Diaries of the Family Dracul - The Covenant with the Vampire Part 1

COVENANT WITH THE VAMPIRE.

THE DIARIES OF THE FAMILY DRACUL.

JEANNE KALOGRIDIS.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I am enormously indebted to: My editor and evil twin, Jeanne Cavelos, for her saintly patience, her constant encouragement, and her unshakable faith that this overdue ma.n.u.script would someday materialize on her desk; My agent, Russell Galen, for his exemplary professionalism and his suggestion that I try my hand at historical fantasy; My cousin, Laeta Kalogridis, whose painstaking edit of the ma.n.u.script powerfully shaped this book for the better; My dear friend, Kathleen O'Malley, whose comments had a profound influence on how the tale was told; Toby and Ilona Scott, who freely offered their expertise on all things Roumanian; Most of all, the two men whose constant love makes all effort worthwhile: my father, Irwin, and my beloved husband, George.The devil is an angel, too.

-Miguel de Unamuno COVENANT WITH THE VAMPIRE.

The Diary of Arkady Tsepesh [undated, on the inside cover in jagged scrawl]

G.o.d, in Whom I put no faith, help me! I do not believe in You-did not, but if I am to accept such infinite Evil as I have become, then I pray infinite Good exists as well, and that it has mercy on what remains of my soul.

I am the wolf. I am Dracul. The blood of innocents stains my hands, and now I wait to kill him...

Chapter 1

The Diary of Arkady Tsepesh.

5 April, 1845.

Father is dead.

Mary has been asleep for hours now, in the old trundle bed my brother Stefan and I shared as children. Poor thing; she is so exhausted that the glow from the taper does not disturb her. How incongruous to see her lying there beside Stefan's small ghost, surrounded by the artifacts of my childhood inside these crumbling, high-ceilinged stone walls, their corridors a whisper with the shades of my ancestors. It is as if my present and past had suddenly collided.

Meanwhile, I sit at the old oaken desk where I learned my letters, occasionally running my hand over the pitted surface scarred by successive generations of fidgety Tsepesh young.

Dawn nears. Through the north window, I can see against the lightening grey sky the majestic battlements of the family castle where Uncle still dwells. I ponder my proud heritage, and I weep-softly, so as not to wake Mary, but tears bring no release of sorrow; writing alone eases the grief. I shall begin a journal, to record these painful days and to aid me, in future years, to better remember Father. I must keep his memory ever green in my heart, so that one day I can paint for my yet-unborn child a verbal portrait of his grandfather.

I had so hoped he would live long enough to see- No. No more tears. Write! You will grieve Mary if she wakes to see you carrying on like this. She has suffered enough on your behalf.

The past several days have seen us in ceaseless motion, borne across Europe in boats, carriages, trains. I felt I was not so much retracing my journey across a continent as traveling back in time, as though I had left my present behind in England and now moved swiftly and irrevocably back into a dark ancestral past. In the rocking wagon-lit from Vienna, as I lay beside my wife and stared at the play of light and shadow against drawn blinds, I was riven by the sudden fearful conviction that the happy life we led in London could never be reclaimed. There was nothing to tie me to that present, nothing but the child and Mary. Mary, my anchor, who slept soundly, untroubled and unshakable in her loyalty, her contentment, her beliefs. She lay on her side, the only position now comfortable in this seventh month of her confinement, her gold-fringed alabaster lids veiling the blue ocean of her eyes. I gazed through the thin white linen of her nightgown at her taut belly, at the unguessable future there, and touched a hand to it, gently, so as not to waken her-moved to sudden tears of grat.i.tude. She is so st.u.r.dy, so calm; as placid as a motionless sea. I try to hide my wellings of emotion for fear their intensity will overwhelm her. I always told myself I had left that aspect of my self in Transylvania-that part given to dark moods and despair, that part which had never known real happiness until I deserted my native land. I wrote volumes of black, brooding poetry in my native language, before going to England; once there, I gave up writing poems altogether. I have never attempted any literature other than prose in my acquired tongue.

That was a different life, after all; ah, but my past has now become my future.

On the rumbling train bound from Vienna, I lay beside my wife and unborn child and wept-out of joy that they were with me, out of fear that the future might see that joy dimmed. Out of uncertainty at the news that awaited me at the manor high in the Carpathians.

At home.

But in all honesty, I cannot say that news of Father's death was a shock. I had a strong premonition of it on the way from Bistritsa (Bistritz, I mean to say. I shall keep this journal entirely in English, lest I forget it too quickly). A strange feeling of dread overcame me the instant I set foot inside the coach. My mind was already uneasy-we had received Zsuzsanna's telegram over a week before, with no way of knowing whether his condition had worsened or improved-and it was not soothed by the reaction of the coachman when I told him our destination. A hunchbacked elderly man, he peered into my face and exclaimed, as he crossed himself: "By Heaven! You are of the Dracul!"

The sound of that hated name made me flush with anger. "The name is Tsepesh," I corrected him coldly, though I knew it would do no good.

"Whatever you say, good sir; only remember me kindly to the prince!" And the old man crossed himself again, this time with trembling hand. When I told him in fact my great- uncle, the prince, had arranged for a driver to meet us, he grew tearful and begged us to wait until morning.

I had forgotten about the superst.i.tion and prejudice rampant among my uneducated native countrymen; indeed, I had forgotten what it was like to be feared and secretly despised for being boier, a member of the aristocracy. I had often faulted Father for the intense disdain he showed toward the peasants in his letters; now I was ashamed to find that same att.i.tude aroused in myself.

"Do not be ridiculous," I curtly told the driver, aware that Mary, who did not speak the language, nonetheless had heard the fear in the old peasant's tone and was watching us both with anxious curiosity. "No harm will come to you."

"Or to my family. Only swear it, good sir... !"

"Or to your family. I swear it," I said shortly, and turned to help Mary into the coach. While the old man backed towards the driver's seat, bowing and proclaiming, "G.o.d bless you, sir!

And the lady, too," I tried to allay my wife's curiosity and concern by saying that local superst.i.tion forbade night travel into the forest. It was at least the partial truth.

And so we headed into the Carpathians. It was late afternoon, and we were already exhausted from a full day's travel, but the urgency of Zsuzsanna's telegram and Mary's determination that we should meet the prearranged carriage propelled us onward.

As we rumbled past a foreground of verdant forested slopes dotted with farmhouses and the occasional rustic village, Mary remarked with sincere pleasure on the countryside's charm-cheering me, for I feel no small amount of guilt at bringing her to a country where she is a stranger. I confess I had forgotten the beauty of my native land after years of living in a crowded, dirty city. The air is clean and sweet, free from urban stench. It is early spring, and the gra.s.s has already greened, and the fruit trees are just beginning to bloom.

Some few hours into our journey the sun began to set, casting a pale rosy glow on the looming backdrop of spiraling, snow-covered Carpathian peaks, and even I drew in a breath at their awesome splendor. I must admit that, mingled with the growing sense of dread, I felt a fierce pride, and a longing for home I had forgotten I possessed.

Home. A week ago, that word would have denoted London...

As dusk encroached, a lugubrious gloom permeated the landscape and my thoughts. I fell to ruminating on the fearful gleam in our driver's eye, on the hostility and superst.i.tion implied by his actions and words.

The change in the countryside mirrored my state of mind. The farther into the mountains we ventured, the more stunted and gnarled the roadside growth became, until ascending a steep slope I spied nearby an orchard of deformed, dead plum trees, rising black against the evanescent purple twilight. The trunks were stooped by wind and weather like the ancient peasant women carrying on their backs a too-heavy burden; the twisted limbs thrust up towards heaven in a mute plea for pity. The land seemed to grow increasingly misshapen; as misshapen as its people, I thought, who were more crippled by superst.i.tion than any infirmity of body.

Can we be truly happy among them?

Shortly thereafter, night fell, and the orchards gave way to straight, tall forests of pine. The pa.s.sing blur of dark trees against darker mountains and the rocking of the carriage lulled me into an uneasy sleep.

I fell at once into a dream: Through a child's eyes, I gazed up at towering evergreens in the forest overshadowed by Great-uncle's castle. Treetops impaled rising mists, and the cool, damp air beneath smelled of recent rain and pine. A warm breeze lifted my hair, stirred leaves and gra.s.s that gleamed, be-jeweled with sunlit drops of moisture.

A boyish shout cleft the silence. I turned, and in the dappled light beheld my elder brother Stefan, a gleeful six-year-old, his dark, upslanting eyes ashine with mischief, his flushed, heart-shaped face wearing its wide imp's smile above a narrow chin. Beside him stood huge grey Shepherd, half-mastiff, half-wolf, who had grown from a pup alongside us boys.

Stefan motioned for me to follow, then turned and ran, Shepherd bounding joyously beside him, towards the heart of the forest.

I hesitated, suddenly afraid, but rea.s.sured myself we were safe so long as Shepherd accompanied us, for there was never a more fiercely loyal companion or protector; and somehow I knew, with a dreamer's certainty, that our father was nearby, and would let no harm come to us.

So I chased my brother, half-laughing, half-shouting in outrage at the injustice because his legs were longer and, being a year my senior, he could run faster than I. He paused to glance over his shoulder with satisfaction to see me outpaced before disappearing from view into the dark, glistening woods.

I ran, ducking as low branches reached out to sc.r.a.pe my cheeks and shoulders and sprinkle me with captured raindrops. The further into the forest I ventured, the darker it became, and the more my face was slapped by low-hanging boughs, until my eyes filled with tears and my giggles turned to gasps. I ran faster, faster, flailing at the limbs that now seemed ghouls intent on clutching me, but I quite lost sight of my brother and the dog. Stefan's ringing laughter grew ever more distant.

I continued, crashing through the woods in a dark panic for a dreamy eternity. And then my brother's laughter broke off with a thud and a short, sharp shriek. There came a heartbeat of silence, then a low, ugly snarl. The snarl became a roar, and my brother screamed in pain.

I ran, shouting Stefan's name, in the direction of the commotion.

And froze in horror as I reached a clearing and in the sunlit mists that filtered through the trees beheld a ghastly spectacle: Shepherd, hunched over Stefan's still body, his muscular jaws clamped on my brother's neck. At my footfall, the animal lifted his head, rending tender flesh with sharp teeth as he did so. Blood dripped from his silvered muzzle.

I stared into his eyes. They were pale, colourless; before, they had always been the gentle eyes of a dog, but now I saw only the white eyes of a wolf, a predator.

At the sight of me, Shepherd bared his teeth and released a low, deadly growl. Slowly, slowly, he crouched -then sprang, sailing effortlessly through the air despite his bulk. Terrified, I stood rooted to the spot and released a wail.

There came an explosion behind me and a shrill yelp before me as the dog fell dead to the ground. I turned and saw my father. Swiftly he lowered his hunting rifle and hurried to Stefan's side, but all was lost: my brother's throat had been ripped out by the heretofore- gentle Shepherd. I walked forward to find the tree trunk over which Stefan had stumbled, and the rock on which he had struck his head.

And then, with the exquisite clarity that marks the most vivid, terrifying nightmares, I saw my dying brother.

The small gash on his forehead had bled profusely, but it was nothing compared to his throat, which had been so severely mauled that the skin had been torn away and hung from his neck in a b.l.o.o.d.y flap, revealing bone, cartilage, and glistening red muscle.

Worst of all, he was still alive and dying, struggling to expel a final scream, a final breath; his horrified eyes were open, and they focused on mine in a silent plea for help. Tiny bright red bubbles roiled up from his exposed larynx, each prismatically ashimmer with filtered sunlight, a hundred miniature rainbows dipped in blood. Nearby blades of gra.s.s bowed, laden with shining crimson droplets.

I woke from this terrible vision with a start as the driver reined the horses to a stop. I must have dozed for quite some time, for we had already made it through the Borgo Pa.s.s to the rendezvous point. Mary had apparently been sleeping as well; she seemed as disoriented as I for an instant, but we came to ourselves and gathered up our things as we waited for Uncle's caleche to arrive.

We sat no more than a few minutes before we heard the rumble of wheels and the thunder of hooves. Out of the forest mists the caleche appeared, drawn by four high-strung and magnificent coal-black stallions, who quivered, eyes and nostrils wide, as Uncle's driver climbed down to greet us. Old Sandu had died two years ago, and this was a new man, one I had never met, dark blond and bland-faced, of cold, disagreeable disposition. I did not inquire after Father, nor did the driver volunteer information; better to learn any bad news from family rather than this silent, unpleasant stranger. Soon our trunks were situated, and we were tucked with blankets into the caleche, for the night had quickly grown chill, and Mary and I rode in sleepy silence towards home. This time I did not doze, but used the time to reflect on the nightmare.

Would that it had been but a dream.

In fact, it was a somnolent memory, triggered perhaps by the familiar scent of pine. The terrible event had actually transpired in my fifth year, though in reality I had not ventured close enough to examine my poor, bleeding brother. In reality, I had fainted the instant my father sank to his knees beside his dying son and released an agonised scream.

Years later, when Father had recovered somewhat from the tragedy of Stefan's death (and from the guilt- oh, how he blamed himself for trusting the animal!), he spoke to me of what might have caused Shepherd's sudden viciousness. Stefan had stumbled, Father said, and struck his head, which had bled profusely. Shepherd had always been a good and loyal dog, but the smell of blood had caused him to revert to his predatory instincts, those of the wolf.

The dog was not to blame, Father insisted; rather he himself was responsible, for trusting the animal to overcome its dual nature.

The recollection of Stefan's death caused my sense of dread to increase until I became convinced that the very worst news awaited us at the end of our journey. Alas, my premonition proved correct. After an interminable ride on serpentine sand roads, we arrived at my father's estate very close to midnight, and together the coachman and I helped Mary from the caleche. (She seemed rather taken aback by the size and grandeur of the manor, a far cry from our humble flat in London. I suppose I have been vague concerning the extent of our family's wealth. What shall she say tomorrow when the sun rises and she sees the magnificent castle, dwarfing us?) I must admit that I took fright when a huge Saint Bernard bounded barking down the stone steps to greet us, but I forgot the dog when my dead brother appeared in the doorway.

Stefan stood, fringe of tousled jet hair against the translucent alabaster of his forehead, despite the pa.s.sage of twenty years a small, solemn six-year-old, and raised his hand slowly in greeting. I blinked, but his spectre remained; only then did I notice that the pale upheld palm and white linen of his torn shirt were stained dark red-in the gleaming moonlight, almost black-and realised that his hand was lifted not to greet, but to disclose blood.

As I watched, he stretched forth his arm and pointed, small fingers dripping blood and dew, at some object behind us. I glanced over my shoulder surrept.i.tiously, knowing that Mary and the coachman did not share in this vision, and saw nothing but an endless forest of dark evergreen.

I turned back to see Stefan, moving down the stairs towards us, silently but emphatically gesturing towards the forest.

Abruptly dizzied, I let go a cry and closed my eyes. There are legends in my country of the moroi-the restless dead, doomed by secret sin or concealed treasure to wander the earth until the truth be revealed. I knew Stefan's brave young heart had held no sin, nor could I imagine he had possessed much by way of treasure; I knew this apparition was caused by nothing more than the stress of travel, and the fear of the news to come. I am a modern man who puts his hope in science rather than G.o.d or the Devil.

I opened my eyes, and saw, not Stefan, but Zsuzsanna in the doorway.

At the sight of her, my heart constricted with pain; beside me, Mary raised a gloved hand to her lips and emitted a low moan of grief. We both knew at once that Father was dead.

Zsuzsanna was dressed in mourning, her eyes red and swollen; though she tried to smile, her fleeting joy at seeing us was overshadowed by an air of sorrow.

Ah, sweet sister, how you have aged in the few short years I have been away... ! She is only two years my senior, but appears fifteen. Her hair-like mine and Stefan's, dark as coal-is streaked now with silver at temples and crown, and her face is lined and gaunt. I knew grief had taken its toll upon her, and was stricken with guilt that she had had to bear it alone.

I rushed to her at once, crossing the very spot where Stefan's ghost had appeared not seconds before. She managed to limp down a step before I caught and embraced her on the stone stairs. Her attempt at cheerfulness crumbled entirely then, and we sobbed openly in each other's arms.

"Kasha," she repeated. "Oh, Kasha..." The sound of her pet name for me tugged at my heart. (It was our private joke; kasha is a type of gruel I keenly despised and was routinely served for breakfast by our old Russian cook. As a boy, I had devised all manner of ingenious methods for disposing of it and fooling Cook into thinking I had eaten it.) Zsuzsanna seemed so light in my arms, so frail, so bloodless, that in the midst of my grief for Father, I felt concern for her. Ever since she came into the world with twisted spine and leg and frail const.i.tution, she has never been strong.

"When, Zsuzsa?" I asked, in our native tongue, without even realising that I was no longer speaking English-as if I had never left for London, had never forgotten for the past four years that I was Tsepesh."This evening. Just after sunset," she replied, and I remembered the dream I had had in the coach. "At noon he lapsed into unconsciousness and never woke. But before he did, he dictated this for you..." Dabbing at her tears with her handkerchief, she handed me a folded letter, which I slipped inside my waistcoat.

At that moment, the Saint Bernard trotted up the stairs to stand beside his mistress, and I involuntarily recoiled.

Zsuzsanna understood, of course; she had been seven when the incident with Shepherd occurred. "Do not be afraid," she rea.s.sured me, leaning down to stroke the beast. "Brutus is purebred and very gentle." (Brutus! Has she any inkling of the implications of that name?) She straightened and moved haltingly down the steps towards Mary, who had been waiting at a short distance to allow us our privacy, and said in English, "But I am being rude. Here is my beloved sister-in-law, whom I have never seen. Welcome." Her accent seems quite thick to me now, after years in London; I could see it took Mary slightly aback,, for she was accustomed to reading Zsuzsanna's precise, poetic prose, and clearly a.s.sumed her spoken English would be as perfect as her written.

Despite my wife's awkward condition, she moved with far more ease and grace on the stairs, and hurried towards my sister so that she would not have to struggle far. Mary kissed her and said, "Your beautiful letters have already endeared you to me; I feel we have been close friends for years. How glad I am to meet you at last, and how sad of the circ.u.mstance!"

Zsuzsanna took her hand and led us into the house, out of the chill night air. In the main drawing room, weeping and sighing, she told us of the course of Father's illness and his final days. We conversed for at least an hour, and then Zsuzsanna insisted on showing us to our room-my old room-as Mary was clearly exhausted. I saw to it that she was situated, then left with Zsuzsanna to go see Father.

She led me out the east end of the manor across the gra.s.sy knoll to the family chapel-or rather, to what had been the chapel, for Father had been an outspoken agnostic who raised his children to be skeptical of the claims of the Church. Even before we opened the heavy wooden door, I could hear wafting out into the cool night air the sweet, wavering voices of women singing the Bocete, the traditional songs of mourning: Father, dear, arise, arise Dry your weeping family's eyes! Waken, waken, from your trance, Say a word, cast a glance...

Inside, the trappings of Christianity-the icons, statuary, and crosses-had long ago been removed from the altar, but could not be expunged from the walls, for every spare surface glittered with Byzantine mosaics of the saints; on the ceiling of the high domed cupola, from whence hung the huge candelabra, Christ Himself gazed dispa.s.sionately down. As I entered, I caught sight of my childhood favourites: Stephen, the martyr (whom I always identified with my brother), the calamitous fall of Lucifer from Heaven, the stalwart Saint George slaying the ever-hungry dragon.

The building no longer functions as mausoleum or church, but as a place where family members can seek solitude and reflection, and indeed, it still possesses an almost spiritual aura that invokes a sense of reverence and calm. Father had spent hours there in the grim years after his son's death.

We moved towards the front from the back, where engraved gold plaques marked where our ancestors rest in crypts built into the wall. So many generations of Tsepesh lie entombed there that the chapel can contain no more; a century and a half ago, a new burial site had to be constructed between the manor and the castle. I walked past the dead feeling their eyes upon me, hearing in the rustle of Zsuzsanna's and my clothing their whispered approval, and feeling the same curious hyper-awareness of time that I had experienced traveling-except that I no longer moved backward through the centuries but forward, emerging at that moment from my ancestors' loins, out of history, moving swift as Stefan and Shepherd towards my present. Towards my destiny.

Father lay, just as small Stefan had so many years ago, in an open burnished cherry casket near the altar, which was draped with a black cloth and lined with rows of glowing candles.

Two large tapers burned in heavy bra.s.s candlesticks at either end of the coffin. At the head of the casket, on either side, two black-clad women stood singing to my father, reminding him of all he was leaving in this life, as if they sincerely believed he might waken, persuaded to remain on this earth. I hesitated several feet away, suddenly unwilling to confront the object of my grief in front of witnesses.

"Leave me, Zsuzsa," I told her. "Go and rest. You have taken care of him all these years; I will see him through the night." It is the custom of our land for the men to sit with the dead-to keep the privegghia, as it is called-I suppose out of the ignorant belief that the soul must be protected from those who would steal it. My father would no doubt have disapproved of following a superst.i.tious peasant tradition, but at the moment, I wanted to honour him, to show my respect-to help, even though I had come too late for it-and I could think of nothing else to give him. He was a kind, tolerant man, and I know he would have allowed me this, with gentle, fond amus.e.m.e.nt.

At the same time, with the irrationality of grief, I was annoyed by the singing women. It was permissible for me to choose to honour my father by following a custom he disdained; it was not acceptable for strangers to do so.

Zsuzsanna offered no resistance, but lingered for a moment, studying me with eyes ashine with loving misery and candlelight. "One of the servants brought a letter from Uncle earlier tonight," she said, and, drawing it from where she had tucked it at her waist, unfolded it so that I might see. Written in fine, spidery script, it read (as best I can recall and translate): My dearest Zsuzsanna, By this letter, let me extend my most heartfelt condolences. I share deeply in your loss, for as you surely know, there was no one closer to me in all the world than your father.

Without his brilliant and astute management of the finances and estate, I could not have survived, but to speak of the business aspects of our relationship seems to demean it, for it was far more than that. Although Petru was my nephew, I loved him as a brother, and you and Arkady as my own children. Believe me, while I have breath, you shall want for nothing, need fear nothing! You are, after all, the last bearers of the name Tsepesh and the hope for our proud family"s future. If ever there is anything which you need or desire, please do me the honour of asking, and you shall have.

Greetings to our dear returned Arkady and his wife, and sincerest condolences as well. I trust their journey was a safe and comfortable one. A pity that the joy of their homecoming must be dimmed by tragedy.

I have hired mourners to sing the Bocete for your father; please do not vex yourself with arrangements. All will be cared for. With your leave, I may come by tonight to pay my respects. It will be quite late, and so I will not disturb you or the others, but merely request that you leave the door to the chapel unlocked.

Your loving uncle, V.

I nodded to indicate I was finished. Zsuzsanna folded the letter and replaced it, and we shared a look of understanding; she had wanted to warn me that my privacy might be disturbed. And then she stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek good-night, first turning to face Father's casket for a reverent moment. I stood, still and silent, listening to the singing, to her shuffling, uneven footsteps against the cold stone, then the creak of the iron hinge on the heavy wooden door as she closed it behind her.

I turned to the women and said, "Leave."

The younger of the pair's eyes widened with fright, but she kept singing as the elder, her eyes downcast with the same slavish fear I had seen in the coachman, said: "Sir, we dare not! We have been hired to sing the Bocete, and if the singing ceases even for a moment, your father's soul will not be properly laid to rest!"

"Leave," I repeated, too weary with grief to engage in an argument.

"Sir, the prince paid us a generous sum. He would be angered if we-"