I Am Forever (What Kills Me) Page 11

  “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that this is the bad guy,” I said.

  “Ashur was savage and ruthless. His thirst for blood and for power was infinite. It was he who engaged in battle with Surena and killed her. All of the vampires in her bloodline died with her.”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “It is not known. When the Monarchy tried to contain the Ancients, the Ancients fought back and it sparked a war. It divided the race. Many died in battle, including the Emperor.”

  “You had an emperor?”

  “Yes. The Ancients and their followers slaughtered every member of the royal family except the Empress. Many of the Annu also were killed in battle. Vaharas hunted them all, and in the daytime Emera dragged them out and exposed them to the sunlight.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “The Empress, like the Divine, is a survivor.”

  Look at that. We have something in common.

  “The Ancients had one purpose: to rule. All revered them. But their capture ensured peace and stability.”

  “How did the Monarchy drain their blood without affecting everyone else?” I pictured an entire race of vampires shriveling up like white raisins.

  “The blood connection is based on mortal wounds. The wounds must naturally bleed. The Ancients did not bleed. They had the blood sucked out of them.”

  “Sucked out of them?”

  He turned to the back of the book. There was an image of an Ancient with maybe eight vampires crouched around her like a pack of wolves around a fallen fawn. Gross.

  “Whoa, that’s a lot of sucking,” I said. “So half of that well is actually filled with vampire saliva.”

  Uther smiled.

  “You’d think the well would’ve dried up at some point,” I said.

  “The blood is, as we are, eternal.”

  He turned a page to reveal Ashur wielding two swords with heads impaled on the end of each one.

  “Uther?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Lettie said their powers and...uh, impulses could manifest in me. Is that true?”

  “That remains to be seen, my lady. You are still very young. Strength and abilities develop over years. But you clearly have inherited some of their abilities: Ashur’s strength, Emera’s immunity to the sun, perhaps some of Nim’s thick skin.”

  “What about their...bad qualities?” I asked, thinking of my disturbing nightmares and my flashbacks.

  Uther closed the book and a dusty breath caressed my hand. “My lady,” he said. “You write your own story. You determine what the legends will say. The Sacriva reveals only that you were born to rescue the race.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “That is for you to decide.”

  “As you may have noticed, I’m not really leader material. My older sister took care of me. Then Ryka.”

  “But you are compassionate. You rushed to protect your chaperone at the training center. You don’t like to see anyone terrorized or oppressed. You always think of others. Look how you care about my well-being, Lettie’s, the swordsmith’s.”

  I imagined myself as a Care-Bear, except the symbol on my stomach was a pair of fangs. “I doubt I will save the world by caring.”

  “Do not underestimate the power of caring. All anyone needs is the will to make a difference and she can move the earth.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I have faith, my lady, that you will always do what is right. Protecting those in need is in your blood.” He paused.“Your blood. Not the Ancients’ blood.”

  “It’s just that they were so dangerous. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I was, you know, like them in any way.”

  “The Empress knows you are not like the Ancients. You are our Divine. Our true God.”

  He stepped away and bowed. “On that note, my lady, I am in need of rest before tonight’s ritual. May I take leave? Your guards will show you back to your quarters when you are ready to retire. Please feel free to take some books back to your room.”

  I watched him cross the bridge and exit through the brass doors. Then I opened the book. The pages parted to show a drawing of Ashur standing over Surena’s body, her head severed from her neck. This time, all three of her eyes were open, vacant and unseeing.

  Dark spikes protruded from the ceiling like dangling icicles.

  That doesn’t seem very safe. Note to self: if a fight breaks out in this room, throw your attacker up.

  The room was cavernous. The stone walls were uneven, veiny, like dripped and dried candle wax. Dirt marred the surface as if someone had been scraping their blood-covered hands on the ragged rock. On a platform, what appeared to be a bunk bed made of gray stone slabs sat like some prehistoric furniture display. Each thick shelf had oval holes in the center.

  I crossed my legs, and the rustle of my dress seemed awfully loud. Although hundreds of vampires were seated in pews behind me, they made no noise.

  I sat between the Empress and Uther, my three guards crouched in front of me in case someone tried to hurt me again. I looked over my shoulder and craned to see San and Lucas, who were seated several rows back. I smiled at them. San returned the gesture with a smirk and a rise of his eyebrows. He looked so proud to be here. I would’ve chuckled except that his face stood out in such contrast to Lucas’s detached expression. He was staring straight ahead, avoiding my gaze. Lately he’d been distant, speaking to me in clipped answers, every syllable another cut to my bleeding heart. I turned back and chewed my lip. I know, Lucas. You hate this place.

  Low chanting began somewhere far away. It was slow in its approach, like rolling smoke, but soon it filled the room. Two lines of clerics in hooded white robes walked on either side of the pews, their chants a hum of soft consonants and elongated vowels. They clutched their long red candles so close to their chests that I feared their clothes would catch fire. The light illuminated the lower halves of their faces, and their eyes glowed inside black sockets. As they formed a semicircle around the beds, the high cleric entered, his voice rising above the others.

  Behind him a young man followed.

  I straightened up and leaned forward. It was amazing to see a human after so long.

  I stared, trying to figure out why he had been chosen. He was attractive but not exceptionally so. He seemed...ordinary. He had blond hair and tawny eyes that darted from the crowd to the high cleric. He tried to hold his head high, but he trembled in his white tunic. He was missing his right hand; the end of his arm was wrapped in gauze and jutted out from his sleeve like a cotton swab. He squeezed his left palm and I heard the squish of sweat in between his fingers. I listened to his jagged pant and thick swallow. I listened to his hammering heartbeat.

  I thought of the panicked vampires I’d seen at the ceremony. They’d expressed their terror with their voices, with powerful, unhesitating movement. Human fear manifested through shallow breath and wetness, through skittering jerks and pulsing blood.

  This is what I looked like to Paolo when he hunted me. Vulnerable. I put my hand against my own silent chest. Well, not anymore.

  One day this young man would be as unmoving and as hard as the stone slabs behind him. But for now he was soft flesh and brittle bones. He was flimsy, like a jacket on a hanger.

  Soldiers trailed him. Even if he changed his mind, there was nowhere to run. The guy paused, licking his lips and sucking the air through his mouth.

  A vampire entered the room from the other side. Her black hair formed a sharp V in the middle of her back. Her round, pale face glowed like the moon against night. She looked about eighteen, but I knew she’d been eighteen for a very long time.

  Maybe it was the way she moved, unnaturally upright and slithery, every step and turn evenly timed. Maybe it was her expression. Cold. Melancholy. Fearless. A moving stone sculpture, further hardened by time, edges smoothed like a rock in a river.

  She was beautiful. She reminded me of the Empress.

  She stopped
in front of the human and stared through him. They wore matching tunics; his was stained beneath his armpits. The chanting crescendo quieted.

  The vampire turned to me. “I sacrifice my blood, my power, and my being for the Divine and the Monarchy.”

  The human faced me and when he spoke, his voice shook. “I pledge my immortal life to the Divine and to the Monarchy. I promise to serve and to protect for the rest of eternity.”

  I nodded encouragingly but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. I promise to do what I can to protect you in return.

  The high cleric unfolded a bundle of cloth and presented the vampire with a knife with a mosaic-covered blade. She took the handle, exposed her wrist, and punctured the creamy skin. Her blood spilled from her arm, and the high cleric caught it with a golden goblet. The vampire’s burgundy blood was syrupy and sour-smelling. The man’s pulse sped up and I wanted to plug my ears to muffle the quick staccato.

  The vampire removed the blade, and as her wound healed, the high cleric turned to the young man and put the goblet to his lips. I frowned, imagining what it might taste like. The liquid must have touched his tongue because he coughed once. I heard the blood splash back inside the cup. But he closed his eyes, tipped his head back, exposing his throat and his bobbing Adam's apple, and gulped.

  The high cleric removed the goblet and began chanting again.

  Well, that was incredibly civil. Much better than drowning in a well of blood.

  The high cleric directed the vampire to the bed and she climbed onto the top bunk and lay down. The young man clutched his stomach and grunted. He struggled onto the bunk below. He turned his head to the crowd, his eyes wet, and I gave him my best sympathetic expression—there would be at least one warm face amidst the grimness. But he looked right through me. Does he not see me? Or is my face no different from the rest?

  Soldiers locked the pair’s wrists and ankles into manacles. Meanwhile, two clerics with coils of tubes and what appeared to be clear glass lanterns approached the beds. The man’s teeth clattered as one cleric leaned over him and inserted needles into his arms. The other cleric stood on a stepladder to puncture needles into the vampire’s arms.

  The low chanting began again. The tubes snaking from the vampire’s arm suddenly turned red as blood coursed through them, filling the glass jugs held by the clerics. As soon as they were full, the clerics pushed down a plunger, squeezing the blood out, leaving streaks against the glass. My eyes followed the liquid as it continued through the tubes and into the man’s arms. I waited. One second. Two seconds. Three. Four.

  The man gasped. His body tensed, his back arched, his eyes bulged. He was choking. He was pulling against the manacles so hard that they cut his wrists. I thought he would pop his hands right off. He started to convulse so violently that his skull smacked the slab over and over. Veins, like thick roots, rose up under the skin on his neck as his face turned blue.

  The blood kept flowing. The containers became full and then empty. Full and empty.

  The vampire appeared drunk, her head lolling from side to side. The man’s face was frozen in a grotesque mask. An earthquake ravaged his body from within.

  He’s suffering. He’s going to die right in front of my eyes.

  The clerics were getting louder, but I heard clicking. Like someone was turning a crank. I scanned the room for the noise. The Empress, Uther, everyone seemed fixated on the exchange of blood. Movement on the ceiling caught my attention.

  I looked up. One of the spikes was descending.

  What the...?

  I followed the sharp point. It was aimed just over the vampire and the human.

  Oh no.

  The spear hovered about twenty feet above the vampire. She clenched her fists and closed her eyes. The human, in the grips of torment, did not see what was coming.

  The high cleric lifted both his hands. The clerics crowed, their voices shrill and deafening.

  Oh my God.

  The spike fell.

  I turned my head away so fast that a sharp pain bit at my neck.

  The spike punched through their flesh with two quick thuds. The vampire groaned. The human retched.

  I peeked through my hair. They were both impaled through their chests on the giant needle. The vampire’s blood wormed its way down the spike and onto the limp human. He was wheezing, red bubbling from his lips. His heart beat slowed. Thump. Thump. Silence. Thump. Silence. His eyes stayed open. Dark red spread across his white tunic.

  He’s dead. I was relieved. Now he can be reborn?

  I waited for him to stir. For his body to bronze. For his hair to become spun gold. For his pupils to catch fire.

  But instead, his skin grayed. Blood pooled in his body and bruises blossomed on his arms and legs.

  Why isn’t he becoming a vampire? Why does he look like he’s decomposing so fast?

  All of sudden his back rose up off the slab. I gasped. The spike was retracting, pulling itself from him. The vampire hissed as it slid out of her. I watched its ascent back to the ceiling; heavy droplets of blood rained from its point and plunked onto the vampire’s white clothes.

  The clerics wrapped the human in a gauzy white fabric, its web of fibers soaking up the blood. They hoisted his body onto a wooden stretcher. The vampire stayed on her back, her eyelashes flapping, her fangs exposed. After a moment she climbed down from her bunk as if awakening from a deep slumber and turned unsteadily to me and the Empress. She put her hand over her gored heart and bowed. I was afraid she’d tip forward. Instead she rocked back and onto another waiting stretcher. The clerics carried the two out.

  “My lady?” Uther said after we returned to my room.

  “Yes?”

  “You are not your usual merry self. You have not said much since the ritual.”

  I watched a man die. What’s merry about that? Though you’d think I’d be used to seeing people get killed.

  “Are you all right, my lady?”

  The burden of seeing made my eyelids heavy and my stomach sick. I was too drained to even joke.

  “Do you have any questions?” Uther asked.

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  “The human was a soldier. The Monarchy watched him for years and chose him for his skill and his bravery. His platoon was recently under attack, and insurgents threw grenades at them. He picked them up and flung them back to protect his comrades. The last grenade took his right hand.”

  “And the vampire?”

  “Lady Bo acted as the sire to this honored young man.”

  “Will they be okay?”

  “Lady Bo is Annu. She is thousands of years old and very strong. She will recover quickly, my lady. The young man will be put to rest in a tomb and will awaken within twenty-four hours with his right hand and with immortal life. He will become a soldier with the Aramatta.”

  I hoped that he would not be alone when he awoke. At least I’d had Uther and Lettie to usher me into the underworld.

  I said, “It all would’ve been less frightening if they’d just stuck to the cup.”

  “The ceremonial drink is a reference to our history. But it used to take hours for a human to drink the amount of blood necessary for rebirth. Now we quicken the process with transfusions."

  “And what’s with the giant spear?” I asked with a shudder.

  “It is a symbol of their connection. There is an old fable,” he said, holding his finger in the air, “that tells of an Ancient feeding a human her blood to give him immortal life. She is about to stab him with her sword to kill him so he can awaken a vampire. But he tells her that he is afraid. Now the Ancient loves this human, and in response she stabs herself and the human with the same sword—”

  I rolled my eyes. "Because nothing says ‘I love you’ like a sword through your heart.”

  “You see,” Uther continued patiently, “the Ancient wanted to show the human that she was willing to suffer with him so they could be together. It was the grandest gesture of unity and sacrifice, and we conti
nue to use that gesture today. It declares to the world that the sire and her child are one.”

  I imagined the spear as a needle in a sewing machine, piercing through two layers of fabric and binding them. This thread would link them for eternity.

  “It sounds nice, but if I were that guy, I would’ve settled for a high-five. It would’ve saved everyone a lot of pain.”

  Uther smiled. “You’re channeling Jahl, the wise, today.”

  Well, Jahl wasn’t wise enough to avoid war and capture.

  I must have made a sarcastic face because Uther opened his palm and gestured to the bed. “My lady, you should rest. I believe you are worn from your nights.”

  “I’m sorry, Uther,” I said. “I don’t mean to be moody.”

  “You are anything but.”

  “Speaking of moody, I want to go downstairs and talk to someone.”

  I descended the stairs and Lucas was in the foyer, leaning on the mantel of the fireplace and staring into the flames. I hated seeing him so sullen.

  “Hey,” I said.

  His eyes flicked up and then back to the fire. “How was your first creation ritual?” he asked flatly.

  “Oh, you know, I see vampire-human shish kebabs all of the time. No big deal.”

  He smirked.

  “To be honest, it was really disturbing,” I said.

  “That’s the third ritual I’ve ever witnessed aside from my own,” he said. “My father’s, Taren’s, and now that soldier’s.”

  “I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been for you.”

  “It was terrifying. I was only nineteen years old.”

  “You’re nineteen? I mean, you were?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know that. I’m seventeen.”

  “I figured.”

  “Why? Do I act seventeen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, how many seventeen-year-olds have rescued you from death? I think I’m a pretty special seventeen-year-old.”

  “I never said you weren’t special. But you’re naive.”