The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (55 page)

“I don’t know but
I—” He sniffed the air and closed his eyes. “I think I do.”

“Show me,” I said.

The Viking led us to the
foot of the rocky hills ahead, rushing across the plain as though pursued. He
sniffed the ground like a bloodhound, touching the tips of the rocks with his
nose. He sped up when the smell of lavender intensified. The sky was dark but
the earth’s satellite shone with a harvest of stars overhead. Our night vision
had kicked in, guiding us through the darkness with the ease of troglobites
through a cave. The nomad clung to me, despite my fevered hold. He also wanted
to recover the missing bounty.

“Over there,” Veor said.
“Up on the ledge.”

The shadowed figure could
only be my Evelina, and I leapt to the summit in one bound, dropping beside her
collapsed body on the overhang, practically on its edge. I tried to revive her,
but she was bloodstarved—and had lost all sense of herself. I ignored her
wounds, her burned face and hands, and swept her up in my arms, holding her in
her rightful place, against my heart.

We raced back the way we
came, Veor assuring me he could row fast enough to overtake the cargo ship if
it still crawled along the coastline. I did not deliberate about returning to
the vessel. There was no other way to save my Evelina. Animal blood would not
suffice, and I did not believe I could find a human quarry in the deserted
wasteland. Veor and I held our stride, ignoring the nomad who followed on our
heels. Wallach was no threat, but had yet to relinquish his captive. He proved
useful, however, when we reached the lifeboat near the shore, where they
awaited our arrival—Rangu’s troop of bloodless, blocking our access to
the boat.

Veor was quick, launching
several darts before I had time to pull out my gun. I had no choice but to
place Evelina down on a bed of rocks by the shore, but I stood close to her,
keeping one eye on Wallach. The expanse of land behind us was mostly vertical,
as we had docked the lifeboat near the bluff. It was the height that finished
the nomad. Like a Siberian tiger launching itself through the air to snatch a
skittish goat, Rangu flew down from the ledge above, pouncing on Wallach,
clawing at him until he had pecked out his eyes, and swallowed his liver. He
garbled the word
traitor
before
tossing his new enemy at me. Wallach’s body landed on the rocky shore, feet
from where Evelina lay. While Veor held off the bloodless, I would contend with
the fiend one last time. I wish I was worthy of praise, Byron, but the battle
was not won by me.

“Vin-n-n-n-ncent-t-t-t-t-t!”
Rangu squealed, his voice scaring the night dwellers back into their hovels.
“Min-n-n-n-n-n-e-e-e-e.”

The swarms of bloodless
became agitated at the sound of his voice and splashed about in the shallow
water, as they rushed to their deity.

“Hold steady,” I shouted
to Veor.

The Viking was rooted,
bent on holding his position to the last. Rangu ignored my partner and made for
me. I was grateful he dismissed Evelina altogether, lying as near as she was.
Perhaps he thought she was finished too. I wasted no time mincing words, and
lured the fiend away from the novice, trying to isolate him. I had no plan of
defense, or even attack, but relied on instinct alone. When Rangu reached me
and swatted a claw across my chest, launching me several feet in the air, I
admit I was grateful the Viking left his post to come to my defense. He tackled
the fiend and jabbed a dart into his neck. But the poison did not disable the
bloodless vampire; it enraged him further. He ripped Veor from his back and
tossed him to the rocky ground, stepping on him and tearing into his lower
spine with one of his clawed feet. The Viking called out to Odin, but I came to
his rescue instead, tackling Rangu with all the rage I could muster.

The fiend and I flew
across the surf and into the waves crashing up on the rocks. I felt my body
pulled down into the water until I was yanked up with magnificent force and
raised out of the sea. Rangu held me up to the moon and then dunked me back
down into the surf like a priest baptizing a born-again. The flushing did not
deter my strength, and as I was raised up anew, I drove my fist through his
jaw. His beak sat on his face sideways, and he stuck out his tongue to
straighten it. I went for his eye sockets next, using my talons to prick his
bulging eyes and yank them from his face. The water renewed his vigor and he
lifted me over his head, attempting to ply my body apart like a hyena tearing
off the limbs of a lizard.

We fought evenly until I
tired and he gained the upper hand. I hate to admit my weakness, but by the
time he had dragged me through the surf and stretched my limbs and pecked at my
flesh, I was desperate for help. He threw me across the shore and my body
slammed into the rock wall, knocking me down. I landed hard and could not move.
I was paralyzed, unknowingly stuck with the dart from his neck. Just before
tossing me into the rocks, he had pulled it out and stabbed me in the heart
with it. The remaining poison rushed into my veins and disabled me. Fully conscious,
I panicked when my body defied my command to stand. I could not wiggle a
finger, let alone defend myself against the coming fiend.

Time seemed to slow,
Byron, and I greeted the darkness with a grin. It was the same sky I had looked
upon from the sands of Ilium. A poisonous dart had been my undoing then too.
How could I not smile at the irony?

In that silence, that
immobility, that fate, I heard the sparrow. It was not my signal but hers
reaching for me through the darkness. She came for me, Byron, the heroic one
sent to save me in all manner of ways—she came for me.

Rangu bent over me,
oozing black tar on my lips, as he stared directly into my face and said,
“Gam-m-m-m-m-e-e-e-e ov-e-e-e-r-r-r-r-r.”

I could barely hear his
mumble over the call of my counterpart, frantic, vibrant, threading its loop
through mine. Synergy, Byron, you cannot know the synergy I encountered,
paralyzed as I was.

Rangu squealed and thrust
his forked tongue through his mouth of metal, raising his claw, poised to slice
off my head. But he was interrupted by a set of sharp irons that clamped onto
his skull and tore through his mucky brain, oozing black tar down his temples
and forcing his eyes from their sockets. Evelina’s irons, newly acquired,
crushed the fiend’s skull down to his beak, compressing his head until he had
no face.

My poor novice screamed
with pain when she realized her own agony. The irons will pinch the gums the
first few times they snap out. But she recovered and ignored her suffering to
bring her wrath down again on the fiend. She tore Rangu’s body in half, as he
kneeled over me, cutting her irons on the rabid flesh of the bloodless vampire.
I feared contamination, Byron, more than I indulged in our reunion. I feared
for her recovery, knowing only the ship had the salve for our ailments.

But Peter’s god heeded his
prayers, Byron, for I can explain our rescue no other way. Zhi, with a troop of
soldiers in tow, spied the swarms of bloodless along the shore and drove his
skiff toward us, collecting Veor, Evelina and myself, and taking us back to the
prison from which we had escaped.

Later
.
— I write this to avoid looking at the correspondence that sits in front
of me. I shall record the events leading me here first, for I cannot brave
looking upon your hand, Byron.

Evelina is almost fully
recovered. Her burns are healing with regular doses of Muriel’s blood. The
Empress insisted she drink from Jörvi, but I have made certain to keep her
flush with Muriel’s drink alone. Her appearance embarrassed her in the
beginning, for the first few hours we were onboard, but with some coaxing on
her donor’s part, and having witnessed the clearing of most of her scars, she
has come around and let me visit her. One cannot praise the beauty of a female
vampire enough, Byron. You were much easier to flatter.

“You’ve recovered too, I
see,” she said.

“I have,” I said. “Fully,
as will you.”

“Peter told me
you—” She seemed overcome with emotion, though impossible—it was
her lingering human nature, no doubt.

“We have much to
discuss,” I said. “But surely you know now.”

Old habits die hard, and
I tested her, wanting to learn how much she understood of our union. She had
tempered her admiration mostly, and I did not know if she grasped the
complexity of our bond. When she responded with a look, and spoke a phrase into
my mind, I knew.

We
are one
, she said.

I smiled and touched her
lips with mine, responding in kind.
We
are the creature of balance. Together we make up one being.

I shall not record the
rest of my visit, for some matters are better left to memory—sweeter,
ineffable matters.

When I left Evelina’s
compartment, I was called to see the Empress. We had spoken briefly upon my
embarkment, but nothing had been resolved.

She greeted me in a
reserved manner, though civilized and eager.

“I’ve decided to forgive
your escape,” she said. “And the danger you caused for the crew.”

She paced her cabin,
touching certain objects as she passed them. She wore more elegant attire than
usual, almost as if dressed for an occasion. I only noticed because it was an
elaborate silk Hanfu with a golden dragon across its back, and her feet were
squeezed into pointy, platform slippers that added inches to her height.

“Now it’s time,” she
said. “You and my progeny are set to travel west with us—to the Nortrak.
You must come.”

“As I told you before,” I
said. “I will go with you as long as Evelina remains with me. If you promise to
forgo abusing her and stop subjecting her to needless trials, we will stay
aboard. If not, Cixi, I will take Evelina, her child, and the donors with me.”

She sucked the air in
through her teeth and made a snapping sound with her tongue on the roof of her
mouth. “Humph,” she said. “Threats don’t sit well with me.”

“Then consider it a
promise, not a threat,” I said.

She brought an ornamental
claw up to her lips and tapped them gently. Abstaining from cigarettes seemed
to put her on edge.

“She thinks she fooled me
about her attachment to you,” she said. “But I knew. I could smell it on
her—see it in her—she wears her lust like a human.”

“Our attachment runs
deeper than you will ever understand, Cixi,” I said. “You do not know the power
of your own venomline.”

“Humph,” she said,
running a palm up the side of her head to the bun of hair on top. “And my
loyalty to Xing Fu runs deeper than you know,” she said. Her voice wavered, as
she seemed to stumble over her maker’s name for the first time. I dismissed it
as restrained anger, but I realize now it was despair.

“There is something you
must see,” she said. “I have debated showing you but now I must, against my
better judgment. My maker insists.”

She motioned for me to
follow her out of the cabin. We went past the captain’s quarters and the
section where Muriel and the other favored donors live. When we reached the
door
at the end, one I thought led elsewhere, she opened it and ushered me in. The
passageway was slimmer than the others, as though the section were an
extension—an add-on—of the ones already there. The corridor was not
long but we went to the end and turned left to a small alcove in the bulkhead.
The alcove hid a small entryway that was about half my height. The Empress
leaned down to open the
door
. Her demeanor had changed. She was reserved,
almost nervous, hesitating before spinning the wheel on the handle and
unlocking the seal. The frame released a hiss when the
door
was pushed ajar.

I was not fearful of
Cixi’s secret hold. I did not suspect she would trap me inside or lead me to
harm. Since our return, Peter had apprised me of his discoveries. He said the
Empress raged when she realized I had escaped, insisting Zhi set out at once to
find me. Captain Jem was ordered to cut the engine and anchor until the
ferryman returned. “For Xing Fu,” she ranted. “We must bring him back for Xing
Fu.” Peter assured me she was not bent on harming me, but fearful I would
perish at the hands of Rangu.

The interior of the secret cabin was dark, but I saw
the figure in the corner. I picked up her signal only after I had crossed the
threshold and she came forward to greet me.

“Welcome, master,” she said. “I am grateful you are
here.”

I could not have guessed my first progeny was aboard
Empress Cixi’s ship. Her signal was weak, and her body weaker still. She was
bloodstarved just like you, Byron, and yet she was on a ship filled with eager
and fresh blood. Wrapped in a wool blanket, she leaned her upper body on a
counter for support. The small cabin mimicked a large tomb and I did not doubt
she was punishing herself with the cage.

“You are surprised, master,” Xing Fu said. “Forgive
my secrecy.”

“It would have served the Empress’s interests to
tell me you were onboard,” I said, looking at Cixi.

“It is I who forced her to keep the secret,” she
said. “I am ashamed.”