The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (20 page)

I know what I must do with the plants. When I
saw the cherry trees, the sibyl’s message was clear. I will make saltwater beds
at the base of them and plant Thetis’s salvation there. The plants will bloom
and eventually form a natural barrier to keep out the bloodless. The solution
seems too easy, but the hill town is more fitting for us because of it. And
that is what I need to believe right now.

We used the powder to make a natural
perimeter outside the walls. The boy and his mother did the work. We had seeds
in abundance with the plants I had plucked. With almost as many pips as a
pomegranate, the bulbs carry a myriad of seeds in each.

I have not forgotten that we are limited in
amenities here—she will be without hot water for a time, but not much
else. I plan on making various hunts to scavenge for necessities. With the
forest on our border and the sea at our feet, I can amass the natural resources
we need, and will raid the nearest town for the rest.

The buildings here will give Alessandra
plenty of shade in the daytime. She is still unable to face natural light. Only
eighteen years vampire, she is susceptible to the sun—a vulnerability I
hope will not hinder us.

Later.
— Alessandra and I went
out after the sun set to hunt small game for her and the humans. The herd of
rabbits were scared off when we arrived at the hill town, but the clone has an
amazing gift for tracking and she caught the scent of a family of badgers
before I had even gotten a whiff of them.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“I could feel them on the tip of my tongue,”
she said. “It tingles when I smell living things.” She closed her eyes and
rubbed her tongue across the bottom edge of her teeth. “There,” she said.
“There’s a cluster of grubs beneath a rock over there.” She pointed fifty
meters behind us to a boulder the size of a melon. We stole through the forest
to the site, and sure enough when I reached down and picked it up, its
underside was crawling with larvae.

“Can you smell other vampires?” She shook her
head. “You can pick up frequencies though, right?” I asked. It did not occur to
me she would be unable to do so. It is one of our best features. I found it
curious she had not heard my frequency at the villa, especially since I am the
oldest, the one from whom all others come—cloned or not.

“I only knew you by sight,” she said. “When I
saw you in the village, I knew you weren’t human.”

I should say not, I thought, I am a god.

“You were so agile and strong,” she said.
“And you have a quality—a presence like no other.” She smiled, bearing
her fangs like a thirsty creature. She was captivated by me, if only a little.
“I can’t smell the bloodless either,” she said.

“How do you avoid them if you cannot detect
them?”

That is when she showed me her second
incredible talent. She crouched down and launched herself at least forty feet
in the air from her standing position.

She is an anomaly, a vampire like none I have
ever seen. Byron would have thought so too. He would have loved to have known a
clone. We had heard rumors, but never any success stories. Alessandra proves
both a threat to our way of life and a boon. I can only hope her venom’s fate
proves more lasting than that of the synthetic blood.

2 December.
— We have been busy
building the nest while the girl rests. She actually looks well, and more
maternal than I have seen her yet. Alessandra is teaching her the things she
recalls from her own pregnancy, detailing the process of birth and what she
will need to do to take care of the child. The boy is working hard too, obeying
my commands and doing my bidding. We have planted the bulbs and repaired the
roof of the girl’s hovel.

In just these few days, the plants have taken
root and are beginning to sprout already. It would make Byron proud that I have
not forgotten my days of living off the land several thousand years ago. My
beloved was never much of a horticulturalist despite his heritage.

“Your people were farmers,” I had said to him once.
“How do you think your first century Druids made their cures? I am certain they
plucked them from the very same highlands you ran through as a child.”

We had been discussing his frustration at growing
Centaury for his Scottish herbal kidney tonic.

“Yes, yes,” he had said. “I would have made a
wretched Druid.”

Yes, Byron, but I would have loved you all the same.

I wonder if we would have met in that first century
of the Common Era when I rode into the northeastern region of Scotland to lay
siege to the Caledonians. If Byron had been one of the many on that
battlefield, would I have slaughtered him too? Would I have recognized my
beloved?

I recall what he said then that seems so pertinent
now. “The Romans made sure to demolish that Scottish way of life. I am certain
my bloodline is more theirs than anything.”

He had meant his human bloodline, but his
observation about the Romans seems fitting nevertheless. For an empire to
become the Empire, it must demolish another, and so on and so forth. That is
the nature of history and that is why it exists—to tell the stories of
fallen empires, and the rise of new ones. If one is lucky, history will live
on. And if I am lucky, my history will continue to be written.

To be satiated, nothing is more pleasurable. I
grieve for the feasts that were once so plentiful, the blood that flowed like
wine at a banquet. I mourn the passing of time. But I still hope. I hope for
the pulse-pulse of humanity to thrive once again, so that I may indulge this
nagging urge I have to suck them dry.

4 December.
—
I have built flower beds that run along the side and back walls. I
feel more confident we shall be safe against the bloodless, as long as the
winter stays warm.

Alessandra’s nose led her to a poultry coop
last night, and she returned with a crowded cage of hens and one lone rooster.
The fowl will be a nice addition to the girl’s diet. She will enjoy fresh eggs
and the occasional braised chicken leg. My next project is a small vegetable
garden for her. She will continue to feed well, even as I am forced to abstain
for a time.

6 December.
—
The blood of the hen dripped from the machete’s tip, her death a
sacrifice for the pregnant girl. Evelina’s cravings for fowl demanded
satisfaction, so I decided to appease them with one of the smaller birds. As I
stripped the carcass in preparation to cook it on the spit, my mind wandered.
The smell of the fowl’s blood did not whet my appetite, but the neck of the
bird lying severed on the block brought back a memory that made my mouth water
for war.

Several years before the Common Era, I had
returned to my human occupation as a warrior. My wont for sustenance was best
satisfied by the warm blood I seized on the battlefield. I was a fit soldier
and quickly received the honor of escorting my own one hundred into battle. Under
the command of the Roman Governor of Syria and on the direct order of Emperor
Augustus, I led my men into Sepphoris to quell the Jewish uprising.

My soldiers showed no mercy, snatching women
and children, binding their hands and feet like fatted calves and throwing them
into carts to be sold into slavery. The Jewish men were slaughtered like
cattle, but only after being tortured. Their fingers were cut off, their faces
maimed with hot metal rods and their soles skinned before their bodies were
strung up on crosses. Their crucified flesh was left to scorch in the desert
sun.

While my men worked to slay and hang the
treasonous captives, I followed my nose into their hovels, tossing them in
search of those still hiding. I was led into one home by the tangiest blood I
had smelled yet. She was frightened, I could practically taste the sweat
beading on her skin. It was only when I slipped into the hut that I heard her
sobs. She was just a child, maybe twelve or thirteen, and was flat on her back
on the dirt floor. Her sackcloth was pushed up over her waist and her legs were
dropped to one side. She had brought her hands up to her face to cover her eyes
against the soldier who stood over her tying his belt and readjusting his
sheath. His sword had been removed and lay on the stone sill of the window.
Fresh blood dripped from the blade, though I soon realized it was not the
girl’s. A severed chicken head had been tossed on the dirty floor at the foot
of the sill while the decapitated fowl frisked about headless at the other end
of the room.

I tucked into a recess and waited for the
soldier to finish and leave, hoping he would not see fit to kill her. He had
been ordered to keep all women and children alive but I could see he was not
one to obey commands. I had to control my urge to pounce on the girl, her scent
slowly getting the better of me. Her eyes were still covered, and for that I
was glad since what the soldier attempted to do next was offensive to both man
and vampire.

He picked up the severed head of the fowl and
kneeled down in front of the girl, where he used his free hand to pry open her
legs, pinning one of her knees down with his own. The girl squirmed in the
dirt, her sobs amplified by their suppression. The soldier brought forth a
growl from deep in the back of his throat, and then spat on the neck of the
bird. Gripping it by the beak, he held it in such a way as to betray his
intention. He planned on forcing the limp appendage into a place it had no
business being. I could not witness such deviance without intervening and felt
it only common decency to prevent further abuse of the child. Besides, I did
not want him to spoil my appetite.

When I stepped forward from the recess, I
told him he was done. The young man froze at the sound of my voice and the
severed head dropped to the floor. He slowly got up and retrieved his sword
from the window ledge, gliding it into his sheath. He barely looked at me, as
he made his way out of the hovel and into the bright sunlight. I, however,
would not forget the future prefect of Judaea, and when Emperor Tiberius sent
me to
keep an eye on
Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, I recognized the vicious boy straightaway.
He was no longer the svelte
Roman soldier with abundant curling tendrils I had encountered decades ago. The
prefect had been transformed into a portly man with a drastically receding
hairline that time had treated cruelly.

“Have you heard the stories of the rebel?”
Pilate asked at my first meeting with him. “The militant’s outlandish
prophecies?” He threw a handful of figs at the plump tabby resting on the floor
by his feet. He picked up another from the silver dish at his side and threw
that one into his mouth, as he spoke. “His threats were intolerable,” he said.

“I have heard the stories,” I said. “A madman
claiming divinity, nothing more. The court was right to decide his fate as they
did.”

My approval flattered the prefect, though he
did not need it. He spent little time deliberating over the judicial decisions
he had to make. Killing was his nature. For a man, he did not have much of a
conscience. He had endorsed the death sentence issued by the Sanhedrin because
he could not stand the heretic and had wanted to take credit for his capture.
Neither Pilate nor the Jewish council could have predicted the repercussions of
spilling that particular man’s blood.

“Mmmm,” he said. “So
Vitellius sent you?” I nodded in agreement. “We
shall have some fun then.”

The threat my presence insinuated did not intimidate him. Rome was far
from
Judaea,
and he believed he would remain the sole ruler of Jerusalem.

“The Jews grow restless with my show of
power,” he said. “They want me deposed.” He balked at what he called their
petulance. He had shaken some feathers on several occasions, toting idols
through the streets, displaying relics where they did not belong, and most
recently having two enormous limestone busts of Emperor Tiberius placed outside
the Hall of Hewn Stones. “Rome has ordered me to remove them,” he said. “I
assume that’s why you’re here?” His nasal voice was too coquettish for a man,
though it suited his effeminate and aged appearance.

When a waiting-woman arrived with a large
jorum of water, Pilate shooed the tabby aside. She greeted me with a drop of
her head, exposing the luscious nape of her neck. I heard the pulsing rush of
her blood beneath her golden skin, and took a long whiff of the air as she
passed.

“The oils are redolent of the pomegranate
blossom,” he said. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

He thought I was taken with the scent of
perfume in her hair, but he was mistaken. His waiting-woman would surely die
that night under the painful pierce of my aching fangs. She curdled the venom
beneath my skin—her exquisiteness was potent. “Lovely,” I said.

I held my bite, as she proceeded to lay her
jorum at his feet. She kneeled beside the prefect and gently placed one hand
atop his foot. “Your hand is cold, woman,” he said. With all coquettishness
drained from his voice, he scolded the woman. She shuddered and apologized
softly, rubbing her hands together in her lap. She held them there for a moment
before attempting again, as Pilate bragged about his reign of terror.

“I have a wonderful plan if you’ll indulge me,
brother,” he said. “I’m thinking of teaching those Jews a well deserved
lesson.”