Anthology of Ichor III: Gears of Damnation (38 page)

They bare their teeth at one another.

“
Boys,” I say, “you can go at the same time, but,” I pause to finish my drink, “it’s my first time. I want it to be private.”

El Diablo wants me to take a few pills that apparently sweeten the blood, but the Captain Morgan wannabe argues that he likes bite-virgins to be all-natural. They rent rooms by the hour in this place. You can smell the last couple.

“
Do I have to do anything?” I ask as the pirate closes the door.

The first one plays with my hair and rakes his fingers along my neck, and takes my jacket off

“
I call the neck.” The second shoves the first. I’m tempted to tell them they can both suck on my toes if they keep it up, but I’m sick of them already so I pick pirate. I got to kiss him, and he grabs my jaw, puts my neck back. Damien’s got my wrist, and I feel weak again, but not like before.

The pirate gets more blood, faster, and pulls back, and smiles, kisses me. I taste my own blood, and he lays me back. Then he coughs, and backs off. Damien laughs and moves into my neck. My eyes water, and the pirate sits down, feels his head. “Stop!” he croaks, but the others blood-lust is too much, and continues feeding, until he starts to swoon, and passes out on the bed. I lick my wrist, but it’s already clotted. One of the many benefits of the symbiosis is the regeneration.

“
You’re a bite-virgin,” says scruffy the pirate. “I couldn’t sense anything on you. What… how?” These two bottom feeder parasites have probably been at it with every love-sick teenager and desperate housewife that wanders into the bar, but I see genuine rage in his eyes as he realizes what just happened.

I walk over, grab his jaw, make him look up at me. “Too long you’ve run free. Our master will not have this behaviour any longer. You will serve her.”

He grabs my throat, holds me up in the air, tries to choke me. He could kill me in an instant, but he won’t because he knows another is his enemy, and I’m his only link to her. He’s succumbing, relying on old vampire tricks. “I have no master.”

Damien grabs him from behind, and he drops me. “Let go of me!”

“
Hold him until he’s done.” She’s close. She needs sustenance. “And then meet us on the roof.”

Maybe I’m dead too. I can’t tell anymore. She’s on the roof, and in pain. Patches of shed skin litters the roof, and bony stubs are protruding from her back, covered with ooze that stinks between ointment and rot. Her transformation’s not yet complete. I wonder if I’m done. “Master,” I say, “I took two. They’ll be here shortly.”

She takes my face in her claws. “Good servant. You’re weak but,” she says, “there’s much to do yet.” She almost feeds, but pulls back. “There’s going to be some important people coming, to investigate what happened at the morgue the night I marked you. I’m going to need you to make sure the vampires among them feed on you. Will you be strong enough?” She’s dug the claws on her hands into the skin of my wrist and neck, purging the other vampire’s scent from my system.

“
Of course,” I say, trying to keep conscious. I’m stronger, but my body’s still adapting to the changes.

“
We need to know who made this virus, and why it changed me the way it did,” she says. “We need to know if the humans are stronger than we have previously thought, or if the pathetic vampires who call themselves leaders took some initiative in controlling the human masses.” She chuckles. I doubt it’ll matter much.

I wonder if any other vampires have tried to feed on someone infected with Kyoli-4. She can’t be the only one. I look over at the two vampires as they slowly emerge up to the roof. They’re just as compelled as I am.

My master gets up, and runs her claws through their hair. “It worked.”

“
What…?” Damien asks, kneeling before her.

“
Lower forms, too long have our kind been living among the humans. We have forgotten the old truths. You will help my servant remind the others like you know the proper order of things, yes?” She digs her claws into their flesh, drawing out their blood, and her bony wings extend to the night sky as the lesser vampires crumple before this eater of the dead.

SUNRISE
AT THE PORTARA

by

Adrian Chamberlin

The Portara of Naxos
. A doorway that leads to nowhere,
Steve had remarked to Julie on first seeing the sole remains of the abandoned Temple of Apollo. His disappearance proved that it led to
somewhere
. It had taken Julie a full year of research and waiting, but she now had the answer.

She also had company. The old man who stood in exactly the same spot from where Steve had vanished confirmed her theory. He reached for his walking stick and slowly made his way down the narrow, rubble-strewn pathway to meet her, methodically brushing off the marble dust and sand that lightly dusted his grey trousers.

Julie smiled grimly. Every step the old man took clearly pained him, but he moved with purpose and determination.

Going to try to stop me, aren’t you, old man?

She could see that in the grim set of his protruding jaw, the unwelcoming glare that was as steel-grey as his eyes.

She looked over her shoulder, back to the causeway that joined the islet with the Chora of Naxos. The dawn sunlight kissed the old battlements of the Venetian
Kastro
and the tiny white sugar cube blocks of the more recent houses and apartment buildings. She saw the yachts and fishing boats lying at anchor in the harbour, moving languidly in the still waters. She smelled the harsh tang of salt water and the faded odours of last night’s
gyros
kebabs and stone-baked pizzas from the restaurant at the tip of the causeway. Apart from the low flying gulls, there were no signs of life on the island of Naxos. And on the islet of Palatia, where the Portara stood, she and the old man were alone.

He came closer, no longer dwarfed by the massive marble structure behind him. The topmost section of the Portara - the ‘Great Door’ - began to turn to a rich, buttery gold with the rays of the rising sun. Behind it, the white caps of the Aegean sea sparkled like the diamond on her engagement ring.

She unconsciously fingered the polished stone on her ring finger and caressed the smooth band of gold, the ring she hadn’t taken off for over a year. She choked back a sob at the memory of Steve placing it on her finger, the thunderous applause and cheering from their fellow holidaymakers deafening her and adding to the dizzying sense of intoxication and happiness.

One year ago, at the same place she stood now. One year since Steve had made his vow to her, on bended knee as the skies above the Portara turned from daylight blue to hazy bands of red, orange and indigo. Then the memory of their lovemaking under the stars and the imposing archway of the Portara as their companions headed off over the causeway and away from the islet, into the Chora of Naxos town to the tavernas and tiny nightclubs.

Then the memory of waking to glaring light and a rumble of thunder. A cry from Steve, her eyes opening and blinking in the harsh glare of sunrise, to discover she was alone.

“
Kala meira,”
the old man said with a surprisingly gentle voice. The rising sun cast a golden glow on his tanned skin and brightened the shock of tangled grey hair that trailed down past the neck of his fisherman’s pullover. Like his hair, his thin grey beard sparkled like silver in the Greek sunlight.

“
I know why you are here,” he continued. “It will do no good. You must leave things as they are.”

Her jaw dropped. She took a step forward, but checked herself when he raised his stick to her. He stood tall and erect, all trace of pain and weariness in his body vanished in an instant. His eyes travelled the length of her tall body, from her toned calves and muscular arms - the benefits of being in the first eight in the university’s rowing team – to her clear blue eyes and the shock of untamed blonde hair. But there was nothing lascivious in his gaze. He was appraising her, assessing her strengths and weaknesses in one look, his eyes boring through hers and seeing what lay beyond.

He stood with purpose and authority, no longer a weakened old man but a guardian. A doorkeeper.

“
My name is Manos. You are Julie, are you not? And your man’s was Stephen…”

His eyes softened. “I am sorry for your loss. But you must know it is for reason. Console yourself knowing it was destiny…like Ariadne abandoned by Theseus, it is for greater purpose. Now, leave things be.”

“
How can I?” Anger coursed through her, hotter than the rising Greek sun. “What right have you to say that?”

“
I have the right. The same right as those who have lost loved ones before their time was due.” The steel returned to his eyes, filled with a vitality and a strength that spoke of a dark past.

“
Your generation – you think you know of loss?
Pah!
Have you seen an entire village burned to the ground by the occupiers? Its women and children riddled with machine-gun fire as retaliation for the brave actions of the partisans?
To see whole generations of your countrymen wiped out before your eyes, and see others carted off to the mainland to ride the trains to the Death Camps?”

“
I know that Naxos suffered under the Nazis,” she replied coolly. “I’m not ignorant of Greece’s recent past. But it’s what happened to my fiancée last year that’s of more concern to me.”

This was met with a dry chuckle.

“
So, Julie. You returned, exactly a year later to the day. What did you expect to find?” His eyes were narrowed, a hand held to his brow to shade them from the sun. But there was no doubting the continued shrewd appraisal of her. The same look she had received from the Greek police when she told them exactly where – and when – Steve had vanished.

You know very well why I’m here, Manos
. He must have known that she would have sought answers to her fiancée’s disappearance. The research and her extra sessions at the university gym, honing her physical strength and burning off the anxiety and frustration, had been the only things that had kept her going, at the expense of her scheduled academic studies.

“
No-one comes here to view the sunrise, do they?” she said. “It’s always sunset that draws the crowds. Odd, when you consider the legend. That if you stand in the doorway of the Portara at sunrise on the morning of the summer solstice – the longest day of sunshine - and make a wish, you’ll feel the power of Apollo working through you and make your wish come true.”

Manos waved a dismissive hand. “A charming local legend. The Portara faces towards Delos, the sun god’s birthplace, so the theory that the temple was dedicated to Apollo - ”

“
Is complete and utter crap!” The venom in her words was so powerful Manos took a step backwards, as though he’d been spat in the face. A rumble of what sounded like thunder rolled in her ears. The air was thick and heavy, charged with the power of an imminent thunderstorm.

The blue sky was cloudless.

“
Steve told me a lot about the Portara before he vanished. Some scholars believed it to be dedicated to Apollo, others to Dionysus.

“
But he knew what it was
really
dedicated to, and why today’s date of midsummer is so special. Why, if the temple was dedicated to Apollo, does the Portara frame sunset rather than sunrise? Why is the approach of night more significant than the rising of the sun?”

As the second rumble reached their ears, Manos looked nervous. The ground beneath their feet trembled. Pieces of marble and shale rattled on the paved pathway like spent cartridge casings from a machine gun.

“
Yes, I know now what the temple was dedicated to, and why it was really abandoned. And why the Nazi occupiers paid such close attention to the site. As do
you,
Manos!”

The Portara shivered, as though viewed through a heat haze. The golden hued marble darkened momentarily.