The Product Line (Book 1): Product (24 page)

He struggles against the weight on him, but to no avail. There is no way to get enough leverage to make any difference, and strong or not, there is no way that he can lift the bricks from his body.

A short while later Antonios returns to the cellar, dragging with him a burlap sack filled with wriggling and writhing contents. He drops the bag on the ground and sits across from Lord Baylor at the butcher’s table.

--Tell me, Lord Baylor, do you feel any hunger or thirst?

--Yes, of course. Please. Whatever I have done to you. I am sorry. I understand now that you are punishment from God, or a demon come to collect my soul. I repent. I do! Please let me go. Please!

--Demon? Hmmm… We shall see about that. Tell me. Do you feel it? The hunger?

--Yes!

--And what is it that you are hungering for?

Lord Baylor stops. A tear rolls down his cheek from the corner of his eye. He knows the answer that Antonios wants, and somehow he knows that this hunger, this thirst for blood, makes him the same as Antonios. A monster.

--Blood.

Antonios’ face lights up as more of the puzzle of his own circumstance comes together.

--Excellent. I was hoping you would say that!

Antonios gathers up the bag and pulls it closer to Lord Baylor as if it was full of feathers. He looses the twine tied around the opening and slides the bag down around its contents.

Inside the bag is a woman, who looks to be in her forties. Her hands and feet are bound and her mouth stuffed with a cloth secured in place by another gag tied around her head. Lord Baylor immediately recognizes the woman.

--Angelica?

The woman is tired and hurting but, though quite confused, still has her wits about her. Antonios pulls the gag down from around her mouth so that she may participate in the dialogue.

--Angelica? Please. Please let her go. Please, demon. Not her, let her go!

Antonios does not respond, but Angelica is aware of her peril upon seeing the man walled up in brick and having been brought to this cellar in a bag. She does not know or recognize either man, but the one partially entombed is strangely familiar.

--Please, I don’t know what either of you want. Please. I just want to go home. I have a family.

--Indeed you do. Do you not recognize the man in front of you?

Lord Baylor’s eyes plead with her and with Antonios.

--Angelica, run, as fast as you can.

She knows this voice. It is her brother, but somehow not. He is young and filled with vitality. She turns to run as instructed, but is quickly snatched up by Antonios before she takes her first step.

--Come. Sit with us.

He lifts her and sets her on the table directly in front of Lord Baylor. Even in her fear she is struck by his youth, and then by the horrible foulness of excrement and waste oozing out from the mountain of brickwork.

--I will let her go, following one simple test.

--Please. Stop. I have money, you can have anything you want.

--Lord Baylor. You have nothing to give that I cannot simply take for myself. But I am a man of my word. So, as I said, I will let her go following one simple test.

Antonios withdraws a small blade from his pocket. He cradles her hand in his, turning her palm into the air. He gently pushes the blade into her wrist, just nicking the vein, but not severing it. Hot delicious puffs of enticing scent pour out from the wound as thick red blood bubbles to the surface. The smell calls to Lord Baylor, even as his sister weeps in terror.

--Drink.

--No. No, I will not.

Antonios watches as Lord Baylor struggles to fight the growing thirst, his mouth and mind salivating for just a taste. He pushes Angelica’s wrist so that it is just under Lord Baylor’s nose. The urge to consume is too strong, and try as he might Lord Baylor cannot hold back his desire to drink from his sister’s weeping vein.

He latches on to her wrist. As the first drop touches his tongue the whole of his being explodes in ecstasy. His teeth dig into her skin and he pulls her in closely as he begins chewing through her wrist to allow more and more joy to pour forth from her veins. Her screams are hidden behind a veil of intense warmth and bliss.

When he finally returns to his senses Lord Baylor is completely broken. His body is charged and alive, but his heart is wounded irreparably. Even for all his schemes and malicious choices in life, he still held onto some softness, some small seed of love for his little sister, his only family. His Angelica, who lies dead on the table in front of him, her wrist virtually chewed through. The delicious taste of her blood is still painted on the insides of his mouth. Lord Baylor turns to sobbing at this thought.

Antonios is seated in a chair across from Lord Baylor, noting his emotions. Noting how he has reacted to the blood lust. He is learning and understanding more and more about his condition and is now certain that he is not a demon. That his condition, this illness, it is not a failure in his willpower. That the desire to feed can break any bonds. If Lord Baylor can kill the only person in his life that he loves because of his thirst, then this disease is clearly a powerful master.

***

Many in the community have at one time called Lord Baylor friend, though he has always worked to have the upper hand. This is due more to their fear of him than to any actual feelings of attachment and connection to the man. He is, as everyone knows, a scoundrel. He is petty and quick to scorn, so it is easier to call him friend and be taken advantage of than to call him enemy and endure his scheming and active contempt. So, when he no longer begins to show for social functions or to oversee the operation of his shipping business, no one truly cares.

Eventually a visit to his manor is required for the execution of some documents and other business interactions. Reports quickly spread regarding the handsome nephew of Lord Baylor who is now looking over his estate and affairs, a pleasant young man who will be watching in his uncle’s stead while his uncle apparently recovers from illness with family in the south.

The story is completely plausible, save for the detail about Lord Baylor having a family member who will be willing to assist the detestable man. Some know of his sister, but most work hard to remain as detached from the details of his life as possible. His business partner in their mutual shipping business confirms the identity of Antonios as Lord Baylor’s nephew, lest he risk the boy’s wrath, or his speaking with the authorities regarding Baylor and his murderous past.

Lord Baylor’s nephew Antonios looks after his affairs for almost a month before he conveys the sad news that Lord Baylor did not survive his illness, nor did Antonios’ mother and her family who have been looking after him.

In the time that follows the news of Lord Baylor’s passing Antonios is able to take charge of their family business and increase its holdings significantly. He is outwardly a meek, mild-mannered young man, but carries himself as an older soul and is certainly far shrewder than most initially believed.

The women who make his acquaintance believe him quite charming, though they can tell that his desires lie not with the fairer sex, perhaps not with anything at all. He is rarely seen during the daytime, and keeps rather odd hours, preferring to travel during overcast days or at night.

Knowing that his ability to assimilate depends on the perception of his normalcy, he does his best to remain present but not approachable. He integrates into the community, making a presence at social engagements as London itself is experiencing a bloom in its cultural life. He begins using much of his “inheritance” donating to charitable events—in fact, he even begins to once again attend evening Mass at one of the only non-Anglican churches near Lord Baylor’s estate, finding it far easier to hide his true intentions behind a veil of generosity and propriety.

It is at this church that Antonios begins to interact with a genial and decidedly caring priest, unencumbered with the customary pomp and hypocrisy Antonios has often seen throughout religious institutions. The priest is old and clearly dying of some sort of disease of the lungs, perhaps consumption or some other pulmonary deficiency. His breaths are often labored, but the words behind them are true and honest.

Antonios is quite taken with the old man. He imagines him as a handsome younger man free from illness. They could perhaps have at some point been friends or lovers, were their life’s trajectories to have followed different courses. The priest is forthright, headstrong, and generous with others. Antonios likes this and in the following months, as the priest’s health continues to decline, Antonios decides that it will suit his needs further if he perhaps has associations of this nature with others. Friends.

Though he does well maintaining his ruse, the true purpose of his time in London is yielding great rewards. Antonios has learned volumes about his condition. Lord Baylor has proven to be a truly interesting subject for study.

Antonios is eventually forced to relocate him and his entire brick entombment to the warehouse that has been repurposed as a containment area for others. Some Antonios has infected as a means to grow his numbers and create a buffer of followers willing to submit to his demands. Others he keeps there as a sort of crop, there to sate his own thirst and that of his newly created.

He has discovered what he calls the Regula of the condition, or more simply the rules. A set of natural laws that seem to govern the condition itself and a series of self-imposed rules that his newly infected family will need to adhere to. He does eventually turn several others, ones he does not keep confined as he does Lord Baylor. Ones he believes capable of helping him in his efforts—old men on the verge of death, wanting nothing more than a chance to do it again, to return to life and youth.

These are the first of his acolytes, the ones who trade their souls for his “dark gift,” as he calls it. The deal that is struck is that they will pledge their unwavering service, in exchange for a long life and privilege.

Antonios has to kill several newly infected before he establishes the Regula. They are not able to control their thirst and it is too dangerous to let them simply roam the city so strong and so hungry. Even though he harbors affection for them, he knows that they are more than anything a way to learn about the condition.

In his collection of old souls he has gathered a number of distinguished fellows. Gareth used to be a wheelchair-stricken old man who, having been afflicted with polio as a child, spent the majority of his life confined to street corners begging for food and alms. He is reborn a fair-skinned young man with piercing blue eyes and blond hair. He is strong and vibrant when gifted with youth and health.

Along with the cripple there is Silas, a young soldier, or more accurately what remains of a soldier. The man was horribly disfigured in battle during the Anglo-Burmese War, but has not been granted the dignity of death. He has little more than one functioning arm and was discarded like spoilt food upon his return to Britain. He too is blessed to be restored to wholeness, vitality spilling out from him.

In addition to the old and the injured Antonios also chooses to bring the dark gift to his new friend, the sickly old priest. He showed Antonios great kindness when he believed that Antonios was the grieving nephew of Lord Baylor. The old priest does not know the exact nature of the deal being struck and chooses instead to believe in the perceived moral fiber of the man conveying knowledge of his “cure.”

Antonios claims to the priest that he has been able to secure a remedy for what ails him, a way to restore his health so that he might help others. He makes no demands of him beyond that. Reluctantly the priest accepts the deal that has been struck.

Of all Antonios’ children the priest is his favorite, but as with any favorite child, they cause much more hurt when they disappoint. The priest’s trouble with accepting the true nature of his condition and reluctance to feed until the hunger becomes overwhelming is of growing concern to Antonios.

All infected find great strengths and abilities. However, try as he may, Antonios is not able to produce any capable of passing on the gift to others. Though they are imbued with the same strength and hunger, they are not capable of passing on the Dark Gift.

Antonios struggles with this for a long time, wondering how it is that only he can pass on the condition. Then he realizes an important factor. His age. He was but a boy when he was first exposed. He grew almost overnight into a man. Perhaps that is the element.

So, in the night, he gathers up two street children. Julia and Charles are a sister and brother who have pickpocketed and stolen their way through most of London to stay alive. They cannot be more than ten and twelve years old respectively, but neither knows their exact age having spent their formative years living on the streets and running from orphanages.

Antonios recalls the horrors of his own change and does not want to make the transition any more upsetting than necessary. His reputation as a generous young man has spread and even the lowliest of street urchin knows of him. This is how he is able to gain their confidence. He first brings them to Lord Baylor’s estate, where he plies them with food and wine, fully expecting them to steal from him and try to run out as soon as their bellies are full. This proves to be exactly their plan.

Antonios has learned after his first few attempts at creating others that he does not have to cut into the cheek or cause significant harm to impart the dark gift, but simply expose them to his blood. In fact, the blood itself retains its potency for a long time. Adding just a few drops of water to blood that has dried months before is more than enough to impart the gift. So, as part of this new experiment, he merely includes his blood in the wine that they drink as well as a powerful sedative potent enough to at least forestall their plans of robbing him and running away.

He watches as they slumber through the night and into the morning, leaning over them in the hopes of witnessing a transformation. At daybreak he begins to witness the first indication of changes taking hold. First the two children start to writhe about and moan in pain as if gripped by some powerful fever-dreams. Then their bones begin to crackle and stretch, pulling their limbs into their adult shape and length. Charles’ face grows and stretches, forming a strong angular jaw shadowed with hair. His musculature doubles in size. Julia’s form grows long and beautiful, highlighted by the appearance of breasts under her tautly pulled shirt.