The Bite of Vengeance Read online

  ‘Please, tell me what you want!’

  ‘I want information.’

  ‘Information on what?’ asked the priest.

  ‘On how you found out about my plan.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Roconn knew he was lying, he could sense it. Picking up a serrated knife, he walked over to the priest, who cowered before him.

  ‘You are lying. You know of my plot to kill the Pope, do not deny it,’ said Roconn.

  The priest raised his good arm as if to block the accusation.

  ‘Okay, okay!’ he screeched as Roconn raised the knife threateningly.

  The Priest’s Persuasion

  The day was young and the sun shone brightly over the city of Rome. A priest was walking outdoors, surrounded by twelve cardinals, all of whom were dressed in red.

  ‘I think you have chosen the wrong path, my friends,’ the priest said to the group.

  ‘I need you to know that he is not who you think. He is evil, mark my words, you will regret it if you continue on your current path.’

  The group walked on and down a walkway.

  ‘If you change your mind soon, I will personally guarantee a large sum of gold in it for you.’

  ‘He promised us more than any gold is worth,’ said one cardinal.

  ‘He told us that our dreams would come true,’ said another.

  ‘Said we would have more power than anyone could dream of, he did,’ agreed a third.

  ‘Yes, he says all these things. But what does he offer in exchange?’ the priest asked inquisitively.

  None of the cardinals spoke as they resumed their casual stroll around the city. The priest led them to a secluded area that many avoided. The cardinals were oblivious to this.

  ‘I see he has twisted your minds in to believing that he will provide all, and that the Lord provides nothing.’

  The cardinals remained silent. One of them finally paid attention to where they were walking. He informed his partner of this, who then spoke.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’

  ‘To meet my friend,’ replied the priest casually.

  On and on they walked until suddenly, the priest stopped. One cardinal, who was not fully aware of where he was walking, stumbled over his robes. They were stood in a small garden beside an abandoned building. Its windows were boarded up and a large, plain, stone fountain was set in the middle of the garden. The priest paid him no attention, merely standing still in the knee-high grass.

  ‘Just tell us what you want,’ said a cardinal named Berrin.

  The priest ignored him. He stuck his arm out, grabbed a handle that the others had not seen, and pulled. It was attached to a long piece of rope which threaded into the building. It had been very well disguised, so that it looked like the bark of a tree. A bell rang quietly inside the building. A few seconds later, the sound of a bolt being slid open, came from within. The priest pushed open an ivy-covered door. The sunlight spilled in, illuminating a dark and dusty hallway. The priest walked in, followed by the cardinals. Once they were inside, the door seemed to shut of its own accord, plunging them in to darkness. One of the cardinals, Hroti, let out a squeak of fright as the door slammed. The cardinals huddled closer together as the priest walked confidently through the dark. A light flared in front of him, illuminating a small amount of the hallway.

  ‘Rosse,’ he spoke in to the dark.

  As the cardinals’ eyes adjusted to the dim light, they could see it was actually being carried by someone. The hooded figure, who was dressed in black robes, walked ahead of the priest, leading them down the hallway. At the end, they reached a room. Like the rest of the building it was dusty, and smelt of damp and mould.

  ‘Rosse, may I introduce twelve cardinals, all of whom work for the man you call Roconn.’

  Unfortunately, the priest was unaware that Roconn was in fact a powerful vampire, nor did he realize the man he was speaking to was also a vampire.

  ‘Rosse here knows Roconn. He tells me Roconn is a dangerous man, and not someone to be trifled with,’ the priest told the cardinals as they shuffled uncomfortably in the gloom.

  Rosse put the lantern down on to a cabinet which was, other than one wooden chair, the only furniture in the room. The window had been boarded up in here too, so that the only light came from the lantern. The flame inside flickered, making the priest’s shadow dance on the wall.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosse spoke slowly with a deep, calm voice.

  ‘I can assure you, working with Roconn is not a move I consider to be smart.’

  Hroti spoke.

  ‘I do not wish to work with him any longer!’ He seemed very certain of his newly made decision.

  Another cardinal walked into the open space and stood in front of Rosse.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I am certain of this. Do not question me, Cardinal.’

  ‘I will do as I please. If you sit there and attempt to persuade me to change my allegiance, then I would question the reason for it.’

  ‘Roconn is dangerous. He is a killer, he has murdered many people. Not just because he is mentally disturbed, but because he enjoys it, as does his wife.’ Rosse sipped a glass of deep-red liquid which he picked up from the floor, beside his chair.

  The chair had not been noticed by the cardinals at first in the dim light. The priest assumed it was wine and continued his speech.

  ‘Roconn will say anything to get what he wants, which is revenge, and he’ll manipulate anyone he possibly can to do just that.’

  ‘What does he want revenge for?’ piped up Berrin, who was crammed in the doorway.

  The other cardinals shuffled uneasily, but remained silent.

  ‘He wishes to avenge the deaths of his children. For some reason he has formed in his head the idea that it was the Lord who killed his children, which, of course, is not true,’ said the priest.

  ‘Naturally,’ replied Rosse.

  ‘If I get the chance to try and kill Roconn, believe me, I am taking it.’ Rosse added.

  The priest, who seemed happy with this response, left him alone, followed by the cardinals.

  ‘I think I might have convinced three of them,’ the priest said to himself later that day as he walked towards the Vatican.

  Suddenly, a young woman walked up to him. She was pretty and thin. She wore a lovely pale-blue dress that somehow went well with her bright-green eyes. Her long, brown hair bounced behind her as she walked briskly by his side.

  ‘Excuse me, Father,’ she said.

  ‘Yes Sophia, how can I help you?’ replied the priest, trying not to show the frustration he felt for having his very important thoughts interrupted.

  ‘Father,’ she repeated as she caught her breath. ‘We have just caught word of a miracle, isn’t it wonderful?’ she seemed positively delighted at the news. ‘His Holiness, the Pope, requests that you personally go.’

  Seeing as he had nothing more important to do regarding the useless cardinals, he decided to collect his things and head out to see the miracle that someone had claimed to have witnessed.

  A Fatal Exchange

  Days passed as Roconn and Maria planned a way to infiltrate the Vatican and assassinate Pope Gregory XII. Careful preparation was required because, as a vampire, Roconn could not just march towards the Vatican and kill the Pope. His secret could not get out because he would be hunted down. Single combat was not a problem. But a mass of cardinals, each with a hatred of evil, and with the power of the Holy Cross as their weapon, he was not so sure about. No, this would take time and patience. Roconn’s cardinals were drawing a detailed layout of the Vatican. There must be a way, of that Roconn was sure. He wanted the Pope out of office in order to humiliate him, make him scared, and to ensure that if God’s highest ranking follower was scared, there would be no stopping the vampires. This would ultimately humiliate God, and show him their power; how Roconn could influence even those held in the highest office of religion to resign. Killing t
he Pope would be too easy; another would merely replace him, but turning him in to a vampire would be the most effective way to get his revenge really, Roconn thought. He ran this idea past Maria, who immediately decided it was perfect.

  ‘We need to see the cardinals at once,’ she demanded.

  ‘I think it’s time to take a trip to Rome,’ Roconn replied.

  Three days later, Roconn and Maria strolled towards the moonlit Vatican. Even shrouded in darkness it was an impressive sight. A huge concrete ring of pillars adorned by statues of men encircled them, casting long shadows on the path before them. Roconn and Maria headed side by side towards a large concrete obelisk with eight, white lines protruding outwards from it toward the pillars. They admired the impressive building and its architecture for a few moments, it was really something. They reached the monument and waited. After ten minutes, nine cardinals appeared out of the shadow, one from each section created by the markings on the floor, and one from the Vatican. The nine cardinals, one in each section, bowed in a circle around Roconn and Maria.

  ‘My lord,’ announced a cardinal who was walking from the Vatican. He addressed Roconn with great respect.

  ‘You have the plans, I presume?’

  ‘My lord, I apologise with the utmost sincerity. I recovered the plans just as you had asked, but his Holiness saw me with them. He asked why I had procured such documents and demanded I hand them to him at once. I had no choice but to oblige, or risk being banished from the Vatican, which I know would not have helped you, my lord. I apologise once again sire.’ The cardinal finished, bowing deeply.

  Roconn hesitated, having travelled for many miles to receive these vital plans, he was infuriated that he had arrived to find a quivering cardinal, full of snivelling apologies.

  He was disappointed, but knowing that he couldn’t have got this far without his loyal cardinals to serve him, he bit his tongue and remained, with great difficulty, calm.

  ‘I understand,’ replied Roconn at last.

  The cardinal quivered, he was not expecting this and was uneasy of Roconn’s apparently calm and understanding aura.

  ‘We will just have to get them back,’ said Maria, who was equally as unhappy.

  The moon shone ever brighter and the wind whistled in their ears.

  ‘Yes my lord, I will look for a way to recover the documents as soon as possible.’

  ‘I should hope so, for your own sake,’ spat Roconn.

  He turned away, and did a double take. He had glimpsed a quick movement out of the corner of his eye; a figure moving incredibly fast from one of the pillars, encircling them. A breeze blew and Roconn caught the scent of an unfamiliar vampire. This was odd, because he knew every vampire alive. Being the clan-king of vampires, he was the oldest and most powerful vampire alive, and he had the only coven. Beside him, Maria hissed, she had smelt this person’s scent too.

  They spun around to see a dark figure dispatching the last of Roconn’s cardinals. They all lay dead at the hooded figure’s feet. Roconn felt a surge of anger and hatred. Both he and Maria dashed towards the figure who had slaughtered his allies. But the figure was ready for him, and extremely skilled. He dodged Roconn’s right hook and retaliated with force. The hooded figure aimed a kick at Roconn’s ribs, Roconn saw it coming. He hooked the man’s leg under his arm, grabbed him by the throat with a free hand, and threw him with all his might towards the monument.

  The figure slammed into it, sending shards of rock flying in all directions. Maria grabbed him by the throat as he hit the ground. She threw a well aimed punch at his jaw. But he was prepared. He blocked her punch, grabbed her wrist and jumped thirty feet into the air. Maria struggled against his iron grip, but he was too strong. He kicked her twice in the torso and sent her rocketing towards the ground at incredible speed. She smashed into the floor with such force that she made a crater in the concrete.

  Roconn, now furious, sped towards the vampire and swung another punch with his right hand. This time the figure wasn’t ready for it. Roconn’s fist made contact with his jaw, the force of which sent him flying in to another one of the statues standing on top of pillars. The hooded figure hit the statue, and flew straight through it, smashing it to pieces.

  Maria was beside Roconn as they tentatively searched the surrounding area. Clouds blew in front of the moon, extinguishing the brilliant light. Out of nowhere, Roconn heard a whooshing sound as the hooded figure hurled a statue at him from the top of another pillar. As Roconn and Maria turned, the statue hit them both full in the face, knocking them over. Roconn gave a little nod to Maria as they lay on the floor. In the blink of an eye, he threw her toward the hooded figure, still perched on top of the monument. He was definitely not expecting this. When she hit him, she spun around and climbed on to his back leaping into the air. They hurtled toward the ground which must have been at least fifty feet high, and held him face first, in front of her as they fell. The hooded figure’s face slammed into the concrete, cracking it and scattering debris everywhere.

  Maria pinned him firmly into the concrete, with her foot on the back of his head, and folded his arm into an intensely painful arm-lock.

  ‘Wait! Please don’t kill me,’ cried the hooded figure.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Maria.

  When he didn’t respond she twisted his arm until it cracked. He screamed in pain.

  ‘My name is Rosse. I am a vampire, created by master Reyjak. I ran away. I trained for centuries to find you, to kill you. I thought there was no one I couldn’t best, but I was wrong. Forgive me, allow me to serve you, you will not regret it,’ he said at once.

  ‘I do not give chances to those who harm my wife,’ replied Roconn in a low, intimidating voice.

  At that he grabbed Rosse’s other arm and ripped it from his shoulder, throwing it into the night. The clouds moved and Rosse was illuminated as Maria tore off his other arm. His scream echoed in the night. She pulled him into a kneeling position and pulled back his hood. He was a young looking man with big bushy eyebrows, deeply-set green eyes, and scars covering his face. He had a very gaunt face, and blood stains were still noticeable on his chin from drinking the cardinals’ blood.

  ‘Why did you murder my cardinals?’ asked Roconn.

  ‘Anyone in league with you deserves death,’ spat Rosse.

  ‘He’s all yours, my love.’

  Maria smiled, grabbed his head by the hair and, with an almighty wrench, tore it from his neck. She held it up by the hair. His armless body fell to the ground with a thud. Bodies were scattered across the ground. Roconn knelt down beside Rosse’s body. He fumbled around inside his black robes and felt a sheet of rolled up parchment. He withdrew it, and from the light of the moon, unfastened and unrolled it. It was a detailed layout of the Vatican. The exact one he had come to pick up. How it had fallen into Rosse’s hands he did not know, nor did it matter. The cardinals had fulfilled their purposes anyway. It was time they found shelter, for dawn could not be far away now. The sky was starting to lighten and the bodies would soon be discovered, along with himself and Maria.

  Roconn found shelter in a nearby shack where they slipped in, unnoticed by the townspeople, who were slowly stirring from their slumber. After seven hundred years, one night felt like seconds to Roconn and Maria. As such the dawn quickly turned to dusk and Roconn exited the shack, shrouded in darkness, with his wife. Using the night as cover, he walked briskly to the scene where the fight with Rosse had occurred. The bodies of the cardinals had been removed and all the evidence of a fight had been cleared up. Apparently the guards had covered up the brutal murders of nine cardinals and the vandalism of the obelisk, because there were no wanted posters.

  Overnight, Roconn had studied the layout of the Vatican and memorized it. The smouldering embers of a large fire were crackling merrily in the crater that Maria had caused. A number of unrecognisable items had also been thrown into the fire. Roconn added the map to it. He could not risk letting it fall into the wrong hands lest his plot to assa
ssinate the Pope be discovered. This was an opportunity that would only come around once and mistakes could not be made.

  The Search

  Roconn’s plan had taken a massive blow. His nine trustworthy cardinals lay dead. He needed to recruit someone on the inside, and not just anyone, someone he knew could do the job. Someone he could trust. He needed Reyjak. Roconn needed all the help he could get right now. Maria immediately disappeared to Venice in order to find a courier whom she knew and trusted to send word Reyjak. Meanwhile, Roconn was thirsting for blood. He needed to hunt, and fast.

  He turned away from the Vatican and sped towards the now damaged monument. He scaled it with ease and perched precariously on the tip. Roconn scanned the city, marvelling at the sight. Since becoming a priest, he had always wanted to immigrate to Italy. He had hopes of becoming a cardinal and perhaps, one day, the Pope. But that dream was long gone. Sometimes he lay on his stone bed, pondering the past; if he had not become a vampire, how would his life have turned out? Roconn shook his head as if to shake off the memory and peered at the horizon. His eyes quickly located a figure in the distance, a man by the look of it. Even miles away, Roconn could clearly make out the figure. He was middle aged and plump with a bushy, greying beard that matched his hair. He was drunk, alone, and surrounded by trees and shrubs, the perfect location to quench Roconn’s thirst.

  Roconn leapt fifteen feet into the air, spinning as he fell. Nothing blurred the way it would with a human; he saw every tiny detail. The sensation, even after seven hundred years, still felt exhilarating. He landed, as quietly as a mouse, into a hunting crouch. Roconn ran, quicker and quicker, towards the drunken man, weaving between buildings, carts and trees. The drunken man was miles away, yet Roconn closed the distance in next to no time. As he neared him, he slowed to a walk. They were isolated by trees, which were all around him. When Roconn would suck the life from his body, no one would hear his scream. Baring his piercing fangs, Roconn crouched into some long grass, directly behind the man. The man, singing at the top of his voice, had tripped over a rock. There he lay snoozing. He was helpless. Roconn marvelled at how pathetic humans had become as he inched closer, preparing for the perfect, satisfying, kill.