Bound & Bound – the Curse and the Captives – - 39. Chapter 39: Full Circle

Chapter 39: Full Circle

I awake in a cold sweat.

It's dark inside the tent, and I lie face-up, alone on top of our sleeping bags. I try to shake the vision of gore out of my head.

As I blink and absent-mindedly count the number of seams stitching the tent's interior pinnacle, I hear that odd pulsation.

It's rhythmic, and I can't be sure, but it comes through the night almost as if it's a drumming from someplace nearby.

I see a flicker, and now hear another noise under the drumbeat, a licking and crackling like that of a flame.

I sit up, noticing I have on what I last remember wearing bedding down with Silviu – only my shorts, and my gold coin and chain. My fingers roam up my naked chest, lightly touching the healing pink ridge of flesh from where Cezar slashed me. I'm convinced that its astoundingly painlessness and rapid health is due to Silviu holding me tight in his arms every night. Yes, healing touch – that's real, at least between my man and me.

Movement catches my attention, for dancing all around outside the front half of the tent is the glow from a fire.

I inhale, relieved, and rub my eyes. 'Sil has built our campfire,' I think. 'That's a relief.'

I stand up and brush my head against the slick nylon of the tent; as my hands go to the zipper, that happy glow in my heart evaporates.

It is inextricably replaced by leaden dread that pours into all of my limbs as if they were hollow.

"Silviu..?" I whisper loudly.

There is no response – just the sound of pulsating drums from the circle's perimeter, and the maniacal crack of a fire.

"Silviu!" I shout. "Answer me!"

I cock my ear towards the fabric and try to make out even the faintest acknowledgement from my fiancé.

Leaning forward slightly, the gold coin on my neck lifts off my skin and reminds me of something. I grab onto it wondering how all those times Silviu found me with his actually worked. I close my eyes – tightening my grip – and focus on recalling my Romani's sweet smile and face.

A vision of him is instantly there, wreathed magically in his unique fragrance. I see he's gagged, and restrained by gripping hands. Immediately behind him are trees. I open my eyes; my man is not too far from me, I'd guess less than thirty metres straight ahead, on the other side of this flimsy wall of tent fabric.

I get the sense that he was ambushed while taking a piss at the wood line.

"Come outside, Emeric."

I recoil in horror.

That voice is as familiar as a recurring nightmare – it's the voice of my father's lawyer.

Through a moment of panicked fear, the real me struggles with that scared-little-boy me to take control, but through that impotent indecision, my Silviu's beautifully masculine face comes to me to give me courage.

I unzip the tent, just now sensing how much danger he is in.

I step out and have to shield my eyes with a raised forearm for a second. Right in the centre of this witch's circle, a massive bonfire is built. It's as if whole logs had been silently craned in and erected into a self-supporting teepee of sorts.

Now that construct is alight, and the flames shoot a red-hot dagger point into the oculus of blue-skied night about my head, and warms most of my very exposed skin.

I swallow down my fear, and look for Silviu.

About fifteen metres in front of my right, and to the side of the bonfire, is Ronald Ionescu. Gone is his Brooks Brother's suit; now he wears the same cowled mantle that I saw at close up range as that maniac Cezar straddled me. His brass rimmed glasses glint in the firelight.

There is movement in the form of a silhouette against the flame to my left.

My heart lurches; I take off and run towards what I see, but within three strides, the lawyer commands me to stop.

"Don’t go near him, or my little minion will slit his Gypsy throat."

My pounding heart fights for dominance over my ears against the circle's drumming pulsations. Ahead and to my left stands Silviu in nothing but his red briefs. His scared eyes dart out to me from over his gagged mouth, his hands are tied behind his back. Cezar is gripping him from behind and that ceremonial dagger is pressed tip-point under my man's chin. Dida gloats as she holds onto Silviu's other side, and movement shows me they are both dressed like the lawyer.

I turn to Ionescu, and demand, "Let him go! This has nothing to do with him."

His profile licked by an orange scowl of flame, the lawyer takes a step towards Silviu and his captors.

"Ah, but it does – thank your spineless father for involving him. But now he will suffer for it, as he must too pay for your 'sin'."

"What sin?"

The man's evil grin burns white-hot. "Your cardinal sin of trying to break the Corvin curse. In four hundred and fifty years you are the only man of your family to come close to unbinding it."

I ask him as a means to stall, "So, it's that woman who did it, huh? That bitch! That so-called lady!"

Rage flares from Ionescu. "You will NOT speak of my mistress in such a fashion."

He shoots up his hand, and a dagger blade of energy slams into me. Blood pours down my forehead and into my left eye. Stunned with pain, I raise my hand up to the wound – the 'old wound' from generations ago – I now know it was Gretza's parting glance to baptize her sanguine curse in Corvin blood. I saw it in my vision.

Ronald shouts at me, "She was a noble woman who knew scum like you have no right to the title. She appointed me to maintain the curse, and such I have."

I see him lift his hand and rub his spider ring.

"You..?" I ask dumbfounded. "You mean, your ancestors."

"No, boy. I mean me."

"How?"

"It was always meant to be. The night My Lady was brutally murdered, that child of the Devil bit me. He cursed me, or so he thought, with eternal life, the life of a vampire and thereby he inadvertently gave me the means to fulfil my mistress' directive."

"And them?" I gesture dismissively towards the vamp kids.

"They are my faithful followers; they do as I bid, and I provide them with victims to feed upon – victims like your lover, who will not live to see morning."

The evil bastard kicks his head back and howls with laughter. I swear, there's something close to a canine growl coming from his throat as well.

The pulsating drone from the circle seems to alter slightly; I glance around to see if the others have perceived this shift as well. It's almost like a moving force had temporarily passed in front of the source of the sound for a second, thereby interrupting the pattern of the flow making its way to me near the centre.

"No," I tell the lawyer. "Let him go, and take me."

Silviu makes squeaking sounds as his shouts are gagged deep in his throat. He also struggles against Dida and Cezar's grip.

Ionescu simply chuckles, then leers at me. "And why would I want to do that? I do not want you dead; I want you back to your regular life, and I want you 'normal' and producing the next generation of cursed Corvin men."

"Let him go!"

"No, I need to feed as well, and he will do, as long as you watch him die slowly and in agony."

"No!" I plead.

"Yes. Watch him die, as I had to watch Lady Gretza die – and if you are a good boy who stops resisting, I will even let you end his life, after we have exsanguinated him, and after he begs you to simply let him die – I will let you be the one to put him down. Hummm? Good idea?"

"No…" I stammer.

"So then, after all of this mess of you playing 'curse-killer' is put to bed, you will awake in a few weeks from your drug-induced coma, back in Toronto, thinking it was all some sort of terrible nightmare. Then you will be so glad it's over, you will remember nothing of this, or of your Gypsy protector."

His tone sneers out the final words, as if Sil's heritage is the most reviled part of Silviu's and my love-bond.

"Romani," I whisper proudly. "My Romani protector."

Cezar makes a motion with his knife – a lowering of it. Ionescu makes a move as if to stride towards my fiancé and his captors, and within my chest, my heart is a lump of raging anger.

But just as the lawyer takes his second step, he stops.

All eyes scan the wood's edge, for at last they seem to perceive the interruptions in the pulsations too.

For the entire time since the circle's droning heartbeat had first been momentarily stifled, I had been hearing a low rumble. A rumble like an idea stuck in a dog's throat. Now the growling from the tree line is palpable.

I turn, and three crouching shadows appear. They are wolfish and human too. It is the same two werewolves and their third larger and lighter-coloured leader from the bear pit at Targoviste.

They gather together for a moment, and glow fearsomely in the firelight.

The leader wolf makes an almost imperceptible gesture, and they spring like the silent predators they are. In a moment, their crouched-shoulder attack flies straight for the vamp kids and Silviu.

My panic rises in my throat like bile. The two smaller were-creatures lunge with leaping front paws and bared teeth to the left and right of Silviu. They slam into Cezar and Dida with the instantaneous gush of air leaving the vamp kids' shocked bodies.

A flash of steel is reflected in the flame light as Cezar's dagger goes flying up and away.

In the same instant, the vamp kids are mauled ferociously, and dragged off screaming into the woods. The third and larger werewolf sets upon Silviu.

My heart stops, my hands form into tight fists and dig nails into my palms.

The wolf rises to stand on his hind legs, swipes at Sil's bindings and frees him; in the next instant, he's removed the gag and compelled my fiancé towards me.

They run together, with the wolf-man placing his body between Silviu and the lawyer.

Sil runs into my open arms and sweeps me up with his momentum; we hug for a twirling moment and Silviu kisses my neck with his tears and lips.

As he sets me down, he gently presses at my head wound to see if it's still bleeding. He seems satisfied that the flow is properly staunched for the time being.

When we turn again, the leader werewolf has come up close to me. It is impossible not to be afraid, especially with the screams coming from the wood line as his companions rip Cezar and Dida to shreds. The leader's canine teeth draw near to my ear, while I know the hot, iron-smell of my blood must trigger his most animal of instincts.

"Thank you," he says in a low, growling whisper. "For freeing my master."

"Vlad? That was my ancestor, Laszlo, who freed him."

"Yes," he says moving back from me. "But your visions influenced him to do the right thing."

The screams from the woods trail off into dying moans and gurgles, and a moment later, the bloody-mouthed attackers slink to the leader's side.

The lawyer, far from looking concerned over the brutal murder of his vampire acolytes, just stands as he was with a determined sneer on his visage.

The three werewolves glance at one another in paused and silent contemplation, and a moment later, take off slowly towards Ionescu.

They stalk him with killer intent, shoulders, heads and ears crouched low. In another moment, they leap into the air at one time to attack the creature of the night.

The lawyer lifts his arms into the air, and a shock wave of energy instantly hits us.

The wolves are knocked to the ground three metres away from their intended prey, and rise slowly with headshakes and pained expressions.

The lawyer raises his arms higher, and it's as if the perimeter of the circle clearing gathers closer to him – not physically, but kinetically. It's as if the power of the place is channelled and siphoned into one conduit with tremendous force, that conduit being Ionescu.

His field of protection expands, and the were-creatures retreat with whimpers. For a moment, they gather about five metres to the sides of Silviu and me, and I read something like pity on their faces for us. In another moment, they turn and run off into the woods.

The lawyer, and all of his evil, begins to approach us, and we stand trying to brace ourselves against the buffeted force of his power washing over us.

"I'm sorry, Silviu. I didn't mean to drag you into this."

"No sorrys, babe. As I keep saying, we're in this thing together, for better or worse, in sickness or in health, until death do us part."

In my brain, an odd thought occurs. Forgiveness. All the over-protectiveness of my father, his meddlesome interference on making sure I always had someone to keep an eye on me – a nanny, a tutor, a driver – and the fact that he broke my heart and trust for him over Erich seems understandable. Why? Because, he loved me. And I would do as he did, and I would give or do anything right now to deliver Silviu to safety; to save and protect the one I love from harm, without question, so my dad had been simply willing to do the same. I get it now, and I absolve him with love too.

The lawyer's hate for us is almost enough to have a flavour: a perceptible coating of iron-rich blood on the back of my tongue. But as he draws nearer and nearer, all I can feel is a moment of relief to be with Sil.

I hug him; I kiss him. He slips his hands around my waist and hugs me with a lifting motion. Our bare chests come into contact, and I know he feels it's almost the end for us as I do – I can feel our heart beats synch up as our gazes lock.

I come in to kiss him again, long, slow, and tenderly, and the gold coins around our necks come into full contact. They meet, face to face, and both press into the flesh of our respective chests.

Suddenly, a tingling warmth arises from between us, from where our gold touches. It is like a vibration that generates heat through imperceivable, minute oscillations, but movement which nevertheless produces momentum from the centre of our chests as a black, vaporous column arises.

Sil puts me down, and we watch this smoky fog swirl directly over our heads. It grows in density and speed, and soon we feel the downdraft of air in its generation.

The lawyer stops, and in the moment or two it takes him to puzzle out the new turn of events over in his head, the black swirl begins to surround him. The force field he had used shrinks down to a bubble of one or two metres' diameter around him.

Now the inky black vortex above us takes on the look and sound of crows. They begin to flap and caw with menacing intent as Ionescu draws his hands up to his face for protection.

They push him en masse back towards the centre of the clearing and the roaring bonfire.

It seems their feathered tumult only feeds the flames to higher and higher dagger points.

One by one, about a dozen of the crows appear to slow and drop the lower parts of their bodies until they touch the ground, the higher end of them ending at around the height of a person.

While the crows continue to fly and screech, these twelve columns of black masses surrounding Ionescu transforms into featureless men. They stand confrontationally facing him, and the lawyer's demeanour cracks. Gone is his cool, immortal detachment, and replaced in it stead is raw, abject fear.

"I bet," whispers Silviu. "Those are the spirits of past Corvin men; the very men he has made suffer in Gretza's name."

Over our heads, a single large raven flies.

As my fiancé and I link hands, we gaze up at it; the bird circles and lands in the grass about three metres in front of our position.

Just as my lips part to express confirmation for Sil's idea, the bird transforms into the living image of my father.

My hand grips Silviu's with a trembling excitement – there's so much I want to say to my dad – but when I open my mouth, it is dumb and chocked by emotion.

The spirit of my father smiles in his way, and nods. I can tell what he's thinking, and know what his message is – he's proud of me. And, he's pleased with the union of Sil and I.

Yes. He's content.

"He's happy for us, Em," Silviu says softly in my ear.

"Yeah, I get the same feeling. We really are attuned to one another."

Saying this, we look back to my dad; his form waxes into another state. Leaping into the air, he becomes a dark column of light, and shoots straight into the centre of the black swirling vortex with Ionescu. He reappears as a man again, and the lawyer crouches onto all fours.

As the executor of the curse is morphing into a giant black dog, my father gives a signal.

The crows and figures of Corvin men of the past descend as a smothering mass upon the lawyer.

The man screams – half as a canine, half as a person – and is lifted into the air like a leaf caught by the power of a tornado.

The swirling mass of black feathers and spirit humanity tear at Ronald Ionescu's body. His animalistic agony grows frantic, and bits of him go to feed the flames.

They lift him up higher, ripping him limb from limb, and my father, restored as a huge raven, soars over all to carry the writhing torso up, up, to the top of the sword point of fire.

There, he lets go, and the doomed trunk of the curse's architect falls to be impaled on the stakes of burning logs.

His final cries are muffled within the searing intensity of sparking cinders clogging his eyes, nose and throat. The image of a screeching woman, Lady Gretza Corvin, flares up violently into the sky. Thunder cracks, but the hateful image of the woman slowly dissipates into nothingness.

Now that their work is done, the swirling mass of avian spectres drifts loosely up and dissolves peacefully into the night sky, like white points of light to join the sky full of stars.

Once they are gone, the flames settle back, and I'm able to glance towards Silviu again.

Everything seems completely changed in the environment around us.

I can tell in his eyes he feels it too; tell by the hold of his hand on mine. It's over, he's thinking.

The throbbing of the indistinct drone-beat is gone; the stifling grip of oppression and fear are off of our shoulders; and there is a shuddering realization of freedom. It's over, I'm thinking.

"Do you feel that?" I ask him.

Silviu strokes my cheek. "The curse is gone. Baby, it's dead! You've done it."

I laugh, correcting him, "Baby, we've done it!"

He picks me up and twirls me around as if I am as light as his little brother, Lupasc. Giggling, he cries out loud as for the distant trees to hear, "Emeric, do you want a summer or a spring nuptial?!"

I make him set me down by tapping on the tops of his shoulders.

I interlock my fingers around his neck, and gaze in his sweet blue eyes.

"Silviu, I don’t care where or when or how we have the ceremony, but you and I are going to start our life together right here and now."

I close my eyes, and we kiss with the confidence and the total ease that only comes from knowing you love one who loves you in just, beautiful, and godlike equality. It's especially sweet if that love is also something you have been made to fight for.