With food in our stomachs, I watched as Abigail’s lifeless eyes grew heavy.
“Do you think we’ll catch The Jackal tonight?”
As she asked the question, a foul wind rushed through camp. It chilled me to the bone. “We’re close. I think The Jackal knows that and is leading us towards an area that’ll be more suited for him to fight us.”
“I, too, have ill feelings about tonight.” She kicked some snow over the fire, putting it out. “We should rest, Max.”
Abigail’s instincts were correct. “It will be okay,” I told her.
“You say that now, but when The Jackal makes his final stand, how can we be so sure?”
I pulled the Bible that Julius gave me the night I left out of my jacket. “God is on our side. He brought the three of us together as his champions.”
She put her hand on the old book. “The word of the Lord, it shall guide us.”
I placed mine on top of hers. “If we believe the Father is watching us, his protection will see us through.”
“That reminds me of a passage, Second Thessalonians 3:3—But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one,” she quoted.
I was highly impressed with her Biblical knowledge. With those reassurances, the two of us joined a sleeping Radu inside the shelter and did our best to rest as the sun hung in the sky like an ever-present guardian.
Chapter Six
**Wallachia; 1458 the year of our Lord**
“V lad! What have you done to us?”
My brother stared down at me. My older brother, the one who sentenced us to an eternity in Hell just so he could have the power to invade those who shared borders with us. I ran my tongue over my teeth; my canines extended down past what was natural. I felt ill, like I could puke everything I ate only a short time ago.
What happened after that dinner, I’ll never forget. With the help of two witches he’d been sheltering in the castle, Vlad swore a blood oath to the Lord of Hell himself. In exchange for his immortal soul, Satan granted Vlad blood powers, turning him into a great monster he referred to as a vampyre.
There was just one problem; I’d gone to the throne room with Vlad’s meal and Satan’s curse touched me, too. I fell to my knees as the transformation took hold. No one was the wiser that Radu Dracul had stumbled across this foul magic. It was only when Satan looked back and saw I was caught in his magic, only then did he laugh and finish condemning me to a lifetime of eternal torment.
As soon as the task was complete, he vanished, leaving me to deal with the fallout. “Brother,” I yelled again. “You’ve turned us into daemons!”
Vlad was flexing his arm, marveling over his newfound glory. “Radu,” he chuckled. “It seems I have granted you a reprieve from a dull, ordinary life.”
I grabbed the first thing I could find. It was a cross, the Cross of Lorraine to be exact, and charged Vlad. He laughed at me as I tried to stab him with it, only for the cross to begin to burn my own hand. My hand split open, covering the tool in my blood. In pain, I howled as I dropped it.
That’s when he kicked me in the face. “Leave this castle at once, traitor.” His two witches descended from the throne and used their cursed magic to pick me up. “You were granted a gift, by accident to be sure, and you turn your back on it. Go and live your final days with those about to die.”
One of the witches rambled off a curse and I was thrown from the throne room window and didn’t stop until I hit the ground below. My new body absorbed the blow, leaving me able to walk even though the drop should’ve killed me. That would be his folly, leaving me alive.
Shouting back up to the throne room, “Damn you, Vlad!” I don’t why, but I shouted a curse towards him. “May the cross that took my blood ever haunt you!”
**Hungaria; 1775 the year of our Lord**
I felt a hand shake me out of my sleep. That was a shame, too. I’d been dreaming I was somewhere warm, in a soft bed. As I opened my eyes, I saw it was the blind seer.
“Max,” she said in hushed tones. “Come, we need to talk.”
I noticed her brow was sweating profusely. Then there were her eyes—blind eyes shouldn’t have been bloodshot. “Is everything okay?”
She put a finger over my mouth and helped me to my feet. We walked out of the encampment, noticing the sun was getting ever closer to the horizon. Radu would be up soon. When we were far enough away, I asked her again if she was okay. “Tell me, something must’ve happened.”
“Our dreams mixed,” she said, shakily.
“What was so wrong about being somewhere besides here?”
“Not ours,” she corrected me. “Radu’s. Our minds touched and I witnessed the night he was turned from a human into a vampyre.”
I was most intrigued! Abigail relayed everything she saw in her dreams back to me. Vlad, Radu’s older brother, summoned Satan himself into his throne room and the Lord of Hell put a dark curse upon them. Each brother was turned into a vampyre. Radu, furious at his brother, attempted to attack him with a strange looking cross. “He called it the Cross of Lorraine,” she went on.
That was a relic I was most familiar with, as it was a well-known variant in this part of Europe. The Cross of Lorraine was a type of crucifix with a second bar at the bottom. The pommel of my grandfather’s sword was shaped like one. “What happened next?” I followed up quickly.
“His daemonic side took hold and the cross burned him. He was soon ejected from the castle by a pair of witches, but survived with little injury.” She was calming down as she told the tale. “He hollered a curse, but for some reason, I can’t remember it exactly.”
“I can.” It was Radu. He’d emerged from his slumber and was standing not too far from us. “I cursed him so the cross that injured me would forever haunt him. Unfortunately, it seems they were just vain words.”
Neither of us was sure what to do. Would he be mad knowing what happened with Abigail? “I’m not going to eat you two,” he quipped.
This comment didn’t put either of us at ease, but Abigail did find her voice. “You were turned against your will. I can see why you’d be so caught up with revenge.”
“Revenge? I’m not going to kill Vlad out of revenge. I’m going to kill him because of what he’s done to the world. My revenge died a long time ago,” he said. His words betrayed him.
I knew it wasn’t my place to correct him; he’d known my grandfather and father. Until this point, I’d kept my mouth shut, unwilling to pry too much, yet his crusade led them to their deaths. It very well could lead to mine as well. Feeling bolder than nature suggested I should have, I approached him, getting into his face.
“Radu,” I started. “And yes, I will use your Christian name.” I expected to be dropped on the spot but he just looked at me. “Denis and Ivan Brinza followed you, which is the reason I’m here. They gave their life for you. It’s time you honor me with the reason they went along with whatever plan you had, other than to rid of the world of Vlad.”
“Is ridding the world of Vlad not enough for you, Max?” he asked. He was being just as serious as I was.
“We humans, we tend to go along with things that touch our hearts. Sure, Vlad is a bastard and needs to be killed, but for them to leave their loved ones, there must be another reason.”
The vampyre actually gave ground. “I will not speak for those men and what their reasons were. What I can tell you is what I told them. You are free to assume anything you’d like.” It was his turn to take a step forward towards me. “You are a brave man, using that name with me.”
I’d come too far to show fear. I bit back and stood firm. “You need me,” I said blankly.
Seeing this wasn’t going anywhere, Radu softened his stance. “I told Denis and Ivan the same thing; the Brinza blood had been touched a long time ago and was tied to me. They found truth in my words and joined my quest.”
There was nothing I knew that ever said my lineage was tied to this vampyre, other than the prophe
cy Julius had discovered when he took over Stefania’s church. Could my mother have left out parts of my destiny in order to try to protect me? Maybe the reason Denis and Ivan went along with Radu was to end whatever linked my family to him. He was right, my speculation did run rampant.
“What happened to each of them? Did Vlad personally kill them?”
Radu confirmed the stories that Julius and I grew up on. “Both men fought valiantly. Your grandfather was the more skilled Brinza and he almost succeeded in helping me remove the plague.” Radu covered his face with his hand. “Vlad, he has powerful allies of his own. We were betrayed and the betrayer was the one who killed Denis, allowing Vlad to win the day.”
“Who was the betrayer?” Abigail asked before I could. She’d been so quiet that I almost forgot she was a part of this conversation.
“No one of importance. I killed her years later, allowing your grandfather’s memory to find peace.” With Radu, I knew that was the end of the conversation, even though it was clear there was a lot more to it than just that simple explanation. “Knowing what you do now, does that change anything…for either of you?”
“Vlad needs to die,” Abigail said.
“If the men before me saw the good in this quest, I will not be the first in my family to deny the chance to pursue it.”
The moon was coming into full view. “The Jackal is close, I can feel his malevolent aura nearing ours. We are going to be in for a fight to the death. If we cannot defeat him as a team, we will stand no chance against what lies beyond.”
“The Jackal isn’t the only general we’ll have to face, is he?”
“No, Max, he’s just the first of many. Tonight, I want the two of you to show me what you have. When we meet him in battle, leave nothing back.”
For someone who seemed to despise traveling with others, Radu was quite good at rallying the troops. As he finished his short speech, my blood was pumping and my sword was itching to find the werewolf, to engage him in battle. Beside me, Abigail was just as ready, her knuckles white from clenching her fist. We would show Radu the breadth and depth of skill we provided him with.
“Come,” he instructed. “The night is our ally and The Jackal will not live to see another.”
Chapter Seven
W e came across a traveler’s wagon engulfed in flames. The only body we saw had been that of the driver, his face melted off from the extreme temperature of the fire. Scattered along the ground were the crates the wagon had been carrying; the horses were long gone, as well.
Radu put his hand on his sword. “The Jackal is near. This reeks of his handiwork.”
I went in for a closer inspection of the wagon. Something didn’t add up. “There should be at least six others. The wagon would’ve held four occupants and I assume a wagon of this size would’ve had two guards posted with it.”
“I’m sure they are near,” Radu said.
“Have they been transformed into wolves?” Abigail asked.
It started off as one howl, followed by multiple more. Abigail’s answer came from within the woods. Each of us brought our weapon of choice to arms. Abigail’s steady hand leveled her crossbow and aimed off to the west. Radu was just as interested in her motion as I was. The way she overcame her disadvantage was truly inspiring.
I carefully watched her finger on the trigger. The shadows of the dancing flame made her look even deadlier in the moonlit night. Then, without hesitation, the finger fired the trigger, sending the deadly arrow hurtling through the woods. It hit true as a werewolf came into view, rolling on the ground with the sharp-tipped bolt through its mouth and out the back of its head.
That’s when all hell broke loose. Five more wolves burst through the wall of trees and into the opening we were standing in. These wolves showed no fear of the fire, which was odd. Fire was the natural enemy of the beasts. Two wolves broke off from the pack and circled me. I was going to give these wolves reasons to fear me and the flame.
One of the pieces of cargo that the wagon carried was flammable oil used in lanterns. I was close enough to where I could dip my sword into it and touch the blaze. Fire roared from the tip of my blade and all the way down. Thankfully, the gloves I was wearing were thick, keeping the heat from being too unbearable. I twirled the fire-engulfed sword around, in the hopes to intimidate.
It didn’t work.
The first wolf jumped at me, its claws leading with its maw of teeth right behind. I met it with Crescent Moon, the steel intercepting the claws and preventing them from digging into my face. There was a different look to this wolf’s eyes; the pupils were crosses.
“Radu,” I yelled. “I don’t think these people were human!”
I couldn’t turn to see him, but I heard his response over the snarls and growls from the other wolves. “Dammit! The Jackal turned a caravan of warlocks into werewolves!”
Warlocks were male witches. Unlike their female counterparts, all of a warlock’s spells involved fire of some sort. This is why they showed no fear. This fire may have been created by them. I pushed the first wolf away, dodged the second’s attack and made it back to the center of the clearing unscathed. I bumped into something, the longer hair tickling my neck told me it was Abigail.
Her body was tense. “I was able to put another down. Unfortunately, it seems the rest of the werelocks have figured out how to dodge a crossbow arrow.”
Werelock. I’d give her credit for being clever in battle. “How is Radu faring?” I asked as my two targets approached.
“Better, both of his attackers are injured.”
That was better than what I could say. I quickly pounded my sword against the ground until the flames went out. With the normal way to deter werewolves gone, I decided it was time to use a much more direct tactic. I was going to take the fight to them.
With my sword at the ready, I informed Abigail of my plan. “I’m going to attack both of them at the same time. I trust your shots—make them count.”
There was no time to banter over it. With the closer of the two wolves in range, I began my assault on him. This caught him unprepared as the blade of Crescent Moon caught him in the thick, muscular shoulder. It didn’t sink in very deep, but he felt pain for the first time. I followed up with a jabbing motion, trying to get to his softer underbelly. His partner jumped over him and pushed my sword away. As he landed, he fell to the ground dead, one of Abigail’s arrows sticking out of his chest.
With just one wolf to focus on, this made it a bit easier. This one had felt the cruel pain of the salt-covered steel. I grinned rather maliciously and attacked once more. The wolf didn’t know what to do as the counter-attacker. Two blows later, I’d sliced off his left front paw. He froze, the sight of his blood dripping to the ground too much. In a prone position, I lifted the blade and brought it down with all my might against its skull, cleaving it in two.
Radu’s wolves were dead. As he was getting ready to put his sword away, a shadow leapt from a tree towards him. Grabbing one of my knives, I threw it as hard as I could towards the danger. The knife buried itself into the gut of The Jackal, knocking him off course. The Jackal landed on his feet, a person’s length from Radu.
He ripped the sharp instrument from his midsection. “It would’ve been a shame if my warlock-enhanced wolves had killed you Radu.” He turned to us. “As for you insects, it appears your luck hasn’t run out yet.”
“You’ve been a plague to this land almost as long as my brother,” Radu growled at him.
“And you’ve been a whelp, an ungrateful outcast with a large bounty on his head.”
The intense hate between these two only underscored just how much Radu wanted to kill Vlad. Radu’s hand was fidgeting on the sword’s handle. “Give me a reason, scum. I have been waiting a long time to remove your head from your shoulders.”
The Jackal dug his claws into the ground. “If you could’ve killed me before, you would’ve done so already.”
We thought The Jackal was preparing to attack Radu. At
the very last moment, his movements were directed towards Abigail and I. I pushed her out of the way and took the brunt of his claws across my chest. I landed hard on my ass, three deep cuts on my torso bleeding. I was hurt, but it only served to piss me off.
I pushed myself back up, just as he was licking my blood off his claws. “A Brinza… I fed on the remains of your father.”
“Shut up.”
The Jackal looked up. “A human doesn’t get to talk to m-”
“I said shut up!” My rage channeled through my very being. The Jackal signed his death warrant the moment he bragged about eating my father. “Say hello to Satan when you meet him!”
With little disregard for my body, I ran at the creature and chopped at his legs. The Jackal jumped out of the way, barely. I wasn’t giving up. I reached out with my hand and grabbed his leg, pulling it down as hard as I could. There was an audible pop, his limb separated from its socket.
He retreated. “No, this cannot be!”
“Oh, it is. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I rid you from this world!”
He tried to fend off my attacks, but he eventually succumbed to the bite of the steel. The mighty Jackal eventually balled himself up, the hacking motion of my sword taking chunks of him as trophies. As he lay there, dying, I put him out of his misery, properly. Something he didn’t deserve. As Crescent Moon pierced his heart, his malignant energy disappeared from this plane forever.
It was over; the werewolf invasion of Hungaria had ended. I no sooner walked away than did the first scavengers come to feast on the dead body. Vultures landed and began pulling away any sort of meat their beaks could find. With all the dead wolves in the area, in no time, there would be more predators arriving for a free meal.
Radu and Abigail, both of whom had witnessed my victory, stood in silence as I rejoined them. “What?” I asked suspiciously.
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