The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier (Book 1) (11 page)

With that, he vanished into the field as furtively
as he had come.

25 October.
— We are in a villa on
the outskirts of Portero, a town abandoned but not empty. Swarms rove the
streets, though we reached the hideout easily enough by scaling the rocks
around the village. Elizabeth and I took turns smiting bloodless, as we bore Evelina
to safety. After our encounter with Rangu, I thought it best to hole up for a
while. I have made the villa resilient to invasion and we were fortunate to
find canned goods in its cupboards. Evelina will have food for several weeks, though
I worry about Elizabeth. We have grown hungry again already, which is why I
decided we would sample the blood substitute.

As Evelina slept, Elizabeth and I dined by
candlelight in the small kitchen. The cases of blood substitute were sealed,
each one labeled and dated in my beloved’s handwriting—I felt him with
me, guiding me as I made my selection. I chose the most recent specimen out of
the dozens of vials, confident we could ration the portions and make them last
for weeks. “We will share one every couple of days,” I said, holding the vial
up to the candle, studying the thick crimson serum.

“It looks like the real thing,” Elizabeth
said, wrinkling her nose. “Do you think it tastes like it?”

“We can hope.”

When I tore off the cap, the pungency of the
fake blood struck me. It was similar to the scent I adored, but less fleshly. My
fangs dropped and my mouth moistened, as I held the vial up to my nose. The feral
scent aroused me, reminding me of every battlefield I had crossed. The stench
of wounded blood penetrated the senses more deeply, even if less savory. I have
always been a discerning biter, though I have been known to experiment. Every
savor of blood is distinct, for every human being is a unique and complicated
nexus of nourishment. No two donors taste alike, which makes the pursuit doubly
pleasing. I assumed the same would be true for the synthetic blood. I put the
vial to my lips and tossed my head back, downing half of the blood in one
swill.

“What does it taste like?” Elizabeth was keen
to try it, so I handed off the vial without explaining that the texture was wanting,
less coagulated than authentic blood, and the flavor was acrid. She emptied the
vial into her wide open mouth, and then licked her fangs and front teeth. She
shivered and gave me a sour look. “It’s horrible!”

She too had a sensitive palate. “Shush,” I
said. “You will wake the girl.”

She shook her shoulders as though freeing
herself from the experience. “Will we ever gorge on proper blood again?”

I was glad Evelina did not tempt her. Never
had she asked to feed on the girl, and though I cannot tell if she wants to, I
doubt she could resist if the opportunity arose. The newborn will be a whole
other challenge—for both of us.

“That is the hope,” I said. “By saving Evelina
and her child, we will not want for blood again.” I had my doubts, though I
would never voice them. I reassured her our efforts were valiant and we had no
reason to fail.

My vampire companion retired to a bedroom
where she could daydream of better days, as she suffered the substitute’s
second-rate blood high. I stayed in the front room, waiting for the sun to rise
over the mountain’s ridge. The villa is at the top of a hill and looks out over
the others. I reclined on the settee while the blood substitute coursed through
me. Like lightning running across my insides, it gave me the rush to which I
had grown addicted.

When the morning light began to wash the
room, I took out the small journal I had found in Byron’s coat. I flipped
through its pages, remarking his elegant hand. His script was always
embellished with swirls and flourishes. He made every word an event, which is
why this one entry caught my eye. In big bold capital letters, he had marked
impure
across the page. The word stood
alone—the entry before and after it unrelated; one described the earth’s
rise in temperature and the other was an observation about specimen number ten.
I assumed his reference was to the brain he had been examining at the time but
I could not make the connection. The bold print was surreal, invasive,
innocuous and terrifying all at once. I flipped through the pages to find anything
that could be related, and when I came to the last entry, the one dated the day
before I yanked him from his laboratory in the catacombs, I found what I was
looking for.

The blood
substitute is impure. One drop has made my insides feel as though they are
turning to stone. The pain is unbearable—cannot let Vincent know.

Byron had not always been secretive, but we
never discussed the blood sub—

26 October.
— The scream that
rushed up the hallway to meet me suspended my horror and reason. I jumped up
from the escritoire and ran to the room where Evelina slept, but she too had
heard Elizabeth’s cry and headed in to see the vampire. We found her toppled
over on the floor, her legs still on the bed and her torso contorted and
twisted on the rug beneath her. Her face was buried under her hair. She flailed
her arms and reached out to me. “Vincent … the pain.”

I crouched down beside her and took her up in
my arms. Her arched torso vexed and convulsed. I brushed the hair away from her
face and was struck with terror. Impossible nature! The expression on her
visage was a manifestation of her anguish. Like a statue, rigidity had seized her
and hardened her to rock. Her lips were mere lines, as the corners of her mouth
had become taut and stony. Her eyes were wide and her brows raised in a perfect
arch of petrification. I took her face in my hands but it chipped beneath my
grasp. Soon her torso stopped convulsing and became stone too. Lastly, her legs
and feet went rigid. I pulled them down onto the floor with the rest of her,
but their weight made them crash and smash into pieces. She was a broken cast
of slate—an uncanny reproduction—a marble effigy.

“Oh no! no! no!” I could barely hear Evelina’s
screams, as they filled the room.

She dropped to her knees, beholding her
guardian in smithereens. I did not know if Elizabeth’s condition was
infectious, if she had been attacked and was contaminated, so I tried to hold
the girl back with my free arm, but confusion got the better of me, and as I
reached for Evelina, she slipped farther away.

“She is stone!” Evelina’s voice was so small
it was barely audible.

My own suffering sprang up, as the searing
pain of a seizure took hold of my head.
The
blood
—I could not speak. My brain seemed to rattle in my skull and everything
shook around me. The anguish made my body heave, and I felt my gut ripped from
my body, as my ribcage was torn apart and my lungs were pulled out of my corse.
My limbs cramped as though the very flesh within them was ground up in a
grinder. I went blind, as I tried to raise my arms to steady my dizzying head. Elizabeth
disappeared, the room vanished, the world went mute, and I succumbed to
oblivion until my angel of salvation arrived.

When I finally woke, I was prostrate on the bedroom
floor, and the memory of my suffering was fuzzy. She saved me, Byron. Your girl
saved me from the painful demise a vampire should never know.

I retched when I saw Elizabeth’s fractured
body beside me, overwhelmed by my reality. “Vincent!” Evelina threw her arms
around my slumped frame. “Thank goodness.” Her tender voice calmed my nerves, as
she stroked my forehead with warm fingers. “I didn’t have the strength to move
you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you’re still on the floor.”

I smelled the blood and my voice was barely a
whisper when I asked her what happened.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said.
“We couldn’t go on without you.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the
back of her hand, revealing the blood. I reached for her arm but she pulled it
away.

“You are hurt,” I said.

“I’m fine. You’re alive.” She tried to hide
her shame.

“What have you done?”

“I brought you back.”

I did not need to ask; I tasted her still.
Her blood lived in me, pulsing through me with its candied persistence, daring
me to refuse more. I reached for her bloody arm again, this time catching it
before she could get away. The wounds were fresh, the blood coagulated on the
opening. I pulled her arm to me, holding it up to my nose. I drew in her scent,
letting my fangs anticipate the pleasure of piercing her flesh, and then I gave
in, tearing into her wounds with my teeth. I sucked the blood from her as if she
held a bottomless reserve, the pleasure as intense as my earlier pain. Aroused
and wild, I could not stop.

By the time I heard her scream, her anguish
had already shamed me. I pulled my fangs out and dropped her arm from my mouth.
Evelina had passed out, limp on the floor beside me. I did not let my weakness
get the better of me, and rushed to repair the damage. I ran to the kitchen,
her generosity coursing through me, and reached for the bottle of grappa on the
counter, tearing it open as I returned to her slumped on the floor. I pulled
her into my arms and gently tapped her cheeks. When she did not stir, I touched
her mouth with the rim of the open bottle, rubbing some of the liquor on her lips.
I held her for several minutes before she finally opened her eyes and drank
some of the draft. The wounds on her arms had clotted, but would need to be
cleaned and bandaged.

“Vincent,” she said with her eyes closed
again, “do you feel better?”

I had attacked her, gorged on her blood after
she had selflessly saved me, and yet she did not fear me. My safety seemed her
only concern. When she had heard Elizabeth’s scream, she grabbed her small
switchblade. The sight of the stony vampire had frightened her, but when I started
to convulse she reacted without thinking. She swiped the blade across the
inside of her arm multiple times, drawing as much blood as she could. She held
her open wounds to my mouth, forcing the blood into me. Once I started to
swallow, she cut deeper and drew more blood, feeding me in excess of what she
should have spared. Minutes passed, as she let the blood pool in my mouth. She
saw my subtle fangs drop and used them to puncture the vein more deeply,
stopping only when the symptoms seemed to pass and I regained consciousness.

“I prayed for you, Vincent,” she whispered.
“I asked God to spare you for my sake.”

Her compassion should have overwhelmed me,
but I could not forget that her sacrifice would cost me. I desire her blood
more than ever now.

“I won’t survive without you,” she said.
“That’s why I’m willing to risk my life to save yours. If you die…” She looked
away and I did not bother to remind her that her death may very well be my
demise too.

Later.
— I have left
Elizabeth’s remains where they are. Ah, sweet Elizabeth! Her petrified pieces
lie scattered on the floor of the bedroom. When the substitute seized me, I
dropped her and she crashed to the floor, her stony frame smashing into bits.
She is now a heap of dust just as Byron had become. Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust—her end terrifies me for many reasons.

Evelina’s blood acted as a transfusion, purging
me of the tainted substitute and rendering it harmless. I do not know if I
would have succumbed to the same fate as Elizabeth, but I would have eventually
walked the path that Byron had. The substitute had contaminated my beloved and
slowly eaten away his insides.

The blood that courses through me now is the
same that saved me from that dreadful fate. I will never forget what the girl
has done, but I must abate my hunger without tasting her again.

1 November.
— We have been here
for six days. I recovered within hours of drinking her blood, and the girl is
healing too. Her wounds are hidden beneath bandages, though I force her to
check them every few hours. The smell of her blood lives inside me and I cannot
shake my hunger for it. It is the child that makes her cocktail so enticing.
The sugary bite of her ichor, the baby’s blood, is dangerously addictive. Byron
warned me of this. I will not taste her again.

The scape outside is relatively quiet now,
and the few bloodless that have passed by have not detected the girl. But I am
more concerned with the arrival of other vampires at the moment. I am on
constant watch.

The girl eats well and rests often. We have
lived in the same room since the incident. She will not leave me, sleeping at
my side mostly. She is attached and I do not know what else to do but let her indulge
in this bond. I confess her presence comforts me in ways. I do not desire isolation,
nor do I want to remember all that I have lost, but today she asked me one of
those questions that forced me to recall my situation.

“Where did Veronica go?”

We had not spoken of Veronica since the night
she disappeared, and I knew the girl felt responsible for the vampire’s
suffering. “We cannot know,” I said.

“You don’t sense each other?”

“Most of us do,” I said. “But Veronica is too
weak to emit a frequency.”

“A frequency?”

Though Evelina would not understand and I was
in no mood to explain, I gave it my best effort. “We give off an auditory
emission when others are close,” I said.