The Vorbing (6 page)

To add to his rapidly deteriorating condition, Vlad was inconsolable. He refused to accept that Mattna gave himself to the vampires willingly. What was even worse was that Mattna also had tried to violate the sanctity of Vlad’s home and the trust they had built up over years to try to make him a vampire, too. It was totally out of character and a complete mystery the way Vlad’s old friend and mentor had acted in his last moments. It felt like a betrayal on so many levels.

              Mattna had filled the gap in Vlad’s life when his father had died. Although Vlad had delivered the fatal blow,
he considered Mattna dead already when he did it. It was a living death that Vlad mercifully had ended for him. He blamed the vampires for the deaths of both his father and Mattna. He hated them even more for forcing him to act that way against Mattna, even though he knew it was only the shell of the man he had confronted. Vlad felt lost and lonely again. He still had his mother, Hana, and Ula in his life, but they fulfilled a different role than Mattna had. Vlad never talked about the vampires with them. If he tried to, they quickly changed the subject. Now he had to go on fighting alone against Deadulus and his kind. Visiting Mattna’s hut was the only real reason Vlad ever had for leaving the main village of Nocturne. He seemed stuck there forever with no hope of any solace from the reign of terror of the vampires. The bleakness that surrounded him was choking. Vlad hugged the breastplate Mattna had given him to his chest and wept burning tears. After a few minutes, he threw the breastplate on the ground and ran into the field that led to the mountain. The sun just had risen, but thick, dark clouds obscured it; it was enough cover for the strongest of vampires, like Deadulus.

              “You are a coward, Deadulus!” Vlad screamed. “Do you hear me? You send sick old men to make me like you. Show yourself, confront me if you dare!”

              His cries echoed up the mountain, into the dark recesses of a cave where something stirred in the gloom.

              “Deadulus, do you hear me?” Vlad roared as he stormed up the slope.

Vlad took a breath and opened his mouth to yell again when he heard a cry like an eagle and felt a massive weight on his chest. He took a moment to recover from the impact. At first, he only heard raspy breathing. Then he smelled the decaying stench of its breath.

              “I am here,” said the rumbling, deep voice of Deadulus as it resonated in Vlad’s chest cavity.

              Vlad knew the voice spoke the truth as he looked at the claw that pinned him to the ground with effortless power. The sheer size of the beast staggered Vlad. All foolish thoughts of bravery deserted him.

              “You have killed Necromus, Ingisbohr,” Deadulus said with barely repressed rage in his voice.

“Yes,” Vlad said, “and I shall kill you too.”

The creature threw its head back and roared a sneering laugh that reverberated throughout the valley. Then it looked down at its quarry on the ground and put its face right up to Vlad’s.

              “
You
wish to kill
me
, mortal?” the beast sneered.

              “Y-Yes, I do,” the young man stammered as he stared at the rows of ancient, gleaming fangs that dripped with saliva in anticipation.

              “That is why humans are my favourite prey,” Deadulus grinned, “succulent and senseless.”

              “I am not afraid of you, Deadulus,” Vlad replied.

              Deadulus unleashed a thunderous snarl at Vlad. Vlad shook violently and blinked uncontrollably with fear. Deadulus chuckled low and gutturally.

              “I smell your fear, Ingisbohr,” Deadulus said with a trembling rage. “I see it in your eyes and feel it in your weak body. If we were in darkness now, you would be in shreds on the ground.”

              The vampire’s vast wings began to beat behind him. “The daylight has saved your insignificant mortal life, but the taste of death shall never be far from you, Vlad Ingisbohr,” Deadulus said ominously. “I shall see to that.”

              Vlad still heard the fading, incessant pounding of the vampire's wings as he ran. Vlad fled down the mountainside as fast as his legs could carry him, sometimes even quicker. He stumbled and staggered down steep slopes and through thick bushes until finally he saw the farm. He collapsed in a heap and lay there for several minutes until he caught his breath. Death had almost claimed him. He refused to let aggression get the better of him again. He would have to be as cunning as Deadulus to have any chance of defeating him. At that moment, however, Vlad hoped he would never see another vampire as long as he lived. His mother came rushing over to him.

“Vlad, what lunacy is this?” she anxiously enquired. “What are you doing out here?”

“I needed air, that’s all,” Vlad said.

She took one look at the claw marks and dark blood stains on his clothing and knew. “You met Deadulus, didn’t you?” she said as she looked up into the highlands.

              “Yes,” Vlad muttered softly.

              “My God, Vlad,” she said, “you’re lucky you’re still breathing.”

              “I know,” he grudgingly admitted. “It was a mistake.”

“Listen to me, Son,” she said as she stared at him, “you are never to go near that mountain again, do you hear me?’

“Mother!” Vlad protested.

              “Never again, promise me,” she insisted. “Your father is in his grave because of the vampires; I can’t afford to lose you to them, too. You are all I have left now.”

              “You know I can’t make that promise,” Vlad said assertively.

              A look of resignation crossed Hana’s features.

“For now, I have no plans to return to that mountain,” Vlad conceded.

              Hana puffed her cheeks out with relief. She did not receive the full assurance she wanted from Vlad, but she was grateful for the minor concession. Vlad went to the lake and washed off the congealed dark blood on his face and body. He felt unwell, worse than before, and lay down on his bed once more. Fever took hold of him, and he broke out in a lather of sweat. As he closed his eyes, his heart thundered in his chest, and he struggled to breathe. His system was reacting to the vampire blood. The blood had been in contact with his skin, and some form of contagion was transmitted to him by Necromus. It was taking effect. Vlad’s sickly mind wondered if Deadulus spared him because he sensed the vampire blood in his Ingisbohr veins and was curious to see what would happen. Perhaps one vampire’s blood was poisonous to another vampire, so Deadulus could not vorb from him at that time. Whatever the reason was for his life being spared, Vlad would not find it at that moment. All conscious thought left him. Somehow Vlad struggled his way into a searing, restive sleep. His brain tore at his eyelids for them to open and release him from the dark place where the vampires had consigned him. Helplessly, he drifted into the vampires’ nightmare world.

              When Vlad opened his eyes, he was flat on his back on a dry riverbed. Flies swarmed around him on the cracked, dusty ground in the summer heat. As he lay there, basking in the glare of the sun, he felt a distant rumbling vibrate along the parched earth. Vlad tried to sit up and turn around to see what was coming, but he felt paralysed. Something pinned him to the terra firma, and all his efforts were futile. Vlad forced his eyes to turn back as far as possible in his head until they hurt, but he saw very little, and still the rumbling got louder. He thought he saw a flash flood crashing around the bend of the river and thundering towards him. Vlad felt nauseous and closed his eyes as he braced himself for impact. The unrelenting surge slammed into him with great force and propelled him helplessly along with it. It was only when he opened his eyes and looked around that he noticed the colour of the water.

              It was red, blood red, that dark colour that only appeared when someone was in life-threatening danger. Vlad panicked as his body became saturated with the unpleasant substance. He swallowed great mouthfuls of blood as his body tossed and turned around in the spinning torrent like a stick in a river. He felt sick to his stomach from the combined churning effect of the flood and the psychological effect of swallowing copious amounts of blood. The river continued to swell and move forward with increasing ferocity with Vlad as its unwilling passenger. As Vlad held on for dear life, he was on the verge of passing out. He strained to see through the crimson spray, his mind disoriented by the red river’s progress around him. It was then he noticed that he was coming to the verge of a waterfall. Every muscle in his body strained to avert almost certain death and swim safely to the shore. But for all his efforts, he lay motionless as he spun inexorably into the beckoning abyss. It got nearer as Vlad waited to feel his body leave the safety of the river and plummet down. As he reached the edge, Vlad closed his eyes and screamed.

              Down and down he fell, everything a blur, the sound of rushing blood bouncing off the rocks and collecting at the bottom. The blood rushed to Vlad’s head as his lifeless body twisted and fell into a seemingly bottomless pit. Vlad eventually opened his eyes when he realised that death would not be instantaneous. He had little further to fall. As his body hurtled down to the ground beneath, he saw a giant apparition of the head of Deadulus with its mouth open ready to receive some easy prey. Vlad entered the black hole, screamed out, and opened his eyes. To his great relief, he found himself back in his home.

              “Come outside, Vlad,” Ula said as she helped him to his feet. “You need fresh air.”

              The two of them walked outside into a clean, white dawn. A summery haze draped over trees whose branches conducted welcoming birdsong as bees hummed about their business.

“Let’s go over to the tree, Vlad,” Ula said, taking him by the hand. “I have something to show you.”

Ula brought Vlad over to a large, twisted tree. Vlad once carved Ula’s name into the trunk of the tree, and he reckoned she would show him something she had carved in reply.

              “Look, Vlad,” Ula said pointing at something high in the tree.

Vlad raised his head slowly and squinted against the strong sunlight. What he saw made him gasp and step backwards. There was somebody up there, but they were not moving. Upon closer inspection, Vlad ascertained that it was a body hanging from the tree.

              “What’s going on, Ula?” Vlad asked.

              Ula giggled. “You’ll see,” she said as she skipped away.

              Vlad’s gaze returned to the body hanging in the tree. Its eyes opened and stared at Vlad, startling him. He got a second fright when he saw his own eyes staring back at him from the tree.

              “Give up, Ingisbohr,” his evil clone said. “Deadulus is too strong.”

              “No, No, My God NO!” Vlad said as he stepped back.

              The thing in the tree laughed evilly as Vlad retreated back inside the house and bolted the door shut. The laughter outside got louder and louder. Vlad covered his ears and screamed to block it out.

              In an instant, Vlad appeared in an old shack somewhere. It was dark and dusty and smelled of rot. Vlad sat in an old rocking chair with a window behind him. Two dark corners of the room faced him, almost daring him to find their secrets. Vlad stared hard into the corner, but it was too dark to make out anything, although he sensed something there, a presence so powerful it frightened Vlad. He tried and tried to break free of the chair’s grip, but stillness was his only reward. He sat still and tried to breathe. He found it incredibly difficult to get air into his lungs. His heart raced, and Vlad prayed for consciousness to intervene. Movement in the corner brought Vlad’s mind back to the present situation. Two dazzling white lights shone forth from the alcove, like pinpricks in a curtain that blocked out a blinding summer sun. A figure leaned forward, dressed in white robes. Vlad saw a face that was so serene, it put him at ease instantly. Pale eyes met the boy’s stare. They were eyes that conveyed safety.

“Who are you?” Vlad asked. Somehow, Vlad already knew the answer. “I am the one who died for your sins,” the man replied gently.

Movement in the other corner drew Vlad’s attention. An insidious atmosphere poured forth from that corner. There was something reptilian about the way the figure moved there. Snorting sounds came at Vlad as sickening moist air smothered his lungs. Every bone in his body alerted him to beware of this figure.

“What is your name?” Vlad asked.

“Legion!” the voice boomed, “…for we are many.”

Two red coals illuminated the darkness around the entity. Vlad recoiled in his seat from the grotesque visage that glared at him with ravenous eyes. The glow faded to reveal two eyes of differing colours, one opaque and one crystal-clear. Staring at those eyes was like looking into the eye of a hurricane. The only information they sought was how much damage they could inflict. The skin was green and cracked. Decay filtered through every pore. Thin, bony fingers with vermicular, floor-length nails gripped the handles of the throne where the being sat.

Vlad felt the chair levitate beneath him and he drifted across the room. It was movement against his will, but he was grateful to be shifting away from the ambiguous atmosphere that radiated from the two antithetical entities. As he drifted across the darkened room, Vlad felt himself being punched and kicked and bitten. He was unable to look down to see who or what was injuring him, but he heard them cackling and whispering instructions to each other on where to attack him. Excruciating pain rushed through the young man’s body as the vicious attackers continued their relentless assault. The wall of the shack heaved like a membrane holding some demonic embryo. It kicked and slashed through the walls as Vlad passed. Vlad would have fled as fast as possible if he had enjoyed freedom of movement. Instead, Vlad inched past the trickling wall and felt the creature’s claws as it pummelled his body and face. He braced himself for every blow, but it never prepared him for the shocking force of each strike as it landed.