Strigoi
Book 1
Tony-Paul de Vissage
Copyright March 15, 2021 by Toni V. Sweeney.
This novel was previously published by Class Act Books in 2015 under the title Shadow Lord. This edition has been revised, re-written, and re-edited, with additional content added, while retaining the original storyline and plot. All Rights to this novel are owned by the author.
In Memory of my Father, Jacob Paul de Vissage
Papa, partout où vous êtes,
J’espère que vous êtes fier de moi
A myth is far truer than a history, for a history only gives a story of the shadows, whereas a myth gives a story of the substances that cast the shadows.
—Annie Besant
There were some who said the aventurieri, those commonly called vampires, had always been a species apart from humans, but there they would have been wrong. Once, in a time so long ago as to now be forgotten, Man and Vampire were branches on the same Mortal tree.
Before Neanderthal man began to walk upright, giving way to the much superior and startlingly artistic Cro-Magnon, a tribe of his cousins took to the trees for protection from predators. While their earthbound relatives were stalked by sabretooths and crushed by stampeding mammoths, the tree-dwellers swung hand-to-hand through the branches. It was easier to track prey when one could look down from such a height, and much safer to hunt at night when the bigger beasts slept, so eventually Evolution lent a helping hand.
The tree-dwellers developed wings. They also acquired extraordinary night vision. Eyeteeth became elongated and sharp-edged for killing while in flight and retractable to allow easy communication.
There were drawbacks, however.
With the adoption of a life lived in darkness, their bodies worked against them. A weakness developed, handed down from parent to child, in which they could no longer tolerate the rays of the sun. Exposure to those life-giving rays brought with it a lethal sensitivity that burned the flesh. Along with this condition, they developed a need for fresh blood and its nutrients and proteins to replace those lost by the lack of sunlight in their lives. Certain plants and herbs had their own Dangers.
While their human counterparts settled Asia, Africa, and Europe, establishing civilizations and waging wars, the aventurieri founded their own society high in the Carpathian Mountains where the peaks were sunless and perpetually enclosed in clouds. Practicing their customs and religion, they developed a society governed by a set of laws much harsher than any human ruler could ever have established, presided over by a prince with a council to guide his decisions. Like humans, they had their quarrels and disagreements, and some broke away, founding settlements in other countries. The older generations learned skills above those acquired in most civilizations, expertise in practices humans would eventually term magic and sorcery.
For millennia they dwelt in hiding, mating and raising their young, and having only the most necessary dealings outside the security of their mountains. In time the aventurieri became nothing but myths to most humans, nightmare creatures frightening children into obedience. For their own protection, the aventurieri did nothing to disavow that belief.
—excerpt from The Book of the Elders
Part 1
Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
—Samuel Johnson
Chapter 1
Fortreasta Mihnea
The Decebral Valley
Carpathius, Transylvania
1793
They felt safer when night fell.
Safe from sunlight casting barred shadows upon the dungeon floor, sending them cringing into the protection of remaining darkness, huddling far from the bright and deadly light. Clinging to damp granite, they watched the image of crossed-barred metal moving over stones, becoming fainter and fading as the sun set.
They weren’t certain how much time had passed since Ravagui’s winged soldiers attacked their father’s castel killing gardi and servants alike.
The attack was too soon after the sun went down. Most were still heavy from slumber, even the humans serving them caught so unaware as to be completely helpless. Their parents were killed with a viciousness bespeaking old grudges and long-nursed vengeance. The children saw their father wielding sword and fangs, taking several of Ravagiu’s minions with him as he went down before their onslaught. Their mother barely had time to herd them into a bedchamber, thrusting their little sister into one twin’s arms before locking them in and turning to face the soldat launching himself at her.
Her single scream still echoed in the older children’s ears.
What followed was a confusion of images and sounds drowned in the smell of blood as the door was smashed open.
The four were dragged out…Andrei, his twin Vlad hindered by the screaming baby in his arms, and Károly calling for his mother, his voice rising in a shriek as he saw her bloodied body lying in a twisted heap beside the splintered door.
When their captors launched themselves into the air, all resistance ceased. None of the children as yet had wings. It would be too easy to slip from clutching fingers and be dashed to pieces on the mountain’s jagged slopes, so they clung in fear to their abductors. They were given no explanation as to why they were spared nor did they see the one giving the orders. They were simply dropped into the dark hole and left…
…for ten days and eleven nights of unrelieved fear...and hunger.
On the fourth day a bloodskin was lowered through the barred ceiling, leaking its life-giving contents onto the shadowy floor. The drops struck the dust with a whispery sound. Only Andrei, made desperate by thirst and Ruxanda’s wails, tried to reach it.
By now the baby was crying constantly, calling for her wetnurse, her sobs more shrill with each passing night. Summoning his courage, he stood at the edge of the sun-brightened floor, rocking back and forth like someone preparing to leap a wide chasm.
If he were fast enough...
He knew the consequences if he wasn’t, but he didn’t have the speed of an adult. His sudden dart into the light was too slow, grasping at the skin with scrabbling fingers as the sun bit into his bones and his flesh began to blacken and curl. Dropping the bag, he stumbled back into the shadows, clutching his smoldering arm and trying not to scream while Vlad pushed the baby into Károly’s embrace and seized his twin. He held him tightly until the spasm passed, and the spilled blood dried to a dark red stain upon the gray stone floor…
A short time later, the bag was pulled back through the bars. Once again bright sunshine filled the opening, highlighting dust motes Dancing in silent air.
On the fifth night, Vlad opened his wrist against a sharp edge protruding from the dungeon wall and shared his blood with his brothers, holding Ruxanda while the child nursed at his pulse. Within minutes, all were retching up the blood their stomachs rejected. In the morning, heated by the sun, the puddles shimmered and baked. Foul odor permeated the dungeon, driving them even deeper into the shadows.
By the seventh night, hunger pangs taking continuous hold, Károly began to cry. Refusing the twins’ efforts to comfort him, he lay on the floor moaning quietly, legs curled, hands fisted. When the bloodskin once more appeared through the grate, Károly was the first to see it. Before the others could stop him, he scrambled to his feet, staggering toward the sunshine-filled square. Reaching for the skin bag, he stepped into the brightness.
“Károly, come back!” Andrei shouted.
A rope dropped through the bars and over the child’s body, lifting him off his feet. Legs kicking, Károly struggled to escape while the sun shone mercilessly upon him. His entire body became a living flame, his shrieks blending with the crackle of roasting skin. Flesh along his arms burst and split
amid a liquid bubbling as the blood in his veins began to boil. Andrei and Vlad screamed, their childish voices alternately begging the gods for mercy and cursing their invisible captors.
The fire rushed upward, and it was over.
Only a blackened skeleton hung from the rope, twisting slowly. In the glittering sunlight, what was left of their brother looked very small and fragile. The bones of their young were as soft and unformed as a human child’s. One piece at a time, the skeleton began to separate, falling to the dungeon floor with the dull thud of stones landing on velvet. They crumbled into dust.
The rope was withdrawn. A small box dropped through the bars, rolling into the shadows to strike Andrei’ foot. He picked it up. It was small enough to fit in one hand, had a hinged lid and carvings along the top and sides. He touched the engravings on its surface, then pulled at the hasp opening the lid.
On the underside cut into the wood were the words Dormit in Infern… Rest in Hell. Below that was scrawled in ink…Strigoi Spawn.
“Murderers!” Slamming the box against the wall, Andrei began to scream. Fists raised, he rushed toward the bright square. Vlad’s grasp stopped him from dashing directly into the sunshine. “He was just a baby. Why did you do it? Why?”
Later, when the sun went down, Andrei gathered his little brother’s remains, the dust and bone fragments and little malachite knuckle stones. Sobbing quietly the entire time, he placed them in the chest. Then, holding it against his heart, he crept away to huddle beside Vlad.
Shortly after Károly’s death, Ruxanda’s cries dwindled to soft whimpers, then stopped altogether. The following day, while they slept in darkness at the back of the pit, someone entered and took her away. They were frantic with fear, but the next night she was returned, unharmed and with no explanation.
And then, it was over…
They heard shouts, the rapid beating of wings, swords clashing, a repeat of the nightmare bringing them to that place. A soldat’s body fell across the grate. There was the muffled thunk of metal striking flesh. His head rolled away, severed neck dripping into the pit.
“We’re here! Down here.” Vlad rushed under the bloody shower. He wiped it off his face, licked it from his hands. The taste sent a momentary tremor of well-being through him.
The body was kicked away. Someone knelt, peering into the darkness before rising and disappearing. With a creaking so sharp it was like a scream, the dungeon door swung open.
Silhouetted against the torchlight was an armored figure, wings casting a raptor’s shadow upon the floor. In his right hand was a sword wet with blood. His head was unhelmed, black hair streaming loose from its club.
“Fraten?” Peering into the darkness, he held out his free hand to the bloodstained child. “Brothers, I’m here.”
“Marek!”
Grasping the box, Andrei launched himself at his older brother. Vlad stumbled toward them, clutching Ruxanda. Both were enveloped in a hug.
“Where’s Károly?” Marek’s eyes searched the dungeon’s shadows.
“Here.” Andrei pulled away from his brother’s embrace to hold up the little box. He’d never seen such a look on anyone’s face. For a moment it frightened him more than anything else that had happened.
“Mircea Ravagiu will die the slowest death possible when I find him.”
The Clan Strigoi’s new lord pushed the twins toward the dungeon steps and freedom.
* * *
Castel Mircea
Though the sun had been down for many hours, Elsabeta Suvoi was still abed. Her lover liked her that way, wanting his woman where she was convenient whenever his lust seized him.
Elsabeta was slavishly in love with Mircea Ravagiu. He was violent and insatiable, as cruel in bed as out of it, but she worshipped him.
It had been so from the moment they met, after her father’s reluctant invitation to a banchet at his castel. Elsabeta had taken one look at the angry-eyed warrior, saw his lustful glance, and left with him that night against her parents’ wishes.
She’d sullied the Suvoi name to become his iubita...and she didn’t care.
He never spoke aloud that he loved her, though often he praised her body for the satisfaction it gave him. He said straightaway she should never expect marriage or offspring, but Elsabeta was a female of her time from a family of women considered mere chattels to their males. She accepted his domination without argument.
Running away with Mircea was her one independent act.
At first horrified by the bloody orgies and attacks upon the deomi, the humans living on the edges of his estate, she now ignored his rapaciousness and his brutal games, letting his prowess in bed distract her. When her lover and his soldati returned from their hunts, she locked herself in her bedchamber, its thick walls drowning out the screams from below.
The cries of the children cut most into her soul. At those times, she thanked the Oracle Ravagiu swore he’d never get her with child, for it came to her mind should it happen, it might be her own infant shrieking out its life in the castel banquet chamber.
To Elsabeta, Mircea Ravagiu was like one of the dreadful ancient gods who devoured its own offspring. She truly believed he wouldn’t hesitate to rip out his own child’s throat and drink its blood should the thought come to him. Nevertheless, with that perversity Nature renders some, she loved the man and never thought to leave him.
She was jerked from her semi-slumber by the chamber door being kicked open, sat up to stare at the figure in the doorway... Mircea, upper body bare, wings hovering around him. They were still quivering, evidence he’d flown rapidly and had just landed. From where she sat, she could hear his harsh panting.
He held something in his arms.
“Get dressed.” No words of greeting or love, simply that order.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
A loud crashing came through the doorway, voices crying out.
“What’s that noise?”
“My men are disposing of the vanjosi,” he answered, as calmly as if merely announcing the moon had risen. “Strigoi’s freak is on his way here and we must go.”
“You should’ve expected this.” She dared remind him of what he’d done, though it jeopardized her own life. “Did you think you could slaughter his family and he wouldn’t retaliate?”
She’d been horrified when he returned from his brother’s castel announcing Mihnea and his followers had been executed by the prince’s taietor, didn’t believe it when he said he planned to kill the Prince’s assassin and his family. She hadn’t thought he’d succeed and waited to be told he was dead, resigned to living the rest of her days as an outcast for the choice she’d made. Then, Mircea returned, bloodily triumphant...and János Strigoi and his wife were dead and their children carried away to be tortured before their blood nourished their father’s enemy.
“I never thought that book-bound scholastic’d have balls enough to take a sword in his hands.” He stalked into the room.
The sounds from below got louder, women screaming, men shouting, voices abruptly cut off to be replaced by others just as terrified.
“Get up or you’ll join my servants.”
Sliding from the bed, she hastened to obey but as she reached for her chemise and overskirt, he said, “We’re flying. Make certain your wings are unhampered.”
The bundle he held began to move. It squirmed, kicking itself free of the swathing blanket. A plump little leg, an arm...a baby, a little girl-child, out of place in Mircea’s deadly embrace.
“My love.” Elsabeta stopped with the garment in her hands. A sick dread twisted inside her. “Who’s that?”
“My daughter.” His answer was as short as if he’d bitten the word.
Daughter? How can he have a child? Hadn’t he told her he wished no brats, that the only thing he wanted from them was their sweet, immortality-laden blood?
Shrugging her wings out of their concealing pouches, she peered at the infant. The child whimpered, turning her head and holding out her h
ands. She was blond and blue-eyed, not quite a year old.
This is János Strigoi’s child. Elsabeta’s heart felt as if it had been wrung dry.
“What are you going to do with her?” Even as she asked, she knew she had to prevent his plans. If she had to risk her own life and finally brave Mircea’s wrath, she couldn’t let him harm this child.
“It’ll be fitting, don’t you think?” His laugh was harsh. “Raising Strigoi’s brat as my own? Teaching her how to be a Ravagiu and some day, letting the survivors know?”
“No! Please…” A woman’s scream floated up to them, dying away in a bloody wail.
He shoved the child into her arms. Elsabeta cuddled it against her naked breast, holding the little body tightly.
I must do whatever it takes to protect this baby. If it kills me.
“Are you ready?” He held out his hand.
“Where are we going?” She placed her own in it. He led her to the window.
“I’m fortunate my brother saw fit to have holdings in other countries and I’ve traveled to them.” One fist struck the shutters, sending them flying open. He climbed upon the sill. “We’re going to Budapest. Hold tight to the brat. If you drop her, I’ll kill you.”
He flung himself through the window into the air. Naked as she was, Elsabeta was pulled along, clutching the child. Releasing her hand, Mircea circled and rose swiftly, his body completing a graceful curve as he aimed himself over the trees, Elsabeta trailing after him.
Below them, the killings continued for another hour.
Chapter 2
Marek, ghidaj of Castel Strigoi, sat at the desk in his father’s study. It was now his study, but the thought of being head of the family was an uncomfortable weight. He’d never wanted to be his father’s heir and still rued the day János was forced to make his son successor to Casa Strigoi.
Strigoi Page 1