Good evening, guys and ghouls!
Hi there! I've been an avid fan of Full Moon in general and Subspecies most particularly since... well... let's just say I remember eagerly awaiting the conclusion of the trilogy for a few years. :) But, the studio folded, I stopped paying attention, and by the time I realized they had released a Subspecies IV, it was already long out of print, so I just wrote it off as one of those things it'd be spiffy to come across in a second-hand store.
I never did, but--lo! Full Moon has released a DVD box set! Huzzah! Finally I would be able to both retire my cherished VHS tapes AND see Bloodstorm! Oh happy day!
...more like, "Oh dear God." I had been looking forward to more abusive, blood-soaked Vladislas family shenanigans, and instead got a jumbled mishmash that I have trouble thinking of as an actual film. They've always been cheap, but it seems like they blew their entire budget on a copy of AfterEffects with which to create that execrable title sequence--they didn't even get Radu's teeth right! I was horrified, but not in the way they were hoping--Bloodstorm was abominable.
But, even so, there were some gleams of gold buried underneath the muck. I loved getting a chance to see Michelle truly start coming into her own, and the idea behind the Vitalis Institute and those who dwelled there was just delightfully creepy.
So, being an unrepentant fanbrat, I've decided to muck about with it. :) You'll see plenty of familiar faces and situations here, but don't be fooled--we're going to see what might've happened if they hadn't had to kill off half the cast in a car wreck... if Michelle had had a chance to come to terms with herself in her own way... if Radu had gotten the opportunity to be his bad self without laboring under an incoherent script. :) So, without further ado, I present:
Subspecies: Bloodpact
Chapter 1/? (probably 8)
Author: memoriamvictus
Rating: R
Summary: Radu Vladislas may prove the lesser of two evils when Michelle is forced to attempt to undo the devil's deal Rebecca has made in a bid to save her soul.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Charles Band, Ted Nicolaou, and other wonderful people who have provided me with a great deal of entertainment; I'm just playing around.
Wordcount: 7,359
She was drowning
She was drowning.
Heavy, thick, black and cloying, her limbs were bound, her arms pressed so tightly against her torso it seemed that her biceps must pop from their sockets, a dull agony radiating from the joints of her shoulders. She couldn’t move, couldn’t thrash, couldn’t breathe, so badly needed only a single sip of air; but her chest was frozen, lungs still, borne down by the omnipresent weight of the darkness. It was nothing, she knew that it was nothing, yet it chained her more thoroughly than manacles ever could have. All she needed was the smallest opportunity, the ability to twitch her littlest finger, something, anything that would allow her the opening to prise open a crack that would free her, release her, allow her to rise-
Michelle Morgan shot bolt upright, gasping frantically. She reached up to clutch her chest, assure herself that she was still corporeal, and dismiss that overwhelming feeling of captivity. A frightened whimper escaped her when her arms dragged heavily as she tried to raise them; she realized that she was still shrouded, encompassed in thick, stiff blackness, and moaned disconsolately as she began to paw frantically at that which enveloped her. It yielded, twisted; wound itself ever further around her, until with the strength born of panic and despair she shoved her fingers through it. It yielded with surprising ease and, encouraged, she tore wildly at it, shredding it with little difficulty. But her flailing hands struck a solid, unyielding surface; balling up a fist, she slammed her knuckles against it, and never thought she would ever be as happy again to see it pop open and reveal the first stars of twilight.
She hauled herself towards it, but lurched and fell heavily, gravel and pebbles abrading the palms of her hands. Choking on a sob, she kicked frantically, her legs still tangled in that which had constrained her. She managed to roll onto her back, something sharp and thin digging cruelly into her spine, and clawed viciously at it. It quickly parted and she scissored her legs free, twisting away to land on the ground in an unceremonious heap. Panting, she righted herself, crouching on her haunches and sagging against the shape behind her, unable for the moment to do anything save revel in her escape.
After a moment, she swallowed thickly and began to take in her surroundings. Stones pressed painfully through the thin soles of her shoes, but that discomfort took a dim second place to the perishing, thirsty dryness of her throat. She hadn’t been in there long, she knew she hadn’t… been… in…
...the trunk. Oh, shit, Michelle! She laughed shakily as the realization sank in, a high, thin sound that she only emitted to keep from weeping. No drowning. No shackles of shadow. No supernatural captivity. Merely a nightmare, and an encounter with the unexpected constraints of her new lifestyle.
Still unsteady, she shoved herself to her feet; the bumper of the car she’d been leaning against sank on its shocks and squeaked in protest. She turned to survey the damage she’d caused in her panic, and shook her head in dismay. The body bag was ruined, the heavy, plasticized fabric little more than tatters remaining scattered throughout the car’s trunk, and she had no idea how they were going to replace it. Perhaps they wouldn’t need to; while there was little that could beat it for sheer opacity, she’d done alright with the shower curtain of the hotel she had originally attempted to flee to. A tarp should do; perhaps even a sleeping bag. She smiled, a small, wistful quirking of her lips. She had never been one to adhere to stereotypes before, and saw no need why she should start now.
Sighing, she turned away, looking around to see where Rebecca and Mel had chosen to cease their flight and barricade themselves in for the night. The sun had only just disappeared beneath the horizon, and the pale fingers of light it still grasped at the stars with were enough to force her to squint; but the long, low, squat shape of the hotel was impossible to miss. She was in the parking lot, then. Brilliant deduction, she told herself acerbically, where else would they leave the car? That was enough to sober her; while the shabby gravel yard was deserted, her crazed eruption from the trunk would have brought disastrous consequences had it occurred in a more populous area or, even more alarmingly, a busy street.
That would not be a problem for much longer, though-once she was home, in her own place, with some measure of control over her environment, it would no longer matter how troubled her wakings might be; they would be private. Though the word twisted her mouth with bitter irony, Mel had truly proved himself to be nothing short of a godsend; his connections belied his insistence that he was merely a lowly American embassy attaché, and he had been exploiting them to the hilt. He was able to give no firm date yet, as the peculiarities of their situation required a certain degree of finesse, but he was completely adamant that in no more than a few days, a week at most, their passports would be “unencumbered” and they would all three be on a flight back to the United States. Such a strange term for the situation, but it had an eerie aptness; why shouldn’t the deaths of Lieutenant Marin, Professor Popescu, and all the others weigh just as heavily on her travel privileges as they did upon her soul?
Stop it.
She hugged herself tightly and turned away yet again, this time to gaze out at the lush, verdant countryside behind them. Not Bucharest, then; though there was no particular reason to avoid the city that they were aware of, she understood their craving for peace and solitude. Her sister woke up screaming even more often than Michelle herself did.
STOP IT.
She began to pace fretfully. Rebecca had made a point of waiting for Michelle to awaken for each of the three nights since they’d set off, and she badly missed the company. Sliding back into the role of sibling camaraderie made things so much easier; they were merely teaming up to surmount a problem, as they had countless times throughout their lives. It didn’t matter what the problem was; that could be shoved aside, dealt with later, just so long as the worst was behind them and the immediate issues were addressed. And there were still issues; passports, investigations, travel arrangements… she could barely conceive of it.
Dracula crossed the sea nailed into a box aboard a package steamer; surely I can stand the same for the length of a plane ride.
Shuddering, Michelle spun on her heel and made her way forcefully towards the hotel entrance. Rebecca and Mel must be checked in, must have simply drawn the drapes and lost track of time; if she asked at the desk the staff would undoubtedly be happy to show her to them. If something had come up that called them both away, they would have found some way to alert her, a note shoved under the car’s license plate, something. They had to be up there, or at most having supper in a café nearby; they hadn’t abandoned her, they hadn’t been waylaid, and nothing had gone wrong.
The sun had not been down long enough for anything truly terrifying to have taken place.
Shouldering her way past the heavy oaken entrance door, Michelle barely registered the interior of the lobby, small, dim, and smoky. Her Romanian was still appalling, and the clerk spoke no English, but he seemed to connect her accent to some of his guests, and gestured her to the stairwell. She nodded brusquely and climbed the elderly flight of stairs unhesitatingly; she had no doubt of her ability to locate her companions on her own.
Indeed, she need not have worried even had she not possessed certain advantages in that regard. The small landing opened directly onto the doors of the four suites the second floor had been divided into, three of which gaped open; and as she stood there she heard the unmistakable sound of Rebecca’s soft giggle. She felt a bit silly as relief washed over her, mingled with shy pleasure at her sister’s laughter. There had been nothing to worry about, nothing to fear any longer. Truth be told, the pair of them had done a much better job of getting out of trouble than Michelle had, for which she would be eternally grateful to them; very few people were able to mean that quite so literally.
Shrugging off the unpleasant thought, she stepped forward and raised her hand to knock on their door; but a new sound stayed her knuckles.
“I don’t think it much matters,” came Mel’s voice, soft and murmurous. “We’ll know for sure tomorrow or the next day. We can tell her once we know, one way or the other.”
“It just seems-I mean-" Rebecca cut herself off, frustration evident in her tone. “It changes everything. Leaving her in the dark…”
“Bad pun.”
“It’s not funny!”
“Of course it isn’t; it’s a matter of life or death. And death. This is a lot to take in on top of everything else, and I’m not sure how I feel about it myself… what if we’re wrong? Why upset her like that?”
“But if we aren’t wrong…”
“Then we’ll take care of her. I promise.”
Michelle stood frozen, hand still raised to knock, utterly stunned and unable to quite wrap her mind around what she had just overheard. As if to mock her, the sounds that next issued from behind the door spoke volumes more than any words ever could have: a soft sigh, followed by the papery slide of skin against skin, and the wet click of lips.
She had had no inkling that they were lovers, but that itself was no surprise in comparison with what else was apparently transpiring. Life and death matters that she shouldn’t be told of, until the pair could determine whether or not she needed to be ‘taken care of’? She was tempted to tear open the door and interrupt their games, demand that they explain themselves-but really, what explanation other than the obvious could there be? After all the horror and bloodshed the three of them had seen, they had come to the conclusion that Michelle was inextricably linked to it; that there could be no redemption for her, that the only solution was to put her out of her misery as she had so often begged for in the first nights of her change.
No. Rebecca would never believe that, would never choose to abandon her sister… not on her own. Mel, though; Mel, with his fresh-faced ingeniousness, his seemingly never-ending store of tricks and stratagems… Better to tear the door open and then tear him limb from limb, take Rebecca and flee this Godforsaken country and every miserable, wretched thing associated it. Michelle could easily ensure that nothing would get in their way, and if that frightened Becky, so be it. She cursed herself for not seeing it sooner. Nothing good could come of their associations here, nothing. Mel was as grasping and manipulative as anyone else they had encountered here, and Becky had fallen for it just as easily as she had, but she could change that, protect Becky from those who would try to harm her, just…
…just like Radu.
She snapped back to herself with a thin, barely audible whimper, and found that she had clenched her hands so hard that her nails had pierced the flesh of her palms. Raising them before her, she regarded the thin weals, delicate perforations edged in shredded skin. As she watched, dark, viscous blood began to slowly ooze from one of them.
No.
So unnerved and disgusted she could not even flee, she burst into shadow, shedding her corporeal form in an all-consuming of instinctual need. A slender, pale, frightened young woman had stood in that hall; now there was only an elongated silhouette thrown across the wall, and it sped down the stairwell as unobtrusively as a ghost. She flowed through the passageway more quickly than a human could ever have dreamed of doing, whistling through the lobby in barely an eye-blink and melting through the heavy outer door as if it were hardly there; but the cool humidity of the night air coupled with the sudden openness shocked her out of her flight. Her momentum seemed to carry her forward a short distance before she coalesced, stumbling as her suddenly solid feet once more made contact with the ground.
A strangled sob escaped her as she staggered in a circle, hoping that no one had seen, trying frantically to come up with an explanation, but it seemed her luck had once more held. She scrubbed fiercely at her eyes, more out of habit than actual need; no matter how darkly stained her soul had become, it seemed that she could no longer summon tears with which to cleanse it. But that was only one of the myriad things she had lost upon the grim road she had been forced to travel. Sunlight. Warmth.
Life.
There was no denying it, no turning away from it any longer. She’d had such hopes… surely nothing was irreparable, nothing unsalvageable. Diabetes, AIDS, cancer, even leprosy… all sorts of dreadful illnesses plagued humanity, and their sufferers weathered them, led happy lives in spite of them with the assistance of medicine and care. In comparison, her condition was barely an impediment; she had convinced herself that if she only tried hard enough, she would be able to minimize and ignore it to a great extent. She had the tool, won at great expense, and with enough self-discipline and practice, well…
A nice dream, and one Michelle had clung to desperately; but if even her own beloved Becky had resorted to making contingency plans to deal with her, it was long past time to face facts. Even the meanest African villager, riddled with starvation and disease, had several advantages over her. Lungs that worked for something other than speech. A stomach that digested food. A beating heart. No matter how foul the plague that infected them, they were still human, something she would never again be able to claim.
It was long past time that she accepted it. By refusing to make real plans of her own, she had allowed a gap that Rebecca and Mel apparently felt the need to step into. So be it; but that didn’t mean she needed to go along with it. They had a right to arrange their lives as they needed to, protect themselves from her or anything else the felt a threat, and the least she could do to repay them for the amazing risks they had taken on her behalf was to help them do so. And, first things first…
With a sudden start, she realized that she had never closed the car’s trunk. Good job! she thought as she hurried across the gravel lot. A lurking creature of the night that can’t even remember to lock the door behind her! The door still gaped open, the tatters of the body-bag tossed by the gentle night breeze. Rummaging through the scraps and other miscellanea, she felt a moment’s panic until her fingers brushed the straps of the battered leather knapsack she’d carried with her from America. Hauling it out, she yanked open the drawstring mouth and withdrew from it her hard-won treasure.
For all its macabre beauty, it still seemed such a simple thing to have caused so much tragedy throughout the long centuries of its existence. A dull, striated crystal, remarkable only for its great size, and for the deep hints of maroon near its base, it was cunningly set in a frame of pale metal-silver, steel, or something stranger, she could not guess-wrought in the shape of long, clutching talons that stretched wide to cradle it. A thousand years ago, it had been stolen from the Pope in Rome himself, by a gypsy prince who sought only to purchase peace with it; he had received far, far more than he had bargained for. The stone was valuable beyond price, for with it came the secret craved most desperately by the lord he sought to appease. Legend had it that the stone dripped the blood of all the saints that had ever been martyred. Whatever the truth behind it might actually be, it was still magic wrought in metal and gem: with it, a vampire could live free of the need to feed upon mortals.
The Bloodstone.
As soon as her eyes fell upon it, the aching, cloying thirst that had come with her awakening returned with a vengeance. She scanned the rapidly darkening night, and found no new observers; still, she cautiously returned it to her bag, and made her way to the small scrub forest that bordered the lot. Though the inn seemed to be fairly isolated-no sounds of traffic or other populous life reached her ears--she felt much more secure behind the screen of trees. She retrieved the Bloodstone once more and, before she could stop and think about what she was doing, closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and raised it above her open mouth.
The single drop that struck her tongue was scalding and electrifying; she shuddered, bending over and raising a hand to her mouth. Even now, she was still totally unprepared for it, each time she experienced it: more nourishing than the finest meal, more satisfying than sex, more enervating than the strongest stimulant, the ancient sorcery pulsed through her, renewing and strengthening as it went. She wanted to laugh, to dance, to leap tall buildings in a single bound; she settled for straightening up and secreting the stone back in her bag.
The night seemed new and fresh to her, and she reveled in the sensual acuity. Her senses had improved greatly since her transition, but it had thus far proved more of a curse than a gift; unless she made a conscious effort to block herself away, it was all too easy to become overwhelmed and enraptured by the plethora of sounds, smells, and sights that bombarded her. Yet with the power of the Bloodstone coursing through her, it seemed child’s play to sift and differentiate the myriad stimuli. Hearing a night bird call from a mile away, smelling the earnest odor of roasting beef wafting from the nearby village, realizing the local community was little more than a hamlet… all of these were delightful new pleasures, secret knowledge to be hoarded and enjoyed.
Standing tall, she shouldered the knapsack and raked her fingers through her mussed hair, attempting to give herself a semblance of normalcy, and smiled softly as she distinguished a particular set of sounds. She began to slowly stroll towards the hotel, no longer in a hurry to interrupt or accuse.
It was sweet, really; Rebecca had been alone for a long time. It seemed she had never really adjusted to the working world after leaving university, and had buried herself in her job rather than explored the new opportunities available to her. Whatever he was, Mel was a brave man, and seemed almost unduly loyal to her; she could do much worse for herself. Michelle had been so wrapped up in her own misery she had not seen what was right under her nose, and they could hardly be blamed for that.
She stopped to gaze up at the sky, the wheel of stars only just beginning to make itself visible, and wondered what future for her might be written there. While she immensely doubted that the plans she had heard them discussing were anything so prosaic as a trip to Disney Land, it didn’t seemed fair to immediately suspect them of malfeasance, as she had so quickly done. She owed them a hearing, and if they wanted to give it in their own time, so be it. If she didn’t like what she heard, well… there were options.
It was then, lost in a melancholy reverie of her possible paths, that she heard the distinctive sound of the trunk latching shut.
She froze immediately. There was simply no way that it had closed by itself; it was equally impossible that a Good Samaritan had approached the vehicle without her noticing. Turning slowly, she was so startled, so appalled, so stunned that she could scarcely credit what she saw. “We…” She swallowed. “We saw you burn.”
The dark, scarecrow figure perched on the car’s roof, feet planted on the trunk, elbows propped casually on its knees. At her words, it raised its hands in a sardonic gesture of greeting; its long, windblown hair obscured its features, but there was no mistaking those thin, twisted fingers, the extra phalanges turning them into nightmare talons, tipped with curved claws. “I might have expected a better greeting from my fledging,” he rumbled, his voice a scratched, whining rasp.
Michelle tensed, bracing her legs to flee, but her fright was already bleeding away to be replaced with the soporific balm of shock. He seemed inclined to wait for a response, but she could only shake her head slowly. “No. No,” she protested feebly, her voice little more than a squeak. “No. We saw… we saw you die. You can’t… you can’t be here, you’re dead! You have to be dead!”
He sighed, a great gust of aggravation, and slid to his feet in a stiff, jerky movement. She retreated a step, but he continued to advance at a slow, measured pace. “I have suffered much and more for you, pretty one,” he told her, “but you insist upon taking kindness for weakness; and my patience at last wears thin.” He stopped, just at arm’s length-though not out of reach; no, not for him-illuminated in a pool of moonlight, and with the shadows that had surrounded him fled the last of her wild hopes. He seemed almost to glow a pale, bluish-white in the moonbeam; it threw into sharp relief his angular, craggy features, the hollow cheeks and the seemingly endless pits of his eyes, the flesh under them bruised and dark. Towering and gaunt, thinner than any mortal could ever be… and those hands, narrow and grasping, with their bizarre fourth joint on each finger.
Radu Vladislas, whom she had last known impaled and scorching in the morning sun, who had been staked, stabbed, beheaded, stood before her once more, as hale and hardy as he had ever been.
She could have wept. She could have screamed. She could have run, flown, torn through the darkness in yet another attempt to escape; instead she stood rooted, completely unmoving. It was too much to encompass. Of course he was here; already, it seemed he always had, always would be. He had dogged her steps since she had arrived in his home, an innocent student entirely unaware of what truly lurked in the bowels of the fortress she had wanted to document; why should a little thing like a violent execution keep him from continuing? Nothing else had.
He regarded her calmly, head cocked, and let the silence stretch between them. She could do nothing but stare back at him, blinking dry eyes and trying to take it all in. It wasn’t just terror, not just helplessness; the power of the Bloodstone singing through her veins tried to bring her clarity. It wasn’t his scent. He barely possessed one; a faint odor of dust and old, dead blood that came to her only as she strained for it. But there was something, some indefinable aura of menace and authority, command and presence, that draped him as indisputably as an ermine robe might have. She wanted to kneel down and bare her neck in submission almost as badly as she wanted to… to attack, to drive this interloper from her demesne and crush him for daring to interfere with her; yet, torn between the warring, alien impulses, she could bring herself to do neither.
He seemed to sense her distress; his lips curved in a twisted mockery of amusement. “No more protestations, fledgling? No more threats? No pleas for death?”
“I’ve learned better than to expect mercy from you.”
“Such wisdom. And have you yet learned to accept your new place?”
“At your feet?” Her teeth bared in an unconscious snarl, exposing the delicate, pointed canines. “No, Radu, I will never submit to you; not willingly. Never. You thrust this life upon me, and if I have to live it, so be it; but not on your terms. Not your way.”
“I?” He stepped forward, but she held her ground, glaring up at him. “I sought only to taste your life, and to begin to prepare you for what you must become.”
“You-are you mad? You murdered my friends-“
“Slaves,” her cut her off harshly. “Meant only for your benefit, to ease your transition; nor was it I that slew them-“
“-you murdered Stefan-“
The rusty croak of his laughter finally startled her into silence. “You mourn him still? You would have lived a long and pleasant life, were it not for his meddling. Do you not yet understand? He murdered you.”
“He did what he did to spare me your taint!”
“You are a foolish child who would do better to listen than to speak.” Radu drew himself to his impressively full height and matched her glare for glare. “I pierced you, aye, but that is only the barest beginning of the journey into my realm. I meant for you to stay by my side, to take instruction on your future role, to bear my heirs… but I fear that is lost to you, now.” He reached out to brush her midsection with one long hand, and Michelle finally flinched away, disgusted, as the implication sank in. “It is no matter. In time, we shall choose another... one we shall defend much more ardently.” Faster than even her eye could follow he was suddenly upon her, gripping her arms like bands of steel. “To rise again in darkness, a mortal must die.” Before she could struggle he released her, allowing her to stumble backwards. “I inflicted no such circumstances upon you, and I would have left Stefan’s carcass to smolder in the sun for that alone. Mourn him if you must, but never pity him.”
Michelle fell back before him, her burst of resolve sapped. She wanted to protest, to cry out against the truth of what he had just revealed, but his rage beat against her like the buffeting of wings. Deny it as she might, his black, bloody fury was incontrovertible: she knew nothing of the workings of the unholy transformation she had undergone, but she recognized the impotent anger of lost opportunity. “Even so,” she said as evenly as she could manage, “even so, I would rather be free and dead than alive under your power.”
He grinned, then, a skinning back of dark red lips to reveal his heavy, tusk-like incisors, and the sharpened canine fangs that buttressed them. “You persist in imagining that you have a choice in the matter.”
“I have the Bloodstone, Radu, and I will die before you take it from me.”
“And you cling to your absurd delusions.” He shook his head disdainfully. “A time will come when you will see what a favor I sought to do you in the crypt at Bucharest,” he said almost conversationally, looking past her. Michelle did not need to follow his gaze; a sick, leaden dread began to uncoil in her belly. “Your mortal attachments still bind you, pretty one,” he crooned. “Do not delude yourself that they will not spend every moment of your defiance screaming for release.”
“F-fine. I will return it if you allow us to depart in peace. Take it and go.” Even as she made the offer, her mind wailed in protest; its loss would put an end to her plans, forcing her into the despicable role of the murderous hunter. It doesn’t matter. I’ll think of something. Anything to make him leave…
“And so I shall; with you at my side.”
No protestations. No threats. Traces of the eerie calm still clung to her, and she forced herself to face him, to try to see with her new eyes. He had remarked on her own lack of venom, but did he not mirror it as well? Even now, in this brief, heated exchange, she had learned more vampiric lore than she had the entire time she had spent under his vile tutelage. He had not bled her; he had not dragged Becky and Mel from their bed to torment her with; for him, this was nearly friendliness. Was he tired? Had that last grim morning damaged him more than it appeared? She had offered him forgiveness, once, and for a few brief seconds thought that he truly meant to accept her offer. “It doesn’t need to be this way, Radu,” she sighed, reaching up to clutch at the knapsack’s strap.
He watched her for a time, inhumanly, utterly still. “It has already driven you half mad,” he said softly. “The Bloodstone was never meant for one such as you, not now, not yet. You think to flee me with it will bring you peace; but I tell you now, you will know horror such as you are incapable of conceiving of.”
She could have laughed, then; had to purse her lips to swallow the cackle. Even with all the unimaginable tumult of the past few weeks, she had never thought to find Radu and her own sister in accord. She unslung the bag and withdrew the talisman; his eyes followed her warily, but she did not pay heed. Such a simple thing, a bauble that might have sat gathering dust in a museum’s storeroom for decades without drawing comment. “Do you fear me, then?” she asked. “Do you fear what I will become?”
“I fear… the loss of your potential.” His gaze… was that pleading? “I will not permit that.”
She had no doubt that, had he wished, he could have fallen upon her, snatched the Bloodstone from her grasp, dragged her back to Prejnar and likely slaughtered Rebecca and Mel in the bargain; her strength had not grown that significantly. Yet he refrained; seemed, for the first time, inclined to treat her as something other than chattel, a witless thing to be bent to his whims. “I no longer wish to die. It’s true. But… but I don’t want to live like this. I c-can’t.” And with that she began to sob, a harsh, dry wracking. As absurd and pitiful as it was, she could not force herself to stop, and she could not tell what she feared more: that he would be disgusted and move to punish her for her human frailty… or that he might try to comfort her.
She fell to her knees, clutching the Bloodstone to her chest, and continued to shudder uncontrollably. “I just… I just want to go home, Radu, I just want this to n-never have h-happened! And if I can’t have that, I just want peace. I j-just want to be safe… and not to have to hurt anyone… a-and….”
She more sensed than heard his approach. She flinched when she felt his long fingers brush her hair, wind themselves through the loose dark ringlets, but could not bring herself to rise; could not do anything but choke on her fear and grief.
“All you ever had to do… was ask.” His cold, leathery hand cupped her chin, forcing her to look up at him. His gruesome, hollow features were marred with something… not pity, no; but perhaps, understanding. And that was even more impossible to bear.
A hooked nail brushed the soft flesh behind her ear, and made her shiver with revulsion. Yet she too, now, was just as alien, just as strange, and perhaps it was time to stop rejecting that. She had not sought out these changes, but they had happened nonetheless, and there was no pretending otherwise, no rejecting the inescapable reality. Violent, cruel, and sadistic as he was, he had never sought anything but her submission; perhaps in that submission she would find knowledge, skills, the strength to withstand the horrors of her condition. She didn’t have to be like him, to utterly sacrifice her humanity in pursuit of some nameless, unknowable goal; she could study, she could learn, and in that knowing finally have a chance to make correct choices.
He raised his other hand to her face, and with it came once more that supernatural sense of presence, as if his touch strengthened it. Enveloping and enshrouding, it was dark, solid, strong; here was strength, implacable and inescapable, enough to provide a bulwark to shield her from anything, or enduring enough to drive her over the edge if she resisted, as she had learned in all of her attempts to escape him. Perhaps she need not fling herself from that precipice… at least, not unarmed.
She was thrilled and alarmed at how attractive the idea suddenly seemed to her; to throw it all away, give up the fight, and give herself up to learning the ways of the night under his wing; but she knew it could never be so. “You’ll hurt Becky,” she whimpered. “You won’t leave her alone.”
“That reckoning has been foregone since you first chose to bring her into my realm,” he said. Pressing his palms more tightly against her face, he once more forced her to look up and meet his gaze. “Even were I to offer you their lives as a courting gift, do you think they would ever cease their quest to destroy us? Would they leave us in peace?” He withdrew one hand to caress her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “I could slay the man, aye, and grant your sister the chance to join you… do you think she would come docilely?”
“No. Oh God, no.” The idea of Rebecca… she hadn’t even thought… even after what he’d said about Mara and Lillian… “Oh, no, oh please, don’t, don’t even…”
“Then so it must be.”
“I could… I could make her see…” But even as the words left her lips, she knew them for a lie. Becky might plot against her for her own good-and even that, in her current straits, seemed like a dim, infinitesimal possibility-but she would never, ever abandon Michelle to Radu’s clutches.
But she didn’t know that Radu survived.
And their passports… Mel had sworn they would be free to return to the U.S. soon; she had never doubted that.
She wrapped her fingers tightly around the Bloodstone’s base, nails digging into the grasping metal claws. The idea, just the faintest germ of a plan, set her alight with hope; but it wouldn’t work, no, not like this, not unless she could somehow…
Another of Radu’s nails brushed her, trailing lightly along her cheekbone. And suddenly, the old magic of the Bloodstone dancing in her veins, she knew.
Whipping her head back up to glare at him, she forced as much disdain and rancor into her voice as she could manage. “Unlike you, I have no trouble commanding my followers.” He ceased petting her with a jerk of surprise. “You will not take them from me, Radu, because you will not need to try.” Before he could muster a response she lunged forward, seizing ahold of his free hand. His fingers seemed to slither through her grasp, but she caught hold of his smallest finger and twisted with all of her might.
The last joint tore away with the dry, aching snap of a twig, and seemed to pulse in her first. Radu recoiled from her with a savage snarl, but she stepped forward, chin held high, and raised her open palm before him, displaying the severed digit like a prize. If this doesn’t work, I am doomed.
But she need not have worried; for even as she raised her hand, the finger end began to twitch, writhing in the palm of her hand as if it were alive. They both watched in horrified awe as it began to ooze a thick, dark liquid, darker even than the stolen blood that ran in her own veins. She gasped as it began to pool in her hand; it burned with a slow, sizzling fire that seemed as if it must melt the flesh from her bones, but she did not waver, holding desperately to this one last wild chance at hope. The liquid began to gel, to set, engulfing the digit in its rapidly burgeoning mass. Once it had done so it began to rise, to flex, slowly raising itself higher and higher, beginning to coalesce into a humanoid figure.
The demon-the manikin-the subspecies screamed its rage at the pain of its birth, a high, keening wail borne out of nightmares. Even as it did so, its form and features sharpened and solidified. Its maroon hide gleamed with sticky newness, and it stumbled on her palm, grasping at her fingers for balance. Its tiny fanged mouth snapped furiously at the air, but it did not sink its teeth into her; it righted itself and swiveled its horned head, hissing violently.
Horrified at what she had wrought, Michelle pressed on regardless, shoving the revulsion and fear away. If I falter, I am lost. Raising her other hand, moving steadily and carefully so as not to upset its precarious position, she offered it the Bloodstone, refusing to startle at Radu’s raspy intake of breath. The creature regarded it cautiously, sniffing curiously; it then darted forward, eagerly lapping at the end of the crystal. The merest taste seemed to sate it; it withdrew just as quickly, turning to peer up at her owlishly. It gave a satisfied grunt, and nodded. That was nearly enough to cause Michelle to hurl it from her, screaming and stamping; such a knowing, self-aware, human gesture seemed impossible for such a misbegotten creature to make. Yet she still held fast and, finally, turned her gaze to Radu.
He still crouched defensively, hands raised, and regarded her with gape-mouthed shock. “You know not what you’ve done…”
“I know exactly what I’ve done. You think to use my sister, my flesh and blood, to torment me? So be it. Now I have taken yours, and will hold it hostage just as you’ve done. It lives, Radu. The Bloodstone has made it free of you… but you will still suffer just as it does.” Her voice was ringing, fierce, commanding; the subspecies glanced up at her for reassurance, then turned to Radu with a guttural growl. Carefully, she brought the arm on which it balanced closer to her body; forcing herself not to shudder as it scrabbled for better purchase, she guided it into the now empty knapsack. It scuttled violently for a moment, then reemerged to scowl over the lip of the bag.
Returning her attention to Radu, she continued. “You think to call yourself my master? Then master me. Spare me your childish tricks and bullying; I have had my fill, and I will repay you in spades.” She raised her hand to proffer the Bloodstone. “Show yourself worthy of the name, and I will follow you until the end of time. Harass me and bedevil me, and I swear I shall not rest until I’ve destroyed you.” She stood frozen, equally poised to fight or flee once more; she did not know what she would do if he called her bluff, but the confrontation had stolen the last of her energy. He would buy it… or she would be in a very great deal of trouble.
He straightened slowly, the fingers of his left hand flexing convulsively. The stub of the pinky, still as long as a normal man’s even after its shearing, already looked healed, scabbed over. “So,” he hissed, “my little fledgling begins to spread her wings. Yet I wonder how you intend to shelter your precious mortals under them.”
“They will heed my commands.” She had not seriously believed that even such a dramatic stunt would truly cow him; but she had hoped for more than this.
“Ah? Will you steal into their dreams, then, to show them dire warnings? Control them, as you hope to control the creature you have stolen from me?”
He wasn’t frightened, no-he was teasing her. His lips were pursed in the closest approximation of an honest smile she had ever seen upon his face. He was amused, he thought this was funny; an obstreperous child insisting that she was a grown-up and protesting the restrictions of bed-time, against all evidence to the contrary. So be it; better that he continued to underestimate her, just so long as he took her seriously on this one thing.
“No, Radu,” she said tiredly. She was utterly, completely drained, and was out of ideas on how to press her cause. She could only hope that he would accept the plain, unvarnished truth as part of her façade. “I don’t claim to possess such powers as you do, nor will I ever likely be able to. I need only write them a note.”
He did laugh, then, a hoarse bark; but her reached out and gently, carefully took the Bloodstone from her. He lingered over the touch, lightly trailing his thumb over the inside of her wrist. “Go, then. Demonstrate to me that your pen is mightier than sword or sorcery.”
She paused for a moment, almost unable to believe what she had just heard; it couldn’t be this easy. And yet it seemed that it would be. Unwilling to give ground, she tried to dissolve, to flow through the night as a tangible reminder of her status, but she was unable to muster the strength. Hiding her chagrin, she spun on her heel and marched smartly away. The subspecies squawked a protest at the sudden, jarring movement, but quickly subsided into the depths of the bag.
A quick rummage through the car’s glove compartment yielded the materials that she needed, and she hastily scrawled the missive. This was the first part of the plan that had come to her, and while she could foresee no difficulty in communicating her true motives, she could do nothing but pray that Becky would be able to see, to read between the lines; everything hinged upon her understanding.
Shoving the scrap of paper under the steering wheel, she spared one last glance for the hotel, easily identifying the lighted window behind which Rebecca and Mel reposed. She tore her gaze from it and quickened her steps. She wanted so badly to turn back around, to run for them, beg them for help, for protection, for surcease; but she was the only one who could extricate herself from the situation in which she had placed herself, and their assistance was just a fond wish. She would succeed… or not. The alternative did not bear thinking about.
Radu awaited her beneath the trees exactly as she had left him, save perhaps for a slight broadening of his condescending smirk. This is it. Last chance to change my mind. She made herself stand before him and meet his gaze. “Alright,” she said. “I’m ready.”
He said nothing, merely extended a spidery hand; she took it, and went one better by entwining her fingers with his. He raised an eyebrow at this, but merely stepped behind her and placed his other hand lightly on her waist. The subspecies once more flailed inside the knapsack; Michelle had time for one last frightened moan before Radu tore them from their flesh, and flung them out into the great, yawning darkness.
I never did, but--lo! Full Moon has released a DVD box set! Huzzah! Finally I would be able to both retire my cherished VHS tapes AND see Bloodstorm! Oh happy day!
...more like, "Oh dear God." I had been looking forward to more abusive, blood-soaked Vladislas family shenanigans, and instead got a jumbled mishmash that I have trouble thinking of as an actual film. They've always been cheap, but it seems like they blew their entire budget on a copy of AfterEffects with which to create that execrable title sequence--they didn't even get Radu's teeth right! I was horrified, but not in the way they were hoping--Bloodstorm was abominable.
But, even so, there were some gleams of gold buried underneath the muck. I loved getting a chance to see Michelle truly start coming into her own, and the idea behind the Vitalis Institute and those who dwelled there was just delightfully creepy.
So, being an unrepentant fanbrat, I've decided to muck about with it. :) You'll see plenty of familiar faces and situations here, but don't be fooled--we're going to see what might've happened if they hadn't had to kill off half the cast in a car wreck... if Michelle had had a chance to come to terms with herself in her own way... if Radu had gotten the opportunity to be his bad self without laboring under an incoherent script. :) So, without further ado, I present:
Subspecies: Bloodpact
Chapter 1/? (probably 8)
Author: memoriamvictus
Rating: R
Summary: Radu Vladislas may prove the lesser of two evils when Michelle is forced to attempt to undo the devil's deal Rebecca has made in a bid to save her soul.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Charles Band, Ted Nicolaou, and other wonderful people who have provided me with a great deal of entertainment; I'm just playing around.
Wordcount: 7,359
She was drowning
She was drowning.
Heavy, thick, black and cloying, her limbs were bound, her arms pressed so tightly against her torso it seemed that her biceps must pop from their sockets, a dull agony radiating from the joints of her shoulders. She couldn’t move, couldn’t thrash, couldn’t breathe, so badly needed only a single sip of air; but her chest was frozen, lungs still, borne down by the omnipresent weight of the darkness. It was nothing, she knew that it was nothing, yet it chained her more thoroughly than manacles ever could have. All she needed was the smallest opportunity, the ability to twitch her littlest finger, something, anything that would allow her the opening to prise open a crack that would free her, release her, allow her to rise-
Michelle Morgan shot bolt upright, gasping frantically. She reached up to clutch her chest, assure herself that she was still corporeal, and dismiss that overwhelming feeling of captivity. A frightened whimper escaped her when her arms dragged heavily as she tried to raise them; she realized that she was still shrouded, encompassed in thick, stiff blackness, and moaned disconsolately as she began to paw frantically at that which enveloped her. It yielded, twisted; wound itself ever further around her, until with the strength born of panic and despair she shoved her fingers through it. It yielded with surprising ease and, encouraged, she tore wildly at it, shredding it with little difficulty. But her flailing hands struck a solid, unyielding surface; balling up a fist, she slammed her knuckles against it, and never thought she would ever be as happy again to see it pop open and reveal the first stars of twilight.
She hauled herself towards it, but lurched and fell heavily, gravel and pebbles abrading the palms of her hands. Choking on a sob, she kicked frantically, her legs still tangled in that which had constrained her. She managed to roll onto her back, something sharp and thin digging cruelly into her spine, and clawed viciously at it. It quickly parted and she scissored her legs free, twisting away to land on the ground in an unceremonious heap. Panting, she righted herself, crouching on her haunches and sagging against the shape behind her, unable for the moment to do anything save revel in her escape.
After a moment, she swallowed thickly and began to take in her surroundings. Stones pressed painfully through the thin soles of her shoes, but that discomfort took a dim second place to the perishing, thirsty dryness of her throat. She hadn’t been in there long, she knew she hadn’t… been… in…
...the trunk. Oh, shit, Michelle! She laughed shakily as the realization sank in, a high, thin sound that she only emitted to keep from weeping. No drowning. No shackles of shadow. No supernatural captivity. Merely a nightmare, and an encounter with the unexpected constraints of her new lifestyle.
Still unsteady, she shoved herself to her feet; the bumper of the car she’d been leaning against sank on its shocks and squeaked in protest. She turned to survey the damage she’d caused in her panic, and shook her head in dismay. The body bag was ruined, the heavy, plasticized fabric little more than tatters remaining scattered throughout the car’s trunk, and she had no idea how they were going to replace it. Perhaps they wouldn’t need to; while there was little that could beat it for sheer opacity, she’d done alright with the shower curtain of the hotel she had originally attempted to flee to. A tarp should do; perhaps even a sleeping bag. She smiled, a small, wistful quirking of her lips. She had never been one to adhere to stereotypes before, and saw no need why she should start now.
Sighing, she turned away, looking around to see where Rebecca and Mel had chosen to cease their flight and barricade themselves in for the night. The sun had only just disappeared beneath the horizon, and the pale fingers of light it still grasped at the stars with were enough to force her to squint; but the long, low, squat shape of the hotel was impossible to miss. She was in the parking lot, then. Brilliant deduction, she told herself acerbically, where else would they leave the car? That was enough to sober her; while the shabby gravel yard was deserted, her crazed eruption from the trunk would have brought disastrous consequences had it occurred in a more populous area or, even more alarmingly, a busy street.
That would not be a problem for much longer, though-once she was home, in her own place, with some measure of control over her environment, it would no longer matter how troubled her wakings might be; they would be private. Though the word twisted her mouth with bitter irony, Mel had truly proved himself to be nothing short of a godsend; his connections belied his insistence that he was merely a lowly American embassy attaché, and he had been exploiting them to the hilt. He was able to give no firm date yet, as the peculiarities of their situation required a certain degree of finesse, but he was completely adamant that in no more than a few days, a week at most, their passports would be “unencumbered” and they would all three be on a flight back to the United States. Such a strange term for the situation, but it had an eerie aptness; why shouldn’t the deaths of Lieutenant Marin, Professor Popescu, and all the others weigh just as heavily on her travel privileges as they did upon her soul?
Stop it.
She hugged herself tightly and turned away yet again, this time to gaze out at the lush, verdant countryside behind them. Not Bucharest, then; though there was no particular reason to avoid the city that they were aware of, she understood their craving for peace and solitude. Her sister woke up screaming even more often than Michelle herself did.
STOP IT.
She began to pace fretfully. Rebecca had made a point of waiting for Michelle to awaken for each of the three nights since they’d set off, and she badly missed the company. Sliding back into the role of sibling camaraderie made things so much easier; they were merely teaming up to surmount a problem, as they had countless times throughout their lives. It didn’t matter what the problem was; that could be shoved aside, dealt with later, just so long as the worst was behind them and the immediate issues were addressed. And there were still issues; passports, investigations, travel arrangements… she could barely conceive of it.
Dracula crossed the sea nailed into a box aboard a package steamer; surely I can stand the same for the length of a plane ride.
Shuddering, Michelle spun on her heel and made her way forcefully towards the hotel entrance. Rebecca and Mel must be checked in, must have simply drawn the drapes and lost track of time; if she asked at the desk the staff would undoubtedly be happy to show her to them. If something had come up that called them both away, they would have found some way to alert her, a note shoved under the car’s license plate, something. They had to be up there, or at most having supper in a café nearby; they hadn’t abandoned her, they hadn’t been waylaid, and nothing had gone wrong.
The sun had not been down long enough for anything truly terrifying to have taken place.
Shouldering her way past the heavy oaken entrance door, Michelle barely registered the interior of the lobby, small, dim, and smoky. Her Romanian was still appalling, and the clerk spoke no English, but he seemed to connect her accent to some of his guests, and gestured her to the stairwell. She nodded brusquely and climbed the elderly flight of stairs unhesitatingly; she had no doubt of her ability to locate her companions on her own.
Indeed, she need not have worried even had she not possessed certain advantages in that regard. The small landing opened directly onto the doors of the four suites the second floor had been divided into, three of which gaped open; and as she stood there she heard the unmistakable sound of Rebecca’s soft giggle. She felt a bit silly as relief washed over her, mingled with shy pleasure at her sister’s laughter. There had been nothing to worry about, nothing to fear any longer. Truth be told, the pair of them had done a much better job of getting out of trouble than Michelle had, for which she would be eternally grateful to them; very few people were able to mean that quite so literally.
Shrugging off the unpleasant thought, she stepped forward and raised her hand to knock on their door; but a new sound stayed her knuckles.
“I don’t think it much matters,” came Mel’s voice, soft and murmurous. “We’ll know for sure tomorrow or the next day. We can tell her once we know, one way or the other.”
“It just seems-I mean-" Rebecca cut herself off, frustration evident in her tone. “It changes everything. Leaving her in the dark…”
“Bad pun.”
“It’s not funny!”
“Of course it isn’t; it’s a matter of life or death. And death. This is a lot to take in on top of everything else, and I’m not sure how I feel about it myself… what if we’re wrong? Why upset her like that?”
“But if we aren’t wrong…”
“Then we’ll take care of her. I promise.”
Michelle stood frozen, hand still raised to knock, utterly stunned and unable to quite wrap her mind around what she had just overheard. As if to mock her, the sounds that next issued from behind the door spoke volumes more than any words ever could have: a soft sigh, followed by the papery slide of skin against skin, and the wet click of lips.
She had had no inkling that they were lovers, but that itself was no surprise in comparison with what else was apparently transpiring. Life and death matters that she shouldn’t be told of, until the pair could determine whether or not she needed to be ‘taken care of’? She was tempted to tear open the door and interrupt their games, demand that they explain themselves-but really, what explanation other than the obvious could there be? After all the horror and bloodshed the three of them had seen, they had come to the conclusion that Michelle was inextricably linked to it; that there could be no redemption for her, that the only solution was to put her out of her misery as she had so often begged for in the first nights of her change.
No. Rebecca would never believe that, would never choose to abandon her sister… not on her own. Mel, though; Mel, with his fresh-faced ingeniousness, his seemingly never-ending store of tricks and stratagems… Better to tear the door open and then tear him limb from limb, take Rebecca and flee this Godforsaken country and every miserable, wretched thing associated it. Michelle could easily ensure that nothing would get in their way, and if that frightened Becky, so be it. She cursed herself for not seeing it sooner. Nothing good could come of their associations here, nothing. Mel was as grasping and manipulative as anyone else they had encountered here, and Becky had fallen for it just as easily as she had, but she could change that, protect Becky from those who would try to harm her, just…
…just like Radu.
She snapped back to herself with a thin, barely audible whimper, and found that she had clenched her hands so hard that her nails had pierced the flesh of her palms. Raising them before her, she regarded the thin weals, delicate perforations edged in shredded skin. As she watched, dark, viscous blood began to slowly ooze from one of them.
No.
So unnerved and disgusted she could not even flee, she burst into shadow, shedding her corporeal form in an all-consuming of instinctual need. A slender, pale, frightened young woman had stood in that hall; now there was only an elongated silhouette thrown across the wall, and it sped down the stairwell as unobtrusively as a ghost. She flowed through the passageway more quickly than a human could ever have dreamed of doing, whistling through the lobby in barely an eye-blink and melting through the heavy outer door as if it were hardly there; but the cool humidity of the night air coupled with the sudden openness shocked her out of her flight. Her momentum seemed to carry her forward a short distance before she coalesced, stumbling as her suddenly solid feet once more made contact with the ground.
A strangled sob escaped her as she staggered in a circle, hoping that no one had seen, trying frantically to come up with an explanation, but it seemed her luck had once more held. She scrubbed fiercely at her eyes, more out of habit than actual need; no matter how darkly stained her soul had become, it seemed that she could no longer summon tears with which to cleanse it. But that was only one of the myriad things she had lost upon the grim road she had been forced to travel. Sunlight. Warmth.
Life.
There was no denying it, no turning away from it any longer. She’d had such hopes… surely nothing was irreparable, nothing unsalvageable. Diabetes, AIDS, cancer, even leprosy… all sorts of dreadful illnesses plagued humanity, and their sufferers weathered them, led happy lives in spite of them with the assistance of medicine and care. In comparison, her condition was barely an impediment; she had convinced herself that if she only tried hard enough, she would be able to minimize and ignore it to a great extent. She had the tool, won at great expense, and with enough self-discipline and practice, well…
A nice dream, and one Michelle had clung to desperately; but if even her own beloved Becky had resorted to making contingency plans to deal with her, it was long past time to face facts. Even the meanest African villager, riddled with starvation and disease, had several advantages over her. Lungs that worked for something other than speech. A stomach that digested food. A beating heart. No matter how foul the plague that infected them, they were still human, something she would never again be able to claim.
It was long past time that she accepted it. By refusing to make real plans of her own, she had allowed a gap that Rebecca and Mel apparently felt the need to step into. So be it; but that didn’t mean she needed to go along with it. They had a right to arrange their lives as they needed to, protect themselves from her or anything else the felt a threat, and the least she could do to repay them for the amazing risks they had taken on her behalf was to help them do so. And, first things first…
With a sudden start, she realized that she had never closed the car’s trunk. Good job! she thought as she hurried across the gravel lot. A lurking creature of the night that can’t even remember to lock the door behind her! The door still gaped open, the tatters of the body-bag tossed by the gentle night breeze. Rummaging through the scraps and other miscellanea, she felt a moment’s panic until her fingers brushed the straps of the battered leather knapsack she’d carried with her from America. Hauling it out, she yanked open the drawstring mouth and withdrew from it her hard-won treasure.
For all its macabre beauty, it still seemed such a simple thing to have caused so much tragedy throughout the long centuries of its existence. A dull, striated crystal, remarkable only for its great size, and for the deep hints of maroon near its base, it was cunningly set in a frame of pale metal-silver, steel, or something stranger, she could not guess-wrought in the shape of long, clutching talons that stretched wide to cradle it. A thousand years ago, it had been stolen from the Pope in Rome himself, by a gypsy prince who sought only to purchase peace with it; he had received far, far more than he had bargained for. The stone was valuable beyond price, for with it came the secret craved most desperately by the lord he sought to appease. Legend had it that the stone dripped the blood of all the saints that had ever been martyred. Whatever the truth behind it might actually be, it was still magic wrought in metal and gem: with it, a vampire could live free of the need to feed upon mortals.
The Bloodstone.
As soon as her eyes fell upon it, the aching, cloying thirst that had come with her awakening returned with a vengeance. She scanned the rapidly darkening night, and found no new observers; still, she cautiously returned it to her bag, and made her way to the small scrub forest that bordered the lot. Though the inn seemed to be fairly isolated-no sounds of traffic or other populous life reached her ears--she felt much more secure behind the screen of trees. She retrieved the Bloodstone once more and, before she could stop and think about what she was doing, closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and raised it above her open mouth.
The single drop that struck her tongue was scalding and electrifying; she shuddered, bending over and raising a hand to her mouth. Even now, she was still totally unprepared for it, each time she experienced it: more nourishing than the finest meal, more satisfying than sex, more enervating than the strongest stimulant, the ancient sorcery pulsed through her, renewing and strengthening as it went. She wanted to laugh, to dance, to leap tall buildings in a single bound; she settled for straightening up and secreting the stone back in her bag.
The night seemed new and fresh to her, and she reveled in the sensual acuity. Her senses had improved greatly since her transition, but it had thus far proved more of a curse than a gift; unless she made a conscious effort to block herself away, it was all too easy to become overwhelmed and enraptured by the plethora of sounds, smells, and sights that bombarded her. Yet with the power of the Bloodstone coursing through her, it seemed child’s play to sift and differentiate the myriad stimuli. Hearing a night bird call from a mile away, smelling the earnest odor of roasting beef wafting from the nearby village, realizing the local community was little more than a hamlet… all of these were delightful new pleasures, secret knowledge to be hoarded and enjoyed.
Standing tall, she shouldered the knapsack and raked her fingers through her mussed hair, attempting to give herself a semblance of normalcy, and smiled softly as she distinguished a particular set of sounds. She began to slowly stroll towards the hotel, no longer in a hurry to interrupt or accuse.
It was sweet, really; Rebecca had been alone for a long time. It seemed she had never really adjusted to the working world after leaving university, and had buried herself in her job rather than explored the new opportunities available to her. Whatever he was, Mel was a brave man, and seemed almost unduly loyal to her; she could do much worse for herself. Michelle had been so wrapped up in her own misery she had not seen what was right under her nose, and they could hardly be blamed for that.
She stopped to gaze up at the sky, the wheel of stars only just beginning to make itself visible, and wondered what future for her might be written there. While she immensely doubted that the plans she had heard them discussing were anything so prosaic as a trip to Disney Land, it didn’t seemed fair to immediately suspect them of malfeasance, as she had so quickly done. She owed them a hearing, and if they wanted to give it in their own time, so be it. If she didn’t like what she heard, well… there were options.
It was then, lost in a melancholy reverie of her possible paths, that she heard the distinctive sound of the trunk latching shut.
She froze immediately. There was simply no way that it had closed by itself; it was equally impossible that a Good Samaritan had approached the vehicle without her noticing. Turning slowly, she was so startled, so appalled, so stunned that she could scarcely credit what she saw. “We…” She swallowed. “We saw you burn.”
The dark, scarecrow figure perched on the car’s roof, feet planted on the trunk, elbows propped casually on its knees. At her words, it raised its hands in a sardonic gesture of greeting; its long, windblown hair obscured its features, but there was no mistaking those thin, twisted fingers, the extra phalanges turning them into nightmare talons, tipped with curved claws. “I might have expected a better greeting from my fledging,” he rumbled, his voice a scratched, whining rasp.
Michelle tensed, bracing her legs to flee, but her fright was already bleeding away to be replaced with the soporific balm of shock. He seemed inclined to wait for a response, but she could only shake her head slowly. “No. No,” she protested feebly, her voice little more than a squeak. “No. We saw… we saw you die. You can’t… you can’t be here, you’re dead! You have to be dead!”
He sighed, a great gust of aggravation, and slid to his feet in a stiff, jerky movement. She retreated a step, but he continued to advance at a slow, measured pace. “I have suffered much and more for you, pretty one,” he told her, “but you insist upon taking kindness for weakness; and my patience at last wears thin.” He stopped, just at arm’s length-though not out of reach; no, not for him-illuminated in a pool of moonlight, and with the shadows that had surrounded him fled the last of her wild hopes. He seemed almost to glow a pale, bluish-white in the moonbeam; it threw into sharp relief his angular, craggy features, the hollow cheeks and the seemingly endless pits of his eyes, the flesh under them bruised and dark. Towering and gaunt, thinner than any mortal could ever be… and those hands, narrow and grasping, with their bizarre fourth joint on each finger.
Radu Vladislas, whom she had last known impaled and scorching in the morning sun, who had been staked, stabbed, beheaded, stood before her once more, as hale and hardy as he had ever been.
She could have wept. She could have screamed. She could have run, flown, torn through the darkness in yet another attempt to escape; instead she stood rooted, completely unmoving. It was too much to encompass. Of course he was here; already, it seemed he always had, always would be. He had dogged her steps since she had arrived in his home, an innocent student entirely unaware of what truly lurked in the bowels of the fortress she had wanted to document; why should a little thing like a violent execution keep him from continuing? Nothing else had.
He regarded her calmly, head cocked, and let the silence stretch between them. She could do nothing but stare back at him, blinking dry eyes and trying to take it all in. It wasn’t just terror, not just helplessness; the power of the Bloodstone singing through her veins tried to bring her clarity. It wasn’t his scent. He barely possessed one; a faint odor of dust and old, dead blood that came to her only as she strained for it. But there was something, some indefinable aura of menace and authority, command and presence, that draped him as indisputably as an ermine robe might have. She wanted to kneel down and bare her neck in submission almost as badly as she wanted to… to attack, to drive this interloper from her demesne and crush him for daring to interfere with her; yet, torn between the warring, alien impulses, she could bring herself to do neither.
He seemed to sense her distress; his lips curved in a twisted mockery of amusement. “No more protestations, fledgling? No more threats? No pleas for death?”
“I’ve learned better than to expect mercy from you.”
“Such wisdom. And have you yet learned to accept your new place?”
“At your feet?” Her teeth bared in an unconscious snarl, exposing the delicate, pointed canines. “No, Radu, I will never submit to you; not willingly. Never. You thrust this life upon me, and if I have to live it, so be it; but not on your terms. Not your way.”
“I?” He stepped forward, but she held her ground, glaring up at him. “I sought only to taste your life, and to begin to prepare you for what you must become.”
“You-are you mad? You murdered my friends-“
“Slaves,” her cut her off harshly. “Meant only for your benefit, to ease your transition; nor was it I that slew them-“
“-you murdered Stefan-“
The rusty croak of his laughter finally startled her into silence. “You mourn him still? You would have lived a long and pleasant life, were it not for his meddling. Do you not yet understand? He murdered you.”
“He did what he did to spare me your taint!”
“You are a foolish child who would do better to listen than to speak.” Radu drew himself to his impressively full height and matched her glare for glare. “I pierced you, aye, but that is only the barest beginning of the journey into my realm. I meant for you to stay by my side, to take instruction on your future role, to bear my heirs… but I fear that is lost to you, now.” He reached out to brush her midsection with one long hand, and Michelle finally flinched away, disgusted, as the implication sank in. “It is no matter. In time, we shall choose another... one we shall defend much more ardently.” Faster than even her eye could follow he was suddenly upon her, gripping her arms like bands of steel. “To rise again in darkness, a mortal must die.” Before she could struggle he released her, allowing her to stumble backwards. “I inflicted no such circumstances upon you, and I would have left Stefan’s carcass to smolder in the sun for that alone. Mourn him if you must, but never pity him.”
Michelle fell back before him, her burst of resolve sapped. She wanted to protest, to cry out against the truth of what he had just revealed, but his rage beat against her like the buffeting of wings. Deny it as she might, his black, bloody fury was incontrovertible: she knew nothing of the workings of the unholy transformation she had undergone, but she recognized the impotent anger of lost opportunity. “Even so,” she said as evenly as she could manage, “even so, I would rather be free and dead than alive under your power.”
He grinned, then, a skinning back of dark red lips to reveal his heavy, tusk-like incisors, and the sharpened canine fangs that buttressed them. “You persist in imagining that you have a choice in the matter.”
“I have the Bloodstone, Radu, and I will die before you take it from me.”
“And you cling to your absurd delusions.” He shook his head disdainfully. “A time will come when you will see what a favor I sought to do you in the crypt at Bucharest,” he said almost conversationally, looking past her. Michelle did not need to follow his gaze; a sick, leaden dread began to uncoil in her belly. “Your mortal attachments still bind you, pretty one,” he crooned. “Do not delude yourself that they will not spend every moment of your defiance screaming for release.”
“F-fine. I will return it if you allow us to depart in peace. Take it and go.” Even as she made the offer, her mind wailed in protest; its loss would put an end to her plans, forcing her into the despicable role of the murderous hunter. It doesn’t matter. I’ll think of something. Anything to make him leave…
“And so I shall; with you at my side.”
No protestations. No threats. Traces of the eerie calm still clung to her, and she forced herself to face him, to try to see with her new eyes. He had remarked on her own lack of venom, but did he not mirror it as well? Even now, in this brief, heated exchange, she had learned more vampiric lore than she had the entire time she had spent under his vile tutelage. He had not bled her; he had not dragged Becky and Mel from their bed to torment her with; for him, this was nearly friendliness. Was he tired? Had that last grim morning damaged him more than it appeared? She had offered him forgiveness, once, and for a few brief seconds thought that he truly meant to accept her offer. “It doesn’t need to be this way, Radu,” she sighed, reaching up to clutch at the knapsack’s strap.
He watched her for a time, inhumanly, utterly still. “It has already driven you half mad,” he said softly. “The Bloodstone was never meant for one such as you, not now, not yet. You think to flee me with it will bring you peace; but I tell you now, you will know horror such as you are incapable of conceiving of.”
She could have laughed, then; had to purse her lips to swallow the cackle. Even with all the unimaginable tumult of the past few weeks, she had never thought to find Radu and her own sister in accord. She unslung the bag and withdrew the talisman; his eyes followed her warily, but she did not pay heed. Such a simple thing, a bauble that might have sat gathering dust in a museum’s storeroom for decades without drawing comment. “Do you fear me, then?” she asked. “Do you fear what I will become?”
“I fear… the loss of your potential.” His gaze… was that pleading? “I will not permit that.”
She had no doubt that, had he wished, he could have fallen upon her, snatched the Bloodstone from her grasp, dragged her back to Prejnar and likely slaughtered Rebecca and Mel in the bargain; her strength had not grown that significantly. Yet he refrained; seemed, for the first time, inclined to treat her as something other than chattel, a witless thing to be bent to his whims. “I no longer wish to die. It’s true. But… but I don’t want to live like this. I c-can’t.” And with that she began to sob, a harsh, dry wracking. As absurd and pitiful as it was, she could not force herself to stop, and she could not tell what she feared more: that he would be disgusted and move to punish her for her human frailty… or that he might try to comfort her.
She fell to her knees, clutching the Bloodstone to her chest, and continued to shudder uncontrollably. “I just… I just want to go home, Radu, I just want this to n-never have h-happened! And if I can’t have that, I just want peace. I j-just want to be safe… and not to have to hurt anyone… a-and….”
She more sensed than heard his approach. She flinched when she felt his long fingers brush her hair, wind themselves through the loose dark ringlets, but could not bring herself to rise; could not do anything but choke on her fear and grief.
“All you ever had to do… was ask.” His cold, leathery hand cupped her chin, forcing her to look up at him. His gruesome, hollow features were marred with something… not pity, no; but perhaps, understanding. And that was even more impossible to bear.
A hooked nail brushed the soft flesh behind her ear, and made her shiver with revulsion. Yet she too, now, was just as alien, just as strange, and perhaps it was time to stop rejecting that. She had not sought out these changes, but they had happened nonetheless, and there was no pretending otherwise, no rejecting the inescapable reality. Violent, cruel, and sadistic as he was, he had never sought anything but her submission; perhaps in that submission she would find knowledge, skills, the strength to withstand the horrors of her condition. She didn’t have to be like him, to utterly sacrifice her humanity in pursuit of some nameless, unknowable goal; she could study, she could learn, and in that knowing finally have a chance to make correct choices.
He raised his other hand to her face, and with it came once more that supernatural sense of presence, as if his touch strengthened it. Enveloping and enshrouding, it was dark, solid, strong; here was strength, implacable and inescapable, enough to provide a bulwark to shield her from anything, or enduring enough to drive her over the edge if she resisted, as she had learned in all of her attempts to escape him. Perhaps she need not fling herself from that precipice… at least, not unarmed.
She was thrilled and alarmed at how attractive the idea suddenly seemed to her; to throw it all away, give up the fight, and give herself up to learning the ways of the night under his wing; but she knew it could never be so. “You’ll hurt Becky,” she whimpered. “You won’t leave her alone.”
“That reckoning has been foregone since you first chose to bring her into my realm,” he said. Pressing his palms more tightly against her face, he once more forced her to look up and meet his gaze. “Even were I to offer you their lives as a courting gift, do you think they would ever cease their quest to destroy us? Would they leave us in peace?” He withdrew one hand to caress her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “I could slay the man, aye, and grant your sister the chance to join you… do you think she would come docilely?”
“No. Oh God, no.” The idea of Rebecca… she hadn’t even thought… even after what he’d said about Mara and Lillian… “Oh, no, oh please, don’t, don’t even…”
“Then so it must be.”
“I could… I could make her see…” But even as the words left her lips, she knew them for a lie. Becky might plot against her for her own good-and even that, in her current straits, seemed like a dim, infinitesimal possibility-but she would never, ever abandon Michelle to Radu’s clutches.
But she didn’t know that Radu survived.
And their passports… Mel had sworn they would be free to return to the U.S. soon; she had never doubted that.
She wrapped her fingers tightly around the Bloodstone’s base, nails digging into the grasping metal claws. The idea, just the faintest germ of a plan, set her alight with hope; but it wouldn’t work, no, not like this, not unless she could somehow…
Another of Radu’s nails brushed her, trailing lightly along her cheekbone. And suddenly, the old magic of the Bloodstone dancing in her veins, she knew.
Whipping her head back up to glare at him, she forced as much disdain and rancor into her voice as she could manage. “Unlike you, I have no trouble commanding my followers.” He ceased petting her with a jerk of surprise. “You will not take them from me, Radu, because you will not need to try.” Before he could muster a response she lunged forward, seizing ahold of his free hand. His fingers seemed to slither through her grasp, but she caught hold of his smallest finger and twisted with all of her might.
The last joint tore away with the dry, aching snap of a twig, and seemed to pulse in her first. Radu recoiled from her with a savage snarl, but she stepped forward, chin held high, and raised her open palm before him, displaying the severed digit like a prize. If this doesn’t work, I am doomed.
But she need not have worried; for even as she raised her hand, the finger end began to twitch, writhing in the palm of her hand as if it were alive. They both watched in horrified awe as it began to ooze a thick, dark liquid, darker even than the stolen blood that ran in her own veins. She gasped as it began to pool in her hand; it burned with a slow, sizzling fire that seemed as if it must melt the flesh from her bones, but she did not waver, holding desperately to this one last wild chance at hope. The liquid began to gel, to set, engulfing the digit in its rapidly burgeoning mass. Once it had done so it began to rise, to flex, slowly raising itself higher and higher, beginning to coalesce into a humanoid figure.
The demon-the manikin-the subspecies screamed its rage at the pain of its birth, a high, keening wail borne out of nightmares. Even as it did so, its form and features sharpened and solidified. Its maroon hide gleamed with sticky newness, and it stumbled on her palm, grasping at her fingers for balance. Its tiny fanged mouth snapped furiously at the air, but it did not sink its teeth into her; it righted itself and swiveled its horned head, hissing violently.
Horrified at what she had wrought, Michelle pressed on regardless, shoving the revulsion and fear away. If I falter, I am lost. Raising her other hand, moving steadily and carefully so as not to upset its precarious position, she offered it the Bloodstone, refusing to startle at Radu’s raspy intake of breath. The creature regarded it cautiously, sniffing curiously; it then darted forward, eagerly lapping at the end of the crystal. The merest taste seemed to sate it; it withdrew just as quickly, turning to peer up at her owlishly. It gave a satisfied grunt, and nodded. That was nearly enough to cause Michelle to hurl it from her, screaming and stamping; such a knowing, self-aware, human gesture seemed impossible for such a misbegotten creature to make. Yet she still held fast and, finally, turned her gaze to Radu.
He still crouched defensively, hands raised, and regarded her with gape-mouthed shock. “You know not what you’ve done…”
“I know exactly what I’ve done. You think to use my sister, my flesh and blood, to torment me? So be it. Now I have taken yours, and will hold it hostage just as you’ve done. It lives, Radu. The Bloodstone has made it free of you… but you will still suffer just as it does.” Her voice was ringing, fierce, commanding; the subspecies glanced up at her for reassurance, then turned to Radu with a guttural growl. Carefully, she brought the arm on which it balanced closer to her body; forcing herself not to shudder as it scrabbled for better purchase, she guided it into the now empty knapsack. It scuttled violently for a moment, then reemerged to scowl over the lip of the bag.
Returning her attention to Radu, she continued. “You think to call yourself my master? Then master me. Spare me your childish tricks and bullying; I have had my fill, and I will repay you in spades.” She raised her hand to proffer the Bloodstone. “Show yourself worthy of the name, and I will follow you until the end of time. Harass me and bedevil me, and I swear I shall not rest until I’ve destroyed you.” She stood frozen, equally poised to fight or flee once more; she did not know what she would do if he called her bluff, but the confrontation had stolen the last of her energy. He would buy it… or she would be in a very great deal of trouble.
He straightened slowly, the fingers of his left hand flexing convulsively. The stub of the pinky, still as long as a normal man’s even after its shearing, already looked healed, scabbed over. “So,” he hissed, “my little fledgling begins to spread her wings. Yet I wonder how you intend to shelter your precious mortals under them.”
“They will heed my commands.” She had not seriously believed that even such a dramatic stunt would truly cow him; but she had hoped for more than this.
“Ah? Will you steal into their dreams, then, to show them dire warnings? Control them, as you hope to control the creature you have stolen from me?”
He wasn’t frightened, no-he was teasing her. His lips were pursed in the closest approximation of an honest smile she had ever seen upon his face. He was amused, he thought this was funny; an obstreperous child insisting that she was a grown-up and protesting the restrictions of bed-time, against all evidence to the contrary. So be it; better that he continued to underestimate her, just so long as he took her seriously on this one thing.
“No, Radu,” she said tiredly. She was utterly, completely drained, and was out of ideas on how to press her cause. She could only hope that he would accept the plain, unvarnished truth as part of her façade. “I don’t claim to possess such powers as you do, nor will I ever likely be able to. I need only write them a note.”
He did laugh, then, a hoarse bark; but her reached out and gently, carefully took the Bloodstone from her. He lingered over the touch, lightly trailing his thumb over the inside of her wrist. “Go, then. Demonstrate to me that your pen is mightier than sword or sorcery.”
She paused for a moment, almost unable to believe what she had just heard; it couldn’t be this easy. And yet it seemed that it would be. Unwilling to give ground, she tried to dissolve, to flow through the night as a tangible reminder of her status, but she was unable to muster the strength. Hiding her chagrin, she spun on her heel and marched smartly away. The subspecies squawked a protest at the sudden, jarring movement, but quickly subsided into the depths of the bag.
A quick rummage through the car’s glove compartment yielded the materials that she needed, and she hastily scrawled the missive. This was the first part of the plan that had come to her, and while she could foresee no difficulty in communicating her true motives, she could do nothing but pray that Becky would be able to see, to read between the lines; everything hinged upon her understanding.
Shoving the scrap of paper under the steering wheel, she spared one last glance for the hotel, easily identifying the lighted window behind which Rebecca and Mel reposed. She tore her gaze from it and quickened her steps. She wanted so badly to turn back around, to run for them, beg them for help, for protection, for surcease; but she was the only one who could extricate herself from the situation in which she had placed herself, and their assistance was just a fond wish. She would succeed… or not. The alternative did not bear thinking about.
Radu awaited her beneath the trees exactly as she had left him, save perhaps for a slight broadening of his condescending smirk. This is it. Last chance to change my mind. She made herself stand before him and meet his gaze. “Alright,” she said. “I’m ready.”
He said nothing, merely extended a spidery hand; she took it, and went one better by entwining her fingers with his. He raised an eyebrow at this, but merely stepped behind her and placed his other hand lightly on her waist. The subspecies once more flailed inside the knapsack; Michelle had time for one last frightened moan before Radu tore them from their flesh, and flung them out into the great, yawning darkness.