The Wrong Vampire to Stake

Prologue

Beau Drewitt

The fever burns through me like an open wound from a cannonball.

I feel like I’m made up of an inferno. Every inch of my skin feels flayed, every breath scrapes down my throat.

The tent reeks of sweat, blood, and sickness.

Men groan in their cots beside me, some praying, some already silent.

The smallpox doesn’t just kill you; it takes its time carving into you on every inch of your being.

Illness plagues our bodies, and we are all but damned.

Which should’ve been known the second we stepped onto this field.

I can feel the blisters crawling across my face.

They burst if I shift wrong. My hands shake as I try to reach for the water beside me.

However, the canteen on my right is almost empty anyway.

Our nasty wavering war outside feels far away, though I can still hear it, muffled shouting, the crack of distant muskets, the thud of boots against the dirt.

The revolution rages on without me, never missing me.

With so many bodies to give, mine will never be noticed as gone if God decides I’m free to get rid of.

A shadow moves near the tent flap. At first, I thought it was Death himself.

But it’s a woman, much older than me. Dark black hair tied back with a ribbon and her sleeves rolled up, arms streaked with blood that’s obviously not her own.

Her voice is low, sweet, yet thick with an accent. “You shouldn’t move, soldado.”

I try to smile, but my lips are raw from how cracked they are. “I didn’t plan to.”

She kneels beside me, checking my pulse, her touch cool despite the tent's humidity. “Your fever’s bad. The pox has spread fast.” She wipes my brow with a cloth that smells faintly of familiar herbs and hearty smoke.

However, she’s careful not to touch the side of the used rag.

She more than likely will die from the same disease anyway.

I can appreciate the effort to stay healthy, though.

“You’ve fought hard, senor, but the body truly can only take so much. ”

“I know that, ma’am. What’s your name?” I manage to steer the conversation through my growing agony.

“Itanya.” Her dark eyes flicker toward the tent’s entrance. “My husband fights with the Spanish regiment. We came to help your army.” She looks down again. “He helps the ones who, I fear, can’t be saved.”

“Helps?” I croak. “You mean, he’s one of the men who ends our misery?” Her gaze softens, but she doesn’t answer. The air between us grows heavier. I hear a faint rustle outside, boots on dry leaves once more. Someone’s right outside waiting.

“He is. Why don’t you let me meet him? Bring him in,” I say. “If I’m going to die, I want it quick. Not like my current torture, but I want to at least speak to him first.”

Meeting my demise via disease at twenty-five is not at all like I imagined, but I would like to leave with my dignity at least. I presume I can forget my dreams of becoming a writer after the war.

She hesitates. “Are you sure, senor? He’ll come in; I can have him do that, but maybe not carry on a conversation. Once he enters, there’s really no going back.”

“I have been too far gone for days now,” I whisper as my body shudders with another wave of fever, “it would be unjust not to finish me now.”

Itanya stands and calls softly, “Matteo, amor. Come in to see the boy.”

The man who steps inside looks like he’s seen centuries of war, but is young at the same time.

His uniform’s worn, but his posture’s straight.

His eyes catch the lantern light, dark, almost too dark.

He nods to me once before turning to her.

“Mi tesoro,” he murmurs, brushing his hand along her cheek.

“You should head to gather the others from the field.”

She grips his wrist. “He’s young, only twenty-five years of age, Matteo. Please. Let him pass gently.”

“That isn’t my area of expertise,” he replies. His voice is calm and patient, the kind of calm that shouldn't belong to a man who kills so often as he does. But there’s something else under it, something older. His whole demeanor shifts back when he attains eye contact with the nurse.

He kneels beside me, setting down a small, well-used, leather pouch. From it, he pulls a blade, bright silver and extremely clean. My breath catches. “Make it quick at least?”

He studies me, and for a heartbeat, I swear he looks almost sorry. “Sí. Quick.” Then he glances at Itanya once more. “Go, mi tesoro. You shouldn’t see this.”

“No,” she says. She approaches the side of my cot, but carefully, as if one wrong move would change the trajectory of all of our lives.

“No? You will listen to me. You must leave.” He grabs her arm and grips her frail, thin wrist.

My heart stumbles in my chest. “What?”

Itanya’s face hardens. “No. You should know what I’m going to ask of you.” Matteo furrows his eyebrows at her as if processing a lifetime of thoughts and actions.

“He should live. You have the power to do this for him,” her voice trembles. “Don’t waste a perfectly fine soldier. Please, amor. Save him.”

“Save me? How can you save me? End my misery already. Put a stop to all of this nonsense at once.” I attempt to shout at Matteo.

The tent seems to close in around us as the air hums. Matteo’s eyes meet mine again, and I see it, the faint shimmer of something unnatural behind his pupils, a light that doesn’t belong to what should be a human man. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me, Itanya,” he says.

And in that moment, I realize the probability that I’m about to die the most horrific death of this century is a lot higher than expected.

“I don’t care,” she replies. “You have one, of your choice, to change. Let him live. I can feel it. You know to trust me, amor. He is supposed to continue. His life is intended to persist.”

He rises to his full height, his shadow spilling across my cot. “You don’t understand the curse, mi tesoro. It’s not life. It’s hunger. I should save my choice for you, if you ever decide I’m good enough to stay for.”

Her tears catch the lantern light. “Then, let him hunger. Better that than to let his flesh rot in this tent until they toss his body in the ravine to burn. Please, amor, please.”

I can barely keep my eyes open now. The fever drags me down, but their voices pull me back. “What are you talking about?” My words crumble into a cough, leaving blood as the only taste on my tongue. “What does she want you to do with me?”

Matteo looks at me with that ancient sadness again. “Rest your eyes, soldado. It will only be brutal for a moment. It is my wife’s wish that I do this. Still, just be very still.”

My body suddenly can’t move. Not a limb on my body is under my control. I can’t move my lips or my arms. I feel as if I’ve been tied down to the cot with lingering linen.

He doesn’t raise the blade. Instead, he bends closer, his breath warm against my cheek. His hand presses gently against my chest, pinning me with impossible strength, even though I had no control of myself prior. The lantern flickers, shadows stretching long across the canvas walls.

"What are you doing?”

His voice hums inside my mind. “Forgive me, Beau.”

How does he know my name? Better yet, how is he in my head?

He brings his wrist to his mouth and pricks it, allowing blood to trickle against his skin.

Matteo hurriedly throws open my jaw, letting his blood enter my mouth.

To avoid choking, I swallow. There is no time for any other choice.

Then, my world collapses into pain. His teeth sink into my skin.

Starting at my throat, a sharp, tearing pressure, causing warmth to pour down my collar.

I try to scream, but no sound resonates.

The fire that had been my fever turns to ice, spreading through my veins.

My heartbeat falters, slow, then slower still.

Every pulse echoes like a drum fading into silence.

Itanya begins crying softly. “Gracias, amor. Gracias.”

Matteo pulls back, mouth red, eyes bright as embers. For a moment, he looks human again, then he takes her hand and presses it to his lips. “You’ll regret this decision, mi tesoro. Although, you know I would always do as you ask.”

She shakes her head. “No, no. You must trust me. He deserves to live. I can’t explain it or why, but I will care for him. I’ll be here. You’re saving him, after all, at my expense.”

My body trembles and my skin goes cold. The tent around me is fading, light shrinking to a pinprick. I can feel something inside me shifting, stretching, breaking. My lungs seize, then still. My heart stops.

Silence.

But then there’s another beat. Not a beat of my heart, but something else is moving within me. The world sharpens. Every sound becomes razor-clear: the creak of leather, the crackle of flame, the pulse in Itanya’s wrist where her hand still touches mine.

It’s all too much. I want to yell for help, but my mouth refuses to open. What has he done to me?

Matteo leans over me, whispering in Spanish too soft to follow. He wipes the blood from my neck with a rag, then places two fingers over my eyelids. “Sleep now, Beau,” he says quietly. “When you wake, you’ll understand what she’s done.”

The darkness swallows me whole.

For a moment, I think I’m gone, finally at peace. But then something deep inside pulls me back—a new sensation caressing every inch of my body. My muscles tighten. My lungs no longer hunger for the air around me that tastes like metal and smoke. My fingers twitch at my sides.

What has she done?