Malice of the Cross

by Jeremy Croston

  “This confirms it—the spirit of Denis lives on with you, Max.”

  “Max, your aura was so strong, so pure,” added Abigail.

  I did feel a bit different during the fight. It was as if an unexpected force had given me strength. “The Lord was with me,” I said simply.

  “Maybe,” Radu replied. “Or it could’ve been the lineage of your family finally coming through. Denis, your grandfather, was able to harness it. Ivan, he had more difficulty finding the Brinza heritage.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case it never came,” he reasoned.

  I figured I could accept his explanation. Abigail, speechless, walked over and placed her hands on my face. She gently rubbed it, as if she were trying to see me for the very first time. “There’s no mistake, you are one of the Lord’s chosen soldiers.”

  I went back to scripture. “I can do all things through Him, who strengthens me.”

  “Philippians 4:13,” she responded correctly.

  “If you two are done bonding over old words,” Radu interrupted, “we need to keep moving. With The Jackal dead, we’ve sent a strong message to Vlad. He will return in kind.”

  Abigail slowly removed her hands from my face. “He’s right. We should continue onwards.”

  With a slight nod, Radu journeyed into the dark woods with us on his trail. Before the resting place of The Jackal was out of sight, I turned around one more time, taking in what had happened.

  “That was for you, father. May you rest in peace, finally,” I spoke softly, the words meant only for me and him. Somewhere, in Heaven, I knew he’d seen what I had done, freeing his soul from any taint The Jackal may have placed on it.

  With my heart cleared, I caught back up to Abigail, who slipped her hand into mine as we kept pace with Radu.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  With a small smile, I could answer that question honestly. “Yes.”

  Radu glanced back, giving me just the slightest of looks. I’m sure he understood what that meant to me, even if he would never acknowledge it.

  Chapter Eight

  **Bohemia; 1775 the year of our Lord**

  I t was early summer when we were diverted from our path. Before we made it to Austria, the Ottoman Empire armies rushed into Hungaria. To avoid the conflict, we crossed the border early into Bohemia, having to revise our course. Radu seemed to think this was the most prudent plan, even if Abigail said we should try to blend in and continue to Austria.

  Abigail’s fear of Bohemia was well founded. A few years earlier, a great famine wiped out a good deal of the country’s citizens, allowing the Prussian barbarians to take up residence in pockets throughout the countryside. There was nothing more vicious among the living than a Prussian.

  Radu brushed this off. “Prussians should fear us.” With that, he said no more and here we were.

  Besides the Prussians, there were rumors that the Bohemian lands were plagued by the Buckriders, souls of the damned that rode on horned beasts provided by Satan himself. Even as far away as Moldavia, we knew of the Buckriders and the evils they wrought on the land.

  If they were real, that is.

  I almost asked Radu about them, but I thought better of it. Hopefully, if good fortune was on our side, we wouldn’t be in these cursed lands for long. Still, I didn’t take my hand off my sword. It wouldn’t be prudent to be unprepared in such a dangerous place.

  My fears were put to the test on the very first night in Bohemia. Not long after we left our shelter and made it out to the road, a group of Prussians surrounded us. The unsavory characters were even using guns, uncivilized weapons that took no skill to use.

  The leader of the group approached Radu and placed his finger on his chest. In a crude version of the Germanic language common to the area, he demanded our money. “Give me money, or my men kill you.”

  Oh, was that the wrong choice. Radu twisted the man’s arm right off his body. The Prussian’s face hadn’t even registered what happened when he fell over from the shock of the injury.

  A reasonable man would’ve run. The Prussians weren’t reasonable; instead they tried to shoot him. It didn’t work. Lead bullets ripped into Radu, having no effect. Well, no effect unless you count pissing off the vampyre. That’s when the situation got really bloody. With the arm he’d appropriated, Radu attacked the rest of the Prussians. It was almost comical to watch him beat grown, large men to death with another man’s arm. When the appendage finally became useless, he tossed it aside and used his fangs.

  Abigail and I continued watching in horror as Radu used his superior speed and those long incisors to end Prussian life after Prussian life. Blood poured from the wounds inflicted by the vampyre. A few of the Prussians realized their lives were about to come to an end and decided to run. Radu wasn’t having any of that. He chased them down and allowed their terror to do most of the work while he hovered over them.

  Only when they were properly terrified did he use his fangs to bring about a merciful end. Even in death, the sheer terror the men experienced just moments ago was still haunting.

  There was no need to even unsheath his sword; it was easy enough work with his bare hands, a ghastly reminder of what we were working with. Radu, like a wild animal, ripped open veins and sucked on the red life force as he killed the last remaining men. If this was a show of power because one of them touched him, the pile of corpses would send a clear message to whoever stumbled upon them.

  As the last body fell, Radu kicked it away. “Filth! Never touch a member of the House of Dracul!”

  “That… was something,” I squeaked out.

  He rounded on me. “Do you have a problem with the way I treated those heathens? If so, please speak up, Brinza.”

  “Gabriel,” Abigail addressed him using his preferred name. She was a bit more respectful than I was. “Max and I were both a bit mortified about what just took place.”

  His face was stained red from the blood of the men he drank from. In fact, there were still drops of it dripping off his fangs. His handsome features were marred by the monster we knew was inside, but hadn’t witnessed firsthand until now.

  “I am what I am,” he said blandly. He pulled a rag off one of the corpses closest to him and wiped his face off. “This world is dark; embrace it.”

  “It is a dark world,” a new voice called out, in English.

  Broken out of the three-way dialogue we were having, a new rider appeared just within our line of sight. He was wearing white armor and riding a white horse. Resting against his flank, his longsword caught my eye; the scabbard carried the mark of the Vatican. Rumors of men like him ran rampant—this was one of the secret clergy, skilled warriors dispensed to take care of the dark and dirty underworld that the church didn’t want its followers to know about.

  This clergyman, though, he seemed different. He didn’t come any closer, but he did pull his hood back to reveal an older man with greying black hair. He was missing an ear and there was an ugly patch of skin on his cheek, probably from an old wound that hadn’t fully healed. This was not a warrior who would be intimidated or scared of Radu.

  “What do you want, clergyman?” Radu asked with great contempt. His English was just as impeccable as the unknown warrior’s.

  “To simply issue you a warning, creature of the damned. By orders of the high bishop himself, Bishop Brandon, I have been called to execute you.” He swept his arm towards us. “And your followers.”

  Radu ripped his longsword out, his fangs still present from the last kill. “I dare you to try.”

  The clergyman didn’t take his bait. “Not tonight. I just came issuing a warning. No, when I attack, you won’t be so prepared to defend it.”

  With his statement lingering, the clergyman snapped the reigns on his horse and galloped back into the night. The three of us were left wondering who this new foe was and just how a bishop in the Vatican already knew of us. Radu,
irritated at what just occurred, kicked the corpse of one of the Prussians. The strike literally ripped the dead man’s head from his shoulders and sent the detached body part further into the dark forest.

  Abigail wasn’t shaken. She seemed just as irate as Radu. “How dare those pompous old knaves send a clergyman after us!” Her fists were shaking. “When I needed help and begged for assistance, I was shunned and told my company had to deal with it on its own.”

  “Is that when you lost your eyes?” I came out and asked.

  “Yes. I needed the Vatican’s assistance and was left for dead, in all rights. To find that clergymen are being deployed this far north and west, that drives my anger even further.”

  “Hold on to that anger,” Radu encouraged her. “Both of you need to embrace the darkness within if we are to be successful,” he finished.

  I didn’t much like being told that inner anger and darkness were the keys to success. “Just because the Vatican is against us, that doesn’t mean God is. His light—that will be the key to our success.”

  I’m pretty sure Radu called me naïve under his breath, but didn’t seem eager to fight about it. With enough time wasted, we left the site of the battle and continued our trek south. The rest of the evening was quiet, with barely a whisper of a noise. When night began to show the first signs of dawn, we were close enough to a settlement where we could take up residency for the day. This time, we sprung for an inn, claiming to the innkeeper we were soldiers from a Vatican battalion, stuck in Bohemia. He not only gave us a room, we got a discount.

  Each of us turned in relatively quickly. Being the one closest to the door, I was the only one who was awoken by a soft knock against the creaky wood. I slowly opened the door to see a teenaged boy, fiddling his thumbs. When he saw me looking out, he hopped back to attention.

  He spoke in a similar rough dialect of German that the Prussians spoke, so I could understand him. “Are you the soldiers the innkeeper spoke of?”

  “We are,” I answered.

  He motioned for me to drop my head. Whatever he had to say, he was afraid to say it too loudly. “Master Soldier, in two nights’ time, the Buckriders will destroy our village.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that prediction. “Why do you say that, lad?”

  He took a few breaths before he explained his reasoning. “There was an evil man in this village, he used to rape the young women. A year ago, the blacksmith, Jakub, killed him in the forge. That man’s soul became a Buckrider.”

  The Buckriders, a menace I truly wanted to avoid at all costs. “Are you sure, boy?”

  He nodded and then ran off. Just like that, I was left with another mystery to deal with. I shut the door and laid my head back down on the rolled up coat I was using for a pillow. I had a feeling in my gut that Radu would not see helping relieve the plight of these villagers as necessary as I did.

  Nonetheless, I would find a way to convince him to help.

  Chapter Nine

  “T here is absolutely no way we are staying to help these people,” Radu said with disdain.

  Night had fallen and Radu was ready to leave. It was hard to escape for him; I was blocking the door, not allowing him to flee. Abigail joined me after I explained what the teenager relayed to me. The vampyre couldn’t have looked angrier, even if he tried.

  Radu had to deal with us, we weren’t giving him a choice. “Have either of you two champions of the peasants ever dealt with a Buckrider before?” he asked.

  “No,” was the only word I used for an answer.

  “Nor have I,” Abigail said.

  “Therefore, the two of you have absolutely no leg to stand on in this conversation.” He grabbed his coat again, ready to leave. “Come along, I’d like to make good progress tonight.”

  “You’re going to go without me, then.” I slid away from the door, allowing him to pass if he wished.

  Being a Dracul, I learned to understand that Radu hadn’t been stood up to very much. He certainly wasn’t used to not getting his own way. Even as a vampyre, most people bent to his will. “Very well.” He went to grab Abigail on his way out. “Let’s go, seer.”

  “I’m not going,” she told him, defiantly.

  Seeing both of us standing up against him, he tossed his hands up into the air. “The two of you… think you’re smart sticking together against me.”

  “We’d be even stronger if you joined us, as a teammate and not some rude outsider.”

  “Heaven help me, you’re just like your grandfather,” Radu lamented.

  With his annoyance at us a bit subsided, Radu began to tell us just what a fool’s errand we’d signed up for. I knew about the Buckriders and their legends, but Radu had seen them up close and personal. The stories were true; they were souls of the damned that rode spectral horned beasts. What most people didn’t know was that if a Buckrider killed you, it dragged your soul to Hell. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Die from their wound and your soul was forever damned.

  As if that weren’t enough of a reason to reconsider this venture, the Buckriders rode in groups of twelve, no more, no less. We were going to be severely outnumbered against a foe with no apparent weaknesses. Radu was not what one would call a cheery fellow about our prospects.

  Seeing the odds against us, Abigail began to show some second thoughts. “As much as I’d like to help these people, I wonder if we truly can.”

  “There has to be a way to slay the beasts, Radu,” I pleaded.

  He stroked the small of his chin. “So much like Ivan,” he said offhandedly. Clapping his hands together, “There is a way, though you won’t like it.”

  This sounded promising. “Please tell me.”

  “Buckriders are tied to the area they haunt, that’s why they are only seen in Bohemia. If this place is close to a nest of them, then the heart of the original Buckrider must be near.”

  I immediately regretted my enthusiasm. “The heart? Oh, this must be a good one, seeing that shit-eating grin on your face.”

  His smiled only grew wider. “It’s easy work, Brinza. All you have to do is stab the heart, once the Buckriders are preoccupied that is.”

  That told me everything I needed to know. This was going to be miserable work. “How do the Buckriders become preoccupied?”

  Lo and behold, Radu actually had a plan to deal with the pests should we need it. He claimed it was only for emergency situations, but the truth was simple: Radu just didn’t want to be bothered with helping. When push came to shove, Radu was out for his own ends and nothing more. The fate of these people didn’t even pop into his mind. It was only the pressure from Abigail and me that got to him. Even that was waning, as Abigail looked evermore fearful about the situation.

  Radu’s plan…oh, what a plan it was. The first part was for two of us to act as distractions, luring the Buckriders away from their den, once we’d located it. The third person would then infiltrate the trap-laden area to find the heart and stab it. Of course, there was a catch to that as well. The pheromones that the heart produced caused hallucinations. Only one with a pure heart would be able to overcome them. How fairytale.

  Both of them looked at me when he said that pure of heart shit. “What?”

  “Come on, Brinza. It’s not going to be me,” Radu reasoned.

  “Nor me. My heart, it’s cold, not like yours.”

  Great, just great. It was my turn to wonder if it was just best to go off and leave the Buckriders alone. Too late, I’m afraid, I told myself. “With your vast knowledge, Radu,” I laid it on thick, “where would the Buckriders den be?”

  “Usually in graveyards or abandoned places of worship, if I remember correctly.” Because that was reasonable. “Which means in this area, there are two possible locations.”

  “How familiar are you with these parts?” I asked him.

  Did he look at me with pity? “Maximus, I’ve been alive for over three hundred years. I’ve seen all the corners of this continent and some of the next. Nowh
ere we’re going is a new discovery for me.”

  “I keep forgetting you aren’t our age,” Abigail offered.

  I had to agree. Radu looked no more than a man who just entered the prime of life. He was a master of concealing the two telltale signs of his condition to those he didn’t want to know—his fangs and red eyes. With all of that, it still came as a shock, even though it shouldn’t, how experienced he was. Did my grandfather and father go through this with him as well?

  “C’mon, if we’re going to do this, we do it tonight. I don’t want to be in this village longer than needed.”

  The three of us left our room and went down to the barely occupied main room. The men, sitting around drinking, got quiet as they saw us. Before they’d stopped talking, I heard one of them say ‘Buckrider.’ They were worried but they weren’t about to share their fears with strangers. Their eyes followed us all the way out the door.

  The moment we stepped out into the night, behind us, the tension in the inn dissipated. The men began to whisper about our strange appearance and what we were really doing here. I wanted to go back inside and tell them we were about to rid them of their Buckrider issue, but something told me that Radu would frown upon such a statement. It was a God’s honest miracle he was actually going along with this. No need to piss him off before we finished our objective.

  Abigail was relieved to be outside. “That was pleasant. You would’ve thought we had the plague.”

  “We are strangers, ones who slept all day and left at night. They are suspicious,” Radu told us.

  Even if they had suspicions we were part of Hell’s army, no one would challenge us. It took a special kind of mortal to stand up to a daemon and I knew the kind of man, or woman, that would. None that I had seen in the inn possessed the material necessary. Not that I blamed them, either. The life of a hunter wasn’t a long lasting one, normally.

  Radu guided us north of the village. I had my head on a swivel, waiting for the clergyman to show up again. We made it to our destination without laying eyes on him. That was probably a good thing; we’d picked the right location and came across the Buckrider den.