The Vampires' Birthright (43 page)

The musty scent of earth hovered around me, creating bits of memories to play at the fringes of my mind. The smell of the ground eased into the smell of sweat and blood. Swollen, red lines appeared, crisscrossed, on dark skin. Thick, rusty-scented liquid spilled from bodies like sap from a wounded tree. A feeling of power filled me…

My eyes flew open. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Daylight had turned to dusk sometime during my nightmare. I tried playing the gruesome scene back in my head, but the day’s events quickly took over all other thoughts. My first memory was of sitting on Excalibur in the middle of a broken street, chunks of earth and rock everywhere, everything coated in layers of dust and dirt. Water spewed from the ground to my right—something I hadn’t really focused on before; no wonder, with the angry mob’s verbal attack. Had I caused the destruction? Had the destruction caused the damage to my body?

As I lay there willing myself to remember, my eyes grew heavy again. Staying awake became an effort. I tied focusing on the spider but could barely see the creature in the darkened corner. A throbbing pain, or a sting from a wound, kept me on the alert, enough to keep me from falling asleep again. Outside, swaying tree branches brushed against the side of the shed, keeping a steady beat, giving me something to focus on.

My thoughts wandered to Excalibur. He hadn’t come in when Melba left, and she’d closed the door behind her. A sudden craving to see the stallion bloomed inside me. Wincing, I sat up. My body had grown stiff in the hour or so I lay there. A shadow passed over the glow of sunset that came through the little window, casting me for a moment, in total darkness. I waited for Excalibur to pop his big white head inside. But when he didn’t, a bone-chilling prickle crept under my skin.

The shadow transformed into a dark mist, accumulating at the window, thickening on the sill. Like a nightmarish waterfall, it cascaded down the wall, pooling into a black froth on the ground of the shed. Dusk peeped in above it, enough to see the contrast of the gray sky against the invasion of darkness. My wounds stung, and with the pain came the stark realization that I wasn’t dreaming. An evil presence seeped from the entity and traveled through the shed, creeping across the dirt floor toward me, backing me against a wall.

“Excalibur,” I whispered, but he didn’t answer.

The gloom came nearer. I pushed against the studs in the wall, but I had nowhere to go. The darkness swallowed my feet first, and then my legs, as the creepiness traveled up my body faster than I could move away.

I tried grabbing it, swatting at it as if it was a nest of ants crawling up my legs, but it continued advancing. Standing now, I reached overhead, until my hand came in contact with the shovel. I pulled it down, and with a tight grip on the handle, I swung the makeshift weapon out in an arc in front of me, as if I could swat the emptiness away. When the shadow reached my neck, icy fingers closed around my throat, tightening, twisting my skin in opposite directions until the breath ceased expelling from my lungs. When I thought the veins in my face would burst, a rectangular beam of dusk shot across the floor. A woman screamed. The shadow retreated faster than I’d ever seen anything move.

I drew in a long raspy breath, as my widened gaze met Melba’s—equally as wide. One hand gripped something that hung around her neck. In the other, she carried a load.

“Spirits help me,” she said while tracing invisible signs in the air with her fingers.

After a couple deep breaths, I realized I still held the shovel above my head. I lowered the tool, searching the room as I did. The shadow had retreated the way it came in, the moment Melba opened the door to the shed. Had she seen it?

Exhaustion took its toll. The shovel fell from my trembling hands, and I fell to my knees with such force, a roar of pain escaped me.

Melba fell to the floor beside me. She laid her hand on my shoulder, then immediately retracted it, as if something had bitten her. She fell backward, landing on her behind. With my head fallen forward and sharp pains shooting down my back, I turned my head to the side, enough to see her through my hair.

Her brown skin had paled. The load she’d been carrying scattered on the floor around her. She even seemed to have stopped breathing. Then she sucked in a gust of air and closed her mouth.

“Did you see it?” I asked with a rasp, my shoulders heaving.

Melba snapped out of her contortion of fear.

“A strange, naked man trying to kill me? Yes, I saw it.” Her chest rose and fell with her heavy breathing.

I shook my head. “No. I… you saw it, didn’t you?”

She cradled the hand that touched me in her other, rubbing it gingerly. Then she narrowed her hazel eyes on me. “Only evil has the energy to pass from one soul into another. You’re crossed with it.”

“Evil? What kind of evil?”

“A dark aura surrounds you, Solomon” Her expression softened. “Yet, I feel it has not taken your soul. But something sinister wants it… wants your soul.”

What could want my soul? Whatever Melba spoke of, maybe it had already taken my soul, and my memories with it, and now I was an empty shell of what I once was.

Melba came out of her shock and picked an object off the ground. She flipped a switch at the base of what looked like a lantern, and light beamed from the upper half, casting a warm glow in the small space. After hanging the lantern from a nail on a beam, she picked up a square container, took off the top, and handed it to me.

I examined the contents: cooked chicken, sliced between bread, a piece of frosted cake, and a pear. Then she sat a jug filled with water in front of me, and handed me a tubular container filled with what she called herbed tea.

“Drink the tea first. It’ll sooth your throat and whatever else ails you.” Melba saw me struggle to remove the top. “Turn it.

A burst of hot steam shot up my nose, and with it, a pungent odor spiked with undertones of citrus and mint; all in all, not bad. By the second sip, the rawness in my throat lifted.

While I savored the strange concoction, Melba pulled a small bottle from her trouser pocket. With it, she proceeded to spray a fine mist into the air until the inside of the shed felt almost humid. I couldn’t make out what she mumbled as she sprayed; something about cleansing, and evil spirits.

While she did her thing, I lifted a slice of bread, noticing a white, creamy substance slathered on the inside of the slices.

“Mayo,” Melba said looking down at me in mid-spray, as if I should know. “You’ve had mayonnaise before, right?”

“It’s highly probable,” I decided, and took a bite and then another. The food tasted wonderful, like the first meal I’d ever eaten.

As the last sip of luke-warm tea pushed the last bite of bread and chicken down my throat, Melba pulled a bucket from a corner and sat on it. She toyed back and forth with a strange wooden carving that hung from her neck on a gold chain, and a tiny, red pouch that hung beside it.

“Thank you for the food. I shall pay you once I find my… my—”

“Identity?”

“I guess so.”

“Hmm, the sane thing to do would be to take you to a hospital, where they can have the police check for missing persons, or file a report, or whatever they do.” She leaned forward, letting go of the objects around her neck. “But I fear you need a different kind of protecting, Solomon.”

When she said the name, pertaining to me, adrenaline rushed through me, shooting a thrill along my veins, charging my insides, making me feel stronger. In that moment, I knew without a doubt I was Solomon. Brandt, on the other hand, I had trouble connecting with.

“Brandt.” As I said the name out loud, a shudder tore through me.

“Brandt?” Melba repeated. “Solomon Brandt?” Her eyes narrowed. “That can’t be your name.”

“It is my name.” As I defended the name as my own, I detected a note of authority in my voice that hadn’t been there before.

“Is that so?” Melba said dubiously. “Hmm, you do look sort of like…”

“Like who?”

“No one. I have the strangest feeling about you… Solomon Brandt. You were sent to me for a purpose.” Her gaze fell to the floor, to the left of her, and she spoke almost to herself. “And for some strange reason, I don’t think it would be wise to send you away.”

She bent forward and rummaged through a sack, pulling out a small wooden dish. She took off the wooden cover and stuck her fingers in what looked like dirty grease. Then she proceeded to cover each scratch and gash over my entire body with what she called healing tincture.

“This will warm your skin and deep heal those wounds. The spicy scent also has a calming effect.”

When she had my wounds dressed, she picked up the bundle she’d dropped earlier.

“Here, put these on.” She held up strange-looking undergarments, a plaid shirt, and trousers, then laid them by my feet. “I’ll bring you water for bathing in the morning; the tincture must have time to do its work.”

When Melba turned on the bucket to face the other way, I got the hint and picked up the clothes. The undergarments stretched over my bruised skin, but the trousers and shirt barely fit over my brawn.

“I don’t think they fit,” I said as I tried futilely to stretch the shirt fabric so both ends met. The buttons were at least eight inches from the holes.

Melba spun in a half-circle on the bucket. “Hmm, I’ll have to find something suitable for you to wear.” She looked longingly at the shirt covering my shoulders. “These were my husband’s clothes.”

“Were?”

“He passed nearly fifteen years ago, at just thirty-six.” Moisture pooled at the corners of her eyes as she spoke. “He was cutting down a tree with his chainsaw when a gust of wind came up out of nowhere and pushed the tree in the wrong direction… he died instantly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, well, that was a long time ago, but feels like just yesterday.” A melancholy smile appeared on her face. She lifted the other items she brought with her. “I guess these boots won’t be of any use to you, either. They’re only a size nine. I don’t suppose you know what size shoe you take?”

I looked at her with her eyebrows raised, then to my grime-covered feet and shrugged.

“Well, you’re at least six-foot-something.” She sat a boot beside my foot. “Maybe an eleven… twelve. I’ll see what I can pick up at the used clothing store tomorrow.”

I wiped pear juice from my chin and took another bite of the succulent fruit.

“Let’s hope the cops don’t come by again tomorrow. You’re all over the news, you know.
Naked pervert riding a white horse.
” Melba shook her head. “They came back about an hour after they left. Brought hounds with them this time. I was sure they’d sniff you out. The dogs ran the whole yard and came back to the police car.”

Must have been while I slept,
I thought to myself.

“That horse of yours must have taken off—if he even is yours.”

Excalibur
.

I sat the pear core in the container and stood, bending my knees, trying to stretch the tight material against my thighs. I stepped out into the balmy night air and opened my mouth to call the stallion. As soon as I uttered the first syllable, Excalibur rounded the corner, neighing, sounding almost joyful.

“There you are,” I said, feelings of fondness for the horse taking hold of me.

Excalibur nudged my cheek with his nose in a loyal gesture.

Melba stood in the doorway. “There’s a bucket of water outside for your friend, and all the fresh grass he can eat. You two seem to know each other quite well.”

“It seems we do,” I answered while staring into the horse’s docile eye.

Excalibur entered the shed, walked to my makeshift bed and stood on one side.

“I guess he wants to go to bed,” Melba said, then laughed.

I smiled for the first time that I could remember.

“I’ll be back in the morning. Don’t let anyone see you.”

I gave her a nod. “Thank you… for everything.”

Melba closed the door behind her, leaving me and Excalibur alone. For some reason, having the horse near lessened the fear of what had happened earlier, to the extent that I began to think I had dreamed of the black fog.

Picking up the blanket Melba left, I re-situated myself on the earthy bed. The lantern above still shone. When I turned onto my side, I noticed the container that had held the tea sitting on the floor mere inches away, casting a wavy reflection of my face in the steel.

Blue eyes, set under black lashes and thick, dark eyebrows stared back at me. I picked up the contained, turning it, looking for a clearer picture. But the steel was dull and curved, making my face look distorted. Still, there I was, Solomon Brandt; dark, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes; muscular and once strong, and I knew how to use a gun.

I sat the container down and turned to look at Excalibur, who lay beside me now, staring intently at me. “Did you bring me here on purpose, boy? Is this where I’m supposed to be? Or did the scent of peach blossoms and clover lure you here?”

One corner of my mouth lifted while my eyes grew heavy. Words Melba spoke earlier rang in my head:
crossed
and
evil.