Chapter 16: Winging it

Poland, 1940

It must have been several hours past midnight. The chilly February wind drove ghostly flurries of snow between shivering trees. D had been riding for hours, ever since afternoon. An hour or two after sunset the enormous raven had caught up with him, and had leisurely hovered above him ever since, coasting easily through the gusting winds. D's horse sighed, its breath hanging as twin clouds of steam in the night air. D patted the animal's neck reassuringly.

Suddenly the wet, frigid wind brought the smell of blood to D's attention. He sat up a little straighter. The sword strapped across his back clinked dully against the saddle as if to remind D of its presence. He felt a rush of smooth air wash over him and looked up in time to see the huge bird descending towards him. The horse's ears turned back nervously at the sound of the wind, but it trusted D and didn't try to bolt, even as the huge bird came within ten feet of its head as it swooped low to the road.

The raven's twelve-foot wingspan barely cleared the trees on either side of the road, and D squinted in curiosity as it began to change its shape. The claws of the bird uncurled and stretched, and it was a pair of tall black boots that stepped gracefully down to earth 20 yards ahead of D. The great wings seemed to melt out of the sky like large splashes of black paint running down a canvas, and then suddenly the bird was gone, replaced by the tall shadow of D's uncle. The horse snorted, its instincts warning it to stay clear of the dark menace in its path.

Like D, the vampire had a sword slung across his back. Looking over his shoulder at D, his expression was extremely calm, almost serene. He beckoned for D to follow him as he walked down the road. D nudged his horse forward. Soon the smell of blood reached the animal, which began to toss its head in fearful frustration. Equally bothered by the thickening smell, D dismounted and led the horse on foot.

The dirt road broadened and a group of houses became visible through the trees. There were fewer than ten buildings in the little village. Aldrich paused in front of the first little home, and then stretched his right hand towards it. He barely flexed his fingers, and the door and all the windows shattered inward with a sound as sharp as the crack of a gunshot.

"Go take a look," Aldrich said softly, his hand falling to his side. Wordlessly D passed the reins to his uncle and headed for the door. The horse whinnied nervously, watching D leave. Aldrich frowned and pressed his thumb to the animal's forehead, freezing it in place in the middle of the road. The wind blew its mane and tail but it was rooted in place like a statue. Aldrich dropped the reins and crossed his arms across his chest. The young dhampir had been under Aldrich's instruction for half a year now, and it was time to discover his capabilities.

D stepped through the scattered splinters that had recently been a door. There was one body in the room, that of a middle-aged man. D narrowed his eyes. Both the man's arms had been torn off at the elbows, and both of his legs had been ripped off at the knees. D had seen this sort of carnage plenty of times before, at Ypres and Verdun, yet somehow in the kitchen of a tiny country home it seemed even more horrible. The floor around the body was covered in blood, and someone –something- had obviously used the severed limbs as paintbrushes, using them to rub blood all over the walls of the room. It was pitch black, but D had no trouble reading the racial slurs in the bloody graffiti. Silently he moved to the next room, the children's bedroom, where the small bodies of a boy and girl were splayed across their half-sized beds, the patchwork quilts and rumpled sheets saturated with their cold, sweet-smelling blood. D clenched his teeth, noticing the ragged holes through the children's slender wrists. D knew instinctively that most of their innocent blood was either on the floor or soaked into their beds. They had been tasted, and left to bleed to death.

"Did you know about this?" D growled at his uncle, appearing at the doorway of the house.

"It happened last night and I heard about it this morning," Aldrich replied quietly. "Look in the next house."

D strode angrily to the next building. This one's door had already been smashed, apparently with an axe. Inside he found the bodies of two grown men in pieces on the floor. On the kitchen table was a third body, that of a boy around twelve years old. His shirt clung to his chest in bloody tatters, his neck and shoulders covered in telltale puncture wounds. Most of his blood had been taken.

In the third house were the bodies of an old man and three children. D felt a light tap on the brim of his hat and looked up. The ceiling had been virtually painted with blood. D charged back out into the street.

"Where are they?" D asked his uncle, his voice like steel.

"I want you to see every last human body first," Aldrich replied evenly. "I want you to see every detail, smell every drop of stale blood. Imagine each kill in your mind."

"Why?" D demanded. "It won't help them."

"No," Aldrich said calmly. "But it will help you."

D tore through the other houses. There was carnage in practically every room. Soon there was only one building left to investigate, the village chapel. It stood separated from the houses by about a hundred yards, but D picked up the smell of blood seeping from its wooden walls, and simultaneously he detected the presence of the vampires within the building. Without a second thought he drew his sword.

"Not exactly subtle, is he?" Aldrich commented to the frozen horse as D kicked open the chapel door.

Aldrich entered the chapel respectfully, gracefully stepping around the bodies that littered the floor. As he'd expected, all the women from the small Polish village had been gathered here and slaughtered separately. Several pews had been overturned, the piano cleaved in two, and the one stained-glass window, probably the village treasure, had been smashed. A cold wind blew past the jagged shards protruding from the window frame, causing torn pages from hymnals and the holy scripture to flutter across the floor.

The old vampire found his nephew sitting on the floor behind one of the overturned pews, splattered with blood and impaled on his own sword.

"So," Aldrich said, coming to stand in front of the beaten dhampir. "How did it go?"

D didn't reply. Aldrich reached out and grasped the hilt of D's sword.

"Brace yourself," the old vampire said, and pulled the sword free. D groaned, covering the gurgling hole in his chest with his hand. "I warned you about this," Aldrich admonished, studying the thin blade. "This isn't regular steel, part of it's pure silver. Even you won't heal while the silver's still in contact with the wound."

Shakily D pulled himself to his feet. "They got away," he grunted.

"Yes, all the way to the spot I was standing, waiting for them. Good job flushing them out."

"But I was trying to kill them," D muttered.

"That was ambitious of you."

"I failed."

Aldrich smiled. "This time, yes."

D glanced at the bodies all around them on the floor. "These people…"

"Burning's the easiest way," Aldrich said conversationally.

Together they torched the whole village. For about an hour they watched the flames, to be sure the snowy weather wouldn't put them out. In 1940, no one would notice the burning of yet another small Polish village.

Aldrich gave an evaluative glance at the eastern sky.

"I've rescheduled my suicide in order to instruct you," Aldrich said abruptly, "So that means it's time for me to go home."

"What did you do to my horse?" D asked gruffly.

Aldrich smiled thinly. "Must I explain everything? Figure it out and undo it!" In a rush of black wings, he was gone.

"Tracking, trapping, and destroying. These are the basics of hunting. Vampires like the ones from last night aren't even worth mentioning. You need to learn how to defeat real aristocrats." Aldrich held his sword in one hand, keeping it level with D's chest. The two had been sparring for hours already, and Aldrich was giving D a chance to catch his breath. "Remember that we all have certain talents… some control rats or other animals, some can create illusions, some can walk up walls and across the ceiling. Some of us can fly, or turn into creatures that fly. And there are endless variations of dark magic- mind control, the ability to disappear or become incorporeal. But we all die from the same causes."

"Decapitation, impaled through the heart, fire," D panted.

"You must have studied up," Aldrich said with amiable sarcasm. "Holy water will kill us too, if you have enough of it. The difficulty lies in anticipating and defeating each vampire's unique talents, and figuring out how to use your own talents against them. Obviously, sunlight will be one of your most useful allies. If you chase a vampire all night, just before dawn it will become panicky and be more likely to make a mistake. And never forget the demon in your hand- it can be far more useful than it has revealed to you thus far."

"Hey!" exclaimed the demon. "We haven't even known each other for fifty years yet! We're still getting acquainted- don't expect me to spill all my secrets."

Aldrich ignored the protest. "As you mature, your speed and strength will increase. But you mustn't rely on either of those skills. After all, for quite a while you will be hunting those who are stronger and faster than you." As if to make his point, Aldrich's sword flashed and opened a bloody slit under D's chin. "Close the wound," Aldrich instructed. D blinked. A drop of blood hit the floor beside his foot. "Don't wait for it to heal. Fix it," Aldrich said, switching to a two-handed grip on his sword. D barely blocked the next attack, and staggered backwards as Aldrich advanced, slashing away in front of him. Diagonally from the left. Horizontally from the right. Diagonally from the right, horizontally from the left. The sword traced predictable figure-eights in the air around Aldrich's head and shoulders. Eventually D caught on, reading the pattern and reacting to it subconsciously. Aldrich nodded approvingly, and then slashed down vertically. D leapt back just in time to avoid being cut in half, but the vampire leapt forward only a split second later. D managed to get his sword at an angle in front of his body and blocked the attack, although the force behind it made his feet skid backwards across the ground. "Don't just defend; attack!" Aldrich ordered, his sword slicing into D's shoulder. "And close your wound!"

"It'll heal soon enough," D growled, focusing all his energy on resisting the overwhelming downward pressure of his uncle's blade. Aldrich frowned, and then vanished. Before D realized what had happened, the vampire had reappeared behind him and hit him across the back with the flat of his sword. D went tumbling through the air and crashed into the ground, sliding several yards from the force of the blow. He rolled over just in time to be hauled to his feet by the front of his shirt.

"Look, I'm not trying to traumatize you," Aldrich said, narrowing his cold eyes at D. "But you really must learn a few things, and I believe it's best to push the bird out of the nest, so to speak." He shoved his nephew backwards and with two gleaming arcs of his sword he sliced open both of D's arms from wrist to elbow. "In this line of work, you'll find yourself losing blood quite frequently, so you may as well get used to it," he said conversationally, kicking D's sword out of reach. D swayed, light-headed from the sudden blood loss, and fell to his knees. Aldrich rolled his eyes and knelt beside him, holding up one of D's arms. "Now watch closely, and not just with your eyes," the vampire instructed, and traced the wound with his index finger, sealing it instantly. D didn't really understand what had happened, but he nodded and tried to copy the cure on this other arm. He drew his fingertip along the length of the bleeding gash, and to his surprise, the wound closed instantaneously. "Good." Aldrich smiled, his wine-colored eyes gleaming. "It seems the fledgling will survive."

A/N: yup, another feeble attempt to include something from the books… I loved that scene where D opened and then closed a wound just by drawing his finger across his skin, and of course when he licked the stray drop of blood off his finger—that made me a very happy little fangirl. drool…