The Chaos Curse by R. A. Salvatore Read Free Book Online Page B

Rufo pulled Curt’s head to the side, pressed Curt’s cheek against his own shoulder, laying bare the side of the man’s neck.
    Curt thought that Rufo would simply snap that neck, as he had done to Berdole, but the Oghman learned better when Rufo opened his mouth, revealing a set of canine fangs, half an inch longer than the rest of his teeth.
    With a look of supreme hunger, Rufo bent over and bit down on Curt’s neck, opening the jugular. Curt was screaming, but Rufo, feasting on the warm blood, heard none of it.
    It was ecstacy for the monster, the satiation of a hunger more powerful than anything he had ever known in life. It was impossibly sweet. It was…
    Rufo’s mouth began to burn. The sweet blood became acidic.
    With a roar of outrage, Rufo spun away and heaved the man away with the arm still hooked behind Curt’s back. The poor man flew head over heels, his back striking the nearest column. He slid to the floor and lay very still. He felt nothing in his lower body, but his chest was on fire, burning with poison.
    “What have you done?” Kierkan Rufo demanded, looking to the rafters and the perched imp.
    A creature of the horrid lower planes, Druzil was not usually afraid of anything this world could present to him. The imp was afraid now, justifiably afraid of this thing that Kierkan Rufo had become. “I wanted to help you,” Druzil explained. “He could not be allowed to escape.”
    “You tainted his blood!” Rufo roared. “His blood,” the monster said more quietly, longingly. “I need… I need.”
    Rufo looked back to Curt, but the light of life had gone from the man’s eyes.
    Rufo roared again, a horrible, unearthly sound.
    “There are more,” Druzil promised. “There are many more, not far away!”
    A strange look came over Rufo then. He looked to his bare arms, held them up in front of his face, as though he had realized for the first time that something very unusual had happened to him.
    “Blood?” he asked more than stated, and he put a plaintive look Druzil’s way.
    Druzil’s bulbous eyes seemed to come farther out of their sockets as the imp recognized the sincere confusion on the dead Rufo’s face. “Do you not understand what has happened to you?” Druzil cried excitedly.
    Rufo went to take a steadying breath, but then realized that he wasn’t breathing at all. Again that plaintive, questioning look fell over Druzil, who seemed to have the answers.
    “You drank of Tuanta Quiro Miancay,” the imp squealed. “The Most Fatal Horror, the ultimate chaos, and thus you have become the ultimate perversion of humanity!”
    Still Rufo did not seem to understand.
    “The ultimate perversion!” Druzil said again, as though that should explain everything. “The antithesis of life itself!”
    “What are you talking about?” asked a horrified Rufo, Curt’s blood spewing from his lips.
    Druzil laughed wickedly. “You are immortal,” he said, and Rufo, stunned and confused, finally began to catch on. “You are a vampire.”

Delusions
    Vampire.The word hung in Rufo’s thoughts, a dead weight on his undead shoulders. He crawled back to the stone slab and flopped down on his back, covering his eyes with his skinny, pale hands.
    “Bene tellemara” Druzil muttered many times as the minutes passed uneventfully. “Would you have them come out and find you?” Rufo did not look up.
    “The priests are dead,” the imp rasped. “Torn. Will those who come in search of them be caught so unaware?” Rufo moved his arm from in front of his face and looked over at the imp, but did not seem to care.
    “You think you can beat them,” Druzil reasoned, misunderstanding Rufo’s calmness. “Fool! You think you can beat them all!”
    Rufo’s response caught the imp oft guard, made Druzil understand that despair, not confidence, was the source of the undead man’s lethargy. “I do not care to try,” Rufo said sincerely.
    “You can beat them,” the imp quickly improvised, changing his