The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (27 page)

The first in line was a wretched looking
creature turned late in his life. He stumbled, as he bent down to offer his
gift and landed on his knees barely saving himself from falling into the
ferryman. He regained his composure and reached into his pocket, pulling out a
heart-shaped locket. “It is from the Stuart reign,” he said in a thick English
accent. “See the portrait?” He pointed to the small gold façade on its front.
“That is King Charles the first,” he said.

“Hmm.” Zhi expressed his approval with sounds
more often than words.

The vampire handed his prize to the ferryman.
“The image was inspired by his execution in 1649,” he said. “Inside there’s a
small piece of material that’s soaked in the blood of the executed king.”

The other vampires perked up when they heard
the piece was drenched in royal blood. The ferryman opened the locket and
brought it to his lips. His fangs dropped, as he touched his tongue to the
ancient trace of blood.

“He was a martyr,” the English vampire said.
“His blood is sacred.”

Zhi smiled at that and slipped the locket
into a purse that lay at his feet. He motioned for the vampire to come aboard
and called the next one forward. One by one, the vampires auctioned off their
relics and pieces of art for a seat aboard the skiff to the blood den. I
realized early on that the ferryman expected us to sell our piece with a bit of
flair, detailing the history of the token. He would not be fooled, shrewd as he
was.

“It’s a Da Vinci,” one of the more desperate
vampires said. “A rare, lost diary.” The ferryman refused the leather-bound
journal. “It’s one of his notebooks,” the vampire said. “Look!” He opened the
book and frantically turned its pages, showing the crude pencil drawings of
circulatory systems and aircrafts.

“
Jiǎ
,” the ferryman said. “A
fake—fake—a fake.”

He waved the vampire away with his opium
pipe, and the swindler slumped, defeated by his failure. He tossed the book
into the water, not afraid to admit his fraud.

“Piàn,” the ferryman said under his breath.
He knew a cheat when he saw one.

When it was my turn, I handed him the stone
sculpture. “It is called
Madonna and
Child
,” I said.

The ferryman examined the piece and then
pointed to its broken base. “Pò.”

“Giovanni Pisano,” I said. “The great Italian
sculpture whose—”

“Pò. Pò.” He waved me away with his opium
pipe, and then pointed to the dock tie. “Shìfàng,” he said, wanting me to untie
the line.

When he refused to let me board the skiff, I
considered jumping on it and tossing all the vampires overboard, though the
ferryman would prove a sturdy contender. He was not one of the starved ones,
his red lips giving him away. But nothing was to say that if I got to the cargo
ship, I would be allowed into the den after killing the Empress’s boatman.

“Please, brother,” I said in my best
Mandarin. “I have traveled far to taste the blood in the den of the Great
Empress Cixi.” My accent was rough and my dialect even worse—the ferryman
could not understand me.

“Zhi,” the English vampire said. “Our friend
was kind enough to relieve us of the fool.” He pointed to the head of the
other, floating now at the end of the dock.

Zhi looked over at the wandering head and
took several quick tokes on his pipe, blowing the smoke out in figure eights.
He narrowed his eyes and sized me up, inspecting my boots, coat, hands, and
face. I was well-kept and anything but starving.

“Hup, hup,” he said, motioning for me to
board his skiff.

I untied the line and pushed us off before
jumping in the boat. I left the broken sculpture of the Madonna and child on
the dock, watching for my return. The English vampire introduced himself as
Quinn, speaking in perfect Italian. “Smell that,” he said. “That’s lovely,
isn’t it?”

I assumed he referred to the human scent that
got stronger as we got closer. Zhi piloted the skiff over the waves, holding it
steady, as we bounded across the inlet.

“I’ve been a vampire since the fourth year of
the Common Era,” he said. Quinn could read minds without reading facial
expressions, a rarity among us. “You are the ancient one,” he said.

I nodded.

“How fortunate,” he said. “I am honored to
meet you.” I was certain he could see my reasons for going to the den. “I am a
friend,” he said. “Not a foe.”

“You suffer,” I said.

“Who among us doesn’t?” He snorted the air
and stuck out his tongue. “It’s really a burden, you know, more than a gift.”
Quinn had a charming smile. “But sometimes it helps,” he said, tilting his head
back to indicate the ferryman. “The weasel annoyed him,” he said. “And I knew
he hadn’t made up his mind about you yet. You scare him a little.”

As I should, I thought.

“Yes,” he said. “As you should.” I was in no
mood to make friends but I had questions I wanted answered and he knew it. “She
is a collector,” he said. “Of fine art. Her ship is filled with the greatest
works of art ever made.” I assumed she amassed most of them after the plague.
“Yes,” he said, reading my mind. “She’s been raiding museums since before it
started.” She trades blood for art. “I don’t know how she keeps finding the
humans,” he said. “She just does.”

We were getting close—the scent of
human was all around us.

“Her ship will be in port until one of us
conquers the curator.” The weasel had also mentioned a curator. “He’s staked a
claim on the Museum of Oriental Art,” he said. “He loathes the Empress.”

“Natural rivals,” I said.

“Aren’t we all,” he said.

I wondered what had become of my
line—my descendants, as it were. Graceless and cruel immortals roamed the
earth now, natural enemies, power-hungry despots. Too many young ones, too few
great ones. But I am still and always will be the forebear—our origin.

“Being in your presence is quite something,”
he whispered. “I am somewhat awed.”

I was untouched by his sentimentality, and
thought of my girl.

“She must be extraordinary,” he said.

I cringed at the thought of others feeding
off her. I would destroy them all.

“Your rage will not serve you here,
Achilles,” he said. “The Empress has an army of vampires and each one more
ruthless than the next.”

The skiff pulled alongside the cargo ship,
and the vampires stood in anticipation. Zhi tsk-tsked. “
Zuòxià,”
he said.

They sat down again but like addicts they
could not subdue their desire. They licked their lips and played with their
fangs, contemplating the upcoming ecstasy.

The cargo ship looked tightly sealed, almost
impossible to breach. I did not see an opening, except for the one entrance up
on the quarterdeck. The structure stood at least twelve meters above the
waterline and the only way onto it was the ladderlike gangway in its middle.
There were small portholes lining the trim of the ship near the railing of its
weather deck but the smooth and slick hull would be difficult to scale.

When the ferryman stopped his skiff beside
the gangway, the guards on deck unlocked the metal hatch. A female vampire,
wearing a traditional costume similar to Zhi’s, awaited us at the top. One by
one we climbed up to her and she ushered us inside. The outward appearance of
the rusty cargo ship could not prepare one for its opulent interior. The
Empress’s vessel abounded with luxury. The bulkheads were lined with elegant
tapestries and rich patterns made of the finest silk. The décor was lit by
sconces hung every few feet along the passageway and one could see the works of
art in detail. Sophisticated pieces of furniture marked the passageways, slim
end tables and benches reminiscent of Louis XIII.

We followed the female vampire through
several of these corridors and more hatches before finding ourselves in the
Empress’s famed blood den. The compartment was quaint but lush, containing a
series of mahogany boxes with small gridlike vents that hung on the bulkheads.
Long wooden pipes ran through the bottom of each box and down to the deck where
they disappeared beneath it. A slim divan on which the vampire could recline,
as he fed, sat at the foot of each box.

“Choose wisely,” the female vampire said.

She gestured to the boxes, offering us her
selection. The vampires rushed to them, sniffing each vent like a hound
searching for truffles through piles of mud. Quinn was more discerning and
chose to sniff only one. Before he placed his nose to it, he touched it with
the tip of his fingers.

“May I taste, Youlan?” He asked.

Youlan was the Empress’s attendant and the
keeper of the blood den. She moved to the box like a nail to a magnet and
pulled a pass key from beneath the hem of her cheongsam gown. She slipped it
into the side of the box and opened a flap, reaching in for the tube. She
motioned for Quinn to approach and hold up his index finger, and then she
squeezed the tiniest drop of blood onto its tip. The other vampires flocked to
Quinn’s box, their hungry eyes watching him dip his tongue into the miniature
pool of blood. Youlan was distracted when Zhi came into the compartment and
stood at the den’s entrance. He gave her a look and she locked up the box
again, shooing away the hungry vampires.

“Choose,” she said firmly.

I was disturbed by the monopoly of
sustenance—it is barbaric, even for the cruelest of us. It is like a
human bottling the air and selling it for no reason other than sheer power. We
are sophisticated beings, far more evolved than human, but this scene made me
wonder. We do not consume blood because we are addicted to it, we drink it to
survive.

I had smelled the human blood when we boarded
the ship—I had tasted every single slave on the tip of my tongue, as I
climbed the gangway. None belonged to Evelina. “The one I seek is not here,” I
said.

Youlan ignored me and shrieked at Zhi. “
Zhànshì!”

Zhi leaned into the passageway and whistled,
calling six able-bodied soldiers to the compartment. The blood-depraved cowered
near their chosen boxes, as the Empress’s vampires rushed in, wielding deer
horn knives. I suppose I was not surprised when they surrounded me. Youlan and
Zhi had both assessed the threat, guessing I had come aboard for reasons other
than the den. Their fear confirmed my girl was here, even if I could not smell
her.

I was put in irons I might have freed myself
from had I not also been suited with a flying guillotine. The vampires had
placed a collar about my neck attached to a chain rigged to my wrist clamps. If
I broke the irons, the chain would release the Damascus steel blade and
decapitate me. I was led down into the bowels of the ship where the décor was
even more opulent than it had been above. I passed the
Mona Lisa
, most certainly not a fake, several of Van Gogh’s starry
nightscapes and Cézanne’s card players. I recognized the blue-and-white
porcelain of the David Vases—the cameo-glass vessel of the Portland with
its mysterious ketos and love scenes, and the infamous Savoy inspired by the
dress of a Sami woman. The Empress’s collection was staggering and extensive.

They put me in a small compartment, a cabin
with nothing but a berth and washstand with the most beautiful Roman jorum.
“Empress Cixi has requested to see you,” Youlan said. My clamps and headgear
were no punishment, just precaution. The soldiers retreated but Youlan
hesitated. “Why have you come?” She asked. Her Mandarin accent was thick,
though she addressed me in Italian.

“For blood,” I said.

Youlan emitted a unique frequency, it
fluctuated rapidly like a stilted heartbeat.

“No proper offering?”

“Your ferryman rejected mine,” I said.

She snapped her tongue against her teeth
while sucking air in through her mouth, as she paced the small compartment,
back and forth, gliding over the metal deck with her arms crossed and hands tucked
into her sleeves. “He brought you here anyhow,” she said. “Lucky you.”

Lucky me.

“Sit tight,” she said. “I’ll be back for you
soon. Try not to behead yourself in the meantime.”

She slammed the hatch shut when she left, but
I thought I heard a baby’s cry, though it was ridiculous to trust my senses. I
did not know Evelina was only two compartments away from me, as I sat there
waiting for the Empress. I could not—she evaded me even then. Believe me
when I say I tried to smell her, tried to feel her, hear her, see her, but the
girl had vanished from my insides.

When Youlan returned, she was with only two
soldiers. They flanked me, as we walked through another maze of passageways. We
climbed several sets of steps and eventually landed topside at the stern of the
ship. I faced the open sea and embraced the air. “Come,” Youlan said.

She guided me along the deck to a hatch with
a hand-painted dragon across it. The slender green dragon in a field of cadmium
yellow bayed at a scarlet sun. The lizardlike tongue and fangs of the monster
were stark white but dripping with blood. It marked the Qing dynasty—I
had reached the Empress.