'A bit late for niceties, isn't it, Thibor?' Dragosani wondered what the vampire was up to. 'What exactly do you want?'
Thibor was quick to note his apprehension. What? And do you still distrust me? Well, and I suppose you have your reasons. Survival was mine. But come, have we not agreed that when I'm up and about, then that I'll drive out the seed of my own flesh from your body? And in that moment, will you not be entirely in my hands? It seems a foolish thing, Dragosani, that you would put your faith in me walking abroad but not in my grave! Surely if I were so inclined, I'd be capable of more harm to you up than down? Also, if it were my plan to harm you, who then would be my guide in this new world I'm about to enter? You shall instruct me, Dragosani, and I you.
'You still haven't said what you want.'
The vampire sighed. Dragosani, I am forced to admit a small personal flaw. I have in the past accused you of a certain vanity, yet now I tell you that I, too, am vain. Aye, and I would celebrate my rebirth in a manner more fitting. Therefore, bring unto me the ewe, my son, and lay it down before me. This one last time, let it be by way of a genuine tribute — even as a ritual sacrifice to one who is mighty — and not merely swill and roughage for the
fattening of swine. Let me eat as from a platter, Dragosani, and not out of a trough!
'Old bastard!' thought Dragosani, while continuing to keep his thoughts secret. So he was to be the vampire's serf, was he? Just another poor gypsy dolt to be cuffed about and follow at heel like a whining dog? 'Ah, but I've news for you my old, my too old friend!' and Dragosani hugged his secret thoughts tightly to himself. 'Enjoy this, Thibor Ferenczy, for it's the very last time a man will fetch and carry for the likes of you!' And out loud he said:
'You want me to bring you the beast, as if it were an offering?'
Is it too much to ask?
The necromancer shrugged. Right now, nothing was too much to ask. He would be doing a little 'asking' himself, shortly. He put away his razor-edged knife and took up the sheep. He carried it to the centre of the circle, crouched down and placed it where last night's offering had lain. Then again he took out his sickle blade. Until now the glade had been quiet, still as the tomb it was, but now Dragosani sensed a gathering. It was as if muscles were suddenly bunched, the silent creep of a cat's paws as it closes on a mouse, the forming of saliva on a chameleon's tongue before it strikes. Quickly, thrilling with horror of the unknown — even a monster such as Dragosani, filled with horror — he drew back the stunned beast's head and made its throat taut. And — No need for that, my son, said Thibor Ferenczy. Dragosani would have leapt away, for in that selfsame moment he knew — but knew too late — that the Thing in the ground had had its fill of piglets and sheep! Not one eighth of an inch had he straightened from his crouch before that phallic tentacle burst from the ground beneath him, shearing through his clothing like a knife and up, into him. And how he would have leapt then, to be free of it, even if the tearing should kill him; he would have leapt — but he couldn't. Growing barbs within him, the pseudopod stretched itself through all the lower conduits of his body and filled him, and drew him down like a fish yanked from water on a hook!
Dragosani's feet flew out from beneath him as he was slammed down against the dark and seething earth; and after that there was no longer room even for the thought of flight. For that was when the pain, the torment, the ultimate agony commenced…
His bowels were melting, his entrails were on fire, he was seated upright on a fountain of acid! And through all the incredible pain Thibor Ferenczy howled his triumph and taunted Dragosani with the truth — the real truth — the one final question whose answer had eluded the necromancer through all these years:
Why did they hate me, my son? My own kith and kin, as it were? Why do all vampires hate other vampires? Why, the answer to that is the very simplest thing! The blood is the life, Dragosani! Oh, the blood of swine will suffice if there's nought better to sup, and the blood of fowls and sheep. Better far, however, the blood of men, as you'll very soon be obliged to discover for yourself. But over and above all other vessels, the true nectar of life may only be sipped from the veins of another vampire!
Dragosani burned in a double hell; he felt torn apart inside; his parasite twin within clove to him in its agony as Thibor's nightmare appendage fastened upon it and leeched its essence. And yet that terrible tentacle did no real harm, no damage. Protoplasmic, it moulded itself to organs without crushing them, penetrated without puncturing. Even its barbs caused no injury, for they were fashioned to hold without tearing. The agony lay in its being there, in its contact with raw nerves and muscles and organs, in its advance through all the tracts of Dragosani's raped physical body. It could not hurt more if some insane doctor had dripped an acid solution into an open vein — but it would not kill. It could kill, certainly, but not now, not this time.
In his torment Dragosani could not know that. And through his torment he cried: 'Get… it… done with, damn you! Damn your… black heart, liar of liars! Kill… me, Thibor! Do it now. Put an end to it, I… I beg you!'
He sat there in the darkness under the trees amidst the shattered flags and the crumbling ruins of the ancient tomb, and horror ate at his mind like a rat set loose in his brain and left to eat its way out. Someone had set a meat mincer in motion inside him and it was reducing his guts to squirming red worms. He jerked and threshed, fell to one side. The agony drove him upright again, only to fall the other way. And so he twitched and jerked and lolled and screamed, and still Thibor Ferenczy fed.
Strength you gave me, Dragosani, aye. Strength and bulk in the blood of beasts. But the true life is the blood of a fellow creature — even the thin, immature blood of that child of mine who now gibbers inside you as he grows weak from his loss even as you grow weak from pain. But kill him? Kill you? Nay, nay! What? And rob myself of a thousand feasts to come? We go together into the world, Dragosani, and you in thrall to me until that time when you shall flee. By which time you'll not need to ask but know why all the Wamphyri share a mutual bond of hate!
The vampire was sated. The tentacle slid out of Dragosani and down into the earth out of sight. Its going was, if anything, even worse than its coming: a white hot sword drawn out of him by a careless hand.
He cried out, a shriek that echoed like the cry of a wild thing through the cold, cruel cruciform hills, and toppled over on his side. But hadn't Thibor told him that they named the Vlad 'the Impaler' after him? He had, and now Dragosani could more fully understand just why!
The necromancer tried to stand and could not. His legs were jelly, his brain a seething acid soup in its skull bowl. He rolled, cleared the tainted circle, again tried to rise. Impossible. Will was not enough. He lay still, sobbing in the night, gathering wits and strength both. The vampire had spoken of hate, and he had been right. It was hate that kept Dragosani conscious now. Hate and only hate. His and that of the creature within him. Both of them had been ravaged.