by keeping their pace and followed them up, guiding
them as we went. When we finally reached the top of the bluff, the men needed
to catch their breath.

“How … how can you do it?” Tim asked me.

“I recently ate,” I said. He could not
appreciate the humor.

We headed into the forest back to the ravine.
I kept their pace but I could not quell my desire to fly. Paul’s blood had a
strange effect on me. I could feel every single one of my nerve endings fire,
as if a small electrical shock ran through my body. I was not inebriated, but
also not sober. In the mid-seventies, Byron and I shared a girl so high on
something we felt its effect. The barbiturate accelerated our senses and things
looked unlike themselves. The field on our way back to the tombs at LaDenza was
like a sea of toothpicks, standing upright and firm. Each blade scratched
against our marble skin, as we moved through the grass. The sound was like
nails on a chalkboard. Byron was soon sick and vomiting blood, as we made our
way home. He recovered more quickly because of it. The blood plagued me until I
washed it away with clean drink. Paul’s blood was tainted the same way but I
enjoyed its intensity. The vibrancy was a welcomed change to my starved state.