The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels

by Travis Luedke

  “You should not look back,” a voice said from close by.

  He did not turn to look at the one who had converted him. “I wondered when I might see you again.”

  “You do not seem too overjoyed.”

  He shrugged. “I am neither happy nor unhappy.”

  “Then I shall leave you.”

  Dracula looked at him for the first time, seeing the image of an ordinary man. “You do not have to go. The life you have given me is such a lonely one at times. I would welcome the company.”

  Lucifer sat back down on the rooftop. “Are you enjoying your new life?”

  “It has its good aspects. It has opened my eyes to many things.”

  “Good, I want you to enjoy it. Indulge yourself as much as you can, and bend these monkeys to your will. There is time before you begin with your task, so make of it what you can. Build your strength. You shall be in need of it in the future.”

  “Yes, I still have much to learn and do.”

  “Indeed, you have much to discover with your body and your new powers.”

  “Help me, then. Tell me the things I need to know.”

  “No,” Lucifer declined, shaking his head. “Those are for you to discover on your own. It should make it all the more enjoyable for you.”

  “Then talk to me of Lucy.”

  It was a subject Lucifer did not want to discuss. Still, it had to come up at some point. “What do you want to know?”

  “Why did you come to me as her? Why not as you are in the present?”

  “You were a boy when first we met. It was easier for you to see me that way.”

  “You mean it made it easier for you to manipulate me?”

  Lucifer laughed. “Yes, in a fashion.”

  Dracula did not see any humour in it. “I never had a chance of a future, did I? You orchestrated my whole life for me.”

  “You achieved many great things in your life. You were a great and feared ruler, but you have an even greater future. More than that of any other, living or dead.”

  “Yes, the future you want for me.”

  “I would not deny that.”

  “But why me? You could have chosen anyone.”

  “I had my eye on many of your station. I saw you for the first time the night you were born. Even before your mother held you in her arms.”

  The news did not please Dracula. “You were there?”

  “Even then, I knew you were the one to pave the way for my return to Heaven.”

  Dracula looked away, realising Lucifer had mapped out his whole life for him. This was even before he opened his eyes for the very first time. He took it hard. Was there ever a time when I was truly my own man? Or have I always been a puppet for others?

  “You know that is not true,” Lucifer said. “You were always your own man.”

  “Then what is all this for?”

  “I identified that special quality in you. You were the one.”

  Dracula picked up a pebble from the rooftop. Rolling it between his fingers, he tossed it down to the streets below. “Well, that is truly the case. You and I are bound by blood.”

  “Do not look so glum over it. You are a part of me for always.”

  His protégé did not answer.

  “Believe me when I say this to you. There are much worse fates you could endure than this. The life I have given you offers you the chance to do things no other man shall ever do. Things no man ever could. You were always coming to me. Be glad this is what I chose for you.”

  “I shall grow used to it.”

  “You shall relish it!”

  Dracula nodded. There were many aspects of his new life that he enjoyed.

  “I came to you on this night as the bearer of good news.”

  Dracula turned his head to look at him. “What might that be?”

  “Mehmed is dead.”

  The news brought a smile to Dracula’s face for the very first time that night. Mehmed was one of two men he hated the most. The other was his brother, Radu. They had fought a hard campaign in 1462. It felt good to know he was dead at last. “When did he go?”

  “Earlier this day.”

  “Good, I hope the bastard burns for all eternity.”

  “Have no fear. I have a torrid time planned for him.”

  “He deserves it, if anyone does.”

  “He shall only ever know pain and misery from this time forward.”

  Dracula thought of that for a moment. He only wished he could be a party to it.

  “You need to leave this city,” Lucifer said.

  “Why? I like it here.”

  “Look around you,” he said. “There is nothing for you here. You can find a good whore in most places.”

  Dracula smiled again. “Not as good as the ones in Marseille, I wager.”

  “Broaden your horizons, Vlad. Try Florence, or even Rome. I can guarantee you shall like them both.”

  Chapter 6

  ROME PROVINCE.

  THE VATICAN ENCLAVE IN ROME.

  AUGUST, 1484.

  Lucifer was right in what he had said. Dracula enjoyed his visits to Florence and Rome. Of the two, he loved it in Tuscany most of all. Even by night, its beauty was not lost on him. But then, he saw the night as a mortal saw the day.

  Over time, he felt changes in his body. His muscles tightened, although his limbs grew more supple. He no longer had an ounce of fat inside him. Solid muscle and the blood that fed it was all that lay beneath his skin.

  He discovered more about his powers and, by the same token, the things that restricted him. With practice, he learned to control his strength and his speed of flight. The millions of sounds of the night he found he could harness. Once the thoughts of mortals had tormented him, but now he could be more selective of them. He could drown them out if they were of no interest.

  In the last year, he learned of the greatest of his gifts. The power to be invisible would make him the envy of all men, if they were to know of it. He learned as well how to transform his image. It had benefits, but drained him of his energy. He would wait many years before he could master the technique and do so without it sapping away his strength. Even so, he could change into a bat or a wolf or any other creature of his choosing.

  One such occasion almost cost him his life. He had spent an entire night as a wolf. The feeling of running close to the ground and hunting other wildlife was one he loved. When he changed back to his natural form, it left him devoid of strength. He lay dormant in a field as the first rays of the sun lit the horizon. The heat burned his naked skin all over. He only just made it to safety before his body caught fire and dissolved. A creature of the night could only exist safely by night.

  It cast his mind back to his first days as a vampire. There was an occasion where the daylight had not burned his skin. He racked his brain for weeks trying to figure out the reason for this. It was because he had fed on an unborn foetus.

  The foetus did three things for him. It gave him vital protection from the harshest rays of the sun. This allowed him the time he required to find shelter if he misjudged the sunrise or on the rare occasion he needed to venture out in the sun. As well as that, it held amazing healing properties. The third made him invisible to the human eye, if he willed it. The foetus also had a very unusual taste, and an equally unusual effect on him. Any time he had consumed one, he felt a surge of power through his body that electrified him. That was what he loved most about it, and he would crave it just for that, despite its uses for him. The soft jelly he found a real delicacy, though with the most startling effects.

  After the day the sun had burned him, he did not show himself for a whole year. When he needed to feed, he attacked people as they slept in their beds. His body healed in time, and he returned again to the world of men.

  One thing had intrigued him since the night of his change. The marble floor of the chapel had scorched his feet, yet it did not have any effect on his master. Lucifer was once among the hierarchy of angels and, unlike Dr
acula, he was not a creature born of Darkness. This meant consecrated ground could not harm him.

  This same rule did not apply to Dracula. He learned he could only enter a holy place if his feet did not touch the ground. Even then, it gave him headaches and the odd nosebleed. For that reason, he made it a rare occasion when he did.

  The latest of these fell in the late summer of 1484. He came to Rome again after a short time in France. In the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence, he heard news of Charlotte’s continued sickness and failing health. He made his way to Amboise, where Charlotte had resided for several months as a widow. She died the day after seeing him again, leaving him deeply saddened. Only then had he realised the true extent of his affection for her. Despite the monster he was, he felt deep guilt knowing her illness had resulted from his bite. She had survived it, but only for a time. The virus in his saliva had not acted with its usual speed, but it killed her nonetheless. The reason for this remained a mystery to him. He waited around a few days until after her burial at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Cléry in Cléry-Saint-André.

  Rome was a great place to visit and an even better one to hunt in. He loved to swoop down into the narrow streets and carry his prey off to a higher location. This he did often.

  The main reason for his return to the city was to see the pope. For years he had despised Sixtus IV. Before the end of his mortal life, Sixtus had ordered a series of crusades against the Turks. Dracula won back his throne in 1475 on one of these. He fought hard to preserve the faith and halt the spread of Islam. Yet he received no recognition for it from Rome. On the other hand, Sixtus gave to his cousin, Stephen, the most revered of accolades. He awarded him the coveted “Athlete of Christ”. The resentment Dracula felt over that remained with him still.

  Yet it did not anger him as much as the events of the night of his death. He had no idea his actions, as a mortal, would deny him his place in Heaven. It pained him still any occasion he thought about it. He believed all along he was doing God’s work in resisting the spread of Islam. Few had ever shown such dedication in trying to preserve their faith, as he had. Then, in the hour of his death, they abandoned him to Lucifer. For that he would make the Church, and Sixtus, pay dearly.

  He entered the chamber of the pontiff. There, he found Sixtus sound asleep in his bed. Dracula hovered in the air above him. He wanted so badly to kill him, like he had done the abbot at Snagov. Sixtus dreamt of the farm he grew up on, and of a girl he may have loved. He had no idea of the danger he was in, but Dracula resisted the urge to harm him. The vampire shook him hard to awaken him instead.

  Sixtus stirred in his bed. “Who is it?” he asked.

  In his long tenure as Pope no one had ever disturbed his sleep.

  “Wake up, you snake.”

  Sixtus sat up at once. He squinted his eyes to see in the dark. “Who is there?”

  Dracula lit a lamp. He was still too high up for the other man to see him.

  The pope felt confused. “Is this a jest?” he asked, still looking around.

  “Look up, you fool.”

  He looked up to see a man suspended there in the air with arms folded. His lower lip trembled, and he blessed himself with the Sign of the Cross.

  “That shall not help you.”

  “Who are you? A demon?”

  “You do not know me?”

  “No, of course not. How could I?”

  “I led one of your crusades. Does that not tell you?”

  Sixtus racked his brain. He was too scared to think, and his memory a blank.

  “I fought the Turks for you. Yet you gave your precious award to my cousin.”

  Those words helped jog the pope’s memory. He had made an award to Stephen Musatin of Moldavia. That could mean only one thing. Is this Vlad Dracula? It cannot be. He died at Snagov more than seven years past. But then, living men do not have the power of flight.

  He tried to recall the report he had read so long ago. The monks at Snagov wrote it all down. They claimed Dracula became a demon before their very eyes. A monster who had killed the abbot there and some of his men.

  Of course, he believed none of it at the time. He thought it likely one of the monks had killed the abbot. To cover up the crime, they invented this outlandish tale. At the time, he neither cared nor had the resources to investigate it. The report was accepted and filed away in the vaults.

  Yet here he was. Sixtus still refused to believe his eyes. In all his time at the Vatican, he had never encountered a demon of any kind. As God’s spokesman on earth, he was as likely to have done so as anyone. There is no such thing. “I am dreaming,” he said, though with little conviction.

  “Who are you trying to fool? Yourself, or me?”

  “You are not real.”

  “Oh, I am real.”

  “Then I have lost my mind.”

  Dracula did not want to remain any longer. The man was a buffoon, and a waste of his time. A pain in his head gave a warning that he had best leave soon. The pope followed him with his eyes, and watched the vampire ease down onto the bed right before him. “I came to give you something to remember me by.”

  Sixtus tried to dismiss him. “When I awaken, I shall have no recollection of this. It is but a dream.”

  Dracula grabbed him hard by the chin. “A dream, you say?”

  He almost spat the words. The pressure he exerted with his grip soon dispelled any such notion. “Think on it, holy man. This is no dream.”

  “You are hurting me,” he managed to blurt out.

  “Many good men died fighting your crusades. Many of them my men.”

  “Yes! Yes!” Sixtus gasped, when Dracula removed his hand. “They are all in paradise as we speak, at God’s side.”

  “Not all of them, holy man! I am condemned to walk the earth for an eternity. Where is my place in paradise?”

  He did not answer. What could he say?

  “They did not fight for God. There is no God,” Dracula said with fire in his eyes. “Not one who is loyal to those who serve Him. They died for you. And to what end? You are an ignorant fool. You have no idea of anything in the real world.”

  He delivered his speech with real menace in his tone. It scared the elderly man so much that his face turned white. But Dracula was in no mood to stop there. “I shall have my vengeance!” he warned. “I shall destroy this Church that you are meant to represent. It reeks from the inside out. A foul stench that comes from corrupt men such as you!”

  Words were beyond the pope. He was too terrified to even speak, never having known true evil. But he felt it now, as he gazed into Dracula’s eyes.

  “Your God smiles down on men like you. This He does while good men I have known have fallen on the field and died. They died fighting wars that your kind created. Yet here you lie in your cosy bed without a care in the world.”

  Dracula stopped for a moment when his temples began to throb. A first drop of blood trickled from his nose. Despite that, he caught a whiff of an acrid scent. He looked down to see a wet patch forming on the blanket that rested on the pontiff’s lap.

  He pointed a threatening finger at Sixtus. “I shall bring this Church of yours crumbling down. As you are its head, then I must begin with you.”

  Dracula grabbed Sixtus by the collar of his gown. He held him there so that only a few inches separated their faces. The pope tried to close his eyes, but Dracula pinched his cheek hard to ensure he did not. When their eyes met again, he opened his mouth wide and hissed. His lower jaw extended a good six or eight inches. With it, his lips curled back to reveal his fangs.

  Sixtus gasped in horror. It was the most gruesome sight. Wide-eyed, he observed as Dracula stretched out his long black tongue to meet his lower lip. His fangs glistened against the light of the lamp as they grew to a full three inches in length.

  The vampire’s eyes transfixed him. To emphasise his intent, they glowed a bright green. The tiny veins in the whites of his orbs rippled a dark red.

  Sixtus could not lo
ok away. A sharp pain tugged at his left shoulder and arm. Dracula sensed the old man’s heart slowing. The pope gasped a second time, though louder than before. His breath caught in his throat, as his chest tightened.

  The vampire heard ba-bump ba-bump baaaaaa-bump. He released his hold on the pontiff. Sixtus fell back against his pillow, his face contorting with pain. He clutched at his chest with his right hand. His left arm had gone numb.

  Dracula pulled away. A steady stream of blood now trickled from his nose. He rose into the air and looked down on his victim, feeling nothing for him; neither pity nor hate.

  Sixtus continued to fight to hang onto the last strands of life. His face darkened to a purplish hue as very little oxygen passed through to his lungs. As well as his heart attack, a stroke now had him in its clutches. It compounded his fate.

  The whole left side of his body tensed. His head throbbed so badly his tongue flopped down over his lower lip. The muscles in his neck tightened and slowly choked the life out of him. Another shock rippled through his body. His jaws clamped together and locked so tight, he bit straight through his tongue.

  The organ dropped onto the blanket and blood spilled out from his mouth. More of it passed down his throat. His eyes bulged so hard, they almost popped from their sockets.

  Dracula glided over to the window. He had seen enough. One last look indicated it was all over.

  Sixtus fell still. His soul rose up from his body almost at once and looked across at the vampire. The hollow eyes offered Dracula a telling glance. They then turned away to face the light.

  Dracula noticed a faint white glow around the body. It let him know that Sixtus was going up, not down. He jumped from the ledge into the night. Rome no longer had any appeal for him.

  Chapter 7

  TUSCANY. THE OUTSKIRTS OF FLORENCE.

  JULY, 1489.