Page 100 of Besieger
“Where do you keep finding these novels?”
Emerick chuckled. He took the book and opened it, easing into Silvio’s embrace. For once the bunk did not feel cramped.
“A sailor gave it to me.”
“A sailor,” Silvio scoffed. “I have built an entire library for you, and still you collect pamphlets everywhere we go.”
“The library you speak of is back on shore, at the tower. So I will amuse myself with whatever little I can find until our return. I cannot believe I am saying this, but I miss that monstrosity you call a home. I miss our bed.”
Emerick’s bones ached from the very memory of the silks and velvets, the vast mattress and the mountains of pillows and blankets. Silvio’s lips curled into a pleased smile.
“The Marquis is a very lucky man,” Jürgen confessed. “I would give anything to stand in his place, Monsieur.”
Emerick lowered the spyglass and turned to the human. The night was cloudy, and their lesson had been cut short, with no stars to mark and trace. He had hoped that they would resume in the captain’s cabin, examine the nautical maps, and search for the nearest port. Jürgen’s mood had been sour when he greetedEmerick tonight, and Emerick presumed it was because of the growing number of deaths. But something else was worrying his captain.
He had heard an officer complain how the captain was raving, searching the hull for mermaids. A siren…a siren was on board, he claimed. Yet there were no women onboard;Der Merkurcarried only men, angry, hollow-eyed and starving.
“I know you will not leave him, but come with me.” Jürgen’s eyes trailed the black horizon, the sky and the sea had melted into an angry dark substance. “When we anchor, come away with me. Be with me one mortal lifetime, stay with me until I die, and then return to him. He will have you for eternity. Let me have you until I die.”
“You have been reading too many ghost stories, my friend. Or has the sickness reached you as well?” Emerick felt sorry for him. Yet he had done nothing to discourage Jürgen’s delusion. Indeed, he might have even fed it, granting the captain his attention. “I am no siren.”
The chaplain’s body had been sewn into a sheet full of holes. There were no prayers, no kind words to see him off when the men lifted the sack and tipped it overboard. The remaining crew ofDer Merkurhad no need of kind words or prayers. They needed water and food, someone had gone and thrown away their provisions. TheMarquis’crates of wine had run dry days ago. They needed to send the sick to shore, but the waves battered them on, casting them further and further away from any hope of relief.
After the sea burial Emerick had dipped into Jürgen’s mind while the captain slept. His dreams were distorted, disturbing things. They swung back and forth between the sublime and theunmentionable, like a pendulum. The boundary separating the dream from the nightmare no more than a thread Emerick could seize and tear.
In Jürgen’s dream, Emerick was pale, a creature dwelling in the deepest, darkest reaches of the sea, prowling the ocean floor in search of prey, forever hungry. Even his hair—here long and trailing behind him into the dark—was white. The only thing Jürgen had recognised of Emerick were his eyes, black and lifeless, pupils dilated. He had webbed fingers with claws that raked at Jürgen’s legs as he dragged the captain down into the water.
The two bodies were so tightly intertwined, their legs resembled the tail of a giant serpent. Jürgen could not tell where one body ended and another began. He wanted to lose himself within the mass of pulsing, thrusting flesh and limbs, in the warm sticky sweat, to force himself in the narrow confines of the bunk and let himself devour, and be devoured in turn. The siren’s moans and sobs a mesmerizing choir; the body twitched and arched; the long hair spilled like an oil-slick. Then there was the rhythmic slap of flesh, raw and wet, pulsing with blood. The sound drew Jürgen in, beckoning him into the warm room. He craved their warmth more than anything.
“What an imagination you possess,Mon Capitaine,” Emerick cooed and walked over to the man slouched in the chair. He had fallen asleep on the table, among his charts and maps, wads of cotton pressed into his ears.
Emerick had read about sirens in fairytales, how their songs lured men into the deep. They were stories seafarers liked to share once back on land. Stranger and wicked things existed in this world, vampires among them. So he did not entirely dismiss the possibility of a sea-born hunter lurking somewhere, clawing at the hull of the ship, desperate to get in.
While Jürgen dreamed of his enchanter, Emerick flipped through the captain’s log. The bulk of its contents was unreadable, written in cipher. It was full of coordinates and lists,the lunar cycles, positions of stars and bodies of land, lists pertaining to the cargo and crew, various ports of call and sometimes, in the very margins of the page, scribbles Jürgen had left as if his mind had become as unruly as the waves, and the captain had found some kind of solace in committing his thoughts to paper. At first, Emerick did not notice it, but a name kept resurfacing among the scribbles, its spelling more elaborate than necessary.
Rycko, it said, mimicking the chirping sound when Jürgen pronounced Emerick’s name, a name he heard from Silvio. He had already caught glimpses of himself in the human’s mind; he occupied nearly as much space there as the sickness still roaming the ship. But Silvio’s name rarely appeared in the logs. The Marquis was mentioned in the list of passengers and that was it.
Rycko, Rycko, Rycko—the name clashed in blotches of ink, stricken through and written again.
“Oh,Mon Capitaine...” Emerick clicked his tongue and left the book.
He returned to the man, and prised open Jürgen’s collar. He meant to take only a sip, a little taste before going back. The floorboards groaned under the weight of someone’s steps and Emerick looked up at their reflections in the windows, seeing only the ghostly outline of the table, himself, the sleeping man and the dark waves in the distance.
A hand slid to the back of Emerick’s neck, the long fingers closed on him in a familiar possessive grip. The thing materialised out of the shadows and loomed over him. It looked as though something was wearing Silvio’s skin, even the eyes burned in a glow Emerick had never known upon his lover’s face, and when the mouth moved, it was Silvio’s voice—the same he had listened to for an eternity—that spoke, heavy with red.
“Careful, Rico,” Silvio whispered. He tugged at the mortal’s shirt, drawing it aside so Emerick could bite at the throat. “Drink in moderation. We do not want to lose our ship’s captain.”
He brushed at Emerick’s hair, tugging at the short tresses before walking around the table.
“He is keeping a tally of the dead.”
“Hmmm.” Silvio flipped through the book, scanning its contents. His brow furrowed as he lingered over the log entries.
Emerick liked the sight of him like that, the master vampire at the crossroads of their everlasting lives. Silvio sucked on his teeth, tongue darting between his lips, before he pushed the log aside and turned towards Emerick.
“Speak to the Captain, convince him to make for shore. I have grown tired of the sea. We can replenish our strength at the harbour, and continue our journey on land.”
“The Captain is still convinced there is a sickness roaming onboard. If he attempts to dock, the harbour-master will demand the ship to be placed under quarantine before we are allowed on shore. We will have to slay the remaining passengers if we mean to make it through those forty days,” Emerick said, voice suddenly heavy and tired. They had overexerted themselves with the killing, it had delayed the voyage further than anticipated.
