The Blood: A Denouement

Uriah Dunne did not like Chicago in the winter, and for some reason, the reading of this volume did not help him like it more. All through the night the wind had been building, and now, with a howling, the Windy City lived up to its name, shaking the panels and bashing against the old brick walls of the house on Morse Street.

“You know that’s not why they call it the Windy City, right?” Owen said, lifting his mug of cocoa and sipping.

Uriah was never quite sure if his uncle was capable of reading his thoughts or not. He was never really sure of anything with Owen.

But now a great howling arose from outside, and as the wind screamed, suddenly the fire leapt up and Uriah jumped. Owen did too, but he said, “Must be rain or snow.”

But, at last, the wind began to moan, and when it did, Uriah felt that he could very clearly hear it howl Oweeeee, owwwww, owwwwwwww. Oweeeeeeeeen.

“What in the hell?” Uriah pronounced as, very clearly, about the rattling house he heard, “Oweeeen. Oweeennn. Owen Dunharrow.”

Owen had been about to say it was nothing and go back to drinking cocoa, and perhaps if he had been alone he might have continued to do so, but now he rose up, looking more irritated than frightened, and Uriah followed his uncle out of the parlor, through the dark dining room where he grabbed something which, coming out into the lit foyer turned out to be a twig, and he handed the twig to Uriah while he seized an old cardigan from a hook under a very faded picture of a long dead and very serious Black woman, and then, taking the wand again, he flung open the the door and pronounced into the howling wind words Uriah could not distinguish through the high wind and which he sensed he would not have understood.

He knew he would not have understood because the last of those words he could hear as the wind seemed to take a deep breath, sigh, and ceased its screaming, turning into a still night. Beyond his uncle’s outstretched arms, Uriah could see fresh white snow like crystals, covering the porch and street beyond, glowing under the street lights of Morse.

“Well,” Owen said, wrapping the cardigan tight around himself, “They’re taken care of. For now at least.”

“Who were… What do you mean by they?” Uriah said.

“It’s better not to ask. Better not to give them attention.”

Uriah was about to ask, but Owen said, “Friend, little friend, You can come in now. I’m sorry you had to hide from them for such a while.”

Uriah saw no one, and he knew Owen was not mad, so wondered what manner of ghost he might be talking to, when, he saw, coming from under the porch, the very small form of a white and grey kitten, with very wide dark, and frightened eyes in its face.

“I would come to you,” Owen said in that voice he used for everyone, “but I’m afraid there’s much snow and I’m not dressed. Come around the side, alright?”

Owen nodded to the kitten and closed the door. When he traveled back through the house, Uriah said, “Owen, I’m not sure I want you here alone.”

“I’ve been here alone since before you were born, the impossible man said as they entered the kitchen and he went down the basement steps to stop midway where the door led outside and he opened it to let in the kitten who, of course, was right there, and mewed politely while Owen scooped him up, and shut the door.

Back in the kitchen, Owen said, “Could you set a saucer of water for him. That business about cats liking milk is false. They may like it, but it’s not good for them.. I’ll crumble some of last night’s fish for him.”

Uriah nodded and set to obey, but said, “None of this changes what I said,”

“About me being alone?”

“Yes.”

“But don’t you see,” Owen said as the little cat began walking his shoulders and coming back into his arms, “I’m not going to be alone.”

“That,” Uriah said, pointing at the grey and white kitten, “is not what I meant.”

“It’s not what I meant either,” Owen said. “At least, not entirely.”

THE BOOK OF GENEVIEVE

Tanitha and her men, who were for the most part, as white as us, and taller than this woman who seemed a little girl from behind, marched swiftly across the town and into the now silent tavern. It seemed to have been abandoned quickly, and tankards and platters were thrown on the floor. In some corners, on their backs, on their faces, splayed dead men with great cuts to their throat and as we went up the stairs, the innkeeper’s wife lay sprayed on his bag, large belly exposed, eyes looking up in surprise.

“What happened here?” Piers wondered.

“Your rescue happened here,” Tanitha said. “Gather your things, the both of you. We must be on the way.”

There was no moon, for this was the waning phase and the night was not old enough for it to rise yet. We traveled in silent blackness out of the devastated town. Now and again, as we had left, a child or frightened woman peering from behind a curtain. Now, as we crossed a black river, in the night we saw nothing, and Tanitha said, “We must reach Vielka before the morning, for some of these with me are newly made and cannot withstand the day.”

“Withstand the…” Piers began.

But for some reason Tanitha did not acknowledge him, she turned to me.

“Genevieve,” she said, “All of this will be explained when we have time to rest.”

We traveled into the hills, but only a little ways before we reached, overlooking the great road, an old town of stone, black in the predawn, and at the command from the cloaked Tanitha, the guards opened the gates, and then we passed through them into the castle proper and dismounted.

“Thank you all,” Tanitha was telling her men. “Find refreshment and to bed with all of you before day. Except you,” she pointed at a smiling redhead. “You are no child. Also you and you, Piers, Genevieve, wait on me a moment and I will find you refreshment after so long a journey.”

The castle was more along the lines of what would have been called a burgh, for it was the city proper that was fortified and this was more of a large house though there were old turrets and battlements. I’d heard that in Italy, where there were no kings, only cities ruled by merchants who acted like kings, all the great houses were built thus, and this house was richer than ours, though smaller and warm against the chill nights that lasted even till summer in this country. There were august paintings of relatives dark skinned and otherwise who all bore the stamp of Tanitha’s face, and now she arrived, with no servants but bearing a silver tray with many decanters and glasses of silver and or sparkling crystal, and through the cut crystal was wine red as blood.

Tanitha wore a rich blue gown and set the tray down on a low table before us.

“A drink, and then I will show you baths if you be so inclined.”

“I am inclined,” Piers said, trying to remain polite, “to know what is going on.”

Tanitha looked genuinely surprised, and then the chocolate skinned woman with her rich blue eyes nodded and said, “But, of course.

“It was your grandfather, Adulwulf who asked us to find you.”

“Grandfather.”

“He sent you off to find a wife,” Tanitha said, sitting down and helping herself to a chalice that seemed much too heavy for her small hands.

“He heard you had found one, but were taking some time. He said he was lucky to find me, for I am not always here. I said I thought it was nothing, but would check as I was on my way to that neighborhood where your family dwells, Lady Genevieve.”

“You met my mother. And my father?”

“I did,” Tanitha said. “And many others. But when they said you were gone and ought to have arrived at the holding where Piers is, then I began to worry. There was also, in that place a wise old Witch.”

“Gisela.”

“Yes, two if you count your grandmother. But Gisela said that there were towns around there, unkind to people such as ourselves. And so we came looking for you, following your trail until we arrived at that wicked city.”

“People like… ourselves?” Piers said.

“Oh,” Tanitha shook her head. “I am no shapechanger, no were creature. Though our kind have an ancient bond.”

Her eyes scanned the bright red cup of wine, shining in her hands.

“We are Der Alte, as you might say.”

“L'ancien,” Piers whispered in French.

The Old.

“Or, in some tales,” Tanitha said, “Blutsauger.”

And it was I who said, “Blood Drinkers.”

I was surprised by how tired I became and how quickly. We’d had no food in us, and little to drink, not much real rest in that prison cell. I looked to the red in Tanitha’s glass, and she must have known what I was thinking, for she laughed and said, “It is wine, the same as you.”

We had heard of such creatures, of course. But the tales I had heard were of corpses in shrouds, barely alive, lumbering after old loved ones, causing harm until they were set on fire, or buried again with stakes from them. There were tales of people who died of blood loss and the loss of energy and how it would be traced back to a beautiful woman who sucked out their lives and remained for ever young. But she was called a witch or sometimes a siren, and this seemed closer to what the living woman beside us was, save she was draining nothing from us. She seemed like parts of folktales and none of them, as if the imaginations of men, so powerful, were once again, not powerful enough to take in the reality of things.

We ate bread and cheese and a vegetable soup, and then Tanitha led us through the house to a rich bedroom. By now the sun was coming up. I could feel it and just see it on the other side of the curtains.

“I am going to my rest as well,” she said, taking our hands graciously, “though I find it hard to sleep tonight. The redheaded fellow you met was Hans. I think I shall go to him, and we will watch the sun rise.”

Tanitha said that her father was a king among the The Old, and that among their kind, though some people controlled whole territories like princedoms, many, as her father, had small holdings all over, sometimes in a great chain. Vielka was one of these, and apparently a very old and favorite one.

“My father made a compact long ago with your grandfathers,” Tanitha explained, and when Tanitha thought she meant Adulwulf, she shook her head.

“Further than that. Not your grandfather or Genevieve’s, but the mtual ones from which you are descended. I do not know the whole of the story It was at the very beginning, I have heard, with the first of you.”

“Hagano,” I said.

“That name sounds familiar,” Tanitha said. “You still remember him.”

I shook my head and Piers said, honestly, “We have seen him. We do see him. He speaks with us.”

Tanitha frowned here. This was news.

“He is not dead?”

“He is neither alive nor dead,” Piers said. “He comes in and out like a ghost, but when he is solid he has flesh and dimension as a living man.”

“And did you never wonder,” Tanitha wondered, looking at us, “how that came to be?”

We were embarrassed to admit that we had not.

“There is powerful magic at the back of this. I have heard—” she stopped.

“Let me see that they are still safe, the treasures,” she looked at me. “They were in your household I know, meant to be given to Piers as a wedding gift, but also a dowry to link your two old houses. Let me see them.”

I looked at her, still amazed that she knew what she knew, and she only said, “I do not want them for myself, only to see them.”

Piers was nodding for me to do so, but I had already risen.

When I returned, it was carrying something as if it were a tray, and I lay it down on the table before Tanitha and Piers. A red silk cloth was over and, and when I lifted the cloth ir revealed a large, shallow bowl, dark and spotted, but still glinting, looking like it was gold or bronze, but glinting like silver at the same time. Under the varied candle light is shifted from tone to tone and it was carved all over with deep swirls and whorl interlocking and crossing so that one’s vision swirled in and out and if you continued to look, you might never stop. It was so clear in that moment that what I bore was not mine, and not even my family’s. and in the midst of it, wrapped in silk, which I unwrapped was the roundest, most perfect, crystal Orb.

Uriah looked up from the curling pages and across the room to where Owen slept in his great chair, his fingers massaging the small grey and white kitten.

Outside the gentle wind brought more and more snow, and inside the fire sighed as another log popped. The cat looked at Uriah and said “Mew,” reminding him that kittens got thirsty and fifty year old men had to use the rest room.

“Yes,” Uriah said. “Yes for you and yes for me, but…”

The werewolves, this family…. They had TWO of the family treasures! The Great Treasures… But why?