The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (40 page)

When she stirred, I looked away, not wanting her to
catch me leering at her. I didn’t know the protocol and wondered if I was
supposed to send her away. She opened her eyes, and smiled at me. “Better?” She
asked.

I shrugged, not knowing why she’d care.

“Vincent sent me,” she said. “He told me you’d need
to feed.”

Her mention of my beloved tore into me and made my
furnace rage anew. Her blood hardened, sunk in the pit of my stomach as it was.
My fingertips tingled, and I forced my fangs out, hissing at her. I hadn’t
intended to react in such a fiendish way, and regretted my lack of control.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Her look of terror vanished, as I softened. “It’s
all right,” she said. “Veor is just outside. He’d rush in if anything …”

I admired her courage. “Why are you here?” I asked.

She contemplated answering, but gave in when I
smiled. “It’s the safest place for me to be,” she said. “I wouldn’t survive if
not for this haven.”

“You’re grateful to be a donor, then?”

“I’m grateful to be alive,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

I brushed off her interrogation. I wasn’t interested
in conversation, just answers. “How did you get on the ship?”

“I was recruited,” she said.

“Where?”

“I’m American,” she said.

I was surprised she was American. She spoke Italian
like a native. “How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Since the beginning,” she said.

“The beginning of the plague?”

My question seemed to make her uncomfortable. Her
pulse quickened and a blush rose to her cheeks. I licked my lips without
realizing it. “I can’t feed you again yet,” she said. “I have to eat first.”

“I’m not—I don’t need more,” I said. “You’ve
been living aboard since the outbreak started?”

“I can’t remember when I boarded,” she said.

She wasn’t a good liar and I could tell her arrival
on the ship was shrouded in mystery, especially since she attempted to hide it
from me.

“May I ask you a personal question?” She asked.

I shrugged.

“Do you miss Lucia?”

The name of my offspring sounded foreign. She may as
well have asked if I missed clams. I knew where I stood with regard to the
child but wondered why she was curious. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to pry,” she said. “We’re taking
good care of her, as I’m sure they’ve told you. But I was just curious from one
woman to anoth—” She stopped herself when she realized how silly she
sounded.

“Do you have a child?” I asked.

She tried to smile, but the power of memory was too
strong. The corners of her mouth turned downward and her eyes welled with
tears. She pursed her lips to contain her sob and shook her head. I may not
have been a woman, considering I was a girl when I was transfigured, but I’d
lived a full life and recognized the sorrow of loss when I saw it.

“Did she succumb to the plague?” Sentimentality and
propriety were for humans, and I wanted answers, so I questioned her despite
the painful memory.

She regained her composure and told me her baby was
delivered stillborn. “I carried her for eight full months before I lost her,”
she said. “I haven’t quite gotten over the barrenness.”

I couldn’t relate, but told her I was sorry for her
loss. “Is that why you feed us?” I asked, wanting to know why she volunteered
to be there.

She smiled again and wiped the tears from her
cheeks. She sniffled and laughed and I thought how impossible it’d be to return
to a human state of existence. “I assume you know what it’s like to be a
donor,” she said. “The feeling of attachment, the bond I have, isn’t something
I can give up.”

She referred to the inextricable connection that
arises between the donor and her vampire. It was a sentiment I hadn’t
forgotten, though my own vampiric attachment went unsatisfied.

“How many do you feed?” I asked.

“I’m reserved for a select few,” she said.
“Vincent’s one of them.”

I felt a sting in my neck—where his points
used to prick—when she said others fed on her. I didn’t want Vincent to
have one donor all to himself, unless she was me.

“I can return later if you’d like,” she said. She
was a lithe thing, pale and used up, and I thought it better to let her
recover. She’d need her strength to feed Vincent.

I asked her name before she left. “They call me
Muriel,” she said.

Muriel left me with thoughts of former times, days
and nights spent with the one to whom I’d given my life. Despite the security
of the ship, I missed our isolation and the despair our situation had forced on
us. I missed Vincent.

I lay on the berth, basking in my high and listening
to the sounds on the ship. I hadn’t thought about anyone until
then—except for Vincent, of course—but started to wonder where
Peter was. I didn’t see him in steerage once Huitzilli had turned on me, and I
doubted he brought me to the cabin since I woke up alone. I thought I might
search for him, but when I picked up his frequency, I didn’t have to. He was
directly outside my compartment, and I assumed he was coming to see me until
his signal faded again. I opened the door to look for him, but the passageway
was empty. I listened to the rumble of the metal bulkheads, trying to
distinguish between the voices I heard, as multiple conversations came at me
through the steel frame of the ship. I discarded each until I’d picked up
Peter’s voice.

“She is pure,” he said. “I can see it in her, Lord.
Give her the strength she needs to overcome our heathenish ways. Don’t let her
fall into the trap, don’t let her forfeit your grace. She is pure, my Lord. She
knows you. I see it in her, and I know she will make you proud. Give her the
chance, Lord, through me—use me to show her the way. I will save her
soul, Lord, if you let me.”

As he prayed, I felt ashamed for eavesdropping,
though I wondered if I was the subject of his plea. I lost his voice when a
vampire entered the passageway from a door at the end. I recalled the sound,
and knew who it was. I didn’t wait for her to turn the corner and stepped back
into my compartment. I’d already started to shut the door behind me when she
threw her hand up to stop it.

“Novice,” she said. “May I come in?” She spoke
Italian, and once again I wondered if it was common practice to address another
in their native tongue. The rules of parley on the ship fascinated me, though I
can’t say why.

I opened the door and permitted her to enter. She
came in and closed the metal door behind her, standing with her back up against
it. Her posture wasn’t threatening, but I noticed her talons were flexed, and
so I anticipated my third attack since coming aboard. It seemed protocol for a
novice to suffer the abuse of her seniors. I assumed all of it was training in
some way, and the sooner I learned how to fight, the better off I’d be.

We stared at one another like the cowboys I’d seen
facing off for a draw in the spaghetti westerns my stepfather would project on
the wall of his den. I grew exasperated with the chaotic rhythm of the
vampire’s frequency and tried to use the irritation to my advantage, letting it
strum the strings of my rage. I don’t know how long we stood there but I
finally ended the standoff when I asked her who she was.

“I am Mindiss,” she said.

“Who sent you?” I asked.

“I come of my own will,” she said. “No one rules
me.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I am here to meet you,” she said. “To greet my
enemy.”

“How can I be your enemy if we only just met?” I
asked.

She smirked but didn’t relinquish her gaze. I don’t
think she blinked once. “You think you have a monopoly on greatness, novice.
But you will lose yourself here. Takhar will have his vengeance.”

I couldn’t begin to guess who she was talking about.
Her vendetta was obviously her own. “You’re mistaken,” I said. “I haven’t hurt
anyone.”

She brought a hand up to her face, and used a talon
to cut a line into the skin below her eye socket from her tear duct to the
outer edge of her face and hairline. The fissure glistened.

“I see you,” she said. “And so does Takhar. The gods
have spoken and pass this message to you.”

I waited for the message, as she stared me down. A
scar beneath her eye was already forming, as her wound magically healed itself.
She finally broke her gaze when her eyes rolled up into her head. The whites of
her pupils looked yellow against her ebony skin.

“Loree jeen vu manja vi vaunt,” she said. “Pray paray
vu.”

I asked her to translate when her eyes rolled
forward to scrutinize me once again.

“Takhar has spoken,” she said. “I cannot help you if
you do not understand.”

“I don’t want your help,” I said. “I’m not scared of
you, or your gods.”

She sneered at me and said, “Your respect is
wanting, novice, and your pride is tedious. Nothing will save you now. It is
decided.”

She slipped from the compartment so swiftly she
seemed to evaporate before my eyes, leaving a faint trace of black smoke in the
cabin. I should’ve known then what kind of trouble she’d be.

Entry 5

I can’t refuse my abductor’s offering since I can
dry out if I don’t drink, despite Peter’s warning the lack of nutrients in
animal blood will keep me hungry. I’ve a gut reaction to his signal now,
knowing the eerie pipe organ means my subpar meal has arrived. He returned
before dusk and filled our trench with woodland creatures.

“Boa tura, novi chiat,” he said. The stink of hares
and badgers sticks on him, though he keeps to the edge of the trench, guarding
the ground outside.

A short moment ago, he said, “Lavanda esta mini
nunat,” approaching me, pointing to my left hand. “Chesta achesta?”

I looked down and saw the token my maker had given
me. I’d forgotten I still wore it. Swifter than me, he jumped into the trench
and snatched my hand, holding my index finger up to inspect the ring. “Yal
mel,” he said, swiping the trinket from me. He rolled it between two fingers
and studied it, and then slipped the token on his own finger and left me with a
carcass. I suckled the rancid blood until I felt some kind of relief from the
ache in my heart.

…

When I searched for Peter to tell him about
Mindiss’s visit, I found myself seeking out my beloved instead. I picked up his
frequency when I reached the ship’s lush passageways. Several vampires passed
me with canvases and statues under their arms, but they paid no attention to
me, and soon I found myself standing outside a cabin I was certain was
Vincent’s. His frequency was strong on the other side of the metal door and I
pressed myself up against it to feel its vibrations. Since I couldn’t hear his
voice, I assumed he was alone and reached for the handle to unlock his portal.
I don’t know why I didn’t knock, but I thought he’d know I’d come.

When the latch clicked, I pushed the door open but
paused on the cusp of my trespass to whisper his name. His cabin was triple the
size of mine and he lay in the center of a double-sized berth with his eyes
closed. His signal called me to his side, and I could barely resist touching
him. I sat down on the edge of the berth and placed my hand atop his. He didn’t
stir.

“Vincent.” I used my smallest voice, trying to
imitate the girl I once was, when I was still frail and human and his.

Evelina.
He didn’t say my name aloud
but I heard his voice in my head. Perhaps I imagined it since it was like an
echo in a cave, distorted and far away.
Evelina
,
he said again.

“I’m here,” I said.

Evelina, you must go.

I ignored his request and waited for him to open his
eyes and look at me and tell me to stay. When he repeated the phrase,
Evelina, you must go
, forcing his
unspoken words on me again, I bit down hard. I bared my fangs in protest, and
let a hiss come up from my throat. Like a small bear, I growled at the command
my master gave me. I refused to leave my beloved.

Empress Cixi cannot find you
here
, he
said
. You must leave me.

My maker wouldn’t tolerate my attachment to Vincent,
just as Peter said, and he was trying to save me from her wrath.

“She can’t keep me from you,” I said. “I’m still
yours.” Nettled by my lingering emotion, the back of my throat tightened and my
eyes stung, though I wouldn’t cry. Instead, the sensation festered as anger,
like any corrosive, and gnawed at my stomach.

After what seemed like minutes, though I’d stayed
far longer, I got up to go. I stared at him, willing him once more to open his
eyes, but when he ignored my plea, I drew my hand down the length of his arm
from shoulder to wrist, squeezing the palm of his hand. His eyes fluttered
beneath closed lids and I imagined him speaking one last phrase:
Byron must forgive me.