Sybrina Read online

  “I lust for blood... but with disciplined restraint, control it.” She glances at me with suspicious disbelief; the phantoms of that evening hang about the room ensnared within her questions.

  “The other evening was a mistake. Abhorrence strikes my soul to think on it. The last thing I would ever want is for you to be afraid of me. I am sorry for making you fearful.”

  “I accept your apology, Min...” She catches herself. “Elijah.” Her face shows a hint of merriment. “It is a good thing you are not of the clergy, for I have never met someone so horrid at it.”

  I grin at her jest at my expense. She is correct; I make for a terrible clergyman.

  “Will Mouse kill people?” She halts, reconsidering her words, and softly asks, “Will he have restraint as you put it?”

  “He will not be himself for a couple of days. I will teach and advise him.”

  “Will he be back?” Sybrina emphasizes he.

  “Vadim will be back. We must be ready.” Her silence is the only evidence needed of her fear. She should be fearful; Vadim wants her.

  Mouse’s body jolts in a macabre lurch. Sybrina’s intake of a sharp breath is discernible. His body is healing itself, strengthening to an impenetrable fortress. More spastic jumps, the ropes snap, and I hold the boy down. Sybrina stands, stepping back anxiously.

  “I must take him now,” I tell her.

  Sybrina nods with glazed eyes filled with tears pooling in the corners. “Take care of him,” she mutters, unsure of the situation.

  “Go to your cabin,” I order more harshly than I would have liked. I soften my cadence to reassure her, “I will look after him.”

  I sling Mouse over my shoulder when he settles a bit and, with unearthly speed, leave Sybrina alone in the galley with her skepticism and anguish. Vainly, I hope that this is the beginning of mending our rapport.

  Chapter 12

  Elijah:

  The ship is in quiet mourning. There has to be a least ten bodies on the deck tucked away to the side. I cannot fix this, just like I could not fix her parents. I have wondered often that if I had been there, would I have saved them. In my own selfishness, I want to make Sybrina happy. Changing her parents, giving them an immortal life, may have made her happy. Her pain stifles me, in a richly unsettling way. If saving this boy will be at least one smile to cross her face in the knowledge that she did not lose him, it is worth its weight in fine gold. I want to be the one to take her pain away.

  I cannot turn them. Guilt or no, it would be an army to advise and watch over. It would not be right, I remind myself. I have watched countless humans die, and contemplated about how they are moving forward, leaving this existence. I shake my head at my stray thoughts. There it is again, need and want. They are trifling with me. There is no need to change these men. It is their fate. I am not the Almighty, or the Maker. I am here, cast into eternal life on earth.

  At my cabin, I lay the boy on the bed. He has quieted during our trek across the ship. I reopen my wrist and give him more of my blood. The change is already starting; his skin darkened by the sun is lightening.

  My wound closes, and I sit in the only chair in the room. I spot my cross and pick it up. I hold it in my hand, remembering the beautiful face of my mother. Her mahogany hair hung down her back thick and straight when home and ready to retire to her chamber. Society only saw her hair pinned neatly beneath her hat or decorated with rare pearls. I always felt such pride at being one of the only people to have seen her in such a pretty state. My father would run his fingers through her hair and compliment her often.

  Beneath the rubble, I reach for my marriage quilt. Tattered and aging, unlike myself. I fold it and place it with care beside me. What would my mother have thought of Sybrina? Would she think her foolish or silly for her affinity to study medicine? Or would she find her smart and a contemporary for the age? Would my parents have approved of my taking her for a wife? It does not matter anymore. Affirmation from people long dead is irrelevant for the now.

  Sybrina is for the starved and thirsty man. A clean, clear water in a dry dusty desert. Blackened veins of a race not human—born of woman but transformed into an oddity of eternity. Cursed and fueled with the unpleasantness of desiring something it should not have to curb the blandness that begins to consume the unending days that come with immortality.

  Sybrina:

  My mind questions all that has transpired. Was it a dream? Is madness taking hold of my brain, attempting to reason away all that has no anchor in the world?

  “Miss?” A soft voice breaks me of my musings. Mr. Tinker is standing across the room, looking at a loss. “Where is Mouse?”

  “The minister...” What do I tell him? “The minister is administering a remedy. He took Mouse to his cabin.”

  “Will it work?”

  “I believe it will.”

  “Come, Sybrina,” Mr. Tinker offers, dull and dispirited.

  I refused to leave Mouse’s side when the others heeded the orders of the captain. Mr. Tinker told me he would return when the recovery efforts were completed—even Michael with only one working arm helped. Being alone with Mouse was not how I would want to spend the evening after such a terrifying experience. Mouse incapacitated and the rest of the crew busy. Carrying Mouse below into the hull would not have been an option because of his condition, but I would have felt slightly more at ease with others around. It is of no matter now—what is done, is done.

  Chapter 13

  Sybrina:

  The next morning, the shining light of the sun offers no comfort. I put on my brother’s clothes and carry my torn and bloodstained dress back down to the galley where I hope to find a bucket of water to clean it. No one is in the area, and I am alone again amongst the barren wood tables and benches that frequently hold sailors with their seafaring conversations.

  Numbness in my legs and arms makes my task difficult and surreal. I am still processing the chaos and devastation of the intruder, Vadim, and the detrimental losses of the sailors, those who were so attentive to my reading. It offered them a diversion from their work. Many are gone, never to hear the written word spoken again.

  In a corner by a stack of dried meats is a bucket of water. I submerge my dress and begin rubbing the material against itself to wash away the stains. I scrub using vigorous friction, my movements becoming deliberate and full of anger as tears cascade down my cheeks. The devilish acts of the day before are so mortifying and extraordinary that I would be hard-pressed to find such things written amongst polished pages of prose.

  Flashes of Mouse’s fall replay again and again in my mind’s eye. Images of bodies, deckhands, and crew intertwine in a grisly dance. As I wash the dress, my mortification and anger transform into a hellish ideal; I want revenge. I want those that caused such anguish to me and my friends, and anyone else that has crossed their path and inflicted despair, to suffer, most heinously.

  The rational part of me knows that it is wrong, plain and simply wrong. Revenge is a volatile and unstable passion that muddles ingrained convictions. My bitterness runs deep to my center. Grief, fear, and flight have guided me over the past few weeks. But now, revenge is seeping into the crevices of my soul and devouring my disposition and replacing it with a new savage doctrine.

  The stains darken, the water making them set instead of releasing them from the fibers, brown and rusty—trapped for eternity in a woven mark. I toss the sopping dress aside, flipping droplets across the floor. I stare at the glistening design, arched like peacock feathers, the dress a soaked heap in the middle. The water spots will dry and disappear, unlike the blood on the dress.

  “Here you are,” Mr. Tinker says, coming into the galley.

  I stand and brush off my pants, trying to wipe away water, which has already seeped into my trousers. I am wrestling with looking him in the eye. Spite is tainting my demeanor. I bend to retrieve the dress and wring it out into the bucket.

  Mr. Tinker turns me to face him. He holds the tops of my arms tightl
y. His eyes are studying me with a note of fatherly command.

  “This is not your doing.” I flick my eyes away from his; they are too much to look at. “You are not to blame.” His voice is powerful. For an illiterate man, he is reading me as if I am a book. He is turning the pages, each displaying my emotions. He senses the vengeance and contempt coursing through me.

  With a rough shake, he forces me to look at him. “You cannot change the world, no more than I can control the wind. Men’s deeds are their own.” I know this, but it does not lessen the animosity seething beneath my skin wanting to burst forth in rancor. I nod unconvincingly at best. Mr. Tinker releases me with a hesitation and reluctance.

  “Let us go and offer up a prayer for those we lost.” I nod again, for there is nothing else to be done, and follow him to the top deck.

  Solemnness hangs in the atmosphere heavy and unwanted. Outside, the deck has become a tomb lined with shrouded bodies, sails sewn encasing each body as if a cocoon. The entire left side is a sea of white-wrapped corpses that all have paid a final price that includes leaving this world at the hands of something otherworldly. A being that can never die, that has the ability to overcome man in a form made in God’s image. God planned it this way? Was this their demise all lain out from infancy? Or did their fates change after crossing paths with Vadim? Mystery upon mystery coats the earthly world. Are we never to know the true meanings and purposes of life? Maybe that’s the point. Earthly life is based on faith in the unseen. Intrinsic motivations navigating through trials and tribulations, finding love and appreciating it. Grasping at ideologies that cannot be touched, only felt through the soul. Are we on a path chosen for us and no matter how hard we try to deviate we swing back around to fate’s plan? That would make our will not our own. Too many times I have contended with these disorienting notions over the past few weeks.

  My confidants and passenger friends from below trail up and form a circle around the deceased. I catch a glimpse of Michael and he nods to me in a comforting affection. Helen’s eyes are swollen and red, her expression filled with fear.

  It is back in my hands, the Bible, handed to me by Mr. Tinker. I think about Elijah and Mouse. I’m wary of what Mouse will become. But in my own selfish way, I’m happy that he did not make it amongst this mountain of the dead, fleshy soulless pile. I open the Bible to the page I have read from two times before; now I’m reading it for a massacre. These sailors that have spent their life working on the ocean will now find their final resting place beneath its depths. If I were one of them, it might be my wish that when I finally reach the end that I am married to the sea, like the sky, meeting somewhere in the distance. My vision blurs as I begin the passage.

  On and on I read about how there is a time for everything, and in that moment, my questions in all their scattered logic, I find clarity. The words of the Lord sort out my soul, giving me renewed confidence that there is a path and purpose to everything. Our choices and decisions are what lead us to our destiny.

  Captain Stokes moves forward after my reading concludes. The sails on the mast snap with the howling of the wind. His face is a mask encompassing anger, sadness, and loss. It is tragic—his crew decimated. Conceitedly, I think about how our numbers are down. We could be attacked again. But what good would it do if we had a hundred thousand men? How can you stop what can’t be killed?

  “These men were proud and hard working. It was an honor to serve with them.” He is a man of few words, and I am startled at how short his eulogy is. I have the length of an epic poem hidden inside that I wish to voice. I do not. I hold my tongue and send up my own silent prayer for these men.

  Mr. Tinker stands beside the bodies. Two crewmen pick up the first body. Mr. Tinker says the name, a bell is rung, and the shrouded corpse is tossed overboard. The noise of the body making contact with the water startles me, unlike before, and I flinch in a jittery shiver. The next one is named and they repeat the action over and over until the last body is cast off into the sea. I begin the Our Father and the surviving crew and passengers join me.

  At the end of the intonation, the crowd disperses from the melancholy event. Mr. Overton approaches me with Michael at his side. Silently, they voice their condolences and terror with a look. I nod in understanding finding that I am not able to speak past the lump in my throat. We part but a new anxiety grips me with a tremble I cannot readily identify, and I am moved to go to Elijah. Hushed voices converse and others stand just gazing out into the sea. Having a purpose now, I stride toward the cabins.

  I’m standing in front of Elijah’s quarters. I knock brusquely. My anger is not quelled and I wish to find some occupation that will be of some protection against any other sort of attack. This fellow, or rather vampire, Vadim, should not have such an opportunity again without a fight. Indestructible or not, revenge and saving what remains of the crew and passengers is my mission. I will not lie down and accept what fate brings to our threshold without giving it some sort of difficulty or wall it must scale to reach its goal.

  Carried away in my own thoughts, I am startled when the door opens. Elijah. Sparks under my skin roar just looking at him. Anger subdues, and his face almost makes me forget my purpose.

  “Sybrina.” To hear my name spoken from his lips is a gold cord with tassels tickling my insides in a delicious way. “It is not a good time. I will tell the boy you came by.”

  He reaches to close the door, and I wedge my foot in it. My determination at devising a plan that at least gives the people on the ship hope and a chance shuns my propriety. “Elijah, we must prepare lest we be attacked again. We must know what we are up against and there must be some way to combat it.” Behind Elijah, a head rises in an unearthly slow way. My heart skips, happy to see Mouse. My heart changes from happiness to terror when Mouse lunges at me, landing on Elijah’s back like a cat. He howls and snarls, rabid, reaching for me through the small opening of the door. Elijah and a thin plank of wood—the door’s steadfastness is nothing but a sheet of paper in comparison to the fortitude of the cabin’s inhabitants—the only two things standing between me and getting ripped apart by Mouse. My body involuntarily jumps back with fright and I stumble.

  “Sybrina,” Elijah calls out over the animalistic display. “Leave here. Go!” I turn and slip away, feeling rattled by witnessing Mouse as a violent being.

  What have I done? I hide my face in my hands. Allowing Elijah to turn Mouse into something unnatural makes a lump of uncertainty grow in my throat shadowed with guilt and fear. Has my affection for Elijah—a man I have only been acquainted with a short time—clouded my judgment? A niggling in the back of my mind urges me to trust him, and I do. Even though it is not logical. Deep down inside of me, I have to have faith that Elijah knows what he’s doing and that Mouse will be all right in the end.

  My resolve does not bend with the interference of seeing Mouse in his condition. I stride intently toward the ship’s stores. I am sure there is a long list of rules regarding passengers and this room, knowing full well we are not supposed to traverse up from below. I pass crewmen, the captain, and first mate. No one even speaks to me. My feet are steady, being led by my emotions and not the distress of illness.

  I crack open the heavy door that is the store area. Lined floor to ceiling are casks, barrels, crates, and canisters. I walk in and begin reading the labels. Tea, gunpowder, vinegar, firearms; in the corner there are more large crates of cannonballs. Piled high in a crevice behind the cannonballs are barrels of salted pork, hardtack, and molasses. After the unfit gruel that Cook has prepared for us day after day, salted pork would be a welcomed treat. This lends to the controlling disposition of Captain Stokes, the passengers unable to cook their own meals or find seats in the saloon.

  I begin by taking one item from every box or crate I can reach. With my arms loaded, I travel back across the deck. Eyes are on me, watching as I behave oddly. Mr. Tinker stops me.

  “Miss Sybrina, can I help you?”

  “Yes, thank you. I need m
usket balls… bullets. Not the conical shaped. I noticed the firearms aboard and assume you have them.”

  Stunned, Mr. Tinker says, “Yes, we have them. A whole box.”

  He motions for another sailor to retrieve it.

  “Perfect. Thank you.”

  Down in the galley, the cook is busy beginning the evening meal. He is standing in front of the enormous cast iron stove stoking the fire inside it. The embers glow a vibrant orange-red against the black facade.

  I ignore Cook and place all of my wares on the table closest to the fireplace used for cooking. I need a burner like the ones at school, but the stove will have to do. I am sure I can get it hot enough. In the cupboards, I search for what I need—heavy knife, drinking cups, and bowls. I grab a large deep cast iron pan, when a sailor comes in.

  “Where would you like this, miss?”

  “On the table…” I point. The sailor sets down the heavy box of tiny balls made to kill.

  Exhausting the tools and containers of the kitchen, I look among my materials, taking an inventory. I need one more thing, and I hope Elijah will give it to me.

  Chapter 14

  Elijah:

  It is unfortunate that Sybrina had to see Mouse at this stage. The feral monster doesn’t last long as sense and reason return. He has calmed and is lying down. I need to take this opportunity to find him something other than my own blood. I need to show him how to feed his urges in a satisfying way without killing humans. He will though. Some vile man or rogue murderer will cross paths with him, and he will decide to enjoy their life’s blood—eradicating the plight from the earth.

  I leave my cabin and set off to find some vermin that scurry in and out of the corners of the ship. Squeaking titters from behind a hallway wall. I bang gently, frightening it out of its hiding place, lunging quickly grabbing its tail.

  There is commotion in the galley, more so than the usual cook preparing a wretched meal. I take the rat back to my room and show Mouse the proper way to take its blood. He is a fast learner and adapts swiftly, making my task less intrusive and demanding.