The Journal of Vincent Du Maurier (Book 1) (5 page)

My sweet Byron! How my heart aches for your
passing. I know you were unable to carry on. I could only hang my head in
misery, as I watched your graceful form disintegrate—bloodstarved. You
became dust before my eyes and I will mourn you until the end of time. You were
my first and only companion, and so you shall remain.

Adieu, sweet Byron. May I see you always in
my memory as you were in your moments of splendor—gallant, charming,
vampiric, a villain for the ages!

30 September.
— Byron had a fondness
for the pregnant girl, and tended to her needs until his demise. She was in his
care because he was adamant about seeing the baby to term. None of us
understood his logic, or why he wanted to torture us so. None of us would be
able to resist the candied smell of a bloody newborn. Her baby would be
devoured the moment it touched the air, and then she and her stepfather the
moments after. “You need to see this through,” he had said. “You need to
understand what this means.”

“It is perverse,” I had said. “We are not
supposed to save them—just the opposite in fact. I brought them back here
to save you.”

“She is the answer we have been searching
for—”

“How?”

I was frustrated by his inability to see that
her pregnancy was the one thing that would save him. “Devour her,” I had said.
“You can have her all to yourself. It will revive you, reverse your decay—the
blood of her child will enrich you. You would be rejuvenated if you would only
feed on the girl.”

“She is not to be touched,” he had said.

We argued like this until our last hours together,
but he knew I would obey him. I may have been our clan’s leader but I was
subservient to Byron. My union with him had dictated it so. I had fastened
myself to him, and because I had made him in my image, I could no longer live
without him. I was at his mercy, though the others did not see our truth. In
front of them, he was the subordinate vampire.

“One day, Vincent, when I am long gone, you
will understand this sacrifice.”

“Enough!” I promised him I would abide by his
wish.

“And the others?” He had asked.

“They will follow my law.”

He came to me then and took my hands in his
and thanked me with the same gratitude that had melted my heart at his vampiric
birth. His kiss was like the drop of heaven I shall never know.

Later.
— I am sorry, Byron. I
regret my blindness to what you were doing for us. But even more, I regret not
telling you I love you for it.

2 October.
— Veronica grows weak,
as does Elizabeth. The female vampires suffer more without blood. I have
ordered Jean to draw from the man again, but to leave the girl untouched.
Though we had kept them in the same room, Byron wanted them separated when the
girl confided that Marco is the father of her child. She claims it was
consensual, but regrets the outcome nevertheless.

When she told us about their escape from
their home, she was curled up on the sofa, her legs tucked under her robe. She was
still too thin to show but Byron figured she was about five months along. “He
saved me but not …” Her words drifted. “He didn’t mean to let go of her but we
were surrounded and he had no choice,” she said.

She told us they made it to a natatorium
where they met up with Marco’s friend, the third man from her party.

“Salvatore let us in since the neighborhood
was already overrun with them. We had stayed in our house long after the
neighbors moved out. I think we were the only ones left on the block. Marco
insisted we stay until the carabinieri showed up. He said they’d come for
us—he said radio reports said they’d come to our neighborhood too.” She
twisted the fringe of her robe between her fingers, as she spoke. Curling and
uncurling, she mangled the wool beneath her sweaty palm and I could smell her
perspiring beneath the heavy fabric. “When the creepers—that’s what Marco
calls them—when they came to the neighborhood in crowds, he decided to
leave. We snuck out one night, me and him and Lucia.”

“Lucia?” Byron asked.

“Lucia was my sister. She was—” Her
voice got caught in her throat, but she cleared it and began again. “I can’t
even remember her face now, you know?” She looked at Byron with sad eyes and I tempered
my sting of compassion. “Marco couldn’t save her, but I got away and headed to
the pool. Marco said he knew how to get in.”

“Were you pursued by the creepers, as you
call them?” Byron asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Like a pack of wolves or
something, they chased after us.” Marco led them through a row of bramble
bushes, she said, and the thickets scraped them when they passed. But the
thorns did more damage to the bloodless, as their skin got caught on the
points. She turned back and saw the face of one peel right off, she said, as it
ran through the bush after them. “The pool was just on the other side and Marco
pulled me by the arm because I couldn’t keep up. He finally picked me up and
ran with me all the way to the courtyard on the other side of the building. We
saw a few creepers reaching through the gate, and that’s how we knew there were
other people inside.”

Marco yelled for help when he saw Salvatore
at the gate, and assured her they would be safe inside. “We just made it,” she
said. “Creepers crowded in on us, and Marco shot at a few of them too.”

“Did the bullets stop them?” I asked.

She looked up at me with surprise, having
forgotten she was not alone with Byron. “No,” she said. “They just kept on.”

Byron glanced at me. Nothing short of lighting
the bloodless on fire would stop them. My beloved had discovered that only cremation
could prevent reanimation.

“I was never so happy to see the inside of
that public pool,” she said. “It had little windows way up high at the top near
the roof so it seemed safe, and the only way in was through the door Salvatore
had chained back up after he let us in.”

“Were there others with you?” Byron asked.

“Several families,” she said. “The pool was
drained and cots were set up on the floor.”

“How many people in total?”

“Let’s see,” she said, as she counted her
fingers. “Eleven including us.”

Byron did not look at me but I knew what he would
ask next. “Are they still there?”

“No, no, no,” she said. “Oh-no.” She seemed
fearful of the memory but Byron pushed her, wanting to collect as much
information from her as he could before he left us. He made notes, compiling a
dossier for me to use after he was—it was that night, after she left him,
that he withdrew into—his sarcophagus.

“What happened, my dear?” Byron brushed his
hand across hers, and jealousy’s sting bit me.

“Well,” she said after taking a deep breath,
“we lived for several weeks in quiet. I think it was weeks—I spent most
of my time with a boy from my school. He was there with his family, and they
were holding out too.” She and the boy played board games, she said, while the
adults played poker around the pool. A third family was there, and the mother
nursed their baby at night while the two young boys and their father slept. Evelina
and the new mother were the only females in the group, and she seemed timid
when Byron pointed that out. I suppose he wondered if she knew to whom the baby
belonged, though to me it did not matter.

“Creepers hadn’t bothered us since the day we
arrived, and so we went back to just waiting for the carabinieri to come. Sometimes
we’d hear machine guns outside and every time we thought it was them. But they
never came before the day—” She stopped herself.

Byron’s hand rested on hers, and he petted
her when she fell silent. I subdued my rage—never had I been jealous when
we hunted women and men for sport, but this was different, this was unnatural. He
did not intend to harm her and his affection seemed too genuine for my taste. I
was utterly sick inside.

“Niccolò and I played with the two young
boys—Niccolò is—was—the boy from my school,” she said, “when
all of a sudden we heard a loud crash from the other side of the wall in the
courtyard. The whole building shook and then the ceiling started to crumble. We
ran toward each other and huddled in a corner. The building tremors slowed but the
walls and ceiling kept vibrating. Marco said it was an earthquake, but the others
thought it was a bomb. When it was over, the men went to see the damage and came
back saying we were all done for. The wall of the courtyard had been knocked
down and creepers climbed in and were pressed up to the inner wall, which gave
way too.” She took another deep breath. “The bomb or earthquake or whatever it
was never even stopped them. They came at us. ‘Run up the steps!’ Salvatore
yelled and we made our way up to the back of the building. I didn’t realize the
others were missing until we got out on the other side. Creepers were
everywhere—I don’t know how we dodged them all but we got away.” Her
voice cracked. “The family with the baby—Emilia—taken down.” She
covered her ears. “I can still hear their screams.”

She may have meant the human cries or bloodless
howls. Since we had never heard a firsthand account of a human attack, I was
riveted.

“Niccolò … Niccolò … he … didn’t make it
because he tried to save Davide and … Antonio … when their dad fell he turned
back to get them.” She held her hands more tightly against her ears, but Byron seemed
transfixed.

“How soon did you get to the trattoria?” He asked.

“We only just got there a few days before you
found us.” She looked at me, letting her hands fall to her lap. Her face was
swollen with sorrow. “The pool attack happened months ago,” she said.

I had hoped there were others, as did Byron.
“Rest now, my dear,” he said. “Vincent will take you back to your room.”

She kissed his hand and thanked him with a
gratitude like the one that had melted my heart all those years ago; hers, it
seemed, had the same effect on him.

“You must keep her safe,” he told me when I
returned to his chamber. “Her child too.”

These were the last words he spoke.

3 October.
— I told the others
the girl was to be treated with care. “Swear an oath,” I said. “Each of you
will help me keep her and the baby from harm.”

“Tu as ma parole,” Jean said.

“Yes, Vincent,” Elizabeth said.

Stephen and Veronica also consented.

“Eef I may ask,” Jean said. “Why?”

“It is for our own good,” I said. No further
explanation was needed since the clan would not challenge my command; the
problem lay, however, in convincing them it was my desire. “She may be the
solution,” I said. “Somehow she holds the key to our survival.” I wanted to
believe what I told them as much as I hoped they would. I put all my faith in
my beloved Byron. I could do nothing else. “The man will serve as sustenance
for now,” I said. “But we will have to go on the hunt again soon, and if lucky,
we will find others. We must believe these are not the last two humans on
earth.”

“Perhaps we should move on,” Elizabeth said.

The others looked at me with a similar design
in mind. It appeared they had spoken about it in private. “I will take it into
consideration,” I said. “But it will be difficult to move with two humans and a
third on the way.” Elizabeth looked down at the floor; she knew I was right.
“For now,” I said, “let us continue to hunt after dark.”

The howling had ceased and the shadows on the
walls were minimal, as only a few stray bloodless wandered past. Since we lived
in darkness and spoke in hushed tones, we were undetectable to them, and as
long as we kept the humans tucked away, our cathedral would be safe.

“How is the man doing?” I asked.

“’E’s wavering,” Jean said.

“Let us make sure he eats enough.”

“Well, that’s just it,” Stephen said.
“They’re going through the rations quickly.”

Scarcity of human food was not something I
had thought about. Foolishly, I had forgotten they also needed to eat. “Our
next run into town will have to be for food then.”

When our meeting ended, I went to talk with
the man. Byron had ignored him, but I wondered if he did not have additional
information for us. He had given up reclining on the bed and was on the ground
doing sit-ups. He stopped when he saw me and fumbled to get up from the floor.
His injured arm was still bound in a sling. “Listen,” he said with a slight
lisp from his cracked tooth. “I’m going to come right out and say it. We’d like
to leave. We thank you for your hospitality but we’d like to take our chances
outside.”

“Do you think that is really wise considering
her condition?”

“Her condition?”

“Your stepdaughter is pregnant.”

He was shocked—too shocked. He looked
at me in such a way that I wondered if he knew it was even possible. Perhaps the
child was not his after all. “Maybe your friend took liberties with the girl,” I
said.

He scratched his head with his free arm.
“That sonofabitch!”

“She seems to think you are the father
though,” I said.