A stained journal page written in cursive lettering
The other men felt it as well. But perhaps wearied of our efforts, we, as if posing for a family portrait, froze stock-still and dared not- nay, could not move. To our shame it was Talbot who enabled us to turn our heads. He commenced a high pitched ...
Strigoi Страница A stained journal page written in cursive lettering - в базе данных New World Guide of Lore
The other men felt it as well. But perhaps wearied of our efforts, we, as if posing for a family portrait, froze stock-still and dared not- nay, could not move. To our shame it was Talbot who enabled us to turn our heads. He commenced a high pitched baying that set the hairs of my neck aloft. It was a sound which he’d never uttered until that day. Thus unfrozen, we turned as if on strings toward a rocky cliff overhanging the sand. It was day as near as we could tell, though the gloom is pervasive on this island. Heavy clouds cling to its bone white teeth like a funeral pall. So it was that despite the keen vision requisite to those of us who persuade the sea to our ends, we could not make out the face of the watcher on the rampart above, save that he appeared to wear some kind of hood, as his head would otherwise be canted at an impossible angle. Was it Fear that made our eyes seem to slide across his form, unable to truly perceive it? If so it would be inaugural for I, who had never entertained such base emotion. I prized above all, my ability to remain detached, to make the best, most correct decisions with precise timing and judgement. These were not merely skills ingrained over years of education and training, but as I had chastised Edward many times, it was superior instinct bred across generations of our noble line, akin to the traits of the wolfhound who had just now proved itself the better of us all. My entire life I had denied Fear purchase, yet it had come now to roost squarely between my shoulders, and with the delight of a long separated lover, probed with a violent avarice into my body with icy, skeletal fingers.
Our hooded watcher stood motionless for several frozen breaths, until my better nature finally stirred me to action. Or, perhaps it was simply the mounting excitement and relief at seeing another living being upon this deserted isle. I called out, but the watcher, as if in reply, merely pointed inland with his entire arm as if it were a needle on a compass, then turned and disappeared into the jungled growth beyond the cliff’s edge.
It is then that I heard clearly for the first time, what Cook Petru had been muttering to himself since the time he had awoken next to me on these mournful shores. It was not, as I’d previously presumed, a prayer from his homeland near the Black Sea. It was a single word- “Strigoi.”
