by Will Hill
As far as he was concerned, the rest of the world existed only for his use, and by his permission, and this new world that Valeri was describing to him would be no different.
He didn’t care about the growth of the cities, about the technological developments that Valeri described to him in infuriatingly simple terms, as though teaching a lesson to an infant. Aeroplanes, cars, space travel, television, telephones, the internet – none of these innovations interested him in the slightest. He saw no reason to doubt that his place in the new world being described to him would be whatever he decided he wanted it to be, providing that one thing had remained constant over the decades that had passed without him.
“Do… they… still… bleed?” Dracula had eventually interrupted, his voice barely audible to anyone without Valeri’s superhuman hearing.
“Yes, master,” replied Valeri. “The humans still bleed.”
“Then… I… would… hear… no… more.”
The study door opened, and Valeri entered, dragging the unconscious figure of a teenage girl behind him. Her head was starred with blood and the heels of her bare feet scraped noisily across the wooden floorboards as Valeri approached his master. The scent of the blood seeping from the girl’s head filled Dracula’s nostrils, and his pale blue eyes coloured a terrible dark red, the colour of madness, a colour that no sane person could have looked upon for more than a second or two.
“An offering for you, master,” whispered Valeri, bowing deeply.
“Thank you, Valeri,” replied Count Dracula, his voice like the scratch of a pencil on a sheet of paper.
Valeri lowered the girl towards his master, then slit her throat with one of his fingernails. As the blood began to flow, Dracula clamped his mouth over the wound, sucking hungrily, like a baby at its mother’s breast. Valeri held the girl in place, but turned his head away; it would not be appropriate for him to watch his master feed in such a way. Instead, he let his gaze wander around the study, a room he had not set foot in for almost fifty years until the day after his master had been reborn.
Château Dauncy had been the favourite place of his wife, Ana, her favourite place in the whole world. It had been the only thing, apart from Valeri himself, capable of soothing the madness that roared inside her. When she died, when she was taken from him, he had ordered the old building shuttered and boarded up, hoping to trap the worst of his grief inside the ancient walls. It was painful for him to be inside those walls now, far more painful than he had expected, but it was necessary; it was the one property he owned that no one else was aware of, the one place he was confident would not be under surveillance by Blacklight or one of its accursed counterparts. It was the place he could return his master to health, without interruption.
The girl’s blood gushed into Dracula’s mouth, and he instantly felt strength flood through him. He knew it wouldn’t last, but he also knew that each passing day, each mouthful of warm, running blood, brought him closer to himself, and to his revenge.
Taking advantage of the temporary rush of power, he spoke to Valeri, his voice booming through the study, rich and deep and momentarily full of the authority that had once commanded armies, and sent thousands to their deaths.
“Where is your brother?” he asked. “Why is Valentin not here, assisting you? I would not have you shoulder this burden alone, old friend.”
“Valentin is in America, master,” replied Valeri, a grimace of distaste flickering across his face as he spoke his brother’s name. “We do not concern ourselves with each other.”
Dracula’s face twisted into a snarl, and for a moment, Valeri was afraid. The resurrection of his master had been the result of a quest that had taken him more than a hundred years to complete, a quest he had remained doggedly loyal to even as Alexandru had descended into madness and Valentin had turned his back on his family, sinking happily into his life of shameful indulgence in New York. Now that the quest was over and his master had been returned to life, Valeri’s position as Dracula’s favourite would forever be secure; he would follow his master once more, obediently, gladly and proudly. But in the century that had passed, as Dracula lay dormant deep below the Russian snow, Valeri had forgotten what it was to be afraid. He was reminded now, and he shivered in the cool air of his study.
“Go to him,” said Dracula, the snarl vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Tell him that his master orders him home. Tell him there is work to be done.”
“Of course, master,” replied Valeri. “I will leave at once.”
Dracula grunted with satisfaction.
“Good,” he said, and fixed his eyes upon his subject. “You have always served me with distinction, Valeri. You have never sought to question me. When this world is mine, when I have piled high the bodies of the pathetic creatures that inhabit it and set them alight, when once again my enemies stare out at nothing from the highest poles, the place at my right hand will be yours, as it was before.”
“You honour me, master.”
“Leave me,” replied Dracula, waving a hand towards Valeri, who did as he was ordered, backing quietly out of the study and leaving the Count alone.
Dracula watched him go, then rolled back on to the chaise longue and stared at the ornate, painted ceiling above him. Already he could feel his strength ebbing away, but he refused to let it anger him. Three months had passed since he had woken in the pulsing gore of the pit beneath the Rusmanov chapel, naked and screaming, his body little more than coloured blubber, held together only by the strength of his own will. He had not known himself as he was birthed violently back into the world, had not known himself until Valeri had knelt at the edge of the pit and said a single word.
Master. When he called me master, I knew who I was.
His journey from that blood-soaked beginning had been long, and hard, but it was getting easier, with each passing day. He knew that he could be patient, for a short while at least. And he knew that he could bear whatever pain might come his way. As agonising as his recovery had been so far, it did not even bear comparison to the night his second life had begun, more than five hundred years ago.
5
REBIRTH
TELEORMAN FOREST, NEAR BUCHAREST, WALLACHIA 12TH DECEMBER 1476
Vlad Tepes fled through the darkening forest, the din of the battle and the screams of his men fading behind him. He had torn his royal armour from his body and cast it aside, but he could still hear the shouts and running footsteps of his pursuers, getting closer with every minute that passed.
Five Turkish soldiers at least; maybe six, maybe more. The Prince of Wallachia knew better than anyone the horrors that would await him in the Turkish camp if he was caught, and he redoubled his efforts, the soft forest floor thudding beneath his feet.
I’ll die before I let them take me, he thought. I will bow to no one.
The army that had advanced across his lands had outnumbered his own forces by five to one. Less than a year earlier, Stephen Bathory, the Prince of Transylvania, had helped Vlad to reclaim his throne; they had marched together into Wallachia, their forces combined, and Basarab, the foolish, cowardly old man who had succeeded Vlad’s brother Radu as ruler, had fled without a fight.
But Stephen had refused to stay and help consolidate Vlad’s third reign, and his departure – betrayal, it was a betrayal – had left him vulnerable. He had received word within months that a Turkish army was moving north, and when it had been clear that no help was forthcoming, he had ridden out to meet it on the plains beside Bucharest, accompanied by his elite Moldavian guards and a little over four thousand men.
They fought like they were forty thousand. Fought and died, as men should.
Blood ran down Vlad’s arm from the sword blow that had knocked him from his horse, but he felt no pain. Instead, an ethereal calm had settled over him, bestowing upon him the clarity of a man who is running for his life. Somewhere behind him, either fleeing the battlefield or lying dead upon its blood-soaked earth, were his Generals, the brothers Rusma
nov. When it had become clear that the battle was lost, that his brief third reign as the ruler of Wallachia was over, Vlad had fled, without a backward glance. He felt a momentary pang of guilt, but pushed it quickly aside.
I never promised them immortality. They followed me with their eyes open, and took their share of the spoils of victory gladly.
The sun had slipped below the horizon to the west, and darkness was gathering around Vlad as he ran. At the foot of an enormous white oak tree, he stopped and caught his breath, listening intently for the sounds of his pursuers.
The forest was silent.
Not the slightest noise could be heard, in any direction, and Vlad’s savage pleasure at the thought of having lost the Turkish soldiers was replaced with a sudden uneasiness. The trunk of the oak in front of him looked ancient, gnarled and twisted beyond anything he had seen before, and he had hunted and ridden these woods a thousand times since moving his summer palace to the small town of Bucharest. Vlad looked around the small clearing in which he was standing and saw that all the trees were the same, towering structures of mangled wood, their bark splintered and grey. At the base of the enormous trunks sprouted plants that Vlad didn’t recognise, sprays of black flowers and barbed, midnight-blue vines.
What is this place? I have never been here before.
This is the deep, whispered a voice, and Vlad whirled round, reaching instinctively for his sword. But the short blade was long gone, left in the gut of a Turkish soldier who had tried to prevent his escape.
Your sword will not help you here, whispered the same voice. It was light, almost jovial, and seemed to be coming from inside his head, from all sides, and from nowhere.
“Who speaks to me?” bellowed Vlad, striding into the centre of the clearing. “Show yourself!”
There was no answer.
The silence in the forest was absolute as the last of the light faded away. Vlad Tepes felt fear crawl into his stomach, as he looked around the clearing, searching for the way he had come.
There was no sign of it.
He was lost.
There were no broken branches, no flattened patches of grass, nothing to indicate that a man had passed this way within the last hundred years. Vlad stared into the darkness, trying to calm his racing heart. He was trying to decide which direction to set out in when he heard a sound, the first sound, apart from the grotesque, light-hearted voice, that he had heard since he had entered this place.
The noise was a scratching, creeping sound, and it ran up Vlad’s spine like ice. It was the sound of something crawling through the ancient trees, something slow, and old, and patient. Vlad spun round, his fists clenched, searching for the source of the noise in the spaces between the trees and the dark undergrowth. Then he realised what was happening, and terror gripped at his heart.
The trees themselves were moving.
Slowly, two of the ancient white oaks curved out and down, crossing at head height to form a circular passage that led further into – the deep, it’s the deep – the dark forest.
Come to me, whispered the voice. Come to me.
Vlad stared incredulously at the opening before him. This could not be real, he thought; surely his mind had broken at the loss of the battle, the deaths of his Generals and his men, and this was nothing more than the vision of a lunatic?
Do not be foolish, hissed the voice, and Vlad cried out. The lightness of tone was gone; the voice sounded like death, old and deep and dark. Come to me, while I still invite you. There is nowhere else for you to go.
Vlad looked around the clearing, and saw that the voice spoke the truth. The trees on all sides had closed together, forming an impenetrable wooden wall that surrounded him completely.
He was trapped.
Sickly sweet bile churned in his stomach, as he realised he had no choice. Forcing his legs to move, Vlad walked slowly forward, his entire body trembling, and entered the circular opening. The darkness that engulfed him was total; it was the very absence of light. He heard the trees begin to move again, closing the entrance behind him, and took a tentative step forward.
There was nothing beneath his foot.
Vlad overbalanced, his arms grabbing at nothing, then pitched forward, screaming as he did so, and fell into the deep.
He awoke an unknowable amount of time later.
There was grass beneath his back, and as his eyes struggled open, he saw the night sky above him. Constellations of stars spun and swirled, impossibly low, patterns of light that he had never seen before. A group of pale red stars gathered into the shape of a bull’s head, then disappeared as a cluster of iridescent green lights drew the image of a vast, coiled snake across the black sky.
The images turned Vlad’s stomach, and he looked away. He pushed himself up so he was sitting on the grass, fighting to remember where he was, and what had happened to him.
The grass he was sitting on was a green so dark it was almost black, even beneath the spiralling, shifting kaleidoscope of light overhead. It grew in a circle, perhaps twenty feet in diameter. Around its edge, statues of ancient grey stone stood watchfully, without the smallest of gaps between them. The carved figures were grotesque: men and women in contortions of agony, animals in the throes of violence and death, demonic creatures, horned and spiked and scaled, with expressions of lustful pleasure on their faces. Above the statues there appeared to be nothing but the inky-black sky. There was no doorway, or passage, that would explain how he had come to this awful place.
I fell. I think I fell.
Then memory exploded through Vlad’s head, and he cried out as he remembered: the battle, the forest, the ancient moving trees, and the awful, unnatural voice that had spoken to him. He forced himself to his feet, and found himself looking at the only thing in the circle beside himself.
It was an altar.
A large rectangular block, crudely carved from pale grey stone and standing at the edge of the grass, beneath a pair of intertwined statues depicting such violence that Vlad, a man who had visited tortures on his enemies that had been whispered throughout the entire European continent, could not look at them. The stone was carved with letters of a language that he didn’t recognise, and the top was stained dark brown with long-spilled blood.
Fury overwhelmed Vlad, and he ran forward. He beat his hands on the surface of the altar, screaming and bellowing at the alien sky above his head. This was not where he was supposed to have ended his days, alone and scared in this place of old horror; he had commanded armies, lain waste to cities and entire countries, walked with kings and emperors. He raged at the darkness that surrounded him, swearing death to whatever had brought him here, cursing his enemies, promising revenge on everyone who had ever wronged him, offering his soul for the chance to see his betrayers cold in the ground.
Nothing happened.
Above him, the stars spun, blooming into life and winking out, as though millions of years were passing in mere seconds. The statues around him stood silent and impassive, staring down at him with empty eyes. The altar remained nothing more than a lump of stone.
Vlad slumped against it, the fire gone from him as quickly as it had arrived.
Why am I here? If not for some devilment, then why? Perhaps I am mad.
You are not mad, whispered the voice he had heard in the clearing. But you are stupid.
Vlad looked around, but still nothing moved inside the silent circle of statues. The voice was cruel, and mocking, and he tried to think what it could mean, why it was questioning his intelligence. His gaze landed on the brown stains atop the altar, and clarity burst through him. He dug the fingers of his right hand into the wound on his arm, tearing the flesh open. Vlad grunted in pain as blood began to run thickly down his arm, coating his hand; he lifted it high above his head, and paused.
If I am not mad, then only damnation awaits me here.
You were damned long ago, hissed the voice, and Vlad knew in his heart that it was right. He flicked his hand, and dark red droplets of his bl
ood pattered across the surface of the altar.
Instantly, the air was full of energy; it crackled round Vlad’s head, lifting his long black hair from his shoulders. He watched the hairs on the backs of his arms stand up, and felt thick, greasy power in his teeth and bones. The statues began to move, rumbling to life on their pedestals, inflicting their tortures on one another in slow, gruesome thrusts, a writhing wall of agonised, abused stone. Before him, the altar began to run with a black liquid that appeared to be bubbling up from the microscopic holes in the stone itself, a thick oil that seemed to absorb light. When the entire surface of the altar was covered, a mouth, impossibly wide, and full of teeth the size and shape of daggers, opened in the liquid, and appeared to smile at him.
“What are you?” asked Vlad, his voice trembling.
You could not hope to understand, replied the mouth. It was the same voice he had been hearing since he had run blindly into what it had referred to as the deep, but now it was smooth, almost friendly. And it does not matter. What matters is that I know what you are.
“What am I?”
A monster. The mouth curled into a wide, awful grin. Capable of cruelty that impresses even one like me. A carrion bird. A parasite. A—
“Enough,” said Vlad, as forcefully as he was able.
The mouth on the altar grinned even wider.
And brave, up to a point. Often to the point of foolishness. Or danger.
“Why did you bring me here?” demanded Vlad.
You brought yourself. Your rage cried out across the deep. I merely lit the way.
“Why?” asked Vlad. “Why, for God’s sake? What do you want from me?”
I want to offer you something. In return for something you haven’t used for a long time.
“What are you talking about?”
