The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier (Book 1) (8 page)

The water is calm, empty, abandoned. My clan
keeps watch, as I guard the girl below, afraid they may be tempted. It gives me
time to pore over Byron’s notes, and I am well aware—

13 October.
— My previous entry
was cut short when Jean called me up on deck. His excitement was unmistakable, and
I hoped his Siren had returned. I had been below since the sun set and when I surfaced
I saw the tiny crescent of a moon way up in the sky. The clan was gathered at
the helm and I rushed to meet them. “Là bas!” Jean pointed toward the dark
shoreline.

“What is it?” Elizabeth said.

Stephen and Veronica were huddled together, she
having grown weak and finding it difficult to focus. I wondered when her
beloved would beg me to let her feed on the girl. I avoided that confrontation
daily. I am by far the strongest vampire on the ship, and I know they cannot defeat
me with a mutiny, for I could destroy each and every one of them. Doing so,
however, would break me in ways I cannot explain.

“It’s moving,” Stephen said, as he pointed to
the shadow along the shore.

The thing was difficult to see because it was
not giving off any heat. At first I could only make out a shadowed outline
rustling in the brush, but as we floated along the river’s edge, I recognized
the danger. The shadows multiplied and seemed to grow larger, as they came
closer. Multiple swarms, countless swarms spun toward the river’s edge, as we
watched the shoreline in disbelief. The howls of bloodless reached us, as they
bayed at the passing ship.

“We’re safe on the water, right?” Veronica
said.

I assured her we were, though I began to
doubt it, and within seconds my fears were realized. To my horror, the
bloodless dropped one by one into the water. Like rats driven out of a forest
by fire, they plunged off the bank and into the river. We watched as hundreds
of bodies dove in head first and came back up chomping their wolframlike jaws. Our
sails were down since the wind had died and without a drop of gasoline in our
tank, we only coasted. As the bloodless moved through the water toward us, all
we could do was watch.

“Qu’est-ce qu’on fait?” Jean’s look of panic
gave me resolve.

“Shall I get the girl?” Elizabeth asked.

“No.” I was certain the bloodless could not
climb up the side of the sloop, but they were resilient to water and I had no
idea what drove them so fiendishly toward us. Swarms made their way through the
current, coming at speeds I had not seen them reach before.

“They’ll get to the boat,” Stephen said.

“But they will not get on board,” I said.

I ordered the others to pull up the ropes and
ladders hanging over the sides and to release the lifeboat at the stern of the
ship.

“What if we need zis to escape?”

“They will not breach the ship.” I was
adamant on that point.

We stood on the deck, watching the heads in
the water get closer. At least a hundred closed in on the sloop, clambering
over one another, snapping their jaws like a gaggle of gulls fighting for
measly scraps. “Lower ze mainsail!” Jean yelled.

He and Elizabeth let fly the sheets on the mast,
trying to catch what bit of wind they could, but it was pointless. The air stood
still.

“Should I shoot at them?” Stephen said.

We had found spear guns with the fishing
supplies.

“It will not stop them,” I said.

“They are coming around to the bow!” Elizabeth
said.

“The stern too,” Veronica said.

In a frenzy, the bloodless surrounded the
sloop, getting as close to its hull as possible. From above we must have looked
like a cube of sugar attacked by a farm of ants. They toppled over one another,
sending each other under the water. I panicked when I realized the weight of
them could sink the boat. The sloop would not stay afloat if they pulled it
down.

Elizabeth peered over the side and almost fell
over when one of them climbed up on top of another and grabbed her hand. Her scream
drowned out their howls and I jammed my boot into his jaw. The whole bottom
part of his mouth fell away, though it did not stop him. With one more fierce
kick, I tossed his head back, severing it from his spine. It seemed the wolframlike
bones were no challenge for my adrenaline. Jean gave up the sails and went to
the prow, trying to prevent them from getting onto the safety net dangling
below. Stephen and Veronica were on the other side of the deck whacking at them
with their fishing poles. I had not thought of the girl, even as the bloodless
reached the railings and got onto the deck, but her voice snapped me from my
fury. “Vincent?”

“Get back down,” I said. I growled at her and
regretted the look of terror I put on her face. She turned on her heel and
practically stumbled back down the hatch. I yelled for Elizabeth on the other
side of me—she was the best choice, my only choice. She had shown the
least amount of desire to feed off the girl. “Stay with the girl,” I said. “And
cover her with the oil.” Elizabeth was in a daze, still shaken from the grab of
one of them. I touched her shoulders and made her face me. I looked into her
eyes, pulling her back to me, stopping everything around us, forcing her to see
only me. “Elizabeth,” I said. “Have you heard my command?” She nodded and gave
me a slight smile. “Repeat it back to me,” I said.

“Stay with the girl and cover her in oil,”
she said.

Just then a bloodless flopped over the rail
and onto the deck, lunging at her and clasping her wrist. Before she could
scream, I pummeled his arm with my bare hands, my adrenaline rush accelerated
by the danger. I did not hesitate to crush another as it came over the rail
too. I swirled around and grabbed it by the neck, squeezing its throat between
my fingers, ripping its head from its body and tossing it over the side of the
rail. The one-armed bloodless that had grabbed Elizabeth rebounded and reached
for her again. This time she fought him off, piercing his eye with her finger,
forcing her entire hand into his socket and then using his head to batter the next
that tried to attack her. I threw a few more bodies from my feet and pulled Elizabeth
from the fray. As we made our way to the hatch, I body-checked several more, sending
them over the rail and back into the black water. I lifted the hatch and helped
Elizabeth down to safety. “Protect the girl,” I said.

When Elizabeth disappeared below, I sealed
the hatch and headed for Jean. I ran to him, and with my rush of adrenaline ripped
the bloodless from my longtime friend.

“Le pistolet!” Jean had a small gun strapped
to the inside of his leg and tried to get it when several more grabbed hold of
him. I reached for his gun and fired off shots—two then three, the
bullets did not stop them and my effort was in vain. I hate myself for not stopping
the bloodless little girl from coming up through the swarm and digging her teeth
into Jean’s thigh. The infected child grabbed hold of my friend with her
crocodile bite and did not let him go. “Maxine!” His cry of terror reached the
stars and if his beloved were there, she would have heard his call.

When I finally severed the child’s head and
tore her from his flesh, it was too late. She had left her mark on my friend,
tearing out his weak skin, as Maxine’s had been ripped open. Jean was finished
and I knew it. He would turn into a horror just like his beloved, forcing me to
end his life. But I did not give up in that moment and freed my friend from the
swarm that had breached the prow. When Stephen came to our aid, it was as if the
attack had only begun. They persisted, climbing up on top of each other to get
between the rails of the boat. Stephen grabbed Jean and threw him over his
shoulder. “Get below,” he yelled.

We made our way to the hatch, where two bloodless
scratched at the portal. I grabbed the first by its soaking strands of hair and
yanked its head back, snapping it clean off. The jaw gnashed at me and I
launched the head to the stern of the ship. The body dropped to the deck and
reached for us, but I stomped on its limbs with vigor. Stephen twisted up the
other bloodless with his blade and pulled its insides out. It was not long
before more came and I threw open the hatch, sending Stephen down with Jean. The
bony fingers of another caught me as I went down, but I was able to shake him
loose before sinking below and sealing the portal.

I had no time to survey the deck, but knew they
invaded us from all sides. Wet, bloodless bodies tossed themselves onto the sloop,
clawing toward us, and the smell of the human. We gathered in the girl’s cabin,
where she cried and lamented my outburst. Elizabeth consoled her until she saw
Jean’s wound. I made certain none of the others were injured before turning my
attention to him. “Let me see it,” I said.

“Je suis finis.” The most definitive sentence
in French—he was done for. He knew his fate was just like Maxine’s and it
was only a matter of time before he became one of them.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Elizabeth said.
She held her emotion in check, though I could see she writhed inside.

“Let me help,” Veronica said. She rubbed a
balm on Jean’s inner thigh where his flesh was torn out, just as Byron had done
for Maxine.

“You ’ave to escape,” he said. “Zis is not ze
end.”

I had run out of ideas. We were never going
to get through those monsters with the girl even if we drowned her in incense.
They had detected her smell from a distance, and their energy peaked with their
baptism in the river. The water made them supercharged, frenzied like vampires
to blood. “We are trapped,” I said.

“Non,” Jean said. He spoke through clenched
teeth. The pain was clearly unbearable. “I weel get you out.” Despite the
anguish, the fever, the unsettling reality of his situation, he proposed a plan
for our escape. It was a tactical nightmare, but Jean insisted he had seen it work
when a British ship breached the
São Cristóbel.

“We have to give it a try,” Stephen said.

“And the girl?” I did not believe she was up
for the physical will his plan entailed.

“I can do it,” she said. Her feminine voice
was a stranger among the tenor of the vampires. She was brave, knowing there
was a strong chance she would not survive the escape. Byron would have never approved
of my putting her life in jeopardy this way, but I had no other option. If she
did not survive, at the very least we would.

“This is the only way,” Veronica said.

I could barely look at the wasted vampire when
she spoke. Her emaciated frame was frail and weak, a constant reminder of my
failure to keep them safe. For a moment, I considered feeding off the girl. If
each of us nourished ourselves on her blood, we could escape unscathed, we
could free ourselves from the deathtrap if only … if only …

And then what
Vincent?
I
heard Byron’s voice as clear as when he spoke into my thoughts.
And then what?
“We will try Jean’s
plan,” I said.

I delegated their assignments and encouraged
them with my resolve. The bloodless were noisy up on the deck and we could hear
them bearing down on the hatch. By now a super swarm had most likely toppled
the rails of the sloop, and it would not be long before the deck would collapse,
if the boat did not sink altogether.

Jean’s plan was to puncture a whole in the ship’s
stern and escape through the opening into the rush of water. The sloop would
certainly sink, but we planned on getting far enough away before it did. The
weight of our bodies would sink us, and we could walk along the bottom of the
river to the bank on the other side. We do not need to worry about holding our
breath underwater—air is inconsequential. But for the girl, time would be
of the essence. I planned to cradle her in my arms, hoping she could hold her
breath long enough.

When Stephen and Veronica took axes to the inside
of the hull, the rest of us waited in the cabin at the bow of the ship. I held
the girl in my arms, ready for when the water rushed in. “I will tell you when
to take your last breath,” I said. She did not move, but I could feel her cling
to me more tightly.

When Stephen signaled for us to come, we
waded through the cabin to the opening in the hull. We had to go under before
we could get out, and I encouraged her to breath in deeply. “One last one,” I
said. “Hold it.” She filled her lungs and closed her mouth. I dunked us beneath
the water and headed directly to the opening. Veronica and Stephen had already escaped
and were on the look out for bloodless. Elizabeth and Jean followed in the
rear. I suppose I should have known. I should have realized that he would save
us all.

The girl was tucked into my chest, as
Veronica and Elizabeth flanked me and Stephen rushed ahead to the bank. We assumed
the other side of the river was empty. Making our way across the silt at the
bottom of the stream, we only saw a few frantic stragglers at the water’s
surface. The bloodless seemed more prone to float than sink, and their legs
dangled overtop us, as we made our way across the bottom. When we finally surfaced,
I laid the girl on the dirt. Elizabeth examined her while Stephen and Veronica
checked the perimeter.

“She’s not moving,” Elizabeth said.

“Is she breathing?” I asked.