Chapter 15: The tide will turn
D stared at him. "How do you know who I am, anyway?" he asked gruffly.
The vampire blinked. "Forgive my rudeness," he said. "We've never formally met. I'm Aldrich Raban. Shall we shake hands, or is that thing contagious?" he glanced disdainfully at D's left hand.
"Contagious?" the voice from the hand huffed, outraged. "If anything ever possesses any part of your body, I'll make sure it latches on somewhere a lot more inconvenient than your hand!"
Raban ignored the threat. "I'm quite sensitive to demons, you see," Raban said as D self-consciously covered his left hand with his right. "But my brother, with his wolves and bats and dark magic, has far more useful talents than I." He smiled as D slowly figured it out.
"We have much to discuss," Raban said. "Though at the moment I am more ravenous than usual. It's time to quench my appetite a bit." He snapped his fingers and D jumped as three naked demonesses appeared.
"Master!" they said in unison. "It's been ages since you've summoned us. Are you hurt? Are you tired? How may we please you?"
"To start, you could wear some clothing in front of our guest," Raban said dryly.
"Guest!" they cried excitedly, spinning around to face D. "How may we please our guest?"
"You'll leave him alone, you tiresome whores," Raban muttered. The demonesses pouted at Raban.
"You used to love us, Master. Why have we lost your favor?"
"That was centuries ago," Raban groaned. "Now behave yourselves or I'll throw you out for good." He pointed to D. "This is a dhampir. He requires human food, and I will have my usual meal," Raban said. "One of you set the table in the great hall. We'll be there directly."
The three of them disappeared again. Raban sighed. "I only keep them here so they won't cause trouble out in the world," he grumbled in explanation. "Now, come with me. I'll show you my cathedral."
Raban gave D a brief tour of his impressive home. "I first learned of Christ from some Romans, of course," Raban told D conversationally. "I was fascinated right away, and resolved to discover why any simple cross held such power over me. I became obsessed, and searched for centuries for a location to build my own house of worship for the Lord, so I could study the phenomenon up close. I came to this place a thousand years ago and built my castle. And then in the thirteenth century, I built this little cathedral above it." Raban smiled. He had led D to a small wooden door that barely came to D's waist. Raban opened the door and motioned with his hand. "After you," he said. D stooped and went through the door.
On the other side of the small door was a vast stone staircase leading down into the earth. Raban shut the door behind himself and snapped his fingers once again. Torches flared to life, illuminating the staircase. Each torch was held by a lifelike statue of a medieval lord or lady. There must have been fifty on either side.
Silently Raban led the way down the grand staircase, and into the cavernous hall at the bottom. D guessed they were probably close to 200 feet underground.
The walls of the great hall were huge stone murals, sculpted out of the living stone. An inferno blazed in the rear of the cavernous hall, in a fireplace which was at least twelve feet high and carved to look like a gaping, fang-filled mouth. Nostrils and slanted eyes were carved into the rock above it, so that the red glow from the chimney shone out into the room. As a result, it looked like a monstrous dragon was crouched in the room, ready to pounce. Raban sat down wearily at the head of the great table in his grand dining hall. D noticed that the table, which could have easily accommodated three dozen people, had been set for two. "Please sit," Raban instructed. D was still carrying the sword Raban had given him. He placed the weapon on the table and took his seat. "I once had splendid parties in this room," the vampire said, sipping a glass of water. "With fresh young girls from surrounding villages for dessert. We'd auction them off to each other in a sort of after-dinner game. We nearly drank ourselves to death, and we relished it. Like alcoholics afloat in an ocean of their favorite liquor. I serve a meaner fare now."
As if that was their cue, half a dozen giggling demonesses appeared bearing two steaming trays. Three of them wore cooking aprons; the other three wore chef hats. That constituted the only clothing to be seen. D averted his eyes, and Raban groaned and massaged his forehead as if he had an excruciating headache. "WHY don't you girls ever dress yourselves properly?" he moaned.
"It's more fun this way," one of them exclaimed, appearing behind D and scraping one of her fingernails lightly along the edge of his ear. D stood up abruptly and with the back of his hand he knocked the creature halfway across the room. The others laughed excitedly. "ooo, he's a violent one!"
"Enough!" Raban said. "I told you to leave him alone. He wants nothing to do with you. No one wants anything to do with you anymore! Put down the food and get out. And if you want to keep disobeying orders, I swear I will banish you all!"
The maidservants placed the trays on the table and vanished through the walls, mumbling their gripes and frustrations. "Damn you, D," D's left hand grumbled. "I've noticed a disturbing trend with you these past few years…you always make a fist when naked women are running about. It's deprivation, I tell you. Cruel deprivation! I never get more than a glimpse of anything."
"Your little friend there seems to have quite a dirty mind," the vampire remarked, raising his glass in a mock toast. "It occurs to my own dirty mind that I might have had some crazy fun with such a demon back in my younger days."
"Whoa," the hand said.
D's face twitched a bit in disgust.
"Anyway," Raban said, finishing his glass of water with only a slight cough. "Let's eat. You're probably hungry and I'm getting too hungry." He lifted the lid of the tray, which hissed slightly as his hand touched it.
"A silver tray?" D's hand asked. D picked up a fork. "And real silver silverware? This guy really loves hurting himself, doesn't he?" D lifted the lid of his own tray, and discovered a grand dinner of roast chicken, cooked vegetables, and fresh bread. Then he caught a whiff of what was being served on Aldrich's platter. "Garlic?" the hand asked incredulously, and burst into obnoxious laughter. "A vampire who eats garlic for dinner with a silver spoon? This is ludicrous! D, can this guy be for real? Roast garlic in garlic sauce with garlic bread? I'm going to throw up."
D held his hand out over the floor, away from his food, with an expression of suppressed horror on his face.
"I was kidding," the hand said.
"Interesting," Raban said. Then, bowing his head, he folded his hands and closed his eyes. "Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."
D stared at him, dumbfounded. The vampire opened his dark eyes and smiled ruefully.
"You haven't got a soul, so what's the point?" D's hand asked flatly. "You're not getting any holy points or anything."
Aldrich picked up a piece of bread that was completely coated in garlic powder. "Your knowledge of my species astounds me." He took a big bite, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed.
"What else do you do?" the hand teased. "Have you baptized yourself? Do you sing hymns? Do you take communion?"
"What do you think?" Raban asked with a smile.
"Not communion," D guessed quietly. The vampire nodded. It was as D suspected. How ironic that vampires were excluded from that mystical ritual… and yet there had to be a connection somewhere.
D stabbed at his own food. Vampire and dhampir ate for a while in silence.
"Raban," D said finally, unable to restrain his questions.
"Call me Aldrich. We're family, after all."
"Aldrich, then. Why do you torture yourself?"
"It's what I deserve," Aldrich explained. "You see, without a soul, I might not go to hell when I finally turn into a lovely little pile of ash. Perhaps I will simply cease to exist, and that would be far too kind a fate for a creature like me." D watched him take another bite of roast garlic, and suddenly lost his appetite.
"You're too old to be fully innocent of vampirism," Aldrich went on, "But you are still far too young to appreciate the sort of evil that I've brought upon this world. I've sucked blood from thousands of human throats. Name any despicable act, and I'm sure to have committed it at some point. As the sun punishes me, I trace in my mind all my horrible sins. My history of darkness, of lust and carnage, of hot, running blood. My history of causing pain to others, to humans and to half-breeds, to my own children. I've hurt them all, and felt nothing. I've killed them all, and lived on. But now, it is my turn to feel pain, and soon, to die."
"And you believe all vampires should kill themselves?" D asked.
"Don't you?" Aldrich countered, and then seemed momentarily mesmerized by his hand, which was sizzling angrily where the silver fork touched it. Aldrich sighed and put the fork down for a moment, shaking his burnt hand in the air. "Let's talk politics for a moment. The maniacs who control this country want to clear aside the 'inferior' races. It is their mission, their veritable obsession. They took Czechoslovakia, and now Poland- Russia's next. They'll enslave or exterminate all the Slavs. But why? Because they feel they are the master race. Their fanaticism will cause much destruction, much bloodshed. They might rise to the top for a while. But they will not be victorious in the end. That simply isn't how the world works. Undoubtedly you know that in the next thousand years or so, your father hopes to see vampires rise up in the world as the master race. It will work for a while. For a time, humans will live in fear and the world will be as it was in ancient days. But it won't last forever. The tide will turn, and vampires will be exterminated. For we are inherently flawed, and quite inferior to humans, despite the assurances of our own conceit. We shouldn't exist."
Aldrich studied D for half a moment, recognizing the conflict in the dhampir's heart.
"Let me ask you a question," Aldrich said, picking up his fork again. "It seems you agree with me about vampires. But what about you. Why don't you kill yourself? Do you have any purpose for existing?"
"For several years I did," D said softly. "But they grew up. And I… became unable to protect them."
Aldrich nodded. "But you didn't seek death."
"I sought answers."
"But now you know there are none."
D felt protest rising in his chest. It was true he was of no use to the world. His life was only a war against himself… a pointless war, with only suffering in store for him. It seemed logical to end it, and yet…
"There is a desire for life within you," Aldrich said coolly. "You can't help it- it's your humanity. I've seen it in many of my dhampir children- the love of being alive that no pureblood will ever know. Still, without a purpose… what a futile existence."
D considered all of that as the vampire finished his disgusting meal.
When his tray was bare, Aldrich downed another glass of water and leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "We give thee thanks for all thy benefits, O Almighty God, who liveth and reigneth the world without end," he mumbled deliriously. "May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen… this is wonderful. I feel quite ill. Very near to death, I think. And I'm not hungry at all."
"Tell me about my father," D asked.
"He is far older than me. He was the first vampire. I was the second. I have no idea where either of us came from, so don't ask. All I know is that we were never human. In the early days we hunted together. I was the one who really liked humans. Your father only saw them as food. But I would play with my food, so to speak. As a result I had many dhampir children. But I killed them all before they were old enough to understand what they were. You are your father's first and only dhampir child. And he never considered killing you." Aldrich smirked. "A funny thing, Love."
D was silent.
"It was love that finally changed me," Aldrich went on, smiling despite the sadness in his eyes. "I'm sure I'll bore you with the story some other time. But right now, to business. Obviously you haven't joined your father's cause, so why not join mine?"
D met his uncle's cold gaze. "You could help me exterminate vampires," Aldrich said, sounding amused. "I sense power in you. But better still, I sense your reluctance to use it. I am evil and can do little that is truly good. But you… you are different. You could be a hero."
"I've already been a soldier," D muttered, closing his eyes. "I didn't like it." Aldrich chuckled quietly. "I know one thing you've never been," he said. "Something I could teach you to be… something you were born to be."
"A killer?" D guessed, not liking the sound of it much.
"Oh, I think you can be more …sophisticated than that," the old vampire said.
"What, then?" D asked.
Aldrich smiled, his cold eyes gleaming. "A hunter."
A/N: And there you have it… seventy pages into the story we finally find out that D's going to become a vampire hunter. He's growing up so fast!