The Old

Remembrance

Conclusion

“What is it like? To change so?”

“Kruinh was right. It was like being a baby. That first time I was so weak, and then, as I drank from him I grew stronger and stronger. Strength filled my limbs and he said, ‘But that is enough for now.’

“I tried to walk and tottered. Kruinh said, ‘We are on a ship, but still, you might have tottered anyway. You are new.’

“I walked through the dark space and said, ‘Is it night or day?’

“‘It is day, and so you cannot go above deck. You are newly made. If I had made you at a more convenient time you would have been born in the night, but I had to make you when I could, and so you are born at the day. Soon the sun will set, and you will be able to go out at night and, in time, when you are stronger day or night will not matter.’

“‘What do I do for now?’ I asked him.

“‘Do as I first said,’ Kruinh said with patience. ‘Rest.’”

When I woke again I was hungry, and Kruinh said, “That will soon be amended.”

“You will feed me?”

“You will feed yourself,” Kruinh said. “It is better that you learn to do this on your own as soon as possible.”

And I understood what this meant, that I would have to kill.

“You are not on a ship of the innocent,” Kruinh said. “That was done purposely. You are on a slave ship bound for Hispaniola, and if I have anything to say about it, it will never make it there.”

Kruinh dressed me, and the hunger rose in me as he did. I longed to drink from him, but would never have dared ask.

“You will drink from me again in time, for I am your father,” Kruinh said. “It is my duty. But I have to teach you to hunt. The hunting is quickly learned. Go up that gangplank and take your food.”

“I am going alone?”

Kruinh held out his black hands and gestured to his black face.

“Ah,” I said. “I see.”

Then I said, “Should I bring you anything back?”

“That is gracious but no,” Kruinh said, smiling.“I am older. I can live without the blood for some time, and when it comes time to hunt, I can be most swift. They will not see it coming.”

As I emerged onto the deck I began to feel the changes in me. When I had been freed from the plantation I was stronger than I had ever been in my undernourished years in England or as a beaten serf. But now I felt such strength in my limbs that old human strength was as nothing. Tall as I was I never felt so tall, and every star in the sky was a lamp. The moon shone bright as day for me. I walked about the deck, my feet light, my hands and limbs fairly flying.

Up from one of the holds a deck hand came.

“You!” he demanded. “What the fuck are you doing lounging about when there’s work to do?”

I did not know what to say. Like the Blacks and Indians I ad fought with, I was used to being told what to do, and what not to do by white men, but I was not used to dissembling. Answering back had always been my trouble.

“I was looking at the stars. You really ought to try it.”

“Ought to try it,” he began. “Why you miserable fuck—”

And I have never understood why so many people respond to everything with violence and a raised hand, but as he came at me with his club, my hand caught his wrist like a magnet to iron, and just as quickly crushed it, but before he could scream, my teeth were in his throat, and I held him to me, drinking, filled with pleasure and strength. How to describe it? Blood taste like blood. But how to describe the pleasure I took in great quantities of it filling me, and then an almost eruption like the feeling before orgasm, and a voice in my head, Kruinh’s “Take out your lower fangs. Take them out.”

And when I did, suddenly, something pouring out of them which should not pour into him, not long lasting, quickly shot, and then Kruinh’s voice saying, “It is gone. There is only a little of it. There will always be only a little of it.” And I continued feasting until the body was limp in my hands, and the heart the shallowest, shallowest of beats. I removed my mouth from the ruined throat, such imprecise marks as I would not make now, four savage punctures.

Toss him overboard. Kruinh’s thoughts were one with mine.

I looked down at the black water reflecting back the moon and the stars, its waves rippling indifferently after the body had been plunged into it and disappeared beneath the surface.

I was lost in contemplation of the waters and more than this, contemplation of the fact that I could kill so easily, so fully, and so swiftly. Life, and yes, it took a time to realize it, joy, filled my body. I heard footsteps approaching and even as I heard them knew they were some way off. I was so fitted with Kruinh that his teaching was flowing into my mind. I said, “Be invisible,” and as the man passed, he did not see me, and so I learned another power that was mine.

There were many things that Kruinh taught me including that now I was a member of his clan, like any of his natural children.And there were also things I did not learn right away or, for that matter, within the next century. The ship made it to the shores of Hispaniola, far from Port au Prince, with not a white man on it, and black men landed on the beach and immediately went into the hills. We were there for some time, and there were other places I went, other adventures, but in a life like mine you must… edit is the best word, I suppose, and again and again I was drawn to America. It was the new and savage land, but new and savage because of the Europeans, not because of the many who had lived there for hundreds and thousands of years. The code of the Clan of Kruinh was to eat the wicked and the wicked of intent, and so I found myself drawn to the wickedest places I knew, the places where European powers building their colonies did so on the blood and backs of others.I could have chosen all of the Americas, but I chose what I knew, and where people like me were settling. Like a worm I stole into Virginia and gnawed my way deeper and deeper into the land, feasted into the nascent South, tasting the blood of slavers and rapists and murderers. That land was beautiful and often the people were too, but always, the deeper south I went, the more I could be certain of a meal.

“Nigga!” Some hillbilly shouts.

“Niggaaaaaah! Come here, Nigga!”

They’re running through the hills, dogs baying after him, some are on horses, the lantern light shines on crazy eyes.

“Nigggggger! Come on over, Niggerrr! We gon get you.”

The dogs are all around him. They bark and one man is about to unleash his hound.

“He’s supposed to be brought back unharmed,” one toothless hick says. “More money that way.”

The other man, unshaven, sweat faced, is chewing on his lower lip.

“I like my niggers dead.”

But dead is the last word he says as a hound like form lunges out of the dark ripping his throat out, and then bolting about amidst the chaos, and through the chaos you, who have been chased, are the only one who stands still.

When it is over they are all lying dead around you. Like enemies destroyed by the God of the Book of the Psalms.

“Please come out,” you say calmly. “Come out to me, please. I called you, but I do not know what you are. I waited on you, but I did not know if you would come. I thank you. Please come out.”

You are mildly surprised, not as startled as you thought you would be, to see this tall white man, skin whiter than any you’ve ever seen, mouth rouged by blood, his teeth, so large, killing teeth protracted, and still jutting out from the mouth.

“Sir,” you say, not terrified of the man whose terror has delivered you, “I have heard of you, but I do not know your name.”

“Call me Deliverer.”

“I’d rather call you by your name.”

“Do not worry about names.”

“Well, you can have mine,” you say. “It is Malachy.”