Diaries of the Family Dracul - The Covenant with the Vampire Part 12

But Mary kept repeating, in her frenzied state, that it was an omen, saying that the creature could easily have killed her had it wanted, that it spared her to drive home the threat. She would not tell me who, or what, she believes has warned her, other than pure Evil itself.

Her words made me think of the wolf's paws against my shoulders, its breath hot against my throat. The wolves seem but a symbol, a reminder of the madness which lies in wait, eager to devour me.

If I believed in G.o.d, I would pet.i.tion Him to take me and spare my family. I can see why the peasants feel the need for an omnipotent parent, a divine watchdog- what h.e.l.l it is, to know there is no greater power than myself to protect my wife and child-I, who am weak and utterly unreliable, on the verge of mental collapse! Earlier this morning, in the grey light of sunrise, I opened my sleepy eyes briefly-and saw, impaled on the bedpost at my feet, Jeffries' head. He was looking down, laughing, wearing the same malignant, mocking grin Stefan had worn when he appeared in Uncle's chair.

I think I and Uncle and Zsuzsanna and all the Tsepesh carry madness in our blood. After yesterday's events, I am convinced.

The night before last, I finally brought myself to cast V."s letter into the fire. I left the manor yesterday dawn in the caleche and headed directly for Bistritz full of agitation and hopefulness. When I reached the city shortly before two o'clock, my agitation lessened as my hopefulness grew, for I felt an exceptional degree of relief when I handed the innkeeper the sealed letter I had written, informing the visitors that they should not come.

The innkeeper is a pleasant, round-faced man, heavy, but with hawkish features that indicated our distant blood ties; he recognised me at once, since Mary and I had spent a night gratis in his establishment, and welcomed me warmly, though he was curious as to why I, and not Laszlo, had come. I murmured a vague reply about having other business in town as I gave him the letter. He thanked me as he received it, saying that the timing could not be better, as the guests were due to arrive sometime later that afternoon. I merely smiled, knowing that he thought it contained instructions on meeting Laszlo"s coach.

The innkeeper insisted on serving me luncheon "on the house," and afterward, I took the solicitor's letter to the postal office. Everything had gone smoothly, and I took enormous comfort from knowing that the newlywed guests would be protected from harm. Only one task remained.

Yet as I entered the constabulary and stepped up to the tall, uniformed lad behind the first long wooden desk, I began to feel some trepidation, for there was no concrete evidence tying Laszlo to the crimes other than the fact that he had nicked some of Jeffries' things and lied about a hen. It was my word against his. And how could I prove Uncle's blamelessness in this? How could I prove that /was not mad and the killer? After all, I knew the location of the skulls...

Suddenly lost, I stared up at the posters on the wall beside him, artistic renderings of the escaped, the criminal, the insane. I searched those hard, scowling faces for similarities, some quirk of lip or glint of eye that marked a murderer, a crazed man-some clear tendency that I had seen before, in Laszlo's visage.

"Yes, sir?" the young jandarm asked. He was fair-haired and peered at me through round spectacles with eyes of astonishing blue. His tone was frosty, openly condescending, despite the fact that my dress and demeanour marked me as n.o.bility, educated, rich. He may have been of a lower cla.s.s, shabbily groomed and poor, with inferior education and an inborn resentment of my influence and wealth, but he was Saxon-which made him the former conqueror, and me the formerly conquered. It was his one advantage, and he was not about to let it escape my notice. There was boredom in his tone, too, the ennui of one who has seen so much there are no surprises left.

As I turned from the posters, two uniformed officers pa.s.sed, one on either side of a very drunken, barefoot Tzigani woman who would have fallen had they not firmly gripped her upper arms. I blushed and averted my eyes as they pa.s.sed, for the woman's blouse had been torn at the collar and gaped open to the waist, revealing beneath several strands of cheap beads but no undergarment. Her dark hair had tumbled free from her scarf, which had slipped down and hung, in danger of falling. There was blood and dirt on her face, as though she had been struggling in the mud, and though she could scarcely walk, she kept growling and lunging viciously at the men who restrained her, as though she intended to bite them.

The officers drew back their faces quickly enough, but laughed derisively to show they were not frightened. As they pa.s.sed me and their seated colleague, one said, smiling: "She says she is possessed by the spirit of a wolf. It's a spirit, all right: cheap wine."

The three men laughed. But the woman balked, unwilling to go further, and raised an arm, which, swaying, she pointed directly at me. "He does not scoff; he understands," she hissed.

"He is one of us!"

I froze, discovered.Laughing, the two officers dragged her off; the young Saxon behind the desk gazed up at me with a condescending little smile, but used the most polite tone and form of address possible as he gestured at the dirty wooden chair across from his desk. "Please, sit, Dumneavoastra... ?"

"Tsepesh," I replied stiffly, and gave the filthy seat an uncertain glance. It looked as though someone had recently spit on it, and when at last I settled into it, I felt a sensation of slight moisture.

"And what do you wish to report, Domnule Tsepesh?" He p.r.o.nounced the name "Tzepezh."

Murders, I almost said. How many? I don"t know. Too many for me to count... But I told him instead, "I wish to speak to the head constable, please."

His tight smile widened a bit, but a slight hardness crept into his gaze. "Ah. I am sure the constable would like to speak to you, my good sir, but he is engaged at the moment in some very pressing business. I a.s.sure you, I can a.s.sist you in whatever you-"

"I must see him, if it is at all possible-"

"And I a.s.sure you, it is not."

"I see." I rose, adjusted my clothing, then extended my hand. "Well, good day, then."

Apparently mildly surprised by my abruptness, he rose and took my hand-then palmed the gold crown therein, and with the smoothest, most practiced movement I have ever witnessed, slipped it into his pocket.

I turned and feigned movement toward the door.

"One moment, sir," he said, still standing behind the desk. "There is a slight chance the constable has finished his business and is free. I will go check, if you like."

I faced him. "Please."

Within a minute, he returned and said, with an att.i.tude considerably warmer, "The chief constable will see you now."

I followed him down a narrow corridor of closed doors to a room at the far end, and stepped forward when he held the door open for me, with that stiff Teutonic formality that we Transylvanians so enjoy parodying in our jokes. Once I crossed the threshold, the door closed quietly behind me.

The man behind the desk was a native countryman, shorter and heavier than his young counterpart.

"Domnule Tsepesh," he said softly. His voice and posture were less formal, far warmer than the young Saxon's. Indeed, there was an odd familiarity in his tone, and I thought I detected a gleam of recognition in his eyes; he nodded faintly to himself as he looked me up and down. Yet I was sure I had never seen him before. He must have been Father's age-he had a head of waving silver hair, but his eyebrows and curling moustache were still almost entirely black, which gave his face a stern, dramatic appearance. "I am Chief Constable Florescu. Come in. I have been expecting you."

The incongruous statement temporarily stymied me -his antic.i.p.ation could have endured no more than a few seconds-but I stepped forward and took his hand. His grip was warm and firm, and he studied me with an emotion in his dark eyes that I detected from time to time during our conversation in his expression, his voice, his posture. While I was with him, I tried to name it, and could not-its ident.i.ty remained elusive to me until now, as I write these words.

Pity. He looked on me with pity.

Florescu gestured for me to sit (this time in a chair padded and much cleaner than the one in the outer office), which I did. He took his own seat, folded his hands upon his desk, and leaned forward, fixing upon me a gaze that was most oddly unbusinesslike: kindly, almost paternal, but also pensive, thoughtful, guarded. "So," he said, with unmistakable reluctance, tempered with resignation. "Perhaps I should let you tell me why you have come."

Though I had rehea.r.s.ed my little speech several times on the ride over, my chosen words deserted me at that instant. I stammered, "It-it is a very delicate matter. I should explain myself. My great-uncle is Vlad Tsepesh-"

Florescu gave a single, solemn nod. "The prince. Yes, I know of him."

"I have come here not so much to make accusations as to... discreetly aid in an investigation. The prince would be angry if he knew I had come here; I do not want this to reflect on him in any way. But I believe that one of his servants is guilty of a crime. Several, in fact-"

"Which crime would that be?" he interrupted, but his tone was calm.

"Murder," I said, and released a long breath.

His response was measured, even, not at all hasty- the response, I decided, of a man who has heard so many horrible confessions that none can shock him anymore. He did not recoil, did not flinch, but stayed perfectly still, hands folded, asking the question and eyeing me with the composure of a professor giving an oral examination. "And who do you believe has committed these murders?"

I got the odd impression he was an actor, playing a rehea.r.s.ed role. And beneath his words, a puzzling undercurrent of the real emotions: pity, regret. A desire to help.

"My uncle's coachman," I replied. "Laszlo Szegely. Though he likely had someone a.s.sisting."

"Why do you make such an accusation?" Again, calm, measured. "Have you actually seen him commit these crimes? Do you have evidence?"

"I saw him with articles stolen from the dead man, and with fresh blood on his sleeve not his own, hours after the man's disappearance. Earlier that morning, I saw him leaving the castle with a bundle large enough to have held a body." I paused, shuddering to think of the bundle's square shape; had it been poor Jeffries, he had already been dismembered.

"Perhaps it is not enough to hang him. But my hope was that if you carried out a discreet investigation, you would find enough proof to convict the killer. I have nothing else, except my own instincts concerning the man's character. There is something... criminal about him.

At the very least, if you could investigate him-"

"There is no need to do that," the constable said abruptly. He hunched forward, his tone and gaze compellingly earnest. "I can tell you about Laszlo Szegely. If you are certain you want to know the truth of the matter."

Surprise lowered my voice to almost a whisper. "Of course..."I leaned forward, eyes wide, ready to hear.

"Szegely," Florescu said, and gave a small, sickly smile that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "A butcher by trade. Never married, no children. He came to us by way of Buda- Pesth, because he was hoping to evade the authorities there."

"For murder?" I asked swiftly.

He shook his silver head. "Grave robbery."

"He did this here, in Bistritz, as well? You caught him?"

The constable nodded.

"You should have put him behind bars and kept him there," I said, in a low, ugly voice that shook. "Perhaps there are not enough corpses in the mountain villages for him, because he has taken to creating his own dead. I found them myself. The forest is full of buried heads."

Unable to continue, I stared, horrified, down at my hands, thinking of Jeffries, of all the tiny, tiny skulls.

Florescu and I sat in silence a full minute; I could feel his gaze on me, pitying me. Sizing me up. Thinking.

I heard him fumble in his desk, draw something out; I heard the flare of a match, heard several strong intakes of breath, then smelled smoke, and the scent of fragrant pipe tobacco.

At last the constable said, very softly, very kindly: "Domnule Tsepesh. You resemble your father so very much."

I raised my head, startled.

Florescu's eyes softened, but he could not bring himself to smile. "He came here, just as you did, more than twenty-five years ago; I dare say before you were born. I was not chief jandarm then, naturally. But I remember him because he was so distraught. And, of course, because I was one of two chosen to return with him to look for the bodies in the forest."

I stared, struck dumb, astounded, unable to comprehend. Laszlo had worked at the castle for only two years. How was it possible... ?

The constable was silent a time to let his words sink in; and then he added, "But I was the only man who returned to Bistritz. It would be better for you, domnule, if you forget ever having seen such things. It would be better for both of us."

I half rose in outrage. "How can you say such a thing, when my wife, my family, are living with a murderer nearby?"

Florescu merely looked at me and drew on his pipe, his face suddenly a narrow-eyed mask, unreadable.

"What do you want?!" I demanded angrily. "Money? I am wealthy! I can pay more than whoever else has bribed you!"

"No one has paid me," he replied evenly, without a hint of offense. "At least, not with anything as worthless as money. Though it is true; I arranged Szegely"s freedom only two years ago, at the request of another."

"Who?"

"Your father." I let go a breath and sank back into the chair, too stunned and outraged to speak, to protest.

Florescu continued calmly from behind a veil of pipe smoke. "Just as someday you will come, domnule Tsepesh, most likely to my successor, when Laszlo is dead and you must make your own arrangements." His tone grew familiar, confidential. "You are young now, and there are things you do not yet understand. But you will. There are times when it does no good to struggle against the inevitable. The more you fight, the harder it will be for you.

For your family.

"Perhaps someday your son will come to visit my successor, who will go to that same forest.

And he will take men, and guns, but the outcome will be the same: only one man will emerge, and that man will find his promotion to this office comes very easily.

"I have spent my life devoted to the dispensation of justice; but there are some situations far beyond the pale of law-man's or G.o.d's. I will not go again to that forest. I am not a brilliant man, but I learn quickly where my life is concerned."

He paused, and in that instant I tried to speak, but he began talking swiftly once more.

"There is nothing you can do, understand? Nothing either of us can do." He rose and crossed from behind his desk to the door; his tone grew insincere and loud, as though he spoke for the benefit of those who might be listening. "I ask you to leave now. These are only silly rumours, this business of a murderer in the forest. The peasants have been telling these foolish legends for hundreds of years. Everyone at the constabulary knows this, and if you speak to anyone else, they will laugh if you tell them why you have come.

"Do you understand, domnule Tsepesh? It has all been arranged, long before you were born. There is nothing you can do. Go home and take care of your family." He turned the k.n.o.b and flung open the door.

I rose, red-faced, choking, not permitting myself at the time to understand. "No. No, I do not understand. And I will go all the way to Vienna, if I must-!"

His voice grew low, quiet, full of regret without a trace of anger. Full of that d.a.m.nable pity.

"And I would inform my superiors there that you are a madman. I a.s.sure you, domnule, nothing would be done. Just as I a.s.sure you that it is not I who threaten you when I say: For love of your family, do not do so."

I left, trembling with fury, and headed back into the Carpathians. At first, in my shock and rage, I told myself that Laszlo had sinister friends at the jandamis office-a group of criminals with influence so broad the chief constable himself feared them, and made veiled hints about them. Florescu was a liar, a d.a.m.ned liar who was party to every one of the murders by his refusal to investigate. I could believe nothing he said-certainly not his vile insinuation that Father had known anything of Laszlo's background!

I decided that the only logical course of action was to inform V. about Laszlo's past and the constable's strange reaction to news of the bodies in the forest; this, I felt, would convince him that we should all seek refuge from danger in Vienna, whilst I informed the authorities there. I could not believe Florescu's influence reached that far.

And then, as the hours pa.s.sed on the long drive home, I calmed and began to think.

There had been too many skulls in the forest to have been the work of one man over the course of two years. I had uncovered at least fifty, most of them children, and stopped only because I had not the strength, physical or mental, to continue. How many had I failed to find, littered through the infinite forest?

I burst into angry sobs, grateful for the privacy afforded by the lonely mountain road, as I recalled Florescu's contention that my father had arranged for Laszlo's release. For a moment, I dared allow myself to consider that the chief jandarm had been telling the truth.

But why would Father have knowingly arranged for such a man's release-a man skilled in dealing with the disposal of corpses? Why, if he did not share complicity in the murders?

I drove the horses hard over the mountain pa.s.s, rendered thoughtless by cold, unnamed dread. Afternoon gave way to dusk. Sunset must have been breathtaking, with the pink glow reflecting off the snow-covered peaks and limning the entire blooming landscape with unearthly radiance, but I saw none of it. Masika's voice spoke in my head: Come to me, Arkady Petrovich, in the day when he sleeps. It is not safe for us to speak here in the open. Come to me quickly...

It was no longer day, but I felt compelled to speak with her at once, to learn the truth I could not at that moment bring myself even to think, yet which my tormented heart knew was true.

By the time I reached the village, all was shrouded in night; the streets were empty, and the rows of small huts dark. I had no idea where I might find Masika Ivanovna, yet my desperate compulsion to speak to her was too overwhelming to surrender and return home.

I lit the lantern in the caleche and, taking shameless advantage of my position as nephew of the prince, knocked on the first door I came to with the intention of asking Masika's location.

No reply came; I took this to mean the hut's inhabitants were asleep, and so called out.

When still no answer came, I pushed open the door with the lantern held high, and stepped inside-only to see that the hovel had been entirely deserted, and its contents removed.

I proceeded to the next home, only to find the same eerie circ.u.mstance there-and at the next hut, and the next. On the fourth try, however, I met with success. The sleepy peasant inside would not welcome me in, but instead called out directions from the other side of the latched wooden door.

I hastened to Masika's home-a small cottage with a thatched roof acrawl with rodents, their tiny eyes gleaming in the light cast by my lantern. In the solitary window, a feeble light flickered, but when I knocked stridently upon the door, there came no answer, no sounds of stirring within. I grew bolder, calling Masika's name as I pounded, but received in reply only silence.

At last I pushed against the door. Unlatched, it swung open; I stepped inside, and there saw Masika Ivanovna, still dressed in her mourning clothes, sitting at her crude-hewn dining- table. She had slumped forward in her chair so that her forehead and one arm rested upon the table; two inches from the top of her scarf-wrapped head stood a candle, melted to the base of its holder so that wax had poured out onto the wood and the remaining bit of wick sputtered with dying blue flame. Beneath her hand rested a folded piece of paper; nearby sat a small icon of Saint George, and on the dirt and straw floor surrounding her was an almost perfect circle of poured rock salt. Clearly, she had fallen asleep waiting for someone who had not yet come.

Shivering slightly at the crunch of salt beneath my boot, I moved to her side, touched her shoulder and said softly, "Masika Ivanovna. It is Arkady Tsepesh; do not be afraid."

She did not stir. I shook her shoulder, gently at first, then more insistent, raising my voice until it became a shout; until I realised she would never wake.

I lifted her beneath both shoulders then, and set her back gently in the chair. The crucifix I had returned to her at Radu's funeral now hung around her neck, and swung briefly in the air.

Words cannot describe the horror I saw frozen upon that sweet, worn face, in those wide, bulging eyes; it was the same anguished terror I saw on Jeffries' severed head. Yet Masika bore no visible mark upon her person.

I reached for the now-cold hand upon the table, clasped it, sinking down onto my knees beside her, and wept, feeling as though I had once again lost a mother whose loving company I had never known.

When I rose, drying my eyes, I spied upon the table the folded paper that had lain beneath Masika's hand, and read my own name written there, in script I did not recognise.

Compelled, I lifted the letter and unfolded it to read: To the brother I will never know: I write this on behalf of our father, Petru, who was unable to tell you the truth himself before his death. He said that your innocence has protected your life, and those of your sister and wife; he feared telling you because, he said, Vlad was too close to you, and would realise at once that you had been warned and would retaliate. But I risk telling you in secret now in hopes that the knowledge may spare you life in the h.e.l.l where our father dwelt.