by James Lyon
‘When my mother bore him only daughters my father quickly became bored and moved to Venice itself, where he could more easily indulge his vices, leaving her behind on Hvar to languish and make do as best she could.’
‘When he had squandered his family’s fortune my mother refused to let him spend her dowry. He turned to piracy against Venetian vessels, disguising himself first as a Turk, then later as an Uskok corsair. As a pirate he committed crimes and deeds most heinous and vile, that only the blackest heart could conceive, and he bragged that he had set a curse on God himself, if such a thing is possible. The Turks called him Kara-Hektor, or Black Hektor.’ On one voyage he was taken with disease. He returned to Hvar, where he quickly died and was buried in the graveyard on the hilltop overlooking the harbor.’
‘But his story didn’t end there. Several weeks after his death he was seen wandering near the graveyard at night. Wickedness combined with happenstance, and he had become a vampire. One evening he visited my mother to satisfy his vile lusts, and I am the result. Twenty one years later I tracked him down in a lagoon at the mouth of the Neretva river where he was hiding. I killed him,’ He looked around, brushed some imaginary dirt off his suit coat, and turned again to stare over the Danube. Several butterflies fluttered in the air and came to rest on his shoulders, as though comforting him.
Steven sat numbly. ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t know that…’
‘Do you know what it is like to kill your own father? No, of course not. But I must say, under the circumstances it was quite liberating. He had blackened the family name, besmirched my mother’s reputation and terrorized all Dalmatia in search of blood to feed his unquenchable thirst.’ Slatina’s hands clenched the railing tightly.
‘So you are a vampirovic. I mean a kresnik,’ Steven stared at Slatina’s back, waiting for confirmation.
Slatina turned, leaned back against the railing and smiled kindly. ‘Yes, young Roberts, I am. And a worse fate I could not imagine in life, except that which awaits my adversaries.’
‘Your adversaries?’
‘Yes, my adversaries. You call them vampires.’
‘Vampires,’ Steven repeated without emotion, overwhelmed by Slatina’s tale.
‘Vampires,’ Slatina stated emphatically.
‘Vampires,’ Steven repeated. ‘But…I mean…’
Slatina waved his hand. ‘Please permit me to continue.’
‘My family’s patrician status enabled me to enter the service of the Serene Republic, Venice, and I commanded a contingent of Stradioti light cavalry near Spalato, or Split, as they call it today. I eventually won my spurs in the Cavalieri di San Marco, Venice’s only chivalrous order,’ he said with evident pride.
‘So you’re a knight,’ Steven looked at him, still skeptical.
‘It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be,’ Slatina smiled. ‘So, did you look into the Order of the Dragon?’
The sudden change of topic surprised Steven. ‘The Order, yes, of course. Why?’
‘Have you discovered its purpose?’ Slatina asked.
‘Well, not really.’
‘Well, you know, of course, that a vampirovic has special…how shall we say…talents,’ He smiled at Steven, who shuddered at the memory of Slatina’s eyes and the interrogation of his soul. ‘Talents that enable him to track and kill vampires with great expediency. Mine came to the attention of the Order.’
Steven’s curiosity had driven most of the anger from him, and each new revelation made him more curious. ‘Were you in the Order of the Dragon?’ he blurted.
Slatina smiled again and nodded. ‘O quam misericors est Deus, Justus et Pius.’
‘O how merciful is God, Just and Faithful,’ Steven translated.
‘Yes. I was in the Order. In fact, I believe I am all that is left of it. You must understand what we faced. The mountains in the Balkans contain vast riches of ores and minerals that man has mined since antiquity. But under those hills lay a darkness placed there by the Adversary at the foundation of the world to corrupt man. This latent evil was uncovered by Roman miners who worked the hills at Argentium in Bosnia, and at Novo Brdo in Kosovo and other places. The Order was created to repulse it.’
‘This great wealth provided half of Europe’s silver during the Middle Ages and financed the rise of the Serbian Empire, the Bosnian Kingdom and the city-state of Dubrovnik, while Bavaria’s House of Fugger and their bank grew fabulously wealthy from it.’
‘I was inducted into the Order while serving the Austrians. We used the natural barriers of the Danube and Sava Rivers to keep this evil from the heart of the Empire. While in the Order, I met another vampirovic, a Serb by the name of Rade, who’s father Lazar had terrorized his native village in Kosovo for many years before Rade killed him. Rade was serving in one of the border units garrisoned at Kalemegdan when I first met him. I had him transferred to my command and we became the Emperor’s sword and shield in the fight against this plague. For over 200 years, we were bosom companions and best friends.’
‘Just a second, now,’ Steven interrupted. ‘The folk tales I read all say that a vampirovic is supposed to be immortal, just like vampires. So how did Lieutenant Lazarevic die? And why are you still alive?’
‘Immortal,’ Slatina once again smiled wistfully. ‘Well, I would hesitate to say for certain, as I would need to live to see the end of what we call time to make any such pronouncement with certainty. I can, however, state that we do seem rather long-lived and it is damned hard to kill us if we don’t wish to die.’
‘But why did Katarina’s father die?’
‘Because of a woman,’ Slatina said wistfully, ‘As true a love as ever captured a man’s heart. You see, should a vampirovic decide to reproduce, he loses the essence of his immortality. As he passes on new life, he becomes subject to all the frailties and infirmities of mortality. Unfortunately, my dear Rade had taken quite a fancy to schnapps and cigars over the centuries. Before he met Katarina’s mother it meant nothing, but his habits stayed with him after Katarina’s birth, and the accumulated centuries of tobacco, alcohol and meat-eating caught up with him quite rapidly.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Steven said.
‘Now, have I not told you enough crazy stories for one day?’
‘But why’d you send me to Serbia?’ Steven asked. ‘And what did Mrs. Lazarevic mean when she said that “the Emperor’s pets have escaped”?’
Slatina looked at him as if deciding whether or not to continue, then sat down and took a sandwich. He motioned to Steven to do the same.
‘It is simple. I cannot travel to Yugoslavia. I needed someone I trusted to gather information for me.’
‘But why can’t you travel there?’
‘Steven, you see, Rade and I were the only vampirovici in the Order, and since we could destroy vampires far more easily and effectively than the others, the Order gave the two of us a free hand and focused more on social and political activities. The Order dwindled in size until the reign of Franz Joseph I, when there were only a few active members who had joined largely to be close to the throne. And then the Great War began.’
‘After two disastrous campaigns in 1914, our Army finally occupied Serbia in October 1915, and Rade and I continued our work. For the first time we were able to work unhindered throughout Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Sandzak and Montenegro. When Franz Joseph died in 1916, the new Emperor Charles was busy with the war and trying to keep Hungary in the Empire: He treated the Order as a relic of a bygone era and did not replace fallen members. Several died on the Carpathian Front and a couple of others of old age. After the war Serbia established the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which as you know was later to become Yugoslavia. The Prince Regent, Aleksandar Karadjordjevic enlisted substantial numbers of former Habsburg officers in the army of the new country, and Rade and I switched sides. We met with Aleksandar and informed him of the existence of the Order. He became its new patron upon becoming king in 1921 and permitted us to continue our work.’
‘During the Second World War we first sided with the royalist forces, but then withdrew from the fight, as all sides engaged in the most unimaginable forms of brutality against each other. We watched this curse spread unchecked from Argentium to the rest of the country, and soon found ourselves working day and night to keep the evil under control,’ Slatina’s face hardened as though recalling particularly unpleasant memories.
‘After the war Rade and I faced new problems. As former Yugoslav royal officers we were under suspicion by the communists. Having served under the Habsburgs we were doubly suspicious. Because of my high birth and social status I was considered a class enemy and was forced to flee the country to avoid prison, while Rade, of humbler birth and lower rank, was able to avoid such difficulties. I was able to return for a brief time in the 1960s, but had to leave to avoid the police. You see, even now should I attempt to return I will most certainly be arrested.’
‘So you sent me instead,’ Steven pushed further. ‘To do what?’
‘Ah, that is where things become difficult. You have been to the great fortresses at Kalemegdan and Petrovaradin, no?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, you know that there are extensive tunnels under those fortresses, yes?’
‘Yes. Professor Stojadinovic has offered to take us underneath Petrovaradin on Saturday.’
‘Stojadinovic…Ljubodrag Stojadinovic?’ Something about the name puzzled Slatina. ‘I haven’t heard from him for a couple of years. I heard he had a serious heart attack and assumed the worst. They say he was quite the bon vivant…prone to excesses, alcohol and…hmm…female students.’
‘Well, he’s very much alive and speaks highly of you,’ Steven said.
‘I am glad to hear he is doing well. Please give him my regards. Back in 1733 Rade and I did something that at the time we thought clever. However, it now appears to have been a mistake.’
Steven eyed him quizzically. ‘A mistake? What kind of mistake?’
‘Well, it appears we may have left some vampires behind.’
‘What do you mean “it appears”?’
‘Ah, yes, well, you see…ahem,’ Slatina cleared his throat: ‘We interred eleven vampires in an underground tomb.’
Steven sat, dumbfounded. ‘Eleven vampires in an underground tomb? I found references to you constructing something at the Hornwerk at Petrovaradin. Is that where they are?’
‘Ah, you have done good work, young Roberts, good work.’
‘I also came across an article about twelve vampires by an author named Tihomir Djordjevic,’ Steven said hesitantly. ‘But you only had eleven.’
‘So you did find it,’ Slatina exclaimed. ‘I was uncertain you would. And? What do you think? It’s all true.’
‘I haven’t actually seen it yet,’ Steven replied, and then told him about the disappearing librarian and Niedermeier.
Slatina looked concerned. ‘Come inside, I fear we are getting too much sun.’
‘But why twelve if there were only eleven?’
‘Ah, yes. There was a twelfth, but we never found him. He is still out there somewhere. We caught his scent again during World War Two, but were unable to pursue him.’ Slatina said as he led Steven into an expansive drawing room where two large life-sized, full body oil portraits hung side by side on a wall, one of which appeared to be a young Slatina wearing the colorful garb of a late renaissance Venetian nobleman, and the other of a tall, slender and strikingly beautiful raven-haired girl on the cusp of womanhood clad in a flowing dark green velvet dress. Slatina motioned for Steven to sit on a post-modern white leather sofa. The old man followed and brought them both glasses of mineral water.
‘Who is she?’ Steven asked, noticing the girl’s resemblance to the red cat-eyed woman from his dream of the trolleybus.
‘Her name is Natalija. The portraits were commissioned by her father as a wedding gift to the two of us,’ Slatina said absently.
‘I didn’t know you were married.’
‘I lost her immediately after my wedding…like you I had to bury my wife.’ He stared at the portrait intensely.
‘I had no idea,’ Steven blurted in shock.
‘But that was long ago, young Roberts. Life goes on, and we should best follow the admonition of our Savior and let the dead bury the dead. We should not dwell on the past. It is best you move on from your grief and let yourself love again.’
‘But let us move on to the twelve. Where should I start,’ Slatina muttered partly to himself. ‘The article was actually a part of Rade’s diary that was confiscated by the communists. Djordjevic received access to it and published it more as a curiosity than anything else.’
‘You must understand, young Roberts, when a person first becomes a vampire he is very confused. He has just been in the after-life for a short period of time, seen the torment that awaits him, made a pact with the Devil to sell his soul, and then had his soul abruptly returned to an already decaying body lying in a closed grave. Usually it takes a vampire about 100 days to come to his senses. During this time he is unaware of his powers, is disoriented and unable to act rationally, while an overpowering thirst for man’s life essence overwhelms him. Young vampires are extremely vulnerable and careless, led by their lusts, and peasants kill most of them at this stage.
‘If a vampire makes it past the first 100 days it begins to collect its wits and becomes far more dangerous. By that time the vampire has learned to understand the hunger gnawing within its belly and is able to exercise greater self-control. This is when the vampire begins to recognize its powers. To survive the wrath of local villagers it moves to areas where it is unknown, typically to larger cities where it can hide among the morass of humanity and practice its evil.’
‘What are a vampire’s powers,’ Steven inquired. ‘I’ve read lots of folklore, but I’m not certain what’s real and what’s myth.
‘They shift shape. A vampire typically appears in one of several forms. You will see them usually in their human form, which is their normal appearance, or as a lycanthrope, what you call a werewolf.’
‘A werewolf?’ Steven’s eye widened.
‘A werewolf,’ Slatina responded.
‘It’s just that, you know…this is all so…’
‘Unbelievable,’ Slatina finished his sentence.
‘Unbelievable,’ Steven nodded.
‘Now, where were we?’ Slatina sipped his mineral water. ‘I have forgotten where I left off…vampires…vampirovici…the Order of the Dragon…the Twelve…oh yes: lycanthropes.’
‘Werewolves,’ Steven added.
‘They can be quite an intimidating sight, what with all the hair and teeth and claws and growling.’ Slatina made a face and tried to imitate a werewolf, which made Steven laugh. ‘But a werewolf is only more dangerous because there are more sharp pointy bits to watch out for. They also metamorphose into just about anything you can think of, cats, dogs, wolves, horses, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But for some reason they favor butterflies. Shifting shape drains them of energy, and they can only do so a limited number of times before they need to rest and feed.’
‘Oh.’
‘Their other power is that they can mesmerize the weak-willed, the simple-minded and uneducated and those who are unaware.’
Steven thought back to the bulldog librarian. Was she a vampire?
‘You asked about the Twelve. Vampires cannot gather in groups larger than twelve. We tried once to put fourteen of them together in the same room and they all turned to jelly in a flash,’ he snapped his fingers, his eyes twinkling with macabre delight. ‘Imagine that. We did it several other times just for fun.’
‘When twelve vampires band together of their own free will, then they wield far greater powers. Fortunately, they are selfish and egocentric, and although they like to socialize, they dislike cooperating, so a quorum is extremely rare. We heard of one such quorum led by a Vlach…’
‘A Vlach?’ Steven interrupted.
‘Ye
s, from Wallachia. We captured eleven of them – all powerful and mature – who, at the Emperor’s orders we interred under the fortress in a special chamber, but we never found the twelfth. The bloody manner in which Yugoslavia is breaking apart suggests not only that they have escaped but also that they are the driving force behind the bloodshed. If so, then they have hidden themselves in the government, police and army, as well as powerful institutions in society and surrounded themselves with mortals of equally evil design, willing to do their bidding for material reward. These mortals probably don’t know their masters are vampires.’
‘Which fortress did you bury them under?’
‘Why Kalemegdan, of course,’ Slatina said matter-of-factly.
‘Kalemegdan? I thought you built something at Petrovaradin,’ Steven was surprised.
‘Oh, did I say Kalemegdan? You are so right, I meant Petrovaradin. These memories have distracted me. Please forgive me.’
‘Vampires underneath Petrovaradin? Well, Stojadinovic will just have to cancel his little excursion. I’m not going near that place,’ Steven said emphatically.
‘But you must, Steven,’ Slatina said gravely. ‘I need you to ascertain if the seals on the chamber are still intact.’
Steven stared at him in disbelief. ‘You want me to go crawling through tunnels to find a chamber full of vampires!? Are you out of you mind?’
‘Now Steven, it is not as dangerous as you may think,’ Slatina said reassuringly. ‘If they have escaped, which I believe they have, then they will be long gone. If they are still there and the seals on the chamber are intact, then you will not enter. In either event, there is little danger.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ Steven said incredulous. ‘Do you really want me to go check on a room full of vampires?’
‘You are large and strong, yes? You played American football and wrestled, yes?’
‘Yes.’ He was taken aback by Slatina’s change of topic once again. ‘But that has nothing to do with it!’
‘Excellent! Wonderful! Then you will have no trouble defending yourself against a vampire,’ Slatina continued. ‘Simply fight a vampire as you would another human being. But do not let him bite you on your left side, or he will paralyze you and begin to drain your life’s essence.’
