Malice of the Cross

by Jeremy Croston

  “What are you doing?” I asked incredulously.

  “Alejandro is a blacksmith I found upon my arrival to Rota. After knowing you were here and that you were carrying Denis’s hilt with you, I went to him and asked for a few favors.” The bigger Spaniard smiled at Julius. “Turns out, he is a devout Catholic and his sisters have been hurt by the daemons of the night.”

  How in the name of God did Julius manage to find the only person in this hole that wasn’t interested in only money, knew about the real dealings in Europe, and could make weapons? “I always told you that fortune followed you.”

  He reached out with a hand. “Come, my friend. This is no life for you. Come with me and let us retake the light from the evils that plague this land.”

  I looked at his hand for a few moments, contemplating what my role was truly meant to be in all of this. Ahh, fate, you fickle bastard. Grabbing his hand, “If God brought you here, I guess my role in this Hell isn’t done quite yet.”

  He helped me up and we met in an embrace. “It is good to see you again, old friend.”

  “You too, Julius.” We broke off the hug and I noticed something I hadn’t previously paid attention to. “Where are your robes, the mark of the holy man?”

  He looked sheepish at my question. “I am no longer part of the church. With the vampyre’s corruption so deep, the holy walls of the church have been tainted with malice. I do God’s work in the field these days, administering to the sick and lost wherever I go, on my road to find you that is.”

  Alejandro, who hadn’t spoken to this point, waved his hand. “Why doesn’t your friend speak? I can translate Spanish,” I informed him.

  “He is mute, his tongue cut out by the new face of the church. He is from Cataluña, a place that is under the control of a daemon. When he spoke out to fight back, the daemon’s priests took a knife to his mouth as a show of the new law in the land.”

  Even Spain had become infected with the daemons. I switched to Spanish so he’d understand me completely. “I’m Maximus Brinza, daemon hunter. I can’t promise you much, but I will at least try to remove the creature from power that did this to you.”

  “Maximus, is that the fighting spirit coming back to you?” Julius asked.

  I wasn’t sure where this renewed energy was coming from. The need to shed this filth and stench was growing. The fire that had burned deeply into my soul as a Brinza was reigniting its passion. Too many years had gone by where I’d let self-pity and doubt keep me from helping in whatever small ways I could. I may have been no match for Vlad, but these pathetic creatures who he placed in control in the outer reaches of his damned kingdom? They would soon learn to fear me.

  My mind was made up. “Can you do something with this?” I asked Alejandro, showing him the full hilt from my belt.

  He reached out and I placed the iron work in his hands. He carefully inspected it, his eyes lighting up the more he studied. He gave it back to me and gave a firm nod of his head, his black hair tied in a ponytail rolling over his shoulder.

  “Good,” I responded. “Can we go back to your workshop? The sooner we get started on this the better.”

  He was excited but Julius had one more surprise. “Before we do anything, I think it is time for the world to know the Brinza family is once again in action.” He removed the satchel from his shoulder and pulled out a fresh blue tunic. He turned it around for me to see the crest my grandfather used to wear, woven in gold thread. None had worn it since Denis died, not even my father.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “Elder Darius must have stored it away before his death. When I was rummaging through the church before I left, I found it. That’s when I knew it was time to find you.” He handed me the tunic. “That’s when I knew God had a great plan for Maximus Brinza.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  W e entered Alejandro’s shop as the sun began its ascent into the sky. The warm, yellow rays reflected off the ocean, making it hard to see. My eyes welcomed the relief of the interior of the blacksmith’s showroom. Weapons were hanging neatly on the wall, the smell of the forge coming in from behind the main room.

  There was no second guessing of Alejandro’s skill. The craftsmanship of each blade, axe, and so forth was exquisite. He had a God given talent for crafting beauty from steel and it was not to be denied. I picked up the short sword closest to me, the balance of the weapon and the blade’s edge was immaculate. I placed it back down, gingerly. These weren’t weapons, they were works of art.

  There was one weapon that stood out from the rest. The handle was polished wood and there was a chain connected to it. The thick links led up to a spiked ball, one that would cause impressive amounts of damage. Alejandro saw me admire it and pointed to it with a joyful gaze.

  Julius noticed, too. “The Morningstar flail, an uncommon weapon and one that is most deadly, in the right hands.”

  Alejandro motioned for me to take it down. I cautiously took the handle in my hand and pulled it down. The weight threw me off for a moment until I could adjust to the fact that most of it was in the tail end. Julius backed up, giving me some room to swing it around. Immediately I gained respect for the weapon as it generated power and speed almost with just a flick of the wrist.

  This was to be my weapon. “My sword failed me. The Morningstar flail will be the weapon of my redemption.”

  The mute blacksmith made a few simple hand gestures to the former holy man. Julius seemed to understand him. “Give him your grandfather’s hilt. He said come back tomorrow and you will have a weapon that is perfect for ridding the land of the daemons.”

  “I was under the impression you couldn’t understand him,” I said.

  Julius just shrugged his shoulders. “You never asked.”

  I handed Alejandro the metal base and prayed for his success. With that done, the rest of the day was ours to do as we wanted. The first place we went was an inn on a better side of town and Julius paid for a room with a gold piece. He was full of surprises.

  Once we had the room, he instructed me to wash myself and change. In addition to the blue tunic with the family crest on it, he handed me a pair of cloth pants and a simple black coat. When I reached the washing stall, I immediately shed the torn, beaten clothes I had worn as a sign of my failure and washed off the stench of fish and booze. I left the clothes in a pile to be burned with the rest of the trash and emerged a new man.

  The patrons in the inn, most of whom were eating lunch, stopped for a second to give pause to the no longer dirty man they had seen earlier. Julius gave me a short nod, acknowledging my current state as much more appropriate. I sat down at the table he had procured, maps spread out with markings all around them.

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  “These are the places that Vlad’s damned army has taken hold. Italia, Bohemia, and Moldavia have faced the worst, as well as the Balkans. The outer edges—Spain, Portugal, and parts of France—have been spared, for the time being.”

  “How many lieutenants does Vlad have in play?”

  He pointed to the four big red circles. “These indicate the cities in which his most trusted supports have power; Bathori in Munich, Renard in Vienna, and Lukas in Nice. The fourth circle, which you can see covers the province of Transylvania, is ruled by the werewolf Dread Howl and his legion. Stories about this wolf make The Jackal seem tame.”

  “What about the daemon in Cataluña, the one that injured Alejandro?” I asked.

  Julius couldn’t hide his contempt. “Small time vampyres feel as if they have free reign of Europe, which according to Vlad’s doctrine, they do. Unlike the four daemons I mentioned earlier, these ones are younger, not as powerful. The one who hurt Alejandro and his family, his name is Nico Valdez. A young vampyre with a hot temper.”

  With Vlad out of reach, the least I could do was take on enemies that I had a chance of successfully killing. If my legacy would be nothing more than being a thorn in the side of the most powerful daemon t
o walk the earthly plane, then so be it.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening catching up, me with the experiences with Radu and Abigail and Julius catching me up on all the goings-on in Stefania. I was saddened to hear my home had fallen victim to another piss-ant minion like this Nico Valdez. I made a silent oath to God before sleep overtook me to go back one day and put down the one who’d tormented those I loved.

  The next morning, the two of us went back to Alejandro’s shop. The blacksmith came bounding out of his workshop when he heard the bell ring, excited to see we had returned. He held up a finger and disappeared back into the forge. When he returned, he had an armful of weaponry to display.

  There were three daggers with odd shaped blades, a brass cross with a wooden stake on the end, a Morningstar flail, and finally my grandfather’s hilt—a new blade forged on to the weathered metal. It was quite the armory he had created.

  Alejandro was doing his sign making with his hands again. Julius took it all in before informing me of what was being said. “The daggers have been made with the rostrum of a fish called the carpenter fish. Born from water purified with salt, they will kill daemons.”

  I picked one up and nearly pricked myself on the needle-like obtrusion. “I like these very much.”

  “The cross is from his family. The wooden stake at the end conforms with his province’s convictions that vampyres can only be staked through the heart.” Julius encouraged me to pick it up. “He hopes you use it on the one who hurt him and his family.”

  “I will,” I said as I picked it up. The work was incredible, the cross itself magnificent. “Tell him that I will gladly use this to rid the world of that foul beast.”

  Alejandro dropped all pretenses of professionalism and came over to grip me in a bear hug. The muscles that came from beating huge hammers in a hot forge nearly crushed me. I was glad to make him happy, though. And I meant what I told him.

  “You’ll see a brand new Morningstar flail for you, which you requested, along with one last weapon. He couldn’t bring himself to desecrate a hilt that was meant for a blade. He was able to forge a new blade, attaching it to the part that was still there. That’s why you’ll see the blending of colors right here,” he pointed at.

  The discolored portion of blade where Vlad had broken it off mixed itself into the bright, shiny steel that Alejandro forged into place. You couldn’t even tell that the weapon had been broken, other than the mixture of color. “My grandfather, Denis, would be very proud of this blade,” I spoke in Spanish.

  Those were the words the blacksmith needed to hear. He signed one more time to Julius, expressing his gratitude. I didn’t need a translation for the motions he was going through.

  There was just one more notation he wanted to pass on. “He tells me that the weapons have all been bathed in the sea water, giving them the blessing of salt. And speaking of blessing, each weapon was prayed for by a priest, one who still believes in the actual word of God and not one of Vlad’s puppets.”

  It was time to equip my new bounty. I placed the daggers in the pockets inside my coat. The Morningstar, when rolled up, fit nicely attached to the belt clip I had. The sword, of course, went into the sheath Alejandro had and I strapped it to my back. The last thing was the cross, which I handed to Julius.

  “What am I to do with this?”

  “If you’re coming with me, friend, you won’t be going unarmed. Keep that cross with you until I need it to kill Nico,” I instructed.

  He placed it in his belt. “The world is really getting its hunter back, isn’t it?”

  “The two of you haven’t put this much time and effort into this to watch me drink and smell like rotten fish, have you?” I jested.

  “I could’ve done without the rotting fish, but it is what it is,” Julius agreed.

  With nothing left to do in Rota, it was time to leave and return to the areas of Europe that needed me. Our first stop would be Cataluña. “Alejandro, thank you for everything. As I leave today, know that your family will be avenged and the one who did this to you will be sent back to Hell.”

  With a happy face, he led us out of his shop. As we crossed over the threshold and back out into the morning, a new adventure was beginning; a second chance to do God’s work was given to me.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  **Cataluña; 1778 the year of our Lord**

  T he village Alejandro was from was living in terror. Nico Valdez had been tormenting the entire region, raping women, killing children, and castrating men. With the help of some heinous men who claimed to be of the cloth, he inspired Vlad’s vision for the Drakovia he spoke of. It was time to put an end to it, at least in this area.

  Remembering what Radu had taught me, I decided to keep a low profile while sending Julius into the village as a missionary to help those injured or even to offer spiritual guidance. He was armed with the cross the Spanish blacksmith had fashioned just for this purpose, to make sure the wooden stake attached to the bottom ripped into the vampyre’s heart, killing the beast. Julius and his message would be like a dinner bell to the daemon.

  So far Nico hadn’t shown up. Each morning when Julius returned from his trips, he reported no sightings of the vampyre, or any of his evil minions for that matter. I was beginning to get frustrated with the wait. One could only practice with their new weaponry so long before they had an itch to try it out on one of the devils. I had grown especially fond of the daggers made from the carpenter fish rostrums. Horrifyingly sharp, the needles along the edge could cause excruciating pain, as I found out the hard way.

  As the sun began to rise, Julius once again returned with a look of defeat to him. “The locals say Nico’s never been absent this long. I don’t like this, Max.”

  I was growing weary of sitting here, doing nothing. I didn’t leave my pathetic shell of a life in Rota to sit on my hands. “There must be a lair that he goes to. I will seek that out.”

  “Max, we are in unfamiliar territory. For all we know, this is an elaborate trap for us.”

  “I’d rather fight because I sprung a trap than to sit around idle.”

  Julius offered something else to keep me from storming off to parts unknown. “Apparently we aren’t the only new people to come to the region recently. About a month before our arrival, a figure in a black cloak was seen around the outskirts of town around dusk. No one knows if it was a man or woman.”

  “Maybe I’ll see if I can track this person down. If they came here looking for Nico, maybe they can lead me to him.” Yes, my mind was made up.

  Julius seemed agreeable to this. He ate a few pieces of bread and dried meat before falling asleep in the makeshift lean-to I built. I kept vigil that day in silence until he awoke, close to dusk.

  I was arming myself as he stretched his arms out, yawning. “What would you have me do while you go on the hunt?” he asked.

  “Go to the village,” I said. “Stay close to people, or even the church. If there’s any danger and they know about us, chances are they will come after me while I’m exposed.”

  He didn’t like it but he went along. “One more thing, Julius.” I pulled out one of the daggers and handed it over to him. “Keep this close. I’ll be needing the cross in case I come across Nico this evening.”

  We exchanged weapons and the two of us left our safe zone. I escorted Julius to the village, but didn’t enter. With my friend safe, I disappeared into the wooded area near the village. On the hunt again, it was like things hadn’t changed. I knew where to look, to see if there were any signs of the cursed creatures that preyed upon humans. So far, nothing of note stood out to me.

  A breeze swept through the area. Something was here with me! It tried to move under the cover of rustling leaves, but boots make different sounds against the ground than the movements of tree branches. I grabbed the Morningstar flail and lashed out towards the sound.

  It was the cloaked figure.

  The big black hood covering their face made it impossible to
tell if this was friend or foe. They stopped just short of where the spiked ball at the end of the weapon would’ve caved their head in. I recoiled the weapon, ready to strike again if necessary. “Who goes there?” I called out in my remedial Spanish.

  A single hand was held up. I watched with curiosity as the figure removed a short sword from under the cloak and pointed it at me. So, this was how it was going to be. “Fair enough,” I told my opponent.

  He—I had learned enough from his few movements to assume this was a man—slowly approached with the short sword held high. I swung the flail around above my head, allowing it to pick up speed as he entered my range. He darted in and then back out as I attacked. The ball of the flail buried itself into the ground. His movements made one fact clear.

  “Vampyre,” I growled.

  He said nothing. He began his approach again, this time with more confidence that he could best whatever I could do. Let him think that, I smiled. This time, I kept the flail stationary and followed him in the circle he was walking in. I would let him show his hand first.

  He didn’t disappoint. He came at me with his sword, edge first. Having fought enough vampyres, I gleaned some insight on the point of no return. With that in mind, I generated enough power to make the flail go from stationary to in motion in the blink of an eye. It didn’t have the necessary killing power behind it, but the blow caught him in the thigh, the wounds oozed blood the moment I pulled the ball back.

  What I wasn’t ready for was the vampyre to ignore his wounds and attack at this range. He caught me in the arm, the tip of his blade cutting through my coat and tunic, ripping into the top layer of my skin. It burned as the attack finished. I was incredibly pissed.

  With my offhand, I found one of my daggers and let it fly at his head. He moved to the side to miss most of the throw, but those needles were long and deadly. The side of the dagger ripped into the hood and across his face. The moment I saw who my attacker was, I stopped immediately.