The Curse of The Blood Countess

"I have had many names…"

Fires raged beneath her feet, men in red robes wearing golden crucifixes and shouting indistinct obscenities and words which translated to "witch" and "heretic" stood before her, having lit said fire under the stake and pyre on top of which she stood, bloodied, bruised, dressed in but rags and barefoot, tied to the massive wooden spire. They spat at her, they laughed and reveled in her last burning moments. Villagers looked on, half amused, half horrified, and in their ranks was a young woman with tears streaming down her eyes, mouthing something like "I'm sorry" in vain. The woman shouted and let out a blood curdling shriek of agony and hatred, a vocalization so fearsome the men in red shook a moment and proceeded to hail Mary. Before her last breath, the woman howled what, to the villagers, sounded like a curse, but was actually a promise, or a threat.

"This will not be the last of me! This injustice shall not go unpunished! I shall return, and I will bathe in your blood as sure as your robes are red, so will everything else be!"

Her voice stopped, eyes remaining open and transfixed upon the lot of them. She had died an innocent woman.

That was my first death. Dying became easier from then on.

She was indeed dead; blistered and charred, with her clothes melted into her flesh. Though she wouldn’t remain dead for long, as a tall, dark figure in the darkness of the moon’s absence made its way toward her. Their eyes shone a deep violet as they knelt before her collapsed body.

“You still cling to life? I can see your specter lingering, the umbilical not yet severed. Good.” The figure spoke in velvet baritone.

A wide grin drew itself across their face, revealing their teeth, ivory and perfectly aligned with sharp, extended canines, before reaching down and snatching her off the burnt pyre. They hoisted her over their left shoulder as a villager happened by and gawked with their mouth agape at the sight of the massive dark figure with the burnt remains of the witch they’d set ablaze.

“Heretic! What are you doing, you Godless monster!?” the villager shouted, too afraid to approach the figure alone.

The figure laughs dryly and says nothing to the villager, instead, opting to raise their right hand, pale with long fingers and even longer fingernails, to snap. The villager flinched, then sighed in relief before feeling their ribcage start to swell and expand with blood and bile. The dark figure grinned again as the villager groaned in agony, his blood pooling in their chest, filling the chambers of his heart, his lungs, he gurgled as he attempted to scream before suddenly bursting. A gory explosion of thick, coagulated blood and viscera, leaving the ground below saturated in fresh, steaming innards.

The chaos of the man’s death brought the dark figure delight, they giggled to themself as they seemingly glided into the forest ahead.

“I watched you, girl. I saw your innocence be stolen from you, I saw as you’d been accused. I watched your glorious fury as the fires raged, and I admired your refusal to give those men the satisfaction. Your curse,” The figure’s smooth voice went on, “shall come to fruition. I shall see to it myself. And it will be their blood and mine that will restore you. You shall come back more beautiful and radiant in death than you had been in life.”

The figure set her down inside a rectangular coffin made of granite, “This is where you shall rest and recover, keep holding on, stay in the fray until I return with the necessary sacrifices.”

So they stole into the night and into the homes of the village patrons like a demon in the darkness. One by one, they snatched up each man that had wronged her and brought them back to their lair, a cave deep in the forest, and laid them unconscious on the ground beside her resting place. With all of them gathered, the dark figure sought rope and blades with the intent of binding and stringing them up, suspended above the stone coffin, and bleeding them there.

The figure wakes them up with a loud clap, and they awaken to find themselves hanging upside down, bound tightly, and gagged. The figure hadn’t wanted to bother with their meaningless questions about where they are and what the “meaning of this” is or their incessant babbling about their savior Jesus Christ. They wanted their blood.

“I could have bled you sleeping, but I wanted you to know the gravity of what you had done to deserve what is coming.” They motioned down to her, still dead but grasping at the spectral umbilical.

The men all looked down--or rather, to them, up--at the corpse of their supposed witch and groaned and grunted in anger and frustration, writhing and trying to break free.

“No use in struggling--and no, she doesn't yet live. Fortunately for her, though, you possess the means to bring her back from the fray. All you have to do,” The figure looms closer to them, drawing a blade. “is bleed.”

The blade flashes a half-dozen times between a heartbeat, splitting their flesh open at the jugular. They struggle and groan in pain and absolute terror as the blood rushes out of them and down into the coffin, dripping on her flesh and eventually submerging her completely. As the last breaths escaped their lungs, the figure gave the men a glimpse of their face with a wide, ominous smile that echoed contentment and contempt as the figure beckoned the last drops out of their wounds with their sangrekenesis--control over blood.

An androgynous figure of beauty and eloquence to contrast their savagery and apathy toward life and the living. Their aquiline nose was short with a flat ridge, their oval face was gaunt, with pronounced, round cheekbones and an elegant, narrow jawline that followed steeply down to a rather sharp chin. Their lips were thin and downward-turned, but supple and youthful, much like their marble-like skin. Their eyes were a brilliant violet, like amethysts by firelight, framed by round, upturned lids. This was a creature of immaculate malice, of graceful chaos and a resplendent evil.

They opened their wrist over the pool of blood within the granite coffin, “With this final addition, the elixir will be complete and you shall be restored.” The brilliant red, almost crystalline blood fell from their marble-white wrist without so much as a stain on their flesh to mix with the mortal blood of men. Their blood sank through the mortal blood and infected it from within, causing it to transmute to a more brilliant form that seemed to be glittering in its own light; a pool of rubies. The figure traces their thumb over the self-inflicted wound, healing it as if it had never been cleaved to begin with.

“Your dark rebirth commences, child, and you will be magnificent.” They declared proudly.

The blood began to fall from where it had been but wasn't spilling anywhere. The figure began cackling in delight as the blood fell more and more until her face was revealed, to which they reached in and caressed her blood stained flesh as it repaired itself, losing its cracked and burnt visage in favor of pale, milky white, glassy skin that could make the finest alabaster jealous if it were a person and not a stone. The blood seemed to be absorbed into her flesh and hair, loosening any particulates and clothing that was left and seemingly discarding it as if by some invisible force. Her hair had taken on the bright, preternatural quality of the blood, shining with a crimson luster even in the darkness.

They gazed at her in amazement and admiration, in awe of her beauty and of having been able to bring her back from the fray. They can feel her spirit settling back into her beautiful vessel.

"Rise, my love. Awaken, and rise!" They exclaimed.

As the blood absorbed into her completely, leaving her nude body stainless and her skin the purest white. She rose, sitting up with her arms at her sides and her eyes still closed. They watched her in anticipation, as she reached up to her head following her hands through her thick, scarlet tresses, grasping and caressing her mane, then letting her hands down with a deep sigh and shaking her head. She slowly opened her eyes, then blinking rapidly a half dozen times and fixing her gaze toward the figure, who was still mesmerized by her.

They looked upon her, her round, cat-like eyes like clear amber in the sunlight now with an preternatural glow to them, her eyebrows above, light red, wispy and angular, her nose was small with a flat ridge down to the point which rounded at the septum and nostrils, her small lips were sharp and full, like a bow, permanently rouged, and drawn in at the corners, as if forever disapproving. Her gaunt, oval face framed by her beautifully disheveled locks looked as though it had its own shine about it as well.

"How do you feel, Lilith incarnate?" Asked the Figure.

She let out a short moan and spoke softly, yet with fierce authority, "Alive. I feel more alive than ever. How is this possible? I remember the fire…"

"I brought you back in blood; mine and," they pointed to the hanging dead, "theirs."

She follows their finger to the bodies of the men she hated and gasps, then smiles briefly, "Blood? How was this done?" She demanded.

They snicker, "the sarcophagus you're in was inundated with it. I merely added drops of mine to activate the curse that would bring you back. It was the only way, normally you'd drink it, not soak in it."

She glared suspiciously, "a curse you say? The very same that had the neighboring villages fearing a creature that drained the life from its people and left them a dessicated husk?"

They laughed madly, "Yes the very same. The curse of the vampire!"

She pondered a moment, "And so I am now the harbinger of such a curse? I am now a…" she paused to take in the implications, "a vampire?"

"You are." They said, pleased with her reactions thus far.

"Must I always bathe in blood?" She inquired sharply.

"No. Not always. Not unless you should like to indulge in such beautifully barbaric practices." They responded.

She looked above her again and said patiently, "I should. It would please me…" she trailed off for a moment before coming back and asking, "pray tell, what is your name, Vampire?"

They grinned, baring all of their teeth, "You may call me Alucard. Well met, milady…"

"Erzsébet. Ersézbet Báthori."