The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (62 page)

Janus or
Bifrons

Vincent paused, and my hand trembled, as I waited
for him to continue. I preferred it when he narrated his story, frightened to
become the object of his attention. I don’t think I can explain the experience
of being in his presence. Mere words won’t suffice, and I’m not equipped to
create a lexicon. I’m a translator, not a poet. But he—his presence—commanded
the air, the moon and her tides, even Helios bent to the melody of the
vampire’s Nocturnes. The sunset halted in his presence, allowing him to indulge
in his final night with me. The apricot sky lasted longer than any other eventide,
trapping me in a vault of extremes. My body’s temperature flipped from hot to
cold, as though a switch were turned on. One moment I’d need to prevent the
drips of sweat from staining my page, and the next I was forced to move my
hand, as it stiffened in the biting cold. His body, quite literally a furnace,
made the atmosphere in the tower unbearable, but I wouldn’t speak about it, or
think about it. I wouldn’t let my discomfort show.

From time to time when he’d pause in his narrative,
he’d say something cryptic, not intended for the page. He’d speak directly to
me. “I see through you,” he’d say, or “We are connected.” My name would roll
off his tongue as though it were his namesake, as though he were the one who named
me.
Dagur
—he would elongate the
a and trill the r, as if tasting my name, savoring it on his tongue.

Once, he stopped mid-sentence and said, “You are the
intersection where the axes meet, Dagur,” insisting I enter into conversation
with him.

I didn’t try to understand his words, and I
certainly didn’t ask him to explain, but I’ve since recorded the exchange from
memory, the most important bits never leaving me. His words were like droplets
of ink that spread on parchment, staining the sheet with a bigger blot than at first
drop.

“I am forced to make a choice, as always,” he said.
“Can you guess what it is?”

I shook my head but his release of my voice box was
intended for me to respond with more than a gesture. I said, “Whether to kill
me?”

His rich growl filled the tower and my spine
clenched again, though this time my own muscles did the clutching.

“I see how you could think that,” he said. “That,
however, is not the dilemma I face.”

I turned to him with this last part. It may have
been his doing, but I suddenly desired to look at him again. A glance at his frightening
aspect would, if I were lucky, relieve me of my senses and knock me out. I
longed to wake from my nightmare.

“I am no dream,” he said. “Your reality has never
been more pressing.”

“Why?” I asked with a small voice.

A scraping sound filled the studio as his stone fangs
rubbed up against his metal tusks. He smiled in the darkness.

“You who always want to know the reason,” he said,
“I should think you would have found it by now.”

“I’ve searched for the cause of the Red Death. For
my people, for the colony—”

“Do not mistake these people for yours, Dagur.”

When he said that, I sensed I was on the edge of
horror.

“You grab at your past, darkly,” he said, “and I am not
surprised it remains undiscovered.”

“I am different,” I said with as much defiance as I
could muster.

“Yes.”

“My guardian was different,” I said. “The colony
welcomed him but only on condition.”

“Yes.”

“That’s all I know,” I said.

“How did your guardian serve you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What did he give you?”

“He taught me everything I know—many
languages, how to transcribe ancient texts, how to record, to save history. He
taught me mathematics and chemistry, geology, nutrition, anatomy, and some
facts about man’s religions.”

“He has served you well, as I knew he would,” he
said. “Herodotus would be proud of you.”

“Was that his name?”

He chuckled and said, “You do you not recall him?”

“No.”

“Herodotus was one of the first historians—not
your guardian.” His playful tone surprised me. “It is a shame my native tongue
has fallen out of fashion, but perhaps it is just as well.”

“Is the language in the booklet yours?”

He rose from the chair and came forward out of the darkness.
The apricot hue washed the studio with its soft light and when he passed the
open window, it changed his aspect. His looked like an image I’d seen in a
recovered file, a digital copy of a work of art that must have held sentimental
value for someone at one time, enough to encrypt and save it at least. My
expression changed or something caught his eye or maybe he just read the shock in
my mind because he stepped back into the light and stood there for a moment,
letting me gaze on his true face, the one Evelina loved—the one face.

“Your face,” I said aloud. The words slipped off my
tongue with unwieldy boldness and I bit my lip as soon as they touched the air.
My cheeks burned with shame, but I could not look away from him, beautified by the
light, like the Christ figure my guardian had told me about. He’d shown me an ancient
text, a thick tome they called the testament, which described a man of light
who’d been reborn as a god. I pictured him when Vincent’s aspect caught the pastel
light of the sinking sun.

“I was never crucified,” he said, “though I am a
god.”

Distracted by his face, his words didn’t register
until their second pass.

“The face of the one in the texts is an idea more
than a man.”

“I didn’t mean to imply—I mean, I don’t know.”
I dropped my eyes, despite my longing to admire his face until the end of time.
The aspect beneath his mask of horror gave me comfort.

“It is that which drew her in,” he said. “Evelina only
knows this face.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You would not,” he said. “I have said this before,
but you have not taken it to heart. She is me. Evelina is me.”

“I can’t know, I don’t understand what that means.”

“Only those with my nature see this face,” he said.
“The other one, the mask of horror, is for those who are lesser than me.”

“It’s monstrous, the other.”

“As am I.” He rushed at me then and drained me of
the light he had offered, showing me the terrifying aspect I’d seen at his
arrival. He sneered at me, and the gleam of his iron fangs stung my eyes. I
closed them shut to avoid his face, and he in turn robbed me of my voice.

“Janus or Bifrons?” He rumbled and groaned. “Which
is it?”

I squeezed my eyes more tightly and held my breath
until I sensed his retreat. When he was across the room, I opened my left eye a
sliver. He’d moved back into the light of the window and recovered the angelic aspect
he’d hid beneath his veil of evil.

“Janus,” he said. “Or Bifrons?”

He rushed forward again and scowled at me with his
demonic face, toying with me several more times before remaining in the light
to explain his chameleon gift.

“Janus is a god of the ancient Roman world, a Latin
kin,” he said. “Two-faced, and discerning, Janus oversees new beginnings and
transitions, guarding the door of war. But Bifrons also has two faces, and
Bifrons is a demon, the earl of Hell, with six legions of devils to do his
bidding. So which two—or four faces—do you think suit me best?”

“Janus,” I said.

He smiled and proved more radiant. I wanted to cling
to this figure, to kiss this face, to give this creature all the love and
respect his aspect commanded. I’d forgotten the other at the sight of this one,
and if he’d asked me to kneel before him and open my veins, I could have.

“No,” he said, his voice sounding defeated. “My
faces are those of the devil, not those of the god.”

“But I see you now, your radiance and splendor. You
are a god.”

He slumped forward, though keeping in the light, and
dropped to the edge of the open window, balancing himself on its ledge. I
didn’t see how fitting the gesture was then, but now I do.

“I was on the path to enlightenment,” he said. “And
then the world changed and man got in the way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

He insisted we continue our project and turned to look
at the sky, shifted to shades of saffron. I let my gaze linger on his aspect for
as long as I could, admiring his profile, and the short-lived beauty he showed me.
I believed I’d witnessed something out of the ordinary, a sight I’d never see
again but would dream of forever.

“Let us get back to the ship,” he said, “and visit
the priest.”

Peter Vaudès,
the Confessor

A vampire of religious leaning, Peter proved faithful.
Being vulnerable to love’s grip, however, made him susceptible to irrational
behavior. The secret love child of a Huguenot spy and French Cardinal, Peter
adopted his mother’s way of life, becoming a Calvinist among Catholics, and
bastard to Paris. The times in which he lived were volatile and keen, and had a
certain affect on his heart.

I do not mean the organ that pumps blood through the
body, but rather the part of the mind that indulges in romantic love. As a young
man, he was addicted to love, but once nocturnal, he pursued his soul’s
pleasure to extremes. His maker was his first immortal love, but Galla did her
best to teach him the true path, and the benefit of a solitary life.

This bit of exposition serves a purpose in my
narrative. Peter cleaved to that mortal emotion never to be severed from it,
meaning he held strong notions of love once awakened to blood. Love molded his
nature, honed his drive and purpose, which is why he found religion a balm to
his ever disappointed spirit.

Because of this, he discovered how to enter certain
minds. Some would say he was a mind reader, but I prefer to call him sensitive,
capable of penetrating the malleable part of the brain that acts as a doorway
to one’s thoughts. Peter’s power was far more extensive than he realized. He
could easily see a mind’s foremost musings as clear as text on a page, but also
he could read the subconscious, the memories embedded deep in the brain’s limbic
system, abandoned and forgotten. They appeared to him as vaporous apparitions, as
chimerical traces and wisps on a landscape, but still he saw them.

Peter is no exception to love, he simply loved
exceptionally. He loved Evelina from the moment he laid eyes on her, and
slipped into her mind with ease, learning things about her that even I did not
know. He used forgotten memories to plan for my arrival on the ship, assisting
my salvation long before its necessity.

I had uncovered his attachment to Youlan early on, their
secret language easy to read as I was the first to imagine private
communication into being. I did not trust the Empress, and did not believe he
knew about the sample. When I slipped into his compartment, he looked up from
the text in his lap.

“I did not tell her,” he said, jumping up to greet
me.

I asked to whom he referred and when he said
Evelina, I hid my surprise.

“She has no idea,” he said. “But I see it.”

“Of what do you speak?”

He said my name with an aspirated voice, and then, “She’s
yours.”

“How can you know?”

He shook his head, and then cocked it to the side.
“Ah, you think I knew beforehand, but I assure you I couldn’t. The Empress
would never trust me with such a secret.” His pale skin grew hot.

I raised a lip and sneered. “Lies are never
half-truths.”

“Have you ever known me to lie to you?”

“Never.”

“I didn’t know she would do it.”

“Kill Evelina or make her mine?”

“Ah,” he said. “She told you I knew about the
sample.”

I moved toward him, searing him with a simple look.
“Do you think I will permit you to read my mind?”

He cowered and stepped back, knocking into the
berth. “No,” he whispered. “I would never, believe me, I can’t. I saw it in her.”

“Cixi?”

“No, Youlan.”

“What did you see?”

“The sample in the exchange, but I didn’t know it
was yours until I realized Evelina wasn’t the Empress’s progeny.”

“What did you see?”

“Someone gave it to Youlan before she escaped the
facility.”

“Who?”

“The figure is unclear, even to her,” he said.

“You told me you could not read Youlan.” I moved
closer to him.

He tensed up, but smiled. “You must believe me,” he
said. “I couldn’t read her in the beginning. It’s only recently that I’ve found
a way to do it.”

“How is that?”

A crimson color rose to his cheeks, and he turned
away from me when he said, “I have recently come to know Youlan.”

The insinuation was plain, and I raised a hand,
assuring him I needed no details.

“I didn’t know it could work like that,” he said.
“But our physical union cracked open the vault in her mind.”

I stepped back and he released a sigh. “Seems
useful,” I said. “What else have you learned?”

“Youlan got it from someone at the facility,” he
said. “I can’t see the one who gave it to her, though. He’s shadowed.”

“What does that mean?”

“It could mean she didn’t see him,” he said. “Or he’s
not real.”

“Real?”

“Like he’s someone she imagined into being.”

“A phantom?”

“More like a fear.”

“And you see her taking the sample from this
shadow?”

He nodded.

“Does Laszlo Arros mean anything to you?”

He shook his head. “Sounds like Lazarus.”

“This is not a joke.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I haven’t heard that name,
but I can probe Youlan.”

“Does that require the physical?” I smiled to break
the tension, and the cabin warmed.

“Just this,” he said, lifting a hand to his temple.

Perhaps it was his grin, or the teasing gesture he
made with his tongue, but I sensed more. His own vault had been cracked and his
secrets would come pouring out.

I took the bible from his hands, and rummaged
through it. When I returned it to him, I asked him to read me something.

He rolled his shoulders back and held his head up,
as he flipped to the back of the book, turning the cotton pages with care. When
he settled on a passage, he recited it.

“But the rest of the dead lived not again until the
thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” He looked up at
me for approval, and I shook my head, prompting him to turn the page over once
more.

“And God shall wipe away all tears—”

I stopped him and stepped forward, leading his
finger down the page a little. “Begin from there,” I said without looking at
the text.

“And he said unto me, it is done. I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the
fountain of the water of life freely.” He looked up for my approval, and I
nodded.

“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I
will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and
the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters,
and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone: which is the second death.”

I gestured for him to stop. He smiled when he saw
the look on my face. “Ah, you knew I’d turn to the apocalypse, didn’t you?”

“From what other book could you choose but
Revelation
?”

“I see the end, Vincent.”

“Of course you do.”

“But I want to stop it. I do. I just can’t see how.
I can’t—ah.” His face lit up. “The resurrection is yet to come.”

“We have already succumbed to the second death,” I
said. “We have inherited the earth. All that is left to conquer is the
metaphysical sphere.”

“The end.”

“Is simply the beginning.”

“Youlan,” he said, “has told me things about the
facility.”

“Such as?”

“There are others,” he said. “But to know them would
scorch you where you stood.”

“A perfectly biblical thing for you to say, but what
do you mean?”

“It is a facility of reproduction.”

“I have heard.”

“But not just cloning,” he said. “A new breed
altogether.”

Peter assured me he learned it all from Youlan.

“The facility is where the matrices are found.”

“Which are?”

“Hubs of cellular regeneration.”

“Muriel has told me some of this.”

Peter raised a hand and said, “Forgive me, but this
is not about human reproduction. Rather the opposite.”

“Destruction of the species.”

“The chrysalis in which the plague was formed.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Youlan has no connection to it and yet I sense it’s
automatic for her.”

“What is?”

“She is a part of it,” he said. “She is at its
center.”

“She is connected to the bloodless, like Rangu?”

“No.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“She is a blank canvas, in ways.”

“What do you see when you read her?”

“It’s more about what I don’t see. She has the space
for memories, but most are two-dimensional. Almost like they come from a book,
or a database. They’re not compiled from experience.”

“She has been programmed?”

“Or reprogrammed.”

“Was she human before her awakening?”

He cleared his throat and said, “Of course.”

“What are you keeping from me?”

“She evinces the end,” he mumbled.

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged.

“Tell me.”

He shuffled from one foot to the next. “Ah,” he
said. “You think I’m keeping something from you, but I’m not.”

“But you have tried.”

“I have.”

“Begin with how you met Youlan.”

He took in a false breath and said, “I was sent with
the others to fetch her because I could teach her the language.”

“Mandarin?” I asked.

“She didn’t speak,” he said.

“She was a mute?”

Peter nodded.

“How is that possible?”

“When she finally started talking, she told me language
wasn’t necessary.”

“That is the oddest claim to make, no?”

“I thought so,” he said. “But I assumed her point
was that she and the others at the facility spoke using telepathy.”

“Telepathy still requires language, or some kind of linguistic
model.”

“True.”

My suspicions of Youlan grew, but her reveal only
came later.

“She hasn’t spoken about her past,” he said. “Or her
time in the facility. But she was loyal to Cixi from the start, as though she’d
been commanded to obey the Empress.”

“Commanded, or programmed?”

The corners of his mouth turned up and he said, “The
difference is slight.”

I did not agree. “They appear to have a longstanding
relationship. When I arrived, I thought she was in fact the Empress’s progeny.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “It’s just a hunch, but
I think she was made for the Empress.”

“Are you speaking metaphorically?”

He glanced to the side and said, “I don’t know. They
just seem to jell.”

I increased the space between us and took up post on
a chair across from his berth. He placed the bible on the shelf beside him and
then sat on the berth with his elbows on his knees, leaning in as he waited for
my next question.

I chose this one carefully, “When did you first hear
I was aboard the Empress’s ship?”

He thread his fingers and leaned forward even more. “We
all knew you were coming,” he said.

“The entire crew?”

He nodded. “You’re the reason we docked in Genoa.”
He swallowed and grit his teeth, hiding a pinch of anger. “Vlad had tracked
you, and alerted the Empress to your location.”

“The Empress was a part of it?”

“No,” he said. “She didn’t want Evelina. Wallach was
supposed to bring you to the meeting point.”

“But instead he took mother and child.”

“Exactly,” he said. “She had no choice but to use
them to lure you here.”

“Why?”

“She wanted to bring you onboard.”

“Yes,” I said. “But why was she seeking me out?”

He shrugged. “Only she can tell you that.”

She did not only give up the last of her human blood
to Laszlo Arros for my venom, but also promised to bring me back, in the flesh.

“What did it cost the Empress to engage Vlad to
track me down?”

He looked away.

“I assume it was something valuable or she would not
have had me take his head.”

“It was.” Peter’s color turned and his face went
gray.

“I see,” I said. “Is that why you have taken a new
lover?”

“Vivian was not one of us,” he said. “She was a
human girl.”

“A donor?”