"You're scared, aren't you? You deserve to die a miserable death. I prefer to die with my men.” Krause removed his pistol from its holster, took one last look at Oberman and smiled. Then he ran off into the darkness with his gun drawn. Shots rang out followed by a short scream, then silence.
Oberman sat alone. The hand that held his revolver shook. The air was cold but he felt a numbing sensation along the back of his neck, the feeling you get when you know someone is watching you. He turned his head to find himself only feet away from another man.
The man was tall but not large, and carried no weapons. His clothing was covered in blood; his face was bathed in the crimson color that looked almost black in the dim light of the dying fire. He had the dark and hawk-like features of the local peasants, like the ones he had tortured with his knife only minutes ago.
"Who are you?” Oberman blustered. “What do you want? I have a gun and I will kill you!"
The man said nothing as he approached with a quickness that immobilized Oberman. He clamped his hands around Oberman's throat so quickly he barely noticed it, until he felt the icy cold fingers pressing into his flesh. Finally regaining his sense of what was happening, Oberman pressed his pistol into the man's chest and fired his weapon, continuing to squeeze the trigger even after the magazine was empty. Oberman smelled the singed cloth from the bullets as he watched in horror. The man never wavered.
The face of the man was close now and Oberman could smell a foulness like rotting flesh as he breathed on him. He tried to move but the attacker's strength was tremendous; he threw all his weight into his frantic attack, but the man did not budge.
In an instant, he was lifted by his throat and carried to where the glowing embers of the fire still burned, casting an eerie glow of light. As they approached he saw with horror that his attacker's face was smeared with blood and that he had fangs protruding several inches from his mouth. This was not a man, Oberman thought as he felt his bladder let go, but some kind of creature.
"You are the scum of the earth,” the creature said, in a voice deep and low. “I have been watching you since you came here. I kill for a reason, you for the sheer enjoyment of it. Your sergeant was right about you. You do deserve to die."
With an almost effortless gesture, the creature tore Oberman's head from his body. The sound of ripping flesh and bone echoed in the eerie silence. He cast the rest of the body aside and headed into the cave.
* * * *
Some time later, Dimitri opened his eyes expecting to see the cave and the German torturer in front of him. Instead, he found himself lying on a rock slab in an expansive underground area illuminated by torches and candles. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and burning pitch. The rock walls were lined with shelves crowded with books, their bindings worn and tattered with age.
He tried to raise his head and was rewarded with searing pain that made his eyes water. Darkness engulfed him and he dreamt.
He was back in the canyon with Josip again. His gun jammed and the bear was charging at him just as it had happened before. This time the bear looked different: it was smiling at him. It will kill me this time. I will not escape death again.
When the pain subsided, he opened his eyes. He saw that someone had attempted to bandage his wounds. He didn't think it had been the Germans, but whom then?
Carefully moving his head to the side, he saw his four compatriots lying on similar rock slabs. They looked as bad as he felt; their clothes were bloodstained, their skin pale. Their wounds were also shabbily bandaged.
He looked around at this place he found himself in. The furnishings were sparse and simple. The furniture was old, made of thick oak wood. Carpets covered areas of the dirt floor, their age and use evidenced by their frayed appearance.
Dimitri heard a sound. He looked toward the area of darkness where he perceived it had come from, but saw nothing.
"You're wounded very badly,” a voice said, startling him.
He turned his head again in the direction he had thought he heard something earlier, but had seen nothing. However this time, he saw a man standing there and looking at him.
The man was dressed in simple clothing and he was tall and broad-shouldered. Dimitri guessed his age at maybe thirty or thirty-five. His face was long and possessed the features characteristic of his native people. He could have easily passed for an inhabitant of his own village. But there was something in his eyes that made Dimitri think that he was much older and different then the people in his own village.
Dimitri felt those eyes staring into him as if they could see through him and there was the odd reflection of something. The flames of the torches danced within them but Dimitri saw something within those eyes that he had never seen before. They glowed like a hot ember, the red-velvet illumination both enticing and fearful at the same time.
"Am I dying?” Dimitri asked. The question came naturally to his lips. But at the same moment, he felt as if he knew the answer already—he felt it in his body. Perhaps this strange man was his angel that had come to comfort him in his last minutes of life.
"Yes, the blood loss is too great,” the stranger said in a low but calm tone of voice that reflected what Dimitri thought was actually sympathy.
"I'm sorry,” the man continued. “You are all in the same condition. I tried to do what I could, but time is against you."
"Who are you? What happened to the Germans?” Dimitri asked, as he teetered on the edge of consciousness.
"I was a soldier once, a young man like you, called from the fields of food to the fields of death for the greater glory of Serbia,” the stranger said as he appeared to drift off into a memory of a past time. He remained silent for a few moments and then said, “My name is Alexander."
"How did we get here? What happened to the—"
"I brought you here. This is my home. As far as the Germans—they are all dead; I killed them. It's unfortunate as I think of it now. I should have spared some of them, they were not all as evil as the one that did this to you. But I lost myself in the fervor of the kill and the smell of their blood, a bad habit that even I have not broken yet."
"Where are we?"
"We are underneath the ruins of what once was a monastery, a true treasury of the hidden libraries of centuries past. But that doesn't matter right now. Your time is short for the world of the living. It reminds me so much of what happened to me. It was a very long time ago."
The man seemed to drift off again into a memory as he fell silent for several seconds. He still stared at Dimitri, but his eyes and their dazed appearance reflected that the man was deeply into thought.
"What happened?” Dimitri asked, not wanting to die in the silence.
"I, like you, was very near death after a battle,” the man said as his eyes returned to Dimitri. “But something came to me while I lay in the field, bleeding to death from a bayonet wound—it came and offered me a chance to live."
"Was it ... an angel?"
"I thought it was an angel sent from heaven, offering me another chance at life, to return home and back to the fields. It was dark and I was delirious from the loss of blood, so I couldn't tell what was real or not, just as I could not tell what was good and what was evil. I still debate that to this day. But it offered me life and I wanted that. I was too young to die. I thought it was my chance to come back to life. But it wasn't."
"I don't understand,” Dimitri whispered. “What are you saying?"
"You must listen carefully. Do you want to live?” Alexander asked. “Do you want to breathe the air of this country, this world?"
"Yes,” Dimitri murmured.
"Would you still say yes if you had to make some sacrifices? What if you were to be feared and loathed by others and your existence was based solely upon the death of others? Could you live a life such as this?"
"Yes, of course,” Dimitri said. His eyes wanted to close. He felt cold and he wanted the warmth of sleep.
"And your friends? Can you speak for the
m?"
"I ... of course. I am their leader.” Everything was beginning to turn gray around him.
"Then you must do what I say. If you love life, if you want to live, you must do what I say,” Alexander said, with a soothing quality in his voice that relaxed Dimitri. “Do you understand?"
"Yes. I want to ... live,” Dimitri said.
"Then live you shall, my friend. It will be a life of darkness, but it will be life nonetheless. I pray that God forgive me if this is done against his will and I pray that I do not do this just for myself—for my own benefit of companionship—but rather for you."
Without any more words, Alexander leaned over Dimitri, opening his mouth to reveal large teeth. He slowly bit into Dimitri's neck. Dimitri moaned as the initial incision was made, but then he quieted, as if an anesthetic had been applied.
Alexander drank for a few moments then raised his face, the blood of Dimitri on his lips, the glow of his eyes even stronger.
"You must do what I say,” he said again in that calm tone, his voice possessing a hypnotic ambiance to it.
"Do as you say,” Dimitri answered dreamily, his eyes glazed.
Alexander bit into his own wrist and watched as droplets welled at the wound. He placed it over Dimitri's mouth.
"If you want to live, you must drink. Drink!"
Dimitri reacted to the command and sucked at the wound. His body lurched at the copper-like taste but he fought the revulsion as the words of Alexander reverberated through his mind.
If you love life, if you want to live, you must do what I say.
Dimitri felt a surge of cold run through his body, chasing the warmth that had nurtured it for all these years. He was sure his heart had stopped and he had died, but then he was brought back to his body again, as if reborn into the world.
"That's enough for now,” Alexander said. “The process has begun. I must now tend to the others. Rest now as the changes take over your body. When you awaken, we shall talk about your new life."
"New life..."
"Yes. Your new life, where the night shall become your day, and the day shall become your night, and where death is bountiful in both."
Chapter Thirty-five
"So that was the point you became a vampire,” Reese said.
"Yes.” Dimitri answered, as he pushed the last remnants of the past out of his thoughts.
"Is the process of creating a vampire accurate with what is recorded in most myths—the sharing of the blood of the vampire?” Reese asked.
"Yes. There is more to the process but that is basically correct. There is no way for us to reproduce without that process occurring."
"Why aren't there more vampires then?” Reese asked. “I would think that if you could change a mortal human into a vampire with relative ease, there would naturally be more of you?"
"We do not seek to perform this act of creation as a wanton act of desire such as your own method of producing offspring from a one-night liaison with a woman. I have never created another, nor do I have a desire to.” Dimitri became silent and offered no more on the subject.
"What about women?” Reese asked. “Female vampires? Do you have any ... relationships?"
Dimitri smiled. “I sense a strong interest from you in this matter? Perhaps you wish to unlock more than one mystery of the world?"
Dimitri watched as Reese shifted uncomfortably in his chair and sensed that his heart rate accelerated. Apparently this area was one that Reese was especially interested in. That may be useful later.
"We have not come across any female vampires in our time,” Dimitri continued. “Do they exist? I believe so. Can we have a ... how you say, a relationship? Not in the way you can imagine. But are we capable of love? Of course. However, to love a mortal woman is not possible without the blood thirst, which would lead to a one-sided affair of using the female to achieve our desire—nothing more. As you mentioned earlier, everybody uses somebody for something."
"What about the others, Andre, Iliga, and Josip. How did they take this change?” asked Reese.
"It was difficult ... in the beginning. For all of us,” Dimitri said as he drifted into the memory...
1915
Dimitri remembered the troubled sleep that followed. It was as if there were two realms that beckoned to him—one light and one dark. But only one offered a return to the life he wanted. He chose that one, knowing that the price for such a choice held consequences. Nevertheless, his love for life demanded that he do it.
When Dimitri awoke, he felt weak but his pain was gone. He sat up from the stone table. When he examined his leg where he had been shot, he saw the wound was healed, leaving only a minor blemish on his skin. He wondered how it could have healed so quickly, unless he had been unconscious a very long time. He also found that he was starved, but unsure of what he wanted.
"Dimitri,” Josip called, startling Dimitri. “You are awake?"
"Yes, how are you, Josip?” He slid off of the stone slab he was on and walked to where Josip sat on another similar slab of stone. Josip looked pale but otherwise fine, the wound in his arm also healed.
"I'm fine. My wounds, they are all healed."
"As are mine.” Dimitri said as he glanced around the cavernous area. “What about the others? Franjo, Andre and Iliga?"
"They are fine,” the voice that Dimitri recognized as Alexander said. As before, Dimitri had not heard him enter the room. “They are in another area, still resting."
"We owe you our lives,” Dimitri said. “We would be dead right now if it weren't for you. How were you able to heal us so quickly?"
"You may change your mind after we talk. Come and sit.” Alexander directed them to a table with chairs. “There is much we must talk about."
Dimitri and Josip joined Alexander at the crude table and chairs.
"I don't understand,” Dimitri said. “Why would we change our minds? We're alive."
"You all were nearly dead. There was only one thing I could do to save your lives. I took your human lives and made you as I am. One who walks the night and hides from the light of day."
"Dead? Walks the night?” Dimitri said trying to hold back his laugh as if the man was joking with them. “I mean no disrespect, sir, but why do you jest about such things?"
Josip touched his arm and Dimitri saw the questioning look in his face. He made a facial expression for Josip to wait.
"I do not jest. I will prove it. Do you remember the stories? The creatures that drink of blood and are unable to be seen in a mirror?"
"Yes, I have heard such stories,” Josip said.
Dimitri nodded as well.
"There is a mirror on that wall. Go and look.” Alexander indicated the smooth glass hanging on the rock wall. Dimitri and Josip walked to the location and stood in front of the mirror. They saw light images of themselves, barely noticeable.
"I can see something,” Dimitri said, as he squinted and looked. “The light is poor in this cavern."
"It is good enough to see the truth. You see the faint image of what you were,” Alexander said. “Soon that will be gone.” He walked behind them. Dimitri and Josip looked into the mirror again, but it was empty, with only the books on the back wall visible.
"A trick?” Josip said.
"No trick.” Alexander said, as he gestured back to the nearby table. “There is some cheese, are you hungry?"
"Yes,” said Dimitri, who truly was very hungry even though his mind was trying to comprehend what he was hearing and seeing.
"Eat it then."
Dimitri went to the table and sliced two pieces of cheese. He handed one to Josip and picked up the other. He raised it to his mouth. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed with extreme nausea at the thought of eating such a thing. He dropped the cheese. Josip did the same.
"I can't,” Dimitri said. “I don't understand. I am hungry!"
"Me, too,” Josip added.
"You are hungry for blood,” Alexander said, as he cut his wrist with a knife and drained a fe
w drops of blood into two small cups. Dimitri and Josip watched in fascinated horror.
Dimitri's senses smelled something. It reminded him of the sweetness of a woman's strong perfume.
Alexander moved the two cups toward them, so that they were within their grasp.
Without hesitation, Dimitri and Josip picked up the cups, consumed the contents, licking every possible drop, and set them down on the table. Dimitri was shocked by his actions, yet he felt growing warmth inside of him that made him feel—good.
"Mother of God. This cannot be,” Dimitri said, incredulous. “The walking dead?"
He looked at Josip and saw the same dread expression on his face.
As a child, Dimitri had been told the stories of the creatures of the night. They would steal away the people and consume their blood. They were evil and filthy creatures who feared the light of day because it would consume their evilness, leaving them nothing but empty shells. They lived in the mountains, but occasionally came down to the villages to steal away the young virgins and even the babies shortly after birth. If anyone was suspected of being one of the creatures, they would be banned or even burned to death. Those who were outcast from the village for crimes were said to meet their fate by one of these creatures, a sacrifice to ensure that the innocent people of the village would be left alone.
"No, not exactly,” Alexander said, driving Dimitri from his thoughts. “The term vampire describes you better. You are alive. Your only requirement to live will be to nourish and sustain your body on the live blood of animal or human. The only way you can die is to lose your head, go out in the sunlight or drink the poisoned blood of a dead thing."
"This is true?” Josip said.
Dimitri thought he heard enthusiasm in his friend's voice.
"Oh yes, quite true,” Alexander said. “I'll be honest with you: your circumstances were extreme at the time. You may not want this kind of life. I have heard that there are those who go mad after a while and just kill themselves rather than making the adjustment to the new way of life."
"We cannot go home to our families,” Dimitri said sadly. “Our villages would no longer accept us."
Operation: Immortal Servitude From Declassified Files of Team of Darkness Page 18
