Diaries Of The Family Dracul - Children Of The Vampire Part 14

He flanked me to my left; as I struggled for balance, I became aware of a crimson presence to my right: Vlad, who sidled alongside, speaking directly to my confused mind.

Join us, Stefan. See how your poor child longs for you? I ask only one small thing: the blood ritual. Permit this, and I swear to you that your little son can return home with you. No harm will come to any of you, if you allow this one thing. . . .

His plea was joined by that of little Jan: Papa, come. Oh, Papa, come!

Arkady spoke as well: Bram, my son. My son! I know you are strong-willed, like your mother. Remember her now-and listen to me- But his voice was drowned out by the others. I hesitated, torn, the cross held loosely in my palm. I had only to overturn my hand-such a small movement, so easily accomplished- and let it drop to the stone.

In the midst of this mental chorus, a distant part of my mind was peripherally aware that the woman had, amazingly, fought off the effects of the ether and gotten to her knees; Vlad's mental urging was apparently stronger than the drug. She crawled past us towards the grisly torture chamber, ignoring the elderly woman's hanging corpse, and disappeared behind the remaining velvet curtain.

Again I say, I noted this with a distracted portion of my mind-a portion that, at that moment, was scarcely cognizant, for the voices in my head had nearly overwhelmed me.

But I am a father; and the one I heard most clearly was my son's.

Papa, Papa, come. . . .

His little voice was full of tears, near breaking with childish desire as Zsuzsanna picked him up to soothe him, patting his back in a purely human maternal gesture, whispering sweet rea.s.surances; she looked at that moment so like Gerda comforting our boy that I scarce could bear it.

I spread my fingers and let the cross slip between them, then took a step towards my child.

Arkady and Vlad both descended on me at once; but Vlad was the swifter. He wrapped a strong arm round my shoulders, in a gesture that was both welcoming and restraining. His touch was icy-so cold that it penetrated layers of fabric, raising gooseflesh on my skin. But I was mentally in his grasp as well and felt no fear, just a swift sinking sensation of the descent into the vortex.

In the next blurred second, Arkady took hold of me by the shoulders, pulled me from Vlad's grip, and hurled me down.

In the fleeting instant of contact when Arkady's hands were upon me, my mind cleared and I came to myself, enough to hear his urgent message: My son, flee!

Swift instinct made me break the fall with my open hands; they struck the stone with such bruising force that I cried out in pain. But the distraction of it pa.s.sed as I discovered, beneath one swelling and cut palm, the crucifix.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed it up immediately and glanced up to witness a second horror: In order to free me, Arkady had stepped into Vlad's grasp, taking my place. The two struggled mightily, each leaning into the other, straining with effort to move the other into position and thrust him backwards. It was a trap; for the peasant woman had reappeared from behind the black veil and staggered drowsily towards us. Again she bore a weapon- but not the pistol. In its stead, clenched in both fists just below her heart, was a sharpened wooden stake the length of half an arm.

I scrambled to my feet, crying out a single word in warning, one that rose unbidden from the deepest recesses of my soul: "Father!"

He heard. I know he heard, for in the midst of his battle with Vlad, his gaze met mine, and I saw there love and grat.i.tude, mixed with deep concern.

We shared a look that said we had, after so many years, recognised each odier at last; shared it a fraction of a second, no more, but it was enough to seal his fate.

"Go!" he gasped aloud, and the moment of inattention was enough. Vlad spun him round and, with a mighty thrust, sent him hurtling backwards.

Against the peasant woman. Both went flying against the remaining black drape, tearing that, too, down to reveal a butcher's table stained with blood and flanked by a grisly a.s.sortment of knives and stakes.

They slammed against the far wall: and for a terrible instant they stood flattened against it-Arkady atop the woman, his eyes wide, stunned by pain, the sharpened point of the stake protruding from the center of his chest.

I ran to him, unmindful of Vlad and the others, and crouched down at his side as he slid slowly down until he sat, knees bent, upon the cold stone. There was no blood; no fluid at all, only a gust of air like lungs deflating, like a sigh, and on it was carried a barely perceptible whisper: Mary . . .Pressed to the wall behind him, the woman half sat, her head lolling to one side at an impossible angle, peering out just beneath his shoulder with wide sightless eyes. I did not need to touch her to know that her neck was broken and that there would be no pulse.

"Father," I said again, but he could not hear me; he was already gone, transforming before my stunned gaze from immortal to a man. The vampire's luminescent glow died like a suddenly extinguished flame, and streaks of silver spread through his black hair as though molten metal had been spilled upon his crown, then trickled downward. His face, too, rapidly aged until I found myself staring at an utterly mortal man, my mother's age-a man whose face was lined by grief and despair, whose shadowed eyes were full of pain and desperation.

For the first time, I gazed upon my human father's face; the face of sacrifice, worn by the heavy burden of generations past and future.

He was dead, I knew, but I still heard his voice in my head, as though he spoke to me: My son, go. Go. ...

Whilst the heart-rending metamorphosis occurred, Vlad laughed, saying, "You have failed, my boy, after all these years, just as I foretold. You are a fool to think you possessed my cunning, my strength. None can destroy me! None has the power!"

At the same time, Zsuzsanna had collapsed, sitting on her heels with her gown fluted out around her, my child still clutched in her arms as she sobbed: "Kasha!

Kasha! You are right-what have I become? Forgive me!

Vlad turned upon her, sneering. "I thought you would be strong enough by now, Zsuzsanna.

Spare me your shows of grief! By to-morrow you will have forgotten your brother and will be laughing again, in love with your own beauty. It was necessary that he be destroyed; there was no time left us for mercy. Or would you prefer that we both perished in his stead?"

All this they said while I knelt at Arkady's side, the crucifix still clutched in my hand.

Then Vlad approached me again, stretching forth a ghostly white hand, the scarlet robes spreading beneath his arm like a b.l.o.o.d.y veil between us. "Know that this pains me, my child, as it does you; but I cannot permit betrayal. He sought to steal from you your birthright. You have seen my harshness; let me show to you now my generosity, to which Zsuzsanna and Jan can attest."

And he fixed his green eyes upon me once more. I would not meet them. Instead, I looked down at Arkady's mortal, aged corpse; and away, at my beloved brother's body. These two were the only convincing things in this chamber of horrors, the only things that had any reality, and I focussed on them to the exclusion of all else, until Vlad's words faded and became no more meaningful to me than the buzzing of a fly.

There is a measure of anguish that the human mind can accept; beyond that, each new blow brings only numbness, the heart's anaesthesia, for it can tolerate only a finite amount of anguish. Even writing this, I find I cannot weep for them all at once; the loss of Stefan brings a different pain, a different sorrow, from the loss of my little boy, or of Arkady.

Intense grief brought with it a liberation from reason: any remaining scepticism I might have possessed died that moment with Stefan, Arkady, my son. Perhaps I might have surrendered then, in despair-but I could not so disrespect my father and brother by falling prey to the evil they gave their lives to overcome.Instead, I clutched the cross in my hand and felt its warm tingling emanation. I lifted it high-higher, fending off the undead murderer that approached me -and felt its power course through my arm and beyond. My surge of confident belief seemed to extend the range of its power: Vlad lowered his hand, and snarled, retreating one step, then another.

I used the opportunity to dash to the exit, where I broke the sacred Host and placed half at the doorway behind me, preventing Vlad and his consort-and what remained of my Jan- from pursuit ... at least until a human hand removed the holy relic.

Down gloomy corridors I ran, down winding stairs, out into the night, where the carriage and horses waited. I staggered out of blackness into a world of white and grey; the storm had turned to blizzard. At that moment, I felt I had lost so much-father, brother, wife, child-that I hoped only to lose myself in the all-consuming whiteness.

I climbed into the carriage and drove the horses onwards, onwards, away from the castle and into the very heart of the storm.

Chapter 16.

The Journal of Mary Tsepesh Van Helsing 27 NOVEMBER.

The past week has been a difficult one. Were it not for my daughter-in-law, I should have broken my promise to Arkady and followed them to Transylvania.

But Gerda is as helpless as a child. This must certainly be the way that Bram discovered her, mute and vacant-eyed, in the sanitorium. For love of him, I cannot desert her, nor hand her back to her former captors; they would lead her at once to an empty cell and bind her in a strait-jacket behind a locked door, treat her as an object rather than the tormented soul she is. Bram would never forgive me.

But I shall never forgive myself, if harm comes to him.

I shall never forgive myself regardless.

To-day was the hardest day of all. I spent it as I had the others, in a house that a mere fortnight ago was filled with contented voices and laughter: my husband's, my sons', my grandchild's. Now it stands empty and silent. Gerda neither speaks nor moves but submits pa.s.sively as I spoon-feed her, bathe her, dress her, sit her before sunny windows in hopes that the scenery outside will spark a response, will somehow pierce the veil that separates her from the outside world. Once placed, she will remain motionless if left to herself, and she responds to nothing I say.

I talk to her nevertheless, forcing my tone to remain falsely bright as I speak of Bram and Stefan and little Jan as though they will return to us soon; chattering away as though our lives had not been destroyed by darkness.

And I watch carefully for changes in her. The small bite marks that Zsuzsanna left on her neck have not healed-which I think may actually be a good sign. For I remember when, long ago, Zsuzsanna was herself bitten, and how the wounds Vlad inflicted disappeared the day she died. Gerda appears to be in no danger of imminent death. But she eats so little; I worry for her health. And I dare not leave her alone, not even to go to market, for fear she might harm herself. If she was to die . . . what would she become?

I must not think such things. I am not sure I am physically or emotionally strong to do what would have to be done.

To-day, for the first time, she spoke.

She was sitting at the kitchen table while I stood over the stove, stirring pea soup. It was the hour before dusk, when the sun was low in the clouded sky, filling it with a reddish glow.

My back was to her, but I was as usual talking away, about the women in the church and how kind they were to have brought us food. She was freshly washed, and I had sprinkled her with talc.u.m and dressed her in a pretty frock in hopes of raising her spirits and mine, then brushed out her long, lovely hair. It lay in dark waves upon her thin shoulders, catching the red glow of the dying sun, while she stared dully ahead.

I was in mid-sentence when she interrupted with a loud shriek. It startled me so that I dropped the spoon; it clattered loudly against the floor as I whirled round to see her on her feet, eyes wide and wild, mouth a perfect O, the chair overturned behind her.

She stood for only a breath; then sank at once to her knees, still screaming. I rushed to her side, clutched her elbows, tried to lift her up.

"Gerda! Gerda, darling, what is it? What's wrong?"

The sound chilled me to the core, for it was the same terrible cry that had been wrung from her the night Jan and Stefan were taken from us. But she would not answer me, would not hear, but closed her eyes and abandoned herself to sorrow and such wild, tortured sobbing that I could not restrain my own tears as I knelt down and held her.

"Gerda, please. What's wrong?"

To my astonishment, she drew in a hitching breath and wailed: "Stefan! Stefan! They have killed him. Killed him!"

My heart froze in my breast. For one tortured moment I grasped vainly at hope-to tell myself that this was simply another symptom of her madness, all illusion, untrue. My son could not be dead.

But I knew her mind was tied, however faintly, to Zsuzsanna's; and I knew, also, with a mother's instinct, that what she said was true.

I collapsed myself with grief, and for several moments, we two wept, kneeling together, I embracing her. In the midst of it, I could not resist clutching her arms and begging: "How did it happen? Did he suffer? And what of Jan, and Arkady?"

But she only shook her head and would say no more; would not eat, or drink, or sleep when led to bed.

I left her there, her gaze once again dull and empty, though her eyes are now red and swollen from so many tears. And I came here to mourn alone and write down my confession.

My son, my son! I tell myself it is not true, that it is Gerda's wild imaginings, but my heart knows otherwise. . . .

I am twice a murderess; for it was I who killed Stefan, as surely as I fired the bullet that pierced my first husband's heart. I know not how he died, but I know why.

Because of the fear that haunted me my first year in Amsterdam. I saw that my little son resembled me rather than his father, Arkady. But I was still terribly frightened: What if I were mistaken, and Arkady had not died? What if Vlad had somehow survived? What if he someday hunted us down and took my child from me?

The fear gave me no rest. And so I thought: If I changed Stefan's first name and married Jan, took his surname, then we would be safer. In all honesty, Jan had wanted for some time to marry me; but I did not love him. I still loved-and love to this day-Arkady.

But Jan was a gentle man, and kind. He convinced me we would be safer wed, and my little boy better off with a father. For my baby's sake, it was done.

Then one day soon after, an infant boy was discovered abandoned in the city and was brought by a kindly soul to Jan's office. The little orphan was deathly sick, and we kept him many days in the house, caring for him, certain he would not survive.

I took care of him myself and was struck by his dark colouring and eyes, so similar to my dear Arkady's. And I began to think wicked thoughts: What if we adopted this child, took him into our family? Gave him the name Stefan-and if Vlad ever threatened, he would surely mistake this child for Arkady's.

I told myself that if G.o.d permitted this dying child to survive, I would take it as a sign He had sent the boy to protect my son. Miraculously, the child lived-and we took him as our own.

And I named him Stefan.

It was a cruel, selfish thing to do, a heartless one, but I could only think then of my own baby, whom I had re-named Abraham. Jan indulged me in this, for he understood my terror, but he felt that both children were perfectly safe, that no harm could come from this change of name.

So when I gave that innocent child Stefan's name, and in turn named my son for Jan's father Abraham, hoping his fair hair and eyes would fool the world into thinking he was a Van Helsing rather than a Tsepesh, I felt great relief.

But it was no solution at all; for I quickly came to love this second Stefan as my own son and grew just as fearful that harm would come to him. But over the years, my terror began to ease. And Jan rea.s.sured me that my nightmares would never come to pa.s.s. So I saw no reason to frighten my children with stories from a b.l.o.o.d.y, horrific past; nor did I see any cause to change their names again, for it began to seem fitting that my natural son was called Abraham, and my adopted boy Stefan.

And Stefan was by nature more emotional than Bram, more temperamental, more artistic- all traits he shared with Arkady, so that it became easy even for me to think of him as Arkady's son. And while Bram for the most part inherited my calm nature, at times he displayed Arkady's scepticism and determination. But to this I turned a blind eye, afraid even to admit the past to myself, lest it return to torment us.

Now it has. When Stefan was rescued from Brussels and returned to us, I told him the entire truth and begged him to forgive me. I wanted to tell Bram, too, and warn him and Arkady. But Stefan would not let me, insisting, "This is my name now, and my fate: I must do what you chose me to do so long ago-protect my brother. The fewer who know his secret, the safer he shall be."

After hearing Gerda's tortured confession, I might have thought he had insisted out of guilt, because he wished to make amends for his adultery. But I know him as well as my own blood son; his heart was good and brave. He loved Bram. Guilt or no, he would have done anything to save his brother.

Stefan, Stefan! My brave child! Forgive me! I would rather have died myself rather than let evil befall you. I can only pray you sleep sweetly in G.o.d's arms, untainted by the wicked forces to which you so willingly sacrificed yourself.

Chapter 17.

The Diary of Abraham Van Helsing, Cont'd.

Even now I am uncertain of my intent in urging the horses to the southwest, towards the Borgo Pa.s.s and the way I had come. Certainly at least a part of me desired death; another, help. But I felt no fear. My overwhelming desire was not to flee from Vlad but simply to escape pain, regardless of the method; to drown in the white oblivion surrounding me; to forever blot out the images of my brother's and father's dying eyes, of my little boy's undead ones. Without Arkady's help, I had no hope.

That the horses did not lose their footing and slip off the narrow winding pa.s.s down the mountainside, dragging me and the carriage with them, I consider a bona fide miracle. For the night had turned blinding white, snow blowing sideways, covering the poor animals, covering the blanket so that it lay sodden in my lap. My damp feet and legs began to ache from the cold, then went blessedly numb as the chill ascended to my hips and then my chest, where it inflicted burning pain.

It distracted and troubled me not at all, for mere physical inconvenience could not compare with the heartache I endured. As a physician, I realised with clinical detachment the imminence of frostbite; yet this, too, seemed quite unimportant, as meaningless as the fact that the horses had slowed and laboured with great difficulty in the mounting drifts, or that the rational remnant of my mind knew we were lost in both a literal and a metaphoric sense.

Yet the horses struggled onwards, and I wiped my spectacles with my gloved hand and shielded my eyes from the stinging onslaught of snow as I turned to peer at the forest, to see whether I was nearing the place where Arkady had taken me: Yakov's hidden glade.

Abruptly, the horses' forward momentum ceased, though I urged them on; the carriage rolled back half a foot, then stopped. With great care, I coaxed the animals to reverse their steps, hoping to free the wheels, two-thirds of which had disappeared in snow. It was no use; we were hopelessly stuck.

I felt sorry to know that I should be responsible for the deaths of the innocent beasts, but for myself I could not mourn. I could only pray that death was what I had always believed it to be-mindlessness, nonexistence, oblivion. But I could no longer be certain of anything; not now, when reality had become so utterly different from the logical scientific world in which I had put my faith-so much more dangerous and evil. If a creature such as Vlad existed, how then could I be sure there was no Heaven or h.e.l.l?

I huddled beneath the wet blanket and closed my eyes, ready to welcome my fate. For some moments I sat, thinking of my wife, so far removed from me by emotional and geographical distance, and of my little boy, whose future had been stolen from him, and of Arkady-and of Stefan, the most fortunate Van Helsing, for he at least had been released from suffering.

Then I remembered my mother, whose heart would surely break were she to lose both sons. In the midst of my surrender to the elements and despair, her image bade me take action. I opened my eyes, the lashes heavy with melting flakes, and climbed down from the carriage-staggering, s...o...b..ind, into hip-deep drifts.

I could scarce move, but some force beyond me propelled me sidelong into the silent forest, beneath heavy-laden pine branches that released small avalanches when I clambered beneath them. With all my strength, I shouted Arminius' name; the swirling snow swallowed the sound, permitting not even the faintest echo.

Still I screamed-a cry that was neither a summons nor a demand, but the most heartfelt prayer, though I could have explained neither its contents nor the hoped-for reply. I screamed-Arminius, Arminius!- until my numbed feet and legs would carry me no further, until I pitched forward and, gasping, rested my bearded cheek against the snow.

Never in my life had I been so defeated, never in my life so willing to embrace death.

Exhausted, I let go a sigh and with it let go all hope, all fear, all desire, even the tormented remembrance of my loved ones. The snow rained down softly, steadily, until it buried me; beneath it, I shuddered a final time, then yielded to stillness and darkness.

And from the midst of the darkness, Arkady came to me-alive, a mortal man, with silver gilding his jet mustache, his hair, and sorrow in his gentle eyes.