Elixir of Flesh by Joseph Kranak
* * *
That same morning Magistrate Lucian covertly exited his office in the church and snuck into the forest. He promptly walked in the direction of the vampire coven, constantly checking his back to make sure that no one had seen him. He was most worried about his secretary, Beniamin, whom he’d sent on an errand to speak with a few of the local farmers. This would hopefully keep him away for a few hours and leave Lucian plenty of time to perform his errand and return.
After some considerable walking, he could see in the distance the dry channel and thick nest of trees that surrounded the entrance to the coven. He plowed into the shrubs, through which he had to pass to reach the entrance. He had tried before to pick up the large rock that furnished the door to their coven but had been unsuccessful. When he tried it now, straining with all his might to raise the stone, he again made no progress.
Fortunately, there was a small hole in the ground that provided air and light to the interior of the coven. He tramped off in that direction. Some thirty paces away from the entrance a large boulder partially jutted out of the ground. It was cracked down the middle, forming two separate large pieces, between which was a significant gap. The gap appeared to simply look downward into an empty blackness, but it, in fact, extended into the cave of the coven.
Lucian put his mouth to this gap and called out loudly, “It’s Lucian. Open the entrance. I can’t open it.”
He put his ear to the gap to listen for a sound of response. A few seconds later he heard a distinct shout, “Open it for Lucian.”
Lucian hustled back to the stone, which now was gradually opening. It was only opened partially and Lucian had to descend to his knees and crawl through. On the other side a vampire, wearing his hooded cloak and gloves and a head-covering to protect his skin looked down at Lucian and closed the rock once Lucian was inside. In the darkness, Lucian rose to his feet, and the inner, wooden door was opened.
Lucian passed through, now walking downward through the entry hall, and finally turning the corner to reach the main room of the coven, the Great Hall. The room was almost empty, except for two vampires performing routine cleaning and maintenance. During the daylight hours, two small shafts of sunlight lit the room to a dim twilight. They were angled so that no direct light would ever touch a vampire. One of the shafts of light, penetrating through the hole that Lucian had spoken through, pointed directly downwards and terminated on an outcropping of rock. The other light, at the opposite end, angled sideways and terminated in a wall. The vampires didn’t want to have to move around within their coven with cloaks and black clothes, as they found these stiflingly hot. For this reason, any direct daylight had to be redirected so it would not strike the skin of the loosely clothed vampires.
Asha was called into the room, and she walked to her throne, while Lucian stood waiting. “What is it?” she asked.
Lucian deferentially bowed to Asha and humbly reported, “I’ve visited and spoken with officials from all of the local villages, visited Count Gabor, a local landlord, as well as visited representatives of the Bathorys and Zapolyas, two of the biggest aristocratic families of the region. None of them have objected to your agreement to end vampire-human killings, and all said they are willing to honor it, so long as the vampires are faithful in their part.”
“So you’ll make a written agreement and we’ll sign?” Asha asked.
“Yes, preferably in public, so they can see you when you’re signing. It will make the peasants more willing to go along with it and make the agreement more binding.”
“You want me to travel to Vallaya to sign?”
Lucian bowed his head and tentatively suggested, “It would be better if we did it in Terem. That’s the biggest village around here. I know it’s a longer journey for you. I can provide you with a carriage. You’ll travel in comfort.”
“What I have to do to please you filthy creatures,” she complained, “The carriage must be dark. Were you able to persuade them to destroy those infernal vampire medicines and stop the execrable practice of consuming our dead?”
“No,” Lucian admitted, lowering his head, “They benefit from it too much, and I wasn’t able to offer them anything in exchange. Unless you could give them some concession. I don’t know exactly what, but…”
“You really are despicable creatures,” Asha frowned and added through gritted teeth, “This agreement will have to do for now. But don’t consider it our last.”
Asha fell into thought after having said these things and started staring off into the distance. Lucian waited in silence for her to continue. He asked her cautiously, “Am I permitted to leave, now?”
“Yes,” Asha said, “But remember, until this deal is completed, your debts are yet to be discharged.”
“Yes,” Lucan bowed with deference. He turned to leave with relief. The confines of this coven still troubled him deeply, and he looked on the walls of the cave with apprehension, an apprehension birthed by the most unpleasant experiences.
Some several weeks ago, he, his wife, and their two daughters had been snatched directly from their home by a series of nets wielded by the vampires, whisked from their beds as easily as an eagle plucks a fish from the water. The vampires had dragged them through the forest and had thrown them to the ground in the Great Hall.
Once there, he had beheld a terrifying sight: numbers of vampires that he hadn’t imagined possible, more than fifty vampires, perhaps sixty. They stood around him in a crowd in the dim light of the cave, leering at him hungrily.
He had immediately begun to beg, “Please spare our lives. Please don’t eat us. For the love of God, don’t eat us. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll do anything,” over and over again. He had been surprised at his own willingness to degrade himself when not only his own life but also the lives of his whole family were on the line. All the while, Asha had sat on her throne, listening to his pleadings with pleasure and with patience. When he had looked at her, he had thought he saw a sympathetic face. He had thought he saw the face of a fellow human who would be swayed by his humble supplication. But in the end, she had only ordered to have him put in a cage with his wife and children.
They had been dragged down a cave, thrown behind a door, and locked inside. The four of them had been left alone in the dark in some subterranean room, dank and musty and so eerily silent. He had called out to the vampires over and over again to let him go, insisting that he would do whatever they wanted. He would give them endless mountains of gold and jewels and anything they could want. But it had been to no avail.
In complete darkness, he had had no sense of time, and there he had waited. Alone with his thoughts, he had dwelt on his apparently inevitable fate. He had imagined the vampires tearing off his flesh, eating his body until they were licking the blood from his bones. He had imagined that they would then grind his bones until they were dust, which would blow away in the wind, and then they would do the same to his wife and daughters.
Vampires had come to bring them food, and in the process had told him that they would start by eating his youngest daughter, since the young ones tasted best. They had seemed to salivate as they looked at her, only eight years old, her glowing hair and her innocent eyes only sheltered from the horror by her own naiveté, which had been unable to grasp the gravity of their situation. He had begged them to take him and spare his family, but they had insisted that his daughters would make mouthwatering delicacies.
In this way, they had worked upon his desperation until it had been raised to such a high pitch, that he would agree to anything to spare his family. And only then had Asha been ready tell him what he’d have to do.
When Asha had brought him to the foot of her throne, he had expected the worst, that he would have to kill some person who’d earned the enmity of the vampires, or perhaps that he would have to desecrate some holy place (for it was rumored everywhere that the vampires were haters of God and of Christ). He had been prepared to do it. He had been prepared to kill ever
All she had wanted, however, was to negotiate an end to the violence. She had wanted Vasile to stop killing her kind and any future vampire hunting to be prevented. She had wanted, in fact, all killing of vampires to be strictly forbidden. And, in exchange, not only would she spare the life of Lucian and his family, but her coven would also agree to stop killing humans. He hadn’t asked why she would want to do this. All he had known was that it was the most wonderful thing he’d heard in his life, and he had readily agreed.
After Magistrate Lucian had assented to Asha’s agreement, he and his family had been released. Asha had told him that she would visit him when she was ready to formally begin their agreement. That had been several weeks ago.
When Lucian and his family had returned to their home after having been absent for almost three days, people had questioned where they’d been. He and his family had looked tired and disheveled, and when their servant had greeted them at the door of their home, Lucian had had to provide them with lies. He had told them that they had been summoned to the home of a sick relative.
After reflecting for a few moments on the history of his experience in the caves of this coven, Lucian exited through the entrance from which he’d entered, with the same vampire raising the stone to let him out again, and he returned to his office in the town hall to plan for the future town meeting.