Ay! Es horrible! Sorry this chapter is so short, I was really at a loss of where to go...I have it now, though. The next chapter should be better, since its main event has been floating around in my fevered brain for a while. :)
-claustrophobia (klaws-tra-`fO-bi-a) n. (Med.): abnormal or morbid dread of being in closed or narrow spaces [L. "claustrum," bolt, Gk. "phobia," fear]
"May all those things which have proceeded from the weakness of his mortal nature be consigned to oblivion, and be remitted unto him: Through His lovingkindness; through the prayers of our most holy, and blessed, and glorious Lady, the Mother of our Lord and ever-virgin Mary; of the holy, glorious and all-laudable Apostles, and of all Saints. Amen."
Olrox jolted awake at the sound of Father Lucian's voice. How had he managed to fall asleep at a funeral? And for so long? He stood hastily to follow his family out of the church as they led the funeral procession, Elie, Mihai, and Alex themselves helping to bear the coffin. 'I've slept through the entire service; how embarrassing...'
As the procession wound its way into the graveyard, Olrox tried to remember whom it was they were burying. He could think of no one. The deceased must have been someone of importance, though; most of the village along with the entire Trandafir household had come to pay their respects. 'But, respects to whom?' Slyly, Olrox attempted to get the name somehow from one of the mourners. "Surely, this man will be greatly missed." The woman next to him said nothing, not even glancing at him from behind her veil. Taking a closer look, Olrox recognized the woman as his sister, Tatiana. 'Never has she been so cold to me...' Hurt, but assuming that she was annoyed with him for sleeping through the funeral, Olrox made the rest of the brief journey in silence.
The men carrying the coffin set it down gently in the grass beside the open grave, then dispersed to stand with their families. Olrox went to stand with his parents and brothers, deciding to give Tatiana a wide berth lest she become angrier with him. He looked at Mihai beside him, and at Mihai's wife and little Jenica, both veiled and somber.
'I cannot mourn a stranger...' Whispering discreetly, Olrox felt his face flush as he said, "Mihai, who are we burying?" Mihai didn't answer Olrox or even stir, as though he hadn't heard him. Olrox looked at the ground. 'Doubtless he is annoyed with me as well.' A sudden thought came into his head. Olrox thought it ridiculous as soon as the idea formed, but found that he was going through with it despite himself. 'If no one will tell me, I will find out for myself...' As the rest of the mourners gathered around the grave's gaping maw, Olrox skirted around the crowd, walked up to the head of the grave-close enough to the priest to touch his robes-and knelt down to read the headstone.
'4 February, 1767-15 July, 1787
Aged 20 yrs., 5 mo., and 15 days
Olrox Wythe Trandafir'
'Whoever made the headstone made a mistake. I wonder why no one caught it...' Olrox had been frightened momentarily, but, he reasoned, 'I'm right here. And that poor soul is going to be buried with the wrong name on his headstone.'
Walking back to his family, Olrox whispered in his father's ear, "They've got the wrong headstone there." He tried a smile. "Everyone's going to think I've passed away." Elie gave no response; he simply looked at the group of men lowering the coffin into the grave. "Father," Olrox repeated, "that man can't be buried under my own name; stop them. They can finish the burial when there's a new stone." Elie said nothing, didn't even look at Olrox. Olrox was becoming impatient. Striding back up to the edge of the grave, he said to the priest, "Father, that headstone bears my name." The priest opened his small book and began reading.
"Open, O earth, and receive that, which was made from thee." Murmured 'amens' came from the crowd behind Olrox. Whirling to face the people, Olrox surprised himself by shouting. "Silence! They're not burying me!" Suddenly, somehow, there was an urgency to this whole doleful mistake. "I'm not dead," he said primly. "Everyone go home; Father, stop the interment."
Father Lucian's voice droned on like a dirge. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof: the round world, and they that dwell therein." He sprinkled oil on into the grave, and ashes from the cencer. "Stop!" Olrox growled, turning the priest so that the man faced him. "Stop at once, and send these vultures home."
"With the souls of the righteous dead, give rest, O Saviour, to the soul of thy servant, preserving it unto the life of blessedness which is with thee, O thou who lovest mankind."
Olrox pressed his hands to his ears in frustration. "Damn you!" He took hold of the priest's shoulders and started shaking him. "Damn you, be quiet! Stop it, stop it, STOP IT! For the love of God, stop!"
Father Lucian only kept reading, in his monotonous voice, as though he were standing perfectly still. "In the place of thy rest, O Lord, where all thy Saints repose, give rest, also, to the soul of thy servant: For thou only lovest mankind."
Disgusted, Olrox threw the aging man backward to the ground. The priest landed flat on his back, and, without even a pause, continued from his new position in the grass. Two men with shovels began filling the grave. "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit."
Olrox gave up on the priest and ran to one of the men, grabbing hold of the shovel, trying to wrench it from the man's hands. The man took no notice of Olrox, scooping dirt and throwing in onto the coffin. Releasing him, Olrox ran frantically back and forth alongside the grave, looking into it, not knowing what to do. A knot of panic twisted his stomach. He saw his little niece, Jenica, shyly come to the edge of the grave. She tossed a small pink rose onto the coffin with her chubby little fingers, blowing it a kiss. Then she said, in her clumsy child voice, "Interj, Unchi 'Rox."
"Jenica, don't; it's not me!" Olrox cried desperately. The toddler turned on her heel, weaving through the sea of adults back to her mother, without so much as a look back.
"Are you all mad? You all must be mad!" he yelled, waving his arms like a raving lunatic. "I'm alive! That's not me!" Once again, he tried to wrest the shovel away from the gravedigger. The man kept at his task, and Olrox was thrown off his balance by the motion of the shovel, landing hard in the grave. The edge of the coffin struck him painfully in the back. A shovel-full of dirt came down in his face. In a rage, he dashed it from his eyes, standing and shouting up at the crowd, that was singing soft hymns, "Curse you all! I'll show you if you don't believe me! I'm right here!" He threw dirt off of the coffin lid with his hands, pulling at the latches until they relented. "And this...damnable box...is...empty!" With a grunt of exertion, Olrox ripped the lid open, the nails popping out of the wood with sharp snaps. Olrox looked.
Olrox screamed. The coffin was tenanted. Olrox's own corpse stared up at him with glassy eyes, gray skin already in decay. "No..." Olrox whispered, confused tears starting in his eyes.
Without warning, the body leapt up from the coffin, catching hold of Olrox's throat and toppling him down into the box with it before Olrox even had time to jump back in fright. The lid slammed shut, and Olrox groaned at the overwhelming darkness and closeness of the coffin. The dead hand squeezed the air out of him.
Terror flooded him, and, with a belated scream, Olrox fought his dead doppelganger, thrashing wildly and rending the hand with his nails. In desperate fury, he bit the arm, only to retch when a lump of muscle came off easily in his mouth, a putrid, soft mush. He pulled at the rotting hand with his own, tearing it off of his neck digit by digit, finally twisting it off at the wrist.
The corpse moved no more, showed no sign of ever having moved. Olrox beat it with his fists and tried to crush it with his body, screaming like a stricken animal, the small coffin driving him to the brink of his reason. Above, the sound of dirt hitting the coffin continued, and with it, the words of Father Lucien.
"Now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen." And the mourners answered, "Amen."
Congealed blood make the corpse and coffin slick, and a foul-smelling, oily liquid bubbled and spurted up from the crushed chest, soaking Olrox's hands and sleeves up to his elbows. Eventually, Olrox's savage fear ran its course and ebbed away, leaving Olrox shaken and exhausted. The head and torso of the corpse-Olrox had been beaten into unrecognizable pulp, the limbs torn from the body and shredded like paper. Olrox spread his hands to find purchase on the slippery wood, unable to ignore the squelching noise and the feel of the greasy rot beneath him. The air was bad with the scent of it, and Olrox slammed against the coffin lid to open it. It wouldn't budge. Olrox realized, with a sharp, disbelieving cry that it had been locked and nailed shut again! Flipping over onto his back on the torn carcass, Olrox kicked and hit the lid, yelling and crying at the top of his lungs. "Open it! Let me out; I'm alive! Please let me out! Oh, God in Heaven, let me out!" Insects had gotten into his clothes, and worms and maggots as well. He could feel them moving, icy cold, against his skin, gnawing at him with unseen teeth. "I'm not dead! Please..." He collapsed into sobs and agonized wails as the sound of the shovel and the dirt continued in their damning rhythm.
Then, it was as if an invisible noose tightened around him. Olrox's limbs were held immobile, his lungs refused to draw air, and he was left gasping silently in that dark, little coffin amongst his own shattered, putrefying remains. Muffled by earth, the priest closed the burial service, and the soft hymns were heard receding, the people leaving, his family leaving him alone with none but the sound of the gravedigger's shovel, and even that faded as the soil piled around the casket, an unbearable weight. The steadiness of the sound: scoop, fall, scoop, fall, was mocking him, and teasing him into trying to free himself. He could now only scrabble weakly at the lid.
Father Lucien could barely be heard through the ground. "O Virgin alone Pure and Undefiled, who without seed didst bring forth God, pray thou unto him that his soul may be saved."
It was over. All were leaving him! Suffocating, feeling his strength flowing away from him, Olrox took one last great breath of the noxious air and shrieked, "FATHER!" And he knew not whether he called for the priest, or Elie, or yet someone else...
Olrox's eyes snapped open to total darkness. With a hoarse scream, he rammed upwards with the heels of his hands, and the scratched lid of the coffin fairly exploded upward, hitting the ceiling before it clattered back down. Olrox was already long out of that frightful box, staring at it with wide, horrified eyes, wondering if it would yet come at him to devour him. His heart beat so fast that he was certain it would burst, and his breath came in quick, shallow pants. 'Let me out. I must get out!'
Vlad felt himself pulled from his death-like slumber. Annoyed at being awoken in the height of the day, he fixed a cold glare on the man holding his coffin lid open and staring down at him dumbly.
"What do you want, Shaft?" he snapped.
The old sorcerer shivered a bit, averting his gaze from Dracula's. "I was bade tell you that your new vampire has...has run away, Master..."
Vlad sat up with a sigh and gracefully sprang from his coffin to land noiselessly on the stones. He straightened his clothing and said, deadpan, "Run away where?"
Shaft swallowed and his mind whirled to form a pleasing answer. He had seen what happened when the brutal vampire decided to take out his anger on others. "We...I was only told of it, Sire. The sentry at his door thinks that he climbed down the wall, for he saw no one pass through the doors..." He would have said more, but Vlad was already walking away, headed for Olrox's chambers himself.
Olrox wasn't sure how long he had been running, only that he was running obscenely quickly. He hardly felt his feet touch the ground as trees whipped past him in a blur; it was like flying. And he wasn't even tiring! He laughed softly. There was snow on the ground, but he didn't feel the cold. In panic to escape the castle, he had had such impatience that he had put on nothing but a pair of breeches. 'Better that then run through the forest naked as a barbarian would, though the cold does not bother me.' He grinned and pushed himself to run faster, springing over obstacles before he knew they were there. He was heading west, he knew exactly where he was going.
"This was how I found the room, Master," explained the Valhalla knight that had been stationed outside the door of Olrox's bedchambers. "It was a little after noon, I think. I heard a blood-curdling scream, such as I haven't heard a man make in many decades. I haven't blood to curdle, so I came running in, and he was already gone, Sire."
For the most part, Vlad ignored him, kneeling down to study the deep gouges that had been clawed into the lid of the coffin, which had been ripped from its hinges. All the months that Vlad had watched the Trandafirs, he had noticed many things, one of which being that Olrox was claustrophobic. Even narrow hallways made the young man uneasy. Vlad had assumed that the vampirism would have taken care of the problem; apparently, it hadn't. He himself felt on edge sleeping outside a coffin, and had surmised that all vampires needed the sense of security that a casket provided. 'I thought wrong.'
Sighing, Vlad turned to the guard. "Did anything noteworthy happen today, besides this?"
The skeletal knight nodded. "Yes, actually. Two of the servants found him sleeping outside on the balcony. They thought he'd be sunburned, so they carried him inside, and seeing as they'd just brought a coffin in for him anyway..." he trailed off with a slight gesture of his hand. "We've already sent out search parties for him, of course, Sire."
Vlad waved dismissively. "Call them back. They'll be at it all year; I'll find him myself."
"Are you sure, Ma-"
"Do I sound UNSURE?!" Vlad's voice filled the room; golden eyes flashed dangerously. The guard timidly shook his head; No, he didn't sound unsure at all, not in the least.
Vlad strode out onto the balcony, shielding his sensitive eyes from the sun with his hand until they adjusted to the harsh light. It was too high, and the drop too sheer to attempt going down the wall. A fall, while it couldn't kill a vampire, would be excruciating, and Vlad would likely break every bone in his body, and he couldn't very well track like that...However...Olrox had, allegedly, done it. During the day, a vampires powers go into dormancy, leaving him or her as strong as a slightly under-the-weather human. 'How did he descend a wall so high, then?' It could be that as an untried newborn, Olrox hadn't quite settled into his natural cycles yet. Accepting that as as good a theory as any, Vlad decided not to risk debilitating himself; he knew every corridor and chamber of his castle, and could be outside in minutes.
Finally spent, Olrox leaned against a building, staying well out of sight of the villagers. Olrox had seen this town on a map before, and guessed he was about halfway home. He was elated. He couldn't have made better time on horseback! Well, not without killing the horse, leastways. Giving himself around an hour to rest, he could easily reach his destination before morning. Glancing down the alley in which he stood, Olrox watched the warm sun slip down below the horizon, staining the entire village in reds and purples. Yes, when he reached home...surely there had to be some cure for this...vampirism of his, and then he could get on with his life. 'And all of this will be as a bad dream. Perhaps I shall even look back and laugh upon it.'
He was nearly ready to start moving again, when he noticed a familiar nagging sting in his heart, swimming out into his veins. He decided to ignore it. 'After all, with any luck, I'll be over this within a few days, and I'll never have to drink blood again.' He started off down the back streets toward the edge of the town at an easy lope.
'Finally.' This day had seemed to take forever. Vlad had tried to sleep until sunset, but was too nervous even to lie still. Feeling a resurgence of energy in himself with the departure of the sun, Vlad closed his eyes, thought of running, following a trail. Bones and sinews shifted, shortened, stretched, and the enormous black wolf opened its gold eyes, taking in the busy sounds and scents of the night.
Trotting to and fro near the castle walls, Vlad stumbled upon a faint scent in the loam and dirt. 'It's him...' The lupine worked his way toward the tree line, losing the trail now, picking it up again; it wavered, he picked it up once more. When he felt he had the strongest part of the scent, and had followed it forward through the trees for a good half-mile, Vlad raised a low, long howl. He waited as it carried on out over the trees. Shortly, a higher howl answered. Then another. Then three more. In minutes, a dozen voices rose over the forest in and eerie choir, no two wolves on the same pitch. Giving a shorter bark, Vlad moved on again at a quick trot through the underbrush, listening as his pack moved in at either side, always remaining a respectful distance from him, their alpha.
Padding along silently, at an easy pace, Vlad knew that they could keep following him all night, if need be. 'And no doubt Olrox will get into some trouble, and I alone will not be able to defend him. He thinks his humans will welcome him back with open arms; he will have made a grave mistake...'
Setting all troubling thoughts aside, Vlad devoted his entire attention to the track before him, with his pack sweeping along behind him in grim determination.
interj-goodbye
unchi-uncle
'Rox-'Rox duh. Short for Olrox.
-claustrophobia (klaws-tra-`fO-bi-a) n. (Med.): abnormal or morbid dread of being in closed or narrow spaces [L. "claustrum," bolt, Gk. "phobia," fear]
"May all those things which have proceeded from the weakness of his mortal nature be consigned to oblivion, and be remitted unto him: Through His lovingkindness; through the prayers of our most holy, and blessed, and glorious Lady, the Mother of our Lord and ever-virgin Mary; of the holy, glorious and all-laudable Apostles, and of all Saints. Amen."
Olrox jolted awake at the sound of Father Lucian's voice. How had he managed to fall asleep at a funeral? And for so long? He stood hastily to follow his family out of the church as they led the funeral procession, Elie, Mihai, and Alex themselves helping to bear the coffin. 'I've slept through the entire service; how embarrassing...'
As the procession wound its way into the graveyard, Olrox tried to remember whom it was they were burying. He could think of no one. The deceased must have been someone of importance, though; most of the village along with the entire Trandafir household had come to pay their respects. 'But, respects to whom?' Slyly, Olrox attempted to get the name somehow from one of the mourners. "Surely, this man will be greatly missed." The woman next to him said nothing, not even glancing at him from behind her veil. Taking a closer look, Olrox recognized the woman as his sister, Tatiana. 'Never has she been so cold to me...' Hurt, but assuming that she was annoyed with him for sleeping through the funeral, Olrox made the rest of the brief journey in silence.
The men carrying the coffin set it down gently in the grass beside the open grave, then dispersed to stand with their families. Olrox went to stand with his parents and brothers, deciding to give Tatiana a wide berth lest she become angrier with him. He looked at Mihai beside him, and at Mihai's wife and little Jenica, both veiled and somber.
'I cannot mourn a stranger...' Whispering discreetly, Olrox felt his face flush as he said, "Mihai, who are we burying?" Mihai didn't answer Olrox or even stir, as though he hadn't heard him. Olrox looked at the ground. 'Doubtless he is annoyed with me as well.' A sudden thought came into his head. Olrox thought it ridiculous as soon as the idea formed, but found that he was going through with it despite himself. 'If no one will tell me, I will find out for myself...' As the rest of the mourners gathered around the grave's gaping maw, Olrox skirted around the crowd, walked up to the head of the grave-close enough to the priest to touch his robes-and knelt down to read the headstone.
'4 February, 1767-15 July, 1787
Aged 20 yrs., 5 mo., and 15 days
Olrox Wythe Trandafir'
'Whoever made the headstone made a mistake. I wonder why no one caught it...' Olrox had been frightened momentarily, but, he reasoned, 'I'm right here. And that poor soul is going to be buried with the wrong name on his headstone.'
Walking back to his family, Olrox whispered in his father's ear, "They've got the wrong headstone there." He tried a smile. "Everyone's going to think I've passed away." Elie gave no response; he simply looked at the group of men lowering the coffin into the grave. "Father," Olrox repeated, "that man can't be buried under my own name; stop them. They can finish the burial when there's a new stone." Elie said nothing, didn't even look at Olrox. Olrox was becoming impatient. Striding back up to the edge of the grave, he said to the priest, "Father, that headstone bears my name." The priest opened his small book and began reading.
"Open, O earth, and receive that, which was made from thee." Murmured 'amens' came from the crowd behind Olrox. Whirling to face the people, Olrox surprised himself by shouting. "Silence! They're not burying me!" Suddenly, somehow, there was an urgency to this whole doleful mistake. "I'm not dead," he said primly. "Everyone go home; Father, stop the interment."
Father Lucian's voice droned on like a dirge. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof: the round world, and they that dwell therein." He sprinkled oil on into the grave, and ashes from the cencer. "Stop!" Olrox growled, turning the priest so that the man faced him. "Stop at once, and send these vultures home."
"With the souls of the righteous dead, give rest, O Saviour, to the soul of thy servant, preserving it unto the life of blessedness which is with thee, O thou who lovest mankind."
Olrox pressed his hands to his ears in frustration. "Damn you!" He took hold of the priest's shoulders and started shaking him. "Damn you, be quiet! Stop it, stop it, STOP IT! For the love of God, stop!"
Father Lucian only kept reading, in his monotonous voice, as though he were standing perfectly still. "In the place of thy rest, O Lord, where all thy Saints repose, give rest, also, to the soul of thy servant: For thou only lovest mankind."
Disgusted, Olrox threw the aging man backward to the ground. The priest landed flat on his back, and, without even a pause, continued from his new position in the grass. Two men with shovels began filling the grave. "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit."
Olrox gave up on the priest and ran to one of the men, grabbing hold of the shovel, trying to wrench it from the man's hands. The man took no notice of Olrox, scooping dirt and throwing in onto the coffin. Releasing him, Olrox ran frantically back and forth alongside the grave, looking into it, not knowing what to do. A knot of panic twisted his stomach. He saw his little niece, Jenica, shyly come to the edge of the grave. She tossed a small pink rose onto the coffin with her chubby little fingers, blowing it a kiss. Then she said, in her clumsy child voice, "Interj, Unchi 'Rox."
"Jenica, don't; it's not me!" Olrox cried desperately. The toddler turned on her heel, weaving through the sea of adults back to her mother, without so much as a look back.
"Are you all mad? You all must be mad!" he yelled, waving his arms like a raving lunatic. "I'm alive! That's not me!" Once again, he tried to wrest the shovel away from the gravedigger. The man kept at his task, and Olrox was thrown off his balance by the motion of the shovel, landing hard in the grave. The edge of the coffin struck him painfully in the back. A shovel-full of dirt came down in his face. In a rage, he dashed it from his eyes, standing and shouting up at the crowd, that was singing soft hymns, "Curse you all! I'll show you if you don't believe me! I'm right here!" He threw dirt off of the coffin lid with his hands, pulling at the latches until they relented. "And this...damnable box...is...empty!" With a grunt of exertion, Olrox ripped the lid open, the nails popping out of the wood with sharp snaps. Olrox looked.
Olrox screamed. The coffin was tenanted. Olrox's own corpse stared up at him with glassy eyes, gray skin already in decay. "No..." Olrox whispered, confused tears starting in his eyes.
Without warning, the body leapt up from the coffin, catching hold of Olrox's throat and toppling him down into the box with it before Olrox even had time to jump back in fright. The lid slammed shut, and Olrox groaned at the overwhelming darkness and closeness of the coffin. The dead hand squeezed the air out of him.
Terror flooded him, and, with a belated scream, Olrox fought his dead doppelganger, thrashing wildly and rending the hand with his nails. In desperate fury, he bit the arm, only to retch when a lump of muscle came off easily in his mouth, a putrid, soft mush. He pulled at the rotting hand with his own, tearing it off of his neck digit by digit, finally twisting it off at the wrist.
The corpse moved no more, showed no sign of ever having moved. Olrox beat it with his fists and tried to crush it with his body, screaming like a stricken animal, the small coffin driving him to the brink of his reason. Above, the sound of dirt hitting the coffin continued, and with it, the words of Father Lucien.
"Now, and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen." And the mourners answered, "Amen."
Congealed blood make the corpse and coffin slick, and a foul-smelling, oily liquid bubbled and spurted up from the crushed chest, soaking Olrox's hands and sleeves up to his elbows. Eventually, Olrox's savage fear ran its course and ebbed away, leaving Olrox shaken and exhausted. The head and torso of the corpse-Olrox had been beaten into unrecognizable pulp, the limbs torn from the body and shredded like paper. Olrox spread his hands to find purchase on the slippery wood, unable to ignore the squelching noise and the feel of the greasy rot beneath him. The air was bad with the scent of it, and Olrox slammed against the coffin lid to open it. It wouldn't budge. Olrox realized, with a sharp, disbelieving cry that it had been locked and nailed shut again! Flipping over onto his back on the torn carcass, Olrox kicked and hit the lid, yelling and crying at the top of his lungs. "Open it! Let me out; I'm alive! Please let me out! Oh, God in Heaven, let me out!" Insects had gotten into his clothes, and worms and maggots as well. He could feel them moving, icy cold, against his skin, gnawing at him with unseen teeth. "I'm not dead! Please..." He collapsed into sobs and agonized wails as the sound of the shovel and the dirt continued in their damning rhythm.
Then, it was as if an invisible noose tightened around him. Olrox's limbs were held immobile, his lungs refused to draw air, and he was left gasping silently in that dark, little coffin amongst his own shattered, putrefying remains. Muffled by earth, the priest closed the burial service, and the soft hymns were heard receding, the people leaving, his family leaving him alone with none but the sound of the gravedigger's shovel, and even that faded as the soil piled around the casket, an unbearable weight. The steadiness of the sound: scoop, fall, scoop, fall, was mocking him, and teasing him into trying to free himself. He could now only scrabble weakly at the lid.
Father Lucien could barely be heard through the ground. "O Virgin alone Pure and Undefiled, who without seed didst bring forth God, pray thou unto him that his soul may be saved."
It was over. All were leaving him! Suffocating, feeling his strength flowing away from him, Olrox took one last great breath of the noxious air and shrieked, "FATHER!" And he knew not whether he called for the priest, or Elie, or yet someone else...
Olrox's eyes snapped open to total darkness. With a hoarse scream, he rammed upwards with the heels of his hands, and the scratched lid of the coffin fairly exploded upward, hitting the ceiling before it clattered back down. Olrox was already long out of that frightful box, staring at it with wide, horrified eyes, wondering if it would yet come at him to devour him. His heart beat so fast that he was certain it would burst, and his breath came in quick, shallow pants. 'Let me out. I must get out!'
Vlad felt himself pulled from his death-like slumber. Annoyed at being awoken in the height of the day, he fixed a cold glare on the man holding his coffin lid open and staring down at him dumbly.
"What do you want, Shaft?" he snapped.
The old sorcerer shivered a bit, averting his gaze from Dracula's. "I was bade tell you that your new vampire has...has run away, Master..."
Vlad sat up with a sigh and gracefully sprang from his coffin to land noiselessly on the stones. He straightened his clothing and said, deadpan, "Run away where?"
Shaft swallowed and his mind whirled to form a pleasing answer. He had seen what happened when the brutal vampire decided to take out his anger on others. "We...I was only told of it, Sire. The sentry at his door thinks that he climbed down the wall, for he saw no one pass through the doors..." He would have said more, but Vlad was already walking away, headed for Olrox's chambers himself.
Olrox wasn't sure how long he had been running, only that he was running obscenely quickly. He hardly felt his feet touch the ground as trees whipped past him in a blur; it was like flying. And he wasn't even tiring! He laughed softly. There was snow on the ground, but he didn't feel the cold. In panic to escape the castle, he had had such impatience that he had put on nothing but a pair of breeches. 'Better that then run through the forest naked as a barbarian would, though the cold does not bother me.' He grinned and pushed himself to run faster, springing over obstacles before he knew they were there. He was heading west, he knew exactly where he was going.
"This was how I found the room, Master," explained the Valhalla knight that had been stationed outside the door of Olrox's bedchambers. "It was a little after noon, I think. I heard a blood-curdling scream, such as I haven't heard a man make in many decades. I haven't blood to curdle, so I came running in, and he was already gone, Sire."
For the most part, Vlad ignored him, kneeling down to study the deep gouges that had been clawed into the lid of the coffin, which had been ripped from its hinges. All the months that Vlad had watched the Trandafirs, he had noticed many things, one of which being that Olrox was claustrophobic. Even narrow hallways made the young man uneasy. Vlad had assumed that the vampirism would have taken care of the problem; apparently, it hadn't. He himself felt on edge sleeping outside a coffin, and had surmised that all vampires needed the sense of security that a casket provided. 'I thought wrong.'
Sighing, Vlad turned to the guard. "Did anything noteworthy happen today, besides this?"
The skeletal knight nodded. "Yes, actually. Two of the servants found him sleeping outside on the balcony. They thought he'd be sunburned, so they carried him inside, and seeing as they'd just brought a coffin in for him anyway..." he trailed off with a slight gesture of his hand. "We've already sent out search parties for him, of course, Sire."
Vlad waved dismissively. "Call them back. They'll be at it all year; I'll find him myself."
"Are you sure, Ma-"
"Do I sound UNSURE?!" Vlad's voice filled the room; golden eyes flashed dangerously. The guard timidly shook his head; No, he didn't sound unsure at all, not in the least.
Vlad strode out onto the balcony, shielding his sensitive eyes from the sun with his hand until they adjusted to the harsh light. It was too high, and the drop too sheer to attempt going down the wall. A fall, while it couldn't kill a vampire, would be excruciating, and Vlad would likely break every bone in his body, and he couldn't very well track like that...However...Olrox had, allegedly, done it. During the day, a vampires powers go into dormancy, leaving him or her as strong as a slightly under-the-weather human. 'How did he descend a wall so high, then?' It could be that as an untried newborn, Olrox hadn't quite settled into his natural cycles yet. Accepting that as as good a theory as any, Vlad decided not to risk debilitating himself; he knew every corridor and chamber of his castle, and could be outside in minutes.
Finally spent, Olrox leaned against a building, staying well out of sight of the villagers. Olrox had seen this town on a map before, and guessed he was about halfway home. He was elated. He couldn't have made better time on horseback! Well, not without killing the horse, leastways. Giving himself around an hour to rest, he could easily reach his destination before morning. Glancing down the alley in which he stood, Olrox watched the warm sun slip down below the horizon, staining the entire village in reds and purples. Yes, when he reached home...surely there had to be some cure for this...vampirism of his, and then he could get on with his life. 'And all of this will be as a bad dream. Perhaps I shall even look back and laugh upon it.'
He was nearly ready to start moving again, when he noticed a familiar nagging sting in his heart, swimming out into his veins. He decided to ignore it. 'After all, with any luck, I'll be over this within a few days, and I'll never have to drink blood again.' He started off down the back streets toward the edge of the town at an easy lope.
'Finally.' This day had seemed to take forever. Vlad had tried to sleep until sunset, but was too nervous even to lie still. Feeling a resurgence of energy in himself with the departure of the sun, Vlad closed his eyes, thought of running, following a trail. Bones and sinews shifted, shortened, stretched, and the enormous black wolf opened its gold eyes, taking in the busy sounds and scents of the night.
Trotting to and fro near the castle walls, Vlad stumbled upon a faint scent in the loam and dirt. 'It's him...' The lupine worked his way toward the tree line, losing the trail now, picking it up again; it wavered, he picked it up once more. When he felt he had the strongest part of the scent, and had followed it forward through the trees for a good half-mile, Vlad raised a low, long howl. He waited as it carried on out over the trees. Shortly, a higher howl answered. Then another. Then three more. In minutes, a dozen voices rose over the forest in and eerie choir, no two wolves on the same pitch. Giving a shorter bark, Vlad moved on again at a quick trot through the underbrush, listening as his pack moved in at either side, always remaining a respectful distance from him, their alpha.
Padding along silently, at an easy pace, Vlad knew that they could keep following him all night, if need be. 'And no doubt Olrox will get into some trouble, and I alone will not be able to defend him. He thinks his humans will welcome him back with open arms; he will have made a grave mistake...'
Setting all troubling thoughts aside, Vlad devoted his entire attention to the track before him, with his pack sweeping along behind him in grim determination.
interj-goodbye
unchi-uncle
'Rox-'Rox duh. Short for Olrox.