The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (66 page)

Veor turned away and
scowled at the land.

“Muriel is precious
to me,” I said. “She will not come to harm.” I tapped my finger along the side
of the tower, making a ping sound like a metronome on metal. I had not
considered the beat could travel along the sea to the shore like a beacon.

“Do you trust me?” I
asked.

“More than any other.”

“What about the
Empress?”

“She is nothing to me.”

“She gave you safe
haven aboard the ship, kept Muriel from harm. Have you not wondered why? She is
not one to do favors for others.”

“Muriel spoke for
me,” he said. “I barely saw her once I boarded.”

“And the den?”

He looked at me and
dropped his subtle fangs. “My pledge is to Muriel, and hers is to you and Evelina
and the child, which means I don’t mind sharing my kin.”

I nodded and silence
fell between us before I asked if it was difficult getting into the facility.

“No,” he said. “I
came with a message from Colonel Heath.”

“Which was?”

Veor shrugged. “The
settlement was overrun.”

“Which settlement?”

“He was tasked with
escorting a group of two-hundred settlers to a land in the upper region of the
Nortrak. The colony was barely a month old before it fell under attack.”

I nodded, “I see.”

“Once the colonel was
gone,” he said. “I left in search of her.”

“And the settlers?”

He shrugged. “I
couldn’t say.”

I looked at the frothy
sea, the ship cutting through the water at a fair pace. The foam on the waves
made the water seem as though it were soil being turned over, and I understood Veor’s
metaphor. His gods would rise up on the sea and cultivate it for humanity once
again just as they did for Noah, the Judeo-Viking.

“We are no longer
alone,” I said, as I sensed Evelina’s approach.

Cloaked from head to
toe, she climbed the radio tower with her hood up to block the morning sun. Veor
called down to offer her a hand since she had something tucked under one arm.
She scoffed, and I smiled, whispering to him, “Help is hers to give, not
receive.”

When she reached the
top, she threw the object she carried on the platform and then pulled herself
up to sit beside me. I sheltered her from the light and she nestled into my
shade.
You must not stay up long
, I spoke
into her mind.

The space was tight
for the three of us, but that was not my first thought. Rather the head she had
placed between us garnered all my attention.

“The Empress,” Veor
said. “How did you manage that?”

“It was her due,” she
said.

“How did you fare?” I
asked. “Besides coming out successfully, which I can clearly see by her
face—and yours.”

She smiled, her metal
blades gleaming with vampire ichor. Her eyes were wild and ever present. “She’s
learned her lesson.”

“Is there a story to
tell?” Veor asked.

Evelina looked out to
the shore, another smirk rising on her face. “I’ll tell it to all of you at
once.” Then without looking at Veor she commanded his attention and said, “Gather
every vampire in the pit. Tell them their new commander wishes to greet them.”

The violet sky,
lightening by the moment, made her shrouded head glow, adorning her with a
halo, and I thought how my counterpart is all that is wholesome and pure, she
is everything good in me stowed away and muted for blood.

The Rise of Evelina
Caro

The Empress’s
interest in Evelina waned once she lost Xing Fu, though she never questioned
the cause of her maker’s demise. The donor’s secret remained safe from Cixi. She
refused visitors, even Youlan, locking herself up in her cabin with the young Jörvi
for succor. Her threat to kill him at dawn stirred nothing in me, though I had
Veor guard Muriel against her until my Evelina had paid Cixi her due.

When the cargo ship
reached the shores of the Nortrak, it did so without its original head. I had encouraged
Evelina to end the Empress’s reign because such an act would confirm her
autonomy and power. Though she had free will in all things, I insisted she get
her revenge before we abandon the ship. Her place at its head would make our
escape easier. Without question, she had the strength, the wit and the bravery
to do what needed to be done. Her irons marked her for it, and when I commended
her for her use of them on the shores of the Ligurian sea, she played modest,
claiming the Toltec had teased her irons out.

“His were mean,” she
had said, “and I wanted a set of my own so badly I obsessed over them. By the
time I was starved and alone, they were itching to come out.”

Her eagerness made me
smile. She turned from girl to woman overnight, like my Shenmé, and her
vampirehood demanded my attention. She showed me her irons again and again,
tempting me as Huitzilli had teased her with his. Our physical communion was not
only baptized in the carnal but the brutal too, Evelina far more violent than
Byron ever was. Her fearlessness at the cathedral was just a sketch of who she
would become.

I admired her more
than ever, as she stepped into the role I had given her without a modicum of
hesitation, fear no longer an emotion that moved her. When I asked her in the
privacy of the cabin we shared if she would like to become the head of a band
of wild and unruly vampires, she said, “These vampires will only obey me if I
destroy their Empress.”

“That is correct,” I
said, reading her body shift as a sign of approval.

“Do I need permission
to kill a vampire older than me?”

“From whom?”

“My maker.”

I smiled inwardly.
“It is all yours.”

“She falls in your
line, though.”

“Cixi has nothing of
me in her, and the viper must get her comeuppance.”

“Do you think I can
do it?”

“I believe it is
something you were made to do. The closure will benefit you, too.”

“Should I be angry at
her for making me yours?”

“Are you?”

“I can’t hold it
against her since it’s the only thing I’ve wanted since meeting you.”

Her confession made
me high, as she tightened the cords of love.

“It was my gift to
give,” I said, “not hers. She robbed us of our ceremony.”

“I see.” She ran her
hand over the cropped ends of her short hair, some of it having already grown
back.

In our early hours
together Evelina had asked me in a moment of weakness, when pleasure wracked
her body, if I could have made her. My answer was simple, “If only for this,” I
whispered, my low timber causing her hard body to tremble.

“Tell me how to take
the Empress’s head,” she said. “I am ready to get my revenge.”

I gave my counterpart
the directions she needed, the secret bits of advice that would have Cixi
bending at Evelina’s will. I did not worry my girl would lose courage or heart
or develop a conscience to bar her against fulfilling the task. Evelina had
tasted Cixi’s evil firsthand, a humiliation that required reparation.

I was not present for
Cixi’s beheading, but Evelina gave me details. “I doubled my strength to smite
her bones,” she said. “I wished to see agony paint her face gray.”

“But you were
denied,” I said.

“I was.”

“The Empress would
not give you the pleasure of seeing her pain.”

“It wasn’t that,”
Evelina said. “She begged for death, she wailed with hurt. She even promised to
throw herself overboard with her maker.”

“She longed to be
with Shenmé.”

“She wanted me to
send her to her maker.” Evelina looked away, unable to hold my gaze.

“There is no shame in
empathy,” I said.

“She collapsed on the
deck and begged me to take her life with honor.”

“And did you heed her
request?”

“How could I?” The
corners of her mouth drew upward, though her smile was reserved.

“Let me see,” I said,
pressing my forehead to hers. Her vault opened and the fresh memory appeared
before me.

“Do it Ei wai lina!”
The Empress had begged. “Send me to a watery grave. Burn me up and let my ashes
float in the sea with my maker’s. Put your hand on my heart and pull it out
from my chest. Starve me and toss me overboard. Please, please end this
misery.” Cixi was on the deck, reaching for my girl, as she stood ten feet
taller like a fierce and unforgiving goddess.

“I want to burn out
your heart, Cixi,” Evelina had said, her voice calm and soft as she leaned in
to kiss the Empress with her eyes. “I want you to drink the gore of the
bloodless, as they tear you to pieces.”

“No, Ei wai lina.
Keep me whole for Shenmé.”

“No,” Evelina had
whispered the word twice, as she soothed the dragoness with a stroke of her
hair. Then, sliding her hand down the side of her cheek, she cupped the
Empress’s chin in her palm and pulled her face upward. “I can’t do that,” she
said. “Your crown is the thing I need.”

“No,” the Empress
wailed. “No! You can’t! It mustn’t end it like this, Ei wai lina. Please, show
mercy.”

“As you have shown
me?”

“Have pity on the one
who saved you—I brought you to Vincent—I gave you to the great
one—I made you his—with his venom.”

“Another crime for
which you must pay. Stealing my life, my awakening too.”

The Empress bowed her
head and said, “You do not regret becoming his, do you?”

Evelina’s voice
boomed in the cabin, and the trinkets on the shelves shook. “It was his gift to
give, not yours.”

“You must see,” Cixi
said, “forgiveness is the higher road.”

Evelina chuckled and
ran her fingers through the Empress’s hair, pulling her head back and down. She
leaned forward and placed her mouth overtop Cixi’s, keeping her in suspense.
“You must stay your wrath,” the Empress said. “My vampires will not let you get
away with this.”

“I already have.”

“Your heart is soft,
Ei wai lina. You are a novice, your humanity is still strong in you. Take pity
on me, see in your heart.”

“There is room for
only one thing in my heart.”

“I know the truth
about Lucia,” the Empress said.

Evelina faltered, and
dropped her hand from the Empress’s head. She stepped back and scowled. Cixi
thought it was her chance, her reprieve, the perfect words to soften Evelina’s
wrath.

But Evelina said,
“She belongs to Vincent.”

“You know,” the
Empress whispered, though Evelina did not hear. The novice’s ears were tuned to
the swift breeze of her talons as they cut along the air, swooping down to
slice off the head of her enemy.

Commander and empress
no more, Cixi’s head dangled in Evelina’s hand midair with a mixed look of
terror and spite, her dragoness eyes staring up at her assailant. The image was
seared on my mind when I pulled myself from the memory.

“Lucia is mine,” I
said.

“Of course,” Evelina
said. “She’s yours until the end of time, as am I.”

She had not uncovered
the truth, for she meant it symbolically.

“She is mine,” I
said. “I shall always keep her safe.”

I told Evelina I was
proud of her courage, her strength to avenge the treachery Shenmé’s progeny had
wrought. “Time cannot wait,” I said. “You must claim what is yours.”

“The crew?”

“They need a new
head,” I said.

“But will they obey a
novice?”

“They shall bow
before my progeny and accept the Empress’s crown as proof you are a novice no
more.”

I did not tell her we
needed an obedient clan, one that would remain in line until we had the chance
to abandon them to their doom.

A Spring of Blood

Vincent’s past led to
my present, and whatever portion of the future I was to be granted.

“You are a testament
to Evelina’s rise,” he said. “Can you see it?”

I assured him I
couldn’t.

He rose from the
chair and it creaked with relief. He flew to my side once again and bent down
beside me, dropping his head to my ear to whisper, “Your guardian escaped the
ship with us.”

The world had already
shrunk to the size of my studio, but with his words it shrank to sit atop the head
of a pin. “My guardian?”

“Can you recall his
face?”

I closed my eyes and
imagined some of the characters he’d written about in his journal, their faces
appearing as somber bloodhounds ripping up the night. None looked as my
guardian had.

“Picture one with a
mouth full of metal, and gore beneath his fingernails, talons half the length
of your nail beds.”

“I can’t.”

“He has changed over
the years,” he said. “We all have.”

He told me my
guardian had come up with the plan to save what was left of Vincent’s line.

“Will I meet him
again?”

Vincent snapped his
fingers and his eyes grew wide, as he pressed his forehead up against mine. I
shut my eyes, and lost my balance, falling back onto the floor behind me when
his cold lips seemed to touch mine. I fell and fell, never actually touching
stone, until light erupted in the darkness, and a wraith appeared before me.

The man I called my
guardian wore a high collar that covered his bearded chin, but I recognized the
pendant hung about the figure’s neck. I had often seen my guardian clutch the
string of beads, rolling each one in his fingers, as he mumbled the words he
never spoke aloud.

“He is the genesis,”
my guardian whispered. “And she the holy vessel.”

“Tell me your name,”
I said to him as though he were in the room with me and not a thought planted
in my mind.

“You don’t remember
me for good reason.”

“Why?”

“I am the rock. He is
the genesis and she the holy vessel.”

“What does that
mean?”

“You are nothing
without them,” he said.

His face was aglow.

“Where did you go?
Why have you abandoned me?” I asked.

“I am the rock, he is
the genesis, and she the holy vessel, you are the seed, the last man, and our
salvation.”

“Why did you abandon
me?”

“I taught you all
that I could,” he said. “You are safest in the second colony of the
resurrected.”

“Where are you?”

“Where the others
reside.”

“What others?”

He mouthed something
but I couldn’t make it out and then he seemed to evaporate, his figure
dissolving like a puff of smoke. I opened my eyes as soon as he vanished, and
found Vincent’s face as close to mine as it had been before.

“Would you like to
meet her?” He asked, his mouth still hovering over mine.

I cleared my throat,
my larynx numb, and asked who.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

He inhaled a gust of
air, pulling mine from my lungs again. I grew dizzy as a grumble rose up from
the pit of his stomach, like a sound erupting from the earth’s core as magma
gurgles and chortles with the shifting of tectonic plates. I floated, struggling
to grasp the edge of my drafting table as I drifted up to the ceiling above. The
air grew thinner as brushstrokes of light danced in the sky above me.

“Give in,” he
whispered from far away.

Suspended in
darkness, my body came crashing to solid ground with a thud that wracked my
spine, the hard blow sending heat through my skin. I rested in a dark place,
the smell of frost strongest by my head.

“He is awake,”
someone said.

“Bring him to me,” a
second voice spoke.

My body was lifted
again, though this time by the hands of those around me. They carried me to a
soft surface, the smell of frost replaced with lavender. I swooned, my head
spinning from the change in gravity, but I listened for Vincent’s voice. When I
finally heard the rich lilt of the vampire, I clung to it for comfort. The low
grumbling served as a familiar backdrop, though I couldn’t see him.

The smallest voice
spoke next, “I should bring him the light. There isn’t much time.” My mind
played tricks on me since I recognized my mother’s voice, though that was
impossible. I barely recalled her face, let alone her voice. “You may see her
again,” Gerenios had told me, “but memorize her features just in case.” I
obeyed him and locked away some imagined composite of her. Her features changed
but when I discovered Evelina’s notes, my mother’s image blended with my mosaic
of Vincent’s counterpart.

“He awakes,” another
said.

“His heart will
replenish the lost blood,” the other said.

“I hope he hasn’t
suffered too much,” the smallest voice said.

I was sure it was my
mother’s voice, and I wanted so desperately to see her, but I couldn’t combat
the darkness around me.

Vincent?
I mouthed his name.

“He strains to see,”
the first voice said. “Give him light.”

With that, a strong
force pressed itself into my brow and my head seemed to split in two. The pain
sang in the roots of my gums, until a fine light came on and dulled it. Three
figures stood over me, their faces shadowed.

“Don’t speak,” the tallest
one said.

In my memory, she’s more
elegant than the other two, but they were only ever a composite built from imagination.
As I lay in that haunted space with the three figures standing over me, I pictured
one of them as Béa Bijarnarson, the woman who’d given me life. I imagined witnessing
my mother’s beauty in the faces of her ancestors, and that like them she was of
Vincent’s line.

 
“Don’t try to sit up,” one of them said.
She reached out and caressed my cheek. “That’s our boy,” she said. “Let the
light fill you, and heal your body.”

My arm had seized up
in pain, swelling as I lay there, giving them succor.

“You were made for
this.” The voice I imagined as Béa’s warmed my spirit. “You are for us.”

I
don’t understand
. I tried to speak the words aloud, but
could only mouth them.
Vincent? Mother?
What trick is this?

“He is going into
shock,” the deepest voice said, and then she called to Vincent. “He must be
returned.”

A scream escaped my
lips as the three fell away, and I was plunged into darkness, departing my
studio at the top of the tower in the second colony of the resurrected.

My swelled tongue
shrank, but my arm ached, as the warmth of Vincent’s touch seemed to heal the
pain. “You will be fine,” he said. “They were easy on you.”

They
,
I thought, the word repeating itself as though my inner voice was locked in an
echo chamber. I wrestled with my stupor, finally pulling myself out with a jolt
upward. My arm twitched, too heavy to lift.
“What has happened to me?”

“Once again you have
extended life,” he said.

“What does that
mean?”

I could feel what it
meant in my bones.

“You are our only
source in a world of new blood,” he said.

He had placed himself
at my side, his aspect the tender one. The feathered mattress beneath me, the
smell of ink on my drafting table, and the moisture of the tower walls gave me relief,
but his soft look could make a heaven of any hell.

“What am I?”

“The last of them,”
he said.

“Of whom?”

He looked away and
grumbled, if only purring like a cat. “The race of men.”

“My mother,” I said,
“is my mother still alive?”

He looked away and
snarled. “No,” he said. “Béa is dead.”

“When did she die?”

He abandoned my side
and paced the studio, avoiding to look at me. “I cannot speak of her end,” he
said. “Not now.”

“Did she—was
she one of your donors?”

“She was our only
source of blood until he came and did what he does best.”

“Laszlo Arros?” A
chill crept up my spine when a breeze seemed to touch the small of my back,
where my pullover had risen. My shoulders shook and I tensed.

“You must recover,”
he said. “Drink some.” He poured a cup of cider from a jug I hadn’t seen
brought to my studio. I didn’t bother to ask where it came from. He’d done far
greater feats than produce a jug of cider out of thin air.

“When you are ready,
we shall continue,” he said. “We must get back to the ship, and the brood of
vampires about to accept their new commander.”

“I know what I am,” I
said.

“Good,” he said,
ducking back into the shadows. “Then, shall we begin?”

“Are you going to
take me away from here?” I asked, unwilling to begin until I’d settled my
future.

“Why would I take you
from the home I have built for you?”

“You built? But
Gerenios—”

“Do you trust me,
Dagur?”

I couldn’t say no. As
frightened as I’d been at the start, the web into which I was woven had
appeared. I was more akin to the vampires than the settlers, and I couldn’t
escape my duty as the last of my race.