Malice of the Cross

by Jeremy Croston

  “Radu?” I gasped.

  I’d know that particular vampyre’s face anywhere. They called him Radu the Beautiful when he was a human and becoming a creature of darkness did nothing to change that. The only thing marring his features now were a long, jagged scar on his neck and the wounds caused by my dagger throw. With his identity exposed, he too laid down his weapon.

  “I wondered if you still had it, Maximus,” he rasped out. It was clear his voice never recovered from Vlad’s brutal treatment.

  I had thought he died that day. Not that I wasn’t happy to see him, but the vivid image of him bleeding out on the streets of Milan were something I’d never forget. “How did you survive?” I questioned.

  “It turns out it’s harder to kill a vampyre than even Vlad knows.”

  With the pleasantries finished, I came forward and embraced my old companion and friend. “It is good to see you.”

  He choked out a laugh. “Who would’ve thought there’d be a day where I’d allow you to hug me,” he joked. I had to strain to properly hear him, but that was a small price to pay to have a friend returned.

  “Only you would be dastardly enough to make me try to kill you again,” I said. It was like the very first time we met.

  “I saw you in the forest and couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d come here on the rumor of a whelp who killed and pillaged just because he could,” he told me. “I thought you were either dead or long gone. Never did I expect to see you again.”

  It hit me. “Then Abigail is truly dead, for she’s not with me or you.”

  “When I came to, I didn’t see either of you. As the sun was getting ready to rise, I made it for cover to begin to heal. Her chances of survival aren’t good, Maximus.”

  It was a hard truth to hear, but I wasn’t about to get my hopes up. If she was truly gone, hopefully she was in a better place. This world wasn’t good anymore, Drakovia a place of Hell and nightmares. I was hopeful one day Europe would be retaken from the Devil, but that was just a hope.

  Radu sheathed his sword. “Are you looking for Nico Valdez too?”

  “Yes, as a favor to a friend. I promised to kill the bastard and return this area to peace.” I pulled out the cross with the stake. “This weapon was made special for him.”

  The younger Dracul looked on impressed. “Your array of weaponry is formidable. You are still the hunter of your lineage,” he admired.

  “There were dark times,” I told him, honestly. “Between the drink and self-loathing, I wasn’t in a good place. Though I learned that even if I can’t kill Vlad, I can still make his reign over Europe miserable.”

  That got a guttural laugh from Radu. “I like that.” He actually clapped twice. “I like that a lot,” he reiterated. “Yes, Maximus, I’d like to join you on that noble quest.”

  I wasn’t about to say no to an ally who could kill the damned just as easily, maybe even more so, than I could. Even if that weren’t the case, I wasn’t going to turn away a friend I thought was forever gone. “I’d be glad to fight beside you once again, Radu.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  T he sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. Radu, also here in Valdez, had smoked the young vampyre out once but since, has gone to ground. We picked up the trail Radu had started until we couldn’t search any longer. I offered him refuge with Julius and me in our little encampment outside of town. It was on our way back that he asked about the sword hanging off my back.

  “I’d recognize that hilt anywhere. Is the blade intact?”

  I pulled it out. He looked on in confusion at the mixing of metals where the new blade was forged on top of the broken piece of the old blade. “My friend, the one who sent me here, re-made the sword as best he could.”

  He reached for it and I handed it to him. “Why in Hell would you use that ridiculous flail instead of this beauty?”

  “I failed with a sword so I took on a new weapon.” I opened my coat to show him my entire arsenal. “I decided choices would be my best option.”

  Radu looked on impressively at the daggers and the cross. However, his next remark was about my tunic. “I see you have decided to wear the house colors and crest. Denis would be proud that the blue of the Brinza family is in use once more.”

  My father never wore the family crest, in favor of a lower-key look. He chose his tunics based on camouflage. He preferred browns and greens, tunics with a lot of pockets to hold assorted clutter, as my mother would call it. I never understood why my father never embraced the family crest.

  I felt a sense of pride well up in me. “Maybe I can continue to make him proud, even if it’s not in the way I originally intended.”

  Our walk came to an end. As we approached the encampment, Julius exited the refuge and stopped. This was the first time he had seen Radu, but he recognized him no doubt. “By the heavens above. You go by Gabriel, no?”

  The vampyre waved him off. “No longer will I hide behind a false name. You may address me as Radu, priest.”

  “In that case, it is just Julius. With your brother in a position of power from the shadows, the Vatican is corrupted and holy men like myself have been exiled, either by choice or through threat.”

  I hadn’t been concerned with my two friends meeting each other. Both had been ruined by the events that had played out over the past two years and their shared anguish at Vlad’s rise to power was a bonding point. While the three of us ate—Julius had made us fresh game meat and Radu drank the blood from the animal—we plotted a way to rid the world of Nico Valdez.

  Radu, as I mentioned, had dealt with him once. “He is a bully,” he quipped. “The moment he came into contact with someone stronger than him, he fled under the promise he would bring back an army to burn this province to the ground.”

  “That fits with what Alejandro expressed,” I said.

  “Do you know where he fled to?” Julius asked.

  Radu wiped the excess blood from his face. It should’ve disturbed me, after not seeing anything like it for over two years, but it was just like previous times. Maybe it also had to do with being older, more world-wise. Whatever it might have been, my disgust at such a display was long gone. Radu was a vampyre and they needed to feed, that was the way of the world.

  Once he discarded the carcass and cleaned up, he continued. “We are not that far from Nice, the home of Lukas, one of Vlad’s minions. I assume that Nico tucked his tail and went to see the high vampyre for help. Whether Lukas gives it to him or not is another story.”

  “What can you tell us about this Lukas?”

  “He is a devil, in the vein of Vlad, Maximus. Recently, I heard he has taken to hosting public executions of those who oppose him,” he went on.

  “I heard the same rumor on my way to Rota to find you,” Julius concurred.

  “Rota… an excellent place to lay low,” Radu admired. “It is out of the way and I don’t know if Vlad has any desire to take his Middle European kingdom out that far.”

  I was picking the meat out of my teeth while thinking over something. It seemed as if this Nico would be the entryway back into the world of dangerous vampyres. If the whelp was associated with a high vampyre, one that performed public executions, it might be prudent to try and follow the pipeline back to Nice. While I very much wanted to rid the world of this vampyre for Alejandro and his family, killing two birds with one stone would be even sweeter.

  Both of my companions saw the gears turning. “You’re trying to figure out how to use Nico as a way to get yourself into Nice and close to Lukas, aren’t you?” my old friend inquired. The twinkle is his eye said he knew exactly what I’d been contemplating and was thrilled.

  “A very dangerous plan, Maximus,” Radu said thoughtfully. “One that I would very much like to take part in.”

  The rest of the day was spent putting together a plan that even the most cautious of daemon would be too tempted by. As night fell over the Spanish countryside, Julius initiated the first part. As he walked into the village, h
e began chanting Bible verse after Bible verse. Each passing chant was louder than the last. The villagers, fearing for the man’s life, closed up their doors and windows, leaving him to face whatever consequences by himself.

  Little did anyone know that the man was far from alone.

  It didn’t take long. The moon hadn’t even reached its pinnacle when three men dressed in religious robes entered the town. “They are marked as Vlad’s personal priests,” Radu pointed out. “Look at the tattoo markings on their cheeks.”

  Each man sported a red mark, from this distance it looked like an inverted cross. “How crass of them,” I remarked.

  The three men surrounded Julius and began berating him. They were using a different dialect of Latin, so it was hard to translate on the fly. Radu seemed to understand and his eyes began to narrow the longer the tongue lashing continued. Then one of them said something that even I translated just fine: “Bow before us and beg for mercy! Your God is dead and ours will delight in your blood!”

  One kicked Julius’s knees from behind, making my friend drop to the ground. It was at this point we fled from our hiding spot and attacked. The three false holy men had no idea what hit them. Radu bit down deeply on the first, gorging on his blood and the man cried out in agony. It stopped when all the blood was drained from him and his dried out corpse hit the ground with a thud.

  I took care of the original instigator, using the flail to strike him in the stomach. As he hit the ground, the spiked ball of the flail had one more job to do, crush the man’s skull. The steel ball was up to the challenge and the man stopped moving immediately as my weapon finished the arc of its attack.

  The third and final holy man covered up and was cowering in fear. “Please don’t kill me!” he shrieked in his original language, Italian. Radu approached him and kicked him over.

  Looking up at the man who’d just slaughtered his partner without even breaking a sweat, the man continued on begging. “Whatever you want! I was ordered to come here against my will!”

  This was quite pathetic. Julius was back on his feet by now and he took the lead. It was odd to see my friend grab another by the fake priest’s collar the man wore. “You disservice the cloth and yet you have the gall to beg for mercy. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” he quoted.

  “What are you talking about?” the man answered. It was sad that he didn’t even recognize Luke 6:36.

  “Pathetic,” Julius spat. “This man is a fraud and a Pharisee. Death would be too good for him.”

  Radu stepped out, his fangs dripping the blood from his previous kill. “The real priest condemned you to death. I will be happy to carry out the execution.”

  Realizing that his end was nigh unless he came up with something big, the man dug deep. “You don’t want me,” he pleaded. “You want the one who commands me.”

  “Nico Valdez?” I asked.

  “Nico, he is just a servant like me. The man you should be after is Judge Lukas, in Nice. He is the one in this district of Drakovia that issues decrees. It was his decree that sent us back here to make sure no more holy men tried to do anything stupid.”

  We were right. Lukas was the one pulling all the strings out here. “How do we get to him?” I asked harshly.

  “Nico will return tomorrow evening to arrest any that we marked. That is how you get to Judge Lukas.”

  With his usefulness at an end, I held out my hand to Julius. He placed the cross with the stake in it without hesitation. There was just one thing left to do. I plunged the stake straight down into our enemy’s heart. He wriggled for a moment or two before death overtook him.

  “String him up at the village’s entrance,” I told my companions. “I want Nico to know for sure he’s arresting the right people.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  T he villagers stayed in their homes all day. The dead body of the false priest hung from the makeshift sign that used to welcome travelers into the region. That wasn’t the case anymore. Once night fell, the three of us stood by the corpse, wondering when Nico and his band of merry men would show up.

  It didn’t take long. No sooner did darkness replace light as the dominant feature in the sky, than the sounds of horse hooves hitting the ground thundered in. The riders were moving fast and charged past us into the village. There were six of them, all vampyres by the looks of it as they rode by. We watched them, unmoving, circle the village and return to where we were standing, the body of the priest swaying in the breeze.

  The two men in the front dismounted from their steeds once everyone was in position. The lead vampyre was an older man, Nico must have been the second in command. It was clear from the first moment that Nico was no longer in charge of the land, in the eyes of the vampyres.

  “The three of you are you the ones who killed official missionaries from the Vatican?” the older vampyre asked in German.

  Radu stepped forward and removed his coat. The Dracul family crest made the group step back for a second. “I’m Radu, heir to the Dracul name. Who the hell are you to impede me?”

  All five of his subordinates looked to the leader, including Nico. The older vampyre calmed himself and responded. “I am Claude, lead inquisitor for Judge Lukas of Nice. Lukas is the power in this area, Dracul.”

  I applauded him for his faux confidence, but even he wasn’t prepared for the might of a Dracul. Claude’s head bounced off the ground twice before any of them realized that Radu had unsheathed his sword. The vampyre, clad in all black, was standing in the middle of the circle as he finished his attack. Claude’s body joined the head as gravity took over and sent it to the ground, undignified.

  He wiped the blood off the blade as the rest began to worry for their own safety. “As I said, I’m Radu Dracul,” he growled, his voice sounding even more dangerous due to the wound Vlad had inflicted. “If any of you wish to see the next night, you will escort me to Judge Lukas, unharmed.”

  “You, yes, the humans, no.” This was Nico talking for the first time.

  Radu walked out of the circle, allowing me to replace him. “Nico Valdez, I have been searching for you.”

  With the Dracul no longer a threat, Nico puffed his chest out. “A human? Looking for me? How cute.”

  He didn’t find it cute when I ripped the flail off my hip and smashed it against his face. The open, angry wound I left was only matched in rage by the expression he wore. “You die tonight, bitch!” he screamed.

  Nico pulled out two wicked-looking daggers from his jacket before taking it off. I began to twirl the flail, making it impossible for him to close the distance between us. Seeing how inexperienced he was, I lashed out at his feet, causing him to trip and fall face first into the dirt and mud. This was no time to toy with an opponent. With him in a prone position, I unhooked one of my carpenter fish daggers and pounced. The needled blade sank into his back, right along the spine.

  The vampyre was paralyzed. I rolled him over so he would see the face of the man who killed him. “I am Maximus Brinza, hunter of daemons. May the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have mercy on your soul.”

  As promised, I used the cross that Alejandro made especially for this moment. As the stake sank into his heart and life began to leave him, I had one last message to deliver. “Alejandro wanted me to welcome you to Hell.”

  Nico’s eyes grew large as whatever life force he clung to finally dissolved. With a second dead vampyre on the ground, the last four, still on horseback, took a few steps back to distance themselves. Radu just laughed. “You four have two choices, do as I asked or join your friends.”

  “Just think,” Julius spoke. “You would have the honor of presenting Radu Dracul to your Judge, along with a hunter who Vlad personally let live.”

  There was a murmur, mostly in Spanish, amongst them. When they concluded, the new leader, a vampyre by the name of Gregorio, seemed to accept this fate. “We will take you,” he said in broken German.

  This pleased me greatly. I hated the idea of having to leave Nico
alive and due to circumstances, I didn’t have to. As we walked by his corpse, I gave it one last sharp kick for Alejandro. I knew it wouldn’t bring back anyone he had lost, but I couldn’t wait to go back to Rota and tell him his family had been avenged.

  **Southern France; 1778 the year of our Lord**

  The journey from the west of Spain into southern France was tense. Judge Lukas’s men were on high alert at every turn, waiting for Radu to gut them. Radu, however, seemed at ease. He was enjoying the thought of being this terrible predator and soaked in the ill feelings. I had to admit, it was funny to watch. Julius wasn’t quite as comfortable as we were, but he also knew we would defend him with our lives.

  We encountered our first trial in a small fishing village along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. There were two vampyres and a werewolf there to meet the arresting party. When they saw that Claude and Nico weren’t with us, they pulled us off the road.

  With the werewolf growling, a vampyre named Marcus badgered our new-found friend, Gregorio. “Where is Claude?” he asked him over and over again.

  When it became clear that Gregorio wouldn’t be much use, Radu intercepted. “I’m Radu Dracul, younger brother to Vlad himself. Claude crossed me and is dead.” He said it so straight-faced that it was actually hard for me not to laugh.

  Marcus blanched as soon as he realized he was in front of him. “And Nico?” he asked meekly.

  “He crossed the hunter, Maximus Brinza, and paid the price. We are dangerous men, Marcus. I suggest you turn around and pretend you never ran into us. Hell is coming to Nice and I am the one bringing it.”

  My hand was on the flail’s handle, unsure if Marcus and his friends would take Radu’s advice. Then, they did.

  “Come, I think there are taxes to be collected in Monticello,” he told his companions. They fled into the night without another word.

  Gregorio felt the need to clarify where they were going. “Monticello is in the opposite direction of Nice. Your presence will be unknown until we reach our destination.”