The Mark of Cain (32 page)

“So what made you puke then if you’re not sick?”
Tracker asked so quietly that Inac wondered if he knew he’d said it out loud.

Inac looked him over. It was odd how much he wanted
to be honest with the kid.

“Is Hara still asleep?”

“Yeah. She sleeps through everything,” he said with
a smile. It must be because she was so innocent that she slept so well. There
were no demons to keep
her
up at night….

“Then let’s go have a seat by the fire. It’s dead,
but I can build us a small one.”

Tracker followed, staying silent until there was a
small, crackling flame. The faint light made the world appear as though it was
only five feet in circumference, and it worked to purge the icy disgust from
Inac’s soul that his dream had brought about.

“So, you were gonna tell me why you threw up?”

Inac sighed before looking Tracker straight in the
eye. “Have you ever done something you’ve been ashamed of?”

He expected Tracker to scoff, to do anything but
remain serious.

“Of course. Who hasn’t?”

“I never did. I may have tired of things, but I
never before really cared about what I’ve done.”

“But now you do?”

He nodded. “I’ve been having dreams…but they aren’t
really dreams. Just now, I relived my time as Vlad Draculea. Did you know that
he was a real person?”

Tracker shook his head. “Once The Order brought me
in, They told me the lives you’ve lived. I just assumed that he was another
figment of your imagination.”

“No, he was real. He was a nice guy who had been a
victim for years. Even after all of that, he still didn’t have a mean bone in
his body.”

“So he would have made a good prince then….”

“No. He would have been dead within days had I not
killed him first.”

Tracker looked surprised, but he didn’t seem to be
judging Inac for the murder of the prince. “Why
did
you kill him?”

“It was time for me to find a new life. His seemed
like a perfect opportunity.”

“So you just killed him? You didn’t even hesitate or
care?”

Inac sighed. “Tracker, life was different back then.
People killed each other all the time. Besides, he wouldn’t have made it. He
was a weak man. Too weak for Wallachian—Romanian—politics.”

Tracker didn’t say anything for a few minutes. When
he did, he seemed almost hesitant. “So what are you ashamed of then?”

“All those people…” he said, swallowing the acid
that had made its way up the back of his throat. If he hadn’t lost the Ottoman
Empire with his gamble, then he’d still own the Middle East today instead of
just a fraction of the oil. So, really, it wasn’t only about those who had died
during his life as Vlad the Impaler, but every life that had been cut short
since because of his gamble. Still today people were feeling the consequences
in that region. And, since he was a part of the fight to get the land and oil
back, he still felt bad about it. Nobody should die over stupid oil. To make a
point—like Hara’s death would achieve—yes, but not for a stupid natural resource.

“Lately,” Inac said, “the faces of anyone dead
because of me, they’ve been getting to me. But I’m a different person now. I’m
no longer Vlad the Impaler. I can’t even imagine it and, yet, it really was me.
I
did those things. And to my own people. I thought that it would help
me take Wallachia as my own if I fought the Turks, who were secretly also my
people. But it only ended up with me losing the empire I had owned since
creating the Akkadian Empire more than four thousand years ago.

“All the deaths, though…that’s what made me ill. I
once staked a servant boy for getting sick from the stench of rotting corpses.
He gagged from the smell of clotting blood and decaying flesh as he poured my
wine so I impaled him, higher than the other people so he would be above the
stench that offended him so. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about when I
say that I did horrible things. I had people so scared that they feared
committing any wrong.”

He paused for a moment to think of an example he
could tell Tracker to make his point.

“Once,” he said once he’d thought of one, “despite
the fact that people were so afraid to steal that I could put a gold chalice in
the square for years and it wouldn’t be stolen—literally, because I did do
that—a foreign merchant was robbed while in Wallachia. He reported it to me and
I ordered his money found. When we found it, I added one extra piece to his bag
to test him. He counted it once away from my sight, like anyone would, and upon
finding it, he brought it back. If he hadn’t, I would have impaled him next to
the thief who had stolen from him in the first place. And those are just two of
the less horrible things I did….”

Shaking his head, as though it would rid himself of
that life, he said, “But now I go through life, pretending to be Inac, the
perfect boyfriend. I guess I’ve just lost my identity. Something about this
character I’m playing is getting to me on a real level.”

“Maybe you’re
becoming
the character you’re
playing.”

Inac wanted to laugh his butt off, but Tracker was
so
serious
. He was looking intently at Inac, as though trying to figure
something out.

“Look,” Inac said, leaning forward so Tracker would
know how serious he was. His elbows on his knees and his hands grasped together
in front of him, he added, “I’m the last person on this planet that anybody
could accuse of being kind and virtuous. Do you know how many people I’ve
killed, or have had killed in my life?”

Tracker shook his head.

“It’s said that the world has had around one hundred
billion
people walk on her since her beginning, and that six percent of
the Earth’s total population from the dawn of time is alive today. That six
percent, or roughly seven billion, is a fairly low percentage compared to how
many people I’ve been responsible for killing, whether by my hand or
another’s.”

Tracker swallowed. Now
he
looked ill.

“But that was all war, though, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Inac couldn’t help the look he shot back at the kid.
Since when was
Tracker
trying to see him as a good person? Man, they
were both acting out of character tonight. That was especially evidenced in the
fact that, for some reason, Inac felt like being honest with him. Maybe because
Tracker already knew all of the stories about “Cain.” And in knowing them, he’d
already judged him as harshly as possible, so there were really no more
judgments to be made….

“Mostly,” he finally said. “All have been because of
my
personal
war, though.”

“Like Hara’s family?”

“Yeah. Like them.”

“Why
did
you kill them?”

“I didn’t
personally
kill them, which is
where I made my mistake,” he said, gripping his hands so tight they turned
white in the firelight. “If I had, I would have known that the little girl
wasn’t Hara. I only saw pictures of the child, and she was covered in blood
from her many stab wounds, so she looked like her.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Inac let a breath out from between his teeth. “To
make a point.”

“A point to who? The Order?”

Now Inac allowed himself a small chuckle. “The Order
is of little importance to me. I think of Them merely as an annoyance. They’re
like a fruit fly buzzing around my head.”

“Don’t you mean a house fly?”

“No. I mean a fruit fly. That’s how minuscule I
consider The Order to be.”

“But it’s been around
forever
. It’s not that
small anymore.”

“It was started in the early 1400s. You didn’t know
that it was originally called The Order of the Dragon?”

Tracker’s brow furrowed in confusion. “The thing
Vlad the Impaler, I mean
you
, belonged to?”

“Although I used Their insignia and pretended to be
part of his ‘holy war’ to get money from the pope, I never belonged to Them.
The original Vlad Draculea, yes. But me, no. Although the pope somehow didn’t
know who I really was, They figured it out after Vlad died. That’s when they
dropped the dragon part. They wanted to distance Themselves from me.”

“And They’ve been fighting you ever since?”

“If you can call it a fight. The only thing They’ve
ever really done to me was take Hara.”

“But that’s a big deal. That’s 500 years of your
planning that They ruined!”

Inac grabbed a stick and poked at the fire, letting
it blaze up as he answered, “Just put off. I have Hara now.”

Tracker gulped and looked down at his hands. Meekly,
he asked, “Are you still gonna kill her?”

Without hesitation, Inac replied, “Of course. Why
wouldn’t I?”

“I just…I just thought….”

“Thought what?”

“That maybe since you feel guilty….”

Inac realized that he had perhaps been a little too
honest. Tracker was starting to see him as a human being…which would either
help him, or harm him. It could make him ease up on protecting Hara so that
Inac could have the privacy to corrupt her, or…or it could make Inac lose face
with The Order. And fear was his best weapon against Them.

“Let’s put it this way,” he said, being careful with
his words. “I don’t feel guilty for killing anyone. It was necessary. In fact,
it was
necessary
to torture them because then my decent and honest
subjects didn’t become victims themselves.”

“Then why did you puke?” Tracker asked, his voice
becoming shrill because of how worked up he was getting.

“Because even necessary things aren’t always things
we’re proud of.”

“And Hara? Will you be proud of killing her?”

He winced for a moment. “Her death is,
unfortunately, a necessity. But don’t worry; I promise you it will be quick.
She won’t suffer.”

“So that’s supposed to make it all better? You kill
my best friend but it’s okay because you’ll make sure she doesn’t suffer?!” he
hissed. At least it was in a whisper so the other three campers wouldn’t be
woken up. This was a conversation that couldn’t be overheard….

“Everybody dies, Tracker. Besides, it’s not
personal. It’s war.”

“Against
who
? You still haven’t answered
that.”

Staring at Tracker across the firelight, Inac said,
“Isn’t it obvious? My war is with God.”

“But
why
?”

“Reasons I don’t feel like going into with you.”

“As I see it, you got a good deal. Nothing to be
angry about.”

“What? Because I can’t die?”

“Um,
yeah
. Anyone would
kill
for
immortality!”

“And I did just that,” Inac reminded him.

“Oh yeah….” Tracker looked nervous again.

“But it’s not all peaches and cream. I still feel
everything. I just won’t die from it. Even if my body was drained of blood, I’d
live. Trust me; I know that firsthand.”

“Really?” Tracker asked, relaxing. When Inac nodded,
he said, “Dude, that sucks.”

“Tell me about it. There was a time before I lost my
humanity where that was difficult for me. I just wanted to die. But God
wouldn’t let me,” he said, clenching his jaw in anger. “I tried so many ways,
and do you know where His mercy was?”

Tracker shook his head.

“Nowhere. That’s what you mortals don’t realize. He
doesn’t listen to you. He doesn’t
care
about you. It helps make you feel
better to believe that He does, but you’re just lying to yourselves. I’ve lived
long enough to know better.”

Tracker was silent for quite a while. “What made you
lose your humanity?”

Considering whether he should tell Tracker or not,
Inac sat, staring at the licking flames as he played with the stud in his
tongue. He’d had it for so long that he barely even realized he was doing so.

“The last time I tried to kill myself, I jumped off
a cliff into the ocean,” he said, a bit sad, a bit angry. “I felt myself
collide with the rocks, shattering all my bones. I couldn’t breathe, and the
water around me was pure red from my blood. I lost consciousness, almost
praying
that it would work. But it didn’t.

“I remember waking up, still on the ocean floor
because I was trapped under rocks—a landslide or something must have occurred
while I’d been unconscious. I was in excruciating pain, and I was drowning, but
I wouldn’t die. I just kept drowning.

“I lost count of the days and nights I was stuck
there,” he said, gaining momentum. “You see, because of my injuries, I wasn’t
strong enough to get myself out from under the rocks. Eventually my bones
healed, but many of them had healed incorrectly. As I lay there, forever
drowning, I had to re-break most of them. Now, on top of all of that, I also
felt constant thirst and hunger. Can you imagine feeling all of that for
months, maybe even years, without dying?”