by Dani Hoots
“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 hanging 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 terribl
e 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.”
I watched as he stared up at the moon and stars, taking in the beauty as he probably did every night. I started to see a different side of him, a side that wasn’t a monster that I feared him to be, I saw him as someone who could help me through this. Maybe that was the vibe I was getting from him all along, and that was why when I was near him, I began to calm down.
Or maybe there was something more to it.
Shaking away the thought, I tried to take in the moment and clear my head. I needed food, more specifically blood, and I would have to hunt to do so. It wasn’t that I had never hunted before, I had hunted many times with my camp, but that was with weapons. This was completely different, this was one-on-one, and I didn’t need to kill the animal since Radu explained to me that we couldn’t kill every creature for their blood. There would be none left to survive on after a while, especially with all of Petru’s other, less responsible strigoi scattered about these woods. We needed blood every night and blood from an already dead creature wasn’t as satisfying as blood taken from a live animal. For some reason, it didn’t turn animals into strigoi as it would a human. They had some kind of immunity to the blood curse.
I spotted a young buck as he glided through the forest, heading back to his home. I quickly approached him and with Radu’s help, I knocked him onto the ground and quickly bit his neck. The warm nectar filled my mouth. I could control it this time, I didn’t need more than what was needed to appease my thirst. Once I was finished, I let the creature go and it galloped away, as if nothing had happened.
Wiping the blood away from my mouth, “why don’t strigoi just drink the blood of animals instead of humans? Wouldn’t it be easier and not attract suspicion?”
“Humans give off a lot more energy than animals do. I am not sure why, but it is a lot more satisfying...” he seemed to let the word linger as he drifted into a thought. He shook his head. “But luckily you didn’t have enough human blood to begin with.”
I remembered the feeling when I took the blood from Jack. It did feel like I gathered a lot more energy from him than I had from drinking the blood of the dead carcass that was stored in the butcher tent. I didn’t realize until now that there had been a difference, that Jack had given me more energy. I hoped I would never feel that again.
The night felt wonderful to be out in. I felt more alive than I had ever felt before this night. I had thought I would miss the supposed thriving life of the forest during the day, but night was far more interesting and was lively in its own unique way. At night, you were able to see more features of the forest than you could ever see during the day. Nighttime was when a lot of animals were still active and roaming about the woods—the owl, the wolf, the fox. It was a beautiful sight that I had never witnessed before this, never having the chance to really be out in the middle of the night with these profound new senses.
Radu noticed my surprise and laughed. “It is lovely, isn’t it? The nights like these when there is nothing to worry about. It’s just you and the life that has come out to play here.”
I nodded. “Yes, I could learn to love it. But...” I began and stopped.
“But you miss your family and friends?”
“Yes, I can’t stop thinking about how I am the cause of all this, that their death was because...” I began and stopped before the tears came rushing back.
He placed his arm around me. “It’s alright; it’s not your fault. Just remember that they shouldn’t have chased you away but rather helped you through this. You weren’t going to harm them yet they treated you like a beast. I am here now; you can trust that I would never hurt you like they did.”
He was right, I had just needed help from those in my camp, yet they took me by surprise by being prepared to kill me. The people I grew up with, the people who raised me—they would have destroyed me if I hadn’t run from them and Radu hadn’t helped hide me away.
It felt strange to be in Radu’s arms. Even with my few hours of being with him, I felt as if I knew him. It also left an ache in my chest, that I could get this close to a man after Jack had confessed his love to me that very same day. Was I really that fickle? Or was there something about Radu and him being in the same situation as I that made me feel safe and secure? Or maybe it was because Jack had turned on me so quickly when he found out I was a strigoi that it had broken my heart?
I was still the same person, I knew. I felt normal enough, besides the heightened senses. I thought I would feel a lot more different, I thought I would feel as if everything would be changed to the point of no longer being able to identify myself quite as clearly, as a rational human being. But I didn’t. I felt like me.
“What was it like for you when you first were changed? When you becam
e a strigoi?” I asked as we headed back to Radu’s make-shift cave. I had more energy now that I had fed, but I still didn’t feel as powerful as I did after I drank Jack’s blood. I wanted more human blood, I had to admit, but I didn’t think I could bring myself to drink it ever again, not after all that heartache and angst caused by that incident.
Radu shrugged. “I guess I had the same feeling as you. I was wondering what was going on, why it was happening to me. Petru, though, didn’t let me go as he did you, so I had to face it, while locked away in that castle for a while. He kept me there until I was very weak and hungry so that I would attack the first person I saw, once I left the castle. He found joy in it, I suppose. But I got away in the end and have been on the run ever since.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I began.
“It’s fine. I never saw my family again though, although they probably would have had the same response as your family and fellow tribe members had, not wanting to deal with me and any ilk like me. They probably would have killed me the first chance they had as well.”
I nodded, recalling the scene with my mother. She wanted to kill me; to destroy what she thought was a curse on the camp. If she just listened, she would have realized it was still me. Given a little to get used to these strange new senses, I could have handled it, and maybe then, none of this would have happened. I would never have had to run into the woods and I would have never found Radu.
The sun began to rise in the distance and we quickly went back to the hideaway. Radu was right, though, none of the sunlight entered his little cave. It was pitch black, yet I could see perfectly fine, with my more nocturnal-refined eyesight
“We should probably get our rest. We must be prepared to end that bastard’s life once and for all, that damn Petru” he hung up his coat. “We will attack at twilight.”
