Chapter 18
Siege
Anton sprang to the window to see what Lina was speaking of. He couldn’t see as clearly in the dark as she, but through the shadows he saw, just as she described, a crowd of vampires approaching.
“They’re here, and they’re many,” Anton shouted to Vasile across the hall, adding with a smile, “If you ever wanted to see how large of an attack this house could repel, today’s the day to find out.”
In the workroom Ileana and Nicoleta had been resting, Nicoleta nestling into Ileana’s arms and sleeping while Ileana dozed off. Andrei spurred them into motion, ordering Ileana, “Take Nicoleta down into the well. Stay there until this is over.”
Ileana nodded her head and entered a small closet next to the workroom, where she began to open to entrance to the well.
Andrei tried to persuade Lina to join them, telling her, “Go with my wife down into the well. The vampires won’t find you there. If all goes poorly at least you three will survive.”
Lina shook her head and said, “No, it’ll only put them in danger. If they get in here, I’ll be the only one to die. They’ll take me and leave.”
“I can’t imagine that if they get in here, they’ll spare Vasile and I,” Andrei said, “Nor Anton I imagine.”
“Well, at least Ileana and Nicoleta will survive,” Lina responded, “That’s better than none of us.”
“But you’re too valuable,” Andrei objected. Lina, though, had ceased to listen to him, seating herself behind Anton, waiting for the action to commence.
Ileana and Nicoleta had now disappeared into the floor and Vasile and Anton positioned themselves with longbows and arrows at their respective windows.
What became evident as the vampires came closer was that they had come prepared. The vampires had felled a tree and stripped it of its branches and its top, leaving only a long, thick log, which they bore on their shoulders. Two other vampires carried axes, which apparently had been used to accomplish this.
The two axe-wielding vampires led the charge, and as soon as they reached the building, they started applying their axes to the back door. From the lower level, the loud pounding of the axes on the door was heard resounding through the room like a steady drumbeat. Andrei experienced his first sense of fear as he felt each thud sending a shudder of shock through his body. Lina recoiled in the room behind Anton, sitting on the bed with her knees against her chest and covering her ears.
Vasile shouted to Anton, “Only shoot the one’s that are close, and make every arrow lethal.”
From the window, the vampires were easy shots, only about a body-length or two away and fixed in position at the door with their axes swinging. Vasile and Anton both unleashed their first volley upon the two vampires at the door. Within only a moment, the axes were both dropped to the ground as the two vampires collapsed. One arrow had dropped in through the eye of the vampire and exited through the back of the neck, causing blackness to instantly pass before his eyes and causing his body to slink to the ground twitching with convulsions. The other arrow entered just above the ear and exited out just beneath the opposite ear, sweeping him instantly into silence and causing his body to collapse in mid stroke.
The rest of the vampires were soon behind them, bearing the log in arms and charging directly for the door. They used the log as a battering ram, pounding into the door so hard that the wood sighed and creaked.
Vampires also started leaping for the roof. One vampire took a running leap towards Anton’s window. The vampire arced high in the air above Anton’s head, his arms outstretched. Anton had to quickly pull back and aim. He tried his best to get an arrow into the chest of the vampire while it was in the air, but he failed.
The vampire landed just in front of the window, and Anton scrambled back as the vampire reached in through the window trying to stab him with a dagger in hand. Startled and falling backward, Anton reloaded and started to aim for this vampire, whose arm flailed about just in front of him.
Before he could, Lina stepped forward to help. She ran to the window and grabbed the vampire’s arm and pulled it further in. His body would not fit through the window, but it brought closer to her what part of him she truly wanted. His neck, right there at the end of his arm, was accessible through the window, and she opened her mouth and bit into the flesh with her teeth.
It was the first time she had used her new teeth. They were so sharp that they sank easily into the skin, and the vampire’s blood flowed out into her mouth. The taste vastly surpassed that of the red brew. It was a taste infinitely more tantalizing and delightful. She wondered how a vampire would ever give up such pleasure for the brew. It set her body on fire with life and energy.
The vampire struggled as she drained his blood, but his strength only weakened the more she consumed, until finally it was only gravity that was pulling him from her grasp. When she let go of the vampire, his arm slipped through the window, and his body dropped from the roof to the ground.
Anton shrank from the terrifying Lina, whose lips and teeth were still stained with blood, but she stepped away from the window, a bit lightheaded from the food, and let him return to the window and re-initiate his shooting.
Below, the vampires continued to pound on the door with their battering ram, and the door, which splintered and bowed, looked on the verge of giving way.
Anton applied himself to shooting with renewed vigor. His next two arrows both carried death on their tips, and two more vampires lay on the ground.
Andrei was trying to push his large cauldron in front of the disintegrating door to bolster it, but the massive metal pot was heavy and dragged along the ground. Lina, hearing the sound, rushed downstairs and immediately joined in to help. With Lina’s help, the task became nearly effortless. The massive cauldron scratched loudly across the floor until it was placed in front of the door. Now the pounding of the battering ram rang with the sound of the cauldron.
Vampires continued leaping to the roof to try and disrupt Anton and Vasile whose arrows had been deadly effective, putting almost a dozen vampires to their death on the ground. One vampire, standing on the roof, reached for Anton from above and grabbed an arrow from his bow just as Anton was about to fire. In the same motion, the vampire tried to stab at Anton, who stood just inside the window. Anton was ready this time, loading another arrow and putting it directly into one of the eyes that peaked through the window.
Returning to the window, Anton fired again and Vasile followed, leaving only six vampires remaining. But those vampires were cracking through the door. As Anton set up another shot, he saw the six vampires drop the log and start pushing the door, with cauldron behind it, open enough to pour inside. Anton snatched the life of the last vampire of the group as Vasile caught another.
Four vampires pour inside the building blazing with rage. Anton turned around and planted himself at the top of the stairs. Vasile was immediately beside him. Andrei was racing up the stairs with four vampires speeding to catch him. Vasile took the first shot and a vampire rolled down the stairs with an arrow through his skull as the other three leaped over it. As soon as Anton had a clear shot, he let his arrow fly and one more vampire dropped to the ground with a loud thud.
As he reached for one last arrow from his quiver, he knew that neither he nor Vasile would be able to kill either of these two remaining vampires in time. The vampires moved so rapidly that, even as fast as Anton could load, aim and shoot his arrows, there simply wasn’t enough time. He could see the vampires’ fangs, bared for that bite from Anton’s neck, dripping with hunger. In those mere seconds and fractions of seconds there was nothing he could do, and the thought crossed his mind that, even after all they had done, they had still failed.
Neither of the two vampires made it to their intended victims. Suddenly, their expressions changed from fury and triumph to fear and shock, as both vampires were pulled backwards at once.
Lina, who had hid in the workroom instead of following Andrei up the stairs, had amb
ushed the vampires from behind. With each of her two hands she grabbed a vampire. One of them she swung around and threw headfirst into the cauldron so hard that he lost consciousness, but the other she dropped to the ground and pinned while she applied her mouth to his neck. His hysterical efforts to free himself were sapped of their vigor as his strength gradually ebbed. Lina was soon lifting his feet to facilitate the flow of more blood into her mouth, until she gave up and tossed him aside.
She proceeded to the next vampire. He wasn’t quite dead. His breathing still continued weakly, and his heart beat on faintly, which only helped to pump more of that blood into Lina’s mouth as she pierced his veins.
After it was all over, Andrei, Anton and Vasile walked down the stairs to join Lina. They were all tired, dazed and unwilling to do anything. Andrei had to goad them into action, saying, “We need to clean this up as quickly as possible, and put something in place of this door in case more come.”
Lina was the only one who was in high spirits, and she gladly volunteered, “I’ll go check and make sure they’ll all dead and I’ll bring in all the bodies.”
Ileana crawled out of the well with Nicoleta in hand, and she soothingly comforted and stroked the little girl.
Lina, one by one, dragged in all of the vampires that had been killed, twenty-two of them, and laid the cold corpses in a great, bloody mound in the workroom. A few of the vampires she’d found outside still had some life in them, but she dispatched them. Andrei, who wore his mask, looked at the pile in disbelief and said to himself, “This will take forever to process.” He proceeded, with Lina’s help, to dump as many as he could into his great cauldron.
After some considerable work, a temporary door was stitched together by Vasile, Anton and Ileana, made of pieces from the previous door and planks of wood taken where they could find them. Lina helped as much as possible, but once the first rays of sunlight broke the horizon, Lina had to shroud herself in her cloak and retract to a corner of the workroom away from the light.
After Andrei had put as many vampire corpses into his cauldrons to soak and slowly cook as he could, he hung the rest in the hope that he could desiccate them before putrefaction set in.
He announced to a sleepy Anton, who was about to collapse from fatigue: “Anton, I have to congratulate you. You made a fortune today. I don’t even know if I have enough gold on hand to pay you and Vasile (and I can’t forget Lina) for the twenty-two vampires you killed. I’ll pay you three what I can now, but you’ll have to give me a little time before I pay you in full. Though, I assure you, I will settle my debt.”
“I don’t need your money,” Anton responded, “I didn’t do it for the money. I did it because you told me, and I believed you, that this would be necessary to save my sister.”
“I know why you did it,” Andrei smiled, cheerily, “And we will save your sister. Soon. I don’t know how yet. We’ll start planning that as soon as we get rested. But you still deserve to be paid. Right now, just get some sleep.”
At that point the voice of Lina broke into their conversation, telling Andrei, “I don’t want your gold either.” Andrei was prepared to tell her the same thing that he had just told Anton, but she instead said, “I can’t use gold. I want whatever it is you turn those vampires into.”
“You mean the vampire medicines?” Andrei asked, “Are you sure? Certainly I can give you vampire medicines instead, but it’ll be a huge amount of it. Enough to last a normal person for years.”
“They’ll serve for food and make me stronger,” Lina said, huddled up with her hood completely pulled over her face and her knees pulled against her chest, “That’s what I need.”
“You’re willing to eat your own kind?” Anton asked her, with his lips curled in disgust.
Lina peaked out from beneath her hood to see Anton’s eyes. She told him emphatically: “They’re not my own kind. Not anymore.”
“But you are one of them. You can’t help that. You’re a vampire,” Anton told her.
Lina shook her head and lowered her eyes again. “I can. I will,” she hissed in his direction, “I am what I say I am. And I’m no longer a vampire now. That is what I say.”
Anton shook his head and walked up the stairs to sleep.
The next day Andrei decided that Nicoleta would have to return to her convent.
“It’s much safer there,” Andrei told Ileana that morning, sitting at the table, cutting from a loaf of bread, “There’s no chance the vampires will be able to get to her there inside those walls.”
Ileana shrugged her shoulders in agreement. “Though it’s so nice having a child around. It’d be nice if we could have one,” Ileana commented, a warm smile crossing her face, “And she’s a sweat girl. I’ll miss her.”
“Maybe you should go with her, then,” Andrei suggested, “Just for the time being, of course. Just until things are safer here.”
“But what about you?” Ileana asked.
“Someone needs to look after the shop during the day and defend it at night. Don’t worry about me, I’ll have Vasile and Anton here to protect it with me and to help me rebuild our defenses.”
“And Lina?”
Andrei shifted in his seat before he responded, taking a napkin to wipe his lips and standing from his seat. He spoke cautiously, “She would be safer in Terem too, and I would prefer it. But I don’t think they’ll take her.”
Ileana found Nicoleta sitting in the workroom, bored, and she bent down and said to her, “We’re taking you back home today.”
“What do you mean?” Nicoleta asked, turning to look at Ileana.
“To the convent in Terem,” Ileana said, “You’ll be safer there. And it is your home, of course. I’m sure there’re people there who miss you very much. You do like it there?”
Nicoleta nodded and asked, “What about Lina?” gesturing in the direction of Lina, who was still huddled in the corner of the workroom, “It’s her home too.”
Ileana hesitated as she thought exactly how she might respond. Lina interrupted her, though, announcing, “They don’t want me there. I don’t have a home anymore. You needn’t bother. I’ll be safe here. I can certainly defend myself against vampires.”
Nicoleta approached Lina slowly and sat down on the floor next to her, her shy little eyes bent down to peak under Lina’s hood. Nicoleta said to her, “Madalina, I want to tell you something.” Lina just raised her eyes, to peak at Nicoleta through the hood. “I do forgive you for what you did, for kidnapping me and getting Sister Oana captured. And I really, truly thank you for freeing me. Even if you got me captured in the first place, the thing you did for me is beyond generous. It makes me feel bad about all the mean things I said about you while in the convent. I’m sorry. The girls and I didn’t like you. That’s no secret. But we were wrong.”
Nicoleta reached forward and did the best she could to hug Lina, even though Lina was still wrapped in her cloak with her knees against her chest and seemed unresponsive. Nicoleta reached around Lina and gripped her for a moment before she let go. As Nicoleta stood up and walked away, Lina said, “Thank you too.”
Andrei told Ileana just before she left, “Be careful. The road to Terem’s dangerous.”
Ileana simply rolled her eyes and walked out the door, telling him, “Yes, but compared to what?”
She pulled her horse from the stable and placed Nicoleta in the saddle, saying, “I’m guessing you haven’t ridden a horse before.” Nicoleta shook her head and Ileana mounted the horse along with her and kicked it into motion.
As the horse galloped down the road towards Terem, the wind blowing through their hair, Ileana asked Nicoleta, “Is this fun?” A big smile spread across Nicoleta’s face as she nodded excitedly, her eyes staring forward at the trees that zipped by on either side.
Ileana brought the horse to a stop at the doors of the convent. The great doors of the main gate were currently closed but not locked, and when Ileana pushed them open, they gave way. In one hand she led the horse forwa
rd by the bridle, and in the other she held onto Nicoleta, who hid behind Ileana as they entered.
The main courtyard was alive with people, moving back and forth about their business. Several nuns in black habits, as well as a few novices and a great many servants moved this way and that, apparently so engrossed in their duties that they didn’t notice the entrance of this stranger with her horse.
It was Sister Elisabeta who noticed the stranger and came forward asking, “Is there something I can help you with?”
As she asked the question, she looked down to see who the young lady hiding behind the stranger was. Nicoleta peaked out from behind Ileana, and Sister Elisabeta’s mouth dropped with shock.
“Nicoleta?” she whispered in disbelief. She asked Ileana, “This is really her? Am I really seeing her?” Ileana nodded and Elisabeta burst out with joy.
Sister Elisabeta reached down and swept up Nicoleta in her arms, screaming with joy, “Look everyone, Nicoleta’s back! She’s back! She’s alive!”
The whole tone and tempo of the convent changed at that moment. At once, everyone came to an abrupt stop. Curious to see what Elisabeta was talking about, they started approaching. Once people recognized Nicoleta and really understood what Elisabeta was saying, they gushed with joy.
Elisabeta hugged Nicoleta so tight, that Nicoleta struggled to breath, and Elisabeta wept profusely. “You don’t know how horrible it was to see you taken away, I thought, for good,” Elisabeta cried, “It’s like having one come back from the dead.”
Others, just as eagerly pushed in to greet and hug and ask their questions of Nicoleta. Dorina and Mirela were soon in the crowd pushing their way through, squeezing between the bodies of the larger adults that crowded around Nicoleta. When they reached Nicoleta, they too hugged her, tears streaming down their cheeks.
The crowd quieted down when Elisabeta asked Nicoleta, “And what about Sister Oana and Madalina?”
Nicoleta tried to weakly smile as she told them, “They’re both alive. But . . . ”
“What is it?” Mirela pressed.
“Sister Oana was alive the last I saw her. But she’s trapped. The vampires have her, and I don’t know how long they’ll let her live. And Madalina. She’s become one of them.”
The silence persisted long after they heard these disappointing words.