Beethoven - Scourge of Vampires [ONC 2022]

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Bernhard stepped backwards. He felt a sudden chill crawl across his skin and his hand raised his sabre in an involuntary defensive posture. The great man, himself, had been touched by the evil of the vampires. Yet another time that the Maestro had held back vital information. He tried to recall the stories of vampires, of how the bites affected people, but his mind had turned misty.

"Are you ..." He glanced back up the stone steps, calculating his chances of escape. "Are you a vampire?"

"No." The Maestro sighed. With an absent mind, he flicked his fingers and the batons in his hands disappeared. A sleight of hand to prove himself no threat. "Not yet. If I feed upon human blood, then, yes, I will turn. But I'm not a vampire yet. I've fought against the hunger for years, but I fear this close proximity to my sire makes that urge stronger."

There were many times, along the journey together, where the Maestro could have fed upon Bernhard. Times when Bernhard had turned his back upon Beethoven, safe in the knowledge that the Maestro stood squarely as his ally. The Maestro could have fed upon any number of the women he had taken to bed.

Yet, here he stood, alongside Bernhard as they assaulted the Vampire Lord's stronghold. He couldn't believe that the Maestro would harm him but, if he spoke true, that hunger had grown the nearer they came to his 'sire'. Yet, something did not quite make sense. If the Vampire Lord had bitten Beethoven, how did he not react when so close to him at the concert?

"Your beloved!" Realisation struck and he saw the Maestro's shoulders slump. "You weren't bitten by the Vampire Lord, but by your own beloved!"

Beethoven fell back against the wall and slid down to the step. His hands ran through his nest of hair and Bernhard noted how weary he appeared. Coming so close to the woman he loved, who had become a creature of nightmare and had bitten him, had put great strain upon Beethoven. He now looked far older than his years.

"I thought I could protect her, to stop her from becoming a monster. At least until I could find him and kill him. But my love for her proved my undoing. She is my love, my curse and my burden." The Maestro recovered a baton from where he had hidden it within his sleeve and held it with fingers of both hands. "You see, if I kill the Vampire Lord now, it will not cure me of this ailment. Only killing my sire, directly, will do that."

"I don't understand." Bernhard lowered himself to sit opposite the Maestro. "How can it cure you? How can you live with the idea of killing your beloved? I must tell you, though I killed my beautiful Hilde, it pains me so. It is not something I can ever forgive myself for. It will haunt me to the end of my days."

The Maestro nodded, turning his head to look down the tunnel. They still had some distance to descend and sitting here, discussing such things would only delay the inevitable. Bernhard understood, now, why the Maestro had insisted they moved at such speeds. From the night they met until this moment, Beethoven had lived on borrowed time. The spectre of becoming a vampire lingering over him. A shadow of a descent into evil.

They could retreat, as Bernhard had counselled, but that would not stop the inevitability that, one day, probably soon, the Maestro would succumb to the hunger. He would feed and become one of these vile creatures. Their only option lay deep in the bowels of this mountain. They had to finish what they had begun.

"Down there, somewhere, lies my beloved and I must kill her. Killing the Vampire Lord only kills those he has sired. Due to the magical nature of vampirism, I would remain infected because I was sired by her, not him." Beethoven wove the tip of the baton in the air, closing his eyes as though conducting an orchestra. "I think I have the beginnings of a funeral march, or a requiem formulating. Should we get out of this alive."