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Chapter 7.58 - Ichabod 4

Ichabod had gone after Elder Amun-Kar first because he was the oldest and the strongest. He'd been able to overpower Amun-Kar, which meant he had a chance of killing the other elders. Now, Ichabod set his sights on a different challenge.

Immediately after killing Amun-Kar, Ichabod had started north toward Greenland.

He needed to find Elder Thornmire.

Despite popular media showing the contrary, vampires were social creatures. The elders were no exception, though it was on a very different scale. Most vampires only had one sire, while elders might have dozens. A younger vampire might have a tight-knit clan or cabal, while elders ran corporations or secret organizations. Ichabod ran the Gnosis corporation. Hatherian ran the Constellation media conglomerate. Baraquiel was the head of the House of Saints. Amun-Kar, Uduak, and Xian preferred their own secret societies.

But Elder Thornmire wanted none of those things. She'd been a vagabond both in her human life and in her vampire life, always on the move. Even as the years turned into millennia, she never stayed in one place for long. In those long years, she only sired four vampires, and killed each of them. If one wanted to find her, they needed to follow an increasingly long trail of rumors and dead ends.

Forty years ago, Thornmire had stopped wandering and gone into hiding, seeking solitude from an increasingly connected world. She'd gone to the northern peninsula of Greenland, one of the most desolate places in the world. The region was a polar desert—cold and inhospitable, but without enough precipitation to produce snow. No humans lived there, and therefore, neither did vampires.

Thornmire was underground, somewhere in the network of caverns that threaded through that desolate land.

Ichabod was one of the few who knew approximately where she was.

But there was no telling if she was still there.

Ichabod had all manner of sensors and satellite imaging at his disposal, but the cave system stretched for miles in every direction. Thornmire could've crept out years ago. The only way to know for sure was to go there.

~

Ichabod left most of his entourage at a remote outpost in Greenland, then chartered a smaller helicopter to the beginning of the peninsula. From there, he made the last two hundred mile trek on foot. He didn't want to risk Thornmire hearing his approach.

Ichabod knew the landscape was inhospitable. But knowing it and experiencing it were very different. A human might've survived a few hours. A lesser vampire wouldn't have made it through the night. The landscape was hard and bitter, and the cold seeped deep into his body until it felt like ice flowed through his veins. He would survive. The cold could not kill him, but it slowed him more than he would ever admit.

The dry air was almost as oppressive. Vampires didn't drink water like humans did. They received their rations of moisture from the blood they consumed. On the second day, Ichabod ran out of blood substitute, and he broke his abstinence. Small game were plentiful, but unfilling, and Ichabod felt nauseous when he drained a white-haired rabbit dry. That day he stalked a herd of musk oxen, and drank his fill from one of the larger, healthier members. It would survive, just as he would.

As Ichabod navigated the foothills, he cursed himself for growing soft in the comfort of Gnosis.

Thornmire chose their exile well. The cold made torpor easier. Made it tempting. Ichabod could feel the cold sleep calling to him, like a warm blanket might call to a mortal. The dry air made the sensation even stronger, insisting to his body that times were lean and it would be better to sleep.