Bathory's Secret: When All The Time In The World Is Not Enough (Affliction Vampires Book 1) (11 page)

Shortly after leaving Balgadartsi, the town I had made my home for so long, I headed east for the first time in perhaps fifty years. I’d reduced the town to an empty shell and in my mind I was setting off for new adventures. Perhaps if I was fortunate I would stumble upon another little village on which to gorge myself for the next fifty or a hundred years.

One dawn after a quick hunting spree I set up camp in a tall tree. There had been a lot of movement in the forest during that day and I felt particularly tetchy taking a lot longer than usual to fall asleep, unable to shift the feeling of being watched. As a trained predator myself, I hated feeling this way but the sun was bright and I had to regroup and rest. It was summer and the days were stifling. A lot of the trees had dried up during the drought and hiding places were scarce. After sleeping uneasily for what seemed like a few hours I felt my hammock suddenly engulf me and tighten unnaturally around me purposely blocking me from seeing. From one moment to the next I was incapacitated with it. I felt the branches around me move and give way to more weight followed by the sounds of someone beyond my cocoon cutting the ties from the tree after which I quickly hit the ground. I heard voices around me and without being released I was placed on my horse like a sack of wheat. I tried to kick and scream but I was bound too tightly
.

I was transported in this fashion for hours and then days, stopping from time to time to make camp and all the while no one loosened my ropes or put me down from my horse. Even he was given water to drink but I did not receive so much as a piece of bread. I could feel the sun rise and set and occasionally I would collapse from exhaustion and wake up unaware of how much time had passed. Eventually the horse was stopped and I was lifted from it and thrown on the ground. My entire body ached from the singular position I had been kept in for the past several days and from the starvation. My captor did not free me but cut a hole in the wrappings to release my head so I could see. I felt like a swaddled baby. It was late afternoon and though it was almost dark my eyes burnt from the little bit of light that remained after having been blindfolded for so long.

My abductor was an unafflicted man who appeared to be in his fourth decade but could have been older. He had long dreadlocked black hair, an equally long and black beard and was dressed in colorful stripy but dirty pantaloons and a loose-fitting shirt. His face was tanned and well worn with deep wrinkles above his cheeks which arched to meet his eyes. He wore a large collection of talismans and coins round his neck and he stank of wine. For a long while he just looked at me without saying anything.

“I’m amazed how you new creatures have no idea how much of a trail you are leaving behind when you eat.” He stressed the word
new
in a mocking fashion, but I didn’t understand why. “You think you are going to live forever and that no one is ever going to stop you. Your arrogance eventually becomes the key to your undoing. Esteban here and I have been tracking you for years. We did lose you from time to time, but your trail was unmistakable when we came upon it again. He says he could smell the odor of death around you for miles.” His voice was gritty and even though he had a twist of an accent he spoke in the language of Balgadartsi. Over the years I had learned it, partly from the memories of the people I had drunk, and partly from the eavesdropped conversations.

I looked behind him and saw a creature I had not realized had been with us all this time. Esteban was small and slender. He was a child and though his face was malformed I could recognize from his pallor that he was most definitely Afflicted as he was three tones paler than I. He was hunchbacked and this made his arms look longer than average as they neared the ground. He had almost no hair on his head, and quite unusually for his peculiar shape he was a light walker. He stood downwind from people, to ensure that no one caught his scent and was clearly a first class stalker.

“You like Esteban? He’s a hideous little thing but an excellent hunter, I’d be lost without him,” the bearded man continued to talk oblivious to the fact that Esteban might hear him. Possibly registering my curiosity he gestured to his ear, “don’t worry he can’t hear me, he’s deaf as a door.”

It was true that Esteban was quite horrific but there was a loyalty about him and his eyes hid pain under his distorted brow. I wondered what made him so faithful to the man that treated him no better than a dog and who used him to track down people of his own kind. Hideous as he was I was intrigued to see another Afflicted person like me. Other than the one who’d bitten me all those years ago I had never encountered one and often wondered where he had come from and whether I was alone, a natural aberration. It was clear, however, that Esteban would not tell me much.

The bearded one did not wait for me to say anything. He gave me a small flask of blood to drink and covered my head again before returning me to my horse to continue our journey. He seemed to know exactly how many days an Afflicted could safely go without blood, a clear sign of his long hunting experience. After some more days of travel we arrived at a location and I could sense commotion and hear voices. I heard the bearded one speak with someone else in a foreign tongue followed by the clatter of coins. I was picked up and placed flat on the ground alongside other similar shapes all laid out in a row. My head covering which had not been replaced fully after I was fed allowed me few glimpses of my surroundings.

There were five other bodies bundled like me and stacked on a flat surface a bit like flour sacks in a shop and we were lifted up in the air and lowered through an opening into a building or structure of some kind. It smelled damp and dirty and the atmosphere got more dank the further down we moved. I felt as if I was being taken deep underground. When we came to a stop I was picked up by someone and moved again. Eventually my carrier dropped me to the ground and cut my ropes before swiftly leaving. I struggled loose from my bonds and looking around I realized I was in a small cell in what appeared to be a cave system deep underground. The cell was sparse and the iron bars looked ancient and rusty but they were relentless when I shook them. For days no one came and I was given no information as to why I was there or what would happen to me. From what I could see of it, the cave system was older than anything in the world. The ceiling was covered in stalactites which made the languorous effort to connect with their counterparts on the floor. In a few thousand years these salt pillars would eventually meet in a long-desired union.

As the reality of my situation sank in over my first few days in captivity, I began to become angry. I cursed myself for being stupid enough to be caught and realized that my years in Balgadartsi were but a foolish act and a pleasant yet distant memory. In my stupid mind I had ignored what the man had said about sowing death in my wake and kept thinking that if only I had done some things differently I wouldn't have been caught and I might now be in a new small town full of new potential drinking vessels. The fact that he had been tracking my reckless behavior for years escaped me at that moment.

The sound of the small satchel of blood hitting the ground interrupted my thought stream. Before I could see who’d dropped it off, the person had left. I picked it up and stared at it. These people were making sure I remained alive, but with the least amount of sustenance possible. I drank it in the blink of an eye and tossed it beyond the bars. “How dare these people keep me here?” I kept repeating to myself in frustration while grabbing onto the un-giving cage.

In time a woman in a long hemp dress appeared beyond the bars. She picked up the satchel and looked at me initially with contempt but then with concentration. Her eyes were a dark blue color, the same as the ocean just before a storm and they seemed just as deep. It was as if she was seeing through me. Her dress resembled a nun’s habit but unusually for nuns, it was a deep scarlet color. Her hands were folded on the front of her body and they were tucked into the sleeves so that they could not be seen and her head was covered with a hood. She smelled very strongly of church incense and she reminded me of being at Mass. She stared at me for a good while saying nothing at all and when she was done she looked down, closed her eyes and said, “Thank you Lord for helping us remove another one of these parasites from amongst your flock and oblige it in
Your
service,” in Bulgarian almost as bad as mine. Without thinking I hissed and lunged at her through the bars but she drew back quickly, half expecting it. She swiftly crossed herself several times and walked off without another word.

A few more days of hunger and solitude would pass before two men came to my cell. They were plainly dressed and clearly belonged to some lower working order. We did not have a common language but from their motions I could make out that they wanted me to pass my hands through the gap in the bars palms facing but I refused to indulge them. Sadly for me they were familiar with un-cooperation and were not averse to using violence to get the job done, so with a few swipes of their silver-tipped whip I relented and allowed them to tie my wrists tightly with rope. The hunger and exhaustion had weakened me and though under normal circumstances I might have been able to fight them, the lack of food and sleep meant that I had barely enough energy to stay upright. Part of my induction involved being kept up at night by being constantly sprayed with silver water and pelted with that despicable whip. The men mumbled in a language I did not understand but made it clear that they wanted me to follow them. They took me up some stairs to another level of the cave into another cell-shaped alcove. This one, however, was different to the one I had been held in. It was richly furnished with upholstered chairs and had a fine carpet on the ground. The walls were fitted with bespoke shelves filled with books. At the end of the room was a massive crucifix and in front of it a wooden desk with papers and writing implements. Seated at the desk was a man in religious garb I did not recognize who looked up the minute I was dropped to the ground.

“Theodora Laskari we have been waiting for you.” He spoke in (strained) Greek, my native language, and knew my name. I hadn’t heard my name in over a century and had nearly forgotten it. No one else who had known it was still alive.

“How do you know my name?” I asked speaking for the first time since my capture.

“We know a lot of things here,” he answered cryptically. “We do the Lord’s work so He helps us in our quest.”

“Your quest?”
More religious trash
. Though I came from a fervently religious family and city, I had always been particularly suspicious of the Church. My parents cherished the priests in our parish and I knew my mother frequently secretly visited the Catholic Monsignor in times of trouble. I would often catch her in moments of prayer to her Virgin statues when she thought no one was watching. For me, however, the feeling was not the same. I could see that the clergy preached one code of living and practiced another and though they spoke about Jesus’ love they seldom seemed to act accordingly.

“Yes child, our Divine Quest, which is to rid the world of Lucifer’s children in order to enable the Second Coming,” he said interrupting my thoughts.

“
Lucifer’s children
,” I repeated in disbelief and awe at what I was hearing. Was this really what we were?

“You see my dear, we here believe that all people are born to this world with the burden of Original Sin. Some of us strive to improve through prayer, piety and charity in order to reach His Eternal Kingdom in death. Others like you, however, are weak and when tested by the Devil succumb to him, and in exchange for an unnaturally long life he allows you to live solely in order to conduct his vile work.”

I did not understand how simply by being attacked one night in the woods and forced to change by this condition I had been tempted by the Devil, failed to deny him and therefore been branded as his own. Could I have resisted and gotten better? Could I have lived a normal mortal life had my faith been strong? At the time there seemed to be little moral choice. The change was quick and unyielding so it was unlikely that faith could have cured me.

“Surely Father, by this logic, all illness could be overcome with faith and all who die by disease are simply weak individuals whose faith is not strong enough.”

“What you are is no disease!” He spat out the words. “The Devil can see those who are
weak
and
evil
and he hunts them down by means of his servants and when they are bitten they too are forever in his service. Disease is a test of the body by God, your condition is proof of a rotten soul, and Beelzebub loves rotten souls…” He stressed words like "weak” and “evil” and bulged his eyes in emphasis.

“If you believe me to be weak, why do you restrict me thus? Come closer and I will show you just how rotten I am!” No sooner had I finished my sentence than I felt the exacting sting of the silver whip in my back, the suddenness of which forced me to drop to my knees."

“Silence! You shall not address the Father Superior in that tone,” said a voice behind me in a language I understood. Refusing to let them see my distress I stood up and continued this outlandish conversation, “So what do you do with Lucifer’s so-called children?”

“I detect sarcasm in your voice. That will soon be eradicated, worry not. In answer to your question, what we do is make every effort to remove them from the world, peacefully or by force. Those that cannot be captured are killed on the spot or tracked further until they are caught. We have over 1,275 of you here and we believe there to be a significantly larger number of creatures jailed than there are free. The team that brought you here is one of the many Damnation Hunters that we employ all over Europe to trace and catch the Devil-spawn. We aim to have caught every last one of you by the second coming, after which we shall be handsomely rewarded by Christ himself!”