The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (26 page)

“Vincent,” the boy said. “Up here.”

The men were on the second floor of the
bakery, and I scaled the wall to reach them.

“We’re trapped,” Helgado said. They were
trapped, but I could still get away. Beck lay on the ground, his leg bloodied
and wounded, and the smell hit me with force. “Vincent!” Helgado said. “What do
we do?”

His panic irritated me. “We have to get out,”
I said.

“How?”

“Into the forest,” I said. “From there, we
will see.” My plan was shoddy at best, but I never intended to see it through.

“That’s suicide,” Helgado said.

“Beck can’t walk,” Paul said.

“I can, I can,” Beck said through clenched
teeth.

“Let’s go then” Helgado said. “What’re we
waiting for?”

I was waiting for the bloodless vampires to
find the humans—a fresh diversion. I suppose I could say I tried to save
the three men, that I helped get them out, through the camp, over the wall and
into the forest with me. I could lie and write history as I imagine it to be,
but I am no liar—I am a vampire. This is where you will think me a
villain perhaps, which is fine, just do not mistake me for a victim. I would
save myself and find the girl. The horror of becoming a hybrid is enough to
drive anyone to do what I did. I may seem cold-blooded now, but was far worse
when I was human—war makes men brutal, makes them sacrifice morality,
anything, to survive.

I tossed the injured man down to the
abomination below. I ignored his screams, as I sank my fangs into the boy I had
always considered my enemy. I drank Helgado’s blood for vengeance, without
remorse. He passed out before I threw him down next. The other man did not stop
me, but jumped from the second-story window to free himself. He broke his legs
when he landed and the bloodless swarmed. He was the best distraction for me,
as I made my way out the window and past the busied fiends tearing him apart.
When I reached the parapet, I did not look back. I ran around to the rear of
our hill town and launched myself into the raging sea below.

Save the
girl—do it!

Byron’s words haunted me and I thought of
nothing else. I did not doubt my girl was still alive. I suppose I could feel
her blood, despite my indulgence with the boy. With fresh sustenance driving
me, I launched my body up and out of the water, clinging to the slippery
surface of the rock. I made my way sideways across the stone using my talons,
moving north along the coast in the direction Wallach had taken my girl. When I
reached the middle point of the field north of the hill town, I scaled the rock
to the woods above, where an abandoned hamlet lay on the other side of an
arboretum. I could only hope he had headed there. The nomad had an hour on me,
maybe less, so I moved quickly through the trees, knowing I did not have much
time before Rangu and his henchmen would be on my trail. There were few if any
bloodless left in the woods. They had moved into the hill town, used up by the
inferno.

I knew which way to go—maybe it was
instinct, or perhaps I smelled her, but when I came across the body of a fallen
bloodless in the middle of the small woods, I was on to her. It was motionless,
lying on the ground next to my first clue. I picked up the Dilo seed and
brought it to my lips. My fangs itched, it was covered in Evelina’s touch, her
sweat, her scent. She had grabbed the sack of seeds before the nomad abducted
her. He had no idea she was the reason he was safe from the bloodless. I found
the second seed twenty feet from the first, and the third was on the outer edge
of the hamlet on the other side of the woods. I crossed the meadow and found
two more. Closer now, I found another a few yards from the last. The trail
ended near a small water mill with a dried out wheel and a lawn overgrown with
poppies.

I recognized the blood in the air. The scent
came from inside the water mill, something lodged in a compartment between two
spokes and the hub. I reached in and pulled out the baby’s swaddling blanket.
It was stained with blood—not hers, her mother’s. I clung to the blanket,
holding it to my nose. My gums tingled and I could not resist placing the
soaked linen on my tongue.

“
Ce mai faci,
Du Maurier?” He greeted me
with a bloody mouth, stained with the spoils of rabbits and badgers. The smell
of animal blood gave me the slightest relief.

“Where is my girl?”

“Not yours
anymore,” he said. “Îmi pare rău.”
His apology was dripping with sarcasm.

I wanted to throttle him, tear him in two
pieces, maybe four, but I needed him. I needed to know where she was. I tucked
the bloody swaddling cloth in my belt and approached him slowly.
“You can keep
the baby,” I said. “I just want the girl.”

“Da,” he said. “Pardon.” He smiled. “
Mâine.”
Tomorrow
.

“No,” I said.
“Now.”

He toyed with
the carcass hanging from his belt before ripping it off. He brought the rabbit
up to his nose, savoring it. I suffered the nomad, as he bit through the pelt
and slurped the animal noisily. When he was finished, he tossed it aside and
then picked the fur from his teeth.
“Veronica,” he said. “I want her, and the girl is
yours.”
He had to have known—he must have seen
his progeny.
“
Unde
este Veroní-í-í-íca
?”

“
Nu știu
,” I said. “She has not been
with me for—”

“
Rahat,
mincinos!” He did not
believe me.

“
Îmi pare rău,
” I said. “I will tell you
where she is if—and only if—you tell me where Evelina is.”

He read me—he knew I was telling the
truth now.
“
Spune-mi
,” he said.

I told him what I had seen in my camp, that
they were just on the other side of the woods and they would be coming for me.
I told him they were no longer like us.

“
Răzbunare
,” he said.

“Revenge,” I said. “For what?”

“Rangu.”

He knew I had not helped my fellow vampire in
the vineyard. I had left him for dead, saving the girl instead. He came at me
then with hate in his eyes but he faltered and I grabbed him by the throat,
crushing it, as I tried to squeeze his head off. “Where is she?” I said. “Tell
me and I will spare you.”

My talons pierced his weaker skin—the
wild look in his eyes told me it was unpleasant. “Plecat,” he said barely
audible.
Gone
.

I squeezed tightly. “Tell me,” I said. More
tightly still. “Tell me.”

His eyes dulled and he strained to open his
mouth when all at once the blood from the rabbit revisited him. He vomited down
the front of his coat and I tossed him on the ground. He started to cackle but
I could not tell if he laughed or cried. “Bine, Du Maurier,
veți câștiga,
” he said.

After conceding defeat, he said I had already
lost her. He told me Rangu communes with the bloodless and leads them somehow.
He brought them to my camp, made them climb the wall, and ordered them to rush
into the fire. “I didn’t know about Veronica,” he said. “I didn’t know …
vampir
meu.”
My vampire
—she was no longer his,
vampire no more. He said he did not know Vlad would be there, that the fire was
a convenient distraction, a coincidence. But I do not know if I believe that.

“Does he have her?” I asked.

He shook his head. “She does,” he said.

“Who?”

“
Împărăteasă
,” he said. “She has the
girl.”

Resurrected by the great Xing Fu of the Zhou
dynasty at the turn of the twentieth century, the vampire Empress had become a
powerhouse in recent decades.

“Where?”

He gave me a bloody smile and winked. “
El
vine,” he said.
He is coming.
“
La
revedere, Du Maurier.”

I did not hear
Rangu come, but left Wallach not wanting to get caught up. Between the men I
found on my shore, the ship I had seen passing, and the reputed Empress, I knew
where to go.
The
Genoese docks were not far and as I got closer, the smell of human blood
confirmed my suspicion. When I saw the harbor, it evinced the abandoned world.
Boats and yachts had been neglected, tossed on their sides, some even sunk
altogether. The port’s control tower had collapsed and was stuck, half in half
out of the water. A massive cruise ship had capsized close to shore and was
still eerily lit up by its emergency signals. Great cranes and container lifts
were desolate, looking like visitors from outer space come to wreak havoc on
the port and failed to return home. They stood guard along the water’s edge
like mechanical giraffes. When I looked out at the bay, I saw the cargo ship
about a mile off the coast. I had found what I was looking for. It was the same
ship that had passed by all those days ago when she was with me.

I made my way down to the shipyard, looking
for a vessel to take me out to sea. I heard them, as I approached—their
frequencies buzzing all around me. A flock of harmless, hungry vampires
loitered on one of the docks, standing in a line, facing the ship as though
willing it to them. The bloody smell was unmistakable and even I could not keep
my fangs from dropping. Only one of the vampires acknowledged me when I
approached. He was a starved looking fellow with a more peaked complexion than
most. He saluted me with his free hand, the other cradling the fine sculpture
he held at his side.

“You’re an old one, aren’t you?” His regional
accent was impeccable.

“Ancient,” I said.

He kept playing with his fangs, letting them
drop over his bottom lip and then pulling them up again. “I haven’t seen you
here before,” he said. “First time?”

“What is this?” I asked.

“Ho,” he said. “You don’t know? This is the
jackpot, man. But where’s your offering?” He looked me up and down. “Your
payment?” He asked. “Gotta give her something to get on, man.” He held out his
sculpture for me. “It’s a Pisano,” he said.

The bust of a woman and child, probably the
Madonna and Christ, was delicate, almost modern looking in its details. Its
base was gone and it looked as if it had been ripped from a stone pedestal. I
did not ask him where he got it—I did not care.

“You’ll need something like this to get in,”
he said. “She doesn’t accept junk.”

“To get in?” I asked.

“The blood den, man,” he said. “No golden
bough, no ferry ride to the pleasure dome.” He thought he was clever, smiling
at his own wit, but I found him tedious. “You look well fed, man” he said. His
eyes lingered on the redness of my lips. They betrayed my satiation. “Where do
you keep your stash?” He sniffed the air around me.

I nudged him a little when he got too close.

“I gave up drinking the fiends,” he said.
“Couldn’t take the stench anymore. Her den saved me, man. When the ship leaves,
I jones until it pulls into port again. She gets the goods—I don’t know
where she finds them but man she serves the freshest blood.”

He itched to tell me his secret, from where
he had snatched his Pisano. I could see it in his bloodshot eyes. “Was it
difficult to lift?” I asked.

He looked from left to right and then shook
his head with a self-sufficient air. He leaned in and revealed his secret. “I
tricked him,” he said.

“Who?”

“The curator.” His eyes narrowed and he
looked past me. “You don’t know him, man,” he said. “Keep it that
way—he’s the devil.”

The frequencies pitched, synching harshly
when the ferryman launched his skiff from the cargo ship and headed toward the
dock. The promise of blood agitated the vampires.

“If you do get in,” he said. “Let me suggest
trying the newest they’ve tapped—Zhi told me she just gave birth.”

I do not think I heard another thing, though
he kept babbling. My throat tightened and I saw red, as they say. I unleashed
my iron fangs and dug them into his jugular, tearing it out with one bite. He
dropped the sculpture when he reached for his wound but I caught it up before
it hit the deck. His head fell back and I cut it clear off with a swipe of my
talons. His body crumbled and I kicked it into the water, tossing his head in
after it. The vampire who stood with his back to us turned and looked at the
sinking body. “Thanks,” he said. “He never stopped talking.”

I waited impatiently for the ferryman to
reach us, that transporter to paradise, though Zhi is nothing like Charon in
his knotted rags and wiry white beard. The Empress’s boatman is a rather
elegant vampire, dressed in a traditional changshan with its Mandarin collar
and low hanging sleeves, wearing his sleek black hair in braids tucked beneath
a hat that matches the red silk brocade of his jacket. He is never without his
slender opium pipe dangling from his mouth like a blade of hay.

“Hup, hup,” he yelled, as he approached. He
tossed his rope to the vampire at the front of the line. When it was wrapped
around the dock tie, Zhi motioned for him to step forward. “Liwù!” The ferryman
called.