Sybrina Read Free Page B

identity. It hurts my heart to even say his name, knowing that he is not of this earth anymore.
    “ I need alcohol,” I say to him.
    He looks at me quizzically and smiles. “What do you need that for?”
    “ I need to disinfect the scratches.”
    The man smiles more broadly and taps my shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll try to find you some. There must be whiskey or something aboard. I am George Overton.”  I nod in response, but my heart is not in it.
    More people are awake now. The talking is getting louder and there seems to be some kind of commotion on the other side of the room. My curiosity steals my reasoning, and I get up and walk with the kind man over there.
    Slumped on the floor is an old man, one of the sailors.  White-haired with clothes soiled and unkempt.   I fall to my hands and knees, examining him.  The first thing that catches my eye is his long dirty fingernails. I motion for someone to hand me a light. As soon as it meets my hand, I focus it into the man’s face. His skin is pale white and there are two thin lines of blood along his neck. His jaw is limp, which leaves his mouth hanging open as if in a silent scream. He is dead. His eyes and lips are colorless. His arms are petrified in a familiar shape and his eyes are wide like a saucer for a teacup.
    Shooting pangs of panic race up and down my chest.  My heart ’s erratic thumping fights with the flashes of my family’s bodies laid out in a state of perverted decomposition.
    It is here!
    I need air desperately. My stomach heaves, and I pass the lantern off quickly, trying not to drop it. I rush to the ladder in the semi-darkness and scale it as hastily as I can. I make it topside into the night and suck in air as if moments ago I was drowning. I hurry to the railing in the moonlight and lean over. The nausea I have been suppressing for two days finds its way to my throat and out into the sea.
    I face the deck in the blackness and lean with jellied legs against the spindles that separate all aboard from plunging into the cold ocean.  The salty air feels wonderful on my flushed face.  I sit and cry, hopelessness my only friend.
    It has found me.  I will suffer the same fate as my dear parents and my beloved brother.  The red liquid that flows through my veins will be taken from me until my body slackens and reveals a pasty white corpse, jaw hanging and tiny pinholes in my neck. It is here and I am trapped.  My body shakes as fear overcomes me.

Chapter 2
    Elijah:
    Fire is burning in my chest as I recall her defilement at the hands of the dreg.  A ship-hand soured by the sea, age, and derangement.
    My scathing wrath is magnified by my loss of energy.  Injuries have prohibited me from being more watchful.  I listen but every now and again my immortal body shuts itself down into a sleepless unconsciousness. The only comfort is that the bouts are becoming fewer and farther between. Just as humans must sleep, the infinite creature, the vampire, must be rejuvenated when afflicted. Even immortals have the untimely issue of damage.   None of my wounds can be incurred by a mere human, but from others of my kind.
    My last meeting with Vadim turned more violent and disturbing, that had I not known him for a hundred years I would not have recognized him. Vadim is now a creature devoid of sensitivity, humanity, and common courtesy.
    My injuries are a crushed chest and a shattered rib cage.  A human would never survive such wounds due to failing organs, blood loss, and fever. To a vampire, they are an annoyance.  The infliction by Vadim was to slow me down.  When your enemy knows your weaknesses, it is difficult to outwit them.  He knew how my body would respond, and I his when I snapped his neck.  The two of us, once brothers in this form, met on the battlefield, are now foes, racing to stay one step ahead of the other.
    I have been contented in this subsistence.  Not a man and not a monster but something unnatural in between.  A being on