by Ted Dekker
“Natasha, forgive me!” she laughed. “Forgive me, Sister, for all of my nasty words. You were so right! Give me more wine!”
“Not wine, my dear. There is something more.”
“More? Where? Show me.”
A fire flashed in his eyes and his jaw flexed. “I will.” The look was so beastly and full of hunger that for the briefest moment she felt a sense of alarm. But then he swept her up and carried her into his bedroom, and she felt scandalous.
The light in here was lower and altogether orange. Dancing flames of delight. Vlad set her down at the foot of his bed and cupped her chin. She’d never been so desired, so consumed by a man, and her yearning for it was its own kind of rapture.
Her hands were on his arms; she could feel his muscles, bunched and knotted. Like the muscles she’d seen on Toma’s beautiful body.
He lifted a finger to her lips and touched them, feather light. “You saw Stefan kiss Natasha.”
“Yes.”
“There was blood on her lip.”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“You cannot imagine the pleasure, Lucine.”
“You want to bite my lip?”
“It’s not a bite as much as a sharing. A mixing of blood. A seal of love between two people. This wins the heart, not merely the drinking of the blood. That only softens you up, so to speak.”
Vlad brought his mouth to hers. Flicked her lips with his tongue.
Her desire swelled and she gently took his upper lip into her mouth, giving him free access to her lower lip. Natasha had done this.
“Kiss me, Vlad,” she breathed. “Kiss me however you want to kiss me.”
He took her lip between his teeth. A chuckle escaped his mouth and she returned it. His teeth closed with just enough pressure to sting her without breaking the skin.
“Ask me again,” he said.
“Kiss me, Vlad. Bite me.”
Pain flashed on the inside of her mouth. But then it was gone, replaced by only a gentle, gnawing pain. She laughed.
“Is that all, dear sir?”
“No.”
And he bit again.
This time the pain was sharper, deeper. Twin needles that stabbed into her lips. The burning spread down her chin, and she gasped. For a count of three the pain leaked into her blood before easing for a moment. Then it came again, flashing through her bones like a fire.
She wanted to cry out, but she refused. She felt like she might faint as Natasha had fainted. But Natasha had awakened without pain.
Vlad moaned with pleasure. His body began to tremble as he held her there in his arms. “I make you my queen,” he said. “And I will be yours.”
“It hurts,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes. Panic touched her mind and her breathing thickened.
“My blood is much stronger than some. But that pain will be your ecstasy and you will be my bride.” He touched her lips delicately, then drew his finger away bloody and placed it in his mouth. “It will take a few days for my blood to transform you,” he said, voice so low she could barely hear it. “Some feed on the jugular, but it’s so uncouth, don’t you think?”
The pain reached deeper, down into her belly, through her pelvis, down her legs, and clutched at her midsection. She doubled over, crying out.
“It hurts!”
“Embrace that pain.”
Her mind began to fall into a hole; her world tipping toward him, joining with a darkness she didn’t understand. But rather than feel appalled by him, she was strangely drawn to him.
“What’s wrong with me?” She grabbed the bedpost with one hand to keep from falling. “Something’s wrong!”
“Don’t be so pathetic,” he snapped.
What? What was he saying?
She looked up at him, pleading. “Vlad . . . Vlad, I’m scared.”
“Silence!”
“Vlad . . .”
In an instant his whole demeanor transformed from lover to beast. He grabbed her around her waist, nails biting into her belly, lifted her high in the air, and slammed her down on the mattress.
“Silence!” His voice shook the rafters.
And Lucine thought then that she had made a dreadful mistake. But she could not believe he meant it. Not now, after everything he had said, after his eyes had devoured her with such desire.
“What are you—”
His open hand crashed against her face with a loud crack! “You will learn that I have no tolerance for whiners. I have shown you my love and for this you cry?”
His eyes were red, his face white like a sheet. His nails had grown. Blood seeped through her dress where they had cut her.
“Please! Pleeeeease!”
Vlad’s mouth pulled into a deep frown. “You disgust me. Stay here.” Then he turned and walked out of the room.
Lucine’s mind was no longer lucid. She was on his bed and her bones were on fire, that much she knew. But she was confused about why he’d hit her, why he’d left her. She had upset him? She had said something wrong and wounded him.
But why had he retaliated? A man had beaten her before for carrying a child. Was this the same? No. No, surely not. This time she deserved his reaction.
She didn’t have the strength to stand, much less leave. Even so, she didn’t dare leave the room—it would only upset him more. She couldn’t do that to him.
Tears began to flow from her eyes. She took her knees in her arms, pulling them close to her chest to keep the pain in, and she cried. She could not understand why she said what she did as she rocked there in anguish.
“Toma,” she moaned. “Dear Toma . . .”
Time faded.
A door opened and she caught her sobs in her throat. But she was too weak now to turn and see who it was. So she remained still and tried not to upset him.
She felt the bed move. Someone was climbing on with her.
A hand gently touched her arm. Then the person lay down behind her, body folded into her own.
“Shh, shh, shh . . .”
Who was it? Not him. It wasn’t him.
“I’m sorry, Sister. It will be better when you wake up.”
Natasha.
Lucine wept.
TWENTY-TWO
I sprinted and was halfway to that sole unguarded door before I realized that none of them had moved to stop me. They stood still, watching, as if my running to that door was precisely what they had in mind for me.
Or because they knew it was barred.
I pulled up hard and grasped the handle. Shoved it down. The door flew open under my weight. I leaped through and spun to seal it shut.
The sight of them standing there, simply watching, unnerved me to the core. Their eyes red like fire, their faces white like cotton, their mouths drawn with poise, like those portraits on the wall. Unmoving. Rigid. Unreal but so very real.
Then two flew, streaks of black, whispers of blown smoke. Directly toward me.
I slammed the door shut as they crashed into the other side. The bolt was there, at my hand, and I shoved it home.
Whether because they had better plans or because they could not breach this door I don’t know, but they made no attempt to force the door open or break it down.
I found myself at one end of a stone hallway that headed toward the same side of the castle where I’d descended into the tunnels with Sofia the day before. There was no other course but for me to run.
So I ran, with my best speed, certain that these creatures of the night were already making flight to cut me off.
Only minutes ago I doubted anything that might be called supernatural; now I knew that I had been naive. I knew neither the extent of it nor the means by which to deal with it, but I was certain that evil existed. I had come face-to-face with it and survived long enough to know at least that much.
And Lucine was in its grasp.
Tears sprang to my eyes as I ran, blurring the path. But I didn’t dare slow, because Lucine’s only hope was that I escape this house of hell and return w
ith the priests to cast it off the earth, or with an army to raze it to the ground.
The hall ended at two doors on either side, and I took the one to my right because it seemed the other led back toward the great hall. I had no desire to meet up with those creatures without any weapons that might put them down.
I had just closed that door when I heard them beyond. Considering the speed with which they could move, I was surprised they hadn’t reached me sooner.
Here, another bolt, and I secured it forcefully.
This time I heard only a knock from the other side of the door. Knock, knock. They were playing with me!
I spun and raced down another hall, which ended in only one door. Opening it, I saw that this entrance led into a flight of stone stairs, which headed down. Into darkness.
My experience of the night before had left such a dark impression on me that I froze like ice there at the top of the steps. But I was without an alternative, so I plunged down into the darkness, for there was no flame to light the way.
The sound of my boots on the stone echoed around me, and I had the distinct impression that I was descending into hell, as real as I had never imagined it.
I found the end of the steps when I came up short and stumbled onto my knees in pitch darkness. But there was a sliver of orange light at the bottom of a door to my right. I staggered to it, found the handle to a door, and pulled it wide.
The stench that greeted me can hardly be described, like the smell of an unattended battlefield a week after the dead have been left to rot. The light came from a single torch beside another door on my left. The one the Russians would use to reach me assuming they knew where I had gone, which they surely did.
I headed right. Down a tunnel not unlike the one I had been in last evening, only this one was dank and the walls were covered with long fingers of moss. Why they would waste a torch to light this passage made no sense, unless it led to an exit that was frequently used. What other purpose would serve such a passage?
I rushed on, hoping the light fading behind me would meet the reach of another torch soon. My mind was a shell of itself. The events that had led up to that moment clogged my understanding of all that was real. I could head into any battle with a sword and a pistol and deal with any man or any army of men. I could be taken captive by an enemy and live in their dungeons until they grew tired of my outlasting will.
But here in this place my heart had been stolen and my mind had been stripped of all that I assumed to be normal.
Faint light flickered ahead and to my right.
I sprinted to a gated entrance along the wall and gripped steel bars. Beyond them was what appeared to be a study with one desk on the left and bookcases on the other walls. Nothing short of a prison. A torch blazed next to a large framed portrait of the creature I’d seen depicted before in this castle, that grotesque bat with folded wings. A creature of the night. A demon from hell.
But there was also a door at the back of that study, I saw.
A peal of muted thunder reached into the tunnel. I twisted and looked down the dark passage. Not a hint of light.
I couldn’t head back the way I had come. They would be there, waiting.
The sound of that thunder had come from somewhere. I lifted the latch and pulled the iron gate open with an unnerving grate of metal against metal. Then I closed it behind me to leave no sign I’d entered.
Another peal of thunder, this one from beyond that door if there was a God and he was merciful. Not merciful to me, but to Lucine. Even my escaping was a kind of abandonment, and I will say that a large part of me wanted only to rush back upstairs and share her fate, whatever that might be. Wasn’t it possible that I could still find a way to rescue her, however unlikely?
She doesn’t love you, Toma.
I cursed my mind for the thought as I hurried for the wood door.
A single name was etched into brass beneath the framed portrait. Alucard. So then devils had names. Valerik or Alucard or Beelzebub, names didn’t matter to me. But there was some truth to the ranting of the priests after all, and this mattered much.
The door was unlocked. I paused for a moment to listen beyond the beating of my heart, then I pulled the door open.
Now I could hear the storm outside. Lightning flashed, illuminating a long vacant tunnel ending in steps that led up.
I was running already, not bothering to close the door behind me this time. New thoughts crashed through my mind. A fresh fear for Lucine now that I had seen the naked power of these Russians. They weren’t Russians at all but something less than human.
I slid to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, and now I saw the rain falling above, illuminated from behind by flashes of lightning. But how could I leave her? I could not! I couldn’t go down the mountain knowing that Lucine was in his clutches.
I had to go back!
And I almost did.
But before I was a lover, I was a warrior, and I knew that my flesh and blood could not influence the fight waged by these powers. I had to get out and return with help!
These stone stairs ended in a small enclosure that protected them from the rain. I’d dropped my jacket off my back in the front entrance; there would be no retrieving it. I only hoped that my horse was still tied up as I’d left him.
But I was free of the castle. That was the—
“Hello, Toma.”
I spun to my left. He stood there at the edge of this entryway. I didn’t know who he was, because he wore a hood that kept his face deep in shadow. I could only see those red eyes, staring at me like twin cherries. His voice was low and gravelly, unlike any I’d heard, surely not entirely human.
And just as surely I knew that I could not in my right mind beat this man.
“She is mine now,” the man said. “This time I told them to let you go. If I had not, you would be dead, my friend. But if you return I will kill you. And I will kill Lucine as well.”
Now I did know. This was Vlad van Valerik.
Bitterness and rage flooded me. Uttering a feral cry of outrage, I hurled myself at the figure in two long strides, headlong.
I plowed into the wall behind him, palms, elbows, then chest.
A small chuckle rose to my left, but I couldn’t see where he’d vanished to in such a hurry. These Russians could move with inhuman speed!
“Leave her!” I cried. “Leave her and I will spare you!” The words came from my heart, not my head.
The chuckle had already faded. I was left alone with the wind howling at my back and the rain wetting my shirt. I tell you it was all I could do to find a thread of good sense in my battered mind.
But I did, and the moment I found it, I turned and strode into the torrent, around the castle, all along cursing my failure.
My trusted steed was hunkered down against the storm as I’d trained him. I ran to him, leaped upon his back, and headed down the mountain, a beaten and pathetic man.
But I would return.
I would be back if it cost me my life.
TWENTY-THREE
The hour was late and the rain fell with God’s wrath on those mountains. I felt like a fool for ever having doubted his existence. There was certainly a devil, for I had met either him or his offspring. If there was a devil, there must be a God, or I had no hope.
Fighting the badgering urge to return and fight, I thundered down the slippery road without care for my safety. My stallion had been bred for battle and had waded through as much blood on slopes before. My only concern now was for Lucine, and to save her I knew I would need more resources than I had.
I had to go to that bishop in Crysk who had jurisdiction over this diocese in Moldavia. Julian Petrov of the Russian Orthodox Church. I had taken a trip to pay my respects and earn his several days earlier, as well as to learn what I could of the war’s progress. But he’d been gone and I’d met with a priest who proved to offer little help. This time I must find His Eminence, Bishop Petrov.
It would take an hour, perhaps two,
to reach the monastery in this weather. I had no time to stop by the Cantemir estate to rearm or update the lady Kesia. So when I came to the fork that headed south toward Crysk, I took it without a second thought.
The rain let up when I arrived at the base of the Carpathians. To the east there was a clear sky with a bright, peering moon. But the clouds behind me were as ominous as before, dumping their wrath on the peaks and the secrets they hid so well.
My path was now clear. I would find Petrov and sit him down to hear me if I had to haul him out of bed. He would tell me what I already knew—that the devil had come out of his shell.
But he would also tell me what I did not know: how to defeat this devil.
I muttered prayers for the first time in many years. They amounted to no more than incoherent mumblings that joined the distant thunder, pleas to a God who did not know I existed because I had never been to his church in all these years.
Even so, I would find God’s servant on earth and take up whatever tools were required to dispel the devil, and together we would go to the mountain and chase evil back into the dark.
My mind said all of this, but my heart wasn’t convinced. I couldn’t see how any tool of the church could go up against a man like Stefan, who’d taken a bullet in the head one night and moved like the wind only days later. What devastation could be done on the battlefield with an army of these!
But I had heard that evil feared the crucifix. Holy water could scald a witch’s skin. Perhaps there was some truth to these rumors— I was certain to find out.
With the clearing weather, my journey was soon on dry ground, and however dirtied, my shirt and trousers were dried by the wind. I didn’t bother tying my horse by the church’s porch—he was too shredded to take another step.
The entrance was open, thank God. I plowed in, uncaring about my presentation on the red carpet that ran through the seating for the likes of me, unbelievers. This was the narthex, if I recalled.
