Diaries Of The Family Dracul - Children Of The Vampire Part 1

CHILDREN OF THE VAMPIRE.

DIARIES OF THE FAMILY DRACUL.

JEANNE KALOGRIDIS.

PROLOGUE.

Diary of Arkady Dracul Undated addendum on separate parchment.

Let me start, then, with the moment of my death, for it is there this record best begins.I write this for you, dear son, dear Stefan, taken from me the day after your birth, taken from me the same day as your brave mother, taken from me the same day as my life. I will spare you no detail of evil; best you know the full truth of your heritage, that horror might compel you to escape it. I write this in full faith that it will someday find you-before he does.

For you are the mortal heir of an immortal monster: Vlad, known to some as Tsepesh, the Impaler; known to others as Dracula, son of the Devil. I, your father, am tied to him by blood and fate; when his evil soul perishes, so shall mine. He aims now to bind you to him, that your soul might purchase his continued immortality. And when you sire a child, he shall seek to corrupt that fresh innocent's soul and buy himself yet another generation of existence.

As for my demise: I perished in the grey light of predawn, in the land beyond the forest, in the monster's arms while you and your mother made your separate escapes. I came within a single expiring breath of destroying him, for I was as yet uncorrupted; but at the instant of my death, he made me as he is-a vampire, trapping my spirit between Heaven and earth and thus staying his execution.

I am now, like him, a monster. But I know not what has become of you, or of your beloved mother. I only know that I exist for the day I see him destroyed, and you freed from the family curse. . . .

Chapter 1.

The Diary of Arkady Dracul 30 OCTOBER 1845.

The dragon wakes.

So say the rumini, the peasants, when the thunder rolls over Lake Hermanstadt and drums against the surrounding mountains. In its crescendo they hear the voice of drac, the great dragon: the Devil himself, roaring a warning to those souls foolish enough not to flee his wrath, foolish enough to linger on the banks of the wind-tossed lake in the face of the rising storm. Dozens die each year, struck down in a blazing mortal moment by lightning.

The sun is recently set, and I, like the tempest, am recently wakened. I remain, fearless, seated upon the cold earth beneath the shelter of a towering pine, and stare yearning up at the dazzling bolts that fleetingly illuminate the threatening clouds, out at the black, depthless water that has lured many a suicide. I long for death; but that sweet oblivion is not to be mine. Not until my work is done. . . .

The air smells electric; the brilliant, jagged streaks dazzle me to blindness. They pain me, as once it pained me to stare full into the sun. Even without their light, on this forbidding moonless eve, I see clearly enough to wield my pen, to perceive the colours of all surrounding me, as though it were day: the deep evergreen of trees and mountains, the indigo water, the browns and greys of dying gra.s.s upon the sh.o.r.e.

Renewed thunder, cascading from the sky and echoing again and again and again as it hammers the mountains encircling the lake, so fearsomely that it is easy to understand why the uneducated rumini attribute it to the Evil One.

To my ears, it is no warning but an invitation to the school of darkness: the Scholomance, where the Devil's own acquire the black arts-and lose their souls. Mine is already lost, along with my mortal life, months before. Yet I remain here, hesitant- not quite willing to ally myself with Evil in order to fight it.

Here is the truth: To save my wife, my child, all the coming generations of my family, I am a monster. So shall I remain until I am powerful enough to destroy him, the greatest of all monsters: Vlad, my ancestor and nemesis.

For months since my transformation, I had been unable to continue my diary, unable to chronicle my infinite despair at the bloodthirsty creature I have become. Now I see the need to leave a record, in the event -G.o.d forbid!-of my failure, and Vlad's continuance.

For I have tried to destroy him; oh yes, I have tried.

In my naivete I went to his castle again the second night after my horrific rebirth, armed with a dagger and stake beneath my cloak.

I found him that night, sitting in his drawing-room as was his habit in the halcyon days before all the servants had fled, while I was still an ignorant mortal. For once, I made my way through the echoing, unlit halls of the castle without trepidation, for I could see easily in the darkness-see every mote of dust, every spider, every delicate web-and I could hear with preternatural accuracy every scurrying rat, every whisper of the night breeze outside the walls. I could even hear the faint murmur of my sister's sweet voice in the far wing of the castle-and the faint reply of a stranger's voice, a man.

Perhaps I might have gone to rescue him-but I knew if I succeeded in my mission, he and countless others like him would be saved. I could see, too, the portraits of my ancestors, hung upon the castle walls, beginning with that of the Impaler, with his severe hawkish features, his long black curls, his drooping mustache. He was surrounded by a dozen others, all from different generations, all with faces and features that were variations upon his. . . .

All with souls that were tied to his service, by a pact as ancient and evil as their blood.

And I-I resembled him more than any other. Indeed, I have become, like him, a monster; but I am a monster bound to destroy him . . . and myself.

My prey was silent, but I knew his custom; and so I glided soundlessly down the corridors until at last I arrived at a closed door, its lower edge beribboned with a strip of flickering light.

I moved to fling it open with my hand. To my surprise, even before my fingers touched the bra.s.s k.n.o.b, tarnished by four centuries of my ancestors' hands, the door slammed open, struck by no more than the force of my will.

V. sat in his chair, staring into the fire, which illumined his marble-white features with a warm orange glow and caused a thousand tiny flames to be reflected in the cut-crystal decanter of slivovitz at his elbow. Dressed all in black, he sat regally, his palms atop the armrests, his demeanour that of an aged royal patriarch -but his visage was that of a younger man, middle-aged, with a long iron-grey mustache and hair that flowed onto his shoulders.

He looked like my father, before V. had entirely broken his spirit; but there was a cruelty around his lips, his dark green eyes, in place of Father's kindness.

At the unsettlingly loud slam of the door, he did not move but remained planted like a rock, his hands still gripping the armrests, his gaze still on the fire. All that moved were his lips, very slightly, into a faint mocking smile.

"Arkady," he said softly. "What a welcome surprise. And how are your dear wife and son?"The question tore at my heart, as he knew it would; I could only pray he was as ignorant of the answer as I. When no reply was forthcoming, he slowly swivelled his head towards me.

Immediately, I put my hand upon the stake at my belt.

At the sight, his smile broadened to a grin; then he threw back his head and laughed, so heartily and so loud that the sound rang echoing off the ancient stone walls. He continued some time, while I stood, feeling both furious and foolish.

At last he drew a gasping breath and wiped the tears from his eyes. "Forgive me," he said, grinning, his eyes agleam with unholy mirth. "Forgive me, dear nephew. After so many years, one becomes . . . jaded. One forgets the thought processes of the neophyte.

Arkady"-he nodded towards the sharp wooden stake in my hand, at the s.h.i.+ning dagger still sheathed at my belt-"do you really think to use those things?"

"I will," I said, my voice low with hate. To think that I had once innocently loved him! "I am younger and stronger than you, dear, dear uncle-"

"Younger, yes. . . . But you will find that, in undeath, it is age and experience that confer strength." He sighed as he rose and turned to face me. "Very well. Let us dispense with this before it interrupts my plans for my houseguest."

What followed took place with inhuman swiftness, faster than any mortal eye could perceive.

I leapt at him with the stake, aiming to plunge it deep into his chest. As I did so, he stepped aside with supernatural speed and grace-and caught the hand that held the stake, with such might that my arm was pulled from its socket.

I howled, tried to wrest free, but his strength outmatched mine tenfold; with a brutal yank, he tore the arm from me, leaving my shoulder a stump that spewed my latest victim's blood. As I watched, stunned, he tossed it-the fingers still clutching the stake-with casual grace into the fire.

But I too was no longer mortal; so, neither, was my wound. The pain blinded for one brief brilliant instant, then transformed into pure energizing rage. Again I charged-this time knocking V. into the flames.

As he struggled to rise, hair and waistcoat ablaze, I retrieved my severed limb-only to realise, with amazement, that another had instantaneously and completely regrown to take its place. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the charred stake from my erstwhile fingers and, oblivious to its blistering heat, rushed with it at V.

To my surprise, he spread his arms in welcome, a smouldering, willing target that wore the Devil's own grin. I struck out with every shred of my newfound immortal strength, determined to drive the stake clear through his cold heart; struck out again. Again. Again.

The stake would not pierce him.

Like a madman, I flailed at him with it-but it was as though the very air itself formed an impenetrable cus.h.i.+on above his chest. I hammered away until the wood itself began to splinter. All the while, he laughed, soft and low, with the condescension of an adult watching a helplessly furious child; but then his amus.e.m.e.nt faded and turned to murderous fury.

"Fool!" he spat. "Do you really think you are better than all the others-that you can destroy me, when all have failed? You and your son cannot escape. Yield, Arkady! Yield to destiny!""Never," I whispered, and read in his eyes my destruction; I knew then I should have to flee or meet the fate I had intended for him. I turned and flew through the air-barely in time. As I burst from the room, the violence of my exit causing the door to slam shut behind me, he hurled the stake after-with such force that it split the wood and remained stuck in the thick door, quivering like an arrow.

I fled to escape certain destruction.

The experience filled me with horror-not at the thought of my demise but at the thought that true death would not come soon enough, that I should have to continue as I was-a monster, drinking blood from victim after innocent victim until at last I succeeded in destroying V.

My choices were few: I could persist in attacking V. as I was-clearly unskilled in the ways of the undead and most likely to be the loser in another struggle. I could surrender and allow myself to be destroyed- yielding to Evil and pa.s.sing the curse on to my poor unwitting son, just as all my forefathers had pa.s.sed it on to me.

Or I could try to find my little son, and Mary- Mary, my darling! My last glimpse of her is emblazoned forever in my mind: she standing in the caleche, golden hair dishevelled, the blue ocean of her constant eyes filled with such infinite love, such infinite pain above the pistol clutched in her white trembling hand. ... I return to the moment of my death and recall the sounds: the screams of horses, the thunder of hoof-beats, the rumble of the caleche wheels. And I am haunted by the image of Mary, white-lipped and stricken while the frightened horses bolt and run wild with her. Her heart is the strongest I have ever known; but her body was weak, drained of blood after a difficult birth. Is it possible she has survived?

But in finding them, I risked leading V. to them. That I could never allow. I determined that I would first have to teach myself how to best use my newfound powers, so that I might become a better match for V. But to do so, I needed safety.

So it was I left my native Transylvania for Vienna -a place with which I was familiar-in hopes of losing myself in that populous city and thus buying time to ponder my strategy. It was there I first learnt of the Scholomance, and the truth V. had withheld.

The night I learned of the Scholomance was also the night of my greatest depravity, the night I learned how far I had fallen from human grace; by no coincidence, it was the night my sister came to me. So recent, so shamefully fresh in my memory; shall I write it down?

Bear witness to my own capacity for evil?

Forgive me, Stefan . . .

It began with hunger waking me. I rose and paced restlessly from room to room in the small house I had procured, fighting the need that gnawed my vitals like the Spartan boy's fox, knowing that sooner or later I would have to indulge it and go out into the glittering city to seek a victim. (Going out into the city is acutely painful, in a way; I loved Vienna when I was alive, for its food and music and shops. But I can enjoy none of those things now-except music, and then I must limit myself, for to sit hungering in a fragrant crowd-to smell the scent of blood on the air, to hear their soft, seductive heartbeats-without being able to hunt is too maddening, too distracting. I have tried and was never able to pay the performance a second's attention unless I had previously fed.) I would much prefer starvation . . . and indeed, there have been times when I have, out of pure self-loathing, come close to it. In the end, duty-until Vlad is destroyed, I must survive-and desire always win.

So I was again riven by that interior war, debating whether to forgo sustenance that night or to kill- knowing that I was close to losing all strength, all power-when a knock at the door interrupted.

I knew at once who it was; hunger hones the senses to exquisite sharpness. Standing next to the heavy wooden door that opened onto stone steps and the city streets, my fingertips resting on its carved panels, I sensed animal heat and heard breathing-the distinctive rasping breath of the man I knew only as Weiss.

With abrupt, furious abandon, I flung open the door. I had a score to settle with Herr Weiss, and the painful craving for nourishment served to fuel my anger, to give it a bitter, dangerous edge.

The door slammed against the interior wall. Huddled upon the top step, Weiss flinched- only slightly, and then only because he thought the darkness outside hid him from clear sight.

Not from mine. I could see him, of course, as though he stood in a shaft of daylight: a small, unimposing, and shabbily dressed man with thinning red-grey hair beneath a frayed cap, his upper spine so stooped from a life of physical labour that he seemed perpetually on the verge of bowing forward. Beyond him lay the glittering streets of the city, and a night ripe for hunting.

At my appearance, Weiss reflexively removed his cap, clutching it in two dirty hands in a lower-cla.s.s gesture of courtesy; but his expression remained hard, defiant in the face of my obvious anger. For a scant second, he squinted beyond me, trying to see inside my house- as he always did, I suppose to see whether anything worth nicking lay inside. As always, he failed, for its interior, lit by a single taper, was scarcely brighter than the night outside.

"I have come, Herr Rumler, to-" he began, but I cut him off with an imperious sweep of my hand. Normally I would have made him step just inside and held our sensitive conversation there; but at the moment, anger and hunger overwhelmed me, leaving me unconcerned about appearances.

It was a cold autumn night. Weiss' words hung as mist in the air; my own left no trace.

"Herr Weiss," I hissed, my voice a soft, furious whisper, "I do not suppose you are in the habit of reading the papers?"

In his look of illiterate confusion, I found my answer. "Of course not," I replied for him.

"Then let me tell you the latest news that has all Vienna astir. It seems there is a murderer afoot in the city-a most vicious lot. He decapitated a poor victim, then drove a stake through his heart. And then," I continued, my pitch rising with anger, though still I spoke too softly for others to hear, "the fool left the body lying in a cemetery, where the local authorities could easily find it!"

Weiss' eyes widened, then narrowed, at this revelation; the stubborn hardness returned to his features. "Good Herr, I can explain-"

"I will not hear it!" I shouted, my hunger and temper and carelessness all rising. "I pay you not for explanations but for performance! You have a good deal of impertinence, sir, if you have come here expecting payment!"

Light glinted off the fine sheen of oil covering Weiss' pockmarked cheeks as he lowered his head and kneaded his cap in his hands; not in a show of remorse, of which I believed him incapable, but in an effort to summon a suitable reb.u.t.tal.

In that instant of silence, a gust of wind wafted through the doorway-carrying with it Weiss' scent. It was the sweat-laden, pungent odour of an unwashed human, a smell from which I would have turned my head only months before. Yet now I could detect the muted, bittersweet smell of his blood, hear the soft, insistent drumming of his heart. His radiant warmth drew me like a frostbitten man to a fire.

I could have killed him in that moment-swiftly, brazenly, in the shadows of my own doorway, drinking until I felt that very last heartbeat.

But such indulgence would have led to other problems: disposal of the corpse, the very reason I had need of Weiss' services. For reasons unfathomable, I find myself unable to complete the necessary grisly ch.o.r.es to prevent my victims from becoming as I am. It had taken great effort and much discreet enquiry to find someone who would perform such a task without question. Weiss not only did so, he took unwholesome delight in it.

Yet could I trust him now, after this startling failure? And if I must choose a victim, would it not be better to rid the world of his likes than an innocent stranger?

In the fleeting second that Weiss stood silent and I contemplated this dilemma, the sound of hoofbeats against cobblestone stayed my hand. I watched as a beautifully appointed carriage, drawn by two black geldings, approached down the street. By that time, my hunger had become an all-consuming flame; I had made my decision to d.a.m.n the consequences and pull Weiss inside the doorway, where I could drink my fill. I had only to wait 'til the carriage rolled past- But as it neared, it also slowed. I watched in anguished frustration as the driver reined the horses to a stop in front of the house. The police? Had my hired idiot led them here?

But this was too fine a carriage for the local gendarmes. Herr Weiss turned, peering anxiously at the sight as the driver dismounted and opened the lacquered door. And then my accomplice released a whispered curse of awe at the vision that extended a gleaming white hand to the driver as she stepped out, with the graceful flash of a dainty slipper beneath long skirts.

I froze in the shadowed doorway, my hand on the doork.n.o.b, and a.s.sumed the interior stillness that usually rendered me invisible to mortals. For this vision was my own sister, Zsuzsanna.

My poor sweet Zsuzsa, born lame, with twisted leg and spine, doomed because of them to remain forever a spinster. I still recall with sad fondness the sound of her uneven footfall echoing through Father's house. She was a sickly, fragile creature with milk-pale skin, eyes the colour of night, and raven hair that conspired with her sharp features to evoke a severeness that could not even kindly be called beauty. How Father and I loved her, protected her, doted on her because of her frailty, her unloveliness, her innocent need for us. ... Her loneliness and desire had driven her to the brink of a sweet, harmless madness.

But the woman who stood before me-straight and whole and utterly comely, dressed in a flowing black cape-was Venus herself. Against the midnight velvet of her wrap, her skin shone like the splendid full moon against the backdrop of night. She paused in the street to gaze in our direction, then lowered her hood to reveal a face shaped like a heart beneath a dramatic widow's peak-a face of dazzling loveliness: eyes sparkling like stars, skin pale and glowing and possessed of that strange fiery opalescence I saw each night in my own flesh.

And lips red as blood. My attempt at invisibility failed. At the sight of me, those full, tender lips parted to curve upward in a crescent, revealing brittle, deadly white beneath.

I took an indecisive step backwards, wondering whether to flee for my immortal life, for I heard men's voices in the carriage. If Vlad accompanied her- She stepped forward and raised a hand in a beseeching gesture. "Arkady!" she called, in a voice as innocent and true as the Zsuzsa I had once known- and as sweetly seductive as a siren's. "Dear Kasha, you must trust me! I could no longer bear to be with him. And so I have searched for you. . . ."

I remained motionless, my hand still on the doork.n.o.b as she approached, reducing Weiss to speechless, slavering ecstasy as his narrow dark eyes with their jaundiced whites caught sight of her.

"Kasha-" At his frankly lecherous gaze, Zsuzsa shyly lowered hers and adopted a confidential tone. "Dear brother, I must speak to you alone."

I turned towards him, amazed to find that my protective brotherly instincts were undimmed despite our transformations, despite the fact that he was in far worse peril from my sister than she from him. "Leave us."

He did so with supreme reluctance, despite my mental efforts to compel him; Zsuzsa's beauty, it seemed, was more mesmerising.

And then I warily faced my sister, permitting myself no reaction, no familial response as she reached out to clasp my hand. The flesh of mortals is warm, so warm; but her gloved grip was cool as my own.

For an instant, then, her glamour wavered, and I caught a glimpse of the sister I had known. She looked up at me with brown eyes burnished with magnificent immortal gold, but in them I saw the gentle, loving gaze of my Zsuzsa. The sight tugged at my pulseless heart.

"You must believe me," she said in a tone both humbled and anguished, too soft for human ears to perceive. "He is not with me; I would never lead him to you, never endanger you, no matter what I have become. Did I not tell you all I knew about the covenant? Did I not warn you to flee with the child?"

"Yes," I said softly. It was the truth; Zsuzsanna had warned me when I was still blessedly mortal, had done all she could to spare me and my family pain-but at the same time, she could not endure the thought of Vlad, her benefactor and seducer, her murderer, destroyed.

"But if you come to me, you must know-"

Her features slackened with soft simple pain. "I know," she whispered. "You live to destroy him. And I"-she glanced away, and when she looked back and began to speak, her voice rose with sudden pa.s.sion-"I can bear him no longer. Kasha, I can never raise a hand to slay him, but I cannot stay with him and be witness to the cruelty!"

"Is he unkind to you?" I asked swiftly, before I could repress a renewed surge of fraternal protectiveness.

She shook her head; a jet ringlet agleam with indigo highlights fell across a forehead that caught the moonlight and glinted pale blue, rose, silvery white, like the finest mother of pearl. "To the visitors. To me he is only . . . mocking of my innocence, my unwillingness to torment others." She paused, then with renewed desperation, cried, "Let me stay with you!

Please -I cannot go back to him!"