Blood Red Rose

I am breaking my long silence because it is time to end our feud. No, let me be honest. I am tired of running, tired of being hunted like an animal. And I am convinced that once you know the truth, you will leave me in peace. First, let me assure you that I bear you no grudge. While I had hoped that my brother might one day achieve salvation, from your point of view he was a monster, an evil that threatened not just one or two chosen victims but the whole of humanity. I am sad that his life ended as it did, that he was put down like a rabid beast. But I am not blinded by sentimentality. He had over five hundred years to see the error of his ways, but rather than making him wise time only made him more bitter.

It started, as it always does, with our parents, in particular our father. He was mad, what would be referred to in modern times as a psychopath. Under ordinary circumstances he would have ended up dangling from the end of a rope, except our father was the king of our small eastern european provence. His word was law. When he ordered babies boiled alive in front of their parents, it was done. When he locked my brother and me in the kennel with hungry,wild dogs to teach us strength, it was done.

When he decided that our mother had been unfaithful and cut her throat, he did it at the supper table, with all her children watching. Her lifeless corpse slumped over the table, he resumed his seat and began to cut his venison with the same knife he had just used to take his wife's life. And we---my brother, my sisters and I sat before him, too afraid to say a word, because if he had just killed the woman he loved what was to stop him from doing worse to his children whom he despised?

It is no wonder the local burghers rose up and destroyed the tyrant. The only thing that surprises me is that they waited as long as they did. But people are taught to respect the king, and they will tolerate great evil if they think that the cause is noble---say national pride or racial purity or religious fanaticism.

After our father died at the hands of the mob, my brother and I fled to the south. We were planning to seek refuge with cousins, but as we journeyed over the mountain pass we were captured by the Turks who had heard about the rebellion and who assumed (wrongly) that our kingdom would be easy pickings. For five years we were prisoners of the Sultan. For obvious reasons, no one in our father's kingdom would ransom us, and even our relatives were reluctant to spend good money freeing the sons of a notorious madman.

Eventually, some third cousin decided that family honor was at stake and my brother was ransomed. I spent one more year with the Turks and it was during that time that I converted to Islam, something my older brother would never allow. I found consolation in their holy books. And of course, my captors treated me much more gently once I was one of them. Six years after I was captured, my ransom was finally paid by my brother and I returned home to my father's kingdom, Vlad's kingdom now. At first everything seemed idyllic. Our sisters, who had remained behind in the convent had not been harmed by the mob and so our family was reunited, minus our murderous father. Everyone seemed to respect my brother and when he told them to treat me as their prince, they bowed and murmured words of praise for our family.

But it was just the calm before the storm. Once Vlad solidified his power, he invited the burghers and their families to a celebratory feast. When everyone was inside the palace he had the guards bolt the door. I still remember the way he smiled as he surveyed his guests/prisoners. "Six years ago you gathered here to overthrow your king. Now there is a new king, but the blood of the old king is still on your hands and the only way to wash away the stain is with more blood." Then, still smiling, he ordered all the children below the age of sixand any adults too feeble to work to be impaled. While these grisly orders were being carried out the burghers and the surviving members of their families were placed in chains. For twelve months, the prisoners labored to build my brother a fine, new fortress. Those who grew too weak to work were thrown over the cliff. Those who protested were impaled. The foundation of the fortress was reinforced with mortar which contained the blood of my brother's enemies and once the palace was finished, he fed the few pitiful survivors to the pike in the moat.

You would have thought that after so much death, such suffering, my brother's rage would have lessened. But it only seemed to grow. While he continued to treat me and my sisters lovingly, he grew increasingly hostile towards his subjects, even the ones who had remained loyal to him and his father.

The crisis came one night in late november. His wife, a beautiful young countess from a neighboring kingdom had been seen talking to a musician. Their conversation was innocent, but my brother was filled with jealous rage. He ordered the musician skinned alive and when he survived this torture threw him to the wolves. Then, he went to his wife's bedchamber and cut out her heart using the same knife which our father had used to slay our mother.

I know what you are thinking. Vlad was mad, like his father. But that is only part of the truth. Though he would never talk about his childhood, I think that he was more frightened than any of us. And for good reason. You see, he was the one who would, on occasion, raise his voice when our father went too far. He was the one who cried openly when our mother died. He could never acquire the skill which me and my sisters possessed of hiding our emotions, and therefore he and our father were often at each other's throats. I am convinced that if the burghers had not murdered the old man, he would have killed my brother and named me prince. It was because he was open about his hatred for our father that I was surprised when he extracted his grisly revenge on the burghers. But looking back, I should have anticipated it. He was not punishing them for killing his father. He was punishing them for making him afraid, for forcing him into exile and captivity. He was punishing them because he knew that as long as they were alive he would always feel vulnerable. And that was the one thing my brother Vlad could not tolerate.

I remember the day the gypsy came selling her potions. My brother, who despised gypsies, invited her to the castle. He was planning to listen to her politely, perhaps buy a few trinkets. And then, when her guard was down, he would have her put to death. Boiling oil was his favorite means of execution at the time. To this day, I can not bear to be in a kitchen where food is being fried and the thing I remember most clearly about that day was the smell of oil slowly heating in the next room.

Perhaps the gypsy sensed her danger. Or perhaps she was a devil sent from hell to ensnare my brother. Whatever her motives, she offered him something more than the usual love charm or potency potion. She offered him immortality and superhuman strength.

There was a price, of course. There is always a price. In exchange for his new strength my brother would have to spend the daylight hours hiding from the sun and periodically he would have to renew his strength by drinking the blood of a living person. From what you now know about Vlad, you have probably already figured out that it was the first part that bothered him the most. He enjoyed hunting with me and my sisters, and when the sunlight touched his face it always seemed that the hurt he carried lessened just a little bit.

But her offer was too tempting. Never to be afraid. Never to die. Always the hunter, always in control. It was what my brother had dreamed of. It was what he had been trying to achieve as king. He drank a cup of bitter potion which she brewed, repeated a long series of nonsense words, and finally cut his wrist with a bone dagger which the gypsy claimed was a dragon's tooth possessed of magical powers. For a moment, there seemed to be no effect. Then he clutched his belly and let out a tremendous roar. I assumed that the gypsy had fed him poison and I ordered the guards to arrest her. But in the confusion she got away. Meanwhile, my brother began to have convulsions. Then he went into a coma so deep that the doctors declared him dead. But I knew in my heart that he was not truly dead. He was simply changing.

After seven days in a coma, he arose from his bed in the middle of the night. My sisters and I had taken turns keeping watch over him and I was the one with him when he came to his senses. He seemed different, paler which was understandably since the doctors had bled him almost dry and thinner which was not surprising since he had not eaten in a week. But it was more than that. The fear was gone. For the first time in his life he seemed calm. No, not calm. He seemed in control.

I will admit that I envied him his new found peace. But it soon became apparent to me that the gypsy's gift was a curse. He was a slave to his thirst for blood just as he was once a slave to his fear. And his subjects, who could accept the cruelty of a human king, were not so tolerant of his murderous thirst. Even though in the old days he would kill ten or twenty at a time and now only took one victim a night, there was grumbling, talk of revolt or of a Church inquisition.

My brother, who had once feared revolution more than anything else became apathetic. As long as he had blood, he did not give a damn about anyone or anything. No, I take that back. He still loved my sisters and me, and I truly believe that he did what he did to us out of a sense of love. He wanted to share the gift of fearlessness. That is why, one by one, he infected us with the vampire taint.

The night he came for me I tried to drive a dagger through my heart. But he had the strength of ten men and he easily wrestled the weapon from my hand. As his teeth sank into my flesh I remember praying "Allah..." (though to please my brother I had pretended to renounce Islam, in my heart I was still faithful) "... do not let me become what my brother has become." Perhaps it was the delirium of blood loss. I seemed to hear a heavenly voice reply Your brother is as he has always been. And as you are now so will you be forever.

The next thing I knew, it was night. One of my sisters, who was now also a vampire was waiting for me.

"Our brother has a surprise for you," she said taking me by the hand. "The surprise" turned out to be a young girl, a beautiful creature with black hair and milk white skin.

"Drink," Vlad invited. When I hesitated he repeated that single word, but this time it was a command. "Drink!"

I am convinced that if I had done as he had ordered I would have ended up a monster like him. But a wise voice in the back of my head insists that I would never have murdered that girl for her blood. I did not have it in me. To buy myself time, I took her into my arms and placed my lips against her throat. But before my fangs could pierce her white skin, I pretended to have a seizure.

The girl was forgotten. My brother carried me back to bed. He told my sister that I must have awakened prematurely, that I had not quite completed the transformation. No one was to disturb me until I awoke again. As soon as I was alone, I leapt from my bed. My room was on the third floor, but I did not let this stop me. Many nights I had seen my brother scale the bare wall of the castle like a spider and if I was now like him, then I had his power. I felt frightened for a moment as I perched on the ledge. But then I let gravity pull me down, my fingers and toes finding tiny crevices in the rock to slow my descent to a fast crawl.

I fled into the night and never saw my brother or sisters again, though from time to time I heard stories about them, how the peasants revolted. Realizing that they could not kill the tyrant they walled him up inside of his castle. Years later, when he had all but been forgotten rumors began to circulate about a man dressed in black who would attack cows, sheep and even unwary travelers, draining them of their blood. The rest you know. What you do not know is what happened to me. After I left my brother's castle, I wondered across Europe for months. Almost once a week, I tried to kill myself, but nothing worked. The closest I came was the morning I resolved to expose my face to the sun. But as the faint red light touched my skin, I felt such agony that I lost my courage and hid beneath an overturned wagon until sundown.

What did I eat? you ask. Nothing. Mortal food revolted my stomach. The human blood that I craved revolted my mind. As I wandered I grew steadily thinner, paler, weaker until it seemed that time would do what I did not have the courage to do and I welcomed my approaching death. But then a miracle occurred. I was staying in a leper colony, because such people seldom asked any questions of travelers. Disease no longer frightened me and I had taken to caring for the invalids as a way to pass the time. I remember one night a little girl of barely nine or ten became delirious with fever from gangrene in her rotted foot. She kept calling out for her mother who was long dead. To comfort her, I took her in my arms. I could feel her heart beating and smell her blood, and for the first time since my transformation I felt an almost uncontrollable desire to taste fresh human blood.

"You are a monster," I told myself. "She is a poor little girl, dying of a terrible disease."

"I am only trying to ease her death," I replied. "Help her to die more quickly."

"But what if she becomes like you? A vampire, a freak of the night?" And then the voice from above spoke to me again, for the second and last time. There are more things on heaven and earth than you can imagine. Do not try to understand. Let it be enough that I have brought you here to this girl to be her savior.

I had no idea at the time who was speaking to me though I have a good suspicion now. For all I knew then it was a sign of madness. But the blood lust was almost overpowering. As gently as I could, I placed my teeth against her burning throat and pierced her parchment thin skin. Blood filled my mouth-

And then a miracle. The girl's fever broke. More than that, her sores healed and her stumps began to grow new fingers and toes. Somehow, by drinking her blood I had cured her, given her life rather than death. My first thought was that I was seeing things,crazy things. Fearing for my sanity, I ran into the woods and hid. But the next night, when I was more calm, I crept back to the leper camp and there she was, as whole and healthy as any normal child.

She was telling the others about the miracle. One of them glanced up and happened to see me. They called out my name. They ran towards me, pulling at my arms and legs, tugging me in so many directions that if not for my superhuman strength I would have been torn limb from limb.

"Save us!" they cried. "Cure us, too."

What could I do? One by one, I took a mouthful of blood from each leper. And one by one their sores miraculously healed.

You are thinking that I freed them from one curse by giving them another, that their leprosy had only been replaced by vampirism. But it was not so. No one whom I have bitten has ever turned into a creature of the night, and each has lived no more than the four score years which god allots to us and none of them has ever craved human blood.

How is this possible you ask? Why did my brother become a monster and I became---I almost wrote saint but that would be presumptuous.Perhaps Allah knows the answer to that question. I do not. All I know is what I am, a vampire who subsists not so much on the drops of blood which I take from (willing) victims as from the suffering which I take along with the blood. In some way their sadness, their corruption feeds the monstrous part of me, allowing me to go on living a life not unlike any other except that my span has no limit and I will never again see sunlight.

That is how it all began. Nowadays, I try to keep a low profile, swearing those I heal to secrecy, thoughthere are rumors of a god who walks the earth, drinking human illness and suffering just as the Hindu god Shiva once drank the world poison. I keep my gift a secret because if everyone knew then everyone would expect me to cure their ailments. Not just their cancers but also their rheumatism, their bunions. And there is only one of me. As far as I know I am unique among my kind, a vampire drawn not to the beautiful and vibrant but instead to the lowly and the suffering. I draw nourishment from taking away pain and giving life.

If after all this, you still call me monster and wish to drive a stake through my heart, then do what you must. Enclosed is a blood red rose which I have infected with my malady so that it will never grow old or wither. Send it to me and I will come. It is up to you what you do with me when I arrive. If you want you can kill me. But remember. One day you or someone you love may need me. If you are wise you will hold onto the flower, pass it down from generation to generation, my gift to you, vampire hunter. Sincerely,

        Stefan

Bio:I write speculative fiction with elements of fantasy, science fiction and horror. While I have written a handful of short stories, my main interest is long fiction.

E-mail:taylorjh@nationwide.net

URL: http://www.nationwide.net/~taylorjh/

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