Dracula (A Modern Telling) Page 13

  I remember little of that night. Shattered splinters of memory. I remember leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Like cats in the night. I fell the first few times and hit the ground hard. I was surprised to learn I did in fact still feel pain, though it was dulled to a degree that one could manage it. Amaury had said I wouldn’t feel it any longer; I should have known then that not everything he told me was true. But he was pure magic to me that night, and everything he said I absorbed as if taught by some great sage.

  As we ran around the city, climbing bell towers and spinning off of spires on the rooftops of mosques, the image of the young girl whose life I had just taken would not leave me. The true horror of what I had done to her was … overwhelming.

  “Can we drink from the blood of animals?” I asked when we had a moment’s rest on the top of a tower overlooking the city and sea below.

  “Why would you wish to? Are a million people not enough?”

  “Let’s say I am stuck in the desert or forest with no one.”

  “Then yes, you should drink from whatever life is around you. Because that is what you are now: a taker of life. And all life can sustain you.”

  I decided right then, overlooking the churning, murky water under the moonlight, that I would not take any more human life.

  When we returned to the home I had been imprisoned in, Amaury shut all the windows and draped cloth over them.

  “Why must I stay here?” I said. “I feel more powerful than an entire army.”

  “You are not, I assure you. It’s not your destiny to leave yet. If you were to disobey your father, the Sultan would withdraw his aid. Your entire family would be hunted and killed. You may be immortal, but they are not.”

  He finished covering the windows and checked the doors. In the corner was a box, nothing more than a crate that hadn’t been there when we had left. Inside was earth, clean and smooth, like it had just been freshly dug.

  “You will sleep here. Though you may move about during the day, you are weaker than a mortal. Sunlight is our enemy. Some vampires are so sensitive a mere moment can burn as fire. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Get some rest. I’ll be back tomorrow to visit you.”

  When he had left, I immediately checked the doors. They had been locked from the outside. With a simple tug, they pulled apart and off their hinges. I did not care, for I had no intention of sleeping inside dirt, waiting for Mehmed and my brother to torture me further. I would go to Elizabeth. I would take her and her sweet sisters and we would leave the lands of my father and the lands of the Moslems. To hell with my family.

  As I walked through the crowded streets, I noticed that even in darkness I received stares. I could not judge exactly what effect I was having on mortal men. Their faces told me it was fascination, and I know now that a vampire, even doing nothing, is infinitely stimulating to a mortal. It dawned on me that the stories of gods walking the earth among men from the Greeks and Romans were probably tales told of vampires. I thought particularly of the sexual desire, for I still felt it, even more so than previously. With the addition that I could seduce any woman on earth now. I was, to put it simply, awed by the power.

  I walked through the city and gazed wide-eyed at the majestic villas and mosques and fountains. It was nearly morning and I was past the city gates in a field when the sun began to rise. I felt weaker, as Amaury had said, but my skin did not blister. With relief, I continued walking.

  It was only moments later that a sensation of heat began in my belly. It spread and rose up to my chest and then my head before pushing out to my skin. In the blink of an eye, I had lost all sensation and power. I collapsed onto the ground, feeling heat from all sides. I inhaled deeply, gathering my strength to rise, but the sunlight was directly on me. My skin began to smoke: I was catching fire.

  Nearby was a grove of trees. I began making my way to them. Every step was insufferable. I vomited several times and eventually nothing came up. I couldn’t stand any longer so I crawled until I was hidden in the shade of a large cypress tree. I curled up, and wept.

  In a flash, a saw Amaury standing before me, a grin on his face. “Little fool.” He picked me up as if I were a doll and, throwing me on his shoulder, began to run back into the city. He chose to leap from the rooftops rather than interact with the crowds, but it was slow and labored. He was weakened too.

  Once inside, he shoved me into the box and closed the lid. The world went dark, and I slept as if I had never slept before.

  Days turned to weeks. During the daylight hours, I slept. This was most convenient because Mehmed had ordered that I not be allowed out of the house unless it was under his direct supervision.

  But during the night, I was free. Only one guard was stationed and he slept. I roamed the city like some great predator loose among a herd. I never took a human life, to Amaury’s dismay. “Why do you do this?” he would say. “You’re as a god among them and you insist on drinking from cats and vermin.”

  It disgusted him that I would not kill, but in truth it was probably that I could not kill. The revulsion I felt with myself for taking the life of that young girl never left me. It was with me day and night. I had killed before, but only men and only in battle and combat. To pin a poor woman down and tear out her throat like an animal filled me with a self-loathing I did not think myself capable of. I couldn’t help but wonder what Elizabeth would think of me if she knew I had done such.

  Amaury did not teach me how to see Elizabeth again. When I would bring the matter up, he would say, “She’s in good health and awaits you. What else do you need to know?”

  Amaury was a fascinating creature at first, but as time went on, I saw him only for what he was: a killer. He would kill half a dozen in a single night and then rest for days on end. It seemed he had no other interests. I would attempt to discuss philosophy, history, mathematics or the plethora of other subjects that were being debated at the time, and he would simply shrug and say, “Leave it to the scholars. What do you care?”

  He was one-sided, what we would call a narcissist today. He cared only about himself and the pleasure he brought to his body, nothing more. So it was odd for me to watch him bring death to entire innocent crowds, and yet protect me like a mother hawk. He had some plan for me, I knew it, but I could not guess what it was.

  “There’s something I want to show you tonight,” he said one day.

  When darkness fell, we went out. Again, we sprinted on rooftops like playful demons, our footsteps so light that if someone were directly underneath they wouldn’t hear us. We sprinted and leapt and dashed across roads until we were at the palace. Amaury did something then I had never seen: he dove up onto the wall and clung there like a spider. Using his palms, he began to ascend the prodigious exterior.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes you can. Just jump.”

  I did and found that for some reason, I held in place. Slowly, I climbed with him. I cannot describe to you the sensation of being so far above an ancient city with nothing holding you up. It was exhilarating. But then I realized something: if I fell, I wouldn’t die. Almost instantly, the exhilaration left me and I had nothing but a cold dread. I knew now why mortal life was so precious and what exactly Amaury had cursed me to: mortals enjoyed life precisely because it was so temporary. Every meal they ate, every sunset they saw, could be their last. For me there was no such thrill. I was immortal and hardly anything could harm me. The thrill of life had left me.

  “What are you doing?” Amaury said sternly in a hushed voice. “Hurry.”

  I followed as we climbed and reached the roof of the palace. He walked me over the uneven roof that spiraled upward and had a gold star at its apex. The gold shimmered and seemed almost on fire to my vampire eyes and I watched it a long time until Amaury yelled at me again.

  We came to a large glass portion of the roof where one could look down at the people below. They were in some banquet, complet
e with nude slaves. Morality was highly praised by the Moslems, and deviance from it could be punishable by death. But behind closed doors they were as depraved as anybody. Young boys were the most highly-prized sexual items; a saying among the older men in Constantinople at the time was: ‘women are for marriage and boys are for fun.’ Among the throngs of nude women were interspersed young boys as well.

  “Look there,” Amaury said, pointing to the far end of the hall.

  There, sitting on what could only be described as a throne, was Radu. He was dressed fully in the garb of the Turk and was even growing out his beard, as was his captor’s custom. A young boy sat at his side and would fetch him wine or grapes as he watched a drunken Mehmed dancing with two of the nude women.

  “What has happened to him?” I asked.

  “He’s converted to Islam. He has sworn an allegiance to the Sultan. Now, a practical man in his position would feign loyalty. You know him better than I. Is that what he is doing?”

  I looked at Radu, stared into his eyes. I saw now that I could pick up the faintest human facial expression. I saw something on Radu’s face that I rarely saw: pleasure. He was happy serving at the whim of Mehmed.

  “No, he enjoys it here.”

  “Then it’s as I’ve feared.”

  “What do you fear?” I asked.

  “What better puppet than one voluntarily sworn to you? That is the Sultan’s plan. Your father will return to power, and when he passes, one of you must take his place. The eldest I believe.”

  The entirety of what had occurred dawned on me. Radu was chosen as the more weak-minded. He would stay here and grow accustomed to the Sultan’s graces, and then he would take over for my father. What better weapon than using an enemy’s own family against him?

  “You must leave here,” Amaury said. “They will attempt to kill you soon.”

  I watched the banquet a while longer. Amaury had disappeared and left me alone. My brother appeared fatter and I could see the sweat dripping from his pores. The cowardice and betrayal seemed to soak him and I could only look at him now with disgust. I turned away and climbed down the palace walls to the ground.

  Walking back, I saw some of the Sultan’s soldiers coming up on the road to the palace. I dove out of the way but I thought it was too late and that they had already seen me. But I observed that they didn’t see me. It is a little quirk that I’ve learned to master since. My movements, even the extraordinarily slow ones, seem lightening fast to mortal eyes. If I don’t want to be seen, I won’t be. The only exception is in daylight when I am weakened.

  After a meal of several rats, I returned to the house and climbed into the crate. The dirt was soft and cool and I had learned to actually enjoy it, like a bath. I had closed my eyes and fallen into the dreamless sleep that would become my normalcy when I heard something outside the home.

  It was jingling and the clanking of metal. The sound formed an image in my mind as clearly as if I had seen it with my eyes: soldiers were running around the house to the entrance. I remained quiet as shouting filled the home and doors were unlocked. I heard the door to the room I was in open and men pour inside. At least twenty of them. They were shouting in their language and I sensed that several of them had torches.

  One of the soldiers swaggered to the crate and went to lift the lid. I exploded out of the dirt, using every ounce of strength I had. The man went flying onto his back and I saw the look of terror on his face, and the terror … fueled me. It gave me power. I drank his fear as surely as I had drunk the blood of the young girl.

  I was on top of him, and before he could even blink I had torn out his heart. I ripped it out of his chest as easily as if I were pulling a vegetable out of a bowl of soup. The warmth of the blood sprayed my face and lust and pain filled me. I bent down, oblivious to the other men who were now pulling out weapons, and drank. The blood filled me and I felt a command of my body I had not felt since that first night and my first victim.

  I drank for no more than a few seconds, but it seemed an eternity. I flung him at the other soldiers and leapt to the wall and then into the middle of the group. Two of them were dead before the others had even turned to face me. I then felt the sharp edge of a sword as it slashed across my back. I turned and clawed the man’s face, ripping it in half as another man attempted to pierce me with his blade. The tip went into my flesh but I only felt it abstractly, like a distant echo.

  I broke the blade into pieces and grabbed the man by the throat, lifting him into the air. I crushed his throat and spine and he fell limp, like wet paper, at my feet.

  At this point, the other men knew they were not facing a human being. They screamed “Jinn,” which at the time I didn’t know, but have since learned means “Demon.” I let them run. There had been enough killing. But it was time for me to leave now.

  I decided I could not stay in that house any longer as surely more men would come. As the night waned and morning grew, I felt my strength leaving me. I ran out of the house and into the night, moving so quickly that the people on the streets could not have felt or seen much more than a blur and a puff of air. The great city was a marvel of man and would have taken years to fully experience. I regretted not being able to explore it in more depth.

  I ran out of the city by leaping onto its massive walls and climbing like some spider and jumping over onto the other side. I ran until I was in a patch of forest with soft dirt. The sun was coming up over the horizon now like a horrible red globe, every ray tearing into my flesh. I quickly dug a hole in the dirt as deep as I could with my bare hands and crawled in, pulling the dirt back over me.

  As I slumbered, I heard the earth itself. I could hear the worms that crawled around me and the birds in the air that watched for them. I could hear a leaf falling and the sound of a spider spinning a silken web.

  When night came again, I felt weak. I thought I would have felt stronger but I realized I needed to feed. I could smell unlike anything you can experience. Again, just as with sound, smell would paint images in my mind. I saw a pack of wolves off in the distance. They had caught my scent and were coming, but I sensed confusion. They could tell I was not human any longer.

  I sprinted through the forest like a ghost, hardly a branch touching me as I weaved between them and I found the pack in a small clearing. The matriarch froze in her tracks, aware that something was wrong, but the young ones were too inexperienced to know and they rushed toward me. I suddenly felt a great compassion for them. I did not kill them but instead bent down as they approached. Growling at first, they eventually licked my hand and playfully began prancing around me. I stayed with them a few moments before moving on.

  The forest was as a playground to me. Every insect, every flower, every tree, was the most fascinating thing I had ever seen. I felt their energy; I sensed them in a very real way. I found some fish in a river and I obtained what sustenance I could from them and a few field mice. It wasn’t much, but it kept me sharp enough to keep moving.

  I knew where I was going. In the back of my mind, I had feelings … images — no, not images. That doesn’t really describe it. I would say I had impressions in the back of my mind of things I was concerned with. I knew that my father was back in power and that the Sultan would send armies to crush his opposition.

  I slept in the ground when I needed and I fed on all manner of vermin for days. I moved with preternatural speed that I found had almost no limit at night. I could traverse entire cities in a few moments and nations in a day.

  Before I even knew what I was going to do, I was back at my castle.

  I found my father up in his bed in the middle of the night, several women tending to him. He was coughing and I saw an abscess that he had been inflicted with since he was young. It was from a wound he had sustained on his chest. Now, it was large and the size of a melon. He was dying. I could smell it on him.

  He saw me as I approached, but said nothing. He just waived away the women and we looked to each other in silence. He reached for a
wine cup and drank down its contents, spilling much of it on himself.

  “You have returned,” he finally said. “I’d gotten word that you escaped.”

  “You told me I was to be their guest. I was their slave.”

  “You are my son to do with as I please. I’m sending you back to beg their forgiveness. The Sultan was displeased. You killed some of his personal guards in your escape. He wishes to have those that helped you.”

  I stepped forward. A candle was burning on the table next to him and I made sure I stepped into the light so he could see me.

  His countenance changed when he saw me fully in the light. His eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. I didn’t know it until later, but some have described meeting me in the full power of night as an unnatural experience. Akin to seeing an apparition or, as some of the more hopeful ones have said, like a religious experience.

  “No, Father, I don’t think you get to tell me what to do anymore.”

  The next day I slept in the crypts of my ancestors in the belly of the castle. I locked the gates tightly and felt secure that I wouldn’t be disturbed. When I awoke, I found my father and his generals still discussing plans. A look of utter surprise filled him when he saw me standing in the doorway. I’m convinced he had told himself seeing me the previous night had simply been a dream.

  “Leave us,” my father said.

  The generals filed out as I came to him and looked over the maps on his table. I touched them lightly with the tips of my fingers and saw things. I saw men sleeping in tents surrounded by filth, I saw corpses burned in large fires, I saw tens of thousands impaled on large wooden spikes decorating the landscape like grotesque flowers.

  I retracted my hand and gasped.

  “You must go back to the Sultan,” my father said.

  “I can destroy the Sultan and any other king that comes before me.”

  He stepped forward, his hand up. He wished to touch me but was hesitant to do so. He lowered his hand. “What are you?”