Nikola was in the middle of an endless grass sea. The grass was about as tall as he was. He didn't know where to go. Was glad that the fire had not followed him in here.
Just as he thought that he saw a yurt in the distance. He knew it wasn't a tent, because it had animal hides all over it.
He began to walk towards the yurt. Not knowing what was inside, but figuring he was dead.
And hoping that the voice had kept his word and had made it, so Dimitri had survived.
The grass did not part for him. Every step was a struggle. The ground was uneven.
He didn't know where he should go. The yurt was growing further and further away.
He heard hooves on the grass. He looked around, expecting the bony hunter to have followed him into the flames somehow, only to see a young warrior with a bow and arrows in a quiver strapped to his back behind him.
"You came," the voice was the same as before. The man, with his black hair and dark eyes, did not calm Nikola down. If anything, he made him clutch at the branch which had come with him in this strange land all the harder.
"Won't you speak to me? I saved you," the rider continued. Nikola turned away from him. He turned away from the yurt as well.
Better with an arrow in the heart than to forsake his faith.
"You do not need to forsake anything. You were forsaken first. No child of Adam and Eve can be hunted by the Wild Hunt without a warning."
Nikola snorted. Oh, so now he was dead and was leading a philosophical and theological discussion.
He kept silent.
The rider began to ride side by side with him.
"You have power at your fingertips. I can unlock that power," the man continued. Now that he was this close, Nikola could see that he looked a bit Asian.
"Who are you?" There was no way in hell Nikola would accept a deal if he didn't know who was roping him into it. "A crossroads demon?"
There had been a rise of those of late. People would go to a crossroads, and they would never return.
Nikola didn't want to be just a number in the statistics, but he knew that there was no running away from this man. This was his turf. And even if it weren't, Nikola was the one who was walking, while the other man had a horse.
"Your people called me Tangra, once," which was a name Nikola knew from the history books his parents had brought with them from Bulgaria.
He looked up at the sky. There wasn't even a single cloud there. A stark contrast to the storm he had left behind.
"Am I dead?"
It was a strange question. He had jumped in the flames. The Wild Hunt could have also done him in, somehow. But he needed to know.
Needed to know if there was but a kernel of hope left in his soul.
"You died two times," the ghost told him. Nikola refused to think about him as a pagan deity.
He was a good Christian. He went to church on Sundays. He prayed before most meals.
"And yet you laid with a vampire?" The man's voice had a teasing lilt to it. Nikola shrugged.
"Yes, so what?" He retorted. Suddenly, the yurt was before him.
"You should be honest more often. Come! I have some fermented milk and some dried meat. We will feast like Khans!"
Nikola chuckled. Well, if this was the afterlife, then he supposed that this return to his roots was not all that bad. He might be the first person to drink fermented horse milk in an age!
The rider hopped off his horse and opened the yurt's flap. Soon, Nikola was sitting on a pelt and nursing a drinking horn with what he supposed was the milk.
"You know, if this is heaven, then there is one thing I don't understand," Nikola took a sip from the alcohol. It felt so, as if a horse had kicked him in the head.
He placed the horn down, gasping for breath.
"Is this fire?" He yelled, as he jumped to his feet.
The raven-haired man took Nikola's horn and drunk it dry.
"Well, depends, really. You don't believe, but you have been using my strength. If you have asked for your own life back there, I would have found a way to see you under the earth. Tell me, what does the vampire mean for you?"
Nikola sat back down. He eyed the meat, but the fact it had red pepper on it told him that it might be too spicey for his own good.
He shrugged.
"I love him. We are soulmates," it felt good to be able to say it. Even if Dimitri was powerful and Nikola could eat souls, the brunette knew that there was no outing that little secret in public.
There were many people who would rather watch them burn on a stake than hold hands.
Even in this day and age.
"You love him, but you jumped into my flames," the man said, as he poured himself more from the milk. "Do you think he will have any will to live without you?"
Nikola chuckled, lying down on the soft fur pelts. They smelled so, as if they had not been washed recently. Still had that slight smell of decay all leather and fur had before they were treated with chemicals to kill off the last traces of life in them.
"He will be fine," Nikola said, as he looked at the yurt's ceiling. If one could even call it that.
"And you? Will you be fine?" The pagan deity asked, as he poured more of the fermented milk into Nikola's drinking horn.
"That depends, really," Nikola murmured, as he closed his eyes. It was all over. Dimitri was probably alive and well.
Otherwise, Nikola was certain that their bond would cause him pain. Soulmates were rare, but they were well-documented.
He had nothing to worry about.
Unless the folks from Wikipedia had their facts wrong once more.
"On what?" The man asked, as he poured himself more of the wine.
"On whether you have enough mercy in your heart to let me see Dimitri one last time."
Nikola looked the being in the eyes. The man grinned at him.
"Three deaths you will die," the man said, as the yurt caught fire. "You have one left."
The next thing Nikola knew he was in a hospital bed. Dimitri was lying on the bed besides him. Wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy.
But with open eyes. Eyes which were glowing.
Nikola grinned at him, turned around, and fell asleep.
Knowing full well that as soon as Dimitri was unwrapped, he was going to let him have it.