Vitam Et Sanguinem-1

Vitam Et Sanguinem-1
(Life and Blood)

Vlad-
The first thing I remember upon awakening was that I had been dragged by the hair by those accursed Turks , my head roughly shoved onto a chopping block stained dark by old blood-and soon to be painted anew with mine-and then, amid the gloating-a sharp, final retort of  an axe upon my neck…


I was dead.

No, I AM supposed to be dead…

Yet…

I turned to observe my surroundings. All was pitch-black-and I felt my neck, realizing my head was still upon my shoulders. Surely it couldn’t be a dream?

“Welcome Vlad Dracul III…”

A voice that seems to be wrenched out of the deepest circle of Hell spoke…

“Indeed, Vlad, you ARE in Hell…”

The next sentence hit me harder than any arrow. The sardonic tone didn’t make it any easier to accept. I am no fool. I know that Heaven will never accept me, even though I had done God’s work for many years, albeit cutting a bloody swath through Romania in the process.

But to be in Hell…

I fell to my knees, as if in supplication to the First of the Fallen. As if it were a cue, flames issued forth from the ground surrounding my person. I hear the sound of wings-black and leathery, not unlike a giant bat’s-and smell the acrid perfume of brimstone and sulphur.

Lucifer, or Satan, had arrived. Long raven hair covered the left side of his darkly beautiful features. The right side however, resembled a cracked mirror, like his eye. He was clad in blood-red raiment which spiraled round him and one hand resembled five black claws. His voice resounded like a thousand thunderstorms.

“Vlad Tepes…many a time have I watched you in approval, admiration even, as you tortured and tormented…you’re a man after my own heart-

“Surely you didn’t bring me to Hell to compliment me,”

I retorted wryly-only to be sent face-first into the ground.

Hard.


“Do not throw my hospitality back at my face! Had you been anyone else, you would be burning in the fires of Hell without a reprieve!”


Silence fell like a funeral shroud between us for what seemed an eternity.


“Then why have you brought me here?”


The Devil smiled like a corpse. He walked closer to me-though he appeared to merely glide.


“To let you be tortured for eternity is such a waste really…such darkness snuffed out too abruptly…”


In a beat of a bat’s wing, he slammed his palm upon my throat and before I could react, he branded me. The mark seared worse than any branding iron but I had felt worse in my lifetime on Earth. The mark faded before I could see it.


“From this point on, you will be one of the undead, Nosferatu…A Prince of Eternal Night…forever to walk the earth, never dying, never aging…your foes will be crushed like dry leaves…You will thirst for blood but despise the Sun and shun the Cross…”

As he spoke, fangs grew in my mouth, my senses heightened and two ebony wings ripped out of my back, laced with talons.

I stood up and closed my eyes. I could hear the wailing and screaming of millions of condemned souls forever being tormented, with no surcease…and then I heard a familiar voice…whispering “Forgive me…”


*It cannot be…*


“By the way, Dracula…there’s someone you should see…”


Lucifer told me almost amiably, snapping his fingers. In the space between us, laced with thorny tendrils, lay the sprawled form of a woman, with dark curls and fair complexion.

But it wasn’t just any woman…it was Elisabetha.

My first wife. My love.


TO BE CONTINUED….