The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (42 page)

“He’s like us, not the others,” she said. “But he’s
not a donor—he dislikes vampires.” She whispered the last bit.

“Do you dislike vampires?” I asked, teasingly. Her
commitment to our cause was evident. Muriel was a model donor and surely one of
the Empress’s prized passengers.

“As I told Evelina,” she said, “this is the safest
place for me to be. And I’m grateful to be so useful. I’m alive and well,
Vincent, and that’s everything to me.”

She is genuine, but her sadness is difficult to
ignore; she wears it like a badge of honor. She cannot want this life, but the
other option—death—does not suit her, either. I feel nothing for
her, though I am grateful for the blood sacrifice she makes, especially for my
Evelina.

I must meet this Captain Jem and see whether I
cannot get him to spill some secrets. The Empress’s ship is more than it
appears to be. Satiated vampires, wanting and violent creatures, may only be
restrained if sedated. I wonder how long she has been drugging her donors to
domesticate her vampires, and why she has not drugged them all.

Even Later
Still
— My Evelina suffers. Her maker is cruel and toys with
her most wretchedly. I was called in to see the Empress but when I arrived at
her cabin, I found Evelina alone feeding on a den donor. The small boy was
tranquil as the unruly novice ripped into him and culled his blood with
abandon. She was so lost in her feast, she did not sense me enter. I watched
her for several moments before my wrath got the better of me and I pushed her
head from his throat. Her eyes were closed and she paused briefly,
contemplating the disturbance before retracting her fangs. She looked up at me
and wiped the blood from her lips. She was in a haze, I could clearly see the
effect the boy’s blood had on her. She was a stranger, her hair shorn, her lips
swollen with tainted blood. She had disobeyed my order to only drink from
Muriel. Keeping her from the den donors will be more difficult than I predicted
since she sits in the midst of temptation, and she is most weak.

She surveyed the cabin for her maker, ashamed, I
think, of her indulgence.

“She will be back,” I said. “Get up.”

I could not mask the anger in my voice, I could not
hide the disappointment that showed on my face. She cowered a little as she
stood, and brought her hand to the side of her head, nervously sweeping it
across her shaved crown. The boy fled the cabin, fearful of my tone, no doubt. I
glared at Evelina, deliberating what to say. I could hear her frequency,
flitting about erratically, most likely stimulated by the donor’s blood.

When she looked down at the deck, I snapped. “Look
at me,” I said. She obeyed and we locked eyes, my trying to reach her through
the haze of her high. I could not speak into her mind, her altered state
blocked our transmission. But when I heard her signal fight to align itself
with mine, I felt the power of our union once more. She is made for me, Byron,
I know this better than I have ever known anything. I drew her into my aura and
held her until I sensed the Empress’s arrival. I squeezed Evelina’s hand to
awaken her to the threat that returned. I stepped back and waited for Cixi to
enter.

“Good,” the Empress said. “She’s told you, then?”

I did not question the Empress’s meaning. She would
have had something planned and it was easy to play along without knowing what
it was. I greeted the Empress with a confirming nod and smiled, offering her
one of my warmer aspects.

She turned her attention to Evelina and made
reference to her haircut, taking credit for the change. “I thought it would
better suit a progeny of mine.”

I tried to console my anxious novice and said, “Her
features are such that she remains beautiful despite the change.”

I made the Empress jealous, and she forced a
cigarette on Evelina, reminding me to whom the novice belonged. Her progeny
took to it with ease, but I saw her inward rebellion in the way she stubbed out
the butt.

I had come to discuss Evelina’s ritual battle of
which Youlan had confirmed.

“Yes, of course, the fight,” Cixi said. “We’ll leave
strategy to Huitzilli, but we should plan for her failure.”

Unmoved by her maker’s discouragement, I was proud
when Evelina said she would not lose to the West African. The Empress, however,
was unimpressed with her progeny and scolded her with a blow to the side of her
cheek. It took all the discipline I have honed to keep my talons and iron fangs
from showing. I wanted to slice Cixi in two, from forehead to navel, and heard
nothing of what she said until she mentioned Xing Fu. “My maker will be the one
who suffers greatest in this case,” she said.

“And you, Empress,” I said. “Will you not suffer the
loss of your fine progeny?”

The wretched queen said she was undecided, claiming
she cared nothing for the novice. I knew she was lying but I humored her.

“Will your maker think the Fangool a fine choice for
your progeny’s first battle?” I asked.

“Xing Fu requested I be rid of the necromancer long
ago,” she said. “But I’ve delayed for reasons you need not know. If my progeny
is defeated, however, I hope you will avenge her and have your way with the
Fangool.”

This made my subtle fangs drop—though they
have a mind of their own, the temptation of a kill is always good for drawing
them out. “Is it not more fitting for you to avenge your own venomline?” I
laugh when I recall saying this—Evelina is and always will be mine.

The Empress confessed she cared little for her
progeny, and I glanced quickly to see how Evelina would take such news, but she
was as stoic as ever, her frequency in a lull. I could not resist pulling my
novice from her sadness and said, “I see, so you will not mind if she decides
to leave?” Her sweet sparrow was piqued and raised a call to mine.

Cixi laid out her terms, assuring me that if Evelina
won her ritual battle she would stay with her maker.

“Then I shall avenge your progeny if she is defeated
in the ring,” I said. This pleased her and she brought the conversation back to
my compensation. I told her my plans were still up in the air, but used the
opportunity to test her and said, “I will want a donor or two to take with me.”

She confirmed my suspicion, telling me there were
some with which she would not part.

When I left the Empress, I sought out the captain.
The guards along the passageways did little to stop me, and one even directed
me where to go. I did not knock on Captain Jem’s door when I found his cabin,
but trespassed without warning. The wiry man was passed out on his berth with a
half empty bottle in one hand and an audio device clutched in the other. I did
not think it would be long before he was awake since he stirred when I entered.
I snooped through some of his things while I waited, finding a few glass plated
photographs of seascapes and several outdated manuals on cargo ships, none of
them Cixi’s vessel. The monitors on his interface were black but I tapped one
and it came on. It revealed a map of what looked like the Nortrak. The
significant points marked on the nautical chart were fluorescent, and one was
flashing. I could not tell their exact location, though they looked high enough
north. I swiped the screen and another map appeared. It looked like Iceland but
was unmarked. The third map was a crude rendition of the Americas after the
volcanic ruptures in the early half of the millennium. The world was
over-populated then, but now it seemed a sunken wasteland. The last official
population count, pre-plague, had been less than half a billion. The Great Melt
had thrust our world back to biblical times.

“Who are you?” Captain Jem’s scruffy voice sounded
half in a dream. He addressed me in American English with a mouth fitting for a
sailor. “How the fuck did you get in?” I turned to look at him and he shot up,
bewildered.

I skipped the pleasantries, and made my intentions
clear. “I am here for answers.”

“To what fucking questions?” He asked, undeterred by
my demeanor. He stood up and said, “I know who you are—you’re the
one—the fucking one she’s been blabbing about.”

“Am I?”

“For Chrissake,” he said. “She thinks you’re a
fucking god.”

He could not have been referring to the Empress when
he said
she
, for I did not believe
she considered me a god.

“Well, shit,” he said. “I guess we can leave this
forsaken place since you’re trapped now.”

“Trapped?” I asked.

“Why’d you want to leave where the blood flows
freely,” he said. “And those girls will throw themselves at you if they haven’t
already. Fucking baby lovers.”

“You must be mistaken,” I said. “I am free to come
and go as I please. I am only here for a short stay.”

“Right,” he said. He took a swig from the bottle of
caramel colored liquor, gluttonously downing the poison. He wiped his mouth
with the back of his hand and said, “She didn’t say much about the plans, you
know, but I hear things.” He slurred his words.

“What sort of things?”

“The girls talk,” he said. “They can’t stop yapping
about you.”

“Is that so,” I said.

“She thinks you’re sweet on her,” he said. “Stupid
bitch, her brain’s sauce from all the bloodletting.”

“Which girl?”

“The fucking tight-legged, stupid whore,” he said.

“Does she have a name?”

“What does it fucking matter?” He rocked back and
forth on his heels and toes, trying to keep his balance. I waited for him to
fall back onto the berth. “You only want the drink anyways.” He held his bottle
up to me and jiggled it like a set of keys. I did not realize he was offering
me some until he said, “Take it—take it.”

I took the bottle from him and placed it on the
counter at my side. “Sit,” I said. “Let us have a chat.”

He wobbled and stuck his buttocks out until he
flopped back onto the berth. “Chat,” he said. “Chat—chat—chat.” He
chuckled. “That’s a funny fucking word.”

It was clear I’d get little information out of the
drunk but I pursued my cause nevertheless.

“I have been told you know about the others,” I
said, emphasizing
others
. “The den
donors.”

“Murel—Murielle—Murdle—that’s her
fucking name,” he said. “She’s the one who thinks you’re the shit. Stupid
fuck.”

“Muriel,” I said. “She is the one who told me the den
donors are different from the girls who take care of my child.” I did not
intend to claim Lucia as my own, but the title of ownership slipped out.

“What the fuck do I know,” he said, chuckling again.
“I just captain—I captain the fucking cargo.”

Captain Jem was not tight-lipped, only drunk. I
stepped closer to his berth and he leaned back on his elbows, cocking his head
to the side and pointing a finger up at me. “You know what,” he said. “I just
want to get through this shitty mission—alive if possible—so why
don’t we be friends?” The drunk gave me a smarmy smile.

“Do you work for the Empress?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said, waving the air in front of him. “I
work for her boss.”

“Her boss?”

“Fucking Yoo-hoo,” he said. “I work for Yoo-hoo.”

“Who is Yoo-hoo?” I asked.

“The queen bee’s owner,” he said. “Yoo-hoo. You
know, fucking Yoo-hoo.”

I did not know Yoo-hoo and when I tried to get a
description out of him, he laughed. “Looks like all the others.”

“When is the ship leaving for the sunken continent?”
I asked.

“I told her I can’t push off,” he said, burping and
closing his eyes. I kicked the berth when he seemed to drop away.

“When are you leaving?” I asked.

He pointed to the interface on his countertop.
“There’s a fucking eruption just off the coast of Portugal for
Chrissake—fucking monsoon everywhere,” he said. “Can’t leave till that
fucker’s settled.”

“And if the Empress insists on going sooner?”

“The ship fucking goes when I say,” he said. “I’m
the only master and commander these bloodsuckers got.”

“What is on the sunken continent?” I asked. “In the
Nortrak?”

“The womb,” he said.

“The womb?”

He laughed and said, “The fucking womb,” as though
it were the most hilarious word.

“What is the womb?”

Captain Jem shook his head and said, “I can’t help
you.”

The door opened behind me and the vampire said,
“Captain Jem’s quarters are private. You shouldn’t be here.”

I winked at the drunk before turning to greet
Youlan. I had recognized her voice, though her tone had changed. She was
friendlier, if not more gracious, than she had been earlier.

Before we parted ways in the passageway outside the
captain’s quarters, she said, “Perhaps you and I should have a go in the ring
sometime.”

I smiled. “I doubt it would be worth your while,” I
said, leaving her wondering.

***

Entry 5
(cont.)

Dejected and wanting, I roamed the passageways until
I reached the den where I’d first met Hal. The line of vampires wasn’t as long
as it’d been then, and I joined the end of it. The vampire in front of me
smiled when he saw me approach, turning to speak with me. I hadn’t sorted out
whose frequency was whose when I came upon the line, but his was distinct now,
as he looked at me.

“You’re hungry,” he said.

He was correct, I was hungry again, despite having
fed on Muriel not long ago.

“Some blood isn’t as lasting, but you’ll eventually
get it,” he said, as he turned to face away again. He chuckled to himself and
then sighed. “You’ll learn,” he said, almost under his breath.

The line moved, as two vampires entered the den, and
I shuffled forward with the rest of them.

“Evelina,” Peter said, catching me by surprise. I
hadn’t heard his frequency above the mess of others. He linked his arm with
mine and pulled me from the line. “The Empress’s progeny doesn’t wait,” he
said.

He led me to the front, and walked me through the
door that was guarded by a different vampire this time, a native French speaker
like Peter. They didn’t exchange words, as he stepped aside and let us enter.
Once inside, the colors gripped us both. “Hal is waiting,” he said.

I indulged in the blood of the donor without
addressing him. He didn’t attempt to speak to me either, and simply pulled down
his collar to reveal his neon skin. The colors vibrated like waves of light
through a prism, each shade of the spectrum splitting and multiplying into a
thousand more. The color consumed me and I wasted no time sinking my teeth into
his pulsing neck. I drew the blood up into me, the first taste of which made me
intoxicated almost immediately. My head grew fuzzy, and my hardened skin
softened, as every muscle beneath released itself, though my senses fired
sharper than ever. We dropped back on the mattress together and I drained him
until he was out. When I retracted my fangs, I noticed the lingering flavor and
marked its sweetness. Muriel’s blood didn’t taste quite as sugary.

I looked around the den. Several vampires indulged,
drinking their fill before getting up and abandoning their donor. Few exchanged
words, the donors unfazed by the vampires sucking on their necks. Some donors
lay on recliners, hooked up to an intravenous that sucked the blood from them
and up through a whole overhead. I pictured the cabin above, filled with a pool
of blood in which the Empress could bathe. I doubted she visited the den. She’d
have donors brought to her, and probably ones that were reserved for her alone.

“Are you finished?” I hadn’t expected Hal’s voice to
be so gravelly.

“Yes,” I said.

“Because I’m ready to serve you again if you want,”
he said.

“I’m satisfied,” I said. “Don’t you need to feed
anyhow? To replenish?”

I don’t know why I was concerned. I didn’t care for
him, or for the sacrifice he made. Despite his magnificent colors, I found
nothing appealing about him. He seemed cardboard, almost one-dimensional.

“I require little food,” he said. “My body regenerates
efficiently.”

He spoke the phrase like a robot and I wondered if
he wasn’t under some kind of influence.

“Are you well kept where you stay?” I asked.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Do they take care of you here?”

“Yes, they maintain us,” he said. “But we’re built
for this.”

I didn’t know if he meant built to feed vampires, or
built to live on this ship. I can’t say why our conversation was off-putting,
but Hal seemed socially inept, unemotional and dry. He was a bit of a drone.

“Are you finished, Evelina?” Peter said. He’d been
feeding on a girl who radiated brighter than an indigo artichoke flower in
bloom.

I got up without saying good-bye to Hal. “See you
soon,” he said after I’d turned my back on him.

I followed Peter down to steerage, both of us lapped
in the high of our feedings. I was mindful of where he was taking me but I
didn’t care, and when we came into the ring from the mezzanine above, I leaned
over to watch the battle in progress. There were fewer spectators but their
energy was electric, and I gave in to the chaos. I didn’t try to control the
orchestra of frequencies, letting each one fire me up.

“She is about to finish her,” Peter whispered.

I looked down into the ring, hanging from the
railings with the others. The vampire who’d paid me a visit was
there—Mindiss—and she had her opponent by the hair, stringing her
up several feet off the deck. Once I picked out her frequency, it dominated the
ring. I couldn’t hear the other vampire, even as she struggled to free herself from
her clutches. She flailed her arms over her head, trying to scratch Mindiss
with her talons, but my adversary had her opponent right where she wanted her,
and called to the crowd for their support. The vampires cheered her on, yelling
for the transplant.

“Yízhí,” they shouted in unison.

“What’s that,” I shouted to Peter.

He gestured for me to keep watching.

Mindiss turned in a circle with her opponent,
holding her up like a doll by the hair, and searched the crowd of vampires.
When she saw me, we locked eyes and she smiled. She ignored her victim’s glares
and hisses, yanking her up an inch or two higher, and then stabbed the talons
of her free hand into the vampire’s chest, pushing in her nails to penetrate
the hard skin like a fork through creamy cheese.

The victim tossed her head back and laughed. I
thought she would’ve screamed in pain, but the torture seemed nothing to her.
She hissed again and then looked down at Mindiss. “Are you sure you want this
heart?” She asked. “I don’t think you’re ready for it.” She laughed and tossed
her head from side to side like a madwoman. “It yields the blackest black that black
can be—your black magic is nothing compared to its sorcery. You will fry
for this,” she said.

Mindiss sneered in return. “You are defeated,” she
said. “Your heart is emptied of its black arts, but it shall come out of your
chest—to rest—no less.”

Their rhymes were like chants or spells they cast on
each other. I studied the scene closely, recalling Mindiss’s threats, which
seemed idle when made in my cabin. When she pulled out the vampire’s heart, it
still beat in her hand for a brief moment and then hardened, turning to black
porcelain, or something lacquered and firm like it.

I won’t say it didn’t freak me out to see a vampire
mutilate another without decapitation. The victim was surely destroyed, and
when her body shriveled in Mindiss’s hands, she threw the carcass across the
deck and raised her arms to rouse the spectators. The cheers were unsettling,
as they praised her barbarity. Peter sensed my discomfort and escorted me back
through steerage to Huitzilli’s compartment. When we came upon his door, I’d a
moment of apprehension as I recalled his attack on me, those iron fangs
dripping with rage.

“It was an exercise,” Peter said. I thought he meant
the battle we’d just witnessed, but then clarified when he said, “Huitzilli
would never attack you.”

“I don’t know if I believe that,” I said. “I have to
admit I don’t know how safe I feel on this ship.”

“That’s why we need to prepare you, Evelina.”

“She came to see me,” I said. “The vampire who just
tore out the heart of the other.”

“I know,” he said. “You needed to see her in the
ring to know what kind of opponent she is, the weapons she uses.”

“Was that magic?”

He nodded and said, “She’s not like us. She was
possessed when she was made a vampire.” He took my hand in his. “She was a
Fangool.”

I thought I’d seen it all with the bloodless and
vampires, but our world abounds with mysteries from the spiritual realm too.

Peter read my fear and squeezed my hand with his.
“You’re not without friends,” he said. “Those of us who’ll show you how to beat
her.”

“What’s a Fangool?”

“She believes she commutes between the land of the
dead, where her gods live, and the human world.”

“She said she’s coming for revenge,” I said. “What
did she mean?” Peter looked away, as though regretting the conversation. “Tell
me,” I said.

He returned his gaze and studied me for a moment. He
smiled warmly, and then said, “Your ritual battle has been set.” I’m not sure I
vocalized my disbelief, but he still heard it. “The Empress has made the
arrangements,” he said. “They can’t be undone.”

“But I—”

“Let’s not keep Huitzilli waiting,” he said. With
his hand still clasping mine, he opened the door and pulled me into the cabin.

Huitzilli was ready for me. “Tepin,” he shouted, as
soon as we entered. “You’ve recovered, I see,” he said with a belly roar.
“Come. We must rise to the night sky and praise Tezcatlipoca.”

Huitzilli paid homage to his deity nightly, chanting
beneath the stars. Tezcatlipoca was known for many things, including enmity,
discord, rulership and sorcery, and when Huitzilli took me topside, up on the
deck and outside for the first time since my awakening, he taught me to harness
the power of his god.

My flesh tingled in the night air, the cool breeze
from the sea softening every cell in my hardened body. I’d been inside the ship
for too long and being topside made me burn with pleasure. The galaxy above our
heads lit up the sky like nothing I’d seen before. Each fire making up the
never-ending, expanding cosmos revealed itself as a singular flame. I could
almost see the tips of the fires as they burned. The wind from the sea massaged
my skin, sending chills beneath my flesh, and the smell of the air in the
harbor hit me with a blow, as fetid bodies and burnt ash reached me in equal
parts. The pleasant smell of blood from the bowels of the ship evaporated on
the sea air, eaten up by the stifling aroma of the world outside.

“This is overwhelming,” I said. “Like sensory
overload.”

“It’s the blood high,” Peter said. “You’re still
reaping Hal’s benefits.”

“It can’t just be the blood,” I said. “Everything is
so—so alive and real, like my very existence is a tangible thing.”

Huitzilli laughed at my babbling, trite
philosophies. “You’re like one who’s been pierced for the first time, but knows
how to enjoy the pleasure of the penetration,” he said.

He took me to the stern of the ship, dismissing the
guard who was on watch. The vampire seemed willing to quit his post even before
the Hummingbird commanded him to do so.

“Come, Tepin,” Huitzilli said, “you and I shall go
out on the water together.”

He stepped over the railing and walked down the
slanted tail of the vessel all the way to its tip. I stood at the rails,
working up the courage to follow my trainer out over the water. A childhood
memory of drowning made my knees lock and I was stuck to the deck.

“Come, Tepin,” Huitzilli said. “What delays you?”

Peter could see why I hesitated, but didn’t offer
any consolation. He couldn’t help me venture out to the edge of the ship and I
had to obey Huitzilli’s command. Cautiously I went, my boots gripping the slick
surface of the metal, if barely. I skidded a few times as I made my way out to
Huitzilli sitting on the edge with his legs dangling over the side. He motioned
for me to sit beside him and so I did.

He chanted softly in a language I didn’t understand,
and when he finished, he turned to me and said, “Tezcatlipoca is the Smoking
Mirror. Do you know why we call him that?”

I assumed his question was rhetorical, but I still
shook my head to gesture I didn’t.

“When we pray to him, he shows us what we need to
see, but never with clarity,” he said. “Do you know why?”

“Because we have to discover it on our own?” I said,
merely guessing.

“No, Tepin,” he said. “He covers it with smoke
because he doesn’t want us to be distracted by the reflection in the mirror.
The things we need to see are already in us, just like our strengths and
weaknesses. Everything you need to exist in this world is already in you.”

Would that apply to the hundreds or thousands of
years I’d see of the world, I wondered. And would I still be equipped to live
in a world far different than this one?

“Tezcatlipoca is a jaguar, Tepin,” he said. “A
jaguar can climb like a monkey, crawl like a crab and swim like a fish, and his
bite is strong enough to pierce a tortoise shell. He can drag a nine hundred
pound bull across the desert and pulverize his bones once he’s ready to feast.
The larger his prey, the better, and he’ll feast on any flesh, even the plump
anaconda, which he prizes in particular for the challenge it presents him in
the hunt. But do you know how he takes his prey down, Tepin?”

Huitzilli’s question lingered on the sea air, and
the warrior smiled. He tossed his head back and opened his mouth wide. He made
a sound like he was exhaling a gust of air and I heard his jaw click as he
released his iron fangs. The metal razors gleamed in the moonlight. When he
turned to look at me again, he sneered and lurched toward me. I flinched and
lost my balance, tumbling backward. Swift like a cat, Huitzilli grabbed me and
when I saw his irons again, they were more foreboding since his face was
distorted by my having been turned upside down. He’d caught me by the wrist and
was the only thing stopping me from falling in the water.