Chapter 1 – Prelude
Tall arcades and bone-coloured pillars welcomed her as she opened the door. Faint images of saints that watched her with decrepit eyes, judging, but their voices were forever silent. She stepped inside and moved towards the altar, wisps of dust rising in her wake and danced chaotically in the sparse rays of light that managed to slip into the murky room.
The only noise was the sound of her uneven footsteps on the stone pavement. One thing that immortality did not cure was her limp. There was no pain, she hasn’t felt pain in over 600 years, but she still dragged her left foot.
The old church she was visiting was the lair of the Nosferatu clan. Long forgotten, the building had served as Nosferatu’s hideout since Ovidiu left the town, 100 years ago.
The church was just a facade for the extensive labyrinth of rooms and passages that laid hidden underground. Ovidiu and his vampires were the only ones that avoided the light of day, not because it killed them, but their skin was so light and thin that it offered no protection from the ultra-violet light. Not that any light of any sort would be a problem anymore. The air was so dirty that the haze of pollution made it almost impossible for the sun’s rays to reach earth’s crust.
She adjusted the handkerchief that kept her long grey hair tied neatly underneath. It was black, like the rest of her clothes, a silent reminder that she was still mourning. Her emerald green eyes searched the room, and when she found what she was looking for a crease deepened in between her eyebrows.
‘Good evening, Ovidiu.’ She spoke as she stopped a couple of meters away from the altar. Twelve pale bald heads turned towards her. Aligned in two rows of six along the nave, the creatures looked at her with expressionless red eyes. They turned their heads back towards the altar and spoke in unison.
‘Good to see you, Elena.’ They said.
A tall figure emerged from behind the altar, walking slowly towards her, his steps strained and heavy. A gray arm with sharp nails peered out of a long and unkempt robe and pulled the hood off from his head, revealing a grotesque bust with tufts of long greasy hair scattered on a mostly bald head. His skin was oily and wrinkled to such extent it almost looked rotten.
‘It’s been a long time since you came to visit.’ Ovidiu admonished Elena as he invited her to sit on the few chairs that survived the passage of time.
‘It took a long time to decide if I should still come.’ Elena confessed.
‘Ah. Yet here you are, despite your better judgement.’ He smiled, his shrivelled-up lips stretched and parted to reveal two fangs instead of the two front teeth.
‘I’ve never been known for my better judgement.’
‘You’ve made your fair share of mistakes.’
‘I agree.’ She nodded, but her thumbs started to roll around each other. ‘It’s been quiet on your side of things. Maybe a bit too quiet.’
‘I learned it’s better if I keep to myself.’
‘You have more queens than when we last spoke.’ She said and Ovidiu turned his head to look at the twelve creatures. They were exactly where they left them, motionless like statues, with their eyes unfocused and mouths slightly agape. They looked like puppets that had their strings cut off.
‘Yes. I have gotten a few more.’ He replied a bit weary as he looked back at her.
‘What for?’ she asked.
Ovidiu didn’t answer. Elena stopped playing with her fingers and pinned him with her gaze.
‘What for?’ she asked again.
After several seconds of silence, Ovidiu finally answered.
‘You told me once that you are afraid of death.’ He started.
‘I did.’ She agreed.
‘Vlad’s death proved all of us can be killed.’
Vlad Țepeș or Vlad Dracula, former ruler of Wallachia and the first of their kind, has been dead for more than a hundred years now, killed by what was believed to be a pack of vampire hunters calling themselves The Order of the Dragon. Descendants of the original Ordo Draconis, of which Vlad’s father has been a founding member of, and created to put a halt to the Ottoman expansion. These people had money and a lot of time on their hands.
‘Aren’t you afraid the same people that killed him will come after us?’ he asked her, but Elena did not answer. Ovidiu’s already wrinkled face creased with frustration.
‘Their technology gets better every day, it’s only a matter of time before they find us.’ He continued.
‘That is true, but that’s what I’ve been doing. Making sure they don’t. My question is, what are you planning?’
‘You’ll find out, in due time.’
‘I would like to find out now, before you make a mistake.’
‘It would be my mistake, and I would much rather prefer it if you didn’t interfere.’
‘It is my duty to interfere.’ She argued, raising her tone. Her voice echoed, then was again swallowed by silence. ‘Especially if you intend to do something that will endanger all of us.’
‘I’m trying to save us. And to avenge Vlad.’
‘Do not use him as an excuse for whatever you’re plotting.’ She said, a tinge of a warning in her words. ‘Don’t involve him now that he doesn’t get to have a say.’
‘You don’t either. I know he chose to forsake us, but we still owe him our blood. He’s the only reason we exist.’
Elena shook her head, and her thumbs began dancing again.
‘What if your plan, whatever that may be, fails? What if you end up revealing us to the world?’
‘I won’t …’
‘What if you do?’ she cut him off. ‘Always assume you will fail. Even if you believe you won’t. Think about the implications.’
‘What if … I don’t care about the implications?’ he asked, tilting his head just a bit to the side. ‘What have the others ever done for me, except calling me names, and shunning me?’
Elena pursed her lips. She couldn’t say anything because, sadly, it was true. As much as she tried to include him, the others made it quite clear they didn’t want him around.
‘A child who was never embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.’ Ovidiu said with a grave voice, quoting an old African proverb. ‘I don’t want to burn it down, for your sake, if for nothing else. But I do not care if it burns as a result of my actions.’
‘Why do I get the feeling that you don’t just want to hunt down the people that killed Vlad?’
‘Because I don’t..’ He said, placing his hand over hers. He slowly raised himself from the chair and looked down at her with a calm smile on his face. ‘I’m glad you came to see me. I’ve missed you.’
Elena did not linger after Ovidiu and his brides retreated underground. She spared another glance at the decaying images of saints then stepped outside. In the distance, the neon-lit silhouettes of the giant holographic ads of the city shimmered and moved through the murky air. It was supposed to be evening already, but the day was drowned in perpetual twilight. Elena could barely remember how blue the sky used to be.
‘Perhaps it was all a mistake.’ she thought. If only that night she had accepted her fate …
November 1477 – Comana, Giurgiu County, Romania.
It rained heavily. The gloomy grey clouds made the early morning as dark as dusk. The village was silent still, only the croak of a disoriented rooster echoed somewhere in the distance.
She should have stayed at home today, her old bones really disliked the rain. Especially her left foot, the one she broke last year while going down in the basement to get some pickled cabbage and wine. But on this day today, 12 years ago, her husband passed away. She had to at least go and light a candle for him, and for their son that had still not returned from war. She was beginning to believe he never will, but was determined to hold on to even the faintest of hope. Dying alone was not a future she looked forward to.
The cold autumn air pricked her cheek as she walked back home, the thick mud from the alley sticking to her shoes, making them a burden to carry.
A harrowing wail coming from the side of the road made Elena’s heart stop. She gasped and then spat three times in her blouse, trying to make out what or who made the awful sound.
She took a step closer to the edge of the road, in the direction of where she thought it was coming. Another whispered whine convinced her she was going the right way, so she continued to walk until she began to distinguish the shape of a human crawling in the dirt. Her hands flew to her mouth when she saw the state he was in. Almost naked and writhing in pain, with so many swollen wounds and bruises on his body that he barely looked like a human being anymore.
He turned on his back with an agonising cry, his long dark hair covering his face and tangling with his muddied beard. Rain poured, washing away the mud, and exposing multiple areas where red, angry flesh bloomed like a macabre flower. It was as if he had been cut off into pieces, and then someone tried to put him back together but forgot to finish the job.
‘Help …’ he managed to utter, wheezing.
Elena crouched next to him, trying to find a way to lift him off the ground without hurting him more.
‘Do you think you can walk? At least a little bit? I don’t live far from here, but I can’t carry you alone.’
The man took a few shallow breaths, placed his hands in the dirt and pushed himself upright, but his right palm slipped and he fell back with a loud groan. He tried again and this time Elena rushed to help him. She managed to get him back on his feet and then they slowly made their way towards her house.
She was a strong woman, her husband passed a long time ago, so she had to do everything alone. Her son helped, but not enough, and she was still the one to carry logs from the forest for warming the house. But the human body had a way of becoming heavy and unyielding when inert. She prayed to God he wouldn’t faint.
***
Weeks had gone by, and Elena continued to care for him, dressing and cleaning his wounds daily. It kept her busy, kept her from thinking what might have happened to Peter, if he was even still alive. The man that was now occupying his bed, fell in a deep coma. The only moments she was certain he wasn’t dead were when he was drifting in and out of fever dreams. He spoke then, but none of the words he said made any sense. She started to think he might not make it.
It was the first snow of the year when he finally woke up. Large flakes of snow were whirled in all directions by the wind that was howling outside.
He woke up to the sound of fire crackling in the stove and the smell of freshly baked bread invading his nostrils. When he opened his eyes he saw Elena sitting on a small stool next to the stove, spinning a spindle of wool. Her mind seemed far away and her head slowly bobbed side to side to the rhythm of the song she was humming.
He waited for her to finish her song revelling in the melody.
‘Beautiful song.’ He said, but his voice was barely audible. His throat was dry and coarse like sandpaper.
Elena raised her head, certain she imagined it, just as she imagined hearing Peter coming through the front gate sometimes. She was surprised when she saw he was not only awake, but completely lucid.
‘Welcome back.’ She greeted him. ‘There’s water next to the bed if you need it.’
He looked to his side and saw a clay mug filled to the brim with water. He reached for it with shaky hands and brought it to his lips, letting the cold liquid soothe his aching throat.
‘Thank you.’ he said after he finished drinking. ‘For everything.’
‘I only did what anyone would do.’ she replied thinking no one in their right mind would have left an ailing man in a ditch to die.
‘It was kind.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up like that? How did you end up here? This is nowhere near a battlefield.’
‘I don’t know…’ he answered. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Do you remember who you are?’ she asked, a hint of worry in her voice.
‘I…’ he started and for a second he thought that was gone as well. ‘My name is Vlad. Vlad Dracula.’
Elena’s face changed.
‘That’s impossible.’ She whispered. ‘Mehmed killed Țepeș. I’ve seen them bury what was left of him in that cemetery… ’ she started then suddenly stopped. ‘…outside of which I found you.’
Vlad looked at her confused, that couldn’t be true. He was standing here so it couldn’t have been him. Then the memories started flooding back in, like a river through a broken dam. The long and thin knife carved his flesh, slowly and methodically, loosening his joints, and he tried not to scream but failed. The blood pooled at his feet until he finally fainted. The pain of each limb being detached from his body woke him up for, only to succumb again and again, until the image of the crowd jostling, with bated breath, to watch his final moments faded to black as his head rolled on the floor, no longer attached to his body. Mehmed won … the Ottomans have won. He was no longer a prince, he was …
‘Dead.’ He said looking at his bandaged arms. He lifted his hand to feel at his neck, finding another cloth there. Underneath he could feel the burn of another cut. ‘How am I alive?’
He watched as the old woman crossed herself, his mind drifting to the only possible explanation.
‘Am I cursed?’
Elena placed her spindle on the floor next to the chair and got up holding on the edge of the stove. She approached him and sat herself on the side of the bed at his feet, holding her hands on her lap.
‘Your highness, you were given a second chance, I’d call that a gift not a curse.’
‘Perhaps you are right.’ He said quietly. ‘Or perhaps neither God nor the devil want me.’
‘Don’t talk like that.’ She scolded him and gently swatted his leg, careful not to harm him. ‘Are you hungry? I have some fresh soup and some warm bread.’ She asked and got up from the bed.
‘I’d love some.’ He nodded. ‘And please, call me Vlad.’
That night he found it hard to sleep, and he doubted he’ll ever sleep again. He raised his hands, studying in the pale light of the gas lamp the thin red lines that circled his wrists. The last time he looked at them was when they were severed from his body with a rusty dagger. He remembered the burning pain, but he endured the entire ordeal without making a sound. He watched how they cut him like one would cut a pig, fainting from shock, but being awakened by new waves of pain. He shuddered, closed and opened his eyes, then looked around the room to make the images go away.
It was a modest house, and it smelled like freshly made bread. There wasn’t much decoration except for a few pieces of hand-sewn tapestry hanged on the walls. The few pieces of furniture, a small table and two chairs, were crowded around a mud stove placed on the other side of the bed.
When he finally drifted to sleep, what sounded like muffled screams woke him. For a few seconds, he didn’t know what was going on, but then he heard two men talking.
‘See, told you this is gonna be easy.’ one of them said.
‘Yeah, it does looks like she might have some money around too.’
They sounded drunk. Very drunk. He raised from the bed, careful not to make too much noise. He knew very well that he wasn’t in the best shape, but the element of surprise would give him an advantage against the two. When he reached the hallway, he could see Elena sprawled on the ground, with a wound on her head, and one of the men crawling with his pants down over the woman’s still body, as the other searched the room for money. He could feel the rage boiling inside of him, and with the rage, something else surfaced… hunger, scraping at his insides as if it wanted to get out. And he had to let it out. He could feel his body contract, and his bones crack under an invisible force. His wounds began to glue themselves back together, and the skin started to rip, peel, and fall off his body revealing a new, almost green one underneath.
The two men heard him writhe and they both turned to look in his direction. Nothing could match the look of terror on their faces as they stared into the two red eyes that watched them from the hallway. Vlad stepped into the room, revealing himself in the pale moonlight that seeped through the small window. His battle-hardened body shone, wet with the fresh blood of the skin he just shed, his head could almost reach the ceiling now, and sharp fangs peeked through his slightly parted lips.
The intruders didn’t even have time to scream. With inhuman speed, he tore into the men, sharp teeth ripping their throats open, sucking them dry. And only then his hunger succumbed.
When he was done with them, he slowly approached Elena.
‘I don’t want to die.’ She said in the agony of delirium. He knelt next to her and ripped his wrist open with his teeth, letting his blood flow freely into her mouth.
Chapter 2 – Ashes
Joanna has been pacing around for about half an hour now and it was getting on her brother’s nerves. – [expand]
‘Can you sit still for a bloody moment? You’re like a fly caught between the windowpanes, and just as annoying.’ he said rubbing his temples as he threw his phone on the table in front of him.
‘Oh, fuck off.’ She said throwing him an angry look.
‘It’s not the first time she goes to visit him. He won’t hurt her.’ Adrian said, trying to get her to calm down.
‘I know. But doesn’t make me worry less.’
‘I swear you’re just like her.’
Joanna crossed her hands and raised her eyebrow.
‘Because I worry?’
‘Because you both care too much.’ He said and reclined back into the couch, raising his hands over his head and cracking his spine.
‘You say that as if it’s a bad thing.’
‘Well, it’s why she’s visiting that ugly bastard when everyone else is trying to forget all about him. And why she kept giving your merry old dad a million second chances.’
She looked away when he mentioned her father.
‘I’m not saying it’s always bad, but maybe, at least from time to time, it would be better to not give a fuck.’
He shrugged and just before he could say anything else the front door opened and Elena stepped inside. As if she didn’t notice the light was already on, she instinctively flipped the switch and the room was swallowed by darkness. When the light went back on, Joanna and Adrian both looked at her confused.
‘Is everything alright, grandma?’ Joanna asked, her brow furrowing.
‘Yes honey. I was just lost in thought.’ Her grandmother replied walking towards the couch and sitting next to Adrian.
‘How’s your friend? Still ugly?’ Adrian asked without raising his gaze from his phone.
‘Adrian!’ Elena said in a scolding tone and he laughed.
The doorbell rang.
‘I’ll get it.’ Joanna said rushing to the door. She pressed the door knob and opened the door. She was shocked when the smell of human blood and leather flooded her nose. A man was waiting outside, looking in the distance at the dirty-pink hued sky where the sun was setting. She couldn’t see his face properly as it was getting quite dark, but he had a strong profile with greying brown hair and he was wearing glasses. He was tall and well built, even if he looked a bit past his prime. She realised she was starring so she tried averting her gaze, but stopped when the man turned his head and looked straight at her. Her breath caught in her throat as an intense feeling of anxiety struck her when she peered into a pair of almost colourless eyes.
‘May I help you?’ she asked after a few awkward seconds.
‘Yes.’ he said in a low, cautious voice ‘I’m looking for someone. Elena Vlăsie? Does she still live here?’
She closed the door a bit, just so the man couldn’t see inside and looked at her grandma.
‘There’s a human saying he’s looking for you.’ She whispered and her grandma shrugged but gestured to Joanna to let him in. She opened the door fully and invited him in.
The man stepped inside, bowing his head to her in thanks. She nodded and closed the door. Her grandmother looked at the human, still confused.
‘Hello, Elena.’ He said.
Elena tried to get up from the couch but froze midway as she heard him talk. A flash of recognition crossed her face. She looked like what she was seeing wasn’t quite real.
Joanna looked at the man, trying to figure out her grandmother’s reaction. But nothing in the man’s appearance gave her any hints.
‘I’m sorry I had to show up unannounced, but I didn’t know how else to reach you.’ he said.
Elena didn’t reply. He shook his head and slid the backpack he wore off his back. He reached into it and retrieved a round, silver box. He took a step forward and gave it to her.
She took it, looking at the beautiful, coiled dragon resting atop the lid.
‘What’s that?’ Adrian asked finally raising his head out of his phone.
‘Vlad’s ashes.’ Elena replied and the man shook his head slightly. ‘Follow me to my office, please.’ She told him.
‘Grandma?’ Joanna asked in a worried voice.
‘Don’t worry. He’s a friend.’ Her grandmother replied, but the words sounded distant.