~ Chapter Two ~
He was 22 when the Persians came.
I got word that the Shah of Persia was interested in a magician with the voice of an angel and the face of the devil. How ridiculous simple this description of Erik was. And how disturbingly accurate.
Then Erik lived in Niznij Novgorod. He liked to play the great magician at the fair and loved the adoration from the masses while he did his magic and sang or played his beloved violin. He loved their fear at the end of his show when all of them couldn't get out fast enough. His tent with its black silk walls and the blood red cushions changed before their very eyes in a palace of doom. They ran away screaming.
I believe it made him laugh for hours.
Anyway, I was going to tell you about the Persians. Nadir was a man you don't want to have on your bad side. He could easily dispatch you without making a scene. You were simply forgotten.
What I try to tell you is, Nadir was not a nice man in the figurative sense. He was likely to kill exactly the same way as Erik would do. He was one of the most dangerous predators I have ever seen.
Nadir was the Daroga of Mazenderan.
The time Nadir arrived at the fair in Niznij Novgorod I was not there. I was hunting my prey.
Oh, you think I was out killing humans for food? Yes, I did that too, but it wasn't the prey I hunted. I hunted a raven.
Exactly one week after I freed him from the gypsies Erik came to me with a proposition…
"You really want to starve to death." he said. "Elaine told me about it, but I didn't believe her. Why do you do that to yourself, Prince?" He never called me by my name. It was always Monsieur, Prince or Domn. It seemed to me he wanted to distance himself from the world. Knowing what happened to him I let him play his namecaling.
"Elaine tells many things, Erik. You shouldn't always believe what she says."
"But why? You are an old vampire. You have more power I could imagine, and I imagine a lot. And you sit here day-to-day and brood over a picture, which shows nothing more than a face you can't recognize if you knew who it should be. Why do that? Don't you have anything to live for?"
"A vampire lives for the hunt." I answered flatly. I didn't like how he talked about the portrait of my love.
"You like to hunt you say? But why don't you go out and hunt?" I couldn't answer. I didn't know why I stayed at home and just stared at the picture. I didn't know why I didn't want to go out. In the past I was out every night. I fed with a hunger that it sometimes scared me. But why I stopped doing what my nature ordered me to I couldn't say.
"Perhaps you need good prey. Perhaps it bores you to death that you have no prey who can make the hunt last." For a moment I thought his eyes were glowing golden, but it was only my imagination. In my confusion I blinked and found myself glancing at a shimmering black raven's feather.
"How about a little game, Monsieur? You need a good prey, you get one. Who is better prey than a predator. Just follow the feathers. We will see how good a hunter you are, Prince." With this words he vanished in thin air. Only a silken black raven's feather remained.
"Let the games begin…"
~ * ~ * ~
~ Interlude ~
"He played a game of cat and mouse with you?" I couldn't resist asking. This story got weirder and weirder. There was no need for me faking interest in his tale for I really wanted to hear it, but some things simply sounded not real. Okay, a vampire telling you a story about his life isn't exactly the best example of realism but some parts were… I can't describe it.
"Yes, he did." the vampire, Vlad, answered me. "He was the best prey I ever got. Do you want to know why it was such a fun to hunt Erik? I never got closer than fifty miles. He was always a step ahead of me, that was intriguing. He hindered me to begin brooding again. Do I sound like this TV guy, Angel I think is his name?" What? He has a strange way of changing the topic.
"Hmm?"
"What I thought. Darling, I think it is better when you simply sit back and listen." I don't know what happened to me, but the only thing I was able to do was sitting back and listening to him. I never believed in the stories about vampires being able to control your mind. Now I am no so sure about it…
~ * ~ * ~
I followed Erik's trace of feathers through Europe and Asia. I never got close enough to see him, but I knew he was near. I only learned of his show in Niznij Novgorod by luck.
I found his feather in Moskow and decided to have a bit fun in the city as I heard a traveller tell another one that he saw a great magician in Niznij. He saw a magician with the voice of an angel and the face of the devil. You can imagine what came next. I was on the fastest ship to Niznij Novgorod I could get.
After three days I arrived at the Great Fair and my luck went like it came. I didn't find him. The last thing I heard of him for several years was that Erik went with a foreigner. He went away to never come back.
I was furious. I went on a killing spree. But I didn't find Erik. Nadir did…
Because I was not there as it happened, I will recite someone who was there and lived to tell about it.
T O B E C O N T I N U E D