Chapter 120: Dessert

Chapter 20 - Dessert

Caged or not, it did not matter. He had it back. Jack had his precious dagger back. Professor Crae had retrieved it for him. The guardsman that had stolen it was sentenced to mine work. That sneer behind those doomed eyes had almost been worth the wait of four insipid years.

Almost.

The only thing better would have been to watch him cry as Jack plunged the dagger into his heart. He wasn't allowed that opportunity. Still though, he giggled at the thought, caressing the dagger's silver hilt as if it were his mother's arm. He grinned, bony back pressed up against the cloth covered cage —a similar cage to the one he was brought in long ago.

They still thought he might disintegrate under the sun. Even Professor Crae, for all his acclaimed intellect, believed the same. Jack didn't bother correcting them. He hugged his weapon and tucked in his knees, feeling a dull rumbling beneath his rear. He was on a carriage or wagon, being transported to the capital of Tarmia like some manner of exotic pet. Pet , Jack thought with clenched fists, his jagged nails stabbing at his palms. Pets had masters. Had chains and were put in cages. Jack was promised death. He was promised screaming songs and laughter. He would be no pet. Not anymore.

Days passed. The carriage halted for nights. Goods were loaded and unloaded. The carriage moved again, wheels grinding down on a dirt road, vibrations running along the length of its wooden structure. The rumbling continued. Accompanying was the clop of horseshoes against the ground, a squad of soldiers guarding the caravan. Guarding me . Jack did what he could to stretch out within the confines of his square cell. He needed to keep his body prepared. If ever a chance came to lunge, a chance to latch onto someone and sink his fangs into their throat, he would need his joints functioning without creak like freshly oiled hinges.

Bite a throat . When had he last done that? Jack tugged at his overgrown hair, now a dirt blonde with months of dust caught between like a once golden broom that'd been used to clean an unattended manor. He stared at the bars of his cell not two feet away from him. He'd last bitten a throat when he was behind bars much like those. It all came back in an instant as if it'd happened yesterday. Jack could see his mother's thin figure huddled in the corner. He didn't need to lunge then. They were both stuck there. He could take his time crawling up to her whenever he needed a drink. And never once did his mother try running away. She was too kind too. Too loving. And Jack had repaid her with a dozen tiny holes in her neck.

He stretched out his arm, touching his mother's sunken cheeks. He wanted to apologize. But she didn't respond. She didn't turn at the feel of his fingers. Didn't even twitch. Because she wasn't there. Only iron bars there. Jack buried his head in his knees, crying. “I'm sorry.” His cries turned to whimpers. Whimpers turned to giggles. Giggles turned to hoarse cackles as he imagined Sarah's sweet blood on the tip of his tongue. He was a monster. She'd said it herself. A monster rejected by both humans and Vampires alike. A monster rejected by his own mother. And sister. After all, Karine was the real murderer here. Jack cackled to fill the void in his chest.

“If only you weren't born,” Sarah said.

If only I wasn't born. His parents didn't want him. His sister didn't want him. No one wanted him. Well, Tarmia wanted him. But they didn’t want Jackrin Malkieri. They wanted the monster behind that name. All of a sudden, repaying Sarah with pain didn't seem all so bad. He could recall her songful cry. Her paralyzed twitch. All so vivid. Especially her sweet, sweet blood.

And then the cackles faded, the whimpering returning. The rumbling continued. The clopping constant. Another sound accompanied —that of muttering soldiers speaking words of the insane beast hidden beneath the veiled cage. A sweet smell still remained. Jack pushed himself against the bars, hiding his face in his dirty hands, dagger in his lap. A lovely scent like no other. Not blood, he realized. Something else. Something else he hadn't noticed due to the soapy smell of his new, washed clothes mingling with that of his unwashed stench. I have new clothes? When did I wear them?

When he was admiring that thieving guard's sneer. He remembered now. Crae had gotten him a white tunic with a red hand upon the back. It fit in length, but was much too baggy for his fleshless bones.

Jack sniffed the air again, inhaling that sweetness. It tickled a distant memory. One of a happier time. One with smiles and sticky baked treats. The cargo, he realized with a start. The other objects in the wagon. Baked goods were being transported along with him. Jack pinched the cloth of his cage's veil, lifting it up. He identified the crate from which the scent flowed. And then hopelessly tried reaching for it, sticking a bony arm through the bars.

Just a few inches short. His heart sank, his stomach a void. Jack took deep breaths, wishing for the smell itself to fill him up. But no such thing happened. He looked down at his dagger. Just a few inches. Would the guarding soldiers notice? It was worth a try. All for a stronger image of that happy memory.

Jack unsheathed. He poked his thin arms through the bars again. The dagger blade touched the crate. He pushed harder. The blade sank in, its deadly edge still holding after all those years. Jack slowly carved out a square from the wooden crate. His shoulder ached from being extended and used for so long. It's worth it . The desserts inside were wrapped in cloth. Jack carved into that too, revealing his prize. Stacks of fresh cookies.

One more stab . He poked the into the side of a fat cookie as if the dagger were a fork, turning the weapon on its side to carefully pull the cookie out of the square he'd carved into the crate. A beautiful golden brown with cracked oats embedded in its surface. Just a little bit more . Jack's arm was back in the cage. All that was left was his wrist and hand.

The carriage lurched to a sudden halt. Jack's wrist hit the iron bars and the cookie fell from the dagger's tip. He let out a pained moan as he watched it descend into some unreachable crevice. He almost cried.

Almost cried just as the whinnying horses and shouting soldiers.

But it wasn't all hopeless. There were more cookies yet. He massaged his shoulder and prepared to poke his arm out again, the sounds of drawing swords ringing in his ears. Jack reached towards the bars of his cell just as a flaming arrow struck the crate of cookies, lighting it ablaze.

He cried then. Wailed loud and clear like a child robbed of its favorite toy. An arrow pierced the veil of his cage and clanged against the cell's base mere hairs before his grimy feet. He barely noticed it, eyes fixed upon the burning box of cookies. Someone please! Please put the fire out!

But no such thing happened. The box was burnt to cinders. Men cried out and blades clashed with each other. The smoky smell of burnt wood entered Jack's nostrils. It mingled with that of freshly spilt blood and oiled iron. Hunger gnawed at the void inside. Jack slipped his dagger into his white trousers and sniffed the air like a rabid wolf. The smell of blood grew stronger with every cry, but it was soon overpowered by that of burning materials.

The fire in the wagon spread. It touched the cage's veil. Jack moved to the center as brilliant orange surrounded him, blistering heat all around as if he were put in an oven. He suddenly laughed. A fresh open roast of a monster who consumed human blood. Fate often played the best of jokes.

The veil withered away, some of the heat dissipating. Jack's cage was unaffected. Its base and ceiling were made of stone while the bars were made of iron.

But the wagon itself continued to burn. The stone base was growing hotter by the second, and soon, Jack's laughter turned into a real worry. His feet and rear would become bacon if this continued. Fortunately, it did not. The flames had harmed the wagon's structural integrity. It snapped and the unburnt contents fell to the ground beneath. Burning splinters entered Jack's cage —orange one second, black the next.

And then it all ended.

All that remained was a hazy mess and ashes surrounding with specks of ephemeral embers. Corpses of soldiers and horses lay about everywhere on the yellow plains surrounding the road. Some mounts had survived and were being chased down by men in crude get up; patched clothes of many dull colors, sleeves torn at the end as if ripped to be used for bandaging straps a dozen too many times, and scrap bits of armor used as cropped breast plates or single shoulder pauldrons. Some wore greaves on one shin and torn boots on the other.

They had crude blades with chipped edges and splintering bows with barbed arrows. The men themselves fared no better. Not a single one was without scar, half of them missing a single eye or several teeth. Their beards were unkempt or cut entirely poorly. And they smelled. They smelled just as bad as Jack.

“Oi. Which dimwit shot a lit arrow at the wagon eh?” a pale man called, his accent fitting for a southern Estraean.

“Whoever it was will get less of the cut when we sell I think,” said a darker man with a proper Tarmian edge to his words.

Bandits. So much for being the emperor's sword. One of the bandits, a thin eyed fellow with two parallel vertical scars on both cheeks, dismounted from his brown horse. He kicked over the gurgling body of an empire soldier, stabbing down to end the soldier's misery. He then picked up a severed hand still dripping blood from one end. “Red hand of the Empire,” he announced, holding the hand up high.

The others laughed.

The man pulled off a ring from the severed hand and threw it aside. It landed in the black smoldering mess surrounding Jack's cage, a mere few feet from him. Severed human flesh, freshly cut and still bleeding, mere feet away. The intoxicating aroma of blood overpowered the smell of thick haze.

Jack bared his fangs and lunged towards the hand. His face met with the iron bars holding him, arms outstretched. Blood. Fresh blood. That was all he could think of. He breathed though his mouth, tongue sticking out, spittle rolling down his chin. He had all the dignity of a frothing rabid beast. Jack clacked his teeth as he opened and closed his fists on repeat. He smelled nothing but blood. Saw nothing but blood. Wanted nothing but blood.

“Oi, would you look at this lads,” the first bandit said, standing before the severed hand. He squatted down and stared Jack in the eyes. “What's your name sonny?”

Jack couldn't respond. Somewhere, deep within the confines of his human self, the question bounced around. The monster was tunneled in on the blood before it, eager for a taste. Jack was not in control.

“You want this?” the bandit asked, smiling wide as he held up the hand by its little finger, dangling it before Jack's eyes like a hypnosis pendant. Jack clacked his teeth and breathed out audibly. The bandit laughed. “This your snack, pup?”

Another came to stand beside him. “A slave. Probably a circus freak. Look at those sharp teeth,” he said.

“A Vampire?” the thin eyed one asked.

“Nah, those are myths eh? My mams used to tell bedtime stories when I was a wee lad.”

“You had a mother? I could've sworn you popped out of a sewer grate one day.” Grumbling laughter followed. The thin eyed one narrowed his eyes further. He had multiple knives on his belt. “Circus creature,” he muttered as Jack continued to grasp at air and drool all the while. The bandit kicked around the burnt remains. His hands fished out something white. A smiling mask with purple eyes and lips.

“What's that? The pup's mask?” the first bandit said, tossing the severed hand over his shoulder. Jack wailed as he watched it fly away. “Guess he really was meant for some kind of a troupe or play. Can't go marching into a city now can we eh?”

“No,” the tanned one said. He took the mask from his peer and accurately threw it between the bars of Jack's cage. “We can keep it around for a while. See if we meet any slave traders on the roads.”

“Oi, Laosa, I know slaves go for a sock solid sum, but I ain't about to take care of some ragged animal pup. And what'll we feed'im?”

Laosa glanced back at the cage. “Feed it raw meat scraps. I'm sure it'll eat it. No loss to us. Now, let's see what other cargo we caught this time, yes?”

The man stalked off. The squatting bandit gurgled and spat before the cage before rising and walking away as well. The rest began inspecting other unharmed wagons of the caravan while some stripped the soldiers of their armaments. At some point, the smell of blood was not so strong and Jack's human senses returned to him, stomach growling. The cookie he recalled, frantically shaking his head in search for it, finding naught but ashes. And then he remembered his dagger, shaking his head again, mind spinning as the sharp movements rattled his brain. His dagger was also nowhere to be seen. Oh right. I put it in my pocket, he realized, feeling the weapon press against his thigh.

There was another object also. A white mask left before his bare feet. A curious looking thing, violet colored eyes and a sinister smile that spoke to him, saw right through him even. No matter how he turned it, the smile persisted as if mocking his existence and circumstance. It's laughing at me Jack thought, smiling himself. A wide and sinister smile just like the mask. A maniacal cackle followed that mimicked the mask's mocking laugh within his imagination.

Circus freak.

For some reason, that phrase stuck out to Jack as if someone had mentioned it recently. Jack wore the mask, continuing his laughter. The bandit's glanced at him but wholly ignored him afterwards.

A mask to hide my hideous face! A mask to hide a murderer's trace!