by Ana Calin
Rux
THIS MUST BE SOME ALTERNATE reality. I stare blankly ahead of me, unable to utter a word. Just last night I was traveling to Bucharest with Vlad, my husband; now, on the second night, I’m sitting in the hallway at the university of Bucharest, surrounded by my husband’s closest retinue of vampires, baffled.
He left. Something changed inside of him as he took that vampire’s blood.
“You think he’ll come back?” I whisper to Irina, my hand slipping into hers as she crouches down by my side.
She sighs but doesn’t reply. She just looks at me with compassion in her beauty queen face, her cat-like blue eyes wet, her full lips pursed.
“Come on,” she says. “We’ll get you back to the hotel.”
“What if the police want to ask questions?” I look down the hall at the officers gathered there, making notes and talking into devices.
“They won’t. The clean up team took care of everything—they don’t even have a body, everyone thinks the man who intended to attack you ran away after your husband stepped in.”
I look at her puzzled. “Irina, you saw what happened. You guys can’t have fooled all those people in the lecture hall.”
“Clean up is actually an easy drill for us. We’ve been doing it for centuries, we have experience. The police only wanted to interrogate you regarding the attacker, if you knew anything about him and such, but Tristan said you were too shocked to talk to them. Plus that you wouldn’t press charges; he told them this kind of thing simply tends to happen when you’re a famous researcher who discovers secrets buried by the powers that be.”
She comes to her feet and pulls me up. “But now we need to get out of here before whoever is after you tries a new attack.”
I pull my hand from hers, squaring my shoulders. “What we need to do is find Vlad.”
“Irina and I will investigate,” Tristan cuts in. “But you, Lady Rux, are going back to the hotel, where our people can protect you. The last thing Lord Vlad told me before he stormed out was to take care of you, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.” He puts a hand on my back and urges me to start walking. “We need to find out who wants you dead, and why, but, until we do, we need to lay low.”
“Where is the vampire’s body?” I manage while Tristan leads me towards the university exit.
“The team brought it back to the hotel to investigate,” Irina says, her straight blond hair shimmering in the moonlight as she moves quickly along. “I’d like to have a look at it, too, Tristan. I think I know what to look for.”
“You know what that creature was?” I inquire.
“I have an idea,” Irina says as we emerge out onto the deserted university steps into the moonlight. “It seems a virus or a bacteria plagued his body, and Lord Dracula is now infected with it as well. We need to find out exactly what it is.”
CHAPTER II
Rux
I’m chewing my fingernails back at the hotel, rocking back and forth on the edge of the king size bed that I should be sharing with Vlad. Instead, I’m worried sick, and I can’t see any light at the end the tunnel. Tristan and Irina placed two vampires at my door, and one on the balcony, in case whoever is trying to get to me sends a new assassin, or comes up with new ideas. Meanwhile, they’re investigating the dead vampire’s body.
The door opens, and I jump to my feet. My eyes cling full of hope to Irina, who stops in front of me with gravity written all over her face. Her features are tense, her eyes wide, as if what she discovered surpassed her wildest imagination.
“What? What is it?” I press.
She just stares at me.
My heart pounds wildly in my chest, and I grab her rougher than I intended. Luckily her arm is hard as concrete against my palm.
“Don’t fucking stall, talk to me.”
“That vampire had some sort of rabies,” she says forlornly.
“Rabies? Vampires get that?”
“I think it’s actually vampire specific rabies. There must be someone out there who infects vampires with it.” She sits down with me on the edge of the bed, her gaze serious, charged with worry. “When Lord Dracula bit the man, he must have gotten the rabies, too. Which explains why he asked us, the other vampires, to stay away from him—he was going crazy with need to take our blood.”
My temples pound.
“Are you saying Vlad is now... rabid?”
“I’m afraid so. Now I understand why the guy caught on camera was so obvious in what he did—whoever is behind this wanted Lord Dracula to come along to your conference. The guy on the camera was putting up a show, and he did it only a day before the conference so Lord Dracula wouldn’t have the time to investigate. So that he’d come himself into the conference room in order to protect you.”
“The attack on me was simply meant as a decoy,” I conclude, my voice fading.
Irina nods. “Whoever is behind it sent the rabid vampire to attack you, so that Lord Dracula would bite him, and get infected. The question is—how can you control a rabid creature? They should act random, going after their immediate needs, their urges, in this case the blood of vampires. There were many of us in that conference room, and yet the vampire was preparing to go for you—which triggered Lord Dracula to attack.”
“I have a theory about that,” Tristan says as he comes in, closing the door behind him. He joins us, looking a bit more approachable than usual. The version of Tristan that I’ve grown to know these past two years, hard but humane. He drops into a cushioned chair at the small round coffee table by the balcony door, facing the edge of the bed where Irina and I sit.
“As you know,” he says, “we vampires are bound to Lord Dracula. No matter whether he made us, or another vampire created by him, we are bound by venom to the King of Vampires. We cannot kill him without dying ourselves. I think whoever infected this vampire took over his allegiance, so to say. It was doing its maker’s bidding—otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to resist his urges of going after other vampires.”
He looks at Irina, and I know this explanation is meant for her. “I got to see his face right before Lord Dracula bit him. He was crazed with need, but he was compelled to do something else.”
“So you’re saying that Vlad is out there, suffering right now.” My voice shakes, and tears pool in my eyes.
“He’s probably in pain,” Irina admits. “If not physical, certainly psychological.”
“Someone wanted him infected with rabies,” Tristan concludes, tapping his mouth with his finger, his electric blue eyes narrow as he focuses. “The question is, why?”
“Lord Dracula is indestructible,” Irina says. “This was probably the closest thing to destroying him.”
“Infecting him with rabies?” Tristan shakes his head. “I don’t think they did it simply as an alternative to destruction. In his frenzy, Lord Dracula could create an army of rabid vampires, he would take over the world again, and there would be nothing to stop him.”
The door bangs open, and a vampire from our retinue storms in.
“Tristan, Irina, Lady Rux.” His face is alight with urgency. “Come quickly.”
Tristan pushes himself up from his chair so hard that the chair smashes to pieces against the wall, Irina and I following him out of the hotel room in a hurry. Irina has to drag me after her, because I can’t move as fast as vampires, and she ends up winding an arm around my waist, basically lifting me off the floor with every stride.
The vampire leads us down to a part of the lobby that they rented with the purpose of keeping an eye on the hotel lower levels, and on all entrances. It’s a part of the lobby separated from the rest of the reception hall and from the café area by glass walls. This way the vampires can see everywhere around them, while keeping to themselves at the same time.
There are a number of flat screens lining the back wall, the only one that doesn’t consist of glass. They’re running the news with images, while an impeccably groomed news anchor reports, barely hiding her panic.
I barely hear her words, but I get the story. And hell I see the images—Vlad at a nightclub, standing over what appears to be a table of mobsters. Some of them wear suits, some leather and thick golden chains around their necks, surrounded by cigar smoke, but I have enough experience by now to realize they’re vampires. They’re white-skinned, with dark rings around their luscious eyes, and very attractive to humans. The image of Vlad isn’t as clear as the others’, probably because he was caught moving, while they stared at him in shock. But something is different about him, this isn’t the same Vlad I know.
Huge in his leather jacket, he glares down at what appears to be the lead mobster, strange shadows under his eyes. It’s not just the dark rings specific to vampires, but something redder and more veined, extending to his sharp cheekbones.
The news anchor says something about a dangerous new narcotic that a shady group called The Red Diaz released into the underworld, and that now seems to have backfired. The mobsters at the table are part of the Red Diaz clan, she says. Vlad is described as probably a severe addict that either came for his dose, and the discussion degenerated, or maybe the head of a rival clan—judging by his menacing appearance, the news anchor concludes.
“The man is new to the underworld, unlike the Red Diaz dealers, who make a show of their opulent lives and top model girlfriends,” she says.
They show a short footage of Vlad picking up what appears to be the lead mobster at the table by his jaw and lifting him in the air. The man’s legs dangle as he struggles, Vlad opening his jaw like a beast ready to bite his head off. This is the second most brutal thing I’ve seen Vlad do, but before he goes all the way the cell phone shooting the footage shakes and falls to the floor. The screen shivers over the darkness, and goes black.
“Lord Vlad had back up,” Irina whispers beside me. “He wasn’t there alone.”
“Someone ensured that the entire event doesn’t leak to the press,” another vampire says. “Only bits of it, probably to send out a message.”
“What was wrong with his face?” I whisper to Irina, unable to take my eyes off of the flat screen.
“The rabies,” she breathes.
“We have to keep away from him ourselves,” the vampire who came to get us says, full of anxiety. “He could attack us, too.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Tristan says. “He would have done it at the conference if he wanted to. But he warned us all to stay away from him, and I’m sure he’ll keep his distance from us.”
I cringe, bracing myself. I don’t want him to keep away from me. It hurts that he’s even able to.
“Then what happened there?” the long-faced vampire says, pointing to the screens. “I don’t suppose that, after that cell hit the floor, Dracula put the guy down and asked for a makeup redo. I’m pretty damn sure he killed all the vampires at that table, namely by biting their heads off.”
“He must have been on a mission,” Tristan says. Then he tells them his theory about the creature infecting the vampires with rabies having compelled him to go there and kill the dealers. Just like he compelled my attacker at the conference, in order to manipulate Vlad.
“It was never the creature’s intention to destroy Lord Dracula, but to use him,” he concludes, and points to the screens. “The guy he held up in the air, he was the lead dealer of the Red Diaz. And that club is a hot spot for drugs in Sector 5. I’m pretty sure the originator of the rabies wants control over the Red Diaz.”
“I didn’t know the Red Diaz were vampires,” the long-faced guy says, his eyebrows knitted as he assesses the situation.
“And that’s where things get interesting,” Tristan continues. “They are vampires, but they’re relatively young, at least compared to us. They’re so young, that they still have the hopes and dreams of cheap crooks—money, hookers, and the need to show-off. So they never laid eyes on the King of Vampires before, which is probably why they didn’t recognize him, and dared think they could take him down when he approached them.”
“It’s what sealed their fate,” the long-faced vampire says. “We all know how Vlad the Devil can get when disrespected.” They all shudder, and I remember the tales of Vlad impaling them upside down from the stalactites in his cave.
“Not only that,” Tristan continues. “But, like I said, he is now bound to the rabies originator. And he was compelled to do what he did.”
He pauses, his electric blue eyes sweeping over all the vampires present, all of them holding their breath.
“Whoever infected Lord Dracula, planned it in detail. And they did it because he is a lethal weapon. Whoever controls the King of Vampires can come to rule the world.” He points to the screens again. “And this is your proof. The rabies originator wants to take over the Bucharest underworld, which, at the moment, is controlled by the Red Diaz. More exactly by their leader—the Devil’s Son, as he calls himself. No one has ever seen the Devil’s Son, he keeps his identity secret, but one thing is widely known about him in the Bucharest underworld. Namely, that he’s half vampire half demon, and the vampires he creates have superpowers.”
“So you think the rabies originator is trying to take over the power of the Devil’s Son?” Irina inquires, taking a seat close to Tristan.
“I think he’s trying to get the strongest vampires out there under his control—the Devil’s Son’s vampires with superpowers, their control over the underworld and, most probably in the end, turning the Devil’s Son himself into a weapon, just like Lord Dracula.”
“How come you know so much about the Red Diaz and the Devil’s Son?” the long-faced vampire voices my thoughts before I get to. There’s suspicion of Tristan all over his face.
Tristan looks down, his face hardening as he recollects something clearly unpleasant.
“Centuries ago, when I was still a man, I meddled with his business. He had me whipped and tortured for his pleasure, a mask on his face. Lord Dracula found me and turned me into what I am today, as you all know, but I never stopped trying to track down the bastard. He always slipped through my fingers, the son of a bitch is like a snake, but I knew he was in Bucharest.”
Wow. Never heard Tristan swear before, but behold, he’s not afraid to get his mouth dirty.
“In what way did you meddle with his business?” a vampire wants to know, but Tristan changes the subject.
“That doesn’t matter now. What matters is that we find a way to reason with Lord Dracula, and help him fight this thing. Because, if the originator is using him to bring down or enslave the most powerful vampires out there, sooner or later this will mean the end of the world as we know it. And the end of us, because we won’t stand a chance against that kind of power. It will suck us in.”
Rux
MY SKIN IS CRAWLING from what Tristan told us down in the lobby. Two guardian vampires are still outside my door, as well as the one on the balcony, making sure no one can get to me from any angle. But I want someone to get to me—my husband. I think hard of him, willing him to come. I’m his Grail, so he senses my thoughts of him, he feels my calling. If he doesn’t come, it’s because he chooses not to.
I do it facing the window to the balcony, which oversees the impressive House of Parliament in Bucharest, beautifully illuminated in the night. It’s the largest building in Europe, if I’m not mistaken. Still, the reason I keep standing here isn’t the view. It’s the fact that, if Vlad responds to my calling, he might not resist the urge of taking my guardian’s blood, and I’d have to intervene.
But we’re soon approaching the morning hours. The sun starts to rise behind the palace-like House of Parliament, painting the horizon bright orange. My guardian is forced to leave his post, because of his sensitivity to sunlight.
“Please,” I ask him in a tired voice. “Ask Irina to come see me, yes?”
“Of course, milady.”
He leaves, and I wrap the duvet tighter around me. I’m cold because of the exhaustion, and exhaustion also leads to a sort of depression. But there’s anoth
er reason for the void and frustration in my chest—for the first time since I met Lord Vlad Dracula, he didn’t respond to my calling. Whatever cravings he has now, they are stronger than his craving for me, and that eats at me like crazy.
Even though my mind does understand the logical reasons behind his choice not to come to me, my heart refuses to accept them. His love for me should be stronger than anything else, that’s what he swore on our wedding night.
Irina knocks on the door and sticks her head in, just enough so that the sunlight doesn’t touch her.
“You called for me?”
“Yes,” I reply, my eyes still out the window. The sunlight feels warm on my skin.
I stand up, take a deep breath and reach out from under the duvet, pulling the curtains to block out the sunlight. I turn on the vintage reading lamp on the nightstand, which creates a low, intimate atmosphere. Irina walks in and closes the door behind her, looking at me with a frown.
“Rux, you look like shit,” she says. “Haven’t you gotten any sleep?”
“I’ll get some now. But I need to talk to you about something first.” I lay on the bed with the duvet wrapped tightly around me. “Will you get me another one from the wardrobe, please? This one’s too thin.”
“Sure.” She opens the wardrobe and bends for en extra blanket, and I use the chance to tell her my plan as if nothing.
“I’m going to one of the Red Diaz clubs tonight. I’d like you to come with me, but don’t tell Tristan anything.”
She turns to me with an appalled face, the blanket falling from between her concrete-strong vampire hands because of the shock.
“Are you insane? Your brain’s malfunctioning, or what?”
“Irina,” I say tiredly. “All night I’ve been focusing on Vlad, begging him to come to me in my thoughts, but guess what?” I slip one hand out of the duvet and motion theatrically around us. “He didn’t come. Even though he’s not supposed to even be able to resist my calling, I’m his Grail.”