Lord of the Vampires

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  “I swear it before God, my lord!”

  I paused for a moment to watch his expression, and the wild swing there between hope and doom. After a time, I said, “Very well, my friend. These are dangerous times for me; I have no choice but to test the loyalty of those in my inner circle. I believe you.”

  Oh, the joy upon his face! And once again tears, but these were tinged with happy relief instead of fear.

  “But,” said I, for he had begun to struggle to his feet. At that word, he sank at once back down. “You have passed only narrowly. Pray now for my victory over all enemies—and thank God for your deliverance.”

  He began to do so, and his exultant smile broadened when I motioned for the soldier—now bitterly disappointed—to retreat back to the fireplace, to stand beside the grimly silent old monk. But I remained within the doorway.

  And when I deemed the time right—and could no longer restrain my fury at Gregor’s betrayal and his cowardice—I reached for a wooden lever set within the wall just outside the cell. With vehement effort, I pulled.

  The sliding sound of wood against wood. Arms flung into the air, a piteous cry of disappointment and fear. And upon his face animal terror again, a sight rapid yet indelible in the swift second before he disappeared down to Hell.

  Then the sharper screams of pain as I ran forward towards the gaping trapdoor to observe my handiwork.

  This is how God feels when He looks on the faces of the dead: a sense of power and accomplishment far, far sweeter and more intoxicating than love.

  Gregor had fallen into the shallow pit upon his knees, and thus, kneeling, would he die. For the keenly sharp iron pales were fastened in the ground at regular intervals, to ensure death, and the pit so placed that he could not fall forward—only back, despite his flailing, onto the spikes. (This so I might better see his face.) One had caught his long dark hair and grazed the back of his skull, leaving his head tilted slightly forward; another emerged bloodied from his right breast. Yet others protruded from the crook of his right arm, from the center of his left palm (in Christlike fashion), while others sight unseen no doubt pierced his lower legs and held him fast.

  His eyes were open wide, in blank astonishment which was slowly fading. I think he was not quite dead, and so I squatted on my haunches and called softly down:

  “May God send your faithless soul straight to Hell. You shall die, and Basarab shall die, but I shall live forever.”

  And I bent forward, turning so that the two living men behind me could not see, and lifted up Gregor’s limp right hand. Upon this I put my own ring.

  Then I rose and sent the young soldier just outside the room, to guard us, and took the old monk aside. Him I gave a mission: that he should take whatever strong young brothers he needed, and take the body across the lake into the Vlasia Forest, and there behead it. As for the head, they would cut a hole in the ice and throw it into the freezing waters.

  Fear was in the old man, too, after what he had seen; he listened in silence and uttered no protest, even though I was asking him to do the unthinkable—to leave a body without proper burial for the carrion birds in the forest.

  And when I had sent him away to do his work, I called my eager young assassin into my chambers and said, “The old monk will return with some brothers to fetch the body for burial outside Snagov. When they return from across the water, I want you to be waiting for them in the watchtower; do not let them back inside, but meet them at the gate and kill them.”

  This he agreed to eagerly. Then I bade him send another trustworthy soldier to stand outside the door and guard my private chambers throughout the night, so that no one should be permitted in.

  But first, I helped him to remove Gregor’s still bleeding, warm body (did he still breathe? I could not decide) from its bed of stakes and wrap it in the traitor’s cloak and the now-tattered rug, to spare the floor from stain. Then the soldier dragged Gregor by the heels out into the hallway, and there they remained to await the brothers.

  As for me, I bolted the door behind them, as I required privacy in order to properly cast a Circle. Now that I had made my escape from Basarab and my Judas, it was time to make my escape from Death. For it was clear to me that my success as an earthly prince was not to be, and that if I remained as I was, my death was assured. Thus I sought another realm, one that was deathless yet still allowed me power over mortals.

  And so I turned, thinking to go back to the smell shrine where so many have met death, and fetch from another hidden trapdoor my magical tools, that I might cast a Circle and summon again the Dark Lord for the consummation of our bargain.

  Yet as I turned, I espied before the fireplace a ragged servant child stirring the fire with a poker. The sight so startled me that I cried out: “You! Boy! How and when did you come in here?” For I wanted to know whether the child had had opportunity to overhear my plan to leave Gregor’s decapitated body in the forest, then have the monks killed. From the child’s size, he surely was no more than in his sixth year, and most likely had understood little of what he had heard; but children are parrots, and I would not risk even the frailest chance of failure.

  At my shout, the tiny creature did not so much as quiver, but continued tending the fire with preternatural calm. Infuriated, I strode up behind it, snatched up my sword, and drew it from its sheath, thinking to cleave that small body in two.

  But in the instant ere I struck, the child turned to me and smiled.

  Boy? Girl? I could not have said. I only knew in that instant that I gazed upon the most exquisitely beautiful creature I had ever seen. Its long, curling hair shone like gold in sunlight, its skin gleamed like polished nacre, its lips bloomed like the tenderest pink rose around the perfect pearls of its teeth. The wool cape round its frail shoulders was tattered almost to shreds, frayed, worn, and so smudged with grime that the fabric’s original colour was impossible to guess. Yet the filth did not dim the wearer’s glory, but served to enhance it by the contrast.

  Surely there was nothing in this world lovelier or more delicate than this small creature. Yet it was not until I gazed into its eyes—eyes bluer than sea or sky or sapphire, framed by fine golden lashes and pale downy brows—that I saw the infinite intelligence there, the wisdom and knowledge greater than any man could ever possess … and at the same time, an innocence deeper and more genuine than any human infant could possess. I thought, These are the eyes of the Christ.

  My weapon clattered to the floor. Despite myself, I shuddered, but through sheer strength of will did not fall to my knees; pride would not permit me so soon to echo Gregor. But—how difficult to be honest—I was filled with awe and fear.

  For I knew I looked upon the Dark Lord, come to me for the first time without my summoning Him in Circle. Always He had come at my urging; I had been the one in control of my fate, of my contract with Him. The Circle gave me power over Him, made me His lord, made Him subject to my command—so long as I was willing to make the appropriate sacrifice.

  Now, it seemed, He was no longer mine to control. The thought provoked bitter horror.

  “You are the Dark One,” I told Him, though in truth I had never seen anything so bright and shining as this smiling little pauper. He had come to me many times in the form of darkness, as the featureless shadow of a man blacker than midnight; twice, he had come to me as a bearded man more ancient and wizened than the old monk, with eyes as innocent and wise as these.

  Innocent as a dove, yet wise as a serpent.…

  “I am He,” said the little beauty pleasantly. “I have read your intent and have saved you the need for a formal summons. What do you offer in exchange for my gift, O Prince?” He spoke with a soft, lisping child’s voice, yet his words and demeanour were those of a sage.

  “If you have read my intent, then you already know.”

  He laughed, sweet and high. “Let us affirm the contract by your stating it.”

  I paused. I had never had great regard for any of my family, because of my betrayal at
the hands of my own father and brother. And I had no love for my second wife, the Hungarian noblewoman Ilona; she had been like my conversion to Catholicism, or the raid on Srebrenica, one part of a long-term plan to win King Matthias’ favor and thus my freedom and kingdom. She had given me two sons: my namesake Vlad, for the moment heir to the Wallachian throne (though unfortunately not to my intelligence), and Mircea, who even in his youth clearly resembles my treacherous brother, Radu, in both appearance and feminine affectation.

  But of all my family, I possessed—still possess—some paternal interest in my eldest son, Mihnea, given me by my beloved dead Ana. He alone shares my shrewdness and ambition; were I to choose one person on earth I should least wish to sacrifice, it would be he.

  Yet I was a keen and ambitious child, eager to learn from my father and fulfill my duties as his heir, and he betrayed me without hesitation to the Turks.

  So it was I answered, “In return for immortality, I offer up the soul of my eldest son.”

  “Not enough,” replied He sternly, to my astonishment. “Not enough; for immortality lasts forever, but my pleasure at receiving Mihnea’s soul is temporary. We must have a continuing bargain. The soul of the eldest son of each generation. And you shall bear the responsibility for delivering it to me.”

  I paused only a heartbeat at the thought of such a responsibility’s cost. “Very well. Each generation, I shall deliver into your power the eldest son. But at what moment shall I become immortal?”

  “The change shall begin this night, once the sun has set, and be accomplished by the dawn. One warning: In the morning you must closet yourself away to rest undisturbed. You will no longer be a man, but an altogether different creature.”

  “How shall I be changed?”

  The child smiled, but there was no contempt, no condescension, in His eyes. “That depends upon your own heart and mind. For each one it is different. You shall become more powerful, but there will be conditions upon that power. There are always conditions. I leave you to discover them yourself.”

  “Conditions?” I savoured this new information, and experienced a sudden revelation which restored a shred of my former confidence that I should be able to control this entity, and thus my ultimate fate. “And have you no conditions upon your own power?”

  Another laugh, sweet and tinkling, then silence. The child regarded me with abrupt solemnity. “There remains only one thing to be done to complete our exchange.”

  As he spoke, the flesh upon my arms and nape prickled. This was the moment I had long awaited, the moment which had sustained me during these last bitter days of knowing my earthly kingdom and my life would soon be forfeit: the moment I stepped over the threshold into immortality.

  “A kiss,” the Dark One said. “Only a kiss.” And He stepped from the hearth and rose on tiptoe, arms at His sides, the pink petals of His lips pursed in anticipation.

  I moved towards Him, at last understanding as I sank down why He had appeared as a child: that I should have to bow to Him to accept His gift. The thought rankled, as I have bowed to no one but my father and Matthias, and then only with reluctance. It also filled me with foreboding, for it underscored the fact that the Dark Lord was no longer mine to control, and summon when I wished; I was now under His control.

  But I could not accept death, and so I bowed and kissed Him. And at the moment my lips touched that infinitely tender and immortal flesh, I felt a surge of power, of exhilaration, move from Him into me.

  I stared into His eyes and saw them deepen from sky-blue to indigo, the colour of night. Dark and shining they were, and magnificent, eyes that made a man want to do nothing but stare into them for eternity. I could not resist. As I looked deep into those eyes, I saw in them the gaze of the Beloved, the gaze of the dead. The gaze of the only female I had permitted myself to love, my dead Ana; the seductive, beautiful, treacherous gaze of Radu; the shrewd, calculating gaze of my father, Vlad, and behind it, infinite Darkness.…

  So deep did I fall into that Darkness that when I came to myself some moments—or was it hours?—later, I opened my eyes to find myself kneeling before the hearth. The child had vanished, and the fire had gone out, leaving only ash and glowing embers. Yet I felt no chill; my limbs, my head, my chest, were atingle with strange sensation. Not the tingle of limbs gone numb, but rather an odd sense of internal movement, as though my body had been emptied of its contents, then refilled with humming bees. I felt strangely light. And when I rose to my feet, I did so easily, without the pains of age and creaking bones that have afflicted me these past years.

  Even my vision was enhanced; the glow from the ashes in the fireplace seemed impossibly bright and kissed by rainbow colours. Indeed, as I gazed around the room, I saw each object more sharply and in more detail than I ever had as a youth; each was imbued with a startling depth of colour and texture. I turned slowly, taking in each sight with a child’s sense of wonder and laughing aloud at the sheer pleasure of it. I could see every sparkling grain of sand that comprised each stone in the hearth, every hair-fine crack in the mortar.

  Yet the light from the tapers (which were still burning, though half consumed and standing in pools of wax) dazzled my eyes so painfully that I blew out each but one. That meagre light proved more than sufficient, for the colour and detail faded not at all, even though a swift glance through the window showed darkness and swirling snow. The sun had set, and the storm come at last.

  I hurried to the mirror, eager to inspect my face for changes—but alas! When I peered into the polished metal surface, my visage was paler and indistinct, fading away as one might imagine a ghost dissolves into night. I had feared such might happen, for I had heard tales from my nursemaid and other servants about the faces of the dead not reflecting in mirrors. Was the undisclosed cost of my bargain invisibility?

  A discreet knock at the door: I called out and heard in reply the polite voice of my young assassin. The monks had returned from the forest and had been killed according to my instructions.

  As a test to see whether I remained visible to mortals, I opened the door and peered out at the scraggly-bearded soldier. “Excellent,” said I, expecting him to scream at my disembodied voice, or instead to walk past me and peer beyond me, searching for me inside the room.

  At the very least, I expected him to see what I saw: a disappearing man. Yet he gazed directly at my face, and bowed, giving no sign of distress or amazement. “Very good, my lord,” said he, and I told him to ready my horse and bring it to the palace, for I would be leaving the monastery shortly.

  “But the snow has come, my lord. It is not safe for travel.”

  I laughed in disdain, then repeated my request and gave him leave to go. I no longer possess any fear of cold or snow or Basarab. I fear but one thing: the Dark Lord.

  The horse stands ready now, but I am obliged to write the story of my transformation down first, for surely over the coming centuries I shall forget die circumstances and the wonder of it. One day soon the announcement shall be made that the Wallachian prince is dead, for it is only a matter of time before Gregor’s headless body is discovered in the forest. I have no doubt that Basarab has laid waste to my army and my castle at Bucharest, but I have my victory. In a generation, he shall be dead, whilst I shall live forever. I have sent a courier with a message for Ilona and my sons to meet me at our new estate in the Carpathians.

  And now I ride north, to become Legend.

  1

  Letter from Vlad Dracula, Bistritsa, to E. Bathory, Vienna:

  15 April 1893

  Dearest Cousin:

  It seems like centuries since last we corresponded, and longer still since you and I met in the flesh. Much has happened since that time; I have encountered difficulties of a grave nature—so grave, in fact, that I know not whom to call upon for aid save you, my shrewd and talented cousin.

  Will you come, Elisabeth? Unfortunately, I find myself too compromised to travel at present, or I would have gone to Vienna to make my request in
person, to spare you the journey here. I promise you sweet reward, and the delight of meeting my charming niece Zsuzsanna and her maidservant Dunya, who have both become my eternal companions. I promise also that I shall be as beholden to you as I was to your ancestor Stefan of Bathory, who so long ago fought by the side of a certain Prince Vlad Dracula to help him reclaim his throne. Once again, I rely on your family’s loyalty and kindness.

  Come quickly, for time is of the essence. Any guest you might bring would be truly welcomed.

  Your grateful servant,

  V.

  2

  The Diary of

  Abraham Van Helsing

  (Translated from the Dutch)

  2 MAY 1893. EVENING. So quiet here at home, and so sad. The student nurse, Katya, was still here when I arrived home from my lecture at the hospital, and so I took my dinner and went in to sit with Gerda for a time. As usual, no change, though I told her the simple details of my day and the neighbors’ news in as cheerful a tone as I could command. It is becoming increasingly difficult, for she is becoming a skeleton. I fear she will die before Zsuzsanna is destroyed.

  Now I sit watching Mama as she sleeps. I am glad again to stand the night watch over her, and always restless when I must be away after sunset. (Gerda I am not so concerned about; the mark on her throat means that little further harm can be done her.) Katya stays the night when I must be away, and was able to come this evening during my lecture. She is young but responsible and levelheaded and can handle any medical emergency—though it is not those I fear so much now that Mama nears the Abyss. I have sworn to my mother that I will see her safely to the other life—not that her poor diseased brain comprehended what I told her, though I know her spirit understands. I will let no vampire deprive her of an honest death.

  But it is so hard to watch her die.

  She looks a bit worse to-night, with her once-beautiful silver hair spread brittle and tangled upon the pillow, her face sallow and haggard and pinched from constant pain.