Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) (29 page)

We do not kill children,
Marek
, they are too important to us alive…He will know
freedom like he has never known.

My
heart skipped a beat. Oleander’s path to her ultimate goals had been in front
of me all the time. I had to return.

I
gently shook the woman awake and told her I was leaving, explaining that I had
a long journey ahead of me. She looked sad but wished me Godspeed, although
taken aback that I had to go so suddenly. I kissed the sleeping children on
their foreheads and sent them happy dreams.

‘Thank
you for everything,’ I whispered to the woman. I was no longer strong enough to
read her thoughts clearly nor did human sounds amplify in my ears, or their
blood tickle
my nose. Could that mean I was truly cured? I
would hurry now before more died.

Zeke

I was woken in
the middle of the night by Jean
. He asked me if
I wanted to play a game.

I
rubbed my eyes awake. I could see his teeth and eyes in the dark. His teeth
were always shiny. Jean helped me up and I went to take off my nightshirt to
put my day clothes on. Jean said it didn’t matter if I was a little bit naughty
and ran around in my nightshirt. He wouldn’t tell Oleander if I didn’t. It had
been a while since Jean had played a game with me.

He
held a candle and his eyes now looked yellowy red and a little frightening. But
then he smiled his big smile and I could not help but smile too.

‘We
are going to play hide and seek in the house.’ I remembered that we played this
game the day before
Marek
left. I fell asleep during
the game and did not know who won. ‘It is so much better in the dark do you not
think, Foxy?’

‘Yes,’
I said. It all sounded very exciting now. We ran down the hallways and Jean did
a silly jig and a skip. He was so silly and I giggled. Jean put his finger up
to my lips. For some reason we could not make too much noise.

‘Who
else is playing?’ There was
no-one
else around and the
rest of the house was without light.

‘They
are all waiting in the basement. Quickly!’

Only
a few candles were lit, enough to light up the strange faces on the walls. They
looked creepy and their eyes seemed to follow me. I stopped looking. I did not
like those people. There was something dead about the way they looked, as if
they were lying in coffins.

I
liked living here. I could stay up late. At the parties, trays of food were
offered: meat, cakes,
cheeses
. I could have as much as
I liked but sometimes I ate so much I felt sick. When I was with my mama and
papa I would have two meals a day.
Sometimes only one, and
sometimes only bread.

Before
I came here Zola told me I would live in a place where my stomach would never
be empty, and she had been right. Zola was my friend, my best friend, and I
loved her almost as much as Mama. Poor Mama. I thought she would have loved it
here too. Sometimes though I struggled to remember what she looked like. She
died but I cannot remember how.

Jean
was smiling at me. Sometimes when he grinned like that I remembered the gypsy
jesters. They frightened me when I was a baby. I would hide my face in Mama’s
dress. I hated Papa but I could not say that to anyone for it was disloyal. I
often imagined he was coming at my mama and me with his stick to beat us. I did
not miss him at all.

Jean
said I was his special friend. He liked to play and jest. Not like
Marek
. He could be very serious at times. Always the one at
the parties to tell me it was time for bed, sometimes carrying me if I was
really sleepy. I wondered if he would come back here, from wherever he was, to
play the game. I felt better when he was around though I could not really say
why.

‘Now
Foxy
, we must hurry. You will be so surprised at this
game. The others are waiting.’

Others?
Perhaps he has brought other children to play
with us. Perhaps this is the big surprise. I once heard Oleander talking to
Jean when they thought I was occupied with something else. Oleander promised
Jean more children would come.

We
entered a hallway. I had never seen this before, or had I? It was so far from
my room. We went into a strange room where an ugly man was on a large painting.
I did not like his tiny eyes. A secret door in the wall opened and we entered
some dark stairs. This looked familiar but of course I had never been here.

We
were in a huge room, almost the size of the ballroom, with a high ceiling. It
was painted with pictures of flying creatures like the statues on the front
stairs. Torches lit up a stone table in the
centre
of
the room. Oleander stood beside it and I remembered my nightshirt. Would she be
angry? She always said I must dress my best for every occasion. Jean had not
told me she would be here.

There
was darkness in the corners of this room and I heard noises like shuffling and
murmurs. My neck felt cold and tingly all of a sudden. I was scared. This did
not feel like a game, and where were all the others?

‘Come,’
said Oleander brightly. And I did. For everyone was afraid of her, including
me.

‘Are
you going to play our game?’ I asked her.

‘Yes,’
she said but she was looking at Jean. Oleander had never played a game with me
before so this must be special.

‘Where’s
Zola?’

‘She’ll
probably be here soon.’

I
hoped so because I wanted her to be merry too. She had been looking miserable
lately. I liked the smell of her hair. It stayed in my room long after she
kissed me goodnight.

Oleander
seemed different tonight. She was frowning and smiling at the same time,
looking at me strangely but not really seeing.  As if pretending I wasn’t
there. It was the same face my mother used when she would tell me that father
would be home shortly.

As
pretty as she was, I did not like Oleander much, though if I said that, she
might ask me to leave.

‘Come
here!’ said Oleander sharply, suddenly squeezing my hand so tightly that it
hurt. She lifted me up on the table. I was amazed at how strong she was for a
girl.

‘Foxy,’
said Jean. ‘I want you to close your eyes and count to twenty. Can you count
that far?’

‘Of
course,’ I lied. Perhaps they wouldn’t hear me only count to ten while they
were running to find their hiding places. Zola was teaching me to count and
read.

The
stone table was cold and hard. Jean wrapped a scarf around my eyes. There was a
sound of something sliding and then I felt someone’s breath close to my cheek
and then it was gone.

‘Do
I start now?’

There
was no answer. I felt totally alone. Except now there was another sound, like
heavy breathing – so close, I could smell foul breath. I lifted up one
side of the scarf. At first there was nothing. Then I turned my head and
screamed.

Zola

Zeke was not in his room. I had
been sleeping when I was quite suddenly woken by his thoughts. He was excited
and somewhere in the castle with Jean. That alone concerned me.

I stopped
and closed my eyes to concentrate, to produce a vision in my mind. They were in
the dungeon. Why? The underground was for
transferrals
and imprisonment only. I had seen a strange look in Jean’s eye lately. He was
not telling me something. Ever since I suggested, on
Marek’s
behalf, that perhaps he was not meant to become a
strigoi
,
I had been left out of Oleander’s private counsel.

I
went to her library but she was not there. Oleander had banned festivities
tonight. She did that sometimes at her whim. We never questioned her motives on
such things.

There
was a scream, faint, only a
strigoi
could hear it. I
was no longer hearing Zeke’s
thoughts
. It was totally
black.

I
ran through the halls fearfully. Please Jean, not Zeke. Not my little Zeke.

‘
Marek
!’

Chapter 13

Marek

As I approached the castle in the
distance I imagined someone calling my name. Bats silhouetted across the
luminous night sky. There was
an energy
in the air: a
force I could not quite grasp. Something bad was about to happen.

I
ran now, not as fast as in my
strigoi
form, but still
faster than most. I burst through the front door. There was no feasting this
night with the ballroom eerily empty. I knew exactly where to go. Something
flew at me as I ran down the hallways. It was one of Oleander’s loyal
flock
. A female
strigoi
, her eyes
flashing and lips drawn back, lunged at me and I pushed her aside. She was weak
at best.

Then,
faintly, somewhere in my consciousness, I heard what I believed were Zola’s
cries for help.

Zola

I rushed through the door of the
cellar to see Zeke lying still on the stone table. Oleander and Jean were there
also. Jean was bending over Zeke, breathing in his life. But no, wait…

I
was wrong. He was breathing his own life into Zeke, whose arms were covered in
bite marks. I rushed at Jean and pushed him to the ground. I had to stop this
transfer.

Oleander
shouted at me. ‘Out!’ She pointed her finger at me and I was flung back against
the wall. Something in my back snapped. I tried to stand but I could not feel
my feet. My back was broken. I needed to heal myself quickly. There was
movement from the corner of my eye. It was the grotesque ones. They had smelt
the blood of Zeke and crept out from the corners of the room to watch. They
were allowed out of their cages, perhaps to witness what they too could have if
they chose it. They had also used the commotion as a distraction to step
closer, to salivate near fresh blood in the
centre
of
the room.

‘Stay
back!’ commanded Oleander, and they did. They had all felt her wrath at some
point.

I
hurried. In their starved and demented states of desperation, they might feed
on me. Oleander sent them pigs’ blood to pacify them, barely, but animal blood
was never enough to satisfy a
strigoi
.

Jean
looked at me. ‘Sorry, Zola.’ But his apology was hollow and there was no
remorse in his expression.

I
watched helplessly while my recovery cost precious minutes. Jean bent over Zeke
once more and I noticed something next to the boy that I had not seen before.
An animal lay sleeping.

‘Hurry
Jean, his body is dying,’ ordered Oleander.

And
then Jean was again breathing his soul into Zeke. My bones clicked into place
and I was barely healed by the time I stood, this time using the remains of my
strength to send Jean through the air against the wall. His body slipped to the
floor but it was just his empty shell.

I
had not only witnessed this process before, I had been part of it. For humans,
their wrists, arms and neck were cut and bitten, and once sufficiently bled and
weakened, the
strigoi
forced their soul into the
human body, driving the original host soul out. The
strigoi
,
now the new body host, breathed out the human soul into another form –
human, animal and more recently objects. I’m glad
Marek
never witnessed any of this for his own sanity.

‘Too
late!’ said a voice behind me.

I
turned. It was Zeke and I put my arm out to him. I could no longer feel him or
read his mind. His smile, knowing and wise, was that of Jean. The transfer had
been successful.

I
turned to Oleander. ‘Why?’

‘You
dare question me? It is clear I cannot trust you. It seems you were not so
alert the day you searched for
Pietro
or maybe you
are just not as clever as you think you are. Our
Celestina
followed you and hid in the river to watch you allow his escape. You will stay
down here until you learn loyalty once more.’

The
wolf was waking and he sniffed the air. He stood up, trembling – his legs
unsteady – then jumped from the table, landing awkwardly. He hobbled
towards me to whimper and nuzzle my hand. This was Zeke, now imprisoned in the
body of the wolf. I buried my head in his soft fur and cried blood tears.

There
was a crashing sound as the door to the dungeon was smashed open.
Marek
stood in the ruins.

He
should have stayed away for I had surely caused his end too.

Marek

Jean was collapsed on the floor and
at first I was relieved that there was no life there. Then my senses adjusted
and I knew what had happened. I had seen this in my nightmares.

‘Zeke?’

He
stared at me, not in his normal inquisitive way but one of challenge. I knew
then that I was too late.

‘What’s
wrong?’ asked Jean casually as if consoling an old friend.

‘
You
are what’s wrong. All of you!’ I
shouted, my voice bouncing off the walls. ‘Oleander you cannot do this. I
cannot allow it. You must transfer him back. You promised no children.’

‘The
writing was there all along, and the best chance of survival. We must break
code and use them for the purposes of
transferral
,’
said Oleander.

‘Why
Zeke?’

‘There
must be sacrifices.’

I
saw Zola for the first time, tears falling on the wolf. I was remembering the
wolf in the forest and its human memories. That same animal had followed me
here. Perhaps it thought that in some way I could have helped him, instead, I
killed him.

‘Why
now? Why not free his soul rather than trap him forever.’

‘It
must be very joyful for a child to live out their fantasy. Children love
animals,
Marek
. I have given him a new chance. He
will discover new adventures in the forest. I had grown quite fond of the boy.
You could say I did it for love.’

‘You
do not lie well. It is not love, Oleander. You think by putting him in a wolf’
from that this in some way absolves you from taking children when it was not in
your code.’

‘This
is my code now. I can break it and change it as I please.’

I
stepped forward and Jean nodded to the dark recesses of the room.

Suddenly,
I was surrounded by those pitiful, imprisoned beasts
,
pining for my blood. They had been promised a feed and would not miss an
opportunity. Perhaps Oleander knew I was coming, which was why they were
released. One grabbed me with long fleshless fingers, its breath nauseating. I
pulled my dagger and swung wildly at it. The dagger sliced through its
malnourished middle and it fell to the floor weakly, trying to heal itself.
Another sunk its teeth into my back. I grabbed at its throat until it fell on
the floor and then I sliced through its brittle neck bone.

Several
more hovered and I rushed at them. They scurried back into their corners like
mice.

Jean
was laughing and clapping as if he were a child himself. It was almost fitting
that he wore the body of one. I said almost, because the very evil of this was
beyond most people’s comprehension, and should not be suggested even in jest.

I
did not waste time but leapt at Oleander to grab her throat. I felt a burning
sensation on the inside and knew that she was trying to kill me, as I had
killed the attacking
strigoi
in the forest. I drew my
own strength fighting back her powers. I felt tearing and the flesh on my arm
started to split as an invisible knife slashed across and upward to my chest,
close to my heart. Like burning ink brushes it swept through my body.

I
released Oleander and held my chest before falling forward. Jean continued to
laugh behind me, but it was not the gentle infectious giggles of Zeke. Zola was
crying out in support, but for the wolf’s safety, she could not leave his side.

Jean
stood over me whispering: ‘
You
know what is best about
turning humans into wolves. I like to hunt them for they are more of a
challenge. They seem to know what’s coming and their fear is my reward.
Oleander agreed to it. She was worried they might try to return here and cause
trouble. So imagine my disappointment when you killed one yourself. You killed
a human soul in the form of a wolf. I thought I had them all. It must have
hidden deep in the forest waiting for an opportunity for revenge.’ He leaned
closer to me so that he was barely heard. ‘In time, after a little coaxing,
Oleander will let me hunt Zeke also. That is why I love her. She
humours
all my desires.’

‘Enough
Jean!’ shouted Oleander. ‘Step away. He is dying. Leave him here. The others
can have him. He is no longer
strigoi
. He is no
longer one of us.’

I
heard their shuffling first and then their murmurings. They lined the dark
walls,
their eyes gleaming like fireflies, panting like dogs
for my blood. This was my end.

‘Come,
Zeke,’ called Oleander to the wolf. But he was reluctant, meandering back to
me.

‘Go,
Zeke, run!’ I whispered and it took every bit of strength to push him away.

My
world was quietly fading. I shut out the sounds of my fate. In my head I was
swimming in
Gildoroso’s
healing crystal waters: the
island, and my salvation, just within reach.

Zola

I could not bear to see
Marek
so weak. I could sense that he was mysteriously free
of his
strigoi
bond, and now just a witch. Blood
poured from his wound pooling across the stone floor. Should I kill him so that
the poor grotesque souls did not tear him apart,
piece by
piece
in their ravenous rapture? Jean and Oleander were nearly at the
door. But it was not just
Marek
who would be fed
upon. Several creatures closed in on me, saliva dripping from their mouths,
the
hunger in their eyes stealing all other thought, so
consumed were they by the smell of blood. I knew these
strigoi
but it counted for nothing.

I
looked to Jean who stared back coldly. ‘Please,’ I begged, but he shook his
head. Oleander watched on, remotely, devoid of any feeling. I was no longer
worthy of saving.

One
creature gripped me and I pulled away as a human would do. My powers were used
up from my healing; my weakened state was no match for even its pathetic feral
desires. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps this was a fitting end to be torn
to shreds and live in darkness for eternity. I had let both Zeke and
Marek
down, and my feelings were no longer
strigoi
but those of my weaker human prey.

All
at once there was a great roaring sound. The room was cloudy, thick with
energy.
Marek
stood once more, the blood dripping
through his shirt from his torso. At first I did not see his face for his head
was bowed. Slowly he lifted his face and I saw that his eyes were shining,
filled with fire.

Then
one of the grotesque ones, whose teeth were sunken into my arms, exploded, his
body bursting into a fireball, his screeches echoing through the room. The
others ceased their feeding and scurried backwards. Another burst into flames.

It
was
Marek
, powerful, his rage out of control.
But how?
He was only a witch now.

Both
Oleander and Jean strode forward; heads bent in silent menacing charge, their
combined forces launched across the room in lightning strikes to counter the
attack. Light arced between the opponents, sending waves of heat to the corners
of the chamber.  At first the pair was driven back several steps, almost
overpowered by this last attempt by the man I once loved like a human. For
several moments they were locked and then the balance was returned.
Marek
weakened, falling to his knees.

Oleander
raised her hand and
Marek
fell on the floor, as if a
giant mallet had knocked him forward. She went to strike again when rumbling
sounded beneath us and the ground trembled. A storm was raging somewhere deep
beneath our feet and the candles flickered wildly without breeze. The
thundering grew steadily louder whilst the earth shook violently before
suddenly ceasing. There was a moment of silence and I turned to the crackling
sound of heavy stone only yards from where we stood. Part of the floor crumbled
inwards and broken marble fell into an open hole. More pieces shattered further
into fragments, and dust then swirled upwards from the cavity.

Something
clothed rose from the
centre
of the dust storm, a
tall creature covered in pale sandy earth. But it could not be?

‘Lewis!’
I gasped with shock.

But
he did not look my way, his focus on one alone: Oleander. He walked towards
her.

‘Oleander,’
he said, scrutinizing her changed appearance. ‘I see that you are much altered.
Pity… I liked you better as you were.’