by Ana Calin
“Call for me, if anything happens,” I tell her. I combed the place already, and I know the graveyard is empty, otherwise I wouldn’t leave her here alone. But just in case.
“Don’t worry,” Rux says. “I doubt even ghosts would dare approach me in this form.”
Knowing that he’s got my attention, the shadow disappears inside the chapel again. I wonder if he thinks he’s protected from me on Holy Ground. No matter what, even if the Providence strikes me dead for daring to take a life in there, I will do it.
I walk to the chapel, determined to kill the bastard and end the rabies.
The place is even smaller on the inside, the shadow kneeling in front of the altar. I slide out the silver dagger from the leather holster strapped to my hip, not even trying to mask the whipping metallic sound. I’ll kill him so fast he won’t even know what hit him.
I move fast, faster than human eyes could even register, flipping the dagger in my hand. I reach out to grab him, visualising the killing in a flash—hand over his mouth so I can push against his nose, forcing his face to the side, causing him to get up and arch his back, offering me his kidneys. A silver blade slicing right through his lower back will make death all the more painful, which is what this bastard deserves.
But my hand hits an invisible wall that’s made of neither glass nor the jelly-like wall of magic protection. It’s like reaching into thin air, as if the monk praying in front of me is actually a hologram.
“You really thought me so stupid,” he says in a rasping, ear-scratching voice, “as to offer myself on a silver platter to you?”
My brain is making a thousand calculation per second, trying to make sense of this, when he gets up and turns to show his face.
And there, the mystery has lifted.
But the surprise only lasts for a moment, until the calculations begin delivering results. Of course. When I thought of him as a possibility, I left a certain element out of the equation, an element that pops to mind now that I see him.
He grins at me with teeth and fangs as rotten as the Old Priest’s. But he reminds me even more of the Black Monks, and of the Abbot Lucian.
“When I looked into your brother Radek’s eyes back on the flipside of Bran,” he begins explaining, walking to the icon of John the Baptist. “His curse hit me, the curse of the Midnight Prince. The curse that befalls whoever looks into his face, if he activates his power on them. And he activated it on me, even though I still don’t know to what extent it was deliberate.” He motions demonstratively to his face that’s full of green pus, even behind what’s left of his red beard. “It hurts, all the time, and it would stink, too.” He grins. “If I were actually here.”
He looks at the icon, glowing like a monster in the light of a candle burning in front of it.
“Where are you actually?”
“On the flipside, in the mirror dimension.”
“That’s impossible. If you were, I wouldn’t be able to see you, the flipside and this reality are separate.”
“Victoria’s helping me. You remember her, right? Another victim of your brother’s curse, a witch who lives in multiple dimensions at the same time? Your brother would be proud to know she has developed her skills further. I’m on the flipside, and yes, we wouldn’t normally see each other, but she’s projecting me into your side of reality. She really made the best of your brother’s curse, wouldn’t you say? How is Radek, by the way?”
“Still despising Victoria, you can let her know.”
I slide the dagger back into the leather sheath at my hip, but my brain still looks for ways to kill the bastard.
“Glad to see you brothers found a way back to each other,” he mocks. “The two dark princes, reunited.”
I ignore his comment and move on to what really interests me.
“I no longer serve you, and make no mistake—I will find a way to kill you.” I glare at him just like I used to when he was my lackey, letting him feel he’s still just that to me.
“Oh, you will continue serving my purposes, oh great King of Vampires,” he says, glaring at me from under his hood with eyes full of hatred. “Even though you no longer respond to my power over you. May I ask though, what is your secret? How did you manage to resist me?”
“I pledged myself to someone else. I couldn’t resist the temptation of a beautiful mistress.”
He raises an eyebrow, trying to keep cool, but I can tell he’s intrigued.
“Your wife, Lady Ruxandra? But she lost her connection to the demon....”
“Yes, but she is his descendant. Dark, demonic powers are encoded in her DNA, and they were always latent inside of her.”
His eyes glint. He’s envious of her power, I can tell. I decide to turn the knife in the wound.
“Ruxandra is a force to be reckoned with. Something you’ll never be.” I scan him up and down like he’s nothing, like he’s filth. “No matter what you do, Gruia, you’ll always be a lesser vampire.”
He raises his chin in defiance, his face even uglier in the candlelight.
“Lesser or not, I still control the rabid vampires. You won’t get rid of the rabies yourself unless I free you of it, Lord Dracula, so I’d be nice to me if I were you. You need me.”
“I could kill you and get the rabies over with. Trust me, sooner or later I will find a way.”
“Why do you think killing me would make the rabies disappear?”
“Because you are a lesser vampire, you idiot.” I stare him down crushingly. “As soon as you’re dead, the rabies will dissipate into thin air. Lesser vampires can only keep their power over other creatures as long as they’re alive.” I scan him up and down. “It was Radek’s curse that disconnected you from me as your master, your maker. Which is also why the vampires you infect listen to you instead of me. But—”
“No matter how you choose to look at it, Lord Dracula,” he interrupts me. “You cannot touch me, and you have to do what I tell you in order to rid yourself and the others of the rabies.”
A current of outrage goes through me just like it used to when one of the vampires dared to interrupt me before I met Rux. Love may have softened me toward them, but not toward this piece of shit.
“Your jaw is ticking,” he says, and I can tell he’s satisfied. “You’d bash my head in right now, wouldn’t you? If you could.”
“If I could,” I grumble through my teeth.
He gives me his ugly grin. “But you can’t. Which is why you’ll do exactly what I tell you. I win even if I can’t manipulate you anymore. You know why? Come on, ask me why.”
He waits, the redness of anger rising in the tiny spots of normal flesh visible between his hideous warts and pus blisters. Fuck, I almost pity the beast.
“Well, I’ll tell you anyway.” He looks fiercely into my eyes, full of hatred. “Because, if you refuse to do what I command, I will send the rabid vampires out into the streets of Bucharest, biting people at random.”
For the first time since the night I found Rux almost dead in the shed on the flipside of Bran, ice runs down my spine, and Gruia can see it.
“That’s right. I wield that kind of power, and you know it. You also know what this would mean, right? A fucking zombie apocalypse, just like in movies. Don’t look at me like that. It’s what will happen if you refuse to do my bidding.”
“I have all the rabid vampires under control,” I say through my teeth.
“Yes, but I can always go out and make new ones, can’t I?”
Hell, I could really hurt him right now, and I’d enjoy it. Pity is out the window, and I feel like the ruthless Vlad Dracula again, the version of myself that I know best, and that I’m most comfortable with.
I walk closer to the hideous Gruia. He doesn’t back away, staring into my eyes. I stop only when I’m close enough for him to feel the difference between us—I’m much larger, staring down at him. I crush him with the weight of my stare.
“What do you want?”
“I knew you’d see reaso
n,” he says. “You’re a wise man.”
“Talk,” I snarl. His eyes turn to slits, and his mouth presses in a hard line—he’d hurt me, too, if he could. When he talks, he does it with poison in his words.
“I want the Devil’s Son’s head, Lord Dracula.”
The Devil’s Son. I’ve heard of him, one of the chief vampire mobsters in the Bucharest underworld. Powerful, but not powerful enough to reveal his true identity. Never came in person to my events, only sent representatives. Which was understandable, considering the story with Tristan. This will be easy.
“Deal.”
Gruia grins.
“You’re taking this lightly. But I wouldn’t underestimate the Devil’s Son. Just because he keeps himself in the shadow, it doesn’t mean he’s weak. On the contrary. If you ask me, it’s proof of his wisdom and exquisite strategic thinking.” Gruia juts his chin out. “Bring me his head, Lord Dracula. Or, alternatively, kill him before my very eyes. It’s the variant I’d prefer.”
“All right, but drop the attitude. You’re not my master, or anyone’s, lesser vampire,” I grunt at him. “You’re just a temporary slave master to those wretched rabid creatures you enslaved by means of poison, and not personal power.”
“How is your venom different from my poison? You bind vampires through it as well.”
“Yes, but my venom doesn’t compel them organically to do my bidding. They just cannot kill me or take what’s mine. But they stayed with me for other reasons. Fear being one of them, given, but mostly, they chose to. Who chose your side, Gruia?”
His chin trembles in anger, but he doesn’t answer.
“I will get you the head of the Devil’s Son,” I rumble low and dark. “But no matter what, remember this—the rabies that you spread around grants you nothing but artificial power. The vampires you make only hang to you like to a machine, to IV lines and tubes. You will never wield real power over them, true influence, and you know why?”
He presses his lips in a hard line, refusing to play along. I pause, only our breath audible between us. I’d wait until he begs for it, but Rux is waiting outside, and I don’t want her to worry. I lower my face close to Gruia’s, staring down at him from my now glowing red eyes.
“Because you don’t have it in you. No matter what you do, you’ll always be a lesser vampire, which is also why you’re sending me after vampires with superpowers. You think that, by enslaving them to your purposes, you’ll be as worthy as they are. But you’ll never be more than a lackey. A lackey, yes, that’s your essence. You wanted to break free of Radek’s influence, because you hated him for being better than you. But you could only break free of him by pledging yourself to someone else, to Victoria, who begged me to turn you.
“Still, all you could become was a lesser vampire, and lesser vampires are lackeys by definition, they need to depend on someone. You’re like a clingy, whiny girl who can’t stand on her own feet. But now that we touch on the subject. Be honest. She is the one behind this whole plan, isn’t she?”
“You’re right, great Lord Dracula,” he defies me. “I am the eternal, angry lackey. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, it’s you who will be broken.”
I scoff, looking him up and down as if he were a worm.
“You’ve been alive for over six centuries,” he continues despite my crushing stare, knowing himself protected. “You think you’ve seen it all, and know it all, but I promise you, from me you’ll learn a new lesson. You’ll learn that power, influence, physical strength, even centuries of war experience aren’t enough to make you King of the World. You are vulnerable, Lord Dracula, and I don’t mean just your wife, Lady Rux.
“By the time this is over,” he concludes, “I will be standing over the grave that you’ll willingly dig for yourself. You are invincible, and cannot die but, I promise you, when I’m done with you, death will be all you want.”
Silence falls between us, our eyes locked before the altar, making his oath all the heavier. But then he snaps from the mood and grins that ugly grin at me.
“So.” He walks away, heading to another icon to light a candle. “You will bring me the Devil’s Son’s head, or the Devil’s Son himself, alive, and you’ll kill him before my very eyes.” He glances at me from under his hood. “But don’t be fooled. I’ve heard say the Devil’s Son is more powerful than most people think, because of his mysterious superpowers. But that we’ll see, won’t we? After we take away his most powerful weapon—anonymity.” He gives me his back but then he turns to me again as if he’d forgotten something on the side. “Oh, and you have seven days for this. Until Saturday night.”
“What if—”
“No negotiations. I would have given you only three days, but I’m not absurd. This is the Devil’s Son we’re talking about, not some lackey, right?”
He grins one last time, and disappears between the altar doors before I get to add anything else. Hell, I’d love to see this bastard hanging from the stalactites in my cave. When this is over, I might have to consider allowing myself a few nights a month in which I can punish filthy villains. I don’t think I can live forever letting them get away.
I turn my back to the altar, before my deepening darkness offends the Providence. King of the Vampires or not, half evil or half good, I always respected Providence, and have worked well with it. Some kings of old called me the Left Hand of God.
Rux waits for me standing in front of the chapel. Relief loosens her features when she sees me, but she doesn’t run into my arms. She’s still hyper aware of her surroundings, and by her still fully black eyes and snow-white face I know she’s in full demoness mode, keeping all the dark powers that lurk in the graveyard at bay.
“And I thought you’d be scared to death out here without me.” I smile, putting my hands on her small, delicate shoulders. A thrill runs through me when I feel her power, so great and heavy for such a small and fragile body.
She places a small, cold hand on my jaw, her demonic eyes now transforming into the loving eyes of Rux the human.
“I was afraid of what would happen in there. I was keeping myself ready to step in if you got into trouble.”
I smile at her, she is my very heart beating outside of my body. “I’m very rarely in trouble, my love.”
“Well, who is he?”
I take a deep breath, winding an arm around her small shoulders. “Let’s go and talk in a nicer place.”
CHAPTER VI
Rux
“So it is Gruia, in the end,” Tristan says, his electric blue eyes alight. He leans in over the table in the hotel lounge, the part we rented for ourselves, with the glass walls. “But you said—”
“I know,” Vlad explains, “I said it couldn’t be him because he was supposed to be bound to me, since I’m the one who turned him into a vampire. But when he looked into the face of Radek, the Prince of Midnight, Gruia was infected with his curse, and this is what the curse made of him. Among other things, it disconnected him from my influence and authority.”
“Which also means,” Irina chimes in, “that he could theoretically kill you, and it wouldn’t kill him, too, as it would be for any of us. Still, he could never beat you in a fair fight, so he devised a plan to destroy you.”
Vlad ponders with a frown on his brow, leaning against the back of his chair, arms folded across his large chest. He rests one ankle on the opposite knee, which showcases his muscular thigh.
“It’s this plan that I don’t really understand,” he says. “He turned me into a rabid vampire, and used me in order to get him powerful vampires as subjects. He’s a lackey, so the only way he can rule is by enslaving the strong. And yet he wants the most powerful vampire in Bucharest, the Devil’s Son, dead, and not turned rabid. That puzzles me.”
“Maybe the Devil’s Son is too powerful for him, and he’s afraid he would eventually free himself from the rabies and turn on him. Just like you did.”
Vlad leans forward with elbows on his knees, running his big hands throu
gh his hair. He turns his head and stares out the window to the House of Parliament.
“We need to find a way out of this quickly,” he says, his beautiful face bathed in the soft orange light from the monumental building.
“The rabid vampires in the sewers,” he continues in the deep, soft voice of a concerned father, “there’s no way they can feed. Gruia gave me seven days to deliver him the Devil’s Son, but those poor creatures will starve until then. Surrounded by silver, they won’t be able to go out and hunt. Not that hunting were an option, they would turn the entire city into an apocalyptic movie in no time. We can’t feed them either, because they feed on living people and vampires, and we’re sure as hell not going to sacrifice anyone.”
“But we can provide them with blood from the same labs that you bought it from for over two years,” I say. “Some of them are in Bucharest.”
“Good idea,” Tristan puts in.
“I’ll set everything in motion.” I walk over to the table with all our gadgets, grab my device and start working. I sit in a corner, doing what I have to do, and listening to the conversation.
“Where do we even begin to look for the Devil’s Son?” one of the vampires says. “We don’t know anything about him.”
“Well,” another one intervenes, “we do know he’s prominent. He’s someone of influence in Bucharest, since he controls the entire Red Diaz.”
Vlad stands up, pacing the lounge. “Some of the rabid vampires, those working for the Red Diaz, have information about him. Maybe I should go have a talk with them.”
Rux
YET NO ONE IS PREPARED to speak up. The Devil’s Son has done a fine job of keeping his identity secret, or of terrifying anyone who knows it, thus ensuring they never tell. Heaven knows what terrible retribution he promised if they do talk. Water drips from the overhead pipes in the sewers, the rabid vampires gathered around Vlad, hunched, thin and looking sick. Some of them glance at each other with ‘should we tell him or not’ in their faces, and it’s them we lay our hopes with.