DEALS WITH THE DEVIL
The theory that most people seem to have is that I had sold my soul to the Devil in exchange for my immortality.
I don't remember doing such, and I certainly made no contract that forfeit my soul to anyone. The contract that we made in the prison was that he would let me out, release me from my captivity and give me one more chance at the throne of Wallachia in exchange for my eternal companionship. I was also forced to give up the throne when he came to collect me, and I would not be allowed to know the time or date of my demise.
I find it insane and offensive that the general populace considers that there is no way that you can become a vampire like me without making a deal with the Devil. I don't understand this idea. I don't know where it came from, and it's quite irritating.
I am not a devil, and I am not a demon. I am a vampire. Perhaps the powers that I have been given come from some place of darkness, but I am still just a man, well, I was a man, now I am more. I do not have to make a deal or take your soul to turn you. I take your life, and your blood and give you some of mine to pass on the powers of my kind. I think that, if I am anything, I am a plague. I am a disease for which the only cure is death. I am a customized man-made sickness that does not prey on the weak, or the compromised. I am the kind of plague that will infect and kill without discrimination. I am the most efficient kind of predator. I have no morals left, and while I don't just make other vampires anymore, I certainly don't abstain from sustaining myself with the blood of anyone who happens to get in my way.
Does this make a devil? Perhaps, but it isn't the kind of devil that you think.
Most people don't seem to understand that I am a Christian man, that I serve my country and my church in the name of God Almighty. For me to make a deal with the forces of Satan would be against everything that I believe in, against everything that I stood for in my life, and in the wars I fought in.
The creature who came to me didn't give his name, and he never gave it to me, no matter how many times I asked, but he was dressed as a Boyar, in rich clothing and jewelry. He spoke my native language and he was amiable and well-educated. I thought that he had perhaps come to take my statement, that he was a lawyer of some kind. He spoke at length of getting me out of the prison in exchange for services to him. I remember that I was feverish and that I demanded something to do with reclaiming my throne.
He was beautiful to behold. His skin seemed to glow from within, and at first I thought he was a spirit, born of my fever and my hunger. He never once touched me, and I felt colder in his presence, like he sucked all the warmth from the room. He frightened me, and yet when he was near I felt calmer than I had in the months preceding his visit. His hair was fine, and lighter than mine, but not blonde. His skin was chalky, but not white. He seemed sickly and yet more full of life and vitality than anyone whom I had ever met in my life. He looked like he could have been Hungarian, or possibly German. He certainly did not look like any Boyar I had ever met (or killed) in my time in Wallachia and Romania, and he certainly didn't look like he had come from the Ottoman ranks. He spoke in clipped sentences, like he had no time to waste with poetry or useless words. He sat completely still on the edge of my cot. Perched in a way that defied logic, like a cat.
Every time I tried to speak to him, he brushed my questions aside in a brusque manner, waving his hand and dismissing the thoughts, explaining that whatever mortal questions I had were unimportant at the time, and would eventually be answered. He always referred to me as 'the mortal' and never by my name, except for when he first roused me from my slumber when he arrived. He always arrived after I had been asleep for a time.
I never saw him come into the room, and I never saw him leave. It was like he just arrived, just appeared out of thin air and was present. The first time he appeared to me, I shouted, tried to alert the guards, and demanded to know what he was doing in my room.
After the first time he visited, I did not try to rouse the guards again. There was something undeniably attractive about him, though not in the sexual way. He was alluring, magnetic, and I felt myself inexplicably drawn to him.
He never appeared to me during the daylight hours, or at least, what I perceived to be the daylight hours. This makes sense to me now, since I can no longer walk in the light, he obviously couldn't either.
If he was a devil, then all of the teachings of my faith were wrong. I denied him thrice and cast him out every time he came to visit. He was unmoved by my pleas and my threats. He was unafraid of me; he had no reason to fear the weak, skeletal thing that I had become. Even threats of impalement and death could not get him to leave me. Commanding him in the name of God did nothing to him either. Whether he was a demon or a devil I don't suppose I'll ever know.
I was, in the end, thankful for his companionship. He spoke to me at length when I stopped trying to banish him in the name of my God and the god of the Turks. He informed me of everything that happened outside the walls of my prison. He told me of my brother's successes, and how the Turks were again claiming land over my people, of how they were invincible. He told me of the changing of the seasons outside, how the air smelled different and that I would soon be suffering in the cold and loneliness of my cell, wrought with fevers worse than I was already suffering, delirious from cold and hunger. He spoke of how the guards spoke of me, told me that they had no respect for me and that anyone who showed the slightest bit of compassion for me was beaten. I asked if he would stop coming to see me if they knew he cared for me and he laughed until tears streamed down his face.
"My little Mortal, you know so little of the nature of the beast you now speak with. Do you really think that someone as affluent as I would allow the guards the satisfaction of beating me to teach me a lesson?"
"You have come to see me every night," I pointed out. "Surely the guards know you are here."
"They have not seen me yet, and I have not run afoul of their whips and boots," he pointed out.
I made a noise of disbelief but decided it better if I don't argue with him any more. He took it as a kindness and he continued telling me of all the things that I had missed. The visits continued every night for months on end. By the third week of his visiting me, I was thankful to see him, happy, even. I was getting less sleep, but at least I had someone to talk to. In the third month of his visits, he began to bring me things. Small things that would go unnoticed in my cell. A book one week, a candle and flint the next. He would swap them out for me as I read the books and brought me new candles when I burned them out. Eventually, he began bringing me food.
"They are starving you in here," he pointed out. "That will not do at all."
I didn't complain about the things he brought me. They were rich, breads and cakes and cured meats and cheeses, whatever he could fit in his coat, but I took it all graciously. It was more than I was getting from my captors. I would eat as he told me of the things I was missing, and he asked me about the books as we traded. It was then that I began to realize that this man was not a hallucination, and that there was something happening that I could not explain.
The visits lasted for six months before he offered to get me out of the prison.
"And how would you do that?" I asked. "As you can see, there is no one who loves me left in the world."
"You would think that," he replied, "but I am here, am I not?"
I felt foolish for even hinting that this strange man didn't have at least some sort of affection for me. He had, after all, broken hundreds of laws to make sure that I was sane and fed in the six months he had come to see me.
I nodded my reply. "Forgive me for doubting that you aren't here with my best interests in mind."
He laughed at that sentiment. "Perhaps my best interests are invested in you."
"Perhaps," I replied. He was confusing me and I felt ill at ease about the concept of freedom.
"You will be released soon enough. I cannot tell you what sort of provisions will follow your exoneration, but you will nevertheless be allowed to leave this damnable cell."
"Provisions?" I asked.
"You can't get something for nothing."
"And what are the provisions you will require to do this on my behalf?"
The smile he gave me was one that haunts my dreams to this day.
"Your loyalty and companionship into the next life in exchange for your freedom, another chance at the throne of Wallachia, and more power than you could ever comprehend."
"My loyalty and companionship? What does that mean?"
"I will come to you at the end of October, though the date is as yet unknown. You will know it is time to fulfill your end of the bargain because you will have seen everything come to fruition. Are we agreed?"
I hesitated for longer than I would have if you offered me the same deal now.
"Yes," I said after a long moment. "Yes, we have a deal."
He smiled again, shook my hand and I woke up the next morning with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. He stopped visiting me after that, but I was released within a week into my brother's care. I was made to live under my brother for two years, in which time I was allowed to take a wife. Eventually, my brother was killed and I was back on the throne of Wallachia. My armies were unstoppable and we tore through the enemy armies like mad men, until the day I was killed in battle, though really it was my final double. I was hiding and transformed into a vampire the same night as my "head" reached Constantinople.
The only part of my contract that had not yet been fulfilled was the promise of ultimate power, but that, I would discover, was to come with the loyalty and service to my new master.