Vampires Don't Cry: The Collection

by Ian Hall

  “Those were turbulent times.”

  “Yet you successfully performed a turning on Tomas Lucescu.”

  “Not the most beautiful.”

  “Yet, you turned him just the same. There is another skill I would have you teach to the new Lucescu.”

  “Yes, sire?”

  He motioned me down a short corridor, and I instinctively knew I stood underground. A door at the end opened out into a small cave. He spent the next few minutes lighting small lanterns around the dark stone walls. “There is an ancient teaching which might ease Tomas’s vulnerability. It is called the Path of the Wraith. A true member of the Order neither looks for trouble nor encourages it, and this new skill may be a way to keep the Lucescu line alive.”

  I stood in silence and watched the Elder talk to me as never before. I had always known him as aloof and almost unapproachable. Now he seemed definitely frightened, and passing on the new skill must have been important, for we lost no time in getting down to my instruction.

  For the rest of the day I learned the basic method of the Path of the Wraith, then that evening, loud beatings on the cottage door announced an angry mob outside.

  The Elder turned to me, his face panic-stricken. “Were you followed?”

  “No, Sire, I ran some of the way, I could not have been followed, I assure you most vehemently.”

  He pointed to a small hatch on the rocky wall which I had not noticed before. “Run!”

  “What about you?”

  “I have a fire to set. I will be right behind you. When you reach the open countryside, find yourself a fitting victim to practice your new skills on. Once you are happy with your technique, return to Tomas.” He set off for the door to the house. He looked once over his shoulder. “Never return here. Our Order is finished in Kiev.” His voice sounded cold.

  I had never felt so alone.

  I opened a small hatch and crawled inside the tunnel. Inside it lay dark but dry. Using my hands as eyes I scurried along, soon reaching a wooden door. It had a ring of grey light around it. I listened for a second then pushed it open. With just a glance around, I sped off, faster than any human eyes could see.

  I knew I had to return to Moshny, so encountering a route to the east, I ran for miles, confident that I had outrun any pursuit.

  The next morning I entered the small town of Glochad. My Jesuit smock got me instant welcome, and I distributed many blessings as I made my way into the town.

  I found myself in the only tavern in town, and it sported a decent beer and a passable stew. The conversation in the tavern lay on mundane topics, and there were no dark rumors to spoil my breakfast.

  Before noon, I got back into the countryside again, determined to find my ‘victim.’ Based on the fact that I would have to turn the person, then manipulate them, I determined that a good-looking wench would at least make the job interesting.

  In the second hamlet I encountered, I got my chance. Pulling weeds from a small garden in the shade of her hamlet knelt a young girl, barely sixteen. She looked comely, no more, but she was young enough to be endearing to me. I thought of taking her away from her farmhouse, then decided that I’d need privacy for my administrations anyway, so I walked up to the front, and hammered on the door.

  The door opened, and a face appeared. Immediately I knew where she’d gotten her looks. Her mother seemed quite delightful, and with a decent bath, would easily have passed my crude criteria.

  “Good morning, friar,” she said, holding the door tightly, barring my entrance.

  “Good morning, lady. I seek the man of the house.” I lifted my foot. “My sandal is torn, I seek some binding, that is all.”

  A stranger being treated with such suspicion was rare, and I’m sure the blood sickness had something to do with it.

  She forced a smile. “Alas my husband died. The plague took him.”

  I leant forward, my breath effusing her face. “Stand still, and listen to me. Do you live here alone?”

  “No.” Her face looked full of fear, but she could not move because of my command. “My daughter, Alexi, lives with me, no one else.”

  I had the information I needed. With a strong hand, I forced the door wider, and strode past her quivering form. “What is your name?”

  “Samara.”

  “Well then, Samara, get Alexi in here. I want to take a look at you both.”

  By early evening, no news had come to me about poor Ivan’s trampled body, so I assumed he had made it out alive. I hoped that Bruno had at least gotten in a good kick or two before Ivan bested him, a broken rib, a shattered femur; some measure of vicarious retribution.

  Nicolette awoke as the last of the day’s light faded. Though weak, she seemed mostly unharmed and I realized immediately I had stumbled upon an easily replenished food source. I felt sure Ivan would have much to say about that; not that it mattered.

  The maid’s glorious fire had dimmed to an ember, a fact that troubled me but not overly. With a heavy, lumbering gait and slouched shoulders, she presented my evening repast. The meat looked pink and the wine finely aged but my lavish feeding earlier in the day had dulled my appetite for human food.

  “Here, sit,” I said to Nicolette, pointing to the chair beside me.

  Quite out of character, she dropped her chin to her chest and failed to meet my eyes. “I am to dine at the servant’s table. It is my place, Mr. Tomas.”

  “Your place is where I tell you to be.”

  Without further objection, she slid into the designated chair, eyes affixed at some invisible curiosity on the table. I shoved my tray over to her.

  “Eat.”

  “That is your meal, Mr. Tomas.”

  “And I am not hungry. Best not let it go to waste; or is your concern for that limited solely to my piano?”

  Still Nicolette did not lift her eyes. My frustration for her began to rise.

  “Are you so attached to your ration of bread and cheese that you crave nothing heartier?”

  “I am a servant; I am grateful for my share.”

  Less honest words had never been spoken; Nicolette’s late-night raids of the pantry were well known to my family, tolerated only at the bidding of my gentle mother. Such thievery ought to have been repaid with a dagger to the throat. And yet the Lucescus had turned a blind eye.

  I wondered at the maid’s dramatic plummet of spirit. Perhaps I had drained too much. I could not afford to deplete her at such a rate and committed to cut the next feeding by half. With this thought in mind, I redoubled my efforts to make her eat, rebuild her strength.

  “Begin,” I said gently.

  “Please, sir, I could not…”

  “Your dinner grows cold; if you do not eat it voluntarily, I will be forced to shove it down your throat.”

  Nicolette took up fork and knife with trembling hands. Deep, foreboding sobs broke from her as she stabbed the meat. She brought a razor-thin shaving of it up, but could not seem to force it passed her lips. Only then did I realize my misgivings for the nature of her reluctance to feed from my plate. It proved no sense of propriety that kept her appetite in check.

  “You’ve poisoned it,” I said sagely.

  Nicolette burst up from the table, fork discarded but knife secure in her grips. She ran at me and I felt the silver edge shear the shell of my ear. The bitter sting burned like a hot iron and I covered the hole with one hand, dispatching my feral maid easily with the other. Grabbing locks of black hair, I forced her head to the table with a painful crack.

  “Good attempt, my dearest, but you will find I am not that easy to kill.”

  “You drank my blood! You are a demon!”

  “And you, my minion. Do not come against me again, Nicolette, or I will make you like me if only to find a thousand painful ways to practice killing you. From this day forward, your life is forfeit.”

  I yanked her upright.

  “Let’s begin this new arrangement appropriately.” I sliced the blade down the side of her head; she let lo
ose a banshee’s cry. “An ear for an ear.”

  I retrieved the linen napkin from the table and pressed it to my wound. Very little blood stained the cloth. It’d already begun to heal; not so for my spoiled maid. I tossed the napkin down to Nicolette. Only once the blood dried did I come close enough to inspect my handiwork.

  It looked a clean cut; unlike myself she, at least, had the hair to conceal her disfigurement.

  “It is not my intention to harm you,” I said, “but only to survive. You will serve me to that end, Nicolette, or you lose far more than this.”

  I left her there to continue her silent sobbing, knowing for certain my cheeky servant had finally learned reverence.

  Turning the two women did not prove as easy as I’d first thought. They were dirty, and the nearest stream lay half a mile away.

  “I will baptize you,” I said as we set off.

  “But we’ve been baptized before,” Alexi replied.

  “Not the way I do it. Don’t question me, girl.”

  Samara and Alexi stripped naked to bathe, and walked slowly into the small stream. Once they had washed each other to my satisfaction, I allowed them back on the bank to dress.

  To my immense relief we met no one else on the trip back to the house. Although I knew these delightful wenches would be sacrificed, I felt some reticence in adding to my crimes.

  I had turned a woman only once before, but did so with a lot more confidence than I’d turned Tomas. I took the mother first, while the daughter looked on, her senses dulled by my commands. As much as it felt like a precursor to the training, it wasn’t devoid of pleasure.

  Once Samara had been instructed on her task, she was a decent lover, and as I bit her neck and drank from her arteries, I unexpectedly plunged my seed deep inside her. It seems I had been without a woman’s touch for too long.

  When I let her drink from my wrist, she took to the new concoction with vigor, pulling on my blood, forcing it from me.

  The turning complete, I set her in a corner, on the crude bed, with an instruction to stay still.

  With my natural passion gone, I took more time with Alexi. Obviously a virgin, she had none of the natural ways of a woman, and lay stiff and scared despite my hypnotic suggestion to the contrary. It took much ministration to make her ready for me, her first love, and I found myself bored in spite of her obvious attributes. Once turned, she cowered against her naked mother, who looked at the fresh cuts on her daughter’s neck with more than a motherly interest.

  Unbeknown to my conscious thoughts, I had decided on my pupil, and who would only to be a blood source to us both.

  Samara took to the training well. She lost her blood madness in only one day, and even with my added suggestion to feed, she railed against it, and resisted. She proudly held her head high, delighted with her willpower.

  “You have done well, Samara,” I said to her, our naked bodies entwined again. “You have proven your will to resist is strong. But now you must feed.” I waved at Alexi, who stood watching us. “Come here. Present yourself.”

  The young girl meekly approached and held her scarred wrists in front of us.

  “Ladies first,” I said with a huge grin.

  Samara deftly ran her incisors over her daughter’s wrist, and drank deeply, never allowing one drop to reach the dirty coverlet.

  Her training took only two more days, by which time, we’d drained poor Alexi to the core. Samara’s loyalty to me now seemed so well ingrained; she even performed the beheading of her own daughter.

  I tested her hourly, and she tested me in return. Harder and harder we pushed our bloodlust away, until at last, on the morning of the third day, I was confident that we could now pass for normal humans, even under the most watchful eyes of the Order.

  By noon, we’d taken to the road; the Jesuit and a handmaiden. If anyone asked questions, I accompanied Samara to join the sisters at the Chapel of Mary at Vinnytsya. I bought two horses at the next market town, and a new dress for my companion; nothing too gaudy, but certainly a cut above her peasant’s garb.

  Once she had changed into her new clothes, she looked very beautiful.

  We rode south for a fair distance, then turned eastwards, heading for Moshny and home. It was time to begin my training with my lord and master, Tomas Lucescu.

  I passed another night in leisurely pursuits. I enjoyed my readings, my new acumen at the piano and several decanters of wine while passing the time. And to be certain, Nicolette fully appreciated my ownership of her, I enjoyed her as well.

  My father Apostol had spoken blithely about the privileges of royalty, but I never embraced nor appreciated his vision until that night. It seemed the seeds my father planted had, at last, begun to sprout. His brutal legacy would serve me well in my new endeavors.

  “Nicolette, attend!” I yelled through the parlor.

  In short order she appeared at the threshold, washed and dressed to commence her duties. To my great surprise, I found that she fashioned her hair in its customary bun, shamelessly displaying my defacement of her. The sight of it caught me off-guard and I had to quickly stifle any reaction lest she enjoy my discomfiture.

  I made a spot next to me on the lounge. “Sit here. Extend your wrist.”

  Nicolette moved slowly, but she did move. With her gaze steady forward, she presented her arm out to me.

  “I will not take much, only what I need to get by.”

  I lied. Yesterday’s feeding had nourished me well; I suspected I could have gone several more days before the drive reignited. Nicolette, however, required much managing; she would be of more use to me in a weakened state than fully thriving. To keep her compliant, and yet well enough to perform her chores, would prove to be a tricky balancing act.

  She twisted as I bit down, but soon her head fell back and relaxed against the cushion. Once her rich blood coated my tongue, it was nearly impossible to stop. When her arm lost all tension, that is when I came back to my senses; again, I had almost gone too far.

  “This will never do,” I complained to her unconscious form. “I will need a harem of housemaids to supply me the blood I need.”

  As I rose from the lounge, Nicolette tipped over lifelessly. There would be no waking her; just as yesterday, she would need hours to recuperate. I didn’t believe I could take too many more feedings from her and made it my utmost priority to begin stockpiling the house with replacements. Apostol’s secret rooms would serve well as such a macabre pantry.

  As dusk settled, and still no word from Ivan, I stole off to Moshny. My beloved Stardust seemed well on the mend but I settled for a lesser mount – Ivan’s – to allow her more rest. The town grew quiet; many windows were yellow with candlelight. I donned a wolf fur hat and tunic of high collar to disguise me slightly; it would not do for a Lucescu to be seen outside.

  I kept my eye out for strays. Any solitary maiden would do.

  I rounded the alley through town where the lighting was so faint a human would scarcely see his hand before his face. Up ahead, gravel shifted and I knew I’d found my mark. Indeed, I’d found two.

  Pressed up against the clay bricks of a cobbler’s shop, a pair of youthful lovers were enjoying their own misdeeds under the cloak of night. The young man spotted me first.

  “Be on your way, ogler. Find other entertainments besides spying.”

  His mischievous companion chimed an appreciative laugh.

  I closed the gap between us.

  The young man turned on me then, fist at the ready. “I said, be off!”

  “Momentarily, sir,” I said pleasantly. “Let me first collect what I have come for and I’ll be one my way.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Why, your blushing virgin, of course.”

  He came at me, shoving me back. “Get back, albino, or I’ll—”

  I wondered if he could see my smile through the blackness, “You’ll what? Kill me, perhaps? You’ll find that no easy task; many have tried of late and to no avail.”
>
  His grin I did see.

  “I’d be more than happy to give it a try.”

  The young man’s fist delivered a square blow; I felt it less than the tickle of an ant’s antennae. At his second attempt, I snatched his hand, snapping the bones of his wrist. He collapsed, bellowing. Only the young girl’s scream drowned his cry.

  With my way now clear, I claimed my prize, knocking her unconscious with a tap to the head. I slipped her over my shoulder, and made off through the sleeping streets of Moshny.

  I determined that I would enter the town in disguise, and approached from the west to a small gate used by smugglers and brigands. My beard had grown quite thick in my time away, and if I wore a half mask, no one would recognize me as Ivan Vyhovsky. I knocked on the door, and immediately, a small pair of eyes gazed out of the small barred window.

  “I seek Gregor,” I said.

  “Who’s asking?” the voice asked, obviously a child.

  “I am of the guild of thieves.”

  “Let me see.”

  I advanced and pressed my wrist against the bars. “You recognize the crest, don’t you?” I breathed heavily into the searching eyes, hoping my suggestion would be strong enough.

  “Eh, yes, sir. Crest of the Guild, sir.” The eyes disappeared from the window, and we stood in silence for a moment. Then after hearing footsteps on the other side of the door, it opened.

  A large man stood in the doorway. “I need to see Gregor.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Tell him that the ‘keeper’ has come calling.”

  The door closed again, and this time it remained so for a good ten minutes. When the man returned, we were immediately invited inside, being led through the streets, and eventually to the back door of a large, private house.

  Inside stood Gregor Ineslav, a thin, wiry man, and well known to me as a harbinger of thievery in the area. He was also, however, the man who could do incredible things with his power. Keeping on the right side of him had been no easy task these last ten years, but I’d managed it.