The Turk slapped him again on the shoulder. "Consider it done! I can be magnanimous in victory, Voivode."
He laughed quietly. "And is your victory certain, licker of the sultan's hole? Do not be smug. Much else may happen, and soon."
"Perhaps, Little Dragon, perhaps. But I am afraid that you will not be there to see it."
He smiled again and then the mist descended and obscured the cell around him. When the mist dissipated sufficiently for him to be able to see, he was still in the dungeon cell, but he was alone, and the darkness outside the small window near the ceiling was beginning to be displaced by the light of dawn, the dawn of his death.
"Ordogh," he whispered. "Come to me!"
He waited for what seemed a long while, and then the infernal voice spoke to him. "I am here, Little Dragon. I am here."
"Tell me again, Ordogh," the Voivode asked. "Explain it all to me again, as you did before this last battle."
"Do you accept, Little Dragon?"
"I want to hear it again, all of it, Ordogh. What you ask of me is no small thing."
"And what I offer you is no small thing."
The Voivode gazed into the still, deep darkness of the dungeon cell. "Life in death and death in life," he whispered, remembering the words of the dark spirit. "If I accept, Ordogh . . . if I accept, I will become . . . I will become . . ." He stopped speaking, as if frightened of the very word.
"Nosferatu," the spirit finished for him. "You will become nosferatu."
He shook his head and muttered, "I had always thought such stories were but to frighten children."
The voice seemed almost to laugh as it replied, "The fear of children holds much wisdom, Little Dragon, even as the wisdom of man holds much folly."
The Voivode clenched his teeth and swallowed hard as he contemplated the implications of the pact being offered to him. "And in that form, in that state of existence, I shall triumph over my enemies?"
"I have told you this, Little Dragon, that you shall
triumph over generations of men not yet born. You shall be free to kill and torture at will, on through the centuries."
"Centuries . . ." the Voivode whispered. "Centuries . . ."
"You shall drink the blood of the living and be a harbinger of death and terror, immune to the weapons of the mortals whom you destroy. The sword, the musketball, poison, fire, all shall leave you unharmed. And you shall be as a
mirror image
of
my
Enemy, Little Dragon, and so the looking glass will not hold your reflection, and in all things shall you be to Him as a dark twin."
The Voivode waited and then said, "More, Ordogh. I wish to hear more. I, a dark twin to Christ?"
"Yes, Little Dragon. As He rose from the dead at sunrise, so shall you rise from the dead at sunset. As He walked upon water, so shall you be unable to cross water unaided. As He died impaled upon wood, and as you have delighted in impaling others upon wood, so shall your destruction be possible only by the wooden stake. As He gave His blood to others on that last night before His crucifixion, when He shared bread and wine with His disciples, so shall you share your blood with others and curse them with your own undeath. As He was transfigured on the night when He met with Moses and Elijah, so shall you transfigure yourself at will and become bat and wolf and rat and mist and wind. And as He shed His blood for others, so shall others shed their blood for you." The voice paused. "I shall take you beneath my wings, Little Dragon, and you shall be my son."
The Voivode drank in the words as he heard them whispered into his ears by that intimate, seductive voice, the voice that had once spoken to Eve beneath the tree of forbidden fruit, the voice that had once bargained for the soul of Job, the voice that had once urged the young man from Nazareth to turn stones into bread. The Voivode listened and thought. "Nosferatu," he muttered.
"Nosferatu," the voice echoed.
"And I shall live on as nosferatu through the centuries," he mused.
"Through the hundreds of years and the thousands of years, until the sun itself grows cold."
The Voivode nodded. "Ordogh, I agree. I accept."
"Of your own free will?"
"Yes, of my own free will."
"Do you know what fate awaits you upon the Day of Judgment?"
He laughed bitterly. "That fate awaits me regardless. It is my hatred of my enemies that impels me to this pact, not any hope for special consideration."
"No, Little Dragon, it is not hatred of your enemies," the voice whispered. "Your enemies are not the Turks, they are not the Magyars. You hate life, Little Dragon. Life is your enemy. Mankind is your enemy, as mankind is my enemy. You are filled with hatred and bitterness and the lust for blood."
The Voivode contemplated this for a few moments, and then he nodded. "Yes, Ordogh, your words are true."
"I know, Little Dragon."
"And you have always known, have you not?"
"I have always known, Little Dragon, and for the sake of your hatred and your bitterness and your lust, I have loved you more than any mortal whom I have known. And I am old, Little Dragon. I am old."
The Voivode nodded again. "So I shall be the mirror image of your Enemy, Ordogh, the mirror image of the Prince of Light."
"The Prince of Darkness," the voice agreed. "Nosferatu."
"Nosferatu." The Voivode laughed. "Nosferatu! Nosferatu!" He laughed louder and the echoes of his laughter resounded throughout the dungeon. "Yes, I shall be nosferatu! I shall be walking Death! I shall be Hell embodied, incarnate!" His laughter was mad and shrill. "I accept, Ordogh. I accept, I accept!"
"You shall join me in Hell, Little Dragon," the voice warned.
"I look forward to it!" the Voivode shouted.
There was a long pause, a
deep
silence in the cell. And then the voice whispered, "It is done, Little Dragon. It is done."
The cell door swung open and five Turkish guards entered the dungeon cell. The Voivode looked up at the small window near the ceiling. "Daylight," he muttered. "Dawn. The sun was darkened when He died, and it shines for me. But when the sun sets . . ."
One of the guards unfolded a piece of parchment and began to read from it. "Vlad Vladescu," the guard began with words which denied him his tide, which called him simply Vlad the son of Vlad, "you have been condemned to death for the crimes of treason, usurpation, and rebellion. The order for your execution bears the seals of Torghuz Beg and Voivode Radu I of Wallachia." The guard looked up. "Have you anything to say?"
The Voivode smiled. "I have much to say," he muttered. "But I shall speak later, after sunset." He was still smiling as the guards led him from the cell and the mist once again descended upon him . . .
. . . and the dark mist became darker, and only sporadic images were able to pierce through the thick blackness . . .
. . . the grinning face of Torghuz Beg as the Voivode was tied to the stone slab . . .
. . . the excruciating agony as the execution began . . .
. . . the death of a thousand cuts . . .
. . . the right forefinger, joint by joint . . . the right middle finger, joint by joint . . . the right thumb, joint by joint . . .
Ordogh! They are severing my body to bits!
It will mean nothing, Little Dragon.
When I am nosferatu, will my body be whole?
It will, Little Dragon.
. . . the left forefinger, joint by joint . . .
. . . the left middle finger, joint by joint . . .
Ordogh! Ordogh!
I am here, Little Dragon. Wait, my son, wait. All will be well. All will be well.
. . . the wrists . . . the ankles . . . the elbows . . . the knees . . .
The pain! Ordogh, the pain!
Yes, Little Dragon, yes! Let the pain feed your hatred!
. . . the thighs . . . the arms . . .
Kill me, Ordogh, kill me, please, please, let me die! How can I still be alive? How can I live through such pain?
Pain is your mother, Little Dragon. Pain is your lover. Pain is your bride.
. . . the tongue . . . the eyes . . . the testicles . . . the penis . . .
Soon, my son, soon, soon.
. . . the head . . .
And then all was darkness.
And in the darkness the mutilated body rested in the stone coffin in the chapel crypt near Oradea in Transylvania.
And in the darkness the raped and ruined and gutted bodies of Magda and Katarina and Simone gave festival to the insects and the worms.
And in the darkness the bits and pieces of the bloody flesh and the severed bone of the Voivode grew together.
And in the darkness a soft, infernal voice whispered,
Yes, Little Dragon, yes! Nosferatu! Nosferatu!
The darkness was deep and lasted for an eternity. The darkness was emptiness and nothingness, a horrid, barren void, without life, without thought, without being. The darkness and the emptiness was all.
And time had ceased. And life had ceased.
He was dead.
He was dead.
Death was an eternal nonexistence, black and silent.
And then, into that silence, that darkness, that barren nothingness of death, a sudden infusion of horrible power struck his corpse with such force that his dead limbs pushed upward and threw the stone lid from his coffin.
He stepped out of death, but not into life. From death there was no true return, not at least by the power of the Lord of the Damned; only the Creator, from Whose mouth the words of creation had once come, could restore life to the dead. But Ordogh, the Devil, the Master of Hell, could bestow Undeath. And so the Little Dragon stepped Undead from his sarcophagus and stood in the midst of the dark and silent crypt in the lower level of his once proud castle. His nostrils smelled the smoke of the campfires of the Turks, and he smiled.
Torghuz Beg
, he thought,
the game goes on. The last move is mine.
He raised his hands before his eyes and gazed at them appraisingly. They were as white as marble, bloodless, cold, dead hands. He placed one finger in his mouth and felt the sharp tips of the long fangs which now extended downward from his upper jaw, and then he closed his eyes and listened to his blood. The blood was Satan's foul gift to him, and the blood taught him all he needed to know. In a moment, the lesson was learned.
He walked slowly over to the three sarcophagi which he knew contained the bodies of his dead wives. He opened one and looked down at the corpse. "Magda," he whispered, and then plunged one of his long, razorlike fingernails into his wrist. The thick purple blood flowed like a river, an endless river, and he drenched the mouth and face of his dead woman with the accursed flood.
Her eyes opened and the blood spoke to her as well. She
reached up and grabbed his wrist and sucked on it greedily, like a child at her mother's breast. And then she climbed out of her coffin.
He walked over to another sarcophagus and threw the lid back with disdain for its weight. "Katarina," he whispered, and then poured the elixir of Undeath into her dead mouth. "Simone, my little Frank," he said, smiling at the third dead woman in the third casket as he inflicted his curse upon her.
The three women and the man stood in silent communication with one another. There was no need to speak, for the blood spoke to them all. They each knew precisely what powers they now had, and each knew precisely what was now to be done. Silently, like hungry serpents creeping unseen and unheard through high grass, they left the chapel crypt, shielding their eyes from the crosses and crucifixes as they mounted the steps. Four pairs of eyes glowed red like hellfire in the darkness, and four tongues slavered hungrily over four pairs of fangs.
The mist descended upon him, then drifted away, and he was standing over the sleeping form of the Turkish chief. Smiling malevolently, the Voivode reached down and shook him gently by the shoulder. "Awaken, old ally," he whispered. "It is my move in the game."
The Turk's eyes opened slowly and gazed blearily up at the figure that loomed over him. "What?" he muttered. "What is wrong?
Why have you
. . . ?" Then he focused on the face of his enemy, and he smiled thoughtlessly as he attempted to think of an insulting quip. His smile faded as he remembered that he had killed his enemy earlier that day.
The Voivode grabbed the Turk by the throat and lifted him up into the air with astonishing ease. His strength was so great that the large Turk felt no heavier than a twig, and he laughed heartily as he threw the man down upon the ground.
Torghuz Beg tried to rise to his feet and run, but the Voivode leaped upon him and pressed him down upon the cold stone floor. His red orbs burned into the terrified eyes of the beg, and he whispered malevolently, "Last move of the game, my old ally, and I am the victor." Then he sank his fangs into the beg's throat and began to drain the blood from him.