Chapter 12
Asha
Vasile watched Vad flee out of the range of his arrows and conceded that they’d have to let him go. He dropped down out of the tree and attended to Anton. Anton was now coughing due to the choking and looked as if his neck was deeply bruised. What concerned Vasile, though, was the blood that covered Anton’s face and neck.
Anton, after another bout of coughing, was on his feet shouting, “We have to go after Constanta. We can’t let her die.” But Vasile restrained him.
“There’s a stream nearby. We need to wash you off,” Vasile insisted. It was all Vasile could do to restrain Anton, who was determined to break free of Vasile’s grip and catch the vampires.
Vasile had to shout at him, “It’s too late! You saw how fast they run! They’re already underground. We’re not going to catch them. Now let’s get you washed off so you don’t get infected.”
Anton settled down and let Vasile lead him several hundred paces away to where a tiny stream trickled. Anton was quietly crying as he walked, tears streaming down his cheeks, which formed tracks through the now dry drops of blood. Anton leaned down into the stream and dipped his whole head into the water, splashing water over his face and neck and clothes and through his hair.
When he lifted his head up, the water dripping off of him, Vasile told him, “We really should take you back to Andrei’s. He has some medicines which should neutralize any infection you may have contracted.”
“No,” Anton refused, “We have to track them. We have to find their cave. We have to get in there and get my sister. She may not be dead yet. We still have a chance.”
“Your sister was the girl?” Vasile asked, now finally understanding. He took a deep breath, uncertain, conflicted. “Did you get any blood in your eyes? In your mouth? Did you taste any of that vampire’s blood?”
To each question Anton answered “no,” until Vasile asked him, “Did you smell the vampire?”
“I did,” Anton had to admit, “He smelled like sour onions,” trying to put to words the peculiar aroma that emanated from beneath Vad’s skin.
“Diseases are passed by scent,” Vasile explained, “At least, I think, most of them are. Perhaps even vampirism. That’s why we have to wear the masks. Even you know that. One is supposed to never breathe in the odor of a sick man no matter what. I fear that you may have contracted their disease in your contact with the vampire. If we get you back to Andrei’s immediately I think we can forestall it.”
“I don’t care,” Anton told Vasile, “If I become a vampire, then I’ll use my powers to rip apart all those responsible for my sister’s death with my bare hands. All I care about is finding her, and there’s no time to waste.”
Vasile didn’t want to try and force Anton. He simply nodded in the direction they’d seen the vampires flee, and he said, “This way.”
Vasile had watched Vad by the moonlight for a substantial distance. He had a general idea where Vad had disappeared, and he took Anton to the area, which was only a few hundred paces from where they’d been perched in wait. It consisted of a dry streambed, where some dense patches of shrubbery grew. Several exposed boulders poked out of the ground, and they were in the mist of a large array of trees.
Vasile told him, “To the best of my ability, I would say this is about where he disappeared. It’s hard to see any traces of blood in this dark, but the few drops of blood I’ve seen, seem to lead to here. I can guarantee I’ve searched this patch of woods before, and if there is an entrance to a cave around here, I can’t find it.”
As Vasile calmly said these words, Anton’s anxiety was palpable, scrambling around looking everywhere in the bushes for any sign of the vampires. Anton clambered about, kicking up dirt and pounding the ground and swearing to himself under his breath.
After watching him for a minute or two, Vasile suggested, “We should wait and watch.”
Anton conceded, and the two of them climbed a tree within sight of the streambed and watched. Anton couldn’t keep himself still and had to be constantly calmed by Vasile, who silently watched the ground below them and kept his ears open for the sound of vampires.
After a long wait, once the night was about at its nadir, their patience was rewarded.
In the distance, Vasile and Anton saw another troop of vampires approaching. The vampires were in a group of four and they too carried a young prisoner between them. Vasile watched this group pass by close to the tree where he and Anton were perched.
The vampires walked down into the dry streambed, into the midst of a thick nest of underbrush, and disappeared. At this moment, Anton was ready to go follow them, but Anton restrained him, since he heard more vampires coming. In fact, there were two other troops of vampires arriving, each with four members. One of the troops bore a victim in his early twenties, and the last bore no victim.
All eight of these vampires followed the same path as the first four, streaming in a line into the bushes and disappearing.
By this time, the first lights of dawn were creeping over the horizon, and Anton was unwilling to wait any further. He dropped down from the tree and hustled towards the bushes where he’d seen them disappearing, pushing the branches aside and plunging himself in. But all he saw beneath was another of the exposed boulders jutting out of the ground. He pounded on the boulder again and again, as if he could break it with his bare hands. He tried to push it, to lift it, to do anything he could, but the rock wouldn’t move.
Finally giving up, he sprawled himself across the boulder and let out a long pent up flurry of tears. He buried his eyes in his arms and sobbed repeatedly, imagining the worst indignities afflicted upon his sister and thinking about enduring an entire life without her. Her absence would be something he’d never be able to shake off, something more persistent than his shadow, which at least had the decency to quit him in darkness.
Anton turned to look at Vasile there with him, his eyes red and his cheeks still wet, and he said to him, “She’s gone forever.”
Elixir of Flesh Page 31