Dedicated to AngusEcrivain for multiple occurrences of the word 'F**K'
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“Why the fuck didn’t anyone think to translate this shit before we ended up with a fucking Apocalypse on our hands?” Isaac muttered, pushing his chair back from the table with a force which carved grooves in the floorboards, accompanied by a screeching akin to that of fingernails being drawn slowly down a blackboard.
He grabbed a crystal decanter from a carved mahogany table nestled in the center of four Queen Ann’s, arranged in a square close to the fireplace and removed the stopper taking several gulps of Whiskey, not bothering with a glass before returning to his seat and pilfering one of Gray’s fags.
“What does it say about the third seal?” I asked Bette.
“Sanguine Innocentius, natus est mortis etiam ieiunium, producit expectatur, peperit ad ultimum. Blood of the Innocent, born of death too fast, brings forth the awaited, birthed at last.”
“Well that doesn’t make any sense at all,” I grumbled, “How can you be born of death? That’s just bloody stupid.”
The fourth one’s even worse,” Bette shook her head, Julius was looking at the net-book over her shoulder, staring wide eyed at the screen.
“Non unus est ex vivis, nec quod mortuorum, in diaboli pactum, resuscitabo capite. Not one of the Living, nor that of the Dead, the Devil's bargain, will raise their head.”
“Cal, I reckon t’ Devil’s bargain is Daegan. She ain't dead, but i’s not like she’s prop’ly livin’ either, is it?” Julius spoke flatly without his normal, good humoured joviality.
“Oh hell.” I dragged my fingers through my hair - a nervous habit I had developed aboard the Revenge - as I tried to put together the jumble of the prophecy. “If you’re right, that means that four of the seals are...”
“Fucked.” Blurted Ann, helpful as always.
Bette nodded resolutely. “This one is even more weird, if that’s even possible... Septima ipsum, quinque lunae abscondere Solis, impletio prophetia, profecto coepit.
The Seventh Event, five Moons hide the Sun, fulfillment of the Prophecy, has surely begun. It can’t be the seventh event, this is only the fourth verse and we only have one moon.”
“Enough.” Isaac growled. “This is bullshit.” His chair fell backwards as the door to the Library slammed closed behind him.
Daegan
I ran until I reached the door to Callan’s room, not even considering for a second that the door might be locked. Fortunately for me it wasn’t, because there was nowhere else in the house I knew, apart from the blood soaked memory of the vast bathroom at the top of the stairs.
I stepped slowly into the room, sliding the door silently shut behind me as I allowed my eyes to take in the destruction of my surroundings. It was exactly as we had left it other than the addition of a large duffel bag on the bed. I crept across the room, eyeing it cautiously, wondering if there were any other surprises from Gray inside.
The sound of the zip penetrated my eardrums as I pulled it back, everything was amplified now, since I had ‘changed’ for want of a better term. There was so much detail on the surface of something as mundane as a bag it was unbelieveable. Every thread, every stitch, every particle of dust.
There was nothing but clothes inside. My clothes. I pulled them slowly from the bag and sorted them into piles on the torn duvet. Gray really had thought of everything; jeans, tee shirts, jumpers, socks... underwear... I didn’t know if Gray was the pervy type but even if he wasn’t, I’m sure he had great fun in my knicker drawer.
At the bottom of the bag was my shotgun, twisted and knotted like a pretzel. An image flashed through my mind as I touched the cold metal.
Growling, snarling, the feel of the gun beneath my fingers as I grasped the gun with both hands and rendered it useless... I could see my bloodied self reflected in Grays eyes...
I abandoned the bag and pegged it into the bathroom, curling my fingers around the chilly enamel edges of the sink as I tried to pluck up the guts to look in the mirror which I knew would be hanging above it.
The now all too familiar feeling of dread stirred in my stomach once again as I took deep breaths to steady myself before I finally opened my eyes.
They were black as night and a thousand times more scary.
“Fuck!” I punched at the mirror, giving myself a swift right hook to the face as the glass shattered at the impact made by my fist, I couldn’t bring myself to care about the blood dribbling from my knuckles as I turned my back on the broken mirror, noticing the rest of the bathroom for the first time.
There was a bath. Another great big fuck-off enamel creation complete with ornate metal lion’s foot supports at each corner. It was painted white and much like the wallpaper of the hallway it was ravaged by time, its exterior surfaces cracked and peeling.
The inside of the bath was somehow still smooth but discoloured, rust stains running from the taps and surrounding the plughole. I looked upwards to see a huge brass shower head protruding from the wall. It was at least a foot across, if not more and it was exactly what I needed.
I twisted the ancient taps and watched the water fall from above as the ancient pipework creaked and groaned within the walls and the floor. I let the water run until it was hot enough to burn my skin before I stripped off and gritted my teeth as I stepped into the boiling deluge. I knew my skin would heal, but I needed to feel... something... anything... I wanted rid of the creepy crawlies under my skin.
Scrabbling around the edges of the bath, I found some soap. It looked like a wedge of cheese, if said cheese had been left on the side of a bathtub for a century or so. Despite its appearance, it smelled fresh, of mint, patchouli, tobacco and incense. I wasted no time rubbing it between the palms of my hands, working up a thick lather which I rubbed into my hair and all over my body as I watched the pinkish water trailing down from my skin and into the plughole.
After a bit more searching I found a loofah. I almost burst into tears at the feeling of relief which surged through me as I scrubbed my skin until it was raw. Anything to stop the itching of the dead blood.
“Don’t die on me babe, I love you...”
That singular sentence resonated in my skull over and over again. I had helped to kill not one, but two people. I had consumed their life forces without a hint of remorse. I didn’t understand how they all did it. Maybe it was the passage of time, or maybe because they had all died. I wondered how Fext, my father had come to terms with what he was.
I was torn from my thoughts by a soft knocking at the door to Callan’s rooms.
“Daegan? It’s Isaac. Can I come in?”
I wrenched the twin spigots of the bathtub closed at the sound of his voice, wrapping a thick black bath-sheet around me, I left my hair to its own devices as I mumbled a vague “Whatever” in the general direction of the door.
I stepped cautiously out of the bathroom to see Isaac creeping equally as cautiously around the side of the door. That was when it hit me. He was afraid. Afraid of what I was - part Demon, part sorceress, part human. What a fucking mess.
I crawled into the remnants of the bed, pulling the duvet tightly under my chin as I patted the mattress at my side. Isaac set himself warily beside me and we both sat in silence for several minutes. I had no words to say to him. He had been nothing but a complete arsehole from the second I met him.
“You’re right to be afraid of the Hounds,” he said in a voice that sounded like he had been snacking on gravel. “Every time I hear them I near enough shit myself.”
I wanted to laugh but I remembered what he had said just in time; ‘Tell me we’re not damned souls Gray’.
“I’m sorry Isaac, I’m sorry for whatever I did to offend you so much.”
A mirthless chuckle escaped his lips as he patted my hand roughly, “Don’t take it personally, I fucking hate everyone.”
“Why? What happened to you?”
“I died.” He said matter of factly, “I had to exist in the darkness of night for fifty years.”
I was suddenly curious. We seemed to have struck up an actual conversation. “What did you do before you died?”
“Jesus Daegan, times have changed so much, I’m not sure you’d even understand.”
“Callan told me that he had to build a house of seven at Fext’s command.”
“That much is true,” Isaac mused, “Did he tell you why he chose each of us?”
“No?” I queried, inviting him to continue.
“The first one he turned was Gray. He was always in the stocks because they could never pin anything on him other than suspicion. Gray has always covered his tracks well, too well for the law of the time. Too well for any of us. That was why he was Callan’s first. He got rid of the bodies and no one could find any evidence to directly connect him to any of it. Even after scientists discovered the existence of DNA ... He’s never been caught.”
I was intrigued, I wanted to know about the rest of the house and how they came to be. Isaac seemed to be lost in a distant memory as he continued;
“Ann was next, she was arrested for unlicensed surgery - her husband was a butcher so she had all the tools she needed. She could read too. It wasn’t expected of a woman in the early sixteen hundreds - it was almost considered to be witchcraft.
Fuck me, it was all so different and so much more simple. It was all just black and white back then. Ann read medical journals and learned about anatomy. You saw her work on Callan's insides; she used to get rid of ‘problems’ for unfortunate women.”
You mean she was a back street abortionist...
“Elizabeth was next. She was arrested for swindling her sister out of money by way of false fortune telling. Bette told her that her husband was having an affair. He was, but it was with Bette. She’s a true psychic though. When you want answers, you don’t always get the answers that you want. You just get the cold hard truth.”
“Don’t I fucking know it.” I muttered. “Who was next?”
“Me,” he replied tonelessly. We were all chosen for a reason; Gray for his iniquitous mysteriousness, Ann for her surgical skills, Bette for her frighteningly accurate depictions of the future.”
“What did you do Isaac?” I was surprised at how strong my voice sounded in the empty room.
“I was a gentleman thief,” he said proudly, “A Highwayman. I came from a good family, but my father was ill. He died of consumption when I was thirteen and when the money he left my mother and I ran out, I took to the roads. We had several horses - big fuckers they were, part Shire, part Clydesdale.
People were much shorter four hundred years ago, about your height actually. I was freakishly tall so I rode the big buggers. Shadow was always my favourite, pitch black he was, not a hint of colour anywhere. When I had my cloak and my hat on we scared the hell out of anyone we came across. I stole enough to keep us comfortable.”
“Did you have a choice? On becoming a Vampire?”
“I did.” He held my eyes with his piercing gaze. “We all did. Callan told me what he was, what it meant to be ‘undead’ and let me decide. Like I said Daegan, times were so different. Most of the people of our time had killed someone.
I ended many lives on the road simply because I didn’t want witnesses - men, women, children, it didn’t matter so long as I wasn’t caught, but I got careless and I did get caught. It was either this life or the gallows. Callan turned me a few days before they hung me in the square.”
“But why did you have to spend fifty years in the dark?” I was asking so many questions, I felt like an annoying child on a long car journey constantly saying ‘are we there yet?’
“Because it’s a very slow process for a Vampire to adjust to sunlight. I don’t know why, but in those first fifty years Vampires essentially combust in the sun. Maybe I had to outlive my natural life span so I wouldn’t be recognised by anyone who knew me before.
Maybe it’s magic or physics or some sort of fucked up joke because fifty years of only going out at night is enough to drive anyone insane. It wasn’t like it is now, with nightclubs and coffee shops open all night, there was no electricity, no radio, no TV. Just fifty long, empty, endless years of darkness.”
I could relate a little to what he said, I had spent most of my life hiding from the sun because no-one had bothered to tell me that, apparently, I was immortal and burned in the sun without someone else's blood in my veins.
“I guess they... err...” How could I say this without sounding completely heartless?
“What?” Isaac snapped impatiently.
“Did they hang you at night time?”
He scoffed at my apparent stupidity and ignorance before shooting me a pitying glare. “I told you it’s too long ago for you to understand. No-one went to the gallows at night, it didn’t pull in a very good crowd. They all came to watch, hundreds of people, men and their wives, their children, the beggars on the street, the upper classes.
There was no better form of entertainment than a good old hanging. Callan had tried to break me out of the gaol but he couldn’t. They all thought I was going to die... again, in the sun. As the hangman led me up the steps, he couldn’t see my skin peeling under the sack he had placed over my head in my cell. Suddenly though, it all just stopped. They hung me in the middle of an eclipse.”
Isaac’s mouth dropped open and his cold grey eyes grew wide, as if a giant lightbulb had just flicked on in his brain. He leapt to his feet and whirled to face me, “The seventh event, five moons hide the sun - it’s not five moons, its five fucking eclipses! It must mean that this is the seventh time that there will be five eclipses in one year. Fuck!”
The next thing I knew, he was gone. The bedroom door hanging open and quivering slightly in the wake of his departure, his voice echoing up the stairs and along the corridor as he bellowed out to Bette at the top of his lungs.