VROLOK

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  “I don’t understand it,” said John Stearne, his fellow witch finder. “We are making a fortune.”

  “I think if we carry on we will have a price to pay,” Mathew replied.

  “Nonsense.”

  “We have killed hundreds. Enough is enough. The Devil’s list has no more names on it.”

  “You should be careful what you say,” John said. “You are talking of sensing danger and the Devil’s list—that is witch talk.”

  “Watch what you say, John,” Mathew replied.

  “Watch what you do, Mathew,” John answered not backing down from a potential confrontation.

  “I am going home. I have had enough. That is the last I have to say.”

  Hopkins left after this. Isabella, who was listening, went over to sit opposite John.

  “Is he a witch?” Isabella asked.

  “As much as anyone else we have accused,” John stated. “He has noticed you.”

  “He was meant to,” Isabella affirmed.

  “What do you want me to do?” John asked.

  “I want you to accuse him publicly of witchcraft.”

  “Why does he deserve your hatred?” John Stearne asked.

  “Why does he deserve yours?”

  “He is stopping what has been a very lucrative business. I don’t want to let it go just yet. By accusing him I could start up for myself.”

  “You really are a despicable man,” Isabella stated.

  “Be careful; I may also accuse you.”

  Isabella stood and quickly flipped over the table that separated them. She kicked the chair John was sitting on and it flew back up against the wooden ballast behind him.

  “Try it!” Isabella said letting John Stearne feel her strength. The next day Isabella went to see Peter Clarke, a relative of one of Mathew Hopkin’s first victims.

  “Everything is in place,” Isabella began.

  “Good, thank you for helping us.”

  “Don’t thank me yet; wait until it is over.”

  Hopkins returned to Mistley, set to live a quiet life from then on. He had been troubled slightly by consumption, but it had not developed so much that it was life- threatening. And with the money he had earned he could live in comfort, and he suspected that this slight illness would fade away.

  Hopkins had dabbled with potions and astrology but he had kept this a secret from every one except John Stearne. Stearne had caught him several times with various herbal remedies that they both would have considered enough to accuse a woman of being a witch, if she had them in her possession. John had kept this information to himself until a time when he could use it, and that time had now come.

  Hopkins was sitting in his new home when they came for him. John broke the lock, breaking the door open. Hopkins jumped to his feet and looked over at Stearne.

  “We have come for you, Mathew,” John began.

  “I half expected it,” Mathew stated, but when he went outside he did not expect to see what he saw. He saw the families of his victims. He saw Peter Clarke, the nephew of Elizabeth Clarke, the first woman he had killed. He saw Martin Cocke and Henry Moone, husbands of women he had condemned to death. He recognised them all and he was afraid.

  The crowd marched him down to the river and stripped him. Each one of them took a knife and slashed his skin as Hopkins had done to their relatives. If the wounds bled he was innocent and if they remained dry he was a witch. Every person here wanted him to be a witch. The wounds bled but they chose not to see it. They tied a rope round his waist and just before they threw him into the river Isabella whispered into his ear.

  “Remember, Mathew, you have to sink; if you float, it will prove you are a witch.” As the icy water hit, Mathew made no effort to swim; he knew it was pointless. He had to sink like a stone or else he would be hanged. He looked up through the murky water and saw the faces of the crowd, so like the faces of the people he had condemned to death. There was no sympathy on any of these faces, and as he lay there motionless trying to hold his breath he felt that he deserved this. He was pulled up out of the water just before the point of drowning.

  “We are not going to just let you drown,” Isabella stated. “You are to suffer every indignity that you put each one of these people’s families through.” Isabella left them and walked back towards Nicolae, who had been watching the sinister events. He continued to watch as each one of Hopkins’ indirect victims dipped him into the river. Nicolae did not have Isabella‘s insatiable appetite for retribution.

  “What good is this?” Nicolae asked.

  “It is their moment of retribution; they have a right to it.” Isabella answered.

  “I don’t see the point in this. Is this what you do? Is this how you justify your life? You are still killing without remorse.”

  “I have remorse over the people I killed,” Isabella answered, her voice loud.

  “How can you look at this and not be ashamed of what you are? A man is being tortured. It is irrelevant what he did or how he led his life, this is wrong.”

  Isabella turned to face Nicolae. “It is completely relevant. How can you have the audacity to talk this way to me? Let me show you how I can watch this.” Isabella dragged Nicolae down to the lake where the crowd was “swimming” Mathew Hopkins. Nicolae still could not read people as Isabella could, but Isabella could help him see. She placed her hand on the first person she came to, Margaret Landish. She had confessed to witchcraft but her confession had been tortured out of her. Nicolae felt her pain as her hands were placed in the thumb screws. She had endured two days of this before she confessed.

  The next one Isabella came to was a man. She again let Nicolae feel this man’s pain. Stephen Weste had lived in a house that was full of caring women and he had been happy. He used to come home and listen to their laughter, but one day his wife, who worked as a midwife, was sent for. A child that she had helped bring into the world had died, under the direction of Mathew Hopkins. All the women in his family had been tortured. When they would not confess, they had been hanged. Nicolae felt this man’s heartbreak as he now returned to a house that was empty.

  “No more!” Nicolae shouted. “I have had enough.”

  “Enough? You have not had nearly enough! Look around you at all these people; there are hundreds, and they all have similar stories. Now do you have pity for him? Do you want this to stop? These people have a right to this and who are you to decide they cannot have it?”

  “I’m sorry, I cannot see the things that you see them,” Nicolae said, blood-red tears welling up in his eyes.

  Isabella stared at Nicolae. She felt sorry for him. His senses and his strength were no match for her own. She sat down beside him and placed her arm around his shoulders and for the first time he did not shy away from her touch.

  “Do you ever kill anyone that does not deserve it?” Nicolae asked.

  “I try not too… but I killed you, didn’t I.”

  “You did. Why did you?”

  “I have told you before. I thought you were my husband.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought I was finally dead.”

  “What happened to you? How did you end up like this?” Isabella decided to share some of her memories with Nicolae. She placed her hands on Nicolae’s temples and Nicolae’s mind was filled with a few of Isabella’s selected memories.

  He saw her as a young girl, the rejection she had received from her family and the love she had felt for Alexei, Katya and Nicolae. He saw Vlad killing her and Isabella killing her sister. He felt her sadness as she watched Nicolae dying in front of her and her joy when she realised that she could save him. He felt her complete devastation at Nicolae’s rejection and then he saw her years with Vlad. He saw everything through Isabella’s eyes and he realised that she needed him to forgive her for the things that she had done because if he did, she believed her husband would have done so and with all her essence, she needed to believe this.

  Nicolae took Isabella in his arms and
kissed her. Isabella was glad to feel his touch and to feel his forgiveness, but it also filled her with a sense of foreboding. She realised that she could not keep him with her…she was too afraid for him. If Vlad ever found him with her, she was sure he would kill Nicolae. She had to send him away from her.

  “You have to leave here,” Isabella began.

  “Where will we go?”

  “No, not me, just you.”

  “Why?”

  “You saw my memories and you saw what a dangerous man Vlad is.”

  “That does not matter.”

  “I can only presume that because you do have not as much power as me that Vlad has much more power than even I have.”

  “But together we could kill him.”

  “No,” Isabella retorted, “I would never conspire against him with anyone.”

  “Where will I go?” Nicolae said realising that she would make him leave her.

  “Somewhere far away from me,” Isabella thought for a moment. “The new world! I am constantly hearing about how well humans do when they go out there. It should be easy for a Vampire to succeed.”

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “I don’t know… I hope so.” The crowd that were inflicting their retribution on Hopkins had finished and Hopkins was dangling at the end of a rope. John Stearne walked towards Isabella.

  “It is finished,” said Stearne.

  “It’s not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you are just as responsible for the deaths that occurred.”

  “So what is going to happen to me?” Stearne said nervously.

  “Nothing…yet, but I will be watching you. Never forget that.”

  “I am not afraid of you.” At this Nicolae jumped up and struck John. He fell to the ground, blood pouring from an open wound.

  “You should be,” Nicolae stated.

  “I will be watching you,” Isabella reasserted. John stood up and started to run away from Isabella and Nicolae. “John!” Isabella shouted after him. He paused in spite of himself and turned around to face her. “I promise I will be back for you.” John, petrified by the two Vampires, began running again. This time he did not stop.

  Years later John awoke up in the middle of the night; sweat pouring from his brow.

  “She is coming for me,” he said to his wife, Mary.

  “Who?” his wife asked him.

  “The Vampire,” he answered. His wife looked at him in amazement. She thought he had gone mad.

  The next day she called the doctor to examine him.

  “I think he is losing his mind,” she began. “He is constantly whispering about a Vampire and that she is coming for him.” The pair’s conversation was interrupted by screaming coming from his room.

  “She is here!” In response to the terrified shout the doctor and John’s wife ran upstairs. “She is here,” he repeated. John’s wife and doctor looked around the room.

  As far as they could see it was completely empty. John’s eyes were darting about all over the room as if he was following something with his gaze, but yet the other two people could see nothing.

  “A madness has come over him, just as it did with his father,” his wife said.

  “He looks absolutely terrified of something,” the doctor said.

  John quickly got up out of the bed, grabbed a knife from his breakfast tray and started slashing the air. He came within inches of cutting his wife.

  “You can’t live with him like this,” the doctor warned. “He will have to go to a place where he can receive proper care.”

  The next day the doctor returned, he brought with him two other men to aid him in restraining John. When John saw them he was frightened, even more frightened than he was of Isabella. He was suddenly filled with memories that he thought were completely forgotten. His father had been sent to the madman’s prison, as his mother had called it. He remembered the smell of it, the dark dismal corridors, and the iron gates keeping the mad in. His father had died there and for the first time John Stearne, like Mathew Hopkins before him, knew his own fate. Isabella was there of course, although she had let only John see her. When she had met him so many years before, she had known just how to punish him. As he was forced to walk down the stairs he heard Isabella laughing. His wife, the doctor and the other two men were still completely oblivious to Isabella’s presence.

  “You are going to die in the madhouse like your father,” Isabella shouted.

  “No!” he screamed out.

  “Believe me you are going to die surrounded by madness and lunacy, alone and forgotten.” Isabella left the broken man to his punishment. It was an unwilling penance for his life, which had been dedicated to the persecution of those who had done nothing.

  Isabella watched as the boat pulled out of the harbour with Nicolae on it. She was sorry to see him leave, but she knew he could not stay with her. The previous day he had begged to stay but he knew it was pointless. Isabella believed Vlad would hunt him down and kill him if he stayed with her. Isabella lay beside him watching him sleep. She so wanted him to stay but she could not watch Nicolae die again. She lay with her head on his chest listening for a heartbeat that was no longer there.

  The next evening Nicolae awoke before Isabella did. He lay there watching her sleep. When Isabella awoke, he smiled and kissed her.

  “This is stupid,” he insisted. “I am quite sure I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can, but I have tried and failed too many times to protect people close to me,”

  “So it is the Americas then?”

  “It is, and believe me, I have no doubt that you will soon forget me.”

  “I will try to forget you; it should be easy,” Nicolae said with a smile. Isabella returned his smile; he was trying to be humorous for her sake as well as his own. They got dressed and walked to the pier. Nicolae left with the money Isabella had given to him and he climbed up onto the boat.

  As the boat pulled away from the harbour, Isabella was heartbroken. She knew it was the right thing to do, but it meant several more lifetimes in which she would be completely alone. She projected her thoughts into Nicolae’s mind: “I love you.” Nicolae jumped onto the side of the boat and blew her a kiss.

  Isabella turned away. It was too hard for her to watch anymore. As she turned, she saw a face she recognised standing in the crowd. She could not believe her eyes. The woman was younger, but Isabella still recognised her—it was Leila, Nicolae‘s first victim. How had she survived?

  QUIA MORTUI NON MORDENT

  FOR THE DEAD DO NOT BITE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Isabella could not believe her eyes. When Leila died she was not the young woman Isabella saw before her. The woman Isabella had taken back for Nicolae to kill was a woman in her forties. Now as Isabella looked at her, she looked twenty. Leila smiled at Isabella, which enraged her and Isabella ran to face her. Leila started to run away but Isabella was much swifter and soon caught up with her.

  “What has happened to you?” Isabella knew the answer to her own question but she asked it nevertheless. Leila made no vocal response but lunged out at Isabella trying to bite her neck. Isabella was almost amused by Leila’s attempt at an attack. Before Leila could get within biting distance Isabella struck her cheek. Leila was thrust back through the air and landed fifty feet away. Isabella was back by Leila’s side again before Leila could even get back up. “Don’t be stupid!” Isabella said fiercely and pressed her foot on Leila‘s stomach, keeping her on the ground. “You couldn‘t possibly hurt me. Vlad must not have told you very much about me or you would not have dared to confront me.” Isabella said.

  “He told me enough,” Leila answered sharply.

  “Did he? Why are you here? Have you been sent to spy on me?”

  “No, he doesn’t care what you do or where you are.”

  “Good… then why are you here?”

  “I came to track you down.”

  “Track me down,”
Isabella laughed. “What on earth for? You must know you can’t kill me.”

  “I can—I have the Dhampir’s blood.” These words resonated through Isabella’s mind. Had Vlad sent this creature to try and kill her? She couldn’t believe it and she seized Leila’s arm, dragging her on to her feet.

  “Tell me the truth.” Isabella said, twisting Leila’s arm behind her back. Leila screamed out in pain. “How did you get the blood?”

  “He gave it to me.”

  “You lie.” Isabella tried to read her but couldn’t. Vampires were always hard to read.

  “It’s true, he wants you dead.” At this the crowd who had been going about their business suddenly noticed the two women fighting and came running up to them, pulling Isabella back. Isabella could easily have overpowered them but she did not to demonstrate her strength so publicly. Several members of the crowd started to enquire if Leila was all right, as it had looked to these people that Isabella had been attacking Leila with complete malice. Isabella was still being held back watched as they led Leila away. Isabella knew Leila was no match for her but if Vlad did want her dead he would find a way to kill her, and she would not be able to stop him. Isabella would have to be careful. For the first time in a long time Isabella was frightened. Surprisingly she wanted to live; the possible threat of death had made that apparent to her. She wanted to hang on to this existence, lonely though it was.

  Years before Vlad had stumbled across Leila’s nearly dead body.

  He had been watching Isabella from a distance. He had seen her jump off the cliff and wanted to make sure she was all right. He saw a young man find Isabella and watched with delight as Isabella killed this man, but his delight soon turned to fury as he witnessed her saving his life by turning him. He continued to watch as Isabella ran to get a victim for Nicolae to feed on.

  Isabella had left the young man alone, something she would not have done had she known that Vlad was watching her. Vlad was determined to kill him but as he approached him, his determination dissipated. Nicolae, who was writhing in agony, was completely oblivious to Vlad’s presence. When Vlad saw his face he noticed a striking resemblance. He realised why Isabella had chosen to save this man, when she had sworn she would never try to turn anyone else. Vlad did not see Nicolae, only Isabella─he saw her raven hair and her green eyes staring up from this man’s face. Vlad could not bring himself to touch a hair of his head. He crept back into the woods and watched for Isabella to return. He saw her carrying a middle-aged woman who was kicking and screaming. Vlad continued to watch as Isabella slit open Leila’s wrist and let Nicolae drain the blood from her body. After Nicolae’s appetite was subdued, the pair left.