Destiny of the Vampire Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Destiny of the Vampire

  Copyright © 2017 by PD McClafferty All rights reserved.

  First Edition: October 2017

  ISBN 978-0-9864245-8-8

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Interior and cover artwork from Streetlight graphics

  For more works by PD McClafferty, please visit www.pdmcclafferty.com

  Chapter 1

  A ROMANIAN VACATION

  “Vrăjitoare!” A deep voice echoed out from a dark alley to his immediate left. Although his Romanian was rusty, Max did remember the word for witch. Turning into the alley, he stopped, casually noting six men, two with guns, threatening two women. One was young, in her late twenties, and cute. The other was a withered crone who seemed to be clinging to the younger woman’s arm for support. The men had formed a loose arc around the women, forcing them into the side of a building, with no chance of escape. All shadows and malice, the men seemed to loom over the cowering women, or maybe it was just his imagination.

  A broad-shouldered man pulled out a heavy pistol; from the shape, Max guessed it was a Russian MP 443. Leveling it at the crone, he growled, “Vrăjitoare, mor!” meaning “die witch.”

  “Stai!” Max shouted, stepping forward and hoping he had the right word for stop.

  “Du te, dracu!” the thug growled, his black eyes shifting slightly to focus on the newcomer, the barrel of the gun never wavering.

  The phrase meant fuck you, or something very similar. Max swung the heavy oak cane as hard as he could, striking the gunman’s wrist and pushing it up and away from the women. The sound of a shot split the dark, and with preternatural clarity, he heard the wrist break as the gun flew down the ally to disappear with a clatter. Positioning himself in front of the women, Max could do nothing as he watched the second gunman lift his pistol—a well-used Makarov—turn the gun toward Max, and pull the trigger. The impact from the 9mm round in the center of his chest picked Max up and threw him against the wall between the two women. As he slid to the street, he heard the men’s dismayed voices. One pointed to Max, and he caught the frightened words “turist American!” before they turned and bolted into the darkness. Warmth seemed to envelop him, and his world faded.

  It is said that at the moment of death a man’s life flashes before his eyes. All Max could manage were snatches of the last eight days.

  Râșnov, Romania, the home of Maximilian Arkady Smith’s parents and grandparents, was small and rural, with fewer than fifteen thousand residents at the last census. The place was dumpy and smelled of boiled cabbage. Leaning heavily on his wooden cane, he surveyed the front of the bed and breakfast they’d been staying at for the past eight days—and shuddered. His wife, Anita, had called the converted farmhouse quaint. In actuality, it was as run down as the surrounding town, and it smelled even more strongly of cooked cabbage. Slightly below freezing, a chill wind bit at his cheeks, and he pulled the collar of his heavy coat up a little higher. Beeping softly, his watch gave him a gentle reminder that it was dinnertime, and Max sighed.

  As a “treat” to her distinguished guests all the way from the United States, the owner of the bed and breakfast had been serving mămăligă—a type of polenta served on its own or as an accompaniment to meat, usually pork sausages, on a bed of cabbage—every… single… day. The first day, the food was... not great, but acceptable in a unique Romanian way. After eight days, he would have killed for a hamburger and french fries. He winced as he stepped over the threshold. Pain shot up his leg that had taken an ISIS bullet years in the past, shattering not only the bone, but his military career, as well. It bothered him most in the winter, and winters in Romania were very long and cold.

  Anita, five years his junior and wife of a dozen years, looked up from where she had ensconced herself at a wide desk in the front sitting room. “Are you all right?” she asked automatically, already turning back to her piles of genealogical notes stacked precariously on the desk around her. At her back, a cuckoo clock warbled a sad tinny refrain. She ran beringed fingers through her colored-blond hair. On the second day of their stay in Râșnov, while Anita was out gathering genealogical “facts” and making a general pest of herself, he had quietly opened the front door to the clock. He’d chuckled at the “made in China” sticker he found there.

  “I’m fine.” He replied with the stock answer, despite the fact that the pain in his leg was demanding a large straight whiskey. The Russian vodka he’d found in the liquor cabinet was, however, a suitable substitute. He poured three fingers of the dangerous liquid into a glass. “How is your research going?”

  “Wonderfully!” she burbled. “Did you know that you may actually be distantly related to Vlad Tepes? A real vampire,” she whispered breathlessly. “This would all have been a lot easier if your father hadn’t changed your last name to Smith before they left for America. Kiritescu is a very nice name, after all, and is much more… vampiric.” She gave him an enthusiastic grin.

  “This is the year 2023, and there is no such thing as a vampire, Anita. The whole thing was dreamt up by Bram Stoker in 1897, and Vlad Tepes was just a sadistic Romanian murderer. You might as well declare that Bela Lugosi was a real vampire.”

  “It’s 2022,” Anita corrected him automatically. “It won’t be 2023 for another month.” She frowned. “Bela Lugosi wasn’t a real vampire?” She blinked heavily made-up eyes, so dark in fact that Max often thought she looked the perfect domestic racoon. “No, no. Listen to this. The Kiritescu family name in this area actually traces back to the early 1200s. That predates Vlad the Impaler by two hundred years. You could actually…”

  Max tuned her out. Once enthused, Anita could ramble on for hours, and she’d surely gotten a bee in her bonnet about tracing his distant Romanian ancestry. Sipping the vodka and feeling the fiery liquid burn down his throat, he shut his eyes. He could have wished she’d chosen a different post-retirement hobby, but tracing genealogy was harmless enough, as was his own hobby of going to the local pistol range once a week to maintain his concealed-carry qualification. Leaning back in the chair, he rubbed his aching leg, wishing they could head back for Boone, North Carolina, the very next day. Their sixteen-hectare homestead in the mountains, including a small lake, was a piece of heaven, but Anita hated the isolation. For that reason, she’d taken a small furnished apartment in Raleigh, where she would spend her weekends. He set the empty glass down on the side table and leaned back, letting the alcohol numb the pain.

  He’d been forty years in the air force as a forward air controller and later as a special operator, with two tours in Việt Nam during the final insane days and several tours in Southwest Asia until his forced retirement. His team had been young and enthusiastic, and
the job they did was important. After ten years in retirement, and at seventy years old, he still missed it. With an outdated MS from the University of Minnesota Duluth in electrical engineering with a minor in aerospace studies, there wasn’t much a cripple with out-of-date credentials could do except go to the pistol range and dream of past adventures.

  “Did you know that there is even a McDonald’s on the other side of town?”

  Max opened his gray eyes and sat up. “No, I didn’t.”

  Anita shook her head. “I never expected to see a twenty-four-hour-a-day McDonald’s in Râșnov, Romania. What’s the world coming to?”

  “A better place, obviously.” Max grinned.

  Anita looked up from beneath her pile of down comforters and frowned. “Aren’t you coming to bed?” The small bedroom barely accommodated the large Victorian four-poster bed.

  Max tried valiantly to keep a straight face. “I think I’ll sit up for a bit and read. Perhaps our hostess, Ecaterina, has a pot of tea on.” He picked up a book and turned for the door. “You go to sleep. I’ll be in later.”

  “Well, if you insist.” Her voice was already blurred with sleep. He shut the bedroom door quietly, set the book back down, picked up his coat, and glanced in the mirror, brushing his silver-shot hair. He was a tall, lean man, he mused, looking at the reflection, which appeared worn and world weary. His long face was hard, and the lines etched there were not from laughter.

  At twenty-three hundred hours, the bitter wind was many degrees below freezing, and Max regretted his decision to sample the local McDonald’s almost immediately, but his coat, hat, and gloves were warm, and a short walk wouldn’t do him any harm. He didn’t know how wrong he was.

  The girl at the counter was young and pretty in a generic sort of way, and Max paid for his meal with a US five-dollar bill rather than Romanian leu. The girl blinked when he indicated he needed no change, and her brilliant smile made her face go from pretty to spectacular. The burger, fries, and chocolate shake tasted like ambrosia to Max, although the meal was only slightly warmer than room temperature, and the drink more ice than shake. That was the price of ordering fast food, in Romania, in the winter.

  As he began his long walk back to the bed and breakfast, light snow was gusting horizontally, so Max was forced to put his head down to keep the stinging precipitation out of his eyes. When he looked up after only a few minutes of walking, the snow was descending harder, and the streets seemed strange and unfamiliar. He frowned. His perfect sense of direction was something he relied on, and in every case, he could tell which way was north, even in a dark room or a plane. Just then, however, the world spun, and he had no idea how to get back to the bed and breakfast, or even back to the McDonald’s. Putting his head down, he began to trudge, and kept trudging until he started to hear voices. Looking up, he discovered that he was deep into the more disreputable part of town—not that there was a reputable part of Râșnov, Romania. Homes in the area were shabby, single-story cottages with wan yellow light squeezing through dirty windows. Interspersed with the homes, seedy taverns wore leprous-looking paint and displayed missing clapboards like the lost teeth on a prizefighter. The unreadable sign for the nearest establishment lay in the mud at the edge of the street.

  In the distance, the drunken voice of a man shouted in anger, and Max began to hurry down the dim lane as fast as his lame leg would allow.

  “Vrăjitoare!” A deep voice echoed out from a dark alley to his immediate left. Although his Romanian was rusty, Max remembered the word for witch. Turing into the alley, he stopped, noting six men, two with guns, threatening two women; one young, in her late twenties and cute, the other a withered crone who seemed to be clinging to the younger woman’s arm for support. The six men had formed a loose arc around the women, forcing them into the side of a building with no chance of escape. The men, all shadows and malice, loomed large, or maybe it was just his imagination.

  One of the men pulled out a heavy pistol—from the shape, Max guessed it was a Russian MP 443—and growled at the women, “Vrăjitoare mor!” meaning die, witch, as he raised the gun at the crone.

  Max swung the heavy oak cane as hard as he could, striking the gunman’s wrist up and away from the women. The sound of a shot split the dark, and with preternatural clarity, he heard the wrist break as the gun clattered down the ally, disappearing in the dark. Positioning himself in front of the women, Max could do nothing as he watched the second gunman lift his pistol, a well-used Makarov, turn the gun toward Max, and pull the trigger. The impact from the 9mm round in the center of his chest picked Max up and threw him against the wall between the two women. As he slid to the street, he heard the men’s dismayed voices as they turned and bolted into the darkness. Warmth seemed to envelop him, and his world faded. Breath gurgling as he inhaled, Max felt the warmth of his blood running down his chest. His heart fluttered, and a soft hand touched his cheek just before everything went dark.

  Chapter 2

  AN ENDING, AND A BEGINNING

  Max struggled to open his eyes, and for a moment, he wondered if the sluggish feeling that wrapped around him like a warm blanket had come from too much vodka. Then he remembered.

  The room came into focus, and he blinked stupidly at the old crone sitting across the table from him. She looked weathered, like a sepia-toned clipping from an ancient newspaper, and her long grayish-white hair was pulled into a severe bun at the back of her head. Her clothes, although old, were clean, and several expertly sewn patches were visible. His eyes moved, taking in the fact that everything in the room, including his own hands, had the same antique cast as the crone. Although his memory was as faded as the room, he recalled with a blurry corner of his mind that someone had called the crone a witch.

  “Are you a witch?” he asked in a dull monotone voice.

  Handing him a cup of tea, she smiled. “Perhaps.” Her American English was clipped and unaccented.

  He sipped the tea and looked up in surprise. “This is good!” he blurted.

  “Thanks.” She smiled and waited until he had taken a second calming sip before she continued. “I have good news for you, Maximilian, and I have bad news.” Without waiting for a reply, she continued, “You saved the lives of my granddaughter and myself, and I find myself deeply in your debt.” Her face held a small sad smile, although her blue eyes sparkled, as if she were enjoying a private joke. “Your bravery, unfortunately, will cost you your life.”

  A calm seemed to settle across his shoulders like a blanket, and for a moment, he wondered if she’d put something in the tea.

  Max blinked. “But how…”

  Her smile was bitter as she interrupted. “As our attacker was accusing me of having certain… abilities. I am holding you in a dream so that we may talk—a dream occurring between one heartbeat and the next. You will not, I’m afraid, last many more, so we must be quick. Your body will die, as I’ve said, but there is a single way for you to continue to live.” Her dark, mysterious eyes bored into his. “Because a human cannot die a mortal death and remain unchanged, you will be… altered. Your old life will be over, and a new life will begin for you.” She shrugged her thin shoulders beneath a flowered shawl. “It’s a shitty deal for someone who saved my life, but it is the best I can offer you.”

  Against all logic and religious preconceptions, although Max was by no means religious, he found himself believing the old woman. He’d saved her life, after all, and what had she to gain by deceiving him? She could have just let him die. On the other hand, what she was suggesting was insane, pure and unmitigated rubbish. Recollection slowly eked its way into his thoughts. He’d been shot in the chest with a 9mm pistol, at point-blank range, in a back alley in Romania. Did he have any choice but to clutch at any straw he was handed, no matter how absurd it sounded?

  In the course of the next few moments, Max looked back over his life—the good and the bad
—discovering that his only real regrets were that he hadn’t married the woman he truly loved and had never had children. His wife’s inability to carry to term and her financial drive saw to the question of children. They were a verboten subject in his household. Although Anita had stayed with him during the long, painful years of recovery, he was still a battered seventy-year-old veteran on his last leg. His combat tours had taught him that his life often hung on what he felt was the right choice, rather than what he knew was right. The woman’s offer, although about as weird as things came, felt right. He could imagine the road and the years stretching before him to strange lands and stranger people. He set down the blue willowware teacup, looking at the crone.

  “What do I do?” he asked in a resigned voice.

  She smiled. “There will be more pain than you could ever imagine at first, and then you must drink… and continue drinking until you can drink no more.”

  “But…” Confused, he stumbled.

  “No more questions,” she snapped. “Your time is nearly up. Remember, fight through the pain, and drink…” In his dimming vision, he felt her hand on his arm. “We will speak again, Maximilian.”

  The pain, which started as a sharp stab in his neck then spread throughout his body, was actually no worse than pain he’d already experienced when he’d been shot, at one time or another. As the crone had recommended, he gritted his teeth and pushed through. He knew in a heartbeat that the thick warm liquid being poured down his throat was human blood. After the first gagging response, he swallowed. He swallowed again, and again, and again until the world finally turned black.

  Although the space he woke up in was barely larger than his 1.9 meters, he felt no panic and, strangely, no claustrophobia. When he wondered why he hadn’t suffocated, he realized with a start that he wasn’t breathing. He lay there, replaying the odd conversation with the crone, counting his heartbeats to calm his nerves. In the dim light of his wristwatch, he counted one beat for every sixty or seventy seconds rather than the normal sixty or seventy beats a minute. His respiration, at his best guess, was no more than once in every two to three minutes. His hands told him that the confining space was made of wood, so placing his palms against the box over his head, he tensed his muscles and pushed. Nails squealed as the lid lifted, and Max sat up, frowning. He shouldn’t have been physically able to push open a nailed box so easily. Panic pushed at the edges of his mind, but he focused on the job at hand. He could panic later.