Radu’s eyes shot open. The last thing he remembered was looking into Nevasta’s eyes as they rolled back in her head.

He didn’t even see Solomon’s face in the dream. He turned his head from side to side and tried to sit up on the ledge. His legs and arms were stone dead at his side. Radu was trapped, motionless, frozen. Nothing was moving, his body not responding at all.

The room was completely dark, and though his eyes were made for seeing through darkness, Radu still saw only blackness all around. He could barely make out the edges of the painting of Nevasta that hung above him.

Radu tried to remember the last time he had eaten. He remembered the girl, Kat, the curious girl who didn’t want her memory wiped. How long had it been? Radu could hear the monks moving around the main chamber in the monastery. Today was the only day that the monastery was open to the public. The monks were performing a service, and there was applause from tourists and villagers who had come to see the ceremony.

Radu could smell the blood as the pheromones moved through the tunnels. The scent of human was filling the air. The small spaces left by the boulder that blocked his exit from the cell allowed the air to travel freely into the room. Radu tried to fight his hunger, but he knew eventually his resolve would give out. He had gone too long without food.

“I must hold off,” Radu mumbled out loud. “I will feed on one of the monks. This is their fault anyway.” Radu couldn’t understand what had happened. The monks had taken care of him for the last 200 years, why would they suddenly fall down on the job? The feeling of anxiety that filled him unnerved him further. Something must be wrong.

Radu could feel his hunger pulling him toward the boulder. He tried to hold himself down, pressing his arms around him tightly but there was nothing he could do. He relented and allowed his hunger to take over. His arms and legs started to quiver and shake, but nothing happened. Finally, his body stopped twitching and he lay helplessly on the ledge.

“I guess this is it for me,” Radu looked up at the dark ceiling above the ledge, speaking softly to his wife of 400 years. He could see her image above him. She was looking down on him with a warm smile. He sighed. It gave him comfort to see her there, apparition or not. “Soon we will be together.” Radu said the words, but he wasn’t sure of their truth. He wanted to die. He wanted it to finally be over. He was done with this eternity of hell. But if he “died”, there was a good chance he would just reach the next level of his hibernation. He didn’t know what would happen to his soul then.

“Why are you fretting?” He could hear her sweet voice in his mind. “You aren’t in charge of the country any more, you’re allowed to smile now.” Radu could remember the day quite well. They had just left Wallachia, and headed further into the mountains. They were leaving the problems of the world behind.

Radu knew when they left the castle that they would have to keep running. They were no longer under the protection of his seat of power. He could’ve been selfish and stayed in power, but he needed his people to have a ruler of their own, and one who wasn’t constantly dealing with the threats of the mystical world.

“Solomon will want the sword,” Radu reminded his bride, but she didn’t let this news take the smile from her face. That smile… so perfect, so beautiful stretching her full lips, looking so kissable. He loved the little pout she added to it when Radu wasn’t smiling with her. Her physical features were stunning, but it was the resilience of the smile that Radu loved. Nevasta could smile through anything.

“We will hide the sword,” Nevasta teased as she poked at her grumpy husband. “We have a plan, and it is working so far. So, now it is time to relax and enjoy our time together. Please can you do that? For me?”

These were the words that repeated over and over in his head. Nevasta was right, and Radu was glad that he had made the most of the time they had together. Even though he had tried hard to stay positive, it was the time that he wasted on sulking and worrying about the future that he regretted the most. It was time that could’ve been used better on appreciating his wife.

A voice broke through the wall of memory and delirium. “We need to pass around the collection plate, and then everyone is free to explore the cathedral for the next half hour.” It was one of the monks, but Radu didn’t recognize the voice. “Remember that there are passages that are not accessible by patrons, and you are forbidden from touching any of the paintings that line these walls.”

Radu thought about the paintings. Early paintings from the first Orthodox monks to live in the monastery. They had worked tirelessly to carve the monastery out of the stone. Masons had helped to give the church its shape and make the interior appear like that of a real church, but the monks had carried the stone out, and brought in the materials. Only the monks knew the extent of the tunnel system that ran under the monastery.

Radu could feel the motion as the footsteps and talking echoed through his cell. His hunger tried again to pull him off of the ledge. Radu could feel his skin flaking off and falling all over the floor. He could barely move, but he managed to get his arm off the ledge, and his body was now right against the edge of the rock shelf.

“Here,” the voice was female, and Radu was sure that he recognized it. He could smell blood. It was in the room with him. Radu launched himself onto the floor. There was a vial of blood that someone had slipped under the boulder. Radu reached for it, but his motion was too erratic and he couldn’t control his arm. He smashed the vial and the blood leaked out onto the earthen floor.

Radu wiggled along the ground and stuck his face on the puddle that he had made on the floor. There was little in the way of blood left. The small taste of blood helped him to sit up. He licked a bit more blood off of the broken bits of glass on the floor.

“Dear Radu,” an attached note read. “I haven’t seen the monks head back here in years. Brother Vladimir is missing, and the others don’t seem to know about you. I didn’t know how much blood you needed. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” It was a note from Kat. She had signed her name to the bottom, but Radu didn’t need to read it to know that it was her. He could taste her in the blood. Radu picked up some of the blood-soaked dirt and tried to suck some of the blood out. His mouth was dry after, but he was feeling a bit stronger.

His hunger once again tried to pull him out of the room. Radu was strong enough now to resist. He threw himself back on the ledge and tried to close his eyes. He was going to need to figure out what had happened to Brother Vladimir, Radu already knew that. However, he wasn’t leaving his cell until the people were out of the monastery.

His eyes wouldn’t stay closed; he was afraid of slipping back into hibernation. Radu stared up into his wife’s eyes. He could feel the hand of Solomon at work. It was as if he was once again waving Nevasta’s head over the former Prince of Wallachia. “I promise you, I will destroy him this time,” he vowed to his love.

Radu lay back on the ledge and focused only on the sounds of life flowing through the veins of the monastery. He needed to bide his time. There was no reason to send the village into a panic. Hundreds of years ago they celebrated their connection to the vampire, but Radu knew his reception would no longer be warm.

“There’s a cave-in!” Radu could hear monks screaming as he broke through the boulder. There hadn’t been a cave-in at all. Radu was surprised that he was able to break through the barrier and leave the building intact. He had spent so long telling himself that the cave would collapse on him, Radu was a little disappointed to see how easy it was to get free.

He went through the dark cave toward light and the sense of the monks in the rest of the monastery. He stopped just outside a door, listening to a voice on the other side say, “Ma’am, you have to leave. You aren’t safe here anymore.” Radu grabbed the doorknob and shoved it open. The monastery was empty except for Kat and a very young-looking monk, whose face drained of all its color the moment he set eyes on the vampire bursting through the door.

“Who are you?” Radu asked the junior monk whose jaw hung slack. He appeared frozen and unable to speak.

“It’s okay, Sasha,” Kat told the boy, comfortingly patting his arm. “He’s my friend, Radu.”

“Your friend just ran out of the forbidden wing of the cathedral,” Sasha said as he tried to process what he had just seen. “No one is allowed back there…and what’s up with the face?”

“Hey!” Kat yelled. “He’s like 800 years old.”

“What year is it?” Radu asked, approaching Kat, reaching out for the vial she was holding out to him.

“2018,” Kat said as she handed Radu the vial. “I didn’t know how much to bring.” The young Sasha nearly passed out as he watched Radu drink the blood and lick the excess off his lips. He’d never seen anything like this in his life.

“Then I am only 749,” Radu stated as he watched the other monks gathering. “Where is Brother Vladimir?” The monks were approaching with holy water and crosses. They knew of vampires, but they didn’t know about Radu. He watched them with amusement, which left them bewildered and hanging back in fear. “I have lived in this monastery for the last 235 years, Do you think I fear your religious objects?”

Radu reached out and grabbed a cross out of a monk’s hand. He tossed it back to the monk, and then took a drink of holy water. The monks turned tail and ran out the monastery.

Radu watched them run with a mix of confusion and regret. What had happened during the last twenty years? He turned to see Kat and the junior monk still standing in amongst the stone pews.

“What are you?” Sasha’s voice was mystified. He tilted his head to the side, daring to take a step toward the vampire.

“What am I? Surely you can’t be serious,” Radu laughed. “My name is Radu Negru and I am a person, though no longer living. It is not what I am but who I am that matters.”

“Oh how I’ve missed you, my friend.” Kat laughed as she walked over and hugged Radu. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come check on you. We need to get you out of here. There is something weird going on in town. Strangers are coming in from all over the place, and I overheard some of them talking about you. And a woman named Helga. I think she is some kind of important witch or something. She knows you.”

“Helga,” Radu chuckled to himself, nodding. “What’s the old witch up to these days?”

“Apparently she’s looking for you.”

Radu sank down into the stone pew. He was feeling weak and old, the tiny bit of blood sustenance he’d received was just not enough. He needed so much more to replenish the youth he needed to survive painlessly. The long hibernation had taken a toll on his body, and he was going to need to go to ground, and rest for a while before he would be able to fight off an enemy like Helga.

“What could she want?” Kat asked as she helped Radu back to his cell. Radu assumed he knew exactly what Helga was after. Kat helped him up onto the bench.

Sasha was walking behind them fiddling with the ropes that held his junior monk’s robes in place. He was wearing a white robe with a brown stripe down the middle. He was a step away from getting his full brown robe. Radu could feel the nervous energy coming off the boy. “It’s okay,” Radu said over his shoulder. “Your order has cared for me for hundreds of years. You will not lose your place for helping me.”

“I have never been allowed back here,” Sasha said as he looked around at the tapestries and paintings around the room. “What is this place?”

“This is my cell,” Radu smiled as he took another look at his chamber. “It used to be a revered place among those of your order. So sad to see that they are letting the old ways die.” Radu lay back on the ledge and closed his eyes. “And me along with them.”

“I won’t let anyone back here,” Kat promised as she stood over the vampire. “Do you need to feed again?”

“My body needs to heal,” Radu admitted as he put a hand over her hand. “I knew there was a reason that I let you keep your memory.”

“I just hope that wasn’t the reason that they stopped feeding you,” Kat groaned. “Either way, I promise that I will take care of you. I won’t let these men hurt you.”

“If Helga is coming for me,” Radu grunted, pulling his hand back and looking up at the picture of Nevasta, “I’m afraid I don’t have the time I would need to recover. She will defeat me, and I will die. I will join my beloved in heaven.”

“Who is that? I didn’t know you had a beloved.” Kat gazed up at the image of Nevasta. “I thought you were the only vampire created by Unul Vechy? You are very powerful.”

“And Helga entered the world at the same time,” Radu explained. “Her mother was giving birth at the time that Unul touched down on Earth. Her body absorbed some of the magic that he let out as he landed five feet from where her mother was giving birth.”

“Oh wow. So, she’s part angel?” Kat asked.

“She’s somewhat human,” Radu sneered. “And that’s the nicest thing I can say about her.”

“Would the relics work on her?” Sasha was still looking all around the room. Radu shook his head.

“No but they might stop the others, though, if they are vampires,” Radu answered in a low voice.

“I think they are,” Kat said as she thought about the ones she had seen, and their strange behavior. “So, we can line the cave with holy water and crosses. We can do that before we leave.” Kat pushed Sasha out the door. “We will be back tomorrow night. Is there anything we can get you to help the healing go faster?”

“If I could drink a witch’s blood,” Radu shrugged.

“No problem,” Sasha sounded frustrated and concerned. “I’ll see if I can find that for you.”

“We’ll do what we can do,” Kat said as she led the young monk to the entrance of the tunnel. They started to set up the blockade of crosses doused with holy water.

“Thank you,” Radu mumbled as he closed his eyes and let the healing process begin. He could feel the blood moving through him. The damage was too extensive for the blood to be enough. It had gotten him moving again, but that was all. It was trying to heal his body, but it was going to take more blood than Kat and Sasha had between them to heal all of the damage.

“This is the moment I was created for, and I am too weak to do anything about it.” Radu knew that he was letting the entire world down. Helga was going to use the sword to raise Balaur and the world would be swallowed in a conflagration of fury and fire. The dragon would take to the skies again and destroy the Earth.