Chapter 16

Nikola scanned the forest for a human like mind. The Chukchi had long since passed away from this lands on their migration and that had made his hunt easier. He reached his limit but found nothing. Yet he could feel eyes on him.

Vasilisa was following him. He was right about the blood bound clouding the blonde’s judgement after all. He then scanned the animals and found a bird without a heartbeat hiding up high. He went to the tree it was on and knocked on it three times. No answer came.

“Vasilisa you are supposed to say “who’s there?”. I know you are up on that tree. Think about the environment and don’t make me punch it down with you on it.”

The bird flapped it’s wings and began to circle around him. Low enough to be seen and high enough for Nikola’s knives not to reach it. He found himself wanting a gun in that moment.

“Darling, why don’t we talk? Turn into your lovely form, heck turn into a monstrosity, and we will talk this out. You broke my heart when you ran away from me. Sure sinking your stuff to the bottom of a swamp was a bit too much but love makes people mad.”

The bird returned on the branch and Nikola sighed before punching the tree down as he said he would. The bird was circling the skies again.

“Have you fed on anything yet, Vasilisa? Oh, what am I saying, of course you haven’t. You keep to the skies in bird form just so that you can stare at my ass as I climb trees to get to you. Well it’s not happening tonight, my love! Look I promise I will at least hear you out if you come down. I’m not even mad right now, am I?”

The bird dived at him but he threw a knife at it as soon as it got too close. It grazed it’s wing but it still managed to flap away. Nikola wiped away a blood drop that had fallen on his check and went to retrieve his knife.

Seeing as Vasilisa was stubbornly starving himself in order to keep himself out of his reached he pondered on what to do. How does he temp the starving vampire? Four months had passed and neither of them had rested. Nikola felt slightly tired but he resolved to feed and soldier on.

If only there was something he could use as bait? If the Chukchi were still around he could kidnap a child and tie it up and lie in wait. But they were gone and so he had to improvise.

There was no other choice, really. There was only one bait available to him and it was himself. He moved to a nearby tree and put his backpack down and then sat down before speaking again.

“Spider I got coughed in your web again. I am so tired. Won’t you come and hold me in your arms?”

He closed his eyes and forced his breathing to slow down as he heard the flapping of wings.

“Vasilisa Prekrasnaia if you are not up to cuddling won’t you at least sing me to sleep? You take the form of such lovely songbirds, my dear. Don’t I deserve at least that much? I am still by your side, aren’t I?”

One of the birds began singing then he felt something small land on his shoulders. He reached out to grab the songbird but it flew away and the lovely song stopped. Tonight it hadn’t happened but soon it will if Vasilisa would still be stupid enough to approach him. He had eight more months of starving him out and tempting him. He could do this.

After that he just started hiking mindlessly and allowed himself to be followed. And if Vasilisa was to stray he was the one to follow him and give him headaches that nearly got him out of the skies at night.

Nikola never managed to find out where Vasilisa would hide during the day. In theory he should be close by and as he never let him land on the earth during the night he was sure that the blonde was in the trees.

Climbing the tall trees took up his days as he searched burrow after burrow. Then it hit him one day. What if Vasilisa was using magic to hide a whole tree from him? He spend the following days searching for any weird shadows on the ground and he ended up hitting his foot on thin air on accident.

He felt up the thin air and blindly began to climb. He fell many times as he couldn’t see the branches and where to put his feet. At nightfall a golden bird exited from the air just above him and landed on his head. It chirped in amusement and did a little hopping dance on it.

Nikola had ended up piercing his own skull with his knife as he tried to skewer it. It was so deep it had taken him until the sunrise to take it out. He stopped searching for invisible trees after that and just laid siege to the last tree he saw the Methuselah on. Vasilisa would always keep going back to watch him and sing to him at night anyway.

It was on the seventh month that he couldn’t ignore how tired he was getting. The nagging tug in his brain had gotten unbearable. Vasilisa probably wasn’t fearing any better than him since he was starving and his reflexes got so slow that he wouldn’t even fly down to him anymore.

Sighing Nikola laid down on the floor and began talking to Vasilisa, sure he would be heard.

“Once upon a time there were two leeches in love. One had never been human before he made the mistake of biting down on the other leech’s tongue and leech number two lost all his morality while munching on vampires, fae and lupine.”

Angry chirping was heard from above and Nikola barked a laugh.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I chased big bad wolfs too. What is that? Are you cursing me with your chirping? I humanized you and you demonized me, spider. Now let me finish my story. Anyway leech number two got tired of leech number one and decided to bite him and not in the way leech number one is thinking of now.”

The bird neared him and he flicked a knife at him but it just got closer still until it was close to his feet. He felt tired and sleepy. He slapped his face and tried to throw the knife but it fell from his fingers instead and suddenly the bird was on his lap. Magic again, huh? He really needed to get Flavius to teach him some once he got back.

“Is it such a sin for leech number two to take what is his, spider? We will become one if you stop running. You won’t attack me as you are still drunk on my blood but I will tell you a secret. I’ve been using persuasion on you and feeding you false emotions during the day as you hide in your invisible trees. My clan is something else, no?”

The bird gave a couple of angry chirps and tried to move to his chest but it fell down. It flapped it’s wings weakly but couldn’t get up. Nikola placed a hand over the “animal” and tried to squeeze the life out of it but found that there was no strength in his limb left. He petted the bird gently with his thumb and it gave a tired chirp.

“Baby everyone has to die someday. You waited for your execution calmly back in your village, didn’t you? Well now it is the same thing. You led me on a merry chase but it’s over. Oh, I know you are using magic to force me to get tired faster but the sun is going to be up soon. If you think I’m falling asleep and letting you go now that you are in my hand you have another thing going. I’m not stupid like Baba Yaga to toy with you. But you know all this, don’t you? Why don’t you turn back so we can talk? I haven’t had a proper conversation ever since you ran off.”

The bird gave a weak attempt at struggling but it didn’t amount to much. Nikola’s tiredness lessened and he looked down on the golden creature with pity. He picked his knife and placed it over the bird’s head.

“Lost all hope, have you? Or did you just want to die with the one you loved? Baby don’t cry. You had my heart, at least for the most part. I promise to never forget you, Vasilisa. Sleep well, spider.”

He was just about to plunge it down as the bird gave one last effort and it’s feathers exploded around it. Soon Vasilisa was in his male form. He was still beautiful but he was pale and sickly and Nikola could feel his ribs.

“I love you, fly. Why can’t we make a new start? I have never done anything to you!”

“How many times do I need to tell you that you just need to die for you to get it, Vasilisa? It’s nothing personal. I just need to take everything away from you for no other reason than you being a part of my Jihad. Now close your eyes. This won’t hurt much.”

“You think this is over but it had just began. You will see just how special my magic is. I will never leave you, fly. Consider yourself eaten.”

Nikola placed a hand over Vasilisa’s eyes and brought his other one with the knife over his head. He used the eye covering hand to push the weak Vasilisa off of him and flip them so that the anorexic vampire was beneath him. He saw before he felt blood pouring out of Vasilisa’s eyes and the vampire began chanting something in a language that Nikola couldn’t understand.

Just as he used the knife to carve up the still chanting vampire’s chest and take out his heart he heard a soft murmur coming from Vasilisa. He was about to cut the heart out completely but felt slight sense of loss as he heard the barely audible words.

“Fly, I love you so much I forgive you. Yet I cursed you as you brutalized me. You will see in time. You sleep, da? We will see how well when you keep seeing me in your dreams. We will have a new start and I will protect you just like you used to protect me. Sleep well, fly.”

“Know peace forever, Vasilisa.”

With his last strength he tore out the shriveled heart and brought it to his lips. He sunken his fangs in it and drank it dry as Vasilisa turned to dust and his ashes were scattered to the wind. The heart too turned to dust and he fell face down on the forest floor as the first rays of sun hit his face.

The unnatural quiet that had accompanied Vasilisa disappeared and suddenly he was surrounded by bird song again. He inhaled the earth beneath him and found out he could still smell Vasilisa.

Drifting off to sleep he couldn’t help but think about the vampire’s last words. Thinking it nonsense he flipped himself on his back and spread out his arms. He had done his mission finally. Now it was time for him to rest.

He dreamt that he was back in his own apartment and it was the same night he had met Dimitri. He pulled out his keys and found the door unlocked just like it had been before. Then he pinched himself. It hurt more than it should.

Could it be that he was not dreaming at all? Was his life from up to that point a daydream? He remembered with sudden clarity what he made in the factory today, no it was that day. It happened back in the past.

He placed a hand over his chest and found his heart beating. Then he flicked his tongue over his teeth but found no fangs? What was happening? Did someone slip drugs on him at the breakfast place? And how come no one had noticed. Then his thoughts went back to that strange blonde with the top hat that had followed him that day.

Except, wait a second, it hadn’t been him at all. It was a lovely girl with a long braid and a ribbon tied into a bow around it. She had been beautiful. He shook his head and opened his door and walked in. The pretty lady in the blue baggy dress was on his couch reading a pamphlet on pastries. Isn’t that what Dimitri had done? Who was this Dimitri he kept thinking off? He didn’t remember knowing a Dimitri.

“What are you doing here? Are you lost?”

Strange, hadn’t he said those words before? But when?

“Oh, me? I have no place to stay and you seem boring enough. So I’m moving in with you, isn’t it great?”

Nikola made to go back towards the door but stopped in his tracks. He had heard this answer before with the blonde with the top hat. It hadn’t worked with him had it? True enough this new blonde was between him and the door and waiting for him to reach for the handle. When he didn’t an ugly scowl crossed the angelic face.

“Dear morsel you will give me dinner now, da?”

That was not what had happened next with the other blonde! He pinched himself again but found that it didn’t hurt at all. The blonde lady hissed at him and her arms wrapped him in a hug. Then he felt how hard her, no his, chest was.

He felt fangs on his neck and he was drunken from hungrily.

“So delicious, fly. So alive. So sweet.”

Was that freaking Russian? How did he understand it? What had happened in the dream? His original one and not this strange reality. The blonde with the top hat, Dimitri, had drank from him and then taken him to the couch and then had left him to eat dinner. It had been chicken with rice.

He turned around as much as he could when he registered that he wasn’t feeling any pain and there on the kitchen counter was indeed food. It smelled delicious. He hadn’t eaten food in years. His mouth was filling with saliva as he thought of the meal that awaited him. But then he remembered barfing out food. He was a vampire and couldn’t eat anything.

He pushed a now pleading Vasilisa off of him and went towards the food. Nikola turned around to look at the blonde.

“What is your name, spider?”

Why had he called the blonde that? Now he looked annoyed at him before nodding in resignation and sitting on the couch to pout. He was adorable. He shook his head as the vampire patted the space next to him. Nikola ignored him and went to check out the food.

The food was all wrong! It wasn’t chicken with vegetables and rice at all. It was some sort of a bean soup. He sniffed it and it smelled of herbs. He took a spoon and ate a mouthful and immediately spat it out and went to heave over the sink. His tongue flicked over his teeth. His fangs were back.

That little shit! He had gotten into his mind somehow and was attempting to reenact his beginning days with Dimitri. Everything came back to him as he brought his fist on the kitchen counter. It splintered. So his power was back too.

“I shouldn’t have given you any food! Stupid, stupid! Now how do I control you, fly?”

Vasilisa stood up from the couch and ran up the stair and closed the bedroom door behind him with a bang. Nikola picked his sharpest knife from the sink and ran after him.

When he opened the door it wasn’t his old room but rather the bedroom in Malkav’s apartment. It was filled with his old paintings of him posing with corpses and Vasilisa was hugging and kissing his very first painting in the bed while rocking himself back and forth.

Nikola jumped in bed with the blonde, took the painting out of his hands, threw it away and pressed the knife’s tip to the unresisting blonde’s chest.

“Are you going to brutalize me again, fly? Don’t you have a heart? Go ahead and tear out mine, it is as healthy and beautiful as yours. Not a speck of rot on it.”

Nikola did just that and where before the veins of the heart were shriveled and barely holding it in place these now were healthy and gushing blood. The heart itself looked like it was of a living person. He brought it to his mouth and bit down and drank from the warm sweet blood as fingers ran in his hair.

“See, fly? I am dead and this doesn’t hurt at all. You put me in Final Death but I am clever and tied my spirit to you so I won’t go to hell. Now eat it. Eat it. Eat it.”

Nikola bit down and started devouring the flesh as Vasilisa calmly played with his hair. He licked his fingers clean once he was done and was surprised when he didn’t try to barf. It was good to eat something again. Even if it was a still beating heart.

Looking up to Vasilisa’s chest he saw that it was healed and he was smiling gently at him. The blonde kissed his forehead and hugged him to himself so that Nikola was now lying on him with his hands spread out on the pillows. He gave out a sigh.

“You won after all, spider. Now what? Are you going to keep me in my dreams until I shrivel up and die in the Siberian tundra?”

“Oh its much more plausible that you get eaten by hungry beasts. Your heart still beats and once they taste your vitae they will tear you to shreds. But then I will go to hell with you. No, I will not keep you here forever, fly.”

Nikola wrapped his arms around the blonde and nuzzled his shoulder. He had spent so long alone in the tundra that even this comfort was welcomed.

“How is this possible? How did you curse me, Vasilisa?”

Vasilisa started tapping on his back with his fingers to a strange beat. He hooked a leg over Nikola and pulled him closer to himself.

“I told you that you will be cursed when you started killing fae but did you listen? No! You made this possible. They cursed you with their last breaths with all they had and I used their resentment towards you to give you a curse of my own. Fly, you did this to yourself! Now you are eaten and if you don’t play to my tune you will die with me and never see your loves again. I know it’s not your time but if you piss me off it’s bye bye. Baby don’t’ cry.”

Nikola chuckled at that. Vasilisa had been right. He deserved it. He kissed the shoulder beneath him and laid his head sleepily on it.

“ If all of your wishes are here in dreams then I see no harm in obliging in order to wake up. So what do you want from me, Vasilisa the Beautiful?”

“I want for us to have another chance. And if it’s not enough we will try again. And again. Over and over until Gehenna. You want to wake up? Let us have a wedding then. It has been nearly three years since you came to my unlife. Take some responsibility for your action and pledge me your love and soul. Then I will let you go back to the world of the living.”

“I’m married already, Vasilisa. You will be number three. Did I starve you so much that you are hungry for the scraps of Malkav’s and Dimitri’s table?”

“Number three maybe but I will be the last number in your collection. I saw what you plan in your mind and what your Jihad is. I won’t let you ever be drugged by blood again. I will clear your mind each and every time. Take this gift and promise me the chance of eternal love beyond the grave. Or remain in my arms here safe and unfelling as wild beasts eat you alive. Everybody has to die someday. Isn’t it what you told me?”

Nikola had long since come to terms he didn’t want to die. He didn’t even hesitate before answering.

“Let’s have a wedding then.”

Vasilisa giggled excitedly and suddenly Nikola found himself standing upright in church wearing a black suit. Vasilisa was in a puffy wedding dress with long sleeves and a back covered in lace. The dress was covered in white silk ribbons tied in a bows. Vasilisa’s hair was let loose and he was wearing a headdress much like the one that Ivan had given Matthew except it was all in black.

He looked around him and recognized a vampire he had done diablerie on. Then another. The choir was made up by fae and they looked as if they wanted to tear him to shreds but they kept singing in a soft voice. A lupine he had force feed his own eyes for staring at Vasilisa hungrily as he bathed in the river one day was at the organ and was playing a bridal march. His eyes were still missing but he pressed the keys without a mistake.

He heard a loud sniff and then a cackle and he looked towards the “bride’s” side to see a huge monstrosity of a woman rubbing her hands together with glee as a beautiful vampire, probably Toreador judging by his clothes, patted her on the back.

Were those all of the supernatural beings both he and Vasilisa had eaten combined? Oh God is bloody Baba Yaga now in his brain? Will milk curdle as he pass? How was he going to pass unnoticed now?

He was taken out of his thoughts as the priest cleared his throat. Then he remembered that he had read how some vampires hid in the church and chuckled. Figures that Vasilisa would find one of them and eat him.

The priest took out a bible. Tore it to shreds and stepped on it a couple of times. The wedding guests clapped and cheered. Nikola found it deeply disturbing.

“Do you, Vasilisa the Beautiful, take this man for your husband in death for the rest of his unnatural life?”

“I do. To his death and in Hell.”

“Do you, Nikola Asenov-Popescu, take this man for your husband in death for the rest of your unnatural life?”

“I do.”

Nikola said simply. Vasilisa hit him softly on his chest frowning and Baba Yaga gave a loud “Boo, undeserving bastard!” from her sit before hugging the Toreador. He looked very uncomfortable.

“Say what I said or you are going to be wolf pack shit as well as a regular one!”

Baba Yaga gave a wolf whistle and a “You tell him, brother!” before feeling up a now whimpering Toreador’s butt. The faes started to cackle as well as tap their feet and do dances he had seen once when he went to church in the black neighborhood of his town with his mother and her friend Aunt Susan. The lupine gave the wedding march a rock feeling and began to pretend the organ was a guitar in joy.

Nikola pouted but as Vasilisa loudly stomped his foot down he relented.

“I do. To my death and in Hell. Also while we are at it I hereby sell my eternal soul to him and pledge my love too. Happy, spider?”

Vasilisa bounced on his feet in joy. The faes stopped dancing and threw their music sheets on the ground. The lupine started playing a funeral march. The priest took the cross from behind him and broke the alter with it in two and began to chant something that must have been for summoning Satan but then Baba Yaga was next to him and hitting him over the head. She had snot running down her nose and her face were covered in tears of joy. Nikola was never more disturbed at a reaction of a group before. What had he said wrong?

The priest snarled at Baba Yaga. She placed a clawed hand on him and smiled sweetly. He gulped and turned towards the groom and bride as Baba Yaga kept tracing circles on his back. Happy that the attention was diverted from him the Toreador put an arm around a pretty vampire that was sitting next to him. Baba Yaga saw him and growled. He took his arm back and started sobbing.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You now may kiss your bride and get to live your life while we all rot in your head, you fucking piece of shit.”

The faes were chanting “Kiss” and the lupine was hitting the keys of the organ in sync. Baba Yaga was happily clapping along and dragging the priest, who was trying to summon the Devil to deliver him from this again, towards the Toreador and put them both on her lap as she promised them that the next wedding will be theirs. The Toreador started repeating the priest’s chanting and his sobbing increased in volume.

Vasilisa closed his eyes and leaned in but Nikola just stood there. Vasilisa kicked him in the groin with much more force than he had expected of him and he leaned in to kiss him between groans. Then Vasilisa was tugging him out of the church as the guests sprinkled rice and confetti on them.

Nikola heard screaming and he turned and saw that a pentagram had appeared out of nowhere and a hand was shooting out of it. The fucking priest and Toreador had summoned Satan in his mind! Baba Yaga grabbed the hand and pulled the Devil out.

He fucking existed. He was real and big and red and had horns and a tail and he was now running away from a horny Baba Yaga who was tugging at his loin cloth excitedly. The priest and Toreador were both running out of the door and into the emptiness beyond.

Vasilisa threw a tantrum about how it should have been them to get out of the door first. He hugged his arm and dragged him towards the exit as Nikola watched gaping as Satan was begging to God for help and using the cross as a shield while Baba Yaga cackled. He tried to jump back into the pentagram but was stopped and Baba Yaga broke it and started going for the only piece of clothing covering him again. He was the next one out of the door. Great, now Satan was staying in his head until summoned by someone else. He just hoped that the chanting of the priest wasn’t a lost art.

As Vasilisa finally pulled him past the threshold they found themselves out of the noisy church and back in Malkav’s bedroom. He looked around worriedly and saw that there were none of the guests here. Then he heard screaming from the window. It was the Devil. He was attempting to break the window and get in. Vasilisa went and pulled the curtains on him.

Vasilisa gave him a shy look and went to lay in the bed. He got himself comfortable and started to undo his dress.

“Are we really going to do this with the Devil begging us for help? He is creeping me out.”

“SISTER GET A MOVE ON! YOUR BOY TOY IS RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW! TAKE HIM AWAY OR I AM SENDING YOU TO HELL AND OUT OF NIKOLA’S MIND!”

The Satan, THE Satan, gave a girlish shriek at the realization that Baba Yaga could become a potential resident of his home and he ran off. A cackling sound soon followed.

Nikola shook his head and went to sit on the bed just as Vasilisa was done undoing all of the ribbons that held his dress together. The Bulgarian reached out and ran his hands through the fabric and his face softened.

“Vasilisa are you sure you want to do this with me? I just did a diablerie on you and …”

“It’s our wedding, fly. A proper one and not just a simple exchange of rings. With a priest and a church and guests. Now consummate our marriage. Get caught in my web forever and let me eat you.”

“If that is what you really want.”

He reached out and started to tug the dress between kisses. Once they were done he fell asleep with Vasilisa in his arms and woke up in the tundra still laying in the man’s ashes. He smiled to himself and got back. It had been just a dream. Maybe Malkav’s insanity had returned. And he had been so sleep deprived that…

“Don’t delude yourself, fly. It doesn’t suit you. I am waiting for you once you fall asleep. Have pleasant travels.”

He was hearing voices. There was suddenly melodic giggling and suddenly silence. It was real. He was truly eaten now by his spider. Forever and ever. In death and in hell.