Battle Lines - Will Hill

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was. From a personal perspective, Vlad found the nightly torture of Henry Seward utterly delightful.

      The first vampire looked down the length of the long table at his guest. Seward was clad in a beautiful dark blue suit that Vlad had ordered made for him by one of the finest boutiques in Paris. He had sent one of Valeri’s servants north to collect it two days earlier, and had been pleased to see that it fitted his guest like a glove. He had not been sure that it would; Seward was losing weight rapidly, a result of the deprivations and torments that had been inflicted upon him in the last month. And, despite the elegant shimmer of the suit and the soft lines of the shirt and tie beneath it, the damage inflicted during the long nights could not be completely hidden.

      Two fingers were now missing from Henry Seward’s left hand; they had been broken with hammers and torn off at the end of the day the Blacklight Director had been delivered to the chateau by Valeri, who had worn a grin of immense satisfaction on his craggy, mountainous face as he presented his prize to his master. The stumps were bandaged neatly, and the dressings were changed every day by a vampire servant who had once been a doctor. More bandages, small caps of bright white, covered the tips of five of Seward’s remaining fingers, hiding the ragged pink flesh that had been uncovered as his fingernails had been pulled out. It was an ancient torture, one of the very oldest, and although it could not be expected to break a man with as much determination and experience as Henry Seward, it still produced a pitch of scream that was music to Vlad’s ears. It was also a good place to start, an early benchmark to establish, from where things would only get worse the longer the victim held out. And, indeed, they had got much, much worse.

      Beneath his suit, the Director’s body was a horror of bruises, burns and wounds: marks left by simple beatings, by lead pipes and plastic cables, and by pairs of metal clips attached to a car battery. As was appropriate for a man of his standing, Vlad had not inflicted any of this damage himself; instead, he had stood and watched Valeri and two of his servants as they worked, maintaining an air of detached professionalism as the torture was administered. But, beneath his veneer of disinterest, his mind raced with possibilities and his stomach churned with a longing so powerful it was almost physical: a desire to push the others aside, to spill blood and inflict pain with his own bare hands.

      Throughout it all, Seward had told them nothing beyond his name and his Blacklight identification number. Vlad was impressed by the man’s fortitude, though he knew full well there were things he could order done to his guest that he would have no chance of withstanding. But he was in no hurry; there would come a time when he would need to know everything Seward knew, in case there was something of which Valeri was unaware, but it could wait. His recuperation was progressing well, fuelled by a constant stream of warm running blood. He was now draining three or four human beings every day, each drop of their blood contributing to his gradual return to what he had once been. Valeri sent his servants out each night, and each morning they returned before dawn with victims taken from the surrounding towns and villages. Vlad had ordered them to make sure they spread their hunts far and wide; he had no interest in creating a panic or attracting unnecessary attention to this isolated corner of the world, not when he was so close to regaining the power he had once taken so recklessly for granted. He was not there yet, not by any means, but he was getting closer with each passing day, with each swallowed mouthful of blood. And the exquisite reality of the matter was this: there was, in truth, almost nothing Henry Seward could tell him that he didn’t already know.

      The Operational frequencies of the various Departments, the access codes to their bases and computer systems, these were things that could have one day been extremely useful to Vlad and Valeri. However, both vampires knew full well that they would all have been changed the minute Henry Seward was taken, rendering his knowledge of them useless.

      He must know that too, thought Dracula, his gaze locked on his guest. Surely he must. Yet he refuses to tell us, regardless. Admirable.

      Until his recovery was complete and he was ready to take direct action, Vlad was content to let Seward believe he was successfully resisting. When that time came, Seward would tell him everything, whether he wanted to or not, at which point Vlad would kill whatever was left of the man and send his head to Blacklight on a spike. But for now, he was content to play Seward’s game. They would continue attempting to get the Director to give up the information he didn’t want to reveal, using what he would allow Seward to believe were his most persuasive methods, and his guest would continue to refuse. It afforded Seward a measure of dignity, and it helped to pierce the boredom that Vlad had felt so keenly since he had been reborn, boredom that was slowly beginning to abate as the recovery of his mind and body gathered pace. It also afforded him an agreeable dinner companion, sparing him the stoic silence of Valeri’s company or the embarrassment of dining alone.

      At the other end of the table, the servant had finished refilling Seward’s glass. Vlad raised his own and waited until his guest did likewise.

      “Noroc,” said the ancient vampire.

      “Noroc,” replied Henry Seward. He had spoken the Romanian toast many times over the last month, evening after evening, glass after glass; it was now almost second nature.

      He drained half his wine, looking forward to the numbing effect of the alcohol, feeling his arm tremble as he raised the glass to his lips. It was one of a number of shakes and tremors that had appeared over the last month, one result of the tortures inflicted upon him every night. Another was his inability to sleep, even when the torment was over: his body was always wracked with pain and thrumming with adrenaline, and when sleep did eventually come, it was fitful, full of bad dreams and echoed agony.

      Seward was exhausted, in constant pain, and knew his body was beginning to fail him. It wasn’t the result of any one particular torture, but the cumulative effect of them all; he had begun to cough up blood in the mornings and see spots of red in the toilet bowl after he urinated. He coughed steadily, and struggled for breath after climbing only a handful of stairs. It was now clear that he didn’t have long to live, as he knew very well that Dracula was never going to let him leave this place; he had come to terms with the realisation that he would never see his family and friends again. He also knew, although he didn’t think Dracula realised that he did, that he was resisting telling them information that was worthless.

      He knew that Dracula believed he was playing with him, letting him be brave and resilient while waiting for the right moment to prise whatever Seward was hiding from his head. But the ancient vampire was wrong: he was holding no secrets, no information that would be of use to them. When the monster unleashed whatever agonies he was holding back, he would tell him everything; when the vampire realised that none of it was useful, Seward would spit blood in his face before he died. In the meantime, he would grit his teeth and take what they gave him, and join his captor in this bizarre facsimile of normality each evening, as though they were two old school friends having dinner at their club.

      “What are we having?” he asked, glancing at the hovering vampire servants.

      “Wood pigeon, I believe,” replied Dracula. “Is that agreeable to you?”

      “I’m sure it will be,” replied Seward. The food and wine he had eaten and drunk since he had been taken by Valeri, dragged kicking and screaming into the sky as men and women he had once commanded fought for their lives beneath him, had been uniformly excellent. He supposed he should not be surprised: Dracula had been a Prince when he was a man, then a Transylvanian Count as a vampire, and had been used to the very best of everything, throughout both of his lives.

      The man and the vampire sat in silence as the servants suddenly burst into action, delivering silver trays to the table and placing them before the two diners. The lids were withdrawn to reveal a delicate foie gras parfait and home-made brioche that made Seward’s mouth water despite the steady throbs of pain that coursed through his body. He attacked the food, aware of Dracula’s faintly reproachful expression, and demolished the plate within a minute. He sat back in his chair, feeling the energy being released by the food in his stomach and the endorphins radiating out from his pituitary gland.

      Eating emboldened him. He had allowed the previous dinners to be filled with small talk, with mindless chatter about the modern world, with stories

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