Behind him, he could hear the smaller twin still howling like a wolf to the sky, and the other, Alexandru, muttering his nonsense words meant to calm and soothe. Dracul turned away from them, readying himself for what was to come—a hostage, death, who knew?
Taking their master’s turned back as a signal the boys were no longer under his protection, the guards moved on them, a fitting sacrifice to stop the evil at their gates. Alexandru backed away, standing in front of Andrei, holding the book close, but a guard ripped it away. Alexandru sprang at him, fighting tooth and claw to retrieve it. In the fight, the small bindings broke, and pages floated free. Andrei was huddled, crying on the floor, but seeing the pages torn away, he scrambled up to save them. A guard kicked the pages into the air, laughing to see the vile whelp cry out as he tried to catch them.
Dracul whirled about, snapped his fingers at his men, shouted for them to stop. They didn’t want to, but they didn’t want to die with a pike thrust through their bellies, either. Dracul looked at the boys frantically trying to gather the torn-out pages. He held out his hand, and a guard gave him the book. Before, whenever he’d been forced to confront their existence, he’d seen them only as objects of scorn, to be hidden away. But looking at them now, looking at the filthy book that held what surely had to be magic, he simply did not know. He flexed his healed hand, felt fear skitter deep inside, and he hated that, as well.
It was Alexandru who handed him the loose pages. Dracul shoved them back inside the book. He looked beyond to Andrei, pathetic, small, wizened like an old man, who bled at a simple scratch.
He looked down into Alexandru’s eyes as he gave him the book. “Take it and go.” He lightly laid his once-wounded hand on the boy’s thin shoulder. “The book—guard it well. It is beyond what a man can understand.”
Alexandru had expected to die, not this. He drew Andrei up to stand beside him, and he whispered to the brutal man who was his half brother, “But where will we go, my lord?”
Dracul pulled three gold pieces from his tunic. “It does not matter where you go, anywhere but here. Take these and leave now, before you face the flames, or the enemy. Take the back tunnel, go to the village.”
“They will kill us in the village. Fear of you is the only way for us to live. The monks were afraid of you, so they didn’t kill us, though they wanted to. If you aren’t here—”
Dracul saw something in the boy’s dark eyes that gave him a start, like a curtain that covered something not of this world, and the curtain could lift at any moment. What would he see? What would happen? The curtain didn’t hide the sort of violence he knew. It wasn’t anything he understood. Yet again, he felt a stab of fear.
“Why would you not come with us? You can be saved. If we can escape, so can you.”
“I will not abandon my troops.” Dracul heard the shouts, the screams, too close, too close. “Go now, this is your final chance.” He rose to his full height. “I am giving you your lives.” He looked a moment at their book, covered in writing he couldn’t read and strange green drawings, some looking vaguely human, but most strange shapes alien to him. “You have your book. Protect it. I command you to survive.”
Dracul turned and snapped his fingers again at the guards, who followed him from the room, one staring over his shoulder at the two ragged boys now running down the stone stairs, to the tunnel in the dungeons. Did he hear them speaking in the language only they understood? Surely they would be caught, killed.
Alexandru and Andrei snuck away from the castle under cover of darkness and flame, screams fading in the distance.
* * *
No one ever saw them again. They lived on for a while in stories and legends that spoke of the mad twin brothers who drank the blood of innocents. Eventually the brothers disappeared into the fabric of time, but the idea of them lived on. When the precious book was finally shown to the modern world, it was still missing the ripped-out pages. And no one knew the pages, like the book, had fluttered through history.
Their half brother Vlad Dracul, the Impaler, emerged from the shadows of history to be immortalized on the page and the screen. He became Dracula, the archangel of evil. They said he made others like him. That he and his kind walked the earth, draining the lifeblood in their pursuit of immortality.
But as all things are lost, they are also found. And with them come the plagues of hell.
CHAPTER ONE
Be motivated like the falcon, hunt gloriously.
—Rumi
The Nubian Desert
Sudan
Seven Months Ago
The desert tent was sumptuous and meant to impress, but it was not wasteful. Spiked into the shifting sands, its billowing fabric roof dipped and swayed in the desert breeze. Inside the tent, a long table was centered on a wooden platform covered with a red-and-orange oriental rug. Five falcons with leather cords on their legs and suits of black armor across their bodies perched on the backs of chairs, silent and watchful.
The air was scented with cardamom and grapes from the festive lunch the four men and two women had just enjoyed, mixing agreeably with the seared desert air around them; the quiet strains of Pink Floyd played in the background. Champagne cooled in silver buckets, awaiting the revelations to come.
They spoke among themselves, occasionally laughing as they finished the sweet cream custard mixed with dates and almonds in small golden bowls. They laid their linen napkins beside their plates and drank the last superb bottle of 2010 Chateau L’Evangile French Bordeaux.
Conversation turned to the falcons and how very well-behaved the five were, all their attention on their master, who sat at the head of the table.
Their master, the host of the party, was Roman Ardelean, an Englishman of Romanian descent, in his prime, tall, broad-shouldered, a beak of a nose, dark hair, and eyes like smudges of coal. He pushed back his chair. “It is time, ladies, gentlemen. Come with me, and you will see the capabilities of our new army.”
Each of the six knew this was to be a demonstration and a celebration of what they were financing—a drone army—yet none knew exactly what to expect. It would be a lovely surprise for all of them, Roman knew. The investors—the Money, as he thought of them—followed him out into the desert, blinking in the blazing sun and immediately sweating. Behind the tent, twenty yards away, was a line of folding chairs. On each chair was a set of ear guards and large eye shields.
Roman watched the Money take their seats, then turned his back and slipped a tiny stamp on his tongue, felt it melt, tasted the fleeting metallic hit. The microdose of LSD, a special version made for him by his twin, Radu, would help keep him calm and focused. It would also make the colors of the coming display more dramatic and the acrid desert air soften against his face, but no one needed to know that. He slipped the small box where he kept his tabs back into the pocket of his cargo pants and looked again at the Money. All were dressed as befitted a desert spa jaunt—crisp new earth tones and neck scarves, all provided by Roman’s company, Radulov Industries. The Money blended into the desert, looked like they were meant to be there, which Roman found amusing. But camouflage was important right now, for all of them.
Once they were settled, Roman stood in front of them, hands behind his back. He was a clever man, a charming man, a leader who knew exactly what he was doing. He cleared his throat, met each set of eyes, and began to speak. His clear, commanding voice was exactly what the Money needed to hear, just as his tall, fit body was what they needed to see.