The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (77 page)

A Shift in
Time

Vincent watched me, his voice trailing off. I turned
to see his mouth curled up at the corners as if ready to answer my questions. Some
pieces were starting to come together, but others were too jagged to fit.

“Shall I explain?” He asked.

“Is Laszlo Arros a shifter like your mother?”

“No,” he said, approaching me and setting his hands
flat on my drafting table. More than ever, his proximity made my insides shudder.
“He is more than a shifter. He has become a mimic.”

“What is that?”

“He may take any form he chooses, but also copy it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You might if I show you,” he said.

“Show me what—”

“You feel it, no?”

I shook my head.

“My presence?” He grinned.

“I don’t know—” My own voice shrank, as if
trapped inside of me. He was near me, but stood miles away. I reached for him,
but my arm stayed in place.
I am in
control
, he said into my mind.
Come
.
I stood and walked to the window ledge, though my legs moved on their own. I climbed
up onto the window sill, balancing on its edge. The wind had settled and the
outside world was darker than pitch, except for the harvest moon that dwarfed
the sun.

I hopped up and grabbed the top of the window ledge,
hanging from my fingertips with my legs dangling in the frame. When I looked up,
I saw the top of the tower, way above me.
We
are going to scale it
, he said without words.

I reached up with one hand to grab the highest
stone, using my legs along the window frame for leverage. One stone after
another, with single thrusts, I scaled the wall to the top. When I reached the
highest point, I stood on the flat surface and turned to look in all
directions. I saw the whole settlement, the northern fence, the ravine to the south,
the birch forest to the east, and the rows of shanties and lean-tos where the
work was done on the western edge of the colony. All lamps burned low, and
Heorot was dark.

“It always burns,” I said. “But the fire on the
hearth has gone out.”

What do you see?
I seemed to ask myself.

“How did I get up here?” I said aloud.

Tell me what you see.

“It’s cold,” I said. “The whole settlement, from
border to border, but there’s no light.”

Look with more than your
eyes.

“How,” I said to the cool breeze.

The landscape revealed itself, as the sun crept up and
ate the darkness. Dawn was breaking in the east, but the settlement was still
asleep. One lone figure moved in the dim light, and I squinted to make him out.
He lumbered as he walked to the barrel of water several feet from his shelter.
He dunked his hands in and splashed water on his face. I shivered at the
gesture, imagining the cold frosting his skin. Then he seemed to perk up and
look back at the lean-to, still bathed in darkness. He took a few steps toward
it and stopped, mouthing something I couldn’t hear. When he advanced again, he
ducked into the lean-to, disappearing from sight.

“I must see more,” I said.

My body lumbered to the edge and launched itself
into the air, falling and landing with a thud. The ground shook beneath me, but
I felt nothing in my bones. I flew through the main street, past the darkened hearth
and the shelters along the west side of the colony. The hunter’s store was
there, and I smelled the flesh, drying on the rack. My stomach rumbled with
nothing short of a roar.

As soon as I reached the lean-to, I slowed and crept
up on its opening. A hissing sound came from inside, much like the sound of
logs sizzling on the hearth. The sound grew louder as I approached, and the sky
seemed to lighten with each step. When I finally stood before the opening, I
witnessed the cause of the sound. The settler was strung up, dangling by his
neck with a large shadowy figure behind him.

The figure darted to the left when he saw me and
said, “You have come.”

I made to step back, but couldn’t move. He released
the settler and I recognized Björg’s body once it hit the ground.

“I have you now,” the figure said, revealing himself
to be Vincent.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He smiled and pounced, or perhaps I lunged backward,
but I shut my eyes as his figure expanded before me.

Then, as though I hadn’t moved from my spot on the
top of the tower, I was still standing on the platform with the wind on my
face, watching the cloaked figure exit the lean-to and disappear out of sight. My
heart sunk as I pictured Björg lying there, drained as he’d been that morning.

“Is it you, Vincent?” I whispered.

That is me, and I am you
.

When I shifted again, falling out of him, a terrible
pain tore up my gut, and forced me to the ground. I lay like a child in a womb,
my legs pulled up, begging the pain to go away. I couldn’t look at the sky, cobalt
blue once again. I shut my eyes tightly and lapped up the pain with every ounce
of courage I had. Death felt close, as the agony seemed to increase. I didn’t
forget that I was abandoned on the tower’s top, and couldn’t imagine how I
would get down until my thoughts seemed to make the tower floor drop away and I
plummeted, landing on my cot with a jolt.

I opened my eyes wide to familiar surroundings. The
pain had left me and Vincent was at my side. The threat he’d posed in the
lean-to had dissolved, as I intuited the truth.

“You took me into your mind again,” I said.

“I wanted you to see my other half.”

“That was this morning.” My voice was gruff, and my
throat almost too dry to speak. “You were there.”

He dropped his chin and sneered at the floor beside
the bed. “The want of blood makes you thirsty,” he said. “Being inside is a
trick of the mind, but the hunger it leaves you with is real.”

“You saw Björg killed and did nothing about it.”

“Everything in its time,” he said.

“Why couldn’t you save him?” I sat up, and he leaned
back.

“You have understood nothing,” he said, smacking the
side of my cot. “I am not the one who kills the settlers.”

“But it was you in the lean-to,” I said.

“I told you he is an imitator. You saw me because that
is who he wanted you to see.”

Just when I thought I understood, I lost the thread.
“Who is he?”

“Laszlo Arros,” he said. “The most important
character of my story.”

“I was there with you,” I said. “Seeing him through
your eyes. Another mind trick.”

Vincent gestured with a slight nod. “It has all been
one sleight of hand.” He smiled and seemed to hold his breath. “His Resurrection
is cyclical, born again from a second pile of ash.”

“Born again?”

“Shall I tell you how he died?”

A Spear for
One

I came to in the room that was a shrine to my former
villa, with Lucia cradled in my arms. I looked down on her, her eyes closed,
her little nostrils flaring as she breathed in the oxygenated atmosphere.

“What is Lucia to you?” Youlan asked. She stood
across the room, clinging to the opposite wall.

“You would not understand,” I said.

“Perhaps you are right. Much of what you do confuses
me.”

“Bull,” I said. “You do not know me.”

She moved away from the portico. “Her blood smells
good,” she said.

Her manner had changed, her shoulders raised, her
back arched as though fit for a fight. She licked her lips, and I flexed my
fingers. My strength had returned with the child in my arms. Her blood perfumed
the air, but I was certain I had no desire to drink it.

“She was made for you,” Youlan said, creeping to my
side, ready to pounce.

“No,” I said. “She was made from me.”

“How is that true?”

“She is meant to right the wrong.”

“It is too late.”

“Where is Laszlo Arros?” I shot her a look and she
backed down, having moved closer to me and the sleeping child.

“The blood substitute,” she said. “That was your
idea, too.”

The infant lay as dead weight in my arms.

“You suggested it,” she said. “Gave the formula to
Byron.”

“Of what madness do you speak now?”

“You were jealous, father,” she said. “You wanted
him to suffer.”

“I would never.”

“He took away your chance at deity,” she said. “He
made you love him too much. He robbed you of your union with the god. The child
was his doing, he made the seed and planted the tree.”

“What tree?”

“The tree of life, father.”

She stepped close again, and I sneered at her. “Keep
your distance,” I said.

“Why do you hate me?”

“I do not know you,” I said.

“I come from you.”

Lucia stirred and I sensed the foolishness of my
posture, my choice to sit with a child in my arms. I suppose I was swept up in
thought, for I did not see the spear move as Youlan tried to pick it up.

She seethed in the corner of the room, looking out
of joint and out of breath. “She will perish at the hands of her creator,” she
said. “The rest of them, each one will wither away in a painful torment. Your
plan has already succeeded.”

My head bellowed with a piercing cry that came from
deep within me. I continued to hold the child in my arms, but crossed the room
with her to pick up the ash pike myself. Youlan could not threaten me with the
weapon, for only I could wield it. She backed away as I approached, leaving me
free to bend down and pick it up. With my hand on the dory, I struggled to lift
it, its weight immeasurable.

“It is too heavy for you,” Youlan said. “Can’t you
see that?”

She was correct, for I could barely steady it in my
one hand as I held the child in the other.

“You’ll have to put her down,” she said.

“Where is Laszlo Arros?”

She made a squee sound and clapped her hands. “You
didn’t notice the sleight of hand.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You are Laszlo Arros,” she said. “You are him.”

I struggled against logic, looking for something to
ground me. Lucia was the greatest clue, for she did not tempt me, even as she
was close enough to taste.

“Maybe this is part of the plan,” she said.

“What is?”

“You no longer see yourself as separate. Lázoros doesn’t
need Laszlo Arros anymore since you have Vincent.” She glanced casually at the
child, watching her intently with downcast eyes. “May I have the child like you
promised?”

I pulled the infant up to me and stepped away. “What
do you mean Laszlo Arros has Vincent? I am Vincent.”

“You aren’t, though.”

“Of course I am.”

“Pick up the spear and throw it at me, then.”

I looked down at my dory, lying on the ground at my
feet. It looked unfamiliar, and I wondered if I had ever wielded such a weapon.

“You promised me her blood,” Youlan said.
“Kinblood.”

“You will not take this child from me.”

“Greedy,” she said. “You never desired blood. You
said it repulsed you. Why do you mean to keep her?”

I drew in a breath, forcing my irons out, but
nothing happened.

“Has your union given you his desire?” She asked.
“Have you become hungry for blood like us?”

I attempted to bare my fangs again, enraged at her
interrogation. She paced in front of me as though rallying her bravery.

“They’re gone,” she said. “Your fangs are gone.”

“What has happened to me?”

“You are him.”

“No,” I said. “I am not.”

“Then come,” she said. “Try to stop me.”

“Shall I?”

She gestured with an upturned hand. “Please, father.
I’ve been waiting to taste your wrath since we met one another on the ship.”

I held her with a hard stare.

“You don’t have the strength, do you?”

“I have everything I need.”

The corners of her mouth turned upward. “Everything?”
She winked at me, and said, “And her?”

I turned to the bureau closest to me, and pulled
open the widest drawer, tucking Lucia inside for safe keeping.

“I can see her, you know,” Youlan said. “When I have
put you down, father, I am going to wet my fangs with her blood, as promised.”

Lucia squealed, and I turned to adjust her position.
Youlan stepped behind me then and laid her hand flat on my back, as Apollo had
done to Patroclus when he sent his helmet sailing through the air, stripping
him of his armor on the battlefield.

The touch forced me into darkness and I blacked out,
collapsing on the ground.

“Let us get this over with.” I heard the words of
Laszlo Arros as though in my own head. “This shall be our last dance, my darling
girl.”

I cannot say how long I was absent from my right
mind, but when I woke, I was in the room with the incubator. The glass was
still smashed and the child gone. I shook the cobwebs from my head, as I
imagined I had somehow traveled back in time. I jumped up, my physical weakness
newly returned with the absence of my kin.

I followed the sound in my head, a pounding that
would not quit. Once I reached the place where I had first met Laszlo Arros,
the room that was a replica of my former villa, I found the source of the
noise. I crept up to the open doorway, and stood on its threshold, spying on Youlan
and the figure that looked so much like my own, as they tossed one another
about the room.

When Laszlo Arros had pinned Youlan to the wall, his
back to the doorway, she reached for something I could not see, though I noticed
the bureau’s open drawer. She smirked in triumph and said to Laszlo Arros, “I
shall spear you, father, with the ash pike.”

He pressed into her with a rage I had not seen him
show yet. “You do not have enough of the warrior in you,” he said.

I spied the spear near my feet, and slipped into the
room, unnoticed by him. She continued to hold his attention, making him press
away from her fangs, as she attempted to stab him with them.

My proximity to Lucia breathed energy into me as a
savior fills a drowned man’s lungs with air. With a renewed and fevered strength,
greater than any blood high, I picked up my dory and held the weapon in my hand
like a dart, the ash pike warming to me like a limb. I raised the spear and
launched it at my target, sending it through the center of Laszlo Arros,
pinning him to Youlan.

Her shriek rattled the walls, but his hiss was more
frightening. Lucia was the third to wail, her cry erupting from the cubby in
which she was hidden.

“What have you done?” Laszlo Arros’s voice was weak,
as if the spear drained him of his energy.

“I must be off,” I said.

Laszlo Arros strained his neck to see me where I
stood a few feet from the two of them. “No,” he said. “You cannot go. We are
too close. You felt it. You were with me. This is our destiny. Join me.” He
held his hand out to me, reaching backward, as the dory kept him pinned to
Youlan.

“You are cleaved to another, one made for you,” I
said. “Youlan is yours, now and forever.”

She gazed on Laszlo Arros, still in the form of her
biological father. She had simply wanted to be mine, but I denied her and gave
her to him instead.

“A sleight of hand,” she whispered. “I shall take
you with me, so we both shall return.”

She lurched forward and bit Laszlo Arros’s neck with
a vengeance befitting my own. Then she shot her venom into him, and he withered.

The spear’s ancient energy ran through its ashy
shaft, and Laszlo Arros reached for its power, calling it up into himself,
making it do more than I ever could. Soaked in the blood of countless soldiers,
from near and far, on battlefields across tracts of land, the weapon heeded his
godly will, burning up with a fever fit for death, seeping into the one who
claimed it for himself.

And like an oak uprooted, struck by lightning, the
two creatures, creator and his creation, fell to the floor in a pile of ash.