I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (27 page)

As in my early years, constant movement and
vigilance would be called for.

So be it.

We would be together.

Of course, Vinci would not suffer the news
gladly, so I chose not to inform him quite yet. Of late, he had
kept to his rooms and his own divertissements, whatever they
were.

The hunters tipped their hand the following
evening. Returning to the house where my Elizaveta dwelled, I found
it fortified against my kind. The windows to the grandmother’s room
were locked from within. I believed I discerned a figure seated
beside the woman as she slept. Even with the windows secured, the
stench of garlic from the room wafted out into the night air to my
perceptive nose. At another window I spied Elizaveta at her
dressing table, brushing her hair, her stomach full with our child.
The man who called himself her husband stood behind her, hand on
her shoulder. Master Hawthorne and the patriarch patrolled the
gardens, Hawthorne with the crossbow the boy had mentioned at port
arms. I easily avoided their detection.

Aalam awaited me on the roof.

Prey
tell
, I asked the child,
fixing him with my gaze,
why
are
Master
Hawthorne
and
the
priest
out
and
about
at
this
hour
? Aalam
related something he overheard his father and the other men
speaking of, that
the
devil
is
afoot
and
haunts
these
grounds
.

And what of the nature of this beast? I
further pressed.

It
is
a
devil
in
human
form
, the child answered.
One
that
feeds
from
the
living
,
robbing
them
of
their
vitality
,
sapping
them
of
their
spirit
.

I asked Aalam if he believed such
nonsense.

My
father
, his reply solemn and
reflective,
has
all
my
life
related
tales
of
such
a
fantastical
and
otherworldly
nature
.

Would
it
not
be
better
, I attempted to persuade the boy,
to
marshall
said
forces
in
tracking
down
the
one
responsible
for
disappearance
of
the
children
?

That
is
their
present
task
, responded the boy.
They
hold
this
creature
responsible
.

I broke my hold of him then, allowing my gaze
to wander. Aalam blinked his eyes rapidly and rubbed his temple. I
waited for him to regain his senses.
You
m
—
must
forgive
me
, he stammered,
I
feel
as
though
I
have
come
out
of
a
feint
. I gestured
over the lip of the roof,
Best
not
to
swoon
at
this
height
,
though
I
would
steady
you
by
my
hand
. I clapped him on the shoulder and he smiled, trust in
his eyes, guiled by my wiles.

We continued our conversation, picking up
from the night before. Aalam with no clue as to my nature. I
listened to his every word, most of which concerned his travels in
distant climes with his father. Yet my mind was elsewhere.
Elizaveta. We need take leave of this place and its peoples.
Petersburg had been good to me, sustaining me for decades. However,
just as surely as the armed men below hunted me, the city I held
dear was now compromised.

Tell
me
Aalam
,
where
does
your
father
believe
you
go
at
night
? I asked him another
night.

He
tucks
me
under
my
blankets
,
and
lays
a
kiss
upon
my
head
before
joining
the
other
men
.

And
what
of
the
lady
of
the
house
,
how
is
she
?

Bereaved
.
She
spends
her
day
pining
as
for
the
lost
.

Perhaps
we
could
alleviate
her
dolor
, I suggested,
with
a
game
.

A
game
, excitement in the
child’s tone,
do
tell
!

In
the
morning
,
when
you
see
the
lady
,
find
a
moment
to
speak
to
her
alone
,
and
tell
her
an
old
friend
wishes
a
word
with
her
.
Tell
her
he
will
meet
her
where
they
first
met
at
the
appointed
time
.

What
type
of
game
…? The child looked at me, not comprehending.

Tell
no
one
else
,
I stared again into his eyes, deep into his being.
The
lady
will
ask
you
no
questions
.
Neither
will
you
pursue
the
topic
.
Do
you
understand
what
it
is
I
ask
you
?

He said he did and I freed him from my
psychic embrace. Yes, this child would serve me well.

And we would have met each other at the
Lion’s Bridge the next night, my Elizaveta and I, if not for the
intercession of another.

Many are the ways we deal with grief. Some
forget trauma, expunging the details from memory or repressing them
in the unconscious. Not I. The scene I came upon that night, a
grotesque tableau lain before me at the foot of the bridge…it
remains with me despite my better efforts to forget. To this day I
recall clearly every minute, grisly detail.

Elizaveta came to the appointed spot before
me.

She found Vinci waiting for her.

Perhaps a minute or two, surely not more,
separated our arrivals. In those few moments, all my dreams
evaporated, every hope rendered futile. When I happened upon the
scene, my affianced lay unmoving near the railing. Her eyes stared
blankly at the world, the spark within them extinguished. Her
lustrous black hair was tousled about her, soaking up the blood in
which she lay. The blood, her own, a vast puddle of cruor dripping
into the Griboedov Canal below. Her throat appeared untouched. She
had been opened at the stomach, her viscera discarded about the
walk.

Vinci crouched a meter away, besides the
nearest cast-iron lion housing the bridge’s supports. His head
lowered, he feasted on the small form he clutched in both hands. An
umbilical cord draped from his tiny victim to the cobbles of the
street, the cord jerking in mid-air as Vinci imbibed greedily.
Sensing my presence, he looked up, his mouth and cheeks ensanguined
from my child.

Damn
you
!

I flew at him, pure impulse and rage. We
clashed as two snarling beasts, a terrible altercation. Locked
together we rolled on the street, enraged, lashing out at each
other, our fangs exposed. Though I was not yet powerful enough to
dispatch him out of hand, he no longer possessed the strength to
defeat me. Ultimately the advantage was mine, and I saw in his eyes
that he recognized such. We struggled until I gained the upper
hand, pinning him beneath me at arm’s length.

You
despise
me
at
this
moment
, he growled.

And
for
all
that
follow
! I promised, looking down on a being I no longer
recognized. With his knurled and veined hands he attempted to press
my mouth away from his throat, a struggle he lost with each passing
second, my head lowering inch by inch.

You
despise
me
and
you
will
for
some
time
to
come
, he promised something I knew
with certainty.
But
you
will
come
to
understand
my
actions
.

I owed him nothing, he who had taken all from
me.

You
will
come
to
follow
, he pressed back against me, my jaws lowering.

Elizaveta, my love. Our child, torn from the
womb.

I cracked my mouth open as wide as I could,
spittle dangling from my fangs—

Reversing his hands, Vinci took the back of
my skull and drove my forehead down into the stones past his
shoulder. Rendered nearly unconscious, I rolled off him and lay in
the street. He could have finished me then, had he so chosen.

Even
in
this
, I heard
him clearly in my disorientation,
I
educate
you
.

When I could sit up he was gone. I crawled
over to Elizaveta, knowing it was too late. I was too late. She was
no more. Near us, our naked child lay discarded on the cobbles like
so much refuse.

Oh how I despised him then, hated him madly
and deeply. The way only a son can hate a father. He had made me
what I was, and then deprived me of all that mattered. I was left
with memories alone. My Elizaveta. Where once flesh and blood,
beauty and intellect, now an empty vessel in my arms, fated to rot
in the earth.

Such was my grief, I ignored the necessary
cautions. It was there that they found me, besides my love, and the
lifeless shell of the child that would have been our son. The net
fell from above, ensnaring me. A silver net! Any other material I
would have torn to shreds within moments, but not this. Its
silver-treated fibers seared my flesh with every move.

Convinced of the futility of my struggle, I
looked up to find myself surrounded by the hunters.
Tak
chto
eto
demon
, affirmed the patriarch. This
is the demon. They gathered about the scene, the holy man with
torch and cutlass; Lady Hawthorne brandishing a Deringer; the man
who passed as her brother with his crossbow centered on me; only
the Arab, in his suit and turban, unarmed.

Elizaveta’s husband was there as well.
Producing a pistol, he pressed it to my head through the net. Tears
streaked his face as he gasped for breath.

Destroying
him
, Lady Hawthorne
spoke,
will
not
bring
her
back
.
Will
not
bring
them
back
.

The husband collapsed to his knees.
Better
I
should
join
her
then
, he took the pistol from my head and pressed it to his
own.

Don’t
be
daft
, Master
Hawthorne deftly removed the pistol from out his hand.
Time
for
that
later
.

Master Hawthorne stood above me.
Time
now
is
of
the
essence
. The Arab
came behind me. His words—
Salam
,
javoon
—were the last
I heard before a crushing blow to the back of my head rendered me
insensate.

Salam
,
javoon
.

Time is a prison. Behind us stretches a vast
region we remember as the past; before us, as though behind a
perpetually closed door, an unchartered future. We forever occupy
this
spot, a particular moment, the eternal now. Like bugs
in amber, though we fail to recognize our imprisonment. And what of
the alternative? Nonexistence, death, never to have been at all? I
understood Elizaveta’s husband’s grief. I shared it.

Salam
,
javoon
.

The words that had announced my fugue
delivered me from it.

Can
you
hear
me
,
javoon
?

I recognized the Arab by his voice.
Restrained, all I could see of him were his shoes and pants.

The device in which they had secured me was
known as the Street Sweeper’s Daughter. My head was pushed down
while my knees forced up into a crouching position. A constraint
device, a metal contraption of loops and chains treated with
silver, I appeared squashed in a bear trap. I knew what it was
without having to be told, knew also how those left so restrained
would bleed from the mouth and nose over time and lose their
sanity.

I sensed that it was still night, the same
night I was taken. Wherever we were—I suspected the grandmother’s
house—it was damp. A coal stove did little to dispel the chill.

The Arab and I were apparently alone for the
moment.