Holly laughed, and there was a quality to her laugh that caused the hair on Malcolm's nape to bristle. "I'm afraid that I can't really give you any help, Malcolm. And I really think that it would be best for all concerned if you and Rachel stayed at home."
Malcolm peered through the darkness at his ex-girlfriend. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness as much as they were able, and still he could barely see her. He was able to see her teeth very dimly as she smiled, and the whiteness of her skin was very, very slightly visible in what little light insinuated its way through the slats of the blinds from the streetlamp. "Holly, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. If I stay in the house—"
"Stay in the house, Malcolm," she interrupted. "Don't fight it anymore. There are things happening here that you don't understand, that you can't even guess at. Just stay in the house. Give up."
"Give up!" he exclaimed, growing angry. "After what we've been through? After what I've done, after what might happen? Are you serious!" He paused as he reached out toward the table beside the chair and felt around in the darkness for the lamp. "Holly, I don't understand why you're—" He stopped speaking the moment after he switched on the light. He remained motionless, speechless, stunned, staring at Holly Larsen. She sat across from him on the sofa, her right leg crossed over her left, her hands folded demurely in her lap; but only the studied poise of her position was the same as the Holly he had known. Her skin, once so delicate and rosy, now had the aspect of marble cold, hard, and lifeless. Her face, once so warm and expressive and loving, was a drawn, pallid mask of inhuman amusement. Her smile, once sincere, was now sardonic, and her once hazel eyes now burned with a reddish glow.
"Lucy visited me last evening," she explained simply. "She killed me, you see."
Malcolm shuddered and felt a sob rising up from his throat. "Oh, Holly," he moaned. "Holly, Holly!"
"I understand everything now, Mal," she said, rising to her feet and approaching him. "You have to understand everything, too. You can't win, Malcolm. You can't beat him, you can't defeat him. Just give up, Malcolm. Give up, give in, let the final memory arise in the blood, and then you can rest. You can rest forever."
Malcolm leaped from the chair and backed away from her. He stared at her as he stammered, "D . . . don't you touch me," loving her, hating her, fearing her, pitying her, hating himself for what he had caused to happen to her.
Holly laughed cruelly, baring her fangs as her dead mouth curled in a sadistic smile. "Oh, Malcolm, you really are so pathetic. Do you really think you can fight us? Do you really think you can fight him?"
"Where's Lucy?" he demanded. "Holly, it's too late for you, and maybe it's too late for me and Rachel, but think about Jerry for just one minute. He was your friend, Holly, he was our friend. Just try to remember what you were, who you were. Think about Jerry. Think about all the other poor people who may become victims of this terrible thing."
The red glow in her eyes dimmed for an instant, but then she said, "Stop it, Malcolm. I know who I was and what I was, but I'm someone else now, I'm something else now." He had backed up against the wall, and she reached up to wrap her arms around his neck as she drew him close to her. Her soft breasts pressed against his chest, and they were cold, so cold. "You have to remember everything, Malcolm. You have to let the blood remember and understand everything, as I understand everything, as Lucy understood everything ever since that first night in the crypt in England. The blood must be fully awakened for the circle to be closed." She smiled at him, a lascivious, vulgar smile. "A final vision, my dear love. A final memory, and then everything will be set right again."
"Set right for whom?" he spat, consciously ordering himself not to want her, not to return her embrace, not to love the walking corpse whose inviting lips he knew were as cold as the grave. "Set right for you, for Lucy, for him?" He grabbed her wrists and attempted to throw her arms away from him, but she seemed molded of iron, unmovable and fixed.
His hands were still grasping her wrists as she moved her palms up and placed them on his feverish temples. "Awaken," she whispered. "Awaken, remember." The dancing fire in her eyes aroused the memories that were struggling to emerge from the dark depths of the past, memories of that fateful day when Vlad the Impaler last trod the earth as a human being, memories of that dark night when he first stepped undead from his grave.
The red glow seemed to suck him deep into its depths, and the ruddy fire transformed itself into thick billows of mist. The one small part of his consciousness that was still Malcolm Harker knew that he was still standing on his feet in an apartment in Forest Hills, New York, but the rest of his mind was cast back over the centuries to the year 1476, to the field of battle.
He found himself seated upon a strong white stallion that bucked and snorted with excitement. The cacophonous din of the rabble host that surrounded him assaulted his ears, and the frenzied beating of swords upon shields filled him with eagerness for the taste of battle. His soldiers responded to his words with the age-old sound of martial approbation, the clangor of blade upon armor.
His own sword was drawn and raised high above his head as he shouted to his host, "Leave not one alive, my children! The blood of the Turk is as perfume to me, and I command you to sweeten the air with the smell!" His soldiers smote their shields and cried words of praise for their Voivode. "A silver piece for each of you for each Turkish head! A golden piece for each of you for each Turkish noble!"
Spear points and sword tips thrust upward at the sky from the assembled host, and they screamed horrible threats against the Ottoman enemy. The Voivode's heart beat fast with excitement and the lust for blood, and he sat high up in his saddle as he raised his shield up beside his sword and cried out in a voice loud enough for all to hear, "Forward to Oradea, my children! Forward to spill their blood and slice their bodies into food for our dogs! Death to Torghuz Beg!"
"Death to Torghuz Beg!" the host shouted, their war cry a deafening onslaught of sound.
"Death to the Turk!" he cried.
"Death to the Turk!" they shouted.
"Freedom for all Dacia!" The last cry he made was lost in the overwhelming din of their voices as they shouted imprecations and curses to their enemies, and then he moved his stallion into a gallop and led his frenzied army down from the high ground to meet the Turkish invaders on the plain of Oradea.
The mist thickened and then thinned, and he found himself in the midst of a pitched battle, his sword singing out as it struck shield and armor, whizzing through the air as it sought human flesh and bone and blood, lopping off heads, slicing through arms, ripping through stomachs and chests. The screams of the dying and the mutilated echoed in his ears like music, and he grinned and his black eyes burned with animal lust and savage pleasure and he reveled in the destruction and the death. The field was red with blood, the field stank of blood, his bright silver sword dripped with blood. He smiled and charged again and again and again.
He saw the Turkish standards in the distance, the banner of the commander of the enemy army, and he sliced his way through the multitude atop his bleeding horse, killing his own men as indiscriminately as he killed the enemy in his eagerness to get to Torghuz Beg. The Turk saw his white stallion approaching, laughed, and shouted something that he could not hear over the din of the battle. As he drew closer, the voice screams of pain and reached his ears. "A good day, is it not, Little Dragon?"
He charged through the mass of foot soldiers and swung his sword at the beg. The Turk raised his shield and deflected the blow. "A good day for us," he shouted in reply. "It will not end well for you."
The Turk's sword sliced the air and crashed against his own, and then they were locked in a personal combat of muscle against muscle, iron against iron. Any one of the foot soldiers who surrounded them could easily have thrust up a spear and killed the enemy commander, but that would have been unthinkable, and fatally dangerous. This was a combat of lord against lord, and neither lord would accept aid or interference. Any Turk who dar
ed attack the Wallachian at this moment would have been tortured to death by his own beg; and any Wallachian who robbed his lord of the pleasure of the kill would have been executed in the customary manner. It was not for nothing that he was called Vlad the Impaler, this Little Dragon, this Dracula.
The beg's shield thudded against his and he almost fell from his saddle, but he was able to rein back and retreat a few steps from his enemy. He righted himself and charged again, crying, "Go back to your tents and your little boys, son of a whore!"
Torghuz Beg laughed and landed a mighty blow upon his shield and then took one upon his own. "You are weak today, Little Dragon! Did you not drink your god's blood before battle, Christian cannibal?"
He laughed also, enjoying the combat and the insults immensely. "No, I did not, but I shall drink yours by nightfall, lover of sheep!"
"You shall drink my water, Little Dragon!" The beg laughed again, then charged. Back and forth the combat went, and the battle lasted long and the screams of the dying mingled with the terrified shrieks of the horses and blood inundated the fields of Oradea.
And the mist thickened and he was no longer in the battle, and all was quiet and calm. He was cold, and he was in pain.
He looked up through the thinning mist at the shackles that stretched up from his raised arms, binding him to the cold, damp wall. He heard the scratching of the rats in the dark shadows of the dungeon, and he spat a bitter curse at the defeat of his army. He had been captured on the field and chained in the dungeon of his own castle.
The door of the cell swung open and Torghuz Beg entered. Two retainers followed him, the one holding a lighted torch and the other a bottle of thick wine. The torch burned brightly in the darkness and sent billows of sooty smoke upward to bounce silently from the stone ceiling of the dungeon. "Little Dragon!" the beg said in mock surprise. "What a state you are in!"
He knew that he was at this man's mercy, and he also knew that the beg was as merciless as he. He saw no reason to grovel. Instead he smiled and said, "Welcome, eater of pigs."
Torghuz Beg laughed heartily. "Oh, Little Dragon, how alike we are! I shall miss you, I shall indeed!"
"Have you come to see me weep and hear me plead, you pox-ridden whoremonger? If so, your time were better spent elsewhere, for you will find no pleasure in me."
"You offend me, my dear Vlad," the beg said. "I have come to share a glass of wine with an old friend."
He glanced up at the chains and smiled. "I am sorry, but I appear to be indisposed."
The Turk snapped his fingers at one of the guards. In a moment the defeated Voivode was freed from the cold iron, and he rubbed his wrists as he walked toward his enemy.
"We shall drink from the same bottle," the beg said. "A final gesture of friendship." The Turk took the bottle from his retainer and poured a generous quantity down his throat. He handed it to the Voivode, who took an even larger portion.
As he wiped his mouth the Voivode said, "Be careful, Turk. Your god of sheep lovers hates the fruit of the vine."
"Allah is merciful, and understanding," the beg replied. "I have this day delivered all Wallachia into his hands. He will forgive me this slight immorality."
"Today you have triumphed, but it will not always be so. My people will cast you out, wipe you as cow dung from the soles of their boots."
"Perhaps, perhaps." The beg smiled, taking the bottle and drinking again. "But I think not. We are the conquering race, Voivode. Twenty years ago we captured Constantinople, and today we are overrunning the Balkans. Soon will come and—who knows?—eventually Paris and London."
The Voivode shook his head slowly, smiling maliciously at his enemy. "Never. We shall drive you out, those of you whom we do not behead."
"Perhaps," the Turk repeated, "but I am afraid you cannot say 'we,' Voivode. You will die, quite painfully, I am afraid, at dawn." He handed over the bottle again.
The Voivode shrugged, a gesture of casual acceptance, and swallowed another draught. "What of my wife and children?"
"Your wife?" The beg laughed. "Surely you do not mean to pretend piety with me, Little Dragon! Your wives you mean, surely!"
He smiled. "The ladies, then, of concern to me."
"Dead, I am afraid," the beg said sadly, his eyes twinkling. "But do not be upset, Voivode. I took my pleasure with each of them before I slew them, and they died happy."
He clenched his teeth through his smile. "And my children?"
"Ah, I am afraid that they are nowhere to be found. I have heard a rumor that my hunting dogs are unusually lacking in hunger tonight, but why I cannot say."
The Voivode did not respond, but his black eyes blazed with hatred.
The beg laughed. "Come, Voivode, no anger! Ask yourself this question: Had you won the battle, what would have been the fate of my wives and my sons? What would you have done to them, and to me, Vlad the Impaler? How many stakes would you have thrust into them, skewering them from anus to ear and laughing over their agony?"
He smiled at the Turk calmly. "Truly, you and I are much alike."
"Truly we are," Torghuz Beg agreed, slapping him on the shoulder. "You should have been born a Turk, Little Dragon. We would have been formidable allies, you and I!"
"We were allies," he reminded him.
"Ah, but that was always your problem, Voivode!" the Turk replied. "Alliance with you was like marriage to a whore. We never knew whose bed you were crawling into when our backs were turned."
"I did only that which I thought was best for my people," he said simply.
Torghuz Beg laughed loudly. "Save the legends for posterity, Little Dragon. You did whatever satisfied yourself. Your people were sheep to you, pawns, nothing more. Whom do you think your people hate more, you or me?" He grinned. "It would be a close contest, Impaler!"
The Voivode drank again from the bottle, finishing it. The thick red wine warmed his cold and empty stomach. "I ask a favor of you, Torghuz Beg."
"Ah, do you now beg for your life? You disappoint me, Little Dragon."
"No, I do not," he replied. "After you have killed me, take my body and the bodies of my women and give them to my people, that I may be buried according to custom." He paused. "I would have done no less for you, were I the victor this day."
The Turk slapped him again on the shoulder. "Consider it done! I can be magnanimous in victory, Voivode."
He laughed quietly. "And is your victory certain, licker of the sultan's hole? Do not be smug. Much else may happen, and soon."
"Perhaps, Little Dragon, perhaps. But I am afraid that you will not be there to see it."
He smiled again and then the mist descended and obscured the cell around him. When the mist dissipated sufficiently for him to be able to see, he was still in the dungeon cell, but he was alone, and the darkness outside the small window near the ceiling was beginning to be displaced by the light of dawn, the dawn of his death.
"Ordogh," he whispered. "Come to me!"
He waited for what seemed a long while, and then the infernal voice spoke to him. "I am here, Little Dragon. I am here."
"Tell me again, Ordogh," the Voivode asked. "Explain it all to me again, as you did before this last battle."
"Do you accept, Little Dragon?"
"I want to hear it again, all of it, Ordogh. What you ask of me is no small thing."
"And what I offer you is no small thing."
The Voivode gazed into the still, deep darkness of the dungeon cell. "Life in death and death in life," he whispered, remembering the words of the dark spirit. "If I accept, Ordogh . . . if I accept, I will become . . . I will become . . ." He stopped speaking, as if frightened of the very word.
"Nosferatu," the spirit finished for him. "You will become nosferatu."
He shook his head and muttered, "I had always thought such stories were but to frighten children."
The voice seemed almost to laugh as it replied, "The fear of children holds much wisdom, Little Dragon, even as the wisdom of man holds much folly."
The Voivode clenched his teeth and swallowed hard as he contemplated the implications of the pact being offered to him. "And in that form, in that state of existence, I shall triumph over my enemies?"
"I have told you this, Little Dragon, that you shall triumph over generations of men not yet born. You shall be free to kill and torture at will, on through the centuries."
"Centuries . . ." the Voivode whispered. "Centuries . . ."
"You shall drink the blood of the living and be a harbinger of death and terror, immune to the weapons of the mortals whom you destroy. The sword, the musketball, poison, fire, all shall leave you unharmed. And you shall be as a mirror image of my Enemy, Little Dragon, and so the looking glass will not hold your reflection, and in all things shall you be to Him as a dark twin."
The Voivode waited and then said, "More, Ordogh. I wish to hear more. I, a dark twin to Christ?"
"Yes, Little Dragon. As He rose from the dead at sunrise, so shall you rise from the dead at sunset. As He walked upon water, so shall you be unable to cross water unaided. As He died impaled upon wood, and as you have delighted in impaling others upon wood, so shall your destruction be possible only by the wooden stake. As He gave His blood to others on that last night before His crucifixion, when He shared bread and wine with His disciples, so shall you share your blood with others and curse them with your own undeath. As He was transfigured on the night when He met with Moses and Elijah, so shall you transfigure yourself at will and become bat and wolf and rat and mist and wind. And as He shed His blood for others, so shall others shed their blood for you." The voice paused. "I shall take you beneath my wings, Little Dragon, and you shall be my son."
The Voivode drank in the words as he heard them whispered into his ears by that intimate, seductive voice, the voice that had once spoken to Eve beneath the tree of forbidden fruit, the voice that had once bargained for the soul of Job, the voice that had once urged the young man from Nazareth to turn stones into bread. The Voivode listened and thought. "Nosferatu," he muttered.
"Nosferatu," the voice echoed.
Blood of the Impaler Page 28
