Chris Holm - The Big Reap

“Ah, Simon, you damned fool,” he said, voice tinged with wistful exasperation. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved the man, but we never did see eye-to-eye. He was infatuated with modernity, whereas I prefer the old ways: magic, not medicine; influence, not outright power. Hell, I haven’t even seen Simon since that glorious summer we spent together in Geneva, feeding, dancing, laughing. 1816, this was, before the world caught wind of our kind. It was Simon’s idea to burnish our legend by filling our fellow revelers’ heads with such wild dreams of our exploits. I rather hoped one of the poets with whom we whiled away our days — Byron or Shelley — would write of me, but instead my tale was told by that damn-fool doctor Polidori. Simon, for what it’s worth, fared better. Who knew Percy’s wife would prove such a writer? And anyways, that Stoker fellow embellished upon the idiot doctor’s mangled version of my story quite nicely some years hence. Still, I’ve always regretted giving in to Simon’s insistence that our stories should be told. It’s proved more trouble than it was worth, and more embarrassment, as well. If you ask me, the modern iteration of my own myth is downright shameful. I mean, look at me. Do I appear as though I sparkle to you?”

“Only your personality,” I replied.

“Funny,” he said. “But really, the thought I’d go all moony over some mopey teenager, when to me humans are nothing more than cattle to be slaughtered. For years now, I’ve suspected Simon of inciting that preposterous tale of vampiric emasculation just to goad me. It would be just like him.”

“Yeah, that guy was a total douche,” I said.

“You’d be wise to watch your tongue, Collector. Simon was still my brother, and I loved him as such. His death was devastating to me. I mourned his passing for weeks after I heard the news. I merely told you what I did so that you’d understand I’m not surprised to hear he brought this down upon us all. And to hear that he intended to drug you to induce a coma is the icing on the disappointment cake. I haven’t the faintest idea why he doggedly insisted on solving all of life’s problems with science when he had magic at his disposal. It’s like trying to tie a bow with one’s feet.”

“Yeah, the fact he tried to dope me up instead of abracadabra-ing my ass was the source of my objection, too.”

“So now what?” he asked. “My dear brother tries to shelve you, and now you’re hellbent on revenge? Because I assure you, whatever else my other siblings have done, they’ve had no quarrel with you — not until you gave them cause. You have no one to blame for your current predicament but yourself.”

“This ain’t a revenge trip for me, pal — it’s an assignment . Once the truce between heaven and hell crumbled, you and your kind were no longer protected. And when they found out thanks to your brother’s botched attempt to shelve me you could be killed, they decided it was open season on the Brethren. Hence the raid at your Riviera place.”

Grigori smiled. “And how very well that went for hell. I would have thought that my message of displeasure at having been targeted would have been well and truly understood. After all these centuries, to target me and my kind now seems arbitrary and ridiculous, and as I demonstrated, foolhardy at best. Still, it’s a shame I had to give up the house in Nice; it had such stunning views. And believe me when I tell you, Frenchwomen are delicious. One assumes it’s all the wine and clement weather.”

“Bummer.”

“You mock.”

“Just seems kinda bourgeois for a guy with his own damn castle — his own damn town — to bitch about how hard he’s got it.”

“And it seems a tad presumptuous for one’s captive to taunt one’s captor,” he said, “but I digress. The fact is, Nevazut has long been my option of last resort, for my existence here is both lonely and tenuous. Yes, the townspeople hold their master on the hill in fearful reverence, but he is a folktale to them, nothing more — glimpsed only in dreams, or in the case of those whose blood I taste, in the thrall of my most powerful obfuscatory enchantments. To allow them any greater access to my physical person would only serve to deflate the myth, and provide a target for any potential rebellion should human nature’s more violent tendencies one day insist on asserting themselves. Which is why I only ever pass among them in the guise of Yefi, a man of God they both tolerate and largely ignore. For their master on the hill is the only God they know or care to.”

“If that’s true — if these people are so thoroughly in the tank for you — then why worry about rebellion?”

“Because humankind is locked in an unending cycle of subservience and rebellion. Given long enough, even the happiest of subjects will rebel eventually. They always do. They did at my castle in Wallachia some centuries ago, when I lived as Wladislaus Dragwlya — Vlad Dracula, to your vulgar American ears. Such glorious times, with heads on pikes and blood running freely betwixt the courtyard paving stones, at least until they came for me, and I was forced to flee into the forest with naught but the armor on my back. It was then I decided a more subtle form of influence might prove expedient. And that policy proved wise indeed, at least until St Petersburg, 1916, when it was decided I had perhaps more influence over Tsar Nicholas — and his lovely, not to mention delicious, wife Alexandra — than any peasant should. I was living then under my given name once more, but in keeping with my newfound dedication to anonymity, I’d adopted the common Russian surname of Rasputin. You’re no doubt aware how spectacularly I failed at maintaining the low profile I so desired. Those so-called nobles stabbed and poisoned and shot and beat and drowned me into unconsciousness. I woke to the crackling sounds of my own funeral pyre lighting. I understand I frightened no shortage of onlookers when I sat up amidst the flames, which thankfully soon engulfed me so thoroughly I was able to escape unnoticed as they scattered.”

“Why tell me all this?” I asked to cover the sudden knock of my left leg against the boat’s side as I finally released it from its leather binding. The boat rocked precariously for a moment and then settled. “Why not just kill me or leave me or whatever it is you plan to do?”

“Because I’m lonely,” he answered. “Because I’m tired of all this fighting. Because I think that if you could only understand where I’m coming from, you’d realize we two have more similarities than differences.” He paused and smiled. “That is the sort of thing you wish to hear, is it not? Alas, I fear the truth’s far more mundane.”

“Oh, yeah? What is it, then?”

“I was simply killing time until my brother woke. You see, it won’t do to have you following me as I leave this place for what may well prove the last time. And while I spared no expense to capture and transport my poor, feral brother Ricou here from the dank South American lagoon he called home in an attempt to keep him from your grasp, I find I now have no better method for neutralizing you than to offer you up to him, much as I’ve offered up so many of the village’s children these past few weeks. You see, Ricou, though no longer human, is not quite animal, either. He seems to take sadistic pleasure in playing with his food. Apparently, fear is quite the seasoning. My guess is he’ll keep you alive for days before he finally kills you and evicts you from your current vessel. One poor girl lasted the better part of two weeks, although she was quite mad by the time he finally ripped her in two. Once he’s finished with you, Dru and Izzie and I shall no doubt be prepared to take you on in earnest as we’d initially planned. So you see, it wouldn’t do to let you escape before he had his crack at you. And yes, I know you must have slipped your bonds by now, so I elected to keep you company until he rose from his slumber. Unless my ears deceive me, he now has.”