Malice of the Cross

by Jeremy Croston

  “You have always spoken highly of my grandfather.”

  “Denis was a good friend, my first friend in a very long time, if we are being sincere. He never judged me as a daemon, just Radu Dracul the man.”

  Daemon hunters had a lot of the same issues. Outside of Stefania, there would’ve been a good chance I’d have been shunned for my profession. Some, especially those in the more strict sects of the Catholic Church, would’ve proclaimed me a practitioner of black magic. And those claims would’ve been made without my true heritage being known.

  Thankfully, by the time I took over as the hunter, my family was accepted. Though it was only because of my father killing that witch, but the truth remained. “Being treated as a man is important. It keeps you from becoming the monster so many want to vilify.”

  Something I said amused him. “I once thought that in order to kill Vlad, becoming the monster was necessary. Once again, you have proven how untrue that thought was.”

  “You said you were going to tell me about my grandfather,” I said, getting back on track.

  “Yes, you’re right.” He refocused himself and continued. “Denis and I had a much rougher trip than what we are experiencing. The mountains of Transylvania are treacherous to inexperienced climbers, which we both were at the time.”

  Transylvania? “Why were the two of you in those mountains?”

  “That’s as far as Vlad had gone, his ambitions a bit more hedonistic. It was only more recently that his hunger to control all of Europe has erupted as so.” He looked over and saw that Abigail and Horus were still deep in conversation. “Bran Castle was our destination and along the way, we ran into the werewolf lord that preceded The Jackal, White Eyes.”

  My dealings with werewolves were limited to The Jackal and his pack. Moldavia wasn’t a place werewolves ventured for some reason and for that I was quite happy. “I can only imagine what he was like.”

  “Just as cruel and awful as The Jackal,” Radu informed me. “As his name implied, his eyes were white orbs of death. Denis though, he laughed at the werewolf and eventually beat him within an inch of his life, with his bare hands.”

  That last part put my grandfather’s strength into perspective for me. I’d killed The Jackal with the help of my sword. I couldn’t imagine taking on a beast like that with no weapon. “God alive, why in the world would he do that?”

  “Denis said he saw a soul that could be redeemed. Turns out he was right; White Eyes turned on Vlad in a pivotal battle, weakening my brother to the point where a killing blow was presented to us.”

  This is the part of the story Radu had slipped in here and there. “You said you were betrayed by your other companion, the one who killed Ivan.”

  “Yes, Ariana. She was one of Vlad’s witches, loyal to him until the end,” he said with as much bitterness as sadness.

  That was the betrayer Radu killed? That couldn’t be right, as I heard him use that name twice, each time when I possessed Esmerelda. “You said you killed her.”

  “I did. I tied her up to an Alderwood Tree and stabbed her through the heart with Dragon Fang. I saw the fire of life disappear from her eyes,” he recounted.

  Fate wasn’t on the side of this story. “Ariana is still alive. She is the other witch, with Esmerelda.”

  “Impossible!” he yelled. This even caught the attention of Abigail and Horus.

  I described the second witch to him, her looks, emotions, everything. When I finished, “Does that match well with the Ariana you knew?”

  “Yes,” he said, hushed.

  “She was someone special to you, wasn’t she?”

  “Before falling victim to Vlad’s evil perversion, Ariana was to be my wife. She was to be the mother of my child,” he told us softly.

  With that declaration, and with the sun peeking into the window, Radu excused himself and left the three of us very confused.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was the first person to pick up on it. When Abigail came to me right before dusk and said she had another dream of Radu’s life, all the pieces came together. “You’re related to him,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It makes all the sense in the world,” I continued on. “I’m connected to my ancestor, the witch Esmerelda, so it would only make sense that you’re connected to your own.” After my explanation, even Horus seemed to agree.

  The old priest was very intrigued with everything that had happened. We filled him in after Radu stormed off to bed in a huff. Both Abigail and I regaled him with stories from our previous lives as well as what had happened since meeting Radu. He laughed that Abigail was still reluctant to refer to him by his Christian name, preferring to use the alias he came up for himself.

  “What is your family name, Abigail?” Horus asked. Come to think of it, she never gave us one.

  She didn’t answer him. “Abigail, what’s wrong?”

  “My father, he was a bastard. We didn’t receive a family name.”

  One of the worst distinctions to be leveled against a person was bastard. To be born out of wedlock, or even out of an affair, it was a terrible curse. With her father being a bastard, chances are her mother was shunned and Abigail was treated like filth in her birthplace. No wonder both her and her father were soldiers in the Vatican’s army. It was a chance to redeem their family’s honor.

  There was only one way to find out. “Can you connect to Radu’s mind, with intent?”

  She contemplated my question. “I’ve never tried, as it would seem to be an intrusion of his privacy.”

  “I agree with Maximus,” Horus offered. “The truth lies in the past. You both deserve to know if Maximus’s hypothesis is true.”

  She stayed silent but closed her eyes. Her face scrunched up before going slack. An instant later, her eyes reopened. I expected to hear failure. “How long was I gone?” she asked.

  “Just a split second,” Horus answered.

  “That can’t be right…”

  “Abigail,” I said, starting to get worried. “Your eyes closed and then reopened just a moment later. How long did you think you were out?”

  “Hours,” she told me, disbelief in her voice. “I witnessed so much.”

  **Wallachia; 1458 the year of our Lord**

  “Ariana!” I couldn’t believe what I’d walked in on. My fiancé, the woman carrying my child, in bed with my older brother. “How could you two do this to me?”

  “Oh, brother, your weaknesses betray you. Even in a moment full of hatred, it is easy to see which Dracul is strong and which one is weak,” Vlad taunted.

  My eyes were only for Ariana. Her voice betrayed the guilt I saw as our gaze never broke. “I needed a man, Radu, not a boy. As for our child, it will be the perfect gift for the plans Vlad has envisioned.”

  Sitting on the table closest to the bed was a black book. It was Vlad’s personal diary of all the experiments and evils he’d partaken in. Ariana ventured a glance at it, too. He’d seduced her in even worse ways than mere physical pleasures. She had fallen to his dark arts.

  There was no need to stay and watch this. I grabbed the door and slammed it behind me. In a fury, I went down into the kitchen, sick to my stomach over what I’d seen. There, one of the servants walked up to me to check on my wellbeing. “Master Radu,” she said as she dripped low. “Are you well, sir?”

  I knew this one by name, Tamara. “Yes, I am fine. Thank you for asking.”

  She placed her hand on my cheek. “Whatever troubles your soul, know that it is just a test from God.” Then, she lowered her voice. “And know, if it involves your brother, we support you Master Radu. All the staff does.”

  Vlad was hated by all the maids, servants, and hands on the castle grounds. He’d raped a good deal of the servant girls, tortured many of the men my father had enslaved from his conquests. By all accounts, my brother was pure evil. Yet he was my brother.

  Still, Tamara’s vocal support of my station was a nice change. “Thank
you. I wouldn’t say that too loudly though, if I were you.”

  I turned to walk away, yet something tugged in my stomach. When I came back around, Tamara was still standing there, her shirt dropped just over her shoulder. Judging by her looks, she was right around my age. Beneath the sweat and dust accumulated from all the hard work she had put in, she was a most attractive girl.

  I swallowed hard. “What is happening?”

  “I know the look of a man whose heart has been broken,” she said.

  “My heart hasn’t-”

  She shushed me. “We all know what Ariana does. We know how cruel your brother can be.”

  Tamara guided me to the cold floor below us. “I don’t think this is what is supposed to happen…”

  “Let me make you feel better, sir.”

  I did. I succumbed to Tamara and on the cold kitchen floor, we made passionate love.

  **Italia – 1776 the year of our Lord**

  “As soon as I saw the maid, I knew the connection was there. Ariana’s child wasn’t part of my lineage, it was the servant’s.”

  There was a hush over the room. I assumed Ariana was the lineage, however, it looked a lot grimmer for Radu’s other child. How in the name of the Lord could a mother sacrifice her child? And in the name of Satan, the immortal enemy of God? Vlad’s deeds kept growing in my eyes, his villainous ways becoming even more despicable.

  “Maximus,” Abigail called out. “We need to tell Radu.”

  The vampyre was still asleep. How he slept so much was beyond me. “If you pushed yourself into his mind, he may already know,” I cautioned her.

  We were about to find out. The door to his room opened and the appearance of Radu caused Horus to jump. As he walked in, he said nothing, which wasn’t unusual. He made his way to the window, looking out over the city as night was beginning to fall.

  “The shades are close,” he warned.

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  He sniffed the air before closing the window. “There’s a chill to the air and the smell of fear is falling over the humans of the city. Be prepared to fight before this night is over.”

  He hadn’t made mention of Abigail being in his mind. I considered this a good thing; maybe Esmerelda was unaware of our connection as well. Horus, our new friend, kept looking between the two of them. His ability to hide details and information seemed lacking.

  Eventually Radu picked up on this strange behavior. “Letting go of the fact you are still here, Horus,” he said, annoyed, “what is wrong with you?”

  “N-nothing,” he lied. Oh, the Father couldn’t lie to save his own life. That probably didn’t help when it came to being tortured. “Just curious what we’re going to do, that’s all.”

  “I was hoping your Bible had answers.”

  Hell, Horus had forgotten all about the reason he was still here with us, to supply information. It was up to either Abigail or I to relieve the stress building up in the room. It wasn’t my place; I was hoping Abigail would say something and quickly.

  She did. “I do not know where to begin, but I feel I have an answer to our connection.”

  “You are the Seer, isn’t it obvious?”

  “No, Radu,” she said, using his real name. “Do you remember a maid girl named Tamara?”

  The vampyre took a step back. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. She was a friend during a very rough moment in my human life.” He seemed genuinely moved at hearing her name. “Did a memory come to you?”

  There was no delicate way to put this for Abigail, so she just went straight into it. “Tamara is where my family’s lineage begins. Your moment together produced a child that would eventually lead to me.”

  Right away, Radu understood he gravity of the moment. “That means…”

  “I’m a Dracul. Before I saw that memory, I had no family name to claim as my own. Today, I can claim one, no matter how cursed it is, as my own.”

  “You want to be a part of this family?” Radu asked her. “You want to claim a monster like me as your own?”

  Abigail eased all of the tension out of the room with a single word answer. “Yes.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  A bigail Dracul, something I never expected to have to get used to. The blind Seer seemed at ease with the decision to claim the cursed lineage as her own. Having my own questionable ancestry that traced back to Dracul Castle, it seemed God had a sense of humor for the three of us to find each other. If ever there were a triumvirate to defeat Vlad, I was sure it was this one.

  Night had fallen once more in Milan. We’d stayed here longer than anticipated, with a journey to the Vatican our last step. However, Horus convinced us with his knowledge that making a stand against the shades here would make more sense than facing them in a terrain unknown to us. It was strong strategy; Milan had become almost like a second home on this journey.

  Under the cover of night, we went back to the streets, looking for any signs that the shades had arrived. The notes from Horus’s Bible told of people acting abnormal, weird. The shades corrupted their targets to the very core, their most indecent of thoughts being brought to the surface. We were told to look for those who were being inappropriate, people who were partaking in carnal pleasures for everyone to see.

  The idea of confronting someone possessed by a shade seemed daunting, but Abigail’s last words gave me some comfort. If a shade breaks free from its host and begins to torment the mind, kill the memory or illusion it uses. “Remember,” she said. “What you see won’t be real. Kill it before it can take root.”

  I had a feeling that was a lot easier said than done.

  We were told to meet back at the safe house when the church bells rang at one in the morning. So far, my journey had turned up nothing, that is until I noticed an older man grabbing women as they passed. At first, I chalked it up to being another pervert with no morals, until the women stopped and allowed themselves to be desecrated. The only thing that made sense in my mind was a shade and its corruption.

  After the fourth lady stopped and let herself be fondled by the old man, I knew it was time to seek out Radu and tell him I’d discovered a shade. I quickly went into the alleyway I was beside and started to hustle back towards the safe house, only to be cut off by the man I believed to be possessed by a shade. How did he do that?

  When he spoke, it was almost like hearing a lizard speak. A low, hissing like noise accented the man’s fluent Italian. “The one named Brinza, our master is looking for you.”

  “Vlad Dracul? Is that your master?” I asked.

  “Yes,” it hissed in agreement. “The Impaler has placed a price on your head, along with his estranged brother, Radu.”

  “He’s apparently too scared to show up himself.”

  The possessed man laughed. He didn’t stop laughing at me for a few minutes. “The Eldest Dracul would kill you in the blink of an eye. Why do you think Radu doesn’t challenge him alone anymore?”

  The confidence the shade was showing in his master was clearly high. It made me wonder though, were we that severely under prepared for the showdown with Vlad? No, I told myself. We had killed The Jackal and Vladislav by this point, and had dealt with the Buckriders. Vlad was the one who was afraid of us, not the other way around.

  I unsheathed my sword and pointed it at the monster. “Leave this man and be gone, daemon!” I commanded.

  It cocked its head to the side with a strange grin. “This man allowed me entry, I am not going anywhere.” It flashed from where it was standing to not even a hair’s width away. “Killing you in the name of the master would be the highest of honors.”

  I thought quickly back to all the information we were given before we left. Shades were fast, incredibly fast in fact. They possessed a target in order to give themselves a way to kill. Outside of possession, they would drive those they were after insane. Apparently Vlad didn’t want us to suffer mentally, he wanted us killed. Taking that into consideration, my only choice was to kill
the possessed. It would be merciful, once a shade had its grips in you, life would never be the same.

  This close, I stabbed outward with Crescent Moon, piercing the man in the belly. I thought that would work, only to be mistaken. “A jab to the gut isn’t enough to fall a shade,” it sneered.

  The next thing that happened involved me being flung over its head and landing hard on the cobblestone street. The way in which the shade moved from inside the host was jerky and quick. There was no way I could keep an eye on all of its movements. I was at an extreme disadvantage.

  The shade picked me back up, before I even had time to register the first attack. “The Brinza line ends with you, Maximus,” it taunted.

  How dare this creature talk to me in such a way! I felt the rage, the same one I felt when I faced down The Jackal build up again. Something about my anger must’ve hurt the shade, as it dropped me, smoke coming off its hand. The scream it made from the pain was unholy. I didn’t care, there was no way my family name was ending with me. The Brinza name would live on.

  This time when I chopped at it with my sword, the attack caused it pain. It retreated quickly to the back of the alley after a slice to the arm connected. There was nowhere for it to go. I stalked my enemy with a hatred, one that welled up from a threat to eliminating my lineage. Damned as it was, no one would take that away from me.

  The shade looked terrified as I approached. “How can you have the power to harm me?” it gasped.

  “You underestimated your opponent.” I brought my blade down once more, taking the head off the man. As the lifeless orb hit the ground, I realized too late that the shade left its host just a moment before the death blow. Being this close, I was trapped in its grasp…

  When I came to, I was no longer in Milan. I was back in Stefania and the village was burning. Fire was falling from the sky, much like what Radu could do. This wasn’t Radu, however. These burning balls of death were caused by Vlad Dracul.