The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (13 page)

His wounds were pungent, filling the room
with their odor. He winced, as he reached for a book way up on the top shelf.
He was forced to use the stepstool near his feet and when he finally pulled the
book down, I could see it was a large photo album. With his good arm, he
carried it across the room to a table in the corner near the window. The
flashlight was still in his mouth, but he pulled it out once he put the book
down. He opened the album and shone his light on its pages, as he examined each
one. When he found what he was looking for, he held the light on the page for a
moment and then peeled out the silver photograph. He smiled, as he shone the
light on it. He placed the photo in his vest pocket, and threw the flashlight
around the room again.

He inspected the villa next, rifling through
drawers and cupboards and sniffing empty cans. I was certain he could smell
Evelina’s incense oil and wanted to know who was living there in his absence. I
followed him closely, knowing his machete was still at the front door but a
small hatchet hung from his belt. He tiptoed from room to room, and I hoped
Evelina still slept, though the slammed door would have woken her. I was
relieved she remained in her room until I had come for her.

As he made his way down the hallway toward
her, he put his ear to each door. When he reached hers, I closed the gap
between us and stood directly behind him. He listened at her door, and I
concentrated on not killing him if he opened it. When he reached for the knob,
I came out of the shadows.

“Who are you?” I said.

He did not try to grab his hatchet, for he
fainted at the sound of my voice. I caught him in my arms and tapped softly on
Evelina’s door. She had been waiting on the other side and threw it open when
she heard me. “A creeper?” Her look of fright was almost as expressive as his
had been.

“No,” I said. “Just a guest.”

I carried the young man back to the front
room and laid him on the sofa. Evelina stood behind me, afraid he was dead.

“Fetch me the oil,” I said.

I wanted to mask his scent, more intent on
keeping him odorless for the bloodless than indulging in his savor. I opened
his vest and lifted his shirt. His bare chest aroused me, exposed as it was.
The cut of his abdomen, rising and falling with his breath, made my subtle
fangs itch and they dropped despite my effort to keep them up. While the girl
was out of the room, I took a quick nip from the inside of his arm where the
vein sits just beneath the flesh. I pierced the skin ever so softly with the
point of my fang and sucked up the blood that pooled in the crevice. The ichor
hit my core with a jolt, charging my heart. His cocktail was far more potent
than Evelina’s, though not as delectable. His taste in fact proved how hers had
ruined me for all others, even as I relished the high from his.

When Evelina returned, I spread the oil on
his chest and arms, which was how I discovered his dislocated shoulder. I gave
the girl the bottle to hold and placed my hands on his joint where bone meets
socket. “I think I am about to wake him,” I said.

When I snapped the shoulder into place, the
young man let out a shriek, his eyes locking shut in pain. I slapped my hand
over his mouth to smother the cry.

“Shush,” I whispered. “I mean you no harm.”

When he opened his eyes, they welled with
tears. Evelina stood behind me, watching with apprehension. The young man
breathed in heavily and then spoke with a strident voice. “How did you get in
here?”

“The same way you did,” I said “The front
door.”

“But it’s surrounded?”

Elizabeth and I had scaled the trellis on the
side wall to reach a window overlooking the valley below at the back of the
villa. The front entrance had been impossible to breach with the bloodless
pacing the villa’s doorstep, but the isolation at the back of the building made
it worth the effort.

“There were none when we arrived,” I said.

“Shit,” he muttered. “That’s impossible.”

“They couldn’t smell me,” Evelina said. “I
mean, us.”

“How did you travel past them?” I asked.

He evaded my question and changed his
posture, sitting up to look at me. The room was still dark, but Evelina held up
a candle that allowed him to see my frame. I was not sure if he knew I was with
another, but he tried to hide his surprise. His tune changed when he saw the
girl and he treaded lightly. “How long … you been here?” His words were
disconnected, as though he had a hard time stringing a sentence together. He
drew in a deep breath and then his whole body fell backwards into the sofa.

“Is he dead?” Evelina asked.

“Just unconscious. He is probably starved.”

I ordered her to bring me the grappa from the
cupboard and when she returned, I dripped a bit of the liquor on the man’s
mouth. The aroma seemed to revive him and when he finally came to, I forced him
to take a proper swig. He kept the bottle at his lips until he had downed
enough of it.

“Are you hungry?” Evelina’s small voice
softened him. He shook his head, and let it fall back again, though he did not
pass out. He fell into a deep slumber until the sun brought in the morning sky.

5 November.
— I slipped out of the
villa, leaving Evelina to watch our guest while he slept. The air was thick
with the fog that rolled in over the mountains. The odors of a salt sea and
rotted bloodless mingled, making one fetid aroma. The swarm I had heard die
away from the doorstep was actually still there, but the bodies were fallen on
the cobblestones and decomposing at the villa’s entrance. Inanimate piles of
flesh, unmoving as corpses are wont to do, stared up at me. I kicked the first
body and stepped on its limbs, the brittle form breaking beneath my foot. I
leaned over and looked into the face of the bloodless woman whose nose and eyes
were eaten away as though buzzards had climbed in and feasted. Her flesh looked
green, drained as it was of all its juice, and dried marrow was visible beneath
the skin.

I waded through the fallen swarm, inspecting
each body as I went. They had not been punctured or visibly wounded, nor were
they burned or macerated. Their debilitated state mystified me, and I knew only
one person could explain. When I headed back to the villa to speak to the young
man, the sun threatened to burn away the morning fog.

He was awake and sitting up on the settee
when I came in through the front door. “Going out is risky,” he said. “Don’t
you think?” The smell of his blood distracted me for a moment and I pictured
myself tearing into his neck. “Shit,” he said. “You okay?”

“Perfect,” I said. “How is your shoulder?”

“Feels like hell,” he said. “Evelina is
getting me some aspirin.” He pulled his arm closer to him and winced.

“I can tie a sling around it if you would
like,” I said.

He seemed reluctant to let me touch him, but
gave in when Evelina returned. I was not the gentlest of paramedics, though he
wore a brave face for the girl. She was at ease with him already. They had
obviously struck up a conversation before my arrival, and I almost regretted
leaving her alone with him. I had assumed he would sleep for hours. When she
asked him about the photos that hung on the walls, I paid little attention.

“You’re in every one,” she said.

“It’s my father’s home,” he said. “We were
close.”

“Do you live with him?” She asked.

“I used to,” he said. He winced, as I pulled
the scarf into a knot. When I finished with his sling, I took up a post near
the window on the opposite side of the room. I decided to wait to ask him about
the bloodless.

“Where is your father?” Evelina asked.

“Gone,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

She sat down beside him on the settee and
touched his shoulder. The young man shifted his body, though he did not flinch.
I could see he welcomed the girl’s embrace.

I will be more cautious about leaving them
alone from now on. She is vulnerable and too easily charmed by silly men. I do
not care he is the first human she has spoken with since Marco. She has grown
used to the company of vampires, and I will not have her safety threatened by a
garish young man.

8 November.
— His name is Helgado
Tarlati. He has been with us for two days, sleeping and eating. He is
exhausted, if not completely dehydrated, but seems revived by the bit of food
Evelina has coaxed him to eat. I am not happy to share her meager rations with
him, but she insists. At this point, I do not know what to make of him. He
tells us the villa belongs to his father. He is young—nineteen he says.

“When it all began, my father refused to
leave,” he said. “It took months to convince him to evacuate.”

“Did he die on the road?” Evelina asked.

“He’d have stayed if I’d let him. He would’ve
died here … in peace.”

I watched the two of them, as they exchanged
brief histories. They spoke about their dead loved ones in the same stoic
manner.

“I had to destroy the body,” he said.

Evelina reached out and patted his hand where
it rested on the table. The tightness in his mouth seemed to relax at her
touch.

“It was torture,” he said, “but I forced
myself to watch. I wanted to see his flesh melt, I needed to see it bubble and
boil on the bones.”

The question faded from Evelina’s lips, as
she caught up her breath and stifled her desire to know why. She seemed to pull
back a bit, moving her hand from his ever so slightly. I do not think he
noticed, but I could see the tempo of her breathing change, as the rush of
blood that flowed through the lovely vein in her neck sped up. Her cheeks
flushed and I could barely contain my fangs.

“The torment of losing him led me on a wild
chase into the desert,” he said.

“The desert?” Her small voice indicated she
had not yet recovered from his admission. She did not know what to make of
Helgado Tarlati.

“I was enraged,” he said. “I wanted to kill
every one of those blasted things with my bare hands.” He took a deep breath
and held it for a moment. “Maybe I had a death wish—maybe I just wanted
…”

“To be like one of them?” Evelina said.

“I just wanted to feel something even if it
was that.”

Death has no feeling—I resisted adding
to the conversation.

“I was lucky,” he said. “I don’t know how I
survived.”

“What happened to your shoulder?” Evelina
asked.

He grinned. “I have no idea.”

“But it was pulled from the socket,” she
said. “You must know what happened.”

“When I got to the main square at the bottom
of the village,” he said. “Something caught me.”

Evelina’s eyes opened wide. “A bloodless?”

“Bloodless,” he said. “That’s a weird thing
to call them.”

She blushed and my mouth tightened. My fangs
ached for a bite.

“A group of them surrounded me,” he said,
“forcing me through a small opening between the picket fences that border the
shops on the main street.” He had gotten caught in the fence, as he crawled
through. “My rucksack got stuck.”

“Oh no,” Evelina said. She was fixated again,
holding her breath, as he told the story of his narrow escape. Her fear of him
was waning, her pulse newly racing.

“But before I could panic,” he said, “I felt
a … I don’t know, like a rough tug on my arms. They were out in front of me
like this.” He raised his good arm straight up above his head. “I was
belly-down on the ground and it was like this jolt of cold hit me, it grabbed
me like a vise around my wrists. I couldn’t see what it was but the next thing
I know, I am being pulled with this intense force.”

“What was it?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “It was too dark
and it just disappeared. But the pain … whoa.”

“Your shoulder?” He nodded, seeking her
sympathy. “How did you make it to the villa?” She asked.

“Shit luck, I guess.”

Evelina blushed again.

“I’ve always been lucky,” he said. “After
papa died, I went further south—into the desert. I ate whatever I could
find—flowers, grubs, anything—sometimes I went days without food. I
only stopped to help … and kill. But eventually I didn’t run into anyone, and
it felt like I was the last man in the universe. I thought … I felt like …
forget it.” He faded away for a moment, seeming to remember something he wanted
to forget, then continued, telling us that he found shelter at an abbey. “Mount
Oliveros,” he said. “It’s a monastery on the top of a peak in Tuscany. When I
saw the sand-colored brick, I touched it just to make sure I wasn’t
hallucinating.”

He smiled then and looked at Evelina. They
sat beside each other at the small dining table in the kitchen nook. They
seemed to forget they were not alone in the room, and I shifted in the doorway
where I stood to remind them.

“The monastery had a drawbridge … like a
castle,” he said. “As soon as I approached the entrance gate, the bridge was
lowered and the great iron door opened for me.”