Sasha bolted upright, nearly falling out of his pallet in the process. He was absolutely soaked in perspiration, and he labored to catch his breath as his senses readjusted from the nightmare. The moonlight spilled in coolly from the window.
His heartbeat slowing, Sasha fell back on the pillow. Many nights had he awakened thus, tormented by nightmares that kept returning like the long Barovian nights themselves. The frequency of these horrifying dreams did not mitigate the terror they inspired. Sweet Lathander, how many more vampires must he kill before the dreams stopped and he knew peace again?
He took a deep breath and rose from the bed, bare feet padding softly as he went to the small table and poured water into the basin. The priest bathed his flushed face with the cool liquid, forcing himself to calm down.
There came a faint tapping on the window. Sasha was instantly alert, his ears straining for the sound. He heard it again—a soft, cautious noise, but definitely real and not part of his dreams. A shape moved outside the window. Sasha’s gaze flickered from the figure outside to the moonlit floor. There was no shadow there. Sasha knew what that signified. A vampire lurked outside, apparently waiting for him.
The cleric smiled grimly to himself. This particular undead had picked the wrong victim. When he sent this one’s soul to rest, he would have twenty vampire deaths to his credit. Quietly and swiftly, Sasha gathered his tools: a garlic wreath, which he slipped over his head; a vial of holy water, honestly gotten from the altar this time; and Lathander’s medallion. He said a quick prayer, took a deep breath, and prepared to do battle.
The tapping came again. It was louder this time, as if the horrid creature were growing impatient. The undead did not, however, lose interest and fly away. Slowly Sasha crept to the window, staying away from the puddle of moonlight on the floor. Then, with a cry of “Lathander!” he sprang, ripping away the curtain and opening the locked window in one fluid movement.
His free hand was closed tightly about the pink wooden holy symbol, but when he recognized the vampire, Sasha let his arm fall. Jander threw up one hand in a gesture of self defense, but still clung to the side of the church wall, his gloved hands and booted feet finding holds that no mortal could have used.
“Jander!” Sasha hissed furiously. “What are you doing here?”
The glance the vampire threw Sasha pierced the youth, who suddenly realized that the elf was covered with crimson. Biting back a cry, the young man took a step backward, filled with revulsion.
“I have to talk to you, Sasha. I … need your help.”
The priest shook his head. “What makes you think I’ll help you?” He could not tear his eyes away from the ghastly vision the vampire presented. The blood on Jander’s clothing gleamed red in the moonlight, and his handsome face was sticky with the fluid.
Realizing how he must look, Jander said quickly, “It’s not human blood. Meet me in the cemetery in ten minutes. We’ll be less likely to be seen there. Bring a basin of water with you.” Jander’s shape shimmered, faded into a mist, and then coalesced into the form of a small brown bat. The winged rodent fluttered off into the night.
Sasha was shaking, and part of him wanted only to return to bed and pull the covers over his head. What did he owe the monster, to go traipsing around a cemetery at night?
His father’s life.
Sasha sighed and reached for the water jug. Quietly, so as not to disturb Leisl asleep in the next room, he descended the stairs. One of the steps creaked loudly, and he froze, listening. There was no sound from the little rogue’s room, so Sasha continued.
Jander was waiting for the priest by the Kartov family gravesite when he appeared a few minutes later. Leaves swirled about the vampire’s feet in the autumn wind. The moon cleared a cloud, and its light fell full upon his slender shape. Again Sasha was filled with a mixture of horror and appreciation. The vampire was a beautiful creature, his golden skin taking on a magical sheen in the moonlight, his form straight and elegant. What a shame he was such an evil being.
Sasha handed the basin and the water pitcher to him. Wordlessly Jander placed them on the ground and knelt. Removing his white leather gloves, he poured some water into the basin and splashed his bloody face with the cool liquid. Sasha had brought a towel and handed that, too, to the vampire. With hands that trembled, Jander buried his face in the towel.
Sasha remained standing, his arms folded. “Say what you came to say,” he stated flatly. “I swore I’d not kill you, but that’s all. I shouldn’t even be here.” He almost regretted his words when Jander lifted his head from the towel and threw him a stricken look. “What happened?”
“First, please remove that garlic wreath, Sasha,” Jander said. “It’s a nauseating smell. I promised I’d not hurt you.”
Sasha made no movement. More swiftly than Sasha could have dreamed, Jander sprang from his kneeling position and ripped the wreath from his neck, tossing it away. The priest’s hands flew to his unprotected throat, but Jander made no further movement toward him.
“You aren’t supposed to be able to do that!” Sasha quavered.
Jander smiled humorlessly. “There are a lot of things I can do here that I shouldn’t be able to do. Mark that, Sasha. This place changes the rules.” His smile faded and was replaced with the sorrowful look the priest had seen there when last they’d met. The vampire sat down on a clump of grass and rested his head in his hands for a moment. When next he spoke, his voice was shot through with a thread of pain.
“I asked you to look for records on a woman named Anna. Do you remember?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Jander, I looked, but there was—”
“No, there wouldn’t be. I loved Anna, if you can believe that. She was insane, but I loved her. She fell ill, and I knew she was dying. I couldn’t bear the thought of existing without her, so I tried to make her a vampire like myself.” He waited for Sasha’s response, his silver eyes glittering.
As Jander had expected, the priest was appalled.
“That’s not love, that’s the most selfish … By the Morninglord’s glory, you are a fiend!”
The elf continued, ignoring Sasha’s outburst. “She had no relatives, no one to take care of her. She needed me. Do you know how wonderful that feels, to be needed? I loved her. I would have taken care of her for all eternity. That’s why I wanted to give her a chance for a kind of immortality. I thought that, with time and love, she might recover.”
Sighing, Jander shook his head sadly. “She refused to take my blood and died because of that choice.” He looked at Sasha calmly, his voice taking on a cold tone. “When I came to Barovia, when the mists brought me, my thoughts were crowded with revenge. I wanted to find the man who had destroyed Anna’s mind. Tonight, I learned who it was.” He paused. “I have a great anger sometimes, and tonight, I was enraged. The blood you saw was from a flock of sheep. I slew them all. It is well your people keep to their homes after dark, Sasha, else I surely would have slaughtered any unlucky enough to have crossed my path.”
Jander reached slender fingers into his pouch and emerged with a handful of items that glittered in the moonlight. He handed them to Sasha. “Give these to the owner of the flock. Tell him it’s reparation from the gods or some other nonsense. He’ll find that easier to believe than the truth.” He smiled sadly.
Sasha did not know what to say. Abruptly Jander changed the subject.
“Have you ever heard of anything called a crimson death?” Sasha shook his head. “Perhaps it is called something else here. It is a gaseous creature, but shaped like a human. It feeds like a vampire, on blood. It is terrifying to behold. As it feeds, it flushes from its natural color of pale white to red, and takes on a solid form. Only then can it be killed and only by magical weapons.”
Sasha’s face registered disgust. Jander continued. “It is rumored that crimson deaths are the spirits of vampires, that when one of us is destroyed, we become a crimson death.” He gazed intently at Sasha. “You have slain many of us. Have you ever s
een a creature such as I have just described?”
“Never.”
“You must be absolutely certain.”
“I am. Jander, I may know more about the evil beings of Barovia than they know about themselves.”
“Do not brag so, young one.” Jander smiled thinly. “Though we may put that boast to a test. As I said, I am here tonight because I need your help.”
Sasha looked at him skeptically. “I find that difficult to believe.”
Jander did not reply immediately. “I have a score to settle with Strahd.”
Sasha stiffened. “I bear no love to the lord of the land, but I will not raise my hand against him merely because you say I should.”
“Sasha, think! When did you first see me? As the honored guest of the count at the spring celebration. You know what I am. What do you think he is? He’s a vampire!”
Sasha’s face went pale. “No,” he whispered.
Jander nodded. “All the other vampires in the land answer to him, all save me. I am the only other free-willed vampire in Barovia, the only one strong enough to defeat Strahd.”
“Then do it. What do you need me for?”
“He has magic at his fingertips. I have none, save those skills that came with my transformation. Besides—” his musical voice grew harsh “—I am an undead creature. A mortal, especially a priest, can do things I cannot.”
Sasha licked his lips nervously, his black eyes darting back and forth like a trapped animal’s. He remembered his nausea the last time he had put a vampire to rest.
“Jander, I have responsibilities in the village. Now that Martyn’s gone, I’m the only trained priest left. Katya and I are to be wed next summer. I can’t just—”
Jander’s silver eyes flashed with anger. “I don’t want to hear about your responsibilities. I don’t care about your fiancée. Do you not think that someday Strahd will slake his thirst with her blood? With the blood of your children and their children after them? What are your responsibilities to a monster like that? Gods, who do you think slew your family fourteen years ago?”
Sasha’s mouth opened in a soundless cry, and he sank down to the ground, burying his head in his hands. Jander rose and began to pace, trying to control his anger but driven by his need.
“You must understand,” the vampire continued. “He became what he is through a pact with some dark entity, a pact sealed in the blood of his own brother. He drove a beautiful, innocent girl to suicide with his reckless lust for her. So he believes, but I don’t think she died. Not all of her.” Unable to subdue his rage, he gripped Sasha’s shirt and hauled the young man to his feet, impaling the boy with the stab of his glance.
“I believe part of her escaped, fell through some kind of portal into my world. By the time I found her, by the time I loved her, she was only a part of a soul. Strahd had broken her mind. We both lost her, that poor child who never did a thing to hurt anyone.”
He tossed Sasha to the ground and clenched his fists tightly. He could feel the rage welling up inside him again, the urge to drop to all fours and kill. Jander forced it down. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer.
“That is what the lord of the land has done. That’s not the end of it, though. Apparently the girl, Anna, Tatyana, whatever her true name is—she is reincarnated every few generations. He keeps inflicting his torment on her and on your fellow citizens, creating vampire after vampire.” The elf paused again and took a breath. “I will make a vow to you, Sasha Petrovich. I have never created a vampire by my actions, and I swear that I never shall. Destroy Strahd, and you destroy all the vampires in Barovia. Can you deny me aid when I am in pursuit of such a goal?”
Sasha hesitated, his serious brown eyes searching Jander’s. “There is one thing I must know. What … was it like?”
Jander gazed at Sasha with searching silver eyes for a long moment. “Why,” he said finally in a weary voice, “would you want to know? You are of the light. Be thankful that you know so little of the mysteries of the dark!”
“I have to know. What was it like to die and yet not die? How does it feel to—”
“To live on others’ lives?” Jander’s voice, like his beautiful face, became hard. Varying emotions warred for prominence within his breast, and so many words—words of fear, of anger, of longing, of caution—crowded his throat that he choked on them and said nothing for a long time. At last, he spoke.
“The blood need is a thirst like no other, a hunger that has no parallel. The man stranded in the desert, his tongue thick within his papery throat, yearning for the tiniest drop of moisture to ease the parched, cottony feel of his mouth—that is nothing to my thirst. A prisoner trapped in a cell, denied food for days; he feels his stomach hollow within him, he looks at the rats who share his cell, the filthy straw upon which he sleeps, his very own flesh as sustenance—he knows nothing of my hunger. And every night, we awaken thus.”
He gestured at the tombstones about him. “We creep out of our coffins, our crypts, our caves, our places of hiding among the dead, for we are dead and yet we live. We spring from the shadows or lull an unwary traveler, and then steal from her something more precious than any material item. We hold her, a stranger, and perform an act more intimate than that shared by lovers. We take her blood and live upon it, Sasha. Can you even partially grasp the horror of the thing? And, all the gods forgive me, it feels wonderful!”
Sasha was frozen with pity and horror as Jander, for the first time, finally told another being of his inner torment. He was no longer looking at Sasha. His eyes were distant, turned inward, gazing at something the priest could never see.
“The bridegroom going to his beloved for the first time has only a shadow of our ecstasy. The painter finishing his masterpiece barely glimpses our joy. The blood is the life, and there is nothing so beautiful as taking it, feeling it pour into you as if you were an empty vase that is filled at last. It is a false rapture, and we know it—we know it—and yet we continue on.
“Then the moment is over, and when it is over, I look at the limp form in my arms and I curse myself. Oh, she lives on. I assuage my conscience with the fact that I take a life only when I must or when my reason is pushed beyond endurance. But I have violated that woman, and I am ashamed.
“And for her, the fangs are heat and cold, piercing and commanding, and she feels the blood leap from her veins as though her very heart was being ripped out. She is helpless, utterly, completely helpless, more so than the babe fresh out of the womb. But there is a hellish balance. We, too, are helpless. We need mortals. We can smell them, the bloodscent, just like that newborn babe smells the warm, milky scent of its mother. We are called to it like the waves to the shore and are as incapable of resistance. There are none so cursed as we.”
The elf fell silent, and Sasha thought he had finished. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, gentle, and full not of anger but of sorrowful regret. “When I breathed, I was not a wicked being. I was a warrior for just and noble causes. The beasts of the forests were not unduly afraid when they caught my scent. All men were either brothers or worthy foes; women were to be honored and respected. I do not boast if I say the world was better where I touched it.
“Now I suffer what you cannot even imagine. Horses will not carry me without command. The forest animals flee in terror at my approach. I am shut off from the company of others, save those wretches like Strahd who care nothing for me and for whom I care even less. The sun, for whom my family was named, is fatal to me. There is nothing beautiful in my world anymore. I live in darkness and destruction, and I spread it like a pestilence. The very earth loathes me. See what my touch now does!”
Furious once more, the elf slammed his bare hands onto the grass by the grave. Sasha heard a faint crackling sound. When Jander lifted his hands a few seconds later, the priest saw dead, yellow grass where the elf had touched the earth.
“And Anna … oh, Anna!” Jander sobbed aloud. “Strahd destroyed Tatyana and will keep on doing so. But it wa
s I who took Anna’s life. If I pay for that with my agony to the end of the world, it would not be enough. Many are my sins, Sasha. I have never claimed otherwise. How many, also, are my inner wounds. Son of the gypsy boy, will you help me? Will you help me avenge her and save the lives and souls of all you love?”
Jander’s plea would have softened even the hardest heart, and Sasha’s was all too vulnerable. He had been fighting evil for more than half his life, prowling in the shadows of a nightscape that was home to the lords of the undead, hammering stakes into their hearts, cutting off their heads so that they could not rise again. Having Leisl help eased the burden, but not enough.
Jander wanted him to attack the most powerful vampire in the land. Sasha was tired. Hadn’t he done enough? Would there ever come a respite? Would he never be able to hold his beloved Katya safely through the night, untroubled by memories and nightmares?
Things darker than memories and nightmares troubled nights in Ravenloft. He could not know that and still do nothing. Sasha closed his eyes.
“All right.” he said. “What must we do first?”
LEISL WAS WAITING FOR SASHA IN HIS ROOM WHEN he came back, sitting on his bed with her feet tucked underneath her. She had prepared a hot mug of wine to take off the chill of the graveyard and handed it to him wordlessly. He accepted it and drank in equal silence.
“I assume you saw the, uh, elf,” Sasha finally commented wearily, leaning back on the pillows and rubbing his eyes with his free hand.
“So that’s what they look like. I saw him. I also saw that he didn’t cast a shadow in the moonlight and that he had blood all over his face.” She tried to keep her voice calm but didn’t quite succeed. “What crazy scheme have you gotten yourself involved with, Sasha Petrovich? I thought we were supposed to be killing the things, not chatting with them in graveyards!”
Sasha debated not telling her, but the Little Fox already knew too much. What might be worse was if she decided to “help” without his approval. Things could get very, very bad very, very quickly.
Vampire of the Mists Page 28
