Lardis put an arm across Nathan's shoulder. The lad has ... he has an interest in all of this,' he said. But looking at Nathan, he knew it wasn't a healthy one.
'Oh?' Vratza cocked his head a little on one side, ques-tioningly.
Nathan's mouth twitched in the left-hand corner. 'It... it's my girl. This dog-thing, Canker, knocked me down and took her from me. Since when ... she hasn't been found.'
'Ah!' said Vratza, matter-of-factly. And as if Nathan no longer existed, his red eyes swivelled to look at Lardis. 'Is it done? Am I finished?'
Lardis nodded; Kirk Lisescu and the others took up their weapons, came from behind the cross into view.
Vratza saw them, and fire and blood sprang into his eyes together. He opened his nightmare jaws and hissed, vibrating his forked tongue in the red-ribbed cavern of his throat.
'No, wait!' Nathan shrugged free of Lardis's arm, pointed a steady hand and finger at the monster on the cross. 'I want you to tell me: about Canker Canison, and about Misha. How will it be for her?'
'No!' Lardis got in front of Nathan, throwing up his arms as if to ward off some horror; indeed, to ward off a very real horror. 'Vratza, don't tell him anything! Your time has come.' He glanced at his men where they took up their positions, and nodded. But the vampire was already speaking - to Nathan.
'My last act,' he said, in a voice which bubbled like tar in a volcanic pit, 'to curdle your dreams now and forever. You ask about Canker? And your girl?'
'Yes,' Nathan had to know. But behind him the men were lifting their weapons, aiming them.
'Canker takes women for one thing only,' Vratza gurgled. 'To use them. And when he has used them - in whichever of the many ways he favours - then he worries them, as a wolf among goats!'
'Be quiet!' Lardis roared.
A crossbow thrummed and its bolt took Vratza close to the heart, burying itself in his torn and bloody chest until only the flight protruded. He jerked massively and coughed up blood, then sucked at the air - and continued to speak! And with his voice rising to a shriek, and finally a gale of mad laughter, he said:
'Boy, do you see this shaft in me, how it tears me? So she is torn, even now. And Canker's shaft is just as vicious. Be sure he'll fuck her heart out! Oh - ha, ha, haaaaa!'
Nathan staggered to and fro, his face pale as a papery wasp's nest, with dark punched holes for eyes and mouth. And as a second bolt joined the first (though still not on target, for the men were shooting in haste to shut Vratza up, and so missing their aim), the youth whispered:
'And now ... now I want you to die.'
Kirk Lisescu granted Nathan's wish. Twin blasts, coming in quick succession, turned the vampire's head to pulp as silver shot removed any last trace of a face.
Blood flew in gouts and splashes; booming echoes came back thunderously, first from the stockade's walls, then from the hills; Lardis dragged Nathan roughly aside, out of the red rain. 'You don't want that on you,' he gasped. 'What? Even the air that bastard breathed is tainted!'
Again Nathan shook him off, then staggered away into the night to be sick. Once, hearing shouting, he looked back and saw the cross and the thing upon it as a black silhouette against the glow of the fires - but the silhouette was hideously mobile!
Vratza Wransthrall had told how he was close to becoming Wamphyri, and he'd been right. Undead meta-morphic flesh formed nests of writhing tentacles which sprang from his guts, chest, and all the massive parts of his body. Whipping and vibrating, they lashed themselves - lashed him - to the cross's upright and horizontal bar. But the men had lassoed both arms of the cross and were hauling on it furiously, until it leaned over and toppled into the fire-pit.
Nathan heard the hiss, saw white smoke or steam rising, which he knew would soon turn black. Lardis had it right: in an hour, Vratza would be reduced to a stench and a final puff of smoke. Nothing more would remain of him -
- Except, of course, that monstrous picture which he'd painted in Nathan's head. And that might very well last for a lifetime.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
Meanwhile, Nathan's stomach in its entirety desired to be out of