VROLOK

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  I remember the night I got word that she had killed herself. I even remember your grandfather.” Isabella looked at him inquisitively. “I recognise the sword. I met him again when he was much older; he was burying one of my victims when I came across him. He was startled to see me. His first reaction was to kneel before me and then when he lifted up his head to look at my face he realised that I was still a young man. I didn’t recognise him at first. I just grabbed him and held him in front of my face. Then I saw something familiar in his eyes and I remembered who he was. I let him go, I am not sure why— maybe it was something still left within me, a part of my old self.”

  “I think that must have been the night he died. He died of a heart attack.”

  “I didn’t know. I didn‘t mean to frighten him to such an extent.”

  “You didn’t. He knew it was only a matter of time before he died. If he hadn’t met you it probably wouldn’t have made a difference.” They both sat in silence for a few moments. “My grandfather told me that you fell to your knees when you heard the news that your wife was dead. He always would say that is what love is. Only love could have reduced such a man to his knees.”

  “I did. I fell to my knees and wept like a child. I was not interested in leading men to their deaths anymore. I came home as soon as I could. When I came through the door, my wife’s corpse was lying on the table. Her pretty face was now contorted and white. A priest came into the room with my son. The priest brought the screaming child over to his mother and held the boy’s face in his hands, making him look at the body of his dead mother. The priest said to the child that that is what happens when we defy God’s laws.

  I lifted up my sword and without a moment’s hesitation I plunged it into the priest’s chest. He fell to the ground. The people around me stared aghast. I had killed a priest. I was condemned in the world’s eyes. I didn’t care. I took my son and left with my servants, leaving my wife’s body in the castle. I let one of them look after the boy and we travelled west away from danger. The servant disappeared with the child along the way and my other servants were too petrified to tell me immediately; it was hours before I was told he had dropped back out of the party. I went back to hunt for them but I could not find him. I never saw my son again.

  I found myself eventually back at the castle. I had always considered myself a religious man. And God had now rewarded me by taking my family from me. I ran through the house breaking every religious symbol I could find. The stone carvings around the doors, the crosses, the crucifixes, everything and finally I slashed my sword through my wife‘s portrait, for even, like God, she had abandoned me. I knelt down before my wife and next thing I remember was waking up in a Hungarian prison.

  Someone had struck me and knocked me unconscious.

  I woke up with a large lump on the back of my head. The gate of my prison cell was being opened and I recognised the person who entered—it was my brother. I was glad to see him, but not for long. I was still lying on the ground. My brother Radu came towards me and leaned down in front of me.”

  “Brother,” he said to me.

  “It’s good to see you,” I replied back.

  “Is it?” he answered.

  “Of course it is,” I replied. “Where am I?” I asked him.

  “In a Hungarian prison,” he answered. “Matthias Corvinus has imprisoned you at my request.”

  “I don’t understand, at your request.”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “How can you ask me that? You left me there in Constantinople. You left me without a second thought.”

  “That is not true, Radu, I tried to get you back many times, and I tried to negotiate your release.”

  “Lies!” Radu shouted at me.

  “It is not, it is the truth, I promise you.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “You can believe what you like, it is the truth. I will not argue with you any further.”

  “Well, I have gotten my revenge on you.”

  “Revenge, what do you mean?” I asked him.

  “Let me show you,” Radu said, loosened his clothing to reveal a back that was covered in scars from whips and branding irons. I was appalled by the treatment he had gone through.

  “I am sorry,” I told him. “But you can’t blame me for this,”

  “I can and I have! These are only the visible scars of the Sultan’s abuse.”

  “I can only say I am sorry so many times. You have suffered greatly, but how would showing me this enable you to get your revenge?”

  “Because I wanted you to see the last thing your wife saw. I showed them to her as the Turks were approaching. It was all just too much for her. She tossed herself off the battlements. But before she did that, not wanting your son to suffer as I had, she gave him poison and I paid a servant, one of your servants, to bring his body back to me.”

  “I leaped up and tried to grab him, I wanted to kill him. But he was too quick for me and he got out of my prison cell before I could reach him.

  “Your line ends with you,” he said.

  “I reached out my hand through the bars of my prison, but Radu just walked away─that was the last time I saw him.

  I was there for fourteen years. I grew old in that prison and when I was released I returned to the castle once more and ruled for several months until my death. I was a broken man without my wife and child. Ruling again meant nothing to me.

  The next time I was conscious in this world was at Snagov. I was in my own tomb and I was awakened by the stone lid being slid off. I felt disoriented at first and I looked up; I thought I saw my wife but she looked older. When my eyes focused I recognised the woman standing over me was my late wife’s mother.

  Elisabetha, my wife’s mother, had lighted a fire in the chapel where I had been entombed. She was stoking the fire as I clambered out of my stone coffin. She told me that we didn’t have much time and that the Sultan’s men were coming for my body to take it back to Constantinople. I asked her if I was dead. She told me not quite. I didn’t know what she meant. She asked me to help her place another body in the coffin so that the Sultan’s men would have a body to take back with them. It was my brother’s body. I told her that they would never fall for it and they would try to seek me out but she said that no one had seen me in fourteen years—they would be satisfied with my brother’s body. I heard later that his head was stuck on a spike and paraded through the city streets; it was left by the city gates for the entire world to see. Vlad Dracula was dead.

  Elisabetha told me to go back to the castle and she would meet me there, but first I had to feed. I was overcome with hunger and I started to feel the strongest hunger pains I had ever experienced in my life. Elisabetha handed me a goblet. I examined the contents. It was a goblet of blood. I was appalled, but something within me was compelled to drink it. It didn’t satisfy me; on the contrary, it made me feel weaker, but I was spurred on by my blood lust and I drank every last drop.

  I travelled back to the castle and Markéta’s mother followed soon after. She asked me to come and sit with her when she arrived.”

  “Do you remember anything?” she asked me.

  “No,” I answered.

  “I have been feeding you for the past few nights. You have a blood lust; you always did.”

  “A blood lust?”

  “Yes, it has been lying dormant within you. You got it from your father and he got it from his. Your grandfather Mircea the Great was a Vampire.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “It isn’t, you know it is not. In your mind as I speak to you it is all becoming clear—there have been signs. All your life you have known that there was something different about your father and grandfather.”

  “There were no signs!” I protested.

  “You know you are different, just as they were.”

  “Even if that is true, what do you know of my family?”

  “I am Mircea’s daughter.”

  “H
is daughter?” I said in disbelief.

  “Yes…my mother is not your grandmother. I am the last of my kind, just as you are the last of yours…you are the last Vampire and I am the last Dhampir. Mircea and your grandmother made a promise to each other never to create another Dhampir or Vampire ever again. As a consequence both our kinds have nearly become extinct. Your grandmother was the same as me; she was a Dhampir and a Szekely.”

  “A Szekely.”

  “When she said this I knew she was speaking the truth. My father had always teased us that we were of the Szekely race and therefore descendants of Attila.

  “Let me finish,” Marketa’s mother censured. “She was sent to kill your grandfather, but instead she fell in love with him. And it was the beginning of the end for us all. But something in his dark Vampire’s blood was passed on and lay dormant in his descendants; it would survive until there were nearly no Dhampirs left to fight you. It would have died with you, as you are the last of your line, but I could not let it.”

  “Why not?” I asked her.

  “I should have. I promised Mircea that I would not interfere. Only my Dhampir blood could awaken the latent Vampire within you. I had every intention of keeping my promise until you let my daughter die!”

  “But I didn’t,” I said, trying to protest.

  “Yes, you did. From the moment you saw her you slowly destroyed her, you and your whole poisonous family. When word reached me of my daughter’s death, I knew what I had to do. I had to devise a punishment for you that you would never be able to escape from. That is why I awakened you. You are a Vampire now! That is my punishment for you. You will live the long, stagnant years in complete solitude, with only the memory of my daughter to keep you company.”

  “I told her it was my brother who was to blame for my wife’s death. She told me she knew he had dealt the final blow that had coerced Markéta to suicide. She had hunted him down and killed him, but in her eyes I was primarily to blame. She left me after that and I never saw her again.” Vlad turned away from Isabella. This last statement was a lie. Elisabetha did not leave him, but he was not ready to tell Isabella this yet.

  “She must have so many answers,” Isabella said.

  “Whatever they are she took them with her…I, like you, tried killing myself many times,” Vlad continued. “I stabbed myself with a knife in the heart and it just stunned my senses; it had no more effect than that. I tried again to kill myself the next time by slitting my wrists and again it did nothing, for the wounds healed quickly. I tried again and again, but nothing left so much as a permanent scar. Then all I could think about was blood—I had to kill. I started to kill Gypsies and still it wasn’t enough. Then I started to kill my own people.

  And that’s when rumours and whispers started about the murders. I think the first person I killed from the village below was just a child. Your guilt only lasts awhile. Then I began to wonder, what would happen if I didn‘t feed? Would I starve to death? I resolved to stop feeding. I noticed my skin was not as smooth as it used to be. But when I went back to sleep it seemed to become smooth again. So I started to go without sleep as well. I thought I would eventually die of old age but I didn‘t; it just got more and more painful. Then something happened that made me feel like I wanted to live and grow young again.”

  “And what was that?” Isabella asked.

  “A young girl wandered up into the castle. I first saw her from the rooftop. She was with a friend but all I could see was her. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever encountered. She made me wish I were young again. I used to watch you every time you would come to the castle. I disguised myself as a wolf just to be near you. I didn’t want to make myself known to you until I was sure what kind of woman you were.”

  “You waited long enough to talk to me,” Isabella interrupted.

  “It was when you started to come up at night that I realised you were hiding something from someone, probably the man you were married to. When I first saw your wedding ring I wanted to kill you, but I couldn’t imagine any man down in that village being worthy of you. So I waited to see if you loved your husband. The night I killed you I was totally in love with you. When you talked about how you loved your husband I couldn‘t stand it. I struck out at you. But when I thought I had killed you I was devastated. Then, two nights later when I saw you alive, I was the happiest I had been in any lifetime. I thought you would forgive me eventually. But you didn’t. You hated me, and how could I blame you. I had done to you exactly what had happened to me. But it was making me insane, watching you, having you so near.”

  Isabella turned up the corner of her mouth into a wry smile, “It was meant to.”

  “I didn’t know what to do to change my feelings towards you. I tried to despise you but I couldn’t. I thought if I left you alone you would eventually realise that I was your only companion in this world. The only one that understood you. So the night we had the argument I left some money out and watched you leave. I knew you had to get away from here to come to terms with what had happened, but I didn’t expect you to be gone for fifty years. Then I took it upon myself to find you, but you knew I was watching you, didn’t you?”

  “I could feel you near me and a familiar scent made me aware that you were close.”

  “I let you know I was there. I wanted you home. Who was the man you were with?” Vlad asked.

  “No one of any consequence. I killed him before I came home.” Isabella paused and changed the subject. “Do you know this land is ruled by the Turks now?”

  “Yes…I don’t care, really.”

  “I don’t believe that. You, who fought so hard during your lifetime. You would have given up your life willingly to stop them invading this land.” Vlad made no response to her statement and they both sat in silent for a few moments before Isabella began to speak again.

  “Thank you for telling me this. If you had of told me this from the start I probably wouldn’t have hated you as much.”

  “If you had let me, I would have told you sooner,” Vlad said, and he took Isabella’s face in his hands. “When I saw you alive,” he said, “I felt I could find some form of happiness again. I felt you could be my companion, some one to share eternity with. Do you still hate me?”

  Isabella looked at Vlad; he was amazing to look at, not just an attractive man, but a confident, proud man. His black eyes stared straight at her and he was just like her. He wasn’t under any illusions about Isabella; he had known her true character from the very start and had loved everything about her. He would never look at her in disgust as Nicolae had done. From the very first moment she had seen him she had been attracted to him as well, in spite of herself. She answered Vlad.

  “I don’t think I ever really hated you. I blamed you for taking away something which was never really mine to begin with. It never occurred to me that the same thing had happened to you.”

  “Will you stay here with me then?”

  “I will.” As soon as these words had left Isabella’s lips she felt a slight sense of uneasiness. She felt as if he owned her. But at that moment she did not mind his ownership too much. All thoughts of her Italian friend had left her. Maybe she could find some measure of happiness with Vlad. She embraced him. When she did her eyes were drawn to the slashed portrait of the woman above the fireplace. She pulled back from Vlad. “If your wife had lived…do you think you would have ever been happy with her?” she asked.

  “I think so. Yes, she was the perfect wife. She loved me unconditionally and she was easy to love.” This, to Isabella, was the wrong answer.

  “The perfect wife! You mean she did what she was told?” Vlad smiled at Isabella.

  “No, I mean she was perfect. She was a beautiful and dutiful wife. She didn’t argue with me, she respected my wishes and would have agreed with everything I said.”

  “She killed your child. Is that the act of a dutiful wife?” Isabella asked.

  “She was coerced into doing that. She thought she was doing the
right thing.”

  “It sounds to me like she had no will of her own.”

  “She was not like you. You have too much will. To love a woman like you takes effort, Isabella. It doesn’t come easily.”

  “Well then…maybe I should leave you with the memories of your…perfect wife.”

  Vlad took Isabella in his grip. “I loved my wife and you loved your husband. What does it matter?”

  “It matters…I will never be anyone’s second choice.”

  “No one could even pretend to be settling for you and you know that, Isabella. You have not made it very easy for me to love you. Surely, you have to believe that I truly do love you after all these years. If I didn’t love you I would have given up on you long ago.”

  “If that is the case, let me take down the picture.”

  Vlad looked shocked at her request and quizzically replied, “You want me to take Markéta’s picture down?”

  “Yes,” Isabella quickly blurted out.

  Still unable to believe what Isabella was requesting, Vlad questioned her, “And what do you want me to put in its place?”

  “A picture of me,” Isabella firmly replied.

  “You haven’t got one,” said Vlad, not quite sure what Isabella was alluding to.

  “I have,” stated Isabella, impatiently waiting for Vlad’s response.

  “Where?” questioned Vlad.

  “Back in Italy,” Isabella rebutted.

  “Who painted it?” asked Vlad, still unsure of whether Isabella was telling him the truth.

  “A man,” answered Isabella.

  “The man I saw you with?” Vlad asked.

  “Yes.”

  Vlad then replied with a cynical tone in his voice, “You don’t want to be second choice…why should I settle for being yours?”