by Elena May
The guards had placed her in a cart by herself, away from Andre and Lidia. She had seen or heard no sign of Vlad after he had left the basement cell.
The stony field was dark before her, but as she stared ahead, a bright light emerged from the night. As they approached, it grew brighter and brighter, and soon Myra saw that it was many lights, fires and torches, illuminating the high castle before her.
A surge of terror mixed with nostalgia rushed through Myra’s heart. She had thought she would never see this place again, these towers, the high bridge, and the banners of the clear blue sky. A place of music, and dance, and chess, and books, and stimulating conversations over a glass of wine by the fireside. A place of fear, hatred, and suffering. A place that had changed her forever, for better or worse.
The cart stopped by the stables, and a guard took her by the arm and led her inside. Myra followed into a wing of the Palace she had never visited before. The guard left her before a large ebony door, and Myra turned the knob.
She stepped inside a room of pure white. Snow-white sheets hung on the walls and spread across the floor, covering everything. A white coat rack stood by the wall, laden with long white coats. Armida, dressed in a flowing white gown and white gloves, stood by the only piece of furniture—a white table. On top of the table were three white boxes and a green plastic bottle, which, together with Armida’s red hair, provided the only splash of color in this place. The heavy smell of eucalyptus and lemongrass filled the air.
“Take these.” Armida reached into one of the boxes and took out what looked like white nylon bags. “Put these over your boots. And put on one of these coats. Leave your backpack here—you can pick it up on your way out.”
“Why?” Myra asked, noticing the vampire wore the same nylon bags around her own shoes as well.
“So many germs live in the ground your walk on. The lack of sunlight doesn’t bother them—some even prefer it that way.”
This did nothing to answer her question, but Myra did as asked. “Now, give me your hand,” Armida said. She took the bottle from the table and squeezed a thick transparent gel onto Myra’s palm. A sharp chemical scent mixed with the smell of eucalyptus in the air. “Spread this over your hands.”
Myra spread the cool gel across her skin and watched it evaporate. Armida reached into the second box and handed her a pair of white rubber gloves. “Put these on.”
“Why did I need to put this substance on my hands if I’m wearing gloves?” Myra asked.
Armida rolled her eyes. “Humans. No wonder diseases kept killing you for centuries before you figured out how to fight back. If you put on the gloves without disinfecting your hands first, you will contaminate their outer surface. Gloves are not magically clean. If you touch something dirty with them, they become dirty.”
Myra took the gloves and slowly put them on. They had to stretch to fit her hands, and the plastic stuck together, getting in the way. Armida watched her with a grin. “Looks like this is the first time you are doing this. Now, one final touch.” She reached into the third box and took out a small medical mask.
Myra’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not wearing one.”
“I am a vampire,” Armida said. “Bacteria and viruses cannot live in my breath. Now, put it on.”
Once Myra did, Armida walked to the wall and lifted one of the hanging sheets to reveal a white door. She opened it and stepped through it to the other side, and Myra followed. They walked through a long white corridor. Smoke rose from burners, smelling of cinnamon. They reached the end and stepped into another room of pure white.
Andre sat on a bed, his back and head propped by pillows. Lidia sat next to him, wearing a white coat, rubber gloves, and a mask matching Myra’s own. The Prince stood on the other side of the bed, wearing his usual red and black.
“You’ll operate on him?” Myra said, surprised her voice was clear from behind the mask.
Vlad nodded. “I understand you have never performed a surgery at the Resistance. Your friend tells me she is the healer’s apprentice. She and you will watch and learn.”
“I’m not your lab rat,” said Andre. “You’ve never asked for my permission.”
The Prince looked at him. “Forgive me. Would you, please, permit me to save your life?”
“No.”
The Prince smiled. “I see. May I ask why?”
“I don’t trust you,” said Andre. “Why would you want to save me? I’m your enemy, and my life won’t give you any benefit. Lidia and Myra will tell our General it was your enemies who injured me, so they won’t kill your friend when I die.”
“I will be honest with you,” Vlad said. “It makes no difference to me whether you live or die. I don’t want to help you out of the goodness of my heart, or to score points with the Resistance. I could not care less about any of this.” He took a step towards the bed. “But I admit I cannot resist the thrill of performing a successful surgery. Of taking all the knowledge I have collected across the centuries and putting it into practice. Of understanding how the human body works and fixing what others may deem irreparable. I want to save your life because, plain and simple, I think it would be fun to do so.”
Andre’s eyes narrowed. “That… is strangely reasonable.” He snorted. “Cold and cruel, perhaps, but reasonable. You know, Prince Vladimir, you’re nothing like what I imagined.”
“Perhaps one day, when we have more time, you can tell me what you imagined,” Vlad said. “But that day will never come unless you let me do this.”
“Very well,” Andre said. “In your own twisted way, I believe you actually want to save my life. Let’s do this!”
Vlad smiled and nodded. He walked to a cabinet and took out a few glass vials. He poured the contents into a bowl, and a foul, rotten smell rose into the air.
“What’s this?” Andre asked.
“I’ll give you sleeping pills,” said Vlad, “but they won’t be enough. We don’t have the resources for a proper anesthetization, so we have to improvise. What I am preparing for you now is as close to an efficient and safe anesthesia as we can get.”
“What’s in it?” Myra asked.
“The usual ingredients,” said Vlad. “Lettuce juice, opium, henbane, hemlock juice, gall from a castrated boar, and vinegar.”
Lidia looked up. “Hemlock is a poison.”
Andre shifted against his pillows. “Are you trying to poison me?”
“Many of these are poisons,” the Prince said. “The line between poison and medicine is very thin. This concoction was used in the Middle Ages, and, yes, it is risky, but it is the best we have.”
“I want to proceed without it,” said Andre.
“Impossible,” said Vlad. “The painkillers will not get you far. I can bind you to the bed so you would not move and hurt yourself, and I can give you something to bite on, but this will not be enough. I cannot in good conscience operate on you without anesthesia.”
Andre scolded. “I won’t drink your poisons.”
Vlad ran a hand across his face. “Perhaps there is something else that will ease your pain.” He walked to Armida and whispered something in her ear. She laughed and left the room.
“You know,” Andre said, “I’m surprised you claim to have a conscience in the first place.”
Vlad started placing the vials back into the cupboard. “I have a strong system of values and morals that I adhere to. It might be completely different from yours, but it exists.”
Myra snorted. “So, it’s a belief system in which eating people is fine, but causing them pain isn’t? And it’s not like I’ve never seen you hurt a human.”
“I eat to survive,” said Vlad. “I torture to gain information or to push others onto a path I have designed for them. But causing pain to my patient is pointless and should be avoided.”
Andre was looking at the Prince, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful, and Myra had a strange feeling that Andre respected Vlad for his beliefs.
The door opened and Armida ente
red, carrying a small polished clay cup painted in green and brown and a bottle filled to the top with an amber liquid. A single wooden stick, stripped clear of the bark, was inside the bottle. “What is it?” asked Andre. “Not another poison or gall from a castrated boar?”
“No,” the Prince said. “A special drink from my homeland. It will help you relax and will lessen the pain.”
Myra remembered what Tristan had said about Vlad’s homeland. “It’s not fermented horse milk, is it?”
Vlad opened the bottle, and the strong smell of alcohol made Myra choke even from the other side of the bed. “Fermented and distilled grapes,” he said and poured it into the small clay cup.
Andre grinned. “Now we’re talking.”
The Prince brought the cup to his own lips. “Would you like me to drink first?”
“No,” Andre said. “You could easily pick a substance that affects me but not you, so I don’t see the point. If you wanted to kill me, all you needed to do was refrain from doing anything at all. I trust you.” He took the cup in his hands. “Besides, I wouldn’t want you drinking this before operating on me.”
Andre twirled the small clay cup to let the air in and took a slow, appreciative sniff. Myra stared in wonder as Andre drank the liquid in small sips, letting it roll around his mouth and obviously enjoying it. She has never seen a human do this and had always assumed this manner of appreciating one’s drink was a vampire thing.
But she had forgotten that Andre had grown up in the Old World. She had forgotten how much he had been through. Reaching the Resistance all the way from France, a refugee from the Nightfall, surviving for months all by himself. Pushing on and on through the ruins of the Old World, looking for other humans, in a time when large bands of vampires roamed the land, hunting down survivors.
And he must have had a rich life before that. In all likelihood, he had taken food and drink for enjoyment and not only for survival. Perhaps, in some small way, he could relate more to Vlad than to people born after the Nightfall.
“This is excellent, Your Highness,” Andre said, handing Vlad the empty cup. “Perhaps after I recover, we could share a glass.”
“I would love that,” Vlad said. Myra looked at them, at these two men of the Old World, and wondered if she could ever begin to understand what they had been through.
After Andre had taken the sleeping pills and they had started to take effect, the surgery began. But Myra barely noticed the blood and the pain. All she saw were the Prince’s deft fingers, moving so fast they became a blur in front of her eyes, cutting, stitching. No human surgeon could ever hope to come close to this speed and precision. How much good could the vampires do if they chose to use their skills in the service of humans? This insane speed meant shorter surgeries, which would reduce the risk of clotting and infection and save many lives. But instead, these monsters had chosen to kill and destroy.
Once Andre was sleeping peacefully, Vlad left Armida to watch him and led Myra and Lidia out of the room. “We have taken care of the most urgent matter,” he said. “Now is time to address your initial purpose. You have come to negotiate Tristan’s release.”
“We need to contact the Resistance,” Myra said. “If we’re late, they might think you harmed us.”
They left the surgery wing, stopping only briefly to remove their coats and gloves and pick up Myra’s luggage, and walked down the corridor, going up and down winding stairs, crossing bridges that connected the castle’s many towers. Myra threw a glance through every passing window, trying to determine which direction they were going, and the stars stared back at her. South, west, south again.
“Your friend needs to stay here until at least next nightfall,” Vlad said. “Lidia, perhaps you can travel back and tell your people what happened. My guards will escort you halfway. Myra and Andre will stay here and return in a day.”
Lidia’s eyes darted from Vlad to Myra, then back. “You won’t harm them?”
“You have my word.”
Lidia glared at him. “You might have somehow charmed Andre with your bluntness and your strong liquor, but these tricks don’t work on me.”
Vlad smiled. “Indeed. You distrust my word—then trust this. I will never do anything that puts Tristan in danger.”
“Apart from leaving him behind,” Lidia said. “Right after drinking him dry, as you tried to drink me.”
“Lidia,” Myra said as Vlad paled. “Now is not the time. We’ve come to negotiate. Please. I trust him.”
Lidia crossed her arms and frowned. “Fine. But you really think Andre can travel in a day?”
“My people will transport him in a cart, up until the point where Casiel captured you,” the Prince said. “Your people will come and meet us there, a day from now. Bring a stretcher or whatever you have. I will give you antibiotics and anticoagulants and instructions for what he needs to take and when. I trust you or your doctor can remove the stitches yourselves once the wounds have healed?”
“I believe we can.” Lidia looked at Myra. “You’re sure about this?”
“This is what we came for,” Myra said, her eyes darting to the tapestries on the walls, showing hunts and feasts. Finally, they were somewhere familiar—in the wing that housed the Prince’s study.
“Very well,” Lidia said. “I’ll do my best to convince Zack not to kill the pretty vamp.”
Vlad’s gaze darkened. “You should do better than that.”
“Or what?” said Lidia. “You’ll kill us all? You’ve been trying to destroy us for fifty years and never succeeded.”
Vlad’s lips curled, but his eyes remained cold. “My dear girl. I have never tried to destroy you. If I had, you wouldn’t be standing here now.”
“Enough,” said Myra. “Can we focus on the current problem? We need to get the news to Zack before he starts worrying.”
Vlad waved his hand, calling two guards to him. He instructed them to escort Lidia to wherever she desired, and Myra smiled. Lidia would most probably dismiss her escort as soon as they were out of the Palace. She threw her friend one last look as the guards led her away behind a corner.
Wordlessly, Vlad turned his back on Myra and walked away, in the direction leading to his study. Myra stared after him for a moment and then followed.
Chapter Thirteen
Changed
Vlad did not speak as they walked down the familiar path to his study. Myra’s feet sank into the soft carpet, and her eyes drifted to the rich tapestries on the walls—hunts and battles, feast and dances. The first time her captors had dragged her down this corridor, she had awaited her death. Later, she had walked this path by herself many times, wondering what worlds awaited her—a new book, a new dance lesson, a new hunt, a new opera. But those times were gone forever.
They entered the spacious study, and Myra’s head swam as she took in the laden bookshelves. A chessboard and two checkerboards covered the table, all three frozen in the middle of ongoing games. She sank into a plush armchair, her throat dry and her knees like rubber. Vlad took a seat opposite her, interlaced his fingers in his lap, and leaned back. The silence stretched between them, and goose bumps rose along Myra’s arms.
“Well?” the Prince said at last.
Myra’s eyes drifted from the bookshelves, to the familiar tapestry of the clear blue sky. Shaking, she met his gaze. “My friends think I’m here to negotiate Tristan’s release,” she said. Sweat covered her palms as she reached into her backpack. She laid down the cloak and pin Vlad had left with Tristan in the cave on the chair next to her. “They send these as proof that they have him.” She looked at him and shuddered as his gaze fixed on the golden pin. “I will pretend to have followed my leader’s orders. And when I go back home, I’ll stall my people for as long as I need to arrange Tristan’s escape.”
The Prince stared at the chessboard. He reached out, took a white knight, and moved it. “Your people seem very relaxed about negotiating with me,” he said. “Don’t they fear I would throw all my resourc
es into finding and destroying them?”
“No,” Myra said. “They know you can’t find us. Our hideout is guarded by powerful spells.”
“I see.” He took the black queen and rotated it in his fingers. “I assume you mean the charm that doesn’t allow a vampire to enter unless invited?”
“Oh no, not that one,” Myra said. “We have read that such a spell exists, but none of us is skilled enough in magic, so we can’t replicate it. This is some other spell the druids cast a long time ago, so that vampires can’t find the place unless a human leads them there.”
His eyes widened and he laid the black queen on the table, away from the board. “The Falaich spell?”
Myra shrugged. “No idea what it’s called. I only know it’s worked so far.”
“Of course it has.” He stood up and started pacing in front of the tapestry of the clear blue sky. “It used to be a common spell long ago, simple and effective. Druids practiced it often, when humans still believed in our kind. When we faded into legend, so did the knowledge of all spells and protections.” He stopped pacing, and his eyes fixed on the fireplace. The flames rose and fell, reflected in his amber eyes.
For a long time, no one spoke. “He is all right,” Myra said softly.
“All right?” Vlad whirled around to meet her eyes, his gaze dark. “How could he be all right? When I left him there, he was drained. He can’t be well until he has fed properly. I cannot imagine your people hunt down many large animals and are willing to spare them to feed a prisoner.”
Myra’s heart beat fast, and she bit her lip. Her teeth sank deeper and deeper, and she tasted her own blood. Her blood that now flowed through Tristan’s veins. “He has fed.”
Vlad’s eyes narrowed. “How?”