by Drew D'Amato
“After they decapitated him, they kept the body parts away from each other. This way my father never got a chance to be reborn as a vampire. They buried his body and melted his head. They had decided since my father did not remain faithful to his promise to the Order as a man, he certainly wouldn’t as a vampire. Power corrupts, and they decided to not risk giving the blood to anyone else who could turn on them, so they never did. Unknown to them, though, was that before we were sent to live with the Sultan, my father had slipped the blood into the wine Radu and I drank at our going-away dinner the night before.
“My father had done this in case the Sultan ever reneged on his end of the bargain and killed us. We would have our revenge.”
“But your father didn’t believe in the blood?” Pacami asked.
“Yes, he didn’t. But he figured what was the harm if it did work. He was sending his two youngest sons to live with his worst enemy. He wanted to have some kind of back-up plan.”
“So that was how you were given the blood.”
“Yes, but not how I was made a vampire.
“When my father died, I was 17, and the Turks were quick to put me on the throne. Radu, though more liked by the Sultan, was only 13 at the time and too young. The Turks had expected I would be loyal to them, but everything I said to them was only to get out of prison. Once in power, I turned on the Turks. I expected the Order to be behind me, but to them I was just the son of a traitor and Hunyadi, my father’s killer, removed me from the throne and replaced me with Vladislav II from the Danesti clan—a family that were rivals with my own.
“I escaped and lived with my uncle Bogdan II. When he was killed in 1451, I didn’t know where to go. I was in exile and full of hate; hate for the Danestis, hate for the Order of the Dragon for dethroning me after I remained loyal to them while in Turkey, but my true enemy had always been the Turks. I resolved that their enemies were my friends, so I came to Hunyadi, my father’s killer.
“He expected a duel to the death, but instead I proposed an allegiance. My inside knowledge of the Ottoman Empire was invaluable. He believed me and believed in my hatred toward Mehmed II, who was now the new sultan. I became his advisor, his trusted right hand man.
“He gave me that sword as a gift in 1456 the night before the battle that defined our lives.” Vlad pointed to the sword in the glass case above his desk. “It is like no other sword in the world. Not intended for battle, the blade is made out of pure silver. Four precious stones are imbedded into the hilt—ruby, emerald, sapphire, and diamond, representing the four elements: fire, earth, water, and air. The inscription in Latin reads: With this sword rid the world of the Lord’s enemies.
“He led a counter-attack in Serbia and relieved the Turkish siege. He was a hero but the poor bastard died of the plague shortly after. I, at the same time, took back my birthright, the throne of Wallachia, by killing Vladislav II with my bare hands.
“You know how brutal of a ruler I was. These legends were born during my second reign. I can say I was responsible for the deaths of over eighty thousand men, I think closer to a hundred grand. Most of them were impalements and this was when I got the nickname Tepes—meaning impaler. I used to have dinner while I watched people get impaled, it’s a lot more entertaining than watching TV. I was evil, but at the same time just. Death was just seen as the only suitable punishment in my eyes. To keep order in my realm I killed everyone for almost any crime. Stealing, lying—anything wrong was worthy of death. I did what I thought was best for my land.
“I had come back to the throne with still a lot of hate in me and found Wallachia a poor, broken country. It was the work of the greedy boyars. I had most of them killed and replaced with common men. I told my people I had done it to avenge my father’s death, even though I had previously made a pact with the true man behind his murder, Hunyadi. For the times it was just accepted more easily by my people that a son was avenging his father’s death, than thinking I killed the highly respected boyars to make the country more prosperous. I even erected a church in Targsor in my late father’s honor. I never hesitated to kill for the better of my land. However, worrying about the well-being of my land was not the only concern of my reign. I also had to worry about those competing for my title. People like my brother Radu.”
“You brother stayed your enemy?”
“Of course, he kept to his conversion to Islam, and stayed loyal to the Sultan. He participated in the fall of Constantinople in 1453. He also led an attack on my castle when I was not there, but my wife, Elizabetta, was. An archer, who was a former servant of mine but had been captured by the Ottomans, saw the shadow of my wife through the window. Even though he was then with the Turks, in his heart he had remained loyal to me, so he sent a message attached to an arrow through her window warning that Radu’s army was approaching, and would attack the next morning. Out of fear of being captured and then raped by the Turks, she jumped to her death from the tower into the Arges River. The tributary of the river to this day is called Raul Doamnei, which means ‘The Lady’s River.’
“Loyalty was a scarce commodity. Radu worked a deal with Hunyadi’s son Matthias, the King of Hungary. Matthias had blown money the Pope had given to him for defense against the Turks. Matthias used me as a scapegoat, had me imprisoned, and Radu gained the throne. He was on the throne of Wallachia when he died in 1475 of syphilis. The drawback, I guess, to being so handsome.
“Matthias freed me and let me take the throne back once more. I died on the battlefield in the winter of 1476. My killer was my brother Radu.”
“You mean…”
“Yes Pacami, my brother was a vampire when he killed me. On the battlefield my jaw dropped because I saw the dead walking. I saw my brother Radu coming after me on a white horse. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I saw a ghost, because of course I did. I was too shocked to do anything. Before I could even get the strength to speak to him he ran me through and killed me. The Turks chopped my head off and displayed it on a pike in Constantinople for my enemies to see that I had truly been killed. I was conscious the whole time. I saw what they said to me, what they threw at me, some of it their own feces. I believed this was the afterlife. As history has it, my body was brought to Snagov, an island monastery, and my head kept in Constantinople.
“It was Radu who brought my head back to Snagov, dug up my body, and placed them next to each other so I could be reborn. I awoke, refocused, and saw my brother Radu and my other brother Vlad The Monk smiling down at me. ‘Welcome to the afterlife, brother,’ Radu said with a smile.”
“How did your brother Vlad get involved?”
“Radu woke up a vampire minutes after his death. Vlad the Monk was at his bedside giving the last rites as he was dying from his infection. Even though he was a Muslim, he was still Radu’s only family member the Muslims would allow in his company. After he died he woke up with no idea what had happened to him. Aside from being indoctrined in the Order when we were young he stayed with the Muslims and never attended any of their ceremonies. I was ostracized from the Order myself because of my actions against the boyars. Neither of us knew about the Blood of the Betrayer, and the power of a vampire.
“However, my brother Vlad was also in the Order of the Dragon. While Radu and I were imprisoned in Turkey, he attended the Order’s rituals and learned about vampires, and the Blood of the Betrayer. He hadn’t expected Radu to be reborn, but when he saw him, it was the only explanation.
“My brother Vlad set up a meeting with the Order. They, of course wanted Radu to do their bidding, but Radu did no one’s bidding. He killed them all except for my brother. My brother and Radu then discovered the Dark Bible, a book that told them everything the Templars knew about vampirism. Radu got bored living in the shadows with no one else so he decided to have me join him in his damnation. He stood to lose nothing. If I wasn’t damned like him, at least then he could say he finally killed me. He took my life and when I awoke I took his.”
“You killed him?”<
br />
Vlad hesitated to answer. “Yes.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“Why shouldn’t I. Almost our entire lives we were enemies. He was responsible for not only my death, but the death of my only love—my first wife Elizabetta. I couldn’t have a rapprochement with him just because we were the only vampires. He just looked to me as his nemesis, but I looked to him with hate. He was my first kill as a vampire.”
“And you have stayed in the shadows for centuries.”
“Yes, and that brings us to here. With the coffer recently discovered and containing a way to make me human again.”
“How is the translation coming along?”
“It is still being worked on. We don’t want to push the translator by telling him that it is for a vampire, so we wait. But it will be finished soon enough. I just wanted today for you to learn about me. To know how I became a vampire, and why I did the things that I did as a ruler. There is a correlation between abused children, and them growing up to become violent men. I was extremely abused, and so I grew to become extremely violent. I want you to be able to empathize.”
“I can a little. I already promised I will perform this task.”
“I know, but I do not want you to fear me. I saw the apprehension in you when you came here.”
“Getting rid of the bandana might help.”
“So be it.” Vlad was smiling again. “Trust is essential to any relationship. I will have Michael bring you back to the Divine Saviour. Until next time Father.” Vlad stood up to shake Pacami’s hand.
Pacami was a little tense, but then took the hand and shook it. Vlad had some strength to his grip. Enough to make Pacami wince, as Vlad’s thumb pressed against the scar on the top of Pacami’s hand. “Until next time,” Pacami replied.
Vlad called for Michael. When Michael got to the room, Vlad ordered no more blindfolds over the father’s eyes. Michael’s face was a little doubtful of this decision, but he did as he was asked.
With them out of the room, Vlad was left at his desk to think about trust and honesty. He started to doubt if he should have told Pacami what he wished had been the fate of Radu instead of the truth.
TWELVE
1
That night Malachi and his men moved around inside their beachfront mansion getting ready for the trip to LA. Some of the men loaded their guns, some checked their baggage, and others just waited. The latest SportsCenter aired on the sixty-inch screen TV in a parlor. The parlor was loaded with the latest in surround-sound speakers, video equipment, video games, and a jukebox in the wall. Five men sat on the leather couches watching the sports program. Malachi smoked a cigarette while he walked around the rooms on the first floor overseeing his men getting prepared. Andre came up to him.
“So this is for real, they think he’s dead?” Andre asked.
“This is going to be the only way to find out. No one has seen any sign of the Radusons, and they could have gotten him at that meeting. This little war just might be over.”
“And what if it is?”
“Don’t know, never been like this before. I’m sure nothing drastic. Whatever the big man wants, will be. Just make sure we have everything. I don’t want to be caught off guard.”
Malachi was a good head, and kept his wits in protecting his men. A head had a big responsibility. The vampires always lived together, and the head was responsible for their safety. Just being one of Vlad’s favorites did not mean you would become a head. The heads become heads through loyalty, seniority, wisdom, and supreme fighting skills. The responsibility of the head was not just over the other men who lived with them. They also had to be wise in the decision of who would become a vampire and who just became food. The head was the only one that could reproduce, so to speak.
At that moment, though, Malachi was slipping in his responsibility as a head. He was more concerned with making sure his men packed everything they needed, then noticing the events that were developing outside. Three black Chevrolet Yukons had pulled into Malachi’s drive.
2
Vlad stood in his office looking outside his window at the ocean. Everytime the water tried to get farther out, it was pulled back. Symbolic of the thoughts in his mind. Is Radu dead, is the world safe? Can I be made a human again? Will I have to kill this priest? The years come in breaks, a pattern. Sometimes everything is peaceful for a little while. He could almost forget about this war of the damned. Then sometimes he wondered how he would make it through ‘til tomorrow. In times like that, he remembered that no one listened to his prayers. His God had forsaken him. He was the unforgiven.
Michael walked into the office.
“In about half an hour Malachi and his men will call us when they get on the plane,” he said.
“All right, let me know when he calls,” Vlad replied without turning away from the window.
3
Andre stood near the parlor window. He was the first to see the three Yukons outside the house.
“Malachi, are we getting escorted to the airport?” he asked.
Malachi was busy with another vampire putting some guns into a suitcase when he turned his attention to Andre. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Malachi walked over to the window where Andre stood. Malachi stared at the Yukons. He pulled out his semi-automatic Desert Eagle .44 Magnum from under his jacket and cocked it back. His face had gotten stone-serious, but there was not an ounce of fear in it.
“Men, get ready,” he told them as he walked a few feet away from the picture window.
Bullets shattered the window along with some of the wall. Andre, who still stood by the window, got shot up and disappeared. Malachi and some of his men ducked to the ground. The bullets rattled the house like rain against a metal shed. Then there was a pause in the firing.
“Open up,” Malachi ordered from lying on the ground.
Three men pointed their guns out the window and fired back at the Yukons. Malachi got to his feet.
“Upstairs, they won’t still be in their cars.”
Malachi led some of his men up the stairs. The men near the window continued to fire back into the darkness against the trucks. The other side had not shot back yet. The three vampires got up from the window to walk up the stairs. Then ten Radusons stood up behind the trucks and returned fire, killing all three of the vampires near the window as they stood upright. They were chopped down like hedges over the top of a fence.
Malachi got to the second floor hallway. A Raduson jumped through a picture window at the end of the hall. Malachi quickly pointed his gun, fired off two shots and blew him away. Before he gloated about his shooting he heard the sound of vampires breaking in downstairs.
“Go to the roof, we can fly away from there,” Malachi ordered his men, but he did not move with them.
It took the vampires a second to understand their master was not coming up with them. He was going to protect them. The vampires did not move at first. They couldn’t let him die even if he didn’t care. His death would make them human and weak again. Malachi’s cold confidence staring back up at them, told them they had nothing to worry about. He’d make it out all right. Malachi had a presence to him that made one think that nothing could hurt him, like he was untouchable. All his life, Malachi had a feeling that nothing could kill him, and he still thought that at the moment. Right then he was not afraid for himself but for his fledglings. He knew not all of them would make it out of this alive.
“Get to the roof,” he told them.
His vampires did not doubt his resolve. They made their way upstairs to the roof, and Malachi stood on the second floor getting ready to take on the Radusons.
Malachi put his gun back in its holster and grabbed a grenade with each hand from the grenade belt he wore around his waist. He didn’t walk down the stairs but glided with his feet, ten inches over the stairs, as he went down to the bottom floor. When he got to the bottom he still did not touch the ground, but hovered over the floor.
He hovered right in front of his front door. He looked to his right and saw Radusons breaking in through the windows in his parlor. To his left he saw vampires break into the dining room. He saw white hands with long fingers in the darkness grab onto the windowpanes. Their white heads popped up and made their way inside, eyes focused on Malachi with a smile on their lips. Malachi crossed his arms and threw one grenade to his right with his left hand and one to his left with his right hand. The Raduson’s smiles faded as the grenades flew in the air. The two rooms exploded, destroying every Raduson in the rooms.
Malachi heard gunshots from upstairs. He decided to go out through the front door to fly to the roof and help his men. Before he put his hand on the doorknob he noticed more Radusons coming in through the windows of the dining room and the parlor. He paid no attention to them and opened the door. When he opened it, a silver bullet lodged in his temple and he fell straight down. More shots were fired right after each other. He stayed down and scrambled back inside, closing the door with his left foot. His body started to heal and pushed the silver bullet out of his head.
Some of the Radusons were now through the windows and started to make a move toward Malachi in the center of the house. He could also hear the shots from upstairs. The Radusons, who noticed Malachi, scurried toward him. They aimed their guns at him. Malachi did not even have a second to think. He undid his grenade belt and dropped it to the ground, pulling out one pin as he did. He flew straight up in the air. The grenade exploded and made a chain reaction, one right after the other, wiping out all the Radusons that were just under him. The fire from the grenades rushed upward. He flew up fast enough to avoid it.