Lord of the Vampires

Book 3: The Diaries of the Family Dracul

by Jeanne Kalogridis

Genres: Historical Fantasy; Paranormal; Horror

Synopsis

After the death of his half brother, Stefan, at the hands of Vlad Tsepesh--also known as Dracula--and after the destruction of his vampire father, Arkady, also at the hands of Vlad, Abraham van Helsing has traveled the world slaying many vampires. With every vampire he destroys, Bram becomes stronger and Vlad weaker, and soon Bram hopes he will be able to finally kill the fearsome vampire who has kept the Tsepesh family enslaved through a centuries-old blood ritual.



But a desperate Vlad and his vampire great-niece, Zsuzanna, summon help from the most powerful, brutal, and beautiful vampire of all--Countess Elizabeth of Bathory. Bram learns of their plot to destroy him, and makes his own move to strike out at Vlad before Vlad can put him to death. He teams up with a courageous band of humans as he hunts Vlad--including Mina Harker and John Seward--and they finally succeed in killing the head of the Tsepesh clan, just as Bram Stoker foretold in Dracula. But the terror does not end with the death of Vlad, for there is another force that drives Vlad, Zsuzanna, Elizabeth and all the vampires, an ancient entity more evil than anything Bram has ever encountered: the Lord of the Vampires. And for Bram to defeat this dark lord, he must once again risk losing his very soul, to save not only his family, but humanity as well.



In her final book in The Diaries of the Family Dracul trilogy, Jeanne Kalogridis brilliantly melds her own fascinating story of the Tsepesh family with that of Bram Stoker's classic, Dracula. Told in diary form like the first two books and Stoker's own chilling tale, LORD OF THE VAMPIRES reveals the dark, startling truths behind the original Dracula.

Release date: August 17, 2011

Publisher: Dell

Print pages: 384

Sample

PROLOGUE
 
Memorandum of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia
 
BUCHAREST, CURTEA DOMNEASCA, 28 DECEMBER 1476. Outside, the promise of snow; the weather has turned bitter and the sky leaden, cloaking the overhead sun. Yet the air tingles, as if with unhurled lightning. It dances upon my skin.
 
We wait.
 
He comes … Basarab is coming.…
 
I smile up from parchment, ink, and quill at my trusted aide Gregor’s face, draped with shadows from the torchlight. Child of boiers, the Roumanian nobility, his features are mine—sharp, hawkish nose and chin, large heavy-lidded eyes, raven hair falling to his shoulders. No doubt we are related by blood, distant cousins at the least; he is at most half a thumb taller, so close are we in height.
 
The resemblance ends there, for the intelligence possessed by our forebears flows in my veins alone. Look at him: The fool cannot resist peering from time to time through the curtains, at the city spreading out below us, at the high, fortified walls built at my command. At what lies—what will lie soon—beyond those walls. He thinks I do not know.
 
Laiota Basarab with an army of four thousand Turks, come to murder me inside these stone walls and steal my throne, so recently reclaimed. And I with but half as many men, and my champions returned to their northern kingdoms.
 
The traitor comes.…
 
You know all that can be known of treachery, do you not, Gregor? Oh yes, you return my glance with the most fawning of courtesies, but I see your heart; I hear your very thoughts. You swear fealty to me, the voivode, but your loyalties lie with the inconstant boier, the nobles who will again deliver their country into the hands of Basarab, lover of Turks, for the sake of a mercenary peace.
 
All this did the Dark One reveal to me last night within the Circle. I doubt it not, for I have of late acquired further talents unknown to common mortals: the reading of the thoughts and hearts. As Gregor paces uneasily before the curtain, I see now his guilt as clearly as I see the words scrawled here before me.
 
I know treachery myself too well, having been often betrayed. Betrayed by my father, when he surrendered my brother and myself, both of tender age, to be the sultan’s hostages. Betrayed by my fair brother, Radu, lover of women and men and the sultan Mehmed, on whose account Radu seized my throne from me.
 
(And you are dead now, are you not, my dear younger brother? Killed at last by the womanish acts that won you Mehmed’s heart and army—and thus my kingdom. Those beautiful eyes the colour of blue-green sea are closed forever; those full red lips, which sought the breasts of women with the same fervour that they suckled at the sultan’s lap, shall never kiss again. May your syphilitic Turkish lovers follow you soon!)
 
Betrayed even by my one trusted friend, Stefan cel Mare, whose kingdom I helped him win. (You play the friend once more, my Stefan, now that it falls to your advantage. But I will not forget or forgive your maneuvers that put Basarab in my place. I take your help now that regret overtakes you; but the time for recompense will come.)
 
Still quiet. No cries from the watchtower, just the hiss of the fire, the scratch of the quill against parchment, the silence of imminent snow. And the scuffle of Gregor’s boots against stone as he paces; I am far too entertained by his anxiety to give him leave to sit. An hour ago, I bade him: “Send to the stable for horses, one for each of us, and a day’s provisions.”
 
Ah, the look of ill-concealed terror in his eye, at the thought the boiers’ scheme might go awry! “Where shall we go, my lord?”
 
Had I been in my usual humour, I would not have deigned to reply with more than a scowl (nor would Gregor have dared to ask, had his desperation not been so great). As it was, my amusement was such that I answered, “Riding.”
 
And, as he backed away, bowing, towards the door, his expression one of comical dubiousness, I added—loudly so that those standing watch at the entry would hear: “And send in two guards. I am not of a mind to wait alone.”
 
They heard and entered without waiting for Gregor’s relay—two fine strong Moldavians, one dark and the other golden, both tall and armed with swords, both left behind as tokens of Stefan’s guilt over past infidelities. This I did so that Gregor might not, should he arm himself in his absence, return and indulge his anxiousness to see me destroyed.
 
Later, when he returned, cheeks and nose reddened and glistening from the cold, to report that the horses should be ready within the hour, I sent him straightway on another errand: “Fetch clothing for me and yourself and bring it here, to my private chambers. We shall go disguised as Turks.”
 
This gave him great alarm, which he barely stifled. Did I know of the boier plot to send Basarab and the Turks to slay me and my army? Did I suspect him?
 
In his veiled eyes I saw the machinations of a traitorous mind. I had given no clear sign of suspicion yet; certainly I could have easily ordered the bodyguards to dispatch him had I discovered the truth. Was this one of the fearsome voivode’s fatal games—was I delaying his execution in order to savour it—or was it chance that I had chosen this moment to leave my stronghold disguised, alongside the man who would play my Judas?
 
He left, and in moments returned with clothing: a peaked cap, tunic and wool cloak to shield against the cold. He assisted me with my dress under the attentive eye of the Moldavians, watched as I wound the turban round my head, and looked askance when I asked him:
 
“Olmeye hazirmisin?” Are you prepared to die?, for I am as fluent in the speech of my enemies as I am my own tongue, having spent my youth as the sultan’s prisoner. I know their dress, their mannerisms, and can pass for one of them. And I laughed, for though he is their minion—he who serves the boiers serves the Turks—he understood not one word I had uttered. He laughed also, yellowed teeth flashing beneath the drooping mustache so like mine, thinking my mirth sprang from my successful impersonation.
 
Then I went over to the wall and lifted down from its place of honour a great scimitar, gleaming in the firelight, and with it a curving sheath. This I fastened to my belt, then said:
 
“Dress.”
 
He did so, and I looked on in silent approval at a body small in stature, but muscular, broad of chest and shoulder. His scars are fewer—he has not been tested in battle as often as I—and he lacks half a front tooth, but the similarities are enough.
 
After a time, a boy ran up to say the mounts were ready. But I would not be rushed. I had begun this entry and was obliged to finish it—for this will be my last remembrance as a mortal. I had learned from the Dark Lord in Circle the hour of Basarab’s coming and knew I was still safe, and further, I was not inclined to end Gregor’s anxiety. Let him wait! Let him suffer in uncertainty—which he does to this very moment, pacing in his Turkish robes, praying that I will change my mind and remain here, to be slaughtered.
 
Were the guards not here, he would risk killing me now. I know that the moment we are alone on horseback, he will seek the first opportunity; for that, I am ready.
 
I must not die now! Not so close to the touch of the Dark Lord, and Eternity.…
 
 
SNAGOV MONASTERY, 28 DECEMBER. To the north we rode upon black stallions, first along the banks of the Dimbovita, then across the frozen ground into the bare-limbed Vlasia Forest, tinged with evergreen. The air was grey with smoke and the approaching storm, and laden with a strange, fleeting smell: of lightning spent, of iron wielded; of blood and snow.
 
I galloped at full speed, wind stinging my eyes, keeping Gregor well behind me—a danger, perhaps, but I had seen him dress and knew he carried no weapon save the sword at his waist. If he wished to kill me at that moment (and he did), then he would have to overtake me, throw me from my horse, slay me before I could draw my own sword. Perhaps the singular intent in my eyes frightened him; if so, he was wise to fear. He might have turned and hastened away to the south, returned to his beloved Basarab, and warned them of my escape to the north—but that action would have alerted me at once to treachery and bettered my chance of survival.
 
So we continued apace over hard earth and rocks and dead crackling leaves until at last we reached the banks of a great lake, frozen solidly, its surface opaque grey-white dirtied by swirls of dark suspended flotsam. At its center stood the island fortress of Snagov, the spires of the Chapel of the Annunciation emerging from behind high walls at the water’s very edge.
 
I dismounted and unsheathed my sword—with a smile to ease Gregor’s growing trepidation—and led my horse onto the ice. “No need to draw your arms,” I told my uncertain companion. “Mine are sufficient to protect us.” I nodded for him to precede me across the river to the great iron gate.
 
In his eyes I saw once more the moment of decision: Should he smite me now, and return to Basarab’s army a hero? Should he hope for an opportunity inside Snagov’s walls, and venture forth upon the ice? (It was my right as sovereign to require that someone else test the ice’s strength.) Why had I drawn my sword? Was this merely another of the prince’s eccentricities, or had I deduced his deception?
 
A flicker of fear again crossed his features. I was, after all, Dracula, the son of the Devil, the passionate fighter whose madness and boldness knew no limits. I had ridden at night into Mehmed’s very camp and slaughtered a hundred sleeping Turks with the sword I now grasped. If he drew his weapon now and openly challenged me, would he be the survivor?
 
With the softest of sighs he swung down from his horse and led the creature onto the frozen lake. So we made our way toward sanctuary, the horses’ hooves ringing hollowly against the ice, displacing small clouds of mist. At last we arrived at the great stone wall I had built during my reign, which had transformed the island monastic village into a more suitable fortress for guarding the treasure of the Wallachian realm. Ringing that wall were trees, their naked limbs clawing at the stones as if pleading for entry.