Legacy in Blood (Book 1 of The Begotten of Old Series) (10 page)

The categorical taboo against walking on his beloved lawn was perceived by the maintenance staff just like the prohibition against illuminating the grounds. True, some people were astonished that this grass was always so impeccably cut since there was no gardener in the household. They were astonished, but readily supplied an answer to their own question – it must be a special kind of grass. Genetic engineering, an exclusive personal commission, a powerful lot of money – whatever. In the final analysis, how was the master’s excess any of their business? The wealthy have their whims. And for them the main thing was that their wages be paid on time. As for Stella and Jan, they had not asked him about anything in a long time.

At a brisk pace, almost a run, he passed by the guest house and in a single, powerful leap, he jumped over the high, blank wall. Just for a moment a large black shadow appeared in the heavens and then it dissolved back into the darkness.

However, human curiosity knew no limits. His rivals in business, his political opponents, journalists, and his neighbors in the housing community asked with envious regularity about his lack of bodyguards, or even security guards. How could he get by without a single bodyguard? In just the past year there had been seventeen attempts on his life. But even more strange was the fact that each time he remained safe and unharmed. How could that be? He always shrugged his shoulders and said he’d been lucky since birth. His health was sound. Plus, he did not drink, he did not smoke, he stayed fit.

He imperceptibly brushed past the guard booth and was outside the boundaries of the development’s territory.

Meanwhile, his appearance changed. The soft, baggy human body, which for the past decade and a half had been serving as refuge for his preternatural essence, gave way to that which was inside. Now he was a head taller in height and wider in the shoulders. His gnarled, muscular legs ended in huge seven-toed paws, and the strong, grey-yellow claws on his deformed toes no longer had anything in common with human nails. The skin on his whole body coarsened and now resembled scales.

The muscles on his torso bulged to such an incredible extent that they would have caused envy in the most prominent and steroid-ridden bodybuilder in the world. His arms, which were also overgrown with muscles, lengthened and ended in paws. His fingers themselves elongated into wickedly curved claws, which could rip his prey in half with one swipe.

Even his penis changed, transforming into a thing of gigantic proportions that now hung down between his scaled thighs like proof of his incontestable and inhuman masculinity.

His face also became different. More accurately, it was no longer a face, but a hairless, almost skeletal muzzle. His dreadful jaws, when opened, displayed two rows of razor sharp fangs. Above, the yellow eyes of a vulture gleamed wickedly and hungrily.

The monstrosity running through the night was the living embodiment of the most macabre human nightmares. The monster savagely snapped its murderous jaws, pulling air in through its nostrils. He was hungry, and he searched the wind for the scent of decent prey.

The man in which the monster lived was called Alexander Soigu. The monster itself had a completely different name, a name that was as ancient and terrible as he himself was.

The nostrils of the fiend inflated as he inhaled. Then he exhaled noisily, not for a moment lessening his pace. He smelled iron and rubber. After several more meters a car appeared. A new sports car stood on the roadside by the entrance to a small copse of trees. The scent of heated flesh hit his nostrils – the humans inside the vehicle were having sex. This meant he would have two victims tonight. The lips of the monster expanded into a mischievous, malformed grin. Well, they’d meet death at the peak of bliss.

2.

 

Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.

Whoever desires peace, let him prepare for war.

 

Just as Marisa expected, she was awake all night. She understood full well that the likelihood that Volsky’s men would call her in the middle of the night to announce the results of the test was near zero. Yet for all that, she could not fall asleep. In addition her appetite was running so wild that at six in the morning she had to run to the supermarket and restock her groceries. At seven a full breakfast was ready: eggs, sausages and a couple of cheese sandwiches. Tucking away at the sunny side-up eggs and thinking about the small, black address book, Marisa turned on the television and saw that one of the channels was showing a beloved Russian film of her youth,
Mary Poppins, Goodbye!

“People all around are getting older, but still I do not age,” gaily sang the heroine of the film.

When she was eight Marisa adored this song and always sang along with it, regardless of her complete lack of vocal talent. But this morning she chewed her breakfast with a scowl and thought about how strange that phrase sounded to her right now. ‘Still I do not age’ – how strange! What, was the lady a vampire?

The ringing of the telephone did not startle Marisa at all. She quickly grabbed the phone sitting next to her.

“Hi there. The news I’ve got is going to make you so happy,” Arvid said briskly. “The skin is not human, but calfskin, but that’s not important. There was a ripped-out first page on which someone had written an address. But the writing bled through onto the next page and we can read it. Of course, we had to separate the overwriting from the actual writing on the page – there were a bunch of addresses there – and while we determined which one of them we needed…”

“Get on with it – where are they?” Marisa impatiently interrupted him.

“It’s the suburbs again,” Arvid declared and instantly added: “I bet we’ll find at least two of these fucking vampires there.”

“How do you figure?” asked Marisa, scarcely able to suppress the joyously nervous thrill that rushed through her body. “In theory, the thing could belong to a victim.”

“It could,” agreed Arvid. “They often have fetishists and collectors among them. But not this time.”

“Give me the details!”

“I’m getting there,” replied the man on the other end of the phone. “Well, first of all, that little book is ancient…”

“That tells us nothing,” Marisa shot back.

“Secondly,” Arvid continued imperturbably, “the handwriting is the same throughout – our graphologist confirmed it. And thirdly, there are many crossed out numbers, some of which haven’t existed for at least seventy years.”

“Pre-war numbers?” Marisa asked.

“Even better,” said Arvid. “Right back to the beginning of the Twentieth Century.”

“Vampire,” said Marisa with glee, and then she added seriously: “I’m coming in.”

“We’ll wait for you,” replied Arvid.

Marisa glanced at the framed photograph of Ruslan that stood on her bureau. Then she closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head, trying to drive unnecessary images from her head. The day before yesterday those creatures had managed to escape her. But today at least one of them would get what was coming to it.

Vasilisa awoke at dawn in an evil frame of mind. It wasn’t because of the nightmares. All transformed vampires without exception dreamt only in nightmares – this was the diminutive but still vital spark of their human essence reminding them of itself. And the older a vampire became, the more horrifying the dreams. In the dreams of vampires appeared their myriad victims, and their long-departed friends and enemies, many of whom were long turned to ash. Some vampires yielded to their dreams and gave up on life. Thus it was with their father: one morning in 1684, when they were still in Russia, he opened the fire screen and climbed into the burning stove. Nicholaus and Lucinda tried to save him, but the fire was too greedy. It consumed him. To this day, Vasilisa could still recall how her father’s bones crackled in the embrace of the flames…

And it all began in July of 1269 in the city of Suzdal. Summer that year was especially hot and sultry. Under the scorching rays of the sun entire fields withered up, stocks of fish and meat rotted in their casks, and the cattle began to die off from distemper. And then yet another woe appeared – cholera came to the city. No one really knew if it had been brought by the foreign workers summoned to the principality for construction work, or if it was the invaders that brought this assault with them from the east, or if all the blame lay with the heat in which this pestilence thrived. But the illness running riot over the town showed no desire to leave, capturing more and more lives in its black claws.

Vasilisa, the youngest daughter and the favorite of her parents, never managed to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. Her mother and father also had a middle daughter, the twenty year old Lucinda, and an eldest son, Nicholaus, who was already thirty years old. Nicholaus had his own family – a wife and two children. Lucinda was serious beyond her years and unlikely to marry – the morose, pale-skinned young woman had long ago lost all hope of becoming a bride. But sweet-voiced Vasilisa was inundated with suitors. Unlike her sister, she flowered into a genuine beauty, not over the course of days, but over the course of hours. Vasilisa turned the heads of all, from babe to old man, which clearly vexed Lucinda. Rumor had it that even the deputy of the Kievan prince was in love with the young princess. Lucinda considered her sister to be too proud and constantly tried to shame her for her inappropriate behavior. Nonetheless, they lived together fairly amiably in the large, bright home where prosperity and happiness had always reigned.

Vasilisa had yet another admirer, about whom she preferred to tell no one. Not even her mama knew of him. At the end of winter a dark, strange man moved into the house opposite. Rumor maintained that he was a merchant who had supposedly lived in the East for half his life and only now had returned to his native land. Light rarely lit up the windows of his home; he was a recluse and never invited anyone inside. The tall stranger left his house infrequently and even then it was usually towards evening. Ever since he had arrived, Vasilisa was tormented by a strange and uncanny feeling that she could not explain. It seemed to her that the heavy gaze of this man followed her everywhere she went, penetrating even through thick brick walls. But the most dreadful thing was that Vasilisa was drawn to this mysterious stranger as if there was something for which she had waited her entire life in his gaze. And this something lured her, as a moth is lured to a deadly flame.

Vasilisa did not know that memorable July would be the last of her human life.

The first to fall ill was Natalya, Nicholaus’s wife. No one in the family wanted to believe that it was cholera; they all denied the obvious to the bitter end, continuing to insist that the woman had been poisoned by beluga caviar. Natalya died after five days, and on that very same evening Nicholaus’s younger son became feverish. The boy fought for life for three days, but he lost. Vasilisa looked at his desiccated little corpse then shifted her gaze to her brother, who was grey from grief, and she did not know which of them she pitied more. In the next several days they lost the cook, the nanny, and a groom. People perished literally before their eyes. The healer, who came to their home from far away Novgorod, only shrugged his shoulders, exhorting them to courageously endure their trials. When Nicholaus’s elder son died, her brother’s reason dulled. Weakened and having lost all will to live, he took to his bed after two days. Shutting herself away in a bright room, Vasilisa cried quietly into a pillow. Towards evening she felt that she was starting to run a fever. Vasilisa lay in her bed, rolled up in a blanket, and prepared herself to meet death. After some time she felt a presence in the room. And for some reason she was not very surprised when she opened her eyes and saw the tall stranger from the house opposite theirs standing next to her bed.

“Who are you and how did you come here?”

“I am he who can help you,” the man replied. “You and your kin.”

Vasilisa trembled at the sound of his low, velvety voice.

“And what do you want in exchange?” asked the girl, her teeth rattling.

“Nothing,” the man smirked. “But the price will be very high. Perhaps even too high.”

“I don’t understand,” confessed Vasilisa after a slight pause. “But we are wealthy, so the price is irrelevant.”

“I do not speak of money,” whispered the man. “Simply say that you are ready to accept my gift.”

“I am ready,” the girl whispered.

In the back of her mind, she had already decided that she was dreaming, and that soon she would behold death – a blackened, withered old crone with a scythe.

“Be not afraid,” the man said unexpectedly. “Do what I tell you, and no old woman with a scythe will come for you.”

Vasilisa had wanted to ask how he knew about the old woman and the scythe, but the man suddenly pulled up the left sleeve of his shirt, raised his right hand, extended his index finger and with a single abrupt movement sliced the skin near his left wrist. Dark blood instantly welled from the wound.

The man walked closer to Vasilisa’s bed and stretched out his wounded arm to her.

“Drink,” he ordered.

Vasilisa recoiled in horror.

“I will not!” she replied, shocked. “You’re insane!”

Blood from the wound began to drip on the snow-white linens of Vasilisa’s bed. The girl realized that there was nowhere to run, nor did she have enough strength to do so.

“You must do the same for them,” said the man calmly. “Don’t waste time. Drink.”

Vasilisa began to shake her head.

“Drink,” repeated the man and he looked her straight in the eyes.

All at once, Vasilisa realized that she would do anything he desired, anything he asked of her. She took his large, rough hand in her own and brought it close to her lips. The unusual, harsh flavor was surprisingly pleasant. Vasilisa’s head spun and warmth spread throughout her entire body. Hitherto unknown sensations inundated the girl entirely; it was as if she soared over the earth… And then Vasilisa fell down into a dead faint.

That night she died and was born anew. More accurately, her blood comingled with the blood of another creature and evolved, transmogrifying Vasilisa’s entire nature. She had forever become a different creature, and this new creature did not have a path backwards. Of course, at that time Vasilisa did not know any of this: it seemed to her that after a long and wearisome struggle the illness had departed.