by Dani Hoots
He gestured towards the inside of the house. “Welcome to my humble abode!”
I stepped inside and gasped. I couldn’t believe how large the interior main room was. Granted, it wasn’t anything special. A chair here, a table there, and a cot for a bed, but it was a lot nicer than I had imagined, standing on the outside and seeing only a rock and tangled net of tree roots. It was also more spacious and refined than a tent, so I really wasn’t one to judge.
“What is this place?” I asked as I peered around.
“Just a place where I can hide from the world. No light comes in during the day so I am able to stay out of the sun. It’s great, really. I don’t have to live in a grave like the stories led you to believe,” he smiled.
“Do you also have to stay out of the sun?” I questioned.
He nodded as he glanced out the door once more. “You won’t be able to stay in the sun any longer, now that you have had time to process the change. Usually after the first day, your body can no longer handle it and you will burn to ash from this point on. Believe me, I have tried to go out there during the day. It doesn’t work, and no it doesn’t just leave really bad sunburn.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I would never be able to enjoy the warmth of the sun again. And, I wouldn’t be able to run in the words, during the light of the day, or see either my mother or Jack again. All the times I had help healed one of my camp members, one of my family, then they turned around and treated me like a monster. I had brought so much joy to them over the years and them to me. Yet one little mistake had led me into the woods at night, and led me to follow the music of the violin. Then everything I loved was taken away from me. I felt tears begin to form in my eyes.
The strigoi must have seen how upset I was about it all, for he suddenly wrapped his arms around me to try to console me. “It’s alright, don’t worry. I will help you through this.”
I felt strange being in this man’s arms all of a sudden, not even knowing his name. Although I had always believed that the strigoi would be cold, being in his embrace made me feel warm and calm. I felt as if I could be there forever, as if all the problems I had in this moment would go away. At the same time, though, it didn’t feel real and it was also not this person’s arms I wanted to be in. I had hoped that Jack would see me as the same person still and help me through this, but I guess I had asked too much of him. I mean, I was asking a lot for a whole camp that uniformly despised the strigoi. As for this man, he wanted to help for some reason and I wasn’t sure as to what reason he wanted to help me. “Why?”
“Why what?” he asked.
I stepped back and looked up at him. “Why would you care to help me? You don’t know me.”
He let out a breath. “I know more about you than you realize,” he sighed again. “There is a lot to explain, but I know why you were chosen to be turned into a strigoi and why you are one of the only ones who could hear the violin at night.”
Why didn’t he say that in the first place? It would have made me feel a lot more secure about trusting him, but him knowing about the violin made me begin to worry as to how long he had been watching me. “What? How?”
“As I said, it’s a long story. I have to start from the beginning,” he gestured to the chair. “Please, take a seat.”
I sat down on one of the chairs he had set out and waited for him to tell the story.
“It all started a century ago. The ancestors in your camp found a family of strigoi that lived in these woods. Long story short, the strigoi killed many in your camp and your great-great grandmother, along with other leaders, put a curse on them,”
I nodded. “Yes, my mother told me that story. But isn’t that it? She banished them from this land? Why are they reappearing now?”
“She didn’t banishe them, she trapped them within the castle boundaries and the castle wouldn’t appear to humans except on the three days of the full moon. On those three days, a human can enter the premises of the castle, but the strigoi cannot leave.”
So there was more to the story than my mother had told me. Did she not know that they were simply hidden, not actually banished from the land? “Do you know how she trapped them?”
“A very dangerous spell. Are you not the daughter of a Shuvani?” he asked.
I nodded slowly.
“So when you traveled out last night, during the first night of the full moon, you stumbled upon the castle and through that, the leader, Petru, figured out who you were and turned you into one of them.”
“Even if they were the stigoi that my great-great grandmother cursed, why would they turn me into one? What is the point? Wouldn’t they just have wanted to kill me and be done with it, out of revenge?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, they would want you to suffer the same as they have. They want you to understand how they felt being trapped for so long and break their curse, since only the one with the same blood as the Shuvani that casted the spell can also lift it.”
So that was why they wanted me, because of what my great-great grandmother had done. She was powerful enough to bind them to that castle, and they thought that I was strong enough to break that curse. Was that why I had always heard the violin since I was a little girl? It was the strigoi calling out to me, waiting for the day I would waltz into the castle so that they could turn me and cause me the same pain that they felt? It seemed like something out of a ghost story, but I had to face the grim fact that it was true. The only problem was, I still didn’t understand who this man was and why he knew all about my family and this legend.
“Who are you and how do you know this?” I asked.
“Oh, beg my pardon. I neglected to introduce myself beforehand,” he stood up and bowed. “I am Radu, son of a blacksmith in Brasov. I ventured out here one night and was lured into the castle by Petru as he played the violin. He made me into the same type of creature that he was, imprisoned me inside the castle until the hunger was unbearable, and let me go out in the world. Probably just did it to watch me suffer from that little window of his in his castle.”
I frowned. Something didn’t seem right about his story. “I thought the castle could only appear on three nights of the month. How can he watch you?”
He seemed surprised by the question, but quickly answered it without thought. “We can’t see the castle, but they can see us from it. It’s like it is there, but not visible to humans.”
I didn’t know what to do with all this information, nor how he came about it. I didn’t know what to do about being a strigoi and I didn’t know how I felt knowing that that creature could always see me from afar, from that partially invisible castle of his.
“What do I do now?”
“Well, I was actually going to talk to you about that,” he leaned in closer. “When I was in the castle, I read the text of the curse that was placed on it. There is a way it can be broken, but there is also a way to destroy the castle once and for all; to kill all the strigoi inside there forever. Only you can do it.”
I shook my head. “There is no way, I’m not that powerful.”
“You have the power of your ancestor’s blood running through your veins. I think that there is a lot you can handle, you just don’t know it yet.”
“You’re wrong; I’m just a young girl. I don’t have that kind of strength that my ancestors had. Maybe Madam Sonia...” I stopped and listened. I could hear screams from a distance, outside of this hovel. “What is that noise, and where is it coming from?”
He didn’t answer, but his face was suddenly full of sorrow.
I stood up and started for the door. He grabbed my wrist. “You don’t want to go out there.”
“But, where is all that screaming coming from?” I whispered.
“We aren’t the only strigoi in these woods that have been turned by Petru. Over the years, there have been a few who stumbled into the castle that Petru turned, for no real reason, but to maybe alleviate his sorrow, of being alone and conscious of the curse hangi
ng over his castle.”
I gasped. “The camp! My mother...”
“There isn’t anything you can do. If you want revenge on the strigoi for killing your people, you must go to the source. If you can destroy the castle, you can destroy all of the strigoi once and for all.”
Tears were running down my face. I thought about all of the people that were in the camp that were now gone. My mother, Jack, and all of my friends I had grown close to over the years. It was all because of me. I had to go to town and get the lemons for Jack because I wanted to heal him. I wanted to prove I was stronger and knew how to heal him. I was selfish and because of that, I had brought this curse back down upon us and destroyed everyone I had loved. I was partially responsible for inadvertently letting the legendary beasts back into the camp, by causing the village’s strongest warriors to chase after me rather than defend the camp from a strigoi invasion. It was all my fault.
“Fine,” I wiped away the tears. “How do we destroy the castle?”
Radu had a lot of this already planned out, well in advance of our fateful encounter. As he had explained, he had been waiting for the day Petru would find me, so I could help destroy the castle. Evidently, Radu must have been imprisoned inside the castle for a long time because he had sketched out every detail of the castle’s interior. I could barely remember what it looked like inside, being under the trance and all. I followed his hand as he pointed out the rooms.
“The entrance brings you here and lets you either go upstairs where Petru awaits any unwelcome guests, or it can lead you to these three rooms. Preferably, we want to stay away from him, but I have a feeling he will see us coming. I will try to make some kind of a diversion and you can run and get the spell then.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I spent some time in the castle before I was let back into the world,” he whispered.
I stared at him for a moment longer, wondering what he meant by that. Why had the strigoi been holding him there, in the first place? And, why did they ultimately let him escape? Again, I was still reeling from everything that happened in the past day, being exiled from my home and now I was finding out just how much I played into some greater plot concerning these creatures, the strigoi.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize...” I began.
He shook his head. “No, it’s fine. When I was there, I took a look around and found the scroll that contained all there was needed to know about the spell cast over the castle. Luckily I had been taught to read and write. From what I could tell, it seemed that your ancestor wasn’t strong enough to just simply destroy them all, but knew that one day; a descendant could be trained to be strong enough. It was just a matter of time when the strigoi figured that out as well.”
“My mother must have thought it was just a legend. She had told me the stories of the strigoi, but never to this detail.”
He shrugged. “I guess it just had been such a long time ago and they didn’t believe in the legend anymore, at that point. Or they were afraid of it, but since it wasn’t affecting them, they didn’t care about finishing the job of destroying them. The strigoi rarely attack a camp unless they are alone, I take it your camp always stays together at night?”
I nodded.
“So they must have feared the creature, and didn’t want to try and destroy it since they weren’t being bothered. Why do something dangerous when doing nothing was still safe?”
I thought about it. I supposed he was right. My mother did notice that I was a strigoi right away and wanted to kill me. She knew about it and hadn’t told me the full story before that day. It was ironic it was the same day that I changed into one. “They were probably afraid telling the story might release them, bring them back to life. So, they chose to just keep these locked away in the minds of the few elders that remembered the most details of this story.”
He nodded. “That is probably it. As for not telling you, you were probably just too young in their eyes. They didn’t want you to know the truth, especially if we’re going with the theory that they were very much afraid of the possibly that it may prove true.”
I let out a slight laugh. “And look where that left me. Cursed for an eternity.”
“They should have told you, they should have known to prepare you in case this happened. But that isn’t the case and here we are.”
“How does the curse work, do you know? Do you know how I am supposed to destroy them, once and for all? Is it as easy as killing their leader?”
He shook his head. “No, unfortunately I don’t. I can’t remember the exact details; I just know there is a way.”
“Will it kill us as well?” I asked, the true question lingering in the back of my mind.
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think it is a chance we are willing to take.”
I agreed. I didn’t care if I died when I could bring down those who brought death to my entire camp. I just wanted to see them gone from this world.
“When are we going to do this?” I said.
“Tomorrow night.”
My eyes widened. “Are you kidding? We have to prepare longer than just a night. I’m not strong enough. I don’t even really understand the whole being a strigoi yet. I’m confused, tired, and sad about my eviction from the tribe, and…I’m also very…”
“Hungry?” he asked.
I looked away from him, ashamed that I was. Ashamed I wanted to feast on even more blood, especially after the last mishap with Jack. That was still very clear in my mind, leaving me to feel nothing but self-loathing for this terrible new instinct of mine.
“Don’t worry, I know exactly what you are going through,” he opened the door and looked outside in the silent night. “We still have a couple of hours before sunrise. How about I take you out hunting?”
I started to shake my head.
“For animals. Not people.”
“Will it satisfy this thirst? I have drunk human blood and animal blood before I ran off. The human blood...” I began, but trailed off because I just hated admitting this to myself.
“Is a lot more filling. I know what you mean. It was hard to handle at first, to only drink from animals instead of humans. But, like you, I couldn’t bear to think of killing any humans, and if we only bite them we can end up turning them into strigoi as well. Usually that doesn’t happen though, but you never know, considering our not so great reputation with the self-control thing,” he explained.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Most strigoi, like us, can’t stop once they start drinking the blood of a human. It overpowers them, killing the human they were drinking from. ”
I thought back to Jack. Had I made him into a strigoi? Did he survive the attack? I didn’t know, but I had a feeling either way that he was gone and would never ever forgive me for what I did to him. I don’t think I even want to dare contemplate further about what exactly happened to him. Maybe, his death would be less painful, than the more irreconcilable possibility he might have turned.
“Now, come with me,” he held out his hand. “We should get some energy for tomorrow. We have to defeat Petru and the rest of the strigoi once and for all.”
It was strange. I could see perfectly now in the darkness. The physical changes that came with transforming into a strigoi were starting to take effect. The night no longer seemed quite as scary as it had just hours earlier, now I was beginning to feel as if I belonged, if that made sense. The strigoi were called the creatures of the night, and I was beginning to see why. At first I thought it would be a nightmare, but I began to understand the appeal. My senses were heightened and I could almost sense the exact location, as to where the animals were in the dense terrain. In my mind, I could even see a clear visual of what they were up to.
Radu gestured all around. “This is all of ours. We get to drink the sweet splendor that is the night.”
He seemed excited about it as he said those words and I was beginning to understand why. The night smelt so much sweeter
than it did during the night, but it could have just been the heightened senses from turning into a strigoi. Although I felt better for the most part, the thought of being such a monster still ate at me. I was a blood-thirsty creature that wanted to drink the blood of my people, the blood of any human.
“What do you think?” Radu asked, as he saw I was deep in thought.
I blinked, realizing I didn’t respond to his comment about the night. “Yes, it is beautiful.”
“But you are wondering how being such a vile creature can be so wonderful?”
I nodded slowly.
He laughed. “I wondered the same when I was starting out, after I left the castle of course. You experience so much as a strigoi, it’s incredible. Although I miss being a human, I don’t know if I would be able to go back, seeing and experiencing the things I have experienced.”
