Chapter Five #2
“Here, let me help you.” The woman cooed and pushed the farmer closer to Silvio, the wounded throat against his mouth.
Amerigo watched the scene before him, mind reeling. His own breath caught in his throat, he was on the verge of choking with desperation, the smell of blood agitated him. Silvio now held the body, the limbs twitched and flailed against him, the human’s gagged sobs reverberating into the night.
And the blood—
Amerigo wanted to taste it: to run his tongue over a vein and sink his teeth into it. How would the flesh feel when his teeth pierced and broke it like the skin of an apple—and he gulped it all down? He watched Silvio draw the life out of that body and drown in the sweetness of it.
“We will find something for you later,” the woman said and at first Amerigo thought she was speaking in his mind again, but he saw her red mouth move with its tongue and sharp teeth. He wondered how her voice would sound when it was not dripping with poison. “You feed last.”
They hid from the day in a barn, being full of blood and warm under the weight of the straw.
Amerigo could hear the animals moving in the stalls under them.
Silvio lay next to him, enjoying the extra space to stretch and move his limbs, away from the pressure of stones and wet earth.
They fell asleep holding on to each other, Silvio keeping him close, legs intertwined; Amerigo’s face buried in his lover’s neck, his mouth against the artery, pulsating with blood; blood that had not belonged to Silvio.
The woman waited for them, complaining that they were wasting time, that it took too long for them to wake.
The sun had set hours ago, she bickered.
Amerigo did not understand why she insisted on accompanying them, nor why they could no longer travel by day.
Despite how her very thoughts echoed in his mind, he did not know her reasoning, nor her name.
She was a spectre, a witch, guiding them on some kind of quest. Huffing, Amerigo raked a hand through his hair and brushed it back.
It kept falling in his face, and was full of straw and twigs.
Silvio tried to help him get it clean and tore a piece of fabric so Amerigo could tie it in a low ponytail.
He still had the taste of pig blood in his mouth from the night before.
The woman had deemed the farmer too good for Amerigo to feed on.
“An animal for an animal,” she had hissed and made him butcher a sow.
The flavour was disgusting and clung to his gums but it gave him strength, so he endured in silence.
They could not remain in the town, not with the corpses of man and beasts left in their wake.
It was best to put some distance behind them and, if needed, sleep in the earth or within a hollow trunk.
Yet they must not linger and attract attention.
Paris lay far ahead. The journey would take weeks, months.
“Why Paris?” Silvio asked. His step was lighter, full of vigour. The blood had revitalised him. The more bodies he drained, the stronger he became.
Amerigo liked the shine in his green eyes, the familiar intelligence behind them. He pulled absentmindedly at a lock of hair that had escaped the tie and twirled it around his fingers.
“To our home, husband,” came the unsettling reply.
“You call me husband, yet I do not know your name.”
“Dulior.” The woman smiled and looked her groom up and down, savouring the sight of him. “You shall be my Count, as I—your Countess.”
Silvio made a face, his grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. He had hung it to rest at his hip and the scabbard bounced off his leg with each step.
“I do not wish to marry.”
“And yet you have,” Dulior countered. “I have fulfilled my part of the bargain, husband. Do yours.”
She jerked her chin towards Amerigo, and the mirth disappeared from Silvio’s face, his step faltered. He seemed to ponder, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“What bargain?” Amerigo asked and halted.
The wind picked up suddenly and lifted his hair. He pushed it back and away, growing even more agitated.
“What bargain, Silvio?”
His lover continued to avoid his eyes, looking down, head turned slightly to the side.
The knuckles of his hand clutching the hilt of the sword had turned ghostly white.
Amerigo fixed his thoughts on Silvio, seeing in his mind’s eye a hand reach out, willing the other man to look at him, to open his mind.
If the she-daemon’s thoughts flowed so effortlessly and echoed day in and day out, so could Silvio’s, if only Amerigo wished for it strongly enough.
The hair kept falling in his face. Flustered, Amerigo pulled the torn fabric to retie his hair, wondering if he should try braiding it.
Something that would hold better. He started to gather the long tresses at the back of his nape when Silvio finally turned to face him.
Silvio blinked once, twice, frowning as if there was something he could not understand. Something wrong.
Amerigo stared at the hair spilling from his fingers—it was long and dark, smooth as silk—his breath grew ragged. He inhaled in and out, in and out, tugging at the locks, his hands trembling.
“It grew back.” The woman, Dulior, chuckled and continued to walk, not even bothering to wait for them. She knew they would follow. She was the only thing close to normalcy they had left. “And it will grow back again, should you cut it once more.”
“N-no—” Amerigo moaned, the faintest of sounds escaped his lips, and pulled the strands with both hands.
“You will wake up night after night as you are now. For eternity.”
No—no—no—
He started tearing at the hair, clawing at his scalp.
Silvio came towards him only to be pushed away.
Amerigo did not believe her. Something was wrong with him but the hair could be cut.
He had seen to it. He had done it once already, and he would do it again.
Again until it ceased growing back and reminding him.
Until he no longer felt its weight on his shoulders and back.
He did not wish to carry tokens of his disgrace, of their…
What had they done in Antioch? Him and Silvio…
What had they left behind in the hollowed out belly of the citadel?
“Stop—please!”
Silvio whispered as he rocked Amerigo back and forth in his embrace. They had fallen to the ground and he was desperately trying to make Amerigo stop ripping out his hair, locks spattered with blood, clinging to his fingers.
“This is what you are now.” Dulior’s voice carried in the dark. “An unchangeable thing, a bygone product of mortality. No longer a fragile article of flesh but my divine companion. You will serve me forever, for this is how I have made you, Silvio.”
Paris had changed and yet it had not. The great city remained heedless when they joined the ranks of its many residents and ambitious fools.
Paris did not weep when Gustave di Flaviari’s body crumbled like a puppet at Silvio’s feet, nor did the city applaud when Dulior led her new husband to the altar and bound him with vows to be hers.
The Count and Countess’ estate had many servants but they could house one more: Amerigo, who they had donned in garments suited to his new station.
Within a fortnight the kitchen staff and maids, struggling to pronounce his name, christened him Emmerique.
How awkward and unnatural it sounded on these mortals’ lips.
Amerigo wondered what they would make of his family name Gabrielli.
Would they butcher it as well, taking away the last remnant of his prideful father?
Tired from the journey, his head swimming in hateful mutters and memories full of holes, Amerigo took on the new name and station.
There were times when Dulior allowed him to accompany her and Silvio across town.
The newlyweds walked hand in hand, making calls, leaving alms to this parish or that house.
Amerigo carried boxes with dresses and flowers, roses trailed after him on the pavement.
If he was good and quiet, Dulior shared her meals, allowing him to feed on prey more noble than a dog.
With time, as the months bled away, his mistress let him attend to Silvio.
“A lord needs a valet,” the she-daemon declared with a dismissive gesture, and threw Amerigo’s new uniform on the ground for him to pick up. “He frightens the servants with his silence. Teach him some of your charm, husband.”
EMERICK, 1791—1820
Emerick strolled around the garden, his eyes pausing now and then at the sundial.
The sight made him almost giddy. What a silly thing to place as an ornament when they would never see it in the daylight.
Neither would they ever again feel the warmth of the sun on their skin.
The last time he had seen and felt the sun was when they crossed Europe so many centuries ago, off to do God’s work.
Back then, the skin on his forearms and face burned and withered, his muscles ached, belly empty of sustenance but overflowing with determination.
Fireflies flickered in the bushes and Emerick watched them, reminiscent.
There were little flower-beds scattered across the garden, the petals closed and hidden for the night.
Sometimes the gardener would cut and arrange bouquets in the dining room and library.
Emerick found lilacs, dayflowers, or large-flowered sparaxis set at his bedside—a gift by Silvio, the aroma clinging to the sheets and to his hair.
He liked the snapdragons best, running his fingers over their velvety mouths, dusted with pollen.