After a few months of study and exploration, he came up with a plan to create a suitable home for vampire. Perhaps not as comfortable as the Warwick, but what is comfort without a feeling of security?
He mapped out which tunnels would be part of the system and where to place entrance and exit points. He outfitted a chamber for his own use, then, to be certain that no one would divulge any information related to the project, he killed the construction workers he had hired and left the bodies on the subway trains to be found the next morning. After a few instances of early morning corpse discoveries, rumors began to spread that going into the tunnels at night might cost you your life.
A few anonymous and well-placed protection payments to city officials insured the abandoned tunnels would remain permanently abandoned.
Baka had never gotten over his very healthy respect for the Black Swan knights. He also learned the lesson that there is safety in numbers. After all, he was able to get away that night in Paris because two of the knights were busy with poor Lefrik. He reasoned that surrounding himself with vampire would create a line of defense, more or less.
That was his intention. The result, however, was that he became king of New York vampire; at least to those admitted to his tunnel system in New York City.
He never had to hunt again unless he wanted to. He just ordered a meal in and someone brought her to him, then took care of clean up as well. Certainly he didn't need any more money, but he thought it did the other vampire good to contribute so he assessed a reasonable charge for using his underground territory and, soon, he was as rich as a railroad baron.
One morning he was just finishing a meal when the chemical that had acted as conscience inhibitor and served the vampire so well for five hundred years receded, dipping to a level that allowed Baka's own personality to come raging forward and take control. He looked down to see that he was holding a woman covered with blood, wheezing with blood gurgling in her throat and making a shallow fount that flowed from her mouth with each heart beat. She was attempting to drag in one last breath. His first instinctive act was to place his fingers over the holes in her neck that were spurting blood in a feeble attempt to save her life.
It was far too late for that. Her life was forfeit the minute she was nabbed by one of Baka's flunkies. Within seconds the victim had gone perfectly still and quiet. He shoved her away from him and sprang back in horror. He had never seen a murdered person, certainly had never seen so much blood, and was so disoriented.
One of the vampire who served his personal needs walked past the chamber and took in the scene. "Is there a problem, sir?"
Baka's gaze jerked toward the speaker. The man was speaking Anglish. Did he know Anglish? Yes. He did. How was that possible?
He looked around the room that had been lavishly designed in the elaborate styling of art deco. It could not have been more alien or disturbing to Istvan Baka. "Where am I?"
He ran his hand through his hair before realizing that hand was covered in blood. As he looked at his hand every single abominable deed slammed into his consciousness at once, knocking the breath out of him.
All his memories of life as a human had slowly been restored, but they had been viewed through the amoral filter of the vampire. Now he was forced to confront the loss of his human life at the same time he saw the images of thousands of gruesome murders, committed with the most callous cruelty, by his own hand.
He saw the face of Lefrik, shirt untucked, covered with blood and laughing. He was confronted by the unspeakable atrocities that gave the vampire the closest thing it would know to real pleasure, even though it was a pale shadow of the true, vivid, sense-engaged pleasure known by humans.
The other vampire barely moved out of the way before he was run over. Baka fled from his luxurious underground den without a lamp. He didn't need it. His humanity had returned, but he still had the eyes of a vampire along with other extras.
He found one of the exits, climbed the black and white tiled steps, and emerged at street level at mid day. It was cloudy, but the brightness of daylight, even filtered daylight, still made him squint and caused his pale eyes to water. He held his hand up to his face to shield his eyes wishing with all his might that the sun would burn him to ash right there on the spot.
The street was crowded with pedestrians who were horrified by his appearance. Most simply gave him a wide berth then forgot about him as soon as they'd passed by. One man, thinking Baka was injured - a logical conclusion given the sight of all that blood - tried to insist he go to a hospital and offered to accompany him. Baka finally shoved the 'Good Samaritan' away forcefully enough to punctuate his refusal.
In Baka's mind, he had just blown out a candle at the monastery, satisfied with his day's work, and pulled his heavy wool cloak around his body before starting down the path to his cottage. His body was tired, but his heart was light, knowing what awaited him: laughing children and a chestnut haired beauty who would welcome him with a hot meal, open arms, and a place beside her in a warm bed.
As he walked he smiled to himself thinking about how she would ask about his day out in the world. What sort of thing was he working on? He became a little aroused when his mind anticipated being with her later than night. Her soft, pliable curves would conform to his body like a mold when she greeted him under the covers and eagerly pressed against him.
He heard a sound and stopped still on the path.
The next thing he knew he was holding the ruined body of a bloody woman seconds before her death. Confused and disoriented, he ran from that gruesome scene to find himself standing on a city street in the bright light of noonday with more people than he imagined were in the entire world, with monstrous things on wheels whizzing by at speeds up to twenty miles per hour, and the memories of centuries of life on earth while his body was possessed by a demon.
The noise was deafening. The machines were terrifying. The numbers of people were overwhelming. His first reaction was an assumption that he had died suddenly and been sent to hell which made sense because he was certain that's where he belonged.
He wanted to bury his face in Helena's bosom and cry. He wanted to feel the comfort of her body and hear the comfort of her voice and be reassured that this was a very bad dream from which he would awake safe in their bed. But he didn't wake.
He was alone. Everything he loved was gone. Everyone he loved was gone. He was a simple man, a good man, a family man, who woke one day to find himself with centuries of memories of the misdeeds of a fiend.
It was so much more than a mind can process. He threw his hand up to protect his eyes from the harsh light then began to bang his head against the stone wall behind him, hoping to stop the rush of nightmarish pictures.
As people rushed by, he leaned his back against a building on 7th Avenue, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, crying like a baby, tortured by the parade of horrific images that continually passed across the screen of his mind.
Someone stopped in front of him and, in a voice that was at once deep, gravelly, and angelic said, "Vampire. What are you doing?"
Baka stopped beating his head and opened his left eye a sliver, just enough to see who asked. He then realized he was not in hell, but about to be dispatched there. His reaction was to thank the god he had denied for so long that he was about to be delivered from his torment. "Black Swan?" He grabbed the stranger's coat lapels in his hands. "Thank you. Thank god. Take my life. I will not resist."
The stranger's gaze was intelligent and piercing. "Walk into the shadows of that alley, out of the view of the public." He indicated a direction with a tilt of his chin. "I will follow you."
Baka did as he was told. A few yards into the alley he stopped and turned toward the angel that god had sent to deliver him from the evil he'd done. "Here?"