“Dawn is on its way,” she reminded him.
“The dawn shall come late this day,” Lucifer advised.
“Then let us finish this,” she said.
Dracula threw Radu back down against the mud. “Then do it, Ilona,” he said to his wife. “Finish it.”
Radu looked up at her and trembled. He did not know her face, but knew her name. She was Ilona Szilágy, the woman his brother had married in his time at Buda.
“What would you have me do?” she asked.
“I want you to change him. Make him one of us.”
Radu did not know what that implied, but he knew it was nothing good. He tried to get away, but his hands and feet slid in the mud. Each time he attempted to rise, he crashed back down again.
Ilona watched him for a moment and drew her fangs, ready to pounce. Radu heard a cracking sound as her jaws opened wide. When he looked up, she swooped on him.
She lifted him off the ground and rammed him into a yew tree close by. His torso thudded hard against it. He groaned on impact, striking his head as well as his body. Before his head could drop, she bit hard into his neck.
His body strained beneath her. She pinned him there and drained away pints of his blood. When he felt faint and sickly, she released her grip on him. The cramps hit him fast. She cut her wrist and offered it to him.
He tried to turn away, but was unable to do so. The pain doubled him over, and he fell to his knees. He could sense nothing else, but the scent of her sweet blood. It called out to him, almost whispering his name. The call was one he could not ignore. In the worst agony, he crawled through the mud and drank from her wrist.
To Dracula, the change seemed to take forever. Finally, Radu awoke after going through the same process they all had. He too was a vampire now. After forty-one long years, Dracula could have his revenge at last.
Radu climbed to his feet and stood there, trembling. His head was awash with the sounds of the night. The splendour of it blinded his eyes. The hatred in his brother’s heart echoed in his ears. He looked across at Dracula, fearful of what was to come. For the very first time, he realised Dracula’s grisly intentions.
“We meet at last, Brother.” His hatred for Radu not only showed in his eyes, but was evident in his tone too. “Welcome back to the world of men.”
“What do you want with me?” he asked, despite his fear.
“I want my revenge, and I shall have it.”
“For what? I only ever did to you what you would have done to me.”
“For all that you took from me.”
“I was a product of our time, as you were.”
“I lost all I had to your treachery. My bride, my kingdom, and my liberty!”
“Christina?” Radu said, unable to stifle a laugh despite the precariousness of his situation. “She only ever had eyes for our cousin, Stephen. All who knew her, knew that.”
Dracula struck him down with his fist. His eyes burned with rage. Ilona did not like the flavour of the conversation. It ailed her that he still felt grief over the loss of his first wife.
Radu looked up at him. “What can you do? I am already dead.”
“Oh, Brother, you are far from dead. If I were you, I would long for it. From this day forward, you shall walk the earth for all eternity.”
Even now, he did not realise what he had become. He thought about what his brother said, and it still did not make perfect sense.
“But never again shall you be loved. Never again shall anyone look upon you without revulsion. Know that I am going to condemn you to a life in the shadows. I have had you brought back so I can take away your face.”
“You have lost your mind,” Radu said. “But then, you always were evil and twisted. I still feel justified in taking away your throne. It is what the people wanted, and what they needed.”
As Radu got to his feet once more, Lucifer spat a fireball his way. He turned in that direction in the very moment it struck him in the face.
He screamed in agony. It was a cry so ghastly, it even sent a shiver through Varkal. The stench of charred flesh filled the air around him. He took Anya by the hand and stepped back.
Dracula remained close to his brother. “I have my vengeance at last,” he said, his voice cold and flat. “I can see that which you love most of all, burn.”
Radu writhed about in the mud. He tried in vain to dowse the flames that engulfed him from the shoulders up. Over and over, he screamed. The fire ate through his skin to the tender flesh beneath, and peeled the flesh from his bones.
His hair melted and burned into the roof of his skull. He put his hands over his ears, but they dissolved at his touch. Both his lips crackled and fell from his mouth. One by one, his teeth charred and dropped out as his gums shrank and receded. The only features that remained intact were his eyes and his two new fangs.
The heavy rain helped drown the flames. Radu lay still in the mud, his head continuing to smoulder. His whole body trembled from the shock.
Dracula knelt down over him. “Where you were once beautiful, you are hideous. No one should ever want to cast their eyes upon you from this day.”
“We must leave,” Ilona said. “Dawn is close.”
Dracula could not resist one last parting shot. “Enjoy your eternity, Brother. I know I shall.”
Radu could not even answer, but cried like a badly wounded animal. The fire had burned through his vocal chords too. His mind remained strong and as the vampires drifted off into the night, he swore he would get his own revenge.
Lucifer stood over him. “Be wary of the sun, Radu, lest much more than your face shall burn.”
ROME PROVINCE. THE HOUSE OF GINA ORSINI
IN THE RIONE BORGO.
JUNE, 1503.
Gina Orsini watched her much older lover, who did not speak while he dressed. She looked on as he fumbled with his scarlet cassock. “Wait, allow me to help you.”
He stood still while she draped it over him properly. She smoothed it down with her hands and reached for his cope. He stooped for her to place it over his head and took the scarlet zucchetto she passed to him, which he fixed himself.
“When might I next see you?” she asked.
He gazed into her eyes, unable to believe how truly smitten she was with him. It amazed him still, even after two years of nights like this one. After all, he was sixty-four and she only twenty-three. “Soon,” he promised.
Sighing, she threw her arms around his neck. “I miss you already, my sweet Franc.”
A rare smile crossed his face. “Shall we make it the morrow, then?”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed with a smile, before kissing him. “I should wear something pretty for you.”
“Or, perhaps, nothing at all?”
She giggled. “I would do that with relish.”
“Then good night, sweet Gina.”
“Take care, my love. I worry when you walk the streets at night.”
He smiled at her. “I have better guards than the pope. I shall be safe enough.”
The cardinal thought back to the first day he spent with her, and it made him smile again. He never thought that moment would come. When it did, he was sure it was the best one of his life.
Her beauty had captivated him the moment he first set eyes on her. She was perfect in every way, and he longed to have her. But he knew there was no prospect of that. She refused men half his age with even greater wealth than he. He did all he could think of. Poetry, flowers, and gifts were but some of things he used to woo her. None of it interested her at all.
She was a daughter of the powerful Orsini family, and beautiful with it. It meant she could have her pick of any man in Rome. The pope had tried many times to secure a marriage between her and his son, Cesare. Her will did not bend. She wanted none of it.
His need for her bordered on obsession. He even paid men to follow her, so he knew where she was at all times. It came to the point where she could take no more. She knew of his desire for her. Her friends learned
of it, too, and made jokes about it. She did not share in their humour. It had to end. She waited for the right moment and confronted him in as public a place as she could find. When the moment came, she delivered her scathing rebuke.
Her act humiliated him no end, and he hid himself away in the Vatican. It made him the subject of some cruel jokes amongst the gossips in the city. He missed many public functions and Church events. Soon, some even began to wonder if he had committed suicide.
He had in his possession a stunning portrait of her. Orsini paid a large sum to Michelangelo to paint it before his return to Florence in 1499. He had captured a perfect likeness of the nineteen-year-old Gina. It cost Piccolomini a pretty penny to acquire it, but he got his hands on it all the same.
He left the Vatican for his quiet retreat in Tuscany. It was a quaint villa where he could spend some time alone away from Rome. For hours at a time, he gazed at her image. His misery at not seeing her grew worse with each day. He contemplated ending his own life. Were it not the worst of sins, he would have.
“I would sell my soul to have you,” he sighed, while gazing at the painting on one such a day.
The moment he uttered those fateful words, he wished he had not. A figure appeared beside him. “I can give her to you.”
He looked up and gasped. “Who are you? How did you find your way in here?”
“Why the drama, Francesco? You know who I am.”
“I fear I have had too much wine. It is playing tricks on my mind.”
“There are no tricks here. Do you want her, or not? You know I can make it happen. You have but to say the word, and it is done.”
He looked away, thinking of her. “She is all that I want.”
Lucifer produced a scroll. “I have a contract. All you need do is sign it.”
“No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “That I cannot do.”
He rolled the scroll back up. “It is an offer I shall make only once.”
“I am a man of God. I cannot enter into any bargain with you.”
Lucifer laughed. “A man of God? You are no such thing.”
The cardinal dropped the portrait and stood up, taking deep offence at the remark. The canvas caught the corner of a table and ripped in the middle of Gina’s face.
“You are a crook, and a thief,” Lucifer said. “The same as the rest of them in that place you frequent.”
The cardinal forgot him for a moment, and dropped to his knees to retrieve the portrait. When he saw its condition, he was devastated. Lucifer had seen much over the ravages of time. Rarely had he ever seen anguish on a man’s face to compare.
“What shall you do?” he mocked. “You cannot even look at her.”
“Go away, and leave me in peace,” he whispered, tears streaming down his face.
Lucifer stooped down close to his ear. “I can give her to you.”
“No.”
“Imagine what it is to hold her in your arms. The smell of her hair as it brushes against your cheek. The wonder of her breast in your mouth. The warmth and the ecstasy to know what it is to be inside her. Inside her as often as it pleases you. Think for a moment on that.”
“Stop!”
“Oh, Francesco. I can give you all of that, and more.”
“I cannot do it!”
“I can make her lust for you. Her every thought can be of you, and only you. I can make her ache to run her tongue all over your body. I can make her love you!”
The cardinal looked at him. “Love me?”
“With a click of my fingers. Her only desire would be to please and satisfy your every urge. She shall love you so much that she would do anything for you to love her the same.”
“But I do love her.”
Lucifer produced the scroll again. “Then sign your name here.”
The cardinal wavered. He wanted her so much. Lucifer clicked his fingers so that a flame burned from his thumb. He dangled the scroll near to it. “I have much to do,” he stressed. “Your time with me is at an end.”
The corner of the scroll caught fire.
“No!” he cried. “Do not let it burn! I shall sign it! As long as she is mine.”
“Make your mark here and you can consider her yours.”
He signed.
Almost every day after that, he saw her. She had a complete change of heart. Her need for him was such that he could scarcely cope. He did not realise he still had it in him, but she ensured that he did.
Her father was disgusted at the very thought of it. News of the liaison was on the lips of everyone in the city. They all said it would not last. Orsini called it one of his daughter’s many whims. He even thought she did it just to vex him, but the way it lasted proved that theory wrong. For two whole years now, she had eyes for nobody but him. In time, the gossip ceased. She was the mistress of Francesco Piccolomini. There was no more to it, and people accepted it for what it was.
He kissed her farewell and left. His men waited for him out in the street where they had remained on alert the whole time. He had picked each of them for that reason. They had all made their careers in the army.
A figure appeared in their midst, a man who stood twelve inches higher than any of them. He wore a long black coat almost to his feet. A wide-rimmed hat obscured the upper half of his face. Of the lower half, all they saw was his beard.
His dress made him look alien. None of the men had seen anything of the like before. He was not a native of Rome. That much they could tell right away. No one had seen him approach, and it caused them much alarm.
“Step away!” the biggest of the guards ordered.
The stranger towered over him, but it did not matter. He squared up to the man, as was his job to do so. The other two guards took a position to either side. “Step away, I warned you!”
The stranger grabbed him by the throat. He glared down at the man before lifting him two feet into the air. The cardinal looked up in fear.
“Tell them to leave us alone,” the stranger said to him in a quiet, but serious tone.
He knew the identity of the stranger. For the safety of his men, he would have to comply.
“Yes,” the stranger said, as though reading his mind. “I shall kill them, if the need arises.”
“Leave me, and take a stroll,” the cardinal told them. “All of you.”
The guard held his throat after the stranger put him back down. “But your Eminence,” he croaked.
“Do it. I know the man. He is a friend.”
His guards stepped away before the stranger raised his head for the first time.
The cardinal looked up at him, the horror at Lucifer’s appearance reflecting in his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“We have a contract, do you not remember?”
“Yes, how can I not?”
“I gave you all that was promised you. The time has come to pay on your debt.”
“So soon? It feels like no time at all.”
“You have had two years.”
“What is two years to you?”
“It was everything to you. We had an agreement, and it is time to pay.”
“I am not ready.”
“No one is ever ready, but I say when it is time.”
Lucifer reached out to rip the soul from his body.
“Wait!” he begged. “Perhaps we can re-negotiate our contract?”
“I think not.”
“But I have something that might interest you.”
“Yes, your soul. It is all you had, and you sold it to me.”
“What about a man called Andrei?”
Lucifer raised his head to give him an icy stare. “What do you know of him?”
“I know enough.”
“Then speak.”
“If you are willing to discuss new terms?”
“I can obtain the information from you in any manner of ways.”
“Is that not against the rules? You are one for rules, are you not?”
“Your soul is black. They do
not apply to you.”
“Then I have nothing to say.”
Lucifer knew he could drag the cardinal down into Hell. There, he could torture him for what he needed to know. The old man would give it up gladly then. But he wanted to hear it now. He admired the calm of the cardinal and liked the game he was playing. “Very well. Let us talk terms.”
“I want immunity from you.”
Lucifer laughed. “There is no such thing.”
“That is what I want.”
“Even if I granted you that, do you think for a moment God would take you?”
He gave it some thought, and knew Lucifer was right. “Then what other option is there?”
“I could leave your soul to wander the earth for eternity, but you would not like that either, I promise you.”
“I want the papacy.”
“I know you do.”
“And you can give it to me?”
“I can do anything.”
“And you can spare me an eternity of torture and pain in your domain?”
“If I feel so inclined.”
“Then that is what I want.”
“The papacy and an easy time down in Hell?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is done.”
Lucifer pulled a new contract from his coat, and passed it to Piccolomini to see. “Sign.”
“I have nothing to sign with.”
Lucifer grabbed Piccolomini’s hand and pricked his thumb. In a moment, the first trickle of blood appeared. “Your blood is enough. Press it against the parchment.”
He did this. As soon as the cardinal’s blood touched the paper, Lucifer withdrew the scroll and tucked it away. “So, you have something to tell me?”
“Yes,” the cardinal said, nodding eagerly. “A year ago, a man came to see the pope.”
“Was he an old, or a young man?”
“Very old. Older than I.”
“He gave his name as Andrei?”
“Yes.”
“Did you speak with him?”
“No, I was forced to leave the room.”
“So you were not privy to what was said?”
The Dracula Chronicles: Bound By Blood Page 29