Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
This place is supposed to be my salvation too.
But I haven’t found it yet.
“When will you be back?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says, sighing again. The doctor is my oldest friend—my only friend. Abe was the one who saved me from staying a monster forever. Through his faith in me and in the rigid teachings of the monastery, the beast I became has been tucked away in the deep, black recesses of my former soul. Abe keeps me fed, keeps me pure, keeps my demons at bay.
But though I am his reason for being here, I am not his purpose in life. He has devoted his study of science and medicine to the very things science can’t explain, that medicine can’t control and magic can’t save. Through his help, the teachings of the Lord, and the discipline of the doctrine, I have turned myself back into a man. Perhaps a shell of a man, but enough that people no longer have to fear me.
And there are others like me who need his help.
So, I know he must go.
Still, it sits inside me like a spreading stain, the sense of terror and futility of what I’ll do—what I’ll become—when I’m on my own again.
“Eight months wasn’t enough,” I manage to say, my voice thick. I want to tell him more. I want to beg him not to leave me, to choose me instead of his life’s work, to let the monsters roam freely in the world so long as he can keep me sane and in his company.
Alas, even after all this time, I have my pride.
“I will be back,” Abe says, putting his hand on my shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “I don’t know how long it will be, but what’s a few years when you’re immortal? You’ll have visitors in the meantime.”
He removes his hand, and I glance up at him. “Who?”
“Men such as ourselves,” he says, looking around the sparsely decorated cottage as if he’ll see something new instead of paintings of mountains and crosses on the walls.
“Men like you? Vampyres? Or monsters like me?”
He gives me a chastising look. “You’re not a monster, my priest. You are Father Aragon. You were born a man. I wasn’t.”
“That man died when my family died,” I say bitterly. “I was turned. You’ve always known of your true nature, always been in control.”
“That may be, but we both drink blood to survive, and we do so discerningly, do we not? That makes us the same in my eyes. But yes, men like myself, blood-drinkers who call themselves the Brethren of the Blood. They’re pirates who sail the high seas on their ship, the Nightwind, nicknamed by mortal men as the Ship of the Undead. They’ve made quite a name for themselves in all parts of the world, looting merchant ships and ports, hunting Syrens for their blood. It’s partly the reason they’ll be by here one day.”
I nod. “The colony.” There have been rumors that a colony of Syrens live below the icebergs and barren cliffs of Roche Island. The sea between, the Mar de Drake, is treacherous, so the rumors have been mostly unfounded, said to be started by shipwrecked crew hallucinating from hunger. But I know that such creatures are real—I found one washed up on the beach once, just flayed skin, dried scales, and brittle bones. An abomination worse than me—half-human, half-fish.
I also know that even a drop of their blood sustains us drinkers for a very long time. I had heard that rumor, too, and didn’t know it was true until I bit the shriveled neck of the corpse. I couldn’t tell if it was a male or female, and it tasted like pure salt and death. And yet the dried, powdery blood of the creature was enough to satisfy me, as if I had just drunk from a living human.
“Yes, the colony,” Abe says. “Either way, these Brethren will be coming through the strait. I can’t say when. Could be two years. Could be ten years. But they’re pirates at heart, and the Chilean government will sound the alarm once they enter Spanish waters. There will be an attack on both sides. You will be presented with a choice: stay and fight for Spain, even as a man of God, or join the Brethren.”
I frown. “Ten years? But surely I’ll see you before then.”
“I hope so,” he says with a bow of his head, clasping his hands at his waist. “With any luck, I’ll be on the ship with them. But if not, I’m sure I will find you. The world isn’t so big when you have all the time in it.”
I stare at him, slow to blink. He might be leaving for that long? I expected two or three years at the most.
“I don’t like this,” I whisper. I grasp the cross of the rosary around my wrist, squeezing it hard enough that the gold draws blood, like I have done so many times before. My skin will heal itself in a minute.