Elixir of Flesh
Page 21
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That day Madalina woke from an awful sleep. In her fevered delirium she had dreamt many unpleasant dreams. In one, she had tried to return to the convent and the sisters rejected her and labeled her a witch and prepared to tie her up with her sheets and set her atop a pyre. In another, while walking in the forest, she was trapped in a net and bit by a vampire she didn’t know on the neck, and it caused her blood to boil like it was molten lead.
When she awoke, the sheets she lay in were soaked with her sweat and were wrapped tightly around her due to all of the wriggling and squirming in her sleep. She felt like her whole body was in agony. All of her muscles ached, and her skin burned. It felt like she had been dipped in a bubbling cauldron and had been subsequently tenderized by a large mallet all night. Her throat was scratchy and sore, as if she had swallowed an acorn whole. Even her blood felt like it was in pain as it pumped through her veins.
Her first thought as she opened her eyes was that she was in her bed in the convent, and she turned to look beside her with the full expectation of seeing Dorina and Nicoleta across the room, but instead she only saw a wall. The memory of what had transpired, slowly dawned on her, and she looked around with apprehension at her new surroundings.
The room where she lay was beautifully decorated with tapestries hung on the walls, elaborate patterns painted onto the ceiling and a beautiful rug covering the floor. A wooden ceiling and a tiled floor covered the bare rock of the cave. A single candle illuminated the whole room, which was devoid of windows. Three doors led, respectively into a small toilet compartment, into an expansive wardrobe and out of the room into the hallway.
She decided to explore the room, even though her body was profoundly weak and she ached all over. Stepping out of the bed, she discovered, first of all, how cold the room was, and she shivered in her light nightdress. She hobbled over to the door to the toilet compartment and discovered Vad’s private toilet, which drained into a communal pit. She was quite impressed; a private toilet was a luxury she’d never had.
When she walked over to the wardrobe, she found an array of clothes hung and folded: cloaks, gloves, elegant suits and a large collection of casual shirts and trousers of a soft, airy material she liked the touch of.
When she tried to door out into the hall, she found it locked and walked back to the bed. She could see just how ornate the bed was. The bedspread that covered it was an intricately embroidered fabric, replete with swirling shapes and designs. Underneath it were several layers of sheets, and beneath that were the many layers of cushioning that nestled her to sleep through the night. She climbed back in and relaxed in the soothing softness of the padding, sinking into the warmth that enveloped her.
Within a few minutes, the door opened and Vad entered. He saw immediately that Madalina was awake, and he approached her to inspect her more closely and feel her forehead.
“How am I doing?” she asked weakly.
“If you’re alive, you’re doing well. But the danger hasn’t passed. We still must wait.”
Vad pushed back her lips to look at her teeth, and said with approval, “Good.”
Madalina felt with her tongue what he was referring to. Her canines seemed slightly longer, and her incisors also appeared to have grown. Seeing a vampire from up close, she could see that Vad’s canine teeth were considerably longer than a human’s, and that his incisors had also grown longer and more pointed. She could imagine those large, sharp teeth tearing into human flesh, which prompted her to ask, “Food for me?”
“You’re not ready,” he told her, asking, “You were Madalina, right?”
She nodded, “Yes.”
He said, “From now on, we’ll simply call you ‘Lina.’ You’re our first Lina.”
Lina asked in a weak and helpless voice, “When will I be better?”
Vad said in a way that seemed to her like callous indifference, “If we’re lucky, soon. If we’re not, never.”
She felt his coldness like the sting of reproach. She was still unfamiliar with the vampires’ manners, and she was especially unaware of what responsibilities this vampire had willingly taken on when he’d infected her.