Vampire "Untitled" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

Paul let out a long groan. This whole adventure, if he
could still call it that, was beginning to feel as though it would begin with
pointless obstacles and hurdles to clear. He placed his hands on his hips and
stared down for a moment. If he’d remained looking up he would have seen the
expression change on Ildico’s face; he would have seen that flash of horror as
Ildico realised that the three men were right on them. “I’m supposed to be in Brasov,” Paul mumbled to nobody in particular. “This isn’t fair. I’m supposed to be in Brasov.”

Then it hit.

He was stumbling as though the ground had shifted, his
arms cart-wheeling forward as his shoulders snapped together across his back
from the blow. The fall stopped short as his shirt pulled tight and yanked him
back. There was a moaning squeal, a woman’s voice from his side, high and
shrill.

As he righted and found his feet, Paul was turned by
strong hands towards the face of a giant. A man. A fat wide head with a purple
scar from the centre of his forehead that stretched into his hairline above his
right eye; eyes that held a bitterness of character still to be unleashed. This
insidious face breathed onto Paul with a disgusting smell of stale tobacco
mixed with an acrid hint of vomit. Paul felt his legs give way beneath him, but
the Big Man held him firm, gripping his shirt about the buttons in a huge fist.
In the panic, Paul registered the single detail that this Big Man had black
hair on the back of his hands and fingers.

Paul’s heart was pounding in fight or flight but he
could do neither, his instincts had taken over to drop him to the floor, to
curl up in a ball and protect himself, but the man seizing him was keeping him
upright. To his side there was shouting from the girl. In confusion Paul looked
left and right, wanting to yell but found the air trapped in his throat, too
paralysed by shock to do anything. He tried to take in the situation but was
just too surprised and felt like he was watching the situation in a movie that
had just started halfway through the picture.

He looked away from Big Man. He could see… could see…
the Big Man holding his shirt, almost lifting him off the ground… he could see
a young kid, teenaged, looking gormless… he could see another man with a shaved
head holding the girl by the hair. He was yelling at her, hurting her,
screaming abuse only an inch from her face.

Ildico was pushing back against this man, repeatedly
screaming what sounded like, “Nyalla Nu, Nyalla Nu!”

Whoever this guy was he was pissed off and aggressive.
Then the shaved headed man pointed at Paul and shouted something in Romanian,
but the words weren’t for him, they were about him.

Ildico repeatedly cried out, “Nealla varog,” and from
somewhere Paul recognised the word ‘varog’ as meaning ‘please’ and figured
Nealla or ‘Nyalla’ was the name of her attacker.

Nealla grabbed Ildico’s pony tail and wrenched her
head back as though he wanted to snap her neck. He wasn’t play acting, he
really did want to snap the vertebrae of her spine and he was shouting at her
with such venom it looked as though the words coming from his lips had the
power to break bones.

At this Paul freaked out, lost his cool and screamed
in English, “Leave me alone, this has nothing to do with me.” He twisted in the
Big Man’s grip, struggling with the futility of a toddler against an adult.

The situation freeze framed.

It took a few seconds for him to notice. It was his
English language that had done it. He’d cried out like a coward and now, all
eyes were on him.

“Oh shit.”

Big Man still gripped his shirt but was exchanging
glances with Nealla, neither of them seemed to know what to do. Paul looked to
Ildico hoping for help, wishing her to talk to these guys so they would let him
go, but she stared back blankly looking more of a victim than he did. The
gormless teenager remained in place but tilted his head down to stare at his
shoes.

“Hey,” Nealla called out to get Paul’s attention. He
twisted Ildico to position her body in front of his, then pulled her arm behind
her back, wrenching it against the grain. She made a long painful cry as the
muscles and tendons of her shoulder were stretched in the wrong direction. Her
face contorted with agony until tears rolled across her cheeks. It was a slow
deliberate move that seemed purposely to send a message of some sorts. He
started speaking to Paul, saying things that couldn’t be understood but ending
each sentence with something that sounded like, ‘Ildico, femee o mya.’ He said
it three or four times like a mantra. Whilst still twisting her arm he slid his
free hand around her torso and underneath her pullover to fondle her breasts as
a public spectacle. He was strong, he could break her arm if he wanted to. With
relish, he put additional stress on her leveraged shoulder to make her gasp for
breath between cries as his hands fondled beneath the wool of her pullover. It
was a show. The abuse and pain were only part of the act. The real theatre came
from the loathsome despicable smirk he wore as a victory mask. He was forcing
her to comply with pain, playing with her tits in the street as though it was
no more wrong than kicking a tin can. And he was smiling...

“Ildico, este femeia mea!”

Paul got it; Ildico is my woman!

He understood what Nealla was saying, but what he
couldn’t get was how a violent man could do this in the middle of the street in
broad daylight and nobody was coming to help?

Paul needed to find his backbone, he had to do
something but couldn’t figure out what the best action was. He couldn’t fight
or run, but should he scream for help and hope someone looks through a window?

There had already been screaming. Nobody was coming to
help.

“Let her go,” Paul said with as much composure as he
could muster.

Ildico cried out sharply. A response to Paul speaking,
Nealla twisted her arm harder and grinned wider.

“Let Her Go!” he blasted as fear got the better of
him. He’d wanted to sound firm but overcompensated and shouted an angry
instruction. He instantly regretted it.

Nealla tossed Ildico aside. She fell to the ground and
stayed there, sobbing, tears streaming down her face as she lay on her hip in
the snow. Paul looked at her for a moment making eye contact; it was a moment
that was so overwhelmed with hurt that no message was conveyed. There was
nothing from her but pain.

Nealla walked, strolled, strutted with cool and
authority as the occasional snowflake fell about him. The Big Man still held
his shirt and fighting for escape was futile but his feet involuntarily were
trying to walk him backwards. When close enough, Nealla reached back his hand,
made a fist and threw it straight into Paul’s face. In reflex, Paul yanked his
hands up to protect himself and cried out as though he’d been hit badly, but
the punch was a decoy. It ended not as a blow to the face, but by grabbing
Paul’s hand and bending it backwards in a stress position. This time Paul
really yelped as the pain sheared along the bone like an electric shock, his
body doubled over, following the pressure on his wrist as he was skilfully,
almost effortlessly pushed to the ground. The Big Man let go of his shirt and
allowed him to fall into the snow as Nealla pressed him to the floor by
kneeling on his chest, holding him down with all of his body weight. And when
things looked like they couldn’t get any worse, they got a whole lot worse.

Without seeing from where, there was a cut-throat
razor in his face. “Eh? Englezoule? American?” Nealla was asking something that
seemed to be the end of a question that Paul hadn’t heard the beginning of.

A razor. A fucking razor. It was simple and cheap, a
black handle with a steel blade, but the blade was being pressed into Paul’s
face. He felt it touch his skin. Nealla was grinning.

Paul lost it and screamed and screeched like a burnt
child. The blade was touching his nose, his eyebrows, the corner of it was
resting on the tear duct of his right eye. Oh God! Not my eye, not my eye.

Nealla moved the razor to Paul’s lips in the way one
would hold a finger to symbolize silence. Nealla made a “shhhhh” sound to
quieten Paul.

It worked. Paul became utterly subservient and quiet,
physically paralysed in any conscious sense but trembling uncontrollably,
shuddering in spasms. Nealla grinned, he was missing a few teeth and those that
he did have were tobacco stained and jagged. His skin seemed leathery, worn and
slightly yellow, and from close up Paul could see a light stubble on his head
that showed he was prematurely bald at the front. There was a wide blue vein
running from his temple over the top of his head. He was perhaps in his mid
twenties but somehow looked physically older and mentally younger at the same
time; but it was the grin that defined him, the smirk of someone loathsome. In
that grin seemed to be his reason to exist. The grin signified that he was now
happy and content that he owned and controlled the situation; the way his
manner changed from aggression to contentment once he had checkmate of physical
force suggested that this was what he lived for.

The razor moved away from Paul’s face; he couldn’t
tell whether he was cut or injured. He just lay passively, shaking under the
weight of this grinning sociopath with a razorblade in his fist.

Nealla started talking softly to Paul. The words
couldn’t be understood but he said them with a deliberate intent to show who
was boss. Talking down to him like a parent speaking to a chastised child.
“Ildico, este femeia mea!” Softly, softly, spoken softly.

The razor slipped down Paul’s body. “Ildico, este
femeia mea!”

“OK,” Paul gasped. “I understand… Ildico… You.”

“Da!” Nealla said spreading his grin wider to show his
badly kept teeth; his mouth looked like a repository of bacteria and broken
porcelain. Then the smile dissolved and the razor slipped over Paul’s penis and
between his legs. He could feel pressure between his legs, pressing up to his
scrotum. Was it the razor, was it a hand. Oh God. Oh God! The femoral artery in
the groin. If that gets cut you die in minutes and this crazy psychopath was
holding a razor blade to his.

“OK.” Paul said again, almost pleading. “Please… I
understand.”

Behind them Ildico stood and wiped her eyes on the
sleeve of her pullover. Paul saw her brush the snow from her clothes, he saw
her look at him, then look at Nealla; then saw as she lost her composure,
yelled out in a moan and ran towards them. She was aiming for Nealla, about to
throw all the weight her tiny little frame could muster at him… But she hadn’t
seen the razor… And Nealla hadn’t seen her… she was about to cause a
castration!

Paul flinched, winced and braced for impact. Nealla
sensed it at the last moment but it was too late to stop Ildico crashing into
him. There was a mess of bodies. Paul on the floor, Nealla over him and Ildico
pounding at him with weak fists, swinging them wildly with her eyes tightly shut.

The Big Man stepped over and lifted her away. Nealla
was up in an instant and yelling at her, waving the razor around. Paul saw his
chance, rolled and stood; Ildico grabbed his arm by the elbow and pulled him,
running towards the entrance of the building. In his panic, he tried to push
the door rather than pull and for a few terrifying seconds he thought he was
locked out.

Behind them, Nealla collected his wits and lit a
cigarette. The Big Man and the gormless teenaged boy moved to flank him. The
cigarette seemed to signify the end of the game and the loathsome smirking grin
was back on his face. Using the same hand as he held the razor, Nealla made a
theatrical gesture of taking the cigarette from his lips with the extended
blade of the razor held in the same hand. He called out an exaggerated threat
that involved making a slice action whilst grabbing his balls and saying the
word, ‘testiculele.’ International sign language for, “I’m going to cut your
balls off!”

Ildico pulled the door open, pulled Paul inside the
building and let the door crash closed behind them.

The buzzing fluorescent strip light flickered into
life and Paul sucked in a noisy desperate breath before purging with a moan. He
didn’t feel safe. They could come in through that door any second. He backed up
the stairs sharply until he had almost the full flight of steps between him and
the lobby. He stopped his retreat when he realised Ildico was staring at him.

“Are you OK?”

She nodded.

“Jesus Christ, who is that guy? Jesus fucking Christ!”
Paul took a few more steps backwards, half watching Ildico at the bottom and
half watching the lobby door. Ildico remained at the foot of the stairs. She
behaved as though the game was definitely over, without any fear that Nealla
would continue and come inside.

“I am sorry please.” she said. Her face captured the
most poignant portrait of shame it was possible to imagine. “I’m sorry.”

Paul sat down on the top stair and examined his
crotch; as he opened his legs, a faint line in the denim of his jeans popped
open as a razor slice. “Oh fuck. Oh Fuck! That was too fucking close. He could
have fucking killed me!”

“Are you ok?” Ildico asked.

“Am I bleeding?” he asked touching his face. “Is there
any blood?”