All Things Devour

seven

Sonya could barely believe her eyes as her professor—the one she thought dead—came limping from the bracken.

“Dr. Rangel!” she said with relief, moving forward—and Anton held her back, transferring his grip from her hand to her wrist to restrain her. Sonya tried to pull free, and he held her all the tighter. “What are you doing?”

“That is not your Dr. Rangel,” he said.

Sonya looked again at the approaching man, certain it was the same, slightly overweight professor she’d known for years and that Anton was mistaken, but something stilled her.

When Rangel came closer, the moon shone fully on his face, and it highlighted part of the paunchy, bloated skin, the rheumy, unblinking eyes, and his purple lips. Sonya stumbled back in horror, and Anton went with her, drawing Sonya into his side.

“What is wrong with him?” she demanded, gasping when Dr. Rangel lurched. A dark stain streaked across the man’s filthy, wet tweed jacket, the shirt and vest under it torn and ruined. A groan bubbled from him, and black, rank blood trickled from his mouth. “Dear God —!”

“He’s become an aptrganga —a ghoul. I told you before some requirements must be met in order to become what we are. If one is bitten and doesn’t meet those requirements….” He gestured to Dr. Rangel—or what was left of him.

He gave off a distinct odor of decay, like something forgotten in the back of the fridge for too long, his visible flesh marbled and bruised. His right arm had a strange texture to it as if it had been twisted the wrong way and the man hadn’t noticed. “Sloppy. Careless . To let this happen—. What were they thinking? ”

Sonya fisted a handful of Anton’s shirt and tugged. “What does this mean? Why is he—? Why am I not—?”

“You’re a maiden untouched, and he is not.” Sonya’s shock was so great, she didn’t react to his sudden, blasé revelation about her lack of sexual experience. “This is why I told you it is not quite so common to bite a person and have them convert in this modern age. Sexual liberation has not done wonders for our recruitment.”

“That—that is nonsense,” Sonya stuttered, heat rising into her face. “ Virginity is a societal construct. It doesn’t—it can’t have any kind of biological imperative that would have an effect on—.”

Anton’s arm, wrapped about her middle, squeezed, his fingers tight upon her hip as he kept his eyes on Dr. Rangel. Was her professor dangerous in this state? “The type of innocent that you are has very little to do with what has or hasn’t happened between your legs.” Anton sighed, and he held a hand up, palm extended toward Rangel. “Close your eyes, Sonya.”

“I don’t—.”

“Turn away. Close your eyes.”

Dr. Rangel continued to look at them without recognition, a shambling puppet of a person, his expression empty of emotion. Still, Sonya hesitated.

“There is nothing you can do for him now, sweet girl. He can’t be helped. So please close your eyes.”

Sonya did as he said, and Anton’s hand rose from her hip to her face, pressing her cheek to his chest so she couldn’t peek. She felt pressure in the air, a sudden, inexplicable heat licking against her skin—and then pale flames ignited, burning against Sonya’s closed eyelids. Dr. Rangel emitted a strangled, keening noise, and Anton rushed Sonya away.

The heat and light faded almost at once.

“We need to leave here,” Anton said, shifting to release her, and Sonya opened her eyes, breathless. “The fire won’t take long at all to burn what was left. The bodies—. Ghouls can’t be returned to their former selves, I’m afraid. That—you should not have been forced to see that. I’m sorry.”

Sonya nodded, not meeting his eyes as she mastered her nauseous response. She’d known from the professor’s vacant, unknowing gaze and dying skin that he was beyond her, no matter her feeling of failure. Nothing of what had happened was her fault. “Why was he like that? Why wasn’t he…well, why wasn’t he dead ?”

Anton’s shoulders gave an uneasy shrug as they approached the far end of the park, and the steps met cobbled stone again. The harbor laid before them, Scottish voices in the distance as fishermen and dockworkers prepared to head home for the night. “Someone did not properly— care for his remains. There is—aye, it’s so difficult for me to explain. There is a gift to us, Sonya. A power that isn’t content to remain still when it can spread to others. The humans we touch, the ones we bite or feed from, are never the same again. I find myself in the difficult position of being upset you had to suffer such a loss and…angry my kinsmen handled things so poorly.” He fidgeted. “There are protocols for this. A right and a wrong way of doing things.”

“And you’ve…done these things before.”

They came to the final dock in the row, and Anton waved his hand to unlock the gate. The padlock crumbled into dust. “Yes, when necessary,” he admitted, frustration leaking into his tone. Sonya didn’t know him well, but she felt his anger keenly, a sharpness that curved and clipped his words like the snick of a knife. “And never with carelessness or cruelty. Be us man or vampire, we are still defined by how we treat those weaker than ourselves.”

At the end of the dock was a large, rather derelict-looking fishing vessel—but Anton directed Sonya’s attention to a dinghy bobbing in its shadow. The vampire hopped inside.

“I’ve never commandeered a boat before. Where on earth are you taking me?” Sonya asked as he helped her jump down from the dock. The little boat rocked, and Sonya planted her backside on the sticky bench, her legs as weak as cooked noodles. They’d gone weak when they first came across Dr. Rangel and hadn’t fully gotten their strength back.

“Home, as I said,” Anton replied with a distracted chuckle. He untied the rope mooring the boat, then sat by Sonya and stretched a hand to either side, gripping the rusted metal rim. He flexed his fingers, and for an instant, they appeared to be haloed in an ethereal blue haze, then Sonya blinked, and the light vanished, their rickety little dinghy gliding out into the rippling waters of the dark harbor.

Anton relaxed and extended his legs, slouching.

“Will I ever know how to do that?”

“Hmm?”

Sonya wiggled her fingers, so much smaller and slighter than Anton’s own. He grinned at her. “The magic thing you do. Will I ever be able to do that?”

“Maybe—but probably not. Every vampire has a touch of the seidr about them—else they wouldn’t be alive, or undead, whatever your preference. Seidr is an important facet of our communities. It allows us to function and live. Not every vampire grows to become seidkona or seidmadr , though. It’s a bit of a lottery who the Norns bless—or curse.”

“A curse? How so?”

“Being gifted with seidr comes with certain expectations . Certain responsibilities.”

Sonya considered this, reflecting on what she knew about seidr from her studies. Seidkona and seidmadr would refer to a woman and a man respectively, and seidr was…well, magic . Really, Sonya didn’t know if to be upset or pleased by Anton’s prediction. She was overwhelmed enough without throwing glowing hands into the mix.

The boat’s prow cut through the first of the offshore waves, Sonya gripping her seat tight, though Anton was unconcerned. The harbor lights dwindled, leaving them with the spotty patchwork of stars visible through the sundered clouds and the sullen light of the waxing moon. The final vestiges of daylight sat at their backs in a dull red band cast like a cloak around the shoulders of the mountains.

Anton touched the boat’s side again, and it redirected course. The black water smoothed before them as if made of glass, rippling as the calmer swell of the firth met the beginnings of the open sea. Anton dipped his hand into the tide and let it stream through his long, dexterous fingers.

“Do you see those two stars there?” he inquired, nodding his head at the brightest stars on the horizon before them. Sonya thought they might belong to the constellation of Gemini but wasn’t sure.

“Yes?”

“We call those the Eyes of Thjazi,” Anton said. A small, conspiratorial smile twitched on his lips, and his eyes glittered as he glanced at her. “The tale goes that the All-Father ordered the giant Thjazi killed to rescue the goddess Idunn. As part of the recompense to Thjazi’s daughter, Skadi, he cast Thjazi’s eyes into the sky so they may glitter there as stars forevermore.”

“That’s pretty. Morbid, but pretty.”

“Ah, much of history is.” Anton’s smile grew larger. “Another part of the story involves Loki tethering a goat to his testicles.”

Sonya sputtered and coughed, Anton breaking into loud guffaws of genuine laughter. After that, conversation stilled between the pair for a time, Sonya lifting her knees so she could embrace her legs against the rising chill, her gaze faceted on the giant’s eyes looming on the horizon. The ocean looked dark as ink aside from where the stars rippled on its wind-swept top, and the quiet seemed otherworldly around them.

Unbidden, Sonya reached for Anton’s hand and held it in her own so she would not feel quite so alone. Anton’s thumb swept against her wrist, and when he didn’t move away as the minutes ticked by, Sonya kept her hand in place. Maybe he needed to feel a little less alone, too.

Magic— seidr —kept their tiny vessel gliding forward in defiance of the unyielding sea. Hours might have passed them by, lost to the steady susurration of the cold wind and the single warm spot shared between them.

“The Norsemen say the All-Father and his brothers brought the first man and woman into this realm,” he spoke, his attention lingering on Sonya’s hand. “They fashioned them from trees washed ashore the beach—an ash tree and an elm. Odinn named them Askr and Embla, and the gods let their newfound children run free ahead of them until they dwindled out of sight.”

Sonya nodded. “I’ve read the myth before.”

“The part you wouldn’t have heard is known only to my people. They say Loki followed the All-Father to the beach that day, and he took what pieces of the trees the gods had not used or had found imperfect. From ash and elm, he bore his own child, but he could not breathe life into him as Odinn could. Instead, Loki fed to his son a single drop of his divine blood, and so was born Vidar, the first vampire—the first draugr .”

“Is that the proper word for your kind? Draugr? ”

He gave a small nod, sounding distracted as he continued to touch Sonya’s hand and the feel of the ocean under his other fingers. “ Our kind. Draugar in the plural. The names and legends differ from region to region. We are vampires on the English moors, strigoi in the depths of the Romanian mountains, and jiangshi far to the east. The Byzantines still refer to themselves as vrykolakas , but here—here we are draugar .” Anton inhaled and shut his eyes. “Ah, our longships are still more feared than any boat the Vikings dared set upon the water.”

Sonya sat in contemplation for a long while, fitting the information with her understanding of the world. Draugar . Norse vampires who built ancient prisons and rode longships and spoke of the All-Father. Creatures who thought themselves children of a trickster god.

“May I ask you something?”

“Anything, sweet girl.”

“Your name—Anton Morvell. It’s not from the north. Your accent is definitely Norse, I can hear it now, but also something different, and your skin has a slightly darker tone than mine. Are you from somewhere else originally?”

Anton’s hand twitched in her own as if she’d touched a sore spot. “Clever,” he grumbled. “Yes. I was picked up as a boy in a raid somewhere in the east. I was never told where, exactly, though I assume I would be more comfortably labeled a strigoi or vrykolakas . I was sold as a slave to my master.”

Sonya flinched, a small gasp escaping past her lips. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was terribly insensitive—.”

He waved her off, flicking cold drops of saltwater in her face. “Never mind all that. It was a lifetime ago, and it’s not a practice we keep any longer. Even the draugar can modernism, I’ll have you know.” He chuffed. “Besides, my master treated me very well. As one of her own. I was much luckier than many others.”

Despite his reassurances, Sonya made a mental note not to bring the subject into conversation again.

Something curled within the depths of the water. Sonya turned to look and had to swallow back her terror at the sight of a great scaled body moving almost unseen in the depths below. Her fingernails cut into Anton’s hand as she squeezed with all her might, and the vampire—the draugr—hummed, watching a green fin cut through the white froth and mist them with spray.

“It appears Jormund has come to greet us.”

No sooner had the great beast disappeared than Anton sat up from his slouched position and slid closer to Sonya, his thigh pressed to hers. She cleared her throat, telling herself the blush dusting her cheeks came from the wind. “Look there,” he said, pointing to where the fog curled under the Eyes of Thjazi. He laid his hand on the boat once more, and the blue glow sparkled in Sonya’s eyes. “Watch now. We are almost there.”

They sped ever nearer the clouds that lazed upon the ocean’s surface, and as those white plumes grew and veins of lightning flashed, Sonya spotted what Anton wished for her to see. Among the thickening mist rose pitched towers of obsidian stone like the prongs of Poseidon’s pitchfork piercing the sea’s waves. They climbed higher than skyscrapers, and at their feet sprawled hearty wood docks and piers, black rocks and jagged mountains bearing ancient trees. Lightning flashed again, and Sonya’s heart skipped a beat.

Anton smiled with teeth. “Vidarheim.”