Grief For Heart: The Vincent Du Maurier Series, Book 4 Read online

  He dunked his head in the stream, sucking up the water as though it were his only source of substance. For a time it was, and he was soon sick, his belly full once again with liquid. He tossed it up, along with the remnants of the flesh the vampire had fed him on the boat. He missed his companion now. The vampire had gotten his hooks in him, and his crown of thorns wasn’t easy to remove. He cried again, this time for the man-beast who’d taken him from home. He had light in his eyes, Finn thought. He wasn’t a monster. He was just like him, doing what he needed to survive.

  Finn’s ability to accept his captor’s truth, and forgive him for the sorrow he’d caused, inspired me. “The vampire couldn’t help himself,” Finn told me. I explained their ways to him, but he’d already accepted his fate.

  Finn didn’t find life among us for two nights. He landed on shore far from our colony and further still from Evelina’s enclave. She hadn’t sensed the boy, a regret she couldn’t let go.

  But Finn followed the magical fay, and found himself in the birch woods, close to the edge of the colony where my Hannah lived with her little family. He heard voices first. Two colonists out on the hunt. He grew frightened and hid in the bush, spying on the two. They were much bigger than him, and he feared for what they’d do to him, a stranger from a strange land.

  Finn fell asleep, squatting between two tea-leaved willows. He dreamed then. Home came rushing at him, his father’s scowl, his mother’s smile. He moved toward them, speeding on his heels, up above the blades of barley. He floated, close to them. His mother waved to him, his father’s arms crossed, the scowl carving up his face ever more deeply. Finn clawed his way to her, aiming for his mother’s embrace. But he surpassed her, flying up above her. She grew smaller, his body launched farther from her. He called to her but she couldn’t hear, his father’s hands over her ears. His father turned away, as Finn soared upward, soon flapping wings he’d sprouted on the spot. He rose higher, until the bright sky grew dark, and he lost his way. He felt himself falling, dropping out of the sky, and his stomach lurched.

  He woke with a thud, vomiting at his side. The men’s voices were gone, darkness having covered the ground anew. Finn rolled on his back, crying at his mother’s memory. “Stay alive for me,” he whispered. “I’m coming back.”

  He fell into a deep sleep once again, but this time he was too tired to dream.

  He woke the following morning, the day my Saba found him. He squatted between the tea-leaves for a time, hunger gnawing at his gut. He wanted to hunt, he needed to hunt, but he could barely stand. He crawled again, hope alone driving his will.

  He heard the twins, their giggles crashing over and into the stream. They were far from him, the echo of their voices tricking him into thinking they were close. He stumbled as he followed the little voices, losing his balance more than once. He croaked for them to wait, his voice nothing more than a squawk.

  When he finally reached the edge of the ridge he’d been following, he grew dizzy gazing down at the stream. It looked much farther than it was. He sat on his rear, and fell backward, his back flat on the ground. He closed his eyes again, drawing his vampire’s face to him. He opened his eyes in a flash and sat up. He looked around, surprised at the quiet in the trees. His forest was full of birds. This one was silent.

  He worked up the strength to pull his body to the edge again, looking over the ridge. He spied them there, their two little bodies bent over, hands in the water. He watched them, a smile coming up from his heart. He hadn’t smiled in a long while. The children played with the water, one of them bringing something up for the other to smell.

  Hello, he wanted to say. Instead, “help,” came out. They didn’t hear him over the sound of their own giggles.

  He forced his courage on, and crawled over the ledge, pulling his body along. Almost vertical now, his head grew fuzzy, and his eyes went dark. He tumbled, landing head first on the soft bank. But he wasn’t without injury, for the back of his head smacked a rock too big to be a mere pebble on the shore.

  The next time the boy opened his eyes, he saw the face of beauty, the one the vampire had told him about, he was sure of it. A glimpse, a taste, a mark upon his soul. He thought of her in the darkness, he dreamed of her alone. She must be here somewhere, he thought, as he lay in his unconscious state, or perhaps she’s out there.

  He woke one morning with the sun, Saba asleep at his side. Home, he thought, I am home.

  * * *

  Evelina flew to me once she heard about the boy. We’d put him in our home, Netta insisting he remain close to Saba who found him. She hadn’t left his side since pulling him up from the ravine. She’d balanced her charge of the little ones and the boy she saved like a skilled general, running many lines of fire at once. I was proud of her and I told her so. She blushed, and assured me nothing else could be done.

  Several colonists fell upon them, and soon Gerenios was carrying the boy up the path to my home.

  “He’s one of yours,” my father said. “Plain as day. He’s a human boy.”

  Gerenios spoke to me in private, after the others had left us with my gracious hand at their back. Netta gave them breads she’d made that morning as thank you.

  “But where’s he from?” I asked.

  Gerenios, like me, was befuddled. My father shrugged.

  “He could’ve washed up on shore,” I said.

  “Impossible.” My father paced our quaint cottage, his head almost touching the ceiling.

  “He’s obviously from somewhere,” I said.

  “We must call a meeting,” he grumbled. “Get to the bottom of this.”

  “Isn’t it best if we let him recover first?”

  Gerenios surrendered, telling me to send for him the minute the newcomer woke. I promised I would, though I planned on consulting the only one I could before then.

  Saba was quick to offer to fetch Evelina, promising she’d take her longbow with her.

  “Don’t you want to be here when he wakes?” Netta spoke softly to Saba. “Your father can send another.” My wife tossed me a knowing glance, and I concurred.

  “I’ll send Andor for Lucia,” I said. “He’s swift.”

  Saba’s ego took the blow with grace. She was faster than Andor, hands down, but she understood my meaning.

  “I’ll wait with the boy,” she said, taking her place at his side.

  He hadn’t stirred since the ravine. Saba insisted he woke for a few seconds, his eyes open and wild, his mouth a downward droop, a look of fear commanding his entire aspect. “He looked about to cry,” she’d said. “But then his eyes pulled me into focus, and I think he saw me before he passed out again.”

  Saba didn’t just think he saw her, she knew he saw her, his look of fear changing to a perfect peace at the sight of her. He smiled, too, his lips turning up at the corners. Saba only confessed this much later, but I suspect she was touched at his greeting. She’d never taken to another quite as easily as him, with the exception of Peter.

  Evelina arrived shortly after I sent Andor. I’m not sure he reached her enclave before she and Peter had set out for the colony. Peter had read the excitement in Saba’s mind, something I warned him not to share with my daughter.

  “Let me see him,” Evelina said. Her concern was palpable, her expression one of ragged horror.

  “He’s just a boy,” I said. “He’s been unconscious since Saba found him.”

  Peter watched and listened, but he didn’t step forward. He clung to the door, studying Saba in her stillness. What he read in her, I couldn’t say. But it changed the course of his life in the whoosh of a wing.

  “Freyit has yet to check on him,” I said. “But my preliminary assessment is a good one.”

  “He’ll recover, then?” Evelina asked, the slightest quiver in her voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  She dropped her head and looked at the floor before sliding off the hood of her robe, and stepping forward. She glided toward the cot where the b
oy lay, her hands crossed in front of her. She hovered just outside of Saba’s sphere, waiting for my daughter to rise and step away before she moved closer.

  “Saba,” I said. “Come, child.”

  She threw me an uneasy look, then released the boy’s hand, stepping out of the way for Evelina.

  “Thank you, Saba.” Evelina drew her hand in front of Saba, cooling the air she breathed. My daughter’s eyes closed and she slumped forward, collapsing toward the ground. Peter was swift, reaching for her in one swoop, pulling her up into his arms and taking her out of Evelina’s way.

  My great-grandmother kneeled beside the boy, and studied him before planting her hand on his forehead. Unlike Peter, she couldn’t read minds, but she could cull energies, entrance those around her when she so desired. She’d done that with Saba, wanting my daughter’s energy out of the way while she inspected the newcomer. I could only watch Evelina and wonder. I wasn’t able to see what she saw, or feel what she felt, but I didn’t doubt she’d tell me all I needed to know once she’d made her assessment.

  “Shall I?” Peter called from behind me, my daughter still wrapped in his arms, her sleeping head on his shoulder.

  “There’s nothing,” Evelina said. “But, yes, come try.”

  “How can there be nothing?” Peter asked, as he passed Saba off to me. I held her more clumsily than he, she having grown solid in the last few years. I wasn’t quite as hardy as my offspring.

  Peter stepped to the cot, and placed a single hand on the boy’s forehead. He didn’t even close his eyes, though his face hardened.

  “Yes, my beloved peer? What do you see?” At times Evelina could speak with a tenderness unmatched by any other.

  “Blood.”

  “Whose?”

  “His.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He pulled his hand from the boy’s forehead and said, with his winsome smile, “We are no longer the only four.”

  Evelina gasped, and brought a hand to her lips, holding it there in silence. The stillness in the room grew stifling, as Peter and she looked at each other.

  “What does this mean?” I asked.

  Saba stirred in my arms, which broke Peter’s mask of indecision. He flew to my side and recouped his charge, cupping her head in his hands.

  Evelina dropped to the boy’s side once again, pulling the covers off him. Netta had dressed him in a fresh pair of trousers she’d knit for me. His chest remained bare, in anticipation of Freyit’s examination.

  Evelina searched him now, lifting his arms up and rolling him on his side to see his back. I wanted to turn away when she pulled at his trousers, bringing them down to his ankles. I was relieved Saba hadn’t regained consciousness.

  Evelina found what she was looking for, the vampire’s mark on his inner thigh. Two points, scabbed over, swollen and bruised.

  “I must taste him,” she said.

  Peter stepped forward with Saba in his arms. He’d swept her up, holding her like a bride on her wedding night. He reached for Evelina, and touched her shoulder.

  “No,” he said, softly. “Not like this.”

  He meant, not without the donor’s permission.

  “It’s a new world,” he counseled. “You mustn’t break your own laws.”

  “I have to know.”

  “You will, I promise.”

  “I don’t feel him, I can’t sense him, I don’t know where he is.” Her voice fluttered between panic and anger. “He must show himself.” Her eyes flashed, the corners tightening, drawing her temples upward. “He must be searching, he must have sent the boy. It’s a sign,” she said.

  Peter looked for me to take my daughter once again, and I acquiesced.

  With Saba in my arms, I watched him quell the one I held so dear. Evelina came undone in my quaint cottage where the boy who washed up on shore lay in a shock-induced coma. She was certain the one to whom he’d fallen prey was the one for whom she held out hope. She believed Vincent Du Maurier had risen again.

  * * *

  Evelina paced my studio up in the tower of the Second Colony of the Resurrected. She spun with a flourish, her hands behind her back. Peter was there, too, waiting quietly as I was. Gerenios stood in the corner, silent as ever.

  “I’ve decided he’s not to be tasted,” she said.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “It’s the only way,” Peter said.

  She put up a hand, and he stepped back. They’d obviously had this conversation in private, and hadn’t seen eye to eye.

  “What shall we do with him?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Evelina shot me a glance, setting a frost down my spine.

  “I mean, he has a family somewhere, and he must be returned to them.”

  Peter looked at Evelina, and she narrowed her eyes. “He does,” she said.

  “He’s from the colony you told me about, isn’t he?”

  She nodded again.

  “I think it’s time we meet our neighbors.”

  “Impossible,” she said, stealing the words out of Gerenios’s mouth.

  “She’s correct,” my father said, stepping into the light. “We can’t make contact with them.”

  “I don’t understand.” I’d barely learned of this new line, men like me, more blood for my kin. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but it seemed right to insist.

  “Who’s seen them?”

  Evelina dropped her head, and Peter stepped forward. “Dagur,” he began, letting my name settle on the air before he spoke again. “Lucia and Veor made contact some time ago.”

  “Why did no one tell me this?” My voice rose an octave, and I sounded like a boy. “This seems pertinent to our history.”

  “No,” Evelina said, stepping forward. “This isn’t about our history at all.”

  “How can another line of men not be?”

  Her face quivered at the sight of mine, my betrayal surely showing. “My boy,” she said, “I told you it’s Netta’s line.”

  Peter shook his head when she glanced at him. Gerenios remained still, and I wasn’t able to tell if he knew what they were hiding. My father tended to his, and I tended to mine. The vampires were mine.

  “The colony over there is small,” Evelina said. “Their ways are not ours, and they aren’t friendly.”

  “How can that be?”

  “As you’ve been told, Lucia and Veor made contact.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’re testing me, boy. I don’t like it.” Spoken like a true matriarch, she hissed to punctuate her growing frustration with me.

  “What about the newcomer, then?”

  “He stays here.”

  “Won’t they look for him? If we know about them, don’t they know about us?”

  “We hope they do.”

  I didn’t need to voice my confusion, my face said it all.

  “Their ways are not ours,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “You said that, but what does it mean?”

  “Their nomadic lifestyle makes them contentious.”

  “I’m still not getting it.”

  “You don’t need to,” Peter said. “Trust us when we say, their ways aren’t ours.”

  “So the boy is safer here than there?”

  Both vampires nodded.

  “When I tell him his people aren’t worthy of our company, what do you think he’ll do?”

  “You won’t tell him, will you?” Her angry eyes shook my soul.

  “Mormor,” I whispered. “Please.”

  She turned her back on me, but Peter stepped forward, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Finding out about his captor is much more important,” he said. “That’s where our efforts must lie.”

  “He’s still out of it, though he moaned something this morning.”

  “What did he say?” Evelina asked.

  “I couldn’t understand him.”

  “Use Saba,” Peter said.

  “How?”

  “She’s
made an impression, let her find him out.” Peter couldn’t hide the sadness in his voice, or his eyes. He’d already accepted their fate.

  “Enough of this,” Evelina said. “I expect you’ll keep away from the boy.” She looked at Gerenios, who bowed his head in agreement.

  “He belongs to Dagur,” he said. “I shall keep the colonists to their own business.”

  “Good.”

  She didn’t sound satisfied, but faked it in an effort to keep the peace. Some of the colonists harbored resentment, not wanting to see their wives used up.

  My father left us then, knowing I’d a duty to attend to. He didn’t like watching them feed. He said it made him think of Béa too much. Hematopes were hardy, but also fiercely loyal. He wouldn’t see another mate in his lifetime, and for that I grieved.

  Evelina came at me first, Peter turning to peruse the library he knew as well as me. I’d grown used to her ravenous bite, taking the pain better than my daughters. In recent seasons, she’d come to me mostly. She complained their blood wasn’t as refined as mine. I knew why she wanted me more than the others. I was the last to feed Vincent, and that she couldn’t forget.

  “I think we should show Saba the journals,” Peter said, his voice low, almost as though he were thinking aloud. Evelina ignored him, too high to care, but I responded with as much wisdom as I could muster. Her pleasure had started to be mine, too.

  “She’s not ready yet, and with this new arrival, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

  “She must learn of her heritage,” he said. “She must meet our god.”

  “I agree, but not yet.”

  He turned to face me, a flash of anger crossing his aspect before he chased it away with a smile. “Dagur,” he cooed. “Let me give Saba one pleasure before …,” his voice trailed off, as he moved on me. He wouldn’t wait his turn, aroused at the sight of Evelina feeding. He drifted toward me, licking his lips like a panther after a bird, slow and steady. He didn’t use his hypnotic gaze often, but when he did his victims turned to mush. Evelina looked up from my corse, my chest bare for her pleasure, blood dripping off her lips. She smiled, beckoning to him with a single finger. He dropped to his knees beside her, and licked my blood from her lips.