“This is not the nicest way to meet, and I promise that you will understand my actions soon,” Radu said as he rolled the girl onto her side and bit down on her. Radu could feel the rage passing through the girl’s body. She was really mad that he was sucking her blood.

“I am so sorry,” Radu said as he licked the blood off of his lips. “That is all I will take for now. I promise that I will ask nicely before the next time I feed from you.” Radu looked deep into the eyes in front of him. He knew these eyes. These were the eyes from his dream. This was the face from his dream.

“That is my wife,” Radu said as he pointed up to the portrait over his bed. “She passed on many years ago. I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward, but you remind me of her.”

“Too forward?” the girl snarled. She was so angry that she almost didn’t notice that her voice had returned. Then it hit her before she could continue to yell at Radu. “I can talk!” she exclaimed as she tried to move her arms.

“It will come back very slowly,” Radu promised as he continued to stare into the pools of blue in her eyes. “You must take it easy. I will not kick you out onto the streets, or hurt you any further. You just need to stay still and relax. I have seen many people hurt themselves trying to stand up too quickly.”

“You drug lots of girls?”

“I don’t drug anyone,” Radu chuckled and added a smile. “Do you have a name?”

“Carrie.” Carrie was a little distracted as she spoke. She was watching the scales on Radu’s face disappear. He now seemed to look about fifty years old. His skin was one solid piece now, and the flakes had all fallen off, or been absorbed into the skin. “What just happened?”

He could see her noticing the changes to his face. It made him happy.“I have been hibernating for the last twenty years, and it has turned me into an old man,” Radu explained. “Human blood will help me heal over a long period of time, but given my current situation, I can’t wait for that to work. I need magical blood, blood like yours.”

“Well, glad I could help,” Carrie huffed as she glared up at the portrait on the wall. Radu was too busy looking over Carrie’s face to notice what she was staring at. When his eyes finally made it to hers, Radu followed her gaze up to his beloved wife.

“She was an amazing woman,” Radu sighed. He knew that he had been a lucky man just to know Nevasta. “I gave up the throne for her.” Radu looked back to Carrie who was now looking at him.

“Are you going to call the freaks in the robes back in here to carry me back to my friends?” Radu was disappointed to hear Carrie speak like this. He knew that he needed her blood, but he also knew that she was going to be an important part of his next journey. Radu had dreamed enough dreams to know which ones were the important ones.

“Friends like you?” Radu asked as if he had missed the second part of the question.

“Yes, and some more powerful than me,” Carrie said it as if she was hoping to tempt the vampire. “Helga has been on this planet forever. In fact, I don’t even know how many hundreds of years she’s been here.”

“Thousands actually,” Radu smiled as he tried to control his feeling towards Helga. He could already feel his anger rising. “Just like a woman to not talk about her age. She came to the earth at the same time as my master.”

“Unul Vechy,” Carrie nodded. “Well, I’m glad I can at least move my head.” She was starting to move her arms and legs. It was more flailing than moving, but it meant the drugs were wearing off. “You better grab my wand before I get control of my arms back. I have a feeling I’m going to use it to hurt you and your friends.”

“I have a feeling it will be extremely ineffectual.” Radu had faced many witches over the years. He knew that even in this weakened state he could take on witches under a hundred years old. Mystical power just took time to build up. He could feel that Carrie was going to be incredibly powerful one day. But today was not that day. “You are very brave. And you are powerful. But you have much to learn.”

“I have taken on old vampires before.” Carrie believed she was telling the truth, Radu could see that. “My friends and I stood up to Solomon. You’ve heard of him, I’m sure.” Radu only nodded, he was not about to talk about Solomon that night. Just hearing Carrie say the name was enough to boil his blood.

“What brings you to my humble village?” Radu tried to change the subject.

“I need your help actually,” Carrie sighed. “I was going to ask for your help, but that was before you drained my blood without my permission. I have never been kidnapped before, so that was a new experience.”

“Before the next time I feed from you,” Radu looked Carrie right in the eyes, “I promise you will ask me to feed from you.”

Carrie looked back up at the portrait and Radu could tell that the young woman felt a connection to the painting. “That was painted just before I headed off to fight Charles I of Hungary in the Battle of Posada. He was trying to stop me from setting up Wallachia.”

“I was doing some reading about that,” Carrie said without taking her eyes off of the painting. “There is a Radu Negru, and a Radu I, which one are you?”

“I am both of them,” Radu chuckled to himself. “I was Radu Negru, and when I came back a hundred years later to check in on my new principality, I took the name Radu I. I thought it was kind of funny.”

“If you mean crazy when you say funny,” Carrie sneered at her host. “You were already Radu I and you needed to come back as Radu II. It’s the only way things would make sense. Didn’t anyone try to stop you?”

“A lot of people did, but I was the king.”

“A king does what he wants.” Carrie wasn’t talking about the name anymore. Radu could see that she wasn’t ready to move on past the fact that she had been drugged and kidnapped. She didn’t want to let go of what had been done to her. Radu had done this with so many other girls. Taken them from hostage to friend in a matter of minutes or hours.

It didn’t help that she was a witch, and a little more familiar with the mystical world than the average villager in Jgheaburi. Carrie needed Radu’s help. He had a feeling this was going to be his ace in the hole, but somehow it just didn’t feel genuine. The blood was always better when the victim was willing, but Radu didn’t know if that applied to blackmail.

“So, are you going to let me go?”

“What is it that you need me for?” Radu asked without acknowledging the question. “I might be able to help you, but you have to promise that what I help with won’t be used to help Solomon.”

“I would never help him,” Carrie spat the words out and Radu was convinced that she meant what she was saying. She had no love for Solomon. Radu was relieved to see the actual emotion behind the words. He knew that Solomon had many enemies, and he loved that Carrie was one of them.

“I don’t understand,” Radu sighed. “This may seem like a silly question to you, but I have been hibernating for a while. How are you fighting against Solomon, but helping Helga? Those two…well, they used to be inseparable.”

“Well, I don’t know the whole story…” Carrie said as she started into the story of Helga and Solomon breaking up. Radu was fascinated, but more by Carrie’s telling of the story than by the details themselves. There was something about the lilt of her voice, and the twinkle in her eyes. She was waking things in Radu that had died a long time ago.

“So, he killed her double, and then she stopped him from taking control of the mountains?”

“That’s essentially it,” Carrie admitted, “But they are still in love. I can tell just by the way she talks about him. She struggles when it comes to letting go of Solomon.”

“Well, she must feel responsible,” Radu said. He watched as Carrie’s eyes got bigger. She was trying to control her reactions, but she had to know what that meant. Radu could see the question all over Carrie’s face. “I can’t tell you,” Radu said as Carrie started to pout.

“What is happening?” Carrie asked as she got off of the ledge. She wobbled a bit, but she steadied herself. “Why are we…?”

“I feel a connection to you,” Radu sighed. “I can’t explain it, but I feel like you were meant to come into my life.” Radu was trying to look deeply into Carrie’s eyes, but he was getting a lot of anger coming back through those eyes. He had hoped that they were moving past the initial anger stage. However, Carrie was clinging to her anger.

“Yeah, but as a food source,” Carrie said as she put a hand against the wall and tried to take a few steps. Radu moved toward her and she put her hand out. “Do not, no thank you.” Radu was in a weakened state, but he still had to be careful about how he moved around Carrie. It was so easy for him to break human bones.

“I just want to help,” Radu said as he ignored the hand and offered Carrie his shoulder. “I need you to know that I always keep my word. I am not a danger to you anymore.” Carrie’s eyes narrowed and the old vampire knew what she was trying to say. “I know that I need your blood, but you will offer it. I know that you were brought into my life for a reason.”

“We’ll see,” Carrie groaned as she took another step. “I love the tapestries in here, what is this one about?” Carrie had been looking over the decorative wall hangings as she lay on the ledge. Most of them she understood from the stories that Helga had told her about Radu and Unul Vechy. This last tapestry was about a battle involving humans.

“That’s the victory I spoke of,” Radu said as he pointed to a weird child, crying in the corner of the map. “This is how they depicted Charles I after the battle. He was actually a very large man with a curly, black beard, but that day they said he was a cry baby.”

“Artistic licence I guess,” Carrie said as she looked over the bloody scene that was sewn into the backing fabric. “You used your human soldiers?”

“I did,” Radu nodded.

“Did you…?” Carrie waited as if Radu should already know the question. He actually did know the question. It was something that haunted him day and night. He did have the power to win the war, in more than one way. He could’ve used his vampire powers to lay waste to the enemy. However, Radu was certain that Carrie was thinking of something else.

“I did,” Radu admitted. “They called me Radu the Dark, because I was only ever seen at night. I was the guardian of the sword of Balaur at that point. And I guess it would’ve been easier to wipe the other army out with one swing of my mighty sword, but…”

“You could’ve saved hundreds of lives,” Carrie scoffed in disbelief. “Why would you choose to fight a war and risk the lives of your men? You didn’t even need them to go with you. You could’ve walked there by yourself, levelled your opponent and then headed home.”

Radu could see the reasoning, and the compassion in Carrie’s argument, and he took a moment to weigh his words. He needed her to understand the weight behind the decision he was forced to make. “It wasn’t just about the lives on my side though,” Radu said. “There were many men from the other army who went on to father children, and live full productive lives.”

“You would’ve wiped out a full generation of Hungarian men,” Carrie’s hushed tone seemed to be weighed down by the size of the revelation. It was clear to Radu that Carrie hadn’t considered the other side of the coin. “So, you had to do things the hard way.”

“I have never shied away from work,” Radu said. “If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Now, tell me more about your reasons for seeking me out. I have a feeling that we are meant to help each other.” He felt like he was getting repetitive, but he couldn’t help it. Radu was really trying to play it cool, but he forgot how to every time he got lost in those eyes.

“Fine,” Carrie muttered as Radu pushed the boulder out of the way and led her down the hall. She told him all about the book and her escape from Solomon. She told him about Helga suggesting that they hide the book with the sword.

“She means to betray you,” Radu explained as he sat Carrie down in a pew in the main monastery room. “There are many ways to hide magical items. It could be hidden using magic for instance, and yet she is trying to get me to open the vault.”

“So you won’t help me?” Carrie shot Radu a look that cut right through him.

“I will help you,” Radu said as he took Carrie’s hands in his and looked her in the eyes. “We will go alone, but I will help you. I am not helping her. I need you two to get us to the motel.”

The monks kept their distance and Radu had almost forgotten they were there. He could tell from Carrie’s reaction that she had definitely forgotten that they were there. The monks were so used to being ignored that they both missed the order at first. “Now,” Radu restated his order, and they all headed out into the cold, dark night.