Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) (18 page)

Oleander
rested her hand on my arm and looked so long and hard at me as calmness washed over
me.

She
led me across to the altar. What I saw revolted me and I felt the soured
contents of my stomach lurch upwards. I wanted to run but there was a strong
force that compelled me to stay. It was as if I was fighting with myself. I was
hexed.

The
woman on the altar looked frail with thinning hair. It was difficult to tell
her years. Blisters and sores, leaking green fluid, covered nearly every inch
of her body, and her face and cheeks were purple and swollen. She tried to
smile when she
recognised
Oleander but it obviously
pained her to do so.

Oleander
gazed at her with much fondness like a mother and her child. ‘Everything is
good now,
Neve
.
Celestina
is here to save you.’

I
did not like the sound of these words but her shifting focus weakened the hex.
It was Oleander’s momentary distraction that allowed me freedom again and I ran
back to the doors and out into the hallways.

I
was in the galley now. A serving woman with sweated brow looked at me
strangely. When I grabbed her arm beseeching for help she looked at me
disdainfully as if I was an animal on the loose, as if she had seen this
before. I let her go and ran through the kitchen and up further stairs. I
passed a window that overlooked the front of the castle, but it was not the
frigid landscape that halted my step. It was something else. A splash of
colour
caught my eye and drew me towards the glass framed
with needles of ice.

Illuminated
by a full moon,
Marek
stood alone amid a frozen mass
of midnight white. He stared at the castle with unseeing eyes; I could not tell
what held his focus. I had but seconds to take in every part of him and what I
saw was terrifying.
Marek’s
face was covered in
blood
as were his hands. His shirt was stained pink. I beat
the glass with my fist but he didn’t seem to hear me.

‘He
cannot help you.’

I
jumped with a start. Oleander stood before me, her skin shimmering under the
light from the window.

‘He
is growing into himself. What he truly should have been all this
time.
What he was missing was the chance for immortality.’

I
was frantic and banged louder on the glass.
Marek
turned and looked up at the window. He was looking at me but not. There was no
sign of recognition. Instead he fell on his knees, his face in his hands.

Oleander
moved towards me and wrapped one small hand around my wrist, her narrow fingers
entering my flesh like tiny knives. ‘
Celestina
, I was
hoping you wouldn’t make this so difficult.’ Yet even as she said this there
was amusement in her voice as if the chase was some kind of game and something
she was used to.

I
broke free and ran in a different direction this time.
So
many hallways.
I found a doorway at the back of the house that led to a
courtyard with stone benches and a frozen water fountain. Another time this
might have been a quiet paradise for lovers to sit and watch the stars.

I
climbed over a
stone wall
at the back of the courtyard
and ran free entering the forest behind the castle. I would not look back. It
was my intent to run as far from
there
as possible.
The moon slipped in and out of clouds, scarcely enough light to find a pathway.
I stumbled several times, aware that my elbow was scraped and bloodied.

Someone
was behind me. The steps were fast and closing in. And then there came a shriek
that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was neither wolf nor bear. It was
something I did not
recognise
. It was behind me then
seemingly all around me; I was unable to tell the direction it was coming from.
It was so dark between the
trees,
I became fearful
that I might run directly into its path.

I began
walking somewhere, anywhere, looking over my shoulder to arrive in a small
clearing, feeling suddenly exposed. A mist encircled me so that I could not see
clearly in any one direction – where even the trees were
indistinguishable.

A
crack of a twig sounded in front of me. I stopped, afraid to breathe. I sense
something only yards in front of me. Whatever it was made a wheezing sound,
rasping, like it was dying. I was motionless in the dark hoping it wouldn’t see
me. At first there was nothing and then it
materialised
from the fog.

My
heart beat loudly in my ears. Yellow eyes glared out from the darkness. The
moon reappeared to light up our stage and I could see pieces of hair, pointed
teeth, and a skinny, wiry body. There was a pause in time while it watched me.
Then as I turned to run, it shrieked and flew at me jumping high in the air.
The creature landed on top of me pushing me hard against the ground. I grabbed
at it but my hands slipped across its back covered in sticky mucus. This
disgusting creature, with vile breath, clawed at my neck like a rabid dog and
its teeth commenced to sink into my shoulder.

This
was perhaps my end I thought. A small
life,
unfulfilled of pleasures and comforts, but abandonment, torture and now
punishment. I closed my eyes and asked my God for the quickness of death, for
peace, and that I might discover something joyous beyond my time on earth. But
even heaven rejected me.

‘Stop,’
commanded a voice from the night, and the creature jumped up, turning its head
frantically from side to side before scurrying away through the trees. Oleander
moved to help me up as I touched a mixture of blood and saliva at my neck.

‘Bring
him back,’ she ordered to those behind her. Several young men and women,
dressed in what appeared to be cloth as fine as Oleander’s, rushed forward in
the direction of the creature. My eye was not quick enough. They rushed at such
a fast speed, all that I saw were their auras floating on particles of light
behind them, and the smell of their strong herbal perfumes.

Oleander
observed me, her teeth clenched. She looked tested.
‘If you
come back now you will live.
I’ve played for long enough.’

I
moved forward but it was not by choice. She looped her arm in mine as if we
were friends. The sky seemed to be closing down on me and my head was heavy.
With her free hand she covered my eyes. And then it was as if I was no more.

Zola

It was a good time for hunting. The
moon was high, which meant people would be feeling lightheaded and a bit
frivolous late into the night. They would not be so on guard as to look over
their shoulders at every sound.

Jean
and I travelled together mostly. We cut through forests far from the castle. It
had been a week since I had fed and it was this need that motivated me most.
For some, the hunt was more about the thrill.

I
had of course forgiven Jean since the fishermen episode; it was very difficult
to stay mad at him. After learning of this also, Oleander had angry words with
him, but with little effect, as she too was overly fond of him. 

Jean
called me to him. He was standing behind a group of trees on the riverbank.
Several male youths played around a fire. They had a rounded object made of
leather that they kicked to one another. When one kicked it into the river, the
same boy also had to retrieve it from the icy waters whilst the others yelled,
laughed and teased. They were a contented bunch of boys.

There
was a glint in Jean’s eyes and he licked his lips.

‘Well?’
he said, with merciless nonchalance. This to me had once been part of his
charm.

‘No,
Jean,’ I said. ‘It is against our code.’

‘Oh,
come on! A child’s blood is the purest and oh so fresh when you take them. It
is like the smell of rain.’ He took in an exaggerated breath and closed his
eyes at a memory. ‘Oleander won’t care. You know she won’t. She pretends to
because she has to, but we all know differently.’

‘She
will still be angry and able to tell that we have broken our vow, for you will
have the look of a cat that caught the mouse.’

‘But
I will deny it. You know she loves me like no other.’

One
of the boys whistled. They were laughing loudly, splashing and shouting,
slapping their thighs. Cocky and invincible or so they thought. If only they
had known what lurked in the dark recesses of the forest. One boy called that
he was leaving and headed off alone, and saying that his mother would chase him
with a broom when he arrived home wet. Another swatted him playfully with a
tree branch pretending to be his mother.

They
were such easy marks for a
strigoi
if we were so
inclined. It would be so simple to sink our sharpened teeth into their tender
necks.

Jean
got down on bended knee in mock plea, his hands together in prayer. ‘Please,
Mademoiselle
Zola.’

‘Jean!’
He was so exasperating. I walked away and he followed, though now a little
sullen. I could not control him. I had tried. And I knew he was guilty of
things that I did not want to know about. He was childish, selfish,
overindulged, but most of all exciting. I enjoyed hunting with him over anyone
else and I could not help but like him. I also liked being with him so that I
could keep a close eye on him. He would not want to be seen to be weak of
virtue. He was, after all, incredibly
vain
.

We
travelled once more through the trees until we came upon the monastery near my
house and peered through the windows. The minds of the occupants were nothing
but rambling words and abstract images; this place was full of patients, and
all were lunatics. The monastery of madness was what we called it.

They
were
another easy target for our kind
. We had fed on these
poor souls many times before. The nuns presumed that their patients had
wandered off into the night. They did not know they had wandered off into the
jaws of something else.

This
time it was Jean who turned his back. Tonight he was looking for more of a
challenge.

We
reached another town. Kana was where we had found many victims before. For most
inhabitants we were an invisible enemy. We came and went quickly in many of the
towns and villages, before people were alerted to anyone missing. With bodies
never recovered, there was no crime and there was nothing to fear.

But
in this town, too often our kind had left their mark and the people lived in
fear. The locals slaughtered dogs to ward off witches
;
the animals beaten to death and left on their doorsteps. The citizens were
unaware that it was the smell of this blood that had drawn many a
strigoi
here in the first place. It was also where many of
their own people had been hung, burnt or tortured as witches.

Even
on cold nights, undiscerning women and men wandered the streets after dark
trading
favours
for coin from drunks and it was there
that Jean found his female mark. She had seen him, eyed him up and down and
asked if he wanted some excitement.

‘Of
course,’ said Jean, in his normally dashing manner.

A
man then stepped behind us. ‘You must pay me first, and then pay the sow.’ He
was large, with a hooked nose and rounded belly. His thoughts were devious.
Though I took the lives of many types of humans, I despised this type who
treated
his own
kind so badly. So different, I thought
at the time, to the
strigoi
family who looked out for
one another. Though later, I would come to
recognise
that the jealous and greedy motivations of some of our kind were no better than
human.

‘Are
you looking for work, ’cause you’ll get it with those looks?’ He grabbed me
roughly by the arm and I let him jostle me about. It was all the more rewarding
for what I was about to do.

‘Me
first?’ I asked Jean.

‘Be
my guest,
ma
chérie
.’

I
turned to the man. My dazzling provocative eyes caught him momentarily off
guard, and I rested my teeth on the first layer of his coarse leathery neck.
Blood rushed to the surface. I heard a gasp from the girl behind me, then her
gurgles as she was also taken in a bloody embrace.

The
man’s blood was impure, his memories riddled with malice, but the experience
was wholly pleasurable knowing I had ended the life of someone I despised.

The
blood flowed down my throat and filled up every vein in my body. My heart
pumped harder in response. When my victim was near death, his heart just
fading, I put my lips near his and drew back. I felt his lifetime rush through
me, his putrid thoughts, his acts of debauchery and all those memories then
belonged to me and I breathed them out like empty
vapours
.
Then, that final breath when his soul left his body and entered mine. His soul
in me was now cleansed and another lifetime added to my own.

Though
once large, the man fallen in my arms weighed no more than a half sack of
grain.