The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (76 page)

The Face of
Truth

Gerenios rubbed his eyes and smiled. “It took me a
while to put everything together,” he said. “But soon I could see that as much
as you were hers, you were mine too.”

Still forbidden to make a sound, my face betrayed my
shock.

“Yes, Dagur, I am your father,” he said.

The dimness of the crawl space beneath the hearth
kept us from facing the truth too readily. I couldn’t look for my features in
his face, but he’d never been on my list of candidates. I was told my mother
had come to the colony after I was born, and left me with the settlers because
she was dying. I believed the story I was told, neither my guardian nor
Gerenios giving me reason to suspect its veracity.

“We are different in kind, though,” Gerenios said. “You’re
correct in thinking you aren’t like the other colonists. You are your mother’s offspring
through and through. It’s her blood that is yours. You have none of mine in you.
A male cannot pass on his type. The blood of the female is everything.”

All his talk of blood made my stomach turn, and I
regretted the strips of Arctic fox still working to settle in my bowels. I held
my tongue, as he had commanded, but I desperately wanted to know more about my
mother. I laid back down on the pile of straw beneath me, and closed my eyes.

Gerenios patted my hand and said, “Yes, my boy. You
rest again. You need to replenish your stock. They will come for you when it’s
over.”

Until then, Gerenios’s low voice had been the only
sound, but a din arose from somewhere else, a place far above us, and I bolted
upright. Panic marked Gerenios’s face, too, as he brought the candle up to blow
it out. He leaned forward in the darkness, and put a hand to my mouth. I bit my
lip again, for fear I would whimper.

The last thing I heard was, “Do not be afraid,” and
then I passed out.

The oblivion into which I fell was darker than I had
known till then. The deepest spaces of my mind called to me, as the opiate in
Freyit’s fox worked its magic. They robbed me of my senses purposefully,
attempting to dull the memory of staying hidden beneath the floorboards of
Heorot, where the hearth had often comforted me with food and stories about
times I’d never known.

I woke with a jerk, my mind struggling to pull my
body up from the vat of honey into which it had sunk.

“I will finish the story,” Vincent said.

I sat up and looked around at my familiar space, my
drafting table and pens awaiting me to take to them again.

“What happened?” I whispered. “Where was I?”

“Never mind,” he said.

“But you are injured,” I said, jumping up from the
bed. I must have risen too quickly since my legs buckled as soon as I stood.
Swift as ever, Vincent caught me and laid me back down.

“It is nothing,” he said.

His arm hung low, pulled from his socket, and his
stony nature seemed anything but. I asked him again what happened.

“Do you recall anything?” He asked.

“Gerenios,” I said.

“Yes, he has told you.”

I couldn’t look away from him, and he turned to the
side, pulling his injured shoulder from my sightline.

“I am sure you have questions,” he said. “But I must
finish my tale first.”

“Why is that more important than this?” I said,
pointing to his arm.

“Only blood will heal it,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, my stomach growing weak again.

His expression softened, and the strings beneath my
flesh tightened. His subtle fangs gleamed in the candlelight, and my head grew
heavy. The idea of feeding him seemed less and less horrid, as he leaned in,
bringing my arm up to meet his mouth. His kiss inflicted a sting like the one
I’d gotten from an angry wasp once as I walked through a clearing of waist-high
grass along the Ellidaár River. I rattled the nest in the grass and sent a
swarm of wasps into a rage. I barely ducked the mist of angry stingers, before a
stray got tangled up in my loose hair and pricked me with the same vigor.
Vincent’s bite sent a fire up my arm and down my neck, through my spine. I
closed my eyes and waited for the horror to pass. The intimacy was binding, but
the sobriety of his act unraveled me.

When he withdrew his fangs, he tossed his head back and
took in a deep breath. Then he folded my arm up and held it in place for a
moment before crossing the studio to the window sill. The moon shone more
brightly than the sun had in the daytime, which seemed to bring him an inner
peace, as the light beautified his face. Or maybe my blood had made him seem
more lovely.

Once I recovered, I asked him what happened to
Evelina in the facility.

“Laszlo Arros split time,” he said casually, as was
befitting his posture.

“It was an illusion?”

He shook his head, entranced by the moonlight. “He
is no trickster, but a god.”

“A god like you?”

“I am no god.”

He leaned back as though stretching out his spine,
and then lifted the arm that had been injured, inspecting his shoulder. He
chuckled to himself and said, “Evelina’s body was there, but it belonged to
another timeline.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was a replica,” he said. “A hematope made from her
genetic information.”

“How could he do that with her?”

“She was mine from the beginning.”

I cringed at the thought of Evelina also being his
daughter.

“I do not mean she is of my seed,” he said. “I mean,
I chose her.”

“But I thought Byron found her in the hospital,” I
said.

He smiled at the moon, and I pulled myself up from
the cot, making my way to him.

“No,” he said, blocking me with his hand. “You must
return to your table, scribe.” He gestured to the fresh parchment awaiting me,
and my shoulders slumped. “You are the future, Dagur. The past must be carried
forth with you.”

At the table, the pen hovered and I snapped it up
before sitting on the stool.

“You are correct to think this a work of creative
power,” he said. “It takes imagination to invent time.”

Once I sat, he said, “Shall we return to the
facility?”

“I’m ready,” I said.

“Good.” He sat on the window ledge, still basking in
the moon’s radiance. “Laszlo Arros burrowed his way into my mind because I gave
him the opportunity to do so.”

One Single
Truth May Seem the Greatest Lie

“You must understand it now,” Laszlo Arros said,
after peeling the nude body of the replica off me. “You recall how she came to
be here, do you not?”

“I would if you would give me leave to think,” I
said.

My wasted strength dulled my mind, but I struggled
to rise, leaving the body on the ground. He gave me a hard look and smiled. “So
you do understand.”

“I do.”

“Your potency is mine, too,” he said. “You forced my
hand. Do you recall how she came to be a part of it all?”

I smiled in return, bolstered by the things he did
not know.

“What makes you smile, Vincent?”

“The memory of her.”

“Huh,” he scoffed, and turned away.

“I gave you the sample,” he said.

“You did not,” I said. “You have nothing to do with
this one.”

He shook his head and sighed. “This is my doing, as
much as the rest.”

“No,” I said. “You are trying to deceive me.”

“I sent her to you,” he said, “placed her on your
path.”

“You lie.”

“Wrapped in Byron’s tidy little parcel,” he said, “I
received my own DNA sample to do with it as I deemed fit. Her genetic code suits
my artificial womb rather nicely. The results are perfect, would you not agree?”

“No,” I said. “I chose her, as she lay in the bed at
Santo Padre Gio. You had nothing to do with it.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I thought Byron chose her?”

“For you?”

“Who else?” His voice quivered.

“Perhaps that is what I want you to believe.” I held
up a finger and wagged it in the air. “Byron had the honor of discovering her
exactly where I had placed her.”

“How could you?”

“I planted the idea of the child in his mind, too,”
I said. “And supplied the means for him to do it.”

“His contact with me had nothing to do with you,”
Laszlo Arros said. “But I suppose you will also claim that as your doing.”

I matched his stare with a fierce one of my own.

“But that would mean,” he bent down and picked up
the body, making a tableau I knew well, “our fusing had begun before she came
about.”

“I have known of your presence at my side for longer
than you realize,” I said. “Right.” I let out a soft chuckle.

“What is so funny?”

“Never mind.”

“What?” He tossed the body across the room, Evelina’s
double slumping on the floor.

“One’s own resurrection is impossible to witness,” I
said.

He scoffed. “Are you really challenging what I have
told you?”

“No,” I said. “There is no need.”

He looked over at the wasted replica, and stepped
closer to it with a wrinkled brow that betrayed his confusion. “She was never
real,” he said.

“Everything is as real as it will ever be,” I said.

“She will die once you make the choice.”

“She is immortal.”

“But she cannot shift,” he said. “She did not
inherit that gift.”

“Becoming a god is no gift.”

“Do not be foolish enough to surrender your
calling,” he said. “This is our time. The fusion has begun.”

I raised my pointer finger and tapped his shoulder. “The
time is not yet come,” I said.

“If not now, when?”

“I shall take the lead,” I said.

“You must make the choice now.” He sneered at me,
and a curt growl escaped his lips.

“I am that I am.”

“So you are,” he said, dropping his hand on my
shoulder with the weight of an oak. He pressed down until I crumbled to the
floor, and then he leaned forward, taking me in with his eyes, and said, “Here,
I am king. You are the rook.”

With one swipe, he yanked me up by the collar, and
held me dangling at his side like a fish poached from a lake.

“My anger fuels you,” I said.

“It is over for you. A drought has come and they
will all suffer. Have you forgotten the plan? The few humans left will die off
and the only serum remaining will be that which kills them all.”

“Let go,” I said.

“Not yet.”

“Drop me.”

He obeyed and I fell at his feet.

“The blood on which the Empress’s crew feeds will
turn them to dust,” he said. “And there is nothing to stop it, for if you
decide to save them, Lucia, Muriel, and even Captain Jem will be goners.” I
could not forget the den, the poison already destroying my kind. “The next age,”
he said, “is the age of ruin. Bloodless ring in the new day, and hematopes will
see it out.”

“The race of men is resilient,” I said.

“It is too late, Vincent. You have already made the
choice.”

“How do you know?”

“The fusion has begun.”

My head throbbed and my tongue swelled.

“Your tenure is over,” he said. “Our communion is nigh,
I feel it. You are ready to choose and you shall choose me.”

“Evelina—”

“She would have perished either way,” he said. “You actually
chose to awaken her despite not giving her the venom yourself.”

“She is made immortal.”

“Tsk, tsk,” he clucked with his tongue. “How
sentimental. But she, as with all of them, will harden and die a painful death.
She has tasted the blood of the others, yes?”

“No.”

“You look peaked, Vincent.” He squatted beside me
and grabbed my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his. “At least she will not feed
on her own child,” he said.

The shift in my body was so slight he would have
missed it, but I raged under my skin as lava roars beneath a bed of rock. “Lucia
is still alive, then,” I said.

“You know she is,” he said with a smile. “She is the
one you must resist.”

“Take me to her.”

He pushed me from him and stood up, showing me his
back. “Come, then,” he said, as he made his way out of the room.

I had a difficult time, my legs having gone weak,
but I crawled to standing, using the ledge of the wall for balance. Again we
moved from room to room as though in a dream.

Lucia was nearby, for when we reached her, my energy
peaked. I readily fed off her, the connection between us not something Laszlo
Arros could anticipate. Just as a mother will intuit her child’s mood, or a
twin will sense his sibling’s pain, I could draw on my kin to ground myself
anew. It is automatic, and the reason a kinblood will cling to his own. My desire
for Evelina’s blood had taken root while the child was in her womb. The power
of the kinblood had escaped me until that moment, when it became my own.

Silence engulfed us as we admired Lucia, lying
safely on a bed of blankets in an incubator. She seemed a child’s plaything tucked
in a glass case, if it were not for the slow rise and fall of her chest.

Laszlo Arros studied my reaction, his eyes steady on
my face as I stared at the sleeping child. But his goad failed, for the sight
of her only brought me relief, and I denied him the satisfaction for which he longed,
my running to her to break her free from the case in which she was held captive.

I turned to him and said, “We have matters to discuss.”

He reached out and touched my shoulder, his show of affection
making my venom heat. I hid my resistance.

“What will be done with her?” I asked.

“She will tempt you, and you will give in,” he said.
“And she will be dead, and you will join me.”

“Never.”

“The skag rules you,” he said. “Can you not see you
are enslaved?”

“Give up blood,” I said. “It is my nature, like air
to a man.”

“It does not have to be. Not if you join me.”

“How can I live without blood?”

“The fusion will eradicate that need.” His flesh
tightened at the corners of his mouth. “You shall never want for blood again.”

“I shall never, or you shall not?”

“I never have.”

“How is that possible?”

“You still do not understand that I am you,” he
said. “The future you, the godhead, the enlightened being you have been itching
to become.”

“What would happen to you if I were to take Lucia now
and abandon you to your empty life?”

“Empty life?” He opened his arms wide and said,
“Look around you. I have created an entirely new race. How can my life be
empty?”

“I shall be absent from it.”

The corners of his mouth rose. “There is no parting
for us,” he said. “You cannot leave without me. I am you.”

“I am that I am.”

“We are.” His smile broke his stern aspect and I
read on his face what was to come. “It is my turn now,” he said. “I have
changed the course of nature and made us resilient to everything human and
base. We no longer require man’s blood to survive, and the race of hematopes
confirms that. Do you see how advanced genetics, the broken climate and
atmosphere, and the vulnerability of men have all afforded us this
opportunity?”

“Timing is everything,” I said. “But since I stand
here, desiring the blood of my kin as though to forego it would drive me insane,
how has my nature changed?”

“Join me, and evolve.”

“What god are we to become?”

“You never bothered to ask about my name.”

“Why would I?”

“My choice is most fitting.”

I shrugged and looked away, for seeing into my own
eyes had become tiresome. I glanced at the single switch on the wall, a lever
about ten inches long that toggled from left to right. The word AIR was
scrawled above it.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“My name.”

“Laszlo.”

“All of it.”

I glanced upward, holding him in suspense.

“Laszlo Arros,” he said. “Say it quickly.”

“Laszlo Arros.”

He smiled and whispered my mother’s name. “The namesake
of the shifter god.”

“Lázoros,” I said.

“Lázoros,” he repeated. “The final shift, the change
into deity that may only come from the god of resurrection.”

“You are Lázoros?”

“I have come for you.”

“Laszlo Arros,” I said. “You are no god.”

“That is correct,” he said. “I am not until you join
me.” He held out his open hand, leading me to take it.

I moved away from him and closer to the toggle
switch. “That final state of enlightenment is promised to me alone,” I said.

“I am you.”

“No,” I said. “I am me.”

“What prevents you from joining me? Why are you
suspicious of my power.”

“It is about the blood,” I said, reaching for the
lever and pulling it toward me. “My blood is everything.”

“No!” He screeched too late to stop me from
unsealing the casket that kept my sleeping child in an oxygenated tank. The
subterranean facility was without air, and Lucia suffocated and choked, as I
did nothing. Laszlo Arros tore across the room to smash the clasp with his
fist, and free the baby from the casket. Her silent screams shook my soul, but
still I did nothing.

“What have you done?” Laszlo Arros stole out of the
room, cradling her small body against his chest.

“I have done nothing,” I said, as he disappeared
into the labyrinth.

I shuddered where I stood, my legs giving way, as I
fell to the ground, and my senses gave in to a bed of woe that carried me toward
the darkness.