Connacht, Ireland, 1652
I’d not seen a patrol the day long, and it was in me to wonder was that the good thing it seemed, or some ill omen, warning that there be dark mischief about.
I was astride the bay, a pistol in me hand, another behind me belt, and the two in their holsters to each side of me saddle. Me sword and dagger were belted about me middle, but were I set upon, t’was me pistols and the bay’s speed would stand me in better stead. A heavy woolen cloak I’d draped across me shoulders, and drawn close with a dull broach, despite the warm weather, for to hide me countenance. Not that it would do me a bit of good were any of the English to appear.
I crested the last hill, and there it was, blessing me eyes for the first time in near to ten years. Me home. Me Da’s home, to be more precise, and probably Cullen’s in his due, for I was the second son and not in line. Still, there had I grown to manhood, and there had I kissed me lovin’ Mary Kate and bid her wait on that long ago day when first I’d gone to war.
I held meself from kicking the bay into the gallop I so dearly desired for this last dash to me ancestral doorstep. Something was amiss. The fields, I could see, and the stables. What I could not see were the people who should be working all about. There should be a dozen servants or more working the land or stock. Had there been stock, for their lack I also noted.
I drew up, frowning. No damage could I see about the place. No traces of fire or pillage. Only the silence. Tensing me muscles and checking me pistols, I clucked the bay slowly forward. He was restive, and that made me even more nervous. A fine grand head for danger had that bay, and many’s the time it had saved me in the past. I drew the second pistol and checked the pan to insure the prime. Something was dreadfully wrong here.
* * *
Port Royal, 1657
The big man sauntered over to me table as though I had invited him. Pausing beside the dusty stool opposite me, he stooped to pick up the silver pistol balls before brushing the ash from the seat as though it were no more than the dusting of a bookshelf.
Seating himself with no more leave than he’d asked to join me, he put elbow to table and made a point of examining one of the deformed silver balls, squinting his eyes as he regarded the runes I had laid upon it.
“That must be a very expensive pistol to shoot,” he commented in a deep, bass voice.
“Not so dear as the alternative,” I answered with suspicion. “And who might you be?”
His eyes came away from their examination and met mine. In them, I felt a sort of unease. Not the sort I felt when the devil spawn were near. Nothing of pain or rot. More a feeling of resoluteness. Power and resolve radiated out from him in a cloud.
“They call me The Captain,” he answered casually, the merest of amused twinkles in his eye.
“The Captain,” I repeated, giving him an owl eye. “Oh, aye, as opposed to all the other captains wanderin’ about the wharf. Captain what, If I may be so bold?”
“Only that. And you?”
Only that, eh? The Captain, as though there could be no other. Aye, then, and I’d play his game with him.
“Well, me fine sir,” I stroked me chin with the hand not still holding the pistol. “I know me way around a forge, ye see, so I suppose ye could call me The Smith.”
I expected some thunder from that, but he only smiled, as though enjoying the joke. “And so I shall call you Smith. And you may call me Captain. Well met, sir.”
Eyeing him askance, I shifted me pistol to me left mitt and took the offered hand as it stretched across the table. And a great bear-sized paw it was. I got me own hand far into his grasp lest he try for the squeeze, but he only shook, his grip firm but not crushing.
“I have never seen the like of that pistol,” he said when we’d broken the clasp.
“‘Tis a Lorenzoni pattern,” I grudged. “It will fire eight shots before it needs to be reloaded. I purchased it off of an English gunsmith in London a few years back. King’s ransom, it cost me, but worth it to the last shilling, it has been.”
We sat there then, regarding each the other, I’m not sure why. It was as though he was waiting for something.
“What was that thing?”
“I have found there to be a number of names for them,” I shrugged cautiously. “In the east, they are called Vampyr. Vampire works as well.”
“And?”
Another shrug. “Demons, near as I can gather,” I told him. “Hellspawn, they are, who possess the dead or dying and ride them about like carts, wreaking mischief upon the living.”
“I see,” he said. “And what sort of mischief might that be?”
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I was feeling somewhat discomfited by this matter-of-fact line of questioning. His reaction to the event wasn’t something I was accustomed to; fear or accusation being by far the more prevalent themes.
“Well,” I tilted me head and tapped at me throat with three stiffened fingers. “They’re prone to the drinking of blood. Drain a man to leather in a few minutes. If he’s lucky.”
“That is lucky?” he seemed doubtful.
“Aye,” I laughed harshly. “For, if they don’t drain ye dry, ‘tis only so that one of their kin can use your body as its own personal pony. Eats out your very soul, or so me nana says.”
He was quiet as he gave that some thought.
“How come you to know so much of them?” he asked me then.
I had to consider the question and whether I would answer it. I did not know this man. Moreover, I was more than a bit suspicious as to his curiosity. But there was that aura about him, seeping in through me hard-won suspicion. I could not help but to want to trust him.
“I have been hunting them,” I let him have it. “Five years now, and a bit.
“Well, hunting one of them,” I corrected. “One particular devil amongst a host of lesser spawn.
* * *
Connacht, Ireland, 1652
As I neared the manor, the sick feeling in me gut grew worse. That was when the bay saved me life for the last time, rearing up and striking out with both forehooves, bashing in the skull of one of the things that had risen up from the grass at the road’s edge. The other tore out the poor beast’s throat even as I leveled me pistol and blew a chunk out of its skull.
It reeled away, but caught itself and lunged after me as both me and the dying horse went over in the other direction. I kicked meself clear of the stirrups as we fell, and rolled, letting go the empty pistol. The creature missed its attack for me direction change. It pivoted and reversed so fast I could scarce see the action, and then it was leaping upon me. I thrust the pistol out and touched it off, and the thing’s head went all soft. It fell away.
I started to crawl to the horse’s body to retrieve the saddle pistols, but there were suddenly more of the things coming across the meadow, leaping and baying like wild beasts at the hunt. Staggering to me feet, I drew me dagger and that fine, silver-washed sword I’d taken from the body of a Covenanter dandy who’d tried to kill me with it in the fields of Roscommon the year prior.
They were those selfsame creatures from the depths of Galway that I’d hoped never to see again, and I wondered with that small part of me mind not engaged in preparing for combat how they’d come to be here. It was a very small part, for there were a number of them, and me alone.
Quick, they were, and so nimble as spiders on a web, but I was used to fending lightning quick thrusts of sword and knife, and me blood was up to fever pitch.
The first one in came full on, straight for me throat as though it had no idea what the flashing bar of silver in me hand was for. I parried the taloned paw with me dagger and slashed up and across with the sword.
The creature let out such a scream as chilled me very blood to ice, and smoke billowed from the wound. The others hesitated, and I drove the long blade into its heart.
Even as the abomination fell, the others were on me, and the next few moments stretched out into years, the none of which are mine to remember, and I find the time, from time to time, to be thankful for that. I only know that when finally I’d regained me senses, I was draped half across the carcass of the bay and the road about me scattered with piles of ash and a single, dark and bloody body.
I looked about me, breathing in a sigh of relief, thinking meself through the ordeal, but it was only to get worse.
* * *
Port Royal, 1657
“Now, if you will excuse me,” I gathered meself to rise. “I’ve pressing business inland, and I am afraid that I have no more time to gossip of monsters and devils.”
Then the man surprised me again. “I shall be accompanying you, then,” he said as casually as though inviting me to the local inn for a pint.
I frowned. “This business is not yours, sir,” me voice may have been more gravel than was polite.
“But I am afraid that it is,” he insisted. “The whole reason I am here in Port Royal is to assist you in your task.”
“Aye,” I laughed mirthlessly. “For I am so important a personage that random captains find their ways to me side whenever I have need.”
“You are not so far wrong, my new friend,” he smiled broadly. “If you would but give me just a few moments more of your time, I have a tale of my own to tell. It concerns my ship; the Caleuche.”
* * *
Connacht, Ireland, 1652
Tears there were in me eyes, and an ache in me heart like to tear it from me chest. A glint of gold there in the road, tangled amid the rotting cloth draped from the withered body.
On hands and knees, weapons forgotten, I crawled to the still lump of withered grey flesh. Filthy grey hair, matted and fouled with who knew what hung dank from the skull of the thing, and I brushed it gently aside.
The face, still now with death, was drawn back in a savage scowl, no trace of humanity there to see. The sclera red as clotted blood all but covered the blue of the eyes, and the teeth long and cracked — the maw more of a wolf than a human.
Close in, I could almost see the color the rags must once have been before having been dragged about through the muck. Brown, they’d have been. A deep, mahogany, if I remembered the gown correctly.
The bit of gold I’d seen from beside the horse, I unclasped gently from the gnarled wrist. I pulled it clear, gingerly, in shaking hands. I pressed it to me forehead and felt the anguish flow and tears wash me face.
Me mother’s bracelet — part of the payment from the first campaign I’d served in so long ago. So proud had she been when I’d clasped it ‘round her wrist on that long ago day.
The nature of the creatures came to me then, floating up from the bottommost depths of me brain. The hints and clues from the siege added to the evidence before me, and I knew, all at once. Oh, God, preserve me!
I looked about meself, at the piles of ash scattered about, wondering which one was Da. Which of them might be Cullen, or old Liam. A sudden stab pierced me heart. Mary Kate! I surged to me feet, sobbing, casting about for some sort of clue. Was one of these Mary Kate? Please, God, don’t let me have killed Mary Kate!
Barely in control of me senses, yet could I still count, and the number of piles was too small. Straining to remember, I recalled thirteen at minimum to be the least number of souls inhabiting the manor. Here, there were only nine piles. And the corpse of a thing that had once been me mother.
Catching up me sword and dagger, I charged the house, heedless of danger, and again, I could feel that bile rise up in me throat. There were yet more of them about.
I burst through the front doorway, murder in me eye, and even as the oaken slab of the door bounced from the wall, I heard Nana’s enraged voice, raised in the Gaelic and mixed with some language I could not ken, and she was cursing someone or something with a power I’d never heard from her before.
Up the stairs I went, and round the hallway to the right. There was the door to Nana’s room, and before it, a pair of something that weren’t what I’d expected.