The Bargain

By Cameron Corder

I woke to the sound of rasping steel and a crackling fire. In the dark of the heavy night, the fire blazed with painful light. I winced, trying to shield my eyes from its glow.

“Hello,” came a dry voice.

My eyes fell upon a crumbled form of a man, who sat against a log next to the fire. Dressed in a long brown coat, he could be easily mistaken for an old oak stump in a cold forest. And in his hands was a long-handled axe that he sharpened with a stone.

“How are you feeling?” The stone scraped against the axe.

I rubbed my eyes, hoping to clear a dense mental fog. “Like I’ve been gutted and dried.”

“Not too far from the truth,” the man said with a chuckle, pointing a gnarled finger at my chest.

My shirt was in blood-stained tatters, hanging onto my frame by only a few threads. A large hole in the front left my chest open to the frigid air. The skin there was pink, as though a great scab had once covered its entirety.

“I… don’t understand,” I admitted as I curled my legs up to my chest. The fire did little warm me, seeming to only offer pain rather than comfort.

“It’s quite simple, really.” He set the axe at his side. “You died.”

I blinked. “Pardon?”

“You’re dead.”

“Come again?” I replied, my mind not grasping the idea.

“As in passed. Not of the living,” he said, each word more impatient than the last. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

My mind lolled as I fought through the fog. “I… was at the manor, the Count’s manor. Because… I saw a commotion, from the streets. Then I remember opening the door and… that’s it, I think.”

The man looked up, with gray eyes squinting. “That’s it?”

“I believe so, yes.”

The man raised a brow, seeming to be perplexed by my words. He took a long look at me before he went on to say, “After you opened the door, you saw Isabelle and ushered her outside. Then, you saw me, fighting the Count. At that point, the Count grabbed you and split your ribs open and drank you dry.”

“That’s…” Impossible, I was about to say, but I knew his words to be true. I could hear the sounds of cracking bone and felt the icy sting of fangs all over again, and I grabbed at my chest. “So it is,” I breathed. “You say the Count, yet it was clearly a beast that… drank me.”

The man nodded. “Aye. ’Twas the Count. Transformed, yes, but the Count all the same.”

The beast’s image flashed in my memory, with its pale, varicose skin and gangly legs. “That is to say, that the Count is a monster?”

“So he was,” the man nodded.

I gulped, hearing the message beyond his words. “You killed him.”

The man nodded. He threw a log onto the fire, causing a spurt of ash and cinders to fly up. I shrank back from it, finding more solace in the dark.

“And I died,” I murmured, half in wonder, the other half in fear. “Were you the one to revive me then, sir?”

“No. You can send your thanks to the late Count, Gods burn him. As I cleaved his head off he spat blood and venom into you, corrupting you to the very soul. And now you are counted among the dead, yet still allowed to walk the earth.”

“I’m…”

He nodded. “You’re a vampire.”

“No, that… cannot be.”

“‘Let fire repel them, as it chases away the dark within them.’ Tell me, does that ring true to you? Go on, lie to me, tell me that you cannot feel the poison in your very veins.”

I reeled, as my mind struggled with the revelation. I’d only heard of such ghoulish things in rumors and tall tales, yet now I had become one. A vampire, a cursed creature, said to be an abomination in the Gods’ sight. A punishment for crimes both temporal and spiritual. It was too dark and twisted to be true, or so I had thought. All this time, they were been real, enough for the Count to be one.

“Pray tell, what are your intentions with me now?” I asked.

“Now that,” the man said, “depends on you.” A red glint shone from beneath his eyes as they locked with mine.

I gulped, suddenly realizing that I was alone and in the woods with this man. My hands groped around in the dirt as I hoped to find even a stick to use in my defense, should the need arise. But the loose soil held nothing for me.

“Speak plainly, sir,” I said with forced confidence.

“I could cleave your head too, as I did the Count’s. I’d do it cleanly, and as swift as the wind. You’d be free of the curse and move onto meet your Makers.”

“Or?” I asked, hoping for another option.

“Or,” he said slowly, “you could swear on your own flesh to use this curse to bless those around you. To hunt those that slink in the shadows, those that threaten the innocent for their own gain. You’d bear the curse until the earth is ground to dust or until your death, whichever comes first.”

“Death or slavery, is it,” I said.

He shrugged. “Such are the choices allotted to all those who are turned,” he said, a hint of sorrow behind the hard truth.

“But as a vampire, could I not just overpower you, old man?”

The man laughed. The sound came rolling and rolling like an ancient boulder. “You’d kill your savior, would you, boy? Challenge me then, and you’ll be the second vampire I kill tonight.” There was an edge to his tone, an eagerness. A thirst for blood. His hand fell to the axe handle, all the while keeping his red eyes on me.

“Perhaps.” I suppressed the surge of rebellion in me, one that urged for a fight. No doubt that was the monster’s blood thrumming for battle. “But how could I trust a man who bargains with an abomination?”

“What of another abomination?” the man asked with a toothy smile.

“I should have guessed,” I said. “And you promise that this is not some ruse or trap?”

“On my flesh,” he said.

Such a choice was unlike any I had before. On the one hand, I would be forced into a life of service. Not just that, but an endless life of service. It was questionable how much freedom I would have in such an enterprise, as vampires would likely be kept on a short leash, lest they turn to their base instincts.

But on the other hand, I would be dead. Truly dead, not the state in which I presently found myself.

So in both cases, my life was over. I could either slip away with it, or try to forge another. Despite its lack of freedom, I had admit that being a vampire hunter sounded like an exciting one.

And, whispered something cold and dark within me, maybe there will come a day when you could break the chains of service, and… well, do what comes naturally.

With a sigh, I said, “I will choose slavery. No sense in letting my talents be wasted, whether they be natural or otherwise.”

“A fine decision. But don’t fret,” a crooked smile twisted his lips, “if you change your mind at any time, I would be happy to oblige.”

“Thank you, but I am quite certain.”

The man rose to his feet. “Come now, boy,” he said, “there’s slaying to be had.”