A Shade of Vampire 23: A Flight of Souls (9 page)

Lucas brought my focus back on him again as he asked, “Where is he now?” It was both a relief and a pleasant surprise to have him asking questions.

I didn’t know where he was. Perhaps he’d returned to The Oasis? I realized that might be the best answer to give Lucas, given the fact that it was where Lucas had actually died. It might serve to provide yet another jolt to his dusty memory.

“The Oasis,” I replied. “Jeramiah misses you terribly. He even installed a memorial stone there…”
And tried to murder my parents and grandfather to avenge you,
I added silently.

Now I saw a small window with which I could try to pry him open again. “Is… there anything at all that you could tell me that might help me figure out a way to escape? If I managed to find a way, you could come with me. I could help you to find your son… to
reconnect
with him,” I added, emphasizing the word that seemed to mean a lot to him. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

He nodded. “I would.” His voice had become hoarse. “I would very much like to see my son…” Again I found myself marveling that this was really the same man who had attempted on a number of occasions to rape and murder my mother.

Here, I paused, waiting for him to take the bait. Finally, he did—though not in the way I had really hoped.

“I did try to escape this place before,” he murmured, furrowing his brows. “I recall it now. More than once. More than… any of these ever tried…” He gestured toward the ghosts on the floor of the pool. They had stopped watching Lucas now, and had returned to their former, comatose state. “But each time I got caught. They would take me to a room. Lock me in… a box, where I would see things… Terrible things.” He paused, swallowing hard. “The last time they locked me up was… the worst. After that, I never tried to flee again.”

“How exactly did you try to escape?” I asked.

He shifted uncomfortably, though his eye contact remained constant. “The last time was when… when I was still higher up.” He nodded his head up to the ceiling. “Many ghosts tried to escape at once. I was one of the leaders of the plot, at the forefront of the crowd as we attempted to escape through the base of the whirlpool. As soon as the ghouls spotted us storming toward them, they closed the exit. And those they believed to be at the forefront of the plot were punished and then… thrust downwards. Further down than I’d ever been.”

I was still thinking about the exit. “How did the ghouls close the exit off?” I asked.

His face scrunched in concentration. “They, uh, they kept… a net nearby, tucked among the rocks. It was a net that none of us could pass through. They fixed it at the base of the vortex and fastened it. There was nothing we could do to get out. It was just… impossible.”

So they have some kind of barrier
. I hadn’t noticed any “net” when I had been down there but then again, Lucas had said that they kept it stashed away. I wondered when the last mass escape attempt had taken place. I would’ve thought that it would happen on a regular basis, but perhaps only among the new recruits, who hadn’t already seen that it was “impossible”.

I also found it interesting that Lucas had said he’d been a leader among the rebels.
Leader
. From the description my father had always given of him, he’d never struck me as a leader; a wannabe leader maybe…

It appeared that this place had changed Lucas in many ways.

“So,” I continued, “you did find out that you were not actually in Hell. You found out before you got thrust down here?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, I did. But I… I appear to have forgotten a lot of things after the last time the ghouls caught me. Though… I’m starting to remember some things now.”

From the horror behind Lucas’ eyes, I got the feeling that none of the things he was remembering were welcome.

I was about to continue my questioning when I froze. The sound of ghouls tittering drifted down from the chamber above.
They’re still looking for me.
Two shadows loomed over the surface of the pond. Then a hand dipped inside. I looked around wildly for somewhere to hide. If one of them peered into the water and looked around, they’d spot me in a matter of seconds.

I was about to hurtle down to the floor and attempt to bury myself beneath the sleeping ghosts, but then Lucas moved in front of me. I moved backward, deeper into the corner. He sat up a little straighter, enough to block direct view of me—at least somewhat. Of course, his body was translucent and on close scrutiny, it would be easy to see me behind him but… As one of the ghouls poked his head into the pond, his frightening gleaming eyes scanning the waters, he glanced only briefly over Lucas. I curled up into a ball and hunkered down low, trying to keep every part of me hidden behind Lucas’s form. It seemed that the ghoul didn’t spot me, as a moment later he raised his head out of the pond again. After he exchanged some more eerie words with his companion, the two shadows moved away. Lucas shifted a little, and I uncurled, slowly daring to resume my former position next to him. I stared at my uncle.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He shrugged, averting his eyes to the comatose ghosts beneath us.

“You look just like my brother,” he murmured, even as his gaze remained fixed away from me. His jaw tightened. “Though… if I remember rightly, you have your mother’s eyes.”

I nodded curtly. I still couldn’t quite believe that I was sitting before Lucas, my uncle.

“I have a sister, too. A twin sister. Rose.”

At this, Lucas’ eyes widened. “How did you ever end up in this place?” he wondered.

I really wasn’t in the mood to recount my whole saga, so it sufficed to say, “It’s a long story.”

“Hm,” he muttered. “And you spoke of… my sister’s newborn? Sh-She became a human? Who is the father?”

“Yes, my parents discovered the cure long ago,” I replied. “Xavier is the father. Xavier Vaughn.”

“Ah.” For the first time, a smile crossed his face. A faint one, but a smile nonetheless. “Xavier only ever did have eyes for her… She was just too blind to see it.”

Now I asked another question. “When you first saw me, why were you shouting that I wasn’t your son?”

“I got… confused.”

It was clear that was all the explanation he was going to offer me, so I was left to my own speculation about this.

A span of silence followed as Lucas drifted into his own thoughts. My mind turned back to Vivienne. It seemed that he really did hold a genuine affection for her, as opposed to my father. The only reason she and Lucas had clashed was because of my father. My aunt would invariably take my father’s side and that was what had caused the rift between them. Otherwise, I knew that my aunt had loved Lucas too. He was, after all, her older brother.

I had so many more questions to ask him, but the ghouls’ appearance just now was a reminder that I did not have all day. I needed to try to make my way back up to the higher levels without getting caught. And I had to keep fighting to escape, no matter what it took. Lucas seemed to have told me all he was willing to about his efforts to escape and the ghouls—and none of it had really been helpful.

“I-I think I need to leave,” I whispered. I hesitated before asking my next question. “Why… Why don’t you come up with me? It’s lighter up there, and there are people to talk to. You might feel, uh, slightly less insane. I’m sure you could merge in with the other ghosts without being—”

Lucas shook his head. “I can’t.”

An odd feeling of disappointment welled within me. “Then what?” I frowned deeply at him. “You’re just going to stay down here forever? You said that you already tried to escape a number of times, but how many years ago was that? You can’t stay here forever, Lucas.”

He shook his head again, resolute. “I’m long past thinking that I can escape this place,” he croaked. “But if you must… then you keep trying…” Then he paused, his eyes meeting mine again.

I could hardly blame him, but I felt frustrated all the same. “Well… I’m going to find a way out of here,” I said, though it felt like each time I made the affirmation to myself, I was saying it with less and less conviction. “If you change your mind about wanting to try one more time, or even just wanting to team up to help me figure this out, I’m in the topmost level, near the main entrance.” I couldn’t tell him which pool exactly—I had not been paying enough attention, so he would need to look out for me. But something told me he wouldn’t be leaving this pond anytime soon. Still, I couldn’t help but assure him, “If—when—I find a way, I’ll come back for you… Remember, if you escaped, you could look for your son.”

He nodded slowly, remaining stiff in his spot as I drifted away, though as I moved further into the center of the pool I could have sworn that an expression of conflict crossed his face. Almost as though he was considering whether he was making the right decision.

But he still didn’t budge.

Although he was behaving far, far more sanely now than when I’d first entered, it appeared that he was still too weak—both in mind and in spirit. My presence here for a span of minutes wasn’t enough to reverse years of being drained by this hellish place. Too much had been taken out of him.

As I reached the edge of the pool, on the verge of drifting out, I cast my eyes back at him. And I felt a stab of guilt. I couldn’t help but feel that once I was gone, it would be only a matter of hours before my uncle sank back into the darkness he’d been lost in for years.

C
losing the door
, I breathed out a heavy sigh. My nephew was going to be a lot of work, but I had already expected that.

Indeed, he had already caused Ibrahim and me a lot of work, even before we’d kidnapped him. His “dungeon” was actually a grain storage room, deep within the Black Heights. I’d asked the warlock to convert it and make it look as medieval as possible, to mirror the dungeon that Lucas had first taken Sofia to after he’d kidnapped her from Cancún… It felt appropriate.

I traveled along the winding corridor away from Jeramiah’s prison and stopped outside the door of another chamber, not far away. This little room—furnished simply with a bed, a chair and a table—was another storage room, also converted by Ibrahim to be my temporary residence. I walked inside and sat down on the bed, rubbing my temples.

I had wanted to stay apart from the rest of the island while working on this little project. Because firstly, if I had told Sofia in advance what I was planning to do, she would only start stressing that something would go wrong. Besides that, I wasn’t even sure how this would all unravel. Though I knew roughly the steps that I needed to take, I was also playing a lot by ear. I didn’t even know if this experiment would work. I would tell Sofia and my sister everything soon enough, but until I had a better idea of Jeramiah’s… resistance, I needed to experiment a bit. Figure out his breaking point. Something that was easier to do when everybody thought that I was absent, otherwise I would have to keep making up excuses to disappear for hours at a time.

Corrine was the only other person on the island who had been let in on our plan, and even then, it had been out of necessity. I didn’t expect Ibrahim to stay in one of these old chambers too. He was already doing me a big favor and I did not want to ask too much of him. So he would keep a low profile, in the furthermost rooms of the Sanctuary, away from any visitors.

I wasn’t afraid of being left alone so close after my turning. It had gone a lot more smoothly than I’d anticipated. Perhaps, because this was now the third time I’d gone through it, I’d built up enough practice to be able to control my cravings without another’s assistance. Still, Ibrahim made sure that I had ample sacks of animal blood in my room to refuel, as Sofia had wanted me to. I had also been sure to ask him to bring some books for me so I had something to occupy myself with. I always enjoyed reading, though it was something I rarely got the time to do as King of this place. As I lost myself in the pages of a history book—while downing liters of blood—I also lost track of time. Before I knew it, the end of the day had arrived, and it was time for me to pay another visit to my nephew.

By now, he would be craving blood more than ever. I’d heard how croaky his throat had been the last time I dropped by. I dug into my stash of blood and picked up a sack. Sweeping my cloak around my shoulders, I stowed the blood in my pocket before leaving the room. I traveled down the corridor and as I reached the door to Jeramiah’s chamber, I paused and pressed my ear against it. I couldn’t hear anything, not even light breathing—and I couldn’t help but smirk a little. No doubt he had heard the footsteps of his crazy uncle approaching again, and now he was holding his breath as he waited for me to open the door.

I opened it swiftly this time and stepped inside. Jeramiah was huddled in the corner. He was very much awake, and by the looks of it, tenfold more enraged.

“Good evening,” I said pleasantly. “Still enjoying yourself?”

He swore at me again.

Removing the sack of blood from my pocket, I passed it to him. He caught it readily, even as he scowled. Then he tore it open and began downing it. He was too thirsty to let his ego get in the way. As he finished it, he discarded the package and then backed up closer against the wall, still glowering at me.

“How many more days do you intend to stay?” I asked, drawing up the wooden stool that I had planted in the corner in anticipation of my visits. I sat down, leaning forward, elbows on my knees while clasping my hands together, and stared at him intently.

He refused to engage with me this time. Averting his eyes, he clenched his jaw hard.

He was stubborn, just like his father.
And, I guess, just like me.

“I always do prefer to give a person free will, you know,” I said, looking at him thoughtfully. “But I suggest that you don’t take for granted this generous inclination of mine. For who knows how long it might last?”

At this, he glanced at me uncertainly, and I couldn’t miss the fear behind his eyes. Hopefully by now I had convinced him that there was a screw loose with me. I wanted to keep him on his toes.

“You know,” I continued, “this dungeon is very much like the one your father kidnapped my wife to… Funny that.”

Finally, Jeramiah took the bait again. “You make it sound like he’s the evil one. He captured her for you.”

“You have a point,” I said, nodding encouragingly. “One could argue that my history is just as tarred as my brother’s. But I do not deny it. So why must we deny the truth about your father? Why must we falsely—”

“I’m not interested in hearing your lies.” He glared daggers at me.

I paused. I could have gone on talking, even if he decided to clamp his hands over his ears. But there were far better ways of forcing the truth into him than raising my voice.

I decided to cut my visit short. But… I would be back again soon.