The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier Trilogy (Books 1, 2, 3) (15 page)

I raised my hands to cover my head before the
swarm could close in on me. By some turn of fortune, I noticed the spot of tar
on the body that had tripped me up, and rolled toward it, ripping the leg from
its socket. I held the gooey poison up to the masses, and like sparrows fleeing
the hay-man, the bloodless ran in all directions, falling over one another to
get away. I picked myself up and raced the last few feet to the villa, flying
in through the door and throwing the rucksack down before I could rejoice at my
near escape.

“Thank God,” Evelina said.

“Where is he?” I did not waste time, wanting
to know his secret then and there.

“In his room,” she said.

I went down the hall and banged on his door,
opening it at the same time. “What did you use?” I asked.

“What?” He looked at me confused, a feigned
expression no doubt. He knew exactly what.

“What did you use to disable them?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

I hate to admit it, but I lost my cool. I
reached for his throat and pulled him toward me.

“Vincent,” Evelina’s voice, deeper than
usual, pulled me from my rage. I dropped my hand and stepped back. “Please,”
she said. “Please don’t.” She had slipped between us when she saw Helgado puff
up his chest. “Don’t fight,” she said to Helgado, knowing she would have a
better chance getting him to back down than me. He looked at her and then
turned away from the door.

“Come with me, Vincent,” she said, leading me
down the hall to the front room. I do not know why I followed but I suppose her
hold on me is stronger than I thought. “You can’t hurt him,” she said. “We need
him.”

I do not need him, I wanted to say, and he is
nothing to me and the moment I know his secret I will crush him. But I
resisted.

“You’re exhausted,” she said. “Starving.” She
reached for my hand and placed the vial in it again. “Please,” she said. “For
me.”

“I need to be alone,” I said.

She retreated, locking herself in her room
for the night, but only after thanking me for my effort. “Because of you, the
baby and I will eat tomorrow.”

I would give anything to down the tiny vial,
or to suck the blood directly from those blushing cheeks. I want it—I
need it—but I will not have it.

Later.
— Her blood teases me
more with each passing hour and I would love nothing more than to drink every last
drop—baby and all. But he is a nuisance. I know he keeps a secret, a
solution to deter the bloodless, to destroy them, and unless I can discover it
and take it from him, his only use to me is as a donor—a poor replacement
for the girl, though an acceptable feed nonetheless.

Her attachment to him grows and I suspect she
is unwilling to part with him. If he decides to leave, she may even want to go
with him.

My heart aches, Byron. I feel heavy and I
miss you. I am so tired, fed up with this task. I long to be with you
again—an impossibility, I know. You and I have been robbed of the life we
were promised the moment I gave you that piece of myself. We are
cheated—stripped of everything.

17 November.
—
My suspicion is confirmed;
he wants to take her with him. I overheard him knock on her door when he
thought I was asleep. They could not mask their whispers despite his slipping
into her room.

“Come with me,” he said.

“I can’t leave Vincent.”

“I can protect you,” he said. “My strength is
back. My shoulder is better.”

“No,” she said. “I won’t leave without him.”

“He’s no good for you.”

“He keeps me safe.”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” he said.
“He leers—like you’re his possession or something.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Something’s not right with him,” he said.
“He looks sick, like he’s always starving. Is he anemic or something? He’s so
…”

“So what?”

“Tired looking,” he said. “He doesn’t sleep
much does he?”

“You don’t know him,” she said. “Besides,
he’s just worried for us that’s all.”

“What about those scars? Did he give you
those?”

“No,” she said. “Just stop it. You don’t know
him.”

“So what,” he said. “I can feel it … in
here.”

“No.”

“Why is he helping you?” He sounded agitated
now. “Does he love you?”

“It’s not like that,” she said.

They struggled to keep their voices in
whispers.

“Do you love him?”

“He made a promise to keep me safe.”

“To who?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s loyal—he’s
like a father to me.”

“Like Marco was?”

“That’s not fair. You don’t know what we’ve been
through. What he’s been through.”

“We’ve all been through hell.”

They were silent for a moment.

“He can’t save you,” he said.

“And you can?”

“Yes.”

“We all have the same chances out there,” she
said. “What if you get attacked—what if you die or turn?”

“What if he gets bit and dies? Or turns?”

“That’ll never happen.”

“Oh ya, right,” he said. “He’s
invincible—bullshit! He’s just as vulnerable as the rest of us.”

“You don’t know him.”

I could hear one of them cross the room and
sit on the bed.

“Evie,” he said. “I love you.”

“You do?”

“Yes, Evie. Evie. Evie. I am madly in love
with you! You’re so ... beautiful and smart and funny and … ohhhhh, you’ve
turned my world upside down! I can’t live without you.”

“But—”

“Come with me. Please!”

His begging made me sick. He was a pathetic
boy and I could not believe he thought she would find his pleading attractive.

“We can make a beautiful life together,” he
said. “I promise.”

“How can we make a life in this … world?”

“I have a secret weapon.”

“What?”

“I know how to defeat them.”

“Who?”

“The bloodless.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s …” He paused and then shuffled toward
the door.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Just checking.” He went and sat with her on
the bed and whispered, “It’s a seed from a plant.” I heard every word of his
secret.

“Why didn’t you tell Vincent about it?”

“I just told you why. I don’t trust him.”

“That’s what he wanted to know when he came
in,” she said in her full voice.

“Shush!”

“But you’ve got to tell—”

They were silent again and I assumed he had
stopped her from speaking the best way he could. I could hear the smack of
their kiss and then the springs of the bed creak when she broke the embrace.

“No,” she said. “Tell me about this plant.”

He sighed like a petulant child. “I’ve almost
run out of it,” he said. “When I was attacked at the fence, my bag was torn and
I lost some. I am down to only a few stalks and that’s why I have to leave. I
have to get more.”

“Where?”

“Not far from here,” he said. “I have a map.”

“Then why can’t we both come with you.”

“No,” he said. “We have to go alone.”

“I don’t understand.” He sighed again. “But
Vincent can offer us both protect—”

“I knew I was going to meet you,” he said. “I
knew I’d find you here.”

“How could you?”

“The shaman told me.”

“The what?”

“Shaman,” he said. “The man of divination I
met in the desert.”

I could not believe he continued to spin his
outlandish tales.

“He’s a Métis tribesman,” he said. “He told
me all sorts of things about the future—that’s how I knew I’d meet you.
He told me the photograph would lead me to you.”

“The one of your mother,” she said. “That
makes no sense.”

“Don’t you see,” he said. “That’s why I came
here. I was destined to find you.”

Neither of them whispered now.

“And so what did he tell you about Vincent?
This fortune-teller?”

“Not a fortune—never mind,” he said.
“He didn’t say anything about him. He just told me I had to come and get you
and take you with me no matter what.”

“This is crazy,” she said.

I tried to read her voice, to learn if she
believed the foolish liar or not.

“The shaman said all that?” She sniffled; he
had upset her with his lies. “He’s wrong,” she said. “Vincent is the only
thing—the only one who can keep me safe.”

“Just listen to me,” he said. “The shaman was
right about everything else so far.”

“Like what?”

“Like my injury, the seeds, you.”

“But …”

“You have to come with me,” he said. “You
have to trust me. He’s no good for you. I can keep you safe. I’d never let
anything happen to you.”

I did not think Evelina would betray my
trust, that she would tell him my secret. He would wear his fear on his sleeve
if she did.

When he left her room a few moments later, I
decided to make him pay for his treachery. Since he and Evelina had grown
close, he had stopped locking his door at night, and when he fell back asleep,
I entered his room. He was beneath the covers, but it was easy to slide them
off of him. I grabbed hold of his newly healed arm and yanked it from its
socket again. I was swift, already out the door and back in the front room when
he jolted awake from the pain. His scream shook the house and Evelina ran to
his side to quell his nightmare. When she saw his arm dangling from its socket,
she called for help.

I snapped his arm back into place and told
her to fetch the sling. “You must have pulled it in your sleep,” I said.

I assumed he was in too much pain to speak
when he did not answer. Evelina returned and I tied his shoulder in place and
assigned her to play nurse. When I left them, I was satisfied there would be no
more talk of leaving without me.

18 November.
— This morning I went
in to check on him. Evelina was still by his side, but had dropped off to sleep
with her head on his pillow. Helgado was awake.

“She needs to rest in her room,” I said.

The sound of my voice woke her. “I want to
stay,” she whispered.

I left them alone again, but was not
surprised when she came to fetch me an hour later.

“Helgado needs to talk to you,” she said.

I did not bother to ask what about and headed
into his room.

“I wasn’t telling you the truth before about
the monastery,” he said. “I had written Brother Clemente a letter telling him
about the plague after all.” Evelina came into the room with me but he asked
her to wait outside. He needed to keep his lies separate and straight. “I
couldn’t leave without warning them,” he said. “But as I was leaving, the friar
stopped me and broke his vow. He told me that God had spoken to him and given
him a message for me.”

He paused for a moment, either for dramatic
effect or, most likely, to come up with something convincing.

“He said, ‘Man has warded off the devil since
the beginning of time. This plague, too, shall be conquered. The dead are not
returning in the name of God, but come as warriors of Satan. Let the Almighty
Son of God enact His revenge upon these days. Do not give in to temptation. The
Lord has a great plan for you. Go into the desert, a message awaits you there.
Go in peace, my brother.’” He looked at me as though he expected me to say
something that would suggest his monk’s words were riveting. I denied him the
pleasure and said nothing.

“When I left them,” he said. “I headed into
the wilderness and that’s where I found Farouch.”

I restrained my laughter at the silliness of
calling his made-up shaman Farouch.

“He’s a Métis shaman,” he said. “I smelled
the smoke from his pipe first—it was blowing across the clearing from
where he sat in front of a huge red teepee.” He smiled and I wondered if a bit
of delusion had not infected his fabrication. He may very well have imagined
his vision; the desert sun has a way of draining a man of his senses.

“Whoa, did he make an impression—his
stature was ferocious. And he was a giant, kind of like you. I thought I was
hallucinating. He was bare-chested, wearing nothing but loin cloth and prayer
beads, and had stripes of red and white paint on his cheeks and chest. His skin
was brown and leathery, like he’d been in the sun for years. And he didn’t
really speak to me with words, but somehow I knew he was inviting me into his
teepee.”

Helgado was able to describe the inside of
the tent more elaborately than I would have given him credit for. He has a
vivid imagination.

“The interior was bronze with large stripes
of gold and silver,” he said. “And it shimmered in the firelight—and the
smoke—the smoke from the fire pit went up through the opening at the top
of the teepee and a little pot-belly kettle sat bubbling on a rack just above
the fire. The steam climbed the walls of the tent and twisted itself around the
smoke, as both escaped the hole at the top together.” He paused again and then
proceeded to detail the furniture and accents. “There was a small stool next to
the fire and a mat of straw that was lying on the ground at the back of the
tent,” he said. “And several clay bowls with purple powder residue were turned
on their sides, and a few pestles and glass containers scattered across the
floor—everything was stained plum color.” Finally, his shaman spoke.
“Miitshow was the first thing he said aloud, and I don’t know how, but I knew
what it meant—he wanted me to sip from his cup. It was filled with a
thick, sticky substance that numbed my tongue. It had a funny
taste—familiar but not really. I can’t describe it, but I can still feel
it on the tip of my tongue.”

He said its texture was like honey, but not
sweet. He guessed it was a mix of blood and sap. When he drew his tongue across
his top lip, I thought of blood—his blood.

“I downed it,” he said. “And then he offered
me a drag off his pipe. That’s when he started chanting. I could’ve sworn the
fire rose and fell with the sound of his voice.”

Helgado closed his eyes and began to chant
softly. “
Toñ Periinaan, dañ li syel kayaayeen
kiichitwaawan toñ noo. Kiiya kaaniikaanishtaman ...”Almost possessed, he did
not stop until he opened his eyes again and said: “Answichil—Amen.”

It was the
Our Father
in Michif, the language of
the Métis. Since Helgado’s expression was blank when he recited, I could not
tell if he had actually slipped away in that moment of recall.
“Sorry,” he said. “
The
shaman taught me that and I haven’t forgotten.”

I was
beginning to get bored with his extraneous details, but I did not want to
distract him from the cause and so I let him continue.

“When the sun went down, the fire lit up
shadows in the tent. Things in the desert were creeping all around us. The
shaman chanted, outmatching the rise of wails coming from the dead outside.
That’s when I saw him produce a dark seed—it was the size of a macadamia
nut.” Helgado reached into his pocket with his free arm and produced the very
same seed. “He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger like this,” he said.
“And then trapped it in both his hands and rubbed his palms together really
fast. After a few seconds, the seed disappeared and there was this plum-colored
powder in his palms. With his hands open, he moved to the fire and blew the
powder into the flame. It went up in the smoke and out through the hole at the
top of the teepee.”

I could guess what happened next—the
bloodless dropped all around them.

“One by one,” he said, “the shadows outside
the tent fell like dominoes. And when the last wail was silenced, the shaman
stopped chanting. ‘Waapow, waapow’ he said pointing to the door of the tent.”
Helgado told me he looked out and saw the bloodless toppled over one another on
the ground. “They didn’t rise again but melted into a black—”

“Tar?”

“Yes,” he said. “The powder from the seed
causes them to melt or something. It’s like magic—or acid. They just fold
under the power of the seeds—and not just the seeds but the whole plant
too. The shaman calls it the Dilo plant.”

That the deterrent to this plague is found in
the natural world should not surprise me. Nature’s way of correcting herself, I
suppose. She thrives despite the erring ways of man. “What does the plant look
like?” I asked.

“I never saw it,” he said. “But the shaman
said it had a thick yellow stigma and five large droopy brown petals ridged on
their outer edges. The seeds are in the bulb, and the bulb is at the bottom of
the style. But the plant has to be flowering or they’ll be no seeds.”

It was a story for Byron. He believed the
virus had a natural enemy, though he thought it would be found in man rather
than the earth. Since I had little else to go on, I believed the boy’s tale.
“Does the seed have to be made into powder for it to work?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve always broken
it down.”

“And how many of these seeds do you have?” I
already knew the answer.

“Not enough,” he said.

“Can the plant be cultivated?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I never tried.”

He was holding back on the map, so I pushed a
little harder.

“Where did the shaman find these plants?”

“At the base of a bluff off the coast,” he
said.

“Which coast?”

“The Ligurian Sea.”

It was not far from where we were. “We need
to get more,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “The bottom of that
bluff—that’s where I’m headed. They’ll be flowering soon and I didn’t
expect to be here this long.”

I caught the blush that rose up his neck when
he reached behind him for the map. It reminded me I was hungry.

“He gave me this and told me to go back to my
father’s villa before going to the bluff,” he said. “He told me I needed to
pick up the photograph, but he didn’t say why.”

I am certain that was not the first lie he
told me throughout our conversation.

“Will you come with me?” He had accepted the
necessity of my being one of his traveling companions. The bluff would be
impossible to scale without my help, as would protecting Evelina. “We have to
leave,” he said. “Tomorrow if possible.”

“May I see the map?” I asked.

“It stays with me,” he said, though he held
it out to me. “I’m sure you understand.”

But of course I understand.

Later.
— Evelina woke in the
middle of the night and came to see me. I had just finished preparing our
provisions and was about to get out my pen and journal. She looked soft and
lovely with sleep still in her eyes. She is a temptation for the strongest
vampire, even as the incense pollutes her smell, that luscious scent that
always lurks somewhere between my nostrils and the back of my throat. I cannot
wait to taste her again.

“I’m frightened,” she said.

“You are safe with me.”

I could only allay her fears with the same
mantra I had been conditioning her with since the start.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because you haven’t fed,” she said. “You’re
starving and depleted and you can’t possibly protect me in this condition.”

Though she sounded slightly hysterical, she
was right. I was struggling. “I will feed when I can,” I said.

“Why have you avoided feeding from us?”

I thought her question was ridiculous until I
realized I had denied my nature without thinking about it. Why had I not taken
from the boy? I could have indulged here and there, especially if I knocked him
out first. The stench of humanness had clung to me ever since I resigned myself
to saving the girl. “I am still satisfied from …” I do not know why I had
difficulty voicing it. I had tasted her blood, fed off her sustenance—her
child’s life source—and was desperate for more, but in doing so I had
broken my promise to my beloved. I did not want to be reminded of that.

“But Byron wouldn’t want you to starve like
this,” she said.

Her mention of Byron darkened my mood and I
scowled without realizing I was doing so. Evelina reached out her hand and
placed it on my cheek.

“You are handsome,” she said. “But not when
you look angry.”

My fangs dropped at the touch of her skin
against my cheek. I threw my tongue up to quell their itch. “Go,” I said. “You
need to sleep.”

She let her hand drop and my desire died.

“I won’t survive this journey without you,”
she said. “I can’t.” She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out the
vial. It was filled with fresh blood. The aroma nearly destroyed me. “If you
won’t do this for me,” she said. “Do it for Byron.”

If only she knew what she asked of me. If
only she knew that drinking her blood was the last thing my beloved would want
me to do. If only …

I took the vial from her hand and tucked it
into my coat pocket. She left me alone then with these empty thoughts and the
temptation to drink her blood a second time.

19 November.
— We left this morning
before sunrise. Helgado and Evelina waited for my signal on the steps of the
villa. I set off ahead of them to the main square to ring the bell in the tower
as a distraction for the bloodless. I confess I was more than capable of
accomplishing my task. Sometime before dawn, I gave in to desire. Her blood
coursed through me with vigor, as her baby spiced the mix and made her serum
more potent. I was high when I left the villa, steeped in the ecstasy of those
few drops from the vial. I slipped past the bloodless without effort, agile and
strong.

When I scaled the side of the bell tower, I
was elevated enough to see the entire village and the villa on the top of the
hill where Evelina and Helgado waited for my signal. I struck the bell with the
ridge of my newly hardened hand over and over again, drawing the bloodless to
my call. The side streets emptied, as ailing bodies crawled and stumbled into
the main square. When the street was clear, the boy led the girl over the mess
of tar and down the path I had taken several days earlier.

Once I had corralled the bloodless in the
main square with my bell, I flung myself from the tower to the peak of the
chapel beside it. I flew from rooftop to rooftop until I reached a safe place to
land and made my way up the streets to the shed. Evelina was relieved when she
saw me, throwing her arms around me. Helgado reloaded his rucksack and a second
bag.

“We have no time,” I said, sweeping Evelina
up in my arms and tossing the half empty bag over my shoulders. “Now,” I said
to the boy.

We headed out of the yard and down the street
to the fence Helgado had crawled through on his way up to the villa. I put
Evelina down and told him to go first. He had some difficulty sliding through
the opening with his injured arm, but I gave him a hand and he braved the pain.
Evelina went next, slipping through easily even with her large belly. I tossed
the bags to Helgado, pulling his attention away from me, and leapt over the
fence. Evelina saw me and smiled. She knew I had fed.

By the time the sun had risen, we were miles
from the villa and it was lost to memory. My mind wandered, as we made our way
through the overgrown vines of the vineyards.

“Can we rest?” Evelina’s voice broke the
silence. I did not think of stopping. Since I had enough energy for both of us,
I reached over to pick her up but she pulled away. “I don’t think that’ll do
it,” she said. “I feel … I need to sit.”

“Is it the baby?” I asked.

She nodded.

“What are you feeling?” Helgado asked.

“Just a little pain,” she said. “A
cramp—a stitch, that’s all.”

We stopped between a row of vines, making a
little place for her to rest on the ground. I laid my coat down and helped her
sit on it.

“Maybe she needs something to eat,” Helgado
said. He looked through the bag to see what he had. “Nuts, apricots or dried
jerky?” He asked.

“None of those will do,” I said. “She needs
protein.” Byron had told me the girl would require plenty of animal flesh to
enrich the growth of the baby. He suggested I hunt small game for her, feeding
her the livers and hearts if she would suffer them. I had neglected his command
since we had enough canned food at the villa. “I will have to get her something
fresh,” I said. “I will be back.”

 
I instructed Helgado to mark a perimeter around them with
some of his powder.

“I only have a few seeds left—”

I stopped him with my scowl. His frugality
made me livid. “If I am not here to defend her—”

“Okay, okay,” he said.