A/N: The dialogue in this chapter is directly from the series, written by Warren Ellis.


Chapter 2: No Man's Land

"When I investigate and when I discover that the forces of the heavens and the planets are within ourselves, then truly I seem to be living among the gods." -Leon Battista Alberti


There it was, in all its sinister glory.

Lisa had initially convinced herself that Andrei's tale was simply a fanciful story that had been embellished over the years. But there were things she knew a serf could not have concocted out of thin air. Had the story been merely the whimsical and wondrous fantasies of a poor man, then the story would have remained focused on lavish banquets, opulent surroundings, perhaps beautiful ladies—a catalogue of longing: of things poor servants could never achieve. Instead, Andrei's accounts, however, were all about strange contraptions found in the castle. The large tube to peer into the sky intrigued her: not because of its lofty aim—to peer into the heavens as if it were the eye of God—but because it had been explained to her not as some magical artifact, but as a clever tool made of glass that had been shaped and curved, she remembered, to reflect and project… And the lightning—it danced along a metal cage, sparked into existence not by fingers snapping but by a lever and pistons. Everything that had materialized before Andrei's grandfather's eyes had not been done through conjuring or spell casting, but through clever, mechanical devices.

Legend often possessed a kernel of truth, Lisa knew. While she dismissed the bit about the immortal lord, she wondered hopefully if hidden in the Carpathians she'd find a fellowship, an order, a group of scholars whose advanced studies had to remain hidden from the Church's scrutiny.

Andrei's story lingered in her thoughts long after the night of Tudor's death. Lisa often thought of it after a long day of tending to the sick, collecting herbs, or studying her few books at candlelight long into the night. When Father Vasile was called to Gresit to serve as bishop, something shifted within Lisa. She grew restless. As much as it was a relief to have the man gone from Lupu, she couldn't let go of the conviction that if he grew more powerful in his command of the faithful, so should people like herself, to combat ignorance and superstition.

To leave everything behind to chase a legend was counterintuitive—practically a rift in her logic. All she had to go on were stories: a castle somewhere in the mountains, marvelous devices that conformed to the laws of the nature… But even if it wasn't as true as Andrei had said, perhaps what she would find would bring her solace. Or at least settle the mysterious matter once and for all.

At best, she hoped she would find herself among those who shared her thirst for knowledge; she would be among kindred spirits.

Perhaps, she thought, quickly dismissing the sadness that surfaced at the thought, she would no longer be alone.


Lisa paid to travel with small merchant caravans. There was safety in numbers and she was grateful for the campfires at night that provided her with warmth and shelter. Her trusty dagger remained within reach at all times.

On the third day of travel, early in the morning, she made out the solitary outline of a gargantuan castle in the morning fog. It was unlike any of the castles and estates they had passed during their crossing.

"What is that?" she pointed toward the horizon, asking one of the leaders of the caravan. He peered into the distance and stared for a moment.

"Strange." He dragged his finger over his map. "I don't remember ever seeing this before."

"It's probably been hidden by the fog," someone else remarked.

"Let's go." The caravan leader shivered.

"This is where we part ways." Lisa hauled up her satchel and waved.


The castle loomed in the distance, towering, soaring up impossibly. She'd spent the entire day slowly descending the mountain toward the valley leading to the eerie peak the castle perched on, entrenched in the rock, its narrow steps hewn into the stone.

It had taken her longer than she expected to reach the valley. She moved slowly, mindful of her footing so she wouldn't trip and end up hurtling down the jagged rocks. When the sunset tinged the sky in vermillion streaks and luminous gold, Lisa knew there was no turning back. Her canteen had run dry an hour earlier and the sky would turn dark soon. The castle would have to be her shelter for the night—whether or not it was inhabited.


What transgressions could ever warrant this? she shuddered, walking along the long black pikes adorned with impaled skeletons. They lined the desolate path with no end in immediate sight. The pikes grotesquely skewered the skeletons through ribcages, eye sockets, and gaping maws. It was a tableau of agony…and ruthlessness.

Where am I?

Warlords had always plagued the land—their history was a compendium of invasions, power struggles between Ottomans, Saxons, Hungarians, and Wallachian boyars who ensured that people accepted their lives on the path of war.

The shadows of the pikes grew longer as the sun began its final descent into night.

I shouldn't have come.

She gasped when a sharp screech burst overhead and a breezy rush passed her, close to her head. A black blur dipped out of her sight further ahead. A second one immediately followed and Lisa cringed.

Bats.

Bats flew past her on the right and Lisa raised her arm to shield her head. Several more coursed by her left side. She grit her teeth as they poured into the valley, weaving above and around her in a black cloud that darkened the sky.

Even if I had any plans to retreat, she peered over her shoulder at the now distant forest entrance, I would have just been forced to forfeit them. The only path she could follow was forward— to the castle's imposing entrance.

She stepped forth steadily, head ducked, her cloak wrapped tightly around her. The bats narrowly avoided her in their frantic rush to take to the night. Her feet negotiated each narrow stone step leading up.

So many steps, she groused.

The cloud of bats gradually thinned— their sharp screeches fading. She was relieved that none but one had tried to latch onto her, clawing at her shielding arms. She'd been forced to draw her dagger and stab the creature to stave it off.

The others had long flown off as she stared at the dead bat, its small, beady eyes glassy and blood red.

"Ugh," she grumbled softly, reaching for an astringent she kept in her satchel. She checked her arm for any wounds and was grateful for her cloak, threadbare as it was. She poured a bit down the blade, washing the stains of blood off onto the stone landing. When she raised her eyes, she caught the last of the swarm dispersing, their oppressive cloud thinning.

She'd been so focused on making her way up the steps that she hadn't had time to process how daunting her mission had just become. She stood in awe before a massive, arched stone door, etched with deep grooves. It soared above her endlessly, it seemed. If she tipped her head further back, she could take in the last rays of sun lighting the sharp, horizontal architecture of the castle: towers sat in the air, apparently weightless, and arches curved into the clouds. Candlelight danced behind the latticed windows, blurry and ghostly.

She stared for a moment, feeling her resolve wane. Lisa was acutely aware of her fear.

What am I afraid of? As far as I can see, my life is in no imminent danger.

It must be fear of the unknown, she surmised.

Her brows furrowed.

Well, there is only one way to remedy that! What is unknown must become known, she concluded. I will not allow ignorance to defeat me.

She inhaled deeply and curled her fingers into a hard fist to strike the door, letting the sound reverberate, hoping it would echo into the massive building.

She swallowed with a hard gulp.

There. Now it is too late to turn back.

Before she could lose her nerve, the doors cracked open, creaking heavily. Snapping hinges groaned and the heavy clang of what she presumed were weights resounded. She stood before the open passage ushering her in. She clutched her dagger and boldly stepped forward.


He had been aware of her presence the moment she entered his domain.

He had a million eyes throughout the valley, inside and outside the castle, reporting back to him in hushed awareness.

One solitary woman. He exhaled heavily. What did this one seek? Revenge? Riches? Power? He'd lost track of the days, the weeks, the months in that suspended state he lingered in. He could not recall the face of the last mortal who'd crossed his threshold.

If he closed his eyes, he could watch her approach the castle—a grown woman in a heavy traveler's cloak, her disheveled hair hanging in a loose plait framing a grave face. She had armed herself—with a… dagger! he noted with twinge of wry amusement. She was either a fool or an optimist, although time had taught him that one was indistinguishable from the other.

He would receive her, he decided. I will meet this one. If only for his own sport. After all, it would break up the monotonous cycle of those infinite days slipping into even longer nights.


Lisa's eyes grew accustomed to the gloominess of the stately hall the further she wandered inside. Candelabras lined her path down a sleek, polished stone hall as she stepped over a long red and gold runner leading up to an elaborate stairwell. She peered about in awe, finding herself surrounded by a cold, stern opulence. As she made her way down the hall slowly, she could not shake the ominous impression she was being observed.

She was jolted from her thoughts as the massive doors behind her shut—quicker and more silently than when they had parted earlier.

No way out. She clenched her teeth and raised her dagger. Her eyes searched the darkness until they found a large, ghostly figure towering overhead, peering down at her from the stairwell.

She froze, her eyes blinking incredulously. Andrei's voice came back to her, almost tauntingly: …old stories of a great lord who has understood all of life's secrets.

From where she stood, she could only make out a large stately form swathed in black. For a brief moment, she believed she had been startled by a statue.

Lisa very deliberately made a show of taking her dagger and sheathing it. It was a gesture of appeasement she hoped wouldn't end up costing her too dearly.

"My name is Lisa," she declared in a clear, steady voice. "I am from the village of Lupu." At the unnerving silence she was met with, she continued. "I want to be a doctor."

The figure shifted, sleek as smoke. Her eyes followed it until it seemed to vanish. She continued to search the stairwell for a sign until she was startled by a deep voice just above her. It reminded her of the low warning growl of wolves and she stiffened in alarm.

"You bang on my front door because you want to daub chicken blood on peasants," he accused in a hushed tone. He moved fluidly, gracefully, fading again from her sight before she could examine him closer.

How?…she puzzled. Wait…Daub chicken blood on peasants? She gathered her wits and her brow furrowed again. Her indignation was a powerful antidote against any apprehension. He had not even listened to what she had to say and already he passed judgment on her. That wouldn't do.

"Don't mistake me for a witch!" she warned. "Everybody out there already does that!" She clenched her fist. "I believe in science, but…" The rustling of fabric alerted her to a presence lurking to her left. "I need to know more," she asserted.


He balked, sensing an interesting shift in his visitor. He knew fear, had become familiar with its stench, had reveled in evoking it, only to extinguish it. What he sensed was different, interesting. He recognized it, as well: audacity.

Her words lingered between them, full of defiance.

And there was something else there, too. A plea. It was subtle and delicate, masked by a certain wariness. She had asked him to hear her out, to withhold judgement.

How bold of you…

Very well: let me see what you are made of.


"I've exhausted my other options," she proceeded, her mind suddenly far away, back in Lupu, thinking of Tudor, of the unctuous priest, of all her lost battles. "And all the stories say the man who lives here has secret knowledge."

She froze in place when the tall figure stepped out from the shadows behind her and leaned closer. He spoke into her ear, his breath tickling her neck.

"I am Vlad Dracula Țepeș," he announced. "And I do not get many visitors. What do you have to trade for my knowledge, Lisa from Lupu?"


It was a wicked weakness, he knew, one he liked to tease himself with—a delicacy. His acute senses honed on the warm scent emanating from her skin, the steady pulse, the thrumming of her heartbeat. He raised a menacing hand in the shadows, ready to seize her by the shoulder, the tips of his sharp teeth brushing against his lower lip.

It wasn't an unpleasant way to die, he knew. He'd grant her that much, at least.


Perhaps it was exhaustion verging on the feverish, but she stepped away from her host to whirl around and face him.

Wise hermit though he may be, a dearth of visitors is no excuse to forget one's basic sense of decency and hospitality.

"Perhaps I could help you relearn some manners!" she scolded him, for a moment too incensed to make note of how he towered over her, how his eyes gave off an unsettling red hue, his pallor reminiscent of alabaster.

She was, after all, quite tired from her trip.

And from everything else.


What is this? He straightened up, mystified, peering down at that insolent mortal woman.

No fear.

"I've crossed the threshold of your home, and you haven't offered me a drink or even to take my coat."

Such pique! He hadn't expected from her. She demanded he extend to her the simple rites of hospitality—as if he were what? A mere, simple—

An ordinary man.

Not the infinitely ancient and cursed fiend who'd lived too long and learned too much. Armies had crumbled at his feet, conquerors of empires once groveled before him begging for a modicum of mercy.

And here was an uppity peasant woman lecturing him about the finer points of hospitality. Did she not realize who he was? The complete abyss she was standing before?

He could not decide if what he felt was outrage or awe. He'd become unaccustomed to either.

Ah, Lisa of Lupu, he marveled. I think I'm enjoying too much the way you see me, the way you talk to me.

"What if I took a drink from you?" he stepped forward. "Or have you loaded yourself with silver, crosses, and garlic in superstitious fear?" he challenged her.

At last he saw unease flash across her clear blue eyes. Her hand flew up to her lips. Ah. Perhaps I was right about you after all. You are just another foolish—

"I might have eaten some roasted garlic earlier," she admitted worriedly, her hand shielding her mouth.

He blinked in surprise.

"Was that rude?" She appeared so distraught at the realization. "I-it was all I had left."

Ever curious. Her mortification touched him as much as it amused him. He found he could not avert his eyes from her for even a moment. He chuckled lightly, the edge of his lips curling into a half grin.

"I'm really not interested in superstition, or being some muttering wise woman." He began to circle her slowly, fascinated by his visitor, "or cheating people with boiled nettles and entrails." She paused, pressing her lips tightly. "I want to heal people," she declared at last. "I want to learn." She turned those limpid eyes to him and in them he saw an enticing depth. "Will you help me?" she asked, with devastating earnestness.

Their gazes locked and he contemplated her thoughtfully.


Simple enough. Yes or no, she thought nervously. He doesn't have to agree, but at least he'll understand who I am and why I came here.

That he understand had suddenly become very important. She did not want him to have the wrong impression of her. It was very important. She suddenly could not bear that such a remarkable, impressive man, who undoubtedly possessed knowledge the likes of which would expand her own, should think she was nothing more than a superstitious spell caster or some greedy fortune seeker creeping about ruins for abandoned treasure.

Lisa wanted him to see her as an equal: a fellow scientist.

She held her breath, watching him pace about her, his long black cloak trailing over the rug.

She endured his hard scrutiny as he clasped his hands behind his back.

"You are definitely different to most humans I have met in recent times."

What do you have to trade for my knowledge? he'd asked her earlier.

"Maybe I can teach you to like people again," she suggested. But that would be a difficult task, she realized. She often felt it was a losing battle herself. "Or at least tolerate them," she quickly amended.

He remained in silence.

People irked her, but nevertheless, she would never…

"Or stop putting them on sticks!" she chastised him.

At that he finally laughed, turning away.

"I gave that up a long time ago."

For a moment, she believed he was going to hide again in the shadows as he moved forward. Instead, he stopped, addressing her.

"Where is Lupu Village?" he wondered.

She scrambled to follow him.

"You don't travel much," she remarked.

"I can travel. This entire structure is a traveling machine." It was a strange but intriguing statement. She let her eyes glance about once more. When her gaze finally alighted back on him, she noticed that behind the stern face was a lingering heaviness…a sadness.

"But…you don't. Do you?"

Granted, he'd been asking about Lupu and Lupu wasn't Targoviste: one of the jokes in the region was that when Ottoman soldiers arrived at Lupu, they marched past it because they thought the entire village had been ransacked already… But still. She had the distinct impression Țepeș was a lonely, solitary man.

Perhaps it was a good thing she had gone there after all. She did not espouse such flighty notions such as fate or destiny: those belonged in the province of superstition and chicanery. But she was starting to believe that their meeting was something very fortuitous. She imagined that maybe she could help the solitary man reemerge into the world, find the good she sought to save and preserve.

If she could share that with him…It was worthwhile.

"Maybe you should. The world is changing. Travel like people do: you might like it!" she encouraged him.

He gazed at her inscrutably before sighing deeply.

"I've known you two minutes." He turned his head and stared forward. "And you offer for me to walk the earth like an ordinary peasant while I give you the knowledge of immortals." They had halted and he gallantly extended his arm toward a door, the room behind it slowly coming into view. "The true science."

She didn't know what thrilled her more: the room filled with beautiful contraptions, his indirect admission that he would take her on to study with him, or the playful reproach in his tone as he addressed her. Overhead she recognized a model: a simulation of the heavens. Her breath hitched. It was the Ptolomaic model, too: it did not place the earth at the center. Her heart soared.

She stepped about the room, overwhelmed, her eyes rapidly jumping from one object, one station, to the next. Her eyes brimmed with tears when she glimpsed the long, tubular device in gold, the large rod-like object aimed toward the sky. It is true. All of what your grandfather said was true, Andrei. She let her fingers lightly brush over the surface of the long table holding many glass jars, beakers and alembics employed in distilling formulas into receivers.

If she had to describe what that first impression had been like, she would have only been able to liken it to the description of mystics in ecstasy over spiritual communion. It was dizzying, beautiful, full of hope.

It was the truth. At least, the truth she believed in.


He had acted on impulse, but he did not regret it or take on such responsibility lightly. He observed Lisa wander about the laboratory with a look of utter delight and amazement. Her excitement was contagious. He found himself beginning to stir, awaken, his mind shaking off the torpid stillness it often slipped into. He thought of how he should begin—what he could show her first. An introduction. He needed to assess what she knew—after all, if he was going to shatter her assumptions, he had to understand what they were.

He liked that feeling. Of purpose, of importance.

"My," she uttered, dazzled, seeking him out. In her expression, a warmth and joy he could not remember ever been the recipient of in his long life. "They won't be peasants anymore if you teach them. They won't live such short, scared lives if they have real medicine!" she emphasized. She looked at the model of the heavens hanging overhead, the spheres swaying in their gentle orbits. "They won't be superstitious if they learn how the world really works."

An old defiance reared its head within him. He scoffed, his laughter less mirthful.

"Why should I do that?"

She approached him. She was revealing herself to be willful, indomitable.

"To make the world better," she decreed, unwaveringly.

"Start with me, she challenged him, raising her hand to her chest. "And I will start with you," she declared.


It was the fervor in her eyes, her unwavering faith in what she believed was unerringly right and just. She had come to him to ask him for something, but not for her own vain, self-aggrandizing purposes. It was "to make the world better." It was naive and idealistic, he knew. He had seen too much, learned otherwise. But…she had entered his home as if carried by the wind and disarmed him like the most potent storm. If he had learned anything from studying the world, its forces, laws, and rules, it was that all that was needed to unseat a hypothesis was one occurrence of something that contradicted everything observed and believed true until then.

And there she was: a lovely contradiction of everything dark and base he believed about humanity looking him in the eye and challenging him to change.

Such a chance did not offer itself too often anymore. His expression softened for the first time since she had arrived.

"I think I might like you." He politely bowed to her.

An alluring flush rose to her cheeks as she smiled to him, barely containing her excitement as she stepped further into the laboratory. He watched her, charmed, following slowly in her wake.

A night creature drawn to the light, he mused.