* * *
Anton was there again at Andrei’s shop that next day and knocked on the door diffidently.
Ileana let him in and greeted him warmly when he entered. “Anton. Glad you came back. Always a pleasure to see you,” she said, before retreating to the other side of the long counter.
Andrei was standing next to her and said, “So, I’m guessing that you’re showing up here because you haven’t changed your mind.”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” Anton said, speaking in a quiet voice.
“Are you sure?” Andrei asked.
“I’m sure,” Anton said in a voice exactly like someone who wasn’t sure.
“Well, I’ve talked to Vasile,” Andrei said, “He’s willing to give you a shot. He has asked me to tell you in detail about what’s involved in this business, to really make sure you know what you’re getting into before you commit. I’m going to take you back, and tell you all about what I do. And if your mind still doesn’t change, then Vasile will take you on and show you what he does.”
Anton hopped over the counter and Andrei led him into the back, telling Ileana, “I’ll be a few minutes.”
They passed through a shelf-lined hallway, where surplus quantities of medicines, ointments, balms, alcohols and vampire wares were stored. They continued to the workroom, which had a high ceiling and like all of the shop and house, was very dark, with thick windowless walls protecting them from the dangerous forests that surrounded them. The workroom was lit with several large torches and a few candles, which threw flickering shadows in every direction.
The large cauldron where whole vampires were soaked and cooked dominated the room. As Andrei stepped up to the cauldron, he explained, “When Vasile brings me a vampire, he’ll come through this door,” pointing to a thick, heavy door leading into the workroom from outside, “and we’ll put the vampire into this cauldron. We have to be careful, since the vampires are infectious and none of us here are really interested in becoming vampires ourselves. The liquid in this pot is alcoholic, and we add vinegar to it. The vampire is cooked at a low temperature. The cooking and the odor of the vinegar eliminate the infectious miasma, the “bad air.” But, because we cook the vampire meat slowly, we preserve the vital energy. It’s the vital energy that makes you healthy and strong when you eat it: because you’re eating the vampire’s potent life force. We get the benefits of vampire’s vital energy without the risk of becoming a vampire. I don’t really understand it that well. My predecessor developed this part of the processing nearly a century ago. He was more of the natural philosopher than I am, willing to try new things out and conduct experiments with livestock. After that step we separate and dry the parts out, which allows us to preserve the vampire meat without it going bad and create different types of medicines.”
“Do you eat the vampire wares yourself?” Anton asked. After Andrei nodded, Anton asked, “What’s it like?”
“The taste is off-putting. We have a whole range of products, which have different tastes, but none are really pleasing to the tongue,” Andrei said as he curled his nose in disgust, “You’ll have to mix it with something, or cook it into something. The benefits are worth it, though. They’ll make you stronger, faster, healthier, younger, and more attractive. They’ll cure diseases; they’ll end ailments; they’ll change you. Vasile depends upon them heavily to be a better hunter. You’ll have to consume them too, and if you bring in vampires, I’ll be glad to provide.”
Anton listened intently as Andrei moved around the room and displayed some of his recently prepared vampire wares. When Andrei opened one box and Anton gave it a sniff, he recoiled in disgust.
“There are downsides to the medicines, too. You will become like a vampire in every way: you’ll start to become more sensitive to light; your skin will burn more easily; you’ll have more nightmares; you’ll probably start to become more irritable; and,” Andrei explained, adding the last confidentially, “between us, you’ll lose your sex drive. These are all temporary effects and they’ll wear off if you stop taking the medicine.”
Andrei took Anton through more of the shop, showing him what he was doing with the most recently acquired vampire carcass, which had been mostly processed but had some parts still being worked, dried, fermented, ground and such. Anton eventually cut Andrei short and told him he had to return to his father’s farm and really couldn’t spare any more time. He also told Andrei that he hadn’t been dissuaded.
“I’ll see you this evening. Remember that you’ll not be able to keep this from your father,” Andrei reminded Anton as he left, “Don’t even try.”
Anton nodded and left. As he began to jog back towards the farm, he thought with apprehension about what he’d committed himself to.
His father’s farm was somewhat close to the town center, but still nearly a half league away. He was breathing heavily when he stepped into the house to grab a bit of bread to eat and perhaps nip some pottage from the stove to make up for the lunch he’d missed. But as he was heading back out of the house with a bit of bread in his hand to return to work, he ran directly into his father, who stood in the door and blocked his way.
Anton stopped at the sudden sight of his father, simply startled at first, but becoming nervous as he saw his father’s displeasure.
“Where have you been?” Josif asked, “You left yesterday too. Going into town I suppose.”
“Yes,” Anton said, “Just into town.”
“Don’t do it anymore. We don’t have time for that,” Josif said, “There’s work that needs to be done, and it does not wait. I need you here.”
“Yes, father,” Anton bowed his head in subservience and pushed past him out the door. After a moment he raised his eyes again and turned back to his father, saying, “But father, I wanted to work in town. To earn some money.”
“If you’re looking for work, there’s plenty of it here. I’ve got enough work to fill every hour of the day.”
Josif then stopped and he asked ominously, “Wait. This isn’t about Vasile looking for an apprentice? Is that what you mean by work?”
Anton kept his head bowed and didn’t say a word. Josif objected forcefully, “No! No son of mine is going to do that! Crouching in trees in the middle of the night, dragging vampire corpses to Andrei’s so he can chop them up and sell them to spoiled aristocrats like Gabor?”
“Don’t you see, father,” Anton said, raising his eyes and responding with energy, “That the wealth that Vasile earns is a way out of serfdom. No more Gabor, no more landlord of any kind. You’ll be able to have your own land—we’ll be able to have our own land—and every bushel of its produce will be ours. We can move away from here to better fields far away from the vampires.”
“You will be killed before you raise enough,” Josif responded, “Vasile has been lucky. You will die just as all of the other vampire hunters who have tried have failed and died. And then where will I be left? Only your sister and mother to help me as I age? No! It’s foolishness. And besides, do you think that Gabor will simply let me leave if I want my own land? Do you think I’ll jut be able to go out and buy my way into the aristocracy? There are more barriers than money. He has the law on his side. Him and his buddies write the laws. I cannot simply leave. He has a choice whether he wants to let me leave, and he will not. I can guarantee it. I have known that pig for too long to believe that he will do otherwise.”
Anton listened to all that his father said with bent down head and growing anger. He finally sprang upon his father with an unleashed growl and said to him, “You will not prevent me!” as he grabbed his father’s shirt and pushed him back inside against the wall. Pots shook on the wall from the force of the impact, and Anton raised a hand to punch his father across the jaw, but he stopped and let his father go.
His father wasn’t ready to cower, though. This was not an even matchup. The nearly forty-year-old Josif was considerably larger than his sixteen-year-old son and he grabbed his boy and struck hi
m across the face more than once.
Anton freed himself from his father’s grip and left the house in a hurry, slamming the door behind him and running at full speed across the pasture. He ran as fast as he could and pushed himself to the limits of his endurance, until he couldn’t take it anymore. His lungs ached and his throat was raw as he dropped to the dirt and hunched over on his knees to cry.
He felt at once so incensed and so powerless. But he hated to see himself in this condition: angry, frustrated, on the precipice of violence. He stood up, dried his tears and pushed all of his anger and frustration into his gut. He looked out over the green grass and remembered that his father had pointed out a place where their fence needed repairing and he headed in that direction.
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