“What are you doing!? They'll think I was the one that did this!” Orhn yelped and rushed towards Yugo.
“You are quick as usual. It's good to see that sharp wit at work.” Yugo stabbed the body again with the tip of the blade. “That's the goal, Orhn. They can't think a vampire killed these men, that would be insane.” Yugo pulled the weapon out. “But if you, a depressed soldier, killed these men, everything would fit quite nicely.” Yugo's overall posture seemed to brighten slightly. His flushed skin receded to a warmer glow, as if his humanity flooded back into him. He appeared less beaten, less burdened than he was when Orhn first saw him at the bar. “There needs to be a damn great and wonderfully legitimate reason for why you left your camp and never returned.”
“Who said I'll never return?” Orhn asked.
“I did.” Yugo said with conviction.
“And if I say no?” Orhn tempted fate.
“You still die either way. The difference is that come next week, you won't be walking.” Yugo's statement was concrete. He was not threatening Orhn, Yugo was warning him. Yugo threw the sword down into the base of the bar, between two stools were they had sat earlier. It was buried to the hilt and even cracked the wood next to where it entered. “If you choose to die tonight, you will rise again tomorrow.”
“But if I'm dead, the only thing I'll be raising are the flowers above me.” Orhn's logic was sound enough.
“You will, if I grant you some of my blood.” Yugo paused. “This is a gift Orhn, one that I will only offer once. I have studied you, I've seen the man you are when you believe you are alone. You are not the best human being in the world, but you are a just man. All that is missing is that your morals are lacking definition. You favor exile for yourself as a welcome path to redemption. If the rest of the world thought as you do, we would all be godless martyrs too hell bent on our own causes to see the good in anything. But thankfully, even though you are not a wonderful example to the human race, you will be a hallowed specimen as a vampire.”
Orhn froze. “You plan to make me one of you?”
“Yes.” Yugo's face was flat, with no emotion.
“And you must kill me to do that?” Orhn weighed his options.
“Yes.” Yugo held his disposition.
“And I'll come back as a vampire?” Orhn's voice was shaky, his body flaccid.
“Yes.” Yugo smiled delightfully.
“All you need is my consent? The permission to bring me back, the choice must be mine?” Orhn was thinking about it, he was actually considering it. Not just as an alternative to death, but to wield the same power that Yugo displayed. The power of a vampire in a trained soldier's hands. The very idea was temptation itself.
“It is your choice, it has to be made willingly without regret.” Yugo's voice lowered, his somber tone became the moment. “I'm asking you to join me.”
Orhn contemplated the offer with honesty. There was a willingness to hear everything Yugo had to present, an argument that was too hard to deny. “I'm listening, Yugo. Besides life, what can you give me?”
“That's the man I knew from the battlefield. The same man that cut all those men down without hesitation fight after fight. You've gone from quivering in fear to actually bargaining with me. Damn you have gall Orhn.” Yugo grinned wide, his purple eyes glistening. “That's why I like you. I believe I have found a good friend in you, an apt pupil to teach. As to what I will give you, it is knowledge. You will know that which no other can acquire in a single lifetime. I will give you the strength to defend any cause, any religion, any people you desire. As long as you stay by my side as my apprentice, I will grant you dominion over that which holds you back in life. I offer a life without fear from a second death. I offer immortality.”
Orhn had become a very patriotic man over the last two years defending his country. Yugo's deal was a prompt way to serve his nation from the shadows. To hold the power to overstep the bounds of his empire and execute whomever he chose as an impediment to their sovereign goals. Orhn knew that Yugo had appealed to his sense of pride. Both Yugo and Orhn knew the answer on Orhn's lips, he only need to speak it once.
Orhn braced himself for the killing blow to come. He closed his eyes. “Y-.” Orhn was unable to finish the one syllable word that would change his life forever.
“I've already done it, Orhn. Peer down at your feet if you do not trust me.” Yugo's voice was soft, consoling.
Orhn's eyes were heavy. He looked at a pool of his own blood dripping freshly on the wood floor.
“I didn't want you to feel it. My hand plunged into your chest and stopped your heart the moment you opened your mouth to say it.” Yugo told Orhn what had happened. “I needed only here what you were going to say. To see the sound on your lips as you died in order to bring you back.”
Orhn was confused, he felt betrayed.
“I told you I was going to kill you, Orhn. Your answer did not mean I would make an exception to that decree. It only meant that I would resurrect you after I did it.” Yugo felt Orhn slump down, leaning his weight onto Yugo's arm.
Orhn's eyes gazed down as he slumped forward. He wasn't able to breathe, his lungs had collapsed. The blood simply flowed out of Orhn's chest without any pulse to show he was alive. Yugo had done exactly what he said. He had killed Orhn. Yugo laid him down, with his body losing the little blood it had left. Yugo removed his arm from Orhn and pulled his other sword halfway out of its scabbard. Yugo cut the edge of his own right wrist, slightly, with enough pressure to call an amble sampling of blood. Yugo placed the sword back. He slid his wrist over Orhn's chest, letting the blood drip into the wound he had made. Five small drops were all he let fall, then it was on to Orhn's mouth. Yugo made sure the blood flowed into Orhn's throat, wasting nothing to his lips. Orhn did not swallow, not at first. His last breath was already gone. Orhn was for all normal purposes, dead. Yugo picked Orhn's body up carefully to cause no further injury to him. He was taking his time to treat Orhn with respect now. Yugo took one of his fox pelts and covered Orhn's chest cavity. He pushed the door open to the bar and gently took Orhn away, into the full daylight.
The sun fell heavy from the sky as Yugo walked out of town. People looking at him didn't seem to want to give him the time of day, nor dare ask him what he was doing with an injured soldier. Everyone left Yugo alone as he walked to a solitary wooden hut at the edge of town. Yugo set Orhn's body to rest on a dirt mound in the hut. He sat and waited next to Orhn's corpse.
Seven hours had passed by the time Orhn took his next breath. The reanimation had begun. Stunned by his new surroundings, Orhn wailed about, with little affect. He was weak, unable to stand under his own power. Yugo arose out of a meditation to calm Orhn.
“You're safe. You're alive for now.” Yugo spoke as if there was something else coming, something worse, something Orhn was to dread.
Orhn said with a faint tone. “What's to come Yugo? What do I have to live through next?”
“You will have to endure.” Yugo said with a low saddening tone.
“How painful will it be?” Orhn asked, his throat dry, straining to speak.
“You'll want me to kill you again.” Yugo said honestly. “Blades hold no candle to this pain. Fire is but an irritation to it. With all other types of agony, there is a limit to what you will feel, a level to which the pain loses its astounding effects. That does not exist in the land you are destined. It will engulf you, burn itself in your everlasting memory. It is what we all go through.”
“Is it what you went through?” Orhn asked.
“Yes.” Yugo told Orhn.
Orhn was silent.
“You will feel this Orhn.” Yugo sat down to the head of the dirt laid bed.
“How many days?” Orhn's chest began to hurt as he felt the wound closing, reforming to seal the gap.
“I will have to keep you fed for the duration. You must drink a gallon a day of fresh human blood to survive this. I will have to travel to the neighboring towns to collect it, to colle
ct them.” Yugo was holding back the most important part.
“Yugo, how long? How long until it starts?” Orhn grabbed at his chest, there was a sharp pain. There was only a puddle where his heart once was. A throbbing mass of open flesh that he did not recognize. The pain quickened, it became worse.
Yugo removed Orhn's hand and held it down to his side. “Don't pick at it.”
“Where's my heart, Yugo? What happened to my heart?” Orhn was panicking, the pain was increasing.
“You don't have a heart Orhn.” Yugo's words were impossible. “I destroyed your heart when I killed you.”
“Then what is this? What is this in my chest?” The pain was overwhelming Orhn.
“It's what's left.” Yugo told Orhn. “Your blood is trying to push itself through your body without a heart. It will continue to do this until you can reform a new heart. Until you fully become a vampire.”
“What happens until then Yugo? What happens?” Orhn was beginning to lose consciousness.
“We pray.” Yugo's eyes were serious.
The pain gripped Orhn. He managed to make out one word before blacking out. “When?”
Yugo shook his head, clenching his lips. “It's already begun, Orhn. My blood is slowly affecting you. The pain you feel is your own body trying to defend itself in vane from what I have done. It will be as if your body is being torn in two. Your blood will boil in the skin, your head will ache, your very soul will weep for a death that will never come.”
Time passed as Yugo sat next to Orhn. A few hours later Orhn woke for a few minutes.
Orhn writhed left and right in the dirt bed. He was groggy and still experiencing the same pain he fell asleep with. Orhn turned to face Yugo. “How many days? How long will this go on? How long am I going to endure this?”
Yugo was silent, he did not want to tell Orhn.
Orhn quivered, the pool in his chest sloshed. The pain was increasing again, it was becoming hard to speak. “A day, two? How long!?” Orhn coughed, a dark coagulated clump came out of his mouth, rolling into the dirt.
Yugo said nothing.
Orhn heaved as his entire body convulsed with the motion. It hurt, tremendously. “How long Yugo? How long will this last?” Orhn coughed again.
“Try not to think of it in days. It's better if you not know how much time has passed. I want you to remain lucid, concentrate on the time line. Think of the life you will have after it is gone. After the pain has left you. If you don't, it will take you. Your mind will be lost to it, to the pain that you are about to feel.” Yugo hung his head low and patted Orhn's right shoulder.
“God damn it, Yugo! Are you always going to be like this with me!? Tell me!” Orhn cringed. The pain was searing now, it penetrated his muscles.
“Three days.” Yugo confessed.
“Good, at least one is over.” Orhn felt a small sense of relief.
“No, Orhn. It's only been a few hours since I brought you here.” Yugo knew the pain that Orhn was feeling, he knew what was to come next. “The three days start tonight Orhn, not now.”
The realization hit Orhn with the next wave of pain. It was still increasing, it was ripping him apart. Orhn was barely able to hold back the screams in his mind.
“My only consolation is that you will lose consciousness repeatedly. Just drink what I ask you to and remember why you said yes to me.” Yugo said while standing up. He walked away from Orhn to the door of the hut. “I have to get your first meal. I won't be back for a few hours.” Yugo stepped and turned around. “There's no one for miles up here, it will help to scream. It's strenuous on your body and it will cause you to pass out more quickly. Remember to keep breathing. I will see you in a few hours.”
Orhn couldn't here Yugo's advice anymore. The pain had taken him. Orhn screamed out, his entire body writhing in one motion to the mind bending sensation. The screams were ripping his throat open, making a terrible gurgling sound that echoed across the hut walls. Eventually, Orhn blacked out again, setting to rest the pain he was in.
Yugo left with the sight of Orhn passed out in the hut. Blood oozed from his mouth. Orhn had bitten his tongue and there was a string of liquid still attached from inside his mouth. Even unconscious, the pain caused Orhn to close his eyes tight. What was left of Orhn's heart began to beat faster, harder, with a deep slicing pain striking him in the chest with each pulse in rhythm.
When Orhn opened his eyes, Yugo was gone. The pain was consuming him, stealing the light away from the room. It was a screw grinding in his body, it wrenched, cutting into him. Orhn rolled side to side as a constant wave of agony washed over him. Again, he passed out.
* * * *
“Did you wake up while I was gone?” Yugo's voice rung out from Orhn's dreams.
Orhn's eyes still closed from the pain as he laid there in a pile of his own fluids.
“It seems your skin is taking it the worst. You have boils up and down your body.” Yugo's words were not comforting to Orhn. “I've been soaking them in blood, but they keep forming. It might have something to do with the nature of your vampire gift. For now all I can do is keep you supplied with blood. Don't open your eyes, it's better that way. Just scream and sleep through this.”
Orhn groaned lightly with what little strength he had left. He was being drained, his will waning.
“I'll be back in another five hours. Your body will need more blood by then.” Yugo turned and left the hut, in search of more blood.
* * * *
“I'm back, with more blood than I had promised.”The candles in the room flickered as the wind from the door pushed them to activity. Yugo had brought in two large wooden buckets of blood. He took a ladle and fed it to Orhn, occasionally basting him with it as well. “The boils aren't slowing down, they're all over you. I hope this isn't going to be permanent. I would hate to have to kill you after you've suffered like this.” Orhn blacked out as Yugo's words came to a close.
* * * *
Light shown through the cracks of the doorway. It was day. Orhn had survived the night. The pain was unrelenting as it woke him, it was soul crushing.
“Orhn, are you still there?” Yugo's hand shook Orhn to his wits. “The boils have broken and they are beginning to crust. As stiff as your body feels right now, this is a good sign. It means your body is accepting the change. I've already given you the blood you need for tonight, but I'll get more just in case. Don't open your eyes yet, Orhn, you don't want to see this.”
Orhn exhausted, laid his head to the side and fell asleep, shaking.
* * * *
“Orhn! Orhn! Breathe! You can't die yet, stay in there!” Yugo snapped Orhn awake with yelling and a sharp, quick thud to his chest.
Orhn's heart had stopped beating, he was dying when Yugo got back from his latest trip. Orhn's chest ached, most of his ribs were broken. The whole had closed, but Yugo had done more damage.
Orhn cried out in pain. No sound made its way from his throat. He tried to cough, it was dry and unproductive.
“Here, this will help.” Yugo splashed blood in Orhn's face and in his mouth.
Orhn immediately coughed up another large blood clot and could instantly breathe easier.
“That probably wasn't helping. I'm glad I came back when I did. It's been a little longer than five hours, it's been seventeen. I'm not sure how long you've been like this, but it will only be another day or so now. Hang in there Orhn.”
Lightheaded, Orhn passed out.
* * * *
“It's been two days Orhn. Do you feel any better?” Yugo's words were the only thing Orhn could hear.
The constant wind that had been recently wrapping at the hut was silent. Yugo's voice had come as a good sign. Orhn's eyes were clotted with the layers of blood Yugo had been treating him with. There was not a single glimmer of light that reached Orhn's sight. Orhn moaned, letting Yugo know that he was not feeling any better. The pain was still there and it had not decreased. Only Orhn himself was lessening, the sensation was absorbing hi
m, making him numb to his life, to everything. It was closing his thoughts to nothingness. It was smothering him.
“It's supposed to be finished by the third day. Then again, I've never seen a fledgling develop boils either. This is the fourth day, it will end soon Orhn, I know it will.” Yugo poured more blood on his skin and into his mouth.
Orhn drank it slowly, hoping it would ease the pain. He knew it was helping, but his body displayed otherwise.
“Rest Orhn, it will be over soon.” Yugo's words of encouragement were sincere.
Yugo could feel the pain in Orhn by bearing witness to his hideous body. There was no longer a distinction between what was flesh and what was not. The constant treatments of blood had merged the skin, clothing, and top layer of blood together. The leather had absorbed into Orhn and became part of his body. The vampiric virus was changing him in a way that Yugo had never seen or read about. As he said, the process should have been complete by the third day. Nothing made sense with Orhn's condition. The boils, his heart stopping, none of it was supposed to take place in a normal turning. Yugo was worried.
Orhn relaxed as the pace of his heart eased. He was getting colder, he fell unconscious. Yugo let him rest.
* * * *
Orhn awoke to a pressure on his eyes and then his mouth. There was a crackling sound too, but his couldn't place it. Traces of daylight twinkled through Orhn's eyes as a dull sensation drug across his eye. Slowly, surely, Orhn was realizing what was going on and what Yugo was doing. There was a crunching sound. Then all Orhn could see was red as the light poured back into his eyes. Orhn tried to move, but his arms were lashed to his chest. Yugo was on top of him and pressed something into his face. The skin was breaking. The sound was becoming crisper as a pressure lifted in Orhn's ears, one at a time. Yugo got up as Orhn's eyes came into focus with the red shade still constant in his vision. Yugo was using a knife to cut open Orhn's mouth. Orhn shook, realizing what was going on. The feeling was a blade piercing into his flesh, into his face. Yugo had cut into Orhn's eyes, removing his lids to let him see. The blood had crusted over his entire face. Yugo had to cut Orhn's lips open to keep him alive.
Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) Page 34