Varkal bit into the inside of one of his thighs. They drank Gales dry in quick time. His bones crunched and broke from the strength of their grip on him.
The other men watched the gruesome spectacle. Instinct told them to run, but their fear paralysed them. In a moment, the vampires turned on them too. The two men endured the same agonising end as the monsters relieved them of every drop of blood in their bodies.
When they finished, Anya pulled Varkal down to the floor. Her first kills left her in a state of high arousal, and she eyed his fresh erection. Taking him in her mouth, she expertly manipulated him to orgasm. The sensation was so exquisite he almost passed out. He sighed and closed his eyes, fully contented.
Though she hinted she wanted the same from him, he sat up rigidly, hearing the call from his father. She heard it, too, and shot him a fearful glance. They had to go. It was time to pay the piper.
WALLACHIA. THE ROOFTOPS OF
THE PALACE AT TIRGOVISTE.
MARCH, 1503.
A SHORT TIME LATER THE SAME NIGHT.
Varkal had dreaded this moment. Even before he changed Anya, he feared the reaction of his father. She sensed his fear, and it prompted the same in her. It was not all that scared her. So many new sights, sounds, and smells were hitting her all at once, and she did not know how to deal with it. She needed her lover’s guidance and help, but it would not be forthcoming. He had far more pressing matters on his mind. She caught bare glimpses of these and held onto his hand for the short journey to the palace. The power of flight was new to her, and scared her as much as the prospect of meeting Dracula, a prospect she had suddenly become only too aware of.
He and Ilona waited on the rooftops at the palace. She had answered his call at once and arrived before the others. So far, her husband had not spoken. He looked out into the darkness of the night and seethed with anger.
Varkal felt this the closer he got to the palace. His father knew well what he had done. He worried now that Dracula was about to vent his anger on him. “Do not be afraid,” he whispered to Anya. “This is not your doing.”
“What might he do?” she asked.
“We shall know soon enough.”
Dracula listened to them talk. Varkal did not realise the extent of his father’s wrath. That only became clear when he touched down beside him. Dracula launched at him and dealt his son a powerful blow to the jaw. Varkal crashed down against the tiles. Some of them broke loose and dropped to the courtyard below. Dracula then turned his attention to Anya. He grabbed her by the hair and dangled her over the edge. Anya cried out at the sudden shock. She knew he intended to kill her.
He drew his sword and raised it high above his head. Varkal scrambled to his feet. In a moment, his father was going to behead the woman he loved.
“No, Father! Do not harm her!”
Dracula turned his head to look at his son. “Why should I spare her life?”
“For the reason I need and want her at my side. I have always wanted her.”
“Once more, you have defied me.”
“Father, I beg you. Do not harm her. Vent your anger on me.”
“Oh, I shall. Perhaps this is the lesson you are in need of.”
Varkal threw himself down at his father’s feet. “Do not take her from me,” he pleaded. “You have Ilona. I have no one, save Anya.”
If Dracula cared, he did not show it.
“I beseech you to allow her to remain with us. I need her by my side.”
“The power to convert a mortal lies with me,” Dracula said. “I have stated this.”
“I understand,” Varkal replied, lowering his head.
“Then why have you such little regard for what I command?”
“I needed a companion. I cannot bear to be alone another night.”
“The only way I can punish this act, is to kill her. It is what I must do.”
Anya cried out again as the roots of her hair started to come loose. She looked down at Varkal as he pleaded for her life. In a moment, her time as a vampire seemed doomed to end as soon as it had begun.
“Then you should kill me, too,” Varkal said. “For without her, I have no desire to live on.”
Dracula sighed hard. He could see how much this woman meant to his son. “What am I to do?”
“I beg you, My Lord,” Anya gasped. “Allow me to remain with Varkal. He is my man.”
Dracula glared at her. Ilona sent her a quick message to remain quiet.
“If I allow this, I am giving you all license to go against my word any occasion you choose.”
“It shall not happen, Father. That I swear.”
Dracula looked to his wife. “What do you feel over this?”
It shocked Ilona that he might consult her for an opinion. He had never done so before. She looked down at Varkal, and then at Anya. “It ails me that your son does not heed your words.”
Varkal looked at her, still on hands and knees. He sensed she was about to use this as a chance to wound him for all the times he had vexed her.
“The choice is yours,” Dracula told her. “Does she live, or die?”
A stony silence followed. Ilona heard Varkal’s voice calling out to her. He begged her to allow Anya to remain.
“Be quiet, Varkal,” his father warned. He turned to his wife. “Well?”
Ilona took a deep breath. “Allow her to remain with us.”
“Very well.” He threw Anya down against the wet slate. She slid at first, but Varkal reached out and pulled her into his arms.
“This had best not happen again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father,” Varkal said, nodding. “I swear it.”
“It applies to you all,” he warned. “I shall not be so lenient the next occasion this happens. Unless I grant my permission, only I shall add to our number.”
The two women nodded their heads.
“You have an opportunity to prove your worth,” Dracula said to Anya.
“You have something on your mind, Husband?” Ilona asked him.
“Yes, we leave at once for Tinganu.”
“What is there for us?” Varkal wondered.
“It is where your father’s brother is buried,” Ilona said.
Dracula nodded that it was true. “This night, Radu shall walk once more among the living.”
Later that night, the four of them gathered at Radu’s grave. Dracula stood there in silence for a time, looking down at the headstone. Seeing Radu’s name chiselled in the stone brought back many memories of his brother, none of which were good. Even as children sharing a cell in a Turkish prison—held there to ensure their father’s allegiance to the sultan—he had not liked Radu. He grimaced at the very thought of those days.
The others waited in total silence. The only sound, other than the breeze, was the low whining of the thirteen girls. They all lived in the litter of villages nearby. The vampires had dragged them from their beds. Not a single soul knew of their plight.
They bit each of the girls, leaving them all half-conscious and subdued, but sickly and in need of the vampire’s blood. Some had already begun to sweat and showed signs of the virus from the saliva in the bites they had received. The vampires bound them together on their knees, six each side of the grave. The thirteenth and last knelt by herself, facing the headstone. Ilona stood behind her. Varkal and Anya took their place on the right side, with Dracula stood opposite.
“It is time,” he said to the night breeze.
The vampires waited. In a moment, Lucifer appeared before them. Only Dracula had ever had contact with him prior to this occasion, and his appearance terrified the others. They had all imagined this moment, but it had not prepared them for the reality of seeing him for real. Each of them battled their fears, knowing it would not be too wise to irritate him.
Lucifer took a position behind the headstone where he towered over the rest of the group. He felt the fear in the other three vampires, but thought little of it. They were right to fear him. It pleased him t
o see the girls on their knees all around. Dracula had met his price.
“Let us begin,” he said.
He began the ritual. At his behest, Ilona cut the throat of the girl she stood behind. Blood gushed from the wound and down over the girl’s simple white slip. The cut was deep and clean and brought instant death. With her knee, Ilona pushed the girl forward. She fell face-down onto the grave, her legs twitching for a moment before her body fell still.
The vampires repeated this with the twelve other girls. The girls all fell forward, the scent of their blood intoxicating as it filled the air. It gushed from their opened throats all over the grassy mound that marked Radu’s place of rest.
Lucifer spoke in a tongue none of them knew. Even with their gift for speaking so many languages and dialects, they would never know this one. It was a very ancient form of Aramaic spoken long ago in Heaven. Using the language of the angels added weight to his black prayer.
Smoke rose from beneath the corpses of the dead girls. Dracula grew excited when he saw it, anticipating what was to come. He gazed down when the earth began to shake, the vibration shifting the lifeless bodies to either side of the grave. The earth that covered Radu’s casket rumbled and split down the middle.
In the depths of Hell, Radu continued to endure a torrid time. The Grand General had many legions in his army. He gave Radu a lowly status in one of them, and the demons in that legion despised him. They made him a target for abuse because of his looks. What had given him favour as a mortal, only served to hurt him in his afterlife.
“Clean my boots, pretty boy,” one of them ordered, giving him a threatening stare.
Radu knew better than to not obey. He dived at the soldier’s feet and began to clean the boots with the rags that were his clothes.
“Is that your notion of clean?” the demon snarled.
“Give him the whip,” another suggested, grinning at the thought. “It should do him good.”
“Why not impale him?” a third spoke up. “I hear he had a liking for such things when he walked the earth.”
The first soldier produced a whip and walked up to Radu, an evil glint in his eye.
Radu cowered away in fear. “No, I beg you, spare me the whip.”
The soldier brought it down across his back. Radu cried out as he tried to move away. The others stood around and laughed. A second taste of the whip took his eyes back to the soldier.
“Go and collect the stake,” the soldier said to the others. “Let us give pretty boy what he desires the most.”
It was a fate Radu had suffered countless times. They beat him until he could take no more. When the sport in that went, the group would impale him on a metal spike. This was the eternity chosen for him, a gruesome fate repeated over and over. He closed his eyes and fell down. When shall it ever end?
“Radu!” he heard his name called.
He did not look up. The thugs around him had eroded away any strength he had left.
“Radu!” the voice called again.
Satanachia, the Grand General of Hell, loomed over him. The other soldiers backed away when he arrived there. Radu looked up. His eyes opened wide when he saw it was he.
“Arise,” the Grand General ordered.
Radu struggled to do so. Nasty welts all over his body oozed blood. The Grand General reached down with one of his mighty arms and lifted him to his feet.
“There is a summons for you,” he said.
“Excuse me, Grand General,” he groaned, still feeling the effects of the whip. “I do not understand.”
He pointed to the sulphur clouds in the distance, his huge biceps bulging against his armour. “Go; His Majesty is waiting for you.”
“His Majesty wants me?”
“Yes, and I would advise you not to take too long over it.”
Radu staggered away, finding it a struggle to maintain his balance. He passed through the thick sulphur clouds, which stung his eyes and made them tear. Every breath he took burned his lungs. Once he had passed through them, he stumbled upon a staircase. He stopped and looked around.
“Do not stop,” the voice of the Grand General called after him.
Radu looked up and began the ascent. With every step he took, his flesh began to flake from his bones. His skin peeled away first, and then the flesh underneath slowly rotted to nothing. It terrified him. Still, he dared not stop. If Lucifer was waiting, he had to keep moving.
At the top of the steps, he saw a casket. It was the one they had used to put his corpse in the ground. He could hear Lucifer now. His Majesty spoke in a tongue he did not understand. When the base of the casket opened, he knew he had to climb into it.
Inside, he saw his decomposed corpse, and trembled as he sat beside it. Worms and ants burrowed through the little flesh that remained. Spiders and other bugs crawled in and out through his eye sockets.
The base of the casket closed shut behind him. He cried out as the corpse sucked on him, drawing him in like a vacuum. Soon, corpse and soul became one.
As a corpse, he lay there as dead as he had for the last twenty-eight years. The ground rumbled up above, the heavy earth pressing down against the rotten lid of the casket. It groaned and splintered before giving way. The grave then caved in on all four sides.
Radu heard Lucifer’s voice from far off. It awoke him, as if from a dream. He opened his eyes to feel the cold earth pressing down against his face and body. It smothered him with its weight and density. When he cried out, it filled his mouth and nostrils. He tried to push it away, but his hands would not move. His lungs burned, and felt close to bursting.
Lucifer then spoke in a language he could understand, before summoning him from somewhere above. “Come forth, Radu,” he commanded. “Return, as a man, to the world of the living.”
Dracula almost drooled with excitement when he heard Lucifer make the summons. He longed to see the face of his brother again. Once he had seen it, he wanted to destroy it. His heart leapt when he saw a decomposed hand claw its way through the dirt covering the grave. A moment later, he saw the other. Dracula jumped onto the broken mound. He grabbed the two hands and dragged their owner from the earth. Once Radu was clear, he tossed him down by the graveside.
Radu lay face down on the wet ground. His internal organs began to grow back, and with the re-formation of his lungs, he gasped and choked for air. The first of it in almost thirty years filled his lungs. He realised he was free of the tortures of Hell. Somehow, he had managed to get away.
A pain seared through his chest. He clutched at it with one of his rotted hands, and felt his heart beating for the very first time since the moment of his death.
Lucifer grinned at the sight of him. The others looked down on him with a degree of revulsion. His hair hung in grey wisps about his head, and what little he had left was matted and thick with dirt. The clothes he had worn at his burial, hung as rags about his emaciated frame. Only a little flesh remained on his bones.
Dracula felt sick to his stomach. His first thought was that Radu was going to cheat him again. “This is not what I envisaged,” he said, in a rage.
“Wait for it,” his master said, trying to placate him.
Radu recognised the voice of his brother. He looked around to see if his ears had deceived him. His empty eye sockets gazed at the imposing figure stood to his left. The sight of him repulsed Dracula. Insects and bugs had eaten the eyes away. His lips and the flesh around his lower jaw had all gone too.
Dracula caught a whiff on the breeze that advised him dawn was on its way. Lucifer felt his concerns, and raised his arms above his head to call on the night to resist it. Dark clouds raced across the heavens to drown out the moonlight. It did not affect the vision of the vampires. But Radu, it plunged into darkness.
He began to grow impatient. “Where is his face? I shall not be cheated of my revenge!”
The skies rumbled overhead before a bolt of lightning arced down and struck Radu full in the chest. It lifted him several feet off the ground,
his whole body stretching taut and tensing from the shock as the current passed through him. Four more lightning bolts crashed down around him, starting four fires.
Radu emitted the most horrible cry. He tore at the rags that clung to him as they ignited. The others watched on in awe. Slowly but surely, the flesh returned to his bones. Radu writhed about on the ground and continued to cry out. His muscles stretched and moved for the first time since he had passed to the other side.
His vital organs grew back and, as one, they started to function again. Grafts of skin appeared and covered the flesh all over his body. The wisps of grey hair fell out. In their place, a full head of black hair returned. Once this process had ended, Radu dropped down to the ground. He lay there, face-down, groaning at the pain that coursed through every nerve in his body.
Dracula stood near him. He lingered there, waiting for his brother to rise. In that moment, the rain came down. The skies seemed to open entirely, such was the deluge that fell.
It filled the opening in the grave, taking several of the dead girls down with it. The ground all around turned to a swampy mire. Radu slid around in it on his hands and knees. The rain washed away all the impurities from his body. His skin formed new layers until it looked as perfect as it had in the heady days when he ruled Wallachia. In that time, he had a form so beautiful, men and women alike coveted him for their own.
He fell against the mud, his limbs weak and sapped of all their strength. Dracula grabbed him by the hair and forced him to his feet. He tugged at Dracula’s hands with his. Naked and cold, his brother held him there for the others to see.
Right away, the two women could see why he was so adored. He had the most perfect face and body; his eyes a soft and gentle blue. For them to destroy that kind of beauty was an abomination against God.
But that is what Dracula wanted. They could all feel the hatred he had for his brother. It oozed out of his every pore like a dank, stale sweat. Ilona hoped that in doing this, it might release the shackles that weighed him down. His hate ate at him like a cancer, and had done so for as long as she had known him. She wanted this over with once and for all. Maybe then he could lay this to rest.
The Dracula Chronicles: Bound By Blood Page 28