The Blood of Life - Chapter 6 - Eternal Dusk (Patreon)

Finally got a new novel chapter up.

I awake in darkness with some type of heavy canvas over me. I’m on a wooden floor and there is nothing but pain left in my body, endless hunger, the smell of burnt fur, and a voice in the distance.

Wait, two voices, I think, but I only hear muffled sounds. I attempt to lift my head so I can hear what they’re saying, but it hurts so badly I fall back to the floor.

There is nothing after that for a while.

Later I feel my head being lifted up. The canvas is no longer over my face. “Drink this,” someone says, as a goblet is pressed up against my muzzle. Haltingly I lap at whatever is in the goblet. It’s salty and coppery, and I think it’s blood, but I can’t tell. I can’t really taste anymore. The sensation is dull and muted against the pain.

When I’m done, my head is lowered down and I doze off again. I dream of Katrina holding Gavrilo, shortly after he was born. She’s clutching the young kit closely to her chest as tears streak her fur. I see my parents again as they tell me they want me to take over the family business when I’m old enough. I walk the road I died on with the one who killed me, and when he turns to sink his fangs into my neck I sit up bolt upright and scream.

“No!” I yell, and the dream dissipates.

I’m still covered by this piece of canvas, so I scramble to pull the cloth down off my face. The bite in my neck itches fiercely, and I reach up to touch it and rub the spot. I blink trying to see where I am, but it’s dark. Through an open door, I can see the back of Ekrem’s store and the sliver of moonlight on the floor there. I am off to the side, among stacks of merchandise in the back room.

I hear the sound of scrambling. Then a thumping sound of paws on the stairs and a light blinds me, as Ekrem comes down them, carrying a lantern.

This one doesn’t burn though, but just makes me blink, trying to focus.

“You’re awake!” he says, surprised.

“Yes.” I pause, trying to figure out what happened. “Alina, she’s dead.”

“I know,” he says.

“She was bitten—”

“I know. We took care of it.”

“She could still rise,” I say, trying to get up, and wince. “Owww, this hurts.”

“We took care of that also.”

I tilted my head. “How long have I been out for?”

“Three weeks.”

“Weeks!” I say in surprise, ears standing up.

“You’ve been awake a few times when I’ve fed you, but you’ve just been lying there. I couldn’t get you upstairs or down into the basement, so I had to leave you here.”

I pull the canvas off my body. I am lying completely naked with some dirt scattered underneath me.  “What happened to my clothing?”

“I had to throw that out. It was covered in this weird dust of burnt fur, and it smelled like a tomb. Lorelei would have noticed.”

“She’s here?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, ears going back. “She had me help with making sure Alina stayed dead. The attacks have created quite a stir.”

I try and process this. “There were others?”

“A farmer went missing two weeks ago. No idea what happened to him and no sign of him has turned up at all. One of the school children says he was ambushed last week by someone, but they managed to escape by running to a neighbor’s house. Other people say they have seen things at night, but it’s hard to say what is real and what is people’s paranoia.”

“How, how did you know it wasn’t me?” I ask softly.

He smiles. “I didn’t at first, but why would you come to me vulnerable like that if you thought I would turn you in? Later, I heard the tracks also weren’t those of a fox. The consensus was they belonged to a weasel.”

I nod. “That’s what I thought. Can you help me up?”

“Sure,” he says, putting the lantern down and coming to help me get up. I feel stiff and it takes me a moment to get my balance once I’m on my paws. I turn around to look myself over. My fur is short, like I just blew my coat. I can only tell where my fur burned off and the sun reached skin because those areas feel tender still. My tail is thin like I’ve been sick.

Ekrem notices me looking myself over. “I can barely tell you were hurt,” he says. “Once I started feeding you, the fur started to grow back in.”

“I heal quickly, but I have never been burned like this before.” I rub the fur along my arm where it was exposed in the morning light. Everything feels fine, but I still have a terrific headache.

“You looked rough,” Ekrem said. “I got the dirt since I thought you’d need it.”

I look over my right paw. I remember it burning, the fur coming off in the dawn. Now, the fur is neat and clean. It’s healed surprisingly well. “It’s like it didn’t happen, yet I can still feel the kiss of the sun.” I take a sniff at myself and wince. There is the unmistakable scent of burnt fur still clinging to me. “I see why you threw out my clothing.”

“I tried to clean you up, but you need a bath.”

Gingerly, I brush the dirt off my fur. I still feel a little unsteady. “I need to procure some clothing first. I don’t know what happened to my trunk.”

“Oh, I have it. I ended up with the trunk to see if I could sell it after Lorelei looked it over.” The leopard points, and next to some dishes is the steamer trunk I had sent to The Twisted Vine tavern. “Some of your taste in clothing is rather old fashioned.”

I clear my throat. “I look very striking in a ruffled shirt when I’m not covered in bits of dirt, thank you. I was quite the fop in my youth. It’s not my fault the world moved on.” I go over and run my paw over the trunk. “Striking, youthful, full of life, it’s probably what got me in trouble to begin with. I had too much rakish pride back then.” I open the trunk and start digging into it. I see he’s placed Katarina’s diary inside. Everything appears to be here although it’s been shifted around.

The leopard chuckles. “You still have your looks.”

Carefully I reach into the corner and feel around until I find a small purse tucked in the bottom in a small pocket stitched into the fabric. “Oh good, I am not destitute,” I say, hefting the purse. I close the lid of the steamer trunk, turn around, and sit down on it. “Looks can be deceiving. See beyond the fur.” I flick my tail into my lap to make myself decent.

“I see a naked fox sitting on a box.”

“Sitting on top of most of what he owns in the world. I have some money in an account in Vienna, this purse of guldens, and that’s it. There’s no castle. There’s no romantic, tragic love story in my past. There’s a fling that I never consummated, and darkness.”

Ekrem doesn’t say anything but just looks at me. I watch the way the light from the lantern plays across his face. Finally, he speaks. “I see someone who still thinks they’re a fop.”

I smile. “Perhaps, but what else?”

“Besides the dirt and lack of clothes, you look rather normal.”

“Looks are not everything,” I say. “Nor is eternity. The great stoic philosophers knew that all we have is the present.” I consider for a moment and look down at my paws, frowning. My ears go down. “And yet here I am worrying about what was instead of what is.”

“Because the present is shaped by the past, and the future will be shaped by the present and the past.”

“Indeed.” I close my eyes and shake myself to right my thinking. “You said something about a bath?” I say, opening them. I should focus on the now.

“Yes. I could draw some water from the town well, but it’s quite late. Dawn is only a few hours away.”

“A bucket and a cloth would be okay for the moment. I can get the water myself.”

“Lorelei is still looking for you. I had to keep her out of the back room, so she didn’t notice the smell.”

My ears go back. “You didn’t think to tell her I was in the other room?”

“I thought about it. I thought really hard if I was harboring a murderer, but your eyes are the eyes of a killer. There’s sadness in them. There was sadness in them when I first met you at the inn, trying to carefully make your way to the stairs, and there was sadness in them when you thought I might have ratted you out to Lorelei the night Alina died.” He walks over to me and puts a digit under my muzzle to tilt it up gently so I can look at him. “I don’t think these are the eyes of a killer.”

My dead heart aches. He’s given me more forgiveness than I have ever given myself. “I’ve done things, Ekrem… Things that I have tried hard to atone for.”

“I think we all have.” He seems to want to say something else, but he drops his paw and shakes his head. “Do you want the water still?”

 “If you’d be so kind then, and I won’t trouble the rest of your night. I can sleep in the basement today while you work. It should be dark enough down there.”

#

When Ekrem said the basement was full of various odds and ends, he wasn’t lying. Even though he said he’s been working on sorting it, stacks of goods and crates filled to the brim are still everywhere. The scents down here are of dust and stagnation, with hints of decay from the damp that seeps in through the dirt floor. After I wash up, I have him leave me here with a lantern to get some sleep while I ponder.

Down here, I don’t need to get any graveyard dirt to rest, but sleep does not come. Now that I’ve awakened from three weeks of cold dead sleep, I am not tired. Instead, my mind races. I need to figure out what’s going on, but I don’t know where to look. Lorelei is looking for me, and whoever killed Alina wanted me gone, but there’s something else. Is the huntsman still alive? Also how did Lorelei find me? I don’t think she can track me when I fly, so she would need to know I was coming to Strasek. How did she know that?

It’s possible Alina tipped her off, but that would require Lorelei to have known her. If she didn’t, that means she knows about my connection to the village. The only records that I know of that would mention it are locked away in the village church, and in Katarina’s diary.

It’s quite possible she has the other volume of the diary. With that, she’d know where to find me, and what happened. I only know of her from a vampire I knew named Riccardo who had heard of this fox who was hunting our kind. He thought himself a connoisseur of the ladies and was going to dispatch her. I found him despicable, but Lorelei somehow found him easy prey and took him out. A few weeks after Riccardo disappeared, I saw her, in an alley near an opera I used to frequent. She was almost a shadow in the night, but the iron tipped crossbolt gave her away. She called my name, and with that I knew she had me marked. I fled and kept low for six months. I’ve still not been back to that opera house.

I get back on my feet and start pacing. Could Ekrem still working with her? That’s possible, but he had his chance to kill me. His concern for me seems genuine. Either he didn’t tell Lorelei I was still alive, or she needs me alive for some reason. There’s no way she’d show mercy to me, but what she wants, I don’t know. She’s persistent, but for her to follow me for four years? That seems extreme.

If she’s this persistent, I doubt she’s left Strasek. It’s also possible she came here because she wants to settle other business. Whatever happened to the Huntsman, she would have the clues to know if she had the diary.

With Alina dead though, the inn is likely closed. She’s going to need someplace to stay. And unless she’s told all the villagers why she’s here, she’s not just going to be walking around town with a crossbow looking suspicious. Just like I need a place to stay, she’s going need the same. If she has a place to stay nearby, she could have the journal with her, assuming she’s ever had the journal.

I think back to the alleyway, and her calling out my name. I stopped pacing and my fists tighten. She didn’t just call me Radic, she called me Radic Horban.

I stopped using my surname after the change. I didn’t want to bring shame to my family. She certainly knows my story from somewhere if she knows that name. I can almost guarantee she has seen the journal or it’s in her possession. As for where she is, that’s something Ekrem will know.

#

Just before dawn, the leopard came down to check on me, and I told him I was okay. I want to ask him about Lorelei, but I resolve to wait till tonight. I tell him to go about his day as he normally would and leave me here. Part of me wants to worry that his leaving me in this basement could easily turn into a trap, but I discard that. If he wanted me dead, he’d have finished the job the sun started. He had to work to keep me alive.

Still, rest does not come. Perhaps it is because I slept too long. The basement also isn’t completely dark. A tiny sliver of light filters in from a small crack in the foundation that Ekrem probably doesn’t realize is even there. It’s too diffuse to hurt me, but the thought of any sunlight makes me anxious.

It and the little light that creeps past the basement door at least gives me something to work with. I should have asked Ekrem for matches so I could relight the lantern, but I had thought I’d sleep. Instead, my day is restless, fitful. I doze only a little and listen to the footsteps above me as Ekrem moves about the store, accompanied by the creak of the floorboards. Sometimes people come inside, and I hear voices, but I can’t make out what they say. The hours pass uneventfully. I feel the itch in my body to do something, to get out there and find the answers I seek, but there is nothing I can do. There is just the quiet silence of this damp, makeshift tomb, and my lifeless body not breathing.

Eventually the light from the crack fades, and I can tell the sun’s tyranny over me is slowly vanishing as it slips down in the sky. At dusk, the door to the basement opens, and Ekrem comes downstairs, carrying a lit lantern.

“Radic?” he calls out. “Are you awake?”

I had given up trying to sleep a few hours ago and have taken to alternating between pacing very slowly in the little clear space I can find down here and pretending I’m a statue made of stone that details a fox. Carefully I turn my head toward him, while perched on a chair like a gargoyle.

“Yes….” I hiss. I’m sure my eyes glow in the darkness, picking up the light from the lantern.

The leopard looks at me from the bottom of the stairs, his tail lashing. “What are you doing?”

“Amusing myself,” I say, getting off the chair. “This is the only piece of furniture I could dig out silently, and it’s too dark to see what other relics of the past you’ve got lurking under the tarps in the corners.”

“You wanted it dark, didn’t you?” he asks.

“Yes, but I see no better in the dark undead than I did alive. I just can’t be in sunlight. I didn’t really sleep, but tomorrow I should sleep better.”

He nods. “Did you want to look for the next journal tonight? I’ve taken some time the last few weeks to go through stuff, but it’s not turned up. It’s possible I missed it.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think it’s here. Where is Lorelei? I must find her.”

He’s taken back by that. “Why on earth would you want to see her?”

“She knows things I need to know.”

He tilts his head, looking at me in confusion. “You want to talk to the woman who wants to kill you?”

“Talk is the wrong word. First, tell me how you met Lorelei.”

He thinks as he heads back upstairs, beckoning me to follow. “She came here a few months ago and told me she was looking for a fox who only went out at night. She told me you called yourself Radic, and that you were dangerous if approached. She asked me to send a telegram to her in Vienna if I saw you, which I had to go to Herzok to send.”

“When did she tell you I was a vampire?” I ask as I follow.

“That was obvious when she said you only went out at night. After the incident that occurred with Uncle Ismail, I understood why she was approaching me and the need for secrecy.”

“So, no one else knew besides you and Alina I was coming to Strasek?” I ask Ekrem, as we climb up to the second story of his store.

He shakes his head.

“Are you sure no on else at all knew?” I reply. “It seems strange Lorelei knew I would come here before I did.”

“If Lorelei told anyone else, she didn’t tell me. She did say she spoke to my uncle three or four years ago and made the same request.”

“Interesting,” I say, pondering. “She knows far more about me than I know about her.”

“She does indeed seem to know your history, but she doesn’t know you, I noticed.” We’ve reached the living quarters, and he sits down after motioning to the other chair. “You’re quite the charming fox, but there’s also that sadness about you. She mentioned nothing about your personality at all.”

I chuckle as I sit with him and lean forward. “So what were you supposed to do about this charming fox if you did see him?”

A sly smirk. “Just let her know. I should send a telegram to her in Vienna.”

“Does that mean she’s returned to Vienna?”

 “Not as far as I know, but she didn’t actually tell me where to find her if I did. The office in Herzok wouldn’t know where to send them.”

“So, she left no forwarding address.”

The leopard shakes his head.

“And she isn’t staying at the inn?”

“Doubtful. Alina had a brother who has come to town, but he’s still working on sorting out what to do with it. I think one of Alina’s adult children might take it over, but they’re in Budapest. The burgomaster is putting pressure on the family to reopen, but she understands it’s still a time of grieving.”

I consider. It couldn’t be that Lorelei is like me, could it? “Does she come only at night to see you?”

Ekrem shakes his head. “No, she came during the day, but she certainly is cautious. She doesn’t want to be found.”

“Indeed, but she can’t be too far away. She’s got to be somewhere around here.”

“That assumes she’s still looking for you of course.”

I flick my tail. “She’s a vampire hunter, and there’s a vampire loose in the area. Two it seems. If she’s been looking for me for four years, I don’t see her backing down suddenly when her quarry is nearby. She has the advantage of having both the day and the night at her disposal in this chase. What did you tell her about me when she come by after Alina died?”

“I told her we had talked, but I didn’t tell her about the journal,” says Ekrem.

“That’s fine, but she knows who I am from somewhere, and the only reliable source that covers who I am is going to be Katarina’s other journal.” I consider. “Do any of the other towns have telegraph offices besides Herzok?”

“Not yet. They’ve got one because that’s where they plan to build the station when the railroad reaches us.”

“As I recall, Herzok is a four-to-five-hour walk. I can fly there faster, but it’s still quite a ways.”

“Wait, you fly!” he exclaims in shock.

I smile sheepishly. “Just as a bat. It’s the only good thing I’ve gotten from this curse.”

“Yes, but you still fly,” he insists, eyes lighting up.

“Trust me, I would give that up in an instant to feel the sun warm and nurturing against my fur and to know the taste of food.”

He shakes his head. “There are those who would trade away that to know eternity.”

“And what good is eternity when all it brings you is pain?”

“Am I pain to you?”

I hesitate. “No, you are a warm glow.” I take his hands in mine. “And one that does not try and burn me away. You are everything I am not, and for that, I am thankful.”

He blushes.

“But I must find Lorelei and see if my suspicions are right. The journey to Herzok should be quick, and if she has the journal, I’ll…”

He waits. “Well?” he asks me.

“Somehow get it out of her possession. Unfortunately, I’d have to walk back with the book.”

“Well, it’s only five hours if you walk slow,” he remarks.

“I’m sure I can do it in three if she’s chasing me, but it will be worth it. I need answers.”

The leopard nods, and I smile, trying to reassure him. What I don’t tell him is that I’m willing to pay with my life if I can find these answers. It’s been a long hundred years. It’s time to settle all this.