Diaries Of The Family Dracul - Children Of The Vampire Part 15

Bram, said he, it is not meet for you to be a stranger to your heritage. Come. . . .

And he led me out of the blackness into a soft spring dawn, onto a knoll abloom with wildflowers, whereupon sat a vast home-or more properly, an estate, of a far more modern Roman-influenced design than the castle and significantly less sinister in appearance and aura. No doubt this had once been a pleasant family home-but it possessed a deep undercurrent of sadness, an air of tragedy, perhaps because of the tangled vines that had overgrown many of the windows, almost obscuring them. Or perhaps I was influenced by the look of sorrowful nostalgia upon my companion's face.

I followed him across the knoll to the house; and as we entered, I could see in the pre-dawn grey the distress caused him by the dust and dirt and disrepair.

This had once been a fine house; finer, certainly, than any I had seen in Holland, for we Dutch, even those of us with some wealth, disdain ostentation. But here there had been no such restraint; there were hallways and great drawing-rooms (more drawing-rooms, I think, than any family, no matter how large, should have use for), all appointed with the finest furniture. There were huge gold and silver candelabra by the score, some of them bearing more than twenty candles at once; and the finest lace tablecloths; and walls hung with tapestries such as I have seen only in museums; and chairs covered in brocade threaded with real gold; and everywhere, large Turkish rugs of the finest wool. Arkady led me into a study filled with books.

For several moments I stood staring at the portraits on every wall, most of them of slight, dark-haired, dark-eyed Roumanians whom I would never know- but one of them was of a seated young Arkady Tsepesh, his short dark hair combed in the style of thirty years before, his mustache neatly trimmed, a faint shy smile beneath his moody poet's hazel eyes.

And standing behind him, her hand resting gently on his shoulder, stood my mother.

Young-so young, younger than I had ever seen her, and beautiful, her blue eyes radiating the sweet calm nature I have so grown to love. There was a softness to her young face that she has lost now; an innocence, a trust that has been replaced by a faint hardness, a faint pain about her eyes and lips.

"Stefan George Tsepesh," Arkady murmured, and I started to find him standing beside me.

His gaze followed mine, to the image of the lovely young blond woman with the soft curls, and for an instant his eyes were those of the sensitive, hopeful young man in the portrait.

"Your mother named you George-for the saint who slew the dragon; and I . . ." Here he faltered and bowed his head, for a moment unable to speak. When he gathered himself, he continued, "I named you Stefan-after my dear brother, whom Vlad slew."

He faced me then, smiling unhappily. "Bram . . . I understand now that it is no accident you favour my wife, in eyes and temperament. I can see now my dear mother's face, and her Russian blood in the red cast to your hair." He paused a moment, then pointed to the hallway, and the stairs. "Go, and see your past."

Compelled by curiosity, I wandered up, trying to recapture the feel of the home's inhabitants, trying to retrace my mother's, my father's footsteps. Upstairs I found a bedroom that must have been theirs; in it was a small jewelry-box full of women's earrings and a golden locket. And at a small desk was a quill and a square bottle of black ink, long ago dried. I stared at it for some time, wondering what sad words had issued forth from it. Had Mama sat here all those years ago and penned the startling journal she had only recently given me?

Next to the bedroom, I found a small nursery with an old wooden cradle-and upon the wall, an icon of Saint George slaying the dragon above a burned-down votive. On the floor near the cradle were adult blankets and pillows, and at the window hung a wreath of braided garlic, dried to paper and dust. Clearly, this had once been a hiding-place from the forces of evil.

At the sound of Arkady's voice, I turned in surprise to see him standing beside me.

This is where your mother sought protection in the nights before your birth. Come. . . .

Again I followed as we moved outside the house, back to the flower-covered knoll, where I saw for the first time that across from the main house sat a small chapel of Eastern Orthodox design, with a dome and spiral. This he entered, leading me just inside the door.

The feel was distinctly Turkish, with a high cupola and walls entirely hidden by glittering Byzantine mosaics of saints: Mary at the Annunciation; Peter, denying Christ as the c.o.c.k crowed; Stephen the martyr, pierced by arrows. At the other end of the room was a small altar curiously devoid of religious symbols.

We paused near the entrance, at a great wall covered with gold plaques, all marking crypts labeled with the surname TEPES.

Tsepesh, he p.r.o.nounced, which means Impaler. This was Vlad's mortal name, and thus it was the name taken by his human offspring. But when he became undead, the peasants, out of fear, gave him the name Dracula: son of the dragon, of the Devil. When I became immortal, I adopted the name Dracul, which admits my evil genesis, for I did not wish to dishonour the name Tsepesh.

I peered thoughtfully at the names and dates upon the golden plaques. Ancient crypts these were, some almost four hundred years old. And as I gazed upon them, I became aware that we did not stand alone: in front of us materialised the ghostly images of men, each dressed in the costume of a different era-one wearing the short waistcoat popular during the time of Napoleon, another in mediaeval tunic and woolen leggings. Some were still in the prime of youth, but most were older, with greying hair and bowed, beaten faces; and all of them with eyes so full of anguish, I could not bear to directly meet their gazes.

I knew then I looked at an historical spectrum spanning the last four centuries.

These are your ancestors, Arkady said. Seventeen generations. These are the men who suffer in h.e.l.l so that their families would be protected and spared from knowing the truth: that Vlad corrupted them by pressing them into his service-a service that required them to provide him with the blood of innocent, unwitting victims. These are the men whose souls have purchased continued life for the Impaler.I am the eighteenth generation; my soul has now purchased him a fresh span of life. And you, Bram, are the nineteenth.

Suddenly I no longer stood inside the chapel but in that terrible chamber where my father and brother had died. There sat the Impaler upon his throne, magnificent in scarlet robes and golden diadem; as brilliant as the sun, as fiercely proud and beautiful as a lion. I watched as the first generation of those bound to his service cringed before him: the father weeping as he pierced his squawling infant son's finger with the dagger, then milked that young blood into the chalice.

And Vlad upending that chalice, as he had poor Stefan's, and drinking . . .

Generation after generation after generation I watched the sad pageant repeated; seventeen stricken fathers, seventeen wailing sons.

Let it end with me, Arkady's voice said, though I looked about me and saw I stood alone.

Dear Bram, let the curse end with me.

And I watched, from the lofty perspective of a G.o.d staring down from heaven, as generation after generation Vlad savoured the slow descent of each individual soul into terror and corruption when the chosen son came to realise who his "great-uncle" Vlad truly was and what was expected of him.

I saw, too, the covenant at work: the castle as a thriving estate filled with servants, with peasants toiling in the fertile fields. Like a great feudal lord, Vlad provided sustenance and protection for an entire village. And they in turn colluded with the eldest son to provide sustenance for him-agreeing never to warn the unwary travellers seeking lodging, or those lured to the castle by the son's invitation.

So this unholy alliance continued, until the day Vlad's arrogance overcame him, and he dared to prey upon one of his own: Zsuzsanna. Terrified that the vampire might now attack any of them, the villagers fled, and the castle fell into disrepair, abandoned by all except Vlad and his two consorts, the immortal Zsu-7sanna and the mortal Dunya.

And I saw again the family estate, and myself as an infant, being carried away in the hands of the gentle blond giant I had come to know as Papa. And my parents fleeing in the opposite direction in a carriage, desperate to cross the river before sunset-my mother pale and exhausted after a difficult labour, covered with blankets to ward off the spring chill, my father's face grim, taut with desperation as he drove the horses hard towards sanctuary.

I saw them fail. Saw the sun slip lower in the sky until the last fading rays had vanished, saw the carriage suddenly beset by a pack of snarling grey wolves. One leapt into the carriage, at my mother's throat; and my father turned and killed it with a single shot from the shining steel revolver in his hand.

From out of the darkness Vlad appeared and moved close to threaten Mama-leaping like the wolf onto the carriage, between my parents, spreading his cloak, like a great evil bird descending on his prey. My poor brave mother-her face wan, her hair tousled, her eyes narrowed with terror and determination-grasped the gun from my father's hand and with a look of infinite love and grief, fired it.

Not at Vlad, but Arkady-who with his dying gaze, beheld her with such grat.i.tude, such devotion, as I have never seen.

The horses shrieked, bolted, carrying my mother with them; my father, dying, tumbled from the carriage onto cold ground, while Vlad knelt beside him, lifted him, embraced him evilly.This was their suffering and their sacrifice, freely given for me. Had my father been permitted to die innocently at that moment, the pact would have been ended; Vlad would have been destroyed. I would be in Amsterdam today alive, happy, my little boy still at my side-and both of us blissfully ignorant of the great price that had bought our freedom. But the Impaler befouled that n.o.ble act by sinking his teeth into my father's neck.

Arkady's death should have purchased Vlad's destruction; but his second death had now purchased Vlad's survival.

Was I to let such a bitter loving sacrifice be negated?

Let it end with me, Bram! Let the curse end with me.

I looked to see Arkady once more at my side. But as I watched, he was transformed before my curious gaze-grew shorter, thinner, white-haired-until at last I realised I stared not at my father but at the mysterious idiot, Arminius.

And Arminius smiled his wise-simpleton's grin and said, The covenant is a two-edged sword, Abraham. A two-edged sword. . . .

I said, "I do not understand."

It cuts both ways. Vlad has corrupted many of his family's souls. But should you destroy him, Abraham, you will set them free: your father's soul, and those of your ancestors.

Accept the burden, and you can redeem them.

When I woke I was warm, lying beneath blankets not of snow but of coa.r.s.e handloomed wool, upon a hard narrow mattress stuffed with straw. I did not recognise my surroundings, which looked as though they belonged to a much earlier century: the walls were rounded, earthen, bearing the prints of the builder's hands; the floors nothing more than packed sod strewn with straw. An oil lamp at my bedside table illumined the room, as did the fire burning in a nearby stone hearth, which emitted a cheering warmth. But beyond the window and the crude handmade wooden shutters covering it, the wind howled fiercely as the storm continued.

I pushed myself to a sitting position to discover my shirt and waistcoat and cloak had been removed, replaced with a coa.r.s.e woolen undershirt that itched against my skin. My bandage had been replaced as well, with a fresh one of loose-woven, handloomed fabric.

I remembered the snowstorm and marvelled that my feet and legs seemed quite free of any sign of frostbite, and that I felt generally well and rested. Even my wounded arm had ceased aching. I almost swung my legs over the side of the bed, intending to rise and examine the room, when I chanced to glance to my right and saw lying on the floor beside me a wolf.

A large silver-white wolf in its thick winter coat, quite soundly asleep (or so I thought), curled in a. comfortable half-moon. As I sat gaping, it lifted its head and stared at me with quizzical colourless eyes.

Had the cloak with the gun and ammunition been nearby, I would have seized a weapon at once. But the beast merely yawned, to display pink tongue and gums and a fearsomely sharp set of fangs, then set its great head down upon its front paws and gazed up at me with an air of canine boredom.

Cautiously, I pulled my legs back under the blankets and sat straight and still, paralysed by uncertainty.As if in reply to the animal's yawn, a man entered the room: Arminius, still in his plain black robe, bearing in his hand my-or rather, Arkady's old-shirt. The shirt appeared somewhat new; that is, I suspect Arkady had purchased it without ever having the opportunity to wear it, and it had lain unused, untouched, for over two decades in his closet. At the same time, its style and faint yellowing marked it as old-fashioned. Arminius impressed me the same way: a very young very old man, with white hair and beard but the smooth rosy skin of a newborn, and eyes as bright and ageless as the white wolf's. His skin was the pink of the animal's tongue, his hair the same colour as its fur, and they, combined with the sparkle in his eyes, seemed utterly incongruous with his sombre black vestments.

He smiled at me first, then at the animal-who grinned, tongue lolling, as it thumped its tail like a dog in greeting-and asked the creature kindly, "Is he awake, Archangel?"

And he bent down to scratch the wolf behind the ear. Archangel closed his eyes appreciatively and began clawing the air wildly with a rear paw.

I dared then to rise-still keeping one eye on the grinning four-legged predator-and took the proferred shirt. So awed was I by the entire tableau, and by the very fact that I had survived, that my voice was reduced to a whisper: "How did you find me?"

His smile never faded, though he shrugged as if the answer were not important. "I have a way of finding those who need my help. Come; you are hungry."

He was quite right. I let him lead me to a kitchen with a much larger hearth, where a black iron kettle hung from a spit. He indicated with a nod where I was to sit-at a rough-hewn table and bench made from a few split logs. So there I sat while he ladled some of the contents from the ketde into a handmade bowl and brought it to me, then handed me a piece of brown bread. I waited for a spoon, but it was not forthcoming; instead, I lifted the bowl to my lips.

It was peasant fare: beet and cabbage and barley stew, but delicious and hot. I ate two bowls while my host crouched on his haunches on the dirt floor in front of the fire. The wolf joined him, curling upon the heated stones of the hearth while its master stared into the flames and stroked its head distractedly. I watched them both curiously as I ate; animal and human resembled each other in colouring and had the same gende, placid demeanour.

I ate until I could eat no more; and at the very instant I set my clay bowl against the unfinished wood, my host turned his face towards me to reveal his soft smile.

"Now it's time for you to talk."

How could I not? The man's air was such that I had trusted him with my very life the instant I first saw him; and the devotion the huge wolf showed him impressed me no less.

So I told the story: of my life in Amsterdam, of how it was shattered by recent events, by Arkady's appearance and my brother's kidnapping and death, by my son's transformation into a vampire, by Arkady's destruction. I spoke, too, of my shocking discovery that I was Arkady's son and Vlad's heir-and that I was weak, powerless to do anything to help those I loved.

Desperate, I begged Arminius to come with me to the castle-to set my little boy free, to destroy Vlad. For I sensed that he was most learned in these occult matters, and very powerful-powerful enough, perhaps, to overcome the Impaler.

To my embarra.s.sment, my voice broke many times during the telling of the story; more than once, I paused to remove my spectacles and wipe away tears. Yet I should have wept oceans of them if I thought it might convince Arminius to aid me. I was determined that he knew precisely what help to give.

He listened to my emotional plea in complete silence and detachment, his gentle dark eyes focussed on mine the entire time. And then he turned his face again to stare into the fire.

The wolf woke and nudged his hand, and he stroked its head once, twice; the creature settled down again and soon fell into a dream, its front paws twitching faintly.

"I cannot go with you, Abraham," he said at last. "I am, like Vlad, tied to my dwelling, to some extent. Even if I were not, I could not raise a hand against him. You are the one who must accomplish this task, my friend. You have been awaited many generations."

My frustration, my anger, were too great to hide. "But I am not strong enough!"

He nodded at the fire, as though he were addressing it. "Not now. But if you choose the correct path, you will be." And then he gave a single, abrupt sigh. "Of course-once you know what is required, you will resist."

"No," I said, vehement, intent on vengeance. "I will do whatever necessary to destroy Vlad.

Only tell me what I must do."

He turned his whole body then from the fire and faced me directly, sitting back and folding his arms round his shins. "Were you evil, I would send you to the Scholomance-the school where the Devil trains his own in the man tic arts."

"If there's a school for evil," said I, desperate, leaning across the table towards him, "then surely there must be a school for good."

He smiled at that, his thin lips curving easily into a half circle. "Such a place dare not exist openly-nor even have a name, as it would be under constant attack from its enemies. Here is the problem, Abraham: In order to fight evil, we must know evil. In order to prevail against Vlad, you must possess equal power in order to defend yourself and those you love.

But such power brings with it terrible temptation."

"If I am to defeat Vlad, then I have no choice."

"No." His expression saddened. "No choice, to fight one such as Vlad. Others have tried; none has succeeded."

"Have you tried?"

His eyes widened slightly with surprise before he quickly averted his gaze; he rose to his feet and halfturned towards the fire, which cast a tiger-lily-orange glow upon his face, his sparkling white hair.

"No. I have not tried, though I have advised odi-ers. But they did not possess the . . . unique opportunity you do."

I lifted a curious eyebrow. "Which is?"

Again, he studied the fire rather than meet my gaze and, after a long pause, replied, "You have your mother's strong will. Believe me, you will need it. Even during his life, Vlad was cunning and bloodthirsty, known throughout his small kingdom of Valahia-better known to you as Wallachia-for his acts of sadism and torture. Oh, his people loved him for the victories he won over the Turks-but his ferocity in battle had nothing to do with courage or honour or love for his land. Only two pa.s.sions drove him: the thirst for blood and power.

The pa.s.sing centuries have only made him crave them more."

His eyes looked upwards and sideways, beholding the past; curious at the conviction in his voice, I said, "You speak as though you knew him."

He glanced back at me, his lips curving upwards ruefully, shyly, as though the truth embarra.s.sed him. "I did. Born under the sign of Sagittarius, the year the English burned Jeanne d'Arc as a heretic-perhaps an omen of other evil to come.

"I knew his father, Vlad Dracul, sent to the city of Buda as a hostage of Sigismund I. And his grandfather, Mircea the Old, who ruled many years, and his greatgrandfather Basarab the Great, who defeated the Tatars." The wolf beside him growled in his sleep; Arminius laid a hand upon him. "Yes, I know, Archangel. The Draculas, as they have since come to be known, were a family of great intelligence, great shrewdness, great political ambition-but, I am afraid, not great wisdom, despite the fact that many of them joined the Sholomonari."

I frowned at the term-though I was far more puzzled by his a.s.sertion: Did he truly mean that he knew Vlad's forebears? That he was older, by at least a century, than the Impaler?

"From King Solomon," he explained. "The Sholomonari were comprised of the most brilliant minds in Eastern Europe. They devoted themselves to alchemy-the search for immortality; or, if you will, the philosopher's stone. But after a time, many of the Sholomonari devoted themselves to evil rather than good. Those inclined to wickedness studied at Sibiu, over Lake Hermanstadt, at the Devil's Scholomance; and each learned the art of pact-making, some for temporal gain, others for more lasting treasure. Vlad's father and grandfather were Sholomonari, as was Vlad himself. He and his forefathers used their powers to further their political careers.

"But Vlad possessed a streak of cruelty and craving for power beyond theirs-perhaps because his own father cold-bloodedly surrendered him as a child to the Turkish sultan, as a hostage-and he soon discovered a way to have eternal life, eternal blood. Thus was the pact you know as the covenant born. Like his own father and grandfather, Vlad thought nothing of surrendering his own kin, if it brought him gain."

A terrible realisation came to me. "So if there have been and are many Sholomonari . . .

then are there also many vampires?"

"After a fashion," he said. "The sort you know have all been created by Vlad's bite. There are others, though, of another nature-as many kinds, perhaps, as there are bargains with the Devil. Different men seek different things. Vlad sought immortality laced with blood and terror, for such brought him pleasure."

"And how is it you know all these things?" I asked; my curiosity had bested me, although the question seemed impudent, almost rude. "About the Scholomance, the Sholomonari, and Vlad?"

I expected he would not answer; my head was swirling with romantic superst.i.tions about a secret organisation of Sholomonari dedicated to uphold good, and his being sworn never to reveal the source of his vast occult knowledge. But answer he did-after a moment's pause to stoop down and thoughtfully stroke the sleeping wolf's flank-with words I could never in all my life have imagined: "Because, my dear Abraham-I, too, am a vampire."

Chapter 18.

The Diary of Abraham Van Helsing, Cont'd.

I could do nothing but stare at him, thunderstruck by his admission; a sudden chill of fear overtook me. Had I been so wrong to trust this quiet stranger? So wrong about the atmosphere of goodness I sensed here? Had I fled Vlad's castle only to walk into the beast's very maw?

He saw my discomfort and a sad, self-deprecating smile fleetingly curved his thin lips beneath his drooping mustache; then his expression once again grew sombre. "I do not mean to frighten. But it is the truth."

"Who are you?" I demanded softly, without knowing I intended to pose the question.